stevenkesslar

The Divine Miss Graham probably gave the best insight into what may be going on here. Miss Graham definitely sees herself as a lady of stature and grace. She rather enjoys cleaning up Trump's messes after him. (Don't think about that too much.) So if she is saying it was an utter disaster, she probably means what she says. Even Miss Graham can not control the insolent pig. What this does suggest is a factional fight among the 49.8 % Republicans. There are still a lot of Republicans that my WWII veteran Republican Dad would have admired. They back NATO, and our allies. And they likely saw an extortionist mineral rights deal as a way to get a raping insolent pig on board. At least Trump understands rape. And crime, as my Beloved Sister In Cock correctly states. What this proves is that the insolent stupid pig is out of control. Even among his own party. Good luck with that mess, guys. And you think Biden was crazy? Even if you told me Hannibal Lector ate Biden's brain, he somehow managed to get all sorts of bipartisan deals passed. And all kinds of alliances strengthened. Trump is mostly good at breaking shit. He's an insolent pig in a China shop. Sorry. I meant he's an insolent pig in The Kremlin. The stupid insolent pig is completely out of control. The only person whose name he repeatedly mentioned as the one that understands him, and trusts him, and goes through these ordeals with him is Vladimir Putin. Is Putin the only one in the world who can control Trump?

I actually just watched a clip of it. The most amazing thing about it was not the narcissism toward Zelenskyy. I'm guessing a lot of Americans will agree with King Trump that this guy is not grateful enough for everything I, King Trump, gave him. The response to what seemed like the first question floored me. Trump went off on a tirade about what poor Genocide Man had to go through with Trump over "Rusher Rusher Rusher." The insolent pig's feral voice became even more bombastic than when he was aiming at fire at Zelenskky. He repeated several times what "Putin had to go through that" with me. "Putin had to put up with that." Poor thing! How awful. Bob Mueller, a Republican appointed by Republicans, documented in meticulous detail how Putin did interfere in our election. And poor Genocide Man! Look what he had to go through, just for trying to fuck with our democracy. That tells me a lot about the stupid insolent pig's real motivation. It is me, me, me. In the insolent pig's mind, this is not about concepts like NATO, or alliances, or being a realist. This is about me, me, me. And what I had to go through thanks to stupid Biden and shifty Adam Schiff. He's sitting next to a man whose country was savagely abused by a genocidal monster. And all he can think to say is what poor Genocide Man had to put up with, and go through with me.

Sometimes the simplest and most obvious explanation is the best one. The insolent pig wants to be King. He already said he wants to be dictator on Day One. Why shouldn't he want to ally America with his favorite dictator, whose allies have bailed him out of all kinds of jams in the past? I think this proves why Scott Jennings was wrong when he said Trump is a genius. Because he forces Democrats to be on the wrong side of 70/30 issues. Like all insolent pigs, Trump does have some sound feral animal instincts. But mostly it is is arrogance. This is more like a 95/5 issue. And a lot of Americans and our allies feel very deeply and strongly about this one. Trump just put himself on the side of 5 % of Americans, and Genocide Man. Why would he do that? I think it's clear that this meeting was a set up by Trump, with an assist from his loyal insolent pig apprentice. But why? I think the simple and probably best answer is Trump really does want to be King. How dare some nobody like Zelensky tell The King what side he is on? The King decides that. And everyone else obeys. Any President of the United States would be proud to say he was on the side of a people fighting for democracy and freedom. But not the insolent pig. He wants to be King. The only thing the people are supposed to fight for is what the King wants. The American people know this already. 49 % of Americans say Trump wants to be King of the United States. Only 37 %, mostly Republicans, say he does not. A majority of both Democrats and Independents say Trump wants to be King. 70 % of Republicans say he does not. Which is most likely the MAGA base. Ironic that the very people who feel good about Trump being King don't think he wants to be King. Meanwhile, 84 % of Americans do not want Donald Trump to be King of the United States. Only 8 % of Americans do. And they are almost all Republicans. Even within MAGA, this is a weird fringe. Trump is not living in reality. He is living in his own un-American kingdom.

Maybe. Or maybe he is just a pig. And a big asshole.

I'm beginning to think that Mike Pence may look like he got off easy compared to how JD Vance will look when the insolent pig is done with him. In some part of my mind, I thought - or even hoped - that Vance could evolve into the strategist and idea man that MAGA needs, and actually deserves. Steve Bannon, bless his heart, is as close as MAGA has really gotten to that. In other words, I am not opposed to the idea of a right of center working class political movement. That is a far cry from W's party, which shipped 6 million factory jobs off to China, or to robots. The Democrats did not do that, under Clinton or Obama. The Republicans did it under W. And that gutting of 6 millions lives, and their working class communities, is the single most important thing that gave us MAGA and Trump. I have always had some sympathy in my heart for MAGA, for that reason alone. Trump just happens to be the insolent pig who met the moment and made all kinds of promises. And told all kinds of lies. What did those working class families get for their loyalty? A factory job? Nope. Just lies and red caps. And now this. He's telling them he should love Genocide Man. Ugh! And he thinks it will make good TV. Ugh! Even a pig is smarter. Vance could have been the guy that had the ideas and the strategy that Trump has never had, and never will. But of course it makes complete sense that Vance will have to lower himself to the insolent pig's level, rather than the other way around. This does not end well for JD Vance. Couldn't happen to a nicer apprentice insolent pig.

