People need to read the book "Chums." (https://www.amazon.co.uk/Chums-Tiny-Caste-Oxford-Tories/dp/1788167384)
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Thoughts on the Trump presidency
- Thread starter Gloster
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It is still relevant...
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R
RailUK Forums
Doesn't help of course that many of the neoliberals running some of the AI platforms appear to be in bed with Trump, in the sense that they donated money to him last year and attend chummy dinners with him.
What we need of course is tight "ethical use only" legislation for AI, with severe penalties for those who use AI for unethical purposes - but you won't get that under Trump.
edwin_m
Veteran Member
Also the annual pass for National Park entry is $80 ($20 for seniors) for US citizens and residents and $250 (no senior discount) for others. That's a ridiculous markup, and most visitors who don't plan to visit many parks and spend a few minutes researching will work out it's cheaper to pay the individual entry fees which are the same for nonresidents. So in practice the price hike won't raise much revenue, and is little more than an unwelcoming gesture.
nlogax
Established Member
Renewed my passport and ESTA over the new year. I resented paying $40 especially as I'll be spending far less time in the US over the next couple of years than would have been the case with someone else in the WH.
I'm rather torn. Do I pay the fee now, on the off-chance that I'll visit the US in 2027 (I've friends I want to see)?
Or do I accept that the country isn't going to be very inviting until 2029 at the earliest and not get an ESTA now, risking that I might end up finding a solid reason to go before 2029 and have to fork out a much higher fee and disclose every email address and social media account I've used in the last five years?
I'm going to bite the bullet and renew mine now. My best friend lives in Michigan and I've gone to see him and family over the last couple of summers. I'd love to go again this year but I'm holding off booking anything until much closer to the time, so I can see how crazy things are or are not.
Even if I don't go, avoiding the hassle of disclosing social media accounts and email accounts (those for ten years, rather than five for social media!) makes it worth doing now.
martin2345uk
Established Member
Do Americans have to get anything like the ESTA when they come here?
They have to get an Electronic Travel Authorisation (ETA), yes. Currently costs £16.
Edit: This happens to also currently be the cause of some disquiet, since British dual citizens cannot get an ETA and so to legally enter the UK have to have a valid British or Irish passport, or apply for a certificate of entitlement which costs £589.
Of course the whole notion of entry fees for a National Park is alien to those from the UK and AFAIK, most of the rest of Europe.
For a country that supposedly has an individual freedom ethic, the workings of the Federal US come across to me considerably more bureaucratic than our own system.
Of course there is much prime hiking country in Colorado which is outside of the National Park system and enjoys bureaucracy-free access. Of all the states I've visited, Colorado seems to have the most open policy towards mountain access.
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Of course that changed very recently as I found out when looking to visit one the US national parks in January. The most popular parks now charge a $100 fee for non us residents on top of the standard admission price meaning a car of four non US residents visiting Yosemite say, have to pay $400 plus the regular admission. Having spoke to some NPS rangers, they're not too keen on enforcing this, but as per the letter of the law that's how it works for the most popular parks now.
Cloud Strife
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Poland has some token charges for entering National Parks, but it's very much a token fee. The nearest one to me is around two pounds for entry, and it's the same in others too.
In practice, these charges are usually only applied at certain popular entrances to national parks. Theoretically, you should have a ticket at all times, but in practice, the national parks are content to charge people on entry at certain points, or at the bottom station of cable cars/etc. They also have mobile ticket sellers, but all of this is specifically designed to finance the national park authorities/mountain rescue, nothing more. And of course, the price is the same for everyone.
How does it work in the US with tickets? Are the park rangers checking everyone, or is it very much a case of just getting people at entrances next to car parks/etc?
Oh yes, absolutely so. The individual states vary, but a lot of the federal bureaucracy seems to be explicitly designed to favour business interests. A good example is with tax returns: right now, the tax return season just started in Poland, and it'll be surprising if it takes me more than five minutes to deal with the joint filing with my wife. Everything is online, I just have to check the numbers and make sure that the various tax credits are applied correctly.
