Any Donald Trump supporters?

Got this from a post doing the rounds on social media.

— snip —

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. walked into his Senate confirmation hearing like a man stepping onto an ice rink wearing banana peels for shoes. He had one job: convince the world that he was not a bug-eyed conspiracy theorist who once hoarded a whale head and left a bear carcass in Central Park. Instead, he walked out as the leading cause of migraines among Democratic senators.

This was supposed to be his moment of redemption, his big I’m-not-actually-insane speech. Instead, it turned into a political demolition derby featuring protesters screaming that he was a liar and a killer, Bernie Sanders interrogating him about baby clothes, Elizabeth Warren asking if he planned to run HHS like a side hustle, and a surreal moment where Kennedy had to confirm that he probably said Lyme disease was a military bioweapon. By the end of the day, Capitol Police had forcibly removed more people from the chamber than a dive bar on St. Patrick’s Day.

Kennedy barely got through his opening statement before a woman exploded from the gallery like a jack-in-the-box filled with rage and science degrees.

“YOU LIE!” she screamed, holding up a sign that read VACCINES SAVE LIVES before being swiftly tackled and dragged out by Capitol Police.

Kennedy blinked rapidly, which is how you know he was hearing the voice of the worm that used to live in his brain whispering, Abort mission, Bobby. Abort mission.

A brief moment of peace settled over the room, and then it happened again.

“YOU’RE KILLING PEOPLE!” another protester howled, launching into a full-body rage spiral before security carried her out, legs kicking, like a screaming suitcase with opinions.

Kennedy took a deep breath and tried to regain his footing, but Senator Ron Wyden had been waiting for this moment like a prosecutor with a personal vendetta.

“Are you lying to us, Mr. Kennedy?” Wyden snapped, staring daggers at him.

Kennedy forced a nervous smile, but it came out looking like he’d just been told he had to fight a horse for a parking spot.

“That claim has been repeatedly debunked,” he said, attempting to sound reasonable despite an entire room full of people who were watching YouTube compilations of him saying the exact opposite.

Wyden wasn’t buying it.

“You signed a petition to restrict access to the COVID vaccine. Did you or did you not?”

Kennedy mumbled something about the petition being “misrepresented” as the air in the room thickened with sweat, bad decisions, and organic supplements.

Wyden was gearing up for a finishing blow when another protester detonated like a landmine.

“YOU’RE A FRAUD!” she shrieked as security dragged her away in a full-body lock.

Even the cops looked exhausted now.

Then came Bernie Sanders, a man who has not been in the mood for nonsense since 1972.

“Are you supportive of these baby onesies?” he demanded.

The room froze.

Kennedy’s brain crashed like a Windows 98 PC.

“Excuse me?”

Sanders lifted a printed-out photo of a baby bodysuit covered in anti-vaccine slogans.

“These are being sold by the Children’s Health Defense, the organization you founded.”

Kennedy looked like he had just accidentally eaten a ghost pepper and was trying to play it cool.

“I—I don’t have oversight over that organization anymore,” he mumbled.

Sanders cracked his knuckles like a man ready to fistfight a CEO and leaned in.

“Are you supportive of these onesies?”

Kennedy started sweating through his suit.

Laughter rippled through the room. A Republican senator actually covered his face.

Kennedy, now looking desperate for a fire alarm to pull, tried to pivot to his real passion: banning corn syrup.

Sanders wasn’t having it.

Then Elizabeth Warren took the mic, radiating pure prosecutorial energy.

“Will you commit to not taking money from pharmaceutical companies while serving as Secretary of Health?” she asked, in the tone of a woman who already knew the answer but was going to enjoy watching him squirm.

Kennedy grinned like a dog that just chewed up your furniture and is hoping you’ll laugh it off.

“I don’t think they’d want to give me money,” he chuckled.

Warren did not chuckle.

“Will you commit to not profiting from lawsuits against pharmaceutical companies while serving as HHS Secretary?”

Kennedy froze.

The color drained from his face.

“You’re asking me not to sue drug companies?” he said, voice rising.

“No, I’m not going to agree to that.”

Warren’s eyes gleamed like a hawk spotting a wounded rabbit.

“So you’ll be suing the same companies you’re supposed to regulate?”

Kennedy looked like he wanted to melt into his chair.

Then came Michael Bennet, a man who had been waiting patiently to drop a grenade into Kennedy’s lap.

"Did you say that Lyme disease was a militarily engineered bioweapon?” Bennet asked, deadpan.

Kennedy hesitated.

“I probably said that.”

The audience gasped.

Bennet cocked an eyebrow.

“Did you say that pesticides turn children transgender?”

Kennedy turned bone white.

“I don’t recall saying that.”

Bennet’s lip twitched.

“But you do recall saying Lyme disease was a bioweapon?”

Kennedy looked like he had been hit by a tranquilizer dart.

Even the Republican senators were staring at their desks, avoiding eye contact.

The hearing finally adjourned, but Kennedy is not in the clear yet.

His next grilling is scheduled for tomorrow, and there’s no telling how much worse it can get.

His opponents smell blood. His supporters are already crafting conspiracy theories about the deep state.

And if the vote ends in a deadlock, Vice President JD Vance will cast the deciding vote.

Yes, JD Vance—the political equivalent of a wet cardboard box—will determine if a man once partially controlled by a brain parasite will run America’s health system.

The nation waits in suspense. Pass the whiskey.

Hell yes :grin:

1 Like

By chance I caught that live. Kennedy was evasive. All the questioners are time limited, so Warren could only pursue the issue so far. But the panel will have taken notes.

The issue is that RFK has a nice little sideline. He introduces people or organisations wanting to sue vaccine manufacturers to a law firm. The law firm gives him an introduction fee for new business. There is also a three way contract that gives RFK 10% of any award made by the court.

This netted him $2.5 million last year.

So Warren first got him to answer the easy question: Will you take money from big pharma? Well of course he won’t.

But then she asked him the second question, about profiting from law suits against big pharma.

Because if he takes money from either side, how is he an impartial regulator?

This is when RFK showed his political heritage by talking a lot but never actually getting to the point.

Putting aside which side I’m on in this fight, I applaud the process. These appointees carry enormous power and will have lots of scope for enriching themselves. So they get a good grilling. Warren and Sanders, that I saw, were particularly tough. But it’s not personal - they’re testing him to see if he’s competent for the job, and to try to get a handle on his ethics. Also if he can stand up to this sort of grilling, he should be able to hold his own in high pressure situations. So it’s actually a triple test.

Other countries could learn from this.

I have a copy of the autobiography of Max Mosley, son of Oswald, but famous for his role in international motorsport (first representing the teams, then, an example of the poacher becoming gamekeeper, on the regulatory side).

As Formula One started making more and more money, FIA (the international umbrella body for motorists and motoring activities) started attracting more and more attention, even though the money was mostly not coming to them.

There were threats of antitrust suits, and Mosley (a lawyer before he got into motorsport) could see that FIA were vulnerable and started getting things in order.

He received two enquiries about the same time. The one was from the EU and was specifically about F1. The other was from the USA and was more about his attempts to have a global set of car safety standards because, he argued, having the same standards everywhere would drive down the cost of safety systems used on cars. (We also have Mosley to thank for NCAP).

The guy from the EU wanted to visit a race weekend and insisted on Monaco. FIA told him that that was the least representative race of all, that an average F1 race weekend was nothing like Monaco, and that almost any other race would give him a much better idea of what went on. But he insisted. He also wined and dined on FIA money, left without settling his bills, and wasn’t seen asking anybody from the FIA or any of the teams any questions.

OTOH when Mosley goes to the USA, their officials tell him that they will meet at his hotel, they will talk over breakfast, and each person is going to settle their own bill no matter how hard anybody insists.

Two completely different ideas of what is acceptable.

Of course things can change, but the grilling that Kennedy got impressed me because congress are not just going to sit there and say oh well, the President appointed him and so that’s all fine.

1 Like

Indeed!
There’s a lot of things that will still continue despite DT. e.g. I’m thinking of the decarbonization of energy.

He is rewinding that … as you speak…

Keep us posted…

He can’t make up his mind. Or more specifically, he still wants to do it, he’s just forced to do it the hard way now. A judge turned the whole thing around (because it impacted Medicare), but he’s still trying to stick with it. Good explanation here.

The craziness does not stop there. Mark Milley.If you read his Wikipedia page, he seems like another stand-up guy who had a falling out with Trump, and as a result, fired, security detail gone… and, his photo removed from the Pentagon hall, and (how petty can you get?), the wall repaired and painted where the photo used to be.

1 Like

I get the feeling with Trump that a lot of what he does is settling grudges. We all have people we dislike, but a President should be able to take a more detached view of things. If he doesn’t want to play golf with Milley or Obama or Biden then that’s fine, but don’t let that stuff steer policy.

1 Like

Not a feeling for me.
Watching him over the years, he becomes quite a “nemesis” when he decides someone crossed him.

This weekend was mad.

He ordered the acting director of the FBI to come up with a list of names of people who investigated the January 6th cases. You know, people who were just doing their job… they investigate, the prosecutors (who were also fired) decide to prosecute, and the judges decide if the charges stick. Brian Driscoll literally told the DoJ to “F… off”. He’s just acting director however, until the next guy shows up. So probably just a matter of time before this witch hunt continues.

Then of course he slapped both Canada and Mexico with 25% tariffs. But only 10% on energy (cause he needs that one, apparently). And then the whole “basket of potatoes” came out, he wants to force them into submission:

When asked how he feels about the EU, he asked whether people want the honest answer or the political one, before bluntly answering that the EU is on his sh*tlist too.

South Africa is also on the list, of course. AGOA also have to be renegotiated this year.

What I would like to see, going forward, is all these countries effectively getting together, working out some deal that bypasses the US, and giving them what they want.

2 Likes

Article after article appearing recently of how the “bombs Trump dropped on the world”, are being “walked back” by either the courts, his staff, the White House.

In my words:
Seems Mexico and Canada “called his bluff”.
That he poked the Dragon … the Dragon hardly burped a flame which is telling in its own - they did not take him seriously at all.

:rofl:

Then you read Americans asking each other: So when is my rent/fuel/food prices going to drop? (Trump apparently said it would)

The current administration does not seem at all well organised. Trump clearly talked about the US taking over Gaza. The next day his press secretary spent time explaining how the US is not going to be taking over Gaza and nothing that anybody said about doing just that actually means that.

And is it me, or does he seem to pick people for their hair?

“Raging mad bull throwing a 3yo temper tantrum inside a precious China shop” is coming to mind.

Seeing that to date Trump really ticked countries off, I got a feeling that Trump’s grandiose ideas about himself and how he sees the world, USA, is going to go sideways for him and his supporters when the USA public realizes their is no “Vote for Trump and everything is fixed” … when things get even more expensive for USA voters.

Which in turn is not good at all when Americans start fighting Americans in America.

I can’t give that buffoon the credit he deserves so far.
I think he is working to someone else’s play book.
The present Modus Operandi seems to elaborate.
But, here is what it is, for those that haven’t deciphered it yet.
Do something serious and don’t talk about it, and then divert the press attention away from that by making some outlandish claim, almost everyday.
Musk movements are the serious, Greenland, Gaza, tariffs etc are the red herring diversions.

1 Like

He said that for sure, on 20 January 2025, and I quote “Today I will also declare a national energy emergency… we will drill, baby, drill. We intend to slash prices by half within 12 months, at a maximum 18 months, and if it doesn’t work out, you’ll say… oh well!”

Ben Sullins talks about it here. The reason it won’t happen, is oil price is determined internationally. Even if the US heavily pushes down on the supply side of the scale, OPEC will probably counteract it by just reducing production.

The US is a net-importer of oil. In addition, their refineries are set up to refine heavy sour crude, not the light sweet Texas variant, which means right now they have to export their stuff, and import oil from other places. To be able to turn that around in just 12 months, he’d have to refit every refinery they have, and play nice about the one in Canada that refines some of the fuel they use. And that’s just not going to happen. We’re dealing with a man who has at best a junior high school understanding of the oil industry.

He also promised cheaper food just as bird flu started killing the chickens. The bad timing is almost comical.

Oh, he said that, and Netanyahu was standing next to him with this perplexed look of “did he really say that?” Ol’ Ben then tried to be diplomatic and all, saying that president Trump clearly has a different plan, and that it is good that people are thinking of plans… which I think was a terrible response, because now Netanyahu looks complicit. I know many people consider him just as bad, but in this case, I think he knows very well Trump’s idea is a bad one.

Again, this idea that we can just take >2 million people and briefly move them elsewhere while we build some kind of paradise, again reflects at best a primary school level understanding of the matter. I mean, we expect a kid to ask: Why don’t we just move them all to Egypt for a year or two? Not an Adult.

Reading that it hit me … his voters, those believing in him, and those who will “die” for him, go to prison, could they by any chance have the same level of understanding?

Epic!!! :rofl:

Epic advert in here … bwahahahahaha!!!

Blind man can get a legal gun permit … noooo, nooo … but it happened!

Well, we’re talking about 49% of the voters, and I think that is too simplistic a view. They cannot all simply be stupid.

It’s probably a combination of 1) he’s better than the alternative, 2) that’s probably just Trump being Trump, he probably won’t actually do what he says, just like last time, and 3) Congress and the other democratic layers of protection will probably prevent him from going too far.

So it is a bit like voting for a political party in SA that represents 90% of the things you want, and one item you don’t want… but they’d need a change to the bill of rights for that last one… so you are probably safe. Right? Lots of people would take that gamble.

(Specifically, lots of people who are against the death penalty might still vote for the Freedom Front, if you want an example of how that happens).

I believe this. It’s been widely reported. The USA gets about 2/3 of it’s oil from Canada, which makes the tariffs even harder to understand.

But I remark on this because Obama, back then, said that the USA was close to becoming self-sufficient in oil with all the fracking that was going on. That was important because if they became self-sufficient, then OPEC (nor anybody else) could use oil or a throttled supply thereof for leverage.

1 Like