French speech

[just-jim]

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[mister_coffee]

5 Eyes, Israel stop sharing intel
...

This makes all Americans much less safe. The world just became a hell of a lot more dangerous.

[Rideback]

5 Eyes, Israel stop sharing intel
https://www.ynetnews.com/article/b1d8os ... rticle+Top

[PAL]

The Oligarchs are just using old man #47. Get him out of the way and make way for Vance. Then Vance and the Oligarch's have free rein.
Who here does not support our Vets. Have talked to some former vets. Very concerned where it is head.

[THL]

just-jim and rideback: thank you for this.

[Rideback]

"BREAKING: The Economist incinerates Donald Trump for destroying the American economy with a brutal cover image and a scathing piece entitled: "Donald Trump’s economic delusions are already hurting America."
This one has MAGA world melting down...
The expertly informed piece accuses Trump of painting a "fantastical picture" of his plans during his speech to Congress by claiming that his ill-conceived tariffs will "preserve jobs, make America richer still, and protect its very soul."
"Unfortunately, in the real world things look different," the article reads. "Investors, consumers and companies show the first signs of souring on the Trumpian vision. With his aggressive and erratic protectionism, Mr Trump is playing with fire."
In reality, the tariffs have caused an immediate and dramatic downturn in the stock market and spiked consumer prices. Trump is already scrambling to backtrack by delaying the 25% tariffs on Mexico and Canada — although he has yet to abandon them completely.
The Economist (whose pieces are run without the names of their authors attributed) bluntly states that by imposing his disastrous tariffs, Trump is "setting light to one of the world’s most integrated supply chains" and it's becoming clear that policy is "set on the president's whim."
"That will cause lasting damage at home and abroad," it says.
It goes on to say that the hopes for an economic Golden Age are "going up in smoke" as MAGA oligarch Elon Musk's DOGE causes "chaos" and the Republican budget blueprint adds "trillions to the national debt."
Despite Trump insisting that he would usher in a booming economy, The Economist warns that "the markets are flashing red."
"The S&P 500 has given up nearly all its gains since the election. Although economic growth remains fair, in recent weeks the yield on ten-year Treasuries has fallen, measures of consumer sentiment have plunged and small businesses’ confidence has slipped, hinting at a slowdown to come," the article reads. "Meanwhile, inflation expectations are rising, perhaps because Mr Trump is talking about all those wonderful new tariffs."
It goes on to criticize Trump for ignoring inflation and his claim that "the economic harm from tariffs is worth it." Tellingly — the magazine points out — Trump is not constantly posting on social media about the stock market like he during his first term. Clearly, he knows the situation is dire.
The Economist then shifts its attention to Trump's inner circle, stating that his Treasury and Commerce Secretary are failing to rein Trump in, making them "come across as stooges."
"For some reason, Mr Trump reserves special hostility for Canada and the EU. Because his approach lacks any coherent logic, there is no knowing how to avert his threats," the piece continues.
"The world economy is at a dangerous moment. Having defied reality (and the constitution) after he lost the election in 2020, only to be triumphantly re-elected in 2024, Mr Trump has no patience for being told that he is wrong," the piece reads. "The fact that his belief in protectionism is fundamentally flawed may not sink in for some time, if it ever does."
"As the message that Mr Trump is harming the economy grows louder, he could lash out at the messengers, including his advisers, the Fed or the media. The president is likely to inhabit his protectionist fantasy for some time. The real world will pay the price," it concludes."

[dorankj]

Babbling, you guys are so broken by the orange monster! Maybe you can try to express yourself in a tic tok, it’s what your side does these days.

[Rideback]

Ken
remember tonight to set your clock ahead an hour. but if canada and mexico set their clocks ahead an hour, then set your clocks back an hour. except for clocks in the automotive industry and clocks made with parts already covered under the USMCA, in which case...

[mister_coffee]

Washington has become the court of Nero, a fiery emperor, submissive courtiers and a ketamine-fueled jester in charge of purging the civil service.

That line will echo down through history. If we get to have history after all this.

[dorankj]

‘Bout time!

[just-jim]

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Very powerful speech in the French Senate.


Transcript below of an incredibly powerful and deadly accurate speech in the French Senate two days ago by Mr. Claude Malhuret. This may some day take its rightful place alongside the best of Sir Winston Churchill and President John F Kennedy.
Brace yourself;


“President, Mr. Prime Minister, Ladies and Gentlemen Ministers, My dear colleagues,
Europe is at a critical turning point in its history. The American shield is crumbling, Ukraine risks being abandoned, Russia strengthened.
Washington has become the court of Nero, a fiery emperor, submissive courtiers and a ketamine-fueled jester in charge of purging the civil service.
This is a tragedy for the free world, but it is first and foremost a tragedy for the United States. Trump’s message is that there is no point in being his ally since he will not defend you, he will impose more customs duties on you than on his enemies and will threaten to seize your territories while supporting the dictatorships that invade you.
The king of the deal is showing what the art of the deal is all about. He thinks he will intimidate China by lying down before Putin, but Xi Jinping, faced with such a shipwreck, is probably accelerating preparations for the invasion of Taiwan.
Never in history has a President of the United States capitulated to the enemy. Never has anyone supported an aggressor against an ally. Never has anyone trampled on the American Constitution, issued so many illegal decrees, dismissed judges who could have prevented him from doing so, dismissed the military general staff in one fell swoop, weakened all checks and balances, and taken control of social media.
This is not an illiberal drift, it is the beginning of the confiscation of democracy. Let us remember that it took only one month, three weeks and two days to bring down the Weimar Republic and its Constitution.
I have faith in the strength of American democracy, and the country is already protesting. But in one month, Trump has done more harm to America than in four years of his last presidency. We were at war with a dictator, now we are fighting a dictator backed by a traitor.
Eight days ago, at the very moment that Trump was rubbing Macron’s back in the White House, the United States voted at the UN with Russia and North Korea against the Europeans demanding the withdrawal of Russian troops.
Two days later, in the Oval Office, the military service shirker was giving war hero Zelensky lessons in morality and strategy before dismissing him like a groom, ordering him to submit or resign.
Tonight, he took another step into infamy by stopping the delivery of weapons that had been promised. What to do in the face of this betrayal? The answer is simple: face it.
And first of all, let’s not be mistaken. The defeat of Ukraine would be the defeat of Europe. The Baltic States, Georgia, Moldova are already on the list. Putin’s goal is to return to Yalta, where half the continent was ceded to Stalin.
The countries of the South are waiting for the outcome of the conflict to decide whether they should continue to respect Europe or whether they are now free to trample on it.
What Putin wants is the end of the order put in place by the United States and its allies 80 years ago, with its first principle being the prohibition of acquiring territory by force.
This idea is at the very source of the UN, where today Americans vote in favor of the aggressor and against the attacked, because the Trumpian vision coincides with that of Putin: a return to spheres of influence, the great powers dictating the fate of small countries.
Mine is Greenland, Panama and Canada, you are Ukraine, the Baltics and Eastern Europe, he is Taiwan and the China Sea.
At the parties of the oligarchs of the Gulf of Mar-a-Lago, this is called “diplomatic realism.”
So we are alone. But the talk that Putin cannot be resisted is false. Contrary to the Kremlin’s propaganda, Russia is in bad shape. In three years, the so-called second largest army in the world has managed to grab only crumbs from a country three times less populated.
Interest rates at 25%, the collapse of foreign exchange and gold reserves, the demographic collapse show that it is on the brink of the abyss. The American helping hand to Putin is the biggest strategic mistake ever made in a war.
The shock is violent, but it has a virtue. Europeans are coming out of denial. They understood in one day in Munich that the survival of Ukraine and the future of Europe are in their hands and that they have three imperatives.
Accelerate military aid to Ukraine to compensate for the American abandonment, so that it holds, and of course to impose its presence and that of Europe in any negotiation.
This will be expensive. It will be necessary to end the taboo of the use of frozen Russian assets. It will be necessary to circumvent Moscow’s accomplices within Europe itself by a coalition of only the willing countries, with of course the United Kingdom.
Second, demand that any agreement be accompanied by the return of kidnapped children, prisoners and absolute security guarantees. After Budapest, Georgia and Minsk, we know what agreements with Putin are worth. These guarantees require sufficient military force to prevent a new invasion.
Finally, and this is the most urgent, because it is what will take the most time, we must build the neglected European defence, to the benefit of the American umbrella since 1945 and scuttled since the fall of the Berlin Wall.
It is a Herculean task, but it is on its success or failure that the leaders of today’s democratic Europe will be judged in the history books.
Friedrich Merz has just declared that Europe needs its own military alliance. This is to recognize that France has been right for decades in arguing for strategic autonomy.
It remains to be built. It will be necessary to invest massively, to strengthen the European Defence Fund outside the Maastricht debt criteria, to harmonize weapons and munitions systems, to accelerate the entry into the Union of Ukraine, which is today the leading European army, to rethink the place and conditions of nuclear deterrence based on French and British capabilities, to relaunch the anti-missile shield and satellite programs.
The plan announced yesterday by Ursula von der Leyen is a very good starting point. And much more will be needed.
Europe will only become a military power again by becoming an industrial power again. In a word, the Draghi report will have to be implemented. For good.
But the real rearmament of Europe is its moral rearmament.
We must convince public opinion in the face of war weariness and fear, and especially in the face of Putin’s cronies, the extreme right and the extreme left.
They argued again yesterday in the National Assembly, Mr Prime Minister, before you, against European unity, against European defence.
They say they want peace. What neither they nor Trump say is that their peace is capitulation, the peace of defeat, the replacement of de Gaulle Zelensky by a Ukrainian Pétain at the beck and call of Putin.
Peace for the collaborators who have refused any aid to the Ukrainians for three years.
Is this the end of the Atlantic Alliance? The risk is great. But in the last few days, the public humiliation of Zelensky and all the crazy decisions taken in the last month have finally made the Americans react.
Polls are falling. Republican lawmakers are being greeted by hostile crowds in their constituencies. Even Fox News is becoming critical.
The Trumpists are no longer in their majesty. They control the executive, the Parliament, the Supreme Court and social networks.
But in American history, the freedom fighters have always prevailed. They are beginning to raise their heads.
The fate of Ukraine is being played out in the trenches, but it also depends on those in the United States who want to defend democracy, and here on our ability to unite Europeans, to find the means for their common defense, and to make Europe the power that it once was in history and that it hesitates to become again.
Our parents defeated fascism and communism at great cost.
The task of our generation is to defeat the totalitarianisms of the 21st century.
Long live free Ukraine, long live democratic Europe.”

-Claude Malhuret speaking to the French Senate Tuesday March 4 2025.
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