Please be responsible for your own actions and words, and avoid blaming others or making excuses for your behavior. If you make a mistake, apologize and take steps to correct it.
- Manlobbi
Halls of Shrewd'm / US Policy
No. of Recommendations: 26
Mr Stephen Miller recently asked, "By what right does Denmark assert control over Greenland?"
One obvious answer is that Danish sovereignty there is recognized by all and sundry (perhaps other than Mr Miller and a few of his associates), most interestingly including the formal recognition by the US government. So the main reason the US ought not to "take" Greenland is that they irrevocably promised not to:
https://stthomassource.com/wp-content/uploads/site...Since this was agreed as part of the treaty for the acquisition of the Danish West Indies, creating the US Virgin Islands, undoing that guarantee risks unwinding that deal and justifies selling the USVI back to Denmark at the same price.
With or without the USVI treaty implications, the lesson seems clear - trust the written guarantee of the American government at your peril. It's a duplicitous place that has never seemed to have the knack of knowing which wars to get into, even having so often written the history after the fact.
Suggested reading, Major General Smedley Butler.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_Is_a_Racketplus ça change...Jim
I wonder how many folks know much about the forced labour during the 19 year US occupation of Haiti.
No. of Recommendations: 1
But then again, "forced laboUr" is so much more refined than regular "forced labor," so it actually doesn't sound too bad the way you say it.
No. of Recommendations: 3
With or without the USVI treaty implications, the lesson seems clear - trust the written guarantee of the American government at your peril.
Something the native Americans learned the hard way.
No. of Recommendations: 2
the lesson seems clear - trust the written guarantee of the American government at your peril.
As the pre-Trump, Bush #43 liked to say, "the United States doesn't need a permission slip".
Steve
No. of Recommendations: 3
Guess Jeans,
There is no such thing as "native AMERICANS."
Your political correctness is stupid and inaccurate.
There are people who lived on the North American continent who are thought to have traveled over a land bridge from Siberia through Canada during the last interglacial period.
None of them or their descendants are "native" to what we now call "North America."
Nor were they "Americans" because "America" didn't exist until maybe a few hundred years ago.
You're welcome.
No. of Recommendations: 3
There are people who lived on the North American continent who are thought to have traveled over a land bridge from Siberia through Canada during the last interglacial period.
Nor were they "Americans" because "America" didn't exist until maybe a few hundred years ago.
That makes them illegals!!! Ship them all back to Mongolia!!!!!!!
/end Trump mode
Steve
No. of Recommendations: 6
trust the written guarantee of the American government at your peril
Hard won trust is being capriciously thrown away by people who don't know the value of it. People who see alliance as weakness.
No. of Recommendations: 6
None of them or their descendants are "native" to what we now call "North America."
It’s good to see someone wise up to the fact that we are all children of Mother Africa!
No. of Recommendations: 3
Nor were they "Americans" because "America" didn't exist until maybe a few hundred years ago.
Well, then, you're not human because the word didn't exist when humans came about. :) Then what can we call anyone? It's custom, and as you are an Earthling, we shove customs in front of your pompous ass all the time.
BTW, you are waay behind the times if you think they all walked over a Beringia land Bridge. There were most likely waves and the first ones likely followed the kelp down the ocean side of Alaska long before the land bridge opened up. People made it into Alaska and then stayed there long enough they have a different DNA sequence. They may have been blocked in. Also, it looks like Polynesians* made it. Another BTW, it looks like we populated the Americas, and then pushed back up into the Alaskan area and absorbed whatever population was left. Some archeologists think no one ever walked the land bridge into the Americas.
And anyone who has been somewhere for a thousand years qualifies as a native, capiche?
*Oh, looky here, I'm calling 'em Polynesians, and the concept of Polynesians didn't come about when they initially spread out from Taiwan, but if we follow that back, what do we all call each other? Different flavors of Afrikaners? There are Native American Afrikaners then, and Polynesian Afrikaners. Then, following our normal customs, we drop the Afrikaner because everyone knows it and we're back to Native Americans and Polynesians.
No. of Recommendations: 4
when did tyler cowen transition from libertarian-of-convenience podcaster to batshi+ rightwing parrot?
last week he posted on all the great american success stories regarding U.S. intervention in the Americas and MiddleEast.
now below from the newly minted NeoCon that probably never spent more than a second of their life contemplating Greenland other than its rating as a vacation destination.
from FreePress:
"First, Greenland is most valuable in the hands of the U.S. My vision is that someday the world’s largest island will hold a status roughly comparable to that of Puerto Rico."
hey tyler, my vision is that all your assets are better in my hands. you can keep default on your liabilities, and get my personal memecoin as your ticket to a greater america.
THANK YOU FOR YOUR PERSONAL ATTENTION TO THE GOP GRIFT ECONOMY
No. of Recommendations: 3
...when did tyler cowen transition from libertarian-of-convenience podcaster to batshi+ rightwing parrot?
