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robocop1906 · 2 years

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Be ready, be prepared, be vigilant- No one is coming to save us. It will be up to us to self rescue. If you don't know ask the time is drawing near

🏴‍☠️🏴‍☠️🏴‍☠️🏴‍☠️🏴‍☠️🏴‍☠️🏴‍☠️🏴‍☠️🏴‍☠️🏴‍☠️🏴‍☠️🏴‍☠️🏴‍☠️🏴‍☠️🏴‍☠️🏴‍☠️

I am here my Lord

..send me 🙏

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disasterriskreductionday · 7 months

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Working to Break The Cycle of inequality and empowering women and girls with disabilities for a more resilient future for all.

Women and girls with disabilities are often excluded before, during and after disasters strike. This International Day for Disaster Risk Reduction #DRRDay, see how we are working to #BreakTheCycle of inequality and empowering women and girls with disabilities for a more resilient future for all.

#international day for disaster risk reduction #women and girls #drrday #disaster preparedness #disability #UNDP

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coochiequeens · 2 years

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HATTULA, Finland: Just days after Russia attacked Ukraine on Feb 24, Finnish entrepreneur Sissi Moberg found herself scouring the Internet for courses that could teach her skills to help defend Finland in case of a military attack.

"I felt very sad for the Ukrainians. And then I started to worry about Finland and thinking what could I do about this," the 46-year-old mother-of-four told Reuters.

Within weeks, Moberg was on a course intended for reservists and learning how to use a gun and move on a battlefield.

The war in Ukraine has caused great alarm in Finland, which shares a 1,300km border with Russia and during World War II fought two wars against the Soviet Union which cost it a tenth of its territory. About 100,000 Finns were killed.

Spurred on by the invasion, Finland broke with decades of domestic defence and security policy last month when it applied for membership in the NATO military alliance.

Finland's Women's National Emergency Preparedness Association said demand for their courses had shot up since February.

"Right after the war broke out, our phones started ringing and emails were flying in ... and of course the demand for training went up," said Suvi Aksela, the association's head of communications.

The trend is in keeping with Finland's long tradition of wartime volunteering among women who, in contrast to men, are not required to do military service.

Around 19 per cent of Finland's 13,000 professional military personnel are women, according to data from the military, although only 1-2 per cent of conscripts are female.

SURVIVAL TRAINING

Last week, Moberg was back for more, this time on a survival training course organised by the Women's Preparedness Association at a military base in Hattula, 100 km from Helsinki.

For three days, she and more than 300 other women learned how to set up camp, light a fire in the rain, navigate in the forest and do first aid.

"I am one of the last people my loved ones would have expected to participate in courses like these since I've been quite the princess, a bit of a fancy pants," Moberg said.

Another 500 women were on a waiting list, according to the Women's Preparedness Association, a volunteer group that holds annual training sessions for civilian women on skills needed in crisis situations. It receives some public funding and can use military facilities and equipment for training.

Moberg is not alone in her concerns or desire to help defend Finland. According to a poll published by the defence ministry last month, 85 per cent of Finns now see Russia has having a negative effect on Finland's security, compared to 34 per cent in 2007.

The same poll showed that 83 per cent of Finns think they should take up arms in the event of a military attack on their country, even if the outcome seemed uncertain.

"This is a good country to live in and raise children. It is definitely worth defending," she said.

"The will to defend our country is very strong in Finland," said another volunteer on the course, Satu Miettinen, who was raised by her grandmother, who was a volunteer in World War Two.

She taught Miettinen, like many other Finns have been taught too, that Moscow could attack Finland again.

"Because of that I've always had that suspicion," said the 36-year-old.

Moberg says she will do more preparedness courses to be ready for a crisis, be it a major accident at a nuclear plant or a natural disaster.

"Courage does not mean not being afraid, but acting despite of that," she said.

#Finland #Finland’s Women’s National Emergency Preparedness Association #Crisis training just in case

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odinsblog · 5 days

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To carry out a deportation operation designed to remove more than 11 million people from the country, Trump told me, he would be willing to build migrant detention camps and deploy the U.S. military, both at the border and inland.

He would let red states monitor women’s pregnancies and prosecute those who violate abortion bans. He would, at his personal discretion, withhold funds appropriated by Congress, according to top advisers.

He would be willing to fire a U.S. Attorney who doesn’t carry out his order to prosecute someone, breaking with a tradition of independent law enforcement that dates from America’s founding.

He is weighing pardons for every one of his supporters accused of attacking the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, more than 800 of whom have pleaded guilty or been convicted by a jury.

He might not come to the aid of an attacked ally in Europe or Asia if he felt that country wasn’t paying enough for its own defense.

He would gut the U.S. civil service, deploy the National Guard to American cities as he sees fit, close the White House pandemic-preparedness office, and staff his Administration with acolytes who back his false assertion that the 2020 election was stolen.

(continue reading)

#politics #republicans #donald trump #election 2024 #if he wins

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fatehbaz · 11 months

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A devastating rail crash that left almost 300 people dead has refocused international attention on the importance of railways in the lives of Indians.

Indeed, to many Western observers, images of men and women crammed into overcrowded cars serve as a metaphor for modern India. Take, for example, a report by German newspaper Der Spiegel on India’s population surpassing China’s. Published just weeks before the accident in Odisha province on June 2, the now much-criticized cartoon depicted a shabby Indian train crammed with passengers rushing past a streamlined Chinese train with only two people in it.

Where does this enduring image in the West of Indian railways – and of India – come from? As a scholar of Indian history and author of 2015 book “Tracks of Change: Railways and Everyday Life in Colonial India,” I believe the answers lie in the gigantic infrastructure projects of the 19th century – forged at the intersection of colonial dictates and capitalist demands.

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A carrier of freight, not people

Railways remain the backbone of passenger traffic in India, transporting some 23 million people daily. In the pre-pandemic 2018-19 financial year, 7.7 billion passenger journeys in India. [...] Yet, when first planned in the 1840s, India’s railways were intended to primarily transport freight and livestock, not people. Indians were thought unlikely to become railway passengers by directors of the English East India Co., a merchant monopoly that gradually annexed and administered large parts of India under U.K. crown control. [...] However, early colonial railway policy was driven by pervasive Orientalist imaginings of a people rendered immobile by poverty, living in isolated villages [...]. The trope interlocked with colonial thinking that railways would foster greater industrialization which in turn would further a capitalist economy. They also aligned with the practical needs of a colonial trading monopoly which needed raw materials for English industries, such as cotton, to be moved swiftly and efficiently from India’s interiors to port towns [...].

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Despite the doubters, the new Indian railways attracted an increasing number of passengers. The half-million passengers recorded in 1854 when tracks became operational increased to 26 million in 1875. By 1900, annual passenger figures stood at 175 million and then almost trebled to 520 million by 1919-20. By the time of the partition of India in 1947 it had risen to more than 1 billion passenger journeys annually. Indeed, images of overcrowded trains came to epitomize the upheaval of partition, with the rail system used to carry swaths of uprooted peoples across the soon-to-be Pakistan-India border. Third-class passengers, overwhelmingly Indians, comprised almost 90% of this traffic. These escalating figures did not, however, generate a lowering of fares. Nor did they result in any substantial improvements in the conditions of [...] travel. [...]

