[Tsundoku]

Fox, here's your new henhouse:

Trump names hedge fund manager Scott Bessent as Treasury chief
President-elect Donald Trump has named a billionaire as his Treasury secretary, choosing the hedge fund manager to help execute tax cuts and tariffs.

https://www.news.com...415e4398022bc62

US President-elect Donald Trump has named billionaire Scott Bessent as his Treasury secretary, choosing the hedge fund manager to help execute an agenda promising tax cuts and tariffs.

Bessent, who is chief executive officer of Key Square Group, has called for an extension of tax cuts from Trump’s first term, wants to reassert American energy dominance, and believes it is necessary to deal with the budget deficit.

“Scott is widely respected as one of the world’s foremost international investors and geopolitical and economic strategists,” Trump said in a statement.

“He will help me usher in a new Golden Age for the United States, as we fortify our position as the world’s leading economy,” he said, adding Bessent would also help “reinvigorate the private sector, and help curb the unsustainable path of federal debt.”

The nomination of Bessent — who recently served as an economic advisor to Trump — would put him at the forefront of rolling out the president-elect’s economic plan, from seeing tax cuts through Congress to managing ties with countries like China.

The position carries influence over both domestic and international policy.

With Trump promising sweeping tariffs on allies and adversaries alike, all eyes will be on how his new Treasury chief walks the line between supporting these efforts and fanning trade tensions that might roil the global economy.

The Treasury Department has oversight across a range of departments, from federal finances to bank supervision. The portfolio also oversees US sanctions.

Bessent has in recent times called for tax reform and deregulation to spur growth.

In a Wall Street Journal opinion piece, he said this would be key to “restarting the American growth engine” and helping keep prices in check.

‘All-in’ for Trump

He has also defended Trump’s position on trade, saying on Trump ally Roger Stone’s radio show that the president-elect wants free trade but “we haven’t had fair trade, we haven’t had reciprocal trade.”

This month, Bessent called tariffs “a negotiating tool with our trading partners” in an opinion piece for Fox News, adding that it was “a means to finally stand up for Americans.”

Bessent, who is from South Carolina, attended Yale University and served as chief investment officer of Soros Fund Management, the macroeconomic investment firm of billionaire George Soros.

In 2015, he raised capital, including $2 billion from Soros, to start his own hedge fund.

In his interview with Stone, Bessent said that he has known the Trump family for 30 years and was friends with the president-elect’s brother.

“I was all-in for President Trump. I was one of the few Wall Street people backing him,” he told Stone.

----------------------------------------

The "Trickle Up" effect will soon become a "Deluge Up", a bigger transfer of wealth into the hands of the 1% than at any other time in history. Including the Post-GFC era.

[Tsundoku]

And again ...

A quick compare and contrast of Australian vs American systems and voting.

[Tsundoku]

So it turns out that - according to his own mother in 2018 - Pete Hegseth is:
"“You are an abuser of women – that is the ugly truth and I have no respect for any man that belittles, lies, cheats, sleeps around, and uses women for his own power and ego,” Ms Hegseth wrote on April 30, 2018.

“You are that man (and have been for years) and as your mother, it pains me and embarrasses me to say that, but it is the sad, sad truth.”

Ms Hegseth continued that her son’s “abuse over the years to women (dishonesty, sleeping around, betrayal, debasing, belittling) needs to be called out”, before urging him to “get some help and take an honest look at yourself”."

Now, it must be said, soon after that she walked it back in a subsequent email. But his serial infidelity is apparently on record as is an accusation of sexual assault by an undisclosed woman, that ended up with no charges, but there was a payment from Hegseth that according to his own lawyer "had paid an undisclosed sum to the woman due to concern the allegation “would result in his immediate termination” as a then-host of Fox & Friends."

Seems like a good all-round fit for a Trump administration. If anything, it probably over-qualifies him.

Yup, you might say there are similar stories among the Dems, but man - not a good look.

-------------------------

Trump administration pick Pete Hegseth lashed by mum in six-year-old email
A potential member of Donald Trump’s incoming administration was described as an “abuser of women” in a historic email from his own mother.

https://www.news.com...d4da83b0919b2e2

This post has been edited by Tsundoku: 01 December 2024 - 02:31 AM

[Tsundoku]

So I knew nothing about this Kash Patel guy.

Turns out he's an epic-level fucktard and Dump arse-licker. Right up there with JD Vance et al.

Now, this is an analysis/editorial, so read into it what you may. It's kept fairly to-the-point though, and facts are facts. The list of those Patel wants to go after as FBI head is extremely truncated below but says a lot about Patel and Dump. Criticism of and disloyalty to Dump (or is it a higher loyalty to your country?) are very bad things.

