America. 7/4/1776 to 11/5/2024.

[billy rubin]

I'd be hugely surprised if voters such as our self entangled Billy could make the connection between his action and his future woe.

Drill baby drill.

in what ways do you consider me entangled, penny?

Sorry Billy, I saw you as something other and I thought self entangled, but that's not it.
You're so free
You can carry a gun and be the next Dalai Lama
You can promote panpsychism on an atheist forum and no one says WTF
you won't vote for a Democrat because of Gaza
you deplore the wrong being done to the earth but Gaza so why not Trump

I think you're some very particular kind of fucking idiot Billy.

harris's public support for israel killed her for six of the seven members of my family. my twenty year old son said that he flatly would nt vote for genocide, whether it was democrat or republican. he voted for stein, even though our right wing ohio secretary of state announced that he would not count any votes for stein. gaza killed six votes for harris in my family.

mercy

well then, this appears to be a golden opportunity for you to cease reading my posts and to ignore my existence.

i encourage you to do so.

[Tank]

Have you seen who Trump has put in charge of the military! WWIII here we come.

[billy rubin]

the fox news host?

i shudder.

meet the new attorney general



matt gaetz is still under ethics investigation by the house of representatives for accusations of statutory rape and drug use, iirc. he will head the justice department, which oversees the FBI.

but we have elected a clown, and he is now presenting the circus.

[Icarus]

Trump is busily anointing a variety of questionable characters for the various secretaries of this or that. Matt Gaetz as Attorney General, accused of dalliances with under age females, fanatical Trump suck up, along with several other disqualifying traits . Appointing a Fox news anchor guy to be Secretary of Defense is puzzling but typical Trump. Kristi Noem for secretary of something or other, governor of South Dakota, and famous for shooting dogs? Noem a Trump suck up, along with damned near all of the other appointees.

The senate has to confirm all these appointments but that is almost a no sweat deal. The senate has a majority of loyal red members.  Trump is also angling for approval to use "recess appointments" which means that when the Senate is in recess, the president can make appointments without senate approval. The president has the power to issue a recess order..............how clever!

Trumps buddy-buddy status with Victor Orban and V. Putin is not an encouraging prospect.

[Icarus]

Here is our new attorney General. A real sexy dude with tats to prove it........

https://imgur.com/gallery/trumps-new-defense-secretary-ZADgI0F

[Dark Lightning]

Trump is busily anointing a variety of questionable characters for the various secretaries of this or that. Matt Gaetz as Attorney General, accused of dalliances with under age females, fanatical Trump suck up, along with several other disqualifying traits . Appointing a Fox news anchor guy to be Secretary of Defense is puzzling but typical Trump. Kristi Noem for secretary of something or other, governor of South Dakota, and famous for shooting dogs? Noem a Trump suck up, along with damned near all of the other appointees.

The senate has to confirm all these appointments but that is almost a no sweat deal. The senate has a majority of loyal red members.  Trump is also angling for approval to use "recess appointments" which means that when the Senate is in recess, the president can make appointments without senate approval. The president has the power to issue a recess order..............how clever!

Trumps buddy-buddy status with Victor Orban and V. Putin is not an encouraging prospect.

I'm feeling despair over the direction this nation is headed. I really wish that that kid had had time for better aim. I don't give a pinch of feces what anyone thinks of that statement. Better one turd flushed than what's going to happen with a bunch of incompetent sycophants pulling the levers of government with no understanding of their operation. Might as well have the remaining monkeys loose in North Carolina pulling those levers. FWIW, I've seen where Putin mocked the chump's claim that he'd stop the war in Ukraine within two days of being elected. Putin doesn't even need to visit the US and talk with the chump. Just the chump's being elected is enough to trash the US. 

[Icarus]

Try not to despair too much DL. A friend who happened to be a shrink gave me a valuable bit of advice one time. The gist of the advice is to not agonize over some circumstance or event over which you have absolutely no control. That is not easy for either of us at this time of so miserable a chain of events.

I am ashamed that I have changed my perspective a bit in the last few days. I have also speculated about having the kid adjust his aim 8 centimeters up and 9 centimeters to the right. I am pretty sure that there are more than two of us who have gotten to the point of abandoning our moral compass.

We now have the news that The Donald has proposed to have Mike Huckabee assigned as the Ambassador to Israel. A freaking Baptist preacher, who is a certified religious fanatic, can now go to Israel and convert the Hebrews and Palestinians to Jesus.

Here is a thought that has crept into my old brain............Trump announces that he will select several questionable candidates for his cabinet. The Senate must approve of those selections. Some of the senators will reject certain ones of his proposals. The other senators will approve. That is a damned crafty way to discover who the the most loyal Trump lackeys are, and which of them do not have their noses up his Royal ass. 

