Life in Post Democracy Era: The Trump 2/Elon Dictatatorship

Feel free to discuss debate news, current events, and other entertaining topics here. Civility is a requirement.
TK
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Location: In a galaxy far, far away...
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The Evil Genius
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TK wrote: Wed May 28, 2025 8:44 am
Melania's like..."keeps digging fatboy. Easier to hit you over head with ze shovel and bury you".
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The Evil Genius
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The Evil Genius
Posts: 641
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Location: Gallifery
"...because it has the word trans in it." 🤦‍♂️

Chew
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I say this once a month, but this is all so fucking depressing.
Simmsy
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Chew wrote: Wed May 28, 2025 12:18 pm
I say this once a month, but this is all so fucking depressing.
I've given up on Trump supporters, they're just too stupid. A friend, who I thought was making progress, thinks the QATAR jet is a good idea. He also thinks that Biden is an invalid, but Trump is just fine. These people deserve to suffer, so laugh at their suffering...it really does help.
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The Evil Genius
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Recency bias is a hell of a drug. It's like when you explain to people that violent crime is down from the 1980s and 1990s levels.

Probably encapsulates some of MAGAs stupidity too.



Edit...red is actual vs blue is estimated by people.
China
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Only Two Companies Make Parachutes for U.S. Troops. Deportations Would Crush One.

ASHEVILLE, N.C.—Inside two low-slung brick buildings nestled here in the Blue Ridge Mountains, dozens of employees churn out parachutes for U.S. soldiers.

Cutting and sewing the fabric is precise work with little margin for error. To make the main canopy for the MC-6, a parachute used mostly by the U.S. Army and Marines, takes 27 steps. One single skipped stitch, among thousands, is considered a major defect.

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China
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China wrote: Tue May 27, 2025 8:26 pm
Let's check out some recent Trump pardons:

Donald Trump to Pardon Reality Show Couple Todd and Julie Chrisley

President Donald Trump announced Tuesday that he plans to grant full pardons to Todd and Julie Chrisley, the stars of the reality TV show Chrisley Knows Best.

The couple rose to fame portraying a tight-knit, faith-centered Southern family enjoying an extravagant lifestyle.

In 2022, they were convicted of defrauding banks in the Atlanta out of more than $30 million and evading taxes. The pardons come amid Trump's broader pattern of granting clemency to high-profile allies and supporters, sparking renewed debate over the use of presidential pardon powers.

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Trump Pardoned Tax Cheat After Mother Attended $1 Million Dinner

As Paul Walczak awaited sentencing early this year, his best hope for avoiding prison time rested with the newly inaugurated president.

Mr. Walczak, a former nursing home executive who had pleaded guilty to tax crimes days after the 2024 election, submitted a pardon application to President Trump around Inauguration Day. The application focused not solely on Mr. Walczak’s offenses but also on the political activity of his mother, Elizabeth Fago.

Ms. Fago had raised millions of dollars for Mr. Trump’s campaigns and those of other Republicans, the application said. It also highlighted her connections to an effort to sabotage Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s 2020 campaign by publicizing the addiction diary of his daughter Ashley Biden — an episode that drew law enforcement scrutiny.

Mr. Walczak’s pardon application argued that his criminal prosecution was motivated more by his mother’s efforts for Mr. Trump than by his admitted use of money earmarked for employees’ taxes to fund an extravagant lifestyle.

Still, weeks went by and no pardon was forthcoming, even as Mr. Trump issued clemency grants to hundreds of other allies.

Then, Ms. Fago was invited to a $1-million-per-person fund-raising dinner last month that promised face-to-face access to Mr. Trump at his private Mar-a-Lago club in Palm Beach, Fla.

Less than three weeks after she attended the dinner, Mr. Trump signed a full and unconditional pardon.

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And it gets worse...

Trump says he will ‘look at’ pardon for Gretchen Whitmer kidnapping conspiracy

President Trump said Wednesday he will take a look at whether to issue pardons for those convicted in the 2020 failed plot to kidnap Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer.

“I’m going to look at it. I will take a look at it. It’s been brought to my attention,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office when asked about pardons for those involved.

“I did watch the trial. It looked to me like somewhat of a railroad job, I’ll be honest with you. It looked to me like some people said some stupid things, you know they were drinking, and I think they said stupid things,” Trump added.

“But I’ll take a look at that. A lot of people are asking me that question, from both sides actually. A lot of people think they got railroaded. A lot of people think they got railroaded and probably some people don’t.”

Adam Fox and Barry Croft Jr. were convicted for the kidnapping plot, which involved taking the governor at her vacation home at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic because they were angry with government-imposed restrictions.

Fox was convicted in 2022 and sentenced to 16 years in prison on two conspiracy charges relating to the kidnapping scheme and another to obtain and use a weapon of mass destruction related to a side plot to blow up a bridge in order to distract authorities. Federal prosecutors at the time identified Fox as the “driving force” behind the plan against Whitmer.

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I hope if he pardons them that Michigan immediately arrests them and charges them with state crimes he can't pardon.
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China
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Trump’s Fury at Harvard Gets More Deranged—and Exposes a Big MAGA Scam

President Donald Trump has mostly justified his lawless attempt to restrict international students from attending Harvard University by pretending it’s designed to root out the antisemites, woke radicals, and dangerous terrorists supposedly nesting in their ranks. Now, however, Trump has a new rationale: It’s all about helping young, aspiring Americans, particularly those in the working class.

“We have Americans who want to go there and to other places,” Trump told reporters over the weekend, adding angrily that many of Harvard’s international students are “bad” and are taking Americans’ slots: “They can’t go there because you have 31 percent foreign.”

Yeah, OK. If Trump really wants to facilitate the upward mobility of America’s working-class youth, here’s a better way to do it: Persuade his fellow Republicans in the House to drop their new budget’s changes to financial aid for higher education, which will restrict access to it for large numbers of working-class students, probably including many who want to attend—yup—trade schools.

With Trump’s fury at Harvard getting worse, this turn in the saga suggests another grotesque subtext to all of it: Telling working-class families that the real obstacle their kids face is zero-sum competition from foreign students makes it easier to take away resources previously appropriated to boost working-class kids to fund tax cuts for the rich.

Trump’s assault is a wildly unhinged abuse of power in every way. Last week, Trump revoked Harvard’s ability to host international students, due to Harvard’s alleged failure to share sufficient “information” about foreign students in response to an administration demand. That demand was itself absurdly intrusive, and seemed designed not to be met, creating a pretext for Trump to broaden his attack. The revocation appears wholly lawless, and after Harvard sued, a court blocked it within hours.

At this point, there’s no need to pretend there’s a genuine public-interest rationale at work here. Everyone knows it’s all about getting universities to surrender to flatter Trump, or about executing a broader hostile MAGA takeover of liberal institutions. For instance, in an article reporting that Trump is now nixing Harvard’s federal contracts on top of canceling billions in grants, The New York Times notes almost in passing that Trump wants to bring Harvard “to its knees,” as if this is unremarkable, when it should be depicted as the power-crazed ravings of a Mad King.

But there’s something particularly ghoulish about Trump’s suggestion that his blockade on international students is about helping American kids who are unfairly displaced by them.

That’s because the “big, beautiful bill” that House Republicans passed last week—which Trump has urged Senate Republicans to adopt—could make attending college harder for countless such kids. For a detailed summary of its changes, see this piece by The New Republic’s Monica Potts: They would make it harder for full-time students to qualify for Pell Grants, bump off large numbers of part-time students, and restrict access to the program and other financial assistance for higher education in numerous other ways.

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