The Apprentice Season 2 - The Second Presidency of Donald Trump

[Rumpy]

Ahh well, horrible idea then

Noble idea, but alas not really workable.

Yeah, that's unfortunate. I was trying to think up of a way Americans could fight back in spite of the orders. Sometimes it's the little things that make a difference. I just wear my heart on my sleeve too often though.

[Holman]

Ahh well, horrible idea then

Noble idea, but alas not really workable.

Yeah, that's unfortunate. I was trying to think up of a way Americans could fight back in spite of the orders. Sometimes it's the little things that make a difference. I just wear my heart on my sleeve too often though.

I hope you didn't think I was shitting on you.

One thing I was responding to is the basic idea of replacing public efforts with private charity. In America the dream of replacing the social safety net (such as it is) with private charity (i.e. churches) is hugely popular on the Right. I do know that this isn't where you were coming from.

[Isgrimnur]

In America the dream of replacing the social safety net (such as it is) with private charity (i.e. churches) is hugely popular on the Right.

With all the discrimination and proselytizing that comes baked in.

[Rumpy]

Nah man. It's all good.

It's easy to get carried away. But at the same time, it shouldn't stop anyone from donating should they want to.

[gbasden]

What would stop a non-government organization or philanthropist from doing what the government isn't doing? I'm assuming they can't stop an organization like the Red Cross from providing foreign aid, and if the government is refusing foreign aid, then I would probably see more of this kind of thing in the future.

Its the scale of financial aid needed which makes it unaffordable for organizations like the Red Cross or the equivalent to bankroll these sorts of health programs. And sure a multi billion dollar philanthropist can do it until they get bored or distracted by the next shiny thing.

Then I think it would be nice to see Americans double down on donations via international organizations. Because it's quite clear Trump isn't the voice of most Americans.

I've already doubled my monthly contributions to Doctors without Borders, and thankfully I still work for a company that embraces DEI and matches my donations to charities.

It's true we absolutely can't replace what the government is doing with private donations, but I'm going to continue to try to do what I can to help.

[Rumpy]

^ That's really great to hear! I wish there would be more of those types of organizations. Yeah, my heart was in that direction.

[gbasden]

Beginning January 20th, my daily Blood pressure check went from controlled to borderline uncontrolled bad enough that my PCP wants to increase my meds rather than lower them, as I have been working very hard on getting to this point of reducing meds over the past two plus years. I wonder what changed in my health beginning on the 20? She struck a bargain with me and said to start doing my monitor in the afternoons to see if it's better. After a week's checks it's not better.sigh

My anxiety has spiked tremendously. I was having a panic attack maybe once every couple of weeks, and now it's almost daily. I shudder to think about what is happening to my blood pressure.

[Skinypupy]

Having worked with them for the past 15 years, I have lots of friends who work at USAID. One of them working at HQ texted me a few minutes ago.

Hearing from very very reliable sources that USAID will no longer be a separate agency. Most contractors at HQ let go this week. HQ being gutted, pictures taken down, etc. It's a trial run in folding an agency.

Sounds like whatever functional areas do happen to survive (and they're not expecting many) will get folded into State Department. The prevailing opinion from any new political leadership is "these countries can figure it out on their own". Words can't express how bad this will be for the rest of the world, and for the US in the long term.

I would have had my money on Education being the first agency to go, but it looks like AID might speed run it instead.

[Kurth]

I feel for everyone who is dealing with increased anxiety and stress from Trump 2.0. I get it. But I'm strangely feeling pretty zen about it.

I think if I were to trace my Trump-related anxiety and stress levels, they steadily rose during his initial campaign, election and first term. They were off the charts after Biden won and in the weeks preceding and following 1/6 and then receded. Then they gradually rose again when it became apparent no one was going to do anything about this traitorous scumbag and, in fact, they'd all fall in line and nominate him for the presidency again. After Trump won the popular vote and crushed Harris in the EC, my anxiety and stress really fell away, though. I think I'm just done.

Even after watching the clown show that was his first term and his refusal to respect (or acknowledge) that he lost the election in 2020, consider these numbers:

- 77,284,118 Americans voted for Trump to be President again in 2024.
- That's 3,059,799 more popular votes in 2024 than he won in 2020.
- That's 14,299,293 more than he won in 2016.

Americans know what they're getting in Trump, and the more they see of him, the more of them seem to like what he represents.

So as he and Stephen Miller and their clown posse of Hegseth and Tulsi and RFK Jr. and whoever get started burning things down - just like they promised - I'm not going to get upset about it. I'll do my best to enjoy my family and support all those around me who are impacted. But I'm pretty much in mode this time around.

