Postcards from the Trumpocalypse

Written By: - Date published: 10:25 am, January 26th, 2017 - 66 comments
Categories: Abuse of power, accountability, activism, us politics - Tags: , ,

Who can even keep up with it all? This is what an unfettered right-wing government looks like:

Trump signs order to begin Mexico border wall in immigration crackdown

Trump to put limits on refugees, immigration

Trump’s impending executive order heralds ‘dangerous’ return to torture, official warns

Trump budget plan could add $6tn to public debt in a decade, analysts say

Trump Revives Keystone Pipeline Rejected by Obama

‘Global gag rule’ reinstated by Trump, curbing NGO abortion services abroad

Donald Trump still holds baseless belief that millions voted illegally

Trump Hotels to triple US properties in defiance of ‘no new deals’ pledge

A watchdog sues Donald Trump over foreign payments to his companies


https://twitter.com/Max_Fisher/status/824347987707121665
https://twitter.com/MandyHager/status/824334347788357632
https://twitter.com/purcellpw/status/824084680634814464


https://twitter.com/ezraklein/status/824329667717005312

66 comments on “Postcards from the Trumpocalypse ”

  1. weka 1

    Ace post r0b.

    And the National Park Service!!!

  2. Sabine 2

    the pesky Dutch are creating (hopefully) an international fund to counter the relgious fervor of the Tea Party and its presnit the orange turd.

    http://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/2017/01/25/netherlands-counters-trump-international-abortion-fund

    “Banning abortions does not result in fewer abortions,” Dutch Trade and Development Minister Lilianne Ploumen said in a statement.

    “It leads to more irresponsible practices in back rooms and more maternal deaths.”

    The World Health Organisation estimates that 22 million women experience unsafe abortions every year, the vast majority of whom are in developing countries. … Minister Ploumen said that the Trump administration’s decision risked undermining recent advances in women’s health.

    “We must not let this happen,” she said.

    “We need to compensate for this financial blow as much as possible, with a broad-based fund—which governments, businesses and civil society organisations can donate to—so that women can remain in control of their own bodies.”

  3. Skeptic 3

    It took Rome 500 years to be transformed from a republic to the worst empire the planet has ever seen (based solely on slavery) by an insecure egotistical megalomaniac named Octavius Caesar (he later renamed himself Augustus, had lies written by his sycophants and had himself deified). He was succeeded by Tiberius (sexual predator) Caligula (insane) Claudius (the only sane one of the family) and finally Nero (also insane). I see USA republic has lasted just 240 years as a republic. Now they’re stuck with King Donald, soon to be officially declared a God and compulsorily worship by everyone in the new “Make America Great Again” Empire. Failure to worship will result in your twitter acct being closed and you being stoned to death by Chump supporters whose combined IQ is pretty close to that of Dolly the cloned ewe.

    • DS 3.1

      Rather overlooks that the Roman Republic was screwed a long time before Octavian (or even Julius). And that the Republic practised slavery too.

  4. Glenn 4

    “Sadly, as the protest movement developed into a women’s march, people in New Zealand decided they would join in.

    This is sad is because the whole marching protest idea is premature and ill-advised. Nothing has happened yet and it still may not.

    It is not as if American females are victimised or downtrodden. If they have a problem with their president probably more of them should have voted in the election.

    If New Zealand women are so outraged about how men treat women then how about aiming your anger at those countries that don’t allow girls to be educated, who allow honour killings and who won’t allow women to drive. And don’t get me started on genital mutilation. And where were all you women when 200 school girls got kidnapped in Nigeria? The list goes on.

    Perhaps attacking a freely elected president is easier than actually trying to make a real difference”

    http://www.stuff.co.nz/taranaki-daily-news/opinion/88726542/editorial-antidonald-trump-protesters-do-democracy-a-disservice

    About what I would expect from the Taranaki Daily News. A pathetic editorial.

    • weka 4.1

      “Nothing has happened yet and it still may not.”

      Hard to know if that’s gross ignorance, cognitive dissonance, or part of the propaganda.

