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Trump Overreach? – politicalbetting.com
Trump Overreach? – politicalbetting.com
We are only seven weeks into Donald Trump’s second term of office. It is difficult to grasp that small handful of a figure given the torrent of executive orders, firings, reorganizations, torn international treaties and social media mayhem. For those with the stomach to try and follow the day-to-day progress of Trump 2.0, it is head spinning and nauseating work.
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Meanwhile, Republicans are not going to rediscover their voice. They are terrified that is they speak up, J6 fans are going to assault them
Why all the Twitter outages today, that Musk has said nothing on ? Is some intelligence agency or other testing their ability to shut it ?
Love the John McCain quote by the way.
It has been suggested that SpaceX should take over maintenance of Air Force One
What are the probabilities/possibilities in the medium term term for USA post 20 January 2025. Here are five:
1 Trump over time remains weird but normalises.
2 Slow boiling frog: carry on as if this is a normal regime but weird, gradually tightening the screw but, eg, don't invade Canada. NATO debilitated but not abolished. Free and fair elections continue.
3 Quicker boiling frog: we end up where it appears rational to MAGA to literally invade Canada. NATO stuffed. Elections rigged.
4 Proper Trumpist coup: we wake up one day and find MSNBC, NYT, WSJ are closed, internet is down and Jon Stewart is in prison, elections cancelled, army on the street
5 Proper counter coup: We wake up one day and find airports closed, media outlets occupied, Trump and Musk etc arrested and army on the street.
Of these 5, assuming they cover the terrain, I would put the % at about 5% 35% 25% 20% 15%. Thoughts?
You are probably anti immigration and approve of his deportations (but welcome his offer of visas to South African white farmers), are anti woke and distrust DC so like Musk's slashing of the Federal government and Trump's ending EDI and also likely couldn't give a toss about Ukraine which in your view is just one white European nation fighting another white European nation and the US could spend money at home rather than send more to Zelensky. You may also be a white evangelical Christian and pro Israel so would be happy if Trump's resorts took over Gaza and replaced Hamas.
Where it might impact is independents, especially if cost of living rises with the tariffs. The management of midterm elections is the responsibility of Congress not the President
Might take some time for that to become too big to ignore
Had to block a whole series of MAGA crap, for the first time in a month.
https://thehill.com/homenews/5185617-trump-threatens-midterm-elections/
...Former Rep. Joe Walsh (III.), an ex-GOP member-turned-pundit, speculated Sunday that President Trump could “stop” the midterm elections scheduled for next fall, or even run for president again in 2028.
“He tried to overthrow an American election four years ago. I have no doubt that he could try to stop the midterm elections,” Walsh said of Trump during an appearance on MSNBC.
Speaking on “Inside with Jen Psaki,” Walsh, who was a presidential candidate in 2020, said Trump poses a threat to America’s democracy.
“You either believe, in this moment, that he is a threat to our democracy, or you don’t,” Walsh said. “Stop there. There’s nothing else to speak about.”..
5 minutes.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_5VxZqamfzM
Probably not. But this assumes that person's view matters. If/when the Trumpist revolution fails the counter revolution likely will come from internal players previously aligned with Trump who decide enough's enough.
6 - Trump exits early, either by medical event eg heart attack, insider manipulation (eg Article 25), assassination, impeachment, resignation.
(And note that Bluesky is still up)
Aaron Rupar @atrupar.com
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10m
GOP Rep. Don Bacon: "We were the leader of the free world, but it appears to many leaders and people all over, to include Republicans in Nebraska, that this administration is walking away from that legacy."
https://bsky.app/profile/atrupar.com/post/3ljzv6ex4e62k
There is zero chance he wasn't aware of all this.
Deleted tweets show top State Department official spread false rumor about Rubio’s sexuality, called him ‘low IQ’
https://edition.cnn.com/2025/03/10/politics/darren-beattie-marco-rubio-deleted-tweets-kfile/index.html
A top acting State Department official deleted at least half a dozen tweets that ridiculed his now boss, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, including ones calling him “low IQ” and repeating a false rumor about Rubio’s sexuality.
The deleted tweets from Darren Beattie, the acting under secretary of state for public diplomacy, were uncovered as part of a CNN review of his social media and include a mixture of insults and harsh attacks against Rubio.
