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Trump's Second Term

TellyKNeasuss said:
"An evil man will burn his own nation to the ground to rule over the ashes."
- Sun Tzu
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It's a nice quote, but Sun Tzu never said that! You lose 5 skeptic points. @LiteBright, @kookbreaker, @esquel, and @shemp lose 1 each for liking it without validating it.

www.truthorfiction.com

Sun Tzu ‘Rule Over Ashes’ Quote

What sounded like an eerily prescient quote by a Chinese military philosopher about a wish to "rule over the ashes" spread virally in March 2023.
www.truthorfiction.com www.truthorfiction.com
 
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Reformed Offlian said:
Can' speak for stacyhs, but it doesn't seem likely. The US has been supplying about as much military assistance to Ukraine as all of Europe combined.

www.statista.com

Total bilateral aid to Ukraine by donor & type 2025| Statista

How much has each country given to Ukraine? The U.S. provided the highest bilateral aid to Ukraine as of June 2025, followed by the EU institutions.
www.statista.com www.statista.com

I suspect that only a subset of those other contributors (namely UK and Germany) are likely to be able to provide the sort of high-end equipment and munitions currently being supplied by the US at any sort of scale. You tell me: How realistic do you think it is to expect Europe to provide the level of aid the US currently supplies?
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Trump's whining is, as usual, I'll informed ignorance.
 
Andy_Ross said:
Still with the Judges
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@elonmusk
If ANY judge ANYWHERE can stop EVERY Presidential action EVERYWHERE, we do NOT live in a democracy.
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So ignorant. The USA was set up deliberately so that the President could be overruled by the Judiciary. What Musk wants is an absolute monarchy, not a president or a democracy.
 
Blue Mountain said:
So ignorant. The USA was set up deliberately so that the President could be overruled by the Judiciary. What Musk wants is an absolute monarchy, not a president or a democracy.
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Both Musk and Trump seem to regard nations as being like companies, with one "boss" in charge, with no restraints or boundaries, who can decree anything at whim.
 
As of the close of the day on February 14, my positive/negative score on the Trump administration stands at -136, despite the fact I recorded two positive actions.

I didn't post this yesterday, so here are February 13 and 14:

14 February 2025
+1: Executive Order: Establishing the National Energy Dominance Council (+1 for benefit to USA)
-1: CDC shuts down the Epidemic Intelligence Service [31]
-1: JD Vance lambastes Romania for letting a court overturn a national election
-1: JD Vance criticises Europe for allowing immigration, leading to far-right attacks on immigrants
-1: Trump claims without evidence that George Soros funnelled billions of taxpayer dollars to third world countries [32]
-1: Trump refers to New Zealand as a "third world country" [32]
-1: Musk: "If ANY judge ANYWHERE can stop EVERY Presidential action EVERYWHERE, we do NOT live in a democracy."

13 February 2025
+1: Establishing the President’s Make America Healthy Again Commission (+1 for good intentions)
-1: Trump again insults Trudeau by referring to him as "Governor" and says Canada needs US military protection [29]
-1: Trump claims without evidence that the US DoD paid Reuters $9 million for a study [30]
-1: Senate confirms RFK Jr. as Health and Human Services secretary

I also added another line to February 12:
-1: Senate votes to confirm Tulsi Gabbard as Director of National Intelligence

Footnotes:

29. Trump: "I spoke to Governor Trudeau ... they don't have military protection, and you take a look at what's going on out there ... people are in danger ... they need our protection."

30. Trump "DOGE: Looks like Radical Left Reuters was paid $9,000,000 by the Department of Defense to study "large scale social deception." GIVE BACK THE MONEY, NOW!"

31. Lewis Kamb (@lewiskamb.bsky.social): “We just had word that all our fellows and post doc staff are laid off effective immediately. The famous Epidemic Intelligence Service, aka the Disease Detectives, is no more. That’s 1,260 staff. They are calling this ‘Phase 1’.”

31. Trump: "Lyin' Chuck Schumer is at it again - with the help of Alex Soros (Little Georgie) scheming to undo all the GREAT WORK my administration is doing to MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN! We found thousands of cases of fraud, waste, and bad for them, receipts. Little Georgie funneled millions and billions of taxpayer dollars to Third World Countries like New Zealand and Congo. And now it's being reported that Democrats have created a "meme" coin - but that will fail like all of their other pathetic attempts to profit off the American people. Americans are smart and won't fall for the coin. MAGA!"
 
