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@cardcrimson: please re-read my last comment. There’s nothing ludicrous about acquiring Greenland. Sounds great. Let’s negotiate. If the price is reasonable and if they are agreeable to it, then let’s do it. The point both you and Mick completely missed or ignored: you don’t threaten friendly, peaceful, democratic allies as a negotiation tactic.
Going back to WW2, we historically had as many as 47 military bases on Greenland, depending on how you count. With one or two exceptions, we gradually shut them all down and withdrew for various reasons. Some were unnecessary due to technology advances, priorities changed, etc. But we were not forced out; we weren’t expelled. And if we want more military bases there, Greenland would almost certainly come to some reasonable arrangement. We do not need to threaten them. Do you not see how imperialistic and insane that is?
Regarding Mick’s point about failing to meet the 2% defense budget, I agree. I’ve argued on other platforms (and maybe here) that Trump happens to be right about that — and Europe needs to increase their spending. However, that is not an excuse to threaten annexation of their territory by force. You want to give them a deadline? Fine. Tell them we will withdraw from NATO if they don’t meet these obligations by such and such date. How about 2027? But you don’t just start threatening military aggression. I mean WTF. How do you guys not understand this? Or if you do, maybe you can agree that it’s fucked up.
@Mick: two other points about the 2% thing:First some history and context about that number: The 2% of GDP defense spending target for NATO members is not a legal requirement but a political guideline introduced in 2006 to encourage adequate military investment. It gained prominence after Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 2014, when NATO leaders at a Wales Summit agreed to aim for 2% within a decade. At the time it was framed as an aspirational goal rather than a binding obligation. In 2023, at the Vilnius Summit, NATO updated the language to call the 2% a “minimum” spending level, but still without enforcement mechanisms. Spending has indeed increased significantly in recent years — though most NATO countries have still fallen short of the target. As much as I agree they should increase their defense, NATO membership does not require countries to meet the 2% threshold, and failing to do so does not violate any treaty obligations.
Second: when it comes to the recent conflict in Ukraine, Europe collectively has spent significantly more than the USA in the last few years. You want to criticize them about budget obligations? Fine. But they are stepping up more than the US financially now.
Of course, the rationale for abandoning Ukraine and Europe is not actually about this 2% budget thing. That is just a red herring. If it were an actual imperative, Trump and the people in his administration would not be supporting the party in Germany which advocates for less defense spending. They would not aim their most vocal criticism at Poland, which spends more than double the 2% and more than the US, as a percentage, on defense.
NO MALARKEY
First, I posted that four times because the platform glitched. My browser just hung when I tried to submit. I waited a minute and checked the website from a different device and it wasn’t showing up. So I tried posting again…. Rinse and repeat a few times. Don’t blame me. This isn’t the first time it’s happened here. https://currenteventsboard.com/forums/topic/test/
I don’t know if my account gets flagged for moderation or if the backend infrastructure supporting this site has issues.
Second, buying Greenland is perfectly fine. Sounds great, for the right price. And if they agree to it. But threatening a NATO ally and a friendly country is insane. Do you not understand that is what Trump is doing when he says he’s not ruling out military force? Even if it’s just a negotiation tactic, that is completely beyond the pale. That is not how you treat friendly countries, allies, partners.
I have to believe that there’s some part of you that understands how batshit insane this is. How corrosive it is. How fucked our economy would be if we actually initiated a hostile action against our closest allies. And I don’t just mean Greenland and Denmark. I mean the alliance of democratic nations who would turn on us economically (they already have over the idiotic tariffs, but it would ramp up exponentially).
I mean who the fuck behaves like this besides Russia? Do you go to your friends house and say, “that’s a nice piece of property. I’d like to buy it from you because my family needs it more than you. And if you don’t sell it to me, I’m not ruling out arson or some other malicious tactics.”
Even if we don’t use force, just saying shit like that is historically insane.
NO MALARKEY
I mentioned we might get another serving of “freedom fries” in my first post. Sure enough, we now have the White House tweeting about “Freedom Seeds”:
Close enough.
NO MALARKEY
I mentioned we might get another serving of “freedom fries” in my first post. Sure enough, we now have the White House tweeting about “Freedom Seeds”:
Close enough.
NO MALARKEY
I mentioned we might get another serving of “freedom fries” in my first post. Sure enough, we now have the White House tweeting about “Freedom Seeds”:
Close enough.
