Nobody on planet Earth has more chutzpah than former president Donald Trump. After claiming over and over again that the stock market would crash if Joe Biden became president, in light of the market reaching yet another high this week, he had the audacity to claim, in all caps no less, “THIS IS THE TRUMP STOCK MARKET BECAUSE MY POLLS AGAINST BIDEN ARE SO GOOD THAT INVESTORS ARE PROJECTING THAT I WILL WIN, AND THAT WILL DRIVE THE MARKET UP.” He always finds a way to blame others for his failures and take credit for others’ successes. And his followers never seem to notice how obviously dishonest he is about it. Joe Biden, on the other hand, is brushing off the stock market’s stellar performance even though he could take credit since every president is largely held responsible for economic conditions during their term, whether it’s fair or not. But unlike Trump he is required to act like a normal human being and the stock market isn’t really relevant to most people.
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This isn’t the first time we’ve seen this insanity. Remember “frazzledrip”? On Tuesday, it was revealed that Marjorie Taylor Greene had shown support for executing Democrats including liking a comment in January 2019 that said it would be “quicker” to remove Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi with “a bullet to the head.” At the same time, it was revealed that the Republican lawmaker had signaled her endorsement of the unhinged “frazzledrip” conspiracy.
The cutest animal? Could be… A small mammal, native to the Eastern Himalayas and Southwestern China, has been born at Altina Wildlife Park in New South Wales Australia. Rani, Altina’s beautiful female red panda, at 9yrs of age, has proven to be an amazing and loving mother of her new little baby boy, born on the 17th December 2023! It’s unusual for an older inexperienced Red Panda to naturally be a good mother, so staff are excited and pleased with the progress. After three months gestation, cubs are born into a nest made of twigs and grass in the late spring and early summer. Newborn cubs are covered in thick grey fur and their eyes and ears are closed. Cubs will emerge from the nest at about three months of age but stay with their mother until the next breeding season starts. They are considered full-grown between 18 and 24 months and live on average, 8 to 10 years in the wild; up to 15 years in zoos. Red Pandas may live as long as 23 years. They show symptoms of age at around 12 to 14 years old and while females do not usually breed after age 12, males continue to be reproductively capable well into their later years.
I’m listening to some talking heads on TV this morning and realizing for the 2,750,236 times that political conventional wisdom is deadly. I won’t go into details but suffice to say that while many of them are reluctantly admitting that the economy is good they seem to be at pains to explain that Joe Biden is still a great big loser and there’s nothing much to be done about it. Yeah, ok, I exaggerate a bit but it’s not far off. Anyway, this piece by Brian Beutler for his newsletter (which is fantastic, by the way, you should subscribe if you can) was a tonic this morning. If only the talking heads on TV would get the message: Once upon a time (about seven years ago) a Democratic Party critic whose identity would probably surprise you conceded to me that, whatever flaws leading American liberals might embody, Donald Trump is worse—a person, he said, who has “no redeeming qualities.” That description has stuck with me all this time less because of its insight (tens of millions of people already felt the same way) than because of how durable it’s been.
Donald Trump’s very specific form of manipulation We know about Trump’s psychotic behavior. He is a malignant, narcissistic, pathological liar. But he employs a specific manipulative strategy that actually has a name. But I didn’t know that there is a very specific diagnosis. Sidney Blumenthal in the Guardian explains: Time after time, with predictable regularity, never missing a beat, Donald Trump proclaims his innocence. He always denies that he has done anything wrong. The charge does not matter. He is blameless. But this is only the beginning of the pattern. Then, he attacks his accusers, or anyone involved in bringing him to account, usually of committing the identical offense of which he stands accused. But it is not enough for him to lash out. Then, he declares himself to be the victim. Whatever it is, he is falsely accused. But his self-dramatization as the wounded sufferer is only half his story: he insists that whoever has accused him is in fact the offender. He emerges triumphant, the martyr, the truth-teller, courageously unmasking the real villain. J’accuse! Trump’s pattern is textbook manipulation – literally.
You can see why the Evangelicals love Trump so much He’s such a Godly man. Biden, on the other hand, is a blood drinking satanist. By the way…
Biden-Harris HQ goes after Donald Trump. Hard. While we were reading accounts of the latest GOP insanities in D.C. and in the states, and about the Fox/MAGA conspiracy freakout over Taylor Swift, plus a random, MAGA-inspired(?) beheading straight out of Se7en, Team Biden was going hard at getting under Donald Trump’s skin. And rubbing his nose in it on Truth Social (Huffington Post): President Joe Biden’s 2024 campaign flipped former President Donald Trump’s excuses for his verbal stumbles right back at him in a new ad. The 60-second spot features multiple Trump stumbles and the Republican front-runner’s claims that he does it “purposely” or because he speaks “in long, complex sentences.” “Have you noticed he’s a little confused these days?” Biden asks in speech footage that is featured towards the end of the clip. The video concludes with reports that Trump is “rattled by Biden’s efforts to get under his skin.” Yup, this one: The ad above posted at 1:03 p.m. Wednesday on Formerly Twitter, the Now Muskian white-nationalist cesspool. It was only one of a flurry of ads from Biden-Harris HQ.
America: If you love it, hate it Oliver Darcy on Tuesday wrote, “Conservatives are going into self-exile.” The Formerly Republican Party, like Formerly Twitter, “is now led by far-right media forces hoping to cash in on attention from raging culture wars, sealing off its adherents from the rest of society.” One wonders what’s left of America for Republicans to love. Red-hatted Make America Great Again believers are systematically excommunicating anyone and everyone not not eaten up with gnawing grievances. They have demonized DEI efforts (diversity, equity and inclusion) and seem bent (apt?) on making their clan “the most restrictive country club in America.” In the 1960s, the conservative slogan was, America: Love it or leave it. Today the message is, America: If you love it, hate it. Darcy writes: From a bird’s eye view, the state of affairs among MAGA Media diehards as it sits today is remarkable.
Well, she’s being a true daughter of South Carolina: It’s not like Harris was in the Obama administration or really had anything to do with him. She’s against Harris being president because Black presidents are “divisive.” Until Obama was elected and divided us, we didn’t have any of these “problems.” Harris will obviously do the same thing. Because she’s Black. And you know how they are. And she said it on The Breakfast Club a podcast hosted by Black people. Jesus. And then there’s this: Actually, it can’t secede. As that old woke Justice Antonin Scalia said, “If there was any constitutional issue resolved by the Civil War, it is that there is no right to secede.” Haley is campaigning in her home state of S. Carolina a state that knows from secession.
Texas Congressman Chip Roy is not one of the MAGA goofballs. He even endorsed DeSantis over Trump. He was once Ted Cruz’s chief of staff so he’s an extremist but he isn’t stupid. As Judd Legum notes in his newsletter, there’s a method to his madness: Congressman Chip Roy (R-TX) is publicly urging Texas to ignore the Supreme Court. In previously unreported comments, Roy explained that he feared his position would push the country into “a post-constitutional world.” But, Roy said, the Supreme Court is “pushing our hand” by issuing a ruling related to the southern border that he opposes, and the Supreme Court needs to “feel the pressure.” The next day, Roy told Fox News that Texas should “tell the court to go to hell.” On January 24, in a little-noticed interview with right-wing conspiracy theorist Charlie Kirk, Roy expanded on his thinking.