Trump Admin II: Orange Fascist Boogaloo

Remember how upset some people got at the idea of the government owning stakes in automakers when Obama was in office? And how they swore they’d never buy a car from “government motors”?

Are we sure that this isn't just another flavour of bailout? I can't see Trump wanting to run these companies as going concerns.

Opinion
George F. Will
A sickening moral slum of an administration
Regarding Venezuela, Ukraine and much more, Trump and his acolytes are worse than simply incompetent.

Goddamn, when you have me (mostly) agreeing with George Will, you've truly screwed the pooch as an administration.

https://bsky.app/profile/nothoodlum.bsky.social/post/3m6ximxyyuk2m

https://x.com/alinahabba/status/1998101999024550125?s=46&t=iYW3foyqIA6Tn8VWwn3nwQ

You can take the piss out of a fucking dumbass, though.

I've always liked George Will. And now I continue to.

Trump’s henchmen are openly bragging to Republican donors how the MAGA #SCOTUS will help them win elections by ruling the Republican’s way on campaign finance contribution and redistricting cases.
Trumpers are counting on right wing judicial coup from Roberts

Related

New US security strategy aligns with Russia's vision, Moscow says

Two Trump mortgages have same feature that led to charges for several presidential foes

In any case, I strongly suspect that with 2026 looking like a bloodbath for Republicans, and remembering from 2020 (and January 2021) how well Trump deals with losing, Trump will sooner or later find a justification for declaring the Democratic Party a domestic terrorist organisation or something of the sort, and outlawing it. There have been various hints and comments coming out of his administration that seem to be going in that direction.

This document describes domestic terrorists as those with an "opposition to law and immigration enforcement; extreme views in favor of mass migration and open borders; adherence to radical gender ideology, anti-Americanism, anti-capitalism, or anti-Christianity” and “hostility towards traditional views on family, religion, and morality …”

So, yeah.

And don't forget he has already declared "Antifa" (which doesn't even exist as an organisation) to be a domestic terrorist organsisation.

if it was wasteful to change it once, doesn't that mean that by definition it is just as wasteful to change it back?

This is how fucking off-the-rails this party has gotten. Is it about helping anyone in any way? It must be ended!

Not by definition. Some possibilities off the top of my head:
1. The change hadn't been fully implemented and so the change-back prevented spending/problems that now will not happen. (say, reprinting of new hard-copy publications that now will not be necessary because there arer already plenty of copies in the original font)
2. The original change was done in a wasteful/expensive manner (for instance, hiring consultants at $1 million to say "this is the best font"), but the changeback will use cheaper and more efficient processes
3. The original change cost X, the changeback will also cost X (in dollars/time/other resources and intangible things) but the second example of X is worth it because the original change was that bad and would lead to an additional Y.

Of course, I would be surprised if the change to a given font had much of a cost to it at all.

I suspect the truth is somewhat more mundane than any of those: Calibri was the default MS Office font for over a decade (prior to which, it was Times New Roman; I think it's now Aptos) and employees were fed up with having to change it to Times New Roman. It was probably easier to justify the switch to Calibri with a (flimsy, IMHO) accessibility excuse* than a "hey, everyone hates having to change their font" reason. The marginal cost for each font is 0, unless there are large portions of the government that are working on MS Office versions so old they don't have Calibri preinstalled.

It strikes me as very plausible on two fronts: that it's much easier to get a font policy changed for bullshit accessibility reasons than real convenience reasons, and that only high-ranking Republicans are dumb enough to think that accessibility was the real reason.

* something about screen readers handling sans serif fonts better, but if the document is in document form (even a PDF) and not an image, screen readers don't care about font.

They're burning millions, even billions, of dollars that people don't have over their petty bigotry.

They have to pretend they're "fixing" things. So problems must be created.

Worth noting: I would guess that the vast majority of people who read government documents are doing so on a screen.

Sans-serif fonts are vastly preferred for screens, to the point where about 85% of websites are sans serif. Even the State Department's own website, although it uses a serif font for headlines and some display type, uses sans serif for body copy and navigation.

Better not point this out to the Republicans, or they'll launch a billion-dollar redesign of all government websites to make sure they all use serif fonts, just to guard against the off-chance that sans serif might make a visually impaired person's life a little easier.

Begun the font wars have.

https://www.thetimes.com/us/american-politics/article/us-mega-eu-trump-pqhz8gplr

The national security strategy says quite a lot about Europe - this is just one of the hugely objectionable things.

https://bsky.app/profile/anneapplebaum.bsky.social/post/3m7s3fo2xw22c

Link to the news article covering this:
https://visasnews.com/en/us-social-...sta-is-about-to-undergo-major-changes-travel/