Scrutable

Trump's putting it down to a glitch and describing it as a learning curve...

However, it tracks precisely with his first term, where he got through numerous inept people

How do Americans like what's going on there? Seems if you voted Trump, probably you quite like it.

I was seeing various headlines saying his approval rating is massively down, albeit not yet as low as it was at this stage in his first term. But then I found other headlines saying actually it is up.

It seems it is actually all over the place day by day, probably as the latest astonishing bit of news hits. And there's quite a lot of USanians entirely happy with a lot of that chaos, the immigrant-bashing, etc.

But, at the end of the day, he is still clearly more popular than he was at this stage of his presidency last time around. What do we learn from that - that polarisation has earned him an extensive fan-base willing to trust him whatever crap goes on?

I'm reminded of the persistent popularity of Chavism in Venezuela, until it wasn't. It was only when you could no longer avoid seeing how the economy had been utterly trashed, a quarter of the population had left the country, and the rulers were filling their pockets and crushing all dissent through the police/military, that finally the scales began to fall from the eyes of many people who long thought Chavez/Maduro really were socialists serving the poor and disadvantaged, rather than the heartless kleptocrats they really were.

IvanV wrote: Thu Mar 27, 2025 2:33 pm How do Americans like what's going on there? Seems if you voted Trump, probably you quite like it.

I was seeing various headlines saying his approval rating is massively down, albeit not yet as low as it was at this stage in his first term. But then I found other headlines saying actually it is up.

It seems it is actually all over the place day by day, probably as the latest astonishing bit of news hits. And there's quite a lot of USanians entirely happy with a lot of that chaos, the immigrant-bashing, etc.

But, at the end of the day, he is still clearly more popular than he was at this stage of his presidency last time around. What do we learn from that - that polarisation has earned him an extensive fan-base willing to trust him whatever crap goes on?

I'm reminded of the persistent popularity of Chavism in Venezuela, until it wasn't. It was only when you could no longer avoid seeing how the economy had been utterly trashed, a quarter of the population had left the country, and the rulers were filling their pockets and crushing all dissent through the police/military, that finally the scales began to fall from the eyes of many people who long thought Chavez/Maduro really were socialists serving the poor and disadvantaged, rather than the heartless kleptocrats they really were.

It depends if he goes after Medicaid or Medicare l.

A lot of red counties have significant income from government monies. Especially Medicare and Medicaid


https://on.ft.com/4lcaDOe

Most counties between 25% and 65% of household income in the counties

Flight bookings between Canada and US down 70%:

Before reading that, I might have guessed "oh, 10 or 20% down maybe", so 70% seems huge. After all, there will always be people who have to travel out of necessity (funerals, people engaged in business, weddings etc.).

When they f.ck up Social Security, which it looks like they are in the process of doing, I expect a pretty huge backlash given the dependence on SS among many MAGA types.

Trump may then dump Musk and lay the blame on him.

At every circus I've been too, the wheels fall off the clown car eventually...

This is horrendous, shoved off to a Central American gulag because you have tattoos and the racist f.cks running the USA don't believe you have any rights.

https://www.motherjones.com/politics/20 ... ot-bukele/

bjn wrote: Thu Mar 27, 2025 9:08 pm When they f.ck up Social Security, which it looks like they are in the process of doing, I expect a pretty huge backlash given the dependence on SS among many MAGA types.

Trump may then dump Musk and lay the blame on him.

There's probably a sooner one coming, when tax refunds don't go out promptly.

I got our tax return in early before things got too f.cked up, and we've already had our refund.

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

Claims that a Russian clinical scientist working at Harvard and a critic of the invasion of Ukraine is getting deported to Russia

dyqik wrote: Thu Mar 27, 2025 11:35 pm

bjn wrote: Thu Mar 27, 2025 9:08 pm When they f.ck up Social Security, which it looks like they are in the process of doing, I expect a pretty huge backlash given the dependence on SS among many MAGA types.

Trump may then dump Musk and lay the blame on him.

There's probably a sooner one coming, when tax refunds don't go out promptly.

I got our tax return in early before things got too f.cked up, and we've already had our refund.

