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.
On January 08 2025 19:47 KT_Elwood wrote: I do get the feeling that all that Trump&Musk bullshitting about greenland, EU-Politics,panama and canada is the circus that should distract the people from the actual politics of deregulation and tax cuts that will start right away.
Politicians replace scientists, political judges to replace regulation agencies. Independence of agencies rugpulled from under their feet.
E.g. ruling that "The Internet" is no longer an FTC overseen "Telecommunication" is really stupid, but It won't end there.
Kiss goodbye to net-neutrality and the option for tech-moguls to get prioritized access to users.. while smaller blogs and "unwanted" media gets shoved behind a 28kbit connection.
Can you tell me more about this? What changes are "team Trump" proposing? Where are these proposals discussed?
On January 08 2025 04:46 blomsterjohn wrote: The US annexing Greenland by military force is completely unchartered territory, and imo not comparable to Russia/Ukraine at all.
What is this Trump fixation on Greenland about anyhow?
ed: And while im not really familiar with the culture of the people on Greenland, I'd assume they'd be somewhat in the same boat as Scandinavians. And if that's the case I highly doubt that "joining" the US would be something anyone would want
I can see why the US would want Greenland. It's a massive untapped landmass rich in natural resources and fresh water. Its territory would also expand US airspace and maritime economic control well into the Arctic even more than we already have, and combined with Canada, which Trump also wants to take, would give the US basically claim to the entirety of the Arctic ocean except where it borders Russia.
All of that could be incredibly valuable to American mining and fossil fuel interests.
I have no idea why Trump is threatening to dissolve NATO over it, but if you're asking why Trump would want it, it's not as silly of an idea as you might think.
You're right, we had a fairly big article in Norwegian media today going through essentially the same points as you do. It does make logical sense (apart from it being fairly outlandish to envision)
On January 08 2025 04:46 blomsterjohn wrote: The US annexing Greenland by military force is completely unchartered territory, and imo not comparable to Russia/Ukraine at all.
What is uncharted about it?
Denmark is a NATO country, with everything that follows/is entailed within that
What is this 'everything'? Do you really believe that Norway or any other random NATO country would (or should) declare war on the USA if they decided to annex Greenland? Nothing would happen. At all. (And of course Musk/Zuckerberg would flood the internet with content explaining just how much happier the Greenlanders are this way, and besides it happened months ago it's old news please post something more interesting, and within a year or so anyone talking about it will be laughed at for bringing up old news.)
If they invade Canada I would imagine that starting an all-out rush for nukes, but certainly no aggressive action in that case either.
Tthe "everything", in this case, would primarily pertain to the actual pact NATO countries are bound by
And with the US also being in NATO, it would make it a very much unchartered territory-case
The NATO treaty has meaning when it comes to Russian aggression because the Russians have some reason to believe that the US would nuke them out of principle if they did something to a NATO country. The US has no reason at all, none, to believe that anyone would do anything at all to them if they invade Greenland. To me 'uncharted territory' implies uncertainty of the outcome, which I find silly. The outcome is not uncertain.
Also the US invades countries all the time, that part wouldnt even be surprising. The fact that Denmark is an ally is chocking/new but Trumps foreign policy philosophy from the very beginning has been that all non-US countries are equivalent and deserve the same fundamentally hostile treatment. If Greenland was populated by arabs or latin americans the US invading wouldnt surprise anyone in the least, so in that sense Trump is just threatening to level the playing field.
The NATO treaty has meaning with what it demands from its member nations, specifically article 5 (which is kinda the whole point for its existence) That is why it has meaning, cause it would essentially force a response from its members. Unlike the wishy-washy "staying out of nation states' geopolitical affairs" which is the usual norm
But sure if you want to hold that the US invading a European country - that is on top of that also an ally and a part of a military defense alliance - is no different than invading say an Arab country, I'm not stopping you. I think that's a very naive and.... simple view but
On January 08 2025 22:09 Billyboy wrote: It is a 100% misdirection and it works every time. Along with his regular lying he is speed running breaking his election promises, I don't know if I've seen so many get broken before he is president.
"Were going to cut the government and spend less" - Better block a bill until we get the debt ceiling raised, because nothing says going to spend less like needing more debt.
"Americans first, immigrants are the worst". - except for the ones my buddy billionaires need to leverage so they can pay their American workers less
"I will solve the war in Ukraine in one day" - its going to be a lot harder than that.
"I will lower grocery prices immediately." - That is not going to happen, it is a stubborn problem and turns out trade wars and tariffs makes prices go up not down, who knew.
