The Trump Presidency - Chapter 2

[NobodyHere]

Originally Posted by JPhillips

I just read that Project 2025 wants to get rid of federal flood insurance. That will really go over well in FL.

But doesn't federal flood insurance basically favor the rich? Sounds like a good program to get rid of.

[Lathum]

IIRC section 230 is what protects social media companies from liability for whats posted on their platforms.

I'm sure that would go over well with Musk.

[RainMaker]

Originally Posted by Lathum

IIRC section 230 is what protects social media companies from liability for whats posted on their platforms.

I'm sure that would go over well with Musk.

They obviously won't be enforcing it on companies that are friendly to the administration.

[JPhillips]

Originally Posted by NobodyHere

But doesn't federal flood insurance basically favor the rich? Sounds like a good program to get rid of.

In dollar terms, yes, but lots of people have mandated flood insurance. It may just be a plan to funnel federal subsidies to private insurance plans, but if they really cut it that will fuck thousands during the next Gulf hurricane.

[Edward64]

Happy that Morning Joe reached out and tried to reconcile.

Morning Joe was my morning show of choice when I was travelling and living in hotel rooms. They had good guests, insights and "both sides". And then 2016 happened and IMO they became way too partisan and the Fox equivalent.

I'll let things settle down some and then give them another shot.

MSNBC hosts Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski, fierce critics of President-elect Donald Trump, say they traveled to Mar-a-Lago for a meeting with him to reopen lines of communication that would better serve their morning show viewers.
:
On Monday’s show, the hosts said they had reached out to Trump last Thursday and met with him the next day. “It was the first time we have seen him in seven years,” Brzezinski said.

She said Trump was “cheerful, upbeat,” even as the three of them discussed issues they disagreed on.

[JonInMiddleGA]

Originally Posted by cuervo72

I'm sure they'll try something, but I'm not sure what the FCC can do (or rather, should be able to do) against the networks. The locals that carry them, perhaps. But the networks themselves I would think would be protected much the same way Fox is.

(Even there, I'm not entirely sure how the whole local station setup hasn't...well, not collapsed, per se, but just transformed. Other than Jim and his antenna setup, who is getting these stations OTA anymore? I've gotten my locals via DirecTV or YouTube, I'd think these delivery mechanisms would be clear of the FCC.)

OTA is pretty stable for the past few years, believed to be around 14.5% nationally. Some markets it's around 1/3rd, other markets are in single digits.

But the delivery method doesn't matter in terms of the station's legal ability to exist _as currently constituted_. Loose the broadcast license, there's nothing to send via those digital outlets. Now could you reconfigure it? Sure.

The big "however" is what's known as the must-carry provision.

I'll let Google AI summarize that "Local television stations are "guaranteed" cable access due to a regulation called "must-carry," which means cable providers are required by law to carry all locally licensed broadcast stations on their systems, essentially providing access to them on the cable lineup.


Did you spot the key phrase there: "locally licensed"

When the license goes away, so does the must-carry provision. And at that point you're talking about individual stations needing to negotiate terms, and cable providers having 100% of the leverage.

[Sweed]

Originally Posted by cuervo72

I'm sorry, I'm missing how it is substantively different?

I don't know, you think it's ok to group all men or boys together because some did a bad thing? How does that fly when applied to other groups?

"This is just the same "not all Muslims" argument all over again."

Maybe I'm reading your post wrong? If so I apologize.

[Ben E Lou]

"not all men."



I'm curious, cuerv. What percentage of men would you say fit the profile that Lathum has described?

[Lathum]

I think there are more than most of us know or would care to know.

This is getting a little OT, but here is one example.

I read a story in my local paper yesterday about the rise of illegal massage parlors aka brothels, in Jersey and nationwide.

Investigation finds illicit massage parlors are rampant in New Jersey

It may be behind a paywall, but the article says there are over 13,000 of these nationwide. The girls almost exclusively are human trafficked from China and Korea. You can imagine how many men paying for sex it takes to keep these operational. Each one of those men are complicit in human trafficking, questionable rape, many cheating on a spouse, tax evasion, and just shitty human behavior in general.

[Brian Swartz]

I'm going to laugh, loudly, the next time the people promoting this point of view talk about how sexist this or that segment of society is, given how enthusiastically they promoting a blatantly sexist point of view.

[cuervo72]

Originally Posted by Ben E Lou

"not all men."

