Is anyone watching this Trump car crash?

[soundsys]

WTF is happening? It’s like some bizarre performance art piece.

He’s holding up signs and shouting and throwing out hats it’s just 🤯

I've said this before on other threads, but I would bet money that there are not going to be any midterm elections in the US, nor presidential elections in 2028. Democracy in the US is essentially dead.

I think that you're conflating a couple of things in your posts (not just the one I'm quoting, but others).

First, there's legal aid and, second, there's the costs of housing asylum seekers.

Asylum applications currently take up a quarter of the legal aid budget. That is quite a high proportion, caused by a combination of the increased number of asylum seekers and the cuts to legal aid that occurred during the 2010s. I don't have any issue with legal aid being used to fund asylum claims (how else could they be funded) but I would like to see legal aid (re-)expanded.

The costs of housing refugees comes from the foreign aid budget. The Conservatives passed a law in 2015 requiring that at least 0.5% of government spending is on foreign aid (although the UK was already meeting that target when the law was introduced). The costs of housing refugees, then, is not money that would otherwise be spent domestically.

In any event, the European Convention on Human Rights is the primary reason we have enshrined human rights in the UK and means that, if the Government violates our human rights, we can take them to the ECtHR. I think this is an extremely important protection. It has led to:

• the protection of the free press - journalists can't be forced to reveal sources, and can publish details of cases (despite a UK court injunction) if it's in the public interest (this came out of the thalidomide scandal),

• the decriminilaztion of homosexuality (in NI),

• the overturn of the ban of LGBT people serving in the military,

• the overturn of the governments policy on retaining DNA profiles of people accused but found not guilty of crimes,

• the requirement that the police get a court warrant before hacking/bugging our phones,

• the outlawing of modern slavery (whilst instances could often be captured under existing laws, modern slavery was not a crime in and of itself),

• banning employers from secretly monitoring your calls and emails and conducting surveillance on your in and outside of the workplace,

• banning indiscriminate use of stop-and-search where the police had no grounds whatsoever for any suspicion.

Even if you don't really want to allow a single asylum seeker into the country, I think anyone should be able to recognize the risks of waiving goodbye to our human rights protections. I fear that the sorts of politicians who use refugees as a reason to leave the ECtHR might have other goals in mind.

It's fucking scary how quickly this has been normalised. Western leaders, including our own, are being so timid in their criticism of what is essentially now an elected dictatorship led by a malevolent toddler.

I think there will be elections, but they'll feature increased means of voters suppression and, if they go against Trump, the outcomes will be heavily challenged or totally ignored.

I'm not certain US democracy is already dead, but it might be.

The SAVE act has been passed and is going to disenfranchise millions. One tiny silver lining: Many will be Trump voters.

It's passed the House but not the Senate. Because it's non-budgetary in nature, it needs to reach the 60 vote threshold (e.g., if every Republican votes for it, they still need 7 Dems to cross the aisle).

Realistically, they'd need to remove the filibuster and I'm not sure how easily they can achieve that.

Oh, I see Trump has just confirmed his administration will ignore the unanimous Supreme Court order to facilitate the return of an innocent man wrongly deported to El Salvador.

Okay, US democracy is probably dead.

Wait for the false flag incident in a few weeks, which Trump will use as an excuse to invoke the National Emergencies Act of 1976.

They’re going to have to put a poultice on the doorstep of the White House to draw that fucker out like the septic boil that he is.

And Trump caught on a hot mic, confirming to El Salvador's president that they'll start deporting US citizens to El Salvadorian prisons.

A reminder that recent deportations have been made without so much as a hearing. I think we can reasonably expect Trump critics to start being summarily imprisoned in El Salvador before too long.

Yes, I am very worried about that... I only hope that the tariff fuck up will galvanise enough people against this administration before that happens.

Dem Arizona Senator Mark Kelly was not mincing his words yesterday but he did admit his party sucked at rallying the crowds and getting the message across:

I've got a horrible feeling that the Orange One believes that It will be OK for Russia to pursue the 'Gaza Solution' in Ukraine and will ignore the 'mistakes' or 'accidents' as long as possible. It will be part of his punishment for Zelensky for defying his Orange will. Just awful. Poor Ukrainians. Poor Palestinians. All toys in the Big Boys games.

You aren’t well versed in Christianity are you?
Jesus wasn’t executed the day after Palm Sunday. He was executed on Good Friday, at the end of the week. It’s pretty much the whole concept of Holy Week - I’m an atheist and I know that.

Yes i agree, Trump can and will do anything to stay in power, he would have seized power through violence in 2020 if he could have... watching the news on El Salvador/US prisoners is unbelievable, something out of Russia or China.

The US is also playing the UK, Vance saying we are close to a trade deal... bull shit... its all rubbish, just talk to keep us on side whilst Trump sucks up to Putin, who can do no wrong in the eyes of the US Govt.

