Do you feel like the winds of change are blowing today too?
POSTED BY: 6ixStringJack
UPDATED: Sunday, September 6, 2026 16:05
VIEWED: 185382
PAGE 174 of 479
The Longest 100 Days
The clash between Donald Trump’s determination to rule and his inability to govern has set the country on an unsustainable course.
By Jonathan Chait | April 29, 2025, 7 AM ET
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2025/04/donald-trump-100-
days/682636/
Shortly before taking office, Donald Trump promised his supporters that he’d have “the most extraordinary first 100 days of any presidency in American history.” And, well, it certainly hasn’t been ordinary.
Historians tend to rate presidencies by the breadth of their accomplishments, on a scale ranging from ineffectual to transformative. The classic measuring stick for hundred-day achievements is the presidency of Franklin D. Roosevelt. The frenetic first stretch of the New Deal featured a raft of major legislation that established new financial regulations and ambitious public-works projects, helping the economy begin to recover from the Great Depression.
Judged against Roosevelt’s record, the first 100 days of the second Trump term would be deemed a miserable failure. The president has passed no major legislation, and his economic interventions have had the opposite effect of Roosevelt’s, injecting uncertainty into a healthy recovery and seeding an economic crisis.
Yet his presidency has still been consequential. In just a few months, Trump has smashed democratic norms, crippled the federal bureaucracy, and realigned America against its traditional friends. Because Trump’s goals are so historically aberrant, the traditional measure of presidential achievement is of hardly any use. His Carter-esque record as legislator and economic steward stands in stark contrast to his Lenin-esque record in stamping out opposition. For the president’s ruling claque, the effect is a triumph. For nearly everybody else, it portends ruin.
In an alternate reality, Trump’s 2024 victory paved the way for a traditionally successful presidency with broad popularity and concrete policy achievements. After the election, his polling numbers shot up, and numbed Democrats retreated into self-doubt; some of them concluded that their best path forward lay in working with the new president. Congress formed a bipartisan DOGE caucus of members eager to eliminate inefficiencies in government. Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer, at the time perhaps the Democratic Party’s best-positioned 2028 presidential contender, sent a letter to Trump offering cooperation.
In the real world, despite the obvious opportunity, Trump never tested the possibilities for constructive engagement. The president laid bare his thought process in his speech to Congress in early March. “I look at the Democrats in front of me, and I realize there is absolutely nothing I can say to make them happy,” he complained. “I could find a cure to the most devastating disease—a disease that would wipe out entire nations—or announce the answers to the greatest economy in history.”
Here he was engaged in projection. The available evidence suggests that Trump could never imagine supporting a piece of legislation proposed by a political opponent merely because it advanced some worthwhile policy goal. (That is why passing an infrastructure bill and bolstering domestic manufacturing of silicon chips ranked among Trump’s highest stated priorities, until President Joe Biden passed these ideas into law, at which point they became disasters to be repealed.) And so, Trump naturally assumed, neither would the Democrats.
Instead of working within the system, he set out to crush the opposition. He has placed seemingly every lever of state power in the hands of unprincipled loyalists and has used the threat of investigation, prosecution, and punitive defunding to extort media owners, law firms, and universities into compliance. He has attempted to establish, in his immigration-enforcement powers, the ability to disappear people who may or may not have committed crimes, and may or may not even reside in the country illegally, brushing aside court orders to stop.
Trump has inscribed a double standard
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Quote:
Originally posted by second:
Thanks to Trump
It wasn’t supposed to be this way. When Justin Trudeau resigned at the start of this year, Canada’s Liberals appeared to be heading for the door after almost 10 years in power.
The opposition Conservatives were in a strong position, with a 25 point lead and an easy attack line: that any Liberal candidate would be no different to Trudeau, who had become increasingly unpopular.
But those fortunes changed dramatically in the months leading up to the election and now Mark Carney, former Bank of England governor, has declared victory.
That’s largely down to one phenomenon: the return of Donald Trump as US president.
https://inews.co.uk/news/world/5-things-know-five-minutes-anti-trump-c
andidate-win-canada-election-3665310
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
No, it wasn't suppose to go down that way.
Trump managed to do something that a lot of Canadians haven't seen in their lifetimes. Unite the entire country from coast to coast to coast. Even Quebec was pissed. So, he managed to piss off almost every since Canadian. Guess we should thank him for that maybe.
I have a friend whose daughter is unfortunately one of those idiots who voted Conservative and is now crying in her beer towel.
NEVER 51. CANADA IS NOT FOR SALE
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Quote:If Trump continues to be as obnoxious in the future as he has been in the last 100 days, he will succeed in making the Republican Party as weak as it was after 4 years of Herbert Hoover.
Originally posted by Brenda:
No, it wasn't suppose to go down that way.