NO MALARKEY
I mentioned “freedom fries” in my first post, and we now have the White House tweeting about “Freedom Seeds”:
Close enough.
NO MALARKEY
Glad to hear it. As a good first step, please stop voting for the party that has spent decades making it easy to mix money and politics.
NO MALARKEY
And you’re implying that wanting to acquire Greenland is so bizarre
Mick, the fact that you’re even pretending this is all perfectly normal is mind blowing. I mean WTF? I don’t even know if this warrants much of a response.
Trump says U.S. will ‘get Greenland,’ military force may not be needed but not ruled out
Do I really need to explain why this is fucking bonkers?
NO MALARKEY
Mick. It sounds like we agree then. Let’s get rid of money in politics.
Senator Jeanne Shaheen just proposed an amendment to do exactly this:
Amendment to End the Domination of Big Money in Politics Introduced in U.S. Senate
I hope you and all the others here who are concerned about big business being “in the bag” for Democrats will get on board with this. Or do you not actually care about money in politics — but just care about it when it is given to Democrats?
NO MALARKEY
We as a country should not be violating human rights and deporting people to gulags in the first place, much less because it’s too expensive to give them a hearing. These guys were already being detained. It took Reuters about ten seconds to verify the legal status, criminal record, and other detail. Is legal justice now too expensive? Should we dismantle our criminal justice system and fire all the prosecutors and defense lawyers, as well?
You mention Guantanamo. At least with Guantanamo the U.S. government kept the detainees on a base we control. That meant the courts got involved and there was some level of public scrutiny. Lawyers could visit. The media could report. Human rights groups were watching. I guess that’s the point of El Salvador — Guantanamo was too nice, apparently, if you no longer believe in human rights.
With our new arrangement we can just vanish people into a system with no rules, no recourse, no transparency.
By way, you mention that nobody seems to dispute that these guys entered the country illegally. That’s actually not true:
A 35-year-old former professional soccer player, Jerce legally entered the U.S. in 2024 seeking asylum after reportedly being detained and tortured by the Maduro regime. Despite a pending asylum hearing scheduled for April 17, 2025, he was deported based on a Real Madrid tattoo, which authorities misinterpreted as a gang symbol.
After fleeing persecution in Venezuela to Colombia, “E.M.” and his girlfriend were granted refugee status in the U.S. Upon arrival in Houston on January 8, he was detained due to tattoos—a crown, a soccer ball, and a palm tree—that were suspected gang symbols. Despite no criminal record in Venezuela or Colombia, he was deported to El Salvador on March 15 and imprisoned.
The gay Venezuelan asylum seeker and makeup artist I mentioned –Andry — legally entered the U.S. seeking protection from persecution. Despite no gang affiliations, he was deported to El Salvador and incarcerated in a mega-prison.
A 26-year-old barber, Franco entered the U.S. in 2023, requesting asylum. He was detained during a routine check-in with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement in February 2025 and later deported, despite documents indicating he had no criminal record.
You distrust the media, and think maybe those guys are actually worse than portrayed. But you have no evidence. Because how could you? They weren’t given a hearing. Who is even making these decisions?
You don’t want to believe the media? Ok. Give them a hearing and believe the courts, a judge, or the administrative process that concludes affirmatively, with some evidence, that they are gang members.
NO MALARKEY
Mick — you do realize that conservatives voted every step of the way to weaken the laws and rules around money & politics. Every lawsuit, Supreme Court decision, legislation, etc. was championed by conservatives.
Imagine spending decades advocating for steroids in sports — and then complaining that the other teams are using steroids.
Over the past 25 years, the legal barriers separating money from politics in the U.S. have been systematically dismantled—primarily through a series of Supreme Court rulings driven by conservative majorities. The most pivotal decision was Citizens United v. FEC (2010), which held that corporations and unions could spend unlimited amounts on independent political expenditures, framing such spending as protected free speech. This opened the door to Super PACs and dark money. That same year, SpeechNow.org v. FEC allowed for unlimited contributions to Super PACs, while McCutcheon v. FEC (2014) struck down aggregate limits on how much individuals could donate across all federal candidates. More recently, FEC v. Ted Cruz for Senate (2022) made it easier for wealthy candidates to be repaid by donors after elections. Together, these decisions turned campaign finance law into Swiss cheese.