Donald Trump’s list of targets revealed by his selection of Kash Patel to lead the FBI
Amid the justified outrage over Joe Biden’s choice to pardon his own son, this week, a telling decision by Donald Trump went almost unnoticed.

https://www.news.com...6735c695c30ac5d

Samuel Clench

Analysis

Somewhat lost in the righteous (and entirely justified) palava over Joe Biden’s decision to pardon his own son, earlier this week, was Donald Trump’s announcement of his pick to head up the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

Kash Patel, a former prosecutor, would sound like a perfectly reasonable choice to oversee a major law enforcement agency if you ended his biography there. That would, however, require a degree of wilful and convenient ignorance.

Mr Patel is someone we could, in a spirit of politeness, call an interesting character. Casting said politeness aside, we might call him a serial fantasist.

This is a person who claims to share a bond with Mr Trump because they’re both from Queens, in New York (Kash Patel is not from Queens). Who says he led the prosecution team, within America’s Department of Justice, dealing with the fallout from the Benghazi attack (Kash Patel did not lead that team). We could keep going for some time, here.

He’s the sort of person who lies when it benefits him, and also lies when it serves no apparent purpose at all. An intriguing choice, then, to preside over the FBI.

There was a particularly stupid moment, in my younger years, when I dreaded showing my parents a school report. I’d got a terrible grade in some vaguely pointless subject – technical drawing, I think – and that came in addition to the usual comments from teachers about unfulfilled potential, incomplete homework, unproductive flirting and whatnot.

I hid the report in a nice little forestry area near my house, and hoped ... I dunno. That my parents would forget there was ever meant to be a report in the first place? It really wasn’t a great plan. It rained, the report ended up soaked, and yada yada yada I got in big trouble.

Kash Patel is that whole, sorry saga personified, a human amalgamation of self-serving but ultimately counter-productive dishonesty. And yet we must give him credit. His cynicism and shamelessness have earned him one of the most prestigious roles in the US government, assuming Mr Trump follows through on his intention to fire the current FBI director, Christopher Wray (whom he also appointed, but has since decided is bad).

This is how Mr Trump operates. He brags about hiring “the best people”. Then he hires someone, whom he praises to high heaven. Then the hiree does something to upset him, most likely by upholding some norm Mr Trump finds inconvenient. And then he decides the hiree was, in fact, always terrible and incompetent. Of course of the blame for these repeating debacles never lies with Mr Trump himself; his judgment is obviously unimpeachable.

Back to Mr Patel. Here we have an assessment of him from Charles Kupperman, who was appointed, again by Mr Trump, to the fairly senior role of deputy national security adviser late in the President-elect’s first term.

“He’s absolutely unqualified for this job. He’s untrustworthy. It’s an absolute disgrace to American citizens to even consider an individual of this nature.”

Gina Haspel, who headed the CIA during part of Mr Trump’s term in office (he chose her, too, if you’re wondering), was so disgusted by a push to make Mr Patel her deputy that she threatened to resign.

You can glean my point here. This is a guy so manifestly unsuitable for a position of responsibility that many of Mr Trump’s own appointees, hardly left-wing deep state plants, or whatever the hell we’re meant to characterise Mr Trump’s political opponents as these days, have nothing good to say about him.

And he shall, in Mr Trump’s second term, be head of the FBI. This is what happens when loyalty, and sycophancy, and a willingness to say whatever nonsense best serves Mr Trump’s purposes on TV, become more important than competence.

What sort of FBI director are we left to deal with, then? One whose stated goals include a desire to punish Mr Trump’s political enemies. Mr Patel did, quite helpfully, include a list of those enemies in a recent book of his, called Government Gangsters. Having read the thing, I really don’t recommend it, unless you’re oddly invested in Mr Patel’s career ambitions.

The book’s cover is a photo of Mr Patel walking away from a presidential helicopter, without looking back, and with sunglasses on. Like the Jason Statham of alt-right podcast bros. We’re, I think, supposed to consider him cool.

Anyway, the book’s appendices encompass a catalogue of “members of the executive branch deep state”, a list Mr Patel stresses is “not exhaustive”. It does not, for example, include “the entire fake news mafia press corps”.

Imagine The Sopranos, but instead of real criminals the protagonists are journalists writing tiresome articles about insider politics, and you get the idea. What a disgrace they are. Tut tut. Enemies of the state. Etc etc.

America’s executive branch is the White House and the federal agencies it controls; Congress and the Supreme Court are separate branches of the nation’s government.

So Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, or whatever other progressive you might pick from the non-executive branches, need not worry about Mr Patel’s hit list.

Here, however, are some people who apparently should worry. They fall into two broad categories: prominent Democrats (duh), and prominent Republicans who have criticised Mr Trump, or otherwise thwarted him. Bonus points added if they have testified against him under oath in some sort of legal or congressional proceeding – that’s a big, big no no.

