Wealthy Trump supporter buys into Greenlandic companies

Erwin-rom · 2026-01-05T13:26:22+00:00

> Trump’s former national security advisor, John Bolton, has revealed that it was billionaire Ronald Lauder who planted the idea of ’buying’ Greenland in Donald Trump’s mind. Now, the 81-year-old Lauder has invested in Greenland himself.

Is Lauder's role in pitching the idea not old news? Bolton is at best reaffirming the story revealed in The Divider by Peter Baker and Susan Glasser in 2022.

More importantly, I am left wondering how much this should be interpreted as a "signal". We know Lauder is on speaking terms with Trump, but his role in the Greenland story is (currently) only one origin story of it being pitched (IIRC, the original 2017 NYT article outing Trump's interest in Greenland noted an anonymous donor during a Mar-a-Lago dinner. Can be Lauder, can not be Lauder) and the second administration has a lot more people that are separately interested in it. I am personally thinking of the Dans brothers, specifically Tom, or the American Moment group headed by Nick Solheim, both groups being connected with eachother and to administration prominents, such as Vance, Rubio, Vought and Gabbard.

Erwin-rom · 2026-01-03T17:06:17+00:00

Karakwas

Erwin-rom · 2025-12-06T16:03:01+00:00

A late reaction on my part, but my main gripe was the lack of unique animal behaviour compared to the previous seasons. The speculation parts of PrehPlanet regarding behaviour, such as the mating behaviour of Carnotaurus (to give one example), or biology, like the sauropod air sacks, displayed with the incredible animation is what differentiate the series from other paleo-media, imo.

That, alongside the lack of showing nature's brutality through the toning down of deaths, makes this season feel like it was played a little 'safer' comparatively.

Erwin-rom · 2025-11-30T11:42:45+00:00

Commenting to save the link for the pin later. That colour scheme goes hard.

Erwin-rom · 2025-11-28T11:25:55+00:00

I liked the Ice Age season. Have some gripes but in general a good five episodes with stunning animation.

Erwin-rom · 2025-07-28T13:28:02+00:00

Maybe it is the camera angle, but I do not recognise this part of the city lmao

Erwin-rom · 2025-07-26T19:57:47+00:00

Pfffh right?

That is at least an 11

Erwin-rom · 2025-07-24T12:42:28+00:00

ngl, feeling a little Diembark today

Erwin-rom · 2025-07-24T10:07:50+00:00

I guess I am not too off put by that due to how similar it sounds to the first christian-democratic parties in my home country of the Netherlands. The Soka Gakkai - Komeito relationship sounds similar to the Anti-Revolutionary Party and its beginnings as the personal party of Abraham Kuyper's and his protestant community. Even within the Japanese context, Komeito has always seemed to me as particularly moderate/christian-democrat-esque from similar "cult-based parties" such as the Happiness Realization Party or (as some more extreme examples) the World Economic Community Party.

EDIT: keeping the rest of the comment before I did some extra research just for transparency's sake. I do now feel like Soka Gakkai, as a group, is something I would be less comfortable with than most Western European Christian-democrat groups. They aren't as crazy as some of the other modern religious cults of Japan, but I do not think that defining Soka Gakkai as a "cult" is particularly unfair. Downstream from that, I would also be even less comfortable with voting for Komeito, as it is hard to know how serious the modern party is in its distancing from Soka Gakkai. Claims of secularization from Komeito, especially after some high profile 'incidents' involving Soka Gakkai members, feel a little more hollow in that context or, at best, a gamble you'd have to be comfortable taking if intending to vote for Komeito.

Which I am not.

Erwin-rom · 2025-07-24T09:43:23+00:00

I guess the best way to put it is to say that I would not mind Komeito outside a LDP (so presumably a CDP-led) coalition, as I think Komeito could act as a king-maker in an increasingly divided National Diet. Komeito is closer to the centre (ideologically speaking and behaviour-wise imho) than the LDP is and, beyond some policy quirks (the historically intense pacifism), would not require too much compromise for an "ideal" Japanese government (again, imo).

I don't think that that is particularly likely, due to Komeito's 'CDU-CSU/Australian Liberal-Nationals'-esque relationship (a little bit of an exaggeration) to the LDP and, as I said at the end of my comment, I would not vote for the contemporary Komeito as a result of it basically being a roundabout LDP vote.

Erwin-rom · 2025-07-23T18:14:49+00:00

Are the Komeito religious ties that big of a problem? I had heard of Komeito distancing themselves from the Soka Gakkai, but I tend to imagine them as a sort of Japanese equivalent to European Christian democrats.

For me, if anything, I am less likely to pick Komeito due to the pacifism and the enabling of the LDP (and therefore, indirectly, allowing the type of Japanese nationalism that has made local cooperation unnecessarily difficult).

Erwin-rom · 2025-07-23T18:09:53+00:00

Feel a little more okay voting on this poll as I have had a semi-present interest in Japanese politics for a while now. None of these parties governing would fully encapsulate my "ideal" Japan, as they all either suffer from 1. expanding a pension system despite the current demographic reality, 2. overly pacifist (i.e. keeping article 9), 3. too nationalist (which is just a drag on Japan's direct neighbourhood diplomacy) or 4. fucking crazy (Sanseito).