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The generally British railway managers seemed disinclined to remedy systematic overcrowding, which included transporting passengers in wagons meant for livestock. Rather, they insisted that such overcrowding was caused by the peculiar habits and inclinations of Indian passengers: their alleged [...] inclination to follow one another “like sheep” into crowded carriages. These attributes were soon rendered into a more public narrative, especially among Western mindsets. Journalist H. Sutherland Stark, writing for the industry publication Indian State Railways Magazine in 1929, stated that though “unversed” in railway administration and traffic control, he knew railway facilities were not the problem. Rather, Indian passengers lacked the mental preparedness, “self-possession” and “method” necessary to travel like “sane human beings.” Stark suggested passenger education as a solution to the perceived problem, making railway travel a tool for “self-composure and mass orderliness.” [...]

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More than a century later, this depiction endures, though, ironically, it now serves as a foil to understanding contemporary India. In a piece published in The New York Times on March 12, 2005, the author lauded the then-new Delhi metro, emphasizing that it had “none of the chaotic squalor of hawkers and beggars that characterizes mainline railroads in India, nor do desperate travelers hang from the sides of the trains.” As the debate rages on whether safety has taken a back seat to “glossy modernization projects” in India – early analyses suggest signaling failure might have caused June 2, 2023, accident – railways continue to represent India’s history.

In the heyday of empire, they were deemed the technology through which Britain would drag India into capitalist modernity. In 1947, they became a leitmotif for the trauma of the partition that accompanied the independence of India and Pakistan. As the coverage of Odisha accident reminds us, it continues to be a metaphor in the West for evaluating contemporary India.

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Headline, image, caption, and all text above by: Ritika Prasa. “Overcrowded trains serve as metaphor for India in Western eyes -- but they are a relic of colonialism and capitalism.” The Conversation. 9 June 2023. [Bold emphasis and some paragraph breaks/contractions added by me.]

#ecology #colonial #imperial #abolition

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fierycavalier · 4 months

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Intro to Scouting for Nancy Drew Fans

i love to see Ace's Eagle Scout status come up in fics. Although it was almost a throw-away line, I think it informs Ace's character and fleshes out his backstory well, beyond just knowing knots and navigating the woods. But I see a lot of awkward phrasing, and I see a lot of missed opportunities to bring it up, and it got me wondering if a little primer would be helpful.

Things Ace could say: "I learned this in Boy Scouts." "My troop leader took us out here all the time." "This trail didn't go this way back when I was in Scouts." "Don't worry, they love me here--my eagle project was to clean up this beach." "Don't talk to me about Jared Spriggs-- I'll never forgive him for what he did to my derby car when I was 14."

Eagle Scout is a rank and an honor that he achieved, not a program he was in. The program is Boy Scouts of America (BSA). People familiar with the program will just say Boy Scouts or Scouts. After 100 years of only allowing boys to participate, the program became co-ed in 2019, so it's now called Scouts BSA, not Boy Scouts. Ace would have grown up in the program before then since he turned 18 in 2016.

If Ace started in scouting before he was 11, he would have been in Cub Scouts. At 11, he could move up to the scouting troop. There are ranks in scouting, tied to the number of merit badges you've earned. Eagle Scout is the top rank and must be achieved before the age of 18. It involves a certain number of merit badges, hours of volunteer work, and a main Eagle Scout Service Project that they must plan and execute themselves (with assistance from scout leaders and parents).

I think it highly likely that the Captain was a troop leader or otherwise involved in scouting, especially before his accident. I can see his mom stepping in as well- if I remember right, women could be pack leaders even before 2016.

Although most people work toward Eagle as 16-17 year olds, it's possible to achieve it earlier, especially if you're smart and committed like Ace. So his pot-smoking days could come after he earned Eagle and lost interest in Scouts, or they could coexist. Your call.

Although people assume scouting is about wilderness preparedness, the program's goal is to create well-rounded, responsible citizens. Ace would have the Oath and Law memorized.

Scout Oath

On my honor I will do my best

To do my duty to God and my country

and to obey the Scout Law;

To help other people at all times;

To keep myself physically strong,

mentally awake, and morally straight.

Scout Law

A Scout is: Trustworthy, Loyal, Helpful, Friendly, Courteous, Kind, Obedient, Cheerful, Thrifty, Brave, Clean, Reverent

As you can guess, being Jewish might have been tricky for Ace in a program that's culturally Christian as many 20th century American institutions are. That'd also depend on what his troop was like--was there one troop for the whole town, or maybe his synagogue hosted a troop?

There's a Sea Scouts program. Where I'm from is landlocked so I don't know anything about it, but Horseshoe Bay or a nearby bigger town would definitely have Sea Scouting!

Lastly, here are the current Merit Badge categories: it covers a lot more than knots! Ace often gets into hacking in pre-series fics by hanging out at the library with his mom after school. But what if he was introduced to programming in Scouts? And I'm sure Florence helped him complete many merit badges.

Automotive Maintenance

Backpacking

Bird Study

Camping

Canoeing

Chemistry

Coin Collecting

Cooking

Digital Technology

Engineering

Fire Safety

First Aid

Fly-Fishing

Golf

Indian Lore

Insect Study

Journalism

Law

Mining in Society

Nuclear Science

Photography

Plant Science

Programming

Radio

Safety

Scouting Heritage

Skating (I know we never see him on a skateboard but come on)

Surveying

Sustainability

Swimming (the way Ace is built heavier in top looks like a competitive swimming shape in my experience!)

#nancy drew #cw nancy drew #ace hardy #nace #scouting #source: my dad was a scoutmaster for a long time

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incorrectbatfam · 2 years

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Batfam when meeting their S/O's parents please

Dick: "Hello sir, it's nice to finally meet you"

Jason: "Your kid calls me daddy too"

Tim: "If the house was on fire and I had to choose between Bernard and the coffee maker, I'd probably choose Bernard"

Damian: "I fail to understand how someone as radiant as my beloved came from you"

Duke: "So... Izzy told me you like fishing"

Cullen: "Do I get a punny gang name too? I'm down with whatever as long as it's not Straight Flush. I'm more of a Queen of Diamonds guy, but Ace of Spades works too. Or Blackjack. That'd be cool too"

Stephanie: "What do I do? Well, that depends. Work-wise, I just finished a three-week stint at iHOP and now I'm moving on to greener pastures at Waffle House, though my ultimate goal is to invent a new way to toast bagels evenly. But I don't wanna be defined by how much money I can make for someone else, so I guess the real answer to what I do lies in my passion for crocheting tiny bucket hats for longer-than-average ferrets" ˆ

Cassandra: *breathes heavily*

Barbara: "I heard you were having trouble setting up Alexa. I can help you if you'd like. By the way, this tiramisu is to die for. What's the recipe?"

Harper: "Don't worry, I make above minimum wage"

Carrie: "I got you a dictionary from 1375 so you'll never forget that 'they' is a singular pronoun"

Kate: "I didn't make your daughter like women, I just upgraded her to Lesbian Premium™"

Alfred: "Do not underestimate my preparedness and ability to live ordinarily amidst chaos"

Selina: "Hi, Alfred. How's it going?"

