Wingate

If the NYT is, indeed, "notorious liars", off the top of your head you should be able to toss out a hundred times the Times lied. (I addressed Russia in another post. It was not a hoax...."Kilimnik-Manafort") Educate us. OTOH, we know from court cases that Fox is a liar. Two manufacturers of voting machines called them out, and Fox had to pay up huge, while the other is till being adjudicated, as far as I know.

If you think you know something, give SecState Marco Rubio a call, because as Chair of SSCI he produced a report noting there definitely was cooperation between the Trump campaign and Russia. Though this has been noted dozens of times, just search Konstantin Kilimnik. Perhaps you know better than anyone why Campaign Chair Paul Manafort flew to Spain, met Kilimnik, and handed the GRU asset Kilimnik detailed internal polling data from the Trump campaign. Correct me if I'm wrong, but that doesn't seem normal behavior in a Presidential campaign. The Campaign Chair's first week on the job and he takes the time to fly to Spain to meet with a Russian GRU asset?

I think the joke is on you, but you lack the self perception to see it. You are part of a cult whose brand is hate and willful ignorance. What in my post, which you didn't and won't read, is incorrect? Have you ever listened to Nick Fuentes, the Young Republicans, even Charlie Kirk (who had a gentle, albeit still misogynistic and racist tone). Ever visited the fever swamps of Telegram or Truth Social? Those voices are the youth of MAGA, and they will assume the mantle of the Party when Trump kicks the bucket. If I am a joke to you, the system allows you to put me on ignore. I suggest you do that, and go back to your life of buying young Isaan women who wouldn't give you the time of day if you didn't pay them. But don't forget to give a reacharound to your compatriot who rides the red Vespa in Pattaya, now under another moniker after his old one was banned.

While I am a progressive, I think I’m in the majority of those left of center who believe the US benefits from a true conservative movement, just as it benefits from a true progressive movement. When both are present, the excesses of both sides are held back. Trump hijacked the true conservative movement and turned it into a fascist, self-serving, oligarchic movement, that appeals to the forlorn by preaching hate and blame. His timing was perfect, as he arose at a time when the playing field was becoming more equal, and those accustomed to entitlement by virtue of their gender or ethnicity faced more competition and realized life was going to take a lot more effort than they were willing to put out. That hateful, blame-driven, lazy demographic has taken over what used to be the conservative movement. They have built upon the warped ideology Trump introduced and are now taking it down an even worse path. They’ve embraced the fake Christians, the racists, the antisemites, the conspiracy theorists, the misogynists and other miscreants and try to portray themselves at patriotic, piously Christian, masculine and tough, when they are nothing of the sort. It's time for both sides of the spectrum to police their own outliers, but the right has much more work to do, because their fringe is now their mainstream.

The US might be the epicenter, but the problem of underachieving males is worldwide. It is likely what is behind the growing movement toward autocracy and fascism, which is why it is particularly dangerous. Opening up the playing field to women, or in some melting pot nations to minorities, has smacked the egos of men who face stiffer competition. Rather than say "molon labe"; let me challenge myself and be the best I can be, too many males demand what they think is their entitlement. Note how many times you've seen white males try to steal valor, as in "We gave the world this, this and this", when the "we" is just a male who happened to have the same color skin. The most dangerous person is the failed young male...full of testosterone and looking to find people to blame.

Clearly I've picked a few scabs and held up a few mirrors. That's the point of online Forums. When people post a dozen criticisms before even reading the post, I know I've revealed some inconvenient truths. Let the debate continue.......

Professor Galloway, from whom I took a lot, details this better than I ever could. He has all the stats, such as young males are four times more likely to take their own lives, three times more likely to be homeless, twelve times more likely to be incarcerated, and within 5 years will be outnumbered 2 to 1 by female college graduates. Galloway has just published a new book discussing the crisis of young males in the US. My "shadow", who has already posted almost a dozen replies despite not reading my post, should pick up Galloway's book if he's in need of data. Galloway is both thorough and pedantic when it comes to data.

Ah....not a good idea to make assumptions. I'm not retired, as I run a business in Thailand, but I did choose to become "gainfully unemployed" at age 39. I'm guessing you have 20+ years on me, sport. Enjoy your twilight years.

Seems to have gotten under your skin, as you've posted numerous messages well before reading it. No surprise. Truth hurts.

Go into any of the far right fever swamps and you'll see in the comments, I've even seen it on this site, as old guys who've come to Thailand to purchase short times with women regularly bark about "Western feminists".

Took the Evelyn Woods speed reading course, did you. I know. Truth hurts. Truth especially hurts weak men, the kind of male women don't want (unless the customer pays for her services).

Trump built his brand by courting and appealing to two types of white males. Together, these two are his bread and butter---or extra crispy and fries---and propelled him to his two wins. One group is old white males, guys who are reflecting back on a life of mediocrity and minimal accomplishment, bitter at what they failed to achieve in life, and wanting somebody---anybody---to feel pain for their own lack of success. Trump won them by not only telling them their failure wasn’t their fault, but he gave them people to blame, whether that is immigrants or minorities or women. They can take that to their graves, but it doesn’t change the reality of their own inferiority. The second group is the new young white male, a grossly underachieving guy whom society has left behind, but for whom tech bros and the social media tycoons have a ready product. Young white males have fallen far behind their female peers. Females now greatly outnumber males earning college degrees. The pay gap has closed dramatically. Social media and addiction to phones and laptops has prevented young males from developing any sort of social skills. Young males are much more likely to live with their parents, be unemployed, and according to NYU Professor Scott Galloway, four times more likely to take their own lives. Fully a third of young white males are now reaching age 30 as virgins. They have no game, and because women are, on average, better educated and more likely to be gainfully employed, these males have nothing to offer women. The women don’t want them. Young males tend to blame immigrants for their economic failure and women for their relationship and romantic failure. They’re incapable of accepting responsibility. The tech bros recognize this and produce algorithms that direct these guys to content that will feed their frustration, whether it’s on Reddit, Telegram, Truth Social, Facebook or Twitter. As Galloway, a former marketing tycoon said, the tech bros realized advertisers long got things wrong: they thought sex sells, while the tech bros know rage sells better. They feed young males content that enrages. There are a large percentage of young white males who live in Mom’s basement, spend their days playing video games or scrolling social media targeted to their needs, and getting any carnal satisfaction by fapping to online porn. They think sex is pulling hair, choking, butt-to-mouth and other means of domination. No wonder women don’t want them. If they have a job, it’s being a crypto or meme stock trader. Online has become their life. They lack the motivation to improve themselves, get educated and learn job skills, get in shape, develop a personality, and learn how to build relationships with women. It’s much easier just to do nothing but blame others. They’re content to have Mom provide dinner, porn to provide “relationships”, and the fever swamps of the far right to provide “news” and outrage. They get into online echo chambers where one guy reinforces the misogyny and racism of another, until they become a hive of hate and anger. They think “Bros before hoes” is some clarion call of masculinity. Trump’s “gift” was that he knew this anger and frustration was out there, and inherently knew such people were just like him----always looking for others to blame for what they failed to achieve. Of course the average young male lacks a daddy who will fund and back his life, allowing him to manufacture a false persona. If Trump could possibly be honest, and admit the cause for his woeful insecurity, he would admit the only thing that kept him from a dead end job pouring Slurpies at a 7-11 or driving a truck was his daddy’s money and co-signed loans. On his own, Trump’s record is one of continual failure. Six bankruptcies---and for casinos of all things---says what his skill level as a businessman is, or isn’t. He took his father’s money, got loans co-signed, regularly stiffed contractors….and still failed in a real estate bull market. What finally saved him and got him where he is today is that Mark Burnett saw Trump’s self-created fantasy of a “dealmaker” and a business success, along with the constant hyperbole, could sell to a naïve and clueless audience. Burnett thus created “The Apprentice”, a TV game show that became a ratings winner and put hundreds of millions of dollars into Trump’s pocket. Trump additionally benefited when his successful father passed and left him almost half a billion dollars. Not so surprisingly, Trump then proceeded to fritter away that enormous wealth on money-losing projects such as golf courses and a myriad of failed businesses, from a fake university to steaks. (His domestic golf courses, being privately held, need not issue P&Ls, but his international properties such as Turnberry must issue P&Ls, and they show losses.) Just how poorly Trump handled his own finances came to light when he said he did not have the ability to pay the fines and penalties imposed on him due to court cases he lost. As a man who understood failure and his own tendency to need to blame others, Trump inherently knew how to appeal to similarly incompetent young males. He was vocal about all those people who should be hated and scorned. Immigrants were destroying the fabric of America, even “spoiling the blood”. Women and minorities were taking jobs because of DEI programs. Trump could fix that and give these loser males what was “rightfully” theirs. He couched his hatred in patriotic terms, even with his tag line about making America great “again”, with “again” a transparent call to a time when women and minorities “knew their place”, and white men were supreme simply by virtue of their birth, gender and skin color. Certainly Trump’s siren song of “It’s not your fault you’re a failure” resonated, at least with white males. The problem is that rage and ability to blame takes on a life of its own and is moving out of Trump’s control. It comes as no surprise that when hatred and blame are policy, platform and ideology, it will seep into the darkest corners of human thought and behavior. It’s no wonder young white males are into misogyny, following such miscreants as Andrew Tate. It’s no wonder they are embracing fascism, just hoping they’re on the right side of it. It’s no wonder they get glee watching masked and badgeless stormtroopers rough up people who “look different”, even when some of these people being roughed up are US Citizens. It’s no wonder there is a growing movement to not only embrace, but voice public admiration for Hitler, Naziism and antisemitism. Trump gave the all clear to the worst of humanity in many ways. He called white males who marched with Tikitorches chanting “Jews will not replace us”, and males who attended a protest against the removal of statues of men who supported slavery, “some very fine people”. When he called his cult to DC for 6 January 2021 and told them to “fight” and march to the Capitol as Trump’s election loss was being certified, he told them “We love you very much”, even after they beat 140 cops and set up a gallows to hang the Vice President. That isn’t tough love, it’s pandering to the worst human instincts. Trump further shouted the “all clear” to hate and antisemitism when he invited Holocaust denier Nick Fuentes to a private dinner at Mar-a-Lago along with antisemite Kanye West. Fuentes has now even been platformed by far right icon Tucker Carlson. Also, the recently leaked transcript of an online chat of Young Republicans (many of whom are in their 30s and some are running for public office) showed such absurdity as “I love Hitler”, and “I’m ready to watch people burn”, and “Rape is epic”. Trump opened Pandora’s Box and let these miscreants out. He encouraged their hatred and rage, and it has now become the bedrock ideology of the MAGA movement. MAGA now equals fascism, racism, misogyny and antisemitism. Never has that been more clear than in the last month, with everything from Young Republicans to the MAGA-ly conservative Heritage Foundation coming to the aid of Nick Fuentes, preventing Fuentes from being “cancelled”. The bitter old white male demographic is dying off, but the up and coming leadership of the MAGA movement are these angry white males who love Hitler, blame women for their own romantic failures, and blame immigrants and minorities for their lack of economic success. MAGA increasingly is the Party of hate, Hitler, racism and misogyny. All of that got Trump elected, but the damage it wrought has only just begun. Ideally, real conservatives will retake the Party from MAGA and give Americans a fair choice. Ideally, there will be a role model emerging who will teach young males what it really means to be a man, not a misogynistic self-serving psychopathic crybaby like Trump. Trump is certainly the farthest thing from a real man, but sadly, he influenced a large segment of the young male population, while he appealed to the loser old men. The old guys are dinosaurs, on their last gasp of existence, but the young ones remain a threat to all that is good and decent and truly American.

But wait, there's more..... In VA, the Dem also won the Lieutenant Governor and a Dem beat the incumbent Repub Attorney General. Dems also added more than a dozen seats to their House majority in VA. In Pennsylvania, there was a Supreme Court election that would allow 3 Dem justices to remain on the court for two more years, or be taken off and the SC seats would sit empty for 2 years. Trump campaigned hard to knock the Dems off, and Repub PACS poured bucketloads of money into the election. PA was a State where Trump tried to overturn the 2020 results, and the total PA SC dismissed his frivolous case, just as courts dismissed 59 of Trump's attempts to overturn the 2020 result. Thus, Trump was being his usual vindictive self, trying to get Dem SC justices thrown off the court. With an average of 64%, all 3 Dem SC Justices in PA retained their seats. Many voters might not even have understood the judicial procedure regarding the election, but Trump's barking and whining probably had some effect to turn the result into a landslide for the Dem justices. Nationwide, every major candidate Trump endorsed, as well as Props he stood against, went soundly against him. The MAGA brand is going the way of Blockbuster Video, Enron and Pets.com.

Do you mean like a Being 747 that the US Taxpayer will pay $ hundreds of millions to retrofit, and then $ hundreds million more to de-retrofit when Trump gets it for private use? Or maybe $60 million (so far) for Trump's golf outings since January? How about the $230 million he's demanding for the DoJ and Smith doing their job and investigating his criminality?

No doubt one of those little cocktail wiener fingers has pressed the ALL CAPS button and Trump will be rage Tweeting all night after the passage of Prop 50. Newsom can redistrict to pretty much guarantee a Dem House majority after the midterms, which means..... IMPEACHMENT #3 If the economy continues to falter, as it is now with slow growth, rising unemployment, and rising inflation, the Dems might also retake the Senate, which means affirmation of the House impeachment. In fact, even the Republicans in the senate might convict, as they know their Party is dead if Trump and MAGA are their brand. All that's left for the self-dealing crybaby is to invoke the Insurrection Act, declare martial law, and call off the midterm elections.

What do you mean? You've never heard of Ilhan Omar?

Fun to listen to the rationalizations. VA, NJ, NYC with CA polls closing in a couple of hours. I wonder what the Trumpian spin will be if Prop 50 passes? I bet if it does, the fat man will be rage Tweeting all night.

The Dems retook the majority in the House and Senate? I must have missed that. Great news! Now Dems can impeach Trump!

Maybe now your love muffin has the dosh to pay E. Jean Carroll for sexually assaulting her? Well, not quite yet. He'll have to threaten to remove more broadcast licenses in his special fascist, anti-American and anti-First Amendment way. Funny the kind of miscreants and morally reprehensible poor excuses for human beings you little MAGAs worship.

You know that Rwandan genocide in 1994? The one where "Seven million killed....and machetes machetes everywhere"? I stopped that. Really. With my mind, like the way Trump declassifies. Certainly my claim has as much credence as his. He says he did it, but I know he was in court filing Chapter 11 bankruptcy for his casinos back then. What he has done, however, is take economic growth, solid unemployment, and tamed inflation from Biden and given us slower growth, higher unemployment and higher inflation. That's "multitasking", and at that, he's a pro. Also, the US was not in any wars when he took over, but now we're at war with Venezuela and maybe soon with Nigeria. (I'm sure you'll be volunteering to serve, right? I mean, channel that "anger" into patriotism.) He's also trying to rid the country of the kind of people he used to employ...from the undocumented Poles who built his eponymous NYC tower to the undocumented Central and South Americans he employed at Mar-a-Lago and Bedminster up until at least 2017.

Perhaps you're unaware, but inflation is higher today than when Biden left office. Tariffs will do that. As for the inflation of early in Biden's term, MAGAs think inflation is like a light switch...ON/OFF. They cannot begin to understand that Trump running up $8,400,000,000,000 in new debt---a 41% increase over the total of the previous 44 Presidents---was the cause. Trump's debt represents $25,000 for every man, woman and child in the US, or $1000 for every person on Earth. Perhaps....just perhaps...all that printing was the cause of inflation?

Lied? I know the situation you talk about. When Feinstein's staff had access to agency computers, they were unaware that EVERY single person who accesses, or tries to access anything on the agency system, is followed by a built-in program. It is totally out of human control. It's part of the "need to know" system. Feinstein's people tried accessing things far different from what they were authorized to access, and the system noted their attempts. Feinstein was already suffering from cognitive decline at that time, and she lacked the ability to understand what John told her. As an agency employee, if one tries to access anything outside of their direct responsibility, the system notes it. Repeated attempts come to the attention of the Security Office, who then passes that knowledge to CIMC (Counter Intelligence Mission C enter). The Chief of CIMC then makes a determination as to whether that officer should be questioned, or if the attempted access is somehow peripheral to the officer's job. That is one process the agency uses to uncover moles. If it is way out of bounds, the officer is questioned by Security, and even swirled. Feinstein's Congressional staffers tried to find names of clandestine assets, search for things like "UFOs", etc. They had no authority to do so, and the system itself---not Brennan nor any human being in the agency had any control over what the system is designed to do. There is strict compartmentalization in the agency, as only those who need to know something are read in. A perfect example is the Russia investigation, where John also set up a Bigot List to note every single person who had any knowledge of that intel, all of which was moved from the agency to the bureau (as if involved a US Person). Durham had access to the Bigot List and interviewed every single agency person on it. Nobody at the agency was found by Durham to have done anything wrong. Finally, as DCI, Brennan would not even have been involved in any depth with the discussions back then with Feinstein. That would have been below him and handled by the ExDir or CIMC Chief or Security. Just because something appears in the media does not mean it is true or a complete story. I thought MAGAs inherently held mistrust for legacy media....well, unless it serves their purpose. Odd how concerned MAGAs are with things about which they know nothing, yet give Trump a pass for stealing classified documents and keeping them (including HCS-HUman Clandestine Sources) at his wedding event facility and country club.

Obviously you studied neither law nor the US Constitution. The Constitution, of which you are apparently ignorant, starts out with something called the 1st Amendment, in which the rights of free speech, a free press, freedom of/from religion and freedom of assembly are laid down. When "Hunter's laptop" became a cause celebre, a number of individuals stated their OPINION that it was likely a Russian influence operation. Like even you, private citizens are entitled to have, and express, their opinions. That is a right guaranteed by the 1st Amendment. Here's another example of free speech: "They're eating the pets!". That was Trump's stated view during the debate with Harris. It was wrong, but Trump is entitled to have that opinion, just as he is of the view that he stopped the Rwandan genocide in 1994. If private citizens---like Brennan---are not allowed to state an opinion, then the 1st Amendment no longer exists. I'm sure you would like that, but real American patriots would not. Do yourself a favor and go study the US Constitution. You really need a remedial lesson in American ideals and reality.

I have to believe this is either a joke, or the OP left out the "e" in the "L" word. If Trump is the "last", not "least" competent person, then I should pray to Zeus that Comet 3I/ATLAS strikes the Earth and sends humans the way of dinosaurs. Of course I despise Trump, and that for a host of reasons such as he champions willful ignorance, he's corrupt, he's misogynistic, racist, self-serving, woefully insecure, grossly undisciplined (blubberbutt) physically, pathologically mendacious, and generally just a disgusting example of the worst a human can be. But he is a symptom of what ails society. If he has any single gift, it's that he inherently knows the average person today is a loser, and he knows what siren song to sing to woo those losers. He created MAGA as the magnet excuse for losers. That is the point of "again" in MAGA, which suggests a time of white male advantage, minorities and women "knowing their place". He isn't the only one who made a name building on that...Charlie Kirk knew it, but brought a kinder version of his hate and blame than Trump brings. The real danger is what Trump has fomented and what MAGA is not just morphing into now, but which represents a post-Trump MAGA. That MAGA future is represented by people like Neo Nazi and holocaust denier Nick Fuentes, recently platformed by another MAGA icon, Tucker Carlson. The MAGA future was revealed by the leak of the "Young Republicans" and their "I love Hitler" and "ready to watch people burn". It's a 23 year old Patrick Crusius, who had his own hatred of "others" amplified by Trump's "rapists and murderers" epithets tossed at people south of the border, and walked into an El Paso Walmart and slaughtered 23 Hispanics while wounding two dozen more. Trump's "competence", if I can agree at all with the OP, is that Trump knows how to feed losers exactly what they want to hear: their economic failure is the fault of immigrants and their relationship and romantic failure is the fault of women. Big tech learned something that advertisers a few decades ago got wrong. Ad men were of the belief that sex sells. Tech bros realized something sells better: rage. Algorithms sense nascent misogyny or racism, and then feed the sufferer online what he wants to hear to feel better about himself. His lack of acceptance of personal responsibility that results in his economic and relationship failure is presented at "others' fault". He's hooked on hate, and then he looks for what public figure also feeds him the excuses he needs to feel better about himself. Enter Trump.

LOL! Guaranteed, eh? What was John's crime? Post the citation. Did he steal highly classified documents? Try to overturn the election? Foment an insurrection where terrorists wanted to hang the Vice President? Trump's own lackey Durham met with John for 8 hours, and in the final report, gave John the all clear. Durham's team also saw every cable and every intel report regarding the Russia cooperation. Everyone from John's deputy DDCI, ExDir, CIMC Chief, Russia desk chief, and field officers were questioned by Durham's team. All clear. John did everything by the book, which is why Durham focused more on the bureau, to which John turned everything over. Maybe you, sitting in Cambodia, know more that Durham? Or you just live in a fantasy world, absent even a modicum of actual knowledge?