Please be aware of the warnings in the tags I selected. I am referencing and linking some current news reports that are highly disturbing. So if your blood pressure tends to spike at disturbing news, or if you get triggered by the same, you might want to just skip the rest of this post.
I am certainly not one to consume a lot of news media, because it just exacerbates my depression. But I also can not totally ignore what is happening around the world. And especially in one specific country of America.
<Start rant>
These reports just drive me up the walls, and even up to the top of palm trees (as we say in German), when the USA makes out that they are the be all and end all of America. And the rest of the world has more or less allowed them to get away with it. Please keep in mind that the USA only covers 22% of the total surface of America. Canada covers 23,5% and there are many other countries in America, including Venezuela, El Salvador, Cuba, Brazil and even Mexico. I am sorry, but it has rubbed me the wrong way as far back as 1981, and the current situation just makes it worse for me.
</End rant>
The following news items just popped up on my YouTube recommended feed: Canadian Woman One Of Many Chained & Held By U.S. Border Security To Meet 'Quotas', "Seit Trump verhandelt, haben sich Angriffe verdreifacht" - Strack-Zimmermann zur Aufrüstung (Strack-Zimmermann is the chair of the Defense Committee of the European Parliament elected from Germany, who stated that since Trump started talking with Putin, the Russian attacks on Ukraine have more than tripled. The interview is in German.), Press freedom in the United States under fire | DW News
Several European countries have seen the emergence of grass-roots boycotts of products made in the USA. And several European governments have issued travel warnings for the USA to their own citizens. And many countries are considering canceling defense contracts with the USA and seriously exploring local alternatives. For example, Germany is seriously considering to cancel the acquisition of the F-35 made in USA in favor of the Swedish Grippen, because there are suspicions of a kill switch controlled by POTUS.
I just hope that the members of this community who live in the USA will be able to survive more or less intact the coming economic collapse. And hopefully you can avoid getting crushed by the cult leaders falling along with the branch they are sitting on that they are sawing off the tree.
Comments
A Relevant Cartoon
It refers to the total of around four trans girls playing in school sport.
The scene is a really messy back yard. A Trumpanzee couple is sitting there, on a dilapidated sofa. One of them is saying "Cain't git no eggs nowhere, cain't afford no groceries at all, but they done stopped them transes from playing in girls' sports!"
Classic tactics of fascism start by finding a minority group to blame for any problems, and control of information flow makes that easy. Remember Goebbels' motto of making the lie big enough, and repeating it often enough?
We also have Cissy 'Muskrat' Spacex currently offering payments to voters. In other parts of the world that is called 'corruption'
What astonished me (I lie) was when I looked at the Facebook page of a regular on this site, where he laughingly posted a picture of two of Biden's transgender women officials with the caption "All the President's men"
It is non-stop. And, once more on Facebook, I have been spammed with ads from Lufthansa, BA and Air France suggesting people fly to NY, DC or Atlanta. The comments below them are almost unanimous and can be summed up as 'Ni thank you2. I mean, it's not just the fascism steadily growing there, it's the gutting of air traffic control by Muskrat.
Sadly, I could go on and on here.
The last time I checked the statistics regarding………
Transgender athletes in K through 12, which for those outside the United States is Kindergarten (usually 5 years old, and the age at which most children in the US start school) through Twelfth Grade (usually 17 years old, and the last grade before entering college) represent a tiny minority.
It of course varies by state, but for instance in the state of Utah (which just passed a transgender ban) there are 75,000 students participating in scholastic sports, K-12. Of those 75,000, four are transgender, and only one of those four is a transgender girl. So one out of 75,000 athletes - or less than .002%. So we are wasting time passing a law to “protect” other student athletes from that one poor girl.
To put it more bluntly, the organization Save Women’s Sports, a leading voice in the bid to ban transgender athletes from competing in girls’ sports, identified only five transgender athletes competing on girls’ teams in school sports for grades K through 12. In the entire country! This is out of the 8,062,302 participants that the NFHS High School Athletics Participation Survey indicated that were involved in high school sports in 2023-24. Approximately 43% of those student athletes are girls, or 3,466,790. That means that roughly .0001% of the total girls playing scholastic sports are identified as transgender.
It’s a good thing we are protecting society from them!
This just goes to show how such a large percentage of our population can be sidetracked into focusing on such a trivial issue, all while Trump and his cronies ruin our economy and destroy our democracy.
D. Eden
Dum Vivimus, Vivamus
"The Apprentice" Series Omega
This is the only way he knows to run a government, like a so called "Reality Show " on TV. Although I never saw any, it was apparently a great success in terms of the ratings achieved, thus feeding his ego and being the only real success that he ever had. The myth about being a great businessman was exactly that...a myth.
His comment at the conclusion of the confrontation with Zelenskyy was chilling, "It'll make great TV". That encapsulated his attitudes and his ambition. After belittling a man who came for help he must have been furious that he couldn't declare You're Fired!