The first statement is absolutely correct. And of course it contradicts the second statement. Insolent pigs like Trump are aligned with no one, other than themselves. And in sympathy, you can't blame them. Insolent pigs are too stupid. Donald Trump says Ukraine started the war with Russia. 4 % of Americans agree. 63 % of Americans disagree, and say Russia started the war. The insolent pig is NOT aligned with the United States of America. Or with reality. In the sick mind of the insolent stupid pig, that may be true. Maybe the pig likes being insolent on TV. Maybe that is what gives the insolent pig ego gratification. That is apparently as wise or strategic as an insolent pig like Trump can be. Trump is completely ignorant and divorced from the reality that almost all Americans don't see Russia as an ally, or want Russia as an ally. The insolent pig has no basic comprehension of how he is destroying trust and century old alliances every time he opens his vile insolent mouth.

Every part of this is insane. But here's the most insane part. Did Trump do this on purpose, for some reason? Is there some great hidden logic in betraying Ukraine, and supporting Russia? While Europe and a world full of former US allies looks on in shock and horror? The only sane conclusion I can reach is that it proves yet again that Donald Trump is an insolent, stupid, lying pig. Trump no doubt doesn't see his betrayal of America as a betrayal. He really is too stupid for that. He is bending over backwards to prove to America and the world he is a deeply vile and insolent pig. Medvedev was completely correct. He just got the name wrong. The stupidity and ignorance of the insolent pig is stunning. And Republicans thought Joe Biden was crazy? G.I.V.E.M.E.A.F.U.C.K.I.N.G.B.R.E.A.K. This just in. 63 % of Americans think Russia started the war with Ukraine. Only 4 % think Ukraine started it. The rest are unsure. Even among Republicans, 57 % say Russia started the war, and only 6 % say Ukraine started it. Yet Trump, a stupid insolent pig, is insisting that Ukraine started the war. Genocide Man is a peacemaker, and Zelensky is a dictator. How can this stupid vile lying insolent pig actually be so ignorant and stupid? 58 % of Americans, including 47 % of Republicans, sympathize with Ukraine more than Russia. Only 3 % of Americans, and 5 % of Republicans, sympathize with Russia more. Everyone else sympathizes with neither, or does not know. So why does the insolent pig back Russia's genocide, and attack our century long NATO allies? 41 % of Americans say Trump sympathizes more with Russia, and only 13 % say he sympathizes more with Ukraine. For anyone who is paying any attention whatsoever, there is no question who the stupid insolent pig sympathizes with after today. He sympathizes with Russia's dictator. Medvedev got one other thing right. Stupid insolent pigs like Trump should be slapped down, hard and continuously. This vile insolent pig is not the leader of the free world. He is the leader of insolent pigs.

This article was music to my ears. How 7 states could thwart GOP plans to overhaul Medicaid Republicans have a bigger tent than they did in 2017. So does the health care program. I don't think there is any such thing as Trump Derangement Syndrome. This time around, a big part of what I feel is Trump Rage. Like when I think about the dead DEI babies in Africa, thanks to White South African child abuser Elon Musk, I just feel Trump Rage. I think it is healthy, and perfectly justified. It's already clear we're going to have a pandemic of Trump Rage. This Medicaid article is about the Trump Stress Test. Which I view as a good thing, and which makes me feel good. The fact that Trump has brought more working class people into the Republican Party has created new stress tests. It makes it at least somewhat harder for them to do cruel shit on behalf of their rich special interest donors. I like the fact that Republicans know that in 2024 the only reason they won is because a sliver of Blacks and a large chunk of Hispanics voted for them. In addition to, of course, a lot of White working class voters. A lot of smart Republicans know they can't bite the hand that votes for them. Of course, I'm pretty sure they will, anyway. At the end of the day, who is more powerful? Steve Bannon, who loves dishing out on The Queers but knows you don't fuck with your own populist base? Or Elon Musk, who thinks he is here to save humanity? The special interest billionaire donors won most of the booty in the first season of Trump. I suspect they will do it again. We'll see. But I like the Trump Stress Test. At some point, if you are going to say you are the working class party, you actually have to be for the working class. And I may be the only American who is not convinced that there is a real long-term movement of Hispanics to the Republican Party, anyway. The percentage of Hispanics who voted for Kamala Harris in 2024 is almost exactly the same as the percentage of Hispanics who voted for Jimmy Carter in 1980. Is this a historic change? Or mostly being pissed about inflation? So Republicans like to say Democrats can't win a majority without the Latino vote. But neither can Republicans. I think that is probably a good thing for America. Which is a DEI country, whether Trump likes it or not.