Trump managed to do something that a lot of Canadians haven't seen in their lifetimes. Unite the entire country from coast to coast to coast. Even Quebec was pissed. So, he managed to piss off almost every since Canadian. Guess we should thank him for that maybe.
I have a friend whose daughter is unfortunately one of those idiots who voted Conservative and is now crying in her beer towel.
NEVER 51. CANADA IS NOT FOR SALE
For Hoover, everything President Roosevelt did was evil. If Hoover hadn't been so nasty and stupid, Roosevelt could not have been elected, and there never would have been Social Security.
And with Hoover, WWII would certainly have been lost because Hoover was a giant asshole with poor judgment of foreign leaders, as is Trump. Every instinct and belief Hoover had was as stupid and pernicious as Trump's are:
Quote:https://www.quora.com/What-were-Herbert-Hoover-s-thoughts-about-the-Un
During a 1938 trip to Europe, Hoover met with Adolf Hitler and stayed at Hermann Göring's hunting lodge. He expressed dismay at the persecution of Jews in Germany and believed that Hitler was mad, but did not present a threat to the U.S. Instead, Hoover believed that Roosevelt posed the biggest threat to peace, holding that Roosevelt's policies provoked Japan and discouraged France and the United Kingdom from reaching an "accommodation" with Germany. After the September 1939 invasion of Poland by Germany, Hoover opposed U.S. involvement in World War II, including the Lend-Lease policy. He rejected Roosevelt's offers to help coordinate relief in Europe, but, with the help of old friends from the CRB, helped establish the Commission for Polish Relief. After the beginning of the occupation of Belgium in 1940, Hoover provided aid for Belgian civilians, though this aid was described as unnecessary by German broadcasts.
During a radio broadcast on June 29, 1941, one week after the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union, Hoover disparaged any "tacit alliance" between the U.S. and the USSR, stating, "if we join the war and Stalin wins, we have aided him to impose more communism on Europe and the world... War alongside Stalin to impose freedom is more than a travesty. It is a tragedy." Much to his frustration, Hoover was not called upon to serve after the United States entered World War II due to his differences with Roosevelt and his continuing unpopularity. He did not pursue the presidential nomination at the 1944 Republican National Convention, and, at the request of Republican nominee Thomas E. Dewey, refrained from campaigning during the general election. In 1945, Hoover advised President Harry S. Truman to drop the United States' demand for the unconditional surrender of Japan because of the high projected casualties of the planned invasion of Japan, although Hoover was unaware of the Manhattan Project and the atomic bomb.
ited-States-involvement-in-World-War-II
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Donald Trump's Latest Midnight Musing Is A Sad Lesson In Deep Denial
The president might want to adjust those rose-colored glasses.
By Ron Dicker | Apr 29, 2025, 07:23 AM EDT
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/donald-trump-truth-social-approval-poll
s-doing-great_n_68109f6ae4b0b6141f1216c0
Trump accused the pollsters, including those with Fox News, of being frauds who suffer from “Trump Derangement Syndrome.” He wrote that they should be investigated for election fraud. He also echoed his divisive claim that news outlets are the “ENEMY OF THE PEOPLE.”
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Quote:
Originally posted by Brenda:Quote:
Originally posted by second:
Thanks to Trump
It wasn’t supposed to be this way. When Justin Trudeau resigned at the start of this year, Canada’s Liberals appeared to be heading for the door after almost 10 years in power.
The opposition Conservatives were in a strong position, with a 25 point lead and an easy attack line: that any Liberal candidate would be no different to Trudeau, who had become increasingly unpopular.
But those fortunes changed dramatically in the months leading up to the election and now Mark Carney, former Bank of England governor, has declared victory.
That’s largely down to one phenomenon: the return of Donald Trump as US president.
https://inews.co.uk/news/world/5-things-know-five-minutes-anti-trump-c
andidate-win-canada-election-3665310
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
No, it wasn't suppose to go down that way.
Trump managed to do something that a lot of Canadians haven't seen in their lifetimes. Unite the entire country from coast to coast to coast. Even Quebec was pissed. So, he managed to piss off almost every since Canadian. Guess we should thank him for that maybe.
I have a friend whose daughter is unfortunately one of those idiots who voted Conservative and is now crying in her beer towel.
NEVER 51. CANADA IS NOT FOR SALE
At the end of the day, Canada has just about zero say in the matter.
Once we stop offering military aid to everyone, they're all going to go bankrupt paying for free healthcare and anything else they're looking to fund on top of their own defense budget.
Canada has no leverage at all here, and I suspect there will come a day where Canada is asking us if they can join. I hope at that point the answer is no.
