stevenkesslar

What is Donald Trump's statement about why drug overdose deaths went up 50 % under Tom Homan's failed leadership, while they went down under Biden/Harris? Why is he rewarding Homan's complete failure to stop fentanyl? Why is he rewarding a 50 % spike in American deaths on his watch? WE ARE TALKING ABOUT TENS OF THOUSANDS OF DEAD AMERICANS, THANKS TO HOMAN'S INCOMEPTENCE. When will Trump tell Homan to apologize to the parents of the children he got killed? Is the point to save 100,000 American lives? Or is the point to trash MSNBC, and give tax cuts to his billionaire crypto donors? These ultra rich crypto "bros" facilitate fentanyl trafficking on the dark web by making it impossible to track the money flow, according to ICE. And this get Americans needlessly killed. Is that what Homan plans to do again? Please respond to serious questions before you post more propaganda. Unless your whole point is to be cruel and dishonest. Then just keep being cruel and dishonest. TRUMP2024 MAGA CRUELTY DISHONESTY DEATH THAT'S ALL I GOT, FOLKS

Do you know why Trump decided to integrate his Cabinet? TRUMP2024 MAGA ONE BLACK JOB FOR A BLACK LOTS OF WHITE JOBS FOR WHITES

I'm not a masochist. No thanks. Two comments on Turner. First, I'm glad Trump decided to integrate his Cabinet. He's about 20 years behind Democrats, but that is okay. He clearly thinks HUD (in Trump 1.0, Ben Carson) are "Black jobs," and pretty much everything else goes to Whites. Oh well. That's something. Second, I'm more worried about Bessent than Turner. Housing, mortgages, subprime, and derivates thereof were the key ingredients in sending the US and global economy over the cliff with W. and Greenspan. Trump can't do that, even despite his track record of bankruptcy. 2 in 3 Americans own homes. And almost all either have no mortgage, or a relatively low fixed-rate mortgage. It is the opposite of 2008. You just can't fuck this up. It is a bedrock of stability. That said, greedy Republicans might try. Crypto is probably the best guess as to where the hogs will go to feed this time. So that is Bessent. And he is a Trump fan boy, and crypto cheerleader. So if something is going to happen, that is the likely suspect. That said, I am hoping it is all smooth sailing, like the rest of us 60 %. Hopefully Bessent is just a competent Treasury Secretary, who happens to be Gay.

Here's the funny thing, which even a cruel clown could understand if he were not overwhelmed with cruelty and dishonesty. Regression to the mean. If we stipulate that Lichtman was wrong in 2000 (he would disagree, but anti-Semitic Jewish Jew haters are dismissed as stupid and useless) that means he was right 9 times out of 11. Trump lost 3 times out of 5. (Won in 2016 and 2024, barely. Lost in 2018, 2020, 2022.) However you count it, Lichtman is ahead. Even a cruel clown could do the math, if he were not overcome with cruelty and dishonesty. About 55 % of Latinos voted for Kamala Harris, same as in in 1980 when 56 % voted for Jimmy Carter. Both are at the bottom of a long term trend, where between 55 % and 72 % of Latinos vote Democratic. Maybe this trend has changed. But, so far, it hasn't. 2024 is just like 1980. The incumbent party, Democrats, got clobbered due to inflation and interest rates. Same old same old. I'm not saying there are not other problems. Of course there are. You will draw every inch of political blood out of every transgender child you can. Of course you would kick them in the teeth if you got you the votes to win. That's just obvious. But the problem is your cruelty and dishonesty really does prevent you from seeing the most obvious things. Susie Wiles is hoping people like you STFU and go away. It makes her job harder. I, on the other hand, pray to God you keep doing exactly what you are doing. Loudly. Nonstop. Thank you.

This is no doubt why Trump admires Hitler's generals. They did what they were told. No questions asked. 1. Socialists are vermin. Kill them. 2. Jews are vermin. Kill them. 3. Gays are vermin. Kill them. Just to be clear, I'm not saying socialists, Jews, and Gays should be dismissed, or treated cruelly, or even killed because of who they are. You are saying that. But I know. You love transgender children, and say so in everything you post. JEWS WHO SUPPORT NETANYAHU CAN BOARD THE TRAIN. HE IS NOT A WAR CRIMINAL. JEWS WHO DO NOT ARE NOT WELCOME ON BOARD, UNLESS YOU CHANGE YOUR MIND. HEY! GOOD NEWS IS YOU DON'T HAVE TO CHANGE YOUR RELIGION. TRANSGENDER KIDS ARE WELCOME TO LAY DOWN ON THE RAILS AND BE RUN OVER. DUH! OF COURSE WE WILL BE CRUEL AND SCAPEGOAT YOU. I'M A GAY JEW. WHY SHOULD I CARE?

Please. Stop insulting my intelligence by telling me things I already know. TRUMP2024 MAGA I WILL NOT READ! I WILL NOT READ! I WILL NOT READ! NO FACTS. NO FACTS. NO FACTS. I AM NOT RACIST. BLACK WOMEN ARE SMELLY. I LOVE THE GAYS. THROW THE TRANSGENDER KIDS UNDER THE BUS. KICK THE LITTLE FUCKERS IN THE TEETH, JUST LIKE THE COPS. I AM NOT A GENOCIDE JEW. BIBI THE BABY KILLER IS NOT A WAR CRIMINAL. ABOUT HALF OF AMERICAN JEWS ARE ANTI-SEMITIC JEW HATERS. I AM NOT CRUEL. JANUARY 6TH WAS A DAY OF LOVE. I NEVER LIE. I WON IN THE BIGGEST LANDSLIDE EVER. I AM DONALD TRUMP. WORSHIP ME. I DESERVE IT.

