ewsieg

I mean.... I'm just sayin' 😉

Never a Trump voter (clarifying as I can't believe I'm about to defend Trump/GOP twice in a row (well last post was kind of a fiction tale), and will admit I only saw one camera angle, but it looked like a tense situation and the protestors were inside of the gate at one point with law enforcement agents telling them they can't come in and for the 30 seconds or so I saw, they weren't listening and leaving. I definitely would be interested in full length body camera footage though. I saw a friend of a friend argue that Comey should be arrested for posting the 'seashells 8647' because some person was arrested and jailed for a meme/joke on Twitter. Apparently some influencer had a following on Twitter and told people to vote for Hillary by texting a number and it was determined that was election interference. She was outraged that a person would be sent to jail for a joke and there is an argument that if you want to vote, it's your duty to learn how to vote. Getting fooled because your ignorant shouldn't be an excuse. The above is the same to me. I don't want to live in a world where we all agree 1 side did something wrong, so now the other side gets to be wrong too. How about we all agree 1 side did something wrong, learn from it, and just not do it again.

To preface this, I need to reiterate that I don't think Trump is a smart man. That said, what if he is backing into a good position with these tariffs? Here me out. As I've noted before, I think Trump is a democrat. Anytime he speaks about the economy he reminds me of the democrats I grew up with. Granted they didn't sound as dumb, but overall he thinks the gov't should have a bigger role in the economy (at least when he's in charge), has lots of trouble with trade, thinks only blue collar work is real work (except for his cronies and himself as they eat on gold plates), likes tariffs, and doesn't care about the budget, etc. But good or bad (you know my opinion), he can captivate and make changes that could be considered unthinkable and laughable days before. Like the fact that we're pretty much settled in with 10% tariffs across the board and 38% on China and everyone is like 'whew, at least it wasn't where he started'. So let's look at Walmart this week coming out and saying that they will be passing on the tariff costs to consumers and Trump comes out and tells them to eat it. This is the exact post: "Walmart should STOP trying to blame Tariffs as the reason for raising prices throughout the chain. Walmart made BILLIONS OF DOLLARS last year, far more than expected," As we all know, these tariffs are a tax. Throughout history, these taxes were passed on to consumers. He's telling corporations to buck up and pay the tax. Granted he can't force them to do so, but look at Tesla and how buyers fled from Elon. Heck, some socially conscious people were so put off on Elon that they went back to gas powered cars. So what if Walmart does choose not to pay the tax that Trump says is for them to deal with? How much damage can Walmart handle if Trump blames Walmart and his followers start to boycott? (another thing that was traditionally a democrat thing) Unlike Tesla that likely had some help from anti-EV folks that decided Tesla is now awesome, I can't think of too many democrats that would be supportive of Walmart passing that tax onto consumers to the point that they would start going out of their way to go to Walmart. In short, could Walmart be forced to accept that their tax rate went up? Granted for this to work Trump can't buckle when Walmart deposits 50 million in his ****coin. Plus even if it worked in year 1, you're essentially granting the power of determining the tax rate on the business itself. Eventually they would start chipping into that tariff tax. The pressure on Walmart would have to be significant too for it to work with them and spur the same with others. But hey, we've seen crazy things with Trump. I get this is crazy talk, but I guess I'm just searching for some hope that 1) we will recover from Trump and 2) it won't be as painful as I imagine.

The Bad - His Grifter tour in the middle east has now become so common that unfortunately it's just another daily headline you pass by. There is an argument it should have been the winner of the week of 5/12/25. But.... I'm going with his Trump and his admins attacks on Comey and other critics of his presidency, such as Gabbard calling for jail. The 8647 stuff is wild, at least IMO. I worked in a kitchen in high school so it's a term I was used to. Trump over the weekend called for investigations into celebrities that have been critical of him. I thought it was liberals that got butt hurt and were snowflakes. I even remember Palin or maybe it was her PAC putting out democrat candidates pictures in crosshairs and I do remember the left and media getting upset, but I don't remember anyone calling for jail, just that they felt it was distasteful. TJ Rollercoaster made a point that Trump/GOP see this as an opportunity to get the media focuses on this rather than what they are trying to do with policy, and in part I agree with him, but rather he's doing it just to get focus off of him or not, he is still attacking the 1st amendment.

