His MAGAsty Meets His Majesty - Trump Thread #163

[Spandauer]

America's very own mad king.
Oh, the irony.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ERYukmba5Vg

Previous thread:
https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/_chat/5518997-schrodingers-strait-trump-thread-162a?page=1

Plus Starmer is respected outside of the UK, not by Trump but that is a positive.

Well, it looks like Pope Leo has survived his 30mins audience with Rubio.

Worth a listen📻
https://www.podbean.com/ea/pb-2c8qd-1ab8c22
The Foreign Affairs Interview | Trump, Putin, and Genghis Khan: A Conversation With Fiona Hill.

Wales Senedd is been voted for today. And it is going to change, a lot.....
There is no way Labour wins, according to the polls.

Scotland, the same for their Parliament.

What you say does apply to England and UK, indeed. I think not even all councils are due elections in England. Is that right?
Sorry for not being clear enough.

I think Northern Ireland are not voting today.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/c7vq8ymm1net

There you can see both Welsh and Scottish Parliaments are voted for today.

It is a test for how the UK Labour party is doing, at national level too.
They will lose, for first time in ever, Wales. As per the polls. And this change is not because of the Welsh Labour members of the Senedd really. Not what polls and voters are stating in general. Appart of a in city reduction of the driving speed limit that has not been well received, Welsh Labour has always been well loved here.

With this, if other Party is elected as a majority and the elected Welsh Senedd First Minister is not Labour, it will mean that Welsh Labour's 100 years of electoral success in Wales will be ending. The longest stay in power of any political party in the world.

Yet, not the whole UK seems to be fully aware of what is going on today.
It is not small fish.

I agree completely. As an aside, I'm just off to vote in my first ever UK election!

Come on the SNP :-)

Maybe we Scots will eventually get voice recognition software that works.

On Trump. A good article on Sky today. I can't link sorry, sky won't work on this OS no more. But basically, the Texas oil field, the Permian Basin, is being fracked to hell just now to get the oil. And the fracking also releases gas, and the oil companies can't give it away. So they flare it. No logistics to move it.

And Trump wants the fracking to increase to get more oil. But the oil companies don't want to, because it costs them money, and also the gas is wasted. And pollution too believe it or not. Totally wasting the gas. They want to leave much of it there so they can get the pipes in for the gas.

So Trump just does not give a fuck.

Also, the fracking is expensive, and is only economically viable in many places, if the oil price is high. Once the gulf comes back online, these wells that Trump is demanding now will be a money drain to the oil companies.

These oil folk know what they are doing. But Trump is trying to override them, cos he is stoopid.

Yes in that the climate is a lot more varied than the UK, so in theory it's possible, they probably grow more gm crops, so hardier with bigger yields. The fertiliser situation throws a real wrench in that scenario, though.

But as long as McDonalds is in business, I don't suppose they care about that.

In making American healthy again news

https://www.latimes.com/science/story/2026-05-06/rfk-hands-major-win-to-indoor-tanning-industry-to-dermatologists-dismay

If you are voting reform, I demand you post your DNA test results. If not voting reform fill yer boots and have fun. If voting SNP, your tenner is in the post, along with your Trump Bingo winnings. And the Trump phone you ordered.

:-)

Well, miners don't get in the sun too often do they.

Getting my coat,

I vaguely remember hearing it said that GCHQ continued to have machines available that used valves.

JFC!

Have a SIL born and brought up in Arizona. Hasn't ever been an avid sun bather just a kid growing up in a very sunny place. As an adult has had at least 3 areas of skin cancer diagnosed and treated on her face and arms.

Yer man is a dangerous idiot.

The irony of course is that MAGA seem to have a dislike of brown people.

Hope your SIL is OK.

HPHT fracking comes at a great cost that is not entirely financial and that is why some communities are so opposed to it. A friend was part of a drilling team fracking in England that was a political hot potato because of residents' opposition. He didn't want anyone to know where he was drilling.

My family in Alberta hate their gov't's anti-fracking policy and are total Trump supporters solely based on this one issue.
A close family member has done hpht fracking and when I asked about contamination the response was that the water and chemicals injected has to go somewhere...

