EPTUS Politics Mega-thread - Page 5548
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Now that we have a new thread, in order to ensure that this thread continues to meet TL standards and follows the proper guidelines, we will be enforcing the rules in the OP more strictly. Be sure to give them a complete and thorough read before posting! NOTE: When providing a source, please provide a very brief summary on what it's about and what purpose it adds to the discussion. The supporting statement should clearly explain why the subject is relevant and needs to be discussed. Please follow this rule especially for tweets. Your supporting statement should always come BEFORE you provide the source. If you have any questions, comments, concern, or feedback regarding the USPMT, then please use this thread: http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/website-feedback/510156-us-politics-thread | ||
KwarK
United States44352 Posts
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Billyboy
2460 Posts
On March 10 2026 23:08 Simberto wrote: I think we should change the title to something big and manly so everyone knows they are the one in charge of war. I think Warboss would be ideal. Then he can tell all the Boyz that they need to pain their tanks red so they go faster. Maybe even a letter, like a cool letter like x or Z! Sounds fitting for a special military operation. My bold prediction is that is boots are on the ground, the reason given is the strait of Hormuz. Well, the first reason, I’m sure 74 will be given over time. | ||
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Jankisa
Croatia1757 Posts
Well, he said that it's no biggie because even if it's happening it's not helping Iranians much: https://apnews.com/article/iran-russia-intelligence-sharing-trump-oil-prices-109923968208e549fe1d674d7cb71978 The cool kicker is he said that immediately after rocking the totally cool Trump merch hat while dead American soldiers were transferred from ME, where they died due to an Iranian strike on one of the US bases. Speaking of transfers, it seems like CIA got a "Havana Syndrome inducing weapon" from Russian gangsters and has been testing it for a while, it's a pretty wild story: It spans both Trump and Biden's presidency and the evidence seems pretty overwhelming that this has been used by foreign actors to attack US diplomats and spies. I guess, in the case of Biden, nothing came of it because the chief principle of his foreign policy was rolling over, for Trump it doesn't seem important to react to it since one of his foundational principles when handling foreign policy is doing whatever Russia wants. Fun! | ||
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JimmyJRaynor
Canada17892 Posts
Look for insurance premiums to go way up after this thing is over. Of course, those expenses will be passed on to the consumer The big winner in all this? The booming Casualty Insurance Industry. The math nerds who decided to take the Actuarial Math exams while attending university are looking pretty smart right now. | ||
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WombaT
Northern Ireland27454 Posts
On March 10 2026 20:47 Jankisa wrote: Well, I'll do a little experiment. Before opening the video, my bet would be that there has been (I believe I posted about this) a lot of betting of very large sums of money ahead of the start of strikes on Iran. The timing and specificity of the bets imply that someone with inside knowledge that this is going down made a lot of money. This happened with Maduro, Greenland threats, a few time with TACO tariffs, a few times with Crypto announcements. I'll report back after I watch the video. EDIT: Yup, that was it, with a little caveat that the bets, at least to me, bar one huge $ 87 K with a payout of more then $ 500 K seem smaller, like something that actual soldiers participating in execution or planing made them. But, but, Obama. In seriousness did this kind of thing occur before? I can’t recall some stuff in this vein, but I may just not have encountered it. IIRC we’ve seen some ‘not insider trading’ from members of Congress cashing in by being on the inside track, but I don’t recall that being in the security and foreign policy domain. I can’t imagine it would have been at this scale and this blatant anyway. If the Trump cartel aren’t doing things that are actually unprecedented, they’re often doing things that are unprecedented in scope. | ||
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Jankisa
Croatia1757 Posts
I don't think things like this would have been possible because the "gameification" of everything wasn't a big thing back then, with these 2 things I mentioned the ability for people to become corrupt has been supercharged. Betting has had a horrible effect on sports, prediction markets are now actively having a horrible effect on the world. Of course, stock trading, insider trading and information "shadow broker" economy has been a thing forever, as evidenced by UK actually arresting some people who engaged in this kind of shit with Epstein, who, by the way, had a lot to say about gamefication, crypto and all of this, giving advice to Bobby Kotick on loot boxes, being fascinated and helping Bannon and Brock Pierce with the "wow gold farms" etc. Now, the prediction markets and crypto "businesses" like World liberty financial, which shuffled insane amounts of money between Binance, Saudis, Witkoffs and Trumps to the tune of enriching Trump and trippling his net worth, but no one cares because they are much more focused on locking up and throwing out brown people at home and engaging in the age old American tradition of blowing up brown people in the Middle East. | ||
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JimmyJRaynor
Canada17892 Posts
