Maybe not, the government are apparently fighting tooth and nail against this.
No surprise there I suppose. We are living in the age of I'm All Right Jack.
Some of these stories are now being picked up by the mainstream media. I think you have made a valiant to defend at least some of them. However the average person will not be bothered to lift the bonnet, as you have done. They will just read the headlines. If you were struggling to make ends meet, you might think that shrimp farms in Bangladesh was a step too far. I fear the stories will just increase that tw at Farages ammunition.
With hindsight, it's easy to see why we voted for Brexit, & how Trump got back into power.
The annoying thing is that it only takes the very minimum of effort to look deeper & find "the other side" of these stories, & the reasoning.
Folks WANT things to be wrong, so they can finger-point, as we have seen from some Forum regulars.
A gentleman got VERY excited on the Forum yesterday & started 4 different threads in 21 minutes because he thought there were two identical cards in the Sky Poker deck. I mean, really, if you actually thought about it for a second or two, how could that be possible? It's a piece of software code. And you might be forgiven for thinking that if there were two identical cards in the Sky Poker "deck", other players might have noticed it....
It would take less than 5 minutes to check, and avoid making a fool of yourself.
Maybe not, the government are apparently fighting tooth and nail against this.
No surprise there I suppose. We are living in the age of I'm All Right Jack.
Some of these stories are now being picked up by the mainstream media. I think you have made a valiant to defend at least some of them. However the average person will not be bothered to lift the bonnet, as you have done. They will just read the headlines. If you were struggling to make ends meet, you might think that shrimp farms in Bangladesh was a step too far. I fear the stories will just increase that tw at Farages ammunition.
With hindsight, it's easy to see why we voted for Brexit, & how Trump got back into power.
The annoying thing is that it only takes the very minimum of effort to look deeper & find "the other side" of these stories, & the reasoning.
Folks WANT things to be wrong, so they can finger-point, as we have seen from some Forum regulars.
A gentleman got VERY excited on the Forum yesterday & started 4 different threads in 21 minutes because he thought there were two identical cards in the Sky Poker deck. I mean, really, if you actually thought about it for a second or two, how could that be possible? It's a piece of software code. And you might be forgiven for thinking that if there were two identical cards in the Sky Poker "deck", other players might have noticed it....
It would take less than 5 minutes to check, and avoid making a fool of yourself.
Without me becoming an investigative journalist and disproving any of these figures, I'm just posting what is being reported in the media.
Donald J. Trump reads aloud a list of some of the ridiculous projects taxpayers have been funding — like $10 million for circumcisions in Mozambique and $25 million for biodiversity in Colombia.
Trump literally says it himself - 'something that nobody ever heard of'. He doesn't even know what he's talking about, even says it himself, and people will buy this rhetoric and it's going to cause problems.
It's stupid and it's childish and this person is the president.
Without me becoming an investigative journalist and disproving any of these figures, I'm just posting what is being reported in the media.
Donald J. Trump reads aloud a list of some of the ridiculous projects taxpayers have been funding — like $10 million for circumcisions in Mozambique and $25 million for biodiversity in Colombia.
Here's something that was posted here yesterday about Trump's "imagination".
Here is our list of Trump’s 13 biggest lies since he was inaugurated on January 20. It was hard to choose.
The tale of the $50 million – no, make it $100 million – in condoms for Hamas: When press secretary Karoline Leavitt announced at her first official White House briefing that Trump had thwarted a plan to spend $50 million “to fund condoms in Gaza,” it was immediately clear the claim was highly dubious; the Trump administration had no evidence to substantiate it. But Trump not only repeated the $50 million figure the next day, he added an incendiary claim that the condoms were “for Hamas.” Then, days after it had become obvious the $50 million figure was pure fiction, he inflated it to “$100 million.”
This was another example of Trumpflation – the president’s years-old habit of making his inaccurate stories more and more inaccurate over time.
Blaming Ukraine for starting the war on Ukraine: Russia started the war in Ukraine when it invaded Ukraine in 2022. That is an obvious fact. But on Tuesday, when Trump dismissed Ukrainians’ complaints about their exclusion from US-Russia negotiations about ending the war, he falsely accused Ukraine of starting the war – saying, “You should’ve never started it. You could’ve made a deal.” Laughable Kremlin-style propaganda, this time from the president of the United States.
The (non-)uniqueness of birthright citizenship: Trump offered what might have sounded like a reasonable rationale for his attempt to get rid of birthright citizenship. The United States, he said, is the only country that has birthright citizenship.
