2024 OT Election Day Thread: Donald Trump elected POTUS, GOP wins Senate and House of Representatives

Trump raising prices of medication for Medicare/Medicaid. This is not America first maga.

Have to commend the general goal of tackling the fentanyl epidemic, but is this really sending out the right message?

If Republicans wanted to tackle the fentanyl epidemic, they'd have passed the bipartisan immigration reform bill.

Yeah, I don't really see how tariffs are supposed to help with the contraband problem either, but I'm probably missing something.

Not at all. Actually most fentanyl is brought in by Americans. Not immigrants. Also, if Americans didn't use illicit drugs, the drug cartels wouldn't be an issue either. And lastly, the illegal guns the cartels have are from the US. Republicans won't tell their base that though.

Oh wow. Did not know that.

I do appreciate that the supply-side issue is often the only one you can realistically tackle in that whole chicken-egg cycle. Just pardoning that silk-road guy is a weird move, given Trump's angle on narcotics. You think it's kind of a token of gratitude to the libertarian file, a super-legal flex, or are we going to see further moves towards decriminalisation of hard drugs this term?

@sancho_panzer: It was likely just bought.

Placating his donors.

@LJS9502_basic: the sad thing is that so many Americans are so supportive and relaxed about drug consumption, yet their own drug consumption is now being used as club to attack other countries.

When I made a few anti drugs threads here before most people were actually defensive of drug use. And it's even more remarkable since the few times I went to the USA the streets were full of homeless drug addicts living in tents. One would think that should be enough to reconsider your ideas about drug consumption, but no, the fault always lie with the other.

The US elected a president they deserve.

@nirgal: "This looks like no medical professional was ever consulted."

I think we're going to be saying this a lot for the next few years.

Not only that, but I would argue that the republicans are opposed to any actual solutions to the opioid crisis and actively make things worse.

1. Deregulations galore
2. War on Drugs
3. Constant undermining of the FDA, leading to weak oversight
4. Trump raising the price of prescription drugs.
5. Trump blocking access to medical information, and scientific communication.

And yes, I mean it. He outright ordered a freeze on many pivotal medical agencies. While we are in the middle of what I like to call an omnipandemic. And with at least one of those Disease X candidates being centered in the US, that also makes the job of Epidemiologists in say... Canada or Europe much harder, since we need to monitor disease in the US as well. Given that H5N1 is spreading all over the US. This is terrible news not only for the United States, but the entire world.

"The Trump administration has put a freeze on many federal health agency communications with the public through at least the end of the month.

In a memo obtained by The Associated Press, acting Secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Dorothy Fink told agency staff leaders Tuesday that an “immediate pause” had been ordered on — among other things — regulations, guidance, announcements, press releases, social media posts and website posts until such communications had been approved by a political appointee."

https://www.statnews.com/2025/01/22/trump-administration-orders-health-communications-pause-cdc-hhs-fda/

Remember what happened when the Chinese government was being uncooperative with the scientists in 2019?

@Maroxad: I think together with politics, there is a huge cultural problem.

Americans see drugs, sometimes hard drugs, as manageable. How many Americans have I met that tell me that they can moderately consume hard drugs and it's not a problem for them.

And maybe some people can, but If you have a culture in which a large percentage of the population is not afraid of substances that is very logical to be afraid of, you end up with what they have:

1.Records drugs death and overdoses

2. Non disabled, young people, dying slowly on tents while wasting their lives, commiting crimes and subjecting themselves to awful abuse.

@nirgal: Medical issues in general. Just look at the excuses people like the usual suspects used to downplay the threat of COVID.

Personal responsibility or something like that. COVID is only a problem for people who are obese, smoke or whatever.

And naturally, most people tend to overestimate their own health. We even have a term for it: Illusiory Superiority.

Watching news from the US from.the outside is like watching a time machine.

One day into the presidency, Trump reversed much of the progress Biden had made, bringing the country back into the dark ages of his last presidency.

Next, there'll be proposals to remove gay rights, women's rights, and so on. There'll be proposals to reverse medical developments and social developments. There'll be proposals to reverse worker rights and support foe the poor and the elderly. There'll be proposals to ban divorces. And so on.

The time machine just hurtles backwards, picking up speed. I wonder how far backwards it will go, and more importantly, how long it will take the US to recover once this regime is gone?

Either way, I have a lot of pity for the average American right now. It's sad to see your rights and your quality of life stripped away from you, in an era where there is absolutely no reason for it. I wish you all the best, even if some of you brought this upon yourselves in your short-sightedness. I just hope things don't get too bad before they start getting better.

Speaking of which...

Donald Trump might see about banning gain-of-function research, in addition to pausing medical agendcies for a week.

