Scrutable

Someone tracked down the things stuck on the fireplace - they’re polystyrene spray painted gold and stuck on with glue.

Possibly been shopping at alibaba

https://www.newsweek.com/what-are-those ... ce-2069262

Opti wrote: Thu Jul 17, 2025 3:33 pm
A poor person's idea of what 'classy' looks like. And a 'gold' tie to match.

I don't think it's even that good. A narcissist's idea of what being very rich and powerful looks like?

My BiL married an American - took citizenship to be able to vote for Obama.
They're currently out of the States, on a summer break in Europe
I'd just finished listening to a recent 99% Invisible podcast ( The Return of Con Law ), so I messaged them both a link to it, with a quick comment on how it's about how T is attempting to use the Alien Enemies Act, and how he's ignoring court decisions that go against him.

Within a minute, I got a phone call from her, strongly asking me to please not to send them such things* as they are so worried about how it might turn out for people like them (socially concerned, community minded, soft left - at least in US terms).

*I guess, they'd be less concerned if they didn't have to re-enter USA following their travels, but for her at least, the concern was genuine.

Opti wrote: Thu Jul 17, 2025 3:33 pm I find the redecoration just a little ... tasteless. Or perhaps it's me.
A poor person's idea of what 'classy' looks like. And a 'gold' tie to match.


Gv_2jgmXsAAoNdQ.jpg

"Tacky" springs to mind. Like the gold-plated chocolate box Chas 3 went to his coronation in.

Prominent critic of the Trump regime cancelled.

https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radi ... ncels-show

JQH wrote: Fri Jul 18, 2025 8:39 am

Opti wrote: Thu Jul 17, 2025 3:33 pm I find the redecoration just a little ... tasteless. Or perhaps it's me.
A poor person's idea of what 'classy' looks like. And a 'gold' tie to match.


Gv_2jgmXsAAoNdQ.jpg

"Tacky" springs to mind. Like the gold-plated chocolate box Chas 3 went to his coronation in.

Royalty bling like Vatican bling is camp and funny. Trump bling is sad, desperate and ugly.

TrumpMath - where 100% reductions in pharmaceutical prices aren't enough. So Trump is reducing them for you by 1200% even 1500%.

Been scammed by a woke big pharma company confusing you with percentages? Don't be confused again! Insist on new, easier TrumpMath! In TrumpMath, upward and downward %ages are now the same, so you needn't be confused again.

Increase something by 100%, and in new simpler TrumpMath, a 100% reduction will get you back to where to where you started! TrumpMath defines a 100% reduction as a halving, so that upward and downward percentages can be the same! Brilliant. New, simpler, TrumpMath, making sums easier! Making it harder for woke capitalists to scam you!

One of the things Trump has been clever at has been distracting his opponents with all sorts of nonsense, taking up their time, while he gets on with his real agenda. Perhaps this is some more nonsense. And it's kind of clever to be able to get away with blatantly incoherent policy statements, you can't be held to them. He hasn't actually reduced pharma prices by anything at all, nor does he know how much they might come down. All he has actually done is demand the pharma companies tell him within 60 days of a new system that will bring down the prices of pharmaceuticals in the US.

Is he still wandering around on the Whitehouse roof pretending to be Batman, or whatever the f.ck he's doing up there?

I have personally managed to annoy Trump, by investing in a wind farm that can be seen from his golf course. So that’s nice!

IvanV wrote: Tue Aug 05, 2025 2:17 pm One of the things Trump has been clever at has been distracting his opponents with all sorts of nonsense, taking up their time, while he gets on with his real agenda.

I feel you are giving Trump too much credit here. He doesn't have a real agenda as such. His agenda consists of aggrandizing himself and retribution against his enemies. Chaos is how Trump has always operated his businesses. It keeps everyone in his orbit off guard which means no-one can undermine him.

Trump truly does not understand math or even percentages. The world he operates in consists of lies and the bigger the lie the better he thinks he looks. His frequent use of the words great and bigly are clear insights into how his mind works. If people think a 50% reduction is good then surely a 1400% reduction will be seen as much better?

Trump's approach to bad news is always the same:
Declare it to be fake
It is a conspiracy by people out to get Trump
It wasn't Trump's fault it was someone else
If it is true, it is not bad
Distract

With regard to Epstein, we are now fully in the distract part of the sequence. So a lot of what Trump is doing now is about trying to turn the narrative elsewhere.

The other thing to remember about Trump is that a lot of his actions are driven by people who tell him that taking an action will make him look good or better. Vinay Prasad was ousted from the FDA by Trump over RFK, Jr's objections, because Laura Loomer told trump Prasad was not sufficiently loyal. These things can even come from random places outside Trump's circle. The whole COVID-19 ingesting bleach episode came about because Mark Grenon of the Genesis II Church had written to Trump touting MMS as a cure for COVID-19.

