No more Musk, Melania MIA and TACOs for tea: The Idiocracy beds down - Trump thread #144

[Spandauer]

Second '100 days' working out much like the first, but with a Vance-proof Pope, a bigly white elephant plane, a few more legal push backs and way more grifting.

Previous thread:
https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/_chat/5327971-idiotam-habemus-trumpum-the-bigly-xxx-trump-thread-143

Today I learned .... there is (for no reason I can divine whatsoever) a US mobile provider called "Cricket". Is this some sort of HHGTTG homage ?

theonion.com/marines-raise-american-flag-outside-cell-phone-store-after-defeating-skateboarding-teenagers/

A beautiful bigly ceasefire with gold sprinkles on top?

Oh god, I honestly wouldn’t put it past him.

O good one MrTiddles. I was thinking more along the lines of the compulsory 'gift' of another Goldy Airplane or Goldy Yacht but you've called the more likely option.

read this with a French accent:
"I've 'eard zat ee uses fake tan on 'is, 'ow do you say, le coq?"

🙄with an Italian accent.

You're welcome. 😁

I hope this isn't prescient.

I miss "Let's Parler Franglais"

The Trump administration is considering expanding President Trump’s new travel ban to as many as 36 additional countries, most of which are in Africa, according to a June 14 cable reviewed by The New York Times.

...The cable says that in addition to the 19 countries, the State Department had identified 36 more that must improve on certain benchmarks within 60 days. It set a deadline of 8 p.m. Eastern time on Wednesday for the affected governments to provide remediation plans.

...The countries on the new list included Angola, Antigua and Barbuda, Benin, Bhutan, Burkina Faso, Cambodia, Cameroon, Cape Verde, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Djibouti, Dominica, Ethiopia, Egypt, Gabon, Gambia, Ghana, Ivory Coast, Kyrgyzstan, Liberia, Malawi, Mauritania, Niger, Nigeria, St. Kitts and Nevis, St. Lucia, São Tomé and Príncipe, Senegal, South Sudan, Syria, Tanzania, Tonga, Tuvalu, Uganda, Vanuatu, Zambia and Zimbabwe.

Please forgive my ignorance of African geography, but isn't that every country other than South Africa and that part of the continent usually considered as part of the Middle East? And what's with the Caribbean countries?

What are these 'benchmarks'? That Trump doesn't have a tower in these countries?

Bodes well for the football World Cup

Not sure how an entire continent can turn itself white in 60 days.

I wonder how far other countries will stand up to Trump ?

As a hypothetical, what if he made it a part of the UK-US trade deal that the UK had to undertake some action which would explicitly break a domestic law, or cause considerable harm to some people ?

Right now I'm wary of thinking of any specifics, just in case team Trump haven't thought of them yet.

A federal judge in Boston said Monday the termination of National Institutes of Health grants for research on diversity-related topics by the Trump administration was “void and illegal” and accused the government of discriminating against racial minorities and LGBTQ people.

U.S. District Judge William Young said during a nonjury trial that the NIH violated federal law by arbitrarily canceling more than $1 billion in research grants because of their perceived connection to diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives.

Young said he was reinstating grants that had been awarded to organizations and Democratic-led states that sued over the terminations. And he indicated that he could issue a more sweeping decision as the case proceeds.

https://www.nbcnews.com/science/science-news/judge-deems-trumps-cuts-national-institutes-health-illegal-rcna213360

My god, what on earth is the matter with some of these countries?
I have been to some on that list and they are truly truly wonderful places

Does the US want to cut itself off from the rest of the world?

CHICAGO, June 16, 2025 — The American Bar Association today filed a lawsuit against the U.S. government, more than two dozen federal departments and agencies, and the heads of those departments and agencies, asking a federal court to declare unconstitutional the Trump administration’s ongoing unlawful policy of intimidation against lawyers and law firms and to enjoin the government from enforcing the policy.

https://www.americanbar.org/news/abanews/aba-news-archives/2025/06/aba-files-suit-to-halt-govt-intimidation/

'Cutting off' worked for North Korea. At least it worked for the Kim family, and by extension, the elite of NK.

Personally I think Scrotus just likes to say 'NO!' in the same way a toddler will say no even when you ask them a question they'd probably say 'yes' to if they weren't, well, being a toddler.

More about the country ban cable. (from NYT)

The countries in question “must take immediate action to mitigate ongoing vetting and screening concerns, develop corrective action plans to remediate deficiencies and evaluate progress,” the cable said.

The State Department said in a statement on Monday that it was “committed to protecting our nation and its citizens by upholding the highest standards of national security and public safety through our visa process.” It has declined to comment more specifically on internal deliberations.

...Restrictions on travel will affect people from more than a dozen countries worldwide. The administration is also considering adding more countries to the ban.
The cable, which was reported earlier by The Washington Post, cited a range of concerns that it said had put the countries on the list, but it cautioned that not every country raised the same issues. It did not say what the concerns were in each case.

...The categories of concern included a lack of a competent central government that could produce reliable identity documents and criminal records; dubious passport security; significant rates of visa overstays; a lack of cooperation in taking back citizens being deported from the United States; and selling citizenship to people who do not live in their countries.

...It also said a country could be subjected to a travel ban if its citizens were involved in terrorism or “antisemitic and anti-American activity in the United States.”

But the cable said that a country could help mitigate concerns if its government agreed to accept people from other countries whom the United States was trying to deport but could not repatriate, or agreed to serve as a “safe third country” that took in migrants who applied for asylum in the United States.

The bit about selling citizenship... 🧐
https://eu.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2025/06/12/trump-foreigners-gold-card/84169931007/

A tale from history when the US tried to demand the British did a Simon said.

Would it happen today ?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Bamber_Bridge

I do love the story of the Battle of Bamber Bridge, particularly the part where the locals put up “Black Troops Only” signs at the pub to piss off the racist officers.

I can only hope the same spirit lives on in our collective veins today.

meanwhile (they say, as the plot is about to thicken) the plot thickens ...

Seems a lot of "America First" MAGA folk (Marjorie Taylor Greene and Tucker Carlson have been mentioned) are apoplectic that Trump is lining the US up for a war. They remember that "America First" meant no more wars. And they aren't taking the party view that "Donald Trump is America First and you did vote for this" quietly.

What with Rand Paul, it's like all the clocks are stopping over America.

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/marjorie-taylor-greene-tucker-carlson-iran-b2771342.html

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene distanced herself even further from Trump, coming to the defense of former Fox News host Tucker Carlson.

“Tucker Carlson is one of my favorite people. He fiercely loves his wife, children, and our country. Since being fired by the neocon network Fox News, he has more popularity and viewers than ever before.

“He unapologetically believes the same things I do. That if we don’t fight for our own country and our own people then we will no longer have a country for our children and our grandchildren,” Greene wrote in a fiery X post alongside a picture of the pair in response to a Trump tweet.

“And foreign wars/intervention/regime change put America last, kill innocent people, are making us broke, and will ultimately lead to our destruction. That’s not kooky. That’s what millions of Americans voted for. It’s what we believe is America First,” she added.

Her fiery defense of the right-wing commentator came in response to Trump, who blasted Tucker as “kooky” after the former Fox host called out the “warmongers” calling upon the president for “direct US military involvement in a war with Iran.”

Thoroughly enjoyed this.

On those dropped papers, Peter Walker, Guardian

Keir Starmer told us at the G7 why he picked up Donald Trump's spilled papers, and to précis only slightly, it was because he worried that if someone else, like a journalist, rushed forward to help they might get shot.

😱 By US secret service or Canadian?

The real truth is that if Keir Starmer hadn't no one else would have.