Political Posts

[dealraker]

1 minute ago, cubsfan said:

 

No argument: this is on Trump. He wanted the job, and he got it.

 

And in 100 days, the man has changed a lot of things for the positive.

Unfortunately, since Congress is AWOL as usual - it's up to Executive Orders, which is the only way to set things right - although it's only temporary. Not at all optimal.

 

I'm mystified that you think Biden wasn't a train wreck - no matter. You're entitled to that.

 

Oh, yeah - and I'm all about wanting Trump to get rich - right...

 

Like @changegonnacome said - we'll have a measuring stick after 4 years or a little earlier.

Feel free to call me out on it - I have no problem with that.  I heard all the bullshit before about Trump and his Russian collusion, etc - all the lies about being Putin's puppet getting rich, etc...

 

You guys just kill me about how cock-sure you are that this administration is a disaster.

 

Personally, I'm not sure how we end up - but I saw enough of the last losers to know we were going to lose the country. So I like seeing POTUS trying to set the country right again - especially culturally.

Transparency is wonderful. There is little that is hidden in his agenda.

From chips to tariffs I'm expectin' the fixer to fix, packpeddlin' moonwalk style - saving face maybe?  In Monopoly you often get to go back to start, but we get to call them "deals."

 

Didn't say anything about disaster, and budget deficits are ignored by nearly all investors including me.  The US Treasury bond market is Trump's adversary but he is outrageously bold and fearless with lenders.  I would even suggest that this is the most overlooked potential economic issue in the US today.  Trump has never feared debt or its owners and he's always been successful at making a deal with these lenders that gives him benefit and creditors the shaft.  Those skills put to work "for" the US?  I think so, but we will see.

 

 

 

 

 

Now that's where the risk lies.  

[changegonnacome]

1 hour ago, dealraker said:

It is 100% his game and his score, no one else's. 

 

Yep - you break it, you own it.

 

Success too- I wish him well...hope he pulls off whatever the hell he's trying to do  (which I'm still unclear on)..but thus far this is not what success looks like....economy slowing down, hesitancy everywhere you look housing, consumer...dollar weakening....nuking decade long alliances....this is not a good start and the time decay on his political powers is aggressive given he's second term President & advanced age.....folks will start, very soon, looking over his shoulder for JD Vance's nod of approval....its gonna drive him nuts.

[Spooky]

1 hour ago, Sweet said:

Spooky, you are posting the Guardian which is quite far left on the political spectrum.  To the guardian, anything right of the UK Labour Party is considered fascist.

 

One of the organisations quoted is the ‘Global Project Against Hate and Extremism’.  I went to their website and it lists the Celtic cross and ‘LGB’ as being symbols of extremism in the UK - no they aren’t.  That’s truly moronic.
 

The founder of that site,  Heidi Beirich, is quoted in the article.  She is apparently an expert on the far-right.  Included in one of the forms of extremism is ‘anti-immigrant’ - which is a weird way of saying anti-immigration.  That’s not an extremist view by any stretch for all sorts of reasons.

 

Zuckerberg has overhauled the content moderation on Facebook, not because of it was too far right, but because the fact checkers which were moderating the site were too liberal or politically biased to the left.

 

 

This is just one example. Look at Facebook's business model - it is built by driving engagement through outrage. The algorithm therefore amplifies extreme views. Look at X and TikTok today - what is the algorithm serving you? Why are we even talking about the AFD?

 

Personally, I don't let an algorithm tell me what I should see and fill my head with every day. Your brain is wired to automatically believe what you read /hear. Once you form a belief it is exceptionally difficult to get rid of it. Remember, you are the easiest person to fool.

Edited May 7, 2025 by Spooky

[Sweet]

34 minutes ago, Spooky said:

 

This is just one example. Look at Facebook's business model - it is built by driving engagement through outrage. The algorithm therefore amplifies extreme views. Look at X and TikTok today - what is the algorithm serving you? Why are we even talking about the AFD?

 

Personally, I don't let an algorithm tell me what I should see and fill my head with every day. Your brain is wired to automatically believe what you read /hear. Once you form a belief it is exceptionally difficult to get rid of it. Remember, you are the easiest person to fool.