TRUMP2024 MAGA PICK ON DISABLED PEOPLE. PICK ON TRANSGENDER KIDS. PICK ON BLACK WOMEN. THEY ARE SMELLY. DEPORT LEGALLY AMERICAN CHILDREN. OVERSEE ANOTHER 50 % SPIKE IN OVERDOSE DRUG DEATHS WHILE YOU RANT ON FOX NEWS.

Actually, I am part of that 60 %. Why should this be surprising? Do you think Democrats wish bad things for America? When Biden won by 7 million votes, you assholes were the ones who said, "Great. Let's go kick the shit out of cops, and steal an election." Don't be confused as well as cruel. You are the ones who go beat the shit out of cops. Democrats are patriots. There are several things Americans specifically don't like. They don't like Matt Gaetz. He's gone. Is it because Susie Wiles read the polls? Or Republican Senators said don't make us shit all over you right out of the gate? Who knows. But I think the picture is pretty obvious. Even a cruel clown could see it, if he were not so overwhelmed with cruelty and dishonesty. 68 % of Americans hope Trump ends inflation and stops price increases. Most Democrats, and half of Independents fear Trump will act like a dictator. 55 % of Independents want to see him tried by a jury of his peers for his alleged crimes on January 6th. Mostly, they just want a 25 % sales tax on Corona because Trump won't mess with his billionaire crypto donors who hide fentanyl trafficking prices to go down. We're all anxious to see whether Trump stops price increases. And whether he acts like a dictator on Day One. And whether Homan, a cruel failure, is going to try to illegally deport American children, or meant what he said when he seemed to walk it back. Mostly, he likes to talk on Fox News while he fails to do his job. That is the lesson from 2017. But I'm one of the 60 % who sure hope things go well, and think Trump is mostly putting a decent Cabinet in place. By Trump standards. Of course they are all going to be loyalist ass kissers. That's what they voted for, whether Latino men who watch Joe Rogan knew it or not. (They almost certainly did not, and don't really care.) I think Hegseth may go down, depending on whether the woman he allegedly assaulted wants to step forward. If she does not, it is really just rumors and a police report. Ironically, my biggest worry is Bessent. I think it's great that he's a Gay Dad, and that Wall Street loves him. That is actually the problem, though. I mean, it's not like things have every ended badly before, when Wall Street loved W. and Greenspan, right? Crypto Won Big in the 2024 Election Financial Times is not like Jacobin. But they both agree. I posted the FT article predicting that we will have a Trump sugar high, thanks to tax cuts for billionaire Trump donors and corporate Trump donors. And this will be followed by an ugly Trump collapse in a few years. The author named crypto shenanigans as one of the likely suspects. There is one fact I know for sure. The words "Trump" and "bankruptcy" do not belong in the same sentence. They belong in the same book, with dozens of chapters titled, "THE ART OF YET ANOTHER BANKRUPTCY, WITH SOME RUSSIAN DUDE WHO BAILED TRUMP OUT." So who knows? But we have seen this movie before. Replace Trump with W. Check. Replace Bessent with Greenspan. Check. The market has to love the guy. Check. The ideology has to be that the market should be left alone. Check. Fire regulators, or force them to STFU. Or collude. Check. Wire it up so that you can make a shitload of money quickly, on something like derivatives, or synthetic derivates, or crypto - which is synthetic, anyway. That's where we are right now. Hey, how about a big US government crypto reserve? That's a great idea! I already sent a note to Ryan Gosling, of The Big Short fame. I said when this gets turned into a movie, he should play Bessent. He might finally get an Oscar, you know. Am I predicting this will happen under Trump, with crypto? No, of course not. I'm one of the 60 % hoping for the best of Trump, not the worst. I hope Trump convinces Putin to actually let Ukrainians live. Putin being Genocide Man, I doubt he will. I hope he convinces Bibi The Baby Killer to stop being a war criminal. My guess is Bibi will do what he always does. Suck up, nod his head, smile, say nice shit to Trump, and continue to try hard not to kill the women and children he plans to kill. If I had to script the narrative for why Financial Times might be right, I would point to crypto and Wall Street euphoria as the ingredients that are required. And here we are. Buy now, I'd say. I have. But be careful out there, guys. We have seen this movie before.

Agreed! You should post the video where Moore personally apologized to you for saying war criminal Bibi is pushing racism. And then Moore apologized for saying war criminal Bibi was pushing apartheid. And then he apologized for saying this is genocide. Moore agreed that King Trump is a man of peace. And the whole world will bow down and bring peace to the Middle East. Billionaires will get richer. Whether they are Arab sheiks who kill political opponents, or Trump's conservative Jewish donors who want genocide, or Genocide Man, or your run of the mill fat cat who is loyal to Trump. Catholic Latino men and women will say, "Praise Jesus!" when their child dies of a fentanyl overdose, because Trump hired a cruel and failed man to fail to control fentanyl overdoses again. They will be part of the growing Trump Republican majority, which will rule for all time. Since your posts are pretty much 100 % cruelty and lies, I figure I may as well get in on the lies. 😉

In your mind, it's actually Lichtman, me, and about half of American Jews under 40. TRUMP2024 MAGA I WILL NOT READ! I WILL NOT READ! NO FACTS! NO FACTS! STOP THE ANTI-SEMITIC AMERICAN JEWS WHO THINK BIBI THE BABY KILLER IS PUSHING RACISM. STOP THE ANTI-SEMITIC AMERICAN JEWS WHO THINK BIBI THE BABY KILLER IS PUSHING APARTHEID. STOP THE ANTI-SEMITIC AMERICAN JEWS WHO THINK BIBI THE BABY KILLER IS PUSHING GENOCIDE. UNLEASH WAR CRIMINAL BIBI, WHO TRIES HARD NOT TO KILL THE WOMEN AND CHILDREN HE PLANS TO KILL.

