Stupid Trump stuff

According to HuffPost, Trump has spent an estimated $10.7 million playing golf in the first month of his return to office.

Washington Post - The firings of Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Charles Q. Brown Jr. and chief of Naval Operations Adm. Lisa Franchetti had been anticipated for months...Still, their abrupt ousters — and those of the Air Force’s vice chairman, and the top military lawyers for the Army, Navy and Air Force — angered retired generals, lawmakers and experts on civil-military relations, even as they acknowledged that a president has the right to assemble a team of military leaders of his choosing and in whom he has total confidence.

Retired Gen. Martin E. Dempsey, a Joint Chiefs chairman under President Barack Obama, wrote online that such trust “should be based on their leadership, their integrity, their performance, the quality of their advice, and their willingness to faithfully execute the orders they are given.”

“To relieve a senior officer not for a lack of one of these qualities, but for a real or perceived disagreement in their beliefs, harmfully politicizes the military profession,” Dempsey posted on LinkedIn.

 Time - On Jan. 20, Trump’s first day back in the Oval Office, he signed an Executive Order titled “Ending Radical And Wasteful Government DEI Programs And Preferencing,” which states that the efforts “demonstrated immense public waste and shameful discrimination.” Trump then directed all federal DEI staff be placed on paid leave and, eventually, laid off. In another Executive Order, titled “Ending Illegal Discrimination and Restoring Merit-Based Opportunity,” Trump reversed multiple previous efforts from the past 50 years that attempted to increase diversity and address discrimination.

Though a federal judge has, for now, largely blocked the Executive Orders that seek to end government support for programs promoting DEI, the seeds of anti-DEI measures have already been planted. A post titled "DEI is dead under the Trump Administration" was uploaded to the White House's social media accounts on Feb. 20....

Trump’s efforts at the federal level have not just affected the government. His focus on DEI—which he had also targeted throughout his campaign—comes as major companies also scale back on their DEI initiatives, some in small ways, others by dismantling full branches of their organizations . More

Washington Post - W. Kamau Bell was scheduled to perform at the Kennedy Center the day after President Donald Trump’s overhauled board of trustees elected Trump as chairman, fired president Deborah F. Rutter and made former acting director of national intelligence Richard Grenell interim president, throwing the center into chaos and confusion.

In the Truth Social post announcing his intentions to take over the storied arts institution, Trump had promised to make the center “GREAT AGAIN,” adding, “The Kennedy Center is an American Jewel, and must reflect the brightest STARS on its stage from all across our Nation.”

The implication was clear: The performers previously booked at the center were not the “brightest STARS.” Why would those performers still want to climb on that stage?

Bell had a simple answer: “I’m the exact kind of performer he doesn’t want in there, so this is the most important time to do my gig.”

In the week following Trump’s announcement, ticket sales dropped by roughly 50 percent compared to the previous week, a stunning aberration, according to several Kennedy Center staff members who spoke on the condition of anonymity out of fear of reprisal.