What has Trump done now?

[Marty_d]

15 hours ago, red750 said:

Jack Watkins
· 
Andrew Coyne, a highly respected Canadian columnist with the Globe and Mail, pulls no punches on the incoming US administration:

 “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, fueled 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 i

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.”

Exactly my thoughts, but said far more eloquently.

[onetrack]

There's plenty of DOGE hoaxes and outright misinformation out there. The BBC charity arm, BBC Media Action, which is a separate entity from BBC News, and which entity is used to train journalists in 3rd world countries, received 8% of its funding from USAID in 2023-2024.

 

I would've thought that was money well spent, rather than letting Putins journalists into those countries to apply the Russian version of media control.

 

https://www.forbes.com/sites/conormurray/2025/02/08/elon-musk-baselessly-claims-usaid-was-money-laundering-for-left-wing-organizations-the-biggest-doge-hoaxes-spread-on-x/

 

There IS good reason to check on USAID spending to ensure it reaches those who most need it. A percentage of aid money does always end up being corruptly transferred to powerbrokers and dictators, so systems that defeat that corruption must be devised, and made strong.

[octave]

1 hour ago, Grumpy Old Nasho said:

USAID was giving million$ to the BBC in the UK. Who knew that before? Rightfully, it's being stopped.

Trump and Musk Promote Misleading ‘Scandal’ About Government Funding Media

[Grumpy Old Nasho]

 

Why haven't you been following the good work that Donald and Elon have been doing?

 

https://www.express.co.uk/news/world/2011150/bbc-lashes-out-us-withdraws-funding

[red750]

Musk and the dodgy DOGE only want to cut foreign aid to line his obscenely overflowing pockets.

[Jerry_Atrick]

10 minutes ago, Grumpy Old Nasho said:

 

Why haven't you been following the good work that Donald and Elon have been doing?

 

https://www.express.co.uk/news/world/2011150/bbc-lashes-out-us-withdraws-funding

I guess that depends on one's definition of good

[red750]

5 MINUTES WITH PETER FITZSIMONS - SMH Sun Herald, Sunday 9 Feb. 2025

 

Middle East expert Dr Keith Suter says Trump’s Gaza plan contravenes the Geneva Convention and is illegal.

Confounded by Trump’s Gaza folly?  Let my uni professor enlighten you.

 

Dr Keith Suter is a foreign policy expert of 50 years standing, with a special interest in the Middle East. His first degree was in international politics, international law and international economics. He has PhDs in international humanitarian law and the economics of the arms race.

 

Fitz: Dr Suter, thank you for your time. I am hoping you will recall lecturing and tutoring me on Israel and Gaza at Sydney Uni 45 years ago. I remember you sometimes looking at me with the bemused expression of one who couldn’t quite believe he had to help a footballer who looked like he read Phantom comics with his lips moving, understand something so complex.

 

Keith Sutter: (Laughing.) I do remember!

 

I seek to use your expertise to help explain the situation in Gaza, historically and politically, before going into the latest Trumpian twist. To go to the core problem, you have two peoples claiming the one bit of land, historically a land they shared before the Jewish diaspora?

 

Yes, in about 70AD, the Roman occupiers became thoroughly sick of the Jewish revolts and so destroyed the temples and scattered the Jews, some of whom remained in the Holy Land and others went elsewhere.

 

Britain got control of Palestine after World War I from the destroyed Ottoman Empire and some Jews hoped to return. This Jewish return increased after Hitler’s rise to power in 1933, and then became a flood after the Holocaust.

 

Yes, and so the British were confronted with this huge influx of Jewish refugees, and there were tensions between them and the existing Palestinian population. To resolve the tension, the British said, ‘‘Well, let’s divide the land into two peoples and have two states.’’ And basically, it has been that formula which keeps being revived. But every time it gets revived, it’s a smaller amount of land for the Palestinians.

 

So the Brits were the driving force for the establishment of Israel in 1948?

 

I think the key driving force was the guilty conscience of the allied governments who had not done enough to save the Jews in World War II. And with the Jews still arriving, Israel declares itself as an independent country, and some of the Palestinians were driven off the Holy Land and fled into the area called Gaza.

 

Negotiations on the two-state solution fail, until Hamas launches the shocking attack on Israel on October 7, 2023. And in response, Israel unleashes all hell on all of Gaza.