We’re going to go in alphabetical order (note that I’m skipping most of the names in question, here. Otherwise we’d be here all damn day).

Lloyd Austin. The current American Defence Secretary. A top US Army general who previously served as the head of United States Central Command. This man is, as I’m sure you’ll agree, an anti-American deep-state villain.

Bill Barr. Mr Trump’s second attorney-general. He followed on from Jeff Sessions, who ran afoul of the then-president’s mood by recusing himself from overseeing a Justice Department investigation into Russia’s election interference.

Mr Barr, a lifelong conservative, was also attorney-general under the Republican president George H.W. Bush, but revealed himself to be a lefty shill by stating that no evidence had been found to support Mr Trump’s claims about widespread election fraud in 2020.

John Bolton. Mr Trump’s national security adviser in the White House during much of his first term. A notorious foreign policy hawk, which is a polite way of saying he seems to really like American military intervention overseas. Became a pariah, among Republicans, when he decided Mr Trump only cared about himself and was “unfit” to be president.

Joe Biden. I presume there’s no need to elaborate.

John Brennan. A former director of the CIA, and a vocal critic of Mr Trump. His remarks about the President-elect include a prediction that he will become “a disgraced demagogue in the dustbin of history”. Mr Trump responded to that by calling Mr Brennan a “total lowlife”. They don’t think much of each other.

Pat Cipollone. Mr Trump’s White House counsel, i.e. his top legal adviser, for most of the then-president’s first term. Like Mr Barr, Mr Cipollone became a hated enemy of the MAGA movement when he contradicted Mr Trump’s baseless claims about election fraud.

James Clapper. A former director of national intelligence, the role that oversees all of America’s intelligence agencies, and liaises with the president.

Mr Clapper is among Mr Trump’s fiercer critics from the intelligence community, and has made allegations – unsupported by any solid evidence, I should stress – that Mr Trump is a Russian ”asset”.

Hillary Clinton, of “lock her up” fame. Again, no real need to explain, here.

Goodness, we’re still only at C. I’ll try to speed this up.

Mark Esper. Mr Trump’s defence secretary. Wasn’t a fan of Mr Trump’s idea to use the military against American protesters, or indeed the then-president’s suggestion to shoot said protesters. Only in the leg, mind you!

Alyssa Farah Griffin. Mr Trump’s director of communications in the White House, albeit only for a few months, and before that press secretary to vice president Mike Pence. Ms Griffin has since become a vocal critic of Mr Trump. One might be forgiven for thinking there is a degree of cynicism involved.

Merrick Garland. The current US attorney-general. Mr Garland would have approved the prosecutions of Mr Trump for retaining sensitive government documents after leaving office, and for his alleged role in fomenting the insurrection on January 6, 2021.

Stephanie Grisham. She served as Mr Trump’s White House press secretary, and before that as Melania Trump’s chief of staff. Yet another former Trump staffer who has become a critic.

Kamala Harris. I need not elaborate.

Gina Haspel. One of Mr Trump’s CIA directors. I’m honestly not sure what Ms Haspel is supposed to have done to end up on Mr Patel’s list, but one man can only read so much.

Fiona Hill. A former staffer on the US national security council, with a specialisation in Russian affairs. She has been an advocate for aiding Ukraine in its efforts to repel Vladimir Putin’s invasion. This has somehow become a bad thing, in much of Trump-world.

Eric Holder. Barack Obama’s attorney-general.

Cassidy Hutchinson. An aide to one of Mr Trump’s White House chiefs of staff, Mark Meadows, who agreed to testify about what she witnessed in that job. And the things she witnessed were not flattering.

Mark Milley. Chairman of the joint chiefs of staff – America’s most senior military officer. That’s a role he held under both Mr Trump and Mr Biden. Like Mr Esper, Gen Milley ran afoul of Mr Trump when he refused to condone the use of America’s military against protesters. His remarks since, suggesting Mr Trump is a “fascist”, have not helped.

Robert Mueller. A former director of the FBI who was appointed by Rod Rosenstein, Mr Trump’s (Republican) deputy attorney-general, to investigate Russian election interference. His investigation led to several prosecutions and guilty pleas, though Mr Trump and his supporters mostly focus on Mr Mueller ultimately declining to allege any “collusion” between Mr Trump’s campaign and Russia.

The suggestion, here, is that the entire investigation was a “hoax” designed to unfairly malign Mr Trump, despite its prosecution of multiple criminal actors. Make of that what you will.

Robert Mueller. Picture: Saul Loeb/AFP
Robert Mueller. Picture: Saul Loeb/AFP
John Podesta. Chairman of Ms Clinton’s presidential campaign in 2016. That’s about it.

