Mega-Thread: Trump Focused Discussion

[Breccia]

I know the-

Non-response handwaved. It is reasonable to assume you accept and even approve of Trump's statement as you have not said otherwise.

[Milchshake]

It turns out that "ctrl+f" is not a good way to run a government.

Elon Musk's team of ELITE SCRIPTKIDDIES have fired everybody at the Federal Aviation Administration who was tagged <probationary> in some database.
Thinking they have got rid of all the new hires

It turns out many of these were experienced technicians, recently promoted and were on probation for their new senior role...


AGAIN most modern conservatives are spoiled rich kids with zero professional experience outside of their family business or a lifetime of private schools. Parents that shielded from any kind of accountability.

[tehdang]

If it was strictly due to the weather, you're right. But if it had anything to do with maintenance or anything else in Minneapolis, then that's at least in part due to Trump and his sledgehammer approach in firing people he doesn't think are needed.

I regret to inform you that the US President is presumably not involved with the maintenance of airplanes in Minneapolis.

Have a little more caution and intelligence on plane crashes in Canada. Don't be quick to call it for Trump, or quick to blame DEI.

[Breccia]

We all know JD Vance went to Germany to try to win friends.

"Do we really know he was trying?"

We know he didn't succeed.

"Hpw bad was it?"

His speech backfired spectacularly, convincing many listeners that America itself is now a threat to Europe

[Bwgmon]

We all know JD Vance went to Germany to try to win friends.

"Do we really know he was trying?"

We know he didn't succeed.

"Hpw bad was it?"

lol, lmao even

[btlcryct]

I regret to inform you that the US President is presumably not involved with the maintenance of airplanes in Minneapolis.

Have a little more caution and intelligence on plane crashes in Canada. Don't be quick to call it for Trump, or quick to blame DEI.

Does he directly maintain the planes? No, of course not. But if he fires 90% of the staff that do and then bad things happen to those planes, he is responsible. As Truman said when he was President, the buck stops here. In case you don't want to Google it, I did for you:

The phrase "the buck stops here" originates from a desk sign kept by President Harry S. Truman, which signified that he would accept ultimate responsibility for decisions made during his presidency, essentially meaning he wouldn't "pass the buck" to anyone else; the phrase itself comes from the poker term "pass the buck," where a marker (often a piece of buckhorn) was passed to indicate whose turn it was to deal, signifying the passing of responsibility.

So if any of the crashes had anything to do with his decisions, he's at least partially responsible.

[Xath]

It turns out that "ctrl+f" is not a good way to run a government.

Elon Musk's team of ELITE SCRIPTKIDDIES have fired everybody at the Federal Aviation Administration who was tagged <probationary> in some database.
Thinking they have got rid of all the new hires

It turns out many of these were experienced technicians, recently promoted and were on probation for their new senior role...


AGAIN most modern conservatives are spoiled rich kids with zero professional experience outside of their family business or a lifetime of private schools. Parents that shielded from any kind of accountability.

It's almost like Elon purposefully picked semi skilled zealots to create a state of emergency as quickly as possible to justify suspension of all democratic processes.

[Jastall]

Trump can suck a fat one and all that, but the region is experiencing the most severe snow storms we've had in years. I'd know, being in the path of them. I wouldn't be that quick to pin this on him. Had it landed in the US, mayyyybeIdunno, but not this time. Not every crime in Gotham City is the fault of the Joker.

[Corvus]

We all know JD Vance went to Germany to try to win friends.

"Do we really know he was trying?"

We know he didn't succeed.

"Hpw bad was it?"

He was trying to win friends among the far-right pootie bootlickers who would sell out their countries into being russian vassals. You could say he succeeded in that.

[Rasulis]

It was a joke. And evidently not funny.

Wharton is part of the University of Pennsylvania. And, yes, Trump went there.

Okay. My sense of humor sucks.

Some of these institutions are large employers. UCSF is the second largest employer in San Francisco. University of Alabama, which received $334,417,936 in NIH funding in 2024, is the largest public employer in Alabama. These funding cut will impact the local economy.

