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If I'm not mistaken, most military vehicles also run on diesel. If you want to fight a nice war with Russia as @SecGenNATO, the fuel is out. And then? Solar panels on the tanks? Sails? No? Can't be done? Then push? Can @jpaternotte, @rubenbrekelmans, and @RobJetten do that? Jan shouldn't nibble too much on the Ozempic or else he will blow away. And then with @DefensieMin as a siren on the bow? No? Can't do that? So electric then? With the engineers who install the charging stations? Although, for that, we don't have enough natural gas again. And if I'm not mistaken, the scarcity in diesel is closely related to the scarcity in kerosene. If you want to bomb Russia with your mighty F35s, your tank is already empty above Germany. You have to go the rest flying. Do we maybe still have the F35PG* variant in our collection? Can we fly that towards Russia from the Vaalserberg with favorable winds? Can that be done with all the bombs and grenades? We don't have the latter either? Jesus... Or can we let that F35 fly on LPG? That would be nice. The price of LPG usually doesn’t go up that fast. There is another problem: you can only bomb during the day if you want to refuel everywhere. At night, that’s only possible along the highway. But then you do have a runway. But even this isn't without problems: I have a Mercedes R500L, an eight-cylinder. With a small LPG tank. In no time, you find yourself at the pump with that thing. And you get cramps in your thumb because you have to hold that button for so long. With such an F35, you would have to land and take off about 20 times quickly to get to Russia. The return journey is less problematic. #Putin has enough gas. Although, I’m not sure he has the right tank connection. And I think you have to press the installation button for a very long time before the tank of such an F35 is full. Who is going to do that? @DefensieStas? He can probably handle it. Then he can still press his mustache somewhere (against something). Can we maybe send the navy? We still have a few frigates, right? What do you say? Cannon broken? You don't need that at all: you can't hit anything with it anyway. Just ask the Americans. They have experience with that by now. Well. All quite tricky. But our leaders will surely find a solution. One of the recurring themes in the decline of superpowers throughout history is that the powers that be increasingly disconnected from reality in the (dozens of) years leading up to it and then suddenly realized that the (military) power they thought they had was no longer there at all. Does that seem familiar to you? I think #Putin is pouring himself an extra glass of vodka tonight. And that Xi Jin Ping is having a lavish dinner tonight with Peking duck, babi pang pang, and Bam Goreng. *Paraglider. (translated)

Florida sues Pfizer: pregnant women and teenagers paid the price I am genuinely very curious how this will turn out. That #Pfizer is a gang of crooks, everyone who has a bit of medical knowledge knows. The company has a reputation in this area: they haven't choked on their first lie and they have had more dubious dealings for which they had to account. But this is much bigger, and now the big players are going to get involved. Pfizer is powerful and will pull out all the stops to combat such initiatives. As a lonely citizen, you usually achieve nothing and should be glad to get away without any harm. But I think Pfizer has overplayed its hand in this case. #mRNAvaccines #Covid19 (translated)

Rob, I'm just jumping in. Team Netherlands, red-white-blue, the same freedom. Beautiful imagery, you surely have a premium ChatGPT account? But may I remind you that just four days ago you were at the D66 congress proclaiming that you were going to ‘hit certain people hard.’ And now suddenly it’s one big warm nest? Pressing question, if we all count, what about the members of parliament who just walked out during @biemyati's maiden speech instead of listening to her argument? Or don't @fvdemocratie members of parliament belong to Team Netherlands? Or am I misunderstanding, and does ‘we are all different’ only apply if the other has a different skin color or sexual preference, but is a member of @D66? You are the prime minister of the whole country, @RobJetten, not just of the people who applaud when you use aggressive language about ‘well-organized organizations’ that undermine our democracy. Show us that you are truly the prime minister of everyone, including the Dutch people you want to ‘hit hard,’ because indeed all Dutch people are different, but all deserve the same freedom, dignity, and the right to be heard, even if their political beliefs don’t agree with yours. Right? (translated)