Truth. I made the mistake to respond to a old high school buddy who posted something about Comey and is 'OUTRAGED' over it. I pointed out that I recently told my daughter to 86 the bananas we had as they were going bad. She simply grabbed them and put them in the trash, she did not pull out a gun and shoot them. I pointed out that as a Dad, if I still had young kids, I'd feel better explaining a 8647 sticker on a car then a '#$%$ Joe Biden' sticker. I also stated OP sounded like a liberal snowflake to complain about it. My post was removed, but not before some other buddy of his pointed out how insane my 'analysis' is and how could I defend Comey. Almost responded with '#$%$ your feelings', but decided I shouldn't be on facebook with that crap anyway.

The same party that thinks 86'ing something means assassinate and not to throw out/eject also wants you to take their word on how they interpret tattoo's. Sigh.

Yeah, this is LA county specific and to Gehringer, I don't know the full details, just heard the 450 years or so at this pace on the report. I thought Newsom waived clean up permits, or made them much easier. Regardless, even if outside his direct authority, if LA County fails, it'll look like a dem failure to those that publicize it. Newsom needs to push LA to get moving.

I heard a report about LA county and how it's handling the rebuild for areas affected by the fire. There have been 7 permits issued, up from 4 last month. They are on pace to have everything rebuilt in 400+ years per the report. https://recovery.lacounty.gov/rebuilding/permitting-progress-dashboard/ Newsom needs to find a way to ramp this up otherwise it's going to be front and center for him to deal with when he runs.

This plane is not Trump's biggest grift, but it seems to sell better than the ****coins and investment funds. Dems hopefully will not let any Trump distraction from keeping them pounding on this.

Week of 5/5 Good - I mean, I guess you can say the UK trade deal. It's like putting your head in a vice and after it gets too painful you untighten a bit. You didn't accomplish anything and only hurt yourself, but it's better then when you were dialing up the pressure. Bad - I'm going with the news that we're in talks with other countries to deport folks. The cruelty this administration has continues to amaze me. I do understand to a point that the optics help the situation. Biden's comments prior to his inauguration certainly encouraged folks to come here, so this is encouraging folks not to come here. But zero due process and moving them outside of our jurisdiction so you can claim you no longer have any ability to correct mistakes is evil. Especially when for many it'll be a life sentence with brutal conditions.

Waiting for a Chinese response of 'ummm, no one has talked to us'.

Whether he's dumb or smart all comes down to what you value. Like Oblong says, he's not well read nor curious on most things. It sounds like he enjoys watching people battle ideas in front of him. Reagan was known to encourage members of his admin to debate issues to help determine how he wanted to handle it and that was considered a plus for him. The difference was Reagan listened for the substance of the debate, Trump looks for that 'mic drop' moment that would make good TV and bases his decision on how well the argument was sold, not how well the argument is. He's a spectacular salesmen but also looks at everything in life like it's sales. Knowing what I know about his skills now, and ignoring how empty of a person he is, he would have been fantastic in so many different roles, but president certainly isn't one of them.

I heard cubs fan and was turned off. But Sox fan? Minds well of had Pope Trump.

Oh, I think I know who she thought it was. My priest falls in line with that guy. Wants Latin brought back into mass, etc.

Just learned he's a cubs fan. I'm no longer on board with this.

To be fair, even Francis was conservative, just on the left side of that designation. Sounds like Francis thought of him as a successor. I'm happy with that. I kind of want to go to my Church Sunday and see if my asshole priest bitches and/or digs at him, like I heard him do to Francis before.

It's sad that the Beating Retreat ceremony hasn't fixed their relationship.

Legally he has not, or at least been proven guilty of it. Innocent until proven guilty, let's not act like him.

If he's alive, he'll be on the ballot, but as the VP pick. My guess is Jr. in front as Trump won't trust Vance to resign.

Rumors are even Amash's neighbors like him.

Buttigieg/Obama ticket steamrolls DJT/Trump ticket.

I will say, about the only way to get Trump to care about Ukraine not falling to Russia is to ensure that he gets something out of it. I really don't know what precious minerals Ukraine has, but do they match up with the needs of Trumps favorite oligarchs though? That's the ultimate question. If it's just potash and none of the tech bros care about that and Trump can't find someone to ensure he gets a piece of the profit, then the deal is worthless. If Trump can profit though, he'll have no problem using the military to ensure he gets it.