Beattie, who was fired from his role as a speechwriter during the first Trump administration after CNN’s KFile revealed he attended a conference featuring White nationalists, made a series of attacks over the years against other Republicans, including a number of offensive, homophobic and racist comments.
Though Beattie left up several of his most inflammatory posts, he does appear to have purged criticism of Rubio from his feed. Beattie deleted tweets suggesting a deep hostility toward Rubio — particularly after the then-senator voted to certify the 2020 election results and condemned the January 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol. One deleted tweet also attacked Rubio for criticizing possible Russian actions in Ukraine.
After being ousted from the Trump White House in 2018, Beattie launched Revolver News, a far-right media outlet that has spread conspiracies regarding the January 6 attack. The website has boosted false claims that federal agencies orchestrated aspects of the attack and that extremist groups involved were under government control.
In a tweet that was removed for violating Twitter’s terms of service, on the day Roe v. Wade was overturned, Revolver News posted about shooting women who get abortions.
“BREAKING: It’s now legal to shoot women having abortions in New York City with your Supreme Court-issued concealed handgun,” read the post.
Beattie’s appointment fueled outrage, with Democrats calling for his removal over his history of racist and misogynistic tweets and posts that denied the Uyghur genocide in China — most of which are still on his public X account.
In response to a series of questions from CNN, Beattie responded, “Secretary Rubio is 100 percent America First and it’s a tremendous honor to work for him in advancing President Trump’s world historical agenda.”..
Midterms are all about turning out the committed supporters; energising the base. Democrats are already angry about how little pushback their representatives are offering.
This 2016 video is just an incredible two minutes. Every second of it. It will be in the documentary.
https://x.com/jason_kint/status/1898914327882551312
I mean, there are good justifications for not having all lines of opposition running through a single person (including that the American system isn't meant to have all lines of government running through a single person to try and prevent... what seems to be happening). But leading the opposition is a dignified and honourable thing in a democracy. And right now, it's an obvious lack in the US setup.
The Dems should simply refuse to vote for anything which isn't a clean continuing resolution.
The virtual town halls are getting many, many thousands.
This fire may yet consume the Republicans without the Dems needing to do a damn thing.
He suggests that the issue is that the shock is taking time to get through. There are indeed many demonstrations taking place, though not widely reported, and the GOP town meetings are descending into open rebellion.
He believes that if Europe can do the right thing and save Ukraine, then the opposition to Trump will grow so strong that he cannot avoid the midterms which will be a crushing disaster for Trump. However if Trump even tries to suspend the elections, he will be removed from office immediately.
I see that Peter Zeihan and now increasingly many others are suggesting that Trump really is compromised by Putin and that may be a straw in the wind. '
By pushing back against Russia in Ukraine we are also reinforcing against the Quislings in Washington.
The situation is moving fast, and the damage being done to the USA could reach a full blown crisis even as early as this Summer.
The real conservatives are as shocked at the current turn of events as anyone else. I note that, as always, Liz Truss has backed the wrong horse. The fate of Trump could be the same as Truss, just on a slower but more dramatic timeline.
He was pretty pissed off about the stupid protests by Dem house members with their little signs during state of the union.
It's not about floating voters who heard something on the news. If you don't turn out your base you're dead. Democrats need to be making noise, rather than genteelly debating what tactics to adopt in a futile vote against the GOP majority in Congress.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-14482397/Stricken-oil-tanker-essential-US-national-security-US-flagged-vessel-supplies-military-carrying-jet-fuel-hit-cargo-ship-burst-flames.html
I can only hope that this is a lesson to the west and our politicians that we have to come together across our precious world to combine and fight this toxicity collectively and unified
It means the EU, UK, Canada, Iceland Norway and even Australia, NZ, Japan and Asia urgently cooperating on defence and in time as a large trading block to everyone's benefit, apart from the US and Russia
I do have concern for children, who may well be very frightened, by what they are hearing and they need their parents to ensure they are reassured and try to keep some of the terrifying stories in the media away from them
The thing with election rigging is its much easier when you win anyway or it's at least close...
Trump: What did he do? Is he disrespecting me? Who are you with?
https://x.com/Acyn/status/1898888628224274448
Great question. Feeble answer.
