This right here’s where “derangement” becomes projection.
Listen, the public is not hallucinating the economy. People are looking at rent, groceries, insurance, gas, and disposable income. The small faction still calling this a good economy is not making an economic judgment. It is making a loyalty declaration.
The striking thing here in those charts is that non-MAGA Republicans are clustered with everyone else. So the divide is not really left versus right. It is reality versus regime attachment.
Once the leader becomes the measure of truth, bad numbers are treated as insults instead of information.
I think their method is to add up all the listed begettings in the "Old Testament", multiply by 25 years (one generation) and bingo! you get 6,000. This requires the belief that everything stated in the Bible is literally true, so presumably there are 240 begettings listed. So either the 6,000 year believers have got their numbers of begettings wrong or your in-laws have. They can't both be right. I wonder if they fight over it.
It's even dumber than that. There are two completely separate genealogies of Jesus. Luke takes it all the way back to God, and Matthew starts out with Abraham. But once you get to David, they are completely different. Neither one of them has anything like 240 generations. I think Luke's longer one is something like 77, so they presumably lived longer back then (hence the expression "old as Moses"), but I don't know how they calculate it to get 5,000, or 6,000 or any ridiculous number like that.
Anyway, it's literally impossible to believe that "everything stated in the bible is literally true," because some things it states are directly contradicted by other things it states. This is but one example.
Someone came up with an online Bible quiz where there were two answers to choose from for each question. They rigged it so that no matter what answer was chosen, it was wrong, as shown by citing a Bible verse that supported the other answer.
Not strange. The bible is a collection of literary sources, that often don't agree with each other. Some stories were written long after the facts occurred.
It already starts at the beginning where we find two differing creation stories.
Old as Methuselah who was over 900 years old. So a generation might be 1000 years instead of 25. “But do not forget this one thing, dear friends: With the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day.” So a generation isn’t just 40 times longer than 25 years. Each one of those generations in god time is 1000 years per day, which means it’s 14,600,000 years for each generation. And that’s not even accounting for dog years, which we know adds another factor of 7 and because translation errors are known to have frequently occurred with scribes, who knows if dog years and god years got mixed up, which means we are now at 102 billion years. Rough estimate.
Makes you want to argue that according to scripture, the world is 97.65499264 years old. And anyone who disagrees hates God, is a communist, and is unpatriotic.
Bishop Ussher had this figured out centuries ago. He had it down to an exact date with Creation starting the evening before October 23, 4004 BC. 6000 years, but not 5000. Like the date of the "Flood", all those fuzzy math dates depend on whether you trust the ages of the patriarchs in all those "begats".
"And dinosaur bones were placed in the earth by Satan, to test the faith of believers..."
US Evangelicals--never more than 20-25% of the population--have been fighting hard to turn us into an Iran-style Theocracy since the days of Thomas Jefferson. Under Trump, they just might succeed.
If the Bible were to record all the "begats" back a million years or so, it would be extraordinarily unwieldy as a book. So we're left with the abridged version, out of sheer practicality.
And there lurks the answer. Voltaire said "Those who can make you believe absurdities, can make you commit atrocities." There is a fine line between the thinking of religious fundamentalists and those susceptible to political propaganda. They are told what to think and that is what they spew back.
Well, God created Earth with dinosaur fossils already, just to make life interesting and give us something to talk about... There weren’t ever actually any real living dinosaurs. That’s just a liberal myth!
I've told some YECreationists that I worked for the Fossil Fabrication Project (Igneous Timestamp Division). Sometimes all you have to do to get them to shut up is support them to an absurd degree.
Right, but unfortunately that 19% have been empowered by Republicans to decide our elections. That's why the GOP and Fox News do what they do. They know as long as those 19% are kept in a constant state of delusion, the right-wing corporate elite will remain in power by rigging our elections around that 19%.
No one is letting them do it, they are doing it with the support of a corrupted Supreme Court. Turns out a tiny percentage of rich people can do things millions of voters can't do by corrupting the system with money. It's how countries get dictatorships in the first place. But you know this already.
Sorry but if 81% of the people are being overruled by 19%, the 81% are letting the 19% do it. Albania, Algeria, Argentina (2x), Brazil (3x), Bulgaria, Chile (2x), Croatia, Czechoslovakia, Eucador, East Germany, Egypt, El Salvador, Estonia, Georgia, Greece, Guatemala (2x), Hungary (2x), India, Ireland, Kyrgyzstan, Latvia, Lebanon, Lithuania, the Phillipines, Poland (2x), Romania, Russia (2x), Serbia, South Afuca, South Korea (2x), Tunisia, Uruguay, Ukraine (2x), Zimbabwe (2x), colony after colony in Asia and sub-Saharan Africa, *and more,* have all overthrown regimes at least as authoritarian as the one we're living under now, in many cases non-violently, a practice begun by guess who--the United States of America.
As for the specific bogeyman you cite, the Supreme Court, the Constitution gives Congress the explicit right to regulate the structure and jurisdiction of that body, whether Alito likes it or not, and as with the regulation of federal elections, gives the executive no role except the right to nominate judges, meaning Trump has no veto authority to block it. And until recently, this is an authority Congress used routinely, and at times brutally. Eg, after the Civil War, Congress took away the Court's authority to decide voting rights cases after the Court tried to gut the Emancipation Amendments, whose literal text actually provides *much* stronger protections than the Voting Rights Act. Between 1970 and 2001, Congress overruled Court decisions more than 250 times. People say FDR's court-packing "scheme" failed? An authoritarian myth--it succeeded wildly; the mere threat of it caused the Court to back down from striking down the entire New Deal, and FDR didn't have 81% of the people behind him.
In any case, money would be much less of an issue (if an issue at all) if Democrats entered the 21st century, took all the money they're blowing on TV ads that convince nobody and nobody watches (which they do because the consultants get a cut of every buy) and put that money into new media in general (where the GOP has been kicking their a**es in a medium the D's invented--you can't make this stuff up) and online community-building in particular (where the GOP is too hierarchical to ever really be able to compete). Nobody can dominate the Net with money as long as ISPs are prohibited from throttling content they don't like, which is why Net neutrality must be restored as the law of the land, but even if not, the Net is too big and its barriers to entry are too low for the oligarchs to ever fully control it--unless we let them. Even as it is, there are already dozens, if not hundreds, of elected officials who could never have come to power before the Internet era.
That the dinosaurs didn't exist as well. God only put their bones in the ground to test our faith. I actually went to high school with a girl that believed that. Religion is the worst thing man ever invented.
It's also an excuse to not care about things. Talking to my aunt once about global warming. Her response was "God will take care of it." Oh God will take care of it. So I don't have to do a thing. Because God has it.
The scarier belief is not to do with how old the earth is, but when it's coming to an end. According to the fundamentalist eschatologists, the answer is: imminently. And apparently that's a good thing. Terrifyingly, one of the leading proponents of this viewpoint is our Secretary of Defense (excuse me, Secretary of War!), who thinks God wanted Trump to start this war in order to hasten the Apocalypse (which, again, is a good thing). The minions who have managed to survive Hegseth's Stalinist purges of the military brass echo these sentiments. These are the people who control the largest arsenal on earth. Forgive me, but God help us all.
Because they believe those views from space have been faked. There was even a movie in the '70s showing how the moon landing was supposedly faked. O.J. Simpson starred. Plot - The studio was in the middle of the American desert. The telemetry failed, so supposedly the astronauts all died. The "astronauts" concluded that the establishment would cover things up by having them killed and walked out through the desert. Big final scene when they crashed their memorial service in D.C..
Before the 2024 election, I listened to people around me (tennessee) say how awful the economy was. While we were riding side by sides - essentially very expensive toys. I asked who is it bad for? Never got an answer 😕
"Listen, the public is not hallucinating the economy."
The thing is, they kind of pretty much were during the late Biden years. For the first time in ages, the median earner was making significant increases in earning power, there was basically zero unemployment, we were in a very significant boom that showed no signs of being a bubble. (The AI industry is waaaay too small to have been a significant part of that, even today.)
And like 2/3 of the country thought we were in a RECESSION. Where we were was pretty much the exact opposite of a recession.
The public's perception has simply come completely unglued from actual reality. We can debate whether this is accidental or the result of intentional informational sabotage, which is one of the few things that AIs really are amazingly good at, but we can no longer depend on public perception of the economy, or, well, of reality, to guide their political decisions. And that's a very dangerous spot to be in.
Why are hacks like Hassett being sent out on Republican media to be cheery about the economy?