TRUMP2024 MAGA I REALLY DON'T GIVE A FUCK ABOUT HOW TRUMP AND HOMAN GOT AMERICANS KILLED, OKAY? I REALLY DON'T CARE ABOUT HOW HOMAN FAILED,OKAY? THIS IS ABOUT WINNING. THIS IS ABOUT WHATEVER THE FUCK YOU HAVE TO SAY TO WIN. WHO THE FUCK CARES IF 100,000 AMERICANS DIE? WHO THE FUCK CARES IF HOMAN FAILS? WHAT MATTERS IS BILLIONAIRE CRYPTO DONORS GAVE US A FORTUNE TO ATTACK THE STUPID BLACK WOMAN. OF COURSE THE CRYPTO BILLIONAIRES EARNED THEIR TAX CUTS. WHY SHOULD I GIVE A SHIT IF HOMAN FAILED THE FIRST TIME, AND FAILS AGAIN? WE WON, ASSHOLES.

Why did Homan fail in 2017, and give America a 50 % spike in drug deaths? Why do you want this cruel failed man hired again? TRUMP2024 MAGA I DON'T GIVE A FUCK IF HOMAN FAILED I DON'T GIVE A FUCK IF HOMAN DELIVERED A 50 % SPIKE IN DEAD AMERICANS I DON'T GIVE A FUCK IF HOMAN WANTS TO ILLEGALLY DEPORT AMERICAN CHILDREN I WANT TO BLAME EVERYTHING ON SMELLY STUPID BLACK WOMEN. I AM NOT A RACIST. I AM NOT FOR GENOCIDE. I JUST WANT TO SAY CRUEL THINGS AND LIE, OKAY?

Actually, quite the opposite. First, I am talking about drug overdose deaths. So this is multiple government agencies, not just OCE. But we can go back to 2017 and we have Trump and Homan on the record, on video, in writing, saying "We will fix problem." Trump and Homan failed, miserably. Not once have they apologized to the parents of all the young Americans they got killed. They presided over a huge spike in fentanyl deaths. The overall spike in drug overdose deaths under Trump and Homan, from Jan. 2017 to Jan. 2021, was about 50 % more deaths. They got tens of thousands of Americans killed, thanks to their complete incompetence. Trump tried to blame Biden and Harris for every since death of any American by any undocumented immigrant. Fair enough. But if they get to blame Biden and Harris for every death that happened on their watch, they have to take responsibility for the massive spike in slaughter on their watch. And we are talking about talking about hundreds of thousands of dead Americans. So if they idea is that we want to stop needless deaths, what is happening with overdose drug deaths is a mountain, and what is happening with illegal immigrants killing US citizens is a molehill. Every single death is a personal tragedy. But there is no comparison about the numbers. 100,000 Americans dying a year is a big deal. Did Biden and Harris preside over another 50 % increase in drug deaths? No. As I documented above, exactly the opposite. They reversed the trajectory. Drug overdose deaths are now in decline, for the first time in a long time. No one should be applauding. Because we went from a peak of a bit over 100,000 to now a little under 100,000. And the main reason most experts say this is happening is drug prevention and treatment efforts. Those things are not cheap, and they take time. They usually involve claims through Obamacare and Medicaid, both of which Republicans are threatening to cut. In other words, they promised to fix the problems, and failed completely. Instead we get a 50 % spike in drug deaths. Biden and Harris did gradually reverse the trend, and deaths are now declining. Trump is promising to fix the problem again, by hiring someone who abjectly failed the first time. One of the best ways to stop the trafficking is go after the crypto platforms used to hide the money flow. But Trump probably won't do that. My guess is he cares more about his crypto billionaire donors than he does about dead Americans. We'll see. If I had to bet, overdose deaths will start to go up again. Especially if they cut Obamacare and Medicaid. Homan, a cruel and failed man who has never apologized for all the Americans he got killed due to his incompetence, will go on Fox News and flap his lying lips about deporting brown-skinned children to protect them. TRUMP2024 MAGA WE KILLED MANY AMERICANS FROM 2017 TO 2021 WE PROMISED A SOLUTION, AND GAVE YOU A 50 % SPIKE IN DRUG DEATHS LET THE SAME FAILED CRUEL MAN WHO FAILED IN 2017 FAIL AGAIN MORE OVERDOSE DEATHS MORE TAX CUTS FOR MY BILLIONAIRE CRYPTO DONORS, WHO I WON'T ASK TO STOP THE TRAFFICKERS THEY HELP COVER THE MONEY TRAIL FOR.

