Political discussion

[rtt_rules]

but everything he does feels extremely rushed with no real thought or research behind it. Simple as that. If something’s working just fine, he comes along and guts it, then claims he’s fixed it and saved now billions.

Pretty much. The level of lying is beyond belief.

"I've stopped wars you havn't even heard about", seriously. The using the helicopter vs plane crash for political point scoring within a few hours of the crash, seriously.

Still early days, but 538 website USA President approval data which has the history for over 50 years of past Presidents.

Jan 24
Approve 49.7% (Trump is one of few Presidents never achieving +50% on day 1.
Disappove 41.5%

March 4th
Approve / Disapprove ~ 47.6 % both

If Trump pissses enough people off by midterms he will loose control of the house and then just be a ranting puppet going forward. I think this is why he is moving so fast.

Personally I think Trump will drive the USA economy into a recession. Ironically his support base, poor, uneducated etc are the ones who suffer the most as their jobs are first to go, his cuts to health care, they are the biggest users of and education cuts will affect them the most.

If he does bring on a recession then likely follow dictator 101 hand book and start a war.

Musk is going to have his own issues. Early days yet but looks like there is start of global backlash and Tesla sales in decline.

More concerningly for me as a space fan I was really keen on the innovation, development and speed of SpaceX. Potentially if the Dem's win the next election there will be push back / retaliation towards Musk and by default SpaceX which will likely affect the push towards Moon and Mars.

Also if Tesla shares continue to tank, nearly 50% of two months ago this may affect SpaceX cash flow to fund the continued development of Starship.

[MiCCROwavE_OVEN]

I'll be celebrating if News Corp withdraws from the Australian market!

In all seriousness, the US tariffs are only going to push more countries to start sourcing products from other manufacturing superpowers, especially India and China. I don't see anything wrong with products from any of those two countries (as long as it's of sound quality) but it seems a bit counterintuitive for the United States to do so.

Sounds like Trump might have backed down on the tariffs for the moment. I haven't heard much lately on his plans to take over Canada, Greenland and the Panama Canal, and his plan to ethnically cleanse the Gaza Strip seems to be on hold.

I believe it was yesterday Trump said he wanted to renegotiate the border with Canada or something and questioned the validity of various treaties surrounding this. Trump has also made comments in relation to Gaza that verge on being genocidal, something like "If you continue to hold hostages, you are dead". So I don't think they're on hold as such - he's just waiting for the right excuse to carry them out. I hope to god that he doesn't carry out any of those plans though


Haven't heard much of Harris lately, which I find quite unusual, as she didn't suffer that large of a defeat. One would think that she'd capitalise on some of the unpopularity surrounding Trump's actions.

[rtt_rules]

Harris's high profile political career ended in Jan. But then there is this

https://www.ktvu.com/video/1604927
Potentially runing for Govener of Cal.

Trump is very much like Putin, which is why he won't publically critise Putin. He feeds on bull shittting to the peasants who don't know any better and only watch the media that supports him and he's even said it himself the first time round about a sexual what ever case. He can basically say and do what he likes and 35 to 45 % of Americans will still vote for him.

Tariffs are a peasants political tool. Tell people you will tariff XYZ and they are too dumb to actual know any better. Not say all tariffs are bad but mention the word tariffs and you get mostly the uneducated lined up down the street clapping because they don't know their living costs will rise and even if they do its sold under the guise of jobs (which rarely happen) and/or taxing the rich. For example our former car industry suvived largely on tariffs, but it meant almost every other car was more expensive, collectively we drove much older cars and there was no way we could ever justify making models for all use cases. We would basically need just one company making about 5 to 7 models and sell almost nothing else.

While Canada is 70 B in the black to USA in balance of trade it is sitting in the box seat as it sells significant quanties of energy in different forms. So if the USA wants to tariff the car industry, it could easily then apply those say tariffs to export tariffs on the energy sold to usa in gas, oil and electricty. Also there is no way the cars currently exported to the USA would be replaced anytime soon by local production. The car industry simply won't invest with only 3 years to run in his term. It would take longer to build that capacity in the USA. Likewise the aluminium industry.

Yes Trump is using the threat of tariffs to get other wins, there will be some wins for sure. But its a threat you cannot play too often before your bluff gets called.

[rtt_rules]

https://ohiohouse.gov/news/democrat/ohi ... rts-110422

WTF, is this real?

I found a number of similar links.

[MiCCROwavE_OVEN]

I wonder what Trump's motivation for imposing tariffs on Russia would be. Does he genuinely believe that it's gonna bring down costs, or is it a stunt to tell the world that he's not completely eating out of Putin's lap?