In comparison, Americans are about to lose free access to an IRS tax filing system, because corporate interests lobbied the Republicans to get rid of it. Biden had introduced a free system under the IRS, but obviously that's communism and therefore not acceptable.
martin butler
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With Trumps declining mental health, what happens if Vance tries to remove him under the 25th, and Trump instead, refuses, and turns on Vance, and his entire cabinet, ordering their arrest, removal, declares martial law and orders the national guard to close down the house and senate?
Does the house and senate have the power to override the chief of staff and order him to be detained, of course Trump will call his goons to defend him, along with other insurrectionists' and it will lead to the break-up of the US.
Does the house and senate have the power to override the chief of staff and order him to be detained, of course Trump will call his goons to defend him, along with other insurrectionists' and it will lead to the break-up of the US.
Killingworth
Established Member
Vance may not be too bright but surely he realises that it would be unpredictable chaos if he made any such premature move.
We saw how a President in very publicly failing health was propped up for a long time, some would say his full 4 years. Surely they can prop up this one for another 3. That's not a very cheering prospect but would a President Vance be any better?
There’s a vast difference though between “failing health = things not getting done / going through on the nod” and “failing health = contradictory arbitrary orders”. Whether MAGA sees it that way is of course another issue.
That is eye-wateringly expensive and will presumably discourage non-residents from visiting the parks at all (maybe that's the intention?) It''s not far off the price of a flight to the US if you avoid peak season!
Just makes the parks seem like a playground for the wealthy. Certainly they don't seem to be intended as a place for the common person to easily enjoy nature, which has always been the ethic over here, at least post Kinder mass trespass.
Colorado does, happily, appear to adopt a much more open policy, however, but most of its wild land is State land AFAIK, not controlled by the Federal government.
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I'm not sure nowadays but I did visit a couple of the National Parks with friends, one of whom was a US resident, back in 2003 (Yosemite and Sequoia, rather flying visits out of necessity - due to the prices quoted above that would of course be a no-no nowadays). I seem to remember the charge was per-car, charged on the border of the park via a toll booth, but there were also individual fees for people hiking in. Not sure how they enforced the latter as presumably some of the trails came into the park away from the road.
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Well judging from the reports of many US bound flights being a lot quieter these days from the UK and Europe, it may be that the rangers won't be required to do as much enforcing of the charges anyway. I know that the Federal government doesn't put much stock in tourism, but the secondary effects on businesses around the US in tourist resorts is certainly starting to hit hard from what I've heard. Maybe when the IRS sees drops in tax revenue from these companies the message might drip through to the administration?
I for one would love to travel back to the States sometime soon, in particular there's a street food tour in NYC that I'd like to do and have seen on Jon Barr's YouTube channel which looks really cool. But with everything going on there at the mo, and the possible side effects of price gorging as a result of the World Cup, I'm giving it a hard pass for now.
Yes, but for whose benefit is the border run and who should therefore be paying for it? Canada's eTA is 7 CAD, by way of comparison.
Yes. Congress can remove the president via the impeachment/trial process. At which point people like the Chief of Staff lose their authority. While previous impeachment processes have dragged on for ages that was by choice rather than design. They can call a vote in the House at pretty much any time, and the trial in the Senate could proceed by unanimous consent.
Unanimous being the problem there, of course.
Cloud Strife
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So, the Constitution is pretty clear on this: if the Vice-President and a majority of the cabinet rule him to be incapacitated, then a message is submitted to the Speaker of the House and the President of the Senate. At that moment, the Vice-President immediately takes control of the Presidency, and Trump would be immediately removed from power. If he attempted to hold onto power regardless, the Supreme Court would likely hold an emergency sitting to make it clear beyond doubt that Vance is the President and that Trump no longer holds executive power.
At that point, it becomes a question of loyalties, although it's very hard to imagine that Trump would have such immense personal support that the military would take orders from Trump over the legitimate government. The Secret Service would likely be ordered to remove Trump from the White House, and he would likely be detained too until the situation could be calmed down.