We are talking about the afd because there is a large section of voters who aren’t being served.  I’m British, and many people, most of I’d say, want drastically lower migration, and deportations.

Edited May 7, 2025 by Sweet

[Spooky]

3 minutes ago, Sweet said:

We are talking about the afd because there is a large section of voters who aren’t being served.  I’m British, and many people, most of say, want drastically lower migration, and deportations.

 

We are talking about the AFD because certain people want to boost the AFD and are directing the algorithm at X accordingly.

 

I don't believe we are talking about straightforward lower migration and deportation.

 

 

Edited May 7, 2025 by Spooky

[Blake Hampton]

2 hours ago, Spooky said:

This is just one example. Look at Facebook's business model - it is built by driving engagement through outrage. The algorithm therefore amplifies extreme views. Look at X and TikTok today - what is the algorithm serving you? Why are we even talking about the AFD?

 

Personally, I don't let an algorithm tell me what I should see and fill my head with every day. Your brain is wired to automatically believe what you read /hear. Once you form a belief it is exceptionally difficult to get rid of it. Remember, you are the easiest person to fool.

 

I think that might be the biggest problem in the world today. I firmly believe Facebook is a cancer on society, and it's a damn shame that local newspapers had to go out of business. I believe it’s made the world worse.

[cubsfan]

3 minutes ago, Blake Hampton said:

 

I think that might be the biggest problem in the world today. I firmly believe Facebook is a cancer on society, and it's a damn shame that local newspapers had to go out of business. I believe it’s made the world worse.

 

Yeah, I'd have to agree with that. But it was inevitable. People have short attention spans.

[Blake Hampton]

Just now, cubsfan said:

Yeah, I'd have to agree with that. But it was inevitable. People have short attention spans.

 

I think the primary pull was that it's free.

"If something is free, you're the product."

[Sweet]

11 hours ago, Spooky said:

 

We are talking about the AFD because certain people want to boost the AFD and are directing the algorithm at X accordingly.

 

I don't believe we are talking about straightforward lower migration and deportation.

 

 

Perhaps, but look at Europe in general.  Every country there is a large shift to the right on immigration.  Many of parties in those countries are labelled as ‘far-right’ when some are not.  In the UK that party is Reform, it’s certainly not far-right but it doesn’t stop the Guardian readers from claiming it is.  AFD does seem to be different, but who should the Germans vote for to reduce immigration and start mass deportations? 

[james22]

1 hour ago, Sweet said:

AFD does seem to be different . . .

 

Based on what?

 

In recent days, the pressure has mounted on AfD after the domestic spy agency (called the “Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution,” in German Verfassungsschutz) published a press release designating it a “proven extremist” party.

 

This is a scandal in part because the Verfassungsschutz did not disclose evidence backing up this verdict. The spy agency has assembled a more than 1100-page report with supposed evidence, yet they keep this report secret.

 

Would you consider a state to be under the rule of law if it charged and denounced an individual but did not allow him to see the evidence needed to defend himself? Well, Germany has now done that to an entire party.

 

The so-called “Office for the Protection of the Constitution” alleges that AfD undermines the free democratic order and violates the principle of human dignity by denying migrants the same rights as ethnic Germans.

 

The agency calls the simple acknowledgment that there is a German people defined by common ancestry “ethnic nationalism.”

 

Some small parts of the spy agency’s report have been leaked to the press, providing a glimpse of the kind of evidence marshalled.

 

The quotes from AfD members that the agency has assembled as evidence are extraordinary—that is, extraordinary that they were thought to constitute evidence of crimes against the constitution.

 

One tweet on X by an MP that the office finds scandalous reads: “Misguided migration policy and the abuse of asylum have led to the 100,000-fold importation of people from deeply backward and misogynistic cultures.”

 

Another MP declared at a public meeting that Germans “must be allowed to decide again who actually belongs to this people and who doesn’t.” He also spoke of a “law of nature” that means “each and every one of you has more in common with me than with any Syrian or Afghan.”

 

A third AfD politician is quoted with this statement: “Diversity means multiculturalism. And what does multiculturalism mean? Multiculturalism means loss of tradition, loss of identity, loss of homeland, murder, manslaughter, robbery and gang rape.” 