 

One of the complaints about the Israeli reprisal for approximately 1200 of their citizens being killed is that it’s out of proportion – with about 50,000 Palestinians killed. Now that the authorities are getting access back into Gaza, they’re finding more and more bodies under the rubble and that’s why the figure continues to go up.

 

And how do you characterise the previous approach of the Biden administration to restoring peace?

Biden’s approach was simply to support Israel, whose own approach was to destroy Hamas. And that hasn’t worked. Israel’s aim to destroy Hamas has been effectively defeated in Gaza. Israel said it would eradicate Hamas and yet, look who’s been handling the transfer of prisoners [in the current truce]. It’s been Hamas in bright new vehicles, wearing new clean uniforms. Hamas is still in business. Israel did not destroy Hamas. It might have killed some of the ringleaders, but you’ve got others who are coming up through the ranks. And we know from the history of guerilla warfare that you kill one person, you end up with others deciding to become guerillas, to act in retaliation.

 

Which brings us, finally, to the alternative Trump approach. It seems to have gone from the ‘‘two state’’ solution, to what effectively looks like a ‘‘51ststate’’ solution – America takes over to turn Gaza into, to quote Trump, ‘‘the Riviera of the Middle East’’. It seems to me a completely crazy idea that is appalling at every level. Is that fair or not?

 

It’s not only a crazy idea, it’s illegal and immoral. It’s illegal in the sense that America can’t move in on any other country, be it Panama or Greenland or Gaza, and take it over without the invitation of the people concerned. They’d be no more than an occupying force. And it’s also immoral the way you’re going to be removing people from their own land. OK, Gaza is covered in rubble, but it is still the land of the Palestinians, and the phrase that is being used to describe the plan is ‘‘ethnic cleansing’’; removing the population from that area.

 

So when you say that it is ‘‘illegal’’ is it not that in some ways the Middle East is also the Wild West, and if Trump has the most guns, and he says it is legal, then he can make it so?

 

No, it contravenes Article 2.4 of the United Nations Charter and it contravenes the Geneva Conventions relating to victims of war and occupied territory – and America is a signatory of both. So it really is illegal, against the very international laws and treaties the US has promulgated. And of course, it’s immoral to take other people’s land without their consent.

 

OK, but, call me crazy, let’s just say Trump ignores law and morality – a stretch, I know but, just go with me. Would it be remotely workable for the US to put boots on the ground, round up Gazans and move them off in every direction bar east?

 

Where would it put them? Egypt, Jordan, Syria and Saudi Arabia have said they won’t accept them. And the average Arab in the street would never want to see their own government cooperating with the Americans to remove the Palestinians from their land. There would be a revolt against their governments. Another problem is getting enough of the American military to take on that role because America has global responsibilities and has to be careful that it doesn’t overextend itself. America just doesn’t have a large enough standing army to be able to occupy Gaza. And remember, Trump has promised to pull America out of foreign wars, not get involved in new ones.

 

So, beyond illegal and immoral, it’s completely unworkable and disastrous for America?

 

Yes. Remember, empires generally die by suicide, not murder. They die through overextension, trying to do too much, rather than being killed off by the enemy. Look at Britain. It won two world wars, and yet it finished WWII bankrupt. The problem for the US is that it is so heavily committed to all of these defence arrangements around the globe, going into places like Gaza – not to mention the other targets of Greenland and the Panama Canal – even if they could, would be a classic overextension.

 

Perhaps this is just ‘‘Trump being Trump,’’ full of sound and fury, signifying nothing?

 

Well, what was interesting was, on Gaza, Trump was not just firing from the hip but reading from a written statement. That’s why we’re all shocked, right? It was a prepared statement, so someone had thought it out. And the worry I’ve got generally is that we’re really just in the first two weeks of Trump’s power, and we’ve got another four years of this. But looking at it, it seems almost to be like a ‘‘children’s crusade’’. So you’ve not only got these bizarre suggestions over Gaza, Panama and Greenland, you’ve got Elon Musk and his youngsters going through confidential payment files. You’ve got Trump trying to overturn the American Constitution when it comes to birthright citizenship. He’s signing all these executive orders, most of them wreaking chaos. [On Thursday] everybody in the CIA was offered eight months’ pay if they’ll resign. [Then] it was the Department of Justice winding down. So Trump’s destroying the US government. This is doing much more damage to America than the Chinese or the Russians could ever hope to achieve.