I'm curious, cuerv. What percentage of men would you say fit the profile that Lathum has described?

Not really sure. I think there are plenty of cases where guys start out as seeming fine, and then are found...to not be. Even "liberal" ones -- the whole "nice guy" phenomenon from the "not all men" argument. But what percentage makes the gamble just not worth it? 10%? 25%? 50%?

Especially in the current information ecosystem. Many young men are influenced by the Joe Rogans of the world. (Even my own son, who may not listen to Rogan, I am pretty sure was influenced by "gamergate" types, holds conservative views, and has been known to produce a number of invectives that I'm not proud to hear.) If you're a liberal-leaning woman, would you feel comfortable around these guys? Even if you were, would you feel like you matched them? I don't know if I would.

One other factor...it seems like many more young women are identifying as queer now -- or at least bisexual. If that's the case -- if you really don't care if you are with a man or a woman -- why not go with the option which seems, well, "safer?" No, maybe not totally safe, but I'd say your chances of rape/abuse are certainly lower, and there's no risk of pregnancy. If you change your mind later on when you're ready for kids, then fine. (Of course, with adoption, you can have kids in a same sex coupling anyway.) If kids are even feasible financially.

[cuervo72]

Originally Posted by Sweed

I don't know, you think it's ok to group all men or boys together because some did a bad thing? How does that fly when applied to other groups?

"This is just the same "not all Muslims" argument all over again."

Maybe I'm reading your post wrong? If so I apologize.

I meant that "not all men" has been a thing for a while now, and this seems like a rehash of it. Since at least 2014. This isn't just me coming up with the premise.

[GrantDawg]

Originally Posted by cuervo72

I meant that "not all men" has been a thing for a while now, and this seems like a rehash of it. Since at least 2014. This isn't just me coming up with the premise.

This is all a great discussion for here, among mostly men. Obviously the statement "not all men" is factually true. Why that statement raises hackles among women is because it usually used by men to down play and even justify abuses of men on women.

[Ksyrup]

A residence cruise line - based in FL no less - is offering anti-Trump Americans the opportunity to skip his Presidency on a cruise around the world for up to 4 years.

The kicker is that the only people who can afford this either (a) voted for Trump or (b) are liberal elites mostly responsible for his election in the first place.

The Tour La Vie trip offers a variety of extended stays aboard the Villa Vie Odyssey, including a one-year “Escape from Reality” cruise, a two-year “Mid-Term Selection” cruise, a three-Year “Everywhere but Home” option, and the four-year “Skip Forward” trip.

[Lathum]

Originally Posted by Brian Swartz

I'm going to laugh, loudly, the next time the people promoting this point of view talk about how sexist this or that segment of society is, given how enthusiastically they promoting a blatantly sexist point of view.

Laugh away buddy but sexism and gender inequality are very real things and women have every right to point them out. Old white men get so fragile when the shoe is on the other foot.

[Lathum]

Originally Posted by Ksyrup

A residence cruise line - based in FL no less - is offering anti-Trump Americans the opportunity to skip his Presidency on a cruise around the world for up to 4 years.

The kicker is that the only people who can afford this either (a) voted for Trump or (b) are liberal elites mostly responsible for his election in the first place.

Where do I sign.

[cuervo72]

Originally Posted by Lathum

Laugh away buddy but sexism and gender inequality are very real things and women have every right to point them out. Old white men get so fragile when the shoe is on the other foot.

Women: "This is how we feel."
Men: "No, you're wrong."

[JPhillips]

Originally Posted by Ksyrup

A residence cruise line - based in FL no less - is offering anti-Trump Americans the opportunity to skip his Presidency on a cruise around the world for up to 4 years.

The kicker is that the only people who can afford this either (a) voted for Trump or (b) are liberal elites mostly responsible for his election in the first place.

Clearly a cover for kidnapping and slavery.

[Passacaglia]

Not all Skittles

[RainMaker]

I don't really know what the point of the "all men" stuff is. Obviously there are good and bad people in every demographic. But it's also worth pointing out that the President will be a man who has been found liable for rape and has bragged about sexually assaulting women. One of his largest financial supporters and right hand man has had to settle multiple sexual harassment suits and repeatedly talks about impregnating women he doesn't know. The new AG is a pedophile who paid minors for sex. The new Secretary of Defense paid off women for violent sexual assaults.