Because Trump's biggest problem is that the Democrats might retake the House in November. That means he will be impeached, after a year of loud hearings on all kinds of corruption, including the Epstein files.
To make it worse, Trump "got himself in a terrible jam, way down yonder in that Iran." Because you can't guarantee that Iran will not develop nuclear weapons, without a regime change. And you can't have a regime change without a massive US ground invasion.
(Which everybody already knew, going back to Obama. That's why Obama made the deal he did. Maybe the only way to deal with Iran is to kick the can down the road with multiple unsatisfactory agreements for 100 years, or until the regime falls internally?)
Now Trump's biggest problem is that he's only got five months to get Independent voters to vote Republican again.
So he is massaging the "Iran & the economy" issue daily: by these frequent, phony "We have a deal"--"No, we don't have a deal" cycles, which have repeated over a dozen times in the past months. And by sending out his talking heads from the Administration.
He's trying to keep oil prices from exploding further, and trying to avoid a financial market panic, while he avoids a massive ground invasion, at least until after the midterms.
You had me right up until "God Help Us". It's a meme, right? If you were dyslexic, it would read Dog help us, right? Oh, and just who is doing the projection? I am a little uncertain about who is doing that.That word is so essential to what we humans do. I'm guilty of doing that now and again and I think it is part of how we sometimes engage others in communication, how we erroneously believe and try to influence others to see our point of view ...part of how character disordered we all can be. So, up until recently, I have been ending my concerned commentary by writing "What are we gonna do now?" Now others are expressing an idea that it is never going to back the "way it was". What in hell does that entail? New constitution? New economic and monetary system? New integrity standards for justices, for elected officials? And that oath we all have to take to become part of constitutional responsibility? An Oath!? A little pretentious, isn't it?What the hell does that mean anyway? The same with marriage vows. I think the Founders, Jefferson actually, thought that to participate in our democratically elected system, you have to be a "Virtuous Man", otherwise, it was all going to go sideways. We have vacuous, vapid, empty shirts controlling our country and the leader is a snake oil salesman, a grifter, a human pustule.
Just more spin from another Gaslighter-In-Chief mouthpiece. Thanks to his deranged war with Iran, prices on practically everything are going up and choking the global economy.
Those who voted for this guy have no right to complain when they fill up their tanks but cogitate on how their dear leader did this to them.
Approximately 20% of the US adult population is MAGA - impervious to reason and blindly loyal to Trump. When about a fifth of the voting population is irrational, it is not hard to conclude that we are a democrazy, not a democracy.
Trump promising on truth social one thousand times from 2022-2025 that he’d release the Epstein files if elected President again, only to fight like a tiger to prevent any release of anything, culminating in pedo47 calling Epstein’s crimes a “democrat hoax” or a “antifa hoax” or a “woke hoax” or whatever
-then-
His MAGA cult pretends that Epstein pedo-trafficking crimes are supposedly a “hoax “ now!
I’ll add my own “look”. This economy isn’t new. The issues facing people today have been around since Reagan took office. When my kids were small in the early 90s, we figured a second income of at least $50k (in 1992 dollars) was required to afford child care and actually benefit from having the job. The house I bought in 1989 was five times my salary, which was typical then. My dad bought a house for 1.5 times his salary. I was also paying my own tuition, contributing to my own retirement (401(k) v pension plan), and paying out of pocket for health care. The same problems we hear about today. Yes, it’s worse today, but the economy didn’t change overnight. It took 40 years of Republican policy (lower taxes, trickle-down economics) to screw things up. We can solve all of this, just not all at once. The biggest hurdle is removing the influence of those who profit from the way things are. We know who they are. Let’s get after them.
The weird thing is that there is a case to be made for thinking consumer sentiment is out of line with what has happened in the economy during Trump II. Since January 20, 2025, the economy has performed fairly well. Monthly unemployment rates have been at or below 4.5%. Prime age labor participation rates have been well above 80%. Real disposable income is higher than when Trump took office. The stock markets have hit record high after record high. And all of this despite the demonstrable fact that Trump and his GOP lickspittles’ economic policies - tariffs, rich man's tax cuts, DOGE and the like - should have sent the economy crashing, or at least given it a good, solid kick in the pants.
So what gives? The numbers overall have been pretty good. and the most recent ones haven’t been bad enough to justify record low levels of consumer confidence. But people are still very bummed out about the economy, myself included. I look at Trump's policies and say wow, the world is coming to an end and I better get ready for it. Then I read the latest economic reports - at least until the last couple on inflation - and say wow, the stock markets up and people are still employed and spending despite all the horrible stupid things Trump's done and plans to do.
As Yul Brenner said in the King and I, tis a puzzlement.
Hassett will have to go down in history as the most clownish CEA chair ever. I will be very interested to see what kind of career he has post-Trump. If there's any justice in this world, he'll finish out his days picking up dog-ends in the public parks and living under a bridge.
But I'm sure the economy will get better! Right after the Iran war ends, which should be any minute now. And just as soon as we invade Cuba, which we'll be doing soon and for no particular reason that makes any sense. But first, there's the UFC Spectacle on the White House lawn, featuring a wide array of entertainers who are not appearing despite their acts being headlined on the posters!
Ayn Rand formed a cult centered around herself, and she never let go of her objectivist (hyper selfish glibertarian) fantasies even as she received Social Security and Medicare under the name Ann O’Connor.
I know. We all hear about atheistic Communism, but Rand hated Communism and left Russia as she had seen her father’s pharmacy confiscated by the Communist government after the November 1917 coup by the Bolshevik Party. Unfortunately, she developed Objectivism, which was as selfish as Communism actually was in practice. Rand was the heroine of her own story, and she sometimes kicked the most loyal followers of her cult out of her Objectivist circle.
Hassett strikes me as being as delusional as Stephen Moore of the Club for Growth. Both men look not at economic reality, but at what they would like to see. People like that eventually find reality colliding with their fantasies.
Men who stand in the highest ranks of society seldom hear of their faults; if by any accident an opprobrious clamour reaches their ears, flattery is always at hand to pour in her opiates, to quiet conviction and obtund remorse. Samuel Johnson
And after hearing the young child blurt out "Why, he's wearing nothing at all!" the good and wholesome people of the town fell upon the lad, tearing him limb from limb, and proceeding to parade his head upon a pike throughout the entire village as a warning lest anyone ever again be tempted to call out their willing acceptance of lies.
He and his fellow billionaires are also buying up properties in Honduras so they can have their own special kingdom where they take over the country and they make all the laws and rule by fiat.
Invading Cuba makes sense because Iran is getting stale. The news cycle isn't responding to the peace is at hand, we're bombing Iran, we're going to bomb Iran, peace is a week away.
Trump sees Cuba as an easy win. It will make his rich Cuban friends happy. Maybe if we're invading Cuba, we can slink away from Iran.
Your justice for Hassett sounds solid to me. I’m afraid that I am beginning to fantasize about more drastic and permanent solutions for the whole lot of them.
That song was the first thing that came to mind upon reading the words "dog-ends".
The video was kind of depressing though. Imagine to keep flogging a song you wrote fifty years ago because you didn't produce anything noteworthy since then.
Also interesting that the visuals did not really mirror the lyrics, and especially not the reference to pedophilia.
I strongly disagree about Ian not producing anything noteworthy. I have every Tull album; I particularly like the Heavy Horses album, but Broadsword and the Beast is also great.
Looking at this guy, I can't help but think how many stupid people must have given him their money in anticipation of getting something in return. I'll never understand how he got rich.
Fox News has to be to challenged directly at this point for their lies. Their death grip on their MAGA followers through their hate mis/disinformation campaigns towards “blue” states and Democrats should be attacked as “UnAmerican”. We are NOT 2 countries - Republican and Democrat. This is a false narrative that the Murdoch’s have pushed because Rupert Murdoch’s favorite color is green. The Murdoch’s don’t give a Damn about democracy!!! They are just manipulating the American people to make more money. I just listened to the most insane propaganda from an otherwise financially savvy person who was spewing pure 🦊 BS. It was designed to pit one American against another. Blaming one media outlet or another against the 🦊 narrative. I don’t even follow one of the media outlets anymore.
The enemy of America of our Democracy is right there in front of us and it is called Fox “News” or Fox “Media”. If we want to save our country then attack the true enemy from within.
There is nothing that the Trump Administration is doing that is fiscally responsible. They are wasting our taxpayer dollars. Our economy, our standing in the world and our future is threatened and Fox News is spewing Propaganda - they are the Enemy, Fox News is the “thief” described in John 10.
God Hates Liars!
God told people Not to use His Name in vain - yet every time Fox News invokes the Lord’s name and attaches it to one of their lies - that is exactly what they are doing.
