The Apprentice Season 2 - The Second Presidency of Donald Trump

[Blackhawk]

I Don't Know How To Explain To You That You Should Care About Other People

Good article. Still relevant.

[Punisher]

Terms/concepts this election inadvertently made me aware of:

1. Incel
2. Manosphere

I may or may not regret this.
What is manosphere?

[Punisher]

I'm seeing it at a local level where there's a few GOP lunatics that vote down *everything* related to tax increases. It doesn't matter what it is, they refuse to increase taxes even a penny

Yep, I've been seeing it too. I have an Aunt who's a die-hard Trump supporter. She's been refusing Medicare because taxes. She'd rather see people suffer than let everyone get the medical care they need because she doesn't want to see taxes rise. And there's no budging on her part.

Dies she gave private insurance still? If not, how does she deal with medical issues?

[Isgrimnur]

Terms/concepts this election inadvertently made me aware of:

1. Incel
2. Manosphere

I may or may not regret this.
What is manosphere?

Incel online echo chamber.

[Rumpy]

I'm seeing it at a local level where there's a few GOP lunatics that vote down *everything* related to tax increases. It doesn't matter what it is, they refuse to increase taxes even a penny

Yep, I've been seeing it too. I have an Aunt who's a die-hard Trump supporter. She's been refusing Medicare because taxes. She'd rather see people suffer than let everyone get the medical care they need because she doesn't want to see taxes rise. And there's no budging on her part.

Dies she gave private insurance still? If not, how does she deal with medical issues?

Dunno. She's hard to talk to because because she's so adamant and we don't talk to her very often as a result, and there was a big argument that resulted over it. All I know is she prefers that that everyone pay higher prices. Not like she's without issues and not getting young though. I just don't understand the thought process that would lead someone to say that though. It comes across as really callous.

[Punisher]

I'm seeing it at a local level where there's a few GOP lunatics that vote down *everything* related to tax increases. It doesn't matter what it is, they refuse to increase taxes even a penny

Yep, I've been seeing it too. I have an Aunt who's a die-hard Trump supporter. She's been refusing Medicare because taxes. She'd rather see people suffer than let everyone get the medical care they need because she doesn't want to see taxes rise. And there's no budging on her part.

Dies she gave private insurance still? If not, how does she deal with medical issues?

Dunno. She's hard to talk to because because she's so adamant and we don't talk to her very often as a result, and there was a big argument that resulted over it. All I know is she prefers that that everyone pay higher prices. Not like she's without issues and not getting young though. I just don't understand the thought process that would lead someone to say that though. It comes across as really callous.

Is she independently wealthy or something or do you think that she truly believes that even her Healthcare should be really expensive?

[waitingtoconnect]

Terms/concepts this election inadvertently made me aware of:

1. Incel
2. Manosphere

I may or may not regret this.
What is manosphere?

Incel online echo chamber.

It’s a hell where everything believes everything Tucker Carlson says about testicle tanning… and every one talks about how they all don’t need women but run endless misogynist memes about how bad women are for not sleeping with them.

[LordMortis]

Today was the first day my head didn't start the day racing with negativity! 6 days. In the scheme of things I guess that's not too bad. Here's to hoping it lasts.

[Skinypupy]

I'm seeing it at a local level where there's a few GOP lunatics that vote down *everything* related to tax increases. It doesn't matter what it is, they refuse to increase taxes even a penny

Yep, I've been seeing it too. I have an Aunt who's a die-hard Trump supporter. She's been refusing Medicare because taxes. She'd rather see people suffer than let everyone get the medical care they need because she doesn't want to see taxes rise. And there's no budging on her part.

Dies she gave private insurance still? If not, how does she deal with medical issues?

Dunno. She's hard to talk to because because she's so adamant and we don't talk to her very often as a result, and there was a big argument that resulted over it. All I know is she prefers that that everyone pay higher prices. Not like she's without issues and not getting young though. I just don't understand the thought process that would lead someone to say that though. It comes across as really callous.

Feels like I’ll be saying this ad nauseam for the next several years.

“I don’t know how to explain to you that you should care about other people.”

[Smoove_B]

I just don't understand the thought process that would lead someone to say that though. It comes across as really callous.

