# The Trump Administration: The Clusterfuck Continues (Part 1) **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Tags:** trump\ **Created:** [November 11, 2024, 6:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-administration-the-clusterfuck-continues-part-1/1010068 "2024-11-11T06:19:24Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 216
**Author:** ![Monty](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/monty/32/47_2.png) [@Monty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Monty)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2025, 2:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-administration-the-clusterfuck-continues-part-1/1010068/4361 "2025-04-26T14:52:58Z")
> [@DavidNRockies](#): > > Not sure where we are in either the “First They Came” or “14 Characteristics of Fascism” BINGO games, but we have to be close: You can keep track [here](https://bingobaker.com/view/8034282) or use [this one I just made (with a few additions to the list)](https://bingobaker.com#680cf1814d1c88e0). I’ll add more to the latter’s list as the second felonial era continues. Right now it generates a 4x4 card game. Soon, no doubt and sadly, there will be enough additions to make a 10x10 card game. ---
**Author:** ![eschereal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eschereal/32/18939_2.png) [@eschereal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eschereal)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2025, 3:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-administration-the-clusterfuck-continues-part-1/1010068/4362 "2025-04-26T15:04:38Z")
> [@puzzlegal](#): > > Surely _someone_ is guilty of contempt of court in these cases. Who? And what could happen to them? Felon-ONE’s government is the Deep Shit. Pulling out turds from the bottom of the pile will eventually cause the whole thing to collapse. We hope. ---
**Author:** ![DavidNRockies](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/davidnrockies/32/6279_2.png) [@DavidNRockies](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DavidNRockies)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2025, 4:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-administration-the-clusterfuck-continues-part-1/1010068/4363 "2025-04-26T16:32:29Z")
Nice!! ---
**Author:** ![OldOlds](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/a3d4f5/32.png) [@OldOlds](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/OldOlds)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2025, 5:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-administration-the-clusterfuck-continues-part-1/1010068/4364 "2025-04-26T17:46:34Z")
Perfect ---
**Author:** ![Rebo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rebo/32/13005_2.png) [@Rebo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rebo)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2025, 9:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-administration-the-clusterfuck-continues-part-1/1010068/4365 "2025-04-26T21:04:31Z")
> [@DavidNRockies](#): > > Oh, to live on > Brokeback Mountain > With ol’ Vladdy > And that orange buffoon :golf clap: ---
**Author:** ![Monty](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/monty/32/47_2.png) [@Monty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Monty)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2025, 6:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-administration-the-clusterfuck-continues-part-1/1010068/4366 "2025-04-27T06:41:31Z")
Is the Secretary of Defense having troubles in his role? The [signals](https://www.yahoo.com/news/pete-hegseth-seems-losing-mind-143029177.html) are there. > [@](#): > > The walls seem to be closing in on Pete Hegseth. > > The defense secretary—who has drawn ire for his Crusader-level white supremacy, his alcoholism, and his rank misogyny—appears to be losing it as his [double Signalgate](https://www.yahoo.com/news/pete-hegseth-flips-amid-second-130540406.html) fiasco just got even worse. > > The AP [reported](https://apnews.com/article/hegseth-signal-chat-dirty-internet-line-6a64707f10ca553eb905e5a70e10bd9d) Thursday that Hegseth wanted to brag about his war plans on Signal so badly that he installed a “dirty” or public internet connection in his private Pentagon office. This allows him to send messages from that connection without using his Defense Department IP address, effectively making him invisible as a user. This public connection usage also makes the highest-ranking defense official in the country much more vulnerable to hacking and spying. Wow. That’s some intentional inanity, putting a private unsecure router inside his Pentagon office. But, hey, “her emails” is still this administration’s _Squirrel!