Despite what MAGAs seemed to claim. Abroad, the US has always been respected as an innovator and leading in scientific research. As well as being a reliable economic partner. Trump has literally destroyed both. Ruining key medical research so Elon Musk can blow up more rockets.

Last time Trump was president he was ranked, as the 3rd worst president of all time. And Trump 2.0 looks even worse than Trump 1.0.

Trump’s Executive Orders: Reversing Biden’s Policies and Attacking the ‘Deep State’

President Trump on Monday issued a barrage of executive orders, kicking off his presidency with a muscular use of power intended to signal a sharp reversal from existing policies on issues including immigration, the environment and diversity initiatives.

The flurry of executive actions was an effort to roll back many of President Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s most significant domestic policies, primarily on climate and immigration, while also reimposing a Trump agenda that would launch drilling and mining on natural resources and fundamentally upend the United States’ global role as a sanctuary for refugees and immigrants.

In a speech on Monday evening, Mr. Trump said he was also revoking almost 80 “disruptive, radical executive actions of the previous administration.”

Among those revoked Biden orders were directives that the federal government rebuild the refugee program, and gradually end the Justice Department’s use of private prisons.

Some of Mr. Trump’s orders are almost certain to be challenged in court, and others will be largely symbolic. But taken together, they represent his intention to sharply turn away from the direction of the Biden administration, and to make good on his campaign promises to break what he and his aides cast as a “deep state” effort to thwart his agenda.

Here are some of the orders Mr. Trump signed on his first day in office:

Federal Work Force

• Freeze federal hiring, except for members of the military or “positions related to immigration enforcement, national security, or public safety.”
• Restore a category of federal workers known as Schedule F, which would lack the same job protections enjoyed by career civil servants.
• Halt new federal rules from going into effect before Trump administration appointees can review them.
• Review the investigative actions of the Biden administration, “to correct past misconduct by the federal government related to the weaponization of law enforcement and the weaponization of the intelligence community.”
• Grant top secret security clearances to White House staff without going through traditional vetting procedures.
• End remote work policies and order federal workers back to the office full time.

Immigration and the Border

• Bar asylum for people newly arriving at the southern border.
• Move to end birthright citizenship, which is guaranteed by the 14th Amendment, for the children of undocumented immigrants. The president cannot change the Constitution on his own, so it is not yet clear how Mr. Trump plans to withhold the benefits of citizenship to a group of people born in the United States. Any move is all but certain to be challenged in court.
• Suspend the Refugee Admissions Program “until such time as the further entry into the United States of refugees aligns with the interests of the United States.”
• Declare migrant crossings along the U.S.-Mexico border to be a national emergency, allowing Mr. Trump to unilaterally unlock federal funding for border wall construction, without approval from Congress, for stricter enforcement efforts.
• Resume a policy requiring people seeking asylum to wait in Mexico while an immigration judge considers their cases.
• Consider designating cartels as “foreign terrorist organizations.”

Gender and Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Initiatives

• Terminate D.E.I. programs across the federal government.
• Recognize two sexes: male and female.
• Remove protections for transgender people in federal prisons.

Tariffs and Trade

• Direct federal agencies to begin an investigation into trade practices, including persistent trade deficits and unfair currency practices, as well as examine flows of migrants and drugs from Canada, China and Mexico to the United States.
• Assess China’s compliance with a trade deal Mr. Trump signed in 2020, as well as the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement, which Trump signed in 2020 to replace the North American Free Trade Agreement.
• Order the government to assess the feasibility of creating an “External Revenue Service” to collect tariffs and duties.
• Carry out a full review of the U.S. industrial and manufacturing base to assess whether further national security-related tariffs are warranted.

Energy and the Environment

• Withdraw the United States from the Paris Agreement, the pact among almost all nations to fight climate change.
• Declare a national energy emergency, a first in U.S. history, which could unlock new powers to suspend certain environmental rules or expedite permitting of certain mining projects.
• Attempt to reverse Mr. Biden’s ban on offshore drilling for 625 million acres of federal waters.
• Begin the repeal of Biden-era regulations on tailpipe pollution from cars and light trucks, which have encouraged automakers to manufacture more electric vehicles.
• Roll back energy-efficiency regulations for dishwashers, shower heads and gas stoves.
• Open the Alaska wilderness to more oil and gas drilling.
• Restart reviews of new export terminals for liquefied natural gas, something the Biden administration had paused.
• Halt the leasing of federal waters for offshore wind farms.
• Eliminate environmental justice programs across the government, which are aimed at protecting poor communities from excess pollution.
• Review all federal regulations that impose an “undue burden” on the development or use of a variety of energy sources, particularly coal, oil, natural gas, nuclear power, hydropower and biofuels.

TikTok ban

• Consult federal agencies on any national security risks posed by the social media platform, then “pursue a resolution that protects national security while saving a platform used by 170 million Americans.” Mr. Trump ordered his attorney general not to enforce a law that banned the site for 75 days to give the Trump administration “an opportunity to determine the appropriate course forward.”

