Make the cuts, Katie
General Trump Administration F**kery Thread (2025-2029)
- Thread starter OfTheCross
- Start date
Make the cuts, Katie
sjankis630
Pro
Trumps pick Russell Vought who leads the OMB just shut down the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau which was created back in 2010 to help protect consumers from after the 2008 financial fallout. Vought originally headed a group back in 2021 to fight CRT. (No one mentions it anymore so I guess it worked?)
And then you'll go into TLR bemoaning people for wanting a king. Lol
Parliamentarian isn't a judicial function
Its 2025.
Will have the same weak party in 2029
Poetical Poltergeist
Precise and cold hearted
he fell for it again 
WIRED (@wired.com)
Services supporting victims of online child exploitation and trafficking around the world have faced USAID and State Department cuts—and children are suffering as a result, sources tell WIRED. https://wrd.cm/4hR8WmD
bsky.app
@wired.com
Services supporting victims of online child exploitation and trafficking around the world have faced USAID and State Department cuts—and children are suffering as a result, sources tell WIRED.
US Funding Cuts Are Helping Criminals Get Away With Child Abuse and Human Trafficking
February 10, 2025 at 1:08 PM
Trump’s Gaza proposal frustrates his new Arab American supporters
DEARBORN, Mich. — The half-dozen Lebanese American retirees sat socializing in the same spot they do every afternoon: the mall sofas on the ground floor of Fairlane Town Center.
Ali Hammoud, 77, was still incensed over what President Donald Trump had said days earlier about the United States taking control of the Gaza Strip, moving out its remaining residents and facilitating its redevelopment as the “Riviera of the Middle East.” Hammoud was among the longtime Democrats who helped Trump win this heavily Arab American city outside Detroit, supporting him for the first time in November over their dissatisfaction with Joe Biden and Kamala Harris’s support for continued aid to Israel.
Now, some Arab American voters here who helped Trump win back Michigan are wondering whether they were duped by his promises to bring a swift end to the war that has left Gaza decimated.
“Instead of helping them in their own country, he wants to make it as a ‘riviera’ and kick all the Palestinians out,” Hammoud, one of more than a dozen people interviewed, said in disbelief, before saying that Trump’s plan is “never going to happen.”
“Impossible,” Hammoud added.
He doesn’t regret voting for Trump last year, though.
“I still do like him, in a way,” Hammoud admitted. “He is good to America. … But as a Middle East policy, he’s lousy.”
Some here who spoke to The Washington Post have given Trump a pass for the comments about Palestinians and the conflict in Gaza, insisting that they were merely a tasteless negotiating ploy and that he will back away from them. Others believe Trump hoodwinked his new Arab American supporters, luring them in with assurances of peace and respect for Palestinians, only to do Israel’s bidding. And broadly, even those unhappy with his latest announcement still give Trump credit for there being a ceasefire at all — believing that his election expedited a process that would have dragged out longer otherwise.
Whether Trump can keep these new supporters could have significant implications not just on key upcoming statewide races Republicans believe they can win in Michigan, but on the fragile coalition the party assembled to gain ground this fall and declare sweeping governing mandates.
Trump came to office vowing that he would be a bigger backer of Israel than Biden ever was, but also urging Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to wrap up the conflict quickly. Trump also told Hamas there would be “all hell to pay” if it did not release the remaining hostages before Inauguration Day.
Trump’s Middle East envoy, Steve Witkoff, worked closely with the outgoing Biden team to help broker the ceasefire deal that quieted the fighting on Jan. 19, a day before Trump retook office. Israel’s assault on Gaza — launched after the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attack on Israel that killed more than 1,200 people — has claimed at least 47,000 lives, according to the Gaza Health Ministry, which does not distinguish between civilians and combatants but says the majority of the dead are women and children.
Starting in September, Israel launched widespread airstrikes on what it said were Hezbollah militant positions in Lebanon, followed by a ground invasion. It agreed to a ceasefire there in late November, but Israeli forces remain in Lebanese territory.
Seated next to Hammoud on the mall sofa, Sam Hasshem, 85, moved a string of orange rosary beads through his fingers. A lifelong Democrat, Hasshem also voted for Trump for the first time in November — but he doesn’t feel good about it now.
