# 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:** 439
**Author:** ![dtilque](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/d6d6ee/32.png) [@dtilque](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dtilque)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2025, 7:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-administration-the-clusterfuck-continues-part-1/1010068/8822 "2025-10-15T19:06:41Z")
> [@Johnny\_L.A](#): > > [Before Alaska flooding, EPA canceled $20 million flood protection grant | The Seattle Times](https://www.seattletimes.com/nation-world/before-alaska-flooding-epa-canceled-20-million-flood-protection-grant/) Another thing about that Alaska flooding: the Weather Service predicted the storms would go to a different part of Alaska, so no one in the areas affected had warning. They can’t prove it, but most likely the reason for the mistaken prediction was that weather balloons aren’t being lofted in Alaska as often as they would like. Some stations don’t send any up, others only send one per day instead of the usual 2/day. And the reason for this decrease in ballooning is the firings and early retirements promulgated by DOGE. ---
**Author:** ![Pardel-Lux](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pardel-lux/32/20182_2.png) [@Pardel-Lux](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pardel-Lux)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2025, 9:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-administration-the-clusterfuck-continues-part-1/1010068/8823 "2025-10-15T21:12:33Z")
> [@Coriolanus](#): > > There was no chorus of “(If you want it)” like the song “Happy Xmas (War is Over)” as trump was reportedly refraining with “That’s how it is”. The message > > WAR > > IS > > OVER > > if you want it > > where the differences in font size was more like 44 to 9 was on billboards John & Yoko bought in a bunch of cities in 1971. You can buy it tomorrow at Christie’s, signed by John and Yoko themselves: > **[WAR IS OVER! (IF YOU WANT IT)](https://onlineonly.christies.com/s/fine-printed-books-manuscripts-including-americana/war-over-if-you-want-it-160/270685?ldp_breadcrumb=back)** > > LENNON, John (1940-1980); ONO, Yoko (b. 1933). WAR IS OVER! IF YOU WANT IT Happy Christmas from John & Yoko. \[London or New York, 1969\]. Signed, ("Love from John Lennon Yoko Ono Lennon").Broadside, 150 x 210mm.An extremely rare signed placard... ---
**Author:** ![Coriolanus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/coriolanus/32/18769_2.png) [@Coriolanus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Coriolanus)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2025, 4:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-administration-the-clusterfuck-continues-part-1/1010068/8824 "2025-10-16T04:47:09Z")
That’s the exact layout of the billboards. Though ISTR the billboards were white letters on a black background, at least in NYC. I’d estimate sales at $67,000. A similar placard with smaller words and a picture of trump would go for ten times that. Maybe only $1.000 if he made 1.000 of them all auto-signed with his psycho signature and make a $1,000,000 for the family business. ---
**Author:** ![Coriolanus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/coriolanus/32/18769_2.png) [@Coriolanus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Coriolanus)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2025, 5:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-administration-the-clusterfuck-continues-part-1/1010068/8825 "2025-10-16T05:44:17Z")
Christies estimates $6K-12K so clearly it’s not a one-off. And this kind of message/campaign dates to 1969 though the song came out in 1971, a month or so after the Imagine album. ---
**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:** [October 17, 2025, 6:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-administration-the-clusterfuck-continues-part-1/1010068/8826 "2025-10-17T06:20:32Z")
[ICE lied about someone they’ve arrested?](https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/police-chief-blows-ice-barbie-105158529.html) > [@](#): > > A police chief has revealed that no gun was found on a 13-year-old boy who was detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement despite a top Department of Homeland Security official’s claims. > > Reports that a seventh-grader had been [arrested by federal agents and taken to a juvenile detention center](https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/ice-barbie-goons-lock-13-192617772.html) more than 500 miles away from his family sparked widespread outrage. > > Amid the social media furor, Tricia McLaughlin, who as assistant secretary of the Department of homeland Security is Homeland Security Secreatry Kristi Noem’s top communications official, went to bat for ICE on her official social media account. > > She posted on X: “Here are the facts: he posed a public safety hreat with an extensive rap sheet including violent assault with a dangerous weapon, battery, breaking and entering, destruction of property. He was in possession of a firearm and 5-7 inch knife when arrested.” Shockingly (hmph!) this is not true. > [@](#): > > At a City Hall news conference on Tuesday in Everett, assachusetts, city May Carlo DeMaria said officers had recovered a 6-7 inch double-edged knife from the boy during the arrest last Thursday at Albert N. parlin School but “no firearm,” a detail confirmed by Everett Police Chief Paul Strong and reported by The Boston Globe. [Bondi ordered to sing about Maxwell’s prison move.](https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/pam-bondi-ordered-explain-ghislaine-212804146.html) > [@](#): > > Pam Bondi has been ordered to explain Ghislaine Maxwell’s transfer to a minimum security prison amid claims she was given preferential treatment. & > [@](#): > > Robert Garcia, who is leading ethe AHouse oversight committee’s investigation into Epstein, has demanded Mrs Bondi, Mr Trump’s attorney general, explain why Maxwell was transferred. > > “Each day Pam Bondi and the department of justice fail to comply with our subpoena to release the full Epstein files is another day Donald Trump continues his White House cover-up,” he said. Check out the full article. It’s a great ride. [Apparently you need to change your citizenship to Argentina to