🗣️🇺🇸 Trumps Big Beautiful Nightmare

 NEWS YOU CAN USE

World events shape conversations.
Turn headlines into talking points.

Today – Dictator Alert (again) 🍊

Trump's Big Beautiful Nightmare 🇺🇸

Let’s be honest—this one’s a minefield.

Back in the late ’90s, when I first came to Japan to teach, the rules of polite conversation were clear: no sex, no religion, no politics. In other words, none of the fun stuff.
Now? Good luck avoiding politics. Trump is the conversation.

He’s embraced the Madman Theory like a method actor on meth.
Be outrageous enough, and maybe the world flinches first.

We talked about his dictator-ish ambitions back in issue #14…
But now he’s got a shiny new toy: the One Big, Beautiful Bill Act.

What’s that? Big! 870 pages of government budgeting.

Why is it beautiful? Well, if you’re rich, it’s gorgeous, a supermodel in furs!
$1.02 trillion in tax cuts over the next ten years.

What if you’re poor? It’s a plague hag in Crocs. Massive cuts to welfare, healthcare, and education.

So, why are you talking about dictators again? Oh, just this:

• ICE upgrade: Not the stuff in your drink (although you might need one). Immigration and Customs Enforcement will get 10,000 new agents + $29.9 billion (almost Israeli military-level funding)

• Prison boom: $45 billion for “Alligator Alcatraz” type facilities (plus overseas ones you’ve only seen in grainy Vice documentaries.)

• The Supreme Court said: “Presidential immunity for official acts.” (Er, who defines “official acts”?) They basically handed him a crown.

• Trump's own words: “The homegrowns are next.” (Protestors? Journalists? Tesla drivers? Your guess is as good as mine.)

What does all this mean? Do the maths: A shiny, new secret police force + prison network + legal immunity = healthy democracy?

Sleep well, citizen.

💡 PRO TIP: Politics getting tense? Don’t debate—ask questions that focus on policies, not personality. “What do you think about expanding ICE funding?” is better than “Trump bad.”

💬 FOLLOW-UP: “What's your biggest concern about all this?” (Simple, open-ended, lets them pick their angle)

⛔ DON'T SAY: “He's literally Hitler” (Guaranteed to kill conversation faster than a Twitter ban.)

DECODE THIS

Imagine being scared of a knock at the door.
Or wondering why your neighbour keeps watching you—but never blinks.

Welcome to the world of secret police, where those black vans outside aren’t delivering Prime Day deals…they’re disappearing enemies of the state.

The Gestapo 🇩🇪 terrorized Europe during WWII and became the blueprint for every shadowy agency that followed.

Knowing who’s who in this global cloak-and-dagger club boosts your cultural fluency, especially in conversations about power, history, surveillance, or politics.

🧐 QUIZ TIME: Which countries do these ‘secret police’ belong to?

A) KGB (now FSB)
B) STASI
C) Shin Bet
D) SAVAK (now SAVAMA)
E) MSS

Answers at the end of the issue.

WORD WISE

🐀 Snitch Speak

These secret police ran massive informant networks. Friends, neighbours, even your lovely Aunt Carol could’ve been reporting back to HQ. (Uncle Bob scribbling notes at dinner? Suspicious…)

Pop culture’s full of them, too—from Bond films to The Sopranos to The Wire.
When someone can't keep their mouth shut, upgrade your vocabulary beyond 'informant':

• Snitch / to snitch on — “Someone snitched on me to the cops”

  Origin: 18th-century underworld slang, originally meant “nose.”

• Grass / to grass on / grass up (UK) — “Don't grass on your mates to the teacher”

  Origin: 1930s, from rhyming slang “grasshopper” = "copper.”

• Rat / to rat out — “He ratted out his accomplices for a lighter sentence.”

  Origin: Early 1800s, rats = betrayal, like jumping ship.

• Stool pigeon / stoolie — “The mob suspected he was a stool pigeon for the FBI”

  Origin: 1820s, hunters tied tame pigeons to lure wild ones.

🗣️YOUR TURN: Know any more? Reply and let me know.

 THE CULTURE CODE

I fell in love with movies during birthday double bills with my Mum and a bag of sweets. My first? Digby: The Biggest Dog in the World and Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla. Pure cinema gold. 👆🏻

Would they make the recent NY Times' new Top 100 Films of the 21st Century?
Not a chance…

🎭 The List: 500 Hollywood leaders picked their faves, and surprisingly, it doesn't totally suck.

👍🏻 The Good:

• Comedies made the cut: Superbad, Borat, Anchorman (rude, silly, brilliant)

• Not America-centric: Korea, Japan, Iran, Mexico, Brazil, and Taiwan all represented.

