💙 Frank van Avezaath 🐦 🏴‍☠️

Er was eens .... 😎🥸`.... m die grote bril

𝗧𝗥𝗨𝗠𝗣'𝗦 𝗡𝗔𝗧𝗢 𝗚𝗥𝗜𝗙𝗧 Donald Trump has spent years selling Americans the same NATO grievance: that the United States is being exploited while Europe gets security on the cheap. It is one of his most effective political lines. It is also one that begins to unravel the moment you examine how NATO's common funding actually works. 𝗔 𝗚𝗿𝗶𝗲𝘃𝗮𝗻𝗰𝗲 𝗕𝘂𝗶𝗹𝘁 𝗢𝗻 𝗦𝗮𝗻𝗱 Every successful grift needs a convincing story. Trump's goes like this: America carries NATO while Europe freeloads. Washington pays the bills. Europeans enjoy the protection. Americans get taken advantage of by allies who should know better. It is compelling. It is endlessly repeatable. And it collapses entirely under scrutiny. 𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗡𝘂𝗺𝗯𝗲𝗿𝘀 𝗪𝗮𝘀𝗵𝗶𝗻𝗴𝘁𝗼𝗻 𝗗𝗼𝗲𝘀𝗻'𝘁 𝗪𝗮𝗻𝘁 𝗬𝗼𝘂 𝗧𝗼 𝗦𝗲𝗲 NATO's common budget is calculated using an agreed formula based on national income. Every member pays according to what their economy can bear. That is the stated principle of the alliance. 𝙃𝙚𝙧𝙚 𝙞𝙨 𝙬𝙝𝙖𝙩 𝙩𝙝𝙖𝙩 𝙥𝙧𝙞𝙣𝙘𝙞𝙥𝙡𝙚 𝙖𝙘𝙩𝙪𝙖𝙡𝙡𝙮 𝙥𝙧𝙤𝙙𝙪𝙘𝙚𝙨: ▪️ The United States - GDP $28.75 trillion contributes $836 million to NATO. ▪️ Germany - GDP $4.69 trillion, one sixth the size of America's contributes $836 million to NATO. ▪️ Britain - GDP $3.69 trillion, one eighth the size of America's contributes $578 million to NATO. That is not burden-sharing. That is the world's largest economy securing the cheapest proportional deal at the table and then spending a decade telling its voters it was being robbed. 𝙂𝙚𝙧𝙢𝙖𝙣𝙮. 𝙊𝙣𝙚 𝙨𝙞𝙭𝙩𝙝 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙚𝙘𝙤𝙣𝙤𝙢𝙞𝙘 𝙨𝙞𝙯𝙚 𝙤𝙛 𝘼𝙢𝙚𝙧𝙞𝙘𝙖. 𝙒𝙧𝙞𝙩𝙞𝙣𝙜 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙞𝙙𝙚𝙣𝙩𝙞𝙘𝙖𝙡 𝙘𝙝𝙚𝙦𝙪𝙚. 𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗕𝗶𝗹𝗹𝗶𝗼𝗻𝗮𝗶𝗿𝗲 𝗧𝗵𝗮𝗻𝗸 𝗬𝗼𝘂 𝗡𝗼𝘁𝗲 If a billionaire and a nurse donate the same amount to charity, the billionaire is not the generous one. The nurse is. The sacrifice is not measured in dollars. It is measured in what those dollars cost. That is NATO. Britain and Germany are the nurse. America is the billionaire - contributing the same amount from a vastly larger fortune, then demanding recognition for its generosity. Proportionally, European allies are carrying a heavier burden than Washington. The burden-sharing argument only works if you deliberately ignore what each country can actually afford. 𝗧𝗿𝘂𝗺𝗽 𝗜𝗻𝗵𝗲𝗿𝗶𝘁𝗲𝗱 𝗔 𝗕𝗮𝗿𝗴𝗮𝗶𝗻 𝗔𝗻𝗱 𝗖𝗮𝗹𝗹𝗲𝗱 𝗜𝘁 𝗔 𝗕𝗲𝘁𝗿𝗮𝘆𝗮𝗹 This arrangement did not happen by accident or oversight. The common funding formula was negotiated, agreed, and signed off by American officials across multiple administrations. Washington sat at the table. Washington accepted the terms. Trump did not inherit an unfair deal. He inherited an exceptionally cheap one - maximum strategic leverage at minimum proportional cost. Rather than acknowledge this, he repackaged a favourable arrangement as exploitation and sold it to his voters as victimhood. 𝙏𝙝𝙖𝙩'𝙨 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙜𝙧𝙞𝙛𝙩. 𝘿𝙚𝙡𝙞𝙗𝙚𝙧𝙖𝙩𝙚, 𝙨𝙪𝙨𝙩𝙖𝙞𝙣𝙚𝙙, 𝙖𝙣𝙙 𝙝𝙞𝙜𝙝𝙡𝙮 𝙥𝙧𝙤𝙛𝙞𝙩𝙖𝙗𝙡𝙚 𝙥𝙤𝙡𝙞𝙩𝙞𝙘𝙖𝙡𝙡𝙮. 𝗘𝘂𝗿𝗼𝗽𝗲 𝗜𝘀 𝗦𝘂𝗯𝘀𝗶𝗱𝗶𝘀𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗔𝗺𝗲𝗿𝗶𝗰𝗮𝗻 𝗣𝗼𝘄𝗲𝗿 NATO delivers something no defence budget can purchase outright legitimate global leadership. The alliance is the institutional framework through which American power is projected, validated, and accepted by the rest of the world. Europe is not simply funding its own defence. It is part-funding the political architecture of American global influence. Meanwhile, European defence budgets are rising sharply in response to genuine Russian aggression - the very threat NATO exists to counter. 𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗥𝗲𝗰𝗲𝗶𝗽𝘁 Germany matches America's contribution from an economy six times smaller. Britain carries a proportionally heavier load from an economy eight times smaller. The United States secured the best deal at the table and built a political career pretending otherwise.