 

Yes, you can argue that all this is highly polemical. But unconstitutional? What about free speech?

 

https://www.theamericanconservative.com/german-democracy-is-in-peril/

[Spooky]

2 hours ago, Sweet said:

Perhaps, but look at Europe in general.  Every country there is a large shift to the right on immigration.  Many of parties in those countries are labelled as ‘far-right’ when some are not.  In the UK that party is Reform, it’s certainly not far-right but it doesn’t stop the Guardian readers from claiming it is.  AFD does seem to be different, but who should the Germans vote for to reduce immigration and start mass deportations? 

 

I'm not an expert in UK or German politics. I am worried when Elon, who has done a Nazi salute on TV, gives so much air time to a far right German political group that was deemed an extremist group by German intelligence. https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cwy6zk9wkrdo

 

Also, why should there be mass deportations? Where are these people supposed to go? We are on a slippery slope to something extremely dark and troubling.

[Xerxes]

Need to get a Lego set for this one 

 

 

[Charlie]

2 hours ago, james22 said:

3 hours ago, Sweet said:

AFD does seem to be different . . .

 

Based on what?

 

In recent days, the pressure has mounted on AfD after the domestic spy agency (called the “Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution,” in German Verfassungsschutz) published a press release designating it a “proven extremist” party.

 

This is a scandal in part because the Verfassungsschutz did not disclose evidence backing up this verdict. The spy agency has assembled a more than 1100-page report with supposed evidence, yet they keep this report secret.

 

Would you consider a state to be under the rule of law if it charged and denounced an individual but did not allow him to see the evidence needed to defend himself? Well, Germany has now done that to an entire party.

 

The so-called “Office for the Protection of the Constitution” alleges that AfD undermines the free democratic order and violates the principle of human dignity by denying migrants the same rights as ethnic Germans.

 

The agency calls the simple acknowledgment that there is a German people defined by common ancestry “ethnic nationalism.”

 

Some small parts of the spy agency’s report have been leaked to the press, providing a glimpse of the kind of evidence marshalled.

 

The quotes from AfD members that the agency has assembled as evidence are extraordinary—that is, extraordinary that they were thought to constitute evidence of crimes against the constitution.

 

One tweet on X by an MP that the office finds scandalous reads: “Misguided migration policy and the abuse of asylum have led to the 100,000-fold importation of people from deeply backward and misogynistic cultures.”

 

Another MP declared at a public meeting that Germans “must be allowed to decide again who actually belongs to this people and who doesn’t.” He also spoke of a “law of nature” that means “each and every one of you has more in common with me than with any Syrian or Afghan.”

 

A third AfD politician is quoted with this statement: “Diversity means multiculturalism. And what does multiculturalism mean? Multiculturalism means loss of tradition, loss of identity, loss of homeland, murder, manslaughter, robbery and gang rape.” 

 

Yes, you can argue that all this is highly polemical. But unconstitutional? What about free speech?

 

https://www.theamericanconservative.com/german-democracy-is-in-peril/

 

This is the origin of the conflict. The US administration tries to manipulate other countries politics.

The US administration should care about their own inflected problems (which is all around the world)

and not try to influence ohter countries politics.

That is the same mistake Vance and Musk did.

They didn´t learn anything:

 

 

Rubio:

"Germany just gave its spy agency new powers to surveil the opposition. That’s not democracy—it’s tyranny in disguise. What is truly extremist is not the popular AfD—which took second in the recent election—but rather the establishment’s deadly open border immigration policies."

 

Answer from the German Foreign Office:

"This is democracy. This decision is the result of a thorough & independent investigation to protect our Constitution & the rule of law. It is independent courts that will have the final say. We have learnt from our history that rightwing extremism needs to be stopped."

[John Hjorth]

Greenland :

 

Wall Street Journal [May 7^th 2025] : U.S. Orders Intelligence Agencies to Step Up Spying on Greenland

Wall Street Journal [May 7^th 2025] : Trump’s Threats Push Greenlanders Closer to Denmark.

 

- - - o 0 o - - -

 

+ Naturally this causing even more chaos on the diplomatic lines between the two countries. The Danish minister of foreign affairs Lars Løkke Rasmussen has demanded the US ambasador to meet at his office for a robust conversation, in mutually even eyeheight, among comrades, you know the drill ...