I don't mean to attack Donald Trump as a person, moreso questioning his actions. I'm not sure whether Trump has given himself a presidential pardon in relation to his criminal convictions - I can't seem to find any information on the internet at the moment, but if he has done so I reckon that would be the most logical thing he has done so far.

[rtt_rules]

I wonder what Trump's motivation for imposing tariffs on Russia would be. Does he genuinely believe that it's gonna bring down costs, or is it a stunt to tell the world that he's not completely eating out of Putin's lap?

I don't mean to attack Donald Trump as a person, moreso questioning his actions. I'm not sure whether Trump has given himself a presidential pardon in relation to his criminal convictions - I can't seem to find any information on the internet at the moment, but if he has done so I reckon that would be the most logical thing he has done so far.

I saw a few interesting videos and posts on this prior to the election and the view was that he could but unlikely will.

SUPPORTERS OF PRESIDENTIAL SELF-PARDONING ARGUE
The U.S. Constitution grants the president nearly absolute pardoning power. If the framers of the U.S. Constitution had wished to prohibit self-pardoning, they would have done so explicitly. If presidents commit crimes, it is Congress’s job to remove them from office through impeachment.

OPPONENTS OF PRESIDENTIAL SELF-PARDONING ARGUE
The U.S. Constitution does not grant presidents the power to pardon themselves. A self-pardon would be just the kind of abuse of power the framers intended to avoid. No one is above the law, and pardoning oneself for a crime would constitute a president’s failure to execute the nation’s laws.

If he does do it, I'd say he will do it on the last day such that it hits the media after he left office, a bit like Biden did on his last day with equally questionable pardons.

Side track : the fact that the USA President can wave their magic hand and pardon people from the justice system demonstrates why the USA is not a true democracy.

One USA Lawyer I watched indicated that once Trump became President elect, he will never serve any jail time for any conviction, past present or likely future as this would impact on his Presidential duties while in power and once he leaves office a combination of his age and his status as "President" will prevent any jail time.

Regarding Sanctions against Russia
This has nothing to do about costs. I believe that he needs to be seen to do something as he just abandoned Ukraine to the whimps of Putin which isn't a good look and polls support this and note Putin has recently upped his attacks on Ukraine.

Trump won't talk to Zelenskyy as this requires either of the two to apoligise and the world knows Trump & JD needs to apologise and we all know he won't. So his only option to bring a war to an end that he said many times he would do within the first few days of office is to force Putin to the table and he's doing this by both saying he's a great guy and inflicting more economic pain on Russians. However the Russians have proved rather resilant to past sactions to date, but Russian is running out of money, arms and soliders and I'm sure Putin wants this nightmare to end as much as Zelenskyy but it must end on his terms as he needs to save face.

EDIT : I also think Trump dumped the Ukraine problem onto the Europeans (right or wrong), however while the intially looked like a good move for the USA voters, the risk is the Europeans actually find a way to bring the way to an end which will make Trump look like a fool to the USA.

[Heihachi_73]

When tariffs against the US don't work, go a bit further with sanctions and No Fly Zones. Send the Coalition of United Nationalist Terrorist States back to the stone age until Trump has retired or is 1800 millimetres under, whichever comes first.

In the meantime, become friendly with Latin America and help those who actually want to turn their country into a full democracy. The US is not compatible with true democracy as long as FPTP and voter suppression are a thing.

[rtt_rules]

When tariffs against the US don't work, go a bit further with sanctions and No Fly Zones. Send the Coalition of United Nationalist Terrorist States back to the stone age until Trump has retired or is 1800 millimetres under, whichever comes first.

In the meantime, become friendly with Latin America and help those who actually want to turn their country into a full democracy. The US is not compatible with true democracy as long as FPTP and voter suppression are a thing.

Tariffs are often a build up to war.

I think Trump has a 50% chance in completing his 4 years.

[MiCCROwavE_OVEN]

OPPONENTS OF PRESIDENTIAL SELF-PARDONING ARGUE
The U.S. Constitution does not grant presidents the power to pardon themselves. A self-pardon would be just the kind of abuse of power the framers intended to avoid. No one is above the law, and pardoning oneself for a crime would constitute a president’s failure to execute the nation’s laws.[/i]

I believe the Supreme Court recently (a few months ago) ruled that President Trump was, in fact, above the law.

Didn't Biden also give himself presidential immunity for any future crimes? I agree that Biden's pardons are questionable, but at the same time I can also see why he did it (considering what happened on January 6th 2021)

[rtt_rules]

As far as I can find Biden didn't pardon himself and there was a reference that Trumo even had a go at him for not.