Other

• Withdraw from the World Health Organization.
• Rename Mount Denali and the Gulf of Mexico.
• Ensure that states carrying out the death penalty have a “sufficient supply” of lethal injection drugs.
• Fly the American flag at full-staff on Monday and on future Inauguration Days.
• Implement the Department of Government Efficiency, the Elon Musk-led cost-cutting initiative.
• Revoke security clearances for 51 signers of a letter suggesting that the contents of Hunter Biden’s laptop could be Russian disinformation.

TRUMP IS HITTING THE GROUND RUNNING! LOVE TO SEE IT.

BUSY FIRST 48 HOURS.

THATS MY PRESIDENT.

@sargentd: Only a ghoul would be excited to see medication prices raised.

Take into account this is prerecorded and they are told what to say.

@sargentd

Federal Work Force

• Freeze federal hiring, except for members of the military or “positions related to immigration enforcement, national security, or public safety.” Terrible policy
• Restore a category of federal workers known as Schedule F, which would lack the same job protections enjoyed by career civil servants. The fact that Joe Biden only repealed this and did NOT push for a constitutional change to prevent something like this from ever happening again was a huge failure on his part. This, alongside the Tariffs, and antiscience policies is why I am anti-Trump.
• Halt new federal rules from going into effect before Trump administration appointees can review them. Not sure if centralizing the government like this is a good idea.

Immigration and the Border

• Bar asylum for people newly arriving at the southern border. ISo much for international law
• Move to end birthright citizenship, which is guaranteed by the 14th Amendment, for the children of undocumented immigrants. The president cannot change the Constitution on his own, so it is not yet clear how Mr. Trump plans to withhold the benefits of citizenship to a group of people born in the United States. Any move is all but certain to be challenged in court. So much for the constitution.
• Consider designating cartels as “foreign terrorist organizations.” So much for peace

Gender and Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Initiatives

• Terminate D.E.I. programs across the federal government. Terrible policy. DEI was by its nature meritocratic, if you even bothered understanding why it was put in place in the first place.
• Recognize two sexes: male and female. This is a laughably bad policy and was made fun of in medical communities.

Tariffs and Trade

Just going to say... Trump clearly does not understand international trade and likely slept through history class. How exaclty did Tariffs go for Herbert Hoover?

Energy and the Environment

• Withdraw the United States from the Paris Agreement, the pact among almost all nations to fight climate change. Disasterous policy
• Declare a national energy emergency, a first in U.S. history, which could unlock new powers to suspend certain environmental rules or expedite permitting of certain mining projects. Did Trump forget why the Richard Nixon even established the EPA in the first place?
• Begin the repeal of Biden-era regulations on tailpipe pollution from cars and light trucks, which have encouraged automakers to manufacture more electric vehicles. This will hurt average americans and only benefit billionaires..
• Roll back energy-efficiency regulations for dishwashers, shower heads and gas stoves. Another example of a policy only benefiting billionaires while hurting most americans
• Halt the leasing of federal waters for offshore wind farms. Terrible policy. As we have recently seen. Fossil fuels are far too unreliable and are too fluctuating depending on global factors like pandemics or political events.
• Eliminate environmental justice programs across the government, which are aimed at protecting poor communities from excess pollution. The communities protected by these programs are already seriously disadvantaged. They dont need to have hteir lives even worsened.

Other

• Withdraw from the World Health Organization. SWhen dealing with pandemics, epidemiologists need to cooperate. Trump may very well just have caused another pandemic by doing this.
• Rename Mount Denali and the Gulf of Mexico. Nothing but a diversion to distract from his terrible policies.
• Implement the Department of Government Efficiency, the Elon Musk-led cost-cutting initiative. DOGE is such a huge failure. Kept getting scaled back and increasingly inefficient. Wouldnt be surprised if it isnt disbanded within 4 years. Poor man's GAO

To be fair, Sargent didnt mention medication prices rising.

Or how the 75% of immigrant farmhand workers didnt show up out of fear of getting deported, which will raise hte price of fresh food. Or how the tariffs will drive up the costs of fresh fruits and vegetables.

https://americasvoice.org/blog/immigration-raids-targeting-bakersfield-farm-workers-are-a-frightening-preview-of-trumps-bloody-mass-deportation-agenda/

Btw, did you know that only 1 in 10 americans consume enough fruits and vegetables? I can see that number decline with these tariffs. Which combined with increased pollution (thanks to some of the things he listed), will result in even worse quality of life and more money spent on healthcare.

The immigration issue was a high consideration for voters. Nice to see ICE being able to do its job! Addressing the border too!

Republicans refused to pass immigration reform. They are the reason we have border issues today.

lol

"Feel free to discuss this in the stickied thread."