get health care fuding from the US goverment.](https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/jeffries-bashes-trump-40b-pledge-195120289.html) > [@](#): > > House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) on Wednesday hammered the Trump administration’s effort to provide $40 billion to help Argentina’s convervative leader weather that country’s financial crisis. > > Jeffries wondered why Republicans in Washington are willing to secure so much funding for a foreign government but are balking at Democratic demands to subsidize health care for working class people at home. > > “It’s perpexing to us that Republicans refuse to spend a dime to protect the health care of the American peopole, but somehow the Trump administration found $40 billion to bail out a right-wing wannabe dictator in Argentina,” Jeffries told reporters in the Capitol. I, for one, am not perplexed at all, Congressman Jeffries. You just said why America’s right-wing wannabe dictator loves Argentina’s. They are two turds in a latrine. ---
**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:** [October 17, 2025, 6:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-administration-the-clusterfuck-continues-part-1/1010068/8827 "2025-10-17T06:56:55Z")
[No doubt this is something the felon’s used to hearing: He’s getting sued.](https://www.koreatimes.co.kr/world/20251017/major-us-business-group-sues-over-trumps-100000-h-1b-visa-fee) > [@](#): > > The largest U.S. business lobbying group filed a lawsuit on Thursday challenging President Donald Trump’s $100,000 fee on new H-1B visas for highly skilled foreign workers. > > The lawsuit by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, which says it represents 300,000 businesses, is the group’s first against the Trump administration since the Republican president took office for a second term in January. The Chamber says in the lawsuit that Trump’s September proclamation imposing the fee on new H-1B visa applications was beyond his powers and would disrupt the complex visa system created by Congress. > > The H-1B program allows U.S. employers to hire foreign workers in specialty fields, and technology companies in particular rely heavily on workers who receive H-1B visas. The program offers 65,000 visas annually, with another 20,000 visas for workers with advanced degrees, approved for three to six years. > > The fee would force businesses that rely on the H-1B program to choose between dramatically increasing their labor costs or hiring fewer highly-skilled workers, the Chamber said. > > “Many members of the U.S. Chamber are bracing for the need to scale back or entirely walk away from the H-1B program, to the detriment of their investors, customers, and their own existing employees,” the group said in the lawsuit filed in Washington, D.C., federal court. > > The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The H-1B fee is being challenged in at least one other lawsuit filed this month by unions, employers, and religious groups in a California federal court. ---
**Author:** ![smithsb](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/smithsb/32/12107_2.png) [@smithsb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/smithsb)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2025, 11:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-administration-the-clusterfuck-continues-part-1/1010068/8828 "2025-10-17T11:55:16Z")
I don’t understand. You either pay the exorbitant fee or ~~bribe~~ make an in-kind payment to some Dump scheme to get a waiver of the fee. Seems reasonable to me through the grifty filter. ---
**Author:** ![Frodo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/frodo/32/302_2.png) [@Frodo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frodo)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2025, 12:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-administration-the-clusterfuck-continues-part-1/1010068/8829 "2025-10-17T12:24:15Z")
> [@Monty](#): > > Apparently you need to change your citizenship to Argentina to get health care fuding from the US goverment. If you think any of that money is going to be used for health care, I have a mailbox bridge to sell you… And not only because of graft, but because the people who would be in charge of administering that money are violently against public health, public education, public investments in infrastructure… well against the public in general. ---
**Author:** ![OttoDaFe](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ottodafe/32/356_2.png) [@OttoDaFe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/OttoDaFe)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2025, 1:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-administration-the-clusterfuck-continues-part-1/1010068/8830 "2025-10-17T13:04:11Z")
Jeffries appeared to be making the point that the $40B could have been used to provide health care in the US rather than to “help Argentina’s conservative leader\* weather that country’s financial crisis.” He wasn’t making any predictions about what the money would be used for in Argentina, though his use of “right-wing wannabe dictator” doesn’t imply a great deal of confidence in the idea that it would be used to benefit his people. \* And the Orange Peril’s latest BFF ---
**Author:** ![Stratocaster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/stratocaster/32/16393_2.png) [@Stratocaster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stratocaster)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2025, 1:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-administration-the-clusterfuck-continues-part-1/1010068/8831 "2025-10-17T13:11:45Z")
Jeffries is a very smart fellow, and anytime he starts a statement with “it’s perplexing,” you can be assured he is far from perplexed. ---
**Author:** ![Frodo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/frodo/32/302_2.png) [@Frodo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frodo)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2025, 1:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-administration-the-clusterfuck-continues-part-1/1010068/8832 "2025-10-17T13:17:42Z")
Jeffries yes, but **Monty** said “Apparently you need to change your citizenship to Argentina to get health care fuding from the US goverment.” It irks me a lot when this is presented as some kind of favor to _Argentina_ or _Argentinian citizens_ instead of what it is, a way to help Milei’s political fortunes at the cost of saddling us with the one thing we definitively do not need more of: Debt. ---
