changegonnacome

2nd grand jury refuses to indict New York AG Letitia James https://abcnews.go.com/US/2nd-time-grand-jury-refuses-indict-new-york/story?id=128279779 Comey/Letitia indictments didn't last long!!!........you know two things are clear by now both good..... - first Trump & the folks around him are kinda incompetent wannabe autocrats and seem to fail consistently on bureaucratic procedural rigor (a) cause this isn't the A-team - the AG Bondi went to Florida's fifth best law school and a firmly rooted 3rd tier instituation nationally but (b) there seems to be little strategy going on from the WH just last minute truthsocial impulses of El Prez (see his DM to Bondi that ended up on his feed on TruthSocial).....his underlings then try to rush through these whims to please him making all manner of errors....... - the second is even more important..... the institutions - the judiciary and citizen grand juries call bullshit on bullshit even if that bullshit is coming directly from the Oval Office....quite unprecedented to see TWO separate Grand Juries now reject an indictment against James. We are very lucky to live in a county like this....even if the President of United States wants you indicted and locked up he cant get it done if there's no merit to the case!

Its kinda circular though....as the debt pile goes higher the expectation around future inflation do too.....I think this shows up on the long end.....10yr somewhat, 20/30yr for sure......short end rates have come down and are likely to come down in the future but long end rates have and will remain stubbornly high because of this......destination seems clear the 10yr gets targeted for yield curve control by the Fed at some point. Everybody is beating up on Trump for likely appointing easy money guys like Hassett etc but if a Dem is next in the WH bringing mortgage rates down is political catnip.....irresistible for a Dem or a Republican....its just unbelievably politically expedient to do so, so it will get done.

Yeah pawn/plaything.....there's an alternative universe where successive Ukranian regimes skillfuly played the West and Russia becoming something of bridge.....my understanding of Ukranian politics is its viciousness along pro-West or pro-Russian lines........the correct answer was machiavellian pragmatism and a middle way....perhaps common sense will break out in Ukraine after its borders are redrawn.

You bet @Gregmal….the thing you find with EU & pre-Trump US politicians is they are ruthless pragmatists when it comes to domestic affairs and then they live out their idealist fantasies abroad….more fool the small nations that don’t realize this dynamic when sat across from US/UK/EU leaders.

Yep no European country has shown the slightest hint that they would be willing to sacrifice their young men on the Ukrainian Eastern front......the political will isnt there......when you get down to it Russia cares more about 'winning' the war in Ukraine than the EU/US does.....watch what people do, not what they say....lots of fighting talk from the European's yet no fighting.....whatever deal was on the table in Istanbul in 2022 was foolishly rejected by Ukraine......Zelensky made a huge error in judgement around the scale and persistence over time of Western support for a toe-to-toe war with Russia.....Boris Johnson and Joe Biden who by all accounts encouraged Zelensky to fight on should be ashamed of themselves.

So what your saying is that questions cant exist on their own merits? That questions somehow need to be built on foundations of historical record......that the questioners history is as important as the question? I'm sorry thats doublespeak nonsense.....a legitimate question, is a legitimate question.....regardless of who is asking it. End of story.

Separately but connected- The 'whataboutism' on the Epstein stuff is a little bit out control in this thread IMO. I enjoy hearing opposing views on issues of the day..... but only when they are actually opposing views rooted in an opposing argument or viewpoint. Whataboutism isn't an opposing viewpoint or argument. Its informational value is about ZERO. It amounts to political party propaganda. what about Bill Clinton? what about Reid Hoffman? What about Bill Gates? What about Larry Summers? What about democratic Congresswoman that nobody has ever heard of called Stacey Plasket back in 2019....... What deflective nonsense....Trump is the sitting US President....he holds and has control off and the power to release the Epstein files...he is in the Epstein files....he campaigned on the promise to release them....and he wouldn't do so even in the face of his own supporters clamoring and campaigning for him to do so....he's attempted from the White House for weeks now to jackknife the Epstein transparency bills passing in House and caved on the subject a couple of days ago when its passing became an inevitability. THAT is the REAL question at hand.....and I'd really be interested in an answer to it that isnt whataboutism.....the leftie lunatics say its cause he's a pedo which is delusional bullshit......but I'd really like to hear coherent argument as to why Trump has done what he's done here for the last few months. I really would.