Samantha Power and Susan Rice. The former was ambassador to the United Nations under Barack Obama; the latter was national security adviser. I’m not sure what either of them did to warrant retribution, but there you go.

Rod Rosenstein. We already mentioned this guy; he was the person who set up the Mueller investigation. A Republican, who was in that position because another Republican had recused himself, appointed yet another Republican to investigate the matter. This was apparently an unforgivably partisan, anti-Trump crime. Or so Mr Patel would argue.

Alexander Vindman. This is the person who testified about Mr Trump’s phone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, which led to the then-president’s first impeachment. Mr Trump was withholding congressionally approved military aid, to Ukraine, to pressure Mr Zelensky into announcing an investigation of his chief political opponent, Mr Biden.

Christopher Wray. The current FBI director, appointed by Mr Trump. Apparently he has been insufficiently loyal.

That will do, though we could have gone through more names. It’s instructive, I think, that Mr Trump wants to appoint an FBI director with a list of political targets.

We’ll soon see where that goes. Will Mr Patel prove to be more of a barker than a biter? Or will Mr Trump actually try to wield the American law enforcement system against those who have criticised him?

----------------------------------------------

This isn't "draining the swamp", it's adding all the most toxic chemicals you can think of, illicit drugs and every STI known and unknown to science.

[QuickTidal]

Quote

Amid the justified outrage over Joe Biden’s choice to pardon his own son, this week

I think this is my fave thing that happened this past week (barring the SK president failing to Martial Law which was also funny) because for YEARS the Democrats in the US have taken the supposed "high road" and not played in the muck with the Republicans who not only flout the law and conventions, but get lauded for it...and so Biden was like "You know what? Fuck it, let's get into the muck too" and pulls a pardon for his son. Good for him. I'm SUPER glad he did it. The right-wingers are not playing by any handbooks anymore on any level, so use your power then Joe and show them that you can play that shit too.

It's even funnier to watch Right wingers on social media WHO TRUMP PARDONED get upset about Biden pardoning his son.

Get fucked Republicans. You want to play in the weeds? Then suck it up when the other side joins you there. It's about time.

[Abyss]

In my head Biden and co are sitting in a room somewhere, giggling, smoking and drinking things and asking 'ok, who else can we pardon that will just make their heads explode?'


...and Hillary Clinton is in the room...

"Hey, you should pardon me!"
"But... you didn't do anything."
""Yes, exactly."

...and at this point they all just fall off their chairs laughing.

[QuickTidal]

Abyss, on 04 December 2024 - 05:27 PM, said:

In my head Biden and co are sitting in a room somewhere, giggling, smoking and drinking things and asking 'ok, who else can we pardon that will just make their heads explode?'

Tangentially, this is why I want Trudeau to get rid of the Carbon Tax himself...just to preempt the MAIN conservative talking point in Canada and leaving PP nothing at all to campaign on. LOL. I would howl.

[Abyss]

Abyss, on 04 December 2024 - 05:27 PM, said:

In my head Biden and co are sitting in a room somewhere, giggling, smoking and drinking things and asking 'ok, who else can we pardon that will just make their heads explode?'


...and Hillary Clinton is in the room...

"Hey, you should pardon me!"
"But... you didn't do anything."
""Yes, exactly."

...and at this point they all just fall off their chairs laughing.

I now have an entire skit in my head around this based on Monty Python's 'Biggus Dickus / welease Bwian!' skit from LIFE OF BRIAN.

QuickTidal, on 04 December 2024 - 06:35 PM, said:

Abyss, on 04 December 2024 - 05:27 PM, said:

In my head Biden and co are sitting in a room somewhere, giggling, smoking and drinking things and asking 'ok, who else can we pardon that will just make their heads explode?'

Tangentially, this is why I want Trudeau to get rid of the Carbon Tax himself...just to preempt the MAIN conservative talking point in Canada and leaving PP nothing at all to campaign on. LOL. I would howl.

That WOULD be funny.
Instead the Libs seem to be intent on pre-empting PP by firing public servants, which is a weird move.

[QuickTidal]

Abyss, on 04 December 2024 - 07:27 PM, said:

That WOULD be funny.
Instead the Libs seem to be intent on pre-empting PP by firing public servants, which is a weird move.

The thing is that if they want to hang onto power, it's pretty easy to do with a few moves, but they seem averse to doing them.

My only hope is that the India/Con leadership scandal takes down PP as leader, but I've heard that if that happens, they have Ford in the wings and I would wager that as much as I don't like PP....Ford would be immeasurably worse as PM.

It's shit all the way down man.

[Abyss]

QuickTidal, on 04 December 2024 - 07:53 PM, said:

Abyss, on 04 December 2024 - 07:27 PM, said:

That WOULD be funny.
Instead the Libs seem to be intent on pre-empting PP by firing public servants, which is a weird move.

