Trump's America

[Voronwë the Faithful]

A message from an old friend.

[yovargas]

[Alatar]

If JMS was writing the story of the Presidency. From his Facebook page.

J. Michael Straczynski - Hang with JMS
9 hrs ·
Okay, so maybe I’m just nuts. Maybe the writer part of my brain is firing on overload. Maybe I’m seeing shadows where there aren’t any. Happens. But for the last week or so the hairs on the back of my neck tied to storytelling have been rising too many times to be ignored. Feels like something significant is about to happen.

You know those moments in movies when your hero says to the rest, “Okay, anybody who’s afraid of getting caught in the crossfire or has too much to lose and wants to get out, now is the time”? The sudden, suspiciously hasty, and not-really-explained departure of a member of the SCOTUS who gave only a few weeks’ notice than the usual several months notice, ending July 13…the sudden and not-really-explained departure of a deputy assistant attorney general at DOJ…the sudden and only barely explained departure of the prosecutor in the Southern District of New York…all spiraling around the middle of July.

Add to this the Republican-only delegation to Moscow from the Senate Appropriations Committee (and isn’t that an odd one to go, the ones who hold the purse strings for the nation) that looked and sounded like a surrender…the sudden and hastily arranged meeting between Trump and Putin scheduled for the same mid-July window…not long after DOJ finally gets the Cohen documents…Trump threatening this week to quit WTO and even more astonishing to leave NATO (and replace them with what, exactly?) and enticing France to leave EU (again, replacing that with what?)…there’s just an awful lot of stuff suddenly coming out of nowhere and lining up in the same mid- to late-July window. It all feels very much time-on-target.

If I were writing this as a script, I’d suggest that these were steps being made either to prepare for one hell of a confrontation or, more likely, something we haven’t seen coming. Trump has been saying since his first day in office he wants to have better and closer relations with Russia, trying to get them back into G7, validating their last election, essentially telling them can have Crimea…if he wants out of NATO and WTO and wants to disable the EU, are we being set up for something new, like a Russian/American financial and military alliance? Is that what Putin sold him on? “You can go down in history forming a new kind of America with your name on it, pal.” We’ve gone over 50 years without a global geopolitical strategic shift so we’re definitely overdue.

Maybe it’s nothing. Maybe I’m wrong. I hope I’m wrong. It’s just that the writer in me looks at the events of the last week or so and there’s a definite Seven Days in May/Manchurian Candidate vibe to the moves that are being played out, suddenly and with so little explanation.

Either way, I suspect that the next three weeks are going to be insane beyond anything we’ve seen yet.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

I had to look up who that is (another indication of how suspect my geek credentials are). Pretty "good" stuff.

[Primula Baggins]

One of the major subplots in Babylon 5 was a fascist takeover of the government of Earth, starting as a populist political movement.

[Dave_LF]

He forgot to include North Korea in the alliance

[Frelga]

NPR:

Former Fox News co-president Bill Shine, who resigned from the network in the aftermath of a series of sexual harassment scandals, is joining the White House as a top communications official. https://t.co/GpQjsNfEOY

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Too controversial for Fox? Perfect for Trump.

Meanwhile, EPA chief Scott Pruitt finally resigned in the face of mounting scandals. Trump will undoubtedly find someone even worse, or at least as bad.

Sent from my LG G6 using Tapatalk

[Inanna]

I hope all his horrible changes go down the trash as well.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

They won't. There is already someone at least as bad in charge on an interim basis. A former coal lobbyist, no less.

[Sunsilver]

... A former coal lobbyist, no less.

No words...

Let's have a few from Arnie:

[Inanna]

And more crap...

U.S. Tried to Block Resolution Endorsing Breast-Feeding
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/08/heal ... -ios-share

[Primula Baggins]

I wish that story were as unbelievable as it ought to be. And I'm glad they didn't succeed. But really. Profits for formula manufacturers and their shareholders outweigh babies' lives? Formula is hard to prepare safely without a reliable source of purified water, and mothers who are falsely sold on it as the "modern" alternative to the breast often (a) can't really afford it and (b) must make it with unpurified water, thereby endangering their babies. Whereas breast milk is safe and free.

But shareholder dividends in the first world must come first; and anyway, it's just a bunch of brown babies. . . .

[Inanna]

Not to mention that breast milk provides increased immunity for kids. Even if a reliable source of water is available...

[Dave_LF]

Truly, there is no level of evil too banal for this administration

[yovargas]

That was an absolutely baffling read. As much as I hate Trump and Crew, it's hard for me to imagine this really was about corporate interests. I mean, how much influence could the baby formula lobby really have? Yet... what other reason could there be?

[River]

Meanwhile, doctors and hospitals in the US are pushing breastfeeding like there's no tomorrow. But I guess a cheap and clean foodsource is too good for foreign babies.

Cartoon villains. The whole lot of them.

[Primula Baggins]

Back in the 60s and 70s and into the 80s, formula companies used to give kits with bottles and formula mix to moms checking out of hospitals with their babies. It was nefarious, especially for first-time moms, because breastfeeding isn’t easy if you’ve never done it before, and if there’s a pain-free option that’s “just as good” that someone else can give the baby, you might opt for it a few times. So the baby’s less hungry when she does nurse, so your breasts start making less milk, so the baby empties you out the next time and is still hungry and yelling, so more formula....

It’s a recipe for breastfeeding failure. The Catholic hospital where I gave birth did not allow the formula packages; the assumption was that you would breastfeed, so the baby roomed with you instead of the nursery and nurses were always ready to help you along.

(When my third was born, I overheard a nurse telling another one that every baby on the ward was being breastfed, and their mutual delight was obvious.)

[Frelga]

That was an absolutely baffling read. As much as I hate Trump and Crew, it's hard for me to imagine this really was about corporate interests. I mean, how much influence could the baby formula lobby really have? Yet... what other reason could there be?

Formula is made by huge multinational companies like Nestlé. They have a LOT of influence.

[Dave_LF]

Look up what Nestle is doing with drinking water in Michigan if you want (but why would you?)