    • Nick 4.2

      Wow Glenn……wake up

      • red-blooded 4.2.1

        To be fair to Glenn, he was quoting (and criticising) an editorial from his local paper. That (I assume) is what the ” ” quote marks were for…

        • Glenn 4.2.1.1

          Yes…that’s why I called it a pathetic editorial. And that’s why I placed the web page. Trump’s a fascist.

  5. Ovid 6

    In the meantime, 1984 has become a bestseller and there’s been strong growth in It Can’t Happen Here, The Winter of our Discontent, and The Origins of Totalitarianism.

    https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2017/01/1984-george-orwell-alternative-facts-trump-kellyanne-conway/514259/?utm_source=feed

  6. Thanks Anthony – many more to add to that list too. We knew it was coming and we were correct. Sad, bad and mad daze ahead.

  7. weka 8

    Following reports that the Trump administration had ordered the Environmental Protection Agency to take down its website on climate change, the administration reversed its order and will let the site remain active for now, Inside EPA reported Wednesday.

    Reuters reported early Wednesday that President Donald Trump’s team directed the agency to remove its climate page website that includes research on climate change and data on carbon emissions, citing two unnamed EPA employees.

    Inside EPA reported later on Wednesday that the Trump team currently running the EPA has “agreed to stand down” on its order to remove the climate change site. The source had told Inside EPA Tuesday night that the Trump team had planned to remove the site as soon as Wednesday.

    Though the Trump administration has halted plans to remove the site for now, the Office of General Counsel has been ordered to review the potential impact of removing the website, Inside EPA reported.

    The website remains online, but the Trump team has already begun removing certain climate data from the EPA website, according to Inside EPA.

    http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/trump-epa-climate-change-website

  8. weka 9

    Eric Holthaus Verified account
    ‏@EricHolthaus

    There are now at least 14 “rogue” Twitter accounts from federal science agencies:
    https://twitter.com/StollmeyerEU/lists/twistance/members

    https://twitter.com/EricHolthaus/status/824389711170932736

    List here,

    https://twitter.com/StollmeyerEU/lists/twistance/members

    Forest Service
    FDA
    NASA
    HHS
    EPA
    USDA
    NIH
    CDC
    Park Service
    Science Service

  9. Brutus Iscariot 10

    It would be helpful to have a definition of “far right” – if this is indeed the yardstick, it kind of makes a mockery of all those on here who have labelled the Key government “Far Right” over the last 8 years.

    • McFlock 10.1

      Why?

      If you take the political spectrum over the last hundred years as being a normal distribution, if you want to accurately reflect the bulk of people’s opinions then 3 standard deviations to the right is graphically insistinguishable from 4 or 5 s.d.

      There’s not much difference between 99.7% and 99.9999%.

      • Brutus Iscariot 10.1.1

        Well, at least you’ve embraced the new post-truth era to implement your own version of gibberish…

        • McFlock 10.1.1.1

          OK, in smaller words, just for you: it’s not the distance between Key and Trump that puts the “far” in “far right”. It’s their distance from the middle.

          • Brutus Iscariot 10.1.1.1.1

            And conveniently, you get to define the middle.

            • McFlock 10.1.1.1.1.1

              Well, I just figured a rough proxy as being a guesstimate of the range of political opinions held over the last hundred years.

              You’re welcome to come up with your own benchmarks, rather than just proclaiming that the gap between “key” and trump” somehow constitutes a “mockery”.