As soon as he figured out that was where the big money is?
Steve
No. of Recommendations: 4
Suggested reading, Major General Smedley Butler.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_Is_a_Racket
plus ça change...
Jim
I wonder how many folks know much about the forced labour during the 19 year US occupation of Haiti.Thanks for bringing up Smedley. I was a kid in Panama, CZ for four years. I consider those years heaven now. I was down there during the riots and those memories changed my view over time. My family traveled up from CZ and I remember the Village of Chichicastenango in Guatemal as being a magical place and the Mayans there as very intelligent and could understand me without language. Later I found out that Chichicastenango was part of the massacre areas and so the people I met there were either killed or herded into camps, brutalized, and force fed Christianity. Reagan endorsed the President of Guatemala who caused the massacres and called him a "fine Christian man".
No. of Recommendations: 1
Reagan endorsed the President of Guatemala who caused the massacres and called him a "fine Christian man".
His name was Rios Mott, and he was also a regular on Pat Robertson’s “700 Club”.
Jerry Falwell also had him on his show as well.
How he was able to manage the death squads in Guatemala while still finding time to regularly appear on the “700 Club” and “The Old Time Gospel Hour” back in the 80’s, I’ll never know.
No. of Recommendations: 1
His name was Rios Mott, and he was also a regular on Pat Robertson’s “700 Club”.
Jerry Falwell also had him on his show as well.
How he was able to manage the death squads in Guatemala while still finding time to regularly appear on the “700 Club” and “The Old Time Gospel Hour” back in the 80’s, I’ll never know.
As long as he was shouting "hallelujah" all the time, he's good with the preachers. Add that you hate commies and homosexuals, and you're in. If you persecute them, even better. (Plus atheists...gotta lock them atheists up.)
Not all preachers, of course. Just the ones that have TV shows and/or are politically active, and sell John-the-Baptist shower curtains.
No. of Recommendations: 2
tyler cowen backed off today...somewhat.
freepress:
"I do hope it falls eventually into U.S. hands, as I explain in my latest Free Press piece. But now is not the time and furthermore that should happen voluntarily, not coercively. ...
The better approach is to let the Greenlanders choose independence on their own. They may be ready to do so. ...
The courtship could take 20 or 30 years, but I am pretty sure that eventually Greenlanders will see the benefits of a stronger U.S. affiliation.
I do not think that simply trying to “buy” Greenland is going to work. I am reminded of my own fieldwork, roughly 20 years ago, in a small Mexican village in the state of Guerrero. GM wanted to buy most of the land in and around the village, for the purpose of building a racetrack to test GM cars. It had a lot of money to offer, and at the time a family of seven in the village might have earned no more than $1,500 a year. But the negotiations never got very far. The villagers felt they were not being respected, they did not trust the terms of any deal, and they feared their ways of life would change irrevocably. The promise of better roads, schools, and doctors—in addition to whatever payments they might have negotiated—simply fell flat..."
call me skeptical that greenlanders are more desperate than a rural mexican village. let's get the paid shills shouting 'USA!'.
No. of Recommendations: 1
The courtship could take 20 or 30 years,
God and Savior Trump is nearly 80 years old. He wants it NOW.
Steve
No. of Recommendations: 1
His name was Rios Mott, and he was also a regular on Pat Robertson’s “700 Club”.
There was a bit of bigotry, the elites and business wanted to control the mountain areas where the truly traditional Mayans lived - they were dirt poor and essentially had their own Mayan ways so Mott concocted a story that they were siding the rebels (communists because that was our bugaboo back then). M
Anyway, I read the Military would go out there and as they approached the village if anyone fired a shot at them they would kill everyone in the village, and other the villages they would kill them all anyway. And they had camps where they force fed Christianity to them. I've seen pictures of the mass graves for Chichicastenango. I think that some of the people I saw are in those graves. If they were lucky they got the camps. I need to find a good book and see if anyone made a documentary. I was 16 so I was out there in 67-68 and the slaughter was 80-83, They likely killed about 60-100,000 of the Mayans or more and it caused the Mayan diaspora to surge. There are still some 10 million Mayans in Mexico, but the story is that these Mayans practiced the old ways.
When the Catholics encountered the Mayans, in the conquering phase (1540-1690), they'd have parades with Jesus Christ nailed to the cross carried through the streets. This reinspired Aztec sacrifice and the resurgence in the hinterlands caused the Catholics to invade to stamp out the Mayan religion and they destroyed all the Mayan scrolls. Destroying the scrolls meant there wasn't anything to translate all the symbols carved into the rocks and buildings. But a Mayan scroll translation dictionary was created, got to Russia and a fellow began translating some of the pictures of the symbols. Later, a 16 year old kid got a hold of a copy, went down to the structures and became an expert in how to translate. We learned a lot and our picture of beautiful natives living in harmony with the landscape changed to the harsh warfare, slaughter, slavery, religion, and pestilence we know today.