_, isn’t it? [Hey, here’s an idea! Let’s deport two-year old US citizens!](https://www.yahoo.com/news/federal-judge-says-2-old-032647959.html) > [@](#): > > A federal judge said Friday a 2-year-old US citizen was deported with her mother to Honduras. The Trump administration says her mother asked officials to take her with her, documents show. > > US District Judge Terry Doughty said the child, identified in the court documents as V.M.L., was released in Honduras Friday afternoon alongside her mother, who the judge said is an undocumented immigrant. > > Lawyers for the family filed an emergency petition Thursday, asking the court to order the child’s “immediate release” by the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement, saying they “lack any statutory or constitutional authority” to detain her as a US citizen, according to the petition. But, hey, at least this time it wasn’t a deportation to a [prison in Rwanda](https://www.yahoo.com/news/trump-finds-another-country-accept-185344418.html). What’s this nonsense? We’re now deporting mothers to _Cuba_. And, yes, the woman’s child is left behind but was getting breastfed until the mother was deported. > [@](#): > > A Cuban woman living in Tampa who came to the United States in 2019 and is married to a U.S. citizen was abruptly detained by immigration authorities and deported to Cuba on Thursday, leaving behind her one-year-old child. > > Heidy Sánchez, 44, a Hillsborough County resident, was among 82 Cuban migrants sent on a plane from Miami back to Cuba on Thursday morning, her husband, Carlos Yuniel Valle, told the Miami Herald. Her deportation has been so sudden and traumatic for their infant daughter, still breastfeeding and with ongoing health issues, that her grandmother was taking her to the hospital, he said in a phone interview on Friday. > > “The baby is distressed and does not want to eat,” Valle said. “Imagine, they ripped the child from her mother’s arms at the immigration office; the cries of that woman in there could be heard back in Cuba,” he said, speaking of his wife’s desperation at being separated from her daughter. Read the rest of the story. Of course it includes another round of the shell game with humans. Also: a very big “Fuck you!” to the pilots, co-pilots, and flight attendants on these deportation flights. ---
**Author:** ![Spoons](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spoons/32/3141_2.png) [@Spoons](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spoons)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2025, 8:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-administration-the-clusterfuck-continues-part-1/1010068/4367 "2025-04-27T08:35:23Z")
> [@Horatius](#): > > They’re foreigners, and they’re students, so that’s two strikes against them right there. > > Toss in anything selected from the group of : Brown person, leftist, non-English speaker, non-Christian, poor, LGBTQ+, and they’re lucky they’re not already in prison. Your post sets up the perfect wheeled trifecta, as we horseplayers would say. Setting up such a ticket, I’d ask for: Foreigners Students * * * Foreigners Students * * * ALL The cost would depend on how many are included in ALL. But yes, unlike horseplayers, nobody who is foreign and a student wants to hit this trifecta. (And just to add, this horseplayer prefers to play horse racing, not trifectas on humans being deported.) ---
**Author:** ![MindsEye\_Watering](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mindseye_watering/32/3619_2.png) [@MindsEye\_Watering](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MindsEye_Watering)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2025, 1:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-administration-the-clusterfuck-continues-part-1/1010068/4368 "2025-04-27T13:23:34Z")
> [@Monty](#): > > Hey, here’s an idea! Let’s deport two-year old US citizens! [It’s now 3 US Citizen children.](https://www.rawstory.com/us-deports-3-american-children-including-cancer-patient-rights-groups/) One of which has cancer. ---
**Author:** ![Ellecram](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ellecram/32/18948_2.png) [@Ellecram](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ellecram)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2025, 1:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-administration-the-clusterfuck-continues-part-1/1010068/4369 "2025-04-27T13:29:30Z")
This has become so breathtakingly horrifying that I can barely stand to read about it. Only because I am impotent in the face of it all. However, I will continue to read and do what little I can. It’s the least I can do. ---
**Author:** ![natureboy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/4491bb/32.png) [@natureboy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/natureboy)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2025, 1:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-administration-the-clusterfuck-continues-part-1/1010068/4370 "2025-04-27T13:51:16Z")
> [@Spoons](#): > > At the risk of a hijack, I think Carney scares Trump. I doubt it. I don’t think Trump has any recognition of the kinds of skills that his counterparts have, except for his counterparts who actually kill and jail their opponents – he respects and maybe even fears those. But Trump wouldn’t understand what Carney does, and in his mind, Canada is a ‘state’ with 35 million people and a ton of uninhabited land and natural resources. ---
**Author:** ![DavidNRockies](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/davidnrockies/32/6279_2.png) [@DavidNRockies](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DavidNRockies)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2025, 2:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-administration-the-clusterfuck-continues-part-1/1010068/4371 "2025-04-27T14:23:16Z")
> [@natureboy](#): > > But Trump wouldn’t understand what Carney does, and in his mind, Canada is a ‘state’ with 35 million people and a ton of uninhabited land and natural resources. Yep. He sees the world as a Monopoly board. I can’t help wondering if he was eyeing the Vatican for a fire-sale cash offer since the previous occupant had recently died. ---