Trump says he will quickly impose tariffs of 25% on goods from Canada and Mexico Trump's mass deportation plans are really shaping up. And they are going to be wildly popular with Latino men, who gave him his margin of victory. First, Trump's border czar promised on Fox News to illegally deport the American children of immigrants. Then he walked it back on Fox News. Smart move. Now, come to find out that Latino men, and all of us, can look forward to a 25 % drug war sales tax on Dos Equis, Corona, and avocados. Not to mention a GM truck. That could get pricey. This makes complete sense, given that Trump's 49.9 % mandate is to end inflation, and stop price increases. 🤔 This kind of bullshit is why Homan abjectly failed the first time, and ended up killing 50 % more Americans. Fentanyl users are American, and most fentanyl traffickers ICE arrests are Americans, too. A 25 % drug war tax might help reduce trafficking from Mexico or Canada at the margin. But taxing Corona 25 % is a pretty indirect way to get at traffickers. As a candidate, Trump sure didn't mention a 25 % sales tax to fight the immigrant invasion, and stop drug trafficking. Wonder why? Harris warned that Trump will raise prices. And lots of people said, "Trump would never do that!" Turns out that they were right. Just like all those Trump voters in 2016 who said Trump would never try to cut Obamacare. There is one thing we can be certain Trump won't do. Piss off his ultrarich crypto donors, who facilitate fentanyl trafficking. They are counting on Trump to boost crypto, make it harder to regulate, and get the US government involved in shaky sounding scams, like crypto reserves. I mean, it's not like anyone has lost their life savings on crypto, right? Why wouldn't Trump want to reward his rich crypto donors? In his ICE reports during his first failed attempt to stop fentanyl from killing hundreds of thousands of Americans in 2017, Tom Homan himself talked about how the dark web and murky crypto exchanges made it much harder for ICE to track and stop the flow of fentanyl into and around the US. It is no doubt partly why Trump 1.0 saw a 50 % increase in fatal drug overdoses. A crackdown on crypto billionaires would be a far more direct way to reduce fentanyl trafficking, since ICE says crypto is the coin of the realm. But nothing stands between Trump and his top Republican donors. He's already figured out he can get Latino men to vote for him simply by talking shit on Joe Rogan for a few hours. Why worry about actually pissing off donors to deliver on promises? Duh! Give the donors their tax cuts instead. Enjoy your Corona, guys!

Actually, I think the latter is worth taxpayer money. Let's go to the extreme. Trump has cops arrest Joe and Hunter Biden, Merrick Garland, Jack Smith, Liz Cheney. Within weeks they are tried and executed by a televised military tribunal. I know, it's an extreme idea. But didn't someone actually propose that in the campaign? This is exactly what Independents who voted for Trump fear. Anything even in the ballpark of this kind of retribution would confirm that the 49 % of Independents who fear Trump will act like a dictator were the correct half. 53 % of all voters and 55 % of Independents want Trump's trials to continue. Republican Trump loyalists (are there any other Republicans left?) will of course argue that Trump won 49.9 % of the vote, which proves that voters don't care. The fact that Trump only won 49.9 % of the vote in a global environment where 4 out of 5 incumbents or their parties got trounced proves that voters do care. The Harris poll I cited is not the only one that prove voters care. It will help Democrats if, like with Gaetz, Trump decides to test the limits and see what happens. Speaking of Gaetz: If I could go back to 2020 and replace three people to get a different outcome, I would take out Senators Manchin and Sinema and replace them with McCaskill and Gallego. Democrats would have won more laws for young people, Blacks, Latinos, and the working class, and had the votes for tax hikes on the rich. They would have given those groups more reasons to vote, and to vote for Harris. But the third replacement would be Merrick Garland. We should have had an Attorney General that was a fighter. Which is what Trump wanted with Gaetz and will get with Bondi. I have no problem with the Manhattan case. Trump is a felon. But the case is small ball, and the easiest to classify as lawfare. If Democrats want to argue that Jan. 6th is a complete violation of our Constitutional norms, which it is, Democrats should have done what Trump will now do: come out swinging, and hold no punches. A federal prosecution based on Jan. 6th should have been an urgent and speedy priority. The fact that Mark Penn, who is as centrist as it gets, can poll people now - after Trump won - and a majority still say he should be brought to trial for Jan. 6th shows how deeply that resonates. Democrats fucked up by acting like genteel lawyers. We did the same thing in 2000, with Al Gore. What's the phrase about the party who brings pillows to a knife fight?

Please focus on being cruel, okay? You left out Michael Moore. Don't get so excited by your cruelty that you start to get sloppy. Moore just issued a double apology to @EmmetKruelty: for being wrong about a wave of women electing Harris, and for defending Palestinian women and children. Okay, I lied. Moore did not apologize to @EmmetKruelty. Moore will keep defending Palestinian woman and children from war criminal Bibi The Baby Killer's genocide. In fact, he's still standing with Black women. They're the main one saying, "Okay. Get used to it. This is America. Trump is who we are." I think the election can be boiled down to one word: not. In his emotionally upbeat prediction that Harris would win, the core of Moore's argument was this: "We are a good people." The core of his analysis of why Harris lost is "We are not good people," Both are obviously true. For example, the good America is @EmmetKruelty, who unleashes war criminal Bibi to kill lots of women and children he tries hard not to kill. The bad America is anti-Semitic @stevenkesslar,who whines about genocide. Ha ha! Lied twice in one post. This is fun. I can see why @EmmetKruelty lies all the time.

I'll be the data geek that just keeps repeating facts. They don't mix well with cruelty, but they are always part of a healthy diet. 49 % of Independents said their worst fear of a Trump Presidency is that he will act like a dictator. Overwhelmingly, their greatest hope is that he will end inflation and price increases. 52 % of all voters and 55 % of Independents think his trials should continue. They not only care about Jan. 6th. They want Trump to be judged by a jury of his peers.

Okay a short post, for a change. Now that Alan Lichtman has proven to be a worthless anti-Semitic Jew hater, I am turning to CNN for my prognosticating on the stock market. Biden is beating Trump on stocks. History shows markets do better under Democrats And remember, just like with Lichtman, past performance means shit. What matters now is greed, ego, and absolute loyalty to Trump. And maybe having sex with a child, or raping a woman or two.