[Breccia]

More on the "Europe sees Trump as an adversary" bit:

European leaders are scrambling to respond to Trump’s first moves to end Russia’s war in Ukraine, shocked to find themselves on the outside of high-stakes talks about the continent’s security and grappling with a potential retreat of U.S. forces from Europe.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio said “real talks” will involve Europe and Ukraine, as he prepares to meet his Russian counterpart in Saudi Arabia on Tuesday. But that follows a slew of mixed messages from Trump’s top officials and a browbeating from Vice President Vance at the Munich Security Conference last week.

Leaders of eight major European countries met Monday to coordinate a response, after being caught on their back foot by Trump’s opening gambit on Russia-Ukraine talks.

Even Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Monday said he “knew nothing about” the peace discussions in the Middle East until they were announced publicly.

“I think Europe is realizing that they have to come up with a plan, quickly, and on their own to be ready for whatever comes next,” said Sudha David-Wilp, vice president of external relations and senior fellow with the German Marshall Fund.

“The mood was turning from bad to worse,” said one European foreign policy expert who attended the Munich conference, granted anonymity to speak candidly.

European officials expected to be taken to task over low defense spending, but not to be left out of talks completely. The uncertainty is already spurring talks on loosening the EU’s budgetary deficit requirements to allow more spending on defense, the expert said.

“There will probably be a series of announcements by Europeans in the upcoming days to signal to the Americans that they are to be taken seriously — but also to reassure each other,” they said.

French President Emmanuel Macron called the emergency meeting on Monday, inviting the leaders of Germany, the United Kingdom, Italy, Poland, Spain, the Netherlands, Denmark and the European Union.

U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer proposed sending British troops to Ukraine as postwar peacekeepers, responding to Trump’s calls for Europe to take more responsibility for its security.

And Zelensky lectured Europe against being treated “like a pushover” and called for the European Union to nominate an envoy to any peace talks.

“There must be a representative of Europe,” Zelensky told reporters, also warning that “Ukraine regards any negotiations about Ukraine without Ukraine as having no results.”

The Trump administration fueled European fears throughout last week, starting with Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth attending a meeting of the Ukraine Defense Contact Group in Brussels.

Hegseth warned Europe to prepare for a future without U.S. troops on the continent, and triggered whiplash by seeming to rule out Ukraine joining NATO as part of peace talks, before later saying all options remain on the table.

Trump then called Russian President Vladimir Putin to discuss a ceasefire, before later speaking with Zelensky. And Vance closed out the week by lecturing Europeans on democracy, saying its leaders were scared of their own voters.

Trump’s special envoy for Ukraine, retired Gen. Keith Kellogg, seemed to confirm Saturday that the U.S. does not see Europe as having a physical seat at the negotiations — but said it would take the region’s interests into account.

“What we don’t want to do is get into a large group discussion,” Kellogg said Saturday in Munich.

That will be true for at least the first round of talks, set to begin in the Saudi capital on Tuesday and include Rubio, national security adviser Mike Waltz and special envoy to the Middle East Steve Witkoff, along with Russia officials, according to the State Department.

Rubio said Sunday that the initial talks would determine how serious Russia was, and that if negotiations continue, “Ukraine will have to be involved because they’re the ones that were invaded, and the Europeans will have to be involved because they have sanctions on Putin and Russia as well.”

Jennifer Kavanagh, senior fellow and director of military analysis at Defense Priorities, said Europe’s role remains uncertain.

“Trump does see Putin as his counterpart, and does see the European leaders as lacking in sort of the geopolitical heft — which is true and partly their own fault,” she said.

“At the same time, though, I don’t think it’s clear that the Europeans will be shut out entirely from the negotiations.”

Lithuania’s former foreign minister, Gabrielius Landsbergis, wrote on the social media site X that he left Munich in a “low mood” and with “dark thoughts” in the face of a potential reality where the U.S. retreats from security guarantees for Europe.

The U.S. is NATO’s de facto leader, and is seen as the only member country with the capacity to build and supply the necessary military munitions for Ukraine to stay in the fight against Russia.