Bruce: "I love Selina with every fiber of my being, which is why I'm on my knees now begging for your blessing to marry her" *cue chorus of meows* "I owe you all my thanks"

#ask #anonymous #batfamily #batfam #batkids #batsiblings #batman family #we are robin #dc comics #headcanon #crack #tw food mention #tw sex mention

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allthebrazilianpolitics · 2 months

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So, in Brazilian women and children's rights news, the Superior Court of Justice has not acknowledged rape in the case of a 20 year old man who impregnated a 12 year old girl.

By 3 votes to 2, the Fifth Panel of the Superior Court of Justice (STJ) decided this Tuesday (12) that there was no crime of rape of vulnerable in the case of a man who had a relationship with a 12-year-old girl which resulted in a pregnancy.

The Penal Code establishes that any sexual relationship with minors under the age of 14 is classified as a crime, regardless of the victim's "consent" or sexual past.

The STJ itself has a consolidated understanding in this regard, but has accepted exceptionalities and ruled out crime when it understands that the measure would not benefit society.

Case rapporteur, Minister Reynaldo Soares da Fonseca voted against the conviction. The minister highlighted defending the rights of the child and said he considered values, citing that the man was a humble rural worker.

For the rapporteur, what the Early Childhood Statute establishes that the well-being of the child generated must prevail in this case, which must have priority. The minister also recalled that the man ended up in a stable union with the girl.

The two dissenting votes emphasized the girl's age, inability to consent to sexual acts, and lack of preparedness to carry a pregnancy, insisting further that the pregnancy is a second violence against her.

(x)

#brazil #brazilian politics #politics #feminism #children's rights #superior court of justice #translations and summaries #mod nise da silveira #image description in alt

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workingclasshistory · 1 year

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On this day, 31 December 1918 radical labour activist, lesbian, and abortion provider, Marie Equi was found guilty of sedition in the United States under a newly amended Espionage Act after, during a rally, she unfurled a large banner reading, “Prepare to die, workingmen, J.P. Morgan & Co. want preparedness for profit.” The law “forbade criticism of the U.S. government, the constitution, the military, the flag, navy or uniform.” After the long trial Equi, a supporter of the Industrial Workers of the World union, was sent to San Quentin prison to serve a three year term (which was later commuted to a year and a half). More info in our podcast episode 16 on women in the IWW. Available on your favourite podcast app or at https://workingclasshistory.com/2018/12/02/e16-women-in-the-early-iww/ https://www.facebook.com/workingclasshistory/photos/a.1819457841572691/2175640455954426/?type=3

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justinspoliticalcorner · 5 days

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Eric Cortellessa at Time:

Donald Trump thinks he’s identified a crucial mistake of his first term: He was too nice. We’ve been talking for more than an hour on April 12 at his fever-dream palace in Palm Beach. Aides lurk around the perimeter of a gilded dining room overlooking the manicured lawn. When one nudges me to wrap up the interview, I bring up the many former Cabinet officials who refuse to endorse Trump this time. Some have publicly warned that he poses a danger to the Republic. Why should voters trust you, I ask, when some of the people who observed you most closely do not? As always, Trump punches back, denigrating his former top advisers. But beneath the typical torrent of invective, there is a larger lesson he has taken away. “I let them quit because I have a heart. I don’t want to embarrass anybody,” Trump says. “I don’t think I’ll do that again. From now on, I’ll fire.” Six months from the 2024 presidential election, Trump is better positioned to win the White House than at any point in either of his previous campaigns. He leads Joe Biden by slim margins in most polls, including in several of the seven swing states likely to determine the outcome. But I had not come to ask about the election, the disgrace that followed the last one, or how he has become the first former—and perhaps future—American President to face a criminal trial. I wanted to know what Trump would do if he wins a second term, to hear his vision for the nation, in his own words.

What emerged in two interviews with Trump, and conversations with more than a dozen of his closest advisers and confidants, were the outlines of an imperial presidency that would reshape America and its role in the world. To carry out a deportation operation designed to remove more than 11 million people from the country, Trump told me, he would be willing to build migrant detention camps and deploy the U.S. military, both at the border and inland. He would let red states monitor women’s pregnancies and prosecute those who violate abortion bans. He would, at his personal discretion, withhold funds appropriated by Congress, according to top advisers. He would be willing to fire a U.S. Attorney who doesn’t carry out his order to prosecute someone, breaking with a tradition of independent law enforcement that dates from America’s founding. He is weighing pardons for every one of his supporters accused of attacking the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, more than 800 of whom have pleaded guilty or been convicted by a jury. He might not come to the aid of an attacked ally in Europe or Asia if he felt that country wasn’t paying enough for its own defense. He would gut the U.S. civil service, deploy the National Guard to American cities as he sees fit, close the White House pandemic-preparedness office, and staff his Administration with acolytes who back his false assertion that the 2020 election was stolen. Trump remains the same guy, with the same goals and grievances. But in person, if anything, he appears more assertive and confident. “When I first got to Washington, I knew very few people,” he says. “I had to rely on people.” Now he is in charge. The arranged marriage with the timorous Republican Party stalwarts is over; the old guard is vanquished, and the people who remain are his people. Trump would enter a second term backed by a slew of policy shops staffed by loyalists who have drawn up detailed plans in service of his agenda, which would concentrate the powers of the state in the hands of a man whose appetite for power appears all but insatiable. “I don’t think it’s a big mystery what his agenda would be,” says his close adviser Kellyanne Conway. “But I think people will be surprised at the alacrity with which he will take action.”

The courts, the Constitution, and a Congress of unknown composition would all have a say in whether Trump’s objectives come to pass. The machinery of Washington has a range of defenses: leaks to a free press, whistle-blower protections, the oversight of inspectors general. The same deficiencies of temperament and judgment that hindered him in the past remain present. If he wins, Trump would be a lame duck—contrary to the suggestions of some supporters, he tells TIME he would not seek to overturn or ignore the Constitution’s prohibition on a third term. Public opinion would also be a powerful check. Amid a popular outcry, Trump was forced to scale back some of his most draconian first-term initiatives, including the policy of separating migrant families. As George Orwell wrote in 1945, the ability of governments to carry out their designs “depends on the general temper in the country.” Every election is billed as a national turning point. This time that rings true. To supporters, the prospect of Trump 2.0, unconstrained and backed by a disciplined movement of true believers, offers revolutionary promise. To much of the rest of the nation and the world, it represents an alarming risk. A second Trump term could bring “the end of our democracy,” says presidential historian Douglas Brinkley, “and the birth of a new kind of authoritarian presidential order.”

[...] The spectacle picks up where his first term left off. The events of Jan. 6, during which a pro-Trump mob attacked the center of American democracy in an effort to subvert the peaceful transfer of power, was a profound stain on his legacy. Trump has sought to recast an insurrectionist riot as an act of patriotism. “I call them the J-6 patriots,” he says. When I ask whether he would consider pardoning every one of them, he says, “Yes, absolutely.” As Trump faces dozens of felony charges, including for election interference, conspiracy to defraud the United States, willful retention of national-security secrets, and falsifying business records to conceal hush-money payments, he has tried to turn legal peril into a badge of honor. [...] In a second term, Trump’s influence on American democracy would extend far beyond pardoning powers. Allies are laying the groundwork to restructure the presidency in line with a doctrine called the unitary executive theory, which holds that many of the constraints imposed on the White House by legislators and the courts should be swept away in favor of a more powerful Commander in Chief.

