Donald Trump

[stevebrooks]

US to leave United Nations, probably so they no longer have to abide by UN rules about invading other countries..hint, Canada, Greenland et al:

But Mr Musk hasn’t been shy about telegraphing impending White House policies.

And he’s now quote-posted “I agree” to a social media assertion: “It’s time to leave NATO and the UN”.

Mr Musk has previously called the foreign aid agency USAID a “criminal organisation”. He’s also called Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky “cruel”, “inhumane” and “evil” in resisting Russia’s invasion of his country.

All are controversial talking points of the Project 2025 plan for the Trump administration, issued by ultraconservative think tank The Heritage Foundation.

“The first months of the second Trump presidency have already seen key parts of the current international order undermined. Musk’s position fits a general pattern,” observes University of Auckland international affairs expert Chris Ogden.

https://www.news.com.au/world/north-ame ... 915130df06

[stevebrooks]

Tuesday, tariffs off on Canada, 30 day reprieve, Thursday, tariff's back on, Saturday, even bigger tariffs, 250%.

Is this the actions of a sane person?



Meanwhile Canada has said, we aren't going to join this mad circus, our industries need some sort of ongoing certainty, so no matter what Trump does, out tariffs will remain until the US drops it's tariffs altogether.

[stylofone]

Tuesday, tariffs off on Canada, 30 day reprieve, Thursday, tariff's back on, Saturday, even bigger tariffs, 250%.

Is this the actions of a sane person?



Meanwhile Canada has said, we aren't going to join this mad circus, our industries need some sort of ongoing certainty, so no matter what Trump does, out tariffs will remain until the US drops it's tariffs altogether.

Alan Kohler broke it down. Trump told Congress his policies were based on "common sense", which generally means he didn't bother to consult experts, or base it on anything fancy and high falutin' like research and expertise.

Based on this "common sense", he slapped his tariffs on Canada and Mexico. Then General Motors told him if he persisted, they'd be bankrupt within three months because the US car industry is entwined with Canada and Mexico. So Trump called it off.

But if he'd just done a bit of research or consulted some experts, he could easily have found out in advance that GM and the other big carmakers would be devastated, and he could have done something more effective, or at least less stupid, in the first place.

His cruelty and tyranny are horrible, but his bumbling incompetence and laughable failures are popcorn material. We're less than two months in and he's absolutely crashing the US economy. A "radical left lunatic" like me might casually express a desire to smash the system, but Trump is doing it for us!

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-03-10/ ... /105027736

[pipbarber]

His cruelty and tyranny are horrible, but his bumbling incompetence and laughable failures are popcorn material. We're less than two months in and he's absolutely crashing the US economy. A "radical left lunatic" like me might casually express a desire to smash the system, but Trump is doing it for us!

Trump is indeed doing it for us. He's not a neoliberal, and lets face it he's not a christian either (almost certainly an atheist in fact), he has no interest in maintaining the post WW2 world order and he is dismantling the American empire. If that's all the information i knew about him, i'd be an enthusiastic supporter! LOL

America is becoming a representation of Trump's intellect. It appears to be somewhat limited. The man's an under-educated idiot with the added disadvantage of age related cognitive decline, that is America right now - plus nuclear weapons and 300 million people that are about to be fucked sideways.

[stevebrooks]

Lets drop this here, RFK Junior thinks vaccines are responsible for allergies:

The list touches on the personal priorities of HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a longtime anti-vaccine activist who has repeatedly promoted medical conspiracy theories and false claims. He has advanced the idea that rising rates of autism are linked to vaccines, a claim that has been debunked by hundreds of scientific studies. He has also suggested that aluminum in vaccines is responsible for childhood allergies (his son reportedly is severely allergic to peanuts). And he has claimed that water fluoridation — which the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has called “one of the 10 greatest public health achievements of the 20th century” — is an “industrial waste.”