            • Skeptic 10.1.1.1.1.2

              Brutus – it’s not rocket science – just a little research into a children’s encyclopedia – the terms left and right come from the first French National Assembly after their Revolution in 1789. The Monarchist/Conservative sat on the benches to the right of the speaker and the Liberals/Radical sat to the left. These terms survived pretty much throughout Western politics until the 1980s. Many left wing parties were infiltrated by neo-liberal and neo-conservative elements that followed the Chicago School of Economics resulting in Reaganomics, Thatcherism and Rogernomics/Ruthenasia here in NZ. Many so-called left-wing parties in western democracies now seek the center/swinging voter at the expense of their core ideals. What they forget is that Toryism/Conservatism (Republicans in the US) seeks to preserve the rights and privileges of aristocrats/autocrats/wealthy and uses deception to achieve that end, while democrats/Socialists/Greens hold to the ideals that all are created equal and deserve an equal chance at the resources of the planet – that government is charged with protecting all citizens equally, nit the privileged few. “Far Right” encompasses Nazis, Xenophobes, Fundamentalists, Laisse faire Capitalists, and others of extremist views, in the modern context.

    • Rae 10.2

      I suggest http://www.politicalcompass.org where you can understand that the political spectrum is not as simple as just left and right. Do the test, though.
      If you can get a handle on what it is driving at, you can begin to see how there can be so many political “boxes” you could find yourself in, and where they might sit on th graph.
      Someone referred to that Peter Thiel guy as a Libertarian Conservative, once you understand the concept of up and down as well as left and right, you will be able to see that there is no such thing.
      See if you can see where the person we think of as Jesus Christ might fit on that graph, then look where many of his worshipers come from. It is enlightening.

  10. Ad 11

    Therapeutic collection there Anthony.

    The German and Dutch elections will be the ones to watch as future signals.
    The big sign will be if Merkel’s grand coalition falls.

    If Trump and Brexit are a trend towards dissolving international politics and dismantling liberal norms and structures, the left will need to re-tool and adapt rather than keep losing and shrinking.

  11. joe90 12

    The ironing.

    “You’ve got to build roads to move the materials and machinery and get the workforce to the location as the wall is being built,” he said. “You would need a very big labour force to build it – some 40,000 people working over five years.”

    Steer said the workforce would probably be drawn mostly from the Mexican side of the border as semi-skilled construction wages are much lower and there are more Mexican settlements close to the border.

    “There would be a certain irony of getting Mexicans to build it,” Steer said. “It would likely be a mixed labour force, but Mexicans would be much less expensive.”

    The high cost of transporting the approximately 44m cubic yards of concrete and 9m tonnes of steel to the site is likely to lead builders to rely on mostly Mexican-owned cement and concrete plants.

    Analysts at Bernstein investment bank plotted the location of nearby plants and quarries and found that the Mexican building company Cemex was best-positioned to provide materials on both sides of the border.

    https://www.theguardian.com/business/2017/jan/25/donald-trump-border-wall-mexican-construction-firms-workers-biggest-winners

    • joe90 12.1

      and more..

      President Trump called for an investigation into voter fraud, alleging that registration in two states could be an indication of fraudulent activity.

      […]

      Tiffany Trump is registered to vote in both Pennsylvania and New York. Steven Mnuchin is registered to vote in both New York and California. Steve Bannon is registered to vote in both New York and Florida.

      http://www.usnews.com/news/national-news/articles/2017-01-25/tiffany-trump-steve-bannon-steve-mnuchin-registered-to-vote-in-multiple-states

    • Sabine 12.2

      i raise you US Prison labour. It’s even cheaper then the Mexicans and you can house them in tents and mistreat them at your leisure.

      I am sure this fellow would love to suck on the US Government dick for a few years now that he is out of his gig as Sheriff.

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe_Arpaio

      Joseph Michael “Joe” Arpaio[1] (/ɑːrˈpaɪ.oʊ/; born June 14, 1932) is a former American law enforcement officer and was the elected Sheriff of Maricopa County, Arizona for 24 years from January 1, 1993 to January 1, 2017, when he was succeeded by Paul Penzone.
      As of September 2015, cases involving Arpaio or his office had cost Maricopa County taxpayers $142 million in legal expenses, settlements, and court awards.[1] In October 2016, Federal prosecutors charged Arpaio with criminal contempt of court, saying he willfully defied a judge’s orders to stop targeting Latinos — including citizens and legal immigrants — in traffic stops and other law enforcement efforts, behavior the judge said showed a pattern of discriminatory policing.[2]
      Arpaio styled himself as “America’s Toughest Sheriff.”[3][4][5] Starting in 2005, he took an outspoken stance against illegal immigration. In 2010, he became a flashpoint for opposition to Arizona’s SB1070 anti-illegal immigrant law, which was largely struck down by the U.S. Supreme Court.[6][7][8][9][10] Arpaio is also known for his investigation of U.S. President Barack Obama’s birth certificate, and his continuing claim that it is forged.[11][12][13][14][15]
      On November 8, 2016, Arpaio lost re-election to Democrat Paul Penzone, who succeeded him as sheriff on January 1, 2017.[16]