The thing is that if they want to hang onto power, it's pretty easy to do with a few moves, but they seem averse to doing them.

My only hope is that the India/Con leadership scandal takes down PP as leader, but I've heard that if that happens, they have Ford in the wings and I would wager that as much as I don't like PP....Ford would be immeasurably worse as PM.

It's shit all the way down man.

All i've got is 'they're not as bad the the Republicans down south' and, arguably, drop Ford in for PP and that's debatable. It's gonna be a messy four years. If we're lucky they get a minority and we can laugh at the NDP picking on them for a few years.

[Azath Vitr (D'ivers]

You Canadians did see this right?

Quote

At one point Trump told [Trudeau] to get the trade deficit under control, telling the prime minister it's unacceptable for the U.S. to run up to a trade deficit, and if they don't, they can expect a flat 25% tariff on all Canadian goods on day one. Trudeau apparently wasn't thrilled. "Sacre bleu, you will kill our economy!" And [Trump] said they are free to join America as our 51st state [after Trump conquers them for their oil, gold, and post-global-warming-habitable real estate for concentration camps?]. When someone at the table pointed out that would probably be a pretty Democratic state, Trump said we will split Canada two, the liberal side and the conservative side. If Justin wants to stick around he could be Canada's governor.

(1) Acyn on X: "Watters: At one point Trump told him to get the trade deficit under control, telling the prime minister it's unacceptable for the U.S. to run up to a.. trade deficit, and if they don't, they can expect a flat 25% tariff on all Canadian goods on day one. Trudeau apparently wasn't https://t.co/ZAggT12W1v" / X

It came out that in his recent years at Fox Trump's secretary of defense nominee Hegseth has been binge drinking and showing up to work stinking of alcohol. So as a replacement now Trump is considering... Ron DeSantis? WTF am I having a stroke... granted DeSantis isn't an idiot and has executive experience, but his military experience as a lawyer at Guantanamo seems like minimal preparation...

Trump considers replacing Pete Hegseth with Ron DeSantis as defense secretary pick

[Cause]

It’s also suprising since desantis ran against trump. So have they made piece or does Trump think offering him a cabinet position will neutralize desantis more than if he remains a governor. Am I overthinking it?

[Azath Vitr (D'ivers]

Abyss, on 04 December 2024 - 05:27 PM, said:

In my head Biden and co are sitting in a room somewhere, giggling, smoking and drinking things and asking 'ok, who else can we pardon that will just make their heads explode?'


...and Hillary Clinton is in the room...

"Hey, you should pardon me!"
"But... you didn't do anything."
""Yes, exactly."

...and at this point they all just fall off their chairs laughing.

Quote

Biden's senior aides are conducting a vigorous internal debate over whether to issue preemptive pardons to a range of current and former public officials who could be targeted with [...] Trump's return [...]

White House officials, however, are carefully weighing the extraordinary step of handing out blanket pardons to those who've committed no crimes [...]

Spoiler

[These] include such members of Congress' Jan. 6 Committee as Sen.-elect Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) and former GOP Rep. Liz Cheney of Wyoming. Trump has previously said Cheney "should go to Jail along with the rest of the Unselect Committee!" Also mentioned by Biden's aides for a pardon is Anthony Fauci, the former head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases who became a lightning rod for criticism from the right during the Covid-19 pandemic. [...]

That the conversations are taking place at all reflects the growing anxieties among high-level Democrats about just how far Trump's reprisals could go once he reclaims power.

Biden White House Weighs Preemptive Pardons for Potential Trump Targets - POLITICO

During his first term Trump directed his AG to prosecute Hillary Clinton, but was told there was no valid evidence to prosecute her for anything. Kash Patel and his ilk will be more pliant. And historically iirc the FBI has not at all been above planting evidence and framing people.

In international news, Trump posted an image of himself standing on a mountain in front of a gigantic Canadian flag and staring out across the Alps, and he added the caption "Oh Canada"... with the implication being, perhaps, that he is Napoleon about to cross the Alps to conquer Canada. And/or that Canada is a vast wild untamed land of savages that Trump, Lord Law and Order, will tame?

Trump's conquest: President-elect posts bizarre AI pic of himself with a Canadian flag (on a Swiss mountain) | The Independent

This post has been edited by Azath Vitr (D'ivers: 05 December 2024 - 10:43 AM

[Tiste Simeon]

The billionaire CEO of United Healthcare, who have denied healthcare to approx 1/3 of claimants in the past, has been gunned down in New York.

Forgive me while I don't shed any tears.

The BBC have reported that there's no known motive for this killing and I'm like "there's 50m people with very strong motive!"

