Everything expected, and more

 Well, it's barely more than two weeks in since President Trump took back the reins, and I'm feeling suitably ill (and not just because I've got the latest seasonal crud, either).  As expected, Trump has been doing plenty of shady shit with questionably-legal orders, either direct to his flunkies or by means of executive orders, while giving no fucks about how that makes the U.S. look.  Well, outside of "looking strong", that is, which is some pretty weak sauce in a world with an active Russian invasion of Ukraine lingering on.

What I didn't expect... well, where to begin.  Trying to start trade wars with our bordering, in-a-free-trade-agreement neighbors, maybe.  Talking about taking back the Panama Canal or taking over Greenland, either of which would, I'm pretty sure, count as casus belli with our allies.  Sending the world's richest Nazi (yes, that was a fucking Nazi salute, you sane-washing media freaks) and his hand-picked tech team to commit Blitzkrieg on various government agencies.

The one I just heard about, though, takes the cake.  Trump wants the U.S. to take over Gaza, and rebuild it as a resort area.  I mean, I get it, from his addled, real-estate developer mindset, it's a fine way to improve the property values of that recently-at-war region.  But that has to totally ignore, well, everything about that region for the past few millennia.  I swear, it's like somebody seeing a recently-kicked hornet's nest, where the hornets are just starting to calm down a bit, and deciding that the hole in the nest would be a great place to stuff their dick.

There are interesting times ahead, to be sure.  Here's hoping they involve some quick push-back and firm limits from those co-equal branches of government, however unlikely that may seem.

Inflection point incoming!

 Change is in the air.  Heck, I only have to call out Russia this time for their continued douchebaggery, since Israel and Hamas have got a ceasefire in place, with hostages getting released and everything.  Between that and Syria's recent changes (which, funnily enough, isn't getting a lot of press coverage here in the U.S., and I haven't heard anything about us lifting any sanctions on them or anything like that), I'd normally say that things are looking up a bit.  Of course, that would ignore what's coming down the pipe tomorrow.

Tomorrow, of course, being, among other things, the re-inauguration of Trump, the once-and-future president.  Sure, he's been credibly shown to have tried to hijack the last election, and he's been convicted of felonies in the meantime (no thanks to the previous head of the Department of Justice there), but the stupid, stupid people have spoken.  Starting tomorrow, the loony wing of the Republican party and their enablers, the rest of the Republican party, will have some measure of control over all three branches of the federal government.  Here's hoping they don't manage to do anything to corrupt or eliminate future elections entirely.

Of course, one thing that will complicate their plans is a good crisis or two.  Right out of the starting blocks, they've got one (for certain values of "crisis", I suppose), and it's of their own making!  Namely, TikTok showed more integrity than they all expected, and, after the Supreme Court told them that the law trying to force them to sell out on supposed "national security" concerns was constitutional, TikTok took everybody at their word and shut down U.S. access to their systems.  Now, they've got a bunch of angry people on their hands, Biden says he's not enforcing the law, and Trump is making noises about using executive orders to bring TikTok back.  Simply put, this isn't what you expect from the success of a well thought-out response to a national security threat.  Me, I've never been on TikTok, so I've got no direct skin in the game, and I look forward to the gymnastics involved in what happens here going forward.