 

And Australia in all this? Our classic approach for the last 85 years was emblematically expressed by Harold Holt; ‘‘All the way with LBJ,’’ with only Gough Whitlam quibbling, saying, ‘‘It’s all very well to say ‘All the way with LBJ’ so long as you know where LBJ is going.’’ Now that Australia can see where LBJ’s successor, Trump, is going, at what point is it feasible to say ‘‘We ain’t going to the dump with Trump?’’

Well, there could be no easy extrication. Remember, we are caught up with the US in the AUKUS defence arrangement. But there must be plenty of people in Canberra wondering about that defence arrangement right now, right? And if I had been Anthony Albanese, after the last election I would have set up a royal commission to investigate AUKUS to find out exactly what it entails. That would then give you the exit route to get out because you’d hope that the royal commission would find that this is not a fully fleshedout agreement, and not something that Australia should be bound up to. And now with the election of Trump, that just adds to our disenchantment with AUKUS.

 

But surely, we are bound to America on the grounds that we would be a lonely outpost without US protection?

 

Well, we have no guarantee that we actually will have American protection. Remember, we’ve asked for American assistance on a couple of occasions. One was at the time of Timor-Leste in the ’90s and Clinton did not come to our assistance. Similarly, in the 1960s at the time of the Malaysia confrontation – with Malaysia, UK, New Zealand and Australia supporting Malaysia against Indonesia – the Americans wouldn’t help out. So the Americans do not have a good record on helping the allies. We have a brilliant record in always supporting the Americans, but it hasn’t been reciprocated, right? And what a number of people in Australia have argued over the years is that we need to think about how we would stand on our own two feet.

 

Ideally, yes. But when Jim Killen was about to become defence minister in 1975, he told BBC listeners that Australia’s defence forces combined ‘‘would be unable to protect Botany Bay against an enemy on a hot Sunday afternoon’’. Isn’t it still inconceivable that Australia could, without America, defend ourselves against any halfserious attack from anyone, bar stroppy New Zealanders?

 

Sure, but then you’ve got to ask yourself, why would somebody want to invade this country? Maybe Indonesia, perhaps seeking to get more land, but the usually cited threat, the Chinese, won’t invade. They already own part of the country. They’re not going to damage their own investments by invading. And what the Americans under Trump would do in either case, who knows?

 

Is it fair to say that while most of the rest of us are appalled by Trump’s actions, you’re nothing less than fascinated?

 

I am absolutely fascinated by Trump. As I say, we’re only two weeks into a four-year administration. Who knows where we will be in four years?

 

Do you think the American state will still be standing?

 

Oh, the US state will still stand, but it’s going to be badly battered.

 

 

[Grumpy Old Nasho]

6 minutes ago, red750 said:

Musk and the dodgy DOGE only want to cut foreign aid to line his obscenely overflowing pockets.

 

I doubt it, President Trump is only taking one dollar in pay. What's Albo take?

[red750]

Pull the other one - it plays jingle bells. If you believe that you're a bigger fool than I thought you were.

[facthunter]

GON, Marty and I have a new bridge to Taswegia that will make the ferries worthless. Get in early. Nev

[octave]

9 minutes ago, Grumpy Old Nasho said:

 

Why haven't you been following the good work that Donald and Elon have been doing?

 

https://www.express.co.uk/news/world/2011150/bbc-lashes-out-us-withdraws-funding

The BBC has two corporate charities. Children in Need is our UK-based charity which provides grants to thousands of projects which focus on children and young people who are disadvantaged throughout the UK. BBC Media Action is our international development charity. It makes TV, radio and multimedia content, and mentors journalists and broadcasters to help people in some of the poorest parts of the world.

 

So which part do you object to?  the Children in need or the mentoring journalism in the poorest part of the world

 

 

Perhaps you should be paying more interest in what Elon and his DOGE  teenagers are up to.  For a start, there is a massive conflict of interest. Elon and his techno bros have been given access to an extremely sensitive database.  Elon is the recipient of  huge amounts of money from the government (Space x Telsa etc) He likely has access to information about his competitors.  This is a conflict of interest.   His band of techno boys don't even have appropriate clearances. 

 

 

[Grumpy Old Nasho]

We stopped giving foreign aid to China 12 years ago. I don't think they needed it before then, and they certainly didn't need it after that.

 

The BBC can get aid from Starmer's socialist govt now, surely? The UK is not broke yet, is it?