[Azath Vitr (D'ivers]

There's at least one major issue with preemptively pardoning people who Trump's justice department may try to corruptly prosecute by planting evidence or otherwise framing them: the president can't pardon people for "future crimes". So while Trump might find it more satisfying to imprison representative Schiff for something related to his investigations of Trump, he could just have his FBI make something up now that he might also find satisfying.

The Supreme Court and the president's pardon power - SCOTUSblog

And another of course is the Supreme Court... who knows how far they'll be willing to go.

This post has been edited by Azath Vitr (D'ivers: 05 December 2024 - 11:49 AM

[QuickTidal]

Azath Vitr (D, on 04 December 2024 - 09:46 PM, said:

You Canadians did see this right?

Quote

At one point Trump told [Trudeau] to get the trade deficit under control, telling the prime minister it's unacceptable for the U.S. to run up to a trade deficit, and if they don't, they can expect a flat 25% tariff on all Canadian goods on day one. Trudeau apparently wasn't thrilled. "Sacre bleu, you will kill our economy!" And [Trump] said they are free to join America as our 51st state [after Trump conquers them for their oil, gold, and post-global-warming-habitable real estate for concentration camps?]. When someone at the table pointed out that would probably be a pretty Democratic state, Trump said we will split Canada two, the liberal side and the conservative side. If Justin wants to stick around he could be Canada's governor.

I'm not one to defend Trump, but this was clearly a joke. I don't think even someone as unhinged as Trump is would ever actually annex a sovereign foreign Nato ally nation (and one of the commonwealth to boot). Like that's war, and he would never do it. Nor would anyone in our country entertain it. He just likes to look like a big guy and a smart guy and the strongest guy at the table. I'm sure JT just let him have his joke and moved on.


But the way that the media and social media have glommed onto this as if it's some real ass suggestion or possibility has made me so angry over the last few days. And it's things like this gaining traction that make me blink twice at big media outlets for even giving it more than a 4 second clip and a laugh. Like this is not a serious thing, and places like CNN and Global news should not have treated it as such.

[Azath Vitr (D'ivers]

QuickTidal, on 05 December 2024 - 01:48 PM, said:

I'm not one to defend Trump, but this was clearly a joke. I don't think even someone as unhinged as Trump is would ever actually annex a sovereign foreign Nato ally nation (and one of the commonwealth to boot). Like that's war, and he would never do it. Nor would anyone in our country entertain it. He just likes to look like a big guy and a smart guy and the strongest guy at the table. I'm sure JT just let him have his joke and moved on.

He seriously wanted to trade Puerto Rico for Greenland. Or buy Greenland outright.

Book: Trump wanted to trade Puerto Rico for Greenland

Granted, Trump might be satisfied with getting Canada's oil, gold, and the land that's likely to appreciate in value as a consequence of continuing to burn fossil fuels... the more we burn, the more valuable that land might become. (At least after all the forests have burned down, or been stripped away....)

It's not difficult to imagine the perspective of a greedy sociopath who loves gold, oil, and valuable real estate, and is also an ignorant arrogant idiot. Most of the Americas, from the southern United States to close to the southern coast of South America, will be rendered uninhabitable (for all except the very wealthy, or those living at very high altitude). There will be a mass migration of people. Also, you have gold and oil and Trump wants it. Why pay for it when Trump's military is so much stronger than yours? Compared to many of Trump's definitely serious policy proposals, annexing Canada is one of his more rational policy ideas.

Don't say I didn't warn you when (sacre bleu!) you're all speaking American... anyone caught mispronouncing "about" (or speaking that bizarre incomprehensible guttural dialect of Spanish y'all have up in Quebec) shall be sent to the prison mines to perform slave labor.

On that note... Biden is already preparing for the Trump transition by dutifully colluding with the prison-industrial complex:

Quote

Trump's plan for the mass deportation of undocumented people and a related expansion of US detention facilities is getting an unexpected head start from Joe Biden – and private prison companies are already cashing in.

The Biden administration has, for the past year, been in the process of extending contracts for private sector immigration jails across the US and exploring options for expanding detention capacity

[...] This is despite both the US president's previous statements opposing such private jails and the fact that many facilities have a reputation for inhumane conditions.

Revealed: Biden lays groundwork to expand immigration jails as Trump readies for office | US immigration | The Guardian

Granted, not granting Canadians citizenship would technically grant Trump more leeway in enslaving those he captures... but if it goes that far any pretense of legal constraints on the executive would be farcical anyway.

This post has been edited by Azath Vitr (D'ivers: 05 December 2024 - 02:17 PM

[QuickTidal]

Tiste Simeon, on 05 December 2024 - 11:23 AM, said:

The billionaire CEO of United Healthcare, who have denied healthcare to approx 1/3 of claimants in the past, has been gunned down in New York.