“I don’t like him,” Hasshem said. “He talked nice before he went in. Everybody said he makes peace, wants to make no more war, no more problems. But he’s a liar.”
In a nearby armchair, 60-year-old Kass Hachem, a lifelong union worker and Democrat, also withheld a vote from Harris last year. He voted for the Green Party’s Jill Stein.
‘There’s plenty of time to correct it’
In the fourth-floor conference room of an office complex in Dearborn, Faye Nemer, 39, said Trump’s Gaza position just wasn’t aligned with the promises of “peace and dignity” he made to her community in the fall.
She, too, had voted for him in November for the first time, after supporting Biden and Democrats in the past. And as CEO of the MENA American Chamber of Commerce — a Dearborn-based business group seeking to promote collaboration between the Middle Eastern and North African region and the United States — she helped organize meetings of both the Harris and Trump campaigns with local Arab American business leaders.
“It’s like saying ‘Uproot the 2.9 million people in Kyiv, Ukraine, just because there’s destruction there,’” Nemer said. “Or Hurricane Katrina victims — imagine telling Americans that you can’t return to your community because a hurricane destroyed your home or decimated the infrastructure.”
Nemer, though, is still hopeful that Trump will back away from the suggestion. And she claimed that if Harris had won, “there wouldn’t be any Palestinians left to relocate.” She questioned why Trump’s administration would “undermine and dismiss the momentum that they built” with Arab Americans.
“If they continue down this path of alienating that part of the base, I think it’ll come back to haunt them during the upcoming election cycle,” Nemer said.
The conflict in Gaza isn’t an academic issue for many Arab Americans in the area. Nemer’s family in Lebanon, from which she immigrated to the United States at age 10, also suffered loss. Her cousin’s 6-year-old child was killed during Israeli attacks in southern Lebanon. Nemer said Palestinians and the sovereignty of Lebanon became a “red line” in the election.
In early September, Nemer’s group hosted two advisers from Harris’s team in the same conference room where she met with a Post reporter this week. The campaign representatives started the meeting by saying bluntly they couldn’t commit to making any changes to Harris’s policy on Israel and Gaza, Nemer said.
Emotions were high. The previous evening, Liz Cheney — whose father was a leading advocate for the U.S. invasion of Iraq — had endorsed Harris. One of the business leaders in attendance at the meeting had lost immediate family members that morning in Gaza. Another leader closed her notebook and got up to leave after initial remarks from Harris’s team, Nemer said, but was urged to stay.
A month and a half later, interest in a meeting with Trump’s team was so high, they had to move it to a larger room, Nemer said. Some 40 local Arab American leaders came to hear from Massad Boulos, a Lebanese American businessman and the father-in-law of Trump’s youngest daughter, Tiffany. Soon after — and just days before the election — Trump again promised to secure lasting peace during a visit to a Lebanese-owned restaurant in Dearborn.
That effort impressed Arab Americans in the area, Nemer said. Trump won Dearborn and Dearborn Heights after losing them both in 2016 and 2020, and saw gains in the nearby heavily Arab American community of Hamtramck.
Part 2:
“Where we may have a disconnect,” Nemer said, “is what is his vision of peace compared to our community’s vision of peace? Our community’s vision of peace is that there is no pathway to peace unless there is a sovereign Palestinian state.”
Local Arab American leaders who met with Trump’s team during the campaign are still working their points of contact as much as they can, hoping the Trump administration takes their warnings seriously.
In November, President Donald Trump won Dearborn, a heavily Arab American city outside Detroit. (Nick Hagen for The Washington Post)
The Muslim mayors of Dearborn Heights and Hamtramck, who endorsed Trump and campaigned for him this election, did not respond to requests for comment. Nor did the mayor of Dearborn, who declined to issue an endorsement in the election and had been critical of Biden’s policies on the war.
Albert Abbas, who hosted Trump in Dearborn in November at his Lebanese family’s restaurant, said Trump’s recent comments were “concerning,” but he believes Trump still has an opportunity to change course and keep his support from Arab Americans in Michigan.
