Trump 2.0

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[JohnDe]

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That’s scary, next they will be saying that Trump is Jesus.

Come on mate, calm it down a bit.

 

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[DB008]

That’s scary, next they will be saying that Trump is Jesus.

Come on mate, calm it down a bit.

Just because it doesn't fit your narrative, doesn't mean it didn't happen (which it did).

How many times did the FBI lie to the FISA court to illegally spy on Trump? Around 19 times l think.

 

[DB008]

USAID is NOT US (United States) AID (Help)

USAID is United States Agency for International Development

Huge Difference

Lets break it down folks

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[DB008]

Would be great if our own tax payer funded ABC reported on this, but they won't

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[JohnDe]

Just because it doesn't fit your narrative, doesn't mean it didn't happen (which it did).

How many times did the FBI lie to the FISA court to illegally spy on Trump? Around 19 times l think.

And the moon landing was staged, the FBI assassinated JFK. And for the US to get involved in WWII the US navy torpedo there own ships to incriminate the German’s, the Pearl Harbour attack was known before hand by US intelligence but kept quiet. Area 51 is full of underground bunkers with alien technology and little green creatures of space, hidden by the Men in Black.

It is your narrative that you should be worried about.

 

[mullokintyre]

There has rightly been some outcry from Trump supporters over the enormous amount of subscription funding to Politico.
Why the government needs that level of acess to a media org that supposedly gives you the insight on what happening in the whitehouse seems a tad suspicious, suspicious enough to call it bribery.
However, the org Open the Books points out that in 2017 when Trump 1.0 started, the white house had already started the funding of Politico, though on a somewhat smaller scale. Perhaps they were working on the theory of "know thine enemy".

I wonder how much Trump 2.0 and the various levels of government spends on right wing/conservative subscriptions to the likes of Breitbart, or Zero Hedge, or OAN etc etc.
Its so hard to get any balance on issues when everything is so tribal.
Mick

 

[IFocus]

There has rightly been some outcry from Trump supporters over the enormous amount of subscription funding to Politico.
Why the government needs that level of acess to a media org that supposedly gives you the insight on what happening in the whitehouse seems a tad suspicious, suspicious enough to call it bribery.
However, the org Open the Books points out that in 2017 when Trump 1.0 started, the white house had already started the funding of Politico, though on a somewhat smaller scale. Perhaps they were working on the theory of "know thine enemy".

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I wonder how much Trump 2.0 and the various levels of government spends on right wing/conservative subscriptions to the likes of Breitbart, or Zero Hedge, or OAN etc etc.
Its so hard to get any balance on issues when everything is so tribal.
Mick

Republicans had subscriptions paid for as well the claim apparently has been debunked the whole thing is getting really stupid as expected "flooding the zone with $hit".

Then there is Gaza, Trump anti immigration in the US while telling all and sundry to take Palestinians.

 

[JohnDe]

Let's hope -

Hyperbole makes Trump sound crazed but there’s method here – and it works. Sometimes crazy ideas are just crazy. But successful leaders bend the world in their direction not by making incremental moves along the curve of conventional wisdom but by jumping off the curve completely.​

Can we make sense of Trump? I think we can

Even the most worldly, by now inured to the derangements of Donald Trump’s expansive imagination, probably didn’t have these on their list of expectations for the first two weeks of Trump II: pressure on Canada to become the 51st US state; threats of war with Denmark over the annexation of Greenland; America taking ownership of the Gaza Strip and shipping two million Palestinians to Arab countries.

The candidate who promised an end to America’s “forever wars”, railed against wasteful and damaging foreign entanglements and boasted of a first-term record of no major US deployments to far-flung places, has started his second term sounding like a new Caesar, eyeing up vast swathes of territory ripe for incorporation into an expanding imperium. From neo-isolationist to neo-conservative in the blink of an eye. Can we make it make sense? I think we can.

The overarching explanation for all Trumpian declarations applies here, of course. We should be familiar with the perils of taking the man literally. It is not just that Trump speaks habitually in hyperbole and falsehood, but that he is in a constant game of escalation with his audience. To keep one step ahead of interlocutors on the other side of the table who think they’ve got used to the hyperbole, he needs to keep upping it. The only way to stay ahead of the expectations curve is to make ever more outlandish claims. The most inviting thing you can ever say to Trump is: surely you can’t do that?

But there are, I think, three particular things behind the president’s latest adventures in foreign policy wonderland. On one level, this is “Trump: The Real Estate Mogul Goes Global”. Constantly on the lookout for the most spectacular property development projects in the history of the planet, he is applying a lifelong knack for creating gleaming monuments to himself from the most improbable of building sites.