I see a coup coming. All the signs are there. First allot high positions and power to incompetents and lickspittles (subordinate to himself, of course). Second, find a minority or two to victimize (substitute us, immigrants and blacks for Jews). Third, declare territorial ambitions on Canada, Greenland and Panama, this time around for "national security" instead of "lebensraum". Fourth, put the financial squeeze on everybody else to create a crisis at home. Fifth, ignore all the constitutional pillars of government (I admit to some schadenfreude in seeing him humiliate those who facilitated him, i.e. SCOTUS). Sixth, destroy the free press so that only his views are disseminated.
All he needs now is a fabricated excuse to seize power. Then it's bye-bye USA in all but name.
Loyalty
He's already sacking anyone who expresses the slightest criticism of him. How long before we see the issue of a 'L'etat, c'est moi' Exec Order along the lines of "Where any military or other oath declares loyalty to the Constitution, that means loyalty to POTUs in person, because he is the embodiment of the Constitution'. That is effectively what Hitler did, ensuring that the armed forces swore absolute loyalty to him in person.
That attitude was evinced by that regular visitor I mentioned, who upbraided me for not showing 'adequate respect' to what he called his 'Commander in Chief;. Unsurprisingly, the person in question showed zero respect for the Mango Mafioso's predecessor and successor as POTUS.
I do remember, however, the crowning moment with said regular, who had been insisting, falsely, that the man sending mail bombs to US politicians was a Dem, when he was actually a Rethuglican. The response I got from pur 'friend sums up the blinkered attitude of MAGAts. After condemning the bombings as Democrat false flag operations, I got the comment "So what if he is a Republican? He's just one of millions who are keeping America great and making America great again!"
That is when I told our friend that he is a Nazi C***, and blocked him--but I made sure I had screenshots as evidence.
That's the mentality we are facing. No facts ('alternative facts'), no logic, no empathy, no honesty.
I do find it more than a bit creepy that someone who really hates trans people spends so much time on this site. At the moment, his feed describes the transphobic attack on Bud Light as follows: "We disagreed with a company's values so we stopped buying their beer. The left disagrees with a company's values so they decide to set cars on fire. We are not the same", which evades mentioning the description of the Tesla boycott as 'terrorism'.
The rest of our friend's feed is adulation of Musk, climate change denial, Islamophobia and racism. And cat pictures.
That's the real problem with these cultists, as I said: they are incapable of embracing reality. Just like those other rednecks in the cartoon I mentioned. I am not going to name the 'friend' in question, but I am certain he knows I am discussing him. I would just like to know what someone who supports the genocide of trans people is actually looking for on this site.
I
Spying
on behalf of his political masters? Fifth column?
I have no idea who you are talking about, but this site is for the likes of us and those who support us. We have enough enemies out there, this is a "safe space".
'That attitude was evinced by
'That attitude was evinced by that regular visitor I mentioned, who upbraided me for not showing 'adequate respect' to what he called his 'Commander in Chief;. Unsurprisingly, the person in question showed zero respect for the Mango Mafioso's predecessor and successor as POTUS.'
Sadly, that's modern 'conservatism' in a nutshell: when they call for cooperation, they always really want submission.
To paraphrase my all-time favourite TV show*, the only way to win is to say 'no we won't' one more time than they say 'yes you will.' But good gravy, is that a hard task right now.
Debs xxxx
*Babylon 5, by the way. The second half of season 4 of which is disturbingly prescient.
https://youtube.com/watch?v=0jhwonPp3Bs
Babylon 5
My favourite as well. I re-watch it every two or three years - it's about that time again :)
I Know Exactly
Who you're talking about. He's as nice as pie here and a nasty racist bigot on Facebook!
You're Fired!
I'll have to admit that I was surprised that he even ran for a second term. I figure when he couldn't solve his problems by looking at an opposing politician and say "You're Fired!" he'd not want the job anymore.
Hugs
Patricia
Happiness is being all dressed up and HAVING some place to go.
Semper in femineo gerunt
Ich bin ein femininer Mann
Mango Mafioso
I think it's more than that. He has never actually won anything--he even crashed a couple of casinos. It's narcissism and spite, because he lost the second election. We had a really nasty landlord in the UK, who added a 'Van' to his name in the way that the Phony Pharaoh Mohammed Fayed added an 'al', just to make himself sounds grander. 'Van' ised to do things like taking the roof off properties with sitting tenants to [illegally] force them to move.
There are other drivers, of course, not least the opportunity to slash and burn for profits for him and his friends and controllers. If the USA gets shafted, well, not his problem. It's his childish spite that is the dangerous bit: it doesn't matter who you are or wherever you live, if you haven't grovelled enough to the Arch High Ego, you will be trampled. In addition, that racism and associated bigotry acts to enable other people to do the same: see the recent run of visitors getting locked up for long periods for no crime at all.
He is an enormous man-child, who was once told 'No' and is now ensuring that it never happens again.
I love my country
More or less. But I'm not blind. Or stupid. I cheer everytime I read of another country giving him back what he has been dishing out. Kinda reminds me of the old sorta-joke, the punchline to which goes, "Thats Johnny's dog. He can dish it out, but he can't take it!" Johnny's dog was doing what Donny is doing to the US.
“When a clown moves into a palace, he doesn’t become a king. The palace becomes a circus.” - Turkish Proverb