Category: Fuck Trump

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Our Failed Political Press ™, Again. Sigh.

From Mock Paper Scissors:

The Orange 🤡 cannot force Canada into becoming the 51st state, because that's not the Constitutional process. And our corrupt and illegitimate SCOTUS has nothing to do with it. This is NOT a legal process, so they have no say.

Just look at what Puerto Rico/DC has been trying to do and you can see the process for yourselves.

      1. Canada would have to petition the United States to become a state. Or more likely, each province would have to petition (And I guaran-damn-tee you Quebec don't play that game!)
      2. Congress would have to agree —and FOTUS (Felon of the United States) has NO vote in Congress.

Now recall that each province would get TWO senators (and some number of Representatives) and Canadians already have socialized medicine. Can you really see the Fascists diluting their iron grip for 18 or so new Democratic Senators? (Remember, the Quebecois are never going to petition to become part of the United States! They are not even keen on being part of Canada!)

It just isn't going to happen, and this is the same reason Greenland is never going to become a state.

And just in passing because everyone is freaking out, Executive Orders cannot lawfully undo laws passed by Congress. FEMA was established by statute, our membership in the World Health Organization is by statute (which is probably why The Orange 🤡 now says that we'll probably rejoin. He cannot admit that he made a mistake.)

While it is true that Congress can repeal laws, it is rarely done. So before everyone freaks out about all the institutions and guardrails failing, go look to see if there is any legislation behind them. Our Failed Political Press ™ is only reporting what Fat Nixon is saying, and not checking to see if it is even possible.

(I know that everyone is going to pile-on and tell me that laws don't matter any more, but they kinda do. )

—Regards, Civics Boy

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I'm At That Point…

I'm at that point—four days (it already feels like four years)into this hellscape that I can't stand from being online. It used to be one of my favorite activities, but it seems I'm just being assaulted from all sides by news of its latest EO destroying the United States, or pictures of its anus-mouth flapping another absurdity. Then I remembered there was a filter available last time he was destroying the country that effectively silenced most of the shit it was flinging against the wall. (It's not perfect*, but it does cut down on this crap.)

*the filter obviously does not block pictures, and unfortunately only works on Chrome (which I late) but it's something.

From The Hollywood Reporter:

Now that that asshole has been re-elected to a second (and perhaps final?) term, some Americans are getting ready to Resist once again. They will lobby their representatives to push back on Trump's excesses. They will attend protests and wave signs. They will volunteer for Democratic causes. They will passionately call out the president's latest norm-breaking when talking with friends and family — as well as argue with strangers on social media. 

This article is not for those people.

This is for those of you who feel like: I already did all that! For four years! And he's still back!

We get it. We're not judging. You feel pre-spent, and are not alone in simply wanting to tune out. Last time, Trump fatigue took a couple of years. It's only been a few weeks since the election and Trump 2.0 immediately feels exhausting. It's like sitting down to watch the 10th Fast & Furious movie and realizing during the opening credits that you're already tired of car chases.

Those of us in the media have little choice. We must unflinchingly watch Trump's second term unfold, eyes wide open and fixed, like those young men raw-dogging transatlantic flights. But most of you don't have to pay attention to Trump's latest act of look-at-me-I'm-making-everything-crazy. A Fox News weekend morning show host as secretary of Defense? A congressman accused of sex trafficking as attorney general? An anti-vaxxer who thinks mass shootings are caused by Prozac to run the Department of Health? 

Sure, why not? "Move fast and break things," just like the tech bros. And it's fine if those broken things are trusted institutions … essential services … or people … right? I mean, it might all be fine. I'm not saying it won't be. "We survived last time so therefore we will again" — anybody who's played Russian roulette knows this is flawless logic. 

In the meantime, you get to decide how much of the circus to watch. Because there is an argument to be made for putting your head in the digital sand (and, yes, we really explain how to do it, below). Because when you read what Trump is doing — or, more specifically, read his quotes in headlines — it's essentially Trump putting his voice in your brain, which is like … 

Look, we don't want to overstate this, but it starts to feel vaguely assault-y when you cannot escape one man's monologue no matter where you go or what you do. Trump's random 2 a.m. ALL-CAPS thoughts become official public statements, which become media headlines, which pop up on your phone, which go into your mind and can cause — for some — anxiety, annoyance, anger and despair. 