**Author:** ![Gyrate](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gyrate/32/3588_2.png) [@Gyrate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gyrate)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2025, 2:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-administration-the-clusterfuck-continues-part-1/1010068/8833 "2025-10-17T14:08:50Z")
> [@Frodo](#): > > the people who would be in charge of administering that money are violently against public health, public education, public investments in infrastructure… well against the public in general. That’s why you’d never catch _me_ being a member of the public! ---
**Author:** ![SunUp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ea5d25/32.png) [@SunUp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SunUp)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2025, 2:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-administration-the-clusterfuck-continues-part-1/1010068/8834 "2025-10-17T14:57:02Z")
> [@Frodo](#): > > what it is, a way to help Milei’s political fortunes Ah, but it’s not just that! It also bails out some bad bets made by Scott Bessent’s bondholding cronies at the same time! [It’s a floor wax, _and_ a dessert topping](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wPO8PqHGWFU)! ---
**Author:** ![Frodo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/frodo/32/302_2.png) [@Frodo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frodo)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2025, 3:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-administration-the-clusterfuck-continues-part-1/1010068/8835 "2025-10-17T15:08:00Z")
Yeah well, as I said in the other thread, this is nothing new or unexpected: > [@I fear I'm about to lose my country](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-fear-im-about-to-lose-my-country/991926/882): > > [[Bersuit vergarabat - El tiempo no para (con letra)] ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4hXDDzig90M&t=41/) ---
**Author:** ![Frodo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/frodo/32/302_2.png) [@Frodo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frodo)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2025, 3:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-administration-the-clusterfuck-continues-part-1/1010068/8836 "2025-10-17T15:12:27Z")
It’s never a good choice, like not having rich parents or belonging to a minority, or being ill. As the saying goes “It’s better to be rich, young and healthy than poor, old and sick”. ---
**Author:** ![OldOlds](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/a3d4f5/32.png) [@OldOlds](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/OldOlds)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2025, 7:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-administration-the-clusterfuck-continues-part-1/1010068/8837 "2025-10-17T19:08:41Z")
> [@Monty](#): > > assachusetts Don’t try and tell me that was an accident. ---
**Author:** ![dougrb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/76d3ee/32.png) [@dougrb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dougrb)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2025, 10:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-administration-the-clusterfuck-continues-part-1/1010068/8838 "2025-10-17T22:54:26Z")
[How could this not be a clusterfuck… Russia-Alaska tunnel, brought to you by Elon.](https://www.cnbc.com/2025/10/17/musk-trump-putin-tunnel-russia-alaska.html) > A tunnel like this would traditionally cost an estimated $65 billion to build, said Dmitriev, who is head of Russia’s sovereign wealth fund, adding that The Boring Company and its technology could potentially reduce those costs to $8 billion and complete the project within eight years. ---
**Author:** ![robby](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/robby/32/11048_2.png) [@robby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/robby)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2025, 10:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-administration-the-clusterfuck-continues-part-1/1010068/8839 "2025-10-17T22:58:51Z")
> [@dougrb](#): > > [How could this not be a clusterfuck… Russia-Alaska tunnel, brought to you by Elon.](https://www.cnbc.com/2025/10/17/musk-trump-putin-tunnel-russia-alaska.html) > > > A tunnel like this would traditionally cost an estimated $65 billion to build, said Dmitriev, who is head of Russia’s sovereign wealth fund, adding that The Boring Company and its technology could potentially reduce those costs to $8 billion and complete the project within eight years. Because there’s so much traffic demand between Alaska and Siberia to justify spending billions of dollars on this boondoggle? 🙄 ---
**Author:** ![BlankSlate](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/blankslate/32/80_2.png) [@BlankSlate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BlankSlate)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2025, 11:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-administration-the-clusterfuck-continues-part-1/1010068/8840 "2025-10-17T23:00:29Z")
> [@dougrb](#): > > The Boring Company and its technology could potentially reduce those costs to $8 billion and complete the project within eight years. If you find that statement risible, just ask the astronauts on Mars. ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Drake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ad7895/32.png) [@Dr.Drake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Drake)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2025, 11:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-administration-the-clusterfuck-continues-part-1/1010068/8841 "2025-10-17T23:06:25Z")
It would be easier to re-integrate Аляска with Russia if there were a road connection, though. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-administration-the-clusterfuck-continues-part-1/1010068.md?page=438) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-administration-the-clusterfuck-continues-part-1/1010068.md?page=440)