Donald Trump

[stevebrooks]

Here's Trump signing random executive order with no idea what they even are, just picking them up and having someone else explain, the most telling is the last one where he pardons anti-abortion protestors and he has no idea who they are, they just slap stuff down in front of him, tell him it's good stuff and he goes ahead and signs it, declaring how ridiculous it is they were even charged, for assault, preventing patients from getting urgent medical care, barricading clinic doors and waiting rooms, and he has no idea even what they did, he's just signing stuff they slap down in front of him. He reminds me of President Skroob from Spaceballs, completely clueless!

[stevebrooks]

Let's post this here, this is how far its already gone:

CPS officials initially said agents who identified themselves as ICE arrived at Hamline Elementary School in Back of the Yards Friday, but it was actually Secret Service agents looking for an 11-year-old who posted an anti-Trump video, a CPS source said.

Secret Service agents looking for an 22 year old who posted an anti-Trump video, let that sink in. Not notifying his parents, not going to them and talking to them, turning up at an elementary school to deal with the child with no adults present, that's just not on, that's Russia level free speech suppression!

https://blockclubchicago.org/2025/01/24 ... the-yards/

[stevebrooks]

Pete Hesgeth has been approved as Secretary of Defence by congress on a tie-breaker vote cast by the Vice President.

Keep in mind this is the man who when asked, if the President gave an illegal would he refuse to follow it, refused to reply to the question with a yes or no answer but prevaricated. This when you look at it is a "yes" reply. When asked to name a country in the ASEAN Defence Pact he confidently named 3 countries, none of whom were members of ASEAN, one of them he named was Australia after stating we had lots of allies in the region! I am pretty sure he had no idea what ASEAN actually was.

Oh well, then Trump went ahead and sacked a number of Inspectors General in a huge purge, one of them the Defence Inspector General, speculation is that he only did this after Hesgeth was approved because he felt congress wouldn't pass the nomination if he sacked them all before the vote because at least one Republican said a few days previously that the Inspector General was a guard rail to prevent things going pear shaped in Defence, well done you, you did exactly what the rest of your fellows did, surrendered. If the Secretary of Defence needs a guard rail to keep him on the straight and narrow then you voted in the wrong man even if the IG of Defence wasn't sacked.

[pipbarber]

Surely he's more likely to invade Panama than Canada...i can't really believe i just typed that sentence seriously, but i did.

He will have to war with someone, of that i'm exceedingly confident. The confidence is based on the near certainty that the US economy, the ground level economy of everyday people as opposed to bitcoin and the share market, is likely to collapse given the policy agenda. War will be the only diversion ready to hand. Trump appears to be scared of his competitors and enemies but he hates his allies, so yes, it's the allies that need to worry. I just wish he'd turn his eye on Australia, preferably just before our election, and suggest that we could be the 52nd state.

C'mon Keven 07, you're there make some noise, take one for your country, make the orange idiot angry at Australia.

[stylofone]

Let's post this here, this is how far its already gone:

CPS officials initially said agents who identified themselves as ICE arrived at Hamline Elementary School in Back of the Yards Friday, but it was actually Secret Service agents looking for an 11-year-old who posted an anti-Trump video, a CPS source said.

Secret Service agents looking for an 22 year old who posted an anti-Trump video, let that sink in. Not notifying his parents, not going to them and talking to them, turning up at an elementary school to deal with the child with no adults present, that's just not on, that's Russia level free speech suppression!

https://blockclubchicago.org/2025/01/24 ... the-yards/

A key piece of information is missing. What was the nature of the "threat" in the video pasted by the 11 year old? I'm just going to assume that it was innocuous and the Secret Service are not providing that detail because it would reveal how they were wasting time harrrassing minorities instead of actually protecting public figures.

[stevebrooks]

A key piece of information is missing. What was the nature of the "threat" in the video pasted by the 11 year old? I'm just going to assume that it was innocuous and the Secret Service are not providing that detail because it would reveal how they were wasting time harrrassing minorities instead of actually protecting public figures.

One of the problems is, you can't interview a minor without representations, the police can't just pull a kid out of class, shove that kid into a room and starting demanding answers to questions, the ease with which you can get children to give the "right" answers is amazing, when the "right" answers are the ones you want.

The correct procedure would have been top contact the parents and have them meet you at the school, that way you would have had legal access and parental representation to question the child over their actions. The only possible reason to talk to a child alone would be to, what? Try and get the child to implicate other people, like the child's parents?

Everything about this was wrong from the very beginning. Even if they thought the child was a direct threat they should have been going through other channels to take action. The only logical reason I can see for them to "interview" the child alone was to gain information about people close to the child, the parents for instance, any other reason requires the child have proper representation such as parents/lawyers present.

