Wingate

You kids are so funny! Actually, people are not being compensated just for being sane and rational, nor are there any scripts for such people to read. Sanity and rationality are their own rewards. "It's scary how deep the conspiracy goes" LOL! Moonbat Alert!

What cheating? I'm still waiting for your dog to produce his evidence. It has been almost 5 1/2 years since Trump got hammered by Joe Biden. Maybe Mr Pillow Man has it? Or Rudy Giuliani? You should call an exorcist and try to get Hugo Chavez to rise from the grave again, like Sidney Powell claimed. Hugo might know something even your dog didn't sniff out.

Never understood smoking. A sheeple has to overcome nausea just so they can become addicted to something that may well kill you, all while alienating people who prefer fresh air. In addition, people who smoke stink. And their breath! Goodness.

Whatever the result of his trial, President Newsom should pardon Routh on 20 January 2029. That's what Newsom's predecessor did to the folks who wanted to hang the Vice President.

I don't know how wide Amazon's margins are on its cloud business, but a $2.4 billion contract from the Trump Administration suggests Bezos' ~$70 million on the propaganda piece is a loss leader, so long as the margins on AWS are >3%. Then again, like with many hyperscalers and data center builders, GAAP is fluid. Most have greatly lengthened the time over which they depreciate their chips, despite the reality that chips don't last very long, especially ones that are heavily circuited. Those pesky electrons are like Mexican jumping beans, undocumented ones at that. The greatly lengthened depreciation schedule juices earnings, and one suspects the Administration and SEC won't take Amazon and others to task for the accounting gimmickry. As for the box office smash itself, subtract just a couple of markets (Miami, Orlando, Palm Beach and Phoenix) and the take was like a 7 year old's lemonade stand on a rainy summer afternoon.

I met a traveller from a MAGA land Who said: Two canckley and bloated legs of stone Stand in Miami. Near them, on the concrete, half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose orange grimace, and labia-majora-like neck, and mien of a whining child, tell that its sculptor well those rants read, which yet survive, stamped on those lifeless things, The tiny hands that were mocked, and the cold heart that revenged, and on the pedestal these words appear: “My name is Trump, the King of Kings. Look on my grift and failure, ye Mighty and despair!” No thing beside remains. Round the decay Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare The lone and level sands stretch far away (Hat tip Percy Bysshe Shelley)

Let me guess...bamboo from China woven into the ballots? Evidence Hugo Chavez had his Italian satellite pre-print ballots? Brad Raffensperger and other GA authorities carried out an open investigation of the Fulton County material. I doubt the MAGA "investigation" will be as transparent. I would say, "Let's see what MAGA's can manufacture".

Are you channeling Sarah Palin, who could keep an eye on Russia from Alaska? You're in Cambodia and Thailand, yet you know more than guys like Republican Brad Raffensperger. I just never knew how talented MAGAs are. Maybe it's being an idiot savant?

The US benefited from and enjoyed democracy for 250 years. It also benefited from the US Constitution, a document amended owing to the needs of society, not the needs of a whining, crybaby individual moron. The US and the world greatly benefited from the alliance called NATO. Along comes an idiotic, self-centered, demented, vindictive, childish, misogynist, mendacious, willfully ignorant, psychopathic, morbidly obese moron whose appeal is to losers and the forlorn, and he wants to do away with anything in the way of him enriching himself and retaining power. He is the epitome of "traitor", if not in the strictly legal sense, most certainly as someone opposed to true American ideals.

Is your dog going to testify and present his evidence? Or did he eat it?

Since this 230-odd page thread has covered most everything save for the Big Bang, I'll drift a little here and there.... Tiger's Mom was actually half Thai and half Chinese. His Dad was a quarter Chinese, which means the predominant Asian ethnicity of Tiger is Chinese, not Thai. For some reason, the Chinese never claimed him as Thailand did. I don't think it's solely because of his Mom's citizenship. As I noted, I'm a bit of a cynic. I appreciate there are some self-made types here and everywhere else, but my experience has been that once great wealth and position come to a person, he or she changes. A sense of entitlement and being "above" things like morality and law often blossom. I grew up very middle class, but my intellect and athleticism got me into my Ivy undergrad and Stanford for my MBA, and eventually (with a bit of a detour that really jaded me) to a hedge fund desk. In no area of my education or career did I see superior morality as a hallmark trait of any group. Some good, some bad, probably leaning toward selfishness. In fact, the wealthier I and my colleagues got, the worse we became. I left the field when I came to admit I was becoming an entitled a-hole. With my "undeserved" wealth, I spent some time using it to try to level some playing fields in undeveloped parts of the world. I was exposed to true salt-of-the-Earth types of people. Of course not all the desperately poor are noble, but the ones who are have made a conscious choice to be good. I have great admiration for such people, doubting I would have had the goodness to be them, had I lived their lives. Lots of folks who have everything, even if hard-won, rather than given or inherited, can drift into a kind of dissolute state, where they feel no guilt no matter what things---sometimes depraved---in which they engage. Maybe not as depraved as the horrific film Salo, but depravity is a lot more common than most of us would like to think. Maybe selfishness and being mercenary are hard wired into our genes, as from a Darwinian perspective, those would seem to be traits selected into the species for survival's sake. I have come to the conclusion, perhaps incorrectly, that goodness is quite rare. Most people are not good. Some have been driven by circumstances, some are just bad to the bone. I don't know the percentages, but if someday AI or something tells us that 5% of people are good, 20% are bad, and the rest are just self-centered and somewhat mercenary, it would not surprise me. Again, we're all influenced by our own experiences.