DOGE is now dramatically raising the potential for a government shutdown Adding Musk’s cuts to spending talks could help satisfy hard-liners but alienate Democrats whose votes will be needed to fund the government. I think in the fantasy world of some Republican House hard liners, they will be able to position the Democrats as the party that is for Government Waste and Abuse. Good luck with that, guys. Because it ain't gonna happen. And I largely thank Nancy Pelosi for that. She did more than anyone to try to make the House a firewall against the worst Trump can do. In theory, Republicans could manage to make all the harsh cuts to health and food programs the Republican hard liners are considering. While also canonizing Elon Musk as a saint. They did eek out a 217-215 House win last week. There are several problems, though. House Republicans in swing districts know it would be suicidal. Many Senate Republicans oppose about $800 billion in health cuts, for the same reason. But the most important obstacle to super-sized cruelty right now is that Democrats came very close to a tie in the House. We actually picked up one House seat. What Republican landslide? When I read these articles about all the brutal firings and cuts, I keep thinking about Nancy Pelosi. I think she had a strategy for both the House and the Presidency. Both came close to working. And, had Democrats been better at executing her strategy, I think both would have worked. We'll probably never know with 100 % certainty what Pelosi said or did. But like most people I buy the narrative that Pelosi forced Biden out. Pelosi has said repeatedly that she hopes Biden will get over it. And both Jill and Joe Biden seem to be just as clear that they will never forgive her for stabbing a lifelong friend in the back. I also buy the now conventional wisdom that Democratic losses in both the House and Senate would have been worse with Biden leading the ticket. It could have been a landslide. The polling on generic House races backs this up. Republicans led for most of 2024. From the moment Biden dropped out on July 21 until the middle of October, the generic Democratic vote just kept going up: from 44 % when Biden dropped out to a peak of 48 % in October. For most of that period Democrats were one or two points ahead of Republicans. And Democrats ended up getting 48 % of the House vote. It's not hard to imagine that with Biden on the ticket, the lack of enthusiasm and money and momentum would have taken up to a few more dozen Democrats in close House races out. As well as several Democratic Senators that barely won. And hardline conservatives who are insisting on being particularly cruel to the working class, to pay for Elon Musk's tax cuts, could have told a handful of moderate Republicans who are not interested in political suicide to just go fuck themselves. With a 20 seat majority, their votes would not be needed. There's a second thing Nancy Pelosi insisted on that I think almost worked. No one else worked harder to make the point, constantly, that Trump is out of control. And he has to be stopped. She more than anyone called out his recklessness as POTUS. She impeached him twice. She put together the J6 committee. And used it to choreograph the message that Trump is out of control. And he can never be entrusted with power again. Almost half of America, including me, believes this. Republicans gloat that Pelosi failed. Which is true. I'm grateful that she actually had a strategy that almost worked. Joe Biden sure didn't. Part of what motivated this rant is all the blaming going on that Democrats are not doing enough. Maybe. But when you are in the legislative minority, there ain't much you can do. Nancy Pelosi of course knew that. But I also watched that video above again, which I posted in October. Especially in retrospect, it seems like the best explanation for why Harris lost a narrow race she could have narrowly won. And why Pelosi's strategy almost worked. Republican pollster Doug Stripple, who was doing work for the centrist Cook Political Report, is the star of the show in my mind. He keeps coming back to the same point. Which he says most clearly from 20:50 to 23:00 if you only want to hear a few minutes of his main point. Three weeks before the election, he said it would be decided by a small percentage of undecided voters who are largely independent and working class. If it's a referendum on the economy, Trump wins. If it is a referendum on Trump being out of control, Harris wins. Here is what seems like the fatal nail in Kamala's coffin, to quote Stripple directly in mid-October 2024: "What I thought was the biggest strategic error for her ...... She wins the debate, right? And instead of trying to message on that track from then on, she goes and tries to talk about how great she is on the economy. Which of course goes right back and plays into Donald Trump's hand." To paraphrase the political axiom, in 2024 when Harris was talking about the economy, she had to be losing. Because these independent working class voters were convinced the Biden economy sucked for them. All Harris could do was try to convince them that Trump was too insane and out of control to be President again. This of course runs directly counter to the idea that Harris needed to talk about the economy more. But I think Stripple has the facts on his side. Trump knew he could win and election focused on inflation and prices. And so he focused on that. In some alternative universe, which actually exists and is called Mexico, Biden might have been seen as a champion of the working class, like AMLO was. In that same alternative universe, which is actually called Mexico, his working class champion successor might have led in the polls all through the campaign. Quizas, quizas, quizas. Harris did not have such choices. I think Stripple is right. She had to prosecute the case against Trump. Fiercely, and non-stop. The polls back up what Stripple says he heard from working class voters in focus groups directly. When she was attacking Trump, she was winning. When she shifted to how good she'd be on the economy, she started to lose. The exact same thing was apparent on Mark Halperin's 2 Way channel, which was basically a months long focus group with lots of undecided voters. In the end, "it's the inflation, stupid" might have been inevitable, anyway. The other phrase that sticks with me from the election is Never Trump Republican Mike Murphy. At some point around September, when Harris was leading and strong, he pointed out soberly that Harris had a "wall of lava" coming straight at her, called inflation. He was not the only strategist who said that. But he said it the most colorfully. Harris did not and could not have the teflon AMLO had in Mexico. Because his whole life has been about being a working class fighter. Who actually enacted sweeping reforms for the working class in Mexico. I do think Nancy Pelosi called it all right. And she will have the last laugh. Florida major donor John Morgan, who adores and fears her, calls her "Little Bo Peep with razor blades." Now even Joe Biden has wounds from her. Because she tried and failed, we now have to go through four more years of the out of control insanity she railed against. It will of course have the effect she predicted, just like it did the first time around. I'm glad Pelosi tried. Even if she failed. I'd rather have a not quite majority, that can block some of the cruelty, than the landslide I think we could have had if she had done nothing.