They don't need to override him, as he would be automatically removed. They may meet to confirm that Trump is no longer the President and/or to swear in Vance, but the general process is very clear in terms of how the President loses power.
In the real world, I suspect that Vance wouldn't move without the support of the 'power' institutions. I'd expect it to be choreographed: Vance would appear in Congress to announce that Trump has been removed, the Speaker of the House would immediately hold a vote to confirm Trump's removal, and the Secret Service would likely immediately detain Trump while cutting off his communications to the outside world. There's likely already a process in place for such a situation, just in case a President goes rogue.
GatwickDepress
Established Member
Part of me wonders if this is an attempt to reduce the popularity and financial sustainability of the national parks in order to justify flogging parts of them off. Especially after bipartisan opposition last year to the parts about selling federal land in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act.
My boss is one of those Disney adults who spends a fortnight holidaying in America each year, with one week at the Disney parks and the other exploring America. They never stay in the park hotels due to cost and tend to eat out locally. Because of everything happening in America, they're going to Disneyland Paris this summer instead and one of the Asian parks next year.
Still giving money to an American megacorporation, but that's a lot of money that won't be going into local American economies. I imagine they're not alone in doing that either.
So basically a nominal fee. Cheaper than the ESTA was in 2011.
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As has already been stated, the border theoretically benefits US residents. So US residents should pay for it, out of their taxes. Just like we should pay for our own border.
Oh, no disagreement there. However, it's worth noting that the Epstein Files Transparency Act passed in the Senate by unanimous consent. So it can happen, even in the current environment.
Cloud Strife
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I think it's a double edged sword. On one hand, these disguised visa fees are a pain, but on the other hand, the UK has been really ahead of the curve in terms of what can be done with a digital border. For all the criticism of UK Border Force, we're almost at the point where the UK has been able to massively move processing of travellers from face-to-face checks to a streamlined digital system where the vast majority of travellers can enter the UK without any fuss at all.
If you ignore the issues of the Crown Dependencies and especially Ireland, the system is surprisingly well executed: the UK knows who is coming/leaving and how they're travelling, and it has substantially cut down on the amount of time wasted by checking low-risk passengers. I was quite surprised how empty Luton was at passport control a couple of months ago: the vast majority of passengers were funnelled through the e-gates in seconds, and the officers at the physical desks were quite happy to have some families to chat to. The guy who checked us had a nice little chat about his job, and he explained to my son what he was doing and how it all worked. It's a dramatic change to the old system of massive queues on arrival, and I think the ETA fee going to pay for this is not entirely a bad thing.
From what I gather, the end goal is that the immigration officers should have all the intelligence needed to act before a person even approaches passport control. Let's say that someone has a visa issued in Serbia for the purpose of studying in the UK. That person can be automatically flagged when they board the plane, so at Heathrow, the officer that scans their passport will immediately know everything that was provided to support their application. They can then simply ask for a couple of documents to confirm that everything adds up, and if everything is fine, they can be admitted without a lengthy delay at the desk. It allows UK Border Force to deploy more resources in secondary controls, speeding up processing time and giving a better experience for everyone.
But in the case of the US, I don't see any real move towards a unified system like this. The ESTA seems to be nothing more than a money grab, as there's really no evidence of any systematic improvement to border control there. If anything, the US seems to be incredibly reluctant towards making life easier at the borders, and things like local border passes that allow locals to pass freely are unheard of beyond the frequent traveller programs. Trump has done almost nothing in this respect, beyond a vague "protect our borders" mantra that hasn't resulted in any significant improvements to their information collection capabilities.
