Wingate

Any adult who chooses a screen name that wouldn't be funny to anyone over the age of 9 seems to be a person in need of professional help. What, was Benjamin Dover already taken? Constance Lingus?

Let the MAGAs have their fun. They're scared to death of a handful of young people who wear black clothes and every six months or so show up at a protest. Like any cult---including religion---they need an enemy. Religion has the devil. In Orwell's 1984, Oceania has always been at war with Eurasia, and MAGAs have brown people (all are either MS-13 members or rapists and murderers) and antifa. Oh, and us "deranged Democrats and lefties". MAGAs are sheeple, like QAnons, marching to the tune of Q or Trump. Let the cultists pretend they're warriors, despite most of them being obese and out of shape.

Epstein will take Trump down, but for a different reason than any crime he might have committed. Trump's real base wouldn't care if he roasted and ate pre-teen girls after he raped them (I'm borrowing from what Alex Jones and the QAnon movement claimed Hillary was doing to babies). I'm not sure why Trump has been so adamant about moving on from Epstein. Apparently he overestimated the intellect and moral fiber of even his own base. Trump, however, is losing it over the constant talk of Epstein. It's taking a toll on him physically, and he wasn't anything special physically or mentally before Epstein became front and center of every news cycle. The Grim Reaper, not Epstein per se, will end his Presidency. I wouldn't be surprised if Ladbrokes is offering low odds Trump even makes the November 2026 midterms. Trump looks worse physically every day. His bizarre comments and word salad keep getting more obvious. Epstein is just a means to Trump's end. MAGA is a dying brand, and there's no replacement. The Maybelline model serving as Vice President has all the charisma of Melba Toast, and as far as Trump becoming like the Kennedy or Bush dynasties, DJT, Jr is too much of a coke head to get any following save for among those farthest left of the mean on the IQ Bell Curve. MAGA dies with Trump and goes into the same category as McCarthyism in the dustbin of history....just an embarrassment and a bit of temporary insanity. OTOH, after seeing that the #1 country music singer now is an AI creation---"Breaking Rust"---, maybe one of the hyperscalers and AI firms will produce an AI TACO to cover for Trump when he's worm food....kind of a modernized version of the movie "Dave".

Steve Bannon is calling this TACO on H1B "Invasion of the Body Snatchers". Is Trump right that the US does not have the qualified people? I don't know. What I do know, however, is how dumb to MAGAs have to be thinking Trump is going to make a world where truck drivers and janitors---the MAGA base---instantly walk into $250,000/year code writing jobs, when the people who have Trump's ear (e.g., Peter Thiel, Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg, Larry Ellison) prefer guys from Bangalore or Moscow willing to work for $70,000 a year. Perhaps with time MAGAs will come to understand Trump thinks most MAGAs are losers...but he did need their vote in order to be able to have the true financial elite finally giving Trump the time of day, something even NYC RE moguls never gave him.

It's all just for fun. A parlor game. It's a temporary diversion, or for some who post 200 times a day, their raison d'etre. Nobody is going to change anyone's mind on anything. Ever. We're entrenched in our beliefs. Have fun! It's a bit like sports. Man U vs Hotspurs in a bar room chat. Or Yankees vs Red Sox for Americans. We pick our teams. I'm a moderate lefty, which means fiscally conservative but socially liberal. I couldn't care less how anyone wants to define their gender or sexual preference, since it doesn't affect me. I happen to be purely hetero, through no fault of my own, so I respect that others have a different preference, through no fault of their own. I don't like Trump, for reasons I have stated ad nauseum. I also have rather strident opinions on tattoos, obesity, laziness, smoking, rudeness in public, and slovenliness. In public I rarely state my views, as it can never result in good. On a Forum, I can vent. Fun! I enjoy the political discussions. Others hate them. I have no interest in solving crimes, but others offer their Holmesian view on every accident, murder, assault, flying club member, etc. I merely have sympathy for the victims. I get a kick out of all the 'experts' on things Thai, especially the opinions about Thai women. I know I'm not a Thai expert, I just enjoy the place. We each have our particular experiences in this country, and since most of us are still here, it must be kind of an entertaining place to live. Not sure I'd want to be old here, but at this point in my life it's another wonderful experience. For the most part Thai people are great, Thai women are lovely. It's an easy place to live, with good points to enjoy and bad points to endure, as any country or culture. For a few minutes every day or two, I post here for fun and to keep my writing in English skills intact.

