Trump+Musk; the DOGE and Pony show continues -Trump thread #140

[Spandauer]

Trump, as out of control as a faulty Tesla, takes an ICE pick to the Constitution.

Thanks to @AcrossthePond55 and @Jaichangecentfoisdenom for the thread title and sub-title 😊

Photocollage: Cold War Steve
Map illustration: Barry Blitt

Previous thread:
https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/_chat/5286872-the-orange-man-and-the-state-of-his-union-trump-thread-139

No idea but that thread is hilarious!

Love it!

In all seriousness, maybe because I find the real him quite revolting, I thought the portrait really wasn't bad? There's been some absolute crackers of nightmare portraits of members of the royal family in the past. I know he wants to look like macho man and good looking but you can;t turn a sows ear into a silk purse!

Re options for the Democrats, anybody have opinions on this chap ?
https://x.com/jonahowheeler/status/1904560117036490880

Another student detained. It appears they didn't like her opinion on what's happening I Gaza.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/mar/26/ice-agents-detain-tufts-university-graduate-student

So much for freedom of speech. Is this it for the next 3 years and 10 months? You can be detained and potentially deported for having an opinion that contradicts the big orange babies string on nonsensical thoughts and opinions?

Whoever it is looks like Jabba the Smut.

We should be so lucky if it's only 3 years and 10 months. Even if that's only Vance becoming president.

This is very disturbing

https://theins.press/en/news/280037

Scary times indeed, Musk paying for people to sign petitions against 'activist' judges:
bsky.app/profile/jamellebouie.net/post/3lleftfbv6c2w

Meanwhile the campaign against Tesla gains ground

https://bsky.app/profile/overthrowmusk.bsky.social/post/3llerkcgw222p

DonaldTrump signed an executive order targeting the Smithsonian Institution,which operates >20 museums+research centres visited by millions in Washington DC+New York City.

It directs JDVance to "eliminate improper, divisive, or anti-American ideology" from its museums, centres+the National Zoo.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cdjy1jmvvwzo

Can they even mention the impact of the USA and its ideology in the rest of the world?

The Smithsonian is huge - and as I recall as a visiting furriner - typically hyper-American as most institutions in the US are! How will they address Native American displays and exhibits? Just rewriting history.

DH said yesterday after seeing the video footage of the student being taken by masked ICE agents in Massachusetts that he was done with the US - he doesn't get upset very often but this really affected him.

The snatching of that student off the street really was beyond the pale. Who is ordering this criminality?

I wonder who was filming it, and why. Is it meant as red meat for the moron MAGA base? If I was in the US now I would be afraid to leave home. I guess that’s the intention

It's funny you should say that... my DH is the most apolitical person ever (unlike me!) and we are planning and talking about holidays for next year .
I was looking at all sorts of trips, one focussed on the west coast of US, but he said very firmly "I will not go to the States, not interested, don't want to". This is so unlike him.

I think the tourist industry is going to be massively impacted. (not by our poxy trip! But in general )

Some very accurate comments on that thread. There are so many layers of shit to this that they're all right.

jamelle
‪@jamellebouie.net‬
once again, every accusation is a confession. republicans spent 15 years accusing democrats of winning elections by trading cash for votes. now, here we are.

‪Lt. Aldo Braine
‪@ltaldobraine.bsky.social‬
Every accusation is an admission with sociopathic narcissists. All of America is about to learn what regular people who've had relationships with narcissistic people go through, and how to combat the bullshit.

I'm Poster Syndrome‬ ‪@mraristocrates.bsky.social‬
I think "confessing" is the wrong framework. It's less a Freudian slip and more premeditated action. The point of the accusations is to give themselves permission to retaliate in kind.

Not trying to be pedantic, I just think the distinction makes it way scarier. There is nothing they won't do.

Josh McCullough‬ ‪@tranquility-based.bsky.social‬
No this is the same Trojan Horse data-mining shit they pulled in the general and you’re falling for not covering it because you don’t entirely understand it and you can’t risk your credibility.

The Trojan Horse data-mining was done by Dominic Cummings during the Brexit referendum, too.

Vote Leave launches £50m football prediction competition
Anti-EU campaign offers sum it says UK gives to Europe every day to anyone who can predict Euro 2016 results
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/may/27/vote-leave-launches-50m-football-prediction-competition-euro-2016
The initiative is ostensibly intended to highlight Vote Leave’s claim that being in the EU costs Britain £350m a week, but Vote Leave insiders are making no secret of the fact that their principal aim is to harvest voting intention information from potentially millions of people, so as to enable it to get its supporters out on 23 June.

Article in the Telegraph about Trump holding Zelenskyy with a gun to his head over mineral/gas deal which is now much worse and includes more of Ukrainian minerals and resources than before as mentioned upthread.

Ukraine could only receive part of the revenue from the mineral/gas schemes once reparations for the military aid already given are deducted from it. Awful

I thought Zelenskyy looked really downtrodden in the pictures from the Paris summit, it must be totally soul destroying.

Saw this on social media. I’d rephrase the top line to mean the current administration rather than Americans in general but it did make me smile. Not least because Spaceballs is one of my favourite films!

I presume Trump wants Zelenskyy to turn down the 'deal' so that Russia has the red light to annihilate the country even more than they have.

And Zelenskyy needs resources and money to rebuild Ukraine.

I can't hate Trump any more than I do.

On another subject entirely... my thoughts go out to the people of Myanmar. I have a friend from Myanmar, based in Yangon, and I have been to Mandalay which is where the epicentre of the earthquake was. They have had to deal with the military coup and now this. I am going to try and contact my friend but I know internet access has been restricted by the military.

Sorry to derail.

The damage looks horrific, by all accounts it seems to have been a very powerful quake. We can be sure the orange moron’s administration won’t be sending any support….

You are sadly exactly right

This...

A world-renowned US programme for international disaster and crisis assistance can no longer deploy in the event of a major emergency due to the Trump administration’s dismantling of the US foreign aid agency, nine sources with knowledge of the matter told Reuters.

As a result of president Donald Trump’s funding freeze for the US Agency for International Development (USAID), the four DARTs currently in operation in Afghanistan, Gaza, Sudan and Ukraine can no longer function normally, according to seven current USAID employees who spoke to Reuters on condition of anonymity due to fear of retribution.

(He's a fucking bastard, all of them are, sorry for ripe language)

Tomorrow is International Tesla's Takedown Global Day of Action.

Demonstrations planned at more than 200 Tesla locations worldwide. There is a showroom 30 miles from me and one of the protests is taking place there, have checked. Me and DD are thinking of going.

Should anyone be interested here is the website https://www.teslatakedown.com/

I have planned my poster/sign. DD is up for it.

ON YOUR BIKE ELON, YOU WEIRD FUCKER

(Unless anyone can think of anything better)

Women's health is now "DEI"
https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/trump-admin-pulls-research-funding-protection-pregnant-women-domestic-violence_n_67e5bbf0e4b0e9fab0ffb1cc