      or this guy

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_A._Clarke_Jr.

      David Alexander Clarke Jr. (born August 21, 1956) is the 64th Sheriff of Milwaukee County, Wisconsin. In 2002, Clarke was appointed to a vacancy by Governor Scott McCallum, and later elected that same year to his first four-year term. He was re-elected in November 2006, 2010, and 2014, and is currently serving his fourth full term. Although registered and elected as a Democrat in a heavily Democratic county, Clarke’s political views align with conservative Republicans.[1][2] Clarke frequently appears as a guest on Fox News and was a speaker at the 2016 Republican National Convention.

      “The Milwaukee County Jail turned the water off to inmate Terrill Thomas’ cell, resulting in his death by profound dehydration on April 24, 2016. According to inmates, the water was turned off for six days and the staff refused to provide water to Thomas. On September 15, 2016, the Milwaukee medical examiner ruled Thomas’s death a homicide.[40] Later that day Clarke’s office sent out a press release which stated it would not be commenting on the matter until the investigation was complete.[4

      all good and fine upstanding godly men.

  12. Glenn 13

    John Oliver talks about the 25 billion dollar wall.

  13. joe90 14

    Priorities…..

    We are going to restore the rule of law in the United States

    ….meanwhile …..

    While all eyes were focused on failed House efforts to eliminate the Office of Congressional Ethics — the only independent watchdog with jurisdiction over House members — Republican congressmen led by Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (Calif.) quietly succeeded on another dubious ethical front: They adopted a rule designating records created, generated or received by a member’s congressional office “exclusively the personal property” of that member and granting members “control over such records.”

    Making congressional records the personal property of members seems tailor-made for the next lawmaker who, like former congressman Aaron Schock (R-Ill.), hopes to evade criminal responsibility by barring access to material allegedly showing how he misspent public funds.

    […]

    Now, by making the records of congressional offices the personal property of members, the House has ensured that none of these records will be available for posterity. How ironic that Republican-controlled congressional committees have relied on statutes such as FOIA and the Federal Records Act to fault the practices of then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, yet members have cloaked themselves in an impenetrable secrecy that allows them to escape public accountability.

    https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/a-new-house-rule-is-a-gift-to-lawmakers-trying-to-hide-criminal-acts/2017/01/25/acbbcb1e-e27e-11e6-ba11-63c4b4fb5a63_story.html?utm_term=.43ea09fba293

  14. Tautoko Mangō Mata 15

    This article written by an ex-neoNazi and the effect of violent responses on outcomes.

    I see all sorts of well-meaning and otherwise intelligent and thoughtful people applauding neo-Nazi Richard Spencer being punched in the face. Here’s why this is not something to celebrate:
    Punching this fool validates all of his victimhood narrative. It helps him recruit, and it strengthens the resolve of existing members. It is a gift to them. The ideology of the “alt-right”, like all violent extremist ideologies, is rooted in delusions of grandeur and delusions of persecution. Said delusions cannot exist in a vacuum. They absolutely depend on outside events to seem valid for the person experiencing them.

