Politics

[gbflyer]

With the crap that is being brought to light, I sure hope the secret service is on their A game.

If DJT becomes a martyr, I believe I’ll just pull up a lawn chair and a cooler and watch the light show.

 

[sgt_zim]

Looks like Trump is about to face his third impeachment. Wonder what the over/under line for impeachments will before 2025. My guess is 5.5.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1887163034717819171

Speaking of levels of retardation...Al Green occupies one of the highest, or lowest, I suppose, rungs on the scale of retardation.

 

[Newboomer]

Hmmm, I don’t know. I’m thinking something more along the lines of the B-2 Spirit or the B-52 Stratofortress.

Puff, the Magic Dragon as a backup.

 

[mdwest]

Maybe they just have to wander around for 40 years.

Another interesting observation....

So, until yesterday the cry has been that the Palestinians are "refugees" and living in a "prison"...

Now that the idea of moving them out of Gaza to other surrounding states has been tabled.. the cry is "you cant force people from their homeland!"...

so which is it? Are they refugees? or are they home? you cant be both..

Either they WANT to live in Gaza.. or they don't..

I think the issue is they want to live in ISRAEL, sans the Israelis.. and that's not one of the options being tabled lol..

 

[Red Leg]

Looks like Trump is about to face his third impeachment. Wonder what the over/under line for impeachments will before 2025. My guess is 5.5.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1887163034717819171

This will never come to a vote as long as republicans hold the speakership, but it would be interesting to know how many dems would actually go along in today's environment.

 

[Wheels]

In other international news - The USPS has stopped all parcels from China

Direct parcels from China have been providing counterfeit goods, narcotics, narcotic precursors and even illegal firearms parts for YEARS now; looks like the gangbangers supply of "Glock Switches" just dried up!

This ties into the tariffs Trump put on China regarding small packages last week. Up until now shipments under $800 come in duty free/manifest free. China companies like TEMU ship a container filled with these small packages paying no fees, they are then dropped off at the Post Office for delivery. It is estimated that China ships 1B of these packages to America every year.

 

[mdwest]

If DJT becomes a martyr, I believe I’ll just pull up a lawn chair and a cooler and watch the light show.

There are certainly countless whack jobs out there that would love to see him dead that would be willing to give it a try...

But I think the chance that a foreign state (Iran) or a cartel or a US Agency (CIA?) etc would take the shot is almost non existent..

Dropping Donald Trump gets you JD Vance as POTUS.. drop JD Vance and you get Chuck Grassley.. drop Grassley and you get Marco Rubio..

None of those options are going to be more appealing than what they already are having to deal with.. especially after the US population gets fired up about the assassination of the President..

If Im a senior member of Los Zetas.. right now I am seriously concerned about changes that are occurring in the US and what that might mean to my future cash flow and my future life expectancy..

If a cartel whacks POTUS.. that concern converts to absolute panic and terror..

 

[Wheels]

This will never come to a vote as long as republicans hold the speakership, but it would be interesting to know how many dems would actually go along in today's environment.

Agree. I should have clarified impeachment attempts.

 

[Brent in Az]

Looks like Trump is about to face his third impeachment. Wonder what the over/under line for impeachments will before 2025. My guess is 5.5.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1887163034717819171

Those articles of impeachment aren't worth the paper they are printed on. They will head straight to Speaker Johnson's round file.

 

[cwpayton]

OK. One of you true believers walk me through Trump's announcement a few minutes ago that the US will "take over" the Gaza Strip. I was listening when he said it. As I remember the vast majority were apoplectic that we simply built a very unsuccessful pier to supply aid under Biden. You also will have to help me with that whole end state concept as well. This looks like a truly indefinite mission to me.

All that said, I think it might indeed be a worthy if very dangerous project. Though, it is something we haven't tried in the Levant since Lebanon (let's ignore that whole embassy thing). I am simply curious how the anti-nation building crowd squares this particular circle with their leader. Perhaps city state building isn't the same as nation building?

https://www.reuters.com/world/trump-says-us-will-take-over-gaza-strip-2025-02-05/

Then again, perhaps he sees this as simply a real-estate deal made possible through the relocation of the Palestinian people? To countries who do not want them? Just asking.

