The Donald J. Trump Presidency

He is barred by the courts from blocking people now so that's exciting.

Duff... wrote:

undo wrote:

Nick wrote:They’ve lost close to 1500 undocumented children. What does that mean? How does that happen? This is dark, evil shit and I fucking despise this administration.

Is there a news story about this

Worth mentioning the 1500 were from during Obama's administration but the new policy of separating families at the border is only making the system more overburdened. We can expect a lot more lost kids, and it lays bare just how monstrous this policy is.

Duff your point isn't wrong per se but I'm still stunned and disappointed by how people are willing to blur these lines. Liberals running with these stories without questioning them is the best thing Trump can hope for because it makes it much easier for him to argue that fake news is universal and not something that he has uniquely leveraged.

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/31/upshot/liberals-immigration-children-border-misinformation.html

There's so much awfulness in the Trump presidency that there's no excuse to stretch or distort to score points against him. It's also OK to acknowledge that a lot of bad stuff happened under Obama's watch and that America's problems with immigration would be chronic and severe even if Hillary or someone else was president.

Yeah. I do think there was genuine confusion on the point, but the cost of slip-ups is steep.

I'm not religious, and I'm sure there's some reasonable safety-related purpose to this, but the very idea of it happening is disturbing. I understand that rosaries are an important part of the Roman Catholic faith, common with the migrants being rounded up. It's a way to make prayer a tactile experience that helps to center a person - especially in times of distress.  All the better to dehumanize the enemy, to instill a sense of hopelessness.

We are now the nation of fascists that future generations will learn about.  This shit will haunt us.

https://www.newyorker.com/culture/photo-booth/a-janitors-collection-of-things-confiscated-from-migrants-in-the-desert

This guy is so fucking stupid.

Duff... wrote:This guy is so fucking stupid.

Evergreen post.

Every time I hear him speaking, I wonder why his supporters are unable to grasp that he sounds like a complete moron?

He does the deals tho. That is what he does, yaknow? Can't even deny that Donny does big deals.

tjenz wrote:Every time I hear him speaking, I wonder why his supporters are unable to grasp that he sounds like a complete moron?

It's a feature not a bug. A lot of people were sick of slick scripted Ivy League presidents who equivocate all the time and just wanted someone who acted like their loudmouth tell-it-like-it-is uncle. I think everyone here agrees that it was a bad transaction, but it seems weird to me to keep pretending like it's all the result of some failure to comprehend on the part of his supporters. They knew exactly what they were buying and they're getting it.

I think we all get that but what keeps me up at night (so to speak) is wondering what that means for the future.

If this is what half (or 40%, even 30%, whatever) of everyone here really wants, how can recovering from this ever be possible.

What I mean by "this" is still mostly unknown, we think we've seen the final form of this disaster but that's wishful thinking

is Cohen flipping

raj gibson wrote:

tjenz wrote:Every time I hear him speaking, I wonder why his supporters are unable to grasp that he sounds like a complete moron?

It's a feature not a bug. A lot of people were sick of slick scripted Ivy League presidents who equivocate all the time and just wanted someone who acted like their loudmouth tell-it-like-it-is uncle. I think everyone here agrees that it was a bad transaction, but it seems weird to me to keep pretending like it's all the result of some failure to comprehend on the part of his supporters. They knew exactly what they were buying and they're getting it.

I know this. I still have a hard time wrapping my head around it.

This really just all hit me while I was sitting at my desk today at work. I have people in my life who justify what is happening to these undocumented children and their families by just repeating over and over again, to themselves and the people around them, that these people are "illegal." By Dad did that today and I told him to fuck himself. I actually don't think I can look him in the eye anymore.

This is inhumane and beyond shameful. Anyone who is supporting these actions or refusing to speak out and stand up against them is morally culpable. I am not even sad, which I should be. I am just so fucking mad. Abolish ICE and fuck this administration and its fascistic border policies.

https://www.thecut.com/2018/06/how-to-help-fight-family-separation-policy-immigration-trump.html?utm_source=fb&utm_campaign=nym&utm_medium=s1

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1zUyqluASyMjyIGCHfwocwmulJn8d8WSsyO0XYc8q6rg/preview?sle=true

The fact we’ve reached this point and our government has allowed it & a significant portion of the population cheers it on doesn’t merely bring me to tears. It proves we’ve lost. I’m living through a moment in time where my country has implemented concentration camps & will have purposely orphaned thousands of innocent children because of their skin color.

