i wonder how many of those people using the word “relieved” were only feeling that way because the same party did everything they could to make those people terrified of anyone who looked, thought or sounded different to them and now they think trump is exporting them carte blanche to Salvador prisons.
Their sense of relief is entirely manufactured.
As I said, the attack on the Capitol was disorganised, undisciplined, and lacked any clear objective. What it did do, however, was show Trump that he could incite his followers to violence.
If he’s going to use volunteer fighters in future, they need to be disciplined and under strategic command. The best way to do that is to establish a legal framework for the formation of privately organised volunteer police/military groups. And that’s where I see these presidential orders going.
The Army anniversary just happens to coincide with Trump’s 79th birthday on June 14.
Ok, so it’s not quite as blatant self-agrandizement at the expense of the tax payer as the headline makes it seem. Still inconsistent to drop a couple millions on something completely unneccessary when he’s cutting necessary costs left and right…
Good conversation. Some clarification on the strategy involved in the lawyers for cops thing:
First off @jedidia, while it is certainly reasonable to wonder at the idea that cops would have to get their own lawyer to defend them after an on the job incident, in the US they are provided a lawyer by their union, not their employer, specifically because whatever comes of any criminal charges there will be fallout in the form of civil lawsuits. If his attorney is casting an eye to the future, where the county will be very interested in “we aren’t liable, this guy acted on his own against our instruction,” it can compromise his defense.
Now, that begs the question, do police unions really need to be helped out with pro bono efforts from the most respected law firms in the country? Probably not. But the real issue is that those firms are being coerced into offering those services as an object lesson. To whit, if someone wants to sue Donald Trump, investigate Donald Trump, or Donald Trump is suing someone or having them prosecuted, law firms providing representation to the ‘enemy’ of Donald Trump do so at their peril. At the root of it all, a law firm cannot handle any case with classified records as evidence if the firm’s attorneys are denied security clearances…and that’s what Trump has weaponized here.
So now I’m learning that in a country where everybody thinks Unions are evil and will ruin the economy, it is state employees of all people that have one? You know, the folks that traditionally have the best job security already and whose departments tend to form protective alliances with other departments to make sure that everybody gets a fair cut of that tax money (well, maybe not fair, but a cut in any case)? Your country is becoming more inexplicable to me every day… 
Don’t worry. It is being simplified by the day. Departments shrinking, protections and rights vanishing, everything controlled by one man.
Today it is worker safety programs being slashed.
Cue the Brutalism boom (with no safety regulations)
This is the kind of thing happening almost daily
https://www.npr.org/2025/05/02/nx-s1-5371720/national-science-foundation-budget-grant-cuts-turmoil
At this rate, I fully expect that soon, when something bad happens, people will start accusing that odd fellow that lives down the crooked road into the woods, of being a witch that is putting curses on the area.
So he wanted to promise job security and it ended up sounding like slavery… Yup, these people certainly have their heads up their asses!
I kinda get where he is coming from. I grew up in a town that had a paper mill. The only way you got a job there is if your father and his father worked there. It was a reliable business for decades. You made a good living, you got a good retirement.
But the thing stunk. So much so there was a song about it. It polluted the ground for decades. You had to run your car thru a car wash that was provided on site, otherwise, the metal on your car started rusting.
Then one day, it all ended. The whole town turned out for the demolition of the biggest stack. It was all over and we all rejoiced for the end of the smell and the pollution.
But, these guys don’t realize those days are over. They want to bring it back. Sometimes, there just is no going back. Sometimes, that is a good thing.
There were reliable jobs in the steel mills and the coal mines. Of course, most of the guys who worked in them were old men by 45, and dead before they reached 60, but hey, those jobs were sure reliable.
I keep dreaming I will wake up but then I realized that is just a dream
OMG…truck stops here now place a $100 hold on your debit card for gas until it clears the bank.
Poor girl here got $10 worth of gas then went to the grocery store and could not get groceries. Went back to the truck stop to ask why they were taking $110 from her account and found out they put the $100 hold on her card. $110 was all she had. She cannot get groceries until the $10 clears and that could take 5 business days.
I will definitely not be getting gas at any truck stops.
Well, that’s one way to solve Hollywoods creativity problem, I guess. Just kill the entire industry… 
If games are next, I’m afraid I’ll have to switch priorities on Orbital Margins to a german translation.
Alcatraz, the notorious former prison on a California island that has been closed for more than 60 years.
Closed due to… being too expensive. Like, that’s literally why they closed the rock down. And the guy wanting to save every penny everywhere wants to reopen it. Seriously, I’m starting to think you guys should vote for someone else.
I started learning German during the time I was around many German speaking women at Ft Campbell. Then I took up Klingon. Similar in many respects. 
A common mistake to make, since Klingon is closely related to swiss-german. At least that’s what the germans say. However, as a Swiss, I have to say that Klingon appears to have much softer guttural sounds than swiss german. Might just be because all Klingons I heard so far had an english accent.
Qapla, traveler!