[Alefroth]

Having worked with them for the past 15 years, I have lots of friends who work at USAID. One of them working at HQ texted me a few minutes ago.

Hearing from very very reliable sources that USAID will no longer be a separate agency. Most contractors at HQ let go this week. HQ being gutted, pictures taken down, etc. It's a trial run in folding an agency.

Sounds like whatever functional areas do happen to survive (and they're not expecting many) will get folded into State Department. The prevailing opinion from any new political leadership is "these countries can figure it out on their own". Words can't express how bad this will be for the rest of the world, and for the US in the long term.

I would have had my money on Education being the first agency to go, but it looks like AID might speed run it instead.

I think Education may be safe now that it can be used to funnel money to private entities via 'school choice' initiatives.

And that really sucks about USAID. What a potent agency it has been.

[Kraken]

- 77,284,118 Americans voted for Trump to be President again in 2024.
- That's 3,059,799 more popular votes in 2024 than he won in 2020.
- That's 14,299,293 more than he won in 2016.

That's all so discouraging. I console myself in knowing that only 2/3 of eligible voters bothered, and trump only won 49.8% of them -- a plurality, not a majority. Five million fewer votes were cast in 2024 than in '20. Those Democrats and sympathetic independents who stayed home put trump over the top. There are many different takes on why that happened, but the fact is that trump's' so-called "mandate" came from a plurality of a reduced electorate.

[Blackhawk]

I think if I were to trace my Trump-related anxiety and stress levels, they steadily rose during his initial campaign, election and first term. They were off the charts after Biden won and in the weeks preceding and following 1/6 and then receded. Then they gradually rose again when it became apparent no one was going to do anything about this traitorous scumbag and, in fact, they'd all fall in line and nominate him for the presidency again. After Trump won the popular vote and crushed Harris in the EC, my anxiety and stress really fell away, though. I think I'm just done.

That's about where I am. I feel... resigned. It's what we chose, or chose to accept. It's who we are. Watching America show its worst qualities, watching the attitudes and idiocy of people on both sides has me to the point where I just don't feel like there's anything to do but survive what's coming.

It's not a helpful attitude. It's giving up. I get that.

But I've been fighting exhausting battles non-stop since I was a child. Undiagnosed autism, mother dead when I was 8, criminally neglectful father, constant abuse at school, growing up in isolation from everyone, moving several times per year, repeated homelessness as a child, depression, anxiety, disability (and finally getting the autism diagnosed), raising kids (one of whom is special needs) on 15k/year while drowning in debt, choosing between feeding the kids while feeding myself, dealing with cancer without help or support, a series of pathological liars (mainly my father and my wife), being cheated on multiple times (this and the last has made it impossible for me to trust anyone, at all), being stuck in a deep red rural village with sub-4,000 people and no services, paralyzed shoulder, not enough teeth left to chew, the finally having COVID hit, a very close pet die, and finally ending my final relationship, knowing that it would likely mean being isolated for the remainder of my life, the last three all within about an 18-month period.

It's been like a non-stop war just to get by without letting it crush me, and the closest I've come to winning is surviving. Not prospering, not living, not enjoying, just surviving. I just can't fight anymore battles. I don't have it in me anymore.

[YellowKing]

I'm going a bit in the opposite direction. I was feeling pretty resigned up until inauguration day, but the last two weeks have been a horror on a scale that I didn't even imagine. I knew it would be bad, I did not think within two weeks we'd have large portions of the government dismantled and planes falling out of the sky.

I've been incredibly disappointed at the number of companies and the media who have just bended the knee and accepted fascism as their lord and savior.

If he can do this much damage in two weeks, imagine the state of the country in four years. It frustrates me to no end. We could all be sitting around relaxing, with the first female president. Our only major worries being the occasional gas price spikes or economic ups and downs.

Instead, we have to deal with this constant chaos and bullshit and racism every damn day for the next four years. For what? Because people are upset that someone put their pronouns in an email signature? Or they just wanted a change?

I'm tired of ignorant people that don't have a fucking clue how the world works dictating my life and endangering the lives of my children. It pisses me off to no end.

I know my outrage in part has been due to increased news watching, and I know I just need to crawl back in my hole and stop doomscrolling. And I probably will. I'm trying to focus on just getting in better shape and being a better person. But that's incredibly hard when you have the biggest dumbfuck on the face of the earth destroying the country around you.

[waitingtoconnect]

Australia has done this for years. They’ll lock up people in surrounding countries indefinitely if their home country won’t take them back (and often they won’t). Other parts of south east asia do the same; or worse - they will shoot you if you try and enter illegally.