👎🏻 The Bad: Where’s Casino Royale? Dune 2? Top Gun: Maverick? Did the popcorn lobby not get a vote?

But here's the thing—these lists are conversation rocket fuel.
Everyone’s got an opinion. Everyone’s a critic. And that’s the whole point.

💡 PRO TIP: Use the “controversial omission” angle. “Can you believe Casino Royale didn't make the Top 100?” makes a change from “What's your favourite movie?”

💬 FOLLOW-UP: “What film from the last 20 years do you think will still be watched in 50 years?”

⛔ DON'T SAY: “What? You haven't seen [obscure art film]?!” (Nobody likes a film snob.)

FAMOUS WORDS

“When people ask me if I went to film school, I tell them, ‘No, I went to films.’”
(Quentin Tarantino, American film director, 1963 -)

Can you name the film?

💒 Two hitmen hiding out in Europe. This cult classic SHOULD have been on the list above! 😤

⬇️ Answer at the end of this issue

TALK TOOLBOX

Magnetic Listening 🧲

Ever notice how some people make you feel like you're the only person in the room? It’s not about what they say; it’s about how they listen.

The Problem: Most of us listen just long enough to load our next brilliant response. We're conversation DJs, constantly queuing up our next track while the other person is still performing.
The result? Conversations that don’t connect.

Want to avoid that? Check out my article “Magnetic Listening: The Cure for Draining Conversations” and get the complete toolkit that'll make you irresistible in conversations.

💬 YOUR TURN: Next conversation, try this—put your phone face-down and say, “Wow! I want to hear more about that!” Watch what happens.

BECAUSE THE ROBOTS ARE COMING

⚽️ Robots Falling Over: Just Like England

Feels a bit heavy today, so light relief: Watch robots play football, badly…🤣

It’s all limbs, no coordination—like watching toddlers on stilts. They stumble, flop, and yes, possibly dive (is that the Neymar module?)

Honestly, they’re not much worse than England up front.

Light entertainment and a peek into the future of sports.
And VAR will still miss it.

TALKING POINT

📺 Netflix & Chill (But Mostly Scroll)

I usually have the TV on while cooking, cleaning, or pretending to listen to my family.

Enter Netflix: perfect background noise for the modern attention span.
300 million subscribers strong—and most of them aren’t really watching.

Why? Because most Netflix content is rubbish.
And that’s not a bug. It’s a feature.

This is second screening in action:
TV designed to be half-watched while you're scrolling TikTok or stalking your ex on Instagram.

Netflix even instructs writers to make characters announce what they’re doing, so distracted viewers can keep up.

The result?
🗣️ Obvious dialogue
🔁 Repetitive plot points
🎙️ Constant voiceovers

They’re not making prestige TV.
They’re making high-budget background noise.

Apart from The Crown, which was great.

ANSWER

🎬 ANSWERS

The film: In Bruges (2008)

Two Irish hitmen (Colin Farrell and Brendan Gleeson) hide out in the Belgian tourist town of Bruges after a job goes wrong. A brilliant dark comedy.

🍿 Cultural Impact

• Put Bruges on the tourist map—visitor numbers spiked after release

• Perfectly balances dark comedy with genuine emotion (laughing one minute, devastated the next)

• Features one of cinema's greatest guilt-driven performances from Colin Farrell (he won a Golden Globe.)

🧠 Deep Dive: The film is notorious for its language, featuring the f-word and its derivatives 126 times—about 1.18 times per minute.

💬 YOUR TURN: What's your favourite hitman movie? Reply and let me know!

Secret Police Quiz

Answers: A-Soviet Union/Russia 🇷🇺, B-East Germany, C-Israel 🇮🇱, D-Iran 🇮🇷, E-China 🇨🇳
💬 How did you do? Perfect score? Either you're a history buff or we need to check your employment records...🕵🏻‍♂️

LAST WEEK

After our look at the power of soft power, I asked:

📊 Poll: Which country wields the most cultural soft power?

A) 🇰🇷 South Korea (K-wave tsunami) - 28.5%
B) 🇬🇧 UK (Royal drama + football) - 43%
C) 🇮🇹 Italy (Fashion + food culture) - 28.5%
D) 🇨🇳 China (TikTok + tech) - 0%
E) 🇯🇵 Japan (Anime + cute everything) - 0%

🗣️ Comment of the Week

Thanks for the comment. Wonder if he signed a prenup this time? 🤔

THIS IS THE END

That's all for this week, folks!

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