Week of 4/28 Some good - As a Michigander, nice to see the National Air Guard base in my backyard will be getting a replacement for the A10's. (It's not lost on me that years of work by elected officials of all levels and parties have been working to find a use for Selfridge, but definitely could see Trump simply refusing to accept a recommendation because Whitmer and our Senators are dems). Also happy to see Whitmer and the Big 3 able to adjust Trump on some tariffs. Based on GM's updated financial forecast, tariffs are still going to be a major problem, but I guess that's an upgrade from bankruptcy. I can't be mad at Whitmer or the Big 3 for being quiet and smiling to the cameras to give this state some sigh of relief although I understand the idea of fighting him at all cost. Behind the scenes Whitmer will continue to fight and there ain't no way GM loses 5 billion in predicted profit and doesn't make it's voice heard behind the scenes with other manufacturers/CEO's about how bad these are for American's. The Bad - Crazy that we're just getting to this now, but this 2 billion dollar announcement between UAE owned MGX, using a Trump family owned companies stablecoin (World Liberty Financial) is the perfect cherry on top to the most grifted First Family this country has ever seen. You guys are all aware of how much I was annoyed by Hunter Biden's board seat and paintings that he sold. He made a few million and while IMO there was a sense of a conflict of interest in Hunter's dealings, there was no obvious direct tie to Joe. While annoying, it was a kid getting a job not because of his merits, but because someone knew and liked his dad. At worst, it was a well organized play for Biden to risk his reputation and eventually his presidency in order to help his son make a few million dollars and if we're talking 10% for the big guy, a few hundred thousand dollars). In Michigan, I criticized Whitmer for a 40k plane ride, which cost the tax payers nothing. It would have actually cost us more as if she travelled publicly as we probably would have had to dole out money for security to accompany. Still, it created a conflict of interest and she eventually tried to make that right once she was caught (although if she ever did, she just ended up forcing the company to do something illegal). I do think these were big deals, but even more, I hope that some day we are back to a point where this is pursued and those that play fast and loose with rules are either caught or at least the scrutiny forces them to back off. Additionally those that don't even play fast and loose are under constant awareness of what making a little side money might cost them. But how can we go back to those days after we've witnessed what Trump has done? This MGX deal, you have the grifting we had with Biden in that Trump's sons technically own the stablecoin and Witkoff's son is in there too. But in Biden, you had to look at worst case to think the lines might be blurry. Here there are no blurry lines as there are simply no lines at all. Donald Trump repeatedly tells people he's in charge of everything, Donald Trump repeatedly tells people they need to use Trump owned businesses. The conflict of interest is not perceived, it's outlined by his own actions. Justin Sun puts 75 million into this World Liberty and his case gets put on hold. Direct correlation between the kids getting money and Trumps administration providing a reward. And to think democrats at one point wanted to dig into Trump's alleged 10 million dollar bribe from Egypt...pffft, by the time he's done that 10 million is going to look as meaningless as Whitmer's 40k trip. For a quick reminder as so much of this gets swallowed up in other Trump ****show crap. https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/inside-the-trump-family-s-100-days-of-presidential-profit/ar-AA1E2nUX

Week of 4/21 I probably would have went with the Judge arrest if I did this Friday, but it looks like she may have obstructed. We didn't need the perp walk, but at least there appears to be some legitimacy. So i'm going with the China lie. Seems odd to claim a Trump lie should justify a 'worst of the week' as he lies all the time, so why is this a big deal? Well, it's a big deal because it appears to show that he realizes he's losing this trade war. If he truly felt he was in the drivers seat and thus didn't care about bad press about it, he would have simply said the truth, that China hasn't called yet and maybe added that they are only hurting themselves. So it's clear he wants to hold the line on his tarif/trade war, which is what makes this his worst of the week issue. We already learned from Japan he doesn't even know what he wants out of these, and now he's stooping to lying about China wanting to see a resolution. TL/DR - We're ****ed.

I would like to, but I have to admit my overall mental health has been better as I've worked to limit my news / Trump news intake and I'll probably just stay away. That said, would love to be able to ask him a question with cameras around. None of the current reporters following him know how to. They should be able to see what some of these MAGA'esque podcasters he's bringing into the press pool and follow their lead. "Mr. President, as we all know, the only reason why we are dealing with this Ukraine/Russia war is because of the incompetence of the Obama administration. As you have rightly pointed out in the past, if Obama had provided a security agreement at that time, we aren't in this situation today. So can you outline the security agreements that will be put into place to ensure this issue is resolved when the fighting stops?"