**Author:** ![Buck\_Godot](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/buck_godot/32/6573_2.png) [@Buck\_Godot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Buck_Godot)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2025, 3:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-administration-the-clusterfuck-continues-part-1/1010068/4372 "2025-04-27T15:46:38Z")
> [@DavidNRockies](#): > > Yep. He sees the world as a Monopoly board. As I said in another thread his obsession with Canada, Greenland, and Panama only makes sense if he somehow thought that Risk was an accurate description of strategic affairs, and that if he takes them he gets 5 armies a turn. ---
**Author:** ![DavidNRockies](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/davidnrockies/32/6279_2.png) [@DavidNRockies](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DavidNRockies)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2025, 7:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-administration-the-clusterfuck-continues-part-1/1010068/4373 "2025-04-27T19:32:02Z")
The Legal Eagle has signed on to an _amicus curiae_ brief, along with 500 other firms, in an effort to persuade the court to Shut This Shit Down ([**9m41s YouTube Video**](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tGTZ6s3OUJo)). Much of the video is him reading the salient portions of the [**brief (23pp PDF - see PDF pgs 5 - 9)**](https://www.mto.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/63-1-Exhibit-1-Amicus-Brief.pdf). It’s well written. It’s something, not nothing. It’s also quite likely a totally reasonable effort to stanch the financial bleeding that many firms are experiencing and that many more foresee. But WGAF? Better the right thing for the wrong reasons than not at all. ---
**Author:** ![dougrb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/76d3ee/32.png) [@dougrb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dougrb)\ **Post date:** [April 28, 2025, 12:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-administration-the-clusterfuck-continues-part-1/1010068/4374 "2025-04-28T00:41:58Z")
> A new club is coming to Washington — and you probably can’t get in. > The referral requirements and prohibitive pricing is meant to ensure the C-suite crowd can mingle with Trump advisers and cabinet members without the prying eyes of the press and wanna-be insiders. [https://www.politico.com/news/2025/04/26/donald-trump-washington-club-00311720](https://www.politico.com/news/2025/04/26/donald-trump-washington-club-00311720) ---
**Author:** ![Horatius](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/horatius/32/3572_2.png) [@Horatius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Horatius)\ **Post date:** [April 28, 2025, 9:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-administration-the-clusterfuck-continues-part-1/1010068/4375 "2025-04-28T09:07:56Z")
I thought it was Hunter Biden that was selling access to the president! How dare Donnie Jr horn in on Hunter’s racket! ---
**Author:** ![dasmoocher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/dbc845/32.png) [@dasmoocher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dasmoocher)\ **Post date:** [April 28, 2025, 2:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-administration-the-clusterfuck-continues-part-1/1010068/4376 "2025-04-28T14:21:05Z")
HHS has a projected budget of $1.8 trillion, which is a little over 25% of the total federal budget. Here’s John Oliver’s recap of what RFK, Jr. is doing: [RFK Jr. & HHS: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (HBO)](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8H34jcpEsFs) > John Oliver discusses the budget and staffing cuts being made to public health agencies in the U.S. under RFK Jr.’s new leadership, the many ways those cuts will impact all of us, and how WWII really ended. Trust us, it’s not how you think. ---
**Author:** ![Monty](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/monty/32/47_2.png) [@Monty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Monty)\ **Post date:** [April 29, 2025, 5:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-administration-the-clusterfuck-continues-part-1/1010068/4377 "2025-04-29T05:26:21Z")
[Now the convicted felon at the top of the rubbish heap known as the current administration believes he’s in charge of the entire planet.](https://www.yahoo.com/news/trump-run-country-world-152835216.html) > [@](#): > > President Trump shared his thoughts on how his two terms as president have differed, saying in a new interview with The Atlantic that this time around he’s leading “the country and the world.” > > “The first time, I had two things to do — run the country and survive; I had all these crooked guys,” Trump said in the [interview published Monday](https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2025/06/trump-second-term-comeback/682573/). “And the second time, I run the country and the world.” And so much winning! [Actually, the people who aren’t cowering to said rubbish heap’s illegalities are winning.](https://www.yahoo.com/news/judge-snaps-doj-lawyer-arguing-200407364.html) > [@](#): > > A federal judge appeared poised to hand Big Law another win after he