Trump 2.0

[Wizard of Whatever]

OK. So you are on the side of considering people guilty by association. (And just to be clear, in extreme cases, there's nothing wrong with that.)

Again, you really like to turn what people post around so they support you. It is a failing you should address. For you, I was referring to actual members of the party not all German citizens. And since I didn't personally know them I can't really say if any were good. Yes, there is something wrong with it without corroborating evidence.

 

[parmalee]

I will say, with ADR to James trying to get as many citations out there as possible, this one did seem pretty self-evident. Turnip backed the continued provision of bombs to Israel and Israels continued massive destruction of civilian targets and use of starvation as a tactic. All matters of public record, widely reported.

And now with the Serial Child Rapist in Chief doing Bibi's bidding in Iran, we can add that to the list of war crimes committed, as well. (Though we don't know precisely who has been bombing schools and hospitals as yet.) A troll might pointlessly point out that there is no war without congressional authorization, in order to further the deception. (What deception? Well, that's a puzzler.)

 

[billvon]

For you, I was referring to actual members of the party not all German citizens.

OK. So again, you are on the side of considering people guilty by association - in this case, every single member of the Nazi party was bad, even though you never met any of them. And once again, I don't disagree with that.

 

[Wizard of Whatever]

OK. So again, you are on the side of considering people guilty by association - in this case, every single member of the Nazi party was bad, even though you never met any of them

Actually I said that I didn't know if any were good, not that all were bad. You're wearing your blinders again. You see only what you want to see.

 

[billvon]

Actually I said that I didn't know if any were good, not that all were bad. You're wearing your blinders again. You see only what you want to see.

Your actual words:

Me: . . .actual, world war II German Nazis. Do you believe that since you don't know any of them personally, some of them are likely good people?

You: . . The answer is no.

That means you do not believe that any were good people.

 

[Wizard of Whatever]

Your actual words:

Me: . . .actual, world war II German Nazis. Do you believe that since you don't know any of them personally, some of them are likely good people?

You: . . The answer is no.

That means you do not believe that any were good people.

The modifier was likely, thus my answer was not an absolute. Some still may have been.

 

[billvon]

The modifier was likely, thus my answer was not an absolute. Some still may have been.

Your answer was that no, some Nazis cannot be good people.

At least in English.

What's happening now is that you realize what you've said, and are trying to figure out how to unsay it. No problem with admitting you were wrong, if you're able to do that. Happens all the time to most people.

 

[Wizard of Whatever]

Your answer was that no, some Nazis cannot be good people.

At least in English.

What's happening now is that you realize what you've said, and are trying to figure out how to unsay it. No problem with admitting you were wrong, if you're able to do that. Happens all the time to most people.

Your question contained the word likely, which you have left out here to muddy the waters and make you appear right. SOP for you.

I know what I said. No it is not likely (your word) that they were good.

You are trying to avoid your use of the word likely by accusing me. I was not wrong and you should understand that by now. Try harder.

 

[Sarkus]

In other news, Trump continues his bully-boy tactics with private companies: Anthropic, an AI-developer, refused to grant the US military "unfettered access" to its AI tools. So the US Defence Secretary and Trump have deemed the company to be a "supply chain risk", and ordered all federal agencies to stop using them.
The concern by Anthropic was that the government wanted to use its AI tools, such as Claude, for projects such as "mass surveillance" and "fully autonomous weapons". This is in a company's rights, not to do business with those it ethically disagrees with - as long as the disagreement is not a protected characteristic. It doesn't appear to be in this case.
Trump, though, said Anthropic "better get their act together, and be helpful during this phase out period, or I will use the Full Power of the Presidency to make them comply, with major civil and criminal consequences to follow". Hopefully the protections within the US still hold, and that this threatening behaviour by the administration is laughed out of court.

Interestingly, from a meeting between Hegseth and Anthropic boss, Dario Amodei, Hegseth announced typically contradictory responses: on the one hand he would invoke the Defense Production Act (they do like invoking Acts, don't they!) that would allow the government to use the company's products as they saw fit, and on the other hand he deemed them a "supply chain risk" and ordered agencies to stop using their products. So, yeah, a typically coherent response.