Nothing will make Republicans grow a pair and help take Trump down. They're all eunuchs, save maybe for Massie. In fact, if I was "woke", I'd have to invent yet another gender to apply to Republicans, because "male" is farcical for that breed. You could show a 3-D video of Trump raping a 12-year old Ivanka look-alike, and his Christian Nationalist base will quote Biblical stories of Lot, while Speaker Johnson would say, "That's just Family Values in action." Putin would say, "Who stole that from my kompromat box?" The value of the Epstein files is that it's driving Trump crazy, rage Tweeting all night. He already "ordered" Repubs to stop talking about Epstein and don't vote to release. Massie countered by saying "Trump will disappear, but how you vote [on the file release] will be a permanent part of your record." He's becoming more unhinged by the day, so perhaps the 25th Amendment will be invoked at some point, when the polls show the MAGA brand is going the way of Blockbuster Video. Obviously there are things in the files people want hidden. Maybe it's bad behavior by the same guy who walked into a Miss Teen Pageant dressing room when the young girls were naked, but I suspect it's something else, like Epstein being a clandestine asset of Mossad. It never hurts to have dirt on prominent people and politicians.

Real men let women do the testing, and then, with humility, we politely accept the applause. You wouldn't know that.

"We're being incredibly transparent"....in our efforts to block release of the Epstein files. That is 'spin' as only MAGA can do. That's like when some WH spokesperson recently said that the business and policy actions that directly benefit Trump and his family to the tune of billions of dollars are not corrupt, because we're telling you we're doing it.

Do you know why the term "alleged" is used? The term is used for cases not yet fully adjudicated. For example, Trump is alleged to have stolen classified documents, stored them at Mar-a-Lago in a non-SCIF, and then lied about returning them all. It is "alleged" because Judge Cannon never allowed it to go to trial, where it would likely have been a slam dunk conviction. OTOH, Trump is not an "alleged" felon, but a genuine felon (34 felony convictions) as well as not an "alleged" sexual assaulter, but a civilly convicted sexual assaulter. Get the difference?

why do MAGAs always spout that b s? Russia-Trump Campaign cooperation is a FACT, not an alternative fact, but a real FACT. Even Marco Rubio, who was Chair of SSCI when the Senate report on the Russia investigation said that there was cooperation between the Trump campaign and Russia. There is zero doubt. None. In his first week as Campaign Chair, Paul Manafort traveled to Spain to meet with his former boss Konstantin Kilimnik, a GRU asset, and handed Kilimnik detailed internal polling data from the campaign. Do you think Trump might have asked "Where's my Campaign Manager?", or did he know Manafort went to Spain and why he went?

The stench keeps getting worse. Interesting to read the transcript of the Blanche-Maxwell coffee klatch---one cannot call it a prosecutor interview without laughing---where she said Trump had nothing to do with underage girls. Blanche had to have had the emails between Epstein and Maxwell where they spoke of Trump spending hours alone with "one of the victims". "Somehow" Blanche forgot to raise that email exchange in his meeting, before Maxwell---the convicted human trafficker of underage girls raped by her boss Epstein---was transferred to a cushy prison where white collar criminals serve their sentences. I guess in MAGA thinking, trafficking in young girls raped by your boss is just "white collar'. Parsing this with Acosta---the guy who gave Epstein the sweetheart deal where he was allowed daily furlough to go to work, and which violated the Victim Protection Act---who was later named by Trump as Transportation Secretary, this looks bad. Then there's Speaker Johnson doing Trump's bidding by refusing to swear in the Dem Rep who would be the 218th vote on the petition to vote on releasing the Epstein files, plus Trump calling Rep Boebert to the White House Wednesday to ask her to pull her name off the petition (she refused), and a reasonable person would come to wonder if Trump doesn't have something to hide.

