[davidjay]

Bit of a Fesshole, but I rather like being in the USA.

I like traditional diners, I like guitar shops, I like the new wave of craft beers in long, narrow bars. In fact, I had been thinking leaning on the Kreuzette with a view to a brief-ish holiday in late-winter.

If that means rubbing shoulders with disease-ridden maniacs for ten days, Madeira might be a better option. Or Kabul.

Looks like we'll be boycotting it for another four years as well.

[Philip Marlow]

For the love of god man, you are the lamest of lame ducks. This ritual ransacking of what remains of your dignity is wholly unnecessary.

[Youngian]

Bit of a Fesshole, but I rather like being in the USA.

I like traditional diners, I like guitar shops, I like the new wave of craft beers in long, narrow bars. In fact, I had been thinking leaning on the Kreuzette with a view to a brief-ish holiday in late-winter.

If that means rubbing shoulders with disease-ridden maniacs for ten days, Madeira might be a better option. Or Kabul.

Looks like we'll be boycotting it for another four years as well.

I assume gutting the public sector won't lead to pay rises for cops but they may well become immune from prosecution for all but the most serious crimes. Shaking down tourists as a side hustle is popular with police in banana republics. Think I'll stay away.

[Abernathy]

Thing is, the USA having decided to elect a man adjudicated in a court of law to be a rapist, who is also a proven liar who incited insurrection against the result of a properly conducted democratic election and a powerful contender for the title of worst human being on the planet, arguably makes it look to an observing rest of the world as if most of the electorate of that country have taken leave of their senses.

In that respect, it perhaps enables us to understand more the way that the rest of the world viewed the UK’s 2016 decision” (I use inverted commas advisedly, since in effect the decision was entirely that of the governing Conservative Party) to abandon nearly 50 years of relative economic prosperity and security by surrendering its membership of the biggest free trading bloc in the world . In short, a kind of madness.

[Youngian]

Don't know whose money Mr Chowdhury invests but thank fuck it isn’t mine.

Trump's pro-Israel cabinet picks upset Muslims who voted for him

U.S. Muslim leaders who supported Republican Donald Trump to protest against the Biden administration's support for Israel's war on Gaza and attacks on Lebanon have been deeply disappointed by his cabinet picks, they tell Reuters.
"Trump won because of us and we're not happy with his secretary of state pick and others," said Rabiul Chowdhury, a Philadelphia investor who chaired the Abandon Harris campaign in Pennsylvania and co-founded Muslims for Trump.
Muslim support for Trump helped him win Michigan and may have factored into other swing state wins, strategists believe.
Trump picked Republican senator Marco Rubio, a staunch supporter of Israel for Secretary of State.
Earlier this year, Rubio said he would not call, opens new tab for a ceasefire in Gaza, and that he believed Israel should destroy "every element" of Hamas. "These people are vicious animals," he added. https://www.reuters.com/world/us/muslim ... 024-11-15/

[Malcolm Armsteen]

"Let's vote for the face-eating leopard party - what could possibly go wrong?"

[The Weeping Angel]

I see the allowed the wallet inspector to inspect their wallets.

[kreuzberger]

Faces are not halal. (Don't quote me on that.)

[kreuzberger]

Donald Trump has now nominated climate denying fracker, Chris Wright, as energy secretary, a role that would put him at the heart of the new administration's drive to pwn the Libs, create ever more beach-side properties, and saddle up every possible horseman of the climate apocalypse to ride at dawn.

In straw-clutchingly better news, my son has had the snip, my daughter prefers women, and I'll have no grand-children to worry about. I have also bought a boat.

[davidjay]

Donald Trump has now nominated climate denying fracker, Chris Wright, as energy secretary, a role that would put him at the heart of the new administration's drive to pwn the Libs, create ever more beach-side properties, and saddle up every possible horseman of the climate apocalypse to ride at dawn.

In straw-clutchingly better news, my son has had the snip, my daughter prefers women, and I'll have no grand-children to worry about. I have also bought a boat.

All over to yours when the bomb drops then.

[Oboogie]

The USA looks lovelier by the day...

Masked men with Nazi symbols march through Ohio

https://www.jpost.com/breaking-news/article-829419

[Watchman]

I see Biden has okayed Zelensky firing long range US missiles into Russia, wonder how Donny will square that with Vlad

[RedSparrows]

Reasons I love the LRB, #uncounted: two paragraphs into a review essay by a US historian, Rachel Nolan, she notes that most guns in Mexico, used in criminality and smuggling etc etc etc, come from the States. That land of the free, freely shitting lethal weaponry into the hands of people it will then gleefully and righteously denounce as brown scum.

It's like the mask mandate gone to seed. Ask not how you can help your fellow man; scream how you cannot bear the merest imposition on your liberty.

[The Weeping Angel]

Matt Gaetz has withdrawn himself from the nomination of Attorney-General.

[Youngian]

If your Trump's preferred choice, paedophiles and rapists holding the highest offices in the land isn't a deal breaker with American voters.

[Andy McDandy]

The new nominee, while still a cunt, at least has the experience and background as a senior prosecutor in Florida (where else?) to make me wonder if this was the plan all along - nominate a load of human disaster zones, then once the media furore builds up, replace them with someone more competent and less outwardly awful. The new person looks 100 times better than they probably are, and avoids a lot of scrutiny.

We're so used to "ha ha, isn't he stupid?", that we forget there's a lot of cunning there, and face it, he outplayed us.

[Crabcakes]

The only thing working against that theory is Trump himself still being the top man. Replacing him with an awful person who at least appears to be semi-human would have let the GOP get away with far, far more.

I just think he really wants these people precisely because they are so fucking stupid. Because as Johnson showed, stupid is loyal as they know they’d never get top jobs otherwise.

[Youngian]

For the love of god man, you are the lamest of lame ducks. This ritual ransacking of what remains of your dignity is wholly unnecessary.

Biden's huffing and puffing over Bibi's indictment is a timely reminder that America's isolation tendencies have always been there as they're not even signatories to the International Criminal Court.

[RedSparrows]

On that note, horribly telling that the US giving Ukraine personnel mines is in the context of the US and Russia are two of a mere handful of states that didn't sign up to a prohibitive treaty on their use.

[Andy McDandy]

"Don't fence me in". Basic US attitude to foreign oversight.