This is an insult to both history and the men who fought on D-Day. Europe has not "pissed away" their sacrifice. Here in the Netherlands, thousands of Americans who died liberating our country are buried at the Netherlands American Cemetery in Margraten. Since 1945, every single grave has been adopted by Dutch families who care for their fallen soldier's memory. Many families have done so for generations. There is literally a waiting list of people wanting to adopt a grave. So please don't use the heroes of D-Day to score political points in today's debates. The men who stormed those beaches fought against tyranny, not for the division and resentment that dominate modern politics. Comparing the America of 2026 to the young Americans who died on Omaha Beach is a disservice to their memory. We remember them. We honor them. We have never forgotten.

Una de las cosas más increíbles de vivir en España es el contraste que nadie te explica bien. Conoces a personas en Estados Unidos que ganan $200, $300 mil dólares al año y que están ansiosas, exhaustas, medicadas, trabajando 70 horas semanales, sin vacaciones, sin tiempo para nada, mirando el techo a las tres de la mañana preguntándose cuándo van a poder parar. Luego ves España… Y ves a un tipo que trabaja de administrativo, que gana 1.800 euros al mes, que trabaja 40 horas a la semana, se toma un mes de vacaciones en agosto sin culpa, que come con calma, y se toma su café sin prisa, que los fines de semana desaparece del trabajo como si el trabajo no existiera. Y duerme perfectamente bien por la noche. La diferencia no es el dinero. Es el modelo. En Estados Unidos te venden el sueño de acumular. En España viven el presente sin disculparse por ello. La sanidad no te arruina. El despido no te deja en la calle sin red. Las vacaciones no son un privilegio que te ganas: son un derecho que nadie te discute. ¿Ganas menos? Sí. ¿Tienes menos? Depende de cómo midas. Porque si mides en horas de sueño, en almuerzos tranquilos, en años de vida sin ansiedad crónica, en poder enfermarte sin que te llegue una factura de $40,000… entonces la pregunta no es por qué España gana menos. La pregunta es por qué seguimos midiendo todo en función al dinero y no en función a la calidad de vida que tienes.

But we have a higher GDP youtu.be/9EkJG6s_xAY

Deze wordt een klassieker.

I see many posts talking about how 'resource intensive' wind and solar are. Check my math, but the world extracts, processes, transports, and burns 100 million barrels of oil a day, about 14 million metric tons worth. My best estimate of the weight of all the wind turbine blades installed ON EARTH today (caveat, used Claude to help estimate, check my math) is 20 million metric tons. So, 1.5 days worth of global oil consumption. AND THEY LAST FOR 20 YEARS. Don't let people scare you with big numbers. There is nothing on earth more resource intensive than the oil and gas indsutry. It's just that when we burn oil and gas, the waste ends up mostly in the atmosphere (and your lungs), not in a landfill. As if that is somehow better?

Rip master of the universe.. Prime example or never ever give up and stay a good human while doing it

Merica’ 🇺🇸

There is a video circulating on the internet that is difficult to watch. A woman sits on a pavement in Louisville, Kentucky. She is wearing a hospital gown. It is 36 degrees outside. Her belongings, everything she apparently owns, are in a plastic bag on the concrete beside her. Behind her, through the glass doors she has just been escorted through, the hospital hums along as normal. The security guards who brought her here have already gone back inside. She couldn’t afford her bill. This is not a scene from a developing nation or a history book. This is the United States of America. The country in which it happens has spent decades telling the rest of the world that it has the highest GDP on earth. Which is a bit like a restaurant proudly displaying its bill on the wall. Enormous number. Terrible meal. The lobster was frozen, the wine came from a box. Europe, by comparison, has spent the better part of a century building something rather different. The food, for a start, is extraordinary. Not in a showy way, but in the way that a simple lunch in Lyon or a glass of wine on a terrace in Lisbon reminds you that eating is one of the genuinely good things about being alive. The wine is the wine that the rest of the world has spent generations attempting to replicate, mostly without success. Roughly 35 percent of Europeans live with a chronic illness. In America, that number is 76 percent. The difference is not genetic. It is architectural. It is the slow accumulation of decent food, walkable cities, actual holidays, and a healthcare system that does not require you to crowdfund your own appendix. Europeans work fewer hours. They have more purchasing power on a smaller salary once you subtract the cost of health insurance, medical debt, and the private school their child needs because the local public one has a metal detector at the entrance. They live, on average, about ten years longer. Not ten years of decline and doctor visits, but ten years of being a person in the world. In the first quarter of 2025, the number of Americans leaving the United States doubled compared to the previous quarter.  Europe was their top destination. Not for a sabbatical or a gap year. Permanently. These are not people who failed. These are people who did the maths. There is a man somewhere in America right now who has worked fifty-hour weeks for forty years, taken one week off when his employer permitted it, and will, statistically, be dead before he sees seventy. And there is another man, not very far away on a map but an entire civilisation removed in practice, sitting on a terrace in the afternoon sun with a glass of something cold and no particular place to be. He has had six weeks off every summer since 1987. He knows his neighbours by name. The first man’s country has the higher GDP. The first man’s country tops the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) index. The second man tops the Quality of Life Index (QLI). The better health. The longer life. The afternoon. MAGA America calls that losing. Ask anyone. Gandalv / @Microinteracti1

My daughters' teacher was on MH17. Russians are the enemy of the of the Netherlands AND Australia.