"We are the party of Law and order, hate groomers, bringing new transparency to the office". Lets make this Gaetz guy who we know from reading his ethics report is a drug using and buying, sex buying, transporting underage girls across state lines for sex, and so on our AG.. Quick lets block the ethics report, because we don't care about ethics at all just loyalty.
"Transparency" Judge cannon block the report.
"clear the swamp" Lets have the most possible billionaires in the cabinet and give positions to everyone who paid me. Loyalty tests over competency.
He always just moves to the next craziest idea, and everyone just follows because it generates clicks and ad revenue. Hell if someone had brought up USA annexing Greenland a few months ago people wouldn't have a multipage discussion, they would have had a multipage insult fest calling the poster a troll.
I forgot how it was to have Trump as president.
You are right.
Pay attention to what he actually does, ignore everything he says. His outrageous rants serve only to:
-Get attention. -Distract from his real problems and awful policies.
Ignoring what Trump says seems like a bad idea to me, given that he tends to follow through. Not always successfully mind you, but when he talks specific policy and politics he tends to try and keep his promises. (in this he is surprisingly like most politicians lol).
Some obvious examples of 'crazy' stuff he talked about and actually tried to do with varying success: He tried to ban muslims (including permanent residents and GC holders) from entering the USA, he tried to stay on as president even though he lost the election in 2020. He really did build (part of) a giant wall on the mexican border. He tried to staight up repeal the ACA with no replacement. The one 'crazy' promise I dont remember him even making a token gesture of fulfilling is putting Hillary in jail. So sure, sometimes its just words. Sometimes.
When he just wants to drive news coverage and create 'distractions' he does things like talk about giant penises he has seen in dressing rooms and give blowjobs to microphones.
That is the exhausting thing. The insanity of the shit he says should just completely disqualify him from ever being relevant. But since he has found some weird mindhack, it doesn't.
So now he just constantly says more and more insane shit, and we have to actually think about it. 90% of the insane shit he says is just bait and distraction, but 10% of it he follows through on, and it is hard to see which parts are the bait and which is the real deal.
In a sane world, none of this would matter because he would just be another insane guy standing at a street corner shouting at his genitals, or at worst be some Alex Jones style fringe idiot. But clearly, that isn't the world we live in. We live in the world where this insanity gets you made president of the US.
And now sane people are basically checkmated, because you cannot ignore him, but you also cannot react as if all the things he says are actually things he means.
I hope we will eventually return to sane politics, but currently it doesn't look like it. And Trump winning in the US means that all other countries will get more insane politics for at least a decade with our local lunatics trying to copy Trumps success.
That's what you get when enough crazy conspiracy low iq swampdraining bootstrapping government sceptic people together to become relevant... or something. Honestly, we should just divide the world between multiculturalists and people who don't want to be that. They can then proceed to fuck each other over while we sing kumbaya.. or something.
On January 08 2025 22:09 Billyboy wrote: It is a 100% misdirection and it works every time. Along with his regular lying he is speed running breaking his election promises, I don't know if I've seen so many get broken before he is president.
"Were going to cut the government and spend less" - Better block a bill until we get the debt ceiling raised, because nothing says going to spend less like needing more debt.
"Americans first, immigrants are the worst". - except for the ones my buddy billionaires need to leverage so they can pay their American workers less
"I will solve the war in Ukraine in one day" - its going to be a lot harder than that.
"I will lower grocery prices immediately." - That is not going to happen, it is a stubborn problem and turns out trade wars and tariffs makes prices go up not down, who knew.
"We are the party of Law and order, hate groomers, bringing new transparency to the office". Lets make this Gaetz guy who we know from reading his ethics report is a drug using and buying, sex buying, transporting underage girls across state lines for sex, and so on our AG.. Quick lets block the ethics report, because we don't care about ethics at all just loyalty.
"Transparency" Judge cannon block the report.
"clear the swamp" Lets have the most possible billionaires in the cabinet and give positions to everyone who paid me. Loyalty tests over competency.
He always just moves to the next craziest idea, and everyone just follows because it generates clicks and ad revenue. Hell if someone had brought up USA annexing Greenland a few months ago people wouldn't have a multipage discussion, they would have had a multipage insult fest calling the poster a troll.
I forgot how it was to have Trump as president.
You are right.
Pay attention to what he actually does, ignore everything he says. His outrageous rants serve only to:
-Get attention. -Distract from his real problems and awful policies.