There is a good debate to be had between, "It's socially irresponsible and insensitive to disengage from politics" and, "I have responsibilities and can't personally change anything and consuming this stuff makes me feel unwell." Your body may not entirely be your choice nowadays in some U.S. states, but surely what's in your mind can be, right? CNN quoted a Trump insider as saying — regarding those recent cabinet nominations — "People being in a state of shock was the goal, that's exactly what the MAGA gang wants." As we all experienced during the Trump prequel presidency, public freakout is simply feast for the beast and there is something rebellious in denying all that yelling and arm-waving for your attention. 

Of course, there are some — such as undocumented migrants — who won't have the luxury of not paying attention to what Trump does. At some point, perhaps, a crisis might occur where none of us will have that luxury.

But as promised, here is how to block Trump from your screens:

Desktop Browsing: Install the Trump Blocker extension for Chrome. We tried this. It works for blocking Trump headlines and you don't have to unsubscribe from any of your favorite publications to live a Trump-free browsing existence. The FoxNews.com homepage becomes a desolate and confusing place (well, more so). In fact, here's a screenshot with the Blocker installed — it's now just fair-and-balanced weather, Kate Upton goss and baking tips!

iPhone browsing: The EmoGuard keyword blocker is $3.99 and takes a few minutes of setup, but it works to replace Trump with cheerful emojis when browsing in Safari. Here's what the RealClearPolitics and the CNN homepages look like with EmoGuard:

Android phone browsing: Try adding Blocksite, which allows you to block specific keywords.

TikTok: Hit the three bars, then setting and privacy, content preferences, filter video keywords (more detail).

Twitter/X: You go to settings, privacy and safety, mute and block, muted words (more detail) and then you won't see posts with the muted word in your home timeline (just be sure to capitalize "Trump" and also block "Trump's" possessive; unfortunately, posts by people named Trump still squeak through).

Facebook: In 2018, Facebook introduced a "keyword snooze" feature where you can block content from your Newsfeed that contained certain keywords. That this was introduced two years into Trump's presidency is surely a coincidence. That this feature then vanished sometime between then and the end of Joe Biden's administration is also surely a coincidence. Now we're left with clicking the three dots on a Facebook post and selecting "Show Less (of posts like this)." If you do that to a few Trump headlines, however, Facebook should get the hint.

Instagram: A couple options. On Insta, you could hit the three dots on a Trump-related post, then hit either "Hide" or "Report" and, again, eventually the algorithm will get the hint. You could also try something more targeted: Go to your profile, hit the three lines at the top, then go to "Hidden Words," then go to "Manage Custom Words and Phrases," and go from there.

TV: Well, nothing to be done about this one except simply don't watch political content.

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Into The Cornfield

From Palmer Report:

There's a particularly chilling episode of the old Twilight Zone TV series called "It's a Good Life," a Rod Serling teleplay of a Jerome Bixby short story. It goes like this: A monster lives in a small Ohio village. He is an ordinary-appearing six year old boy named Anthony with extraordinary abilities. His every whim has absolute power. Anthony has caused everyone in the United States to "go away" because they displease him. Everyone else still alive in the village must be nice to him or he will "send them into the cornfield," a euphemism for making them disappear. Anthony can read everyone's thoughts, so everyone must always be thinking exaggeratedly happy thoughts.

The story is a metaphor for a very real existential question that was new to the world when it was first broadcast. What do we do when a madman, a child, a person of no conscience and complete indifference to human suffering, gains total control of the world? How do we behave? How do we keep him from sending us into the cornfield?

Those are questions that are relevant to Americans and citizens of the world today. For the second time in human history, a vindictive monster with hypersensitive feelings is about to be handed the nuclear codes of the most powerful nation on earth, the only true superpower. This monster isn't a six year old boy, he's a stupid, vindictive, hateful old man who will enter his 80th year in six months. The existential question we have is, how is America and the rest of the world supposed to behave? What is going to happen to any one of us if we incur his capricious and arbitrary and easily-triggered wrath?

We are about to learn the answer. Filled with hubris and stupidity, Donald Trump's recent campaign of sabre-rattling at America's allies has elicited some expected responses. While appeasing and flattering and accommodating America's enemies, the man who ran on a promise of no more wars suddenly wants war with Mexico, Canada, Greenland (and its possessor Denmark) and Panama. So far those nations will have none of it. But what harm will America's "Anthony" do to them for their failure to kowtow to him? Will he send them into the cornfield? If so, what form will that take?