You fuckers killed hundreds of Dutch citizens. You are the enemy of us all

MH17 Russians did this.

Fucking gold ⭐

They mock us, but they can’t match us 🇪🇺

100,000 American troops in Europe = a free ride for Europeans? Let's check the facts. 🔹 American military bases are not free Germany, Italy, Spain, and Romania pay for the infrastructure, land, utilities, and civilian personnel of US bases. Germany alone contributes over $1 billion annually to support the American military presence on its soil. 🔹 Europe is the largest customer of the American defense industry F-35s, Patriot missiles, HIMARS, Apaches — all purchased by Europeans with real money. Every security alarm in Europe translates into contracts for Lockheed Martin, Raytheon, and Boeing. 🔹 American bases in Europe don't only protect Europe Ramstein in Germany coordinates operations across Africa and the Middle East. Sigonella in Italy covers the Mediterranean and North Africa. Romania secures the eastern flank and the Black Sea. These are global American strategic assets — not neighborhood security for Europeans. 🔹 Command is American, not European NATO is always led by an American Supreme Commander (SACEUR). Europe contributes troops, bases, and money — but America holds the controls. Those who control the structure are not the ones getting a free ride. 🔹 The nuclear umbrella is not altruism American nuclear deterrence in Europe keeps the dollar as the world's reserve currency, keeps European markets open to US corporations, and legitimizes American hegemony against Russia and China. But what would actually happen if America withdrew its troops from Europe? 🔹 For America — immediate strategic losses Without bases in Europe, American response time to any crisis in Europe, Africa, or the Middle East grows from hours to days. Ramstein, Sigonella, and Incirlik cannot be replaced by aircraft carriers. Infrastructure built over decades disappears overnight. 🔹 The American defense industry loses its biggest customer A Europe without the US umbrella will build its own defense industry — and fast. Airbus Military, KNDS, Leonardo, and Rheinmetall will take the contracts that Lockheed and Raytheon currently win. Billions of dollars shift from America to Europe. 🔹 The dollar weakens Dollar hegemony is partly sustained by American global military credibility. A withdrawal from Europe signals to the world that America no longer guarantees the postwar order. Alternatives — the euro, the yuan — become more attractive as global reserve options. 🔹 Russia wins without firing a single shot Not necessarily through immediate invasion — but through political influence, energy pressure, and the gradual destabilization of countries on the eastern frontier. The Baltic states, Poland, and Romania enter a security grey zone that no one can guarantee quickly. 🔹 China watches and draws conclusions about Taiwan A precedent of withdrawal from Europe sends a direct signal to Beijing: American commitments are negotiable. The cost of deterrence in the Pacific rises exponentially. Withdrawal is not isolationism. It is strategic abdication. America would not be leaving Europe because it no longer has interests there. It would be leaving while ignoring that those very interests are what make it a superpower. The "free ride" narrative doesn't describe Europe. It describes exactly what America has in Europe.

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

Dear USA, This is what the French think about you at the moment.

RT @kerdusWINE: Let me remind you what british media did with max verstappen crash back in silverstone 2021 (they made it into a christmas…

The term “loyalty test” says it all. MAGA isn't about mutual support or a defensive alliance. They want obedience, loyalty, subservience. The US leads the way; its vassals follow. That's their vision. That's how they see us Europeans—as their subordinates. But they're mistaken.

Dear @LindseyGrahamSC and @realDonaldTrump Let’s stop the spin. Europe is not “failing” the United States. The United States has been failing its allies. Since 2017, President Trump has attacked NATO, insulted allies, and treated partnerships built over generations as disposable. And still—Europe and Canada responded with discipline: We rearmed. We increased defense spending. We stepped up. Not because of you—but despite you. And while doing so, the President has repeatedly shown more willingness to engage constructively with Vladimir Putin—a dictator waging war in Europe—than with the allies who have fought and died alongside American forces for decades. Let that sink in. Now you ask: where is allied support on Iran? Here is the answer: You don’t get loyalty after years of disrespect. The United States launched military action without real consultation, without a shared strategy, and without building a coalition. We have seen this before—and we have paid the price. European and Canadian soldiers have died in wars where strategy was unclear, shifting, or simply absent. We will not repeat that mistake. Alliances are built on trust, not demands. On strategy, not impulse. On respect, not rhetoric. You broke that foundation. Now you are seeing the consequences. And this is not just about Europe. Support is eroding inside the United States as well. That should worry you. Enough is enough. — Lars Bangert Struwe Worked for years with NATO, defense policy, and transatlantic security.