Golden Statues of their False Prophet are accepted but to anyone who question the brutal treatment of immigrants - as the Egyptians brutalized the Hebrew slaves - Fox News shames them and screams “AOC”, “California” like stating the Truth is a bad thing.
It’s time for America to pull itself out of this “muck and mire”, cast Fox News into the pit where liars belong and remember Who and What America represents - We Are Still that Shining City on the Hill.
We didn’t need some orange faced lying carnival barker, working for the enemy to tell us we were great. He was working for the Deceiver.
Much more deranged are Republicans in congress and in public office around the country who have let Trump go unopposed since the beginning. The few pushbacks by Republicans in congress are feeble, few and far between. These enablers are more to blame than T who is certifiably deranged, delusional and without ANY morals. Anyone who supports him needs to read the Sermon on the Mount and scratch out qualities that T does NOT reflect. He gets a zero.
No doubt Republicans supported by T are being rewarded with more than support in the primaries. Their stock portfolios should be published. I bet most are guilty of insider trading. Why not, the country is falling apart… why not get what I can..as much as I can..when I can and however I can. The mantra of our elected Republicans. They are traitors.
That "wide array of entertainers" looked like a Trump-Epstein party playlist to me. Such a disappointment they couldn't make it to Trumps 80'th birthday bash. I guess he will just have to be entertained by smacking his blue hands on some big sweaty muscular man legs, and swoon about what specimens they are. At least no young ladies will be harmed.
Seriously: there is only one group of Americans who have a derangement syndrome and that is the remaining card carrying MAGAs.
They are cheering on the arsonist who is burning down their house whilst screaming at the firefighters that they have TDS and should pack up their hoses.
He used to read a poem called "The Snake" in his rallies. A lady rescues a snake who kills her in the end and says "you knew I was a snake when you took me in." He was warning his people.
Talarico said that God is nonbinary, as in across the spectrum, not limited to male or female. That’s what I took him to mean. I wonder how his statement would have been taken if he hadn’t been responding to a question about people who are transgender? I thought the days were gone where God was depicted and believed to be a gray-haired man in the sky.
The most distressing thing I've learned during the Trump years is how many of my fellow Americans are so terrible. I was raised to think Americans were a good people, but Trump has exposed how many millions of them are not.
I had a clear warning in the 1980s (clear now, in retrospect):
My roommate and I used to get stoned and watch Jimmy Swaggart giving his histrionic televangelist rants, laughing uncontrollably.. until the time we saw him doing his thing - at the Houston Astrodome - the camera panned the enormous crown of adoring followers.. and we stopped laughing. We never amused our selves with Jimmy again.
I wrote it off as a shocking - but small - southern evangelical idiotic lunatic fringe.
Yes it is a part of our country. Some decades they hide under the rocks it seems. The bad behavior that came to the fore after v1.0 is appalling. The permission to be a loud screaming lunatic is approved….
The US regime seems to be of a different opinion as they shout it is the American way. That’s what they’ve been telling basically the entire world, except for some authoritarian nations that are now called friends…
Unfortunately tRump has exposed what kind of people we really are. I cringe every time, following some outrage, we hear politicians pronounce “we are better than that” or “that is not who we are”. Fact is we are not better and unfortunately it is exactly who we are. We have voted for it twice in the face of overwhelming evidence of who and what tRump and his minions are.
Here's the thing: the Republican base was like that well before Donald Trump came down the golden escalator in 2015. They've been fed a steady dose of hate and lies going back decades from people like Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, Fox News and a whole host of extreme right-wing websites such as Breitbart.
It doesn't matter much. If 81% believe the economy is bad, their behaviour will reflect it, and the economy will keep on deteriorating, as it has; and Repubs will keep on denying it, which they have. Still, what do I know? I am fully chastened today. The US News and Business Report (the 'US' gives the game away) yesterday ranked Canada below the US overall and below the US in 'Governance'. The US is No. 1 in Culture (I guess the fight ring on the WH lawn and the marquee of singers for the US state fair on the mall) pushed you over the top). But Governance?! We don't have ICE murdering citizens; we have a government that believes in science and vacccinations; our universities still function well; etc.; govt ministers and our prime minister aren't making fortunes by corruption; our Supreme Court is respected; we haven't started any war; and we don't have an imbecilic, venal felon as our president who has started wars. But I am fully ashamed. I hadn't realized that all this time we should not have been castigating you, but emulating you. We'll do better.
If you include being able to negotiate a trade agreement on MAGA terms as a criteria for assessing Canadian governance, then, yes, Canada ranks low. Canadian voters choose the government (not the other way round), Canadian voters don't trust the Trump administration to respect any agreement they negotiate (For the unreasonable reason that they haven't respected any agreements, even agreements Trump himself negotiated) and so won't let their governments make any concessions... even little ones. Very frustrating.
You know those MAGATs will believe everything you just said. Sarcasm is the humour that a large swath of Adult Americans don't understand. Exhibit A: Stephen Colbert. A sketch comedy show like "This Hour Has 22 Minutes" wouldn't survive in the US cuz too many snowflakes ❄️ would complain loudly about how their wittle feelings are being hurt. 🐊💧🤣🤣🤣
I remember reading that when Colbert was doing his satirical "Colbert Report,," a huge number of Republicans believed that he was actually conservative. That's probably what got him invited to do the 2006 Correspondent's Dinner monologue. Whoops!
LOL. Love your sense of humor TJ. I have so much respect for your PM, Mark Carney. I wish he were our president OR that I were Canadian at this point. I'm so ashamed of our country and its behavior. There are many of us who didn't vote for this cruel regime and are truly sorry for how we've negatively affected Canada and actually the rest of the world. We have become the "Ugly American" once again. I hope we can learn from more mature and evolved countries such as Canada and remember our lost moral values so that we will make different choices. There really are many of us who are honestly making that effort. Please don't give up on us. I have to hope we'll all wake up in time down here in the U.S.
I took a look at "The US News and Business Report" methodology for ranking countries (https://www.usnews.com/news/best-countries/articles/methodology). They seem to give points for just being a big country (total # of this and that) and so looks sophisticated but ranks the US higher than strictly per capita measures would warrant.
I couldn't understand the methodology, and dang if I was going to pay to do it. But I gathered as much. I know I'm biased, but I thought that there was no metric (okay maybe culture if you only include the influence of Hollywood) by which the US was ahead of Canada.
Actually, the Gripen deal is still in the rumor stage and probably will be until the U.S.M.C.A. is renegotiated. NATO is replacing existing Boeing early warning radar aircraft with a Canadian plane, equipped with a European radar system. As for the Board of Peace, two countries paid about a million each to be founding members, but nobody paid full membership. The board's bank account balance is basically zero.
No one has paid into the fund set up to receive the $ - but we have no way, of course, of knowing whether some of that $ has been paid, for example, into a Trump account. And we'll probably never know.
The derangement syndrome clearly lies in the minds of the deranged.
Is it deranged that a failed casino developer could oversee the United States government?
Is it deranged to make monthly donations to a convicted fraudster?
Is it deranged to hand over your sensibility, judgment and power to an increasingly demented felon?
Is it deranged to believe for the umpteenth time that the United States is once again on the cusp of peace in the Middle East, that Iran has lost the Straits of Hormuz war and that the U.S.A. has ended nearly a dozen wars where shots are still being fired?
If you answered no to any of these questions, then you, too, have Trump Derangement Syndrome.
It's just like watching a slow-motion rerun of those classic corporate cult documentaries where everyone happily drinks the kool-aid while the ship is actively sinking. Do y'all think this level of mass cognitive dissonance has any historical precedent that ended peacefully?
Thank you for the article, Professor. Trump has derangement syndrome, in public places are his pictures and now he wants to be on a 250 dollar bill. I never knew if that denomination existed. Something is really wrong with him.
There isn't a $250 bill. The significance of creating one is that this is the 250th anniversary of the United States. If it comes to fruition, I think it will die the death of the Sacagawea Dollar.
Yes ISO! Paul does make it interesting because he makes his data, charts and analysis easy to understand for those of us who are not educated in that field at all. I too am now really interested in economics for the first time in my life thanks to our brilliant Professor Krugman who is such an outstanding teacher. I am really grateful.
Oh, thanks ISO for reminding me that Professor Robin Wells also contributes to Paul's posts and that it is a combined effort! Thus, I'm thankful for BOTH of them!