It was extraordinary in Venezuela how long the believers carried on believing in their socialist saviours, despite all the growing evidence they were kleptocratic tyrants, enough to keep voting them in several times in reasonably fair elections, before the elections needed to be more properly rigged. By the time enough of them stopped believing, it was too late.

People don't like changing their mind. They want to carry on believing their hero is their hero. And so they are ready to accept the dubious justifications and excuses that are put out. It is someone else's fault, it was out of our control, it's just a little blip, we have to punish our enemies, utopia is just around the corner after some short-term belt-tightening...

Maybe the USAnians are more skeptical and willing to re-evaluate. But self-deception is a strong human instinct, as the important book The folly of fools: the logic of deceit and self-deception in human life by eminent socio-biologist Robert Trivers points out. Unfortunately he does not write as easily as other popular science writers in this area, Kahneman, Pinker, etc, and he has some fairly large personal flaws which detract from his scholarship.

Given the choice between toeing the line, being fired or resigning, the FDA's top vaccine official has resigned.

Dr. Peter Marks wrote this in his resignation letter about HHS Secretary Robert Kennedy Jr.:

"It has become clear that truth and transparency are not desired by the Secretary, but rather he wishes subservient confirmation of his misinformation and lies.”

Trump administration now ordering French companies to abandon DEI: https://www.france24.com/en/europe/2025 ... europe-ban

Florida Republicans move to fill deported workers’ jobs with children

... how to fill the essential jobs of the scores of immigrant workers targeted for deportation.

The answer, according to Florida lawmakers, is the state’s schoolchildren, who as young as 14 could soon be allowed to work overnight shifts without a break – even on school nights.

...

“What’s wrong with expecting our young people to be working part-time now? That’s how it used to be when I was growing up,” DeSantis said at an immigration forum with Donald Trump’s “border czar”, Tom Homan, in Sarasota last week.

“Why do we say we need to import foreigners, even import them illegally, when teenagers used to work at these resorts, college students should be [doing] all this stuff.”

shpalman wrote: Sat Mar 29, 2025 4:23 pm Florida Republicans move to fill deported workers’ jobs with children

... how to fill the essential jobs of the scores of immigrant workers targeted for deportation.

The answer, according to Florida lawmakers, is the state’s schoolchildren, who as young as 14 could soon be allowed to work overnight shifts without a break – even on school nights.

...

“What’s wrong with expecting our young people to be working part-time now? That’s how it used to be when I was growing up,” DeSantis said at an immigration forum with Donald Trump’s “border czar”, Tom Homan, in Sarasota last week.

“Why do we say we need to import foreigners, even import them illegally, when teenagers used to work at these resorts, college students should be [doing] all this stuff.”

It's a modest proposal

It's a modest proposal

Good call!

Brightonian wrote: Sat Mar 29, 2025 3:08 pm Trump administration now ordering French companies to abandon DEI: https://www.france24.com/en/europe/2025 ... europe-ban

20 years ago, I was working for a UK subsidiary of a prominent US company. As that company had extensive US government business, everyone in the entire company, including in foreign subsidiaries, had to be trained in the requirements for companies who do US government contracts. This annoyance was the reason for a subsequent demerger of the company, which separated out the US public sector contracting from the rest of the company's business. As it was mostly defence work, it did not have much connection to the wider business of the company.

But before that demerger, I was trained in US government requirements, including the US laws on international sanctions. This included the amusing fact that I had to obey those US laws, and only those US laws, and not anyone else's. In other words, it required me not to obey the laws of the country I was in. Inevitably different countries' sanctions policies are incompatible, especially since they typically include rules not to avoid business in non-sanctioned countries. US laws include that extra-territorial stipulation. Fortunately UK sanctions policies at that time were not too different from the US. But the company also had offices in the Middle East and Moscow, where typically local sanctions polices were considerably incompatible with US policies.

As far as I could see, you just did the sensible thing, ie obey local laws, and ignore the US attempt at extra-terrioriality. Fortunately, the US didn't go around auditing the sanctions behaviour of foreign branches of US companies. Probably because they had the sense to realise that you have to obey local laws when you are in another country.

