The glory that is our Congress, especially thye GOP, have been having townhalls after a month of His Highness’ program to ‘save America’ and it has not been going so well….Georgia, Tennessee and Missouri townhalls have shown the anger that has been leveled at the Reps when they are at home (these are just the ones that I know off first hand there may be more)…..and now the GOP has slammed on the brakes on such meet and greet with the peasants.
Well, we guess Republican congressmen have tried this town hall thing and it went poorly for them, so now they’re going to go back to hiding from voters. It’s not like they believe in democracy or answering to their constituents anyway. What’s the point of Donald Trump’s and Elon Musk’s fascist Nazi takeover if Republicans have to be held accountable or face re-election? As Trump said on the campaign trail, just come out and vote this time — he was talking to white supremacist Christian nationalists — and you won’t have to vote anymore, ever again.
No more people who jeer at you and tell you to fuck yourself when you tell them their unemployment is all part of God’s glorious plan. No more people to scream at you to do your job or get offended when you say them asking you questions is just like January 6. Don’t these peasants understand their congressman’s job is to help Dear Leader usher in a new golden age dictatorship of autocracy and Nazism?
NBC News reports that House Republicans have decided to “hit the brakes” on all this town hall rigaramarole. They’re “weary and wary,” says the article. And the party leaders are saying “oh bless your hearts!” and “oh you poor things!” and saying they shouldn’t do town halls anymore if they’re scary, and they ARE very scary:
Party leaders suggest that if lawmakers feel the need to hold such events, they do tele-town halls or at least vet attendees to avoid scenes that become viral clips, according to GOP sources.
A GOP aide said House Republican leaders are urging lawmakers to stop engaging in them altogether.
In typical fashion the GOP is blaming outside agitators for the problem….because apparently they want to believe that their assaults on the people’s lives is nothing for them to get angry at so it must be those damn outside agitators.
First and foremost….who are these ‘outside agitators?
Does GOP seriously believe that their actions could not anger anyone of their faithful?
This way they do not have to actually hear in person from people upset with them or their clueless leader.
The voter of this great land has gone to the edge of cruelty….we are witnessing something that has happened before but we choose to ignore the implications…
At its core, this culture strips working people, the poor, Black and Brown communities, and the marginalized of dignity, hope, and the right to a decent life. Though cruelty has long been woven into the fabric of American history, Trump’s second administration will wield it as an instrument of governance—hollowing out social bonds, eroding moral compassion, and suffocating collective resistance. In its place, it will stage an endless array of brutal spectacles, a politics of suffering in which fear and violence are both the means and the message.
Trumpism is not an aberration but the logical extension of a neoliberal system that thrives on hierarchy, disposability, and fear. The destruction of public goods accelerates the emergence of what Etienne Balibar calls “the transition from the social state to the penal state”—where repression replaces care, and policing takes the place of welfare. The gutting of federal aid programs, the assault on diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives, and the defunding of institutions that support the most vulnerable are not incidental; they are central to the neoliberal strategy of dispossession. In the age of Trump, cruelty becomes an organizing principle of violence as is evident in homegrown notions of fascism that define citizenship in racist inclusive terms for white Christians only, sanctions genocide in Gaza, promotes mass poverty, and supports the ecological destruction of the planet. What we are witnessing as Pankaj Mishra notes is the emergence of a culture convulsed in hatred and rancor matched by an ongoing process of dehumanization and a “retreat into grandiose fantasies of omnipotence.” Trump’s presence in American politics appears as the current endpoint in which hate, bigotry, and sanctioned ruthlessness “have reached a new peak of ferocity.”
And now people are asking how did we get to this point?
That is a easy answer….we got here because the American voter is lazy and is easily influenced by bullshit.
President Trump and his MAGA Republicans and their forces are smashing American democracy, the Constitution, the rule of law, the institutions and norms. Trump has enacted over 50 executive orders since Jan. 20, the most in a president’s first 100 days in more than 40 years. Some of the most egregious ones are blatantly unconstitutional and violate current law. It has only been three weeks since Trump returned to power; these are the good times compared to what will come next.
Be very wary of any political observer or other public voice — or anyone else — who suggests that Trump and his MAGA movement are losing, in disarray, ineffective or somehow confused or weak. Such people are seeing what they want to see and not what is actually happening. Donald Trump and his MAGA movement’s strategy is chaos. Moreover, that chaos is in service to their shock and awe strategy to end America’s pluralistic democracy and to replace it with a form of autocracy if not outright fascism modeled on Viktor Orbán’s Hungary or Vladimir Putin’s Russia with Trump as de facto leader for life. As Harold Meyerson observes in The American Prospect, “As to the wider world, if we ever sought to be that beacon on the hill, we’re now the bully on the hill. America, Trumpified.”
Crap! My treatments kept me from getting the breaking news on the mash up in the Oval Office….I apologize for the lateness of my post on the incident….
Friday Zelensky came to DC to meet with Trump and sign a minerals deal in a photo op…..did not end well at all….( I believe this is common knowledge by now)
World leaders typically play nice for the cameras in the Oval Office, but a meeting of President Trump, Vice President Vance, and Ukraine leader Volodymyr Zelensky turned “remarkably fractious” on Friday, reports the New York Times.