So not to be super fucking mundane and boring, but there may be another thing Trump and Bessent have done that matters more. They re-inverted the 10 year/3month yield curve. Which, just last week, became un-inverted for the first time in two years. Holy boring technical analysis, Batman! My stock market geek nephew and I are debating each other now, in ways that make my posts here seem short and funny. He points out, correctly, that since 1992 every time the yield curve un-inverts we have a recession in about two to six months. It is also almost a truism that the best predictor of a recession is an inverted yield curve. I say almost because the one exception is 1967. Or, you can argue the 1967 inversion was right. It just took three years for the recession to happen. So this is a bit like Alan Lichtman. The yield curve inversion is the Nostradamus of recessions. But will it work this time? Inquiring investors want to know. When I bring my genius political and economic instincts to bear, my best guess is that Donald Trump is going to make me better off ........... in the short term. What to expect from the markets under Trump We'll get a short term high - but many investors worry about what comes next. Hopefully if you do not read FT much you won't get their paywall. First time I clicked on the article I got it it. Second time, I got the paywall. The main idea in the article is this. Trump will buy the US stock market another sugar high for a year or two, in the form of a massive new bump in already unprecedented federal debt. Like in 2017. For some strange reason, billionaires and corporations like tax cuts and less regulation for billionaires and corporations. Who knew, other than Trump's billionaire and corporate donors? And Latino men, who hate Latinx but love tax cuts for their rabidly anti-union billionaire bosses. But Trump will also create all kinds of new risks. Including by deregulation, and firing regulators. From crypto to obscure markets (who every heard of subprime derivates, anyway?) all kinds of shit could go wrong. And probably will in a few years, FT argues. Losers! Jew haters! Trump was already President once. That ended really well. My nephew and I agree that Trump is an asshole, but we disagree about one big thing. He thinks the 15 year old bull market has to be on its last legs. And a blow off top is imminent. That said, he thought the same thing at the end of 2021. Meanwhile, Warren Buffet sold off AAPL, and Stanley Druckenmiller sold off NVDA. But what do they know? I get all my stock advice from @EmmetKruelty. He does know one thing very well: cruelty begets cruelty. So my logic is that greed begets greed, and will always push the market higher. Until it can not. And if we needed a person to ignite greed, everyone knows who that person is: Jimmy Carter. Ha ha, just kidding. Habitat For Humanity is just what greed does for a tax write off. No, greed would send in Kamala Harris, who would raise taxes on billionaires and corporations to help the working class. That's what Wall Street wants! Ha ha! Fooled ya again. No, if Wall Street wants to set greed on fire, central casting would send in Donald Trump. And here we are. Ed Yardeni says this just reinforces his idea that we're in a new Roaring Twenties. And please, don't think about how that ended, okay? Think about how fun it is while it lasted. Yardeni, who actually did coin the term bond vigilantes, also says they are saddling up. I mean, if we are going to be the kind of extremists who worry about Palestinian children, or illegally deporting American children, or some kind of US debt crisis, we could go there. Maybe piling on more debt, playing with tariffs, and driving bond and mortgages rates up could be playing with fire. But why in the world would anyone every associate King Donald Trump (hey, one can always hope) with bankruptcy? 🤔 Trump Stocks are as good as Trump Steaks to me. Trump would never cause anything to go bankrupt. Never ............................................... Right? Which brings us right back to FT, Trump, and our lovely new Gay hedge fund manager, who will do whatever Trump wants to be Treasury Secretary. I think it all sounds great. I mean, Bessent is no Alan Greenspan, for sure. Greenspan trusted capitalism and capitalists to always do what was best for the market, albeit out of ego and greed. They correctly figured out that to maximize profits we needed more subprime loans, more subprime derivates, and more synthetic derivates that created endless liabilities. "How could that go wrong?", Greenspan said. The global financial crisis sure proved him right. Bessent may not be as much a genius as Greenspan. But with time, and encouragement from Trump, he can get there. So, obviously, FT is wrong. They predict Trump and Bessent will figure out how to go to extremes and blow it up, just like W. and Greenspan. Obviously, FT is extremist, Communist, Gay bashing, and Jew hating! When you add Trump, Musk, crypto, skyrocketing debt, war criminal Bibi The Baby Killer, and Wall Street to the mix, how could anything possibly go wrong in a few years? Meanwhile, make sure you get first class on the train. No smelly Black women allowed! TRUMP2024 MAGA GREED MORE GREED EVEN MORE GREED MARKET COLLAPSE BANKRUPTCY