https://www.ctvnews.ca/toronto/article/shooting-at-us-consulate-in-toronto-being-treated-as-national-security-incident/ Every time the price of Tim Horton's donuts goes up or there is a tornado somehow it is the USA's fault there are protests in front of the US consulate. There are probably 40+ protests a year in front of that building. It'll be interesting to see when the next protest occurs. For context there are ~200,000 Jews living in Toronto. And sorry to nitpick here but was the 'gunfire' from a full power lethal handgun or is this just a couple of teenaged yahoos with a pellet gun? | ||
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GreenHorizons
United States24369 Posts
On March 11 2026 01:24 Jankisa wrote: The rise of "prediction markets", so Polymarket and Kalshi has been enabled by 2 things, first was Trump legalizing gambling in 2018 and Crypto becoming a regulated and recognized "industry". I don't think things like this would have been possible because the "gameification" of everything wasn't a big thing back then, with these 2 things I mentioned the ability for people to become corrupt has been supercharged. Betting has had a horrible effect on sports, prediction markets are now actively having a horrible effect on the world. Of course, stock trading, insider trading and information "shadow broker" economy has been a thing forever, as evidenced by UK actually arresting some people who engaged in this kind of shit with Epstein, who, by the way, had a lot to say about gamefication, crypto and all of this, giving advice to Bobby Kotick on loot boxes, being fascinated and helping Bannon and Brock Pierce with the "wow gold farms" etc. Now, the prediction markets and crypto "businesses" like World liberty financial, which shuffled insane amounts of money between Binance, Saudis, Witkoffs and Trumps to the tune of enriching Trump and trippling his net worth, but no one cares because they are much more focused on locking up and throwing out brown people at home and engaging in the age old American tradition of blowing up brown people in the Middle East. Ironically, Trump is helping unmask the subtle corruption that's been long-standing by being so much more blatant. It's not like Deutsche Bank is a secret organization, but there's hardly a significant international financial crime (including Epstein) they aren't linked to. At some point Europe is going to have to confront its complicity in what Trump's doing and decide if they are going to let him and their politicians lead them into their own demise. | ||
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Vivax
22414 Posts
On March 11 2026 01:43 GreenHorizons wrote: Ironically, Trump is helping unmask the subtle corruption that's been long-standing by being so much more blatant. It's not like Deutsche Bank is a secret organization, but there's hardly a significant international financial crime (including Epstein) they aren't linked to. At some point Europe is going to have to confront its complicity in what Trump's doing and decide if they are going to let him and their politicians lead them into their own demise. In my understanding, banks shift responsibility for the customers origin of funds to the customer. They can hand the customers data to prosecutors, it‘s not their job to be the prosecutors. | ||
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Jankisa
Croatia1757 Posts
Bro, come on, we all know this, I posted about Deutche bank enabling crimes like 15 pages ago, justice Kennedy retired so Trump can get his second judge in and his son was basically Trump's personal banker at Detuche bank. They also do and did a lot of money laundering for Russians. And do we have to talk about the HSBC which had custom made bank teller windows which allowed cartel safe boxes to be fit through them. But all of this shit is just the background level corruption we are all used to, everyone here from every country can tell you a story of their politicians being in league with banks, having incredible amounts of money considering they are "public servants" etc. People who live in the real world realize this and while they aren't exactly "OK" with it, they tolerate it because the "lesser evils" who are all also tolerating and profiting from this give us other things, you know, like social security nets, healthcare, rights for LGBTQ folks, support for countries we deem worthy of support, hell, they even find some money to help other countries not to starve or die from diseases. What Trump and the new world order does is just does away with all this and supercharges the corruption by bringing it into the light, that is so, so much worse then the alternative. That's why its so fucking irksome when someone like you GH comes and plays the false equivalence game. We are not stupid, we pay attention, we are just realists unlike you. | ||
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GreenHorizons
United States24369 Posts