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Trump officials fired nuclear staff not realizing they oversee the country’s weapons stockpile, sources say

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Move fast and break things! Because ◊◊◊◊◊◊◊ around with our nuclear stockpile, even "accidentally," is totally acceptable!

Just like...

Elon Musk’s DOGE Posts Classified Data On Its New Website“
People are scrambling” to see if their sensitive information has been accessed by Musk’s programmers, said one federal intelligence employee.

Again, Republicans have plunged us into another national security nightmare.
 
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Aridas said:
...

Trump officials fired nuclear staff not realizing they oversee the country’s weapons stockpile, sources say

...

Move fast and break things! Because ◊◊◊◊◊◊◊ around with our nuclear stockpile, even "accidentally," is totally acceptable!

Just like...

Elon Musk’s DOGE Posts Classified Data On Its New Website“
People are scrambling” to see if their sensitive information has been accessed by Musk’s programmers, said one federal intelligence employee.

Again, Republicans have plunged us into another national security nightmare.
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Of course he doesn't think, but is it really a good idea to disgruntle the people in charge of nuclear weapons?
 
TragicMonkey said:
Both Musk and Trump seem to regard nations as being like companies, with one "boss" in charge, with no restraints or boundaries, who can decree anything at whim.
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That is precisely what MAGA voted for! In just about all their nonsensical ramblings, this is a core theme - Trump running the USA like his (successful - haha!) businesses. And then ignoring everyone who warned them that all of Trump's businesses always fail spectacularly and at everyone else's expense, not his. They've seen him on TV being "successful"; don't need no more convincing he's their messiah.
 
TragicMonkey said:
Both Musk and Trump seem to regard nations as being like companies, with one "boss" in charge, with no restraints or boundaries, who can decree anything at whim.
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That's not even a well run company where a board of directors provides guidance and direction and then leave it to the well qualified employees to deliver.
 
Technically, the order to rename the Gulf only extends to the continental shelf of the US, not actually into the middle of the Gulf.
Google could make that clear without violating the Order - but they won't because they think it's easier to just acquiesce and wait for 4 years.
 
Aridas said:
What's not speculation is that Trump has a clear history of casually giving potential blackmail material on himself to Putin and that his own National Security chief ended up believing that Putin has blackmail on Trump. That's not necessarily why Trump did things like casually passing on what had been top secret information to Russia and paving the way for them to make war, but it is worthy of serious concern no matter what.

Speaking of history, though, Zig's tried to dismiss concerns about Trump's relationship with Russia as nonsense a number of times throughout, generally with extremely unreasonable arguments. That trend looks unlikely to change.
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Every time Trump talks to Putin, it's to praise him or trust him. Putin plays him like a master KGB agent.
 
a_unique_person said:
Trump's whining is, as usual, I'll informed ignorance.
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A better way of looking at fairness of aid given to Ukraine rather than in absolute terms is by proportion of GDP. Denmark on this basis is the top donor (1.83% GDP)and the US (0.35%) is way down the list (16th). UK gave 0.45%, Germany 0.37%, Canada 0.39%,

Denmark donated the most significant percentage of its 2021 gross domestic product (GDP) to help Ukraine over the period between January 24, 2022, and June 30, 2024. Denmark contributed 1.83 percent of its GDP in bilateral aid, followed by Estonia with 1.66 percent of GDP. Besides the Nordic and Baltic countries, Poland donated the largest share of GDP. Western countries sent aid to Ukraine in view of the Russian invasion that began in February 2022.