ISO...I somehow intuitively think there's a high probability that they're all ready "taking their show on the road" but sadly, it's in Europe--not here. Perhaps they're trying to educate Europeans about the whole truth about our dismal situation here in order to elicit help from abroad since we've succeeded in alienating most of our ex-allies AND we've never needed so much outside help as now because help is sure not coming from within!
Yes. Loved his choice of Patsy Cline. Wonderful Musical Coda. And great memories of a bygone era. Those of us who were young then also remember every single word of that song and many others. It was a much slower way of living and the songs were sung more slowly so the words were easily understood. I loved those "Happy Days"...wish they were Here Again. Thanks Jean and to Paul for choosing this song.
It’s the sent by God belief that is the weirdest thing. I ran through several AI models the following question: Jesus Christ is associated with certain core attributes and values, does Donald Trump align with these or the exact opposite. As you might expect, the exact opposite. So these bible reading experts on the life of Christ truly think Trump, who represents the precise opposite of core Christian values, was sent by God?
When you are fed a 24/7/365 load of propaganda from the only "news" outlets you watch or listen to you end up with a very distorted view of reality. And when you only absorb information from people who constantly lie to you to glorify your Orange God-King, you are both delusional and deranged. When Trump is gone what remains of his MAGAs must be driven from polite society once and for all. And his enablers in Congress, the media (looking at you corporate clowns) and the rest of the political establishment must be exiled to the functional equivalent of St. Helena, never to be heard from again.
That 24/7 echo chamber has completely rewired people's brains to the point where they'll happily destroy their own communities just to keep protecting the billionaires lying to them. What's your take on whether the corporate media clowns will ever face any real accountability once this entire house of cards collapses?
All they care about is ratings, especially in the 18 - 54 demographic. CBS has long catered to an older crowd which will, sooner or later die off. No one else is watching. ABC is owned by Disney, should people start staying away, that may wise them up. NBC may never change which, I think, is why they set up MSNOW as the alternative for the libs (absent the odious Scarborough of course). But as more and more cut the cord, and more and more walk away from Paramount and the other billionaire channels, things may eventually change. I also think that the Washington Post will eventually lose so many readers that Bezos will sell and walk away. For now he's likely using it as a tax write off against his other businesses.
Spot on, your breakdown of the corporate money trail is incredibly sharp. But the deepest reality here is that these billionaires never actually expected these networks to make money from ratings, and the tax write offs are just a tiny bonus. In their world, media is the ultimate cognitive infrastructure, which means losing millions on a news outlet is a drop in the bucket compared to the billions they protective-lock in other industries by systemically manufacturing public consent and rigged legislation. Dropping the cable cord doesn't hurt them because they aren't selling news, they're buying behavioral control. I'm gonna slide into your DMs in a bit to share some more thoughts on how this exact leverage loop actually runs behind closed doors
MAGA has become a cult: escaping a cult is hard, admitting you were brainwashed in the cult - even harder still. Interesting though to watch that the cult crowd is shrinking though as it creates an emotional ramp for those needing a nudge.
Think the hardest part of this political moment, MAGA, is realizing how many people around me aren't confused or uninformed. They're just pure cruel and evil. Not ignorant. Not misled. Not misinformed. Just openly, comfortably taking pleasure in the suffering of other human beings. Not giving one iota to the suffering that they are inflicting upon this planet or any other country all around the globe. What Trump has taught Americans is that cruelty is strength, that resentment is identity, and that hating other people somehow makes you superior. He has created a permission structure for people to be their worst selves. It’s never about this “TDS” that all these MAGAites go on about. It’s just another deflection and the “D” in their call out to others that don’t agree is not for “Derangement” against him it’s because those of us are not as “Devoted” to him as they are.. All “fake-idols” fall..
LBJ explained this phenomena the best: “If you can convince the lowest white man he's better than the best colored man, he won't notice you're picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he'll empty his pockets for you.”
This right here’s where “derangement” becomes projection.
Listen, the public is not hallucinating the economy. People are looking at rent, groceries, insurance, gas, and disposable income. The small faction still calling this a good economy is not making an economic judgment. It is making a loyalty declaration.
The striking thing here in those charts is that non-MAGA Republicans are clustered with everyone else. So the divide is not really left versus right. It is reality versus regime attachment.
Once the leader becomes the measure of truth, bad numbers are treated as insults instead of information.
The receipt becomes treason. God help us.
"The 19 percent of Americans who support MAGA, many of whom literally believe that Trump was sent by God, say that the economy is good."
They also believe the Earth is 6,000 years old.
My born-again in-laws in Ohio believe the Earth is even younger than that— 5,000 years old!🙈
I think their method is to add up all the listed begettings in the "Old Testament", multiply by 25 years (one generation) and bingo! you get 6,000. This requires the belief that everything stated in the Bible is literally true, so presumably there are 240 begettings listed. So either the 6,000 year believers have got their numbers of begettings wrong or your in-laws have. They can't both be right. I wonder if they fight over it.
Almost like...
They're both wrong
💯
It’s just simply 🍌🍌🍌
I think it's just pure 🐂💩.
It is BS, but as Violet says, it's also batshit crazy, i.e., bananas.
It's even dumber than that. There are two completely separate genealogies of Jesus. Luke takes it all the way back to God, and Matthew starts out with Abraham. But once you get to David, they are completely different. Neither one of them has anything like 240 generations. I think Luke's longer one is something like 77, so they presumably lived longer back then (hence the expression "old as Moses"), but I don't know how they calculate it to get 5,000, or 6,000 or any ridiculous number like that.
Anyway, it's literally impossible to believe that "everything stated in the bible is literally true," because some things it states are directly contradicted by other things it states. This is but one example.
Someone came up with an online Bible quiz where there were two answers to choose from for each question. They rigged it so that no matter what answer was chosen, it was wrong, as shown by citing a Bible verse that supported the other answer.
Love that!
OMG that’s brilliant.
Not strange. The bible is a collection of literary sources, that often don't agree with each other. Some stories were written long after the facts occurred.
It already starts at the beginning where we find two differing creation stories.
Also He/She/They work in mysterious ways we're not capable of understanding (/s, but not /s, too)
Old as Methuselah who was over 900 years old. So a generation might be 1000 years instead of 25. “But do not forget this one thing, dear friends: With the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day.” So a generation isn’t just 40 times longer than 25 years. Each one of those generations in god time is 1000 years per day, which means it’s 14,600,000 years for each generation. And that’s not even accounting for dog years, which we know adds another factor of 7 and because translation errors are known to have frequently occurred with scribes, who knows if dog years and god years got mixed up, which means we are now at 102 billion years. Rough estimate.
Ask Bishop Usher!
In fairness, he was born in 1581. He was of the times.
Even Isaac Newton tried his hand at it.
Makes you want to argue that according to scripture, the world is 97.65499264 years old. And anyone who disagrees hates God, is a communist, and is unpatriotic.
The obvious pattern here is…..and has always been the toxic influence of wacko religious ideas that gullible people are willing to embrace.
Bishop Ussher had this figured out centuries ago. He had it down to an exact date with Creation starting the evening before October 23, 4004 BC. 6000 years, but not 5000. Like the date of the "Flood", all those fuzzy math dates depend on whether you trust the ages of the patriarchs in all those "begats".
The time of day included!
"And dinosaur bones were placed in the earth by Satan, to test the faith of believers..."
US Evangelicals--never more than 20-25% of the population--have been fighting hard to turn us into an Iran-style Theocracy since the days of Thomas Jefferson. Under Trump, they just might succeed.
If the Bible were to record all the "begats" back a million years or so, it would be extraordinarily unwieldy as a book. So we're left with the abridged version, out of sheer practicality.
And there lurks the answer. Voltaire said "Those who can make you believe absurdities, can make you commit atrocities." There is a fine line between the thinking of religious fundamentalists and those susceptible to political propaganda. They are told what to think and that is what they spew back.
And both are versions of innate tribalism, as purebloods from any ethnic group might exemplify.
Adam and Eve and the dinosaurs!!!!!
Well, God created Earth with dinosaur fossils already, just to make life interesting and give us something to talk about... There weren’t ever actually any real living dinosaurs. That’s just a liberal myth!
Ha ha, says God – the joke’s on you!
Birds aren't real!
I've told some YECreationists that I worked for the Fossil Fabrication Project (Igneous Timestamp Division). Sometimes all you have to do to get them to shut up is support them to an absurd degree.
"and I said, Dad, you're drunk. But he made it anyway."
There are actual living animals whose fossils are contemporary with the dinosaurs. Sort of messes with the "creation myths".
Bishop Ussery, 19th century English cleric, said it was so!
I watched a video yesterday of one of the Good Liars asking a woman the Earth's age and she told him, very confidently, that it's 2,000 years old.