    My life changed because people demonstrated the courage and inner peace necessary to defy my hostility rather than reflect it. They were not subject to my actions, as the “anti-fascist” who hit Spencer was subject to his. People who I had claimed to hate — a Jewish boss, a Lesbian supervisor, black and Latino co-workers — refused to lower themselves to my level, instead choosing to model the way that we human beings should treat each other.

    https://medium.com/@arnomichaelisIV/why-punching-nazis-in-the-face-is-a-bad-idea-db6600b15826#.kjj6e1j61

    • Sabine 15.1

      ahhh, yeah, when they go low we go high.

      nah, sometimes all you do is punch a fucking neo nazis in the mug. full stop.

      why does the extreme right always demands to be ‘educated’ away from their believes? Why do they keep the rigth to be arseholes all their lifes and the ‘left’ or ‘assorted others’ have to be polite and show them the better way?

      Seriously? Cause he can’t think for himself? cause he needs education to see others as humans worthy of peace? cause he is a special ‘snowflake’ that is allowed to be rude, brutal and callous and the other should fight back by offering the other cheek cause Jesus?

      fucking no way.

      • Draco T Bastard 15.1.1

        +111

      • mac1 15.1.3

        Just possibly because the man changed his behaviour due to example given? It worked.

        Whereas a man offered physical violence to his verbal violence rarely changes, as his ‘way’ is confirmed. Only the ante raised.

        • Sabine 15.1.3.1

          the last time no one stood up to that kind of human scum – in my birth country – we – my ancestors/my fellow Germans/the collective of Germany (and i have no idea what both of my grandfathers did until they died somewhere in Russia) – killed
          – Quote ” By genocide, the murder of hostages, reprisal raids, forced labor, “euthanasia,” starvation, exposure, medical experiments, and terror bombing, and in the concentration and death camps, the Nazis murdered from 15,003,000 to 31,595,000 people, most likely 20,946,000 men, women, handicapped, aged, sick, prisoners of war, forced laborers, camp inmates, critics, homosexuals, Jews, Slavs, Serbs, Germans, Czechs, Italians, Poles, French, Ukrainians, and many others. Among them 1,000,000 were children under eighteen years of age.1 And none of these monstrous figures even include civilian and military combat or war-deaths.”.

          https://www.hawaii.edu/powerkills/NAZIS.CHAP1.HTM

          so excuse me if i am not a pacifist. When they say the shit they do, when they advocate genocide, the removal of undesirables, undocumented, un americans etc. you do take them at their world.
          You do not hold hand, sing kumbaya, and hope that they change their ways. Chances are they don’t. chances are they look at you and see you as an Untermensch who needs to be abgeräumt.

          https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glossary_of_Nazi_Germany

          • mac1 15.1.3.1.1

            Sabine, I thought you may have been coming from the how do you stop the fascist armies point of view.

            The examples given in the piece above in 15 however was nowhere that magnitude. Warfare is not usually used to respond to verbal violence .

            Tautoko Manga Mata’s original is way far away. Sabine, from WW2. I do not know how I would responded then. It is a question, at 67 years of age, I am still challenged by.

            I share your distress.

            • Sabine 15.1.3.1.1.1

              this my friend is how it started in Germany.

              and no one fought back until it was to late.

              I don’t like violence at all, i do abhor it, but i am no pacifist. There comes a time when one has to fight.
              Should the guy not have smacked him in the face? Maybe. Can i understand that he did, to an extend yes.

              And to anyone who says that he does not want to be called a Nazi – because he is a different Nazi then the ones that ravaged and destroyed my birth country, killed millions on a whim without remorse, altered the face of the earth politically then no, that does not work.

              A nazi is a nazi is a nazi is a nazi. And he so very much wants to be one. Well times have changed since the late 20 / 30s in Germany, People know what happened and they know that it can happen again. So he should be made to feel no safer then the ones that he would like to get rid of.

