The Second Term of Donald J. Trump as President of the United States of America

Legal standing is the legal right or capacity of a person or entity to bring a lawsuit in court. To have standing, a party must prove they have a direct personal stake in the outcome and have suffered a tangible, legally recognized harm.

Why a needle? At a minimum it should be snorted off of toilet seats

Nothing Explains Trump’s Washington Quite Like the Reflecting Pool Scandal​

David A. Fahrenthold on a controversy that’s deeper than it looks. / By Aymann Ismail

Among the approximately 1.776 billion scandals of this Trump administration, one has recently stood out to me: the ongoing boondoggle at the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool. What was supposed to be a minor maintenance project has somehow become one of the purest reflections of Trump-era governance, involving a no-bid contract, a golf-club manager from New Jersey, and the color “American Flag Blue.”

Much of this is known only because of the dogged investigative journalism from David A. Fahrenthold, who has spent years following the money around Donald Trump and his orbit for the New York Times. He has devoted a surprising amount of time and energy into relaying the minute engineering problems plaguing this shallow pool on the National Mall. Fahrenthold—famous for breaking the existence of Trump’s Access Hollywood tape, and for his Pulitzer Prize–winning reporting on Trump’s reputed charitable giving—agreed to talk to me about his slow-burn reporting on the pool and what it reveals.

The Trump Scandal You Haven’t Paid Attention to Might Be the Most Revealing Yet

The boondoggle at the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool is deeper than it looks.

slate.com

from a separate source:

"I was in North Carolina last week, and over the weekend and I didn't hear anybody talking about reflecting pools. I did hear them talk about what they spend at grocery stores," said Republican strategist Doug Heye.
"When you are holding press gaggles in front of a ballroom construction site that no one asked for, you're proactively sending the signal to voters: 'I don't know what's important to you, but here's what's important to me,'" said Heye, a former spokesperson for the Republican National Committee.
"Go into any state that has targeted races, whether it's North Carolina, Maine, Ohio, Texas, … and ask them, 'Hey, do you think that we need a triumphant arch to be built on the Mall?' and they're going to look at you like you've just landed from Venus," he added.
One Republican operative agreed that the beautification projects are not being talked about outside of Washington but was largely supportive of the projects ahead of America's 250th anniversary celebrations.

Trump’s DC beautification fixation worries some Republicans as midterms loom

President Trump’s focus on repair and beautification projects around Washington, D.C., risks backfiring on Republicans ahead of the midterms as the issue of affordability takes center stage across the...

www.yahoo.com

It seems Trump's compulsive waffling about his War on Iran, and Trump spending $money in Washington DC instead of saving taxpayer's money at the gas pump tells a story Trump voters don't wish to hear.

Anne Applebaum, Pulitzer Prize-winning historian and author, has drawn a documented, scholarly line between President Trump's political rhetoric and the language of the 20th century's most destructive regimes. Trump's use of phrases like "enemies within," "enemies of the people," calling migrants and opponents "vermin," and warning of migrants "poisoning the blood" of Americans traces directly not just to Hitler but also to Stalin, regimes Applebaum has studied for decades. Her warning is specific: American politics has been racist, she notes, but calling people insects or parasites is categorically different; it is the language regimes use before they strip people of their humanity entirely.



Copying from his role models ....

Shiftless2 said:

"Anne Applebaum, Pulitzer Prize-winning historian and author, has drawn a documented, scholarly line between President Trump's political rhetoric and the language of the 20th century's most destructive regimes." #3,344

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AA seems to be accusing President Trump of a functional level of scholarship.
I do not doubt her own mastery of that facet of history. But her basic understanding of Trump seems insufficient.

Can she name the title of a specific book she accuses President Trump of having read, understood, learned from?
And where is that specific book now, the exact bound volume Trump gained this inspiration from? Crowded by the many other scholarly tomes Trump has been honing his political acumen from, within Trump's own executive library?

Really?

Applebaum's ostensibly plausible explanation aside, it is not the only possible explanation.
And it does not appear to be the most plausible.

More likely Trump's spectrum of talent mirrors that of the savant, a condition in which a person having a developmental disability (such as autism spectrum disorder or intellectual disability) exhibits exceptional skill or brilliance in some limited field.
Trump is exceptionally gifted at exploiting the 24 hour news cycle, making just enough outrageous assertions to remain in the news headlines, reportedly obtaining for "free" about a $Billion dollars worth of publicity for Trump's 2016 presidential campaign.

In layman's terms, it's also possible Trump simply re-invented the wheel, arrived independently at similar solutions to common problems with prior political tyrants of history.
Is it any wonder that similar problems would yield similar solutions?

Trump may be several things Madame Applebaum. A scholar?
Not so much.

A flesh-eating parasite that was supposed to stay eradicated is now confirmed in Texas livestock, and you can thank the same administration that gutted the agencies built to stop it.

The New World screwworm, a parasitic fly whose larvae literally burrow through living flesh and can kill an animal if untreated, was officially detected in a three-week-old calf in Zavala County, Texas this week. This was not a surprise to anyone paying attention. The pest had been spreading northward through Central America and Mexico since at least 2022, and experts projected it would reach the U.S. by 2025.

What changed the math was the trump administration cutting roughly 15 percent of the USDA's entire workforce, around 15,000 people, including those responsible for monitoring and fighting exactly this kind of agricultural threat. The program that fights screwworms works by releasing millions of sterilized male flies to disrupt breeding, a slow, science-dependent, international cooperation kind of effort that requires, well, a functioning government.

Instead, DOGE took a chainsaw to the USDA so the wealthiest Americans could pocket a bigger tax cut, and now the cattle industry is staring down a potential $10.6 billion disaster.

