JAG

I was a soldier for quite a number of years. Spent considerably more than than 3 months on various "front lines". None of my post involved puffy chests. My long, if not particularly glorious service equipped me with a couple of handy skills. One was the ability to identify a bull<deleted>ter. Trump and Vance are two such. Mind you, they're not exactly unknown on this forum!

I'm (relatively newly) retired. I don't want to see the world, and the western liberal democratic society in which I was raised, and in which I lived and served most of my life destroyed on the altar of one man's amoral intolerant ego, for the benefit of a small handful of extremely rich, and wanting to be yet richer, people. If the damage was limited to the United States, the perhaps I could watch in a more detached manner, but the events of this week, together with his (Trump's) previously expressed intentions towards Greenland/Denmark, Canada and Panama raise global concerns. There is much to find fault in with Western Liberal Society, but of one thing I am certain, it is infinitely better than the alternative proffered by Trump and his MAGA movement. Less philosophically perhaps (?) I have a 19 year old daughter, and I want her to live in a better world.

I think ---- it is a bit suspicious...

Yes, I think, but am not certain, it is some sort of sponsorship deal with one of the Thai Football League teams

Young girl went up to receive Communion at Mass this morning wearing a tee shirt with "Porn Hub" emblazoned on it. Blissful ignorance on her part and her parents.

Of course Trump is a Russian asset! As for IQs, leaving aside his self proclaimed status as a "stable genius", whilst not clever - he was stupid enough to walk into a certain urine stained honey trap after all - he is cunning!

They stopped off at a nearby McDonald's to get the same meal but without having to start with a helping of humble pie.

You mean like the one which "evacuated" from Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan? Tell me, is it standard operating procedure that all US overseas deployments take with them a recording (these days it is an MP3 I suppose) of Bing Crosby "I'm dreaming of a white Christmas"?

"Zelensky - what possessed you?" He knows that Trump intends to carve up Ukraine for his mate Putin. The rump state which will be left will be run by someone put in place by Putin, as the necessary precursor to his next moves, on the three Baltic States, Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia. Knowing that he was not prepared to be browbeaten by Trump or his sidekick, Vance, in what was obviously a planned and rehearsed ambush.

True. But only one side put their biggest donor in the government.

“I’ve known Jeff for 15 years. Terrific guy,” Mr. Trump told New York magazine in 2002. “He’s a lot of fun to be with. It is even said that he likes beautiful women as much as I do, and many of them are on the younger side.”

Pass the sick bucket!

Of course you are. You, or more accurately your multi billionaire supporters, want to get your paws on Ukraine's mineral resources, a significant amount of which lie under the territory which Russia has seized.

What differs is that the United States has a Federal Government and a Federal Legislature. Dismantle the former and emasculate the latter (as rather appears to be a work in progress) and you are left with a collection of separate States. If that becomes the case, what will for example New York and California have in common with Alabama and Wyoming - politically socially and economically nothing at all.

Not a question of revenge. If we give in to Putin's aggression the next crossroads to be mortared will be in Latvia, Estonia, Lithuania, or most probably in the Suwatki Corridor, the bit of Poland which separates Kaliningrad from Belloruss.

They're all utterly barking in their own ways...

I feel sorry for His Majesty, it's not all beer and skittles at the top is it!

I have little time for David Cameron, but didn't he say something very prescient about Twitter: "too many tweets make you a twit" or something along those lines?

The USA sat on the top of that tree because 1945 left it as the only major economic power. Europe was devastated, Russia and the UK worn out, and China was riven by civil war. By the 60s Europe and the UK were up and running again. China has emerged in this century. As @Patong2021 and @soalbundy have pointed out The US practice of short term profits and "vulture capitalism" (wonderful précis that!) has hindered investment to allow for effective competition, and combined with the failings of their educational system ensured that they will fall ever further behind. Their obsession with maintaining a massive military hasn't helped. For sure, their economy is big enough to sustain itself within any barriers it may erect or has already erected, but it will continue to fall behind the rest of the world. It will trundle along in isolation, and isolation will increasingly make it irrelevant to anyone else; perhaps a bit like the Republic of Ireland was until it opened up and joined the EU. Ireland had the vice like grip of the Church, the USA is falling under the vice like grip of the oligarchs. I am unlikely to be around to seethe word in 30 years, but I bet the red hats will have faded!

Eggs are cheaper.

https://images.app.goo.gl/WDUp5sdwf3W4AtF98 That picture is of slaughtered children, mortared at a crossroads whilst fleeing from the Russians. "Got to take the rough with the smooth" You are in a really dark place!

Indeed, although as he found out to his cost, one can lead to the other.

Absolutely, after all, what's a little ethnic cleansing, bombarding civilians and aggressive invasion when it means the invaded, bombarded and ethically cleansed country signs over it's minerals for The Don's pals to get rich on! Still, I suppose it will take the pressure off Canada and Greenland for a couple of years - all hail Putin and Trump, the wise Elder Statesmen of Peace! Don't pause to glance at this link, (https://images.app.goo.gl/WDUp5sdwf3W4AtF98), mere collateral damage in Putin's justifiable actions supported by Trump!

Well that's alright then. After all, a mistake anyone familiar with the way Gaza has been run for the last decades could make. Think no more of it, hey, "HoYo Films", how about a documentary on the effect of white hatred on the beleaguered Pakistani male teen friendly community of Rotherham? Money always available!

Oh yes!