President Trump: Making America Great Again...

[Maximus]

lets hope hamas doesnt take him seriously, for the remaining hostages sake

[LVAllen]

lets hope hamas doesnt take him seriously, for the remaining hostages sake

I mean, he just announced his intention to never let Gazans return at all, instead casting them out as refugees (but not refugees who might find a place in America) while the US "owns," bulldozes, and develops their homes (but not for them).

There is zero reason to ever trust the US diplomatic corps ever again. I wouldn't be surprised if the shooting restarts tonight.

[frank ryan]

Trump is messing with CDC. This should concern people who have viewed Alex Jones getting banned of certain social media websites as censorship. This is what genuine censorship looks like. It's things a dictator does.

Withholding that important medical information is a stand alone scandal.

Resources for contraception, gender-affirming care, STIs and HIV flicker in and out of existence or vanish completely
Carter Sherman and Jessica GlenzaTue 4 Feb 2025 08.32 EST
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Several federal government websitesand databases dedicated to public health have gone dark in recent days, sparking fears about the Trump administration’s plans to remove, alter or otherwise censor vital health information repositories.

Between Friday and Tuesday, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) resources for tracking, preventing and treating HIV; handling sexually transmitted infections (STIs); and prescribing contraception have flickered in and out of existence. A guide to gender-affirming care and young people, once hosted on the website for the office of the assistant secretary for health, was gone as of Tuesday.

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) website for the office of research on women’s health, which as recently as 25 January had pages about “supporting women in biomedical careers” and “women’s health funding opportunities”, had been stripped of information, including a portal about maternal morbidity and mortality.

Some webpages have reappeared but with only skeletal information or are hosting links that are unworkable. Much of the CDC’s Youth Risk Behavior Survey, a decades-old poll of American youth’s physical and mental health, was still missing on Tuesday

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/...-public-health

[frank ryan]

I mean, he just announced his intention to never let Gazans return at all, instead casting them out as refugees (but not refugees who might find a place in America) while the US "owns," bulldozes, and develops their homes (but not for them).

There is zero reason to ever trust the US diplomatic corps ever again. I wouldn't be surprised if the shooting restarts tonight.

It's like someone read the New Testament and is trying conduct national business in a way that is the complete opposite of the intended message.

[myboynoah]

Bingo!

Embedded Tweet

[Jeff Lebowski]

I mean, he just announced his intention to never let Gazans return at all, instead casting them out as refugees (but not refugees who might find a place in America) while the US "owns," bulldozes, and develops their homes (but not for them).

There is zero reason to ever trust the US diplomatic corps ever again. I wouldn't be surprised if the shooting restarts tonight.

Complete insanity. He clearly doesn't know the first thing about the history of the region or conflict.

Man, it is like the dumbest person you know is now president.

[frank ryan]

Complete insanity. He clearly doesn't know the first thing about the history of the region or conflict.

Man, it is like the dumbest person you know is now president.

Indeed. It's a kakistocracy

[frank ryan]

Umberto Eco's of 14 characteristic of fascism are more relevant than I wish they were. From wiki.