Except that is not true, as CNN and other outlets pointed out when Trump made the same claim as president in 2018 and on various other occasions. Dozens of countries, including Canada and Mexico, also grant automatic citizenship to people born on their soil.
More up-is-down reversing of the reality of January 6: For years now, Trump has presented a version of the Capitol riot of January 6, 2021, that bears little resemblance to what actually happened. When he was asked in early February why he granted pardons to people who assaulted first responders, he said the people he pardoned were actually “assaulted by our government” and that “they didn’t assault.” This “they didn’t assault” claim was a brazen denial of the obvious truth, clear in video after video and trial after trial. The Justice Department has said more than 140 officers were assaulted on January 6, and that more than 170 people pleaded guilty to such assaults. A gusher of deceit about California water policy: Amid disaster, more dishonesty. First, Trump linked the Los Angeles wildfires to California’s decision to use some of its water to protect a fish species in the northern part of the state – even though the two things have nothing to do with each other, as befuddled experts explained to anyone who would listen. Then, after ordering the sudden release of billions of gallons of water from Central Valley reservoirs for no apparent good reason, Trump declared that some of this water was heading to Los Angeles – even though it wasn’t heading to Los Angeles and couldn’t go to Los Angeles.
The election lie he refused to let die: What can you even say about this one at this point? Trump’s win in the free and fair 2024 election did not convince him to abandon his endless lying about his defeat in the free and fair 2020 election. More than four years after his loss to Joe Biden, he repeated his “rigged” nonsense during at least three events on his 2025 inauguration day alone, then a bunch of times after that.
That fable about Olympic boxers, again: Trump, once a prominent promoter of lies about President Barack Obama’s birthplace, continued to demonstrate no hesitation lying about not only policy issues but also individual people. This time, to promote his push to try to get transgender athletes banned from the Olympics, he told his familiar story about how two gold medalists in women’s boxing at the Games in Paris last year were men who “transitioned.”
Wrong. As the International Olympic Committee repeatedly noted during the Olympics, when Trump and others made such claims, neither champion had transitioned; both were born as female and have always competed in women’s events. Even the discredited boxing authority that controversially disqualified the women from a 2023 competition, vaguely claiming a test had found they had unfair competitive advantages, did not allege they had transitioned.
The president’s fictionalized northern neighbor: Before taking office, Trump casually asserted that the Canadian people “like” his idea of Canada becoming the 51st US state. That was the opposite of the truth; the idea is hugely unpopular with the Canadian public. Then, after his inauguration, Trump continued to make stuff up about Canada – at one point posting on social media and then saying out loud that Canada prohibits US banks from doing business there. He added, “Can you believe that?” No doubt some Americans believe it, but it’s false.
Blasting Biden for a program launched under Trump: After the deadly January collision between a military helicopter and a passenger jet, Trump blamed Biden administration diversity initiatives at the Federal Aviation Administration without providing any evidence any FAA diversity policy had anything to do with the crash. He added in a fictional story about a frantic last-minute Biden push to hire people with significant disabilities as air traffic controllers, failing to explain that this FAA pilot program was actually a years-old initiative launched during his own administration in 2019.
Relentless deception about who pays tariffs: When Trump talked about the tariffs he imposed on Chinese imports in his first presidency, he spoke of how much money “from China” these tariffs generated for the US Treasury. When he talked about the additional tariffs he plans to impose on various other countries during his current presidency, he spoke of a need to “charge them.” At no point did he acknowledge that US importers, not foreign countries, are the ones who pay the actual tariff charges – or that study after study, including one from the federal government’s bipartisan trade commission, found that Americans ended up bearing almost the entire cost of his first-term tariffs on Chinese products.
A wild exaggeration of the increase in autism rates: Trump keeps flirting with, though not explicitly endorsing, the thoroughly debunked conspiracy theory that childhood vaccines cause autism – and in a social media post in early February, he inflated the extent of the increase in the known prevalence of autism over the last two decades. “20 years ago, Autism in children was 1 in 10,000. NOW IT’S 1 in 34,” Trump wrote. “WOW! Something’s really wrong.” Aside from the fact that experts say the increase in autism diagnoses (to 1 in 36 children by age 8 in 2020) likely has to do with greater awareness of the symptoms and improved screening practices, public statistics from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention show that the known prevalence in 2004 was 1 in 125 children, not “1 in 10,000.” That’s a pretty big difference.
China’s (non-)operation of the Panama Canal: Much of Trump’s lying is ad-libbed. Some of it, however, is planned in advance. Some of it, however, is written into his prepared speeches. He said in his inaugural address in January: “Above all, China is operating the Panama Canal. And we didn’t give it to China, we gave it to Panama, and we’re taking it back.”