This is the problem with home schooling.
Well for someone born yesterday that is old.
Heh, so Egyptian civilization came first, then creation?
Right, but unfortunately that 19% have been empowered by Republicans to decide our elections. That's why the GOP and Fox News do what they do. They know as long as those 19% are kept in a constant state of delusion, the right-wing corporate elite will remain in power by rigging our elections around that 19%.
The keywords there being "rigging our elections".
Don't forget the role of social media
Ahd the reason the other 81% are letting 19% + a handful of oligarchs keep doing this is ..?
No one is letting them do it, they are doing it with the support of a corrupted Supreme Court. Turns out a tiny percentage of rich people can do things millions of voters can't do by corrupting the system with money. It's how countries get dictatorships in the first place. But you know this already.
Sorry but if 81% of the people are being overruled by 19%, the 81% are letting the 19% do it. Albania, Algeria, Argentina (2x), Brazil (3x), Bulgaria, Chile (2x), Croatia, Czechoslovakia, Eucador, East Germany, Egypt, El Salvador, Estonia, Georgia, Greece, Guatemala (2x), Hungary (2x), India, Ireland, Kyrgyzstan, Latvia, Lebanon, Lithuania, the Phillipines, Poland (2x), Romania, Russia (2x), Serbia, South Afuca, South Korea (2x), Tunisia, Uruguay, Ukraine (2x), Zimbabwe (2x), colony after colony in Asia and sub-Saharan Africa, *and more,* have all overthrown regimes at least as authoritarian as the one we're living under now, in many cases non-violently, a practice begun by guess who--the United States of America.
As for the specific bogeyman you cite, the Supreme Court, the Constitution gives Congress the explicit right to regulate the structure and jurisdiction of that body, whether Alito likes it or not, and as with the regulation of federal elections, gives the executive no role except the right to nominate judges, meaning Trump has no veto authority to block it. And until recently, this is an authority Congress used routinely, and at times brutally. Eg, after the Civil War, Congress took away the Court's authority to decide voting rights cases after the Court tried to gut the Emancipation Amendments, whose literal text actually provides *much* stronger protections than the Voting Rights Act. Between 1970 and 2001, Congress overruled Court decisions more than 250 times. People say FDR's court-packing "scheme" failed? An authoritarian myth--it succeeded wildly; the mere threat of it caused the Court to back down from striking down the entire New Deal, and FDR didn't have 81% of the people behind him.
In any case, money would be much less of an issue (if an issue at all) if Democrats entered the 21st century, took all the money they're blowing on TV ads that convince nobody and nobody watches (which they do because the consultants get a cut of every buy) and put that money into new media in general (where the GOP has been kicking their a**es in a medium the D's invented--you can't make this stuff up) and online community-building in particular (where the GOP is too hierarchical to ever really be able to compete). Nobody can dominate the Net with money as long as ISPs are prohibited from throttling content they don't like, which is why Net neutrality must be restored as the law of the land, but even if not, the Net is too big and its barriers to entry are too low for the oligarchs to ever fully control it--unless we let them. Even as it is, there are already dozens, if not hundreds, of elected officials who could never have come to power before the Internet era.
That the dinosaurs didn't exist as well. God only put their bones in the ground to test our faith. I actually went to high school with a girl that believed that. Religion is the worst thing man ever invented.
In many cases, it allows people to blame someone/something other than themselves rather than taking personal responsibility for what happens in life.
It's also an excuse to not care about things. Talking to my aunt once about global warming. Her response was "God will take care of it." Oh God will take care of it. So I don't have to do a thing. Because God has it.
Right. He'll take care of it with the Rapture.
If God takes care of it, it will be after our extinction.
And flat 🤦
Ah! You beat me to it! 😂
I'd like to ask them about the economy after they fill their truck up with gas
Oh the economy is doin' great!
Well, it certainly is - if your name is Elon Mu卐kRat or Bozo Bezos or Zuck or Marc Andreessen or Peter Thiel or Rupert or Lachlan Murdoch or ...
The scarier belief is not to do with how old the earth is, but when it's coming to an end. According to the fundamentalist eschatologists, the answer is: imminently. And apparently that's a good thing. Terrifyingly, one of the leading proponents of this viewpoint is our Secretary of Defense (excuse me, Secretary of War!), who thinks God wanted Trump to start this war in order to hasten the Apocalypse (which, again, is a good thing). The minions who have managed to survive Hegseth's Stalinist purges of the military brass echo these sentiments. These are the people who control the largest arsenal on earth. Forgive me, but God help us all.
Many have anticipated the imminent "End Times" for 2000 years running. One day they will be right, but probably not the way they expect.
Many people have anticipated it before. The big difference is that these people have the means to bring it about.
A lot of them also believe the earth is flat. (How they reconcile that with views from space, even "god" does not know.)
I saw a picture of the Flat Earth Society's website which claims it has "many members around the globe".
Now THAT'S funny! 🤣
I thought they were a joke.
Because they believe those views from space have been faked. There was even a movie in the '70s showing how the moon landing was supposedly faked. O.J. Simpson starred. Plot - The studio was in the middle of the American desert. The telemetry failed, so supposedly the astronauts all died. The "astronauts" concluded that the establishment would cover things up by having them killed and walked out through the desert. Big final scene when they crashed their memorial service in D.C..
And the Earth is flat.
They also believe in a god who is all powerful , all knowing and all loving who is solidly on their side. Now that’s crazy.
And/or flat!
No one will ever accuse MAGAS of being smart
Extremely correct
Let that line hang there for a moment, “insults instead of information,”
this is how a koolaid drinking cult functions
The difference b/t Jim Jones' cult and Donald Trump's cult is that Trump would charge you for the Kool-Aide.
and the MAGA crowd would pay for it.
Touche!
Exactly! Ripe grounds for psychological and sociological researchers…if they can find the funding…
Before the 2024 election, I listened to people around me (tennessee) say how awful the economy was. While we were riding side by sides - essentially very expensive toys. I asked who is it bad for? Never got an answer 😕
"Listen, the public is not hallucinating the economy."
The thing is, they kind of pretty much were during the late Biden years. For the first time in ages, the median earner was making significant increases in earning power, there was basically zero unemployment, we were in a very significant boom that showed no signs of being a bubble. (The AI industry is waaaay too small to have been a significant part of that, even today.)
And like 2/3 of the country thought we were in a RECESSION. Where we were was pretty much the exact opposite of a recession.
The public's perception has simply come completely unglued from actual reality. We can debate whether this is accidental or the result of intentional informational sabotage, which is one of the few things that AIs really are amazingly good at, but we can no longer depend on public perception of the economy, or, well, of reality, to guide their political decisions. And that's a very dangerous spot to be in.
Why are hacks like Hassett being sent out on Republican media to be cheery about the economy?
Because Trump's biggest problem is that the Democrats might retake the House in November. That means he will be impeached, after a year of loud hearings on all kinds of corruption, including the Epstein files.
To make it worse, Trump "got himself in a terrible jam, way down yonder in that Iran." Because you can't guarantee that Iran will not develop nuclear weapons, without a regime change. And you can't have a regime change without a massive US ground invasion.
(Which everybody already knew, going back to Obama. That's why Obama made the deal he did. Maybe the only way to deal with Iran is to kick the can down the road with multiple unsatisfactory agreements for 100 years, or until the regime falls internally?)
Now Trump's biggest problem is that he's only got five months to get Independent voters to vote Republican again.
So he is massaging the "Iran & the economy" issue daily: by these frequent, phony "We have a deal"--"No, we don't have a deal" cycles, which have repeated over a dozen times in the past months. And by sending out his talking heads from the Administration.
He's trying to keep oil prices from exploding further, and trying to avoid a financial market panic, while he avoids a massive ground invasion, at least until after the midterms.
He is also manipulating the stock market.
You had me right up until "God Help Us". It's a meme, right? If you were dyslexic, it would read Dog help us, right? Oh, and just who is doing the projection? I am a little uncertain about who is doing that.That word is so essential to what we humans do. I'm guilty of doing that now and again and I think it is part of how we sometimes engage others in communication, how we erroneously believe and try to influence others to see our point of view ...part of how character disordered we all can be. So, up until recently, I have been ending my concerned commentary by writing "What are we gonna do now?" Now others are expressing an idea that it is never going to back the "way it was". What in hell does that entail? New constitution? New economic and monetary system? New integrity standards for justices, for elected officials? And that oath we all have to take to become part of constitutional responsibility? An Oath!? A little pretentious, isn't it?What the hell does that mean anyway? The same with marriage vows. I think the Founders, Jefferson actually, thought that to participate in our democratically elected system, you have to be a "Virtuous Man", otherwise, it was all going to go sideways. We have vacuous, vapid, empty shirts controlling our country and the leader is a snake oil salesman, a grifter, a human pustule.