--------------------------------------------------
"I don't find this stuff amusing anymore." ~Paul Simon
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Quote:6ixStringJack, you really should think about what happens when Canada builds H-bombs for self-protection, when Trump says Canada is no longer protected from Russia's ambitions in the Arctic by America's nuclear umbrella.
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:
At the end of the day, Canada has just about zero say in the matter.
Once we stop offering military aid to everyone, they're all going to go bankrupt paying for free healthcare and anything else they're looking to fund on top of their own defense budget.
Canada has no leverage at all here, and I suspect there will come a day where Canada is asking us if they can join. I hope at that point the answer is no.
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Trump is the Godfather in Reverse
Mark Carney wins Canadian election
By Paul Krugman / Apr 29, 2025 at 9:42 AM
https://paulkrugman.substack.com/p/trump-is-the-godfather-in-reverse
Yesterday’s election in Canada was a bit closer than polls predicted. Nonetheless, Mark Carney’s Liberal Party, which appeared doomed just two months ago, won a solid victory. And the credit goes mainly to Donald Trump.
If Trump had merely made economic demands on our northern neighbor, Canada might have acquiesced, although it’s not clear what concessions it could have made. But by repeatedly insisting that Canada must become the 51st state, he made any hint of Trumpiness toxic in Canadian politics. Hence the stunning defeat for Pierre Poilievre, the Conservative leader (who lost his own seat in Parliament.)
The Canadian election, then, demonstrates why Trumpist trade policy, and foreign policy in general, is doomed to catastrophic failure. Trump isn’t trying to drive tough substantive bargains. Mainly, he seems to want to indulge in narcissism, demanding that other nations humiliate themselves so he can put on a display of dominance. And America doesn’t have remotely enough leverage, even against Canada, to make such demands. You could say that Trump is a reverse Godfather, making offers other countries can’t accept.
Consider the state of negotiations — or, actually, non-negotiations, since talks appear to have broken down — with Japan, another country Trump appears to have thought he could bully. Japan does sell a lot to the United States and might have been willing to offer something to preserve its access to our market.
But reports indicate that Japanese representatives sent to Washington left without accomplishing anything because they found Trump’s people impossible to deal with. The Americans insisted that the Japanese make offers without giving any indication of what our side wanted — in effect, they demanded that Japan make a show of obeisance without any reason to believe that it would get anything in return. The Japanese government wouldn’t, probably couldn’t do that. After all, it has to answer to its own voters. So there is no deal.
And then there are the Chinese, who — unlike the Canadians or even the Japanese — probably have more economic leverage over us than we have over them. They have no interest in helping Trump sustain his fantasies of dominance. Bear in mind that Trump’s trade war is working out very well for them. Bloomberg reports that
President Xi Jinping’s diplomats are fanning out across the world with a clear message for countries cutting deals with Donald Trump: The US is a bully that can’t be trusted.
Unfortunately, they’re right. And Trump’s repeated insistence that the Chinese are negotiating with him, when they say they aren’t, comes across as pathetic.
Will Trump manage to make any trade deals? I guess it’s possible that Trump will announce trade deals with a few countries here and there. But his ability to get even fake deals is rapidly dwindling, for two reasons.
First, he’s plunging in the polls. True, he’s insisting that the polls are wrong and that pollsters should be investigated for election fraud. And the MAGA base may believe him. But this denial just makes him look even more pathetic to foreign governments, and they won’t be inclined to throw a drowning Trump a lifeline.
Second, Trump’s trade war is about to have a disastrous effect on the U.S. economy — more disastrous than even pessimistic economists, myself included, expected. Tariffs always raise prices. But the sheer size and suddenness of Trump’s tariffs, combined with the paralyzing effect of uncertainty about what comes next, are about to deliver a Covid-type supply shock to an economy already sliding into recession. This looming disaster, which will further weaken Trump, makes it even less likely that
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Quote:
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:Quote:
Originally posted by Brenda:Quote:
Originally posted by second:
Thanks to Trump
It wasn’t supposed to be this way. When Justin Trudeau resigned at the start of this year, Canada’s Liberals appeared to be heading for the door after almost 10 years in power.
The opposition Conservatives were in a strong position, with a 25 point lead and an easy attack line: that any Liberal candidate would be no different to Trudeau, who had become increasingly unpopular.
But those fortunes changed dramatically in the months leading up to the election and now Mark Carney, former Bank of England governor, has declared victory.
That’s largely down to one phenomenon: the return of Donald Trump as US president.
https://inews.co.uk/news/world/5-things-know-five-minutes-anti-trump-c
andidate-win-canada-election-3665310
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
No, it wasn't suppose to go down that way.
Trump managed to do something that a lot of Canadians haven't seen in their lifetimes. Unite the entire country from coast to coast to coast. Even Quebec was pissed. So, he managed to piss off almost every since Canadian. Guess we should thank him for that maybe.