Trump says ‘US will take over the Gaza Strip’ — after relocating ‘all’ Palestinians

President Trump proposed a US takeover of the Gaza Strip Tuesday — shortly after proposing removing “all” Palestinians living there.

nypost.com

Unfortunately I admit ,this take-over" Gaza" is the dumbest thing to come forth from Trump, Ive ever heard, I had heard of this about 6 weeks ago on redacted and dismissed it as speculation or conspiracy stuff. why do we want to stick our nose into that vipers nest Ive no good reason. And no lets no dismiss Lebanon, oct23 1983, 241 marines killed,18 navy, and 3 army soldiers, big mistake by REAGAN. OR LEST WE FORGET JUNE 8 1967, Isreal bombed and strafed the USS LIBERTY ship killing 34 and wounding 174. It was no mistake. whqat I wont mention is IRAQ, the wounds of that war are still healing, Ive 2 friends who lost both legs, One was in Afghanistan. Dang it, will we never learn! This will not go down in history well, I hope Trump gets so involved with Mexico he forgets about GAZA. and IM all about MAGA and not at all about MGGA OR MIGA, LET THEM FIGHT THEIR OWN WARS. this will backfire on Trump.

 

[Brent in Az]

A huge concern for the Republican's, is keeping majority control in the mid-term election.
We all know how the majority flip flops, and having a slim margin is very concerning.
A democrat controlled house in Trumps final 2 years would be an onslaught of impeachments, investigative committee's, and what other nonsense they come up with. They are too stupid to do otherwise.

 

[Wheels]

A FOGO in DOD is probably wondering why they didn't make the clerk code the expense differently.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1887184877197410455

 

[Datchew]

Not sure of the veracity of it but apparently the ENTIRE CIA just got the same buyout retirement package offer as some of the FBI did.

*Edit*
Here's the link. Wow.

CIA Offers Buyout to Entire Workforce as Part of Trump Makeover

The agency offered buyouts to its entire workforce in what officials said is a bid to bring it in line with Trump’s priorities, including targeting drug cartels.

www.wsj.com

 

[Tanks]

This ties into the tariffs Trump put on China regarding small packages last week. Up until now shipments under $800 come in duty free/manifest free. China companies like TEMU ship a container filled with these small packages paying no fees, they are then dropped off at the Post Office for delivery. It is estimated that China ships 1B of these packages to America every year.

Yeah, I bought a poop scooper (tray, rake n spade combo with long handles) for my new puppy about a month ago for $16, shipped from TEMU. Came from their warehouse in Canada.

Amazing prices, and quality isn't bad either.

 

[Longwalker]