This would have been a good line if China was actually operating the Panama Canal. It isn’t; Panama is, though Trump could have raised legitimate questions about China’s influence in the area.
Trump’s invented dominance with “the youth vote”: Trump said some accurate things while touting his victory in the 2024 election, such as the fact that he swept all seven swing states. But in keeping with his longstanding practice of exaggerating even legitimate accomplishments, he also kept sprinkling in a claim that wasn’t even close to correct – an assertion that he won the youth vote “by 36 points.” In fact, exit polls show he lost the youth vote to then-Vice President Kamala Harris. Even if these polls were off, there’s no basis for the claim that he won the youth vote by 36.
Without me becoming an investigative journalist and disproving any of these figures, I'm just posting what is being reported in the media.
Donald J. Trump reads aloud a list of some of the ridiculous projects taxpayers have been funding — like $10 million for circumcisions in Mozambique and $25 million for biodiversity in Colombia.
The condom story just goes to prove how stupid they are. There were some condoms. They were not being sent to Hamas. Although they were being sent to Gaza. But not that Gaza. They were destined for Gaza, in Mozambique. As part of an effort to reduce the spread of HIV.
Comments
Exactly, but everyone wants to do a gotcha
Donald J. Trump reads aloud a list of some of the ridiculous projects taxpayers have been funding — like $10 million for circumcisions in Mozambique and $25 million for biodiversity in Colombia.
It's stupid and it's childish and this person is the president.
@lucy4
Yes, but he makes this stuff up. I mean, he literally, he makes it up.
He said that the USA had sent $50 million worth of condoms to Hamas. A day later, he said the figure was $100 million.
Both figures were complete lies, as now proven. The correct figure? $0.
Surely the public don't believe this nonsense, & don't need proof, it's so obviously untrue.
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/trump-100m-hamas-condoms-lies-b2701349.html
Here is our list of Trump’s 13 biggest lies since he was inaugurated on January 20. It was hard to choose.
The tale of the $50 million – no, make it $100 million – in condoms for Hamas: When press secretary Karoline Leavitt announced at her first official White House briefing that Trump had thwarted a plan to spend $50 million “to fund condoms in Gaza,” it was immediately clear the claim was highly dubious; the Trump administration had no evidence to substantiate it. But Trump not only repeated the $50 million figure the next day, he added an incendiary claim that the condoms were “for Hamas.” Then, days after it had become obvious the $50 million figure was pure fiction, he inflated it to “$100 million.”
This was another example of Trumpflation – the president’s years-old habit of making his inaccurate stories more and more inaccurate over time.
Blaming Ukraine for starting the war on Ukraine: Russia started the war in Ukraine when it invaded Ukraine in 2022. That is an obvious fact. But on Tuesday, when Trump dismissed Ukrainians’ complaints about their exclusion from US-Russia negotiations about ending the war, he falsely accused Ukraine of starting the war – saying, “You should’ve never started it. You could’ve made a deal.” Laughable Kremlin-style propaganda, this time from the president of the United States.
The (non-)uniqueness of birthright citizenship: Trump offered what might have sounded like a reasonable rationale for his attempt to get rid of birthright citizenship. The United States, he said, is the only country that has birthright citizenship.
Except that is not true, as CNN and other outlets pointed out when Trump made the same claim as president in 2018 and on various other occasions. Dozens of countries, including Canada and Mexico, also grant automatic citizenship to people born on their soil.
More up-is-down reversing of the reality of January 6: For years now, Trump has presented a version of the Capitol riot of January 6, 2021, that bears little resemblance to what actually happened. When he was asked in early February why he granted pardons to people who assaulted first responders, he said the people he pardoned were actually “assaulted by our government” and that “they didn’t assault.” This “they didn’t assault” claim was a brazen denial of the obvious truth, clear in video after video and trial after trial. The Justice Department has said more than 140 officers were assaulted on January 6, and that more than 170 people pleaded guilty to such assaults.
A gusher of deceit about California water policy: Amid disaster, more dishonesty. First, Trump linked the Los Angeles wildfires to California’s decision to use some of its water to protect a fish species in the northern part of the state – even though the two things have nothing to do with each other, as befuddled experts explained to anyone who would listen.
Then, after ordering the sudden release of billions of gallons of water from Central Valley reservoirs for no apparent good reason, Trump declared that some of this water was heading to Los Angeles – even though it wasn’t heading to Los Angeles and couldn’t go to Los Angeles.