Nowhere would that power be more momentous than at the Department of Justice. Since the nation’s earliest days, Presidents have generally kept a respectful distance from Senate-confirmed law-enforcement officials to avoid exploiting for personal ends their enormous ability to curtail Americans’ freedoms. But Trump, burned in his first term by multiple investigations directed by his own appointees, is ever more vocal about imposing his will directly on the department and its far-flung investigators and prosecutors.

[...] Trump’s radical designs for presidential power would be felt throughout the country. A main focus is the southern border. Trump says he plans to sign orders to reinstall many of the same policies from his first term, such as the Remain in Mexico program, which requires that non-Mexican asylum seekers be sent south of the border until their court dates, and Title 42, which allows border officials to expel migrants without letting them apply for asylum. Advisers say he plans to cite record border crossings and fentanyl- and child-trafficking as justification for reimposing the emergency measures. He would direct federal funding to resume construction of the border wall, likely by allocating money from the military budget without congressional approval. The capstone of this program, advisers say, would be a massive deportation operation that would target millions of people. Trump made similar pledges in his first term, but says he plans to be more aggressive in a second. “People need to be deported,” says Tom Homan, a top Trump adviser and former acting head of Immigration and Customs Enforcement. “No one should be off the table.”

[...] As President, Trump nominated three Supreme Court Justices who voted to overturn Roe v. Wade, and he claims credit for his role in ending a constitutional right to an abortion. At the same time, he has sought to defuse a potent campaign issue for the Democrats by saying he wouldn’t sign a federal ban. In our interview at Mar-a-Lago, he declines to commit to vetoing any additional federal restrictions if they came to his desk. More than 20 states now have full or partial abortion bans, and Trump says those policies should be left to the states to do what they want, including monitoring women’s pregnancies. “I think they might do that,” he says. When I ask whether he would be comfortable with states prosecuting women for having abortions beyond the point the laws permit, he says, “It’s irrelevant whether I’m comfortable or not. It’s totally irrelevant, because the states are going to make those decisions.” President Biden has said he would fight state anti-abortion measures in court and with regulation.

Trump’s allies don’t plan to be passive on abortion if he returns to power. The Heritage Foundation has called for enforcement of a 19th century statute that would outlaw the mailing of abortion pills. The Republican Study Committee (RSC), which includes more than 80% of the House GOP conference, included in its 2025 budget proposal the Life at Conception Act, which says the right to life extends to “the moment of fertilization.” I ask Trump if he would veto that bill if it came to his desk. “I don’t have to do anything about vetoes,” Trump says, “because we now have it back in the states.”

Presidents typically have a narrow window to pass major legislation. Trump’s team is eyeing two bills to kick off a second term: a border-security and immigration package, and an extension of his 2017 tax cuts. Many of the latter’s provisions expire early in 2025: the tax cuts on individual income brackets, 100% business expensing, the doubling of the estate-tax deduction. Trump is planning to intensify his protectionist agenda, telling me he’s considering a tariff of more than 10% on all imports, and perhaps even a 100% tariff on some Chinese goods. Trump says the tariffs will liberate the U.S. economy from being at the mercy of foreign manufacturing and spur an industrial renaissance in the U.S. When I point out that independent analysts estimate Trump’s first term tariffs on thousands of products, including steel and aluminum, solar panels, and washing machines, may have cost the U.S. $316 billion and more than 300,000 jobs, by one account, he dismisses these experts out of hand. His advisers argue that the average yearly inflation rate in his first term—under 2%—is evidence that his tariffs won’t raise prices. [...]

Trump’s intention to remake America’s relations abroad may be just as consequential. Since its founding, the U.S. has sought to build and sustain alliances based on the shared values of political and economic freedom. Trump takes a much more transactional approach to international relations than his predecessors, expressing disdain for what he views as free-riding friends and appreciation for authoritarian leaders like President Xi Jinping of China, Prime Minister Viktor Orbán of Hungary, or former President Jair Bolsonaro of Brazil. That’s one reason America’s traditional allies were horrified when Trump recently said at a campaign rally that Russia could “do whatever the hell they want” to a NATO country he believes doesn’t spend enough on collective defense. That wasn’t idle bluster, Trump tells me. “If you’re not going to pay, then you’re on your own,” he says. Trump has long said the alliance is ripping the U.S. off. Former NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg credited Trump’s first-term threat to pull out of the alliance with spurring other members to add more than $100 billion to their defense budgets.

[...] Trump has historically been reluctant to criticize or confront Putin. He sided with the Russian autocrat over his own intelligence community when it asserted that Russia interfered in the 2016 election. Even now, Trump uses Putin as a foil for his own political purposes. When I asked Trump why he has not called for the release of Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich, who has been unjustly held on spurious charges in a Moscow prison for a year, Trump says, “I guess because I have so many other things I’m working on.” Gershkovich should be freed, he adds, but he doubts it will happen before the election. “The reporter should be released and he will be released,” Trump tells me. “I don’t know if he’s going to be released under Biden. I would get him released.” America’s Asian allies, like its European ones, may be on their own under Trump. Taiwan’s Foreign Minister recently said aid to Ukraine was critical in deterring Xi from invading the island. Communist China’s leaders “have to understand that things like that can’t come easy,” Trump says, but he declines to say whether he would come to Taiwan’s defense.

[...] Yet even his support for Israel is not absolute. He’s criticized Israel’s handling of its war against Hamas, which has killed more than 30,000 Palestinians in Gaza, and has called for the nation to “get it over with.” When I ask whether he would consider withholding U.S. military aid to Israel to push it toward winding down the war, he doesn’t say yes, but he doesn’t rule it out, either. He is sharply critical of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, once a close ally. “I had a bad experience with Bibi,” Trump says. In his telling, a January 2020 U.S. operation to assassinate a top Iranian general was supposed to be a joint attack until Netanyahu backed out at the last moment. “That was something I never forgot,” he says. He blames Netanyahu for failing to prevent the Oct. 7 attack, when Hamas militants infiltrated southern Israel and killed nearly 1,200 people amid acts of brutality including burning entire families alive and raping women and girls. “It happened on his watch,” Trump says.

[...] Another inside move is the enforcement of Schedule F, which allows the President to fire nonpolitical government officials and which Trump says he would embrace. “You have some people that are protected that shouldn’t be protected,” he says. A senior U.S. judge offers an example of how consequential such a move could be. Suppose there’s another pandemic, and President Trump wants to push the use of an untested drug, much as he did with hydroxychloroquine during COVID-19. Under Schedule F, if the drug’s medical reviewer at the Food and Drug Administration refuses to sign off on its use, Trump could fire them, and anyone else who doesn’t approve it. The Trump team says the President needs the power to hold bureaucrats accountable to voters. “The mere mention of Schedule F,” says Vought, “ensures that the bureaucracy moves in your direction.”

TIME Magazine interviewed 2024 GOP Republican nominee Donald Trump twice over the span of just over two weeks, and in those interviews, Trump told Time's Eric Cortellessa his plans for what his 2nd term would be.

His plans would include a full-scale fascist takeover of the United States should he get elected to a 2nd term are as follows:

He would enact draconian anti-immigration policies such as deporting 11M+ undocumented immigrants and build concentration camps for not just undocumented immigrants but those opposed to his agenda.

