Donald Trump the Megathread part II - mod warnings in OP, Updated 18/03/25

What’s problematic with that statement is that many millions of Americans likely agree with it.

And on another note, Israel bombing West Bank and murdering 100s of people supported by the US - Trump intent on dividing up Ukraine with Putin - all distractions from the economy - keep the fear going so voters will feel beholding to you - Trump mentions WW3 every second day - there’s a playbook here that’s obvious to any school kid who has read 1984- keep the fear and propaganda going so that the citizens have no choice but to totally rely on you

It's a complicated topic. There are many different things claiming to be "digital signatures". Some are probably legally enforceable, and others are more doubtful. Just the other day, I renewed our dog license online, and the last step of it purported to be some kind of digital signature. But, there was no end to end audit trail linking me to whatever it was. So, I would doubt that would be legally enforceable. But, it was only a dog license …

I don’t know about the US, but here, the law only states that signatures can’t be held to be invalid simply because they are in digital form. That says nothing about the minimum standards for them or whether any particular digital signature would stand up in court.

Otoh, there are digital signature mechanisms with a more solid technical basis. Anything based on public key infrastructure, where people and organisations have to identify themselves up front and that fact is certified with electronic certificates etc. is more likely to be a valid digital signature.

The autopen is nothing like a digital signature though. It really is nothing more than a more sophisticated version of photocopying a signature and taping it to a document. It doesn’t address the question at all of whether the person whose signature was used, authorised or knew about it.

That said, the PBS article below does a good job of fact checking Trump’s claims, particularly with respect to the pardons. So long as Biden acknowledges that he actually did mean to pardon the people concerned that should assuage any concerns, largely because the constitution doesn’t require signatures on pardons at all. In fact the article gives examples of pardons being signed on behalf of presidents by others, which to me is a much more transparent way of doing business.

But, then the constitution does require signatures for legislation.

The legal opinion you mentioned (in the PBS article also) does address that point in a lot of detail, but from what I can see a lot of what it talks about is mechanisms where people can delegate signature authority to others in transparent ways (like powers of attorney) not really through simplistic signature copying schemes designed to make it look like the president actually did sign it himself.

Anyway, I’m not suggesting the opinion is wrong - just it’s another example of a surprising thing that this presidency has exposed.

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/fact-checking-trumps-claim-that-biden-pardons-are-void-because-he-used-an-autopen

This is a vengeance presidency but I also believe there's a significant element of cognitive decline, he has become more unhinged, much shorter sentences, more tangents, far more repetition, and more word confusion.

Trump will not win the Nobel Peace Prize, there is no chance of Putin stopping the war until he conquers all of Ukraine, then he'll regroup and target the rest of the Eastern Bloc and Baltics. He is a monster, like Trump. He has caused too much damage already to NATO, veiled threats of annexing US allies.

You can see why Trump has taken two paces back from NATO- too many inconvenient truths to deal with if America remained loyal to the programme - so he attacks NATO - not because he doesn’t think they do good- but because they’re in the way of what he wants to achieve with Russia and other rogue states and also what he wants to do in Greenland .

Anytime Trump gets “angry” with a country or entity or indeed a person, especially when that country is not a threat such as Canada- then you know it’s because of some underlying rotten plan - the more he shouts, the more rotten his plan is

Oh, I know Trump has/had nothing to do with any of it.
However, that hasn't stopped him playing politics with it the last few months.
I was fully sure that he would probably have a big show at the WH, shouting about how he/LordElon saved them after Biden/Kamala abandoned them.

Coming back to Trump/Russia, is it perhaps high time that we play the Chamberlain card?

Anyone who objects or stands up to Trump gets mowed over

Your argument is just a variation of “checks and balances” which have shown to be a load of bull crap

It would be absolutely spiffing if the Democrats actually did “something” - it would certainly be a start.

Asking Lithuania for eggs now

https://www.lrt.lt/naujienos/verslas/4/2515338/jav-praso-lietuvos-eksportuoti-kiausinius-tariasi-su-imonemis?srsltid=AfmBOoojvg1d5leuu3VHsUiAC7r2hiiaG5ALO_8clHdOTnl9NEUblsaR

Trump is never named in the GOP/SCOTUS criticisms.

It allows them to pay lip service to the issue, and allows Trump to say they weren't talking about him.

It's been happening for ages.

Aside from the constitutional checks and balances influencing which way the military would go it's worth noting that during his first term he pretty much had a naval mutiny over a Covid outbreak.

If I remember rightly before the US civil war when a basic income tax was introduced the apparatus of the federal government and all its branches were paid for by duties on imports. As a resource rich continent it effectively had a trade surplus with every nation it traded with so it may have felt like to average denizen of those early decades that taxes didn't exist as only the importers were funding the federal government.

Edit to add an aside, in the early years attempts to issue a national currency failed as a lot of domestic trade was barter and import duties could be paid with circulating british and other european coin which merchants had a surplus of from their exports. It took decades for a USD to gain common usage domestically. The building up of a national reserve helped to eventually replace foreign coins with US silver coins.

It seems like the modern Tea Party mistook that ending tax to a faraway king meant the end of taxation entirely. They look at federal government being as much an imposition as tithes to a 18th century English monarch. In the early years of the new republic it may have felt like tax didn't exist as there wasn't a sales or income tax, but that non taxation nirvana was shielded by a navy and army paid for by import taxes and duties.

Trumpers are united in not believing in government, they think taxation is theft and DOGE is the purge. The army, navy and airforce could not exist without taxation so ultimately they'd have no choice but to protect the federal government against insurrectionists.

If Trump dropped dead tomorrow there'd still be an anti government radicalism that may become more assertive domestically.

Has the president not immunity as per the supreme court

And their supporters get upset when MAGA is called weird.

:/

Says the poster who decried judges as activists as they had the gall to strike down orders from Trum that are more than likely not legal

US State Department delete data on stolen Ukrainian children

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/trump-ukraine-children-russia-war-kidnapping-evidence-b2717730.html

Afraid to mention his name, martial law over there isn't far away,he will lock up anyone who is critical.