I don't know the legal ins and outs of Australia and those other countries, but it's blatantly unconstitutional to hold prisoners indefinitely without due process in the US - even if they ship them to Guantanamo. (Holding prisoners from Iraq and Afghanistan there was considered different because they were more like prisoners of war, which is a bullshit argument with respect to undocumented immigrants, but I suspect the administration will try to make it anyway.)

It was not routinely done in Australia but their Supreme Court recently ruled it was illegal to keep people indefinitely in detention.
So they had to release a few thousand people this time last year.

Unfortunately several of these people were high profile criminals that’s had completed sentences for murder and rape that their home countries refuse to accept back and they immediately committed new crimes which created a massive wave in the Rupert Murdoch press. Fox News mentioned it quite prominently at the time.

I feel for everyone who is dealing with increased anxiety and stress from Trump 2.0. I get it. But I'm strangely feeling pretty zen about it.

I’m actually calm as well. But I can see our fate.

I was in the Uk for Brexit and the Scottish independence referendum. Most people didn’t know what they were voting for.

later on a plurality of voters after they knew what they were going to get and were warned voted for Boris Johnson who is basically Donald trump.

And they got what they voted for, and the Uk is now in a massive mess and diminished on the world stage. But the rich are much richer.

And the architect of all this mess, Nigel Farange has a good shot at being the next PM of the Uk. And he used to have a show on RT news and has had close ties to Putin in the past.

[Punisher]

Thank goodness HIV etc respects political boundaries. Especially if walls are built on those boundaries.

Make the mosquitos pay for it while also putting up a no mosquitos allowed sign.

[Punisher]

Imagine having something like that come back to the US after 59 years.

I'm holding out on bringing polio and the black plague back.

[Rumpy]

My Dad had polio, but thankfully it was near the end when they had started getting vaccines. He had to spend time in an iron lung for a bit. He still gets some side-effects of the polio now and then with sore muscles debilitating him, but he would have been far worse off if it hadn't been for the vaccines. I have to imagine anyone against vaccines has never had to deal with a life-altering illness.

[Punisher]

My Dad had polio, but thankfully it was near the end when they had started getting vaccines. He had to spend time in an iron lung for a bit. He still gets some side-effects of the polio now and then with sore muscles debilitating him, but he would have been far worse off if it hadn't been for the vaccines. I have to imagine anyone against vaccines has never had to deal with a life-altering illness.

I'd be willing to bet that most, if not all, the politicians against vaccines are mostly vaccinated. Them and their immediate families.
If it happens to the little people it's not their problem.

[Kraken]

I have to imagine anyone against vaccines has never had to deal with a life-altering illness.

...because they never encountered the diseases the vaccines prevented.

[Alefroth]

It's feeling like the water is pretty close to boiling.

[LordMortis]

I have to imagine anyone against vaccines has never had to deal with a life-altering illness.

...because they never encountered the diseases the vaccines prevented.

Except for all of the people with dead loved ones and loved ones whose lives have seemingly been permanently altered by long COVID. I watched it happen in multiple circles in real time. It was in no small part what has moved me on my journey along the continuum of to not being able to accept "we just disagree."

[LordMortis]

This could go anywhere but it is the fault of this GOP Administration so it goes here.

https://www.reuters.com/world/us/musk-a ... 025-01-31/

Aides to Elon Musk charged with running the U.S. government human resources agency have locked career civil servants out of computer systems that contain the personal data of millions of federal employees, according to two agency officials.

The systems include a vast database called Enterprise Human Resources Integration, which contains dates of birth, Social Security numbers, appraisals, home addresses, pay grades and length of service of government workers, the officials said.
"We have no visibility into what they are doing with the computer and data systems," one of the officials said. "That is creating great concern. There is no oversight. It creates real cybersecurity and hacking implications."

I hate the news

And while we're at it, I am done with the news for the day. I can't even take small doses

https://www.npr.org/sections/shots-heal ... h-websites

[Victoria Raverna]

I have to imagine anyone against vaccines has never had to deal with a life-altering illness.

...because they never encountered the diseases the vaccines prevented.

Except for all of the people with dead loved ones and loved ones whose lives have seemingly been permanently altered by long COVID. I watched it happen in multiple circles in real time. It was in no small part what has moved me on my journey along the continuum of to not being able to accept "we just disagree."

And they are usually blaming that on the vaccine instead of the actual virus that killed their loved ones.

[Max Peck]

Who could have foreseen that an aviation tragedy would be politically weaponized?

Army withholds name of Black Hawk helicopter crew in D.C. crash, 2 others identified

The Army has identified two of the three soldiers killed in Wednesday's crash outside a busy Washington, D.C. airport. The three-person crew was on board a Black Hawk helicopter that collided with an American Airlines passenger jet carrying 64 people.

The soldiers identified are Staff Sgt. Ryan Austin O'Hara, 28, of Lilburn, Ga. and Chief Warrant Officer Andrew Loyd Eaves, 39, of Great Mills, Md.

The third crew member on the helicopter was a female pilot with 500 hours of flying experience, according to a U.S. official who was not authorized to speak publicly about the investigation. The Army is withholding the pilot's name at the request of her family.

The withholding of a name in instances like this is a highly unusual move. The identity of the third crew member has already drawn intense scrutiny online.

Misinformation on social media falsely claims she was a transgender pilot from the Virginia National Guard named Jo Ellis. Ellis has posted a "proof of life" video on Facebook, denouncing the rumors and offering condolences to those killed in the crash.

Illinois Democrat Sen. Tammy Duckworth, herself a decorated former Black Hawk pilot, told NPR she understood why the family declined to make their loved-one's name public.

" We should be respecting the family's wishes at a time when they have suffered an unbelievable loss," Duckworth said. "I think it is a perfectly legitimate request the family would make. And I'm glad that the Army is honoring that request."

Duckworth condemned the online speculation about the third member of the crew and especially President Trump's musings that the Army crew was to blame or was affected by diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) hiring.

"Every one of those troops that was in that aircraft earned their place there, and they are the most highly trained military aviators in the world," Duckworth said. "And I am just sick to my stomach that we would have a president who would say such things about the heroic men and women who serve every single day."

Despite President Trump saying the pilots of the Army helicopter bore responsibility for the crash, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth said the crew was "fairly experienced" and carrying out a "required annual night evaluation, they did have night vision goggles."

[waitingtoconnect]

Who could have foreseen that an aviation tragedy would be politically weaponized?

It’s simply evil.

[$iljanus]

And to continue the destruction of democracy in this country...https://www.cnn.com/2025/01/31/politics ... index.html

The Trump administration is set to expand a purge of career law enforcement officials, demanding the names of those who worked on January 6, 2021, US Capitol attack and Trump-related investigations for potential removal – a move that could affect thousands.

Let the purge commence. HEIL TO THE CHIEF

This will include agents investigating anything having to do with Trump as well as those who worked on the Jan 6 investigation. Essentially it's no longer safe for agents of the FBI to investigate things that a sitting president has an interest in. Also, I'm sure that FBI agents are assigned to other cases as well so a firing of this magnitude will have all sorts of effects on other investigations that the American people might be interested in...like terrorism, drug trafficking, the usual stuff.

[Blackhawk]

Essentially it's no longer safe for agents of the FBI to investigate things that a sitting president has an interest in.

In other words, they've achieved their goal of making the President unquestionable and untouchable. There's a term for that somewhere, I'm pretty sure, and I don't think it's 'President.'

[LawBeefaroni]

Folks, it's over. They're not even trying to hide it anymore. It's not about DEI. That was just the way in.


Next is complete media control.

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/donald ... rcna190276

The Department of Defense announced Friday night that it will institute a new “annual media rotation program” for its in-house press corps, effectively removing several major news outlets, including NBC News, from their Pentagon office spaces in favor of other outlets.

In addition to NBC News, The New York Times, National Public Radio and Politico must vacate their dedicated workspaces. The news organizations learned about the new directive in a memo sent to the press corps without being individually notified, and an accompanying email included a message that read, in part, “no additional information will be provided at this time."

[Blackhawk]

The kicker:

The new outlets rotating in are One America News Network — which will take NBC News’s spot — the New York Post, Breitbart News Network and HuffPost

[Smoove_B]

I know a ton of crap has happened in the lat ~24 hours. Apparently when you stage a coup, you do it on a Friday afternoon because your political opponents are already out of town for the weekend. Anyway, things are escalating at the CDC:

What they feared quickly came to pass. Already, content from the CDC’s Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance System, which includes data from a national survey, has disappeared; so have parts of the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry’s Social Vulnerability Index and the Environmental Justice Index. The CDC’s landing page for HIV data has also vanished. And the agency’s AtlasPlus tool, which contains nearly 20 years of CDC surveillance data on HIV, hepatitis, sexually transmitted infections, and tuberculosis, is down. Several scientists I talked with told me they had heard directly from contacts at the CDC that the agency has directed employees to scrub any mention of “gender” from its site and the data that it shares there, replacing it with “sex.”

...

A scrub such as this could also change how the government allocates funds for long-standing threats to public health, which could widen health-equity gaps, or reverse progress in combatting them. Rates of STIs more generally have recently begun to plateau in the U.S., after decades of steady increase—but altering data that focus interventions on, say, transgender populations, or men who have sex with men, could undo those gains. If no data exist to prove that a health issue concentrates within a particular community, that “provides a justification to cut funding,” one researcher told me.

"They don't gotta burn the books, they just remove 'em" -- indeed.

[LawBeefaroni]

There are number of useful apps that clinicians use that are made by, or use data from, the CDC. They are all down. The STI app was a popular one. No longer working and completely scrubbed from the site.

A direct, negative effect on patient care.

[LordMortis]

There are number of useful apps that clinicians use that are made by, or use data from, the CDC. They are all down. The STI app was a popular one. No longer working and completely scrubbed from the site.

A direct, negative effect on patient care.

My PCP was just using CDC apps to work with me on the last week to determine my vaccine status. Oh that's right vaccines only take a backseat to dirty rotten godless illegal foreigner DEI when it comes to being evil.

[WYBaugh]

Just saw this. People are archiving off the CDC data:

https://jessica.substack.com/p/cdc-birt ... elines-pdf

[Smoove_B]

Yeah, I'm not surprised but I'm still a little shocked. I'm guessing 99% of population has no idea what's happening and even if they did, they don't necessarily care, but the information that is being targeted for removal...it's insane.

Unofficially (and I know it was mentioned by others a few weeks ago here), it's also been suggested we start looking at data from Canada so I can only presume once ISPs come to heel, access to anything .ca will be restricted.

[Blackhawk]

Come to heel? Trump just offers them control of the FCC and they'll jump into line.

[Rumpy]

I have to imagine anyone against vaccines has never had to deal with a life-altering illness.

...because they never encountered the diseases the vaccines prevented.

Right, exactly, and what a difference it does make! They would very likely sing a different tune without those vaccines. I count myself lucky that I've never had to deal with what my Dad went through.

And they are usually blaming that on the vaccine instead of the actual virus that killed their loved ones.

Ahh yep, I've had that exact conversation with friends. They usually do turn it back on the vaccine being the one doing the harm. Nevermind the fact that things would be far far worse without it.

[Blackhawk]

It's sad that people require direct personal experience to care about others suffering.

Everyone has suffered. That should be experience enough to care.

[Rumpy]

Too true, BH. Too true.

And when it comes to the vaccines, I've always said, it's not about me, it's about you; in other words, I'm not doing it for myself, I'm doing it for others around me to prevent further spread, and that's how I show I care. It's a simple act. Kind of a version of pay it forward.

[Smoove_B]

Next is complete media control.

It's happening quickly:

The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) on Saturday said it will stop e-mailing news organizations and reporters with updates about two plane crashes that occurred earlier this week.

Moving forward, the federal agency tasked with investigating transportation-related accidents and disasters said news organizations and reporters will have to follow the agency’s official account on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, where “all NTSB updates about news conferences or other investigative information” will be posted moving forward.

The NTSB did not say why it was choosing to post information about public safety matters exclusively on X, a private social media platform owned by technology mogul Elon Musk, who has curried favor with President Donald Trump in recent weeks. The Desk has filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request with the government agency to learn more about the NTSB’s decision-making process in moving updates to the news media exclusively to X.

I'm beginning to think my time with X is coming to a rapid end.

[Skinypupy]

Yeah, I'm not surprised but I'm still a little shocked. I'm guessing 99% of population has no idea what's happening and even if they did, they don't necessarily care, but the information that is being targeted for removal...it's insane.

I think even we here at OO, as cynical a bunch as we are, underestimated the extent that people are simply willing to bury their heads in the sand and ignore everything that is currently happening.

Even my work team made up of people who sell exclusively to government agencies is basically ignoring all of this stuff until it happens to have a direct impact on client work that they're doing. One of them said in a team meeting yesterday "I'm so glad Skinypupy is paying attention to all of this and letting us know what happens, because I just can't be bothered." Even when it directly affects their livelihood, they still can't bring themselves to care or pay any attention whatsoever. The number of times I've heard "Well, I'm sure it'll all work out in the end" over the past two weeks is utterly maddening.

There's the old saying "The road to fascism is paved with people telling you to quit overreacting". I think that needs to be amended to read "The road to fascism is paved with people telling you to quit overreacting if they even know it's happening in the first place."