---President Elect Musk and Convicted Felon Donald J Trump---

dignin

I heard he had a great day today.

I bet his campaign team would love to hide him away. The scripts sure have flipped in a week.

Gern Blansten

2023

dignin said:

I heard he had a great day today.

I bet his campaign team would love to hide him away. The scripts sure have flipped in a week.

you would think so but his team probably sees it as a victory....he went into hostile territory and destroyed them with truths

mrussel1

Gern Blansten said:

dignin said:

I heard he had a great day today.

I bet his campaign team would love to hide him away. The scripts sure have flipped in a week.

you would think so but his team probably sees it as a victory....he went into hostile territory and destroyed them with truths

The MAGA morons think that, but his team knows yesterday was not a good day.  

The Juggler

2023

gimmesometruth27

2023

The Juggler said:

another own goal.

is maga tired of winning yet?

wait, when will maga start griping about this?

BF25394

Well, he got the part right about Gershkovich being released before Trump takes office...

gimmesometruth27

2023

i liked it when pete b said this.

"Remember that all of this is a strategy. The politics of outrage and insult are the last refuge of a politician who cannot defend his own plans."

Gern Blansten

2023

gimmesometruth27 said:

i liked it when pete b said this.

"Remember that all of this is a strategy. The politics of outrage and insult are the last refuge of a politician who cannot defend his own plans."

True but he won from it once and came pretty close the second time.

That is partly why the magats are so convinced that the last election was "fake" because they gauge everything off of rabid rally attendance and yard signs.

I will say that I don't see any tRump signs in my hood yet. I know we are still a few months out though.

Merkin Baller

Gern Blansten said:

gimmesometruth27 said:

i liked it when pete b said this.

"Remember that all of this is a strategy. The politics of outrage and insult are the last refuge of a politician who cannot defend his own plans."

True but he won from it once and came pretty close the second time.

That is partly why the magats are so convinced that the last election was "fake" because they gauge everything off of rabid rally attendance and yard signs.

I will say that I don't see any tRump signs in my hood yet. I know we are still a few months out though.

Saw a nice new Trump Vance 2024 sticker on a car yesterday. The only other non factory marking was a Jesus fish because of course. 

Poncier

2023

The Juggler said:

You can be certain he'll claim the release happened because Putin anticipates him winning in November just like he claimed the stock market has been hitting record highs for months on end because he will be re-elected. 

JeBurkhardt

Gern Blansten said:

gimmesometruth27 said:

i liked it when pete b said this.

"Remember that all of this is a strategy. The politics of outrage and insult are the last refuge of a politician who cannot defend his own plans."

True but he won from it once and came pretty close the second time.

That is partly why the magats are so convinced that the last election was "fake" because they gauge everything off of rabid rally attendance and yard signs.

I will say that I don't see any tRump signs in my hood yet. I know we are still a few months out though.

Where I am at they never came down from 2020. After a couple of years they started either making changes to them to make them say 2024 or ponied up the money to buy new signs and flags manufactured in CHINA. 

mrussel1

JeBurkhardt said:

Gern Blansten said:

gimmesometruth27 said:

i liked it when pete b said this.

"Remember that all of this is a strategy. The politics of outrage and insult are the last refuge of a politician who cannot defend his own plans."

True but he won from it once and came pretty close the second time.

That is partly why the magats are so convinced that the last election was "fake" because they gauge everything off of rabid rally attendance and yard signs.

I will say that I don't see any tRump signs in my hood yet. I know we are still a few months out though.

Where I am at they never came down from 2020. After a couple of years they started either making changes to them to make them say 2024 or ponied up the money to buy new signs and flags manufactured in CHINA. 

I think you mean..."Ginaaaaa".  

Halifax2TheMax

2023

If you still doubt a PTAPE exists. ‘Nuff said.

Trump congratulates Putin over deal that brought Evan Gershkovich home

Trump also seemed to lash out at the deal after it was trumpeted Thursday by President Biden and Vice President Harris, who met the freed prisoners in an emotional ceremony.

brianlux

2023

Merkin Baller said:

Gern Blansten said:

gimmesometruth27 said:

i liked it when pete b said this.

"Remember that all of this is a strategy. The politics of outrage and insult are the last refuge of a politician who cannot defend his own plans."

True but he won from it once and came pretty close the second time.

That is partly why the magats are so convinced that the last election was "fake" because they gauge everything off of rabid rally attendance and yard signs.

I will say that I don't see any tRump signs in my hood yet. I know we are still a few months out though.

Saw a nice new Trump Vance 2024 sticker on a car yesterday. The only other non factory marking was a Jesus fish because of course. 

That's so weird (there's that word again!) because if most of the Trump/Vance voters had other bumper stickers, I would think they would be more like this:

or this:

josevolution

2025

Halifax2TheMax said:

If you still doubt a PTAPE exists. ‘Nuff said.

Trump congratulates Putin over deal that brought Evan Gershkovich home

Trump also seemed to lash out at the deal after it was trumpeted Thursday by President Biden and Vice President Harris, who met the freed prisoners in an emotional ceremony.

But not old man Joe? Damn he’s a repulsive 💩

mickeyrat

awwww.....US Supreme Court declines to halt Trump's sentencing in hush money case - https://www.reuters.com/world/us/us-supreme-court-declines-halt-trumps-sentencing-hush-money-case-2024-08-05/

Halifax2TheMax

2023

mickeyrat said:

awwww.....US Supreme Court declines to halt Trump's sentencing in hush money case - https://www.reuters.com/world/us/us-supreme-court-declines-halt-trumps-sentencing-hush-money-case-2024-08-05/

No wonder the market reacted.

mickeyrat

awww, 4th times the charm I guess....

https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/donald-trump-loses-3rd-bid-remove-judge-juan/story?id=112827092

Donald Trump loses 3rd bid to remove Judge Juan Merchan from hush money case

Merchan called the arguments a "repetition of stale and unsubstantiated claims."