Great idea. Let's talk about Asia. I'll admit I watch CNN. As well as MSNBC and Fox. I actually get most of my news online, from Real Clear Politics (which covers everything from far left to far right) and Politico and lots podcasts. And, of course, from @EmmetKrulety. Except that he lies most of the time. Welcome to America, 2024. Not a huge fan of Joe Rogan. But I watched some of his interview with Trump. On genocide, I am against genocide, period. I think most people are. We have a few of the outliers here, though. If we want to talk Asia, there is a long history of American-funded atrocity in Asia. Like, name a country. You know this, of course. But Myanmar is actually one of the few countries I don't think you can name. That's if the point is to blame it on the US now, or at some point in the past. The US State Dept., like the UN, condemned the Islamophobic 2016 military crackdown on the Rohingya. @Moses loves to bring up the US dropping a nuclear bomb on Japan in 1945. That was an act of defense, after Japan dragged the US in by bombing Pearl Harbor. We can debate scale and number killed. But if the point is about genocide, and Muslims, and killing millions of people, there are so much bigger fish to fry, more recently than 1945. The Genocide the U.S. Can’t Remember, But Bangladesh Can’t Forget Millions were killed in what was then known as East Pakistan, but Cold War geopolitics left defenseless Muslims vulnerable That one was brought to the world thanks to the CIA. In that case, as the headline says, Muslims were the victims. You can thank Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger for that one. In fact, you can thank Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger for a lot of slaughters in Asia with US-made or US-funded weapons during that period. Americans liked Ike for lots of reasons. But US-funded genocide was not one of them. Nevertheless: Indonesia: US Documents Released on 1965-66 Massacres I included that one because Muslim militias did a lot of the killing. It isn't so much that Ike had a problem with Islam. He had a problem with Communism. Again, it is easier to name the countries in Asia where the US has not at some point had a hand in some kind of mass slaughter or genocide. Which is why it is so difficult to understand why Muslims, or anyone, could have a negative impression of America. 😨 Donald Trump is a pussycat, if we want to go by past CIA standards. In Trump's defense, one secret he may know that he won't tell is that even a US President is not too powerful for the CIA to kill, albeit indirectly, if you get out of line and demand too much peace. I'll leave that one to Oliver Stone, who covered it pretty well. Obama was the POTUS who told some friend confidentially that he had figured out that Washington D.C. seemed to have a bias for war. Ya think? He said he didn't know what to do it about it. I think Joe Biden proved him correct. America could tolerate a forever war in Afghanistan under W., then Obama, then Trump. Trump set the terms for the "peace" deal with the Taliban. When Biden executed it, albeit ineptly, it helped end his Presidency. And I'm not sure how inept it was. What Trump set up was essentially a capitulation. And apparently history loves payback. My guess is Trump will look weak when he tries to end the war, or at least lock in a stalemate, in Ukraine. Genocide Man is no pussycat, either. Another silver lining in the Trump victory is I can go back to being me, consistently. I voted for Biden in 2020 and Harris in 2024 despite their support for military aid to Israel, not because of it. In this case, unlike Myanmar, my country is massively funding the mass slaughter. And it is complicated, Hamas is a terrorist organization, that I am fully aware would kill me in a heartbeat for being Gay. Or being American. Or for being Christian. Or just because they seem to like being sadists. Who would have thought that putting all those people in an open air concentration camp would have been a breeding ground for terrorism? Wonder what impact the current genocide will have on Israel's future? The nice thing about being an American is we build walls to keep out people who want to BE us. Israel better build the biggest fucking wall in the world to keep out the growing legion of people who want to KILL them. Because war criminal Bibi The Baby Killer is doing a great job building an army of Muslims who want to KILL Jews. Ehud Barak, who knows the IDF well, clearly understands you can not really kill them all. Not even the known leaders of Hamas. That would be genocide, wouldn't it? So there will be some kind of ceasefire in Ukraine, maybe. Trump will have to accept some kind of humiliation to get it, if he really wants it. It will make him look weak, and many Cold War Republicans will disapprove. As much as Trump would love to be President Peace in the Middle East, he should check with Bill Clinton on how easy that is. War criminal Bibi The Baby Killer will just keep doing what he does best. Kill women and children. So now I can go back to just clearly opposing genocide, in both Ukraine and Israel. I don't have to have any more qualms about why the President I voted for is funding it. The only thing I am not sure of is how much Republicans will increase military aid to Israel, and how many more women and children war criminal Bibi The Baby Killer is willing to kill. This is who America is. Why doesn't everyone love us?

