Are these just the lies of a lying liar, or the stories of someone whose brain is so mush that he cannot tell truth from fiction?
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I unfortunately have a relative very much like this, albeit not really political. This kind of personality constructs their own reality, and believe their own lies after time. The truth of what happened gets left behind.
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I dont think itâs reasonable that anyone who has ever been seen with Epstein has to explain themselves given the fact that he was a well known socialite and philanthropist. But an inability to get your story straight over the nature of your association with him is really dodgy
Also additional context for the last bullet - a man with 100s, maybe even 1000s of employees would have any knowledge or concern of the employment status of a specific 16 year old girl is in itself incredibly suspicious
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100%. People use the term pathological liar quite loosely, but you have no idea quite what it means until you get know a real one. It is not that they lie with impunity that defines them. it is that they are able to convince themselves of whatever they need to say in the moment to the point that to their knowledge they are telling the truth.
I think Trump has always been like thisâŚa sort of Liberty Vallance like view of the world that if you tell the right story often enough it becomes true. But with age and largely unchecked power it has seemingly got worse in the brazenness of it
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On the same (but different) note:
I prefer this debte to to âCulture Warâ that so obsesses Toro. Seems slightly more important.
And on that note, I donât understand why the Trade Minister (and Trump and gang) cannot be honest with Americans regarding how tariffs work. Why not spell it out ? They think tariffs will result in higher domestic production and that it will result in postive long term effects after some pain, fair. But why keep lying about how tariffs work ? It is a protectionist mechanism (everyone uses it to protect some strategic sectors, unless you are a banana republic and get exploited by the big boys), that makes it so foreign goods becomes more expensive so that domestic goods can compete. Why not say this ? Why the lies ? 99% of economists think Trumpâs blanket tariff strategy is extremely damaging to US economy (since it is a consumer economy and relies on high growth), but why not highlight itâs positive effects (that you think are positive anyway) and spend your propaganda coins on that instead of the easily proven liesâŚ
Also, why are you @toro not interested in these lies more than your odd obsession with that Culture War nonsense? Itâs not important ? The above is important. That the media you like to attack let Trump get away with this, that is important. Why not attack the media for that ? Fox allows these lies, the other to the right of Fox too. Even the âLeft Wing-Maoist-Stalinâ media you so loath, let them get away with this. So why are you only obsessed with the immaterial culture war stuff ? You are a Big Guy, you say, employ a lot of people. Is the economy and the very state of the US not ever so slightly more important than fucking mere social opinion debates, like your Culture War thing you harp on about?
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Trump has an incoherent idea about tariffs that require multiple mutually exclusive things to be true. If they pushed this supposed benefit it would argue against the long term revenue generating value of the tariffs that Trump often argues.
As for why there is no push back, I think Chuck Todd explained it best by arguing that if he pushed back too forcefully on his show on any politician for saying something they both know is a lie they would never agree to go back on the show and their bookings would dry up. This is what counts as a savvy perspective on covering the news in this country.
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At the most basic level, it is the largest peacetime tax increase the American public will have ever seen. Not what the GOP want to take responsibility for, particularly because it is a consumption tax (inherently regressive) that will fund tax cuts for the wealthiest (reducing taxes collected on a progressive basis)
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Honest question, as you have superior knowledge on the inner workings of those behind Trump and it would take me hours to read up. Do you think the blanket tariffs is primarilly Trumpâs solo idea, or primarily those of his nativist economic advisors, think tanks, ministers etc., or something in between ? Because they surely have an isolationist âstrategyâ to relocate production to the US. Or do you think that they really just run with Trumpâs whims and that it is âthatâ easy ?
Pre-election all the inside talk from people around Trump and those positioning themselves to have roles in his administration were letting it be known that the tariff stuff was just talk. The business leaders who were ok with a Trump win were making that bet on the basis that the tariff idea was so obviously stupid that it wouldnât happen.
Weâre now in the situation of people trying to play Trump whisperer to direct him in ways that minimize the damage his ideas would have if implemented but in ways that allow to him to keep his win. The challenge is none of the people around him anymore are as good at it as the likes of Ivanka or Bannon were, and thatâs possibly because they are largely a new group who dont know him as well, and maybe because this dumb fucking idea he has is about the one core idea he has ever had and so is likely harder to push off it than he has been anything else his adminstration has put its attention towards.
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The tariff ideas are largely in line with Navarroâs thinking.
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But even he isnât historically a Trump guy and he was only brought into the fold because his ideas on trade were as bad as the ones Trump has long held and he was about the only person Kushner could find whose ideas were aligned with Trumpâs.
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https://x.com/jakluge/status/1950564695565291656
(I am incredibly skeptical).
Then again, pressure on India for their RU-support comes several years to late, but fine I guess. Not that this will actually force Ru to change calculus so late into the war. For that to happen, pressure must be on RU itself more than their partners.
https://x.com/ABarbashin/status/1950532082008051923
I donât think so, I think he is just using the war as an excuse for what he otherwise wanted to do. To convince me that Trump is out to seriously press Russia, takes a lot more than this.
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He has been ratcheting up the rhetoric toward India all month, this is at best tangentially connected to the Ukraine war. India wasnât bullied into accepting his âdealâ when he announced it in late May, so he is coming back to them.
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Yupp, yupp. Substitute Motive, you call it in English (our term is better: Vikarierande Motiv, but that is because we give âsubstitutesâ, such as teachers, the title Vikar).
Anyway, my point is that there is not any tangible sign that the US is interested in pressing Russia, since that would cost money. At best, the US allows European countries to buy US arms for Ukraine. Not a single donation has been granted by Trump and no sanctions has been placed on Russia. Nor do I think it will happen in the future.
But infuriatingly, the war could have been over by now. But I digress.
Looking increasingly likely that the Federal Reserve is again going to deny Trump the interest rate reduction that Trump has been howling for. Bond market seems somewhat unsettled, probably because there is speculation that this will be the last straw for Trump in his pressure campaign against Powell.
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Iâve read many articles that state the rhetoric style of the Tangerine Tyrant, was honed, and lifted, directly from his close involvement with World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) over many years. It is where he served his apprenticeship for the
showmanship, the ringmaster persona in conducting the circus and fake frenzy of support that goes along with it. The fake tan, the glitz, the glitter, the over the top gold adornmentsâŚ
It could explain away how he is able to fool so many supporters who are easily impressed⌠He/they, are all living in a parallel universe that doesnât recognise basic human decencyâŚ!
For anyone that might have missed these chapters of his life, I have added a typical video as a reminder. How on earth this guy even got considered for POTUS, still baffles me to this day.
otherwise known as the âdisneyâ phenom
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Everyoneâs timeline is different, but this is pretty consistent with what Iâve seen.
A small number of people going âI see you American Eagle. I get what you are doing.â And a much bigger group of Chads making far more noise about how hysterical it is and how great it is that the libs are triggered.
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The stock price of American Eagle is up 15% since the Sydney Sweeney campaign started. I donât usually quote this guy, but Piers has perfectly epitomized how crazy the woke extreme far left has become.
The Democratic Party is bleeding support across virtually every single demographic other than maybe educated white women and black females. Far left progressives account for 15-20% of the Democratic Party. But they wield disproportionate influence because they occupy the seats of power in the media, academia, government, NGOs, etc.
The extreme progressive left is mostly hyper-educated white people imposing a divisive ideological agenda of identity politics most Americans reject. The average person of color in the Democratic Party is far more centrist than the average white person in the party. Most Americans are tuning out the left because of their extreme identity politics, including people of color and especially the working class the Democrats claim to represent.
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