"censoring other people threads"

My dear Ivan, the warranties have limits. In this particular case, political discussion is limited in the forum. In fact, who knows how much longer even this thread will be up and running... which sounds like a conspiracy to curtail political allegiances!

Remember comrades, the internet is serious business.

ICE doing its job! What a thing of beauty! Remain In Mexico, sealing the border, etc...., Nice!

Trump's first few days in office have been absolutely nuts. Dude is straight-up brutalizing liberal ideology across the board.

This is what it looks like when a president does what he says he's going to do.

@nod_eclipse_: I know, right?

"Liberals say there are multiple genders? Well I say there's just one! We're all chicks now!"

Brutal 🤣

@Maroxad: Yes, but he's celebrating what Trump has done, and that is certainly something he has done.

Trump not playing!!!

Trump declassified JFK, RFK, MLK assasination files

I'm sure some people will take issue with the declassification, but I am very interested as a great deal of unanswered questions remain and we deserve to know a lot more than the government thinks we should know.

Do you think it will all be declassified? After his first term, Trump said he didn't want to declassify all JFK because of what he saw.

We're really expanding the right to protest here.

Lawyers, take note.

@mattbbpl: it's just like I said before. Trump considers himself to be above the law. Beating a police officer is ok, as long as you support him.

He is also still pushing that obviously fake narrative that the 2020 election were a fraud. And his retard followers believe him. What happened to the countless forensic audits that showed again and again that he lost?

With or without 95% redacted with black marker?

Not sure what you're asking here. Are you asking if we'll see it redacted? That's what I'm wondering. If you're asking what Trump saw, it should not have been redacted.

I'm not concerned how Trump views what he saw. Adults can determine if they want to go down the JFK path. What can possibly be worse than actual footage of a man losing the back portion of his skull or the autopsy photos?

I don't know if we will ever get "all" of it as it seems to be the way of the government to lose track of things or people or documentation. Look at Mkultra and how much information was "destroyed" before the program came to light when the C.I.A. was forced to release what it had pertaining to the program.

Will we get information free from redaction? I wouldn't take that bet.

I doubt we will get everything as well.

@LJS9502_basic: conspiracy theories to cover the fact that president tells you it's ok to beat a cop as long as you support him.

I don't get distracted from what Trump's agenda is.

@sargentd: anyone who supports the ICE raids needs to do some serious fucking soul searching. I am legitimately terrified by all of this.

@RedEyedMonster8: 100% support them

@sargentd: What in the actual **** is wrong with you?

Meanwhile, a watchdog group is preparing for legal action against Musk and DOGE, stating it is illegal for them to use encrypted apps or delete any messages relating to DOGE or its activities.

Their argument is that every message about DOGE's activities before and during Trump's presidency is a federal record, and thus falls under the protection of the Federal Records Act.

If they make out that argument, then it would be illegal for Musk to delete any of his discussions about how DOGE will work and how it will select which funds to cut. This won't guarantee transparency, but it would be very funny seeing Musk run afoul of all of the many regulations he probably won't follow while running DOGE.

I assume Republicans will support this move, because they hate big governments making shadowy decisions, and they want full transparency in every government decision.

@RedEyedMonster8: people that entered the country illegally gotta go back where they came from and do it the legal way. You dont get to sneak into countries and just live there as long as you want and do what ever you want. There are procedures in place bud. People wait years to get in here legally. People got to stop just sneaking in across rivers thinking that's fine, it's not.

@sargentd: So you have no moral issue with ICE raiding schools, churches, funerals, weddings, and workplaces? That doesn’t bother you at all?

@RedEyedMonster8: some of these people are gang members, selling drugs, raping woman, and killing people. And even the ones not doing horrible shit like that. Still are people that broke the law and aren't supposed to be in the country, deport them. If they really want to live here they will apply to get back in the legal way.

I think it's disgusting and it's already impacting the food industry.

ICE arrests irate Haitian gang member, murder and rape suspects in Boston: ‘F–k Trump, Biden forever!’

ICE officers target violent offenders in Boston

Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers hit the ground running this week, arresting multiple violent offenders in sanctuary cities, including a hostile Haitian alleged gang member with a lengthy rap sheet who said he’s “not going back to Haiti” and raged “F–k Trump, Biden forever!”

ICE officers in Boston made eight noteworthy arrests, including multiple MS-13 gang members, murder and rape suspects and the Haitian alleged gang member, with at least 17 recent convictions, according to Fox News, who rode along with ICE for the arrests.

There was also at least one “collateral” arrest where ICE took an illegal immigrant who wasn’t their initial target into custody, with the arrest in Boston being of an MS-13 gang member who had been released by the sanctuary city on Tuesday.

THANK YOU I.C.E!!!

YOU ARE GREATLY APPRECIATED 👏 💐