And not a peep of an answer from you on the question I asked you or the ABC reporter asked Trump......I'll ask again cause I am really interested in a coherent argument for why Trump has waited for Congress to vote to release the Epstein files....why hasn't he just done it already? What about Joe Biden is not a coherent argument to the question at hand here today....its really just deflection....and I'm interested in arguments?

But @cubsfan why has Trump waited for Congress to vote to release the Epstein files....why hasn't he just done it already?

He's not worried about this Epstein stuff at all!!!!!!......not sure acting like a cornered rat is a good 'look' for any President. Note Trump's use of the word "insubordinate" to a member of the Press no less......asking IMO a VERY legitimate question which is why the house vote at all given the President can just release this stuff himself....makes total sense.....what doesn't make sense is the last what three months of dodging the Epstein files release only to do a 180 on it a few days ago!

Fairly clear IMO that what we witnessed over the last week is/was quite a clever strategy by the Trump White House to attempt to get control of the Epstein situation....and to your point about Trump's name ticking up past the 2,020....my guess is sure it might go up....but whats to come will be benign....cause these guys have a pretty good plan in place.....lets look at the facts - - it began with Trump begging Congresswoman Boebert in the White House situation room & Nancy Mace to pull their names off the Epstein release petition. BEGGING them! They refused the strong arm tactics. What became clear later that day was that actually 20-30 congressional republicans would end up crossing the aisle to sign the release bill. Trump, on this issue at least, had lost total control of the GOP and he knew it. - So Trump & Co kicked into high gear knowing they we're dealing with an inevitability....and not signing a bill to release the Epstein files that had passed the House and Senate was just not an option. - So first they announced that the justice department was looking into Bill Clinton, Reid Hoffman & Larry Summers links to Epstein (throw democrats under the bus is always a good day at the White House).....the Epstein files therefore went from a dormant legacy case to an ACTIVE case (very important reclassification). - then Trump in a full 180 truthsocials out Friday that Republicans SHOULD vote for the release of files, that he wanted them too (as if he didn't have the power to release them for months now and hadn't been actively trying to stop the bill for months) The final part of the game of course is back to the reclassification from a dormant to active investigation......the active portion allows the DOJ to hold back parts of the Epstein files....they now have huge discretion with justification. Their ability to redact and whithold files just went through the roof because this is now active investigation. They've also regained the ability to update MAGA on new and exciting development re: the Epstein CASE involving democrats....red meat to keep the gullible hyenas chewing & distracted for a while. All very clever......i wish the minds that came up with this plan we're the ones that had been in control of Trump's brain when he dreamed up the tariff boondoggle (although I should be thankful it resulted in some unbelievable opportunities for me)....and to be clear I dont think Trump is paedophile.....but what I do think is that the period in which Donald and Epstein we're best friends is a deeply embarrassing period of Trump's life involving affairs, tax dodging, money laundering and other unseemly activities....stuff he knows Epstein had intimate knowledge on...etc. What I would say is the left ought to move back to kitchen table politics (affordability, economy)...Epstein stuff is over and was always a stupid distraction anyway........Trump has very skillfully IMO put a fork in this Epstein stuff and neutralized it (albeit leaks now from Ghilaine Maxwell, Maxwell Camp and/or the Epstein estate remain a vector of risk for the President). Ghilaine is on side right now after getting her quid pro quo.....she's busy working on commutation application playing with puppies in prison and ordering room service