He has therefore banned NIH from putting out any statement that don't go through him first, this is madness, he is going to kill a lot of people!

https://www.propublica.org/article/nati ... ism-rfk-jr

[stevebrooks]

And now, he is spruiking Tesla's for Musk, not only spruiking them but declaring any protests against Tesla as domestic terrorism!

There were quite strange scenes in Washington D.C. today as US President Donald Trump used the White House as the backdrop for, essentially, a Tesla sales pitch.

Mr Trump was trying to help one of his top advisers, billionaire Elon Musk, who in addition to his cost-cutting role in the US government remains CEO of Tesla.

The electric car company’s stock price has plummeted since Mr Trump took power, falling from $US432 the day after the President’s inauguration, to $222 today.

I mean really? This is a man on a string, or several of them, a puppet if you will, doing the bidding of his controller!

https://www.news.com.au/world/north-ame ... 47cf6d5d93

WASHINGTON, March 11 (Reuters) - Violence against Tesla dealerships will be labeled domestic terrorism and perpetrators will "go through hell," U.S. President Donald Trump said on Tuesday in a show of support for the electric carmaker's chief, his ally Elon Musk.

This is madness, you can't use the office of the President to protect one company to the exclusion of all others, but anyway this is just going to drive people more against Tesla's, these people have no idea!

https://www.reuters.com/world/us/trump- ... 025-03-11/

[stevebrooks]

As expected by everyone, well apart from many Australian politicians who seem to think we have a "special" relationship with the US, we now have tariffs. Yay we aren't special!

And now to the stupid! Trump's spokesperson Leavitt who obviously has no idea how the primary industries work, oh dear!

Ms Leavitt said the reason for the refusal to exempt Australia was “American-first steel”.

“And if they want to be exempted, they should consider moving steel manufacturing here,” she added.

What? We dig up iron ore and bauxite and process it into Aluminium and Steel for export in refineries, is she seriously suggest we ship the iron ore and bauxite to the US and build refineries in the US to process it? That would require shipping double the tonnage of iron ore across the world to make a ton of steel, let alone the coal and other materials needed, and up to 6 tons of bauxite per ton of Aluminium, and require the building of refineries that we already have here. That would actually cost more than the 25% tariffs they are imposing, they do realise that right? Making Australia do that would actually increase the price of AU steel and Aluminium to the point it would be uncompetitive in any market!

Best we just find other markets for that steel and aluminium, I hear China is buying!

https://www.news.com.au/finance/work/le ... 31b8098c89

[pipbarber]

I'm bitterly disappointed we aren't reciprocating with tariffs on those fucking stupid gigantic american cars that are destroying our roads and causing accidents.

We're such chicken shits!

[stevebrooks]

I'm bitterly disappointed we aren't reciprocating with tariffs on those fucking stupid gigantic american cars that are destroying our roads and causing accidents.

We're such chicken shits!

Oh we are indeed, and the funny thing is the politicians in charge think being chicken shits will actually get us treated favourably by the big orange fascist, and of course it won't, it will get us treated exactly the same as everyone else, possibly even worse, only everyone else will also see we are boot licking, kowtowing followers of the big orange fascist and it will hurt us in the long run because they wont trust us to not do whatever Trump wants us to do, and if it means sending troops into Canada to help conquer it, well I would hope that would lead to popular uprisings in Australia, but I can't just assume it will happen. We will end up a pariah state like the US if we don't watch ourselves!

[stylofone]

Insanity has been normalised.

In addition to all of the above, consider the Colorado River. Huge parts of the American west are at risk of dying of thirst. Trump denies there's a problem, denies climate change, encourages division when the entire system requires constant cooperation and compromise, gets the military to vandalise the existing water storage system, seeks to defund the system by reversing Biden's actions, and letting DOGE destroy what's left. It is a nightmare with apocalyptic potential.

https://www.politico.com/news/2025/03/1 ... t-00223964

edit: oh, Politico's OG code not working, have a screenshot..

Screenshot 2025-03-12 at 16-36-27 Could Trump break the West’s most important river - POLITICO.jpg (58.94 KiB) Viewed 17 times