List of Pardon's by President.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_p ... ted_States

Biden has pardoned more than 5 x that of Trump 1.0 and 2.0 to date. 6500 of the 8064 being for dope.

Of Trump's total 1700 pardon's, 1500 are Capitol Hill attack pardons.

[rtt_rules]

I could be wrong but is Dutton quietly moving away from Trump Light style politics / approach ?

[rtt_rules]

Opinion polls seems to be softening for the Opposition to be less clear on who would win, perhaps the Trump affect is hitting Australia and what we don't want.

We seem to be again heading down the path of the winner is unlikely to win because of popularity but because the other was less popular ie 2022 election repeat.

At the last election ALBO had one of the lowest primary votes on record, so low that in the previous 35 years I flicked through I couldn't find an opposition who lost with less than ABLO percentage primary vote win and that included, Rudd 2.0 and Hewson.

[rtt_rules]

I think you’ll find that is the truth. Your gaslighting vibes don’t help. DEI led to this. Thank goodness it stands for Donald Ended It.

Unfortunately this misinformation you have been spreading on this unfortunate incident appear to be further from the truth than we all knew previously. NTSB has issued a prelimary report and we assume that the outcome has not been influenced by the POTUS, any member of govt or even DOGE.

NTSB report indicates the route that military helicopters have been flying for over 20 years has a history of "near misses" and/or "excursions out of the designated route" when runways 15 and 33 are in use.

Max height allowed is 200', leaving just 75' of vertical seperation.

At least one previous "collision avoidance system" trigger PER MONTH.

In over half the encouters the helicopter was above the 200 ft limit.

2/3 of the events happened at night.

Between Oct 2021 and Dec 24 there was over 15,214 close proximity events between heli's and planes where lat sep was < 1 Nm or 6000 ' or 600 ' vertical sep. 85 events of less than 1500 ' lat and 200 ' vert.

NTSB report indicates the route should never have been approved and that it should closed permanently (currently temporarily)

NTSB is using AI to search for other hotspots in the USA.

NTSB reports the collision occured at 325 ', 125 ' above its 200 ' limit, however the CVR indicated that the two different altitude systems on the heli may have been in conflict which caused the heli to be too high. The crew was highly experienced with the supervising pilot (white male as for some reasons these things matter these days) with nearly 20 years experience.

While the propbably cause for the crash is still pending and will take another year, what it did say was contray to what uncle Donald and our friend above posting seems to think, no where in the NTSB report does it indicate for the crew of both aircraft and ATC did
- colour of skin had an impact on the outcome
- Persons genetic heritage had an impact on the outcome
- Ability to speak other languages due to cultural background of parents impact on the outcome
- Owning a pair of boobs, or not not owning a pair of boobs had an impact on the outcome
- Length of hair or wearing of make-up or not wearing of makeup impact on the outcome
- Any crew or ATC were mentally or physically capacity constrained compared to other staff

Finally and FFS, when ever Marine One (POTUS helicopter) or AF1 (POTUS plane) used this route or flew over this route, all other the air traffic was closed, "for safety purposes".

Hopefully this closes the sad matter of DEI being used as an excuse for every little thing that Uncle Donald says it did.

[rtt_rules]

Perhaps one way to resolve the tariffs issue is to cancel upcoming military orders from USA and more towards buying from the EU which is what others have done over the last few years when the USA does things not to their likely. The sub deal maybe a good place to start.

[MiCCROwavE_OVEN]

I don't think Albo will be willing to jeopardise AUKUS because of Trump's tariffs. Retaliating against Trump's tariffs isn't a smart thing to do, as Trump will reciprocate - I believe he imposed a 200% tax on alcoholic products from the EU in response to the latter introducing a 50% tariff on US whiskey, which was imposed in response to Trump's metal tariffs. (Whether Trump's response is disproportionate or not is another story in itself)

Staying submissive to the US is likely to be the best thing for Albanese going into the federal election as well - I imagine Peter Dutton would have plenty to say if Australia moved their subs! Don't think France will be too willing to make subs for us either...

[rtt_rules]

I don't think Albo will be willing to jeopardise AUKUS because of Trump's tariffs. Retaliating against Trump's tariffs isn't a smart thing to do, as Trump will reciprocate - I believe he imposed a 200% tax on alcoholic products from the EU in response to the latter introducing a 50% tariff on US whiskey, which was imposed in response to Trump's metal tariffs. (Whether Trump's response is disproportionate or not is another story in itself)

Staying submissive to the US is likely to be the best thing for Albanese going into the federal election as well - I imagine Peter Dutton would have plenty to say if Australia moved their subs! Don't think France will be too willing to make subs for us either...

