Wingate

One can live in the real world, or be a MAGAnista and worship the endless lies and hyperbole spewing from Trump's gaping maw. Inflation? Well, let's see what the Fed tends to use to judge the level. That would be the Personal Consumption Expenditure Price Index. For June, it was up +2.6%, well above the Fed target of 2%. How about listen to Earnings Calls of companies reporting.....both Proctor and Gamble and Adidas announced they have to raise prices, so those PCEP numbers look to rise more, especially as the tariffs take hold. Jobs? We saw how the petulant child dealt with that last week: fire the messenger and fabricate some moronic story about "political" and "rigged". Long term UE? Those on UE for longer than 6 months climbed by 300,000 since March. Trump ran on many things, such as bringing prices down on Day 1 (grocery prices are up since January 20, 2025), ending all wars, and bringing manufacturing jobs back. Manufacturing jobs have fallen every month since May. (Prices are up and wars continue apace). Growth? One has to look into the details to see this is not good either. Companies ran down inventories in the second quarter (which will have to be replaced eventually), and because imports are a negative to GDP, it made Q2 look better than reality. Business investment actually dropped in the second quarter and what is called "Core" GDP actually fell (too complex to explain to the low IQ MAGAnistas). Oh, and wage growth is slowing---particularly in the lower income demographic, which is Trump's primary base of support---and low wage earners/subprime borrowers are adding on lots of new debt. If anyone remembers correctly, that did not turn out so well in 2008 under Bush II. To make matters worse, businesses are only going to get more confused with time. The tariffs are on again/off again, and many of the so-called "deals" are still only non-binding platforms for further discussion. Economic data released by this Potemkin Administration in the future will be questioned because of Trump's outrage at the actual job numbers released and revised last week. When Chinese numbers are more believable, you know the US is quickly approaching Third World status in terms of government shenanigans. Only MAGAnistas, those folks who are rather math illiterate---believe Trump can lower drug prices "1500%". Though that is an absurdity on its own, lowering prices will be even more difficult when two primary nations providing ingredient input for drugs---India and China---are subject to huge tariffs. But hey, MAGAs cannot be heretics or blasphemers. If their messiah says "best economy ever", it's Gospel. If he tells them they will have so much money they won't even know what to do with it (my guess is it will be suggested they load up on Golden Sneakers, China-printed autographed Bibles, Trump meme coins, Chinese-made Trump watches, etc.), they will hit the Ford website and start configuring the F-150 with monster tires and cabin gun rack they always wanted....all while waiting in the unemployment line.

Not sure if it's his "war on facts", or Epstein, or the tariffs, or jobs numbers, or maybe even his constant crybaby whining, but the latest polls show he is dropping across the board. What was once his bread and butter, or bucket of extra crispy---men---has seen a 9 point drop since April. He scores poorly on every issue now. Perhaps his whining, his obesity, his wild tangents, or something else has made him not seem so "manly". At around a 39% approval among males, it does seem he still holds the Incel demographic, as (per NYU Bi Prof Scott Galloway), Incels in the us (as defined by men who've never had carnal relations by age 30) is now 33%. Of course, MAGAnistas will criticize this poll because it's from YouGov UMassAmherst, a blue State...though the poll was nationwide. Approve Disapprove Inflation 31% 63% Immigration 41% 54% Jobs 37% 55% Tariffs 31% 63% Overall Approval Among Men April 48% Now 39% https://www.umass.edu/news/article/new-national-umass-amherst-poll-finds-president-trumps-job-approval-gap-slides-6

Yea, works for me. Someone convicted of both perjury and aiding and abetting pedophilia is the "honest person" Diogenes sought while carrying his lantern. Only Gospel comes out of her mouth. Absolutely. Clearly she has nothing to gain from being less than truthful. /sarc

Yes, I can see why something as "harmless" as pedophilia wouldn't bother a MAGAnista....well, unless it concerns Hillary and the basement of a basement-less pizza restaurant in DC. No doubt I'm dead wrong, but I suspect females who were abused by grown men and powerful men might be a bit hesitant to have it all dragged through the mud again. I note that one prominent victim who did come forward, Virginia Giuffre, ending up taking her own life. Can you imagine such abuse might leave scars? No, I guess not. MAGANistas are REAL men, as "manly" as their obese crybaby messiah.