              Watch this little video in this article and explain to me how you want to reason with this guy and how long you would last before you gave him a smack over the head.

              http://www.rawstory.com/2016/12/hail-trump-salute-recalls-a-powerful-message-of-hate/

              • Skeptic

                You make several good points Sabine. After conducting many interviews with high ranking Nazis after WWII, an American psychologist re-iterated the often used quote “for evil to succeed all god people have to do is nothing.” That is exactly what the vast majority of Germans did after 1933 – nothing – when Hitler used is 33% of the Reichstag and a couple of manufactured incidents to impose a dictatorship. Later they blamed fear “of socialist/communists/ unemployment/Jews etc for failing to act. Not good enough in my opinion – that whole generation of Germans is culpable for the deaths incurred and they are rightly held so. The second good point you make is “A nazi is a nazi is a nazi is a nazi”. Too true, and not many people realize that racial Nazis are but one of a series. Religious Nazis like the fundamentalist Christians/Jews/Muslims who refuse to acknowledge the validity of other religions are another. Social Nazis like the bash-a-crim brigade (i.e Sensible Sentencing Trust) or the bash-a-beneficiary brigade are another form. Privileged Nazis – those who think that the “poor are responsible for their own poverty”are yet another type – are a particular variety usually practiced bu those born with a silver spoon in their mouths and haven’t done a days work in their lives. Should all these, and other varieties be resisted – hell yes – daily, hourly, every minute, least they gain power. Even then we must resist. My uncles got medals for shooting Nazis – Charles Upham got two VCs for it – do they still give them out for this action?

  15. joe90 16

    Coming soon – Two Minute Hate.

    Trump administration will publish a weekly list of crimes purportedly committed by undocumented immigrants in sanctuary cities. pic.twitter.com/GzTOo2Iub4— Will Sommer (@willsommer) January 25, 2017

    https://twitter.com/willsommer/status/824348441505648648/photo/1

  16. Infused 17

    Sucks having a president come into power saying he will do exactly what he promised eh.

    • McFlock 17.1

      but we were assured that his nuttier promises were just platitudes to his “red meat” supporters /sarc

    • Andre 17.2

      Especially for those of his supporters that knew to take him “seriously, but not literally”.

      • Sabine 17.2.1

        especially for those that wanted him to repeal Obama Care but not the Affordable Care Act.

        cause, reasons.

    • emergency mike 17.3

      Yes it sucks having a dumb president doing the dumb things he said he was going to do. Point?

      Or do you mean it sucks for those smug Trump supporters who said he were taking his dumb pledges too literally? I guess they voted for some other policies that Trump didn’t offer and that existed only in their minds.

    • dv 17.4

      Actually all he has done so far is talk and sign papers.

      Lets see what has happened on the ground a year down the track

      I read an interesting article which argued that thee emphasis on US factories etc, will cause an increase in the importing of Chinese robots.!!!!!

      And this am a piece in the herald talking about the sever shortage of labour down by Mexico, and currently about half of the labour are undocumented.

    • UncookedSelachimorpha 17.5

      @Infused

      I think you are wrong to assume this makes it a good thing. It depends entirely on what was promised.

  17. Sabine 18

    oh yeah, he is looking after his country

    disaster doctrine

    http://www.salon.com/2017/01/25/im-begging-fema-for-boots-on-the-ground-donald-trump-leaves-gop-leaders-begging-for-aid-after-deadly-storms-in-the-south/

    Quote: As four severe storms moved south from Georgia and Mississippi into the Florida Panhandle, 50 unconfirmed tornadoes have been reported from Thursday to Sunday, according to the Weather Channel. Experts believe weeks of cleanup will be required, but so far, the Trump administration has all but ignored the crisis.

    NBC News reported that Mississippi Gov. Phil Bryant sent a letter to Trump pleading for help after four people were killed in his state and more than 1,000 homes were damaged in one county alone. Georgia Gov. Nathan Deal expanded a state of emergency in his state — where 15 people have been confirmed dead — from seven counties to 16 on Monday afternoon and extended the order through Jan. 30.

    Chris Cohilas, Georgia’s Dougherty County commission chairman, said he was “begging FEMA for boots on the ground” and “asking President Trump to cut through the red tape and get people on the damned ground here.”

    snip

    Quote;”“The tornadoes were vicious and powerful and strong, and they suffered greatly,” Trump said Sunday, according to The Hill. “So we’ll be helping out.” Quote End.

