ewsieg

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?"

While it would be neat to only hear the wind as you accelerate, I will always love the rumble of an older muscle vehicle. I know some EV's actually have external speakers but I want to say GM was looking at an external speaker system for a Corvette EV which would make it sound like a gas powered vehicle. Then you could just chose to turn it off/on whenever you want to. Kind of stupid option that if I had the money, I would take in a heartbeat.

I was pleasantly surprised to learn this the other day. Just didn't seem like he was Pope long enough, but he has been around longer than I realized. We have not officially left the Catholic church, but my daughters last year of catechism was awful and our priest would be happy to revert back to "MAGA" Catholicism. Apparently everything was better when folks showed up because they were afraid of being ostracized by family and community and just kept their head down while the priest gave mass in Latin. We haven't stepped back in that church since she was confirmed and I won't be going back there as long as the current priest is still there. Unfortunately with all the consolidation, he also oversees several other Catholic churches in the area, so we haven't even bothered to try and look elsewhere. I really hope someone that aligns with Francis' values is picked, we need those values to be celebrated again.

Week of 4/14 I wanted to only focus on things Trump has actually done, not things he's said as often he gets the focus of what he's doing by saying even more outrageous things. But I feel like what he has already done, plus the way he said the following, gives this an exception. The Bad - Trumps reaction to SCOTUS ruling on Garcia, his failed 'attempt' in bringing him back, and then his escalation this week that El Salvador could be used for 'homegrown terrorists' as well, stating it publicly in the WH with the press corp surrounding him next to another wanna be dictator. The GOP has been balking at the idea that Trump would ever violate SCOTUS which is reminiscent of how so many claimed they would not vote for Trump, but would vote for the republican nominee. Honorable mention - trade wars. The response from the Japanese is just further proof Trump has no sound policy. Japan would be good to announce a Fentanyl Czar and simply just say something like 'We will never put any tariffs on US goods', regardless if they plan to or not and they would probably be honored by Trump for being a true ally.

Really no different then when search engines first got popular. My wife to this day can't search for crap. She adds to much unnecessary crap or the most generic search words and is always upset when I can find a definitive answer immediately. Add in the "medical doctors" google created. Just because you went searching for something and stumbled upon something else doesn't mean you're drying from some extremely rare disease that got a search bump because it was Grey's Anatomy last week.

There is a catch 22 for me regardless if I wait a week or binge watch. Like you say, in some regards I get a week to try and understand certain aspects of a storyline or even just a comment which I may have taken one way when I watched it, but by the time I'm watching the next one I identified more context to it and better prepared to see how it develops. But then when I binge there will be small cues which I likely would have completely forgotten if I was going week to week which I catch when they might build on to it an episode or two later and it's still fresh in my mind. Guess it probably depends on what I'm watching and how much interest I have in it.

Rounding up illegals already in the country is a separate issue from illegals entering this country. Trump's rhetoric alone has done a ton regarding the border. Crossings are estimated to be down 95%. https://usafacts.org/answers/how-many-migrant-encounters-are-there-along-the-us-mexico-border/country/united-states/ Plus look at what he's doing to our economy, a bad US economy has always lowered illegal crossings and if he gets his way, we're going to have years of a bad economy which will help assist with this issue. I disagree with his tactics (both in terms of not liking how he dehumanizes this group and also the legality of his tactics) and I disagree with what we're seeing regarding deporting those that have legal protection to stay in the US, at least until a hearing. But he has helped control the southern border in a very short time.

Biden also ignored it for 2.5 years before finally doing something about it. For those 2.5 years, the influx affected citizens of hispanic origin, but Biden and the dems assumed that since they were all of the same color, they were all the same. Are you right about the bipartisan bill, absolutely, but again, for 2.5 years they watched the dems not only not do anything to fix the issue, but deny the issue existed. Obviously for some hispanics, the 2.5 years "Trumped" their thoughts against a bill that once it failed turned into a pissing contest about who screwed it up. Trump made the biggest appeal to urban cities that any republican has ever made in the last election with his blunt 'what do you have to lose?' Again, I think we will agree they certainly have more to lose and that Trump is proving that, but that goes to what I said earlier about democrats. Stop expecting votes simply because you believe you are better and start working to get those votes.

I apologize if I posted this recently. I seem to remember telling someone about this but a quick check doesn't look like I did it here. I grew up with a kid that went on to become a lawyer. He sells hats saying 'not guilty' and is always talking about the injustice of the police and prosecutors against citizens. If you need a lawyer, probably the type of guy you want. Based on that you'd think he was left leaning, nope, full on MAGA. He just posted something about how the media narrative on the MS-13 leader (that was so bad at it he had to go get a union job apparently) is so wrong and used the WH's narrative as proof..... but it's not a cult.

So, I get the point you're making, but when I hear this stuff it makes me feel like democrats haven't learned anything. Has he said some despicable stuff, absolutely. But he did gain numbers with hispanics. Instead of laughing at how absurd that is, it might be better for democrats to try and understand why instead of using their own biases to laugh it off. For instance, hispanics live in greater numbers near the southern border. What major issue did we have (for issues much more complex than just immigration policy) down there? The same major issue that blue states and blue cities realized was an issue after Abbot, DeSantis (and Biden, folks forget that) started sending migrants to their communities. It's clear that in just the last year or two democrats finally get it, but yet they are surprised it hurt them at the ballot box. Stop expecting votes because you think you're better and start working for them.

To be fair to you, he's not the same Bill Kristol he was in 2005. I feel like I followed his path closely where we don't want to say we've changed, we want to say the GOP changed and as a result, we were left behind. Truthfully though, we changed. Maybe no change on racial issues, but more empathetic. Definitely changed on social issues or at least how we value them. I can say for myself I felt the government wasn't needed for social change, the people would do that on their own and bake in any changes they made into government, so I didn't care about government involvement up front. Now with the attacks from the government on social issues, I see the importance I didn't recognize before. Can't say if it's the exact reasoning for Kristol, but sounds like it to me. Even some change on economic issues, he definitely doesn't sound like your traditional conservative when he refers to the tech bros as oligarchs.

I thought 8 minutes... but regardless, the difference is staggering. I was reading on reddit today about that planet that Romad linked above, it's about 120 light years away. We sent Voyager I out in the late 70's and I know Voyager II is catching up to it, but I think Voyager I is still the furthest man made object from earth. It's traveled the equivalent of 1 light day. Assuming it's heading directly for this planet, it only has about 2 million more years before it reaches it if my math is right.