Damn, just thinking about it again I would like to read Latin American history again, but right now I'm caught up in loading taxes back into my mind for the VITA season. We need to teach more history of the Americas, most of our history is taught badly in schools. I went to four different high schools as my family moved and I didn't get some history classes We were just one giant wave of destruction in the Americas, but there were smaller waves before us.
No. of Recommendations: 7
The better approach is to let the Greenlanders choose independence on their own...
As that quote notes, a lot of it is probably about respect. And behaving like someone who will stick to a deal.*
Had the overture been something along "We love this place. We'll give $20bn in T-bills into a pot for the Greenlanders to hand out to the whole population in their preferred formula, and another $20bn to Denmark for their good work over the years." With similar deal to the USVI: each resident keeps all their property and gets a year to choose which citizenship they'd like to keep. That would actually be respectful and lawful and perhaps, given time, might accomplish the goal. It's about a million per household, so it's an offer that would not be insultingly low at least.
As a Canadian, of course, I just see it all as a pincer movement...
Jim
* Front page of the Financial Times today has a headline "...groups demand 'serious guarantees' from Trump..."
And I thought they didn't have a sense of humour!
No. of Recommendations: 2
mungofitch:
It's about a million per household, so it's an offer that would not be insultingly low at least.Well, current reporting is that the payment being discussed in the White House ranges from $10,000 to $100,000 per person.
At one million dollars each, Pedo Don must figure it's cheaper to invade.
And more manly.
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/trump-admin-repor...
No. of Recommendations: 3
As a Canadian, of course, I just see it all as a pincer movement...
Why? Do you seriously believe the US wants to invade and take over Canada?
No. of Recommendations: 3
Why? Do you seriously believe the US wants to invade and take over Canada? God on Earth Trump has said he wants to do exactly that.
People are even floating the idea of a royal wedding to close the deal with the Danes.
A pitch to marry Barron Trump and the Princess of Denmark goes viralhttps://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2026/...Steve
No. of Recommendations: 4
God on Earth Trump has said he wants to do exactly that.
You guys need to separate the policy from the trolling.
No. of Recommendations: 2
You guys need to separate the policy from the trolling.
He's started to subjugate Venezuela, and is pressuring Denmark. How much aggression does he need to carry out, to convince people that he intends to take what he wants?
Steve
No. of Recommendations: 1
You guys need to separate the policy from the trolling.
He trolled about regime change in Venezuela…
He trolled about shooting protestors…
No. of Recommendations: 4
He trolled about regime change in Venezuela…
And they didn't change regimes in Venezuela.
(The Venezuelan people will do that)
He trolled about shooting protestors…
You're no longer a protestor when you hit a cop with a car.
No. of Recommendations: 4
Furthermore,
You're not a protestor even if you DON'T actually come into physical contact with the officer with your car.
Actual contact = battery. That's a crime.
Trying to hit someone with your car, but missing because they jump or fall out of the way, is assault. That's a crime too. In fact, if you don't actually hit the other person with your car, but the other person is injured attempting to evade your assault, that might also constitute a battery as well. Depends on what the law covering that actually says.
Recklessly driving your car so as to cause a danger of hitting an LEO because you were trying to evade the LEO's lawful exercise of his authority to order you to stop and exit the vehicle is also at least potentially a crime. At the least reckless endangerment.
What is crystal clear from Ross's video--because we have the audio from the partner--is that both the partner and the driver were deliberately defying the officer's lawful orders.
Why was the partner even outside of the vehicle? Obviously, because the officers had stopped the vehicle and told its occupants to exit it. The occupants thought they would "resist."
Because the Left has told them that's what they should do.
They resisted and someone died. Unfortunately for the driver and her partner, it was the driver who died. Not the officer. Regardless of whether the officer is charged and/or convicted with a crime as being responsible for the death (i.e. due to excessive use of force), in reality, this confrontation and the death that resulted from it is a direct consequence of the deliberate actions of the driver and her partner, egged on by the Left.
Let's say instead of seeking confrontation with law enforcement, the driver went into a bar and picked a fight with another patron at the bar, and fist fight ensued. The instigator ends up dead. Sorting out who is actually legally responsible is part of the aftermath. The fact that the instigator got more than she bargained for is a result of poor life choices.
No. of Recommendations: 4
Because the Left has told them that's what they should do.
They resisted and someone died. Unfortunately for the driver and her partner, it was the driver who died. Not the officer. Regardless of whether the officer is charged and/or convicted with a crime as being responsible for the death (i.e. due to excessive use of force), in reality, this confrontation and the death that resulted from it is a direct consequence of the deliberate actions of the driver and her partner, egged on by the Left.