In fairness, Canada isn't much better: Americans are rightfully quite annoyed at how random the border can be, especially for people who have a previous criminal conviction but are still eligible to enter Canada. I've read about one situation where someone frequently went to Canada to go fishing and hunting. He was well known at his local border crossing, the Canadian border police would often greet him by name, etc etc. One day, he crossed over as normal, only to be subject to an interrogation before being denied, because of a previous DUI conviction that had happened well over 20 years previously. He obviously got quite upset, and then he discovered that Canada had changed the rules so that a single DUI conviction at any point in the past was a legitimate reason to deny entry. The head of the border crossing was sympathetic, but explained that the individual officers had full discretion over refusal, and that he couldn't overturn the decision. He was quietly advised by the head of the crossing that he was eligible for a thing called "deemed rehabilitation", where they would delete the record of his DUI from the system, but this process is anything but clear/transparent to the ordinary traveller.
nlogax
Established Member
Not sure if anyone caught the weekend horror show photo of Liz Truss alongside Trump at Mar-a-Lago. Him standing there with rictus grin in place and a tiny thumb raised while presumably wondering why the Doordash driver was wearing a red dress and why she'd forgotten his McDonald's order. Her, looking rather too Liz Truss for her own good.
Content warning; photo is just..awful.
Content warning; photo is just..awful.
Killingworth
Established Member
Truss non-story she tweeted also at The Guardian; https://www.theguardian.com/politic...s-tweets-photo-of-her-and-trump-at-mar-a-lago
‘Right about everything’: Liz Truss tweets photo of meeting with Trump
Unclear how encounter between Britain’s shortest-serving PM and US president was initiated and how long it lasted
Ben Quinn Political correspondent
Sun 15 Feb 2026 19.09 GMT
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After spending time and resources crisscrossing the Atlantic to cultivate the support of the Maga faithful, Liz Truss has finally got the prize she apparently craved: a photo with Donald Trump.
Britain’s shortest-serving prime minister tweeted a photo on Sunday showing her in the company of the US president at his Mar-a-Lago club in Florida.
“Right about everything,” Truss posted, tagging the president on X.
Trump had yet to record the meeting on his own social media feeds, focusing instead on promoting the new documentary made by his wife, Melania. It is unclear how long the meeting between Truss and Trump lasted and how it was initiated.
Truss, who has increasingly adopted extreme positions to the right of the Conservative party she once led since she left office, and has attempted to relaunch herself as a podcaster, has made addresses in each of the last two years at the flagship annual conference of the US right.
She told the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in Maryland last year that her own country was “failing”, as she appeared alongside rightwing populists from around the world planning deeper ties and cooperation.
An increasingly marginal figure in British politics, who was prime minister for only 49 days and lost her seat in 2024’s general election, Truss has sought to secure a safe harbour at CPAC, a once mainstream conservative gathering that has embraced Trump’s brand of nativist-populism.
At home in the UK, meanwhile, Truss has been trying to get her own club off the ground and has been accused of wandering the premises of London’s exclusive club 5 Hertford Street in search of members to poach for her rival operation.
The latter, called The Leconfield, asks “founding members” for £500,000 and was conceived by Truss and the property tycoon Robert Tchenguiz, who is transforming his Curzon Street offices for the venture.
Gloster
Veteran Member
The problem with removing Trump is whether he will go quietly. I don’t think that there is much doubt that, unless he has already declined to the level of a drooling imbecile rolling ball-bearings around in his hands, he is going to fight and rouse the MAGA faithful. Even if a number have become disenchanted I fear that enough would riot, both outside Congress and elsewhere. Quite how far it would go is difficult to tell, but it could be very bad. If they leave Trump in charge until he is so obviously incapable that all but a tiny minority of the MAGA extremists will stay at home, grief knows what he will do in the meanwhile. Even though his handlers will be trying to keep under control, he will still have opportunities to follow the dictates of his scrambled mind. Time to read On the Beach again.
Not sure I agree. Yes, a border exists to protect the residents from bad people coming in. However, need to maintain the border only arises because people choose to come. Given the cost of even a cheap plane ticket to the US and the price of accomodation, food etc. then $40 is neither here nor there.
That said, I do have a slight unease of countries using fees/charges of one sort or another as a kind of revenue raising stealth tax.