True, there are also other options.

https://www.independent.co.uk/bulletin/ ... 18770.html

Both Canada and Portugal currently reviewing their commitment to buying F-35's and replacing with Euro fighter

[Campbelltown busboy]

A certain Russian political figure is saying no to Trump when it comes to a cease fire in Ukraine which is starting to make Trump angry

[rtt_rules]

A certain Russian political figure is saying no to Trump when it comes to a cease fire in Ukraine which is starting to make Trump angry

Yes, Putin has basically said no ansd Gazan civilians are now doing more to oust Hamas than Trump.

All these wars that he said he would end on day 1 (yes we know more a figure of speech, but Trump normally doesn't do these well) but it is now getting to 10 weeks since he took over and little has changed.

Tomorrow is Tariff D day so assume the worst and expect the worst is the best approach.

I just got back from the USA on a conference (I work in aluminium) and met a gun carrying carbon plant superintendent from Sebree Smelter in Kentucty. even he thinks Trump's tariff approach is stupid and clearly shows Trump doesn't understand the problem.

Interestingly we also sat next to a group of women on a hens night from Washington DC, this lady works on the USA side of the ANKUS project. She works for the navy in a technical role, but not navy personal but still a federal govt public servant. Her Manager has advised their team that their roles are not safe. I said if your team goes what happens to the ANKUS project. Her answer, then it will be a case of "what project". She is also concerns that Australia may walk away from the project as part of retailiation (I think unlikely) if hit with significant tariffs.

Overall I think if the tariffs are globally bad enough we could see a untied anti-USA movement at govt as well as non govt level. Canadian's have sort of started, how far could it go.

Australia imports USD 31 B and exports USD 13 B to USA. We have more to gain than loose however admittly many of the imports are harder to replace than others. NW Iron ore locos being case in point and if Airbus knows it becomes a sole source supplier, prices will rise.

One thing for sure, AUSFTA is now likely nullified.
The Australia-United States Free Trade Agreement (AUSFTA) underpins the trade relationship between the two countries

[Campbelltown busboy]

Big Pharma want Trump to put tariffs on drug imports to Australia because they don't like how how our PBS stops them from lining their pockets with more money

[Campbelltown busboy]

Stuff only a majority in the house of reps the PM would be pushing for a majority in the senate as wel so all his policies go though both Houses of Parliament without any issues

[rtt_rules]

It would appear (if correct) Trump backed away from the tariffs (which he called a 90 day pause) because he had a long queue of Republican's lined up telling him to stop.

Issues raised,
- loss of savings
- fear for the economy
- early signs of large scale job cuts were about to start
- expectation for inflation to rise

However he still had to have a win, so China got more and of course they have gone tit for tat with excemptions appiled to many items Americans need.

Now we are hearing that tariffs may now be product / industry focused and/or American companies can apply for excemptions on the basis that it would put jobs and competitiveness at risk, so basically back to where we are at in 2017 to 2019 with added buracuacy.

To be clear, I personally have no issue with Americans making more of their own products and yes any country should defend / protect its own industrys where foreign countries have their own protection against the same industry. But you need to understand why many products are no longer made or made in reduced volumes to domesitic demand and focus on the root cause whic all too often its simply gets down to low cost of production being higher than off shore competitor due to higher wages etc.

[Heihachi_73]

Liberal Party still contributing to global warming by investing in millions of plastic corflute signs, billboards and building-sized LED monitors. In Melbourne the Liberal to any other party advertising ratio is around 100:1, with the TRUMPet of Patriots a distance second with about a 4:1 ratio vs. Labor/Greens whose advertising is virtually nonexistent throughout suburban Melbourne.

In brighter news, someone has already defaced a gigantic TRUMPet billboard on Hoddle St.

[MiCCROwavE_OVEN]

I will never forget Clive Palmer introducing his party as the "Trumpet of Parrots".
As a NSW/Sydney resident I haven't heard much of the Trumpet of Patriots other than their pesky campaign ads that look to be AI generated and don't make much sense. Unlike Labor, the Liberals and the Greens, the Trumpet of Patriots don't seem to have announced any groundbreaking policies or anything, and I haven't heard much of One Nation either.

I've seen Liberal trucks and trailers driving around with giant campaign ads around the Epping (Sydney) area in recent days, which I've never seen in real life before - it seems the Liberals are really desperate to win this year. I've only seen two Labor campaign posters around at the moment, while Liberal posters seem to be everywhere (I travel around much of North-West Sydney and the North Shore on a regular basis). I do live in an electorate that has had a safe Liberal margin in both state and federal elections for as long as I can remember, so that might be part of the reason.