Having RFK Jr in charge of destroying medicine and promoting cranks is clearly a total horror movie made real, but it does make me oddly nostalgic for the old days of Bad Science.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c74dzdddvmjo

It's been noticed that the US government's 'annotated online copy of the constitution ' has had two articles removed.
Article 9 - Habeus Corpus
Article 10 - No tariffs without Congress

The Library of Congress response is that somehow, just by chance, a coding error made these very specific articles be left out. Fortunately neither Habeus Corpus nor tariffs are in the news at all.

https://www.reddit.com/r/Military/comme ... oved_from/

https://constitution.congress.gov/

I know some of the tech people involved in managing that website, and also some of the lawyers doing the annotation of the constitutional text. I also know the acting head of the Library of Congress and the head of the agency within the library that runs the website. There is zero chance that this was a trumpy conspiracy.

And, apparently, the official government annotated Constitution now just omits Articles 9, Habeas Corpus (sp?? cba to look it up), and 10, No tariffs without Congress.

Lew Dolby wrote: Fri Aug 08, 2025 11:00 am And, apparently, the official government annotated Constitution now just omits Articles 9, Habeas Corpus (sp?? cba to look it up), and 10, No tariffs without Congress.

Detention without trial is a terrifying thought, like being thrown into an oubliette

Lew Dolby wrote: Fri Aug 08, 2025 11:00 am And, apparently, the official government annotated Constitution now just omits Articles 9, Habeas Corpus (sp?? cba to look it up), and 10, No tariffs without Congress.

It was a programming error and has been fixed already. See above.

The retail sector in the US is different to over here.

Unexpected paragraph from an article on the tariffs on Switzerland

According to reports, gold bars were in such demand in the US in May after Trump’s announcement of sweeping “reciprocal” tariffs the previous month that Costco capped how many gold bars could be bought in a day.

https://www.theguardian.com/business/20 ... swiss-bars

Trump's taken over the Washington DC police.

Now implying he'll do the same in Chicago.

Just yet another distraction, or something more?

Brightonian wrote: Mon Aug 11, 2025 7:21 pm Trump's taken over the Washington DC police.

Now implying he'll do the same in Chicago.

Just yet another distraction, or something more?

Concentrating power innit, nothing to do with law-and-order. Apparently crime is at a 30 year low in DC.

Not sure he can do the same in Chicago quite so easily.

bjn wrote: Mon Aug 11, 2025 9:07 pm

Brightonian wrote: Mon Aug 11, 2025 7:21 pm Trump's taken over the Washington DC police.

Now implying he'll do the same in Chicago.

Just yet another distraction, or something more?

Concentrating power innit, nothing to do with law-and-order. Apparently crime is at a 30 year low in DC.

Not sure he can do the same in Chicago quite so easily.

Yes, I gather the president has a particular emergency power available for DC that does not apply everywhere.

The US attorney for DC, Jeanine Pirro, says she's "tired of hearing that crime is down". Well, boo f.cking hoo. Does she have any idea why it is the whole world suddenly wants to tell her that violent crime is down? It's because her orange boss needs crime to be an emergency. He only gets the magic power to order troops onto the streets if it's an emergency, so it has to be an emergency. And it's obviously not an emergency if it's down. It's way, way down compared to the '90s, and nobody thought it was a troops-on-the-streets emergency then. So it's definitely not an emergency now, except that Trump needs it to be, so he can use b.llsh.t presidential overreach to make life as miserable as possible for blue cities that fail to vote for him.

The fact that there is anyone in America who is okay with this is profoundly alarming to me.

Martin Y wrote: Wed Aug 13, 2025 5:04 pm The fact that there is anyone in America who is okay with this is profoundly alarming to me.

America is such a big place... that something bad happens in some other state is just so distant for the folks that live in the other 49 states. From my trips to the US and talking to locals I've been left with the impression that the general population of most states don't care too much about what is going on in neighboring states... much like many folks in the UK probably wouldn't be too bothered about a b.llsh.t troop emergency deployment in, say, Italy.

Sadly there are plenty of folks (everywhere) of the opinion that if it's not directly impacting them, then it's not important.

Martin Niemöller wrote:First they came for the communists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a communist. Then they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a socialist...

Gfamily wrote: Fri Aug 15, 2025 12:19 am "Can I have one? I think I deserve one Let me have one

I tell you, you won't like it if I don't get one"

I'm not sure if that's more pathetic or less pathetic than making himself chairman of the Kennedy Center and then 'joking' that next year's prestigious honourees will include himself. At least the crowd managed to laugh like he was joking, but just a touch nervously because of course he's not joking joking, he's trying the idea out.


https://x.com/Acyn/status/1955655293607 ... n%5Es1_c10