In Case You Missed It

 

Day 50

Trump Chose To Do This

From Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau:

So today the United States launched a trade war against Canada, their closest partner and ally, their closest friend. At the same time, they’re talking about working positively with Russia, appeasing Vladimir Putin, a lying, murderous dictator. 

Make that make sense.

I can't. No one outside of the MAGA-cult can. 

Then he said this to us:

We don’t want this. We want to work with you as a friend and ally, and we don’t want to see you hurt either. But your government has chosen to do this to you. As of this morning, markets are down and inflation is set to rise dramatically all across your country.  

And:

Your government has chosen to put American jobs at risk at the thousands of workplaces that succeed because of materials from Canada, or because of consumers in Canada, or both. They’ve chosen to raise costs for American consumers on everyday essential items like groceries and gas, on major purchases like cars and homes and everything in between.

They’ve chosen to harm American national security, impeding access to the abundant critical minerals, energy, building materials and fertilizers that we have and that the United States needs to grow and prosper.

They’ve chosen to launch a trade war that will, first and foremost, harm American families.

Make that make sense. Trump (and his MAGA enablers) chose to do this.

For The Record

 

And Stephen Colbert had a message for the Democrats in Congress: 

Day 45

WTF Is This?

From The Guardian:

Donald Trump is facing a backlash on his Truth Social platform after sharing an AI-created video of him sipping cocktails with a topless Benjamin Netanyahu in Gaza, in a future imagining of the Palestinian territory devastated by Israel’s war.

The video presented a computer-generated vision of Trump’s property development plan for Gaza, under which he said he wants to “clean out” the population of about 2 million people. Named the “Riviera of the Middle East” plan, the proposal has been criticised as a blueprint for ethnic cleansing.

Footage shows the strip transformed into a Dubai-style resort with skyscrapers and luxury yachts. Children play on the beach as money rains down and bearded bellydancers gyrate on the sand.

What the fuck?

 

 

Tiny Victories

They're all we can hope for these days.

Like this tiny victory:

 

From Axios:

Screens at the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) building in D.C. on Monday showed a fake video showing President Trump rubbing and kissing Elon Musk's feet, accompanied by the words: "Long Live the Real King."  

And so on.

 

60 Minutes - In Case You Missed It

Day 36

King

The GOP a decade ago:

Whether lamenting the so-called vacationer in chief’s swing of a golf club or criticizing his handling of the healthcare rollout, Republicans are getting in the habit of comparing President Obama to a monarch.

“It’s one thing after another. You know he says he has no choice but to act. He says he has a pen and a phone, and he’s going to act,” Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) stated on Fox News’s “On the Record” Wednesday, making scepter-like gestures.

{mosads}”That doesn’t sound like our republic,” he added. “He’s not a king. He has to really get approval from Congress.”

Paul has made the comparison several times, including in his Tea Party response to Obama’s 2013 State of the Union speech. More recently, it was Sarah Palin who offered the line to criticize Obama’s use of executive authority.

“With his pen and his phone he’s abrogating Congressional authority — making himself a ruler, not a president,” the former vice presidential candidate told those gathered at a conservative summit in Colorado last month.

“You know, we had a revolution back in 1776 because we don’t do kings,” she said.

And:

Ahead of President Obama's primetime address to the nation regarding immigration reform, House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, released a video statement slamming the president's decision to act unilaterally.

"Instead of working together to fix our broken immigration system, the president says he's acting on his own. But that is just not how our democracy works," Boehner says in the brief video. 

"The president has said before that 'he's not king' and he's 'not an emperor,' but he sure is acting like one," he continues. "And he's doing it a time when the American people want nothing more than for us to work together."

And now:

President Trump is famous for his love of everything gold and other trappings that connote royalty, whether it be large military parades or extravagant inaugural balls.

But in a post on his social media platform Truth Social on Wednesday, Mr. Trump went a step further, likening himself to a king as he celebrated his administration’s move to kill New York City’s congestion pricing program.

“CONGESTION PRICING IS DEAD. Manhattan, and all of New York, is SAVED,” he wrote. “LONG LIVE THE KING!”

The White House then reinforced the message, recirculating it on Instagram and X with an illustration of Mr. Trump wearing a crown on a magazine cover resembling Time, but called Trump.

The times, they are a-chanin'.