TDS—much like whataboutism, which I see almost as often or actually even more—isn’t really about engaging with the substance of an argument. It tends to function more as a way to dismiss opposing viewpoints, or to avoid the cognitive dissonance that comes from being psychologically anchored to defending a political party or, in Trump’s case, a single individual even in the face of quite damaging new information. I dont care what side your on - what is happening with Ghilaine Maxwell's soft glove treatment.......the stonewalling of transparency being brought to the Epstein files themselves, the garbled mixed messages from the DOJ, WH, FBI on those files...full release pre-election....now locked in a box....these are, regardless of your view point of Trump's guilt or innocence, a terrible 'look' and reflection on Trump. And without going much further the whole thing stinks......if you say Trump is a definitive paedo you probably have TDS......and if you dont have a problem with whats going on with Ghilaine Maxwell's, (convicted child sex trafficker/paedo) much improved living situation post her Todd Blanche interview & the stonewalling of transparency on the Epstein files.....well you probably have reverse TDS. EOM.

My general rule of thumb—my Trump heuristic, if you like—is that when accusations of TDS start flying, it’s often the accuser who’s displaying it rather than the accused. Not always, of course, but often enough that it works as a mental shortcut.

Love the "all they got" language @cubsfan.....as if whats been uncovered is like 1998 unpaid parking ticket.....as opposed to you know.....a willful cover-up of information the President said he would release because well he's implicated in it....and his ties to Epstein, the worlds most famous prolific paedophile who has brought down Princes, billionaires and Ambassadors all over the world, have been grossly under-reported.

Not much spinning required here......you've got a convicted paedophile, conversing with a convicted sex trafficker and paedophile talking about the President of the United States and how maybe seen as he committed similar/same crimes as Epstein.....that they should throw him under the bus for sex crimes too. The bipartisan response, the true reverse Trump Derangement Syndrome....is to focus on how the Dems chose to redact the victims name as opposed to dealing with the substance of the information released.

Invasion of Venezuela almost a certainty now...... Also kudos to Ghilaine.....she said all the right things to Todd Blanche during her interview....and now is apparently enjoying room service and puppy play dates in her new 'prison'

Not surprised - I listened in to the Government's case.....quite weak....and again like lots of President Trump's maneuvers his supporters ought to think about an AOC Presidency.....declaring emergencies for sweeping executive power.....POTUS rescinding on spending approved by Congress.....it fundamentally tosses out the very architecture of the constitution.....indeed as the parties try to 'market' this shutdown to the public the Democrats aren't really calling out the reason for their extreme position on re-opening...and that is this rescission red line.....bipartisan deals & continuing resolutions done in Congress are now effectively meaningless because POTUS just decides not to spend the money as instructed.....this rescission red line that has been crossed by Trump takes whatever desire or rational there was for bipartisanship and tosses it on the fire.....because no deal is truly done until Trump decides to spend the money as Congress intended....and well via DOGE etc. he has shown that he is willing to gut any spending instruction from Congress....so whats basis for deal making in Congress if the mercurial man in the WH decides he won't be bound by it.....Congress becomes really a performative body.....and if your in opposition and the only leverage or control you have any more is on continuing resolutions....well I guess your gonna use em.

Not quite yet - though World Liberty Financial are issuing medbed coins that will trade on Binance.....holders of medbed coins will get first refusal on medbeds when they become available....in the meantime the largest 100 holders of medbed coins will be invited to Mar A Lago to a dinner hosted by CZ, Barron Trump with a surprise guest associated with the numbers 45 and 47.

If winning is shrinking the consumption capacity of your citizens while simultaneously making your existing domestic manufactoring export base less competitive in service of some theoretical tariff driven future manufactoring base that isnt here yet.......then yeah we are winning, we are winning all over the place.

Which makes them doubly retarded....hurting the economy, hurting households, hurting domestic exporting manufactures.........what a pointless boondoggle by POTUS. You bet - its been my base case since April......you can tell the adminstration is worried about it.....they've been on every two bit TV show saying if SCOTUS throws it out it would be a diaster for the country. Well it would be a disaster for their budgetary math which needs tariff revenue to keep the fiscal deficit under 7%.....but it would be great outcome for the country IMO. Tariff's are bad, stupid and lazy tax policy. It was dumb of Trump to waste so much political capital on them.....and well China effectively went toe to toe with the US and because of rare earths POTUS blinked and came back from Korea with a bullshit story about a trade deal....when all you had was truce and a reset back to May 2025....and extend and pretend extensions everywhere you look on China-US trade....rare earths, TikTok, Semis, fentaly.... But yeah hopefully SCOTUS throws this out before year end.