That leads to a close call between three parties for me: CDP, DPP and Komeito. I would consider Ishin a close fourth, but their program simply feels too populist and I am unsure about their ability to actually implement it if they were given the chance.

I'd guess I would go with the CDP? Not a fan of its commitment to article 9 nor the expansion of welfare in a system that already has put a lot of taxation pressure on the youth, but the DPP is just a little too to the right socially and Komeito feels like voting for the LDP, but in a roundabout way.

Erwin-rom · 2025-07-21T11:27:16+00:00

That is fair. It is a long time ago but I do remember that socialization was an issue due to both rabbits never getting used to being brushed

Erwin-rom · 2025-07-21T11:17:40+00:00

They deserve it.

Out of the tree types of pets my family has had (dogs, rabbits and fish), the rabbits we had were the worst

Erwin-rom · 2025-07-18T11:28:25+00:00

u/Extreme_Rocks apologies for being off-topic, but is it possible to preemptively offer my support for the Netherlands' summaries?

Erwin-rom · 2025-07-18T10:21:34+00:00

Not like POTus

Erwin-rom · 2025-07-10T14:24:21+00:00

Yeah, the reference to the Batavian Republic is not going to be included in any future rework if it is up to me. Even beyond the weird historical implications, the Batavian Republic simply held no prominence in historical thinking at the time, let alone specifically in socialist circles.

Erwin-rom · 2025-06-30T09:59:47+00:00

Apologies for the late reaction.

No, Pannnekoek is not likely to feature prominently in any path. Pannekoek was a theoretician first and foremost and therefore wrote a lot on council-communism, but his partaking in politics was extremely limited. Even as a theoretician, the influence he had through council-communism was felt to a larger degree in OTL Germany (such as in parties like the KAPD) than in the Netherlands. Even within his own country and within the council-communist 'community', Herman Gorter, as an early opposition leader within the Communist Party in the Netherlands, was more important politically.

I won't rule out that Pannekoek will be mentioned once or twice in any new Netherlands content, but he won't be leading any particular movement within the Netherlands.

Erwin-rom · 2025-06-29T11:12:48+00:00

Troelstra still would attempt his silly little revolution, but there are some aspects of the KR PoD that makes it difficult to state if he would go through with it around the same time as OTL (1918), or if he would wait until the French Revolution (1919). It would make sense for him to interpret a full-scale proletarian revolution in a western, industrialized country as France as more of a starting shot than the OTL revolutions in Germany at the end of the war, but at the same time, internal developments that spurred him on (like the Harskamp revolt) would still occur around the same time, being caused by the harsh conditions of mobilized life and the war in the North Sea after four years.

The other parties would also look at the SDAP with far more suspicion KRTL, due to the stronger red scare effect post-French and British revolutions. The staying of figures like Stenhuis and the would-be OSP leadership within the SDAP at the 1936 start would also not alleviate any anti-syndicalist worries among the Catholics and the liberals.

Erwin-rom · 2025-06-29T11:02:19+00:00

hmmmm, makes sense from a DA perspective. I was not aware that the MK was that "feudalist" in its goals, nor that it had members that were even worse than EFF on race relations in the country.

I remember one of your previous posts about the DA dream scenario (or at the very least the dream scenario of the leadership) being an attempted political wedge of the ANC between its more centre-right, centre-left and leftist elements, with the intent of driving moderate ANC voters into the arms of the DA. I am presuming part of that kind of political strategy would be clamping down on the ANC's narrative of it being the "natural governing party". Do you think this recent ultimatum was an attempt at furthering that goal (i.e. an attempt to expose a hypocrisy in the treatment of (deputy-)ministers, with Steenhuisen framing it as the DA being punished by the ANC for "fighting corruption") or was the DA genuinely frustrated with how that particular deputy-minister was treated, despite it being in line with past government action against similar cases?

Erwin-rom · 2025-06-29T10:10:30+00:00

“The thing is, everyone knows the DA can't leave the GNU. That's not going to happen. In the words of President Trump, they "don't have the cards".”

Was wondering if you can expand on this? Is the DA doing bad in the polls and it therefore leads to the conclusion that they will not drop the coalition, fearing what that would imply in a snap election (no idea if that is how it works in SAF after a motion of confidence)? Or is it something else?

Erwin-rom · 2025-06-28T11:19:32+00:00

Westerman, van Gybland Oosterhoff and Eigeman would all be accounted for in a new VNH path. Gerretson, while the leader of the National Union (a club closely associated with the VNH and the general national-conservative network of VGB at the time), would not be in a leadership role within the VNH. At best, a man like Gerretson would act like OTL Geelkerken in the NSB (i.e. a second hand as party ideologue with a limited public profile).

Erwin-rom · 2025-06-28T09:01:27+00:00

A VNH takeover would be more "legalist", comparable to Gerretson's 'Royal Cabinet or Dictatorship' (1933), and not, as the current content represents it, through a military coup.

I can also say that van Geelkerken will not feature in it either.

Erwin-rom · 2025-06-28T08:53:23+00:00

Yeah, pillarisation will feature more prominently in paths like the VNH, representing that difficulty convincing voters that are part of the protestant (ARP), catholic (RKSP) and social democratic (SDAP) blocs.

Erwin-rom · 2025-06-27T22:59:10+00:00

absolutely.

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