1. "The cult of tradition", characterized by cultural syncretism, even at the risk of internal contradiction. When all truth has already been revealed by tradition, no new learning can occur, only further interpretation and refinement.
2. "The rejection of modernism", which views the rationalistic development of Western culture since the Enlightenment as a descent into depravity. Eco distinguishes this from a rejection of superficial technological advancement, as many fascist regimes cite their industrial potency as proof of the vitality of their system.
3. "The cult of action for action's sake", which dictates that action is of value in itself and should be taken without intellectual reflection. This, says Eco, is connected with anti-intellectualism and irrationalism, and often manifests in attacks on modern culture and science.
4. "Disagreement is treason" – fascism devalues intellectual discourse and critical reasoning as barriers to action, as well as out of fear that such analysis will expose the contradictions embodied in a syncretistic faith.
5. "Fear of difference", which fascism seeks to exploit and exacerbate, often in the form of racism or an appeal against foreigners and immigrants.
6. "Appeal to a frustrated middle class", fearing economic pressure from the demands and aspirations of lower social groups.
7. "Obsession with a plot" and the hyping-up of an enemy threat. This often combines an appeal to xenophobia with a fear of disloyalty and sabotage from marginalized groups living within the society (such as the German elite's "fear" of the 1930s Jewish populace's businesses and well-doings; see also antisemitism). Eco also cites Pat Robertson's book The New World Order as a prominent example of a plot obsession.
8. Fascist societies rhetorically cast their enemies as "at the same time too strong and too weak". On the one hand, fascists play up the power of certain disfavored elites to encourage in their followers a sense of grievance and humiliation. On the other hand, fascist leaders point to the decadence of those elites as proof of their ultimate feebleness in the face of an overwhelming popular will.
9. "Pacifism is trafficking with the enemy" because "life is permanent warfare" – there must always be an enemy to fight. Both fascist Germany under Hitler and Italy under Mussolini worked first to organize and clean up their respective countries and then build the war machines that they later intended to and did use, despite Germany being under restrictions of the Versailles treaty to not build a military force. This principle leads to a fundamental contradiction within fascism: the incompatibility of ultimate triumph with perpetual war.
10. "Contempt for the weak", which is uncomfortably married to a chauvinistic popular elitism, in which every member of society is superior to outsiders by virtue of belonging to the in-group. Eco sees in these attitudes the root of a deep tension in the fundamentally hierarchical structure of fascist polities, as they encourage leaders to despise their underlings, up to the ultimate leader, who holds the whole country in contempt for having allowed him to overtake it by force.
11. "Everybody is educated to become a hero", which leads to the embrace of a cult of death. As Eco observes, "[t]he Ur-Fascist hero is impatient to die. In his impatience, he more frequently sends other people to death."
12. "Machismo", which sublimates the difficult work of permanent war and heroism into the sexual sphere. Fascists thus hold "both disdain for women and intolerance and condemnation of nonstandard sexual habits, from chastity to homosexuality".
13. "Selective populism" – the people, conceived monolithically, have a common will, distinct from and superior to the viewpoint of any individual. As no mass of people can ever be truly unanimous, the leader holds himself out as the interpreter of the popular will (though truly he alone dictates it). Fascists use this concept to delegitimize democratic institutions they accuse of "no longer represent[ing] the voice of the people".
14. "Newspeak" – fascism employs and promotes an impoverished vocabulary in order to limit critical reasoning.

[Maximus]

entire cia being offered buy out. uh

[LVAllen]

entire cia being offered buy out. uh

"Dear Russia/China,

We are screwing over the guardians of our nation's secrets. They may be disgruntled. The ones that remain can be bought.

Hugs and Kisses,
America"

[USUC]

Thank you for the replies. I'm still searching for a steel man argument for reforming or getting rid of USAID and putting it under the State Department. There are some fairly wasteful and outright partisan things being funded according to some reports. Knowing the little I do, it seems like DOGE's actions are extreme and purposefully performative. But an audit and accounting seems to be needed.

[frank ryan]

Thank you for the replies. I'm still searching for a steel man argument for reforming or getting rid of USAID and putting it under the State Department. There are some fairly wasteful and outright partisan things being funded according to some reports. Knowing the little I do, it seems like DOGE's actions are extreme and purposefully performative. But an audit and accounting seems to be needed.

USUC, dude did you see his actions with CDC website? That is far more anti first amendment than any "censorship" social media was accused of. Where are the loud complainers who kvetched about bad actors like Alex Jones get rightfully banned for social media? Or his actions with the CIA?

What's the argument that anything DOGE is doing is in good faith?

Scrapping this program will cost us more in the long run due to lost influence. They aren't auditing it. They are taking a scalpel to it and ignoring rules, regulations, norms and laws in the process. It's performative but harmful.

[Northwestcoug]

Hey America, Trump has been president for…2 weeks. He is uniquely driven as a person to eff shit up as long as he can. What is perhaps worse is that he is supremely susceptible to flattery. So when he effs shit up, it’s likely at the bidding of unaccountable people as corrupt as he is. He has a compliant Congress and a sycophantic media. Half of America agrees with his general political philosophy.

when the next election rolls around, how about we try to remember all the effed up shit from his 2 terms and not elect a demagogue, mmmkay?

[frank ryan]

Hey America, Trump has been president for…2 weeks. He is uniquely driven as a person to eff shit up as long as he can. What is perhaps worse is that he is supremely susceptible to flattery. So when he effs shit up, it’s likely at the bidding of unaccountable people as corrupt as he is. He has a compliant Congress and a sycophantic media. Half of America agrees with his general political philosophy.

when the next election rolls around, how about we try to remember all the effed up shit from his 2 terms and not elect a demagogue, mmmkay?

But we are winning the more against trans people and agricultural workers who don't have papers! We set the patriots from J6 free!

[SteelBlue]

This Gaza plan has me feeling like we live in a simulation and whoever is running it gets increasingly bored.