“He won on a plurality, not on a majority. And the future of elections, whether it’s midterm or presidential elections, will be heavily weighed upon the upcoming steps that he takes in regards to foreign policy in Gaza and in Lebanon,” Abbas said.
He was stunned to see Trump gladly receive a golden pager trophy from Netanyahu this week 
, a reference to pager explosions after Israel targeted Hezbollah officials in Lebanon, but which also maimed and killed innocent civilians. Abbas said that Trump should have rejected it and that “accepting such a plaque is deeply insensitive to human life.” His community had previously believed Trump was “the only one” who would stand up to Israel and the American Israel Public Affairs Committee.
“Right now, the current statements don’t align with that,”
Abbas said. “However, there’s plenty of time to correct it.”
Samer Ibrahim, a 42-year-old engineer, sat out the election altogether this past year. Previously a Barack Obama supporter, he was intrigued enough by Trump in 2016 to vote for him, a decision that raised eyebrows from some of his Arab American friends at the time.
But, Ibrahim said, voting this time “felt like it was stupid,” adding that “both options were really bad.” He thought Trump, having emerged from four years out of power, sounded like he was going to go too far this time. Scrolling on Facebook this past week and seeing posts about Trump’s latest Gaza comments, Ibrahim felt vindicated for not supporting him again.
Samer Ibrahim voted for Trump in 2016. He decided not to vote in November because he thought both candidates were poor choices. (Nick Hagen for The Washington Post)
He doesn’t mind, though, that many of his fellow members of the local Muslim community had reevaluated their longtime loyalty to the Democratic Party, an allegiance that had largely been based on feeling like Democrats were more open and accepting of minority cultures and religions.
“If you really want to look close, I should be much, much closer to the Republicans,” Ibrahim said in between sips of tea at a Yemeni coffee shop. “I don’t want women in my boys’ locker room,” he went on, referencing the debate over transgender athletes. “I have two boys, and I’m very worried about it now.” 
Democrats here will have their work cut out for them in winning back the voters they lost.
Sam Baydoun, a Democrat and Wayne County commissioner who supported Harris, said that despite “many people in the community feeling abandoned” by the Democratic Party last year, he was sure Harris would not have advocated “for ethnically cleansing the Palestinians.”
“Even Joe Biden, as much as he was a staunch supporter of this war that was waged against the Palestinians … did not advocate for, you know, removal of 2 [million] Palestinians from their land,” Baydoun said.
Khalid Turaani, a Palestinian American and founder of the Abandon Biden (and later Harris) campaigns and the Uncommitted movement, said he believes Trump’s Gaza remarks were merely a “smokescreen” and “distraction” from his controversial actions domestically.
“None of the things that Trump said he wants to do will he be able to do,” Turaani said. “We’re trying to figure out what his plan is, but we know exactly what Biden and Harris did.
“So do we have any regrets? No.”
“Where we may have a disconnect,” Nemer said, “is what is his vision of peace compared to our community’s vision of peace? Our community’s vision of peace is that there is no pathway to peace unless there is a sovereign Palestinian state.”
Local Arab American leaders who met with Trump’s team during the campaign are still working their points of contact as much as they can, hoping the Trump administration takes their warnings seriously.
In November, President Donald Trump won Dearborn, a heavily Arab American city outside Detroit. (Nick Hagen for The Washington Post)
The Muslim mayors of Dearborn Heights and Hamtramck, who endorsed Trump and campaigned for him this election, did not respond to requests for comment. Nor did the mayor of Dearborn, who declined to issue an endorsement in the election and had been critical of Biden’s policies on the war.
Albert Abbas, who hosted Trump in Dearborn in November at his Lebanese family’s restaurant, said Trump’s recent comments were “concerning,” but he believes Trump still has an opportunity to change course and keep his support from Arab Americans in Michigan.
“He won on a plurality, not on a majority. And the future of elections, whether it’s midterm or presidential elections, will be heavily weighed upon the upcoming steps that he takes in regards to foreign policy in Gaza and in Lebanon,” Abbas said.