And here is the part that hits everyone at the kitchen table: beef prices are already at a record high, with ground beef hitting $6.69 a pound in December 2025, up 72 percent since 2020. The screwworm border closures have already cut off over a million head of Mexican feeder cattle that American feedlots depend on, and the USDA is forecasting another 6.9 percent increase in wholesale beef prices in 2026. This is what happens when you gut the agencies designed to catch these problems early so billionaires can get a bigger tax cut.

The irony is almost too much: the ranchers and agricultural states that went hard for trump in 2024 are now the ones watching flesh-eating maggots show up in their herds. A Texas state Republican rep had been sounding the alarm for over a year while, as he put it, "federal regulators moved at a snail's pace."
That snail's pace had a price tag, and every American buying ground beef is paying it now.

SOURCE with comments

Shiftless2 said:

"A flesh-eating parasite ... now confirmed in Texas livestock, and you can thank the same administration that gutted the agencies built to stop it." #3,346

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"In a democracy, the people get the government they deserve." author disputed

Some reports indicate a glut in Mexico's beef markets.

sear said:

Some reports indicate a glut in Mexico's beef markets.

Click to expand...

From #3,346

The screwworm border closures have already cut off over a million head of Mexican feeder cattle that American feedlots depend on ....

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Those cattle have to go somewhere and if they can't be shipped to the US ....

Okay Grandpa - it's time to go back to the home ....



BREAKING: WORST MELTDOWN EVER? Trump freaks out and runs away from a Meet the Press interview after going on INSANE, demented rant about how the media is mean to him!

He is SUCH a baby…

The president of the United States has once again thrown a huge tantrum and walked out of an interview with the media, this time over being challenged on his ridiculous lies about our elections.

Lately, Trump has been alleging that the primary election playing out in California is rigged (because the Republican is losing) and Welker called him out on it…only to see him flip out and leave.

"It was a dirty election. And it's happening again right now in California. Right now it's looking, look at what's happening in California. It's four days. are doing well in California. California...they're not, they're dropping fast because it's a rigged election. Let me tell you, it's four days and they aren't even close to coming up," complained Trump.

“You know why they're doing that? Because they're cheating on the election. There's –"

“Do you have evidence to support–” breaks in Welker.

“All I have to do is look. And I listen, and I listen to people. Do you think it’s appropriate that they have an election that takes five days to count-” said Trump.

“State and local officials admit its taking time,” Welker tries to say.

“No, they’re crooked! Just like you’re crooked. Your press is crooked. Meet The Press is crooked. You’re crooked or you’re stupid. You play right into their hands with ...

CONTINUED with comments

Normandy resident Chantal Richard, "Hegseth must be called out for who he is and the values he represents – colonial, warmongering, racist, far-right values."

Residents joined him to blast Pete Hegseth during a D-Day commemoration, saying the values he represents have no place at an event honoring democracy.

Sylvie Lamy Thepaut: “He has very warlike remarks, and it seems to us that he does not exactly share our values of democracy and freedom.” The local group Langrune en Commun called for his visit to be canceled.

Langrune en Commun: This individual holds values contrary to democracy, human rights, and peace. This is evidenced by his numerous anti-European remarks.

The group also cited Hegseth's comments about the "parasitism of Europeans."

The criticism came as Hegseth arrived with his wife and six children and later used his speech to criticize European governments.

Showing up to honor the soldiers who fought for democracy and leaving with locals denouncing your values is a brutal indictment and clear indication that Europe blames the entire country of America the Hateful for unleashing the Trump hellscape upon the world.

How dare she sit on her own porch

BREAKING Stephen Miller called him transgender. Fox News said he "put the semen in seminarian." Ken Paxton called him "low-T." He's a straight man in a relationship with a woman — and this is the entire Republican strategy in Texas.

James Talarico is a 34-year-old former teacher, Presbyterian seminary student, and Texas state senator who just became the Democratic nominee for U.S. Senate in Texas. He is cisgender, heterosexual, and in a relationship with a woman.

Here's what Republicans have called him in the last two weeks.

Ken Paxton on the night he won the GOP primary called him "Tofu Talarico," "Six-Gender Jimmy," "James Tala-freako," and "Low-T Talarico" (a testosterone reference). Then released an ad: "Low-T for Texas."

White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller posted on X that Democrats had nominated "their first transgender Senate candidate." Talarico is not transgender. Miller added: "He's clearly transitioning into a female" and said "soy milk comes out" when he gets bloodwork done.

Fox News host Jesse Watters called him a "gay vegan." (He is neither.) Lisa Kennedy Montgomery called him a "baby lotion soft child" and a "beta male." Benny Johnson called him "effeminate, estrogenetic, catty" and compared him to Dylan Mulvaney. Ben Shapiro called him "the slightly more gay Pete Buttigieg." Megyn Kelly said he looked like a boy who needed to "get back to school for PE class." A Republican official posted his photo with the caption: "Hide your kids."

None of it is true. Talarico eats barbecue. He played football. He has a girlfriend. He is a straight, cisgender Christian man who happens to believe trans kids deserve compassion.

That last part that's the real offense.

Because here's what Ken Paxton can't talk about: his own party's Republican-majority Texas House impeached him for corruption, bribery, and abuse of office. His wife filed for divorce on "biblical grounds." He's been under federal investigation for years.

You can't run on that record. So you call the other guy gay until voters stop asking questions.

The attacks on Talarico's masculinity don't just hurt him. They tell every man in America that gentleness is disqualifying. That compassion is weakness. That anything soft including caring about a trans child makes you less of a man.

That's the message. And they're running it statewide.

SOURCE