The Reaper Should Have Gone To SpecSavers - Trump Thread #168

[Spandauer]

Surely it's time.

Trump’s Final Term Ends in: - Countdown Timer

Previous thread:
https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/_chat/5551862-oh-peacemaker-peacemaker-make-me-some-peace-trump-thread-167

Came across this on another thread. I think we know who it could apply to!
Unskilled and unaware of it: how difficulties in recognizing one's own incompetence lead to inflated self-assessments
pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/10626367/

It's because the US fired on a ship exiting the Strait.

I'm much the lurker on this thread. And most of what needs saying is already said but I heard this said by a very famous TV character a long time ago and thought it bears repeating here for obvious reasons:

'The very powerful and the very stupid have one thing in common. They don't alter their views to fit the facts, they alter the facts to fit their views. Which can be very uncomfortable if you happen to be a fact that needs altering.'

Said by Tom Baker's Dr Who in 1976. DP was watching old episodes and that really grabbed me 50 years later.

Excellent first post @Laughingravy

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/aug/10/trump-secret-flight-nato-return

I can't see how this can possibly be true. If the threat was 'credible', as is being stated, then why would they put the lives of so many people at risk by allowing it to continue on its journey?

Not true as in it never happened at all, or not true in that it did happen but was a stunt ?

I would say the latter, but maybe Trump saw the initial reaction to the UK detour and saw it was negative to his new plane... so silence.

You aren't supposed to ask questions like that.

Like those horrible people who will insist on spoiling a good argument with facts. (grin)

I'm incline to think that it wasn't a stunt (they tried to keep it a secret), but as Trump's security team said, other people aren't its responsibility. Shame they didn't give the little, insignificant people the option to decide whether they wanted to be used as a decoy or not.

Coventry

If you mean HMS Coventry, the sailors all signed up for active duty.

If Coventry, the city, then the decoy Starfish sites were created after the bombing of the city and sited away from the places they were intended to protect.

it's about how unknowing civilians can become expendable at any time in the pursuit of a greater good.

I would say the latter but I'd like to hear what any of the journos onboard have to say about it.

My mum was working as a medical officer in a Coventry factory in November 1940, during the "blitz" bombing.

I'm fairly sure she felt that winning the war and defeating the Nazis was important. She might even have asked how the hell anyone could have evacuated Coventry at one day's notice without the Germans noticing and going all out to find out why it had been done and how the British had known about those raids in advance (which in fact they hadn't: they knew there was going to be a huge raid on a Midlands industrial town or city, but not which one), thus blowing wide open the fact that the Enigma code had been compromised. She might even have felt that although her life was at risk, that was not in fact a Higher Command decision and in any case it was more important to defeat what she certainly saw as an evil regime than for her life to be saved.

Winterbotham has a lot to answer for.

Trump did address that. I can't direct quote cos I can't remember where I saw it.

Paraphrase : " If I go you go, Consider another job"

I thought... wow... fair enough.

Gulp. I need a beer after saying that :-)

Ahh wait no. Because they would have gone and he would be safe. Yeah, he is still a knob. Hmmmm.. yeah, gonna have that beer anyway.

TL;DR: it's complicated.

Either the threat was credible and Trump was a coward who hid in a catering cart and left innocent people to face a threat they knew nothing about- a threat he was to scared to face so he legged it as far away as possible, or the whole thing was a stunt because he's a wanker who thinks the peception of having people try to kill him makes him important and brave.

Neither of these is a good trait in a human being, and it's exceptionally shit in a president.

Oh, complicated for sure... One can take as gospel the word of one individual, or one can take the words of several dozen individuals who were also there and who don't go along with his account of things. Intensely complicated.

For some reason this seems a juxtaposition of these subjects

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cm2gp3zmkpmo

I can only speak for myself, but it sad and poignant.

Exactly. Also I can't see any pilot willing to fly a plane knowing that there is a credible risk to all those on board. Which then raises the question of whether they were even told? That sounds preposterous but I just wouldn't put anything past them at all.

Note: I'm not one for conspiracy theories but nothing Trump and his cronies do surprises me any more.

Agreed. I'm thinking it was an attempt to make him look like some sort of hero. Perhaps he thought he was starring on a new Die Hard film? He's not exactly Bruce Willis though.

I can't see any pilot willing to fly a plane knowing that there is a credible risk to all those on board.

Or on the ground, if the plane "does a Lockerbie".

And yet it apparently hasn't occurred to him that his 'bestie', Scrotus, has not offered to bail him out financially, not even a teeny, weeny, bit.

I'm sure Mr Pillow Man is now on Scrotus' "Who? I don't know him. Maybe I met him, but I never met him" list.

Some of us remember how after 9/11 a lot of US action heroes refused to fly to Europe.

Bruce Willis being one. My memory was he appeared via videolink to the London Film Festival and was roundly jeered

(On the day of 9/11 part of my team were in Frankfurt and grounded. There were jokes to the office about having to prepare Tom, Dick and Harry if it went on too long).

Because Scrotus doesn't give a shit about anyone but himself. No different than others who have used 'human shields' in the past to guard themselves.

Scrotus hates the media, at least most of it. And he wouldn't shed one sincere tear I am wondering if there were any Fox/OAN and that ilk reporters on that plane or if they 'found reasons' were tipped off not to board the plane.

Apparently Rubio & Bessette (sp?) were the sacrificial lambs on the 'decoy' plane and aware that Scrotus was flying on the smaller one. Kegsbreath & some other of the 'inner circle' were also on the smaller plane so I guess they're better arselickers 'more in favour'.