snapped Monday at a Justice Department lawyer attempting to justify President Donald Trump’s executive order targeting one firm. > > During Monday’s court hearing, Richard Lawson, the Justice Department attorney, argued that Trump’s order could not possibly be illegal because it required federal agencies to act “consistent with applicable law.” > > Lawson appeared to struggle through arguments, at times not giving direct responses to questions from the judge. That last bit, IMHO, is when the judge should’ve stopped that flack in his tracks and reamed him a new one. Direct question from the judge had full well better get a direct answer. Rubio, not wanting his master to be the only one making asinine statements has [an interesting take on deporting citizens](https://www.yahoo.com/news/rubio-pressed-2-4-7-160700804.html). > [@](#): > > Secretary of State [Marco Rubio](https://www.usatoday.com/news/politics/marco-rubio/) said three young children, ages 2, 4 and 7, who are all U.S. citizens removed from the country in recent weeks, were “not deported” but “[went with their mothers](https://www.yahoo.com/news/2-old-u-citizen-apparently-165044117.html)” to Honduras. & > [@](#): > > “Three U.S. citizens ages 4, 7 and 2 were not deported,” Rubio said. “Their mothers, who were illegally in this country, were deported. The children went with their mothers.” > > “If those children are U.S. citizens, they can come back into the United States if their father or someone here wants to assume them,” he added. _Rubio just admitted he does not know he deported citizens_. That’s the rational interpretation of his use of the word _if_ there. Also, there is one and only one rational interpretation of _went with their mothers who were deported_. A federal judge has it right, though. > [@](#): > > U.S. District Judge Terry A. Doughty scheduled a hearing for May 19 “in the interest of dispelling our strong suspicion that the Government just deported a U.S. citizen with no meaningful process.” > > “It is illegal and unconstitutional to deport, detain for deportation, or recommend deportation of a U.S. citizen,” Doughty said. ---
**Author:** ![Dinsdale](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/97f17d/32.png) [@Dinsdale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dinsdale)\ **Post date:** [April 29, 2025, 12:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-administration-the-clusterfuck-continues-part-1/1010068/4378 "2025-04-29T12:45:19Z")
> [@Monty](#): > > Direct question from the judge had full well better get a direct answer. You might think so, but that has long since ceased to be my expectation. In fact, on days that I conduct hearings I am pretty much ruined for polite conversation afterwards. After hours of people lying to me and refusing to directly answer clear questions, it is hard to adjust to normal conversation. I have said, with only little exaggeration, that a claimant’s chances of success increase greatly if BOTH the claimant AND their representative are not COMPLETE bullshitters. I remember decades ago when prepping for a circuit court argument, my boss told me that if a judge asks a yes/no question, the FIRST words out of my mouth had better be yes or no. If you want to qualify the response or introduce some subtleties, do so AFTER first answering yes or no. My experience since is that far too many lawyers have never learned (or have rejected) that simple advice. You might think that a judge’s question: “What is your theory of the case and what evidence supports that theory?” would be one that just about every representative would be prepared to answer. But you would be quickly disavowed of that expectation. ---
**Author:** ![OldOlds](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/a3d4f5/32.png) [@OldOlds](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/OldOlds)\ **Post date:** [April 29, 2025, 12:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-administration-the-clusterfuck-continues-part-1/1010068/4379 "2025-04-29T12:49:51Z")
I just want to complain. Not only are the tariffs impacting my company in a significant way, but now two things are happening: 1. Things are taking forever to clear customs. We have some materials from our overseas factory that have been sitting waiting for clearance for two weeks. Normal is more like two days 2. We are seeing items with the same harmonization code charged different tariffs, which makes zero sense. AIUI, Trump, in his typical idiocy, never stopped to consider how much WORK these tariffs would be for Customs. ---
**Author:** ![DavidNRockies](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/davidnrockies/32/6279_2.png) [@DavidNRockies](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DavidNRockies)\ **Post date:** [April 29, 2025, 12:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-administration-the-clusterfuck-continues-part-1/1010068/4380 "2025-04-29T12:53:23Z")
> [@OldOlds](#): > > 1. We are seeing items with the same harmonization code charged different tariffs, which makes zero sense. Could these products have arrived at the destination port at different times (ie, on different days)? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-administration-the-clusterfuck-continues-part-1/1010068.md?page=215) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-administration-the-clusterfuck-continues-part-1/1010068.md?page=217)