This World Liberty Financial seems to bestow good fortune on many people, not just Sheikhs in the Middle East. The fact that Binance does business with World Liberty Financial is what got its CEO a pardon from President Trump, despite the fact the CEO helped launder money to Hamas.

We all have opinions based on our personal experience. You have yours, BritManToo has his, I have mine. None of us can know everything, but the tendency is that we extrapolate what we see, even if that is unfair or inaccurate. My view is probably a tad too cynical. I was once a member of the Diplomatic Community here. That gave me access to all levels of society, including the elite in government, business and the military. Maybe I did not get a complete picture, but I did not see any moral high ground occupied by the elite, male or female. While I’m sure there are men and women here as pure as the driven snow, that was not my experience. Of course, nothing of this is unique to Thailand, as is abundantly clear with the US release of the Epstein Files. Cynic that I am, I believe one is more likely to find admirable morality at the lowest level of any society, rather than at the top, where privilege and entitlement often warp behavior. One experience stands out. I attended a party at the-then Prime Minister’s residence in honor of the golfer Tiger Woods. The crowd was a who’s who of hi-so Thai society. I saw many mothers, bedecked in fancy jewelry and wearing designer fashions, trying to push their daughters on Tiger. Tiger got so tried of the onslaught I heard him say, “[Eff] this sh!t; get my car.” He left early, leaving mothers and daughters adrift and disappointed.

Well, you know what the Administration says: It's not corruption if it's out in the open. Like the 747 from Qatar, that Trump gets to keep after his term ends. And let's be fair...there's so much self-dealing in this Administration that nobody can really expect them to announce all of it. Sometimes a few trifling matters---like a paltry $500 million---fall through the cracks. The WSJ is just giving a helping hand getting this out in the open, which obviates the corruption aspect of it.

Perhaps you missed it, but Trump announced he's closing down the center for 2 years for renovation Trump-style, so you know the finished product will exude garishness and bad taste. I'm sure the 2 year closure has nothing to do with the fact nobody with any talent wants to perform there now. I just hope Mr. Morton doesn't make jokes about "bad ratings". That might be plagiarism, as comments by Grammy host Trevor Noah elicited a stream of "bad ratings for the Grammys" comments from the White House. Oh, and Noah was described by White House officials in characteristic Trumpian verbiage as a "talentless loser". Many things about Trump are predictable, as Morton proved last year by registering the domain name before the fact.

What? You lefties have some problem with The Art of the Self-Dealing? And have some sympathy for poor Eric. It was Eric who signed the deal. Guy's just trying to put food on his kids' table. You begrudge him that? You think without his name and his dad's position Eric could even get a job pumping gas? Where is your heart, lefty? If you can't leverage a position like President of the United States, what good is public service? Anyway, there's precedent for this kind of stuff, so really nothing new here in this nothingburger. Recall..... In Trump 1.0, poor Jared was facing a $1.2 billion balloon payment on his 666 Fifth Ave tower. It certainly couldn't be his fault the property only had a market value 0f $600 million and he had $1.5 billion in debt against it. Who coulda known Jared top ticked the NYC RE market? Lucky for Jared, he found some business-savvy leaders of Qatar, anxious to have Trump-imposed sanctions against the Sheik-let removed. In a quid pro quo that defines "dealmaking" in Trump World, Jared---then a Senior Adviser to the President (father-in-law)---arranged BOTH the removal of the sanctions on Qatar and a totally unrelated refinancing of his 666 Fifth Ave by the Government of Qatar, whereby Jared was able to make that $1.2 billion balloon payment, and Qatar assumed part ownership of the $600 million property. That's kind of a two-for-one deal (spend $1.2 billion to get $600 million). It's offensive you would try to throw some shade on The Greatest President in history. The man is honest as the day is long. And caring, too. Many people are saying nobody has a bigger heart than Trump. Why just the other day he gave that undocumented migrant from Trinidad---Nicki Minaj---one of his Trump Card citizenships, an object not approved by Congress and which usually sells for $1 million. Trump gave it to Nicki for free, which may well have saved her from being hog-tied by ICE and sent off to that CECOT gulag in El Salvador.