The law apparently already forbids the types of uses that Anthropic are concerned about, so you'd have thought that the Pentagon would be happy to include language in the agreement that tightens their inability to use the tools for those purposes. But, as the US Undersecretary for Defense (or is that War?) Emil Michael, said when asked why they weren't willing to agree to such language, he apparently said: "We do have to be prepared for what China is doing." That sort of makes the law not really a law, doesn't it? I mean, China is doing things against human rights, so the US should be able to do the same? Other authoritarian and dictatorial regimes can do it, so why can't we! Waaaah! Waaaah!


Anyhoo - in support of the company's position - or maybe just circumstantially so - OpenAI said they planned to add language to their own agreement with the US government that explicitly prohibits the use of its systems to spy on Americans. They have seen a spike in "uninstalls" of ChatGPT since announcing that they were doing work for the Pentagon, so it's likely a response to that rather than Anthropic.

 

[geordief]

In other news, Trump continues his bully-boy tactics with private companies: Anthropic, an AI-developer, refused to grant the US military "unfettered access" to its AI tools. So the US Defence Secretary and Trump have deemed the company to be a "supply chain risk", and ordered all federal agencies to stop using them.
The concern by Anthropic was that the government wanted to use its AI tools, such as Claude, for projects such as "mass surveillance" and "fully autonomous weapons". This is in a company's rights, not to do business with those it ethically disagrees with - as long as the disagreement is not a protected characteristic. It doesn't appear to be in this case.
Trump, though, said Anthropic "better get their act together, and be helpful during this phase out period, or I will use the Full Power of the Presidency to make them comply, with major civil and criminal consequences to follow". Hopefully the protections within the US still hold, and that this threatening behaviour by the administration is laughed out of court.

Interestingly, from a meeting between Hegseth and Anthropic boss, Dario Amodei, Hegseth announced typically contradictory responses: on the one hand he would invoke the Defense Production Act (they do like invoking Acts, don't they!) that would allow the government to use the company's products as they saw fit, and on the other hand he deemed them a "supply chain risk" and ordered agencies to stop using their products. So, yeah, a typically coherent response.

The law apparently already forbids the types of uses that Anthropic are concerned about, so you'd have thought that the Pentagon would be happy to include language in the agreement that tightens their inability to use the tools for those purposes. But, as the US Undersecretary for Defense (or is that War?) Emil Michael, said when asked why they weren't willing to agree to such language, he apparently said: "We do have to be prepared for what China is doing." That sort of makes the law not really a law, doesn't it? I mean, China is doing things against human rights, so the US should be able to do the same? Other authoritarian and dictatorial regimes can do it, so why can't we! Waaaah! Waaaah!


Anyhoo - in support of the company's position - or maybe just circumstantially so - OpenAI said they planned to add language to their own agreement with the US government that explicitly prohibits the use of its systems to spy on Americans. They have seen a spike in "uninstalls" of ChatGPT since announcing that they were doing work for the Pentagon, so it's likely a response to that rather than Anthropic.

Is that how civilians surveillance would work,via advanced software installed by Internet companies?

Or would they not need that and just use government and corporate databases to join the dots in citizens' profiles?(using whatever software is to hand,legally or not.)

This administration gives two fingers to accountability and legality ,although they may develop a soft spot for plausible deniability if required.

 

[billvon]

. . . . .

Going to abandon your "I never said that!" defense and instead get back to the issue.

During World War II, there were absolutely staunch members of the Nazi party who could reasonably claim "I didn't know!" Germany was, after all, releasing films of how concentration camps turned the evil, peace-hating Jews into productive members of society, showing them working hard and their kids skipping in the yards. If you read the accounts of the time, several people believed just that. To paraphrase their views:

"Look, I'm not the bad guy here. I just want Germany to be great again and end the twin threats of globalism and the Jews, who are trying to ruin the country. Why should good Germans support the evil Jews who hate good citizens like me? These concentration camps are a great idea because they keep Germany safe and they reform those greedy evil Jews."

Replace "Jews" with "Somalians" or "Muslims" or "illegal immigrants" and you have today's right wing rhetoric.

You suggested above that of course all real Nazis are evil. And I agree. Even if some of them didn't know, there comes a time when the evil being done is so great that you have a duty to be informed, and "I didn't know" is no longer an adequate defense. The Mother character in "The Boy in the Striped Pajamas" comes to mind here - perhaps a good person looking out for her family, but also indirectly supporting a genocide.

Now, today's far right conservatives are mostly not Nazis. (Some are, of course, as we have seen by their leaked chats and the flags they carry.) But their message and methodology is VERY similar if not identical:

1) Identify a scapegoat, declare that that scapegoat is the cause of all your problems, arrest them and put them in concentration camps, then declare victory. Say they are “vermin” and are “poisoning the blood of our country.” Unite your followers against them.