Both parties have leaders that were intimately tied to Jeffrey Epstein and helped not only cover up his crimes, but suppress any evidence from coming out. Sexual assault runs rampant in our military and our largest religious institutions have been criminal enterprises for child molestation for generations. Police departments have immense backlogs of rape kits despite massive budgets. And none of that even touches on the loss of civil rights in the past few years.

So it's not "all men" by any means, but this country isn't all that kind to women.

[Lathum]

Women don’t know which is which. Let’s say a woman has a flat tire on a rural road and is approached by a man. She instantly is on guard because she doesn’t know if he’s there to help her or assault her. There is a reason women alone in an elevator with a man will get off on a different floor and certainly not go to her room.

Men don’t have to worry about this stuff and have never had to.

[Edward64]

Dr. Oz in charge of Medicare & Medicaid.

No idea what his policies will be. Pretty sure Medicare is safe from cuts (a Trump promise) but there may be some cuts in Medicaid.

[Ksyrup]

I guess now we know why Dr. Phil turned on him. Passed up for a cabinet position.

What a fucking joke.

[JPhillips]

There are going to be deep cuts in Medicaid to pay for tax cuts for billionaires.

Not sure they realize how many people in nursing homes are on Medicaid.

[Atocep]

Gaetz
Hegseth
Oz
RFK Jr.
Tulsi

Absolutely sad and hilarious that this is what 49% of the country voted for. They're mostly troll nominations so Trump can establish that Senate will cave and do whatever he wants. If they don't then he has a public list of people within his own party to force out of office.

[Swaggs]

Dr. Oz is, at least qualified, for something like this. He has an MD, and MBA from an Ivy League school, and many years in clinical and academic medicine. I work in healthcare and there is a ton of fraud and savings to be had if it were ever to be managed well. Beyond just health insurance, things like nursing homes, residential placements, and foster care are heavily impacted by Medicaid/Medicare. I will be interested to see what, if any changes, they may be interested in making.

It is a joke to think that he is the best choice available for something like this, but I don't think he makes the top 5 list of most inappropriate upcoming appointments. Kind of like the Sean "Real World" Duffy pick for Sec of Transportation - he got the job because he is a pseudo celebrity, handsome, and good on TV, but he is reasonably well qualified with his education and work history.

[Ksyrup]

Oz has done nothing but promote quack medicine for however long he was on TV. He may have credentials but he has pissed away any semblance of credibility. So yes, his nomination is a joke. He's RFK with credentials.

[RainMaker]

The Cantor Fitzgerald guy got the Commerce job which means a crypto bailout is happening.

[Ksyrup]

Originally Posted by RainMaker

The Cantor Fitzgerald guy got the Commerce job which means a crypto bailout is happening.

The Bulwark had an eye-opening article today about the DJT org - a money-losing enterprise with a multi-billion dollar market cap thanks to Trump supporters and others seeking influence - buying a failing crypto exchange majority-owned by Loeffler's husband as a means to both keep the SEC from regulating crypto and giving people seeking influence with Trump another vehicle in which to enrich Trump in exchange for favors. And then you've got Musk and Dogecoin to factor in as well.

All of this in broad daylight and nobody batting an eyelash.

[bob]

What does a crypto bailout even mean? Isn’t Bitcoin at an all time high?

[Atocep]

Some of Dr. Oz's claims:

Apple Juice may have unsafe levels of arsenic for children, hydroxychloroquine is a cure for Covid, cellphones can cause breast cancer, that reopening schools would "only" result in the deaths of about 2-3% of the population, backed a psuedo science weight loss pill that the manufacturer ended up paying fines for, said that selenium is the "holy grail of cancer prevention", said that sleeping with a bar of lavender soap would prevent RLS symptoms, that red onions reduce ovarian cancer risk by up to 75%, and many, many more.

He admitted in a Senate hearing that most of his recommendations have zero scientific backing.

[RainMaker]

Cantor Fitzgerald is heavily tied to Tether. They claim that it's fully backed by USD (like $80+ billion). Almost no one believes they are telling the truth and they've provided no tangible evidence that those reserves exist. They've refused any kind of independent audit. If it comes out that those reserves don't exist, the crypto market goes kaput.

