Trump's Second Term

Trump to pardon more fellow felons.
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump announced Tuesday that he’s planning to pardon TV stars Todd and Julie Chrisley, famous for “Chrisley Knows Best,” a reality show that followed their tight-knit family and extravagant lifestyle.

The Chrisleys were convicted in 2022 of conspiring to defraud banks in the Atlanta area out of more than $30 million in fraudulent loans by submitting false documents. They were also found guilty of tax evasion by hiding their earnings while showcasing a luxurious way of living that prosecutors said included luxury cars, designer clothes, real estate and travel.

The move continues a pattern of Trump pardoning some high-profile friends, supporters, donors and former staffers. The president also recently pardoned Paul Walczak, a Florida health care executive imprisoned on tax charges, whose mother helped expose the contents of a diary kept by Ashley Biden, daughter of former President Joe Biden.
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MinnesotaBrant said:
I agree with this Asian guy's assessment of DEI. Have seen evidence that goes beyond that but living in America you can't even talk about it I believe. I personally benefit from it however at this stage of my life. One thing he fails to realize is that he is a working class stiff and there is no virtue in that going to the ivy leagues. Mostly they don't want low class anybody regardless of race. They are there but usually not at the top. My daughter might end up in Japan too. https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/o...1&cvid=9291b970ea034a5791088aa5b2811fc1&ei=14
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I have read the article.

To start, Saivikram Madireddy is no intellectual lightweight. According to the piece, he scored in the 90th percentile on the Medical College Admission Test, “with a near-perfect score in each of the three science sections — biology, chemistry and physics, and psychology and sociology.” He's made it though pre-med and medical school, and has conducted research in neurology. His name appears on a paper titled “The Interplay between Neurotransmitters and Calcium Dynamics in Retinal Synapses during Development, Health, and Disease.”

In the article he blames DEI for several things in his education and early career:
  • He applied to 75 medical schools but was accepted only by one of them. I have no idea if this is normal or not.
  • He writes, “Only three other schools even offered to interview me, almost certainly reflecting the unfair standard to which Asians are held thanks to DEI.” (Bolding mine; Madireddy is the son of immigrants from India.) This appears to be speculation.
  • He completed the Step 1 test for US Medical Licensing in 2022. But instead of receiving a numerical score, candidates are told only that they passed or failed. So not even the candidate knows if he hit the top ranks or barely squeaked by, a situation he blames on DEI “activists.”
  • He took the Step 2 test in 2023. He didn't do as well as he would have liked, but feels it put him into an excellent position to get a residency. Yet he received very few responses to the 50-plus positions he applied to. Again, I have no idea if this is normal or not.
  • He passed over two residency offers from the University of Tennessee, where he had studied medicine, as he felt future employers would think he “couldn't succeed without home field advantage.”
  • He writes, “I spoke with numerous students of different races who had scored lower than me but got better residencies. That’s exactly what’s supposed to happen under DEI.”
  • He was offered a residency at the University of Tokyo School of Medicine after presenting a research paper in Germany, for which he won an award, and later presenting a paper (the same one?) in Osaka.
Reading between the lines, he comes across to me as someone with an ego that is perhaps too large compared to his academic achievements. What he blames on diversity, equity, and inclusion could be merely be that he's not as good as he thinks he is.

Curiously, I see DEI as a program that's supposed to be helping him, given that he's a from a visible minority. But it could well be that he's correct. He's a researcher and doctor just starting his career, but medical schools are giving preference to people other than white people and Asians/East Indians.
 
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How the ◊◊◊◊ is this legal?
1748385792376.png


Around D.C., the new going rate is well-known: $5 million for a one-on-one dinner with Trump, but execs have “no clue where the money is eventually going,” one said. Another told me it’s “outer-borough Mafia ◊◊◊◊.”
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dudalb said:
If Democraby in the US really is dead, then democracy in every country on earth is on the endangered SPecies list.
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Do you think you are saying something hyperbolic or exaggerated there? Because you're not. Democracy has been threatened everywhere even before Trump.
No, I don't think Democracy is necessarily dead in the US, not even quite on life support yet. But its condition is critical.
 
One can also argue that Western democracy might get a boost from Dump. People will see the horrors of the the new regime and rally behind democratic parties in their own countries. Like how Brexit kinda ruined anti-EU movements once people saw how dysfunctional the UK became without EU.
 
Speaking of which, I wonder where today's USA will fall when the World Democracy Index is updated next (I think the 2025 numbers will be out next year). As in, I wonder it it'll be a Hybrid regime or straight up authoritarian. I know it won't be a democracy :( .
 
Resume said:
How the ◊◊◊◊ is this legal?
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Okay, this is the politics forum, where skepticism takes a back seat to the main discussion. Having said that—
  • What is the source for the picture and the text?
  • Have you been able to confirm if the picture is an actual photograph or generated by AI?
  • Have you managed to verify the information using another source?
 
"Devoting a 352-page book to unmasking a president who is no longer in office instead of the one currently sowing global chaos indicates serious mental impairment, the experts asserted."
www.borowitzreport.com

Man Feared to Be Cognitively Slipping After Writing Book About Wrong President

Devoting a 352-page book to unmasking a president who is no longer in office instead of the one currently creating global chaos indicates serious mental impairment, the experts asserted.
www.borowitzreport.com www.borowitzreport.com
 

Even seasoned practitioners of Washington pay-to-play have been startled by the new rules for buying influence. In December, a seat at a group dinner at Mar-a-Lago could be had for a million-dollar contribution to MAGA Inc., a super PAC that serves as a war chest for the midterms. More recently, one-on-one conversations with the President have become available for five million. The return on investment is uncertain, a government-affairs executive told me: “What if he’s in a bad mood? You have no clue where the money is eventually going.” Another lobbying veteran described the frank exchange as “outer-borough Mafia ◊◊◊◊.”
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Blue Mountain said:
Okay, this is the politics forum, where skepticism takes a back seat to the main discussion. Having said that—
  • What is the source for the picture and the text?
  • Have you been able to confirm if the picture is an actual photograph or generated by AI?
  • Have you managed to verify the information using another source?
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I can answer your first bullet: it's a photo illustration in the current issue of The New Yorker.
 
He's really nuts, isn't he?

Truth Details​

1449 replies

@realDonaldTrump



I told Canada, which very much wants to be part of our fabulous Golden Dome System, that it will cost $61 Billion Dollars if they remain a separate, but unequal, Nation, but will cost ZERO DOLLARS if they become our cherished 51st State. They are considering the offer!
 
Resume said:
He's really nuts, isn't he?

Truth Details​

1449 replies

@realDonaldTrump



I told Canada, which very much wants to be part of our fabulous Golden Dome System, that it will cost $61 Billion Dollars if they remain a separate, but unequal, Nation, but will cost ZERO DOLLARS if they become our cherished 51st State. They are considering the offer!
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I'm of the feeling this one is far more likely to be Trump personally, not AI. Poor grammar and punctuation (and I wonder if he actually agreed with the spellchecker on his phone), and a bunch of shouty all-caps. And most telling, it was short, so within his crapping-time attention-span.
 
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