The approach to fracking there has been likened to the “Wild West.” Unlike in British Columbia and Alberta, for example, there is no requirement in Saskatchewan or Manitoba to disclose the contents of the chemicals in the fracking fluids. There isn’t much active public opposition to fracking in either province, although last summer’s Husky Oil spill in the North Saskatchewan River has led to calls for better oversight.
...
These days the biggest risks aren’t from the actual drilling, because drilling generally happens at least 1.5 km underground. Rather, the concerns are primarily over leaks of fracking fluids in cement well casings; the discharge and disposal of fracking wastewater, which has been found to contain cancer-causing chemicals and is often injected into other wells; and spills during collection, processing and transport.
These concerns were confirmed in a recent U.S. EPA report, which found examples of drinking water contamination at various stages of the fracking process, despite a recent study that found the EPA report vastly undercounted the number of fracking-related spills.
The EPA noted that “data gaps and uncertainties” limited a full assessment of the risks due in part to insufficient baseline monitoring as well as nondisclosure clauses as part of financial settlements between companies and landowners who report water problems.
https://thenarwhal.ca/what-is-fracking-in-canada/

All this is by the by because Trump and oil companies can't be depended on to do what is the right thing for people or the environment. Bring on renewables!
I guess it's clear where I stand on fracking. Horizontal drilling tho, was a game changer.

North Dome/South Pars is split between Qatari and Iranian waters. Same rocks but developed separately by each Qatar and Iran.
A poor analogy - Think of it as a milkshake split between a pair of kids. Each kid has a straw but one drinks faster. Development in one side can negatively affect the resource in the other which has caused tension. Qatar have developed their side much, much more quickly due to eg lack of sanctions and international input. There is an official line of “cooperation” on a practical/technical level but many noises to the contrary.

Apparently "Project haven't a fucking clue what we're doing but we're buggered" wasn't deemed snappy enough

I must be misunderstanding the situation, but nothing I've found supports Qatar wanting to claim the gas field shared with Iran. After accusations from Iran in the 1980s that Qatar was extracting gas too aggressively from the shared reservoir, they agreed a split. It's a practical arrangement recognizing each side’s sovereign control over the portion in its territorial waters.

From AI

• Reservoirs are not perfectly uniform; rock permeability and compartmentalization matter.
• Both countries produce from different sections and depths.
• Engineers use reservoir models to estimate cross-border movement, but exact amounts are difficult to prove.
• Internationally, this kind of drainage risk is common in shared oil and gas reservoirs.

Iranian officials sometimes argued that Qatar’s higher production reduced pressure on the Qatari side and accelerated migration from Iran’s side.
Some energy analysts consider that plausible in principle, though the exact scale is debated.
This is one reason countries with shared reservoirs sometimes sign “unitization agreements,” where they jointly manage production to avoid disputes and maximize long-term recovery. Qatar and Iran never fully unified operations that way, but they have generally avoided open conflict over the field.

Seeing that Iran had no difficulty in bombing Qatar's LNG storage in retaliation for US attacks, I don't image they'll sit back and have Qatar take over the whole operation. The ramifications will shatter regional GCC security systems.

It's also not a general election. Many many people vote differently in local elections than a general election. The same goes for the Welsh and Scottish elections as well.

It's not that people don't know what is happening, I find those more politically engaged know the above, those who aren't, or who believe the reform and tory rubbish overstating the importance are the ones saying there will be a general election.

We're Northern England and we're not voting today.
We are being given a (metro?) Mayor.
Without consultation.
Isn't that nice?

How in the f*cking hell did this moronic lunatic get to a position of power over anything.

USA = laughing stock

RFK was appointed by an even more moronic fucking lunatic. It's like an MLM of eejits

No elections here in NI. We don't have Reform or Labour or Conservatives or Lib Dems anyway.

This polling link gives a good idea of the drama which is about to unfold in Wales. It is the first election with straightforward (d’Hondt) proportional representation too.
www.pollcheck.co.uk/senedd-polls

Nobody has said it is a general election....
But it is a measure of how well liked the current Labour government leading of UK is.
I am going to link a non UK source and leave it at that.
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2026/5/5/starmers-referendum-how-local-elections-could-expose-a-fractured-uk

We have different opinions.

I think these elections will be a message to Starmer, even if his power in Westminster is not being voted for here. I think that the huge change in the Senedd colours is likely to stay when the general elections come around. And that it is a very important moment, not just a council election day today.

You do not agree.

I just mentioned it in this thread, related to whether we do really have or not have a working democracy. In US, UK or any other nation. What is happening in US could spread and I think it is better to look at our democratic processes closer and assess whether they really represent the citizens and they are, or not, robust enough to weather the times we live in. Maybe we need to change something, before it is too late.
Trump spends quite a bit of time referencing UK politics. But the thread is about Trump, his trumpiness and his War-not-Freedom endevours.
So I will be voting when I get back to my dragon den and leave it there.