He would also aid and abet in cruel anti-abortion policies that invade the privacy of a pregnant person and criminalize those who obtain abortions.

He would destroy the nonpartisan civil service system by enacting Schedule F to give jobs to his MAGA cronies.

He would pardon every domestic terrorist who participated in the J6 Capitol Insurrection that he incited.

He would endanger national security by refusing to come to the aid of our allies if attacked, effectively doing China and Russia's bidding.

He would summon the National Guard and the military to put down protests against him and his anti-American regime.

He would turn the DOJ into his partisan political tool to go after his critics.

The Project 2025 agenda would be used to guide Trump into making decisions that would end America as a beacon of freedom and democracy.

These interviews he gave to Time should be a remind that America does not vote to put the tyrant back in office and that re-electing Joe Biden is essential to keeping America free.

See Also:

Time: Full transcript of Time's two interviews with Trump.

Read the full article at Time Magazine.

#Donald Trump #2024 Elections #2024 Presidential Election #Fascism #Joe Biden #Schedule F #Abortion #Immigration #Eric Cortellessa #Time Magazine #Time #Unitary Executive Theory #Life At Conception Act #Project 2025

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canonmisogynyvictimstournament · 8 months

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PROPAGANDA

MARY WINCHESTER (SUPERNATURAL)

1.) in a series famous for fridging women she is THEEE og. fridged in the first five minutes of episode she might as well be in the freezer.

AND THEN. this sounds like some real stupid spn bullshit but. season 12. she gets defrosted. and its the smartest thing the writers ever did. does some rly fun things with the dissonance between s&d (mostly d)’s image of her and the actual real human person she was and is!!

ONE SEASON LATER: they stop trying to bother giving her a tangible personality or any interesting conflict (imo this was probably motivated by poor fan response to her; a big chunk of the fanbase were just as upset as dean was that she wasn’t the perfect mother they’d pictured. HOWEVER it is still canon. a canon that is easily swayed by fandom misogyny is also misogynistic ofc). they strip away complexity they’d set up in season 4/5 by saying umm actually things would be worse if she didnt make that morally complicated demon deal in her youth <3

TWO SEASONS LATER: still not giving her any personality. worse than just not doing anything else with her complicated relationship with motherhood at this point, it feels like theyve stripped her down to nothing BUT that. they shove her into a relationship with s&d’s other parental figure with literal sub-zero chemistry for no reason. and ummm guess what :) they kill her again!! back in the fridge for you, bitch!!!!!!!!!!!!!

THREE SEASONS LATER: s&d find a spell that was explicitly invented with the intention of bringing her back and they just say like welllllll she seems like shes having a good time in heaven. i HAAAAAAAAATE THIS FUCKING SHOWWWWWWWWWWWW

ALSO: even if she doesnt get in i recommend checking out the photo. its rly good. samantha smith milf of all time forreal.

(my last supernatural submission. sorry for putting you through this bestie. i could go on but i dont think i should.)

2.) The first scene in the show is her getting brutally killed by a demon. It is what starts the events of the entire show, since she gets fridged for manpain. And then she gets resurrected in season 12 and is a really interesting character and then she gets fridged for manpain AGAIN

3.) Going for the Guinness world record in “number of times one show fridged the same mom,” SPN?

KONAN (NARUTO)

1.)

• She is taken in as a *child* by jiraiya and trained as a ninja. When jiraiya leaves his parting comment is that she'll be beautiful when she grows up & to come visit him when she's 18 (she's still a child at this point) 🤢

• Konan isn't given the chance to express her own opinions - she's shown to simply follow nagato's lead.

• Unlike nagato, she isn't acknowledged as being naruto's ""sibling student"" for having the same teacher. Naruto isn't shown to care about this bond and is entirely unaffected by her death.

• Wrote out of the story & killed off immediately after Nagato's death for no reason. Doesn't get a chance to exist as an independent character even after she becomes the leader of her village.

• Naruto vows to bring peace to the rain village but never does or is even shown to think about it or her. (& in boruto the rain village is even shown to be in ruins)

• Konan puts her faith in naruto and vows that she and the village will support him in his quest for peace. Despite this she doesn't ever get to fight at his side during the war because she is immediately killed off.

• She also doesn't get to show up in the war as an opponent to naruto. Despite being a founding member of the akatsuki she isn't reanimated along with the others in the war.

• While her fight against tobi showcases her skill and preparedness it only exists as a reason to kill her off. Tobi only wins due to his plot armour.

#polls #round 1 #week 2 #new

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dreaminginthedeepsouth · 4 days

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Trump's campaign speeches on Wednesday

Trump was not in trial on Wednesday, so he made two campaign appearances. He said many things that were incomprehensible, alarming, and ridiculous. Rather than detail everything, let’s focus on one of the most ridiculous statements: He said he would repeal the Inflation Reduction Act. Doing so would

increase the deficit,

eliminate the $35 per month cap on insulin,

deny access to the Affordable Care Act to millions of Americans,

increase the cap for prescription medications under Medicare D from $2,000 per year to $3,500 per year,

eliminate billions in investments in states and local communities for clean energy projects, and

imperil 150,000+ jobs.

Trump is intent on destroying the accomplishments of the Inflation Reduction Act because it authorized money for the IRS to replace staff that will retire or quit over the next decade. With Trump, it’s always about evading or reducing taxes (and Putin).

[Robert B. Hubbell Newsletter]

In his rally in Waukesha, WI, Trump explains the decline and fall of Europe and the rise of Russia—because England and France allowed dark-skinned people to swarm London and Paris, whereas Russia is keeping its Central Asian guest workers in place as serfs and sends them to the meat grinder in Ukraine. It's pure racism. And the MAGA crowd loves it. "Look at Paris. Look at London. They're no longer recognizable. I'm going to get myself into a lot of trouble, but you know what? That's the fact, they are no longer recognizable. We can't let that happen here."

[Robert Scott Horton]

In describing his fever dream of autocratic powers, Trump said he would take (or allow) the following actions:

Allow states to monitor the pregnancies of women to ensure they comply with abortion bans (a grotesque violation of liberty, privacy, and dignity).

Fire US attorneys who refuse to prosecute defendants targeted by Trump (a violation of US norms dating to the creation of the Department of Justice).

Initiate mass deportations of alleged illegal immigrants using the US military and local law enforcement (neither of which are authorized to enforce US immigration law).

Pardon insurrectionists who attacked the Capitol on January 6.

Prosecute President Biden (for unspecified and non-existent crimes).

Deploy the National Guard to cities and states across America—likely those with predominately Democratic populations (presumably under the Insurrection Act, a deployment would violate the terms of the Act and implementing regulations).

Withhold funds from states in the exercise of his personal discretion (a violation of the Impoundment Control Act of 1974).

Abandon NATO and South Asian allies if he feels the countries are not paying enough for their own defense.

Shutter the White House pandemic-preparedness office.

Fire tens (hundreds?) of thousands of civil servants and replace them with Trump acolytes with dubious qualifications (other than loyalty to Trump).

Most readers of this newsletter understand the seriousness of Trump's threats and are working tirelessly to prevent a second Trump term. But tens of millions of Americans seem oblivious or apathetic in the face of an imminent and dire threat.