Just more spin from another Gaslighter-In-Chief mouthpiece. Thanks to his deranged war with Iran, prices on practically everything are going up and choking the global economy.
Those who voted for this guy have no right to complain when they fill up their tanks but cogitate on how their dear leader did this to them.
New rule (or a corollary to a very old one, ie "he who smelt it, dealt it"): Anyone who says "TDS" or "Trump Derangement Syndrome" has it.
Any accusation maga makes is projection.
Approximately 20% of the US adult population is MAGA - impervious to reason and blindly loyal to Trump. When about a fifth of the voting population is irrational, it is not hard to conclude that we are a democrazy, not a democracy.
TDS
Trump Dishonour Syndrome
-or-
Trump promising on truth social one thousand times from 2022-2025 that he’d release the Epstein files if elected President again, only to fight like a tiger to prevent any release of anything, culminating in pedo47 calling Epstein’s crimes a “democrat hoax” or a “antifa hoax” or a “woke hoax” or whatever
-then-
His MAGA cult pretends that Epstein pedo-trafficking crimes are supposedly a “hoax “ now!
I’ll add my own “look”. This economy isn’t new. The issues facing people today have been around since Reagan took office. When my kids were small in the early 90s, we figured a second income of at least $50k (in 1992 dollars) was required to afford child care and actually benefit from having the job. The house I bought in 1989 was five times my salary, which was typical then. My dad bought a house for 1.5 times his salary. I was also paying my own tuition, contributing to my own retirement (401(k) v pension plan), and paying out of pocket for health care. The same problems we hear about today. Yes, it’s worse today, but the economy didn’t change overnight. It took 40 years of Republican policy (lower taxes, trickle-down economics) to screw things up. We can solve all of this, just not all at once. The biggest hurdle is removing the influence of those who profit from the way things are. We know who they are. Let’s get after them.
The weird thing is that there is a case to be made for thinking consumer sentiment is out of line with what has happened in the economy during Trump II. Since January 20, 2025, the economy has performed fairly well. Monthly unemployment rates have been at or below 4.5%. Prime age labor participation rates have been well above 80%. Real disposable income is higher than when Trump took office. The stock markets have hit record high after record high. And all of this despite the demonstrable fact that Trump and his GOP lickspittles’ economic policies - tariffs, rich man's tax cuts, DOGE and the like - should have sent the economy crashing, or at least given it a good, solid kick in the pants.
So what gives? The numbers overall have been pretty good. and the most recent ones haven’t been bad enough to justify record low levels of consumer confidence. But people are still very bummed out about the economy, myself included. I look at Trump's policies and say wow, the world is coming to an end and I better get ready for it. Then I read the latest economic reports - at least until the last couple on inflation - and say wow, the stock markets up and people are still employed and spending despite all the horrible stupid things Trump's done and plans to do.
As Yul Brenner said in the King and I, tis a puzzlement.
Hassett will have to go down in history as the most clownish CEA chair ever. I will be very interested to see what kind of career he has post-Trump. If there's any justice in this world, he'll finish out his days picking up dog-ends in the public parks and living under a bridge.
But I'm sure the economy will get better! Right after the Iran war ends, which should be any minute now. And just as soon as we invade Cuba, which we'll be doing soon and for no particular reason that makes any sense. But first, there's the UFC Spectacle on the White House lawn, featuring a wide array of entertainers who are not appearing despite their acts being headlined on the posters!
MAGA!
Their commitment to un-reality is truly stunning
It's like religious delusions, but with out the religion part. Or the religion is some unnatural spawn of Ann Rand, Goebbels, and PT Barnum.
Religion, cult what’s the difference, all delusions.
Ayn Rand formed a cult centered around herself, and she never let go of her objectivist (hyper selfish glibertarian) fantasies even as she received Social Security and Medicare under the name Ann O’Connor.
Ayn Rand - and it's funny, b/c she was an atheist.
I know. We all hear about atheistic Communism, but Rand hated Communism and left Russia as she had seen her father’s pharmacy confiscated by the Communist government after the November 1917 coup by the Bolshevik Party. Unfortunately, she developed Objectivism, which was as selfish as Communism actually was in practice. Rand was the heroine of her own story, and she sometimes kicked the most loyal followers of her cult out of her Objectivist circle.
Yep. She was a piece of work.
It kind of has a sports feel to me. Go with the winning team. Place your bets. But then, I'm not into sports - I can't figure out the rules anyway.
Hassett strikes me as being as delusional as Stephen Moore of the Club for Growth. Both men look not at economic reality, but at what they would like to see. People like that eventually find reality colliding with their fantasies.
just telling us what he tells trump.
Men who stand in the highest ranks of society seldom hear of their faults; if by any accident an opprobrious clamour reaches their ears, flattery is always at hand to pour in her opiates, to quiet conviction and obtund remorse. Samuel Johnson
“Oh! How beautiful are the Emperor’s new clothes! How splendid his Majesty looks in them, and how well they fit!
What design! What colors! These are indeed royal robes!”
And after hearing the young child blurt out "Why, he's wearing nothing at all!" the good and wholesome people of the town fell upon the lad, tearing him limb from limb, and proceeding to parade his head upon a pike throughout the entire village as a warning lest anyone ever again be tempted to call out their willing acceptance of lies.
The kid was a guest on Fox News?
Yes, absolutely true! Trump is someone who reminds you of the lesson in the “Emperor’s New Clothes!”
"People like that eventually find reality colliding with their fantasies."
And when they do they stick with their fantasies.
if trump can indict Castro, Columbia should indict trump for bombing fishermen
Cassette will decamp to Argentina, as Sauron, aka Peter Thiel, is doing.
There is a history of Nazis relocating to Argentina.
Thiel's ring must be unmade before he decamps.
Isn't Thiel just setting up a vacation home down there? The article I read indicated that he's keeping at least two of his properties in the States.
But probably not the root of his wealth. The US becomes a « holiday destination » not the center of his production ??
He and his fellow billionaires are also buying up properties in Honduras so they can have their own special kingdom where they take over the country and they make all the laws and rule by fiat.
He is enrolling the kids in school there - so that would be a long vacation.
That should be Hassette
I like it better as Cassette. Just an old-fashioned recording of nonsense, and the tape is so ancient it will break soon.
You have a point!
Autoincorrect strikes again!!!
Which is why I never use it. I have my tools set to flag errors. Then I go over to Duck, Duck Go to figure out how to spell them correctly.
Invading Cuba makes sense because Iran is getting stale. The news cycle isn't responding to the peace is at hand, we're bombing Iran, we're going to bomb Iran, peace is a week away.
Trump sees Cuba as an easy win. It will make his rich Cuban friends happy. Maybe if we're invading Cuba, we can slink away from Iran.
TRUMP-EPSTEIN FILES he does want his name on everything
The news cycle isn't important.; what's important is that the stock market isn't responding to the hot/cold garbage from the White House.
War-Fatigue is setting in. It’s not “fresh and exciting” anymore, even to vague Trumpists.
Your justice for Hassett sounds solid to me. I’m afraid that I am beginning to fantasize about more drastic and permanent solutions for the whole lot of them.
The Ceaușescu moment?
I'd like to see him behind bars - along with the rest of the King's Klown Kar.
That'll wipe the perpetual smirk off his smug mug.
Musical Coda for your post
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N4zPu3ISCGs
Good one. I believe they are on tour in Europe these days.
That song was the first thing that came to mind upon reading the words "dog-ends".
The video was kind of depressing though. Imagine to keep flogging a song you wrote fifty years ago because you didn't produce anything noteworthy since then.
Also interesting that the visuals did not really mirror the lyrics, and especially not the reference to pedophilia.
I strongly disagree about Ian not producing anything noteworthy. I have every Tull album; I particularly like the Heavy Horses album, but Broadsword and the Beast is also great.
Passion Play or GTFO!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7YqlEjdBLvI
He should wind up like McCarthy.
I saw on the Meidas Touch today that there are still two guys planning to entertain. It'll be better than Woodstock!
I'm sure he will find work in the other delusional casino playground of wall street as Wile e coyote
It’s early. Bassett could be replaced by someone even more looney tunes.
Sadly, Hassett will do great at some “think” tank or as a commentator on right wing media. Someone will hire him. These morons always fail up.