[Tank]

I'm lost for words, I really am. I can't bare to read the news at the moment. And I don't even live there.

[Icarus]

I think it was around 1956 when Nikita Krushev assured us: we will conquer America without filing a shot. America will destroy itself from within.

[Asmodean]

The drawback of a free society is that sometimes, its residents will exercise their freedom in a destructive direction.

Frankly, I see more danger to the United States from balkabnisation of its society - yes, also over Donald Trump - than I do from his cabinet's potential policy direction.

[Icarus]

^ The word you used, Balkanisation, is frighteningly close to reality, I fear.

[Asmodean]

Yes, though I messed it up. I was being on my mobile phone with my four decades old fingers, which were last new and nimble during the past millennium, which is a thousand years, by the way. Apparently, I can't spell worth crap on a iPhone. Venice for Venus and balbaki-something for Balkanisation. Good times.

In any case, that takeaway is largely based on The Internet(tm), which does not always reflect the "real world," but what I do observe there is mutual unfriendliness, if not plain hostility, across political allegiances, ethnicities, Identities(tm), social statuses and so forth. That's Balkanisation, and that's... Unfortunate, to understate it a understated bit.

Far be it for me to dispense sage advice about holding hands and singing hippie songs, but I think that this trend will continue and possibly continue to escalate as long as people are unwilling to see each other as fellow Americans first and foremost. (What, aside from common geography, does unite you or ought to unite you as a "weightier" concern when measured against what does divide or ought to divide you)

At least when it comes to ideology, I'd like to highlight this here study;
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-019-12227-0

It's worth going in to, but in the interest of brevity, I'd like to draw attention to this here heat map, showing moral allocations relative to ideology (explained in the quote belosw image);

Heatmaps indicating highest moral allocation by ideology, Study 3a. Source data are provided as a Source Data file. Note. The highest value on the heatmap scale is 20 units for liberals, and 12 units for conservatives. Moral circle rings, from inner to outer, are described as follows: (1) all of your immediate family, (2) all of your extended family, (3) all of your closest friends, (4) all of your friends (including distant ones), (5) all of your acquaintances, (6) all people you have ever met, (7) all people in your country, (8') all people on your continent, (9) all people on all continents, (10) all mammals, (11) all amphibians, reptiles, mammals, fish, and birds, (12) all animals on earth including paramecia and amoebae, (13) all animals in the universe, including alien lifeforms, (14) all living things in the universe including plants and trees, (15) all natural things in the universe including inert entities such as rocks, (16) all things in existence

While it may seem like a matter of irreconcilable opposites, it's worth considering that at the end of the day, it's just a matter of looking at the same thing from different angles. Yes, it's valid to consider the "needs of the Universe" above those of your across-the-street neighbour, but then so is it valid to consider your neighbour's interests above those of the Universe.

[Icarus]

Heat maps be damned. We have huge divisions here in the U.S.of A.

[Asmodean]

That's what the heatmap shows. Huge division with regard to assigning moral value "from self" vs "from everything."

My point is that it's still the same things being considered. If it is of high value to you, does not mean that it's of high value to me. If it is of high value to me, does not mean that it's not valueless to you. That's fine.

[Old Seer]

I see it as a fight between Americanis

It's just Trump, mom
You're running away
You'd never believe
What the kids vote today

Seriously though, the United States did not die today any more than it did when Trump was elected for his first term. It was utterly unsurprising that he got his second. Personally, I though it would be closer because for one, i did not expect him to get the popular vote, which it appears that he did, and also I expected a couple of the "battlegrounds" to go Harris. The outcome itself though, broadly speaking... The markets expeccted it for weeks, and I have learned to trust them more than distrust.

This is probably bad news for muh Ukraine situation, but probably OK news for muh Israel situation. Internally in the US... I suspect Trump 2 will be not-unlike Trump 1. I see some possibility for some older Supreme Court justices to retire, so the court will get a "young" Republican majority, so that's one thing... Besides that, there are some upsides and downsides.

Moral is, don't go jumping off bridges until you're shoved off them.

Also, and purely because The Asmo is feeling meme-ish, does this make Trump officially a beater og women?

...Couldn't resist. for shame on His Gray Terribleness.

I see it as a fight between Americanism and communism.  Americanism = personal rights, communism/socialism = no personal rights. The constitution is redundant - It's unconstitutional to go against the constitution which is founded on natural rights not man made rights. Natural rights cannot be erased just overridden. A population always retains it natural rights but not allowed by tyrants to exercise them.