Canada's soon-to-exit prime minister Pierre Trudeau says there's not a "snowball's chance in hell" that his country will join America as its fifty-first state. Denmark avers that Greenland is once again not for sale. In response to Trump's claim that the Gulf of Mexico should be rebranded the "Gulf of America," Claudia Sheinbaum, the forthright president of Mexico, jokingly suggested that the US territory that was once part of Mexico should be renamed "Mexican America."

But all joking aside, there could be real world consequences for defying Trump. We already know that the harm he promises to inflict on others is more than theoretical. In his criminal mishandling of the Covid pandemic, Trump withheld PPEs and breathalysers from blue states. In the aftermath of Hurricane Maria Trump denied millions of dollars of aid to Puerto Rico simply because he disliked the mayor of San Juan and because many of the people of the country were brown. Trump deprived his former fixer Michael Cohen of his Constitutional rights and locked him away in the cornfield of solitary confinement merely because he planned to write a book.

This time around, with no voices of sanity to restrain him and no law to answer to, what harm will Trump inflict and on whom? Who is he going to hurt? What lives will he ruin, merely because he can't handle an insult? Who or what nations will get thrown into the proverbial cornfield? We'll learn the answer soon enough.

It's not the job of the president of the United States to hurt people. It's his sworn duty to "preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States" by faithfully executing his office. Donald Trump has already announced that he plans to fail at his job. He prefers to hurt people instead.

Of course, a man who is constitutionally disallowed from taking office is by definition disqualified from preserving, protecting or defending that Constitution. But a man as hateful and vindictive as Trump can and will do a lot of damage to a lot of people. MAGA is about to find out that damage will extend to many of them. I hope he throws the whole bloody lot of them into the goddamn cornfield.

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FUCK MUSK. FUCK TRUMP.

And then there's 45…

From Palmer Report:

In the week that my city of Los Angeles has been burning, good people of all stripes have come out of the woodwork to help out. Firefighters have arrived here from places as far away as Canada, Mexico, and Oregon. People are lining up around the block to donate food, necessities, and even pet supplies. It's a reminder that there are a lot of good people out there with good hearts.

Then there's Donald Trump, who has spent the entire crisis doing nothing but lying about the crisis. He's dishonestly attacked the Governor of California and Mayor of Los Angeles, who have both been doing a fantastic job. He's spread lies about the water situation here. Trump has, as usual, done nothing but make things worse.

Now Trump is adding insult to injury by posting an image of the Hollywood Hills burning, with the "HOLLYWOOD" sign changed to "TRUMP WAS RIGHT." I don't know what to say about this, other than shut up, you stupid asshole. No one here wants your input, Donald. Remember when you threatened awhile back to let California burn because no one here voted for you? And now all you can offer is a fake picture of the fire with one of our cherished landmarks defaced with your name? I'll stop writing before I curse anymore, but Donald Trump needs to SHUT UP.

Yesterday I saw fire trucks roll by from the Albany Fire Department and the Harrisburg Fire Department. These folks drove their trucks thousands of miles to come to our city of Los Angeles and help fight our fires. The response from all around the nation (and the world) has been nothing short of wonderful. That is, of course, with the exception of Trump and his fellow slime balls.

We've got Donald Trump making up nonsensical lies about our Governor and our Mayor, while spewing childlike gibberish about how water supposedly works. We've also got Trump posting fake imagery of the Hollywood sign on fire with the words changed to "TRUMP WAS RIGHT."

We've also got "Speaker" Mike Johnson publicly threatening to withhold federal aid from Los Angeles for political reasons. This is even as Elon Musk posts an endless manic stream of rubber room level insane tweets about the entire situation. These people are simply disgusting.

Simply put, there's a time for decency. We've got all these firefighters from around the nation pouring into Los Angeles, and none of them are making their assistance conditional on any political leanings. Nor does anyone in Los Angeles care about the personal political leanings of these firefighters. These are simply decent people offering to help us, and we're unconditionally grateful to them. That goes the same for all the people around the nation who have been donating to the Red Cross in Los Angeles and so on. Americans are simply helping Americans, the same way we California liberals spring into gear to help whenever there's a disaster in a red state. It's simply about decency.

It's the precise opposite of what we're seeing from Trump and his Republican allies. They're reading the room very, very wrong. The American people do not want to see anyone playing politics right now. As usual, Trump is blowing it. And as usual, his Republican Party is going right along with his mistake. If that's how they want to play it, fine. We'll use it as fuel for destroying them in the midterms.