Holy shit, Marco Rubio would hate it if you retweeted

@DrNeilStone She states "could" .... then it is always true :( 🦾💉 and still alive

Prof Dolores Cahill of Dublin warned that everyone who got a Covid vaccine would be dead within 3-5 years Anyone out there who got a Covid vaccine and is still alive? ✋

@vester71 @Eneco

@Eneco kunnen jullie dit even uitleggen...ik snap dat rekenen moeilijk is

You haven't really lived until you've had to push a car with a dead battery, jump in, throw it in 1st gear, and pop the clutch like a pro. Old-school struggles and unforgettable memories.

@Lliure1980 De huiskat stamt af van de Paashaa?

Leuke vraag voor Pasen: Tijgers en huiskatten hebben 95,6% van hun DNA gemeen. Het zijn beide obligate carnivoren, ze slapen gemiddeld 12 tot 16 uur per dag en hebben allebei een tong die bedekt is met 'papillae' haartjes. Maar welk zichtbaar verschil onderscheidt ze van elkaar?

Dit was de Bloemetjesmarkt: bepakt en bezakt terug naar de Heimat rtvnoord.nl/cultuur/139420… #rtvnoord

The new Acting Attorney General 🤡 Todd Blanche: We’re not going to prosecute the predators in the Epstein files or release their names to the public. Keep talking, keep sharing.

@vester71 BMW

4 dikke 6 cilinders ...welke zou u kiezen

Who is paying the costs for NATO? Right: Europe is. Not the US. #WeAreNATO

“War is raging and the galaxy is in chaos. Where is Vader?” “He’s on social media slagging off Bruce Springsteen, sir.”

WATCH: The White House took down this video, but we still have it. Trump: We can't take care of daycare. We're a big country. We're fighting wars. It's not possible for us to take care of daycare, Medicaid, Medicare, all these things.

July 1987, Moscow, USSR — Trump, 41 years old, flies to Moscow at the invitation of Soviet Ambassador to the U.S., Yuri Dubinin. Upon returning from Moscow, the bankrupt Trump suddenly receives loans from 16 banks and, without negotiation. 1/n

Getting really bored of MAGA ranting about "freeloading" Europeans. The US does not spend a trillion dollars "on NATO." It spends it on a vast global military empire, with a mere 3.6% going toward their bases in Europe. Meanwhile us "freeloading" Europeans spend $454 billion on our own defence. The "freeloading" story is and always has been a lie to keep Americans angry and Europeans compliant.