He was stunned to see Trump gladly receive a golden pager trophy from Netanyahu this week
, a reference to pager explosions after Israel targeted Hezbollah officials in Lebanon, but which also maimed and killed innocent civilians. Abbas said that Trump should have rejected it and that “accepting such a plaque is deeply insensitive to human life.” His community had previously believed Trump was “the only one” who would stand up to Israel and the American Israel Public Affairs Committee.“Right now, the current statements don’t align with that,”
Abbas said. “However, there’s plenty of time to correct it.”Samer Ibrahim, a 42-year-old engineer, sat out the election altogether this past year. Previously a Barack Obama supporter, he was intrigued enough by Trump in 2016 to vote for him, a decision that raised eyebrows from some of his Arab American friends at the time.
But, Ibrahim said, voting this time “felt like it was stupid,” adding that “both options were really bad.” He thought Trump, having emerged from four years out of power, sounded like he was going to go too far this time. Scrolling on Facebook this past week and seeing posts about Trump’s latest Gaza comments, Ibrahim felt vindicated for not supporting him again.
Samer Ibrahim voted for Trump in 2016. He decided not to vote in November because he thought both candidates were poor choices. (Nick Hagen for The Washington Post)
He doesn’t mind, though, that many of his fellow members of the local Muslim community had reevaluated their longtime loyalty to the Democratic Party, an allegiance that had largely been based on feeling like Democrats were more open and accepting of minority cultures and religions.
“If you really want to look close, I should be much, much closer to the Republicans,” Ibrahim said in between sips of tea at a Yemeni coffee shop. “I don’t want women in my boys’ locker room,” he went on, referencing the debate over transgender athletes. “I have two boys, and I’m very worried about it now.”
Democrats here will have their work cut out for them in winning back the voters they lost.
Sam Baydoun, a Democrat and Wayne County commissioner who supported Harris, said that despite “many people in the community feeling abandoned” by the Democratic Party last year, he was sure Harris would not have advocated “for ethnically cleansing the Palestinians.”
“Even Joe Biden, as much as he was a staunch supporter of this war that was waged against the Palestinians … did not advocate for, you know, removal of 2 [million] Palestinians from their land,” Baydoun said.
Khalid Turaani, a Palestinian American and founder of the Abandon Biden (and later Harris) campaigns and the Uncommitted movement, said he believes Trump’s Gaza remarks were merely a “smokescreen” and “distraction” from his controversial actions domestically.
“None of the things that Trump said he wants to do will he be able to do,” Turaani said. “We’re trying to figure out what his plan is, but we know exactly what Biden and Harris did.
“So do we have any regrets? No.”
Trump Muses About a Third Term, Over and Over Again
The president’s suggestion that he would seek to stay in office beyond the constitutional limit comes as he has pushed to expand executive authority.
Trump Muses About a Third Term, Over and Over AgainThe president’s suggestion that he would seek to stay in office beyond the constitutional limit comes as he has pushed to expand executive authority.
37m ago
President Trump sitting in the Oval Office.
Just eight days after he won a second term, Donald Trump mused about whether he could have a third presidential term, which is barred by the Constitution.Cheriss May for The New York Times
Standing inside the Capitol for the National Prayer Breakfast on Thursday, President Trump declared his plans to resurrect an idea he had in his first term: to create a national garden filled with statues of notable Americans.
The choice of who would be included would be “the president’s sole opinion,” Mr. Trump said, chuckling. And he was giving himself “a 25-year period” to make the selections.
A short time later, at a breakfast at a Washington hotel, Mr. Trump flicked again at the prospect that his time in office could extend beyond two four-year terms.
“They say I can’t run again; that’s the expression,” he said. “Then somebody said, I don’t think you can. Oh.”
President Trump speaking from behind a lectern in the Capitol.
At the National Prayer Breakfast on Thursday, Mr. Trump spoke of giving himself a “25-year period” to choose statues for a national garden.Eric Lee/The New York Times
Just eight days after he won a second term, Mr. Trump — whose supporters attacked the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, in an effort to prevent Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s victory from being certified — mused about whether he could have a third presidential term, which is barred by the Constitution.