Politically, these changes were overwhelmingly championed by conservatives and the Republican Party. Conservative legal groups like the Federalist Society, libertarian think tanks, and GOP-aligned donors pushed the idea that campaign finance restrictions violated the First Amendment. Republican leadership in Congress, particularly people like Mitch McConnell, fought vigorously against contribution limits and transparency laws. Democrats, by contrast, generally supported stricter campaign finance rules and sought to pass legislation like the DISCLOSE Act, though some benefited from the same dark money system in practice.
The irony is sharp when conservatives complain about the influence of money in politics today. I was on the CEB long enough to remember many of you poo pooing any arguments against some of these things. Because “freedom”, money is speech, etc.
Meanwhile you have Elon Musk – the richest guy in the world — literally taking questions from the Oval Office: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VyqB3t91quQ
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NO MALARKEY
Deicy Aldana, 26, said her husband, 26-year-old Colombian-Venezuelan dual citizen Andres Guillermo Morales, had a legal work permit in the United States as part of his U.S. asylum application when he was arrested by ICE in early February. His work authorization was verified independently by Reuters.
Aldana shared paperwork showing her husband, who has a Colombian mother and was raised along the two countries’ border, has no criminal convictions in Colombia. Reuters confirmed the authenticity of the document with its own records search.Reuters was not able to immediately find any U.S. criminal convictions for Morales either.Morales, who worked for an air conditioning company and then a cement company, had multiple tattoos, Aldana said, but none were connected to any gang. He had his parents’ names on his arms, with a clock next to his father’s, as well as a star and music notes on his neck and a Bible verse on his ribs.NO MALARKEY
Sad story about one of the disappeared people. If you read the story, he is a gay make-up artist with some tattoos. Does that sound like a gang member to you? Maybe he is. I doubt it, but how would we actually know without a hearing?
He waited months in detention for an immigration court hearing on March 13, but instead was put one of three planes with 237 other migrants and deported.
Another story about a guy with an “Autism Awareness” tattoo sent to this gulag. Is that the new profile of a Venezuelan gang member?
https://www.irishstar.com/news/us-news/trump-sends-innocent-man-el-34945042
the sister of Neri Jose Alvarado Borges—a 24-year-old of Venezuelan descent deported to El Salvador this month—said relatives suspect that Immigration and Custom Enforcement officials used his tattoos, one showing the name of his autistic younger brother and another showing a rainbow-colored ribbon of the autism acceptance movement, to justify his illegal ousting from the US.
Montilla said her brother wasn’t in any gang. Instead, he had been a psychology student who dropped out of school to come to America nine months ago due to the upheaval of the Venezuelan economy.
Are you guys seriously arguing this is not only ok, but good?
NO MALARKEY
And how do you know if they really are criminals? Is this just a “trust me bro” scenario? Even criminals are allowed human rights.
We don’t even know if these are all criminals. They are simply alleged criminals. And even criminals are entitled to human rights and due process. Or do we as a country not believe in that anymore?
GR, I’m surprised to see you on the wrong side of this. As you well know, there are ways of keeping court proceedings anonymous.
You can withhold juror names, you can keep juror addresses, workplaces, or demographic data confidential, you can sequester the jury.
A court can seal proceedings or certain filings to protect the identity of witnesses, victims, informants, even parties in civil cases (e.g., Doe v. Roe cases).
Judges can issue protective orders under Rule 26(c) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure or equivalent state rules.
There are laws and procedures for keeping details of the judges confidential, as well.
The U.S. Constitution deliberately uses the term “person” rather than “citizen” in key provisions such as the Due Process Clauses of the 5th and 14th Amendments, the Equal Protection Clause, and the 4th, 6th, and 1st Amendments. These rights—protection against unlawful searches and seizures, the right to a fair trial, freedom of speech and religion, and equal protection under the law—apply to anyone on U.S. soil, regardless of immigration status.
The U.S. Supreme Court has consistently upheld this interpretation. In Yick Wo v. Hopkins (1886), the Court confirmed that constitutional protections extend to all persons within the country. In Zadvydas v. Davis (2001), it ruled that even undocumented immigrants cannot be detained indefinitely without due process. While non-citizens don’t have full political rights like voting or holding certain public offices, they are still protected from arbitrary detention, discrimination, and abuse. U.S. courts have repeatedly affirmed that the rule of law does not depend on citizenship.
NO MALARKEY
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