Do you think Democrats should oppose the effort to reduce government expenditures or should join in the mission of cutting government waste? 66 % of Americans say Democrats should join the mission to cut government waste. 34 % of Americans say Democrats should oppose the effort to reduce government expenditures Republican Romney whore Scott Jennings, who has now converted to full on MAGA, recently said that the genius of Trump is he forces Democrats to take the wrong side of 70/30 issues. To me, that says more about how Jennings is a whore, desperate to sound as MAGA as he can. I just don't think Democrats are that stupid, as hard as they try. But if Jennings is correct, this would be one example. A few other ones from Mark Penn's latest Harris poll. 69 % of voters, including half of Democrats, support the goal of "cutting $1 trillion of government expenditures". 70 % of voters, including 58 % of Democrats, say government expenditures are "filled with waste, fraud and inefficiency". Mark Penn, whose wife is the No Labels gal, is a great pollster, I think. In his heyday, he helped post-1994 wipeout Bill Clinton figure out how to take centrist ideas that polled well and turn them into palatable goldfish crackers the middle class and working class ate up. That is what he is good at. Democrats should not be against goldfish crackers. Let's face facts, Sis. You and I are proudly in the minority who will defend government workers who deserve to be defended. It sucks. Speaking of which, we are also in the minority of Gay men who are excellent cock suckers. So being a minority is not really a bad thing, you know. 😉 Republicans in Congress are just starting to say this is going too far. Poor Jesse Watters has a friend who was fired. Aw! I feel for you, Jesse. It's hard to say. But Democrats seem like they may be able to force some restraint. Like, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is probably dead. But that's not clear yet. And if it does die, it sets up Democrats to argue that when Republicans had the power, they made absolutely certain that working class Trump voters could be raped well and good and constantly by Wall Street and credit card companies. With no accountability, and no one to help them. This isn't going to be fun. It will be fatal to many. This is what 49.8 % of America voted for, albeit without knowing it. What Republican House members who are probably already dead men walking are saying is that their working class constituents are starting to go ape shit about looming Medicaid cuts. And taking food programs off their table. Higher prices on eggs and tariffs only adds insult to injury. It's going to be ugly. Penn says in his poll that Democrats now have the highest disapproval rating ever. That may be true, right now. But, if it is, it is because many Democrats want House members to step in the path of a chainsaw. I think a better reflection of reality is the only poll RCP currently lists for the 2026 Congressional vote. It shows Democrats and Republicans split, 43/43, in the generic ballot. Notably, that poll was done by Trump's pollster, Tony Fabrizio. Good old Tony set about to model how Trump could be elected in 2024 without winning a majority. To his credit, he cracked the code. Now he and Trump will probably have to live with the horrific blowback of using their narrow 49.8 % victory to do the really unpopular shit they plan to do. But attacking government waste and firing federal employees is not one of them. If any of you are a data geek like me, you will enjoy going through Fabrizio's latest poll. I am sure Trump and Congressional Republicans are using it to help them guide their strategy. It's interesting that even Trump's own pollster verifies that only 31 % of all voters, and only 53 % of Trump voters, say the 2017 Trump tax cuts actually helped them. If Democrats ever find the will and the power to tax billionaires like Elon Musk to help the working class, which is wildly popular in every poll that ever asks it, it is game over for Tony Fabrizio. And his game of figuring out how to wield minority power.

The thing that is weird about Epstein is it does show a deep and stunning commitment to ignorance among the MAGA faithful. After a decade, that is hardly news. But it is still stunning. You can't wade into Epstein sex rape scum shit without it leading straight to Trump sex rape scum shit. But somehow MAGA just takes out Trump, makes him a hero, and says Hillary needs to burn in hell for this. Bitch! I mean, that's very fair minded and accurate, right? How could zealots be so fucking blind and dumb? But I guess that question does answer itself. Kind of like why Black DEI grannies on Medicaid could be pissed about inflation and vote for the guy who will kill DEI and Medicaid. Better luck next time, Grannie.