Gee, and neither would I want to be you, nor anyone who thinks Trump is anything more than a lying, self-serving, demented, obese, vindictive, misogynistic, racist, woefully ignorant clown. Thank Zeus I'm none of the above. Oh, and Trump was disparaging US citizens who happened to have come from Haiti. It was, as usual, nonsense and racist.

He did it again last weekend regarding the comedian and social commenter Charlemagne tha God. He's kind of an equal opportunity racist, however. Yes, Blacks originated from "<deleted> hole" countries. Everybody south of the border is either a murderer or rapist. Haitians eat your pets.

Mankind has manufactured something on the order of 6000 different religions. If you're playing Pascal's Wager, that means you've got a .0167% chance of picking the right one. Not good odds. Might as well enjoy all the vices your senses can experience, hell be damned. In any event, AI is going to destroy us before any 'final battle'. I cannot help but wonder if the reason we haven't actually been visited by aliens is because every advanced civilization in the 200,000,000,000 galaxy Universe eventually invented AI, and it killed them. Even if AI doesn't kill us, it is going to change society in ways almost unimaginable a century ago. Almost every job will be taken over by AI. Many people will lose meaning. Some will turn to violence for its adrenaline effect. Knowledge will be for knowledge sake only, because there will be nothing any human can do with knowledge that AI won't be able to do better. We won't need any universities, or if we have them, they will be free and folks will just study for fun. 99.99% of the people will get UBI (universal basic income), and a very select few will have enormous wealth and control every aspect of society. They will become like the gods humans have invented, because all they will need is endless thanks and adoration. What is Sam Altman going to do when he's a trillionaire? He will want everyone to worship him for altering humanity more than anyone, even more than Genghis Khan. If you want a real Armageddon, it's AI and the precious few people who control it. They have no conscience and no moral compass. 80 years ago a group of similarly brilliant people changed humanity for all time, but they had a moral compass. They knew the danger of what their minds were creating, and tried to warn the self-serving powers-that-be of the risk. Of course they were ignored. The guys doing the analogous effort today, like Altman and Musk and others, really don't care how dangerous their invention might be. They just want endless wealth and adoration. They will, if they do not already, fancy themselves as deities.

It's not the same ABC that frightens you. Zerohedge was founded by a Bulgarian immigrant named Dan Ivandjiiski. His father was an asset of the former Bulgarian secret police the Darzhavna Sigurnost. His father is famous for being a conspiracy theorist, too, as he claims the moon landings were fake. Dan used to work on Wall Street in a small firm, but was banned for life for insider trading. In his trading crime, he made a total of $680. Hardly a master criminal. Dan is a big fan of the movie Fight Club, and uses the name Tyler Durden in his online personna. His site caters to conspiracy theorists and has been rumored to be funded by RT.

"kidnaps people off the streets" Well, I am sure this was just an honest mistake and the absolute only mistake infallible ICE has made, but one of my Thai employees has a relative in the US. She is a naturalized US citizen. She's has children in the US, so they are as American as you...though they still live there. ICE, in black masks, picked them all up, because they "looked different". They were held for a few days. The mother's phone was searched, and she was questioned as to whether she had ever posted anything online critical of Trump. Apparently ICE is unaware of the part in the First Amendment about that free speech thing. After a few days they were released. The kids were traumatized, as they are still young. Not sure what your MAGA definition of kidnap is, but what happened to these US citizens sure seems as if it meets rational people's definition, though probably not the average low IQ fascist MAGAnista. Yea, that reeks of Gestapo and fascism. If Thai immigration pulled that on you, I bet you'd be the first to cry.

Let's try this... "John Durham, the former illegal rightist/repub" gave DCI John Brennan and everyone in both the agency and the bureau---save for one low level bureau agent---a clean bill of health for their part in the Russia investigation. Did I play Whataboutism as well as a MAGAnista? Do I get an Associates degree from Trump U ?

Which is to say "in character".

This is some funny stuff! Janitors, truck drivers and other MAGAnistas can tell us what is "TRUTH"? LOL! Let us not forget the Freudian, or not so Freudian, slips of the tongue of some of Trump's closest sycophants: "We have alternative facts" Kellyanne Conway (Kellyanne also gave us a history lesson on the Bowling Green Massacre (sic). I'm sure that even now MAGANistas lower the rebel flags on their pickup trucks on the anniversary to honor those we lost....in something that never happened.) "Truth isn't truth"---Rudy Giuliani Yea, those with an IQ above a turnip do not go to Trump or his favored "news" sources (such as Fox who lost a massive libel suit for lying about voting machines in 2020) if in search of objective truth.

