18Jan2025 Washington DC
At Farragut Square, about a mile & a quarter from the Lincoln Memorial, where the march ended up.
In the Trump White House Archive (covering his first term), the title is “Promises Made, Promises Kept.” As he begins his second term, how actually good was the President at keeping promises? Ehh, not so great. His mos prominent promise was the one to end the war betwen Ukraine and Russia, a promise he repeated 33 times. He might very well have made private attempts to keep that promise, but there was no serious, public attempt to even try and keep it.
To be fair, Trump DID try and keep the promise of building a wall at our Southern border, but his outreach to Democrats after the House had changed hands in late 2018 was very amateurish as he offered his opponents absolutely no positive reason to fund his wall. He expected them to simply hand him a victory without his having to give up anything for it. We’ll see, but I don’t see any reason to think he’s gotten any better.
Why have some liberals shrugged their shoulders about the election outcome? A lot of it is FAFO – (eff) Around and Find Out (Case in point). Biden worked very hard to help out the working class and they rewarded him by voting for the other guy.
A very positive and hopeful piece. The head of C&L wonders, as I myself have wondered since the Reagan Administration, why left-wingers don’t invest in left-wing media. The name “mainstream media” has faded and has been replaced in many quarters the term “legacy media,” which suggests the major media outfits are tired, pooped and worn out.
“Biden started the day with pardons. Trump finished with many more,” reads the Post headline—as if pardoning Enrique Tarrio, convicted of sedition against the United States, is the same thing as pardoning Dr. Fauci, who MAGA world hates for the sin of telling Americans to mask up during a global pandemic.
They DID good stuff in the past, but are far too compromised today.
Trump’s confusion about the world outside his immediate experience, deliberate lies or just a lack of knowledge? The asserton on his part that Spain is a member of BRICS (an organization that is supposed to be an answer to the G7, but neither BRICS nor the G7 has Spain as a member) is not true. Spain IS a member of the Eurpean Union, so is his assertion part of some strategy or just plain thick-headed ignorance? His frequent inaccurate statements appear to be a combination of both deliberate lies and genuine ignorance. I hope his conviction that human-caused climate change isn’t real can be corrected!
So Trump and his people promised to “hit the ground running” so as to make as much progress as possible, as quickly as possible. pardoning January 6th attackers was high on his priority list. If Trump wants to create a private, unaccountable militia, this has been a good start on that. Human-caused climate change clearly doesn’t mean anything to the president. It’s far from clear what’s “temporary” about the halt to wind power leases as any studies can take place without stopping wind power projects that are already providing power.
Olivia Troye, who worked in Trump’s first White House, tells us that immigration is one of his top three priorities. Sure enough, one of his Executive Orders “…suspended U.S. Refugee Admissions Program resettlements ‘until such time as the further entry into…’” Yada, yada, yada, another “temporary” halt until…ehh, who the heck knows when? How is his mass deportation going to work? No one knows. The program doesn’t appear to be fleshed out yet.
Spoke too son. 956 allegedly unauthorized immigrants arrested on Sunday.
Huh! Well, whattaya know? Turns out the new president’s pardoning of January 6th attackers is wildly unpopular! For Biden’s first day in office, he had a 55% approval rating. Trump has 47% now. 58% oppose his pardoning of the J6ers. Judges absolutely hate them, too. Oh, and Trump’s reliance on billionaires is wildly unpopular, as well. Interestingly, Trump appears to be turned off by Putin’s apparent weakness. The blogger says that if Trump wants statues of himself erected all over Ukraine, all he has to do is to open up the spigot and send Ukraine missiles and F-16s.
Very interesting things concerning Ukraine*
Voice of America: Military aid to Ukraine continues to flow Pentagon officials confirmed that the recent Trump’s order to suspend all foreign aid does not apply to Ukraine military aid
And we get a message from a Russian calling Trump an “old orange clown,” a “senile huckster,” and the fellow is quite annoyed that Trump is stating their casualty figures going as much as 200k either way. Of course that last part is just Trump being vague on details, which is par for the course for him.
Songs and chants on the march.
*Oops, belay that! Delaying aid for 90 days of course means that at least some of the aid will never resume.
U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced on Jan. 24 new guidance that halts spending on most foreign aid grants for 90 days. This directive, which took State Department officials by surprise, appears to include funding for military assistance to Ukraine…
Blogger thinks the prospects for Ukraine aid being resumed are not good. The new Secretary of State wants all foreign aid to be approved by him personally.
What’s going on with NIH research? This research, by the way, makes substantial contributions to the ecomoy. .
Salon:
Meetings and panels across federal science and health agencies were abruptly cancelled Wednesday, prompting fresh concern over how a potential remaking of the agencies by President Donald Trump’s administration could interrupt important research and official responses to disease outbreaks, including a surge of H5N1 bird flu in dairy cows and poultry.
Unfortunately, Trump’s desire to acquire Greenland from Denmark was not just some idle thought on his part. He seems quite serious about obtaining it. Denmark is willing to make some accommodations, but are not willing to cede it.
Oh, come ON!!! The Trump Administration is opposed to mine clearing?!?!?!?! How on earth can anyone possibly justify opposing such a purely good program? The minimal amount of money it costs is hugely outweighed by the good it does!
Oh, good grief! Now…
President Donald Trump fired multiple inspectors general late on Friday, removing the independent watchdogs tasked with investigating abuse and impropriety in federal agencies in a move that potentially violates federal law.
The last thing a wannabe fascist dictator wants is any sort of outside accountability. If HE thinks everything is okay, then it’s all okay!Democrats made an immediate stink about this, but Republicans put party loyalty above what’s good for the country.
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