 

My best guess - based on my knowledge about Lars Løkke Rasmussens style behind closed doors is that he will be asking, if ''he' [Trump, John] has lost his pacifier' ... 

[james22]

56 minutes ago, Charlie said:

"We have learnt from our history that rightwing extremism needs to be stopped."

 

[Sweet]

4 hours ago, james22 said:

 

Based on what?

 

In recent days, the pressure has mounted on AfD after the domestic spy agency (called the “Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution,” in German Verfassungsschutz) published a press release designating it a “proven extremist” party.

 

This is a scandal in part because the Verfassungsschutz did not disclose evidence backing up this verdict. The spy agency has assembled a more than 1100-page report with supposed evidence, yet they keep this report secret.

 

Would you consider a state to be under the rule of law if it charged and denounced an individual but did not allow him to see the evidence needed to defend himself? Well, Germany has now done that to an entire party.

 

The so-called “Office for the Protection of the Constitution” alleges that AfD undermines the free democratic order and violates the principle of human dignity by denying migrants the same rights as ethnic Germans.

 

The agency calls the simple acknowledgment that there is a German people defined by common ancestry “ethnic nationalism.”

 

Some small parts of the spy agency’s report have been leaked to the press, providing a glimpse of the kind of evidence marshalled.

 

The quotes from AfD members that the agency has assembled as evidence are extraordinary—that is, extraordinary that they were thought to constitute evidence of crimes against the constitution.

 

One tweet on X by an MP that the office finds scandalous reads: “Misguided migration policy and the abuse of asylum have led to the 100,000-fold importation of people from deeply backward and misogynistic cultures.”

 

Another MP declared at a public meeting that Germans “must be allowed to decide again who actually belongs to this people and who doesn’t.” He also spoke of a “law of nature” that means “each and every one of you has more in common with me than with any Syrian or Afghan.”

 

A third AfD politician is quoted with this statement: “Diversity means multiculturalism. And what does multiculturalism mean? Multiculturalism means loss of tradition, loss of identity, loss of homeland, murder, manslaughter, robbery and gang rape.” 

 

Yes, you can argue that all this is highly polemical. But unconstitutional? What about free speech?

 

https://www.theamericanconservative.com/german-democracy-is-in-peril/

 

Based on some of comments and links provided by others, but I could be wrong.  I don’t know a lot about AfD.

[Spooky]

1 hour ago, Charlie said:

Answer from the German Foreign Office:

"This is democracy. This decision is the result of a thorough & independent investigation to protect our Constitution & the rule of law. It is independent courts that will have the final say. We have learnt from our history that rightwing extremism needs to be stopped."

 

Amen

[Dinar]

3 hours ago, Spooky said:

 

I'm not an expert in UK or German politics. I am worried when Elon, who has done a Nazi salute on TV, gives so much air time to a far right German political group that was deemed an extremist group by German intelligence. https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cwy6zk9wkrdo

 

Also, why should there be mass deportations? Where are these people supposed to go? We are on a slippery slope to something extremely dark and troubling.

Because Germans want Germany to remain Germany and not turn into Afghanistan, Pakistan or Turkey.  Where should the immigrants go?  Back to where they came from.  

[Spooky]

15 minutes ago, Dinar said:

Because Germans want Germany to remain Germany and not turn into Afghanistan, Pakistan or Turkey.  Where should the immigrants go?  Back to where they came from.  

 

Aren't you an immigrant to the US?

[Dinar]

6 minutes ago, Spooky said:

 

Aren't you an immigrant to the US?

Yes.   

[james22]

48 minutes ago, Spooky said:

Amen

 

Weimar Germany had laws banning hateful speech (particularly hateful speech directed at Jews), and top Nazis including Joseph Goebbels, Theodor Fritsch and Julius Streicher actually were sentenced to prison time for violating them.

 

The efforts of the Weimar Republic to suppress the speech of the Nazis are so well known in academic circles that one professor has described the idea that speech restrictions would have stopped the Nazis as “the Weimar Fallacy.” 

 

A 1922 law passed in response to violent political agitators such as the Nazis permitted Weimar authorities to censor press criticism of the government and advocacy of violence.