“People who say that Europe must be at the table should remember that to be invited, you have to matter. If Europe commits to money, troops and a European path for Ukraine, we will make our own table and Ukraine, Putin, and Trump can be invited. But time is running out,” Landsbergis wrote.

“I am fully aware that my suggestion leads only to blood, toil, tears and sweat. But we have done it before and we can do it again. The alternative is to rebuild the continent after another devastating war, and that would be much harder and take much more time.”

Franak Viačorka, chief political adviser to Belarus’s exiled president-elect Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, said the prevailing theme coming out of Munich is “revision.”

“Alliances, approaches, values, and interests are being reassessed. This is truly a new era — one that could lead us into a world of freedom or destroy us, allowing tyranny to prevail,” he wrote to The Hill by text.

“Certainly, Europe is waking up. And undoubtedly, the new reality is making Europe more determined. The problem is that Europe consists of 27 voices, and the level of motivation and readiness for bold actions varies. I believe that this crisis and this reassessment may unite Europe, including around Ukraine. And I hope around Belarus too.”

Germany and France are the traditional leaders among the 27-nation EU bloc. But the continent remains somewhat paralyzed until Germany carries out its national elections, set for Feb. 23, in terms of major decisions on security funding.

“There is a vacuum of leadership at the moment,” said David-Wilp, from the German Marshall Fund.

“Ukraine is the first hurdle, but I think the larger topic still remains, how are Europeans going to envision a future security order?” she continued, as the U.S. talks about turning its attention toward China and stepping back from its leadership role in NATO and Europe.

Kavanagh said European countries were operating under an old paradigm, where Trump in his first term pushed them to spend more on their defense but still under the direction of American leadership.

“My point to them was, no, instead, you should figure out what you need to defend yourself with no U.S. support, and that should be your goal,” she said of conversations she’s had with European leaders in the lead-up to Trump’s reelection.

She said the remarks from Trump administration officials this week reaffirmed that view.

[gondrin]

I know the left's having a hard time these days in effective opposition, but trying to tie a crash in Toronto to Trump, since the plane came from America, is a little extreme even by today's standards.

Well, how about this then? Can we pin this on Elon if anyone using Neuralink get severe brain damage from using his device in the future? Seeing as they just fired the staff working on reviewing Neuralink.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/health/oth...21185e26&ei=21

You know, if you didn't want to look like you were targeting things that would affect you, you would go out of your way to specifically stop things like this from happening. That way, there could be no cause for anyone to say there is a conflict of interest. However, everything done so far has been nothing but conflicts of interest.

[Polgara]

I regret to inform you that the US President is presumably not involved with the maintenance of airplanes in Minneapolis.

Have a little more caution and intelligence on plane crashes in Canada. Don't be quick to call it for Trump, or quick to blame DEI.

Trump and republicans decided all things are to blame at the current leadership's feet. Your daddy is at fault, by him, and his party's, own behaviours. I'm sorry actions have consequences.

[Breccia]

FOX News reports *ding* Musk claims he found a line item in the budget that was $4.7 trillion in untraceable government fraud.

"Five trillion? Where?"

He didn't. Musk is lying. That amount of money can't just vanish. Musk just wants people to think he's finding enough fraud to justify handing him Fort Knox and Social Security.

[gondrin]

It's almost like Elon purposefully picked semi skilled zealots to create a state of emergency as quickly as possible to justify suspension of all democratic processes.

And he will find out very quickly that there would be a sizable resistance that will use deadly force against him. If they want the Purge, I hope they realize that unlike in the fictional universe of it, nobody is going to respect the law that states that "You cannot target anyone of a certain rank or higher." or use any weapons of a certain type against them.

[Breccia]

WaPo reports the mass firings Trump just did were for "performance" and without any evidence.

This will likely lead to massive numbers of lawsuits, because no, you can't fire thousands of people all at once and claim it was due to thousands of people making their own individual poor decisions. They just couldn't say "fired for being black" so they lied.