Ignoring what Trump says seems like a bad idea to me, given that he tends to follow through. Not always successfully mind you, but when he talks specific policy and politics he tends to try and keep his promises. (in this he is surprisingly like most politicians lol).
Some obvious examples of 'crazy' stuff he talked about and actually tried to do with varying success: He tried to ban muslims (including permanent residents and GC holders) from entering the USA, he tried to stay on as president even though he lost the election in 2020. He really did build (part of) a giant wall on the mexican border. He tried to staight up repeal the ACA with no replacement. The one 'crazy' promise I dont remember him even making a token gesture of fulfilling is putting Hillary in jail. So sure, sometimes its just words. Sometimes.
When he just wants to drive news coverage and create 'distractions' he does things like talk about giant penises he has seen in dressing rooms and give blowjobs to microphones.
...
So now he just constantly says more and more insane shit, and we have to actually think about it. 90% of the insane shit he says is just bait and distraction, but 10% of it he follows through on, and it is hard to see which parts are the bait and which is the real deal.
...
Do you think it's only 10%? I would feel better about the next years if its that low. But, like I definitely remember him having a much (much) higher conversion ratio than that ... but maybe thats just survivor bias in that I mostly remember the crazy things that did happen, and not the ones he only talked about.
On January 08 2025 22:09 Billyboy wrote: It is a 100% misdirection and it works every time. Along with his regular lying he is speed running breaking his election promises, I don't know if I've seen so many get broken before he is president.
"Were going to cut the government and spend less" - Better block a bill until we get the debt ceiling raised, because nothing says going to spend less like needing more debt.
"Americans first, immigrants are the worst". - except for the ones my buddy billionaires need to leverage so they can pay their American workers less
"I will solve the war in Ukraine in one day" - its going to be a lot harder than that.
"I will lower grocery prices immediately." - That is not going to happen, it is a stubborn problem and turns out trade wars and tariffs makes prices go up not down, who knew.
"We are the party of Law and order, hate groomers, bringing new transparency to the office". Lets make this Gaetz guy who we know from reading his ethics report is a drug using and buying, sex buying, transporting underage girls across state lines for sex, and so on our AG.. Quick lets block the ethics report, because we don't care about ethics at all just loyalty.
"Transparency" Judge cannon block the report.
"clear the swamp" Lets have the most possible billionaires in the cabinet and give positions to everyone who paid me. Loyalty tests over competency.
He always just moves to the next craziest idea, and everyone just follows because it generates clicks and ad revenue. Hell if someone had brought up USA annexing Greenland a few months ago people wouldn't have a multipage discussion, they would have had a multipage insult fest calling the poster a troll.
I forgot how it was to have Trump as president.
You are right.
Pay attention to what he actually does, ignore everything he says. His outrageous rants serve only to:
-Get attention. -Distract from his real problems and awful policies.
Ignoring what Trump says seems like a bad idea to me, given that he tends to follow through. Not always successfully mind you, but when he talks specific policy and politics he tends to try and keep his promises. (in this he is surprisingly like most politicians lol).
Some obvious examples of 'crazy' stuff he talked about and actually tried to do with varying success: He tried to ban muslims (including permanent residents and GC holders) from entering the USA, he tried to stay on as president even though he lost the election in 2020. He really did build (part of) a giant wall on the mexican border. He tried to staight up repeal the ACA with no replacement. The one 'crazy' promise I dont remember him even making a token gesture of fulfilling is putting Hillary in jail. So sure, sometimes its just words. Sometimes.
When he just wants to drive news coverage and create 'distractions' he does things like talk about giant penises he has seen in dressing rooms and give blowjobs to microphones.
...
So now he just constantly says more and more insane shit, and we have to actually think about it. 90% of the insane shit he says is just bait and distraction, but 10% of it he follows through on, and it is hard to see which parts are the bait and which is the real deal.
...
Do you think it's only 10%? I would feel better about the next years if its that low. But, like I definitely remember him having a much (much) higher conversion ratio than that ... but maybe thats just survivor bias in that I mostly remember the crazy things that did happen, and not the ones he only talked about.
Remember the speed at which Trump says stupid shit. He says a bunch of different stupid things every day. But yeah, i have no idea about the actual percentage of stupid shit he just says to distract or out of a spur of the moment, and stupid shit he actually wants to do.
90% of the Canadian population is 100 miles from the border. so who is kidding whom?
imagine how good the hockey team will be?
Trump talks about Canada quite a bit in this presser.
Trump: "we don't need their cars... we can make the cars in Detroit" LOL.