Brilliant summation, I'm afraid. Andrew says it better than me.
Andrew Coyne.....
“Nothing mattered, in the end. Not the probable dementia, the unfathomable ignorance, the emotional incontinence; not, certainly, the shambling, hate-filled campaign, or the ludicrously unworkable anti-policies.
The candidate out on bail in four jurisdictions, the convicted fraud artist, the adjudicated rapist and serial sexual predator, the habitual bankrupt, the stooge of Vladimir Putin, the man who tried to overturn the last election and all of his creepy retinue of crooks, ideologues and lunatics: Americans took a long look at all this and said, yes please.
There is no sense in understating the depth of the disaster. This is a crisis like no other in our lifetimes. The government of the United States has been delivered into the hands of a gangster, whose sole purpose in running, besides staying out of jail, is to seek revenge on his enemies. The damage Donald Trump and his nihilist cronies can do – to America, but also to its democratic allies, and to the peace and security of the world – is incalculable. We are living in the time of Nero.
The first six months will be a time of maximum peril. NATO must from this moment be considered effectively obsolete, without the American security guarantee that has always been its bedrock. We may see new incursions by Russia into Europe – the poor Ukrainians are probably done for, but now it is the Baltics and the Poles who must worry – before the Europeans have time to organize an alternative. China may also accelerate its Taiwanese ambitions.
At home, Mr. Trump will be moving swiftly to consolidate his power. Some of this will be institutional – the replacement of tens of thousands of career civil servants with Trumpian loyalists. But some of it will be … atmospheric.
At some point someone – a company whose chief executive has displeased him, a media critic who has gotten under his skin – will find themselves the subject of unwanted attention from the Trump administration. It might not be so crude as a police arrest. It might just be a little regulatory matter, a tax audit, something like that. They will seek the protection of the courts, and find it is not there.
The judges are also Trump loyalists, perhaps, or too scared to confront him. Or they might issue a ruling, and find it has no effect – that the administration has called the basic bluff of liberal democracy: the idea that, in the crunch, people in power agree to be bound by the law, and by its instruments the courts, the same as everyone else. Then everyone will take their cue. Executives will line up to court him. Media organizations, the large ones anyway, will find reasons to be cheerful.
Of course, in reality things will start to fall apart fairly quickly. The huge across-the-board tariffs he imposes will tank the world economy. The massive deficits, fuelled by his ill-judged tax policies – he won’t replace the income tax, as he promised, but will fill it with holes – and monetized, at his direction, by the Federal Reserve, will ignite a new round of inflation.
Most of all, the insane project of deporting 12 million undocumented immigrants – finding them, rounding them up and detaining them in hundreds of internment camps around the country, probably for years, before doing so – will consume his administration. But by then it will be too late.
We should not count upon the majority of Americans coming to their senses in any event. They were not able to see Mr. Trump for what he was before: why should that change? Would they not, rather, be further coarsened by the experience of seeing their neighbours dragged off by the police, or the military, further steeled to the necessity of doing “tough things” to “restore order?”
Some won’t, of course. But they will find in time that the democratic levers they might once have pulled to demand change are no longer attached to anything. There are still elections, but the rules have been altered: there are certain obstacles, certain disadvantages if you are not with the party of power. It will seem easier at first to try to change things from within. Then it will be easier not to change things.
All of this will wash over Canada in various ways – some predictable, like the flood of refugees seeking escape from the camps; some less so, like the coarsening of our own politics, the debasement of morals and norms by politicians who have discovered there is no political price to be paid for it. And who will have the backing of their patron in Washington.
All my life I have been an admirer of the United States and its people. But I am frightened of it now, and I am even more frightened of them.”
Written by Andrew Coyne.
Andrew Coyne is a highly respected Canadian columnist with the Globe and Mail and a regular panelist on CBC's The National, who has previously worked with Macleans Magazine (Senior Editor) and the National Post.

 

[Tundra Tiger]

Or maybe an elite squad of riflemen, armed with 6.5 Creedmoors and backup with heavy artillery wielding 35 Whelens!

You're putting way too much thought into this. I suggest something like this:

 

[WAB]