Edited February 9 by Grumpy Old Nasho

[rgmwa]

1 hour ago, Grumpy Old Nasho said:

 

Why haven't you been following the good work that Donald and Elon have been doing?

 

https://www.express.co.uk/news/world/2011150/bbc-lashes-out-us-withdraws-funding

Because whatever `good' they may be doing, which is a matter of opinion anyway, is far outweighed by the chaos they are creating by their slash and burn approach to destroying every institution they can get their hands on. Besides which a lot of what they are doing is blatantly illegal, which is why the courts are stepping in. 

 

[rgmwa]

1 hour ago, Grumpy Old Nasho said:

 

I doubt it, President Trump is only taking one dollar in pay. What's Albo take?

And at the same time raking in millions from his conflict of interest investments, truth(joke) social deal, flogging dodgy sneakers, bitcoin tokens, cheap bibles, and other scams. If he had any decency, the least he could do is donate his dollar to USAID.

Edited February 9 by rgmwa

[octave]

'A lot of garbage': Fmr. Republican USAID administrator slams Musk and Trump for gutting agency

 

The thing that Trump and his followers do not seem to appreciate is that providing aid to a third-world country is not just about a wealthy country lending a hand to a poorer country but also about self-interest.  Helping an African country with an Ebola outbreak is better than that disease spreading to the US.

 

Australia provides aid to the South Pacific partly because the Chinese wish to endear themselves to the people of this region. It is called soft power.  Trump is entitled to change things however it has to be within the law (which it is not)  and it is mind-numbingly dumb to go in with a sledgehammer and destroy everything.  If I have a medical problem I want the help of a surgeon wielding a scalpel with care not a moron with a chainsaw.

[rgmwa]

10 minutes ago, octave said:

The thing that Trump and his followers do not seem to appreciate is that providing aid to a third-world country is not just about a wealthy country lending a hand to a poorer country but also about self-interest. 

Exactly right, but Trump is incapable of understanding that. On top of that, the cost of providing that support via USAID is small change in terms of the US budget, so it's good value. No doubt there are parts of the USAID budget that could and should be reviewed and ditched, but feeding the whole organisation `into the woodchipper' as Musk is intent of doing is not in America's interest.  The Chinese will be happy to pick up the slack and sideline the US.

 

Edited February 9 by rgmwa

[old man emu]

You know that redundancy package Trump is offering Federal employees if the quit? He says he'll pay them until September.

 

Well..........................

 

Remember the fight late last year to have the US budget approved? It was. The money was promised until March. But ..... what was passed did not make any mention of money for the redundancy payments Trump offered. So there is no money from now until March for anyone who quits. Next, a new budget will have to be passed to carry on government after March. Do you really think that the Doge of Washington will let that sort of money be paid out? Trump is simply setting up another swindle. Remember that he is a past master of not paying what he owes.

 

PS: 

"Doge" originally a title for a ruler. The Doge of Venice  was the highest role of authority within the Republic of Venice (697 CE to 1797 CE). The Doge of Venice acted as both the head of state and head of the Venetian oligarchy. Sounds familiar, doesn't it?

[octave]

Well well, it turns out that USAIDs inspector general was in investigating USAIDs public/private partnership with Musk/SpaceX arrangement for supplying Starlink services to Ukraine.    This surely has to be suspicious or at least a conflict of interest. See video (relevant part starts at 5:37) Also FAA fines SpaceX $600 000. Interesting that the head of the FAA "resigned" 

 

 

[octave]

25 minutes ago, old man emu said:

You know that redundancy package Trump is offering Federal employees if the quit? He says he'll pay them until September.

 

Well..........................

Yep  Trump’s Buyout Offers Backfire As Federal Workers View It As A “Scam”

 

[octave]

Consumer Financial Protection Bureau virtually shut down as DOGE, Russ Vought take over

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) -- the government watchdog charged with safeguarding American consumers’ finances -- has come to a virtual standstill Saturday night, according to an internal email obtained by ABC News.

The email sent late Saturday night directs all CFPB staff to "cease all supervision and examination activity" and "cease all stakeholder engagement" effective immediately. The agency’s website shows an error message and its X account was also taken down.

The email was sent by Russell Vought, the newly confirmed director of the Office of Management and Budget, who is also now the acting director of the CFPB. Vought was an architect of "Project 2025."