 

This was followed by a number of emergency decrees expanding the power to censor newspapers. The Weimar Republic not only shut down hundreds of Nazi newspapers — in a two-year period, they shut down 99 in Prussia alone — but they accelerated that crackdown on speech as the Nazis ascended to power.

 

Hitler himself was banned from speaking in several German states from 1925 until 1927.

 

Far from being an impediment to the spread of National Socialist ideology, Hitler and the Nazis used the attempts to suppress their speech as public relations coups. The party waved the ban like a bloody shirt to claim they were being targeted for exposing the international conspiracy to suppress “true” Germans. 

 

As one poster explained: 

 

Why is Adolf Hitler not allowed to speak? Because he is ruthless in uncovering the rulers of the German economy, the international bank Jews and their lackeys, the Democrats, Marxists, Jesuits, and Free Masons! Because he wants to free the workers from the domination of big money!

 

Considering the Nazi movement’s core ideology, as espoused by Hitler in “Mein Kampf,” rested on an alleged conspiracy between Jews and their sympathizers in government to politically disempower Aryan Germans, it is not surprising that the Nazis were able to spin government censorship into propaganda victories and seeming confirmation of their claims that they were speaking truth to power, and that power was aligned against them. 

 

https://www.thefire.org/news/blogs/eternally-radical-idea/would-censorship-have-stopped-rise-nazis-part-16-answers

[Spekulatius]

2 hours ago, Charlie said:

 

This is the origin of the conflict. The US administration tries to manipulate other countries politics.

The US administration should care about their own inflected problems (which is all around the world)

and not try to influence ohter countries politics.

That is the same mistake Vance and Musk did.

They didn´t learn anything:

 

 

 

Rubio:

"Germany just gave its spy agency new powers to surveil the opposition. That’s not democracy—it’s tyranny in disguise. What is truly extremist is not the popular AfD—which took second in the recent election—but rather the establishment’s deadly open border immigration policies."

 

Answer from the German Foreign Office:

"This is democracy. This decision is the result of a thorough & independent investigation to protect our Constitution & the rule of law. It is independent courts that will have the final say. We have learnt from our history that rightwing extremism needs to be stopped."

There were no new powers given to the BND (spy agency). There are far bigger issue in the US (patriot act), suppression of the press, pressure on judges  if they do not fit the Trump narrative and also the de facto concentration camps that are outsourced to El Salvador.

[james22]

22 minutes ago, Spooky said:

Aren't you an immigrant from a compatible culture to the US, willing to assimilate?

 

Corrected.

[John Hjorth]

This political immigrant discussion going on here in this topic, is so without shades and nuances, and one-dimensional, as if left-wing equals immigrant friendly, and right-wing is immigrant 'hostile'.

 

I have read here on CofB&F that the Nordic countries by some are considered socialistic.

 

Now what do we have here in Denmark :

 

1. Special income tax treatment of individuals possessing certain skills demanded in the Danish jobmarket who want to work in Denmark, to contribute to drive Danish innovation and growth,

2. Screening of foreigners where a Dane has married a foreigner living outside Denmark [the marriage taken place outside Denmark], and has applied for family gathering in Denmark. So there is no way 'to import' a foreigner from some other place to obtaining Danish welfare in such situation, without the Danish spouse obvoiusly capable of taking care of the immigrant spouse without Danish public support [budgets],

3. 1^st generation crimal immmigrants face a special icing by verdict of criminal actions by perhaps being expelled to where they come from [Certainly not  a new 'Trump-thingy' here].

4. There exist cases here in Denmark, where '2^nd generation criminals' - criminal decendeants of 1^st generation immigrants - have been expelled to the home country of their parents, from the Danish Supreme Court, while the criminals have had Danish citizenship, and have been living in Denmark their whole life. As a Dane, I have a really bad taste in my mouth of treating even criminal persons like that.

Edited May 8, 2025 by John Hjorth

[cubsfan]

51 minutes ago, Dinar said:

Because Germans want Germany to remain Germany and not turn into Afghanistan, Pakistan or Turkey.  Where should the immigrants go?  Back to where they came from.  

 

The globalists want to destroy Europe. We just need to make sure the US learns from Europe's mistakes.