Traitor Watch - The 45 & 47 Thread

[Axaday]

So Trump fired the Librarian of Congress today. Cause...reasons. Here's the article.

https://www.npr.org/2025/05/09/nx-s1-5393737/carla-hayden-fired-library-of-congress-trump

But what gets most people going is the reason that Trump's press secretary cited for her ousting.

Acyn (@acyn.bsky.social)

Reporter: The president fired the Librarian of Congress. Why? Leavitt: There were quite concerning things she had done at the Library of Congress in the pursuit of DEI and putting inappropriate books in the library for children.

bsky.app

I...I think Trump actually thinks the Library of Congress is an actual public library with all the fixings. Including a children's section.

Ironbite-that he should go sit in and maybe read "How Not To Be a Dictator for Kids".

I cannot shed any light on the actual allegation, but the Library of Congress DOES have a children's section.

I feel like there should be a little boom-tish there, because sometimes it seems like the adult section is the weird thing there. But seriously. It really does have a children's section.

 

[Pale Rider]

 

[Axaday]

He is correct that a lot of it depends on whether the courts do the right thing or not. I think they will. Unfortunately the rest depends on whether people will abide by the courts' instructions and that part gets pretty murky.

 

[NovaSaber]

Taniel (@taniel.bsky.social)

just over the last 5 weeks, Trump has helped swing elections (against him) in Wisconsin, Canada, Australia, and the Vatican.

bsky.app

 

[Paladin]

And not a single Democrat will even pretend to care.

https://www.axios.com/2025/05/10/trump-ice-arrest-house-democrats-new-jersey

 

[Anonymous X]

Michael Derby (@michaelsderby.bsky.social)

ABC reports Trump to take “flying palace” from Qatar and use it as temporary Air Force 1 before converting it to a personal possession. https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/trump-administration-poised-accept-palace-sky-gift-trump/story?id=121680511

bsky.app

If true… Calling this “corruption” doesn’t even cover it.

 

[Axaday]

The procedure is totally clear that gifts from foreign governments must be donated or otherwise divested immediately.

 

[CoffeeHorse]

He'll donate it to some "charitable foundation" he likes.

Or the administration will just take a "What'cha gonna do about it?" stance until this drops out of the news.

 

[NovaSaber]

Apparently that bastard killed funding for PBS Kids last week.

How was that not "too widely reported to easily miss" news?

 

[wonko the sane?]

I heard about it from my news sources on youtube: but trump also does so much jive every ******* week that it's easy for stuff to get buried. As was his plan.

 

[CoffeeHorse]

 

[KidTDragon]

"And to help the pharmaceutical companies recover the lost revenue, we're going to lower their taxes, and kill Medicare to pay for it."

 

[Pocket]

Am I a bad person for hoping it really is something like that? Because it's entirely possible that he's being totally serious and is about to use his bullshit dictator powers to force drug prices into the realm of the affordable with no strings attached, just because he knows how popular it would make him. Why not? The drug companies' money isn't his money, after all. He's not beholden to lobbyists. He's not beholden to anyone. And he would love nothing better than to prove that this makes him the ideal person to solve everybody's problems the easy way.

That part where he says this is what the Democrats, his sworn enemies, have been pushing for for years, though... did hell just freeze over? It was in no way necessary to mention that. It was in no way beneficial to him to mention that. And, depending on your point of view, it's not even entirely accurate. Democrats occasionally make a big show of wanting drug costs to be lower, but of course they're beholden to the same lobbyists as the Republicans, so they've been playing along with the scam.

 

[Axaday]

This is a dirty subject, but my first hot take is that Harris had a troubling gaffe in the campaign where she said she would do price controls to fix inflation and she paid a price for it. Will Trump? If you don't know exactly what you are doing when you fix prices, you get shortages. You don't want to be President of the United States when people cannot get medicine.

Second take is that there probably isn't anything he can actually do to fix drug prices. I mean he doesn't have the legal power, but he also doesn't really have any mechanism to enforce it illegally either. Putting a tariff on it won't work.

Third take is the dirty part. Other countries do get the drugs cheaper. Some because they cannot pay more. A lot because single payer systems can bring a lot of clout to the table and companies have been willing to cut deals because the United States was still going to pay the bills. This really is true. If the USA went single payer or had some other way to actually yank at the prices, it would knock down a big house of cards.

 

[Rhinox]

Michael Derby (@michaelsderby.bsky.social)

ABC reports Trump to take “flying palace” from Qatar and use it as temporary Air Force 1 before converting it to a personal possession. https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/trump-administration-poised-accept-palace-sky-gift-trump/story?id=121680511

bsky.app

If true… Calling this “corruption” doesn’t even cover it.

Here's fun. Even Lara Loomer is calling him out on this one.

Seriously.

 

[CoffeeHorse]

This is a dirty subject, but my first hot take is that Harris had a troubling gaffe in the campaign where she said she would do price controls to fix inflation and she paid a price for it. Will Trump? If you don't know exactly what you are doing when you fix prices, you get shortages. You don't want to be President of the United States when people cannot get medicine.

The thing is Harris was right about price gouging, and Trump knows it. He just hit her on that because none of his other attacks had worked yet and it was starting to freak him out. It was his first chance to win a news cycle against her. But she was right.

Earlier this year Trump's DOJ started investigating egg producers for price gouging. The same kind of investigation he pretended to be against when Harris proposed it. Here you can see the exact moment that news broke.

 

[Steevy Maximus]

Yeah, people are, broadly, still brainwashed by the Republican machine, and there really ARE times where both sides can agree on something. Even if Republicans talked it down before…

The big difference I see is that the pharmaceutical industry bandies about a LOT more money than the egg producers. They WILL fight to keep their margins and profits. I would be THRILLED to see this become a thing…but I suspect a lot of “quiet money” is going to go around and it will quietly be buried in a few months next to Trumps next big round of bull.

 

[CoffeeHorse]

We'll see. Big pharma will spend all the money fighting this, and it's worked for them before, but I think people's patience with our entire healthcare system has finally run out. Congress will be looking at a donor revolt, but they'll also be looking at some extremely lopsided internal polling.

 

[The Mighty Mollusk]

The COVID pandemic is still fresh in peoples' minds (not to mention whatever else is coming next, with Trump gutting everything). Medical debt is piling up across the country. And we can see how much better other countries have handled actually taking care of their people thanks to the internet. With a younger population entering the voting ages, we're going to see a lot more anger about all of this. Hopefully it all amounts to something.

 

[wonko the sane?]

I honestly don't see how you can get more angry than "randomly hunting down and killing health care CEO's".