Why can't the UK get a fucking back bone?

I wonder what it will take for the government to be as outspoken as Mark Carney and Macron. The 'special relationship' has gone and I can't see it coming back.

I presume that as Trump is motivated by greed, spite, cruelty and vanity, the UK government is trying not to make things worse as any criticism, however justified and however mild, will provoke a ridiculous retaliation.

God knows what will happen if and when he comes on the State Visit with the King.

Sucking up to people like Trump doesn't work, they see it as weakness, Trump first backed down on tariffs when the EU announced tariffs on US goods, he backed down again when China ramped up tariffs... the UK has got no special deal on tariffs & Trump hasn't put punitive tariffs on the EU...

..and it wont get one unless we back down even further, allowing in their food products and access to the NHS but even then, he'll demand more.

See how he fawns over Putin? seen as a strong man in a strong position... Zelenskyy on the other hand.... we are just another weak country, isolated out of the EU.

Look how China treats us? because we never ever stand up to these people.

We could start with cancelling the state visit and throwing our lot in with the EU.

There could be a Trump announcement on Pharma tariffs today.

The chief executive of pharmaceutical company Nutriband tells the BBC “people are going to die", if the cost of treatment rises due to tariffs.

Don't cancel the visit. Bigly covets it; keep him dangling and distant with his majesty's health unfortunately preventing commitment to a definite date. And dust off the Bigly Baby Balloon. Order many more.

Would you have preferred I went through the whole trial?

It was not intended to be any more than an illustration in point. Jesus was executed by the very people who had previously hailed him and honoured him.

Americans voted for Trump. America had been helping Ukraine protect itself. Then Trump came and withdrew that aid, so that the very people who were helping the Ukrainians, were killing them soon after.

He knew - must have known - that Russia would step up the attack. Ukraine had no communications, which had been broken off by America. The Americans wanted the wealth of Ukraine - the rare mineral rights, and had the hump when they didn't get them.

Since America withdrew the aid, more Ukrainian civilians have been killed. ''Christ is crucified every day''.

America didn't even give him a trial. The announcement of the withdrawal of aid was not debated. At least Jesus had a trial.

The news that the Americans supported everything Trump has done so far says it all. The Americans elected him to represent them. They have to agree with him. That is democracy, that you accept who you voted for until such time as you can change it.

If you cannot see the similarity then I am sorry for you.

Not sure if 😂 or 😱 @llizzie

I would re read your New Testament if i were you @llizzie

You know how insulting that is? I studied scripture 5 years. My late husband was an Anglican priest, an Oxford scholar with a BA and four Masters. He taught priests. His commentaries are still on University book lists. He translated from the original Greek, Latin and Hebrew. He also translated from Aramaic, and knew the European languages.

I bear his name, a wonderful man, and would do nothing to disgrace it.

Trump represents the American people. They elected him. Whatever he says and does is on behalf of the American people. The American people withdrew the military aid from Ukraine, knowing that Putin would increase the bombing and killing.

We don't know what Trump and his envoys said in Saudi and over the telephone. We do know that AS SOON AS HE COULD - 'next day' - he removed the aid, and the way the Ukrainian military could locate the Russian soldiers. All that IN THE NAME OF the American people, and still they hail him as right.

I deliberately wrote ''the next day' to illustrate that the people who honoured Jesus were the same as denounced him. The similarity needed to be stark, for Trump and the American people to understand what they have done: every Ukrainian citizen who died since America withdrew the aid can be said to have been murdered by America.

If I had said ''a week later'', and God knows I know that - would the effect have been the same, after all, the Americans didn't take back the aid the next day, did they?

To take it any other way is an admission of ignorance. Jesus taught in parables. In a way, my post is in the form of a parable, in that it illustrates a point which is very valid today, that someone can cause the deaths of people simply by not helping them.

I don't mean to insult anyone but its not scriptural to say his former admirers crucified Christ, the Romans killed him, Pilate never believed in Christ...under pressure from Jewish leaders, who hated Jesus.. remember the over throwing of the money lenders in the synagogue?

It is true that one disciple gave up Jesus and that Peter (i think) denied him 3 times after his arrest.

As for you speaking in parable's ... i wont comment on that.

Well, firstly what Trump is doing is not on behalf of all American people. He may say it is, but those who came out and voted against him can legitimately say he is not doing this on their behalf.

Secondly, I don't see the relevance of the Scriptural example you are quoting here. Trump is throwing Ukraine under the bus. He is Putin's little poodle. We knew he would be. He started the process of sitting all over Ukraine pretty much when he was inaugurated, so late January and nowhere near Easter.

Trump now blaming Zelenskyy for starting the war, its now beyond a joke, we need to cut our ties with the USA as soon as we can.

The last thing we need is a fucking trade deal with the USA, not worth the paper its written on... Trump will just rip it up as when it suits him or ignore it terms, as he has with other countries.