So a lot of crypto people have been pushing him because they think he'll bailout Tether. The hope was he'd be Treasury Secretary so he could do some fuckery, but Commerce isn't bad either. In any event, there's a reason the crypto folks wanted him in bad and they'll get their huge bailout.

As for the price of BTC, it's largely based on Trump winning. If your fake currency is now backed by the government and too big to fail, it's not a risky investment.

[Atocep]

Originally Posted by bob

What does a crypto bailout even mean? Isn’t Bitcoin at an all time high?

A crypto bailout bill would largely deregulate crypto and put any enforcement of the few remaining regulations in the hand of the CFTC, which is massively understaffed and underfunded to do much of anything.

The entire FTX mess, for example, would have seen no penalties and would have questionable, but not necessarily illegal. Hell, Sam Bankman-Fried is essentially the author of one of the crypto bills that's been floated around.

And Bitcoin continues to do well in the markets but nearly all other cryptos are trash. Even Bitcoin is really just speculative at this point. It hasn't caught on with much of anyone outside the crypto bros that keep it propped up.

[RainMaker]

Originally Posted by Atocep

A crypto bailout bill would largely deregulate crypto and put any enforcement of the few remaining regulations in the hand of the CFTC, which is massively understaffed and underfunded to do much of anything.

That's part of it but the other is them creating a "strategic reserve" which they've talked about. Basically using the U.S. Government as a way to prop up pricing. Lets say Bitcoin dips to $50k, the Treasury can step in and buy billions in Bitcoin to prop the price back up and save investors.


The price is high because the game is now rigged. They'll never let it drop.

[Brian Swartz]

It's one thing to say that Sallie Mae or whoever is too big to fail, but I don't get the crypto thing. Why we would ever want to bail people out who are involved in that speculative venture is beyond me.

[JonInMiddleGA]

Originally Posted by Brian Swartz

It's one thing to say that Sallie Mae or whoever is too big to fail, but I don't get the crypto thing. Why we would ever want to bail people out who are involved in that speculative venture is beyond me.

Especially when it was something that should have never been allowed to carry on in the first place.

[Ksyrup]

Who's "we"? Once you figure that out, you have your answer.

[Dutch]

Originally Posted by Atocep

Gaetz
Hegseth
Oz
RFK Jr.
Tulsi

Absolutely sad and hilarious that this is what 49% of the country voted for. They're mostly troll nominations so Trump can establish that Senate will cave and do whatever he wants. If they don't then he has a public list of people within his own party to force out of office.

Democrats should have done a better job getting their own talent in order.

Who America thought was going to be in Kamela’s cabinet:

JLO
Eminem
The cast of the Avengers
Robert DeNiro
George Clooney
Whoopie Goldberg
The lady that sang WAP
And for a couple of hundred bucks more maybe she could throw in the Solid Gold dancers.

(Pretty solid lineup, but even better than that, maybe they should have secured our border and made damned sure they knew how to run the economy (and not run it into the ground for most Americans), but yeah, people were definitely willing to take their chances here.)

[Brian Swartz]

Nobody thought that was going to be Kamala's cabinet, don't be ridiculous.

[Atocep]

Originally Posted by Dutch

Democrats should have done a better job getting their own talent in order.

Who America thought was going to be in Kamela’s cabinet:

JLO
Eminem
The cast of the Avengers
Robert DeNiro
George Clooney
Whoopie Goldberg
The lady that sang WAP
And for a couple of hundred bucks more maybe she could throw in the Solid Gold dancers.

(Pretty solid lineup, but even better than that, maybe they should have secured our border and made damned sure they knew how to run the economy (and not run it into the ground for most Americans), but yeah, people were definitely willing to take their chances here.)

It's funny that you had to make up a list of random celebrities to make something as ridiculous as Trumos cabinet. A pedophile, a rapist that supports war criminals, a quack doctor, a guy that said a worm ate his brain to get out of payments to his wife and drove her to suicide, and a Russian asset.

Keep supporting them, though, and tell us some more about how God got back at Kamala for dating a 60 year old.

[JPhillips]

Call me crazy but I don't think the AG should have been paying women for sex.

[Lathum]

Originally Posted by JPhillips

Call me crazy but I don't think the AG should have been paying women for sex.

If the nominee for AG is arguing before Senate that she was 18 and not 17 something has gone horribly wrong.

[flere-imsaho]

Linda MacMahon (I'm not actually going to look up how to spell her name) for Department of Education.