We’ve fucking lost.

I understand the feeling but remember that most people do find this reprehensible (even republicans are lukewarm) and the government is under immense pressure to end this practice. It's gutting that we find ourselves here but it's not over.

Their symbolic move to leave the United Nations Human Rights Council is the cherry on top of all this. Hell wouldn't be bad enough for these people.

I have been having really fucked up agro-fantasies about Stephen Miller for most of the day. I don't say that with any pride or glee either, I just cannot help it.

Alec wrote:I have been having really fucked up agro-fantasies about Stephen Miller for most of the day.  

I think the only reason I don't go through this is that this guy stays off camera and I never have to listen to him or see him.

Perhaps he is more culpable than anyone else I've had such thoughts about.

Nick wrote:The fact we’ve reached this point and our government has allowed it & a significant portion of the population cheers it on doesn’t merely bring me to tears. It proves we’ve lost. I’m living through a moment in time where my country has implemented concentration camps & will have purposely orphaned thousands of innocent children because of their skin color.

We’ve fucking lost.

If the country is irrevocably lost now, then presumably it already was damned many times over by the previous times these things happened, to African slaves, Native Americans, Japanese Americans, and other groups internment and separation. That's not to downplay what's happening now—it's reprehensible—but if the country could be salvaged after those experiences, it could happen again.

Indeed. As we near the July 4th holiday it is important to remember this is a horrible country & it always has been.

"We have become a Nazi monster in the eyes of the whole world, a nation of bullies and bastards who would rather kill than live peacefully. We are not just Whores for power and oil, but killer whores with hate and fear in our hearts. We are human scum, and that is how history will judge us. No redeeming social value. Just whores. Get out of our way, or we'll kill you. Who does vote for these dishonest shitheads? Who among us can be happy and proud of having all this innocent blood on our hands? Who are these swine? These flag-sucking half-wits who get fleeced and fooled by stupid little rich kids like George Bush? They are the same ones who wanted to have Muhammad Ali locked up for refusing to kill gooks. They speak for all that is cruel and stupid and vicious in the American character. They are the racists and hate mongers among us; they are the Ku Klux Klan. I piss down the throats of these Nazis. And I am too old to worry about whether they like it or not. Fuck them."

- Hunter S. Thompson

https://boingboing.net/2018/06/22/internment-camps.html

raj gibson wrote:

Nick wrote:The fact we’ve reached this point and our government has allowed it & a significant portion of the population cheers it on doesn’t merely bring me to tears. It proves we’ve lost. I’m living through a moment in time where my country has implemented concentration camps & will have purposely orphaned thousands of innocent children because of their skin color.

We’ve fucking lost.

If the country is irrevocably lost now, then presumably it already was damned many times over by the previous times these things happened, to African slaves, Native Americans, Japanese Americans, and other groups internment and separation. That's not to downplay what's happening now—it's reprehensible—but if the country could be salvaged after those experiences, it could happen again.

Nick wrote:Indeed. As we near the July 4th holiday it is important to remember this is a horrible country & it always has been.

Perhaps the lesson here is that political model in the United States has always been based on divide & conquer. Throughout US History, one of the few constants is that of "Manifest Destiny"; that the US would always bring it's American Exceptionalism to the barbarian "others" of the continent (and the world). While the US has provided great opportunity to those inside the bubble of Americanness, those outside of the group that try to reckon with it are killed, diseased, enslaved, interned, and exploited.

The question for us inside the bubble is how much suffering among these marginalized groups is enough before people stop supporting these politicians who turn cruelty into a political game. The answer right now, unfortunately, seems to be that Central Americans fleeing destruction at home have been so thoroughly dehumanized by the fact they are "not American", "illegal", and "alien" that a great deal of the public actually supports their torture.

Ben Welsh used to love this guy

http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/amp/2018/06/to-end-the-border-crisis-for-good-give-trump-his-wall.html

Any excuse to dig into Ben Welsh, wtf

Like I want to be remembered for shit I said on the Internet in 2005. Totally insane

I'm all for building the wall.

Just as soon as the money to pay for it starts rolling in from Mexico. Until then, no wall.