If elected, will Trump succeed in achieving any of his stated goals? No—not if Democrats continue their resistance in the courts, in Congress, in state legislatures, and in the hearts and minds of most Americans.

However, whether Trump succeeds in achieving his stated objectives is beside the point. He will attempt to do so—and his attempts will tear at the fabric of democracy and destroy legal norms that have served as the bedrock of our republic since its founding.

To be clear, I am not attempting to frighten readers of this newsletter. To the contrary, I believe that we can and will defeat Trump—or outlast him, whatever it takes. But the interview confirms that we are not frantic alarmists exaggerating the threat posed by Trump.

No, far from it.

When we challenge the milquetoast, both-siderism reporting of the media or the normalization of Trump by spineless politicians, we are not overreacting. We are sounding the alarm in a responsible, necessary way. For reasons that defy comprehension, our warnings have been unheeded—often dismissed, minimized, or patronized.

We must redouble our efforts. Commit the above list to memory. Copy the URL so you can forward this newsletter or the Time Magazine article to friends, colleagues, and complete strangers who doubt that Trump is a danger to democracy. Pick two or three issues and be prepared to discuss them when the moment arises. We have been warned—and we must act accordingly.

[Robert B. Hubbell Newsletter]

#Robert B. Hubbell #Robert B. Hubbell newsletter #election 2024 #TFG #In his own words #Time Magazine #fascism #democracy #rule of law #police state

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ridenwithbiden · 2 days

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26 MINUTE READ (w/o ads)

APRIL 30, 2024 7:00 AM EDT

Donald Trump thinks he’s identified a crucial mistake of his first term: He was too nice.

We’ve been talking for more than an hour on April 12 at his fever-dream palace in Palm Beach. Aides lurk around the perimeter of a gilded dining room overlooking the manicured lawn. When one nudges me to wrap up the interview, I bring up the many former Cabinet officials who refuse to endorse Trump this time. Some have publicly warned that he poses a danger to the Republic. Why should voters trust you, I ask, when some of the people who observed you most closely do not?

As always, Trump punches back, denigrating his former top advisers. But beneath the typical torrent of invective, there is a larger lesson he has taken away. “I let them quit because I have a heart. I don’t want to embarrass anybody,” Trump says. “I don’t think I’ll do that again. From now on, I’ll fire.”

Six months from the 2024 presidential election, Trump is better positioned to win the White House than at any point in either of his previous campaigns. He leads Joe Biden by slim margins in most polls, including in several of the seven swing states likely to determine the outcome. But I had not come to ask about the election, the disgrace that followed the last one, or how he has become the first former—and perhaps future—American President to face a criminal trial. I wanted to know what Trump would do if he wins a second term, to hear his vision for the nation, in his own words.

Trump remains the same guy, with the same goals and grievances. But in person, if anything, he appears more assertive and confident. “When I first got to Washington, I knew very few people,” he says. “I had to rely on people.” Now he is in charge. The arranged marriage with the timorous Republican Party stalwarts is over; the old guard is vanquished, and the people who remain are his people. Trump would enter a second term backed by a slew of policy shops staffed by loyalists who have drawn up detailed plans in service of his agenda, which would concentrate the powers of the state in the hands of a man whose appetite for power appears all but insatiable. “I don’t think it’s a big mystery what his agenda would be,” says his close adviser Kellyanne Conway. “But I think people will be surprised at the alacrity with which he will take action.”

Every election is billed as a national turning point. This time that rings true. To supporters, the prospect of Trump 2.0, unconstrained and backed by a disciplined movement of true believers, offers revolutionary promise. To much of the rest of the nation and the world, it represents an alarming risk. A second Trump term could bring “the end of our democracy,” says presidential historian Douglas Brinkley, “and the birth of a new kind of authoritarian presidential order.”

Trump steps onto the patio at Mar-a-Lago near dusk. The well-heeled crowd eating Wagyu steaks and grilled branzino pauses to applaud as he takes his seat. On this gorgeous evening, the club is a MAGA mecca. Billionaire donor Steve Wynn is here. So is Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, who is dining with the former President after a joint press conference proposing legislation to prevent noncitizens from voting. Their voting in federal elections is already illegal, and extremely rare, but remains a Trumpian fixation that the embattled Speaker appeared happy to co-sign in exchange for the political cover that standing with Trump provides.

At the moment, though, Trump’s attention is elsewhere. With an index finger, he swipes through an iPad on the table to curate the restaurant’s soundtrack. The playlist veers from Sinead O’Connor to James Brown to The Phantom of the Opera. And there’s a uniquely Trump choice: a rendition of “The Star-Spangled Banner” sung by a choir of defendants imprisoned for attacking the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, interspersed with a recording of Trump reciting the Pledge of Allegiance. This has become a staple of his rallies, converting the ultimate symbol of national unity into a weapon of factional devotion.

The spectacle picks up where his first term left off. The events of Jan. 6, during which a pro-Trump mob attacked the center of American democracy in an effort to subvert the peaceful transfer of power, was a profound stain on his legacy. Trump has sought to recast an insurrectionist riot as an act of patriotism. “I call them the J-6 patriots,” he says. When I ask whether he would consider pardoning every one of them, he says, “Yes, absolutely.” As Trump faces dozens of felony charges, including for election interference, conspiracy to defraud the United States, willful retention of national-security secrets, and falsifying business records to conceal hush-money payments, he has tried to turn legal peril into a badge of honor.

In a second term, Trump’s influence on American democracy would extend far beyond pardoning powers. Allies are laying the groundwork to restructure the presidency in line with a doctrine called the unitary executive theory, which holds that many of the constraints imposed on the White House by legislators and the courts should be swept away in favor of a more powerful Commander in Chief.

In our Mar-a-Lago interview, Trump says he might fire U.S. Attorneys who refuse his orders to prosecute someone: “It would depend on the situation.” He’s told supporters he would seek retribution against his enemies in a second term. Would that include Fani Willis, the Atlanta-area district attorney who charged him with election interference, or Alvin Bragg, the Manhattan DA in the Stormy Daniels case, who Trump has previously said should be prosecuted? Trump demurs but offers no promises. “No, I don’t want to do that,” he says, before adding, “We’re gonna look at a lot of things. What they’ve done is a terrible thing.”

Trump has also vowed to appoint a “real special prosecutor” to go after Biden. “I wouldn’t want to hurt Biden,” he tells me. “I have too much respect for the office.” Seconds later, though, he suggests Biden’s fate may be tied to an upcoming Supreme Court ruling on whether Presidents can face criminal prosecution for acts committed in office. “If they said that a President doesn’t get immunity,” says Trump, “then Biden, I am sure, will be prosecuted for all of his crimes.” (Biden has not been charged with any, and a House Republican effort to impeach him has failed to unearth evidence of any crimes or misdemeanors, high or low.)

Such moves would be potentially catastrophic for the credibility of American law enforcement, scholars and former Justice Department leaders from both parties say. “If he ordered an improper prosecution, I would expect any respectable U.S. Attorney to say no,” says Michael McConnell, a former U.S. appellate judge appointed by President George W. Bush. “If the President fired the U.S. Attorney, it would be an enormous firestorm.” McConnell, now a Stanford law professor, says the dismissal could have a cascading effect similar to the Saturday Night Massacre, when President Richard Nixon ordered top DOJ officials to remove the special counsel investigating Watergate. Presidents have the constitutional right to fire U.S. Attorneys, and typically replace their predecessors’ appointees upon taking office. But discharging one specifically for refusing a President’s order would be all but unprecedented.

