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Baitball Blogger

(53,013 posts)
Mon Jul 13, 2026, 10:55 PM 4 hrs ago

Trump is losing control. The signs are evident.

His decision-making has reached the point where the only way to save face is to admit he has Dementia.

1) He's going to make a speech on Thursday to claim that Warnock and Ossoff are illegimate because their elections were fraudulent.

2) He also is floating the idea that we, the US, are going to start charging 20% for passage through the Strait of Hormuz.

And this is after he tried to get more than a billion dollars from the IRS and immunity from tax audits for him and his family members. (Which was shot down by a judge.)

I just listened to his voice as he was talking about the charge for passage through the Strait. It was weak and doddering.

It's time for the Republicans to step in and, at least get some qualified handlers in the Oval Office, because we are way past describing the craziness as a rabbit hole.

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Prairie Gates

(8,800 posts)
1. I'd really love to see the auspices and the mechanism whereby a shipping company pays 20%
Mon Jul 13, 2026, 11:05 PM
4 hrs ago

of the value of its cargo to the United States government for passage through the Strait of Hormuz.

Like, seriously, I want the New York Times to fully break down how that would work - and I mean literally how it would function at the microlevel. I agree that this rambling nonsense shows Trump at his most deluded. The real scandal is that people are just happily reporting on his nonsense.

So, I have a ship on the wrong side of the Strait. I want to move it through. Who do I pay? How? How is the value of my cargo being determined? If the US government is taking payment, to what account? Who is keeping track of these payments, and where they're coming from, and when, and where the money is going? How can a citizen access this information? How can a news organization? How can a member of Congress? What is the status of these monies?

Of course, everyone knows that this statement will simply go away after a few days, so it's meaningless and none of these questions even have to be answered. It's just the usual Trump pile of bullshit. There will be some new "ceasefire" or "return to the MOU" in a week or two and everybody will have forgotten that Trump pledged to collect a 20% protection money fee from ships. The whole thing is completely off the rails, and surely Republican members of Congress understand that?

hamsterjill

(18,080 posts)
3. If it hasn't happened by now, what makes you think it will ever happen?
Tue Jul 14, 2026, 12:33 AM
2 hrs ago

"It's time for the Republicans to step in and, at least get some qualified handlers in the Oval Office, because we are way past describing the craziness as a rabbit hole."

Republicans aren't interested in stopping the crazy. They seem quite comfortable to watch it all burn.

calimary

(91,734 posts)
5. Probably because they see so many Americans focusing on the crazy.
Tue Jul 14, 2026, 12:51 AM
2 hrs ago

It’s a perfect distraction from the piss-poor job they’re doing in governing. Even their “leader” is losing it.

You don’t reach 80 while keeping a fully-operational brain-of-a-20-year-old in your head. Nope. If you’re 80, SO IS YOUR BRAIN.

LuvLoogie

(9,100 posts)
7. Rubio and Miller are steering things
Tue Jul 14, 2026, 01:09 AM
2 hrs ago

Hegseth and Blanche are too fucking dense to initiate anything with any vision. The sociopathic tech bros are letting Rubio's closeted megalomania have a play at geopolitics, while Miller gets to ethnically purge the U.S.

White supremacists with nukes.

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