I was going to start a new thread, but I will post it here. The interesting question to me is this: why did our Latinx Latina neighbor, Claudia Sheinbaum, a model of integrity and intelligence for women and Jews all of the world, win in a landslide? While Harris lost, narrowly? And why can't Israel elect a leader like Golda Meir Claudia Sheinbaum, who governs with compassion rather than cruelty? First, I think it is objectively true that these two women outperformed White men, Black men, Latino men, and Asian men (and cruel clowns, for that matter) all over the planet. The ‘super year’ of elections has been super bad for incumbents as voters punish them in droves Trump, of course, was one of the first incumbents removed in 2020. So, right out of the gate, being the incumbent party and winning makes you the exception to the rule. Alan Lichtman is right, that incumbency is an advantage most of the time. But not since COVID. That is as true for the US as it is for India, or Japan, or Botswana. Poor Trump. If this were Rwanda, he could win by almost 100 % of the vote. Why is that countries like Russia and Rwanda that have fake democracies are also most likely to solve their problems through genocide? But that's a different post. Why did Sheinbaum win? If you look at the Pew report referenced in the AP article, Mexicans clearly had more respect for their leader, AMLO, his party, and Mexican democracy. As the AP artucle states, As of Spring 2023, when that study was done, 83 % of Mexicans viewed their leader, AMLO, favorably. The only leader viewed more favorably (89 %) was Indonesia's Joko Widodo, who is also a ........................................... wait for it .............................................................. economic populist and nationalist. He championed the death penalty for drug smugglers. Maybe we can send Tom Homan and @EmmetKruelty to Indonesia? Joko also got his chosen successor (and his son, as Veep) elected. I think AMLO's success boiled down to two words: Mexico's New Deal Nuevo Trato. Although they would never call it that, or imitate an American political concept. 😉 The big deal was pensions for seniors. But there were lots of small deals for workers. And constant pro-worker and anti-elitist messaging. People in interview after interview said they were voting less for Sheinbaum, and more for a party or set of policies. Same reason Americans voted for Harry Truman in 1948. They didn't particularly like him, but they did like FDR's policies. In Mexico's case, they seem to like both the woman, and the party and principles she represents. Hence, a landslide. Up until this Spring I thought Biden might win for the same reason Truman did. And maybe he would have, if he were 20 years younger. And if he did not have a wall of lava racing at him, like every other incumbent in the world. So since I am going long post, I'll throw in these related questions as well: was Kamala Harris the wrong candidate? And could this race have been won, whether she was the candidate or not? In a separate 2way, Halperin argued that she was the wrong candidate, in that she was the only one that is Joe Biden's Vice President. So if the goal is to separate from Biden, Harris is objectively the worst candidate to take his place. And that did play out in the campaign. The only problem with this concept is that there was no way Democrats had a choice. First, how do you explain to Black women that Mark Kelly is a better candidate? Second, even if Black women agreed, how do you do that without a primary? And how do you hand him, legally, the money and turnout mechanics of Biden/Harris, which I am pretty sure helped get 4 of 5 vulnerable Senators over the top in Nevada, Arizona, Wisconsin, and Michigan. And by the way, do we really think Mark Kelly would have brought the burst of money, volunteers, and enthusiasm Kamala Harris created? I don't think Democrats had a choice. Biden clearly fucked up by letting his ego go first. In some ways, the question all along is whether Biden's ego or Trump's ego would be worse for America. Trump won, thanks in large part to Biden's ego. The other question is could Democrats have won this race, with Harris or anyone? I think Dan Turrentine is right that, in a race this close, there had to be a way for some Democrat, including Harris, to beat Trump. The question is, how? There will be over a million answers, none of which can be proven right or wrong. I will happily vote for Harris is she runs for California Guv. California politics is a knife fight. And every time she entered that fight she won. The Dan Balz/WaPo article that is the first insider look at why she lost, from the campaign's perspective, reveals that they never thought she could win the Sun Belt. Which is to say, they knew that she started with huge handicaps that were not of her own making. What handicap was of her own making? I agree with Dan. Her caution did not match well with the situation she found herself in. Nor does it match well with running for President, period. It matches better with being a Governor, where you have to balance all kinds of interests and be competent. She proved she can do that as DA and AG. She'd be a good Governor. Her caution just does not fit well with the political skill you need to be the leader and messenger of her party. Trump is much better at that. Speaking of California Guv, there is a great case both for and against Gavin Newsom in 2028. The case against him is the last fucking thing we need is a California liberal. Run Andy Beshear instead. But I doubt the Democratic Party will go that far. Newsom is the opposite of cautious. He can say, not this bluntly. "I had to deal with all that woke bullshit every day of the week. So I sanded off the rough edges, without actually being cruel to people." He is still a liberal. This is basically what Obama did for eight years. But, like Obama, Newsom can play to the center in a way Harris simply did not. If Democrats somehow decide that what we really need is a nice centrist who talks pablum and stands for ..................... what? ................. check with Al Gore about that. To end where I started, I don't think AMLO and Claudia Sheinbaum dodged the anti-incumbent bullet because of anything they said, or messaging. I think they won because of what they did. AMLO delivered a New Deal to Mexicans. He actually delivered for the working class. That is what mattered. Not words. This election was a close call. I think if Democrats had two different Senators from 2020 to 2022, and Biden had had the votes to raise taxes on billionaires and deliver some programs that helped the working class, that alone may have been enough to put Harris over the top .................. but barely. The potential good news for Democrats is now we will have to fight like hell for the forgotten working class. Great! I am almost certain that Donald Trump and Elon Musk are already racing to think of how to raise taxes on themselves, which the working class wants, to help the working class. I am almost certain that Donald Trump and his conservative corporate donors are racing to embrace unions, since the majority of union members still support Democrats. But just in case Trump uses his power to do exactly the same shit he did in 2017, 2018, 2019, and 2020, Democrats now have a choice to offer a clear pro-working class alternative. That is what AMLO and Sheinbaum did. That is why they won in a landslide.

Actually, I think W. nailed Trump 2.0 Anyway, a majority of the American voters did not get fooled again. First of all, some of them are the cult that think the Jubilant Patriotic Cop Beating was a Day Of Love. Tell that to the cops who got their bones broken by flagpoles. Second, even if you include the young Latino men who are pissed that mortgage rates are so high (which is not a foolish way to feel), Trump got 49.9 % of the vote. @EmmetKruelty is doing his job superbly, helping to push the clown wing of MAGA to excess and cruelty. He gets no credit for the win, and 100 % of the credit when the excess and cruelty turn most voters off, just like in 2018 and 2020. TRUMP2024 MAGA PLEASE, @EmmetKruelty, expose MAGA's cruelty PLEASE, @EmmetKruelty, expose MAGA's cruelty PLEASE, @EmmetKruelty, expose MAGA's cruelty