Canada is fucked. Parliament will be out of session for almost 4 months due to their lame duck PM.
Trump will use "economic force" as a precept for renegotiating trade deals with Canada that will end up heavily favouring the USA and American workers. Again, Canada is fucked. There are no brilliant leaders and negotiators on Canada's side. Gone are teh Mike Wilsons , Bob Raes , Pierre Trudeaus, Mike Harrises, Buzz Hargroves. Until 15 years ago Canada was led by street smart geniuses. Now, Canada is led by engineering school drop outs and insurance clerks.
Canada is gonna get steam rolled. Trump is already easing up on his rhetoric about Canada because he knows he is going to win.. .and he is going to win big.
On January 09 2025 17:10 Velr wrote: Didnt Trump allready negotiate the last trade deal the US has with Canada?
The previous Trump administration signed the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA), which was ratified and took effect in mid-2020. It replaced the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) from the 1990s, which also involved all three countries.
So any new trade agreement that doesn't include Canada as the 51st state, or as several new states of the US, is a big loss for Trump.
On January 09 2025 17:10 Velr wrote: Didnt Trump allready negotiate the last trade deal the US has with Canada?
The previous Trump administration signed the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA), which was ratified and took effect in mid-2020. It replaced the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) from the 1990s, which also involved all three countries.
So any new trade agreement that doesn't include Canada as the 51st state, or as several new states of the US, is a big loss for Trump.
Similarities to NAFTA During his 2016 election campaign and presidency, Trump was highly critical of NAFTA (oftentimes describing it as "perhaps the worst trade deal ever made")[126] while extolling USMCA as "a terrific deal for all of us".[127] The USMCA is very similar to NAFTA, carrying over many of the same provisions and making only modest, mostly cosmetic changes,[128] and is expected to have only a minor economic effect.[129] Former U.S. Trade Representative Mickey Kantor, who oversaw the signing of NAFTA during the Bill Clinton administration, said, "It's the original NAFTA."[130]
So basically, the new agreement that came into effect 3 years ago, negotiated by Trump, looks pretty much like the old agreement, with mostly cosmetic changes.
@JimmyJRaynor: what gives you confidence that this time it will be different?
Well if the US would invade Greenland that would definitely skyrocket the defense spending of all other NATO countries. And basically would put the US in the same region as Russia is now: Unpredictable, aggressive and with an egomaniac leader...
On January 08 2025 19:47 KT_Elwood wrote: I do get the feeling that all that Trump&Musk bullshitting about greenland, EU-Politics,panama and canada is the circus that should distract the people from the actual politics + Show Spoiler +
of deregulation and tax cuts that will start right away.
Politicians replace scientists, political judges to replace regulation agencies. Independence of agencies rugpulled from under their feet.
E.g. ruling that "The Internet" is no longer an FCC overseen "Telecommunication" is really stupid, but It won't end there.
Kiss goodbye to net-neutrality and the option for tech-moguls to get prioritized access to users.. while smaller blogs and "unwanted" media gets shoved behind a 28kbit connection.
Not sure if people caught this, but Democrats have already had their first major failure in protecting their voters from Trump. They inexplicably botched the NLRB chair vote.
Rep. Ro Khanna (D-California) has shined a light on how Democrats botched a recent chance to secure a majority on a top U.S. labor authority for the first two years of Trump’s upcoming term, in an “inexplicable and inexcusable” blunder that will likely have dire consequences for millions of workers for years to come.
If the Senate had confirmed McFerran, Democrats would have secured a 3-2 majority on the board for the next two years. Instead, Trump will likely nominate a Republican and flip the labor board, in “a huge setback for the hundreds of thousands of workers across this country organizing for a better contract,” Khanna said.
...Khanna said Democrats, in fact, had a window to confirm McFerran that morning, while Manchin and two Republicans were absent from the chamber. For 90 minutes, Democrats had the opportunity to call in Vice President Kamala Harris to act as a tie-breaking vote for the confirmation, which needed only to pass with a simple majority. Instead, Senate leaders delayed the vote for “no reason,” Khanna said, and allowed Manchin to return and tank the vote.
On January 09 2025 21:55 Harris1st wrote: Well if the US would invade Greenland that would definitely skyrocket the defense spending of all other NATO countries. And basically would put the US in the same region as Russia is now: Unpredictable, aggressive and with an egomaniac leader...
When you have someone in power who doesn‘t have an image left to maintain anything is possible.
Even moreso when he gets elected. That says more about the general state of US society than it says about Trump.
EPT