ByAaron Katersky and Peter Charalambous

Video byJessie DiMartino

August 14, 2024, 8:21 AM

• 
  

• 
  

5:09

Trump's hush money trial: Biggest takeaways

ABC News breaks down the key mo...

An exasperated Judge Juan Merchan, in a scathing order released Wednesday morning, denied former President Donald Trump's third attempt to kick the judge off his New York criminal hush money case based on an alleged conflict of interest.

"Stated plainly, Defendant's arguments are nothing more than a repetition of stale and unsubstantiated claims," Merchan wrote in the three-page order.

Earlier this month, Trump's lawyers attempted to argue that Vice President Kamala Harris' position as the Democratic nominee for president created a conflict of interest for Merchan based on the judge's daughter's work as a political consultant, rehashing an argument that Merchan denied twice in the past.

continues.....

mickeyrat

awww...Shares of Trump's media firm near record low following his return to X - https://www.reuters.com/business/media-telecom/shares-trumps-media-firm-near-record-low-following-his-return-x-2024-08-14/

Halifax2TheMax

2023

Dumb as dirt. Maybe they should ask the guy that knows about the $.99 gallon of orange juice? Maybe they can explain it?

Trump’s new absurdity: ‘Kamala price hikes’ cost a typical family $28,000

Trump cites “government” numbers, but economists say the math makes no sense.

“Did you know the Kamala price hikes have cost the average American family $28,000?”

— Donald Trump, in a TikTok video, Aug. 15

As a result of Kamala’s inflation price hikes, they’ve cost the typical household a total of $28,000. These are numbers coming from the government. They are not coming from me.”

— Trump, media event in Bedminster, N.J., Aug. 15

Former president Donald Trump rarely updates his political rhetoric — he’s using many of the same lines against Vice President Kamala Harris in 2024 that he used against Joe Biden in 2020 — so it’s always news when a fresh talking point emerges.

In recent days, Trump has claimed that the “average American family” or the “typical household” has suffered a hike in spending of $28,000 under the Biden presidency.

The Trump campaign did not respond to queries about how this was calculated. We think we may have figured it out. It makes little sense.

The Facts

In April 2023, we fact-checked a claim by then-House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) that “families have lost the equivalent of $7,400 worth of income.” That statement came via a dubious statistic generated by E.J. Antoni, a research fellow at the Heritage Foundation.

Other economists were skeptical of Antoni’s math — a combination of two calculations involving purchasing and borrowing costs — and pointed to more reliable metrics, such as real disposable personal income per capita. Many such statistics are affected by the pandemic, adding to the complexity. But real disposable income per capital now is up about $3,000 since March 2020, just before temporary covid relief payments start showing up in the data and skew it for more than a year.

Now, just 16 months later, as inflation is easing, Trump suddenly touts a figure almost four times McCarthy’s number. Trump claimed these were “government numbers,” but economists we contacted scratched their heads about where this could have come from.

One economist suggested that Trump might have been taking total personal consumer expendituresand dividing by total households. But that doesn’t exactly match $28,000, and personal consumer expenditures includes items (stuff the government buys for people like health care, for example) that would exaggerate the impact.

In any case, the experts said Trump is ignoring income gains that have accompanied the rise in prices, putting the finances of many Americans in the net positive territory.

Moody’s economist Mark Zandi, for instance, provided a spreadsheet of data on real personal income less transfer payments from the government per capita. “It has increased 4.2 percent between January 2021 and June 2024,” he said in an email. “A little more than one percent per annum. A solid performance.”

Eventually, we found one possible source for Trump’s figure. In a July blog post, Antoni offered an updated estimate of his statistic — that a typical family lost “about $8,000” in income over the last 3½ years, since Biden took office.

That’s still significantly lower than Trump’s $28,000 in the same time period. But the $28,000 number does appear in Antoni’s post.

Antoni focused on a July survey from Bankrate.com that found the average American said they needed an annual income of $186,000 to live comfortably.

“That’s a shocking figure — more than twice what the average full-time worker earns,” Antoni wrote. “Even in a household with two parents pulling in the average full-time salary, they’d still be about $28,000 short annually.”

Could that be the source of the $28,000 figure? It seems absurd, but after nine years of fact-checking Trump we’ve uncovered many slapdash figures. We sent Antoni’s blog post to a Trump campaign spokesman, asking if this was the source of Trump’s number, and did not get a response. Antoni also did not respond to a request for comment.

Oddly, when Bankrate.com conducted this same survey in 2023, Americans said they needed $233,000 a year to be financially secure. So in one year, the surveys indicated a $47,000 improvement — perhaps a sign that as inflation eased, Americans felt less stressed about their finances. A representative for Bankrate.com did not respond to a request for comment.

Earlier this year the Treasury Department released a report that looked at what had happened to the purchasing power of American households since 2019, just before the pandemic. “As of the end of 2023, the median American worker could afford the same goods and services as they did in 2019, with an additional $1,400 to spend or save per year,” the report said.

That’s because, overall, wages have increased more than price inflation.

The Pinocchio Test

It’s never a good sign when a presidential campaign refuses to explain the math behind a new talking point. But it would be par for the course for Trump to misunderstand a random statistic in a blog post and try to twist it for political purposes. In any case, he’s ignoring the gains in income that have exceeded price inflation.

Four Pinocchios

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2024/08/18/trump-claim-kamala-harris-price-hikes-28000/