What does a TRUMP presidency look like?

[Sheilbh]

That would be catastrophic for the UK film industry - I imagine Canada too (I know Vanocuver's a big hub of film production) - and I suspect Netflix's business model?

Edit: I think Hungary and Czechia also have big industries basically making American films.

[Valmy]

Trump plans tariffs on movies. 95% of all movies in the US are already domestic.

I am not even sure how one tariffs movies.

I was imagining everytime I listen to a foreign song on streaming Customs shows up and makes me pay.

[Zanza]

That's the interesting part: movies are a digital service these days. Maybe he gives us a blueprint how to tax US service providers in Europe more effectively.

[Sheilbh]

Or maybe he just goes French and requires 99% of films shown to be American made - possibly with a complete exemption if he gets a cameo

[Syt]

What counts as "American made"? I don't mean US TV productions that are filmed in Vancouver or Toronto (which I guess is what he aims at), but on location shooting in other countries.

[Valmy]

Blood and soil American? Fuck off.

[Sheilbh]

I think 40% of TV and a proportion of cinema screenings have to be "French-made". I think the French requirement is a proportion of spending and shooting in France, plus a cultural assessment.

But I feel like I've read some stories about controversies over the years where very "French" seeming films aren't French and vice-versa.

(And FWIW while I think it's mad for America to go down that route given it's cultural dominance - I absolutely 100% back French cultural policies and funding for basically everyone else )

[HVC]

Does American have the stereotype that Indians are scammers? Don't think I've heard that one.

[The Minsky Moment]

It's so many degrees of screwed up that an Ashkenazi Jew would talk about the need for "real blood and soil" Americans.  I presume she does not mean Cherokee, Navajo, Lenape etc. I hesitate to speak about her at all because why give any platform but we live in the lunatic timeline where she actually has some influence on cabinet picks and personnel policy at the White House.

[The Minsky Moment]

Thinking about it, if we could replace the entire Oklahoma Congressional delegation with Cherokee and Choctaw, that could be a plus.  Getting Mouthbreather Markwayne Mullin out alone would be fantastic addition by substraction.

[Sheilbh]

Just need to get a case in front of Gorsuch

[grumbler]

Microsoft Drops Law Firm That Made a Deal With Trump From a Case

Article gifted.

I've been meaning to ask Minsky and the other lawyers here if they were seeing any backlash in the legal community against the firms that bent the knee to Trump, and this article from Today's NYT indicates that there may be.

I can certainly see the logic behind wanting to avoid law firms that worry more about the interests of Trump than those of their clients, but I was not sure that such considerations counted when playing with the big boys. This story heartens me.

Thoughts?

[Tonitrus]

Thinking about it, if we could replace the entire Oklahoma Congressional delegation with Cherokee and Choctaw, that could be a plus.  Getting Mouthbreather Markwayne Mullin out alone would be fantastic addition by substraction.

I don't think much of (not at all, really) Mullin, but he is a Cherokee...

[Syt]

My Indian coworker's brother has moved with his (Indian) wife from Boston to San Francisco for a job. I asked him how he's doing with the whole situation. He said they're keeping their head down, and while they planned to visit family in India and friends in Canada this year they've put off all travel plans for now, because it seems a bit of a gamble whether you're allowed back in or not (they have H1B visas and no criminal records, but what does that count for these days ...).

[Syt]

https://www.military.com/daily-news/2025/05/05/white-house-retreat-trumps-short-lived-proposal-rename-veterans-day.html

White House Says Trump's Proposal to Rename Veterans Day Has Been Scrapped

The White House has backed off President Donald Trump's stunning social media proposal to change the name of Veterans Day to "Victory Day for World War I" and will settle for keeping the name while adding a proclamation hailing American victory in World War I.

The White House will also go with a victory proclamation rather than a name change -- at least in the U.S. -- for V-E Day, or Victory in Europe Day, which is observed every May 8 in Europe and May 9 in Russia to mark Nazi Germany's surrender to the allies in World War II.