I think @Barknaway deserves a treat today. Good job, MAGA pup! 19 of the 25 icons on the politics page show @Barknaway made the last post. I didn't watch any of the videos. I don't like to watch things that make me stupid or hateful. And, yeah. It could be 25 out of 25. With Trump, everything can and should be perfect. But I have to admire how our loyal MAGA puppy is devotedly filling his brain with ignorance and hate. Trump is still within one point of net disapproval. But at least @Barknaway is working overtime to delay the inevitable. What a good boy! What a good little MAGA boy!

I’m a former U.S. intelligence officer. Trump's Ukraine betrayal will have terrible consequences. I'm not a lifelong fan of the CIA. I was not on their side for Iraq and "weapons of mass destruction". But I think this guy's main point is correct. And history will play out as he predicts. This is very bad news for the US as a global leader of anything. America has the will to fight for democracy for as long as it takes? HA HA HA. That's funny. Everyone in the world can now have a good laugh. Especially Putin and Xi. The one thing about this that is stunning is the brazen egomania of it. Maybe Trump is demented due to his age. But I think this is a lifelong affliction, not old age. The gamble is that somehow Trump pulls Putin away from Xi, our supposed true enemy to the Trump right wing. It worked with Krazy Kim in the first season, so why not try it again? 🤪 This is insane. It probably has the makings of a good video game, or a political thriller novel. But in real life? Most Americans, and most people on the planet, do not want Genocide Man and Genocide World to win. Putin and Xi are happy authoritarians in bed with each other. Most leaders see this one way: Putin and Xi will play Trump, rather than the other way around. It cements Putin's alliance with Xi, and hands them a huge victory. It destroys a century old alliance between Europe and the US. And that betrayal is the big one. Proof of concept is that Germany's new leader, an icon of the pro-NATO and pro-America European Establishment, is publicly saying that he can't believe he is publicly saying that our alliance with America is ending. The silver lining in this cloud is that Republicans perhaps found a way to exploit a basic Trump impulse: rape. If we can rape Ukraine of their minerals, well hell. I'm for rape. Rape is good. Rape is American. Shit, why didn't anyone tell me I can rape Ukraine? I'm always for rape. Harris has a new poll out saying strong majorities of Americans oppose Trump cutting Ukraine and the EU out of his deal with Russia. 57 % oppose Trump forcing Ukraine to make territorial concessions to end the war. But 69 % of Americans agree with this statement, which is a nice sounding definition of the actual rape: If Ukraine agrees to share revenues from rare earth elements 50/50 in the future to pay for billions in U.S. military support should the United States offer direct security guarantees to Ukraine? Again, 69 % said yes. I would answer yes, too. Only because rape seems like a better option for Ukraine than death at this point. So, Americans like rape and betrayal. This was the big one. Now the world knows.

It's the inflation, stupid. In Mexico they voted for the person who actually fought for the working class in a landslide. It's the inflation, stupid. In Mexico they voted for the party that actually fought for working class brown and black people in a landslide. Yeah, that is pretty stupid I have changed my view of 2016 and 2020 and now have a revisionist history. I was a bit of a confused mess both times. In 2016 I voted for Hillary in the 2016 primary, because it seemed like she would win. Even though my heart was with Bernie. In 2020 I voted for Bernie in the primary. I was a Warren fan boy, but she was pretty much dead by early 2020. And I knew Biden would be nominated. So I wanted to send a message for him to veer left and economic populist. Which he did. Looking back now that Trump barely won on a populist agenda, I now think that both times the Democratic Party had a chance to embrace working class economic populism. In a way that Sanders and Warren really wanted. Instead we embraced Joe Biden as a soft and comfortable choice. And it seemed like a good choice at the time. I will defend a lot of what he did until I die. But when I compare what AMLO fought for in Mexico to what Biden did in the US, I think it is very clear why one party won in a landslide and one lost narrowly. The advantage of the Trump Party was it was simply that: Trump in 2016, Trump in 2020, Trump in 2024. Trump was kind of a fluke in 2016. But not really. Because he did lead a right wing authoritarian populist movement. But after 2016 it really was a simple choice. If you don't like the way things are, you have a choice: Trump, or Trump. In 2024 it was clearly the inflation stupid. And, to a lesser degree, immigration stupid. But inflation was probably sufficient. The way both got played together by Trump was that Democrats seemed to be more for illegal criminals than some Black DEI grandma on Medicaid. If DEI Granny did not like inflation, she had a choice: Trump. He'll lower your prices! Now, of course, MAGA is going for Black DEI Grannie and her Medicaid. DEI bitch! DEI Grannie stands for waste, fraud, and abuse. Dump the bitch! So maybe that is sufficient for Democrats to win back power in 2026 and 2028. But the REALLY BIG LESSON I take from the last decade is that Democrats will either figure out how to fight for the working class, or not. And that won't be like Biden presiding over that awful and mostly useless debate over Build Back Better. While that was happening in the US, AMLO was fighting for and winning specific things to help Mexico's working class. And he announced every fucking day what he was fighting for and what he won. If you repeat something 365 days a year, often several times a day, people eventually get the message. Trump is good at that. Biden sucked at it. Democrats should stop wondering what the fuck happened. Even a working class Trump voter who did not go to college can figure this one out. Democrats need to figure out whether they want to embrace an economic populist agenda- like raise taxes on their billionaire donors to help the working class. If we don't, we now know what the other choice is. Trump, Vance, MAGA, and a Putin-loyalist authoritarian government happy to break shit. And let Elon Musk and oligarchs have the low taxes and freedom from government they feel they earned. There is an obvious flaw in my logic. My binary choice assumes that one side can eventually win, maybe in a landslide. In fact, America is almost evenly divided. But the job of political leaders is to try to figure out how to build a majority movement. Democrats didn't ever figure that out. In part because being an FDR or Reagan is not easy. Biden was like a Band Aid that worked for a while. Two figures that I think maybe could crack the code are Ruben Gallego and Raphael Warnock. One is Brown, one is Black. Both managed to win in swing states. Both know how to play the center and avoid looking woke. Which, for a Black Rev in still right of center Georgia, took an enormous degree of tact and political skill. Or maybe some Guv like Bill Clinton in 1992 will pop up. We certainly have the talent to do it. We need the determination to do it, too. I think that is where we failed in both 2016 and 2020. But the anger and rage is building among the roughly half of America absolutely appalled by this shit. So Democrats need to decide what we will fight for that is better for the working class.