So Gaza, the bomb and corpse-strewn rubble field on the Mediterranean will become “The Riviera of the Middle East”. In announcing the idea on Tuesday, Trump described the project as the US taking “a long-term ownership position” in the territory – the language of a property speculator huddling with his lawyers and bankers. The icy wastes of Greenland are “an incredible place”, ideal for the construction of US military facilities and the development of mineral and fuel potential. As he threatened tariffs on his northern neighbour this week, he described the border between Canada and the US, fought over in war, settled by treaty and recognised in international law for two centuries, as an “artificial line”, the way a prospective property buyer might haggle with the local authority about the scope for access.

A second factor is the “Everything Everywhere All At Once” style of governing. Trump’s shock and awe approach, in which he bombards us night and day with presidential initiatives, was well described by his former aide Steve Bannon in 2017: if you keep doing a million new things at the same time, your opponents and the media (the same thing, in their view) won’t have the capacity to scrutinise and oppose them effectively.

This applies especially when you propose some of the wilder stuff: the attention goes there and your other, radical but maybe not-completely-crazy ideas have space to get done.

So just as we were digesting the plan to shut down the US Agency for International Development, we’re going to talk about taking control of Gaza. While senators were still dealing with the prospect of voting to put vaccine-opponent Robert F Kennedy Jr in charge of the nation’s health, here comes Putin and Assad-friendly Tulsi Gabbard to run national intelligence. No one can keep up, so he gets a surprising amount done.

Tulsi Gabbard, U.S. President Donald Trump’s nominee to be Director of National Intelligence. Picture: Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images/AFP

But the most important part of all this is sheer Trumpian self-confidence that he can make things most people deem mad actually succeed in changing the world. For him, moving the Overton Window is a daily occupation. In his mind, it’s driven not by the triumph of hope but by the reality of experience.

His own political success is the ultimate testament to the possibility of the absurdly implausible becoming real: from joke candidate when he came down that escalator in 2015 to probably the most consequential political figure of the 21st century in less than ten years. Why wouldn’t you embrace the crazy?

In the foreign policy field, especially in the Middle East, this is reflected in what he achieved in his first term – against the odds and in the face of ridicule and denunciation. His recognition in 2017 of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel was almost universally greeted with predictions of disaster, but it turned out to be a highly symbolic move that helped create conditions for the Jewish state’s normalisation of relations with Arab governments.

In 2020 he ordered the assassination of Qasem Soleimani, the head of Iran’s Quds force, a move that was again greeted by Middle East “experts” as an invitation to catastrophe. In fact it sparked the long, welcome degradation of Iran’s power in the region.

Not that Trump is serious about occupying Gaza. But he surely believes that such wild declarations are the only way to produce radical change where it is needed. Calling for them to take in two million Palestinians forces Arab states to confront their own hypocrisy about Gaza while burying their lingering pleas for a “two state solution”. Canada won’t be the 51st state either but by embracing the idea, Trump thinks he can get the country to concede more economic power to the US.

Sometimes crazy ideas are just crazy. But successful leaders bend the world in their direction not by making incremental moves along the curve of conventional wisdom but by jumping off the curve completely, taking history – often reluctantly – with them.

The Times

 

[JohnDe]

$50m on condoms to Gaza? That can't be true.

 

[Dona Ferentes]

And the moon landing was staged, the FBI assassinated JFK. And for the US to get involved in WWII the US navy torpedo there own ships to incriminate the German’s, the Pearl Harbour attack was known before hand by US intelligence but kept quiet. Area 51 is full of underground bunkers with alien technology and little green creatures of space, hidden by the Men in Black.

It is your narrative that you should be worried about.

that poster had stated, elsewhere in an earlier thread, that the Moon landings were faked.

I have him on Ignore.

 

[Smurf1976]

$50m on condoms to Gaza? That can't be true.

My thinking is this is simply a means of hiding what the money's really for and that it's actually for something "sensitive" that whichever agency wants to keep quiet.

Sensitive as in someone was paid a bribe in return for information or similar. The kind of thing a government with a lot of foreign influence might seek to do as part of intelligence or other operations but needs to keep hidden.

Just my theory but the basic concept is pretty common even in civilian use where there's a reason to obscure what was actually purchased.

 

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[IFocus]

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ABC article today pointing out how this action of Musk's has directly caused deaths, but don't worry it was only innocence poverty stricken people.

 

[moXJO]

ABC article today pointing out how this action of Musk's has directly caused deaths, but don't worry it was only innocence poverty stricken people.

Mandate.
How much is everyone that's whinging going to give to charity?

 

[JohnDe]

Mandate.
How much is everyone that's whinging going to give to charity?

I and my business have donated to various charities and causes for decades.

Last year I decided to reduce donations drastically and only to a very select few.

My thinking is that because I pay so much tax and government should be using the tax dollars to support everyone, which the NDIS is doing plus all the other handouts the government has, I’m not going to give anymore of my hard earned money to causes that I have no idea of how much goes directly to where it is needed.

I also am not giving to organisations that have political views different to mine, or support actions such as as the end of Australia Day, support the Voice, etc.

Money is too hard to come by, and my body is getting tired.

Too many leaches with over-opinionated views.

Time for some to be more appreciative of where the donations come from.