But then this is Trumps America. The other day ICE arrested a US Veteran, and even though he had paperwork on his proving citizenship and Veteran status they still detained him and marched him off with the rest of the brown people, you know, American citizens of Puerto Rican descent who didn't always carry paperwork around with them. I mean this is where it is not at, every US citizen must now carry around proof of citizenship on their person, and even that won't be enough to prevent you being arrested, and possibly deported if they simply decide not to believe it!

[stylofone]

It reminds me of the Russian child whose family was investigated after she drew an anti-war picture at school. The father ended up being jailed for two years for holding similar views.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cd7xlll39l5o

[stylofone]

When the bish asked Trump to show mercy, my pop-obsessed brain immediately began replaying the song "Mercy" by Prefab Sprout, from the album "Jordan the Comeback". It's one of my favourites. It is loaded with alternative takes on religious themes. One of the other songs ("Michael") is a first-person narrative by a penitent Satan...

"Michael, help me write a letter to 'you-know-who'.
I will sign it, Lucifer regrets.
Can't forget what his final words were:
Ain't no comeback gonna come your way."

It kind of turns the tables. If Satan is a real character and not just an archetype of pure evil, then in this context he is the good guy, and God is the bad guy, the authority figure who is implacably opposed to mercy. Satan's hopelessness is poignant. Trump identifies with this version of God, anyone who disagrees with him is simply defined as "Satan", and mercy is out of the question. I'm happy to be on team Satan in this scenario, although I doubt the bish would be comfortable with that!

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics ... r-AA1xIOHk

[pipbarber]

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/202 ... on-flights

It was always a significant flaw in the orange one's plan, why would nations open their borders to truck loads (or plane loads in this case) of people being deported from the US. The Colombian president says:

I cannot force migrants to remain in a country that does not want them. But if that country returns them, it must be with dignity and respect – for both them and our nation. In civilian planes, and without treating them like criminals, we will welcome our compatriots. Colombia deserves respect,” wrote the president.

So he appears to be adopting a position whereby these deportees will be accepted by Colombia provided certain conditions are met. It's a sensible approach, pragmatic and it's also cleverly strategic, or at least that how it seems from my very far distant perspective. It means that if maga wants to deport people to colombia they'll have to charter commercial planes, or buy tickets on commercial flights. That's an expensive and time consuming demand. Well played Gustavo Petro.

I've also been enormously impressed with Mexico's president Claudia Sheinbaum. She doesn't seem at all intimidated by Trump. I get the feeling she is of the view that tariffs on Mexico will do far more damage to the US than it will to Mexico, in the scheme of things.

Perhaps Trump's chaos world will have a beneficial impact on the politics of the Americas. Schismogenesis might start to kick in. I kind of hope it happens all over the world actually.

[stevebrooks]

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/202 ... on-flights

It was always a significant flaw in the orange one's plan, why would nations open their borders to truck loads (or plane loads in this case) of people being deported from the US. The Colombian president says:

I cannot force migrants to remain in a country that does not want them. But if that country returns them, it must be with dignity and respect – for both them and our nation. In civilian planes, and without treating them like criminals, we will welcome our compatriots. Colombia deserves respect,” wrote the president.

So he appears to be adopting a position whereby these deportees will be accepted by Colombia provided certain conditions are met. It's a sensible approach, pragmatic and it's also cleverly strategic, or at least that how it seems from my very far distant perspective. It means that if maga wants to deport people to colombia they'll have to charter commercial planes, or buy tickets on commercial flights. That's an expensive and time consuming demand. Well played Gustavo Petro.

I've also been enormously impressed with Mexico's president Claudia Sheinbaum. She doesn't seem at all intimidated by Trump. I get the feeling she is of the view that tariffs on Mexico will do far more damage to the US than it will to Mexico, in the scheme of things.

Perhaps Trump's chaos world will have a beneficial impact on the politics of the Americas. Schismogenesis might start to kick in. I kind of hope it happens all over the world actually.

Reading through the article, there's a key difference between the US and Colombian approach to imposing the tariffs, it's right here in this paragraph:

“American products whose price will rise within the national economy must be replaced by national production, and the government will help in this regard,” the post continued. The US is Colombia’s largest trading partner, with exports including crude petroleum, coffee and cut flowers.

The Colombian government will help business to replace US imports, Trump thinks the Colombian government is paying the tariffs and US business will get no assistance from him, that's for sure. Who will win, who will back down? Interestingly Colombia is one of the few countries in the world where the trade disparity goes the other way, it's mostly food products, and also food products are the easiest to find other markets for, the Chinese will probably take them. So trade war in 4 days, what does this portend for rest of his term!