The public---at least members of the public with some connection to reality, which necessarily leaves out MAGAnistas---were given an education over the weekend as to how the BLS jobs number is determined. It looks like Trump is going to have to fire hundreds of people, as well as rewrite computer code involved in running algorithms on the collected data. It also turns out the BLS Director does not even get the draft data until Wednesday of the week the report is to be reported. Now the hundreds of human beings involved in the data collection would know if what the final report is differs from what was collected, and nobody voiced any complaint about what was reported last Friday. Firing the messenger for doing their job properly has become a key tactic of this fantasy-driven Administration. Recall that a 30 year veteran in the intel community (Mike Collins) was fired from ODNI, as was the former #2 at ODNI (Sue Gordon) because they both gathered and collated intel whose conclusion differed from Trump's baseless gut feel. Now Erika McEnterfer was fired because the actual data---as gathered by hundrds of Dept of Labor civil servants---revealed that the supposed great economy is not actually so great. Trump lost face, and given his level of woeful personal insecurity, that is something with which he cannot live. Tulsi Gabbard was put in the penalty box just before the Iran strike, because she reported the actual intelligence which estimated Iran was a few years away from a workable nuclear bomb. She quickly recanted and agreed Trump knows best. And why not? I mean, a guy who could stop the greatest Holocaust in human history---the 7 million slaughtered in Rwanda in 1994 (sic)---was finally stopped by Trump (then just a casino owner filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection) as he claimed in his Scottish presser last week, certainly has some sort of clairvoyant insight into what the mullahs are up to in a country he unlikely cannot point out on a map. We are getting to the point where perhaps we can fire everybody who does any job according to the rules, and anyone who uses the skills that allowed them to be hired, because reports will just be what Trump wants them to be. It isn't hard to imagine---given Trump's penchant for both mendacity and hyperbole, that in a nation with a workforce of around 170,000,000, a future BLS report will say "2 billion new jobs were created last month." When it comes time to announce GDP numbers, I won't be surprised if it is announced that the economy grew 138% in the latest Quarter. The new BLS Chief will likely give Trump a call before the report is issued and ask, "What do you need the number to be, your Majesty?" Of course MAGAnistas will believe all of what spews from Trump's addled brain and delicate ego-driven gaping maw. Yea...last Friday's revisions are "rigged" and Trump shot a gross 69 over the weekend on the golf course (which means a 71, given his claimed handicap of 2). Frankly, Trump will have to do better if he wants to channel Kim il Song, the previous North Korean leader who "reportedly" shot in the high 30s in his first ever attempt at golf, shooting 7 or 8 holes-in-one in his round. Trump already has the groveling sycophants who clap liked trained seals whenever he says anything, just as North Korea's leaders have generals and officials who do that. Now Trump just needs to be more bold...and go after that 8 holes-in-one in a single round that set the gold standard of fantasy and hyperbole.

Oh my! You have it bad. Unlikely there is a cure for what ails you. The Founders would have hung Pence? Why? Because he did his job? As for "WINNING", it depends on how one defines that. Rational and sane people have one definition, MAGAs have another. The downward revision of 258,000 jobs---a 90% revision---and an upward tick in UE (even that was aided by the ,4% downward tick in the Labor Participation Rate since April) is not WINNING, except among the MAGAnistas. I guess the good news is there might be a strawberry picking job for you, now that those "rapists and murderers" working the fields in the Farm Belt have been sent home by ICE. It's possible you have the credentials for that. Or maybe truck driver. No partial differential equations involved, so go for it!

The Fed workforce number will be reflected in the unemployment rate, not the jobs number. The jobs number refers to jobs created. If those Fed workers don't look for another job, that will be reflected in the Labor Participation Rate (LPR), and as that shrinks, the UE number becomes deceptive. Disillusioned workers who have given up looking for work are not counted as "unemployed". The LPR under Trump peaked in Jan-Apr at 62.6%, but has now fallen to 62.2% as of July. The fall could well be due to some effects from the tariff debacle. That .4% drop actually benefits Trump's UE statistic, because none of the people represented in that .4% drop are considered "unemployed". Were they included, the UE number would not be just 4.2%, but higher.