Looking at this guy, I can't help but think how many stupid people must have given him their money in anticipation of getting something in return. I'll never understand how he got rich.
Fox News has to be to challenged directly at this point for their lies. Their death grip on their MAGA followers through their hate mis/disinformation campaigns towards “blue” states and Democrats should be attacked as “UnAmerican”. We are NOT 2 countries - Republican and Democrat. This is a false narrative that the Murdoch’s have pushed because Rupert Murdoch’s favorite color is green. The Murdoch’s don’t give a Damn about democracy!!! They are just manipulating the American people to make more money. I just listened to the most insane propaganda from an otherwise financially savvy person who was spewing pure 🦊 BS. It was designed to pit one American against another. Blaming one media outlet or another against the 🦊 narrative. I don’t even follow one of the media outlets anymore.
The enemy of America of our Democracy is right there in front of us and it is called Fox “News” or Fox “Media”. If we want to save our country then attack the true enemy from within.
There is nothing that the Trump Administration is doing that is fiscally responsible. They are wasting our taxpayer dollars. Our economy, our standing in the world and our future is threatened and Fox News is spewing Propaganda - they are the Enemy, Fox News is the “thief” described in John 10.
God Hates Liars!
God told people Not to use His Name in vain - yet every time Fox News invokes the Lord’s name and attaches it to one of their lies - that is exactly what they are doing.
Golden Statues of their False Prophet are accepted but to anyone who question the brutal treatment of immigrants - as the Egyptians brutalized the Hebrew slaves - Fox News shames them and screams “AOC”, “California” like stating the Truth is a bad thing.
It’s time for America to pull itself out of this “muck and mire”, cast Fox News into the pit where liars belong and remember Who and What America represents - We Are Still that Shining City on the Hill.
We didn’t need some orange faced lying carnival barker, working for the enemy to tell us we were great. He was working for the Deceiver.
The United States was always great.
Wipe the Mud from your eyes.
The Truth will set you free. Jesus
Much more deranged are Republicans in congress and in public office around the country who have let Trump go unopposed since the beginning. The few pushbacks by Republicans in congress are feeble, few and far between. These enablers are more to blame than T who is certifiably deranged, delusional and without ANY morals. Anyone who supports him needs to read the Sermon on the Mount and scratch out qualities that T does NOT reflect. He gets a zero.
No doubt Republicans supported by T are being rewarded with more than support in the primaries. Their stock portfolios should be published. I bet most are guilty of insider trading. Why not, the country is falling apart… why not get what I can..as much as I can..when I can and however I can. The mantra of our elected Republicans. They are traitors.
That "wide array of entertainers" looked like a Trump-Epstein party playlist to me. Such a disappointment they couldn't make it to Trumps 80'th birthday bash. I guess he will just have to be entertained by smacking his blue hands on some big sweaty muscular man legs, and swoon about what specimens they are. At least no young ladies will be harmed.
Seriously: there is only one group of Americans who have a derangement syndrome and that is the remaining card carrying MAGAs.
They are cheering on the arsonist who is burning down their house whilst screaming at the firefighters that they have TDS and should pack up their hoses.
Very spot on. I totally agree.
He used to read a poem called "The Snake" in his rallies. A lady rescues a snake who kills her in the end and says "you knew I was a snake when you took me in." He was warning his people.
TDS= Trump’s Derangement Syndrome. They can’t spell. https://www.businessinsider.com/trump-typos-spelling-tweets-unpresidented-2017-4
Well he was patient zero, hence being the namesake.
Love it! I’ll add that to my list, along with P01135809, his inmate number in Fulton County Jail (where his reported weight was 215).
I'm amused that the 3-4 people who still think Trump is awesome believe that it's everyone else who are suffering from TDS.
well said
Extremely correct 💯
Trump was sent by God, because He ran out of locust!
He?? God is transgender!
Gods that send us plagues of locusts and Donald Trumps aren't. They're of the Old Testament, avenging patriarch variety. :-)
Yup, my Passover Haggadah clearly lists the Trump family as plague number 3. (J.D. Vance is plagues 4-6).
Talarico said that God is nonbinary, as in across the spectrum, not limited to male or female. That’s what I took him to mean. I wonder how his statement would have been taken if he hadn’t been responding to a question about people who are transgender? I thought the days were gone where God was depicted and believed to be a gray-haired man in the sky.
I mean God being nonbinary is Christian doctrine, forever. Only the Mormons disagree IIRC.
Liked, by an atheist 🤣
Well, I should have said "They" - God is a Trinity, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. So "They" :)
Sorry to correct you, but they object to God being cisgender which of course means god has 6 genders.
He may well have been sent by a God, but not one which I would worship.
I like this!
The most distressing thing I've learned during the Trump years is how many of my fellow Americans are so terrible. I was raised to think Americans were a good people, but Trump has exposed how many millions of them are not.
Same here!
I had a clear warning in the 1980s (clear now, in retrospect):
My roommate and I used to get stoned and watch Jimmy Swaggart giving his histrionic televangelist rants, laughing uncontrollably.. until the time we saw him doing his thing - at the Houston Astrodome - the camera panned the enormous crown of adoring followers.. and we stopped laughing. We never amused our selves with Jimmy again.
I wrote it off as a shocking - but small - southern evangelical idiotic lunatic fringe.
Trump *proved* that assumption wrong...
Yes it is a part of our country. Some decades they hide under the rocks it seems. The bad behavior that came to the fore after v1.0 is appalling. The permission to be a loud screaming lunatic is approved….
Televangelist philosophy is “we are the only right way and everyone else is dirt.” That is not the American way.
I would also add "and if you want eternal life, send me money."
The US regime seems to be of a different opinion as they shout it is the American way. That’s what they’ve been telling basically the entire world, except for some authoritarian nations that are now called friends…
Unfortunately tRump has exposed what kind of people we really are. I cringe every time, following some outrage, we hear politicians pronounce “we are better than that” or “that is not who we are”. Fact is we are not better and unfortunately it is exactly who we are. We have voted for it twice in the face of overwhelming evidence of who and what tRump and his minions are.
Here's the thing: the Republican base was like that well before Donald Trump came down the golden escalator in 2015. They've been fed a steady dose of hate and lies going back decades from people like Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, Fox News and a whole host of extreme right-wing websites such as Breitbart.
so many vulgar words are now commonly used in the media, congress, etc that were uncommon before trump
It doesn't matter much. If 81% believe the economy is bad, their behaviour will reflect it, and the economy will keep on deteriorating, as it has; and Repubs will keep on denying it, which they have. Still, what do I know? I am fully chastened today. The US News and Business Report (the 'US' gives the game away) yesterday ranked Canada below the US overall and below the US in 'Governance'. The US is No. 1 in Culture (I guess the fight ring on the WH lawn and the marquee of singers for the US state fair on the mall) pushed you over the top). But Governance?! We don't have ICE murdering citizens; we have a government that believes in science and vacccinations; our universities still function well; etc.; govt ministers and our prime minister aren't making fortunes by corruption; our Supreme Court is respected; we haven't started any war; and we don't have an imbecilic, venal felon as our president who has started wars. But I am fully ashamed. I hadn't realized that all this time we should not have been castigating you, but emulating you. We'll do better.
If you include being able to negotiate a trade agreement on MAGA terms as a criteria for assessing Canadian governance, then, yes, Canada ranks low. Canadian voters choose the government (not the other way round), Canadian voters don't trust the Trump administration to respect any agreement they negotiate (For the unreasonable reason that they haven't respected any agreements, even agreements Trump himself negotiated) and so won't let their governments make any concessions... even little ones. Very frustrating.
Who did the rankings? Russell Vought? Project2025 contributors?
You know those MAGATs will believe everything you just said. Sarcasm is the humour that a large swath of Adult Americans don't understand. Exhibit A: Stephen Colbert. A sketch comedy show like "This Hour Has 22 Minutes" wouldn't survive in the US cuz too many snowflakes ❄️ would complain loudly about how their wittle feelings are being hurt. 🐊💧🤣🤣🤣
I remember reading that when Colbert was doing his satirical "Colbert Report,," a huge number of Republicans believed that he was actually conservative. That's probably what got him invited to do the 2006 Correspondent's Dinner monologue. Whoops!
LOL. Love your sense of humor TJ. I have so much respect for your PM, Mark Carney. I wish he were our president OR that I were Canadian at this point. I'm so ashamed of our country and its behavior. There are many of us who didn't vote for this cruel regime and are truly sorry for how we've negatively affected Canada and actually the rest of the world. We have become the "Ugly American" once again. I hope we can learn from more mature and evolved countries such as Canada and remember our lost moral values so that we will make different choices. There really are many of us who are honestly making that effort. Please don't give up on us. I have to hope we'll all wake up in time down here in the U.S.