Since then, he has floated the idea frequently. In public, he couches the notion of staying in office beyond two terms as a humorous aside. In private, Mr. Trump has told advisers that it is just one of his myriad diversions to grab attention and aggravate Democrats, according to people familiar with his comments. And he has made clear that he is happy to be past a grueling campaign in which he faced two assassination attempts and followed an aggressive schedule in the final weeks.
The third-term gambit could also serve another purpose, political observers noted: keeping congressional Republicans in line as Mr. Trump pushes a maximalist version of executive authority with the clock ticking on his time in office.
“It serves Donald Trump’s public relations to start the bantam rooster crowing that he may serve a third term because it makes him not a lame duck,” said Douglas Brinkley, a presidential historian.
“It insinuates that he’s one of the greats like Franklin Delano Roosevelt, that the people are demanding another term and, ‘I guess I’ll do it because I’m a patriot,’” Brinkley added, referring to the 32nd president, whose four terms in office spurred the constitutional amendment setting presidential term limits.
A White House spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment.
Mr. Trump’s advisers mock those who take his comments about a third term seriously, saying he has been trolling his critics with the idea of a permanent presidency since he launched his campaign to return to the White House.
But his suggestion that he could stay in office beyond January 2029 now comes against a very different backdrop. In the first three weeks since his inauguration, Mr. Trump has sought to sweepingly expand executive power and granted the world’s richest man, Elon Musk, seemingly unfettered reach to dismantle federal agencies and to push roughly two million federal workers to consider leaving their posts.
Even when Mr. Trump presents something as a joke, the idea he suggests often becomes socialized by his supporters, both those in office and in the right-wing media. The concept then often takes on more weight, including for Mr. Trump.
Recently, some Republicans have started pushing the idea of changing the Constitution for him.
“People are already talking about changing the 22nd Amendment so he can serve a third term,” Dan Patrick, the lieutenant governor of Texas, posted on X on Jan. 25, a message that Mr. Trump elevated on his own platform, Truth Social. “If this pace and success keep up for 4 years, and there is no reason it won’t, most Americans really won’t want him to leave.”
Three days after Mr. Trump was sworn in for the second time, Representative Andy Ogles of Tennessee, a relative newcomer in the House, proposed an amendment to the Constitution that would allow the president to serve a third term. His proposal: that presidents who serve two nonconsecutive terms, like Mr. Trump, would be able to run again.
“He is dedicated to restoring the republic and saving our country, and we, as legislators and as states, must do everything in our power to support him,” Mr. Ogles wrote in a statement accompanying the joint resolution.
The chances of his proposal succeeding seem dim: Mr. Ogles’s measure would have to be approved by a two-thirds vote of Congress and then ratified by three-fourths of the states.
In a text message, Mr. Ogles, who is not known to be close to the president, told The New York Times that he had not spoken with Mr. Trump or anyone close to him before he filed the resolution.
Giving voters “the choice to re-elect Trump to serve a third term is the path to saving our Republic,” which he said incurred years of damage under Mr. Biden, he added.
Mr. Trump’s first musing about a third term came at a House Republican event in Washington, shortly before he met with Mr. Biden after the election.
“I suspect I won’t be running again unless you say, ‘He’s so good we’ve got to figure something else out,’” Mr. Trump said.
At a rally in Las Vegas on his first weekend in office, the president joked, “It will be the greatest honor of my life to serve not once, but twice or three times or four times.” The crowd applauded, before Mr. Trump suggested it was a joke.
“Headlines for the fake news,” he said. “No, it will be to serve twice. For the next four years, I will not rest.”
And on Jan. 27, at a House Republican event at his club Doral, Fla., Mr. Trump said, “I’ve raised a lot of money for the next race that I assume I can’t use for myself, but I’m not 100 percent sure.”
He asked at another point, rhetorically, “Am I allowed to run again?”
Mr. Trump then turned to Speaker Mike Johnson, a former constitutional lawyer who would have to be involved in such a matter as whipping votes for a change to the Constitution.
Mr. Trump said, to chuckles from Mr. Johnson and others, “Mike, I better not get you involved in that.”
ADevilYouKhow
Rhyme Reason
They’re cooked regardless