I can help as I have family members that have communicated similar thoughts. It comes down to perception and what they feel is "earned". For whatever reason there seems to be a belief that some people have more of a "right" to the same level of benefits -or- that when too many of "them" participate in a shared benefit, your benefits are reduced (or perhaps made less special).

To a certain degree there's also a perception that some people didn't "work as hard" to get the benefit you're both receiving.

In short, it comes down to (in my experience) the belief that your benefit is somehow diminished because the "wrong" people have access to the same services.

It's gross.

[stimpy]

How does her not taking Medicare result in others not being able to "because taxes"?
I'm approaching that age and guess I should start learning how things work.....

[$iljanus]

How does her not taking Medicare result in others not being able to "because taxes"?
I'm approaching that age and guess I should learning how things work.....

I guess if there’s enough old folks that don’t use Medicare then there’s no need for additional taxes to fund it because less users=more money in the Medicare trust fund which could even lead to a reduction in Medicare withholding in paychecks.

If people really feel like that I hope they have the courtesy of buying private health insurance or not clogging up the emergency rooms because they are obligated to care for you.

[LawBeefaroni]

There are a lot of reasons to want everyone to have access to healthcare.

Many of them can even be sold to selfish people. For example, a more robust healthcare system will be able to to take better care of them. Do you want your heart surgeon to have 20 surgeries under his belt or 200? Do you want drug companies to put more money into developing solutions to your particular malady, or less?

[Blackhawk]

I just don't understand the thought process that would lead someone to say that though. It comes across as really callous.

I can help as I have family members that have communicated similar thoughts. It comes down to perception and what they feel is "earned". For whatever reason there seems to be a belief that some people have more of a "right" to the same level of benefits -or- that when too many of "them" participate in a shared benefit, your benefits are reduced (or perhaps made less special).

To a certain degree there's also a perception that some people didn't "work as hard" to get the benefit you're both receiving.

In short, it comes down to (in my experience) the belief that your benefit is somehow diminished because the "wrong" people have access to the same services.

It's gross.

It's the #1 rationale for people hating those on disability. You have no idea how many times I've heard that I shouldn't be receiving money from Social Security because I didn't 'earn' it (with apologies to John Houseman.)

[Rumpy]

Is she independently wealthy or something or do you think that she truly believes that even her Healthcare should be really expensive?

I wouldn't say wealthy, no. She and her husband have long since been retired. She was a pascal programmer, he was in the Navy. They live alone in a log home in NY State. They are in fact in an age group that would stand to benefit greatly from Medicare.

I just don't understand the thought process that would lead someone to say that though. It comes across as really callous.

I can help as I have family members that have communicated similar thoughts. It comes down to perception and what they feel is "earned". For whatever reason there seems to be a belief that some people have more of a "right" to the same level of benefits -or- that when too many of "them" participate in a shared benefit, your benefits are reduced (or perhaps made less special).

To a certain degree there's also a perception that some people didn't "work as hard" to get the benefit you're both receiving.

In short, it comes down to (in my experience) the belief that your benefit is somehow diminished because the "wrong" people have access to the same services.

It's gross.

It's the #1 rationale for people hating those on disability. You have no idea how many times I've heard that I shouldn't be receiving money from Social Security because I didn't 'earn' it (with apologies to John Houseman.)

Come to think of it, they did express those very sentiments, ie being earned. And I absolutely agree, it's disgusting, and it really shocked us to hear it come out of her mouth, and it's what led to that big argument I'd mentioned, and it directly led to some family members being blocked on Facebook.

I tend to feel that everyone has different life experiences, and everyone should be able to contribute in society in different ways, and everyone should have access to affordable healthcare. It should be a basic human right. It is so flawed to see a disabled person and think they can't either earn or contribute, because you're then only seeing the surface physicality, not the inner strength or intelligence a person might possess. To then say a disabled person or someone of low-income hasn't 'earned' their right to affordable healthcare, which imho, they might need more than someone who appears healthy and make the rules, is appalling.

When Trump openly mocked disabled people on live-TV, I was appalled and saddened. The reality is that the person being mocked likely had way more intelligence and inner-strength. They're going to need it for these 4 long years. Sorry guys, thanks for letting me rant.