I second everything you wrote!!!
Thank you for your reply MN!
I took a look at "The US News and Business Report" methodology for ranking countries (https://www.usnews.com/news/best-countries/articles/methodology). They seem to give points for just being a big country (total # of this and that) and so looks sophisticated but ranks the US higher than strictly per capita measures would warrant.
I couldn't understand the methodology, and dang if I was going to pay to do it. But I gathered as much. I know I'm biased, but I thought that there was no metric (okay maybe culture if you only include the influence of Hollywood) by which the US was ahead of Canada.
Canada is purchasing military kit from Sweden, not the US. Big change.
What ever happened to the Board of Peace? Where did the billions charged to join go? Did anyone pay?
Actually, the Gripen deal is still in the rumor stage and probably will be until the U.S.M.C.A. is renegotiated. NATO is replacing existing Boeing early warning radar aircraft with a Canadian plane, equipped with a European radar system. As for the Board of Peace, two countries paid about a million each to be founding members, but nobody paid full membership. The board's bank account balance is basically zero.
no one paid
No one has paid into the fund set up to receive the $ - but we have no way, of course, of knowing whether some of that $ has been paid, for example, into a Trump account. And we'll probably never know.
Is the room over your garage for rent? Getting out of the US has a certain charm to it.
Yes but... the stock market!! 🤦
The derangement syndrome clearly lies in the minds of the deranged.
Is it deranged that a failed casino developer could oversee the United States government?
Is it deranged to make monthly donations to a convicted fraudster?
Is it deranged to hand over your sensibility, judgment and power to an increasingly demented felon?
Is it deranged to believe for the umpteenth time that the United States is once again on the cusp of peace in the Middle East, that Iran has lost the Straits of Hormuz war and that the U.S.A. has ended nearly a dozen wars where shots are still being fired?
If you answered no to any of these questions, then you, too, have Trump Derangement Syndrome.
You might be in a cult if...
It's just like watching a slow-motion rerun of those classic corporate cult documentaries where everyone happily drinks the kool-aid while the ship is actively sinking. Do y'all think this level of mass cognitive dissonance has any historical precedent that ended peacefully?
Thank you for the article, Professor. Trump has derangement syndrome, in public places are his pictures and now he wants to be on a 250 dollar bill. I never knew if that denomination existed. Something is really wrong with him.
Trump deserves to be on the $3 bill.
A three billion bill as a birthday present from the nation to its dear president?
There isn't a $250 bill. The significance of creating one is that this is the 250th anniversary of the United States. If it comes to fruition, I think it will die the death of the Sacagawea Dollar.
Will be popular with collectors of rare currencies.
Love guys like Paul who bring data, charts and analysis instead of vapid punditry to the fight.
Who knew economics could be so interesting?
Yes ISO! Paul does make it interesting because he makes his data, charts and analysis easy to understand for those of us who are not educated in that field at all. I too am now really interested in economics for the first time in my life thanks to our brilliant Professor Krugman who is such an outstanding teacher. I am really grateful.
💯 and Professor Robin Wells!
Oh, thanks ISO for reminding me that Professor Robin Wells also contributes to Paul's posts and that it is a combined effort! Thus, I'm thankful for BOTH of them!
Same here! I wish they’d take their show on the road.
ISO...I somehow intuitively think there's a high probability that they're all ready "taking their show on the road" but sadly, it's in Europe--not here. Perhaps they're trying to educate Europeans about the whole truth about our dismal situation here in order to elicit help from abroad since we've succeeded in alienating most of our ex-allies AND we've never needed so much outside help as now because help is sure not coming from within!
But wait! University of Michigan’s Consumer Confidence ten is afflicted with TDS!
Ahhh Patsy... this one is my favorite od all time.
Willie Nelson wrote it 😊
Yes. Loved his choice of Patsy Cline. Wonderful Musical Coda. And great memories of a bygone era. Those of us who were young then also remember every single word of that song and many others. It was a much slower way of living and the songs were sung more slowly so the words were easily understood. I loved those "Happy Days"...wish they were Here Again. Thanks Jean and to Paul for choosing this song.
And it’s such a good choice for this article!
It’s the sent by God belief that is the weirdest thing. I ran through several AI models the following question: Jesus Christ is associated with certain core attributes and values, does Donald Trump align with these or the exact opposite. As you might expect, the exact opposite. So these bible reading experts on the life of Christ truly think Trump, who represents the precise opposite of core Christian values, was sent by God?
More like the anti-Christ
Religion is regarded by the common people as true, by the wise as false, and by the rulers as useful. Lucius Annaeus Seneca
I'm having an AWE moment. Thanks Jim for this brilliant quote by Seneca, imho.
Trump, the Ocher Antichrist.
💯 GH. MTG calls it “an antichrist spirit.” Either way, any evangelical who claims that this is Armageddon but who continues to lie, exploit, oppress, and follow illegal orders is not following Light and Truth. https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/donald-trump-branded-antichrist-former-153041219.html
Ah, AI is run by people with Trump Derangement Syndrome
LOL, it's sad, but that would probably be the MAGAt response....
The idea that I heard back in Trump 1 was that he was sent by God to allow the evangelicals to take control of the country.
They are known as "Christian Nationalists.
There is a new neurological disease called magalomania, with some overlap of symptoms with the better-known megalomania.
Very good!
I find it striking that the share of maga republicans among the population is still rising. Slowly, but rising.
I was astonished and appalled by that chart. I would have liked to look into that one, but I didn’t see any indication of who conducted it.
Perhaps a small impact, but demography favors pro-lifers
When you are fed a 24/7/365 load of propaganda from the only "news" outlets you watch or listen to you end up with a very distorted view of reality. And when you only absorb information from people who constantly lie to you to glorify your Orange God-King, you are both delusional and deranged. When Trump is gone what remains of his MAGAs must be driven from polite society once and for all. And his enablers in Congress, the media (looking at you corporate clowns) and the rest of the political establishment must be exiled to the functional equivalent of St. Helena, never to be heard from again.
That 24/7 echo chamber has completely rewired people's brains to the point where they'll happily destroy their own communities just to keep protecting the billionaires lying to them. What's your take on whether the corporate media clowns will ever face any real accountability once this entire house of cards collapses?
All they care about is ratings, especially in the 18 - 54 demographic. CBS has long catered to an older crowd which will, sooner or later die off. No one else is watching. ABC is owned by Disney, should people start staying away, that may wise them up. NBC may never change which, I think, is why they set up MSNOW as the alternative for the libs (absent the odious Scarborough of course). But as more and more cut the cord, and more and more walk away from Paramount and the other billionaire channels, things may eventually change. I also think that the Washington Post will eventually lose so many readers that Bezos will sell and walk away. For now he's likely using it as a tax write off against his other businesses.
Spot on, your breakdown of the corporate money trail is incredibly sharp. But the deepest reality here is that these billionaires never actually expected these networks to make money from ratings, and the tax write offs are just a tiny bonus. In their world, media is the ultimate cognitive infrastructure, which means losing millions on a news outlet is a drop in the bucket compared to the billions they protective-lock in other industries by systemically manufacturing public consent and rigged legislation. Dropping the cable cord doesn't hurt them because they aren't selling news, they're buying behavioral control. I'm gonna slide into your DMs in a bit to share some more thoughts on how this exact leverage loop actually runs behind closed doors
MAGA has become a cult: escaping a cult is hard, admitting you were brainwashed in the cult - even harder still. Interesting though to watch that the cult crowd is shrinking though as it creates an emotional ramp for those needing a nudge.
Think the hardest part of this political moment, MAGA, is realizing how many people around me aren't confused or uninformed. They're just pure cruel and evil. Not ignorant. Not misled. Not misinformed. Just openly, comfortably taking pleasure in the suffering of other human beings. Not giving one iota to the suffering that they are inflicting upon this planet or any other country all around the globe. What Trump has taught Americans is that cruelty is strength, that resentment is identity, and that hating other people somehow makes you superior. He has created a permission structure for people to be their worst selves. It’s never about this “TDS” that all these MAGAites go on about. It’s just another deflection and the “D” in their call out to others that don’t agree is not for “Derangement” against him it’s because those of us are not as “Devoted” to him as they are.. All “fake-idols” fall..
LBJ explained this phenomena the best: “If you can convince the lowest white man he's better than the best colored man, he won't notice you're picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he'll empty his pockets for you.”
LBJ was unfortunately way too correct..