The Imperial Presidency

[robkelk]

Politically hot parts of US Constitution briefly deleted thanks to 'coding error'

It would be a simple matter to take the Library's word when it said a coding error caused the issue, but some internet denizens weren't willing to accept that excuse, as all three missing bits related to one Trump controversy or another.

[robkelk]

Trump wants to take over some U.S. cities. It's unlikely — but he can make life hard for them

tl;dr: His Orangeness is upset that people might elect mayors who don't like him. It's unlikely he can override Constitutional guarantees of States' rights to take over NYC or LA... but DC isn't in a state.

He's gone and done it.

Trump to deploy National Guard in D.C. — even as data shows crime at 30-year low

U.S. President Donald Trump announced on Monday that he will deploy hundreds of D.C. National Guard troops on the streets of Washington as part of a push to rein in violent crime, even as local police data shows those incidents are down sharply this year.

[classicdrogn]

just a bit of wordplay that occurred to me while waking up - "rob-public-again malarchy" with the latter pronounced halfway between a normal prefix and root combination of mal- with -archy and "malarkey."

[Labster]

Yeah, Mississippi is sending in some National Guard troops to DC, presumably in revenge for all of that Civil Rights stuff back in the '60s.  Also India and China are having some high level diplomatic meetings right now, because it's much easier to solve a decades long border war than to figure out wtf Trump is going to do with tariffs. (not sarcasm)

It's starting to be not fun.  Already, government officials are saying that there is no room for people like me in the United States.  It's like the only emotions I've had in the past few months are hatred, rage, and despair, and all I can manage to do is cycle through them.  It's not that there was some breaking event, it's just the gradual erosion of life and reason here.  Every day is just a little worse than the day before.  And life tomorrow will be worse than it is today, and the day after tomorrow will be even worse, and it will go on like that, without end, no chance of getting better.  This I know as a self-apparent fact.

I used to take my dog for a walk to calm down, but that stopped working yesterday. You see, I start thinking about the teenager who was abducted off the street by ICE while he was walking his dog down in LA, and how outsiders have come into my home and start telling us who can and can't be part of our people.  My dog likes walking through the dollar store to smell things (girls like shopping, y'know?).  I picked up a tube of toothpaste on the way, because it's cheapest there.  Then I notice the toothpaste is made in Mexico, and it will probably get more expensive with tariffs.  We walk outside the store, and around the corner is a lamppost bearing a sign of a missing person, an immigrant, asking for information.  We walk past the hospital on the way home.  The hospital is fine, but without work, there's no way I could afford to ever go there, even if I was dying.  The government has told me that I do not qualify for any assistance on health care, even canceling insurance that I was paying for.  But maybe that's a bright side?  Why would I want to live longer, anyway?

So yeah, anger-hatred-despair.  This is why I never get any writing done.  I can barely remember what it's like to have normal emotions, and it's hard to write characters if you're just guessing what happiness or jealousy or curiosity feel like.

I mean, things are objectively not that bad (yet), and sociopathic leaders are hardly a new phenomenon (cf. The Iliad). But it's just watching the goodness evaporate slowly away in the name of greatness, and knowing the name of the dross remaining when good vanishes. It's like an existential hurt, knowing that at long last, after centuries of revolutions and science and enlightenment, that us humans will never escape cruelty and selfishness and violence, simply because that is what we prefer.

[Dartz]

I've just been reading that fake Newsome profile tweets. They're funny. Taking the absolute piss out of authority is the best way to bring it down.

Some folk seem to be fighting back.


Also They want you to despiar.


Also, Vance is complaining that his wife won't fuck him anymore because all she can think of is the picture of him with a bald head everytime she looks at him.