[Draco-Onis]

FOX News reports *ding* Musk claims he found a line item in the budget that was $4.7 trillion in untraceable government fraud.

"Five trillion? Where?"

He didn't. Musk is lying. That amount of money can't just vanish. Musk just wants people to think he's finding enough fraud to justify handing him Fort Knox and Social Security.

I am sure it's a coincidence that this number is close to what the Trump tax cuts for the wealthy will cost if they are just extended.

[tehdang]

So if any of the crashes had anything to do with his decisions, he's at least partially responsible.

It's a very preposterous "if" for airplanes landing in Canada. Like, is-this-poster-actually-parodying-leftist-paranoia, "if." And if you're just some right-winger that's play-acting a lefty, then congratulations, you got me.

The phrase "the buck stops here" originates from a desk sign kept by President Harry S. Truman, which signified that he would accept ultimate responsibility for decisions made during his presidency, essentially meaning he wouldn't "pass the buck" to anyone else; the phrase itself comes from the poker term "pass the buck," where a marker (often a piece of buckhorn) was passed to indicate whose turn it was to deal, signifying the passing of responsibility.

This might have relevance if Canada was actually already the 51st state, in which case the FAA might conceivably be involved, or if Biden had nationalized the airlines, in which case the federal government might have fucked up the maintenance schedule. It's just misunderstanding the meaning of responsibility to bring this up lacking relevant context.

[Mekh]

I regret to inform you that the US President is presumably not involved with the maintenance of airplanes in Minneapolis.

Have a little more caution and intelligence on plane crashes in Canada. Don't be quick to call it for Trump, or quick to blame DEI.

Was he involved in this though?

It turns out that "ctrl+f" is not a good way to run a government.

Elon Musk's team of ELITE SCRIPTKIDDIES have fired everybody at the Federal Aviation Administration who was tagged <probationary> in some database.
Thinking they have got rid of all the new hires

It turns out many of these were experienced technicians, recently promoted and were on probation for their new senior role...


AGAIN most modern conservatives are spoiled rich kids with zero professional experience outside of their family business or a lifetime of private schools. Parents that shielded from any kind of accountability.

[gondrin]

FOX News reports *ding* Musk claims he found a line item in the budget that was $4.7 trillion in untraceable government fraud.

"Five trillion? Where?"

He didn't. Musk is lying. That amount of money can't just vanish. Musk just wants people to think he's finding enough fraud to justify handing him Fort Knox and Social Security.

I will quote part of the article for more actual depth.

"The Treasury Access Symbol (TAS) is an identification code linking a Treasury payment to a budget line item (standard financial process)," DOGE wrote in a post on X. "In the Federal Government, the TAS field was optional for ~$4.7 Trillion in payments and was often left blank, making traceability almost impossible. As of Saturday, this is now a required field, increasing insight into where money is actually going."

Now, Fox News is doing what they do best. Misreporting what has actually happened. What happened is DOGE found that there is an optional field in the system that allows for traceability in payments via payment codes. Because there are so many of payments, most were left blank. They just made it mandatory which is a good thing. So I put this on Fox News more than Musk. The $4.7 trillion was from multiple payments and they didn't come up missing. It was a reporting field that wasn't used. Why wasn't it used is unknown and why was it only optional is also unknown.

So for all you DOGE supporters and Trump sycophants, you can't say that I am against DOGE because of ideological reasons. They actually did a good thing here. However, I still stand by what I say about them. Musk via DOGE is only targeting things he doesn't like or has been used against him or his companies in the past for violations that they caused. And they are doing illegally. So the ends do NOT justify the means.

Because if we go off the financial cliff, it won't be because Congress cannot budget for shit and have gotten used to the government faucet being on, it will be because of actions Trump and his band of idiots are causing. Because here soon if he keeps antagonizing our neighbors and previous allies(seeing as all of them see us as aggressors now), THAT will be where the dollar is destabilized and not be used as the world currency. Because they will just dump our debt and call it a day. Because nearly all of them actually carry our debt and, if forced to due to the actions of Trump, could easily dump it and cause a massive out of control spiral of the dollar overnight.