Thanks. I needed the laugh...although it is getting harder and harder to laugh at what this guy is doing.
Greenland, the Canal Zone...and now Gaza.
What fiasco is next?
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tsarstepan
3
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Thu 6 Feb, 2025 08:37 pm
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Region Philbis
4
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Fri 7 Feb, 2025 07:52 am
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glitterbag
3
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Sat 8 Feb, 2025 03:05 pm
Trump fired all of the Board Members at the Kennedy Center and named himself chairman (or something like that). I guess thats one more way to demoralize the Kennedy family. I wonder how long the Village People will last as the headline act?
Because, in the end, it's all about real estate...
With No Buy-in From Egypt or Jordan, Trump Appears to Back Away From His Gaza Plan
Earlier this month, the president said he favored taking control of Gaza and displacing the Palestinian population of the devastated seaside enclave. But Egypt and Jordan flatly rejected cooperating.
Quote:
President Trump on Friday appeared to back off his demand that some two million Palestinians be permanently relocated from the Gaza Strip to nearby countries in the Middle East so the United States could take over the territory and develop it into “the Riviera of the Middle East.”
Earlier this month, the president said he favored taking control of Gaza and displacing the Palestinian population of the devastated seaside enclave. Over the course of several days, he repeatedly waved aside objections to the idea, including flat-out rejections from the leaders of Egypt and Jordan.
At the time, Mr. Trump said that he would be able to persuade the leaders of those two countries — and potentially others in the region — to accept the Palestinians through the force of his will.
“They say they’re not going to accept,” Mr. Trump said. “I say they will.”
But in a telephone interview with a Fox News host on Friday, Mr. Trump seemed to concede that his efforts at persuasion had failed and the refusal by Egypt and Jordan to accept displaced Gazans would make the idea unworkable.
“Well, we pay Jordan and Egypt billions of dollars a year. And I was a little surprised they’d say that, but they did,” Mr. Trump told the Fox News host Brian Kilmeade before adding: “I’ll tell you, the way to do it is my plan. I think that’s the plan that really works. But I’m not forcing it. I’m just going to sit back and recommend it.”
The comments were a striking reversal for one of the most brazen foreign policy proposals ever made by a sitting president. And they came after weeks of back-and-forth that included several high-ranking Trump administration officials trying to downplay the proposal, followed by the president insisting that he was serious.
Mr. Trump first publicly raised the idea in early February, when he declared that “The U.S. will take over the Gaza Strip.” With Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel by his side during a White House visit, Mr. Trump said the United States would “own it and be responsible” for disposing of unexploded munitions and rebuilding Gaza into a mecca for jobs and tourism, pledging that it would become “the Riviera of the Middle East.”
Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Karoline Leavitt, the White House press secretary, said soon after that any relocation would be temporary. But Mr. Trump followed up with a social media posting suggesting again that Palestinians would be relocated into communities where they would be “happy, safe, and free.”
In the interview on Friday, the president said that trying to redevelop Gaza without moving Palestinians out would be impractical, in part because of the presence of Hamas terrorists, who have ruled in Gaza for decades. He said that a U.S. takeover, and the displacement of Gaza’s Palestinians, would be the best approach.
“The U.S. would own the site,” Mr. Trump said. “It’d be no Hamas, and it’d be developed, and you start all over again with a clean plate.”
But he spoke of the idea in past tense, suggesting that he had given up on it.
“I liked my plan. I thought my plan was good,” Mr. Trump told Mr. Kilmeade. “You get them out, you move them, you build a beautiful community and a permanent community.”
Leaders from across the Arab world met Friday in the Saudi capital, Riyadh, to discuss possible alternatives to Mr. Trump’s plans ahead of a broader Arab League summit in Egypt on March 4. The meeting ended without any official statement of what was discussed or decided.
In Washington, a spokesman for the National Security Council did not respond to emails seeking comment on whether the president’s remarks indicated that he was giving up on the idea of the United States rebuilding Gaza.