[Jerry_Atrick]

3 hours ago, Grumpy Old Nasho said:

We stopped giving foreign aid to China 12 years ago. I don't think they needed it before then, and they certainly didn't need it after that.

 

The BBC can get aid from Starmer's socialist govt now, surely? The UK is not broke yet, is it?

The former Conservative government took a wrecking ball to the UK... and yes, it is broke

[Grumpy Old Nasho]

1,000 years of experience, and it's broke?

[onetrack]

There's any number of incompetent leaders who have destroyed a countrys good financial position and standing in a very short space of time. Just give Trump another 4 years and see where America is then, financially.

The clock is ticking on Americas national debt levels and the Americans ability to repay their debt. The US$ is artificially inflated in value because it's no longer tied to the Gold Standard, and hasn't been, since 1973.

 

Edited February 9 by onetrack

[Jerry_Atrick]

Sadly.. yes.. you let the "anti-woke", governments, which in reality, driven by a right wing media really means anti-middle classes in and they rape and pillage the public finances. In 13 years of declining public services and investment, while increasing taxes and debt (pre COVID, the UK had the highest debt and taxes ever - under a conservative "small government" government), and yes, you do have a country that with all its collective experience is broke, because, like all humans, we seem to be really poor from learning from history.

 

And, similar to the LNP, many of the sponsors, er donors, seemed to reap the rewards. Hundreds of billions, if not trillions found their way into the coffers of their sponsors for very little in return. The IT project failures , when involving the companies of donors, were spectacular failures, yet not one penny of what was spent was ever recovered. Like Australia, billions were spent on shell companies that delivered diddly squat. At least our COVID furlough system was much better thought out than Australia's system and the corporates here at least had some integrity and returned a lot of what they claimed on behalf of their employees when it turned out they still made good profits - they covered the furloughed employees bill. In fact, despite some small amount of fraud, that is one thing that the conservatives did a relatively good job of.

 

When I came here, the country was absolutely fantastic, well run, and yeah it had its problems, but it was no where near the stereotype people cast it before I moved. With less money, no-one paid at point of service for a GP and it was rare you couldn't get a GP same day. When they privatised supply of parts of teh NHS, they had to rip out GP funding to pay for the profits - now you will be lucky to get a GP appointment anywhere in the country under 2 weeks; a month is more common, unless you want to pay £120 for it. When the government has decided it has had enough of spending on something like, I dunno, education or welfare, they delegate it to the local councils, but don't increase the funding to the councils to run it.. and the councils can't increases taxes to pay for it; then they blame the councils when it all falls apart.. Yet, the nation, despite offloaing all these costs is still broke.

 

The Labour government has had to enact a mini-austerity budget to plug over £28bn of expenses that were hidden by the previous conservative government. But, like Albo, they had to be small targets and promise not to raise taxes lest the right wing dominated press would have come after them with pitchforks and scythe. But, because of their promise and necessity to keep it, to keep the right wing dominated press beying for blood, they have to raise ancillary taxes to keep the country afloat. And, my dog, are they being pilloried for it... Trying to save what basket case of an economy the Conservatives left and keep the country from defaulting and completely crashing the economy..

 

The convervates and other right wing partys always seem to receive an economy in relatively good shape and kill it, to be fixed by the more progressive parties, ,who get pilloried for it, and then hand back an economy in good shape to the right wing again. That's because the progressive parties, despite being politicians have a modicum of integrity and do not lie incessantly.. Maybe they should take a leaf from the right wing playbook.. at least there would be no more boom and bust cycles.. we'd always be bust.

 

Oh.. and if you think it hasn't happened before, at least in the UK, look at the economy Major left Blair..

 

We could go Fraser --> Hawke as well.. Razor gang's mates weren't trimmed as well, as I recall.

Edited February 9 by Jerry_Atrick

[Marty_d]

Trump is just a modern day snake oil salesman, and appeals to the same kind of people who fell for the snake oil sales pitch.

All it needs is a little critical thinking and you can see that none of his "policies" will work.

Nothing he does makes anything better, because he's just a wrecker.

I hate to say it, but the last time a Western country lost its collective mind and elected a charismatic blowhard who blamed all of their problems on the "other" people who weren't the true, upright, decent people who BELONGED in their country... was 91 years ago, in Germany.

(Interestingly, Google's AI "Gemini" seems to be blocked from political analysis...)