    Yeah, right Tui. Poor fuckers, all believed that they would get a guy into office who was gonna make ‘america’ great again, but all they got was a grifter.

    http://www.cnbc.com/2017/01/25/mar-a-lago-membership-fee-doubles-to-200000.html
    Mar-a-Lago, the Palm Beach resort owned by the Trump Organization, doubled its initiation fee to $200,000 following the election of Donald Trump as president.

    ahh, it must be so nice to be able to say “l’etat c’est moi”

  18. joe90 19

    Barking.

    That location was given to me. Mike Pence went up before me, paid great homage to the wall. I then went up, paid great homage to the wall. I then spoke to the crowd. I got a standing ovation. In fact, they said it was the biggest standing ovation since Peyton Manning had won the Super Bowl and they said it was equal. I got a standing ovation. It lasted for a long period of time. What you do is take — take out your tape — you probably ran it live. I know when I do good speeches. I know when I do bad speeches. That speech was a total home run. They loved it. I could’ve …

    http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/transcript-abc-news-anchor-david-muir-interviews-president/story?id=45047602

    (autoplay)

    • joe90 19.1

      The Stalin Trump Clapping Test

      In the passage below, Solzhenitsyn captures the frenzied but eerie atmosphere at one political rally. Being the first one to stop clapping had dramatic consequences. (And, as will become clear, you did not want to be the first one to stop!)

      At the conclusion of the conference, a tribute to Comrade Stalin was called for. Of course, everyone stood up (just as everyone had leaped to his feet during the conference at every mention of his name). … For three minutes, four minutes, five minutes, the stormy applause, rising to an ovation, continued. But palms were getting sore and raised arms were already aching. And the older people were panting from exhaustion. It was becoming insufferably silly even to those who really adored Stalin.

      […]

      The squirrel had been smart enough to jump off his revolving wheel. That, however, was how they discovered who the independent people were. And that was how they went about eliminating them. That same night the factory director was arrested. They easily pasted ten years on him on the pretext of something quite different. But after he had signed Form 206, the final document of the interrogation, his interrogator reminded him:

      “Don’t ever be the first to stop applauding.”

      https://mannerofspeaking.org/2010/05/12/some-chilling-public-speaking-history/

  19. North 20

    Anyone seen NZ’s Trump-sucking, self-proclaimed supreme leftie, CV ?

    • Andre 20.1

      He’s got three and a bit weeks to go on his latest ban. Yes, he only got in a few hours of commenting when he got off his last ban before he earned another one.

    • mauī 20.2

      I don’t know but I guess it provides the opportunity to have a mindless hate-in and jump up and down on Trump and Putin.

  20. North 21

    Projecting with the “mindless” there Maui…….

    Good riddance to Archie (CV) Bunker in my book. He thought he was fuck’n’ royalty on this site. Said months ago he was destroying it. To think it all came out of a tatty internecine scrap in Dunedin ??? Talk about The Hubris-Fucked Vain Child Trump !

  21. mpledger 22

    Trump wants 20% tax on imports from Mexico to pay for wall

    “White House press secretary Sean Spicer said the comprehensive tax reform package Trump and Republicans are looking to put together will include taxing imports from *** other countries ***, like Mexico.”

    http://edition.cnn.com/2017/01/26/politics/donald-trump-mexico-import-tax-border-wall/index.html
    ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
    It’s really time for other countries to put together a mutually beneficial treaty excluding the USA and all their rules about IP and trade dispute panels.

    Like the TPPA, before it was hijacked by the American corporates.

  22. joe90 23

    But..but…Trump is going to be great for gay rights

    The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention abruptly and indefinitely postponed planning for an LGBT youth health summit after Donald Trump’s election to the White House, a source at the agency told TPM.

    “This was supposed to be a big deal,” said the source, who requested anonymity given the politically sensitive nature of the cancellation. “They had a whole communications team on it, it was going to be on Facebook live. The intention was to plan a 5-year agenda.”

    http://talkingpointsmemo.com/dc/cdc-postponed-lgbt-youth-health-summit-after-election

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