On March 11 2026 02:08 Jankisa wrote: + Show Spoiler + Whew, banks are bad, really, is there no good and proper organizations left in the world, I'm so dissilusioned! Bro, come on, we all know this, I posted about Deutche bank enabling crimes like 15 pages ago, justice Kennedy retired so Trump can get his second judge in and his son was basically Trump's personal banker at Detuche bank. They also do and did a lot of money laundering for Russians. And do we have to talk about the HSBC which had custom made bank teller windows which allowed cartel safe boxes to be fit through them. But all of this shit is just the background level corruption we are all used to, everyone here from every country can tell you a story of their politicians being in league with banks, having incredible amounts of money considering they are "public servants" etc. People who live in the real world realize this and while they aren't exactly "OK" with it, they tolerate it because the "lesser evils" who are all also tolerating and profiting from this give us other things, you know, like social security nets, healthcare, rights for LGBTQ folks, support for countries we deem worthy of support, hell, they even find some money to help other countries not to starve or die from diseases. That's why its so fucking irksome when someone like you GH comes and plays the false equivalence game. We are not stupid, we pay attention, we are just realists unlike you. I'm being reductive here, but you need to get through your skull that I'm, as a matter of fact, not making a false equivalence. The argument (which predates me btw) is that the former ("background corruption") enables and inevitably leads to the latter. Trump is an undeniable and quintessential example of that. Trump's entire empire being wholly dependent on Deutsche Bank gave them the opportunity and duty to stop him before he even ran for president the first time. They didn't, because it was just the "background level corruption" that "realists" are all "used to" supporting as a "lesser evil". Now everyone has to deal with the consequences, which could be apocalyptic. | ||
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LightSpectra
United States3270 Posts
I'll take 10:1 odds we'll still be hearing Democratic critics repeating their usual "All right, but apart from the sanitation, the medicine, education, wine, public order, irrigation, roads, the fresh-water system, and public health, what have the Romans ever done for us?" sometime around midterms this year. | ||
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dyhb
United States769 Posts
On March 10 2026 09:32 DarkPlasmaBall wrote: I had to pull up the transcript, since a lot of these things are missing context. It was a farce on a bad voter ID law that would let your 6 year old daughter confirm that you were allowed to vote. "Let's not just get one like voter ID, but you know, it can be given to you by your daughter." Totally stupid thing to say, as those wanting stronger Voter ID requirements would never let that in there, and opposing that effort would never succeed in getting something like that introduced.Trump just made a bizarre comment during a voter ID speech, where he said that 6-year-old girls are "of age". | ||
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WombaT
Northern Ireland27454 Posts
On March 11 2026 01:43 GreenHorizons wrote: Ironically, Trump is helping unmask the subtle corruption that's been long-standing by being so much more blatant. It's not like Deutsche Bank is a secret organization, but there's hardly a significant international financial crime (including Epstein) they aren't linked to. At some point Europe is going to have to confront its complicity in what Trump's doing and decide if they are going to let him and their politicians lead them into their own demise. What do you expect Europe to do? At what point do you just concede your advocacy for accelerationism has just roundly failed and wasn’t a great idea? | ||
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GreenHorizons
United States24369 Posts
On March 11 2026 03:11 WombaT wrote: What do you expect Europe to do? At what point do you just concede your advocacy for accelerationism has just roundly failed and wasn’t a great idea? You guys are ostensibly the last bastion of democracy where the people have the ability to choose not to continue appeasing/aiding and abetting a fascist US that's illegally at war bombing and kidnapping world leaders while talking about invading/conquering/installing puppet governments in various countries. But you know, so long as they've got "pretty tolerable lives" this will just be the new "background corruption". At least Niemöller could honestly say he didn't know better. I didn't/don't advocate accelerationism. | ||
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oBlade
United States6539 Posts
On March 10 2026 22:25 Jankisa wrote: At this point, the responsible thing for China, as the new world hegemon would be to leak everything they have on Trump and his cronies, if that doesn't work do a special military operation in the same style as Maduro raid and fly the orange fucker to a prison in China. I'm sure no one would expect a helicopter raid on Mara Lago. According to the Trump regime interpretation of international law, that would be perfectly legal. If Trump were half the fascist you promote him to be, that would literally be the only way to do it, and you would support it. Announce war -> he nukes you first. Have the communist party congress vote on war and then declare war -> he nukes you. Have the international community approve very internationally legal mechanisms to remove him (in a hypothetical world where you could authorize a war against someone in the UN Security Council which is the only current "international" framework) -> everybody nuked. Now imagine that, but for real, and in Iran, and thankfully without the nukes yet. You have a dictator who sponsors terror and believes his own death would be a victory. International community's response? Crickets. An international community that "prohibits" war but otherwise can't stop states from doing and supporting terrorism and each other, it's pathetic. It's like the school that suspends the guy who punches the bully back. The first problem was the bullying and if you can't address that, the beautiful orderly international authority is a meaningless paper moon. "International law" which the West invented exists to help stop countries like Iran and Iraq from having 10 year wars with each other. Not to stop the USA from making sure Iran never attacks anyone again when international law repeatedly fails. | ||
