It's also a threefold solution to Trump's current problems -
1. it takes the Epstien files completely out of media discourse, which is what Trump wants after it was pretty much confirmed that he's a pedophile.
2. it satisfies the biggest donors to the republican party - weapons manufacturers and oil companies.
3. it allows Trump to control the narrative, and makes the media forget about the drugs that were supposedly being exported from venezuela. truth is there are effectively no drugs coming in from venezuela. i saw a deep explainer on reddit (yes, it could entirely be bullshit) that basically said that venezula produces between 0.02 to 0.08% of all illicit drugs entering the USA per year. No idea how that is calculated, but it makes sense in the context that Houndouras' president was effectively pardoned by Trump, and Hondouras by its very location is balls deep in the drug trade
Bonus: honors the practice of a republican president invading a country under bullshit premises to capture oil. Bush I and II both did so.
> which is what Trump wants after it was pretty much confirmed that he's a pedophile.
While there's no shortage of creepy anecdotes about Trump in what's been released, there's been nothing that comes close to showing he had sex with any underage girls, nor have any come forward to claim that.
> Bonus: honors the practice of a republican president invading a country under bullshit premises to capture oil. Bush I and II both did so.
People are missing the point here. This wasn't a regime change, this is psychological warfare against the ruling party to get them to be more compliant. And yes, of course it's all about oil. While this could potentially deny China access to Venezuelan oil in the long term, it also removes the threat to Guyana's production, which is skyrocketing.
Uhh, there is absolutely girls who have come forth to say that he at least has had girls perform oral sex upon him, and other sexual acts beyond "vaginal penetration" (hint: men generally don't describe thirteen year old girls' nipples as "pert". They generally don't have or find opportunities to evaluate them in the first place).
But hey, maybe that's MAGA's next spin, "it's not pedophilia if it's not actual vaginal sex".
If you have a source for that I'll be more than happy to go edit my original post to acknowledge being completely wrong on this. But my instinct is that if there was an even mildly credible report of an underage girl performing oral sex on him, we'd all have heard about it by now.
>if there was an even mildly credible report of an underage girl performing oral sex on him, we'd all have heard about it by now.
We could have the entire epstein report unredacted and you'd still be arguing that the video evidence was Ai generated. There's no helping people like you at this point.
I guess this is what Germany feels like with holocaust deniers. Too bad our constitution makes it hard to prosecute this kind of denial.
The woman known as Katie Johnson accused Trump of raping her and another girl at age 13 at one of Epstein's parties, but dropped the lawsuit. Michael Wolff said Epstein showed him pictures of Trump with topless girls who could have been underaged from his vault. Trump was accused of going into his underaged beauty pageants when they were dressing. Trump sent the birthday letter to Epstein with the nude female drawing and lots of innuendo about sharing a secret. Maxwell was given a very favorable deal by Todd Blanche, and it's known the administration didn't want to release the full Epstein files because of how much Trump was mentioned in them.
Plus Trump was very good friends with Epstein and Maxwell. Do the math.
Counter any of them with real evidence, I dare you.
1. Trump is a pedophile. This is confirmed by the fact that he's been sued for his pedaristic actions, and "wished well" his former Mossad-backed recruiter.
2. Weapons makers and oil companies have quite literally had their executives and shareholders go from the board room to cabinet or VP level positions in the US government. this isn't a conspiracy.
3. Venezuela produces very little of the drugs the US consumer consumes. Mexico, Colombia, etc.. produce far more, like double-digit multiples more. Context: I live in SoFLA and interact with Venezuelans daily, and I lived in Mexico for several years and am pretty familiar with how their cartels operate.
The previous poster totally misunderstands how the War Power Act works, and many of those statements are at best supposition and at worst demonstrably false. The war powers act does not allow any domestic action at all.
> 2. it satisfies the biggest donors to the republican party - weapons manufacturers and oil companies.
This is nonsense the defense industry contributes pretty much evenly to each party. And the oil industry bit is just like the nonsense take on the Iraq war which saw virtually no contracts going to US companies.