Well, looks like our Crybaby-in-Chief has soiled his Depends again. He tore into the "almost unwatchable" Grammys, which he apparently watched start to finish, and has now decided to sue Trevor Noah, the host, because he made a joke about Trump. Trump also tossed out his usual epithets like "total loser" and added a new nickname for George Stephanopolous ("Little George Slopadopolous"). This guy is President of the United States of America? Someone so unhinged, immature, thin-skinned and childlike has the nuclear codes? Odds are he'll attack Iran tomorrow in a fit of pique. AN has more class, demanding that posters spell names properly. Slopadopolous probably would not be allowed here, except as a quote, yet the 79 year old supposed leader of the world's primary superpower cannot sleep until he sends out rage Tweets attacking celebrities, whose function is to entertain, not lead or start wars. Never could anyone have imagined that the US could sink so low and embarrass itself in front of 8.5 billion souls. History starts out as farce and ends in tragedy, or starts out as tragedy and ends as farce? Trump is both farce and tragedy.

Actually, many people don't like Trump because he's a corrupt, mendacious, self-serving, vindictive, willfully ignorant, woefully insecure, crybaby, anti-US clown. As for NATO, it was created because European countries had fought each other periodically for a thousand years, and the hope was an entity that brought nations together, and promoted trade, might help keep the peace. It also was meant to stand up to what was a growing threat from the Soviet Union. In case you haven't noticed, Europe is under threat even now because of Russia. To rational people, it would seem now is not the time to do away with something that has worked very well and is still needed.

Yes. As the bard said, "Methinks the lady doth protest too much"

Trump needs to think outside of the Jack-in-the-Box. Rather than an arch, he should commission a 250' taco. It would be a fitting memorial to his Presidency, and he might even get Mexico to pay for it, even if tacos are more TexMex. He certainly is trying to lift his leg and leave his scent all over DC, what with his silly ballroom, this arch, the garish redecoration of the West Wing and Oval Office, and now he's talking about a 100,000 seat stadium to hold the UFC fight he will have the White House host. You know UFC, that "sport" where each person tries to cause brain damage in his or her opponent. That's the kind of entertainment a bone spurs coward would enjoy. Oh, and he just announced the Kennedy Center will close for 2 years to redecorate it. I guess that's one way to hide the fact nobody with any actual talent wants to perform there anymore. I think the most appropriate comment made regarding Trump's garish sense of style was that made by one of Elon Musk's many children, when he mined a booger and wiped it on the Resolute Desk. Crude, but appropriate.

The OP's secondary comment, which has elicited lots of pearl clutching among the cult, is nothing compared to what you just reminded us of there. Elected officials who merely reminded military of what is in the Pentagon's own War Manual had Trump calling for execution of Rep Kelly and Sen Slotkin, both of whom served in war zones. MAGAs overlooked that threat of violence.

Yes. It's also a chance to remind the cult who their messiah really is, a traitor to US ideals and a slap in the face to much better people who have served....even the "suckers and losers". (yes, I believe Gen Kelly over the serially mendacious Trump).

I think you proved the OP's point. Rational people have an appreciation of the value NATO added to the US and most of the world since its founding. Trump, who seems to know absolutely nothing about history, defense, nor economics doesn't understand the value NATO has added. Heck, when heading with Gen Kelly on a launch to the USS Arizona to mark the Pearl Harbor anniversary, Trump asked Gen Kelly, "So what's this boat all about?" Re tariffs, I'm going to bet Trump would think David Ricardo is someone ICE picked up and sent to CECOT. The damage Trump has done to relationships with now former allies may not be reparable. Those former allies do not only distrust Trump, but now likely distrust the American voter who gave Trump a plurality in 2024. My favorite "Trump is insane" anecdote, even better than his claims of stopping the Rwandan Genocide of 1994, stopping the war between Cambodia and Armenia, relating a discussion he never had with his uncle about the Unabomber, is the one where he praised the Revolutionary soldiers of 1776 for "controlling the ramparts and the airports". Yea, those Red Coats were likely about to launch a wave of Lancaster bombers protected by Spitfires. Or maybe Sopwith Camels (which Trump probably thinks live in the Sahara Hotel in Las Vegas) LOL! Heck, David Koresh and Jim Jones were more sane and rational cult leaders than Trump.

There's only two possible explanations for Trump's Mar-a-Lago comment: 1) Severe dementia 2) bald-faced lying With Trump, it's tough to tell, as "many people are saying" nobody does dementia and lying better than Trump.

I think Trump committed treason, albeit not by the pure legal definition. His obvious and illegal attempts to subvert democracy and overturn the 2020 election, including sending his cult members to the US Capitol knowing full well how they would act (as he intended) constitute Sedition 10 U.S. Code § 894 - Art. 94. Mutiny or sedition Sedition is a capital offense. He should have been tried for his actions, and if found gulty, faced the legal penalty. For his obvious theft of highly classified documents, and subsequently lying about it, as he threatened US national security as well as the identities of clandestine intelligence sources, he should be in jail awaiting trial, as ANYONE ELSE who did that would be. You MAGAs can pretend all you want that Trump is innocent. Let's play a little Whataboutism....what if Harris had done exactly the same thing Trump did re 6 Janaury 2021? Or how about this...if a few thousand BLM or antifa "typical tourists" stormed the White House and set up a noose, broke into the Oval Office, defecated on the floor, and beat SS and police, would Trump have pardoned them?