But it turns out that there is a kind of pecking order in these sanctions, and some US extraterritorialities are more rigidly enforced than others. Especially if it might be noticed. 10 years prior to that, I was working for UK subsidiary of a different prominent US company. We started to do some business in Iran, because there was a rapprochement between EU and Iran at that time and it was kind-of encouraged. And there was an issue that it might be noticed. So that was too much for our US owners, who forced us to stop mid-project and break a contract we had entered into, regardless of the consequences.

Forced to reply, these French companies might reply along these lines:

"We comply with the US requirements, to the extent that French law permits us to do so. Here is a list of major US companies with branches or subsidiaries in France. You will understand that they also have to obey French law when doing business in France, including when supplying the US government, whatever they tell you."

Russia seems to have pissed on Trump's proposals... looks like Putin is not that worried about angering Trump.

Chinese drills off Taiwan aren't great either - China might be thinking that a chaotic Trump regime with aspirations of its own land grabs (Greenland) might make this an opportune time to go for Taiwan.

Wisconsin just elected a liberal judge to their Supreme Court, despite Musk pouring over £25m into the race.

It means there’s a liberal majority to scrutinise a vast array of dodgy right wing legislation the state is trying to pass.

headshot wrote: Wed Apr 02, 2025 8:42 am Wisconsin just elected a liberal judge to their Supreme Court, despite Musk pouring over £25m into the race.

It means there’s a liberal majority to scrutinise a vast array of dodgy right wing legislation the state is trying to pass.

Hilariously, Musk's involvement seems at first glance to have reduced the vote for his preferred candidate.

dyqik wrote: Wed Apr 02, 2025 10:49 am

headshot wrote: Wed Apr 02, 2025 8:42 am Wisconsin just elected a liberal judge to their Supreme Court, despite Musk pouring over £25m into the race.

It means there’s a liberal majority to scrutinise a vast array of dodgy right wing legislation the state is trying to pass.

Hilariously, Musk's involvement seems at first glance to have reduced the vote for his preferred candidate.

That’s a sign of hope at least

In total it appears, about £100m election publicity expenditure, for the election of a judge in Wisconsin, population 6 million. People clearly think there is an enormous amount of advantage to be gained for themselves in having their candidate elected. There was a court case brought by the state AG over Musk's million dollar cheque giveaway, which went all the way to the Wisconsin supreme court. That court found it wasn't an illegal lottery - I don't know if that means they decided it wasn't a lottery, or it was a lottery but legal. They also found it did not constitute vote-buying.

dyqik wrote: Wed Apr 02, 2025 10:49 am Hilariously, Musk's involvement seems at first glance to have reduced the vote for his preferred candidate.

That warms my heart.

Next time instead of offering million dollar bribes prizes pseudo-randomly awarded, maybe he'll spend his dosh on sending emergency supplies of Kool-Aid and gaslight. That might work.

IvanV wrote: Wed Apr 02, 2025 12:43 pm In total it appears, about £100m election publicity expenditure, for the election of a judge in Wisconsin, population 6 million. People clearly think there is an enormous amount of advantage to be gained for themselves in having their candidate elected. There was a court case brought by the state AG over Musk's million dollar cheque giveaway, which went all the way to the Wisconsin supreme court. That court found it wasn't an illegal lottery - I don't know if that means they decided it wasn't a lottery, or it was a lottery but legal. They also found it did not constitute vote-buying.

Their defence was that it wasn’t a lottery because they had already decided who was going to get the money, based on who they thought would be best from a pr standpoint.

Grumble wrote: Wed Apr 02, 2025 3:10 pm

IvanV wrote: Wed Apr 02, 2025 12:43 pm In total it appears, about £100m election publicity expenditure, for the election of a judge in Wisconsin, population 6 million. People clearly think there is an enormous amount of advantage to be gained for themselves in having their candidate elected. There was a court case brought by the state AG over Musk's million dollar cheque giveaway, which went all the way to the Wisconsin supreme court. That court found it wasn't an illegal lottery - I don't know if that means they decided it wasn't a lottery, or it was a lottery but legal. They also found it did not constitute vote-buying.

Their defence was that it wasn’t a lottery because they had already decided who was going to get the money, based on who they thought would be best from a pr standpoint.

Is that true m
I know he admitted that it wasn't random. And giving a senior local republican one of the prizes must be bad PR

This should be popular...