[$iljanus]

So much of my angst comes from waiting for that other shoe to drop. Or if I may indulge in some hyperbole, waiting for the Visigoths to come a knocking on the city gates or a French citizen in WW2 wondering what life will be under Vichy rule in France. But I take solace in my faith and apologies for the long quote but it is this sermon from one of my favorite churches which gives me my marching orders. It’s a great sermon but if it’s a little long I will bold the part in the bottom third that I hope gives you courage and inspiration to not just endure but to stand in the coming 4 years.

It’s been a long week, a stressful week, a week of emotional highs and lows. I think many people have a kind of election hangover. 74 million Americans are happy, even thrilled that Donald Trump won the election. At the same time, 70 million Americans are heartbroken and despondent that Kamala Harris lost. And yet, as I said in my homily the day after the election, as different from one another as these people may be, we should not lose sight of the fact that the vast majority of folks on both sides of the aisle are good people, ordinary people, people like you and me – people who love their families, people who work hard, people who want safety and security and a slice of the American dream. The truth is, we have much more in common with each other than we do differences and like it or not, we are all bound together by our common humanity. As painful as it may be at this raw moment for some people to hear, in the end, there is no us and them, there is only us. And some of us may need to write this down on a piece of paper and tape it to our mirrors as a daily reminder – there is only us.

I know there will be serious consequences because of this election, some I pray will be good and some I worry may be quite dangerous, but I am trying to keep my perspective. Did you hear the Psalmist for today? (By the way, you know I didn’t pick these lessons. In our church tradition we all use the same lectionary, we are given the same assigned lessons every Sunday so that churches all over the country are preaching on the same texts.) In this sense, I consider our Psalm this morning to be a bit of grace and a wake up call. “Put not your trust in rulers, nor in any child of earth, for there is no help in them” the psalmist says. “When they breathe their last, they return to earth, and in that day their thoughts perish. Happy are they who have the God of Jacob for their help! whose hope is in the LORD their God.” The Psalmist speaks the truth. We should not forget that there is no politician that is going to save us, no party, no political platform. I know many people are upset today while some are quite happy – but the psalmist reminds us to lift up our heads and expand our horizons beyond the results of November 5, to lift our heads up and look beyond the fleeting nature of politics, to place our hope on God and God’s promises, and keep our allegiances where they belong.

In our lessons for today we hear about two widows who gave all that they had to honor God. Now, we must remember that Widows in ancient Palestine had few if any legal rights. They could not inherit from their spouses and so if their husbands died, they were totally dependent on the charity of their extended families or the pity of others. Moreover, the fact that they were widows was often seen as God’s punishment for the sin of their families.

The widow of Zarephath had almost nothing, just enough oil and meal to cook up one last piece of fry bread. She knew that after this was gone, she and her son would starve to death. But when Elijah commanded her to give him some of her bread, she trusted him enough to obey. As a result, everyone got something to eat and there was enough left over to feed the woman and her son for many days. In our reading from Mark, Jesus praised the generosity of a widow. Her two small coins placed in the Temple treasury meant more than any of the others because she had so little but wanted so badly to be faithful.

My friends these two stories are not ultimately about giving food or giving money, they are about trust. They are about the trust these two widows had in God’s love and grace. They trusted God enough to know that even in their desperate situation if they gave what they had, God would not leave them desolate. As Jesus said to his disciples, “give, and it will be given to you; good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over, will be put into your lap. For the measure you give will be the measure you receive.”

Friends, some of us may feel as frail and frightened today as those widows and wonder what we are to do in the days and weeks ahead? Well, I think that like the widows we are to give. We are to trust that God is doing more than we could ask for or imagine – and we are to give what we can of ourselves to love our neighbor, to love our enemies, to hold us together as a nation because, again, there is no us and them, there is only us. As Brene Brown wrote the other day, “Right now, the thing that is helping the most is micro-dosing hope. I have no access to big hope right now; however, I am asking myself how I can support the people around me. The people on my team, in my community. How can I make sure that, in the maelstrom of my emotions, I stay committed to courage, kindness, and caring for others regardless of the choices made by others? Doing the smallest next right thing is hard, but sometimes it’s all we’ve got.”