2) Use the power of the government to crush opposition. Sue law firms that defend your enemies, declare other political parties "terrorists," claim that peaceful protests are illegal, empower your own special police to ignore the law and intimidate/threaten/kill anyone who opposes them.

3) Cultivate a captive press (via Hugenberg for Hitler, FOX News for Trump) and sue/cripple/destroy all other media. Trump recently got an interview taken off the air by threatening to have the FCC pull a station's license if they aired it and has several lawsuits against news organizations that reported things that affected him negatively.

4) The Big Lie. If you repeat a lie often enough people may start to believe it. For Germany, it was "Jews are the cause of all our problems but they are now under control and we are treating them well." For Trump, the biggest one was "I really won in 2020."

5) Accusation in a mirror, where a politician accuses other people of doing what he is actually doing. This was a favorite of Goebbels, who would regularly accuse other countries of genocide. For the Trump administration, it is their accusations of rape, pedophilia, cheating on elections, fraud, mental incapacity, stealing taxpayer money and taking bribes.

A German historian said that Germans of the time thought this way about it all: "OK, Hitler was saying all these extreme things but we realize he was a popular politician and we thought that he was just saying things that he didn’t really mean, that he was just exaggerating a little bit. Someone said the demands in Mein Kampf we took as the dogmas in the Bible – no one thought that these things would be fulfilled 100%." This is almost word for word what conservatives are saying about Trump today.

So while modern Trump supporters are not Nazis, they are following the same playbook. And there comes a time when saying "well, I just didn't know!" no longer works to claim "I'm still a good person" in the face of such strategies.

 

[parmalee]

3) Cultivate a captive press (via Hugenberg for Hitler, FOX News for Trump) and sue/cripple/destroy all other media. Trump recently got an interview taken off the air by threatening to have the FCC pull a station's license if they aired it and has several lawsuits against news organizations that reported things that affected him negatively.

In this regard, I am especially thankful for the existence of the interwebs. Putzing around with BBSs and the like when I was a kid, I certainly saw the potential for somnething much greater, but I didn't really anticipate that it would come to a point where nearly everyone in the world (with some significant exceptions, obviously) would be able to access alternatives to mainstream media sources if they so desired. And it's that latter bit wherein lies the problem: so many people, especially within the US, seem inexplicably content with these mainstream media sources, and whatever "legitimacy" they may once have had has crumbled far more rapidly, and thoroughly, than I would have expected. Not sure how this situation might ever be rectified.

 

[Wizard of Whatever]

Going to abandon your "I never said that!" defense and instead get back to the issue.

Wise choice, grasshopper.

 

[Sarkus]

The 2026 mid-term steal by the Trump administration is about to go into action...

A draft Executive Order, recently leaked, is purportedly going to declare a national emergency over alleged (and subsequently debunked) Chinese and/or Iranian "interference" in the 2020 election, and possibly in efforts to "interfere" with the 2024 election, claiming without foundation that these threats have only intensified ahead of the 2026 mid-terms. This will then allow Trump unprecedented powers to control how Americans vote, including, but not limited to, deploying the military and ICE to polling stations, and creating obstacles to identification for those they don't want to vote.

"Foreign interference" - especially with Iran being the antagonists-du-jour - will be touted as the reason to federalise the election, and allow the administration to implement pretty much whatever changes they want and wherever they want. So if they want to focus on the swing-states, on closely fought areas, they can do that while leaving the pro-Republican areas to carry on as normal, even in the same state.

Trump has been urging Congress to pass the SAVE act, but has said that if the bill fails then he will act unilaterally to impose the changes for the midterms. Any legal challenge will, of course, only be heard by the Supreme Court (when it gets that far) after the election, although they might have to overturn any stay that the lower-courts might put on Trump's actions, even while not litigating the main point.

So, watch this space!
Was this what the war with Iran was a pretext for?

 

[Killjoy]

Was this what the war with Iran was a pretext for?

My favorite right wing blabbermouth Carl Higbie (he's on the Newsmax, network what can one expect.) went to some length yesterday to make the case that the Iran strikes were part of a masterful effort by the tRump administration to "contain the threat of China". This guy goes on almost to no end about what a genius His Infernal Majesty is, though, so who knows what actual value this opinion has. It may be worth noting that 2 nations targeted by our dear leader are suppliers of oil to the Ch'in Empire. With tRump, who knows what wisps of thought pass through the ramshackle remnants of his mind...

 

[exchemist]

The 2026 mid-term steal by the Trump administration is about to go into action...

A draft Executive Order, recently leaked, is purportedly going to declare a national emergency over alleged (and subsequently debunked) Chinese and/or Iranian "interference" in the 2020 election, and possibly in efforts to "interfere" with the 2024 election, claiming without foundation that these threats have only intensified ahead of the 2026 mid-terms. This will then allow Trump unprecedented powers to control how Americans vote, including, but not limited to, deploying the military and ICE to polling stations, and creating obstacles to identification for those they don't want to vote.

"Foreign interference" - especially with Iran being the antagonists-du-jour - will be touted as the reason to federalise the election, and allow the administration to implement pretty much whatever changes they want and wherever they want. So if they want to focus on the swing-states, on closely fought areas, they can do that while leaving the pro-Republican areas to carry on as normal, even in the same state.

Trump has been urging Congress to pass the SAVE act, but has said that if the bill fails then he will act unilaterally to impose the changes for the midterms. Any legal challenge will, of course, only be heard by the Supreme Court (when it gets that far) after the election, although they might have to overturn any stay that the lower-courts might put on Trump's actions, even while not litigating the main point.

So, watch this space!
Was this what the war with Iran was a pretext for?

Aha, I had always thought some sort of “emergency” would be invented, but had assumed that would be generated by provoking domestic riots. When this Iran business blew up it did cross my mind that it could somehow be used, but had not thought of electoral interference by Iran as the ruse to be chosen. Is a copy of the draft order available anywhere?

 

[Sarkus]

Is a copy of the draft order available anywhere?

Not that my Google-Fu has uncovered (although more seasoned practitioners of the art may have better luck), but there are enough different outlets reporting the news to give it credibility.
Furthermore, Trump has apparently said that he's "never heard" of the draft document... so must be true, given that he denies everything that he then goes ahead and does.

Trump says he’s ‘never heard’ of draft national emergency order over elections

Pro-Trump activists are circulating draft order to declare a national emergency and give the president extraordinary power over voting.

san.com

 

[exchemist]

Not that my Google-Fu has uncovered (although more seasoned practitioners of the art may have better luck), but there are enough different outlets reporting the news to give it credibility.
Furthermore, Trump has apparently said that he's "never heard" of the draft document... so must be true, given that he denies everything that he then goes ahead and does.

Trump says he’s ‘never heard’ of draft national emergency order over elections

Pro-Trump activists are circulating draft order to declare a national emergency and give the president extraordinary power over voting.

san.com

Yes, I've had a look and reputable news outlets are all reporting this, but from a few days ago, e.g. 27th Feb, without specific mention of putative Iranian interference as the specific "threat". But yeah, they can cook something up now that the CIA and DoJ are under Trump's thumb.

 

[Sarkus]

Yes, I've had a look and reputable news outlets are all reporting this, but from a few days ago, e.g. 27th Feb, without specific mention of putative Iranian interference as the specific "threat". But yeah, they can cook something up now that the CIA and DoJ are under Trump's thumb.

Trump linked the attacks on Iran to their apparent intereference (attempted or otherwise) in 2020 and 2024 elections through his social media posts. First he announced the war, then two hours later posted "Iran tried to interfere in 2020, 2024 elections to stop Trump, and now faces renewed war with United States” and linked to some conspiracy-filled pro-Trump outlet claiming the intereference.
Now this 17-page draft has come to light, although it originates from April 2025, apparently, so it's no real stretch to add Iran to the list of mentioned international interferers if not already in there, now that they're top of everyone's mind.

 

[Roosters for ever]

Was this what the war with Iran was a pretext for?

The issue imo is that if Trump and Netanyahu achieve their objective of removing the religiously fanatical cruel regime in Iran for something approaching normality, they (the citizens of the USA) will see him as a hero, and he probably won't need any executive order that you described, and taken with consideration of all you have said in post 2,971, Trump will have won...The USA will be fucked! With possibly even a third term or permanency. The rest of the world would need to unite against this war mongering tyrant and isolate him. And if that did happen, I could see Trump and Putin uniting, with a likely alliance with China, and the ingredients for a third world war. Am I being overly dramatic? I hope the fuck I am!!!