JUST IN: You do not fire your Army Chief of Staff in the middle of a war for no reason. You fire him because of what comes next. Pete Hegseth called General Randy George on April 2 and told him to retire immediately. The Pentagon confirmed it within hours. No reason was given. Not publicly. Not privately. A senior Army official told Fox News that Hegseth offered George nothing: no misconduct, no operational failure, no policy disagreement on the record. Just a phone call and a career ending in the middle of the most significant American combat operation in two decades. George is the 24th general or admiral Hegseth has removed. But he is not the 24th. He is the one that matters. The Army Chief of Staff. The man whose signature sits between a president’s intent and the order that sends soldiers across a beach or into a tunnel complex. The 82nd Airborne is deploying right now. Marines from the 31st MEU are staged on the USS Tripoli. JSOC operators are at forward bases in Israel, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE. Kharg Island, 90 percent of Iranian oil exports, sits 16 kilometres off a coast that someone will have to decide whether to approach. And the four-star general whose job it was to advise whether that approach should happen was removed 48 hours after Trump told the nation the war would continue for two to three more weeks. The replacement is Vice Chief General Christopher LaNeve. He was Hegseth’s senior military aide before this appointment. The man who carried the Secretary’s briefcase now commands the Army the Secretary is reshaping. The chain of command did not break. It shortened. The distance between a television studio and a combat order just collapsed to zero intermediaries who were not personally selected by the man giving the order. No reason was given. That is the tell. When someone is removed without explanation during a crisis, the explanation is the crisis itself. George either objected to something or was about to. The ground option. The power plant strikes. The Kharg raid. The escalation that turned a highway bridge in Karaj into rubble on the same day he was told to leave. Something in the next two weeks requires a chief who will not push back, and the Pentagon solved that problem by installing one trained as Hegseth’s aide. A former Fox News weekend host just fired a four-star general with combat tours in Iraq and Afghanistan, replaced him with his own former assistant, and did it during a live war in which the next decision could put American soldiers on Iranian soil for the first time in history. No hearing was held. No misconduct cited. The Army woke up on April 3 with a new chief it did not choose, in a war it did not start, preparing for a phase the previous chief apparently could not be trusted to execute. The question is not why George was fired. Every general in the building knows why. The question is what order is coming in the next fourteen days that required removing the one man in the chain of command who might have said no. The war has no perimeter. The chain of command has no objectors. And the next phase has no one left to stop it. open.substack.com/pub/shanakaans…

Let me explain something to the MAGA crowd, because clearly someone needs to. They seem to think NATO is cosmic room service. You pick up the phone, say “hello, we’re having a bit of a war here,” and thirty-one countries march to your rescue. A continental Uber for military adventures. That is not how it works. Article 5 is a mutual defense clause. The clue is in the word mutual. And it has been triggered exactly once in NATO’s entire history. After September 11. When America was attacked. Not Europe. America. Every NATO member showed up. They went to Afghanistan. They fought. They bled. They died. In America’s war. On America’s behalf. Now imagine they hadn’t. Over 1,100 allied soldiers died in Afghanistan. British, Canadian, German, Danish, Polish. And yes, even Ukrainian soldiers, who had no NATO obligation whatsoever. Gone. Without them, those are American names on those graves. Sons from Ohio. Fathers from Georgia. Kids from Nebraska who never came home. Then there is the money. NATO allies spent over 100 billion dollars on a war that started on American soil. Without that, Washington pays every cent. On top of the 2 to 3 trillion the war already cost. And without allied bases across Europe and Central Asia, American supply lines collapse entirely. Without British forces in Helmand and Canadians in Kandahar, the Taliban reconstitutes in three years instead of ten. The gaps get filled one way. More American deployments. More American coffins arriving at Dover. Afghanistan was bloody. But NATO took the hit. Without them, every single one of those casualties would have had an American name. Trump called allies like these losers. Suckers. If you are a certain kind of broken person, that probably makes sense to you. But for the rest of us, what those soldiers did has a different name. Honor. The bond between men who have been in the same dirt, under the same fire. Between Brits and Americans, Frenchmen and Norwegians, Canadians and Danes. Not a diplomatic relationship. A blood bond. Brotherhood forged in places most people will never see and cannot imagine. In that culture, you do not mock a fallen ally. You do not sneer at the dead. It is the lowest thing a human being can do. Trump did it to a standing ovation. If you are a MAGA supporter travelling to NATO countries, understand this. There are no friendly pats on the back waiting for you. No one will buy you a beer. The governments who share your worldview sit in Minsk, Moscow and Pyongyang. Brutal dictatorships where journalists disappear, elections are theatre and dissent is a medical condition treated in basements. Not London. Not Paris. Not Rome, Stockholm, Copenhagen, Berlin or Ottawa. You have abandoned the open societies, the free press, the rule of law, the places where people actually want to live. You traded the best of civilization for a very small, very dark room. Frankly, it serves you right.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​ Gandalv / @Microinteracti1

Wow! A 1000-mile wall of Saharan dust is currently sweeping across northwest Africa 💨

He is the 1st President of the United States in history to sit in the Supreme Court of the United States to watch his Solicitor General, who used to be his criminal defense appeals lawyer, deliver the stupidest Supreme Court argument of the 21st century. He knows he lost.

Dus MAGA is boos op de Paus omdat hij tegen oorlog is? You can’t make this shit up.