“You’ve got to be more thankful,” Trump told Zelensky during the exchange, per the Washington Post. “You’re not really in a good position right now. You’re gambling with World War III. And what you’re doing is very disrespectful to the country—this country.”
The animosity began after Vance called diplomacy the key to peace, and Zelensky complained about Russian President Vladimir Putin breaking numerous agreements, reports NBC News.
Zelensky: “He killed our people, and he didn’t exchange prisoners,” Zelensky said of Putin. “What kind of diplomacy, JD, you are speaking about? What do you mean?”
Vance: “I’m talking about the kind of diplomacy that’s going to end the destruction of your country, Mr. President. … I think it’s disrespectful for you to come into the Oval Office to try to litigate this in front of the American media right now.” Vance added that Zelensky was conducting a “propaganda tour” and asked, “Have you even said ‘thank you’ once?” per the AP.
The Times calls the back-and-forth in front of TV cameras “one of the most dramatic moments ever to play out in public in the Oval Office,” underscoring the shift in the US view of Ukraine since Trump took office in January.
No deal: Zelensky left without signing an expected deal on mineral rights, reports the Hill.
Watch: See video of the fiery meeting in the Oval Office here.
The turn: Things began in cordial fashion, but they started getting testy after about 40 minutes when Trump was asked a question about Russian President Vladimir Putin, reports Axios. This devolved into a discussion in which the three men were at times nearly shouting over each other. Zelensky asked for security guarantees from the US, while Trump and Vance said he was in no position to make demands and complained that he wasn’t appreciative enough of US support.
“Mr. President, with respect, I think it’s disrespectful for you to come into the Oval Office to try to litigate this in front of the American media,” Vance told the Ukraine leader, per the Washington Post. “You should be thanking the president for trying to bring an end to this conflict.” To which Zelensky said: “Have you ever been to Ukraine? Come once?”
When Zelensky told Trump the US would feel the repercussions of the war despite the “nice ocean” separating America from the conflict, Trump shot back: “Don’t tell us what we’re going to feel,” per Politico. “We’re trying to solve a problem. You’re in no position to dictate what we’re going to feel. We’re going to feel very good and very strong.”
Trump also told Zelensky: “You’re right now not in a very good position. You’ve allowed yourself to be in a very bad position. You don’t have the cards right now. With us, you start having cards.” And Zelensky answered: “I’m not playing cards. I’m very serious, Mr. President.”
I know some just cannot bring themselves to read so this is for those lazy people.
This is the quote that tells me this was an ambush the entire timne….
Following the presser, Trump posted on TruthSocial that the deal was off. “We had a very meaningful meeting in the White House today. Much was learned that could never be understood without conversation under such fire and pressure. It’s amazing what comes out through emotion, and I have determined that President Zelensky is not ready for Peace if America is involved, because he feels our involvement gives him a big advantage in negotiations. I don’t want advantage, I want PEACE. He disrespected the United States of America in its cherished Oval Office. He can come back when he is ready for Peace.”
This video is the longer version…..for those interested….
Trump did Russia a favor…..
Dmitry Medvedev, former Russian prime minister and president and deputy chair of Russia’s Security Council, was among those to voice his pleasure. “The insolent pig finally got a proper slap down in the Oval Office,” Medvedev wrote on X. “And @realDonaldTrump is right: The Kiev regime is ‘gambling with WWIII.'” On Telegram, he also called Zelensky a “cocaine clown” and said, “The ungrateful swine got a hard slap in the face from the owners of the pigsty…That’s a good thing, but not enough.” Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova also took to Telegram: “How Trump and Vance exercised restraint and didn’t punch this scumbag is a miracle of restraint.” And Konstantin Kosachev, deputy chairman of Russia’s senate, said Zelensky only hurt Ukraine with the meeting. “Zelenskyy lost this round with a deafening crash. And he will have to crawl on his knees for the next one.”
I am no fan of Zelensky and have not been kind to him here on IST (use archives to check) but I think he was set up by Trump and it was the theater that Trump wanted not the minerals deal….He, Zelensky, did not deserve the treatment he got publicly…..this sort of thinjg would have been best in private not in front of the cameras…..but what can we expect from a no class Cretan like Trump?
After all what do you think of the meeting and the contentious debate that followed?
Breaking news…..
The White House is considering ending all aid transfers, including weapons, to Ukraine after an Oval Office press conference turned into an argument between President Donald Trump, Vice President JD Vance, and Ukrainian President Zelensky.
According to The Washington Post, “The Trump administration is considering ending all ongoing shipments of military aid to Ukraine in response to President Volodymyr Zelensky’s remarks in the Oval Office on Friday and his perceived intransigence in the peace process.”
If the aid is terminated, Ukraine would not receive billions of dollars in weapons from the US, including missiles and ammunition that was approved through the Presidential Drawdown Authority.
The New York Times reported that weapons deliveries to Ukraine have “slowed to a trickle” even before Friday’s heated exchange. However, Trump is now considering cutting off other support to Kiev.