The election lie he refused to let die: What can you even say about this one at this point? Trump’s win in the free and fair 2024 election did not convince him to abandon his endless lying about his defeat in the free and fair 2020 election. More than four years after his loss to Joe Biden, he repeated his “rigged” nonsense during at least three events on his 2025 inauguration day alone, then a bunch of times after that.
That fable about Olympic boxers, again: Trump, once a prominent promoter of lies about President Barack Obama’s birthplace, continued to demonstrate no hesitation lying about not only policy issues but also individual people. This time, to promote his push to try to get transgender athletes banned from the Olympics, he told his familiar story about how two gold medalists in women’s boxing at the Games in Paris last year were men who “transitioned.”
Wrong. As the International Olympic Committee repeatedly noted during the Olympics, when Trump and others made such claims, neither champion had transitioned; both were born as female and have always competed in women’s events. Even the discredited boxing authority that controversially disqualified the women from a 2023 competition, vaguely claiming a test had found they had unfair competitive advantages, did not allege they had transitioned.
The president’s fictionalized northern neighbor: Before taking office, Trump casually asserted that the Canadian people “like” his idea of Canada becoming the 51st US state. That was the opposite of the truth; the idea is hugely unpopular with the Canadian public. Then, after his inauguration, Trump continued to make stuff up about Canada – at one point posting on social media and then saying out loud that Canada prohibits US banks from doing business there. He added, “Can you believe that?” No doubt some Americans believe it, but it’s false.
(continued...)
Blasting Biden for a program launched under Trump: After the deadly January collision between a military helicopter and a passenger jet, Trump blamed Biden administration diversity initiatives at the Federal Aviation Administration without providing any evidence any FAA diversity policy had anything to do with the crash. He added in a fictional story about a frantic last-minute Biden push to hire people with significant disabilities as air traffic controllers, failing to explain that this FAA pilot program was actually a years-old initiative launched during his own administration in 2019.
Relentless deception about who pays tariffs: When Trump talked about the tariffs he imposed on Chinese imports in his first presidency, he spoke of how much money “from China” these tariffs generated for the US Treasury. When he talked about the additional tariffs he plans to impose on various other countries during his current presidency, he spoke of a need to “charge them.” At no point did he acknowledge that US importers, not foreign countries, are the ones who pay the actual tariff charges – or that study after study, including one from the federal government’s bipartisan trade commission, found that Americans ended up bearing almost the entire cost of his first-term tariffs on Chinese products.
A wild exaggeration of the increase in autism rates: Trump keeps flirting with, though not explicitly endorsing, the thoroughly debunked conspiracy theory that childhood vaccines cause autism – and in a social media post in early February, he inflated the extent of the increase in the known prevalence of autism over the last two decades. “20 years ago, Autism in children was 1 in 10,000. NOW IT’S 1 in 34,” Trump wrote. “WOW! Something’s really wrong.” Aside from the fact that experts say the increase in autism diagnoses (to 1 in 36 children by age 8 in 2020) likely has to do with greater awareness of the symptoms and improved screening practices, public statistics from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention show that the known prevalence in 2004 was 1 in 125 children, not “1 in 10,000.” That’s a pretty big difference.
China’s (non-)operation of the Panama Canal: Much of Trump’s lying is ad-libbed. Some of it, however, is planned in advance. Some of it, however, is written into his prepared speeches. He said in his inaugural address in January: “Above all, China is operating the Panama Canal. And we didn’t give it to China, we gave it to Panama, and we’re taking it back.”
This would have been a good line if China was actually operating the Panama Canal. It isn’t; Panama is, though Trump could have raised legitimate questions about China’s influence in the area.
Trump’s invented dominance with “the youth vote”: Trump said some accurate things while touting his victory in the 2024 election, such as the fact that he swept all seven swing states. But in keeping with his longstanding practice of exaggerating even legitimate accomplishments, he also kept sprinkling in a claim that wasn’t even close to correct – an assertion that he won the youth vote “by 36 points.” In fact, exit polls show he lost the youth vote to then-Vice President Kamala Harris. Even if these polls were off, there’s no basis for the claim that he won the youth vote by 36.
He is, quite literally, a pathological liar, worse even than Boris.
In itself, not a problem, except that some people still think he speaks the truth.
Last night, he claimed his Approval Rating in Opinion Polls was "between 69% & 76%", & went on to describe them as "numbers nobody has heard before".
In fact nobody had heard them before because he was lying. His current Approval Rating has sunk to between 46% & 49%.
There were some condoms.
They were not being sent to Hamas.
Although they were being sent to Gaza.
But not that Gaza.
They were destined for Gaza, in Mozambique.
As part of an effort to reduce the spread of HIV.