@Phil @realcaseyrollins of course i hope i'll have to concede this one to you. god help us we don't need a war now.
@Phil @realcaseyrollins his oath, by the way, is to protect and defend the Constitution. but i sure hope he does protect and defend American citizens. i'll be impressed if he doesn't take the Biden Administration approach of ignoring deaths of American citizens in Israel/Palestine if they are ethnic Palestinians. 1/
@Phil @realcaseyrollins so far i've seen the opposite of any kind of successful or meaningful projection of power, other than in Israel, where Netanyahu wanted to give his ally a win in exchange for greater help and license going forward. which he has gotten, in Trump's plain endorsement of population transfer / "ethnic cleansing" from Gaza. (which, to be clear, at least has the virtue of a certain honesty that the prior administration lacked on Gaza). /fin
people don't like their franchise transgressed, i guess. it's fun when accusations of "judicial coup" issue from the people pursuing the more old fashioned kind.
@realcaseyrollins @Phil i guess i'll respect it when i see it. so far, the folks i know who went for Trump on a supposed ant-imperialist / anti-war line have not been willing to acknowledge any important transgressions. "russiagate" outweighs all of it, they say. it's just his bluster.
@realcaseyrollins i can respect that.
but then i’d expect some expressions of disappointment for a “no new wars” candidate who has now hinted at openly imperialistic military actions that were so far off the table you’d have needed a warp drive to find them a few months ago.
@gl33p i guess i’m talking about a community maybe exemplified by Glenn Greenwald, but of whom i know others. does anti-US-imperialism necessarily lead to apology for other imperialisms? not necessarily, but the Tulsi Gabbard arc is pretty common.
there are lots of elements of US foreign policy principled people can and should oppose! of course!
but a large swathe of these people became essentially a part of the MAGA coalition. they exist, and that’s the group I’m addressing.
@realcaseyrollins i’ll believe that when i see more of them disavowing their support for Trump as somehow the lesser evil.
@realcaseyrollins if you tell me you believed this was Trump’s line when you supported him during the campaign, okay. If you tell me you still believe it now, well, i’ll tell you one is born every day.
@realcaseyrollins anti-imperialist, or pro other empires, our dear Tulsi. Trump portrayed himself as antiwar while campaigning, now he won’t rule out the use of force against Greenland/Denmark and Panama, he promises “all hell is going to break loose” in Gaza Saturday if all hostages are released, openly seeks territorial expansion in a way no US President has for more than a century.
@ShiitakeToast i’m friends with some of them. it’s difficult. “mistake the country’s failures for its goals” is an excellent summary.
on the anti-US-imperialist left (“tankies”), i wonder if part of Trump’s appeal, perhaps only semiconsciously, is that he’d be openly as bad as they were always sure the United States always was. they’d be proven right, and no more of what they perceived as hypocritical sanctimony.
“We’re gonna shit in the swamp!”
this is like a cartoon where the legion of doom wins and takes over the world.
in the cartoon such moments are always brief interregna. may life imitate art.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/feb/10/trump-order-foreign-bribery-act
ht @T0nyyates
the George Carlin bit is gonna be really catchy. https://mas.to/@markwyner/113984319867071750
i put a few bucks in the freezer and i don't see what the big deal is.
Please take the stakeholder survey.
without comment.
source: https://xcancel.com/ggreenwald/status/1888965357714416072
Screenshot of tweet from Glenn Greenwald: Text: The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is one of the very few tools ordinary Americans have to fight against the onslaught of abuses from massive corporate power. How is it consistent with the stated MAGA agenda to empower ordinary Americans to cripple it or shut it down?
"While it appears that it has never been easier for anyone to freely share their opinions with the world, the apparatus that shapes the public’s thoughts and sentiments has never been in the hands of fewer men. (And yes, they are all men.)" #JohnGanz https://www.thenation.com/article/society/last-days-discourse-electronic-plebescite/
"The pattern here is impossible to miss: Take money from USAID, sabotage their Ukraine efforts, face investigation, launch an attack on the agency’s credibility, use your newfound illegitimate government power to shut it down, and cap it off by amplifying Russian disinformation about USAID." @mmasnick https://www.techdirt.com/2025/02/10/as-elon-musk-continues-to-repeat-lies-about-who-and-what-usaid-funded-turns-out-it-funded-elon-musk/ ht @glynmoody @onepict
@cJ in practice a President can prevent enforcement of Federal law by Federal law enforcement, and he can pardon Federal infractions. but states have law enforcement power too. state laws may be broken, and states can sometimes enforce Federal law and the Constitution too.