Donald Trump the Megathread part II - Mod Warning updated in OP 12/2/26

Recent trial involving Trump Inc., showed clearly how they talk up valuations on their properties and end up in dispute with lenders.

If they thought there was an upturn in the market, Trump Inc., would look quickly to re-finance their property portfolio, it seems to be designed to wash its face whilst the family extract cashflow at every opportunity.

I am as irreligious as it is possible to be.
Not that I actively oppose religion, more that I am against the notion that any religion can claim to be the possessor of the "one true revelation".
But yeah, I'm seeing Leo as an even more relatable pope than Francis.

I do hold that morality, and particularly morality as demonstrated by the "golden rule" should be how we as a people try to treat each other.
It's not perfect, but it's a close approximation of making sure we put community 1st.
There is a place for church and religion, and sometimes they are the centre of wonderfully caring and generous communities.
My experience of Baptist & Presbyterian community that I encountered recently after the death of my Mother in Law.
Honestly, quite eye opening in the sheer effort they all made to help, to support and comfort.
Especially in the lack of a church, multiple congregations came together in a ball room to celebrate someone's personal relationship with god.
Again, it's not my cup of tea, but if someone is to have a relationship with whatever they perceived to be a higher power?
Then it's surely 1st and foremost personal for them, rather than constrained by ceremony & catechism.

The gathering at a building and a room most often used for other and non-religious events, did spark a thought or 2 when I compared it to my own catholic tradition.
If our churches & temples are comfortable buildings adorned in finery?
Then we as a wider community aren't doing enough to lift up the poorest.

We live in a age of artificial scarcity when it comes to sufficient food, shelter & education for meagrest sustenance.
I'm not proposing that we should be a Star Trek style utopia.
There will always be a degree of wealth accumulation, stockpiling and outright hoarding.
That said, it wasn't all that long ago that Smaug, sorry, Elon claimed he would fund ending world hunger if the WFP would outline just how they'd do it for the $6billion they claimed it would cost in 2021/2.

Yet here we are, 4 years later, where far more than that $6billion was literally burned through in the 1st 2 days of the action against Iran.
In the intervening years?
The growth in wealth held by Elon has left that $6 billion as little more than a rounding error.
Yet for the rest of us normies?
Bills have grown, wages have stagnated and stagflation & shrinkflation mean that even for the well off amongst us?
That we must do more with less.

The UK's Lord Robertson proposing that there is a direct relationship between the welfare budget & the Defence budget is a similar issue IMO.
Especially when the comparison's ensure that social security benefits such as pensions are conflated with welfare.
But, if the aim is to encourage people into a patriotic fervour eager to spend treasure on weapons to defend a "way of life"?
To ensure the public see that defence is a noble and virtuous budget line?
That Britain (indeed any country) is worth spending to defend?

Then surely by the same token, there must be a recognition that there must spending upon that way of life itself?
Acceptance that the social contract that emerged for much of Europe from WW2, UK with it's NHS, expanded social security, welfare, health, education and infrastructure as a means of ensuring the Public sees a value in the state the Government wishes them to spend to defend?
That then those pillars of the social contract must also be spent on?
Defence is necessary and will remain so, but?
We must also, surely, ensure that we are spending to defend more than just the nostalgia of what we used to be?
Can we not also spend to defend what we have yet to become, the fulfillment of aspirations that a supportive socially inclusive & cohesive budget that also prioritises infrastructure, education, health, social mobility and cohesion?

It's over $98 at the moment, it hasn't been well below since before the war

According to Péter Magyar, the new Hungarian P.M, Victor Orban has been funding GOP C/Pacs from state funds, courtesy of the Hungarian taxpayer, for years. It'd be great if he could prove this with electronic and paper evidence and asks the GOP for a refund to Hungary's state coffers.

BTW, Magyar is actually his family name, and not a political nom de plume.

Mark Twain - “God created war so that Americans would learn Geography”

Foreign interference in elections!

Wasn't JD Vance concerned about that?

👌👌👌

Hunter should kindly f*** off. He has caused a lot of grief for his father over the years and I refuse to champion him or any other anti-MAGA people.

That said, Biden's pardon was preventative moreso than for what crimes he may have done. Biden left him to fight his own battles in court and stayed out of it while president. However, Trump made it well known that when he got back into power, he would use the DOJ to pursue his enemies, something that is illegal and has come to pass.

Jesus Christ (and I mean him and not Trump).

Does he actually believe the has solved 10 wars (in which case he is certifiable) or does he just believe that his cultists will believe it's true because he says so?

Daily beast reporting...

Arsonist takes credit for showing up with a bucket of water to paraphrase the Spanish PM

Easiest question in the world would be for a journo to ask him to name the nine wars he's supposedly solved, granted that would require a spine on the journos part

..