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Yurie
12174 Posts
On March 11 2026 03:57 oBlade wrote: If Trump were half the fascist you promote him to be, that would literally be the only way to do it, and you would support it. Announce war -> he nukes you first. Have the communist party congress vote on war and then declare war -> he nukes you. Have the international community approve very internationally legal mechanisms to remove him (in a hypothetical world where you could authorize a war against someone in the UN Security Council which is the only current "international" framework) -> everybody nuked. Now imagine that, but for real, and in Iran, and thankfully without the nukes yet. You have a dictator who sponsors terror and believes his own death would be a victory. International community's response? Crickets. An international community that "prohibits" war but otherwise can't stop states from doing and supporting terrorism and each other, it's pathetic. It's like the school that suspends the guy who punches the bully back. The first problem was the bullying and if you can't address that, the beautiful orderly international authority is a meaningless paper moon. "International law" which the West invented exists to help stop countries like Iran and Iraq from having 10 year wars with each other. Not to stop the USA from making sure Iran never attacks anyone again when international law repeatedly fails. International solution was achieved under Obama. We were happy with that resolution to the problem. After Trump wrecked it no alternative and palatable solution has been found. We are happy that the US keeps crippling Iran's nukes, it is just not the solution that would be picked if others got to choose or even have a voice. Any negotiated solution is pointless since Iran knows the US will just bomb them in 4-6 years again. | ||
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KwarK
United States44352 Posts
On March 03 2026 03:37 oBlade wrote: There is already no "Iran." Random missiles to Iraq and Oman and Kuwait is a product of central command and control collapse. I don't know why you're engaging with oBlade on this subject when he doesn't believe Iran still exists. | ||
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dyhb
United States769 Posts
On March 10 2026 22:25 Jankisa wrote: I would think the hegemon-in-waiting wants as much chaos as possible. It destabilizes the current de-facto hegemon.At this point, the responsible thing for China, as the new world hegemon would be to leak everything they have on Trump and his cronies, if that doesn't work do a special military operation in the same style as Maduro raid and fly the orange fucker to a prison in China. I'm sure no one would expect a helicopter raid on Mara Lago. According to the Trump regime interpretation of international law, that would be perfectly legal. If I was Xi, and I was looking at this malignant narcissist getting more and more comfortable with doing increasingly escalatory shit, I'd consider it if an opportunity was presented. He is trying to do crazier and crazier shit, he is losing touch with reality (just yesterday claimed Iran might have stolen a tomahawk and blown up their own school) and he wants to be "historic", I heard a clip from Nick Fuentes, someone who obviously shares many character traits and thinking with Trump, saying that he's afraid he might drop a bomb on Iran just so he can say he's the first one after WW2 to do it, a month ago, I'd say that's insane, now, well, not so sure, especially if he gets frustrated by the lack of progress in Iran. The Chinese preference would of course be continuing to receive 90% of Iran's oil exports amounting to tens of billions of dollars of oil (Yes, China got roughly 90% of Iran's oil), but short of that, their best strategy is to encourage protracted conflict the involves non-aligned superpowers. I'd also say that Trump's been off and on pandering to China so much that they might prefer he stays. | ||
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Dan HH
Romania9246 Posts
On March 11 2026 03:31 GreenHorizons wrote: You guys are ostensibly the last bastion of democracy where the people have the ability to choose not to continue appeasing/aiding and abetting a fascist US that's illegally at war bombing and kidnapping world leaders while talking about invading/conquering/installing puppet governments in various countries. But you know, so long as they've got "pretty tolerable lives" this will just be the new "background corruption". At least Niemöller could honestly say he didn't know better. I didn't/don't advocate accelerationism. We're not, Europe is on the same trajectory as the US just a little behind the curve. Give it several more years of brain-cooking algorithms and we'll be there. In the meantime, while the liberals are still in charge, no serious action will be taken. The EU system is set up in such a way that decisive controversial action can never pass all the checks. The only plan right now is to hope the US fascists allow relatively unrigged voting and that the % of votes they block/steal is a little lower than the % of voters that learned something in the past year. Other than that, the EU will attempt to slowly become less dependent on US tech services and military hardware, but that's going to take a lot more time than we have. We still need a few more years to be fully rid of Russian energy, if you're thinking sanctions on the US it's not happening. Not even if they take Greenland by force. Maybe Canda. Don't look at Europe for answers or help, you'll be disappointed. Only China has the necessary set-up for any courageous action, as we saw during the tariff soap opera. | ||
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