And speaking of fellatio, add Jeff Bexos to the list of loyal cock suckers. Dying in Darkness: Jeff Bezos Turns Out the Lights in the Washington Post’s Opinion Section Bezos actually makes Elon Musk look admirable by comparison. Musk at least has the egomaniacal confidence to say "It is all about me. I am your savior." Bezos is a girly man. No testicles. No principles. Just greed and groveling. A moral worm. There is a kind of moral clarity in what is happening now. We are finding out who the girly men are. The girly men don't believe in a fucking thing, other than their own net worth. They stand for nothing. Trump won with 49.8 % of the vote. We are only one month in. And both poll aggregators show disapproval of Trump solidifying, and less than majority approval of Trump ever so slightly waning. Most Democrats I know feel anger, if not rage, at this shit show. It's early days. But I don't think people are going to forget who these oligarchs like Bezos and Zuckerberg are. And what spineless girly men they turned out to be. And what spineless groveling girly men things they did.

I'm thinking as a treat we should raise some money to send @Barknaway to Trump Gaza for a week. What do you guys think? This is a good news, bad news thing. Good news is @Barknaway has obviously spent lots of time and energy finding and posting stupid, useless, and hateful MAGA videos every day. The videos suck. And I stopped watching them after 50 or 100 proving just how dumb this all is. I guess I learned something from that. But the effort itself is amusing. It's like watching white mice racing around uselessly, lost in a maze. Kind of amusing, if you and not the mice. Personally, I think @Barknaway deserves a treat. Sadly, there is bad news. Ai and Trump Gaza is cool and what not. But there is a real world out there. And, truth to be,@Barknaway is failing. Since @Barknaway started his journey in his personal hate maze, Trump has lost like 8 points of net approval. In the poll average he is close to the tipping point of disapproval already. Yeah, we've seen this movie before. We know where it goes. Dead DEI babies in Africa don't mean nuthin to obedient MAGA pups. The real shit starts when they cut Medicaid. Try taking food away from your sick dog and see what happens. The great thing about a week at Trump Gaza is @Barknaway can spend even more time finding and posting even more hateful and stupid videos. The two things seem to be related, actually. The roughly half of America that voted against Trump is solidifying around the reality that this is truly horrible and hateful. What a surprise! The roughly half that voted for Trump is holding on for now, barely. Agait, wait for the Medicaid cuts. And look out below. I'm a dog lover. I don't want them barking with broken legs. For now, Trump Gaza is all the rage. We could maybe even have some Tik Toks of some hot Muslim pool boys!

C'mon. @Barknaway. Be a good obedient MAGA puppy. No snarling or passive aggressiveness. Now that you have found your voice, I can see why you only post dumb Tik Tik shit I stopped watching. I don't like things that make me stupid. That said, I'm hoping you will double and triple down. 20 videos a day? 30? 50? 100? Step it up! The videos are dumb and boring as shit. But this project is entertaining. I've always wondered what happens when someone fills their brain 24/7 with lies, bullshit, hate, and just plain utter stupid. Will I come to this website one day and your brain will have exploded and be splattered everywhere? Will you get a brain worm like RFK Jr. and just post more and more stupid and irrelevant shit? Meanwhile, every time I see your icon I know you are shouting, "Look at me! Look at me! I'm a dumb fuck!" No one cares, no one watches, and we all think, "Yup. He's a dumb fuck and proud of it." So please post a lot more videos. We have like four years to go. You need to show some dedication to your MAGA cause. And I'm amused. And thanks for the entertainment! Don't have hateful Tik Tok videos. I'm just an old fashioned gal, like my Beloved Sister In Cock. So I'll post this.