Forgive me while I don't shed any tears.

The BBC have reported that there's no known motive for this killing and I'm like "there's 50m people with very strong motive!"

Best comment I saw on Bluesky:

Quote

"Hoodied Assassin takes out corpo ceo and gets away on a rented e-bike" is the most cyberpunk timeline moment we've had int the past couple of years.

Which, yeah for sure. I could see ya boy William Gibson taking notes to finally write and release JACKPOT right now actually.

But yeah, this billionaire was responsible for likely thousands of deaths and bankruptcies....and all you need to know about the people he worked for (The shareholders), is that they stepped over his body in the street in front of the venue they were all attending, and the meeting went off on time without a hitch and his position showed up open on linkdin later in the day.

These people DO NOT CARE for anything aside from profit and they show it in their every action.

[Azath Vitr (D'ivers]

Tiste Simeon, on 05 December 2024 - 11:23 AM, said:

The billionaire CEO of United Healthcare, who have denied healthcare to approx 1/3 of claimants in the past, has been gunned down in New York.

Forgive me while I don't shed any tears.

The BBC have reported that there's no known motive for this killing and I'm like "there's 50m people with very strong motive!"

Quote

"We have one million suspects," a detective [working the case] said only partly in jest.

[...] The gunman was not a trained assassin.

A professional killer would not have used a gun that would have jammed after every shot.

Someone more adept would also have stepped closer to the unsuspecting health insurance CEO [...] A trained killer would then have fired either a shot at his head or several closely grouped bullets into the middle of his back, in the center mass "kill zone."

"Not a real pro," a special forces operator said. [Not like those employed by the government?...]

The Crucial Clue That Shows UnitedHealthcare CEO Killer Is Not a Trained Assassin

... helpful notes for other aspiring vigilantes?...

This post has been edited by Azath Vitr (D'ivers: 05 December 2024 - 11:56 PM

[Tsundoku]

Congrats America, enjoy who you voted for and the obscenely rich fucktard(s) behind him. However, I do not think this is the end of the bromance, because Dump loves Elon's schlong money too much.

Beginning of the end: Elon Musk overreaches in his relationship with Donald Trump
Cracks are already appearing in the bromance between Donald Trump and Elon Musk, with the Tesla billionaire asserting his authority.

https://www.news.com...0a93816d3cc8a6f

Sam Clench

Comment

Oh dear. Bad omens are afoot. We may have seen, this week, the start of an inevitable deterioration in the power couple bromance between Elon Musk and Donald Trump.

Short version: an unelected billionaire from South Africa, who has never held public office and is, in fact, ineligible to be the American president, appears to have seized effective control of the US government. And he’s done it under the very nose of the guy the American people actually chose, quite recently, to lead that government.

Mr Trump famously has a low tolerance for being upstaged, or for being seen as the junior partner in any relationship. Mr Musk has seemingly decided to test that tolerance.

For context, here, we need to discuss the less than thrilling subject of American congressional procedure. I promise there is a compelling personal drama buried amid the paperwork.

Here’s the situation. The House of Representatives, which has been controlled by Mr Trump’s Republican Party since January of 2023, was meant to pass an appropriations bill – essentially a federal budget – in September of that year.

We are now in mid-December of 2024, and still the job hasn’t been done. No appropriations bill has been passed. Instead, the House has repeatedly resorted to passing something called a continuing resolution, which keeps paying for the government at its existing level of funding for a limited time, usually just a few months. It’s a stopgap measure, intended to give Congress more time to pass something more permanent.

Now the time has come to pass another continuing resolution, so the government can keep treading water over the Christmas period. If the deadline passes, on Friday local time, without Congress acting, the government will go into shutdown mode.

That means federal government employees don’t get paid. It means airports close. It means Americans who currently rely on government support, most importantly those affected by the recent natural disaster in North Carolina, don’t get their money. Among other catastrophes.

Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, a conservative Republican, obviously doesn’t want that to happen. So he spent months negotiating a deal for one more continuing resolution with the opposition party, the Democrats.

Then yesterday happened. Mere days before the deadline, Elon decided he hated the bill, and set to work killing it. In a barrage of well over a hundred tweets throughout the day, Mr Musk highlighted funding measures he disagreed with (frequently getting his facts wrong, for what that’s worth), and threatening to ensure any Republican who voted in favour of the bill would be turfed out of office at the next election.

Mr Trump, who is of course the actual President-elect, and actual leader of the Republican Party, remained conspicuously silent as Elon delighted in sowing his chaos. Ultimately, the billionaire owner of Twitter successfully bullied Republicans into torching the bill they, themselves, had authored.