Anti-Musk demos grow across US as protestors attack Tesla showrooms with Molotov cocktails and guns
With Trump it's been a standard for a long time. Here is a piece about people he called low-IQ or stupid in his first term:
https://archive.is/20250202200833/https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/politics/wp/2018/08/06/the-people-trump-has-called-stupid/
JD Vance used "low-IQ" on Rory Stewart. Are there other times he used it?
One person I note JDV used it on - he called Donald Trump an idiot !
https://archive.is/20250128081038/https://www.reuters.com/world/us/jd-vance-once-compared-trump-hitler-now-they-are-running-mates-2024-07-15/
Where does this language come from? Have they got it from the former IQ Scale used for mental disability eg for Imbecile:
"The word arises from the Latin word imbecillus, meaning weak, or weak-minded.[3] It originally referred to people of the second order in a former and discarded classification of intellectual disability, with a mental age of three to seven years and an IQ of 25–50, above "idiot" (IQ below 25) and below "moron" (IQ of 51–70)."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imbecile
According to wiki, there are still a few leftover fragments in US State Laws.
Given the history of their movement, and of eugenics in the States, I would not be surprised if that is where it come from by some route.
Background:
https://www.eugenicsarchive.ca/encyclopedia?id=53480acd132156674b0002c3
And of course it's part of Leon's pantomime script, here.
Someone mentioned snipers earlier and I wouldn’t put it past Putin to engineer something against Trump’s circle that would be blamed on Ukraine.
I have a Canadian daughter in law of Ukrainian descent
Celebrations all round....
1. Oil price (WTI, Brent crude etc). The lower the price, the less financial muscle Russia has to pursue its war aims - especially relevant if US drops sanctions. Oil has been falling on US recession fears
https://oilprice.com/oil-price-charts/#Brent-Crude
2. World Natural gas price. Ditto for Russia, and it also disproportionately affects European economic performance when it’s high. Currently on a bit of a boom. Though note gas prices are more regional with no global benchmark (below is an average)
https://oilprice.com/oil-price-charts/#Natural-Gas
3. S&P500: measure of confidence in the US economy and stocks, and hence in Trump. Broader based and better indicator than DJIA. Highly volatile the last week, and down 2% today.
https://www.marketwatch.com/investing/index/spx
4. Tesla shares: closest we have to a proxy for confidence in Elon
https://www.marketwatch.com/investing/stock/tsla
5. Rheinmetall shares: the best proxy I can find for US-European decoupling (BAe is too US-exposed, Thales too diversified). They’re up over 100% in the year
https://www.marketwatch.com/investing/stock/rhm?countrycode=xe
Unfortunately US treasuries aren’t really a helpful indicator at the moment because they’re affected in multiple directions by inflation, the deficit, and growth expectations, sometimes in contradictory ways.
Putin is getting everything he wants and all tied up with a nice ribbon and a kiss from Trumpski.
Things have to get bad enough to penetrate that Fox News/Twitter bubble before you will see really big political swings.
Hence his need to handpick who is allowed to ask him anything
The happy people in that case would be the Saudis and Yankee Big Oil (but not Yankee voters....)
So Trump should just let the Ukrainians carry on.
There is a slight complication, which is Iran would benefit.
But that is likely to get remedied when the US and Israel trash Iran in short order as punishment for getting close to a Bomb.
Did I read earlier that MAGA are simply not bothering to hold town halls where they think there will be dissent?
"You've had your chance now we've got the mandate, if you've changed your mind I'm afraid it's too late"
You either let people voice their opinions, or get shot at...
And Musk his oily henchmen in the white suit.
Honestly, people here need to get a grip
The higher value, the greater the hope for the rest of us.
All normalised 100 as of 20 January.
The UK must have been around the halfway point. Convenient point for the Russians, if they wanted to send a message, I suppose.
1.14 to 7.47 since 28/2
https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/ETL.PA/
Just left Ukraine. What I saw proved to me we can’t give up on the Ukrainian people. Everyone wants this war to end, but any agreement has to protect Ukraine’s security and can’t be a giveaway to Putin. Let me tell you about my trip and why it’s important we stand with Ukraine.🧵
https://x.com/SenMarkKelly/status/1898872403175858375
Elon called him a traitor...
In the context of sharply falling sales in Europe and China, and likely similar in certain US states since Musk went full-nutjob, Tesla shares have a long way left to fall before they can start to be supported as a value investment.
Will be a great lesson for business schools in the future as to how to 'Musk' a brand.