Good point. The chart shows a steady rise of fentanyl overdose deaths under multiple Presidents. That is an obvious fact. Overdose drug deaths continued to rise under Biden during the COVID crazy period. Now they seem to be declining, so that drug deaths are actually below where they were when Biden took office. Hundreds of Americans die every day of drug overdose, which is tragic. That said, the trend is good. It is now getting better, not worse. But, as I said, Trump may fuck that up if he tries to take an ax to Obamacare and Medicaid, which is where money for many of these drug prevention and treatment programs come from. It seems obvious that unless the demand for fentanyl decreases, it makes ICE's job of stopping the supply much harder. One of the many silver linings of Trump's victory is the the extreme stuff in the Democratic Party is now dead, effectively. The moderate voices on drug reform have been saying all along that we need both carrots, and sticks. That is what I think has worked in Europe. You arrest open air drug addicts, then show leniency if they agree to treatment. So this is going to be the new dogma. It won't solve problems overnight. But it will help set the trend in the right direction. Just like Bill Clinton set violent crime rates down in the 1990's, and that trend has stuck for decades. America is way less violent than it was decades ago, regardless of who is President. Most of the traffickers arrested are Americans, as well. So it is an American problem on both sides. It is another stupid and potentially dangerous move for Trump and Homan to be talking about bombing Mexico to interdict supply. Mexican cartels are for sure a menace, as Kamala Harris can tell you. But bombing Mexico won't help. None of this changes the main point of this post: Tom Homan is a sick, cruel, and failed man. He should not be allowed near any brown-skinned child, now that he has threatened to illegally deport them. Even if he walked it back. Democratic Governors absolutely need to protect American children from this sick, cruel, failed man who has threatened to illegally deport them. I would give Homan and Trump 1.0 an F on overdose drug deaths. The problem skyrocketed on their watch. Almost a 50 % increase in American deaths. Homan has never said to American parents, "I AM SORRY. I AM SORRY THAT I FAILED, MISERABLY. AND YOUR CHILDREN DIED BECAUSE OF MY INCOMPETENCE." I have no idea what Trump's standard for hiring people is. But this decision basically says he values incompetence. Maybe he likes blowhards who looks good on Fox News while they spew crazy and cruel and dishonest bullshit. I'd give Biden a B-. There is no way 100,000 Americans dying a year is a victory. But Biden did reverse a trend that Trump and Homan abjectly failed to reverse, or even control. Again, almost a 50 % increase in overdose drug deaths on Homan and Trump's watch. Even though they both promised to do something about it. Under Biden, fewer Americans are dying than last month, or last year. Immigrant murder convictions 'tens of thousands' higher than ICE's bombshell figures: data expert It's probably a good guess that nobody knows how many murderers or rapists have illegally entered the US. ICE sure doesn't. Even a brief review of articles suggests that they need a lot of new and better technology, which is not cheap. Kamala Harris would have been great at this stuff. She understands the importance of doing your homework, and intergovernmental cooperation both within the US and outside it. It will be no shock to me that a blowhard like Trump will fuck this up again, badly. Regardless of the correct number, most of the murders occurred outside the US, in whatever country the immigrants came from. The article profiles a Peruvian murderer that ICE caught and released, until they found out months later what he did in Peru. Then they found him, and deported him. Great! That is what ICE is supposed to do. Do that. It would have been better still if they had the technology to find out he was a murderer as soon as they caught him. Republicans like to take one horrific death by one immigrant while Joe Biden was President and say Biden is evil. By that standard, Tom Homan is Satan, and he deserves to burn in hell for eternity. Tens of thousands of Americans died on his watch, thanks to his incompetence. He should focus on what is killing Americans. Not what sounds good on Fox News. I have no illusion that the Republican Senate will grow some balls and tell Trump to pick someone competent instead. They should at least direct Homan to STFU and focus on his job. If he plans to get Pete Hegseth rapists and Matt Gaetz sex traffickers and murderers off the street, my Governor Gavin Newsom will gladly work with him. People want moderation. If Republicans are smart, they will do what Rand Paul says. Send cruel and failed Homan back to retirement. Or Fox News, where he can not torment children. And pass a compromise immigration reform bill that deports the bad hombres, and lets the farm workers who grow our crops stay. And please, Tom. Stop tormenting children. That is what the polls clearly say most Americans want.

At the Republican National Convention this Summer, Trump's new border czar Tom Homan promised that Trump would designate drug cartels as terrorist organizations and "wipe them off the face of the earth." Great! The parents of countless kids and young adults who died from fentanyl brought in to the US - many under Homan's past failed leadership - would probably appreciate that. The problem with Homan's bluster is that during Trump 1.0 he ran ICE. And he presided over a massive increase in overdose drug deaths. With the primary cause being an explosion of deadly fentanyl seeping through the borders ON HIS WATCH. Homan made America less safe, already. Homan is responsible for the deaths of tens of thousands of Americans, thanks to his complete failure to stop more and more fentanyl from pouring in. Homan has never apologized for his failure. Homan has never said one single word of apology to the parents or families of the 100,000+ Americans who died of drug overdoses under Trump 1.0, thanks to his incompetence and failure. Why would Trump bring an abject failure like Homan back? Just because he sounds good on Fox News? And threatens to bully and deport American children? On Fox News, Homan also promised recently to illegally deport the American children of undocumented immigrants. Now he appears to have walked his cruel promise back on Fox News, too. Maybe the political advantage of picking on transgender kids has run its course, and MAGA blowhards are auditioning new innocent children to target on Fox. Drug overdoses have been a problem for a long time. But the massive explosion of fentanyl deaths happened precisely during Trump 1.0, under Homan's leadership of ICE, as that chart shows. Here's a report with a video of him in 2017 promising to fix things. Well, he failed. Fatally, for many dead Americans. Why reward the guy who failed, and let this happen? It's an insult to the parents and families of all the Americans who died thanks to Homan's incompetence. And now he wants to make things right by illegally deporting American children? I'd rather have a pedophile like Matt Gaetz as Attorney General, thank you. At least Gaetz didn't get children killled. This is one more sign, like Hegseth, that Trump values loyalty from Fox News blowhards over competence. In this case, he values loyalty over proven failure. With over 100,000 dead Americans as collateral damage during Homan's first flop. Can we please skip the sequel? US Drug overdose deaths, January 2017: 65,571 Americans US Drug overdose deaths, January 2021: 94,788 Americans + 45 % INCREASE UNDER TRUMP AND HOMAN, MOSTLY DUE TO FENTANYL US Drug overdose deaths, June 2024: 93.087 Americans - 2 % DECREASE UNDER BIDEN Results in the last few years are more optimistic than those numbers above suggests. Or at least they were before Trump won. Overdoses rose under COVID during Biden's first year, peaking at over 100,000 and plateauing. So for over a year the trend has been gradually down. 'Historic' drop in U.S. overdose deaths accelerates as fentanyl crisis eases Several reports I read credit this to prevention and treatment programs. Since Trump is likely to try to pare back Obamacare and Medicaid, which provide much of the funding for lower-income prevention and treatment programs, they are now at risk. Why reward incompetence and death?

Ruy ain't going to Mar-A-Lago to kiss the ring. He's going on Jon Stewart to spread the word. Great interview.