I have a friend whose daughter is unfortunately one of those idiots who voted Conservative and is now crying in her beer towel.
NEVER 51. CANADA IS NOT FOR SALE
At the end of the day, Canada has just about zero say in the matter.
Once we stop offering military aid to everyone, they're all going to go bankrupt paying for free healthcare and anything else they're looking to fund on top of their own defense budget.
Canada has no leverage at all here, and I suspect there will come a day where Canada is asking us if they can join. I hope at that point the answer is no.
--------------------------------------------------
"I don't find this stuff amusing anymore." ~Paul Simon
We will never be apart of America. Just because we share a continent.
NEVER 51. CANADA IS NOT FOR SALE and also ELBOWS UP.
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Quote:
Originally posted by second:
Trump is the Godfather in Reverse
Mark Carney wins Canadian election
By Paul Krugman / Apr 29, 2025 at 9:42 AM
https://paulkrugman.substack.com/p/trump-is-the-godfather-in-reverse
Yesterday’s election in Canada was a bit closer than polls predicted. Nonetheless, Mark Carney’s Liberal Party, which appeared doomed just two months ago, won a solid victory. And the credit goes mainly to Donald Trump.
If Trump had merely made economic demands on our northern neighbor, Canada might have acquiesced, although it’s not clear what concessions it could have made. But by repeatedly insisting that Canada must become the 51st state, he made any hint of Trumpiness toxic in Canadian politics. Hence the stunning defeat for Pierre Poilievre, the Conservative leader (who lost his own seat in Parliament.)
The Canadian election, then, demonstrates why Trumpist trade policy, and foreign policy in general, is doomed to catastrophic failure. Trump isn’t trying to drive tough substantive bargains. Mainly, he seems to want to indulge in narcissism, demanding that other nations humiliate themselves so he can put on a display of dominance. And America doesn’t have remotely enough leverage, even against Canada, to make such demands. You could say that Trump is a reverse Godfather, making offers other countries can’t accept.
Consider the state of negotiations — or, actually, non-negotiations, since talks appear to have broken down — with Japan, another country Trump appears to have thought he could bully. Japan does sell a lot to the United States and might have been willing to offer something to preserve its access to our market.
But reports indicate that Japanese representatives sent to Washington left without accomplishing anything because they found Trump’s people impossible to deal with. The Americans insisted that the Japanese make offers without giving any indication of what our side wanted — in effect, they demanded that Japan make a show of obeisance without any reason to believe that it would get anything in return. The Japanese government wouldn’t, probably couldn’t do that. After all, it has to answer to its own voters. So there is no deal.
And then there are the Chinese, who — unlike the Canadians or even the Japanese — probably have more economic leverage over us than we have over them. They have no interest in helping Trump sustain his fantasies of dominance. Bear in mind that Trump’s trade war is working out very well for them. Bloomberg reports that
President Xi Jinping’s diplomats are fanning out across the world with a clear message for countries cutting deals with Donald Trump: The US is a bully that can’t be trusted.
Unfortunately, they’re right. And Trump’s repeated insistence that the Chinese are negotiating with him, when they say they aren’t, comes across as pathetic.
Will Trump manage to make any trade deals? I guess it’s possible that Trump will announce trade deals with a few countries here and there. But his ability to get even fake deals is rapidly dwindling, for two reasons.
First, he’s plunging in the polls. True, he’s insisting that the polls are wrong and that pollsters should be investigated for election fraud. And the MAGA base may believe him. But this denial just makes him look even more pathetic to foreign governments, and they won’t be inclined to throw a drowning Trump a lifeline.
Second, Trump’s trade war is about to have a disastrous effect on the U.S. economy — more disastrous than even pessimistic economists, myself included, expected. Tariffs always raise prices. But the sheer size and suddenness of Trump’s tariffs, combined with the paralyzing effect of uncertainty about what comes next, are about to deliver a Covid-type supply shock to an economy already sliding into recession. This looming disaster, which will further weakeNOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Quote:
Originally posted by second:Quote:6ixStringJack, you really should think about what happens when Canada builds H-bombs for self-protection, when Trump says Canada is no longer protected from Russia's ambitions in the Arctic by America's nuclear umbrella.
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:
At the end of the day, Canada has just about zero say in the matter.
Once we stop offering military aid to everyone, they're all going to go bankrupt paying for free healthcare and anything else they're looking to fund on top of their own defense budget.
Canada has no leverage at all here, and I suspect there will come a day where Canada is asking us if they can join. I hope at that point the answer is no.
You have a point there. If we allow Canada to build nuclear weapons that's probably not a great idea since it will be a Muslim country in 2 generations.
--------------------------------------------------
"I don't find this stuff amusing anymore." ~Paul Simon
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME