Wingate

In that unctuously obsequious "Cabinet" meeting last week, I started thinking how many so-called leaders in the last 100 years would have accepted that, rather than tell the sycophants to have some pride and behave like men, not childish adolators. Kim Jong-un would accept it, but even he is smart enough to know it's fake, as the grovelers would just be trying to stay on the good side of an anti-aircraft gun or a dose of VX nerve agent. As paranoid as Putin is, he wouldn't allow it, either. For all his psychopathy, he does have a little pride. Perhaps the only other modern leader weak enough and Narcissistic enough to take it all in and believe it's sincere might be the former ruler of Turkmenistan, Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov. Trump is pure fantasy, from that silly praise to even the White House issuing images that has the canckley cowardly bloated blubberbutt portrayed as being ripped and heroic, it's all Fake and makes Trump look like an immature, woefully insecure pimple-faced teen.

The term for that is "Irresponsible".

As far as I know, King's daddy didn't support him well into his 50s, co-sign his bank loans, buy $3.2 million in chips in an Atlantic City casino so Donny could make a loan payment to a NY bank, etc. Trump is now wealthy. That's true. Almost all of his net worth has been gained since January 2025, after he took office. His tax returns that were leaked show he spent most of his life failing (and stiffing contractors), only saved by daddy....and then eventually saved by Mark Burnett, who created the fantasy that still fools the MAGAnistas. KIng is self-made, and didn't need to grift, beg from daddy, or violate what used to be called emoluments clauses. Trump is a corrupt, grifting daddy's boy, who without daddy and Burnett, he'd likely be pouring Slurpies in a 7-11 on the Jersey Turnpike.

If yours is the standard for a life well lived, I'd rather be in the box or the urn. Luckily, actuarial tables give me another 40+ years, so I will live to see MAGA tossed into the dustbin of history, and perhaps the damage Trump has unleashed on the world can be corrected. Enjoy your 30 baht street food repast. Too bad you didn't work harder and build a more robust retirement with enough money to live above the Thai poverty level.

Like your 50,000+ posts? Physician, heal thyself. By the way, the damage Trump is doing to the country and the world is infinitely more significant that finding a 30 baht som tam on the street, or whether some member is dating a bargirl. Perspective, Grasshopper. Perspective.

You mean like "Newscum" for Gov Newsom, as Trump now posts? Only in MAGAstan is "grab'em by the [small kitten]" considered Shakespearean. Gov Newsom has done a wonderful thing pointing out the childishness and absurdity of everything Trump, from the endless nicknames to endless hyperbole and self-promotion, to the fantasy images of Trump being what he could never be (e.g., fit, courageous, brave). How unsurprising that the right cannot handle it coming back at their messiah.

Stewart discussing Trump's obviously declining health was pretty funny...his line about "Trump's neck looks so much like Betty White's [lady bit] that Milton Berle tried to [f-word] it." (For non-American's, Betty White was an actress and comedian who passed around age 101.) Trump gets all the respect a man of his "chronic venous moral insufficiency" deserves.

He did not attend Wharton School of Business at the graduate level. He attended the undergraduate school of U Penn, after his father used his influence to get him in, after transferring from a non-Ivy. When Trump was just the joke of NYC real estate, a professor who taught him claimed Trump was the dumbest student he ever taught at U Penn. That was long before Trump became either a Game Show Host or POTUS.

So working on the school paper at a 4th tier university qualifies her and makes her a non-DEI? A "degree in politics". At the time, I bet Mom and Dad were a bit miffed paying for that sheepskin. The "Communications" major is what athletes claim when they have no time to go to class because of practice and games. You are not American, but saying one's major is "Communications" is viewed as a joke in the US. It means you just goofed off.

The Birthday book was put together and bound 20 years ago. That letter has been part of it for 20 years. It came to light during the investigation. Nobody is denying that part of this sordid debacle.....except you. Curious....what is you skill set that allows you to take a quick look at a 20 year old note and instantly determine it's a fake? Personally, I cannot say if it's real or fake. It certainly fits the profile of 1) a bestie of Epstein's back then, and 2) a guy who fancied himself free to grab women by the small kitten, because he's a "celebrity". In the famous video of the two guys checking out women at a Florida party, that lascivious look Trump gives---anyone can tell he wasn't discussing the woman's intelligence---which made Epstein giggle, also fits the tone of the birthday card.

Only in the eyes of a lovesick MAGA fanboy. I see with your 14 posts so far in this thread, you must be today's Defender of the Faith, a kind of Bernardo Gui running an Inquisition against the heretics and blasphemers. Again, Trump is a civilly convicted sex offender. In a normal and moral world, that is not a good thing. Only in the immoral world of MAGAstan does it make the predator a victim. By the way, Trump is also a convicted felon. What's the official MAGA excuse for that? Let me guess....a Southern Hemisphere marsupial is going to be brought to the floor.

Have you been civilly convicted of sexual assault? Have any friends who were? It's not common. Somehow you think because it is not a criminal conviction, it's okay. That says a lot about the morality, or lack thereof, of you rightist fascists. Your defense of your messiah is almost as 'admirable' as the jihadis who won't let a Danish cartoonist off the hook for blaspheming their messiah. Why not try some more Whataboutism? That's usually a return to Plan B for MAGAnistas when the supposed epithet of "leftists" fails to convince nor embarrass.

He was civilly convicted of sexual assault by a jury of his peers, based on the evidence presented at his civil trial. That constitutes conviction, and isn't something of which the average person is convicted. Recall that Ms Carroll's team requested a sample of Trump's DNA so they could match it against the stains on the dress she wore that day, and never dry cleaned nor wore again. Her legal team was refused, and I guess in a civil trial, that holds up. His first wife, by the way, wrote in her book that he raped her. Of course that is her opinion and it never went to trial, but it fits his behavior both with the 25+ women who have accused him of unwanted touching or worse, and certainly fits in with his Access Hollywood boast of being able to grab them by their (small kittens) because he's a big shot. Again, the average person does not boast of an ability to do that, "celebrity" or regular guy. Similarly, the average guy doesn't get accused of schtupping a pornstar while 3rd wifey is home caring for a newborn, nor does the average guy ever find it necessary to pay off an accuser with $130,000, so that she will remain quiet. MAGAs face some cognitive dissonance about that one, as they like to think their messiah did schtupp Stormy in her prime, while at the same time are compelled to believe his claims he never touched her. Of course among the many who would know the truth would be Marla Maples and Melania, as they would know from Stormy's description of Trump's mushroomy micro junk whether that fits with what they have (sadly) seen.

The good news is $83 million is only a couple days' revenue at the White House Grift Shop. Trump can now easily afford to go sexually assault dozens more unwilling women. Heck, even the sons can afford it, too, as their crypto grift has made them wealthy. It's a family business, this elected office stuff. I mean the son-in-law got $2 billion to manage by the Saudis and got his white elephant at 666 Fifth Ave refinanced by Qatar just in time to make a massive balloon payment back during Trump 1.0, and even 3rd wifey got $40 million from Jeff Bezos for the movie rights to her "riveting" life story.

Various business media are running stories on what a Blackrock analyst deduced from historical data....and I thought Blackrock was an FOT...... In a note to clients on Friday, Rick Rieder, BlackRock's chief investment officer of global fixed income, noted that over the past three months, healthcare accounts for more than all of the jobs created in the US economy. Excluding growth from healthcare, Rieder noted that total job growth is now negative for the first time in the past 25 years, As he might have said, "Nobody knows more about losing jobs than Trump. Some people are saying he's the best job loser ever."

But you cannot point out a single thing that is incorrect. Truth to MAGAs is like kryptonite to Superman. Oh, and despite images released by the White House, Trump never did nor ever will be ripped like the character Superman. Pillsbury Dough Boy maybe, or Jabba the Hut, but not Superman. THAT is fantasy.

I have wondered why Marco Rubio is still SecState, as he served as Chair of SCCI when it released its report on Trump campaign's cooperation with Russia. The report noted the Kilimnik-Manafort meeting in Spain, which cannot be described in any other way than "cooperation with a foreign entity in a US election". I mean, even people who merely read the intel reports coming into Langley have lost their security clearances, kind of like how the MAFIA rubs out witnesses. Maybe dementia has Trump forgetting, and Laura might be too lazy to read the SSCI report.

LOL! Typical MAGAnista! You cannot point out a single "flight of fantasy"...but you get MAGA points to be used at the Official Trump Griftshop for using the word "deranged". Laura Loomer takes credit for everything she does (in her social media posts). Those are even available to you, if you want. I merely took her claims and wrote the narrative around them. Nobody on this website ever said they know John Durham. Maybe it's time you tried that "genius level" test where they ask you to repeat "Person Man Woman Camera TV", as your memory might be getting a little foggy. Mental decline comes with age, and for MAGAs who never had much to begin with, losing even a little can be debilitating. As for "not a good look", my opinion is that short, fat and old is not a good look, but it does describe the vast majority of MAGAs I see in Thailand. There but for the grace of Zeus, I say. One day I will likely be old, but fat and short....nope. Good genes and good discipline.

To put Loomer's influence into perspective, apparently she spends more time in the White House than the McDonald's delivery guy. Whoa!

That's a textbook example of symbiosis. He gets a hummer, and she gets to use his tiny tool as a toothpick.

Are you calling Laura Loomer a liar? She has taken credit publicly for all that I noted in my post. Many times she has demanded someone be fired, and the firing came days or even hours later. In a US now seeming to lack the rights of the 1st Amendment, such as Free Speech, calling Loomer a liar might be blasphemy and could land you in Alligator Alcatraz or a prison in Uganda (as the 4th Amendment has also been effectively repealed.) Clearly you need a remedial course on how to worship your messiah and play jihadi against anyone who would criticize him, without yourself falling afoul of the wrath of Medusa. Best you not become a kind of Robespierre, a victim of your own devices, so to speak. There are a few things even MAGAnistas have never gotten quite straight. The Manafort-Kilimnik meeting has never been denied, there are photos of the two meeting in Spain, as well as travel records indicating Manafort's travel. What is official MAGAnista explanation of why Manafort would hand a GRU asset and non-American detailed internal polling data? Perhaps now would also be a good time to explain why Trump was okay stealing hundreds of classified documents and leaving them lying around his wedding planner facility. What possible use could Trump have for documents carrying the names of foreign clandestine assets, when exposure of those names could get the asset and his family killed? (I don't think we need Bill Clinton to say, "It depends on what the meaning of 'cooperation' is.") You seem to be chin deep in the fever swamps of MAGAstan, so you must have ready answers to these questions, rather than just toss out an epithet like "lefty".

Actually, there's little left in the way of compassion for the MAGAnistas, so might as well laugh at them, too. Sometimes you cut people some slack, as you know they've not only been fooled, but through the (bad) luck of the draw and accidents of birth, fooling them was always easy. They've had plenty of time to figure things out, but simply cannot. They're not capable. They are part of Lincoln's (and PT Barnum's) demographic where you can fool some of the people all of the time, or the suckers born every minute. The same folks I remember in public school as a kid, before society separated the capable from the future truck drivers, gas station attendants, and common laborers I see at Trump rallies and now even on the streets of Bangkok. The polite term for them is "the intellectually challenged" or "mediocre". The less polite term is "losers". It's likely successful people forgot these types exist, as most societies are bifurcated and the capable tend to live lives among other capable people, while losers share time and space with other losers. Living on small pensions, trying to make a go of things in Thailand on a tenth of what even a bargirl makes, they are old and fat and angry, maybe married to a woman with a 3rd degree education or someone they met in a beer bar---no doubt a cashier LOL---scrapping together a few baht for a plate of street food som tam or chicken feet, rationalizing that proves they've "assimilated". They bark about all the migrants spoiling their former home and former culture, while they don't see the abject hypocrisy in that statement as they live in a 1930's style rural house where neither their appearance nor more than ample girth really fit in. Since the impish Universe let them down, and nothing can be done to help them even ascend to average status, might as well laugh. It's not cruel, it's sweet lemon-ing, as even compassion is a limited resource. Pity is draining, so best leave that behind. Find humor instead, as you do in Trump's endless lies, hyperbole and inherent clownish idiocy or dementia-driven word salad. Human existence follows a kind of sine function, albeit (fortunately) one resting on a upward slope. We had been riding both the underlying slope and the sine wave moving toward it's amplitude peak. That ended, we're on the part of the sine wave heading down, even passing through the overall slope of the entire wave. The inmates control the asylum to some extent, so we're entering a new Dark Ages, where ignorance holds the majority. The good news is that the successful can afford to insulate themselves from the madness, as well as from the social strife and societal mayhem on the horizon. The losers, the sheeple, the cultists like the MAGAnistas, do not only not see it coming, but they will be swept up in the hell that is an absolute certainty. We're alive at a time of a coming perfect storm of utter disruption. The increasingly obviated surplus members of society have become bewildered, scared, anxious, uncertain. They have turned toward autocracy, as it offers both an easy answer and a belief that somebody is in charge. Even a malevolent leader is more attractive than randomness, as no deal can be made with randomness. If a person thinks they side with a leader---even a malevolent dictator---they can fool themselves into thinking they will be safe. This move toward a preference for autocracy is coming at a time when AI will change the very fabric of existence. Humans can deal with narrow AI, as it can make things more efficient, but not alter society's fabric so much. AGI will ruffle the fabric. Superintelligence will destroy the fabric. There are places to bug out, but the forlorn---such as the MAGAnistas thinking they're safe in Thailand---either don't know where or cannot afford to go there. Even rural Thailand will become less welcoming, as the decline that will befall most of the world will lead people to find those they think are responsible and take revenge, even though their victims are unlikely to be truly guilty. Humans are already becoming more tribal. This will only increase, so looking "different" will be a crime in and of itself, and of course easy to identify. Trump is not the cause of what's coming, as he's merely a symptom of what was inevitable. He is quickening its arrival and exacerbating what was already going to be bad. Humanity takes three steps forward, and then two steps back. We're just beginning to step backwards, so the worst is yet to come...but coming it is, like the asteroid that wiped out the dinosaurs. The elite of the elite know all of this. At the moment they are biding their time, sucking up to Trump or their own country's clown leader, but they have set up their refuges....in Hawaii, in parts of New Zealand, in a few other places where the masses of zombies do not have access. They even will try to be off the very AI grid their are creating. It's going to be a rough ride. As Trump himself might say, "Nobody has ever seen anything like this." So enjoy these petty arguments. In terms of the big picture, they mean nothing. They're a parlor game, kind of like arguing about some upcoming UEFA Cup final, when 99.99% of humanity is going to be relegated.

Oh my! Were you one of the few who escaped Jim Jones and Georgetown? Best you don't tempt fate twice. Put down the Kool Aid.

I heard that the Dept of Justice is being rebranded as the Department of Retribution and Vindictiveness.

Actually, it's far from a crapshoot. Generally, the revisions are minor, albeit important. The second revision comes two months after the initial announcement, so it is based on much more complete data. Sometimes it does look bad, such as the initial June number of +146,000. That was revised down to +14,000 in August, but further reduced to -13,000 Friday. Trump touted the June number, initially, despite it being well below the average jog gains under Biden, but now there is nothing left to trumpet. Jobs were lost in June. Trump claimed "only I" can improve the economy and bring down grocery prices. Instead, job growth is anemic or negative, and grocery prices continue to climb. Hey, but Trump and his son's are grifting and making big money, and isn't that what's really most important? The people exist for Trump's benefit, to be used or abused according to his whims or mood or degree of vindictiveness.