"We are not renaming Veterans Day," White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told ABC News on Friday. "It will just be an additional proclamation that goes out on that day."

Leavitt also posted on Trump's Truth Social platform: "We will always honor Veterans Day, and we should commemorate the end of WWI and WWII as victory days."

The quick about-face by the White House came after Trump stirred up opposition from veterans groups to his late-night post Thursday on Truth Social: "Many of our allies and friends are celebrating May 8th as Victory Day, but we did more than any other country, by far, in producing a victorious result on World War II. I am hereby renaming May 8th as Victory Day for World War II and November 11th as Victory Day for World War I."

The argument could be made that victory for World War II on May 8, 1945, was way off the mark since the war in the Pacific raged on and did not end until the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki brought about Japan's official surrender on Sept. 2, 1945.

However, the latest proposed name changes were in line with other name changes Trump has put in place with little opposition in his second term in office.

On Jan. 20, the day he took the oath, Trump signed an executive order telling the secretary of the interior to change the name of the Gulf of Mexico to the "Gulf of America." He followed that with another order to reinstate the name of Mount McKinley for the tallest peak in North America by scrapping the 2015 decision to give the mountain the Alaskan Native name -- Denali.

But the attempt to overhaul how the nation marks and commemorates major military holidays and honors those who served proved to be another matter entirely as opposition surfaced slowly and began to surge.

The Disabled American Veterans service organization put out a one-word statement Friday on Trump's plan to change the name of Veterans Day: "No." The DAV, with more than one million members, has been at the forefront in challenging Trump on his plans to downsize the federal workforce and possibly cut Medicaid.

Other VSOs did not immediately respond to requests for comment. The Defense Department deferred questions to the White House, and the Department of Veterans Affairs did not give any response.

Trump also could have faced a major fight with Congress since name changes for a federal holiday such as Veterans Day would require congressional approval.

In a statement, Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., the ranking member of the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee, said Trump had missed the point on what Veterans Day was about.

"Veterans Day is a day to celebrate every man and woman who has stepped up to serve and fight for our freedoms and democracy," Blumenthal said in a statement. "There's no reason to not establish a separate holiday to remember America's victory in the first World War, rather than replace this important holiday to honor all of America's past and present veterans."

The Veterans of Foreign Wars initially held off on commenting Friday on Trump's plan to change the name of Veterans Day in an effort to reach out to the White House for clarification.

But VFW spokesman Rob Couture told Military.com Monday that "it's in the best interests of everyone to keep it Veterans Day." He noted that Leavitt, the White House press secretary, had said there will be proclamations on Veterans Day and V-E Day but no name changes, and "we're satisfied with what the press secretary said."

"For us, it means a lot," Couture said, to keep Veterans Day as a pause in the calendar recalling the "11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month" on Nov. 11, 1918, when the guns fell silent across the trenches in World War I. The original observances of what was then called Armistice Day emphasized the need for vigilance to maintain peace in contrast to Trump's view celebrating victory.

"We are going to start celebrating our victories again," Trump said in his post on Truth Social. "We won both wars, nobody was close to us in terms of strength, bravery, or military brilliance, but we never celebrate anything -- that's because we don't have leaders anymore that know how to do so."

On Nov. 11, 1926, President Calvin Coolidge gave an entirely different account of why World War I was fought before a crowd of more than 100,000 at the dedication of the Liberty Memorial in Kansas City, Missouri. Coolidge said the monument had "not been raised to commemorate war and victory, but rather the results of war and victory, which are embodied in peace and liberty."

President Dwight D. Eisenhower made similar remarks stressing peace in his June 1, 1954, proclamation changing the name of Armistice Day to Veterans Day honoring all who served, past and future. Eisenhower said Nov. 11 should be a "day of commemoration of those who sacrificed to preserve our nation and of rededication to the task of achieving an enduring peace."