Well I'll be kinder - and say it gets the federal government tax revenue acting as it does as a sales tax.....the issue of course is its a tax with almost the inverse affects of what it claims....its not making manufacturing great again, its not serving Main St American's pocket books. It struck me today thinking through this purchase......that while tariff inflation has shown up on the import data side....it hasn't fed through much into the aggregate inflation figures.....MAGA says thats because other countries are paying them but thats not true either (look at the import data)......the reality I think is tariffs instead of being domestically inflationary they are actually domestically deflationary as they hurt the economy (as any tax would)...puts and takes.....the price of imported good goes up due to the passing on of tariffs costs and in a budget constrained households well their marginal consumption of other goods goes down.....so tariffs IMO are driving a kind of modest demand shock or contraction in private demand which is fundamentally deflationary.....because well aggregate consumption is less now than it was before....the The result - sure headline CPI doesn't move much..cause tariffs are BOTH inflationary to imported goods but deflationary to others in the consumers basket cause demand shrinks for other goods in response to a shrunken consumption budget.

Sure is.....but as I say to folks (and of course its a matter of opinion) when I'm out and about at the weekend in NYC doing stuff that is quintessentially NYC....well to me anyway....its well worth the extra couple of bucks to live here......you only get one trip around the sun and I'm not going to spend it optimizing for taxes, I'm gonna optimize it for where I enjoy most. For my interests music, culture, live comedy, great restaurants there's no where close to NY IMO.

First time hit with this. Thanks Donald!......and this is a US company that manufactures/assembles the product I'm buying in the US......when I spoke to the rep re: a high volume order he said that their overseas input costs that go into the end product have gone up and seen as its a government import tax that they end up paying at the border (their input supplier doesn't!) they decided to eat some and call out the rest like the sales tax it is. He also indicated that all things being equal he expects demand for their product to dip domestically (due to higher price point shrinking marginal demand) and that they export this finished product to Europe where they we're already in a dogfight with the East Asian manufactures and where he expects they will see real volume loss just due to their lesser brand positioning/higher price point versus their US brand equity built up over decades. The kicker something like 30% of their sales are international and so this is encouraging them to consider MOVING their factory OUT of the USA to serve international markets for the immediate tariffed input cost savings + labor but also less policy volatility re: input tariffs. How exactly are we 'winning' when a company like this's domestic volume is shrinking and they are less competitive in global markets so their volume shrinks again........and they they are potentially going to move 30% of volume offshore & yes I'm worse off at the margins and have less spending capacity to deploy on the next product or service which now also suffers lower volume sales? Jeez I guess that Ronald Reagan guy had a point!

Donald Trump, 2024 Campaign - "Why am I doing these fundraisers, the crypto guys will pay for everything I need" Interesting book to be written on how an industry rife with scams, ponzis, insider trading, pump and dumps, speculation on the value of JPG's....put a President into the White House..... And got by volume the worlds largest faciltoator of money laundering and terrorist financing (CZ from Binance ) a pardon (after he'd given the President's son's $2bn in funding for their stablecoin). See below: His answer to 60 minutes on their questioning of the CZ pardon is "ok are you ready, I dont know who he is"

No doubt - Trump has created a monetization playbook that is sure to attract a new individual into US politics…many of Trump policy choices (tariffs, export controls) has meant the federal government has gone from being the referee to being a player on the field…Government policy always mattered see K-street…but Trump’s level of micro management of various markets has made the whims of one man literally worth trillions. It won’t be lost on those with Trump like tendencies. US politics journey from a shining city on the hill to a banana republic has progressed meaningfully….Democrats should be ashamed as they failed to execute on kitchen table issues….and Republicans desperate to fix their diminishing voter problem let Trump hijack the GOP and have remained silent as he and his family engorged themselves on billions of dollars of Presidential related gains.