To think about: In April 1946, Nazi leader Hermann Göring explained in his cell in Nuremberg exactly how political power really works. He said that ordinary people never demand war or crisis, but you can always get them on board. The recipe is simple: tell them they are in danger, and accuse the critics of endangering the community. That eighty-year-old formula is today the exact blueprint behind the permanent state of crisis in which we are kept. We see this in the conflict between Europe and Russia over Ukraine, where fear is used to push through billions in weapons without real democratic debate. But it doesn’t stop at geopolitics. We saw the same recipe with COVID-19, and now with climate change and the energy transition. It penetrates into our immediate living environment, such as the Environmental Vision Fryslân or the planned closures of the Wadden nature. While island residents are excluded, the elite discusses coercive 'system changes' at the Springtij Forum on Terschelling. The control over the narrative has now gone frighteningly far. Unheard Netherlands (ON!) is being ousted from the public broadcasting system, and through new legislation, there is an open search for ways to ban right-wing opposition parties. This is exactly where history painfully begins to rhyme with the 1930s, when critical media and parties were gradually silenced under the guise of 'public order' or 'safety'. The lines of this coordinated policy go directly to international networks and think tanks such as NATO, the World Economic Forum (WEF), and the UN with their coercive SDGs. Through programs like the Young Global Leaders, politicians worldwide are being trained to roll out exactly the same crisis narratives in their own countries. Our local democracy seems to have become an execution office for a predetermined global agenda. The great eye-opener that Göring left us is that this mechanism works in every system. Once a population is made afraid enough of an invisible enemy (whether it is a virus, an aggressor, nitrogen, or CO₂), it willingly surrenders its freedom, its diverse media, and its common sense. Fear is the ultimate weapon to steer the masses. This pattern only stops when we cease to blindly follow that automatic pilot of fear. Will you let history repeat itself, or will you say no? (translated)

Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte warned during the awarding of the International Peace Prize in Münster about the growing Russian threat and emphasized that Europe is currently a target, calling for continued military readiness and cooperation between the Netherlands and Germany. (translated)

That crypto and precious metals do not automatically fall into the existing list of exceptions can simply be fixed through a legislative amendment. In short, a fallacy by @Stas_Financien @eelcoeerenberg. Thus states @pesla. Dismissing this with "can't because it's not in the bill" is argumentatively insufficient. (translated)

Lydia Daniel and Marcus Rolloos on billions to foreign countries: 'Own children are starving' The Netherlands is sending 3.9 billion abroad, of which 383 million is for food security elsewhere, while 450,000 people live in food poverty here. Lydia Daniel: “It's like treating your neighbors to a meal while your own children are starving.” (translated)

Downfall tableaux. Reputation resuscitation. Immediately. Merz is presenting the International Peace Prize of Westphalia to Rutte today, a day after Mark's fiddling with his papers because he was lying about the threat from Russia. But NATO brings "stability and reliability," according to the jury. 🤡 (translated)

The Grandparents for the Climate are pushing through so strongly that the dog has given up and has to be carried in the arms. 🐶 Dragging a carnivorous four-legged friend with a significant CO2 footprint during a climate demonstration: the contradiction at least looks endearing. (translated)

I just saw the debate between @MPHoogeveen and @Stas_Financien about the difference in taxation between directly held bitcoin, in a wallet or on an exchange (capital gains tax), and bitcoin through an investment product at a bank or broker (wealth tax). @Stas_Financien states that crypto cannot be included in the amendment, because the existing exception for start-ups and scale-ups can only be extended to other securities. But is that really true?! An amendment is a legislative proposal with which you can modify and/or supplement another legislative proposal. The fact that there is currently no exception for crypto (and precious metals) does not automatically mean that you cannot add one. If speed is the reason to accept that difference, then concretely justify why direct crypto/precious metals cannot be included in time. My question would be: What concrete legal provision makes it impossible for crypto/precious metals to be included in the same amendment? Saying "that exception was not included yet" is not sufficient. It didn't exist for start-ups either, but was also added. Think of an addition for regulated institutions, exchanges, or brokers that have a license or AFM permit. (translated)