Trump’s radical designs for presidential power would be felt throughout the country. A main focus is the southern border. Trump says he plans to sign orders to reinstall many of the same policies from his first term, such as the Remain in Mexico program, which requires that non-Mexican asylum seekers be sent south of the border until their court dates, and Title 42, which allows border officials to expel migrants without letting them apply for asylum. Advisers say he plans to cite record border crossings and fentanyl- and child-trafficking as justification for reimposing the emergency measures. He would direct federal funding to resume construction of the border wall, likely by allocating money from the military budget without congressional approval. The capstone of this program, advisers say, would be a massive deportation operation that would target millions of people. Trump made similar pledges in his first term, but says he plans to be more aggressive in a second. “People need to be deported,” says Tom Homan, a top Trump adviser and former acting head of Immigration and Customs Enforcement. “No one should be off the table.”

For an operation of that scale, Trump says he would rely mostly on the National Guard to round up and remove undocumented migrants throughout the country. “If they weren’t able to, then I’d use [other parts of] the military,” he says. When I ask if that means he would override the Posse Comitatus Act—an 1878 law that prohibits the use of military force on civilians—Trump seems unmoved by the weight of the statute. “Well, these aren’t civilians,” he says. “These are people that aren’t legally in our country.” He would also seek help from local police and says he would deny funding for jurisdictions that decline to adopt his policies. “There’s a possibility that some won’t want to participate,” Trump says, “and they won’t partake in the riches.”

As President, Trump nominated three Supreme Court Justices who voted to overturn Roe v. Wade, and he claims credit for his role in ending a constitutional right to an abortion. At the same time, he has sought to defuse a potent campaign issue for the Democrats by saying he wouldn’t sign a federal ban. In our interview at Mar-a-Lago, he declines to commit to vetoing any additional federal restrictions if they came to his desk. More than 20 states now have full or partial abortion bans, and Trump says those policies should be left to the states to do what they want, including monitoring women’s pregnancies. “I think they might do that,” he says. When I ask whether he would be comfortable with states prosecuting women for having abortions beyond the point the laws permit, he says, “It’s irrelevant whether I’m comfortable or not. It’s totally irrelevant, because the states are going to make those decisions.” President Biden has said he would fight state anti-abortion measures in court and with regulation.

Since leaving office, Trump has tried to engineer a caucus of the compliant, clearing primary fields in Senate and House races. His hope is that GOP majorities replete with MAGA diehards could rubber-stamp his legislative agenda and nominees. Representative Jim Banks of Indiana, a former RSC chairman and the GOP nominee for the state’s open Senate seat, recalls an August 2022 RSC planning meeting with Trump at his residence in Bedminster, N.J. As the group arrived, Banks recalls, news broke that Mar-a-Lago had been raided by the FBI. Banks was sure the meeting would be canceled. Moments later, Trump walked through the doors, defiant and pledging to run again. “I need allies there when I’m elected,” Banks recalls Trump saying. The difference in a second Trump term, Banks says now, “is he’s going to have the backup in Congress that he didn’t have before.”

That’s one reason America’s traditional allies were horrified when Trump recently said at a campaign rally that Russia could “do whatever the hell they want” to a NATO country he believes doesn’t spend enough on collective defense. That wasn’t idle bluster, Trump tells me. “If you’re not going to pay, then you’re on your own,” he says. Trump has long said the alliance is ripping the U.S. off. Former NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg credited Trump’s first-term threat to pull out of the alliance with spurring other members to add more than $100 billion to their defense budgets.

But an insecure NATO is as likely to accrue to Russia’s benefit as it is to America’s. President Vladimir Putin’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine looks to many in Europe and the U.S. like a test of his broader vision to reconstruct the Soviet empire. Under Biden and a bipartisan Congress, the U.S. has sent more than $100 billion to Ukraine to defend itself. It’s unlikely Trump would extend the same support to Kyiv. After Orban visited Mar-a-Lago in March, he said Trump “wouldn’t give a penny” to Ukraine. “I wouldn’t give unless Europe starts equalizing,” Trump hedges in our interview. “If Europe is not going to pay, why should we pay? They’re much more greatly affected. We have an ocean in between us. They don’t.” (E.U. nations have given more than $100 billion in aid to Ukraine as well.)

Trump has historically been reluctant to criticize or confront Putin. He sided with the Russian autocrat over his own intelligence community when it asserted that Russia interfered in the 2016 election. Even now, Trump uses Putin as a foil for his own political purposes. When I asked Trump why he has not called for the release of Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich, who has been unjustly held on spurious charges in a Moscow prison for a year, Trump says, “I guess because I have so many other things I’m working on.” Gershkovich should be freed, he adds, but he doubts it will happen before the election. “The reporter should be released and he will be released,” Trump tells me. “I don’t know if he’s going to be released under Biden. I would get him released.”

America’s Asian allies, like its European ones, may be on their own under Trump. Taiwan’s Foreign Minister recently said aid to Ukraine was critical in deterring Xi from invading the island. Communist China’s leaders “have to understand that things like that can’t come easy,” Trump says, but he declines to say whether he would come to Taiwan’s defense.

Trump is less cryptic on current U.S. troop deployments in Asia. If South Korea doesn’t pay more to support U.S. troops there to deter Kim Jong Un’s increasingly belligerent regime to the north, Trump suggests the U.S. could withdraw its forces. “We have 40,000 troops that are in a precarious position,” he tells TIME. (The number is actually 28,500.) “Which doesn’t make any sense. Why would we defend somebody? And we’re talking about a very wealthy country.”

Transactional isolationism may be the main strain of Trump’s foreign policy, but there are limits. Trump says he would join Israel’s side in a confrontation with Iran. “If they attack Israel, yes, we would be there,” he tells me. He says he has come around to the now widespread belief in Israel that a Palestinian state existing side by side in peace is increasingly unlikely. “There was a time when I thought two-state could work,” he says. “Now I think two-state is going to be very, very tough.”

Yet even his support for Israel is not absolute. He’s criticized Israel’s handling of its war against Hamas, which has killed more than 30,000 Palestinians in Gaza, and has called for the nation to “get it over with.” When I ask whether he would consider withholding U.S. military aid to Israel to push it toward winding down the war, he doesn’t say yes, but he doesn’t rule it out, either. He is sharply critical of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, once a close ally. “I had a bad experience with Bibi,” Trump says. In his telling, a January 2020 U.S. operation to assassinate a top Iranian general was supposed to be a joint attack until Netanyahu backed out at the last moment. “That was something I never forgot,” he says. He blames Netanyahu for failing to prevent the Oct. 7 attack, when Hamas militants infiltrated southern Israel and killed nearly 1,200 people amid acts of brutality including burning entire families alive and raping women and girls. “It happened on his watch,” Trump says.

