Octopus Overlords

The State Department made a surprising announcement on Monday, and it had nothing to do with international affairs. The branch of the federal government had rebranded itself as “The Department of Swagger.”

The re-branding campaign started when Secretary of State Mike Pompeo launched an Instagram account on Monday, posting an inaugural photo and declaring that the State Department has “swagger.” So much “swagger” that the entire department needed to be renamed to properly reflect the amount of “swagger” shown in Pompeo’s photo. “Thought I’d launch my Instagram account with some @statedept #swagger,” the secretary of state wrote alongside an image of a new (hopefully) joke state department seal, which was also posted on Pompeo’s Twitter account.

hepcat wrote: Mon Oct 07, 2019 10:52 am

Rip wrote: Tue Feb 27, 2018 7:23 pm It is a little weird to see you guys jump in on my Turkey hating.

Kurds have always been good friends to us but we always take Turkey's side because they are bigger and more powerful.

Rip wrote: Tue Feb 27, 2018 7:23 pm It is a little weird to see you guys jump in on my Turkey hating.

Kurds have always been good friends to us but we always take Turkey's side because they are bigger and more powerful.

Somewhere out there, his Rip sense tingling, our old friend realizes he made a huuuuge mistake.

hepcat wrote: Mon Aug 29, 2022 9:04 pm If this truly is our long lost compatriot Rip, then he must have changed his tune and started loving Turkey like the orange one does.

But I suspect we have a bot in our midst.

hepcat wrote: Mon Aug 29, 2022 9:10 pm But the orange one you worship loves turkey, bot. Remember, he even called himself “a big fan” of Erdogan. Your programming is off.

Rip wrote: Mon Aug 29, 2022 9:15 pm

hepcat wrote: Mon Aug 29, 2022 9:10 pm But the orange one you worship loves turkey, bot. Remember, he even called himself “a big fan” of Erdogan. Your programming is off.

Haven't we been over this years ago? First I was for Rand Paul, then he dropped out. So I began backing Ted Cruz, then he dropped out. That left Trump instead of Clinton. Hardly makes me a big fan.

Rip wrote: Thu Jun 13, 2019 4:30 pm I haven't missed a day of streaming since before xmas btw.

I am every bit the beast on twitch as I have been for years here. If only there were more hours in the day I would still be hanging out here more.

But don't worry if Trump gets re-elected I will be sure to come take a victory lap for old times sake.

hepcat wrote: Mon Aug 29, 2022 9:23 pm

Rip wrote: Mon Aug 29, 2022 9:15 pm

hepcat wrote: Mon Aug 29, 2022 9:10 pm But the orange one you worship loves turkey, bot. Remember, he even called himself “a big fan” of Erdogan. Your programming is off.

Haven't we been over this years ago? First I was for Rand Paul, then he dropped out. So I began backing Ted Cruz, then he dropped out. That left Trump instead of Clinton. Hardly makes me a big fan.

Rip wrote: Thu Jun 13, 2019 4:30 pm I haven't missed a day of streaming since before xmas btw.

I am every bit the beast on twitch as I have been for years here. If only there were more hours in the day I would still be hanging out here more.

But don't worry if Trump gets re-elected I will be sure to come take a victory lap for old times sake.

Took me 2 seconds to disprove that you aren’t a big fan of Trump. Shall we gather up all the others, bot?

Just out of curiosity, what made this bot choose a random post from almost 3 years ago to respond to?

Enough wrote: Wed Aug 02, 2017 1:06 pm Trump's State Dept. has no interest in protecting us from Russian cyber attacks. Why? Because, awh gee we don't wanna make em' mad at us, do we?

Secretary of State Rex Tillerson is resisting the pleas of State Department officials to spend nearly $80 million allocated by Congress for fighting terrorist propaganda and Russian disinformation.

It is highly unusual for a Cabinet secretary to turn down money for his department. But more than five months into his tenure, Tillerson has not issued a simple request for the money earmarked for the State Department’s Global Engagement Center, $60 million of which is now parked at the Pentagon. Another $19.8 million sits untouched at the State Department as Tillerson’s aides reject calls from career diplomats and members of Congress to put the money to work against America’s adversaries.

The Global Engagement Center (GEC), a State Department unit established in 2016, shuttered on Monday at a time when officials and experts tracking propaganda have been warning of the risk of disinformation campaigns from US adversaries such as Russia and China.
...
The GEC has long faced scrutiny from Republican lawmakers, who accused it of censoring and surveilling Americans.

It also came under fire from Elon Musk, who accused the GEC in 2023 of being the “worst offender in US government censorship [and] media manipulation” and called the agency a “threat to our democracy.”

The GEC’s leaders have pushed back on those views, calling their work crucial to combating foreign propaganda campaigns.