Only very late in the day did Mr Trump finally say something publicly, offering a statement that supported Elon’s position. Who was leading, there, and who was following? The question does present itself quite deliciously.

The Republicans managed to come up with a new proposal today, which stripped out some funding – $US190 million slated for pediatric cancer research, for example. At last those awful leeches on the public purse, children with cancer, were shown who’s boss!

Mr Trump explicitly endorsed that new proposal, describing it as “a very good deal for the American people”.

“All Republicans, and even the Democrats, should do what is best for our country and vote YES for this bill!” he said.

Congress rejected it. All Democrats and an intriguingly high number of Republicans, 38, voted against it. So the prospect of a shutdown looms ever closer.

Again, we have Congress supporting Elon’s position over the President-elect’s.

“Your elected representatives have heard you and now the terrible bill is dead. The voice of the people has triumphed!” Elon tweeted after successfully nuking the original deal.

“VOX POPULI, VOX DEI.”

Elon uses that Latin phrase, meaning “the voice of the people is the voice of God”, quite frequently when he gets his way. I do wish he would look up its origin. It appeared first in an eighth-century letter written by the Saxon scholar Alcuin to the emperor Charlemagne. Alcuin wrote: “Those people should not be listened to who keep saying the voice of the people is the voice of God, since the riotousness of the crowd is always close to insanity.”

I suspect Elon has never bothered to read the full quote.

Among his other tweets in these past 48 hours (there have been a great many of them), Elon suggested Congress should pass no continuing resolution at all, and indeed no legislation, until Mr Trump takes office on January 20.

Yeah, OK. Elon has more money than a lone man could ever spend. If the government shuts down over Christmas, he’ll be fine. He can hop on his private plane, fly off to some delightful hotspot and enjoy a holiday while workers are not being paid their salaries, and millions of people can’t visit their families because the public airports have stopped functioning.

It’s easy, with that level of wealth, to be blasé. To say: “Oh well, let’s shut it all down for a month, and pass no bills, and turn significant parts of the government into a non-functioning mess until Donald Trump takes office.” Doesn’t hurt Elon one jot.

It’s the little people, the ones who exhaust their bank accounts each month, who will suffer. Who won’t have the money to buy their kids Christmas presents, because they have to at least put a meal on the table each day.

The sheer callousness of Elon’s attitude, regarding this nightmare scenario, is galling to an extent almost beyond words.

This is a person who seems to care more about adulation from the sewers of the internet than how his actions affect people in their real lives.

He’s a guy who ignores information from official sources, but believes whatever patently nonsensical crap shameless rage-baiters and engagement farmers like LibsofTikTok, Catturd, or EndWokeness tweet at him.

And all of a sudden he is the guy dictating government policy, and dictating to Congress, and overriding the person he spent more than $US200 billion to get elected as president.

This situation is not sustainable. The political right loves to rant about unelected bureaucrats, the so-called “deep state”, making policy. Here we have an unelected billionaire, with a long list of vested interests, haranguing Congress into following his whims and impulses.

It’s hard to imagine Mr Trump putting up with this interference, from Elon, for long. In his mind, he’s already rewarded the man for his financial support, by appointing him to co-lead a new government department aimed at cutting waste.

Mr Trump did not pick him to be co-president.

“As soon as Trump figures out that Elon Musk is bigfooting him, and making him look pretty weak, I think Trump is going to marginalise him pretty quick,” conservative commentator S.E. Cupp told CNN today.

“He’ll become as irrelevant as everyone else who has taken up Trump’s spotlight in the past.”

Those remarks are in addition to plenty of posts and comments this week referring to Elon as the real president. Some of them from Democrats, obviously and cynically aimed at triggering Mr Trump. But not all of them.

The President-elect’s spokesman was sufficiently moved to release a statement, yesterday, clarifying that Mr Trump was still in charge.

“As soon as President Trump released his official stance on the continuing resolution, Republicans on Capitol Hill echoed his point of view. President Trump is the leader of the Republican Party. Full stop.”

Hmmmmm. What actually happened was this: Elon lobbied Republicans to ditch the bill, while Mr Trump said nothing. Once it became apparent that Elon had succeeded in killing it, Mr Trump belatedly came out to echo his position.

That is not authority. It’s a last-minute scramble to save face.

One of the fundamental traits, of Mr Trump, is that he’s always been too concerned about attention and adulation.

He likes being president. He likes the title, and the trappings, and he likes being on TV. He’s never really run for office wanting to accomplish some specific nefarious agenda.

But he surrounds himself with loyalists, and those loyalists do believe vehemently in what they say, and they are going to try to use the power that comes with his office to achieve their aims. So we end up with people like Elon, and Stephen Miller, running the government while Mr Trump watches cable television until 11am every morning.

That is the style of government Americans elected. Now they get to enjoy the consequences.