According to the firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas (CG&C), job cuts are at the fastest pace since 2003, not 2020, and hiring rate is at a 14 year low. In the first ten months of 2024, firms announced 664,839 job cuts (CG&C). In the first ten months of 2025, job cuts are up 65% to 1,099,500. Some of this is the result of a slowing economy, while AI is also just beginning to impact human employment. Some additional things that concern me....margin debt hit $1,000,000,000,000 for the first time ever. The Wilshire 5000 used to scare people when it hit 100% of US GDP. Today it is 222% of US GDP. The US is adding new Federal Debt at the rate of $50,000,000,000 per week. Service on the Federal Debt is now $1,100,000,000,000 per year Folks got spooked when the Fed's balance sheet hit $1 trillion back in 2008. Today it's $7 trillion. The US will issue at least $2,200,000,000,000 in new debt in 2025. It will issue an even greater amount in 2026. Can the Fed buy any more? Foreigners are pulling back from funding their usual 30% of US Debt. Is a failed bond auction on the horizon? A couple of subprime hedge funds under UBS have been shut down in the last few days. That can spook people about counterparty risk, and thus reduce market liquidity. It's a bit like 2007 when Bear had to close a couple of its funds. That took time to move through the market, but when it did....BOOM! I try to think of an asset class that isn't in a bubble....equities? housing? gold? crypto? AI? If AI is so great, why are 95% of AI firms losing money, and why did even Sam Altman go the Socialism route and say AI needs a government rescue, as it's "too big to fail". Bubbles can last a while, but when every asset class is in a bubble while the labor market is shrinking...that never bodes well.

Ah yes, the "Deep State". Right up there with QAnon, 33rd Degree Freemasons, Lunartics, Flat Earthers, 10' Shape-shifting Lizard People, the rogue planet Nibiru, Bilderbergers dining on babies roasted in gold leaf, Bohemian Grove (as more than a rich person's club), Skull&Bones (as more than a special fraternity and alumni club), Jewish Space Lasers, Area 51 alien bodies........ Be afraid, MAGAs. Be very very afraid.

You might have missed this part of the article: "The attacks come as pro-settler Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich accelerates plans to legalize outposts and expand settlements, openly pledging to “de facto annex” the West Bank and block any future Palestinian state. Israel has built around 160 settlements housing 700,000 Jews since capturing the territory in 1967—settlements deemed illegal under international law."

From Shakespeare...Methinks the lady doth protest too much On Wednesday, "for SOME reason", Trump called Rep Lauren Boebert to the White House to try to get her to remove her name from the Epstein Discharge Petition, which would force a vote in the House to release the Epstein files. Boebert refused, and with the swearing in of new Rep Grijalva, the required 218 votes are now there. Speaker Johnson now must bring a vote to the floor as to whether the files will be released. One has to wonder why the WH and Trump were so adamant about halting the release. Coming on the day a few of the 23,000 Epstein emails were released by the House Dems, this action by Trump certainly makes one wonder.

And the fact the Speaker refused to seat the newly elected Dem Rep, who would be the deciding vote to release the files, is just because the little guy was adamant about following Roberts Rules of Order? The Epstein Estate turned over 23,000 emails. It does take a little time to go through all of them, plus Dems had to grow a pair in order to go around the Speaker's restrictions on disclosure. Note that a lot of the "defense" and spin the WH is putting on this is that the Dems had no right to disclose. Too bad, Trump and Leavitt. Michelle Obama once said "When they go low, we'll go high". Not anymore. It's time for a race to the bottom. If Trump had nothing to fear, the Republicans wouldn't have held up the release. As for "What about Joe", his Administration (belatedly, due to the pity appointment of weakling Garland as AG) had Trump dead to rights for the theft of, and lying about, all those highly classified documents, plus the GA "Just find me...11,780 votes", plus NY and AG James, plus the Capitol Insurrection.....and look how co-opted judges handled those.

Ghislaine Maxwell? The woman who is seeking a pardon or commutation of her sentence for human trafficking? Do you think in any way she might be motivated to only say nice things about the one person on the planet Earth who could give her freedom, so she doesn't have to spend the rest of her miserable life in jail? Why was she moved from a real prison to a country club prison? Maybe that was just a taste of showing her how things could go if she played nice? Do you think she isn't motivated after seeing that, inter alia, a major money launderer (the crypto king), terrorists who stormed the Capitol, beat and bear sprayed 140 police and searched for the Vice President to hang him, and all those involved in the attempt to overturn democracy and the results of Trump's 2020 defeat by Biden received pardons from Trump? This isn't a red herring; it's a rancid bottom feeder rotting in the mid day summer sun.

Nice job of vetting Paul Manafort before hiring him as Campaign Chair.....NOT! Or maybe Trump got exactly what he wanted in a Campaign Chair.......access to the GRU and its disinformation team at the Internet Research Agency. I mean, Manafort worked for Oleg Deripaska as well as GRU asset Konstantin Kilimnik before Trump hired him as Chairman. Willful cooperation or abject incompetence...neither looks good.

Don't forget Marco Rubio and the other Republican members of SSCI !!!!! www.rollcall.com commented on the SSCI Report upon its release. Here's an excerpt from their article at the time of release: "The Senate Intelligence Committee report found that Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort’s presence “created opportunities for Russian intelligence services to exert influence over, and acquire confidential information on, the Trump Campaign.” Manafort worked for Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska and other Kremlin-affiliated Russians to mount influence campaigns in Ukraine, and in the process also hired and worked with Konstantin Kilimnik, a former Russian intelligence officer, the report said. “The Committee obtained some information suggesting Kilimnik may have been connected to the GRU’s hack and leak operation targeting the 2016 U.S. election,” the report said, referring to the Russian military intelligence service by its initials. U.S. intelligence agencies have said hackers working for GRU were directly involved in breaking into the Democratic National Committee’s servers as well as breaching the email account of John Podesta, Hillary Clinton’s campaign manager. Manafort shared Trump campaign’s internal polling data with Kilimnik prior to the 2016 election. And in the months after November 2016, Manafort continued to work with Kilimnik and other Russians “to undermine evidence that Russia interfered in the 2016 U.S. election,” the report said. “Manafort’s high level access and willingness to share information with individuals closely affiliated with the Russian intelligence services, particularly Kilimnik and associates of Oleg Deripaska, represented a grave counterintelligence threat,” the report said."

Cut him some slack. He’s a shorty, so he’s probably been forced to sniff diesel bus fumes for fifty years. That can damage brain cells, especially in those who were given a short supply to begin with. Besides that, imagine the pain when women he purchases for carnal favors make fun of his “size”. MAGA is all he’s got. Let him pretend he's "winning". It's kind of a public service to the forlorn.

"long suppressed alien technology" Oh my, you have it bad, even by MAGA standards.

Much easier to describe MAGAs: Losers

The Dems, plus Repubs like Massie, get the Epstein Files. Once released, they will monopolize the media narrative for weeks, probably keeping Trump up all night rage Tweeting, which won't be good for his already rapidly declining health and mental (lack of) fitness. Also, now it will be laid bare that Repubs want to take away healthcare and ratchet up premiums even on MAGAs. That won't play well next November. WINNING! 8 Dems knew how to play a winning hand. A potential bonus is the Dems might be able to rid themselves of dead weight leaders like Schumer and Jeffries, and install a proper attack dog or two.

It's going to be difficult for Speaker Johnson to manufacture a new excuse why he cannot swear in the new Democrat Rep, the woman who will be the deciding vote on the release of the Epstein Files. The shutdown was the best thing that could happen to Trump re Epstein, but that's over now. The Repubs tried hard to prevent this, even shutting down the government (though finding money for Trump to fly down south to cheat play golf, where he's already spent over $60 million of the US Taxpayers' money since 20 January playing golf), but now we'll see what actually comes out. The Epstein Files are likely to haunt Trump until midterms, and coupled with the damage the Repubs are going to do to healthcare costs and premiums, Nov 2026 is going to be a Blue Tsunami. A Dem majority House means Impeachment #3, which is probably why all those pardons of the lackeys who tried to overturn Trump's 2020 election loss were done, including the crazed Sidney Powell, she of the Hugo Chavez Resurrection to write code uploaded to an Italian satellite that altered the workings of Dominion Voting Machines. Those pardons might come back to haunt Trump, too (unless he pardons himself), because a pardoned individual cannot claim the 5th and is obliged to answer any question put to them in court under oath. They CAN be charged with perjury if they lie under oath. Now if the Dems also retake the Senate next year, and the impeachment heads there, conviction is likely. It's also likely enough Republican Senators will see the end of MAGA and choose their careers over loyalty to a dying brand, and vote to convict. Put McConnell, Murkowski and Collins in this camp, maybe even Thune.

Let's try this again.... A satirical website called The Dunning-Kruger Times (first hint), a site which states clearly it is satirical and made-up (second hint), posted an article claiming President Obama received royalties every year from the Affordable Care Act, aka Obamacare, but that Musk and DOGE put a stop to it. Trump was fooled and posted a comment on social media, raging against the royalties paid to Obama. The guy who refers to himself as a stable genius was fooled by a website calling itself The Dunning-Kruger Times. Even the Onion couldn't make up a funnier story.