In the interview, Mr. Trump seemed resigned to the reality that Gaza would have to be rebuilt without U.S. ownership and without moving its people out, though he also appeared to interpret Israel’s long occupation of the territory as ownership.
“We’ll see what happens,” he said. “I thought it was great, because the location is, you know, it’s a great location. I don’t know why Israel ever gave that up. Why did they give it up?
Chris Christie: "There is news this morning that the Trump Administration-- and I'm going to read this morning from a Wall Street Journal reporter-- news this morning that the Trump Administration " is pushing Kiev and Europe to kill a Ukrainian resolution marking the third anniversary of the war." The US has made direct demands of the Ukrainian leaders to withdraw the resolution and replace it with a short statement that doesn't label Russia the invader, doesn't blame Vladimir Putin, and doesn't hold Russia responsible for a single Ukrainian death."
Moderator: "Is it accurate to say we just switched sides?
Christie: "There's a lot there, but the answer in short is, yes. but we didn't just switch sides. I mean, look, anybody who was paying attention during the 24 campaign knew that this was going to happen."
Business owners told The Times that President Trump’s tariffs could lead to higher costs and expressed frustration at the sudden uncertainty about policy.
I feel like I am living in a nightmare. As I have said previously, I am old now, and I really thought I had seen most of what I would consider the dark side of the human spirit. I have lived through the riots of the 1960's and the women's rights movement. I have watched the protests against the war in Vietnam. I have watched the nation shed a corrupt President and embrace the LGBTQ community. I have watched Presidents from Harry Truman to Donald Trump establish new standards for the American dream.
I was actually a Conservative voter until Ronald Reagan destroyed my faith in the Grand Old Party. When I saw Republicans trying to convince Americans that “Trickle Down Economics “ would benefit the masses, and that Labor Unions were the enemy of the working class, I realized that the Party had been co-opted by the same oligarchs and venture capitalists that attempted to force Franklin Roosevelt from office.
I have now endured two of the most despicable Republicans our nation has ever seen hold its highest office. George W. Bush was a war criminal and a totally inept buffoon. Unfortunately, that was not enough for these irreputable reprobates. The Republican Party has now disappeared and been replaced by MAGA. It is led by a man who lacks empathy or concern for his fellow human beings. He is a bully of the highest magnitude and a convicted criminal. How in the name of all that is good and righteous did we end up with this sorry excuse for a human being as the leader of this nation?
He has caused what is probably going to be permanent damage to the fabric of American life that I doubt can be repaired in the near future. I want to list a few of the wounds he and his mindless minions have afflicted on this nation and its people.
He has destroyed our system of public education in order to create a more compliant workforce that is easily manipulated.
He is rolling back the social progress we have made for different racial, gender, religious, and ethnic groups living in this country.
He is dismantling the progress we have made in accepting the LGBTQ community as an equal and deserving lifestyle.
He is destroying our historic relationship with Allies that has existed for over the last 100 years.
He is creating economic turmoil that will place an undue burden on the middle class not only in the US, but worldwide.
He is destroying the social safety net that has protected the poor in this country for the last 100 years.
He created a Cabinet filled with inept buffoons whose sole purpose is to dismantle the Federal Government and build a hierarchy controlled by Donald Trump alone.
He has shamelessly lied and blamed the failures of his policies on others.
He is destroying the free press in this country.
He is using his office to profit personally.
He has destroyed the livelihood of thousands of innocent public employees just to create a budgetary surplus to justify tax breaks for the wealthiest Americans.
He has finally put to rest the American Dream. The wealthy have managed to destroy it for the vast majority of Americans.
He has destroyed an entire branch of the Federal Government. The US Supreme Court is no longer a viable institution.
I could go on, but this just an exercise in futility. How did we allow this to happen? How did we allow this petty little man to become so powerful? Are we really this stupid?