Unbelievable. No logic, no strategy, no allies, no plan, no chance of success. Just 100 % Trump egomania and Trump stupidity. That AI insanity sums it nicely.

It’s the Health Care, Stupid. Forget DOGE. Republicans are playing with political fire as they move to gut Medicaid. This just in. The Republican Party is not the party of the working class. Yup, you heard it here first. In order to be a centrist working class party, Republicans actually have to be a centrist working class party. Going after Obamacare in 2017 and Medicaid now is a betrayal of Trump working class voters who wanted lower prices. They will get less affordable health care instead. As that article details, there are moderate Republican House members who represent centrist working class districts. And they would like the Republican Party to be a centrist working class party. Oh well. Better luck next time. This is playing out just like 2017. The Republican Party is run by billionaire special interests who want tax cuts for themselves. And destruction of consumer protection and safety standards they don't like, like with the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau holding Wall Street accountable. Steve Bannon can talk all he wants about a populist working class party. How long did that last in 2017? Did Bannon get his tax increase on the rich to help the working class? Nope. They gave huge tax breaks to the Republican special interest donors and tried to kill Obamacare. The momentum is all on Trump's side right now. And I'm glad. In a few months all these moderate Republicans will be very nicely gutted and bled out. They may be the walking dead for another year, like in 2017. But the billionaire fat cats like Musk and the right wing ideologues will do the throat slitting. Democrats don't even have to lift a finger. California may have been the canary in the coal mine in 2024, oddly enough. We ejected three Republican House members who had struggled to keep power for a few terms. All three districts were centrist and disproportionately minority districts. All three were swept out because they couldn't defend what Trump's Republicans actually do, but don't say.

Duh! Tens of thousands of dead women and children. It was the inflation, stupid. But there is no doubt based on vote totals on college campuses and wherever Palestinian Americans live that this hurt Harris and helped Trump win. And I think the American Jews that support Bibi The Baby Killer already vote Republican. Of course, Trump made glorious and everlasting peace with North Korea in his first divine incarnation. I'm sure in this Second Coming we will have peace in the Middle East, and the best casinos in Gaza ever!

Traitor Liar Trump

One Simple Question for Democrats What would the working class say? Ruy Teixeira Ruy Teixeira is a lot like Elizabeth Warren to me. He is passionately committed to working class populist economics. He is a permanent scold these days. But he is usually right, and well ahead of the curve. When he and John Judis wrote The Emerging Democratic Majority in the dark days of W. and the Iraq War, it seemed like a liberal fantasy. I think it was the rise of Trump and his authoritarian working class populism that shifted Teixeira and Judis. They have been calling out the dangers of left wing college-educated elite and woke politics for years. Even though Judis himself used to work for In These Times, the democratic socialist paper. Times change. If there is anything they are particularly against, it is "woke". And for decades they have been right, and early. It took a few decades to get from W. in 2002, when The Emerging Democratic Majority came out, to the actual emerging Democratic majority under Obama, to the self-inflicted wound of too much wokeism under Biden and Harris. So I think he is right on the money that "what would the working class say?" is THE question Democrats need to ask constantly for at least a few decades to come. If I had to bet, I would bet that there is a better than 50/50 chance that Democrats will win in 2026 and 2028 just like we did in 2018 and 2020. Basically for the same reasons. The three biggest differences with Trump this time are more cruelty, more betrayal of allies, and more debt. So if the goal is to have the barest of majorities, we can let Trump solve that problems for us. If the goal is to do what Judis and Teixeira want, which is to have the power to enact a lasting FDR-like coalition grounded in working class economic populism, it is going to take a lot more. Like being able to win Senate seats in Ohio, or North Dakota, or Missouri, or Indiana. Which we held until 2018, six years ago. First, it will take some candidate that has gut appeal to the working class. But it will also take a shift away from culturally woke politics and toward real pocketbook economics. I think the hardest part for Democrats is not the progressive elite groups, like climate change ideologists, that Teixeira grew to hate because of their arrogance and purity tests. I think the biggest problem is rich donors and special interests. Basically all the ones that gave money to Joe Manchin and Kirsten Sinema to block raising their taxes or doing shit that working class people actually want. Like raise taxes on billionaires to fund things Medicaid and Obamacare. The working class like things like that a lot. On his best day in a decade, Trump could barely win 49.7 % of the vote. And it took global inflation that tossed out incumbents all over the world to even do that. So I don't believe for a second the death rumors of the Democratic Party. Which is what you will get a mouthful of if you scan the comments after Teixeira's article. Or watch @Barknaway's TikToks, which are stupid and quickly grew very boring. We did so horribly in 2024 that we actually picked up one House seat. That's not 1980 or 1984. Meanwhile, our neighbor Mexico elected a woman progressive populist from the incumbent party in a landslide. Because they did seem to ask every day, "What would the working class say?" They listened, and delivered - despite inflation that was just as bad.