In absolute terms, the largest bilateral aid allocations to Ukraine were made by the United States, at over 75 billion euros as of June 30, 2024. European Union (EU) institutions, such as the European Commission and the European Council, allocated the second-largest amount of assistance, at almost 40 billion euros. The United Kingdom (UK) was the fourth-leading source of bilateral aid.
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www.statista.com

Bilateral aid to Ukraine by country GDP 2025| Statista

Denmark and Estonia had the highest ratio of bilateral support to Ukraine to donor GDP as of February 2025. Poland ranked eighth by GDP share of aid to Ukraine.
www.statista.com www.statista.com
www.ifw-kiel.de

Ukraine Support Tracker - A Database of Military, Financial and Humanitarian Aid to Ukraine

The Ukraine Support Tracker lists and quantifies military, financial and humanitarian aid promised by governments to Ukraine.
www.ifw-kiel.de www.ifw-kiel.de
 
Andy_Ross said:
We have a thread for Ukraine
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My post wasn't about Ukraine but about the US / Trump view on whether Europe was pulling its weight, and US / European relationships. US support for Ukraine in relative terms isn't greater than Europe's; just as US international foreign aid is not particularly noteworthy in relative terms. I suspect this represents a broad view in Trumpian politics. Just as it is unreasonable to expect billionaires to contribute more in tax than anyone else, so the US should not be expected to contribute more in aid than anyone else (despite the fact that it is larger and richer both in terms of GNI and per capita than other countries). Just as because billionaires pay more in absolute terms this should entitle them to exemptions so they can pay less in relative terms, so it appears because the US aid is high in absolute terms, this justifies giving less in relative terms.
 
The Great Zaganza said:
Technically, the order to rename the Gulf only extends to the continental shelf of the US, not actually into the middle of the Gulf.
Google could make that clear without violating the Order - but they won't because they think it's easier to just acquiesce and wait for 4 years.
Click to expand...

And technically the order only applies to US government agencies.
 
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Planigale said:
A better way of looking at fairness of aid given to Ukraine rather than in absolute terms is by proportion of GDP. Denmark on this basis is the top donor (1.83% GDP)and the US (0.35%) is way down the list (16th). UK gave 0.45%, Germany 0.37%, Canada 0.39%,


www.statista.com

Bilateral aid to Ukraine by country GDP 2025| Statista

Denmark and Estonia had the highest ratio of bilateral support to Ukraine to donor GDP as of February 2025. Poland ranked eighth by GDP share of aid to Ukraine.
www.statista.com www.statista.com
www.ifw-kiel.de

Ukraine Support Tracker - A Database of Military, Financial and Humanitarian Aid to Ukraine

The Ukraine Support Tracker lists and quantifies military, financial and humanitarian aid promised by governments to Ukraine.
www.ifw-kiel.de www.ifw-kiel.de
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The question under discussion was whether Europe could provide the needed level of military aid, should the US pull out. For that, absolute numbers are indeed what matter.
 
Norman Alexander said:
That is precisely what MAGA voted for! In just about all their nonsensical ramblings, this is a core theme - Trump running the USA like his (successful - haha!) businesses. And then ignoring everyone who warned them that all of Trump's businesses always fail spectacularly and at everyone else's expense, not his. They've seen him on "reality" TV being "successful"; don't need no more convincing he's their messiah.
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Added to your post- Trump's whole approach to the serious business of law and government is to cater exclusively to his followers, who don't want those actual things so much as they want to be entertained by what can be made to pass for either.
 
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KDLarsen said:
Wouldn't you know it, the speech in which the sofa king complained about EU being too obsessed with disinformation and misinformation, he was busy telling porkies.

www.theguardian.com

‘Thought crime’ and cancelled elections: how do JD Vance’s claims about Europe stand up?

US vice-president told litany of tales of Europe’s rights infringements in speech to leaders at defence gathering
www.theguardian.com www.theguardian.com
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On a more sober reflection of that speech, it's just sofa lover making explicit Trampy's policy of stabbing his friends and allies in the back in order to try and win kudos with countries who will never be anything other than enemies to the US.
 
How long till it's all smashed up? Do we need another pandemic?
tomwellborn3

1m

Trump supporters are turning on him over job losses, Social Security cuts, and rising costs. Many still demand mass deportations, purging federal agencies, and banning trans people. Others worry about tax hikes and economic failures. Some are outraged by his treatment of veterans and federal workers. His base is fracturing over personal impact, not ethics.

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link to HuffPost
 
considering how poorly thought out this government dismantling has been, you have to imagine some of the negative effects of it are going to be felt pretty early in his term and getting progressively worse.

all of these departments stopping operations and not having a budget for a week is bad. how about 3 months later? plus, it’s tax season. wonder how the irs is doing, and when do they start hacking that apart?
 
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