Been seeing these AWFLs with invincibility syndrome all over the place - getting in people's face, pushing, shoving, throwing punches. They've been conditioned to believe that they have some kind of Protection Shield that keeps them from harm.
Good found out the hard way that no, she doesn't have such a thing.
No. of Recommendations: 1
Which brings me back to Argentina...
What is MAGA getting for the $40 billion given to Argentina?
No. of Recommendations: 1
Remember...when the NYT reporters asked Trump if there were any restraints on his use of power, he said 'no', only his own morality.
Which is to say 'no restraints'. Because there is not one shred of morality or decency in that man.
No. of Recommendations: 4
Actually I looked at the article in the NY Times and there's no actual question/answer verbatim quotation of what was actually asked and what the answers were in real time.
It's all highly edited and contoured to fit the NY Times's own agenda (same as yours---Leftie/Loonie).
The actual questions (which aren't included in the Times article--strange, isn't it?--just "paraphrases")--involved asking Trump whether he felt his authority as President of the United States was bound by international law. He said he followed international law but didn't need to follow it--he followed his own notion of morality.
In other words, what Trump was actually saying was that he doesn't need international law to know the difference between right and wrong.
Which makes perfect sense.
Do any of us look to international law before deciding what is right and wrong?
No, we look to domestic legal sources, and to our own personal notions of ethics and morality.
That's why you have all the Leftie/Loonies defending the Left's resistance/riots against ICE.
The lefties actually don't believe in the authority of any law, or law enforcement of those laws, if they happen to disagree with it.
Not sure why you think you can look down on Trump for basically agreeing with your own moral and ethical position.
You ignore those laws which you believe are wrong or unjust. And you put a nice shiny mental halo over your heads for doing so.
Even if the people you encourage to "resist" wind up dead.
No. of Recommendations: 7
"And they didn't change regimes in Venezuela." - Dumbass Dope
Yes they did. Maybe you should get up to date on current events. Maduro is no longer in charge of Venezuela.
"You're no longer a protestor when you hit a cop with a car." - More Dumbass Dope
Good thing no one was hit with a car otherwise you might just have a point.
It is quite telling that you have to constantly distort reality (no regime change in Venezuela, cop gets hit by a car) in order to make your points. That should tell you a lot about the strength of your points.
No. of Recommendations: 3
What is MAGA getting for the $40 billion given to Argentina?
It was not a transfer/give-away.
It was a currency swap to support the Argentine peso, so the US received the same amount in Argentine pesos that it provided Argentina in US dollars.
Actually, the swap line from the US government was only half that at $20B - the other half was $20B in loans from private banks/sovereign funds.
Argentina only used a small portion of this swap, around $2.5B, and it already returned the money (with interest as part of the conditions).
So the actual realized financial cost was zero, and the swap generated a small net profit for the U.S. government.
No. of Recommendations: 1
knighted is correct.
but the actual questions are :
- why give this loan when a few months earlier all media was praising milei's economic miracle?
- why not get much better terms from a desperate counterparty, ala 'art of the deal' and trump's core philosophy?
- why no consideration for milei's trade dealings with china counter to american interests?
will stop here since the thread will veer off.
No. of Recommendations: 1
Most here realize that, if Trump did take Greenland by force, the rest of NATO could not respond militarily?
First, the European navies don't have the capability of projecting force across the Atlantic.
Even if Europe could strike across an ocean, they would need to pull most of their land and air forces out of Europe, leaving it open to invasion by Russia.
So, God given human form Trump, sees an undefended island he can easily grab. Talking heads have observed that developing the resources in Greenland would take decades. But they miss the obvious: Trump can make himself a fortune, now, selling mining concessions.
Steve
No. of Recommendations: 3
weatherman,
You need to educate yourself about finance a little bit before asking these kinds of questions.
"Desperate" counterparties are very risky counterparties due to the default risk.
Banks and other lenders don't like to lend money to counterparties who aren't credit worthy.
The best time to borrow money is when you don't really need to.
The loan shows the international community that the U.S. trusts Argentina and believes it to be a reliable counterparty for these kinds of transactions. It's called putting your money where your mouth is.
Go try it yourself. Go try borrowing money from any bank if you have a shaky balance sheet.
Like I said, this is all basic finance stuff.
No. of Recommendations: 7
Trump can make himself a fortune, now, selling mining concessions.
Yup. All he has to do is let his loyal billionaires establish contracts for mining concessions. They could cut him in by using his families new financial businesses, ETFs, crytpo companies, etc, and buying lots and lots stock in Trump companies.
Now that Trump has eliminated inspectors, the sky isn't even the limit.
Musk wants to build a new launch complex to accommodate the biggest rockets ever built in my backyard (Vandenberg). From our home, we can see and hear the booms from the current launch complexes 46.38 miles away.