On the second day of Trump’s New York trial on April 17, I stand behind the packed counter of the Sanaa Convenience Store on 139th Street and Broadway, waiting for Trump to drop in for a postcourt campaign stop. He chose the bodega for its history. In 2022, one of the store’s clerks fatally stabbed a customer who attacked him. Bragg, the Manhattan DA, charged the clerk with second-degree murder. (The charges were later dropped amid public outrage over video footage that appeared to show the clerk acting in self-defense.) A baseball bat behind the counter alludes to lingering security concerns. When Trump arrives, he asks the store’s co-owner, Maad Ahmed, a Yemeni immigrant, about safety. “You should be allowed to have a gun,” Trump tells Ahmed. “If you had a gun, you’d never get robbed.”

On the campaign trail, Trump uses crime as a cudgel, painting urban America as a savage hell-scape even though violent crime has declined in recent years, with homicides sinking 6% in 2022 and 13% in 2023, according to the FBI. When I point this out, Trump tells me he thinks the data, which is collected by state and local police departments, is rigged. “It’s a lie,” he says. He has pledged to send the National Guard into cities struggling with crime in a second term—possibly without the request of governors—and plans to approve Justice Department grants only to cities that adopt his preferred policing methods like stop-and-frisk.

To critics, Trump’s preoccupation with crime is a racial dog whistle. In polls, large numbers of his supporters have expressed the view that antiwhite racism now represents a greater problem in the U.S. than the systemic racism that has long afflicted Black Americans. When I ask if he agrees, Trump does not dispute this position. “There is a definite antiwhite feeling in the country,” he tells TIME, “and that can’t be allowed either.” In a second term, advisers say, a Trump Administration would rescind Biden’s Executive Orders designed to boost diversity and racial equity.

Trump’s ability to campaign for the White House in the midst of an unprecedented criminal trial is the product of a more professional campaign operation that has avoided the infighting that plagued past versions. “He has a very disciplined team around him,” says Representative Elise Stefanik of New York. “That is an indicator of how disciplined and focused a second term will be.” That control now extends to the party writ large. In 2016, the GOP establishment, having failed to derail Trump’s campaign, surrounded him with staff who sought to temper him. Today the party’s permanent class have either devoted themselves to the gospel of MAGA or given up. Trump has cleaned house at the Republican National Committee, installing handpicked leaders—including his daughter-in-law—who have reportedly imposed loyalty tests on prospective job applicants, asking whether they believe the false assertion that the 2020 election was stolen. (The RNC has denied there is a litmus test.) Trump tells me he would have trouble hiring anyone who admits Biden won: “I wouldn’t feel good about it.”

Policy groups are creating a government-in-waiting full of true believers. The Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025 has drawn up plans for legislation and Executive Orders as it trains prospective personnel for a second Trump term. The Center for Renewing America, led by Russell Vought, Trump’s former director of the Office of Management and Budget, is dedicated to disempowering the so-called administrative state, the collection of bureaucrats with the power to control everything from drug-safety determinations to the contents of school lunches. The America First Policy Institute is a research haven of pro-Trump right-wing populists. America First Legal, led by Trump’s immigration adviser Stephen Miller, is mounting court battles against the Biden Administration.

The goal of these groups is to put Trump’s vision into action on day one. “The President never had a policy process that was designed to give him what he actually wanted and campaigned on,” says Vought. “[We are] sorting through the legal authorities, the mechanics, and providing the momentum for a future Administration.” That includes a litany of boundary-pushing right-wing policies, including slashing Department of Justice funding and cutting climate and environmental regulations.

Trump’s campaign says he would be the final decision-maker on which policies suggested by these organizations would get implemented. But at the least, these advisers could form the front lines of a planned march against what Trump dubs the Deep State, marrying bureaucratic savvy to their leader’s anti-bureaucratic zeal. One weapon in Trump’s second-term “War on Washington” is a wonky one: restoring the power of impoundment, which allowed Presidents to withhold congressionally appropriated funds. Impoundment was a favorite maneuver of Nixon, who used his authority to freeze funding for subsidized housing and the Environmental Protection Agency. Trump and his allies plan to challenge a 1974 law that prohibits use of the measure, according to campaign policy advisers.

Another inside move is the enforcement of Schedule F, which allows the President to fire nonpolitical government officials and which Trump says he would embrace. “You have some people that are protected that shouldn’t be protected,” he says. A senior U.S. judge offers an example of how consequential such a move could be. Suppose there’s another pandemic, and President Trump wants to push the use of an untested drug, much as he did with hydroxychloroquine during COVID-19. Under Schedule F, if the drug’s medical reviewer at the Food and Drug Administration refuses to sign off on its use, Trump could fire them, and anyone else who doesn’t approve it. The Trump team says the President needs the power to hold bureaucrats accountable to voters. “The mere mention of Schedule F,” says Vought, “ensures that the bureaucracy moves in your direction.”

It can be hard at times to discern Trump’s true intentions. In his interviews with TIME, he often sidestepped questions or answered them in contradictory ways. There’s no telling how his ego and self-destructive behavior might hinder his objectives. And for all his norm-breaking, there are lines he says he won’t cross. When asked if he would comply with all orders upheld by the Supreme Court, Trump says he would.

But his policy preoccupations are clear and consistent. If Trump is able to carry out a fraction of his goals, the impact could prove as transformative as any presidency in more than a century. “He’s in full war mode,” says his former adviser and occasional confidant Stephen Bannon. Trump’s sense of the state of the country is “quite apocalyptic,” Bannon says. “That’s where Trump’s heart is. That’s where his obsession is.”

These obsessions could once again push the nation to the brink of crisis. Trump does not dismiss the possibility of political violence around the election. “If we don’t win, you know, it depends,” he tells TIME. “It always depends on the fairness of the election.” When I ask what he meant when he baselessly claimed on Truth Social that a stolen election “allows for the termination of all rules, regulations and articles, even those found in the Constitution,” Trump responded by denying he had said it. He then complained about the “Biden-inspired” court case he faces in New York and suggested that the “fascists” in America’s government were its greatest threat. “I think the enemy from within, in many cases, is much more dangerous for our country than the outside enemies of China, Russia, and various others,” he tells me.

Toward the end of our conversation at Mar-a-Lago, I ask Trump to explain another troubling comment he made: that he wants to be dictator for a day. It came during a Fox News town hall with Sean Hannity, who gave Trump an opportunity to allay concerns that he would abuse power in office or seek retribution against political opponents. Trump said he would not be a dictator—“except for day one,” he added. “I want to close the border, and I want to drill, drill, drill.”

Trump says that the remark “was said in fun, in jest, sarcastically.” He compares it to an infamous moment from the 2016 campaign, when he encouraged the Russians to hack and leak Hillary Clinton’s emails. In Trump’s mind, the media sensationalized those remarks too. But the Russians weren’t joking: among many other efforts to influence the core exercise of American democracy that year, they hacked the Democratic National Committee’s servers and disseminated its emails through WikiLeaks.

Whether or not he was kidding about bringing a tyrannical end to our 248-year experiment in democracy, I ask him, Don’t you see why many Americans see such talk of dictatorship as contrary to our most cherished principles? Trump says no. Quite the opposite, he insists. “I think a lot of people like it.” —With reporting by Leslie Dickstein, Simmone Shah, and Julia Zorthian

#TIME #Time Magazine #Trump #Project 2025

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Donald Trump on What His Second Term Would Look Like

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