Additionally:
>truth is there are effectively no drugs coming in from venezuela.
While Venezuela does not supply drugs bound for the US the regime there has long partnered with FARC to smuggle cocaine and weapons[1].
> Bonus: honors the practice of a republican president invading a country under bullshit premises to capture oil. Bush I and II both did so.
The first Gulf War was about kicking Saddam out of Kuwait, not capturing oil, so yeah conspiracy and false statements.
>This is nonsense the defense industry contributes pretty much evenly to each party.
Wow, that's the most cringe thing I've seen in this thread. The defense industry owns both parties but contributes significantly more to Repbublican efforts than DEM efforts.
You'll notice that while the defense industry contributes to DEM candidates, they far outspend on "conservative" politicians.
>And the oil industry bit is just like the nonsense take on the Iraq war which saw virtually no contracts going to US companies.
The US oil industry didn't get any contracts during the Iraq takeover? The oil industry literally had a Haliburton CEO, Dick Cheney, go from the C-Suite to the Vice Presidency.
> The US oil industry didn't get any contracts during the Iraq takeover? The oil industry literally had a Haliburton CEO, Dick Cheney, go from the C-Suite to the Vice Presidency.
Until about a year ago most Iraqi oil contracts were held by a Chinese company that bought it's contract under Saddam an maintained it beyond the war. Haliburton mostly made money handling logistics for the war, things like construction and laundry. Oil law in Iraq was finalized post-Saddam in 2007 and pre-2000 levels of production didn't happen until 2011 after the US withdrawal.
> This is nonsense the defense industry contributes pretty much evenly to each party.
Horseshit:
> Across 2017–2022, analyses based on OpenSecrets data find the defense industry’s contributions split at ~57% to Republicans vs ~43% to Democrats (a “kitchen-sink” strategy of giving to both parties).
Giving 1/3 (32.6%) more is not "pretty much even".
Here's the facts. In the last 18 election cycles, here's what happened (source: Open Secrets)
the Defense industry spent $242.54m on GOP candidates. They average $13.47m spent per election cycle on GOP candidates.
the Defense industry spent 181.51m on DEM candidates. They average $10.08m spent per election cycle on DEM candidates.
Only 4 times has the industry spent more on DEM candidates than GOP candidates - 1992, 1994, 2008, and 2010. For spending those years, the average difference between GOP and DEM campaign contributions is roughly $233k, or a grand total of $4.21m (as in that is the difference in overall political spending between GOP/DEM across all those cycles).
For the other 14 cycles, when the GOP was given more than the DEM, the average difference is $3.624m between parties, for a grand total of $65.24m. You could eliminate the industry's GOP contributions for the last 4 cycles and they'd still have given more to the GOP than DEM since 1990.
Bottom line: when the industry spends more on DEM than GOP, it's by a few hundred thousand dollars. When the industry spends more on GOP than DEM, it's by a few million dollars.
Splitting hairs? That's several million dollars. You're free to write me a check for that amount if it's truly splitting hairs.
Given the money spent on US elections $3.624m is barely anything. Most of this is probably down to which districts their plants are located in. Congressional candidates spent $2.7 billion on 2022 midterm races alone, $3m is a drop in an ocean of spending.
1. it takes the Epstien files completely out of media discourse, which is what Trump wants after it was pretty much confirmed that he's a pedophile.
2. it satisfies the biggest donors to the republican party - weapons manufacturers and oil companies.
3. it allows Trump to control the narrative, and makes the media forget about the drugs that were supposedly being exported from venezuela. truth is there are effectively no drugs coming in from venezuela. i saw a deep explainer on reddit (yes, it could entirely be bullshit) that basically said that venezula produces between 0.02 to 0.08% of all illicit drugs entering the USA per year. No idea how that is calculated, but it makes sense in the context that Houndouras' president was effectively pardoned by Trump, and Hondouras by its very location is balls deep in the drug trade
Bonus: honors the practice of a republican president invading a country under bullshit premises to capture oil. Bush I and II both did so.