I don't like what I'm seeing
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@pique said in I don't like what I'm seeing:
I feel like the entire infrastructure of the united states is crumbling down atop our heads.
Me too. It feels very scary.
At a time like this, I am especially grateful to have our little community to commiserate with.
Me too on this account as well!!
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@Steve-Miller said in I don't like what I'm seeing:
This could get very weird, very quickly:
Petro had a few things to say. Read his full statement in this Newsweek article.
https://www.newsweek.com/colombia-president-petro-responds-trump-tariffs-full-statement-2021072
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Good on him for defending his country.
On the issue of escalation - not too sure.
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Joe Walsh is the former Tea Party guy from IL.
“Dear Americans who voted for Trump,” Walsh wrote. “You voted to put an incredibly small, petty, pathetic, un-American person in charge. You voted to make America more divided and less secure. That’s such a shame.”
“You will recall, Trump was afraid of going to Vietnam to serve his country and got deferments for ‘bone spurs,’" podcast host Jack Hopkins reminded his followers on Bluesky. “Milley received the Defense Superior Service Medal and was nominated for a valor award for his actions in Iraq.”
Democratic strategist Chris Jackson called the decision “a move of cowardice” and criticized Hegseth in an X post before adding “what a pathetic man.””
I wonder how many people who voted for this madness are having any regrets yet.
When the world wearies and society ceases to satisfy, there is always the garden - Minnie Aumônier
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@wtg said in I don't like what I'm seeing:
I wonder how many people who voted for this madness are having any regrets yet.
I wonder how many people who voted for Trump, and because they don’t like what they’re seeing, are now doing a lot of mental gymnastics to explain things in ways that still make Trump out to be the savior they thought he was…
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@ShiroKuro The GOP is still all in. Here’s a digest of stories from yesterday. I just skimmed them, but the Republican congresscritters think everything is going swimmingly well.
https://www.politico.com/live-updates/2025/01/28/congress/johnson-hegseth-bessent-targeted-00200992
When the world wearies and society ceases to satisfy, there is always the garden - Minnie Aumônier
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@Steve-Miller said in I don't like what I'm seeing:
I’ve been looking for reliable sources that report on the concentration camps under construction and I can’t find them.
Links?
Guantanamo.
"Most people don’t even know about it. We have 30,000 beds in Guantánamo to detain the worst criminal illegal aliens threatening the American people. Some of them are so bad we don’t even trust the countries to hold them, because we don’t want them coming back," he added..
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So not actually under construction but they’re thinking of using Guantánamo.
I can’t think of any plan that would cost more.
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@Daniel said in I don't like what I'm seeing:
Trump is only a politician.
This is mistaken imo in that it downplays his ability to have an impact. Clearly he’s having a huge impact. Certainly, he’s not acting alone, and I like what @Rontuner said (if my memory serves, it was Ron, apologies if I’m wrong) about not just saying “Trump’s x” (like, Trump’s freeze on federal funding..) but instead saying “the republican’s X” because this acknowledges that it’s not just trump but all the politicians who are enabling him…. But the fact remains, he is in fact doing things that impact the country and the world in very negative ways.
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As @ShiroKuro says, the impact that a president of the United States has is far-reaching.
I don't hate anyone; it's just not in my DNA. The emotions I'm feeling are grief and fear. The fear is not so much for myself, but for the country.
When the world wearies and society ceases to satisfy, there is always the garden - Minnie Aumônier
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Politicians I can handle but this cult leader thing is disturbing.
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How do you ignore this?
President Donald Trump used the occasion of a deadly air crash that killed three Army aviators and 64 passengers and crew aboard an American Airlines jet to attack his two Democratic predecessors and falsely blame the crash on government efforts to increase the number of people with disabilities in government.
“We must have only the highest standards for those who work in our aviation system. I changed the Obama standards from very mediocre at best to extraordinary, you remember that only the highest aptitude they have to be the highest intellect and psychologically superior people were allowed to qualify for air traffic controllers. That was not so prior to getting there ... and then when I left office and Biden took over, he changed them back to lower than ever before. I put safety first. Obama, Biden and the Democrats put policy first, and they put politics at a level that nobody's ever seen because this was the lowest level. Their policy was horrible, and their politics was even worse,” he said.
Trump also falsely claimed to have once again raised standards for Air Traffic Controllers by signing a memorandum upon taking office which shuttered a longstanding effort at the Federal Aviation Administration to recruit people with disabilities to serve in roles having nothing to do with Air Traffic Control.
Positions in the Air Traffic Control system require years of training, special licenses and annual physical examinations and medical certifications to ensure that controllers meet high performance standards.
Continuing, the president slammed the FAA’s disability recruitment program for having sought out “people with severe intellectual and psychiatric disabilities” and falsely claimed that the prior administration wanted people with such disabilities to serve as air controllers.
“Brilliant people have to be in those positions, and their lives are actually shortened, very substantially shortened because of the stress where you have many, many planes coming into one target and you need a very special talent and a very special genius to be able to do it,” Trump said.
He then falsely claimed that the FAA website stated that persons with conditions such as “hearing, vision, missing, extremities, partial paralysis, complete paralysis, epilepsy, severe intellectual disability, psychiatric disability and dwarfism” were “all qualified for the position of a controller of airplanes pouring into our country” even though the requirements for controllers have long included specific physical and mental health standards.
“The initiative is part of the FAA’s ‘diversity and inclusion hiring plan,’ which says diversity is ‘integral to achieving the FAA’s mission of ensuring safe and efficient travel.’ I don't think so. I don't think so. I think it's just the opposite,” he said.
While the president would go on to further blame the Biden administration’s transportation secretary, Pete Buttigieg, for the efforts to hire people with disabilities, in fact the policy had been in place since 2013 without interruption, including during the period Trump previously served as president from 2017 to 2021.
Vice President JD Vance, who joined Trump at the briefing, also took time to blame diversity initiatives for the crash and suggested that the FAA had been lowering standards because the government has been attempting to hire non-white people for ATC positions.
“"If you go to some of the headlines over the past ten years many hundreds of people suing the government because they would like to be air traffic controllers but turned away because of the color of their skin. That policy ends under Donald Trump’s leadership. Safety is the first priority of our aviation industry,” he said.
Coming from any politician, this is awful. From the president, the "leader of the free world" and his vice-president, ... well, let's just say this is not leadership. They should be consoling the country and calming any fears people might have about flying. Instead they are taking advantage of a situation to drum up fear and resentment.
If everyone isn't horrified by this....I don't know what to say.