The other day a friend came to me concerned that he and his father might be at a breaking point. They were both on radically different ends of the political spectrum and they could agree on nothing. My friend was frustrated and disappointed with his dad and wanted to know what more he could do if anything. I asked him if they had ever sat down and tried to talk things out. He said they had on numerous occasions, and it had gotten them nowhere, it only strained their relationship more. I asked him if he thought there was anything he could say or do that would change his father’s mind. With deep sadness in his eyes, my friend said no, his father wasn’t going to change. Then just love him, I said. Just love him in spite of himself. Do everything you can to hold onto him and your relationship. Give him what you can of yourself and even though it may seem like a widow’s mite, right now the love of a son for a father is enough. God can do amazing things when we try and love.

In closing, there is another part of our Psalm today that we cannot forget. “Who gives justice to those who are oppressed,” the Psalmist writes, “and food to those who hunger. The Lord sets the prisoners free; the Lord opens the eyes of the blind; the Lord lifts up those who are bowed down; The Lord loves the righteous; the Lord cares for the stranger; he sustains the orphan and widow, but frustrates the way of the wicked.

In the days ahead, while we work to hold onto one another, giving what we can to heal our divisions, striving to love our neighbor, striving to love our enemies, we must at the same time stand up for the values of the cross, the values of the Kingdom. As the baptized, we are supposed to be the body of Christ, to do Christ’s work in the world. That means we have a responsibility to stand up for the weak, to care for the poor, to push back against racism, sexism, homophobia, and demonization of the stranger. That means speaking out against bad policy, hateful rhetoric, and any attempt to distort the truth. These things are not party, they are Gospel values. They are not left or right, Democrat or Republican – they are God’s commands.

We have our marching orders. If we call ourselves Christians then regardless of who sits in the White House, our work is the same – to love God, to love our neighbor, to be bearers of the Good News and to be the hands and feet of Christ in the world.

We have our work cut out for us. Amen.



The Very Rev. Randolph Marshall Hollerith, Washington National Cathedral

https://cathedral.org/sermons/happy-are ... -the-lord/

[LordMortis]

The other day a friend came to me concerned that he and his father might be at a breaking point. They were both on radically different ends of the political spectrum and they could agree on nothing. My friend was frustrated and disappointed with his dad and wanted to know what more he could do if anything. I asked him if they had ever sat down and tried to talk things out. He said they had on numerous occasions, and it had gotten them nowhere, it only strained their relationship more. I asked him if he thought there was anything he could say or do that would change his father’s mind. With deep sadness in his eyes, my friend said no, his father wasn’t going to change. Then just love him, I said. Just love him in spite of himself. Do everything you can to hold onto him and your relationship. Give him what you can of yourself and even though it may seem like a widow’s mite, right now the love of a son for a father is enough. God can do amazing things when we try and love.

This has been me for eight years. I'm on a break and I don't know when it will end. I just can't. Sucks because I don't know how many months or years together we have left but I just can't. If I had to, I'd go off like a bomb and then there might be no coming back from that.

[Zarathud]

Reagan Era promised a post-apocalyptic future wasteland. America was good enough to buy about 40 years. Long enough to get Star Trek recorders, but not long enough to get Transporters and Warp Drives.

[Skinypupy]

I'm sure this is fine. Nothing to see here.

Vladimir Putin aide has warned Donald Trump that he is "obliged" to fulfill promises he made during his presidential campaign to bring peace to Ukraine.

And Nikolai Patrushev, part of the Russian president's inner circle and former Secretary of the Security Council, told the Russian newspaper Kommersant that Trump was duty-bound to act on his words.

Patrushev said: "To achieve success in the elections, Donald Trump relied on certain forces to which he has corresponding obligations. And as a responsible person, he will be obliged to fulfill them.

"During the preelection period, he made many statements to attract voters to his side, who ultimately voted against the destructive foreign and domestic policies pursued by the current U.S. presidential administration.

"But the election campaign is over, and in January 2025, it will be time for the specific actions of the elected president. It is known that election promises in the United States can often diverge from subsequent actions."

[Kraken]

If you want to make trump not-do something, tell him it's obligatory.

[Punisher]

That bold part has me wondering if he's implying that Russia helped him win.

So, that makes me ask a question.
What would happen if concrete proof of election interference or fraud was found after he takes office?

[Archinerd]

Maybe it's just me reading into it but if I were Trump I'd be extra care around umbrellas, he already has enough trouble with them even when they aren't dipped in ricin.

[Skinypupy]

That bold part has me wondering if he's implying that Russia helped him win.

So, that makes me ask a question.
What would happen if concrete proof of election interference or fraud was found after he takes office?

Doesn’t matter how concrete, that proof simply does not exist.

God could personally come down from on high, point her finger at Trump specifically, and say “THIS MF’ER RIGHT HERE DID IT” and MAGA would still say it’s all just a liberal plot and “fake news”.

[LordMortis]

Maybe it's just me reading into it but if I were Trump I'd be extra care around umbrellas, he already has enough trouble with them even when they aren't dipped in ricin.

Not just you.

[LawBeefaroni]

Maybe it's just me reading into it but if I were Trump I'd be extra care around umbrellas, he already has enough trouble with them even when they aren't dipped in ricin.

Not just you.

I don't think it's that. I think it's a reminder about whatever kompromat they have on him.

If it were a direct threat on his life, the best counter would be to crush Russia in Ukraine and completely erode Putin's power.

[Punisher]

So I'm rewatching Star Trek DS9 and just hit S3E24 and one of the first scenes is completely relative.
It helps if you are familiar with the show and it's characters but you can get the jist of it.

[Grifman]

So begins the purge and politicization of the military:

“The Trump transition team is considering a draft executive order that establishes a “warrior board” of retired senior military personnel with the power to review three- and four-star officers and to recommend removals of any deemed unfit for leadership.”

https://www.wsj.com/politics/national-s ... yURL_share

[Smoove_B]

I just assumed this was a given. How else are you going to have military staff that is going to follow instructions to enforce whatever insane immigration mandate he's going to reveal on 1/20/25?

[Skinypupy]

Well, the comments on that article are certainly horrifying.

It's hilarious to think that Trump will simply be rooting out the "DEI generals" and not simply dismissing anyone he doesn't feel is sufficiently loyal to him personally.

[Alefroth]

The slow motion coup is picking up speed.

[Max Peck]

When you have important work in mind for your military, you need to be sure that only the best officers are leading them.

Who Would Support Deploying the Military to Domestic Protests?

Editor’s Note: Former President Donald Trump has promised to deploy the military to fight crime, stop protesters, and otherwise play a policing role. Kolby Hanson of Wesleyan University and Austin Knuppe of Utah State University find that the American people often favor military intervention. Military leaders, however, are far more opposed and may use their institutional position to try to delay or avoid domestic deployments.

In the final weeks of the presidential campaign, Donald Trump and his running mate, JD Vance, warned of violence by “radical left lunatics” around Election Day. Both have said that, if necessary, uniformed military forces should be deployed to contain Democratic protesters, whom Trump referred to as “the enemy within.”

When the former president has made these threats in the past—most notably during the racial justice protests during summer 2020—national security professionals and scholars raised two major concerns. First, the military could be used selectively against domestic opponents. If a president can deploy military forces to suppress protests by members of other political parties while tolerating those by co-partisans, it threatens democratic expression and turns the military into a tool of domestic politics. Second, many argued the military is inappropriate for domestic policing at all. As Lindsay Cohn argued recently in this outlet (based on scholarly work with Jessica Blankshain and Danielle Lupton), expansive domestic deployments could undermine the legitimacy of key institutions in the eyes of U.S. citizens. Trust in the military and domestic law enforcement, they argue, relies on the roles of the military being limited and clear. Their surveys found that, when given a choice, most voters view domestic policing of protest as more legitimate when carried out by the National Guard or police.

If the president deploys the military for domestic policing, would public and military officers go along with the decision? Would the public—especially the president’s partisan supporters—embrace military action against progressive protesters or punish the president for violating norms? At the same time, would military officers consent to deploying into domestic protests, or would they oppose doing so?

In a recent journal article, we fielded parallel surveys among two groups: a representative sample of U.S. voters and a group of leadership-track military officers—students at the U.S. Naval War College, where Hanson was a faculty member at the time. Though opinions can change in the heat of a crisis, these surveys capture, to a decent approximation, how the U.S. public and military officers view civil-military issues. We found that the public, in general, is favorable toward military deployments but military officers are strongly opposed.

Public support for deploying leopards on the streets of America is obviously strongest amongst those who are confident that the leopards would never eat their faces.

[Blackhawk]

It's been said a thousand time in these very forums that, should it ever come down to serious internal strife in the US, the military would be bound to follow the law and the Constitution over the CiC, and that any serious unrest by the citizens would succeed or fail based on which side the military fell on.

The GOP is aware of this, and are taking steps to ensure loyalty.

[$iljanus]

I suppose as long as the military is cracking down on antifa blue state strongholds much of America will sleep soundly.

[Kurth]

The slow motion coup is picking up speed.

It ain’t a coup if you voted for it. That’s called democracy.

[waitingtoconnect]

Well, the comments on that article are certainly horrifying.

It's hilarious to think that Trump will simply be rooting out the "DEI generals" and not simply dismissing anyone he doesn't feel is sufficiently loyal to him personally.

I thought project 2025 was true?

So far looks like it is.

We have an evangelical Israeli ambassador who believes that a greater Israel is necessary so that Maga Jesus can be born.

Elons happy, now he gets to determine regulations, for his own companies. Vivek will be his second so he’s happy. They’ve called the department DOGE and now Dogecoin is being pumped up in the crypto market.

[Max Peck]

We have an evangelical Israeli ambassador who believes that a greater Israel is necessary so that Maga Jesus can be born.

And believes that Armageddon is a good thing, in the end (of days).

Meanwhile, Trump has ideas about the sort of general he's looking for...

Trump: ‘I Need the Kind of Generals That Hitler Had’

The potentially fatal flaw with his desire in this regard is that once he purges the officers that are loyal to the Constitution, he's left with officers that are, by definition, disloyal and probably very ambitious. At some point, such men may to come to the conclusion that power grows from the barrel of a gun, and they're the ones who control the guns. Why serve the imperial idiot when you can sit on the throne yourself, or at least follow in the praetorian tradition of controlling who sits on the throne?

[Rumpy]

I even question just how much support he'd have among retired military given he wasn't exactly praising them in his speeches.

[waitingtoconnect]

We have an evangelical Israeli ambassador who believes that a greater Israel is necessary so that Maga Jesus can be born.

And believes that Armageddon is a good thing, in the end (of days).

Meanwhile, Trump has ideas about the sort of general he's looking for...

Trump: ‘I Need the Kind of Generals That Hitler Had’

The potentially fatal flaw with his desire in this regard is that once he purges the officers that are loyal to the Constitution, he's left with officers that are, by definition, disloyal and probably very ambitious. At some point, such men may to come to the conclusion that power grows from the barrel of a gun, and they're the ones who control the guns. Why serve the imperial idiot when you can sit on the throne yourself, or at least follow in the praetorian tradition of controlling who sits on the throne?

It’s worth pointing out that nearly all hitlers generals had to be bribed. The intelligent ones only turned on him when the war was clearly lost.

In a Roman context generals did very often use their armies to seize power.

Trump though offers something a bit different. He offers a complete withdrawal more or less to our own borders and direct sphere of influence. A retreat to a 1930s america.

In 1945 we took over from the British and French empires as hegemon of the western world. In 1940 we faced a choice (which the Japanese ended up making for us) to live in glorious isolation as the British had in the 19th century aloof of European and Asian affairs or to use our undoubted strength to influence world affairs in our favor. That decision has made this country great before anyone’s wildest dreams.

Trump and his acolytes seem to be proposing a withdrawal from this. The results of this would create a power vacuum the Chinese and Russians will exploit and will diminish us greatly.

There is a reason why China and Russia are not as strong as us. They have no friends. At the moment at least we do. But if the new administration starts doing what Sean spicer has been suggesting on far right Uk and Australian tv and telling our allies that the people need to elect leaders trump likes and appoint ambassadors loyal to trump or they’ll lose support and have sanctions imposed will we still have friends or will we have colonies?

Trump doesn’t just have sycophants here . He’s got loyal politicians and Murdoch journalists just waiting to be endorsed by him like he endorsed Orban and Farange.

Trump demanded Greenland from Denmark last time out because we wanted to screw over Canada and own both entrances to the new north east passage. Will they be our friends then?

As the comedian says in watchmen, the biggest issue with the American Dream is it came true. Now we are the spoiled rich kid.

[Grifman]

A little good news, relatively speaking:

[Grifman]

Once called on Russian TV a “friend of Russia”: