badgerx16

https://inews.co.uk/news/world/trump-inner-circle-cannot-rein-him-in-4282528?utm_source=firefox-newtab-en-gb "When Donald Trump returned to the White House in January 2024, he and his top advisers believed they had hit upon a surefire way to ensure that, this time around, he would not be talked out of anything he wanted to do. The plan: to surround himself with dyed-in-the-wool loyalists from within his Make America Great Again and America First movements. There would be no voices of dissent, no moderating influences and – as the US President looks around his Cabinet table – definitely no Ed Milibands ready to challenge and dissuade him from wading blindly into geopolitical crises and military engagements. Arguably, no single event has revealed the success of the Trump’s strategy more than the US’s ongoing “major combat operations” against Iran. Without a single restraining voice in his ear, he has taken full advantage of his top lieutenants’ green light to assassinate Iran’s supreme leader, destabilise the Middle East, put the lives of US troops at risk, send the global price of oil soaring and leave the US at a greater risk of terror attacks at home. A casual observer can see Trump’s strategy playing out on television daily. His “Cabinet meetings” are not proper Cabinet meetings – they are made-for-television spectacles in which the President goes around the table and invites praise and plaudits from sycophantic members of his inner circle who, at times, appear to be competing to massage his ego with ever-greater dollops of baby oil." ......... "In Trump’s second term, there are no experts within his National Security Council willing to present an alternative thesis to the President’s preconceived notions – they were all rooted out the moment Joe Biden left office. This time around, there are not even any first-term figures such as John Kelly, the former White House chief of staff, or former national security advisers General HR McMaster or John Bolton, who, with varying degrees of fealty, would prostrate themselves before Trump but also occasionally tell him he was wrong. Instead, the country is left with the cartoonish character of Secretary of War Pete Hegseth. He is a former Fox News weekend anchorman who displays all the characteristics of a performing seal as he presents cocksure, tough-guy military briefings that appear designed primarily for the attention of his boss. At times, even the generals tapped by Trump to lead his war shuffle uncomfortably on their feet as Hegseth reaches for the high notes. These are generals who survived Hegseth’s purges last year, which aimed to remove those whose views were seen as at odds with Trump’s own."

Former Trump fanatic Marjorie Taylor Greene on a TV talk show ' “What’s in his mind? What is his mental state? A year in, and we’re in another f**king war, What is happening to a man I supported… the man that denounced what happened in Iraq, the man who said, ‘no more foreign wars, no more regime change’?”

Pilfering

Correct.

Brigade

The suthor of the article quoted on X is a strongly Eurosceptic 'Leaver', I think this article is what is being referenced https://www.spiked-online.com/2026/02/17/the-lie-at-the-heart-of-starmers-brexit-reset/. However, there are also many articles claiming that the misgivings of the OBR are being borne out, such as this https://ukandeu.ac.uk/brexits-impact-on-the-uk-economy/. Once again, you pay your money and make your choice - probably ending up with strong confirmation bias towards your personal prejudice on the subject.

+1

Injured scoring the winner.

PL bias.

Only if you have Discovery/TNT.

Does anybody these days ?

Azaz completely fucked that up.

How was that from Larin ?