Brilliant summation, I'm afraid. Andrew says it better than me.
Andrew Coyne.....
“Nothing mattered, in the end. Not the probable dementia, the unfathomable ignorance, the emotional incontinence; not, certainly, the shambling, hate-filled campaign, or the ludicrously unworkable anti-policies.
The candidate out on bail in four jurisdictions, the convicted fraud artist, the adjudicated rapist and serial sexual predator, the habitual bankrupt, the stooge of Vladimir Putin, the man who tried to overturn the last election and all of his creepy retinue of crooks, ideologues and lunatics: Americans took a long look at all this and said, yes please.
There is no sense in understating the depth of the disaster. This is a crisis like no other in our lifetimes. The government of the United States has been delivered into the hands of a gangster, whose sole purpose in running, besides staying out of jail, is to seek revenge on his enemies. The damage Donald Trump and his nihilist cronies can do – to America, but also to its democratic allies, and to the peace and security of the world – is incalculable. We are living in the time of Nero.
The first six months will be a time of maximum peril. NATO must from this moment be considered effectively obsolete, without the American security guarantee that has always been its bedrock. We may see new incursions by Russia into Europe – the poor Ukrainians are probably done for, but now it is the Baltics and the Poles who must worry – before the Europeans have time to organize an alternative. China may also accelerate its Taiwanese ambitions.
At home, Mr. Trump will be moving swiftly to consolidate his power. Some of this will be institutional – the replacement of tens of thousands of career civil servants with Trumpian loyalists. But some of it will be … atmospheric.
At some point someone – a company whose chief executive has displeased him, a media critic who has gotten under his skin – will find themselves the subject of unwanted attention from the Trump administration. It might not be so crude as a police arrest. It might just be a little regulatory matter, a tax audit, something like that. They will seek the protection of the courts, and find it is not there.
The judges are also Trump loyalists, perhaps, or too scared to confront him. Or they might issue a ruling, and find it has no effect – that the administration has called the basic bluff of liberal democracy: the idea that, in the crunch, people in power agree to be bound by the law, and by its instruments the courts, the same as everyone else. Then everyone will take their cue. Executives will line up to court him. Media organizations, the large ones anyway, will find reasons to be cheerful.
Of course, in reality things will start to fall apart fairly quickly. The huge across-the-board tariffs he imposes will tank the world economy. The massive deficits, fuelled by his ill-judged tax policies – he won’t replace the income tax, as he promised, but will fill it with holes – and monetized, at his direction, by the Federal Reserve, will ignite a new round of inflation.
Most of all, the insane project of deporting 12 million undocumented immigrants – finding them, rounding them up and detaining them in hundreds of internment camps around the country, probably for years, before doing so – will consume his administration. But by then it will be too late.
We should not count upon the majority of Americans coming to their senses in any event. They were not able to see Mr. Trump for what he was before: why should that change? Would they not, rather, be further coarsened by the experience of seeing their neighbours dragged off by the police, or the military, further steeled to the necessity of doing “tough things” to “restore order?”
Some won’t, of course. But they will find in time that the democratic levers they might once have pulled to demand change are no longer attached to anything. There are still elections, but the rules have been altered: there are certain obstacles, certain disadvantages if you are not with the party of power. It will seem easier at first to try to change things from within. Then it will be easier not to change things.
All of this will wash over Canada in various ways – some predictable, like the flood of refugees seeking escape from the camps; some less so, like the coarsening of our own politics, the debasement of morals and norms by politicians who have discovered there is no political price to be paid for it. And who will have the backing of their patron in Washington.
All my life I have been an admirer of the United States and its people. But I am frightened of it now, and I am even more frightened of them.”
Written by Andrew Coyne.
Andrew Coyne is a highly respected Canadian columnist with the Globe and Mail and a regular panelist on CBC's The National, who has previously worked with Macleans Magazine (Senior Editor) and the National Post.

There was a day not so long ago, when that resume would mean something. Sadly, the Globe and Mail and MacLeans have sold their soul to the highest bidder, and their journalists are just mouthpieces for the lunatic left. You don’t have to dig very far to see what their agenda is. I say this with sadness, because when I was growing up in Canada, they were both internationally renowned publications.

 

[LivingTheDream]

Brilliant summation, I'm afraid. Andrew says it better than me.
Andrew Coyne.....
“Nothing mattered, in the end. Not the probable dementia, the unfathomable ignorance, the emotional incontinence; not, certainly, the shambling, hate-filled campaign, or the ludicrously unworkable anti-policies.
The candidate out on bail in four jurisdictions, the convicted fraud artist, the adjudicated rapist and serial sexual predator, the habitual bankrupt, the stooge of Vladimir Putin, the man who tried to overturn the last election and all of his creepy retinue of crooks, ideologues and lunatics: Americans took a long look at all this and said, yes please.
There is no sense in understating the depth of the disaster. This is a crisis like no other in our lifetimes. The government of the United States has been delivered into the hands of a gangster, whose sole purpose in running, besides staying out of jail, is to seek revenge on his enemies. The damage Donald Trump and his nihilist cronies can do – to America, but also to its democratic allies, and to the peace and security of the world – is incalculable. We are living in the time of Nero.
The first six months will be a time of maximum peril. NATO must from this moment be considered effectively obsolete, without the American security guarantee that has always been its bedrock. We may see new incursions by Russia into Europe – the poor Ukrainians are probably done for, but now it is the Baltics and the Poles who must worry – before the Europeans have time to organize an alternative. China may also accelerate its Taiwanese ambitions.
At home, Mr. Trump will be moving swiftly to consolidate his power. Some of this will be institutional – the replacement of tens of thousands of career civil servants with Trumpian loyalists. But some of it will be … atmospheric.
At some point someone – a company whose chief executive has displeased him, a media critic who has gotten under his skin – will find themselves the subject of unwanted attention from the Trump administration. It might not be so crude as a police arrest. It might just be a little regulatory matter, a tax audit, something like that. They will seek the protection of the courts, and find it is not there.
The judges are also Trump loyalists, perhaps, or too scared to confront him. Or they might issue a ruling, and find it has no effect – that the administration has called the basic bluff of liberal democracy: the idea that, in the crunch, people in power agree to be bound by the law, and by its instruments the courts, the same as everyone else. Then everyone will take their cue. Executives will line up to court him. Media organizations, the large ones anyway, will find reasons to be cheerful.
Of course, in reality things will start to fall apart fairly quickly. The huge across-the-board tariffs he imposes will tank the world economy. The massive deficits, fuelled by his ill-judged tax policies – he won’t replace the income tax, as he promised, but will fill it with holes – and monetized, at his direction, by the Federal Reserve, will ignite a new round of inflation.
Most of all, the insane project of deporting 12 million undocumented immigrants – finding them, rounding them up and detaining them in hundreds of internment camps around the country, probably for years, before doing so – will consume his administration. But by then it will be too late.
We should not count upon the majority of Americans coming to their senses in any event. They were not able to see Mr. Trump for what he was before: why should that change? Would they not, rather, be further coarsened by the experience of seeing their neighbours dragged off by the police, or the military, further steeled to the necessity of doing “tough things” to “restore order?”
Some won’t, of course. But they will find in time that the democratic levers they might once have pulled to demand change are no longer attached to anything. There are still elections, but the rules have been altered: there are certain obstacles, certain disadvantages if you are not with the party of power. It will seem easier at first to try to change things from within. Then it will be easier not to change things.
All of this will wash over Canada in various ways – some predictable, like the flood of refugees seeking escape from the camps; some less so, like the coarsening of our own politics, the debasement of morals and norms by politicians who have discovered there is no political price to be paid for it. And who will have the backing of their patron in Washington.
All my life I have been an admirer of the United States and its people. But I am frightened of it now, and I am even more frightened of them.”
Written by Andrew Coyne.
Andrew Coyne is a highly respected Canadian columnist with the Globe and Mail and a regular panelist on CBC's The National, who has previously worked with Macleans Magazine (Senior Editor) and the National Post.

And this brilliant man probably voted for and still supports Trudeau, maybe some self reflection is warranted.

 

[Datchew]

Andrew Coyne. Perhaps one of the strongest cases of TDS I've seen yet.
Someone get that lad some cookies and a hug.

When he makes his emo-vomit video and screams to the heavens about "because Trump" like the rest of the crazies, please share with us.

Meanwhile, for his diatribe above, I give it the TLDR.

 

[Tundra Tiger]

"All my life I have been an admirer of the United States and its people. But I am frightened of it now, and I am even more frightened of them.”

I am not familiar with Mr. Coyne. He does not sound like anyone I'd want to share a hunting camp with.

All my life I have been proud to be an American. There have certainly been any number of things in recent years to cause me some level of embarrassment - here's looking at you Uncle Joe. But the first few weeks of the new administration? I can feel that pride welling up inside me again, rejuvenated. And it's not just me - I have had colleagues at work say the same thing to me. We feel like we are starting to see the darkness receding, and dawn beginning to provide light once again.