We regret to interrupt your regularly scheduled TikTok lies and hate. DOGE shared its receipts — and some of them don’t match “Everyone is very well-aware they’re repeating the wrong numbers,” said one manager at a company on DOGE’s list of cuts. We now return you to your regularly scheduled TikTok lies and hate. Long live President Musk!

Are you my nephew in disguise? 😉 He literally just sent me that a few days ago. But it was not meant as a compliment to Buffet. My nephew is more confident about his ability to use technical analysis to know when to buy and sell than I am of mine. I made the point, which he does not agree with, that Buffet always has the last laugh. Because he focuses on long term fundamentals - it's the profits and the economy, stupid! - rather than technical signals. That was my nephew's polite way of calling Buffet and me has beens, I think. 🙄 Those returns for either BK or the S& P are nothing to sneeze at. But Buffet does not outperform the way he used to. We both speculated it could be because Buffet is wary of tech stocks (but not Apple), and this bull market has been even more tech-focused than most. I still think Buffet will have the last laugh. So it is noteworthy that he has been selling and piling up cash. In fairness, he was doing it when Biden was POTUS, also. He clearly thinks the market and economic valuations he uses are stretched about as far as they ever go. Wow, people still use facts. Who knew? So the question is whether Trump and greed can stretch it even further before the inevitable collapse. Whether markets reach new highs, the value that is definitely added by Trump is he will run up the US debt to heights never seen before, even in World War II. Ray Dalio, who is always gloomy, is on a roll now saying if we don't bring annual deficits back down to 3 % of GDP, we are going off the cliff in no more than three years. Where is Bill Clinton, aka President Surplus, when you need him? Can I pass on the Epstein files, and take higher taxes on billionaires instead? One estimate I read is that annual deficits as a percentage of GDP are about 6-7 % now, and Trump's plans will get that up to 10 % of GDP. What could possibly go wrong? My nephew, like lots of Millennials and Zoomers, is cynical about government ever getting it right. He does usually vote Democratic. And he thinks Trump is a stupid moron. But he thinks in the long run Democrats will be glad Harris lost. Because Trump will own the train wreck that is coming. Since Trump has a stellar track record at bankruptcy, it is not difficult at all for me to imagine that happening.

Sorry. Can't resist. I'm just teasing. I agree with your basic point, and would go further. There are three huge winners for almost everything Trump is doing: China, China, and China. Xi must be absolutely delighted. And our allies, especially in Asia but also in Europe, are in shock. Congratulations, Xi. Even if Trump 2.0 ends as badly as Trump 1.0, and Democrats come roaring back like in 2018 and 2020 (we did gain one House seat even in 2024) there is no going back on this one. Everyone now knows for a fact that America is fickle and unreliable. That said, I found that meme maybe about a year ago and sent it to a nephew who is my partner in crime on stock trading. At some point last year I was into both FXI, a China ETF, and BIDU. I figured both were scraping long term bottoms, and poised for recovery. Probably correctly. But I got out of small positions with small profits on both BIDU and FXI to put more into US tech stocks instead. Meanwhile, I've been selling shares of FNGU (Facebook, etc.) at like a 200 - 300 % profit that I bought in late 2023 when tech stocks dipped. Don't count the US out yet. FXI has a one year return of 58 % as of today. Woo hoo. (Or is it Wuhan? LOL) But, their three year return is 1.69 %. China is coming off long term bottoms. The US stock exchanges mostly keep breaking records. My placeholder for stocks under Trump is an FT article posted right after he won. It predicted that we will have a stock sugar high, just like when Trump had a hog feed for billionaires and corporations in 2017. Poor things! They really need the money - not veterans or working class Trump voters. But within a few years, FT predicted, Trump will find a way to fuck it all up. I always think the past is the best guide. So I buy that. He'll fuck things up again, eventually. He's already off to a great start. Now I'm not even sure about a 2025 sugar high. Trump is doing so many things that will have so many unknown consequences that all bets are off. One reason to get scared from US markets is simply the degree of uncertainty based on his politics of retribution, and erratic behavior. The other thing that is for sure is that young voters, Black and Hispanic voters, and White working class voters who do not have a lot of wealth in homes or stocks, and are pissed about high rents, will not benefit from any of this. I read an article today about how The National Association of Home Builders is saying everything Trump is doing will make it harder to increase rental housing supply. From tariffs on construction materials to deportation of migrant laborers to cuts in HUD. The home builders are not left wing Bernie supporters. These signals could be canaries in the coal mine that things will end badly more quickly than in Trump 1.0. Anyways, congratulations Xi, and China. He's the big winner.