Holman wrote: Wed Dec 25, 2024 7:22 pm It looks like we have two Trump foreign policy threads: the present one and this more recent one.

Since we'll no doubt need an ongoing one in the coming dark years, I propose that we stick to the present thread. What say you all?

Grifman wrote: Tue Jan 07, 2025 3:29 pm So today Trump refused to rule out the use of force or economic coercion to take Greenland or the Panama Canal. I think he is just talking but the fact that a president talks this way, especially against a current NATO ally is absurd. And the other thing - this is not just land - there are people in both places - they don’t want America - don’t they have rights? But I don’t care - this is what America voted for, thus is what we are getting. I’m just disgusted with my country right now and for the next four years.

IceBear wrote: Tue Jan 07, 2025 3:44 pm He also wants it to be called the Gulf of America and not the Gulf of Mexico

Grifman wrote: Tue Jan 07, 2025 3:29 pm So today Trump refused to rule out the use of force or economic coercion to take Greenland or the Panama Canal. I think he is just talking but the fact that a president talks this way, especially against a current NATO ally is absurd. And the other thing - this is not just land - there are people in both places - they don’t want America - don’t they have rights? But I don’t care - this is what America voted for, thus is what we are getting. I’m just disgusted with my country right now and for the next four years.

YellowKing wrote: Tue Jan 07, 2025 5:19 pm If you're busy talking about Trump renaming the Gulf of Mexico, you're not talking about how he didn't stop the Ukraine war or bring down grocery prices. This guy's walking clickbait, and the media falls for it every.....damn......time.

Skinypupy wrote:

YellowKing wrote: Tue Jan 07, 2025 5:19 pm If you're busy talking about Trump renaming the Gulf of Mexico, you're not talking about how he didn't stop the Ukraine war or bring down grocery prices. This guy's walking clickbait, and the media falls for it every.....damn......time.

I know it's all just stupid distraction, but it still serves to diminish the US even further on the world stage every time it happens.

I suppose there will come a time where that won't matter much anymore (if it even does now), but it's still frustrating to watch.

$iljanus wrote: Tue Jan 07, 2025 5:18 pm

Grifman wrote: Tue Jan 07, 2025 3:29 pm So today Trump refused to rule out the use of force or economic coercion to take Greenland or the Panama Canal. I think he is just talking but the fact that a president talks this way, especially against a current NATO ally is absurd. And the other thing - this is not just land - there are people in both places - they don’t want America - don’t they have rights? But I don’t care - this is what America voted for, thus is what we are getting. I’m just disgusted with my country right now and for the next four years.

China doesn’t need to do much to look like the rational person in the room. Yeah the rest of the world can’t blow us off totally because we are voracious consumers and have profitable companies but if I were China I’d try as much as possible to be the model of stability, knock off the Taiwan crap, and just be an industrial powerhouse and reliable trading partner.

More likely, though, he just wants it because it would be cool. And as much as he makes the national security arguments … well, we’ve all studied this guy’s brain for a decade now. We think we know why he’s really interested in it.

It’s because Greenland looks really, really big on the Mercator projection.

Greenland is not small. We would never disrespect Greenland by calling it small. But it’s not as big as it looks, flattened out, on the Mercator projection. It is not roughly the same size as Africa. It is my belief, however, that Trump does not know this and believes that it is the size of Africa, which makes him fixated on it enough to threaten war—trade war or shooting war—with a NATO ally over its control.

The same applies to Canada, which Trump also says he wants, and which also appears enormous on the Mercator projection.

YellowKing wrote: Tue Jan 07, 2025 5:19 pm If you're busy talking about Trump renaming the Gulf of Mexico, you're not talking about how he didn't stop the Ukraine war or bring down grocery prices. This guy's walking clickbait, and the media falls for it every.....damn......time.

Max Peck wrote: Sat Jan 11, 2025 3:37 pm Slate has cracked the code with regard to Trump's hard-on for Greenland (and Canada).

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Holman wrote: Sat Jan 11, 2025 4:28 pm I do think it's more than that.

One of the more ambitious projects floating around in the heads of right-wing silicon valley is the establishment of a whole new country, a second America built on tech-libertarian principles. If they can't get a whole country, a semi-independent territory under American protection will surely do. I wouldn't be surprised if Vance (who is Peter Thiel's creature) is wormtonguing Trump on this.

It's no coincidence that the mineral resources available in Greenland include lithium, nickel, cobalt, etc, precisely those needed for high-tech batteries and other equipment.

Rumpy wrote: Sat Jan 11, 2025 6:57 pm The article you posted, Max, talks about his tariff threats to Denmark, and this makes me wonder, how much does the U.S trade with Denmark in the first place? Is it significant? I ask because I never considered that it would.