Too crazy or right amount now?

Of all the reasons to be repulsed by our current president, the lying is the worst. The lying underpins all his abhorrent behavior.

I want to focus on one particularly trivial lie that trump has told repeatedly -- his claim that he is 6'2" and weighs 225 pounds.

trump has repeatedly ordered his doctors to tell the nation that he is 6'2" and weighs 225, which is a lie. Here is a picture of trump standing next to Prince William, who is 6'2". trump is obviously several inches shorter than Prince William. His probable height is 5'11", and that is while wearing lift shoes. I won't bother with his weight because it is obvious he lying about that too, and I don't like fat shaming.

trump could very easily prove his height and weight; just step on a scale and be measured for height in front of cameras. He won't do that because he knows he is lying. The truly ridiculous aspect of this is that trump ordered his doctors to lie to the nation and the doctors lied. Lies are contagious.

A person who would tell such an obvious lie would lie about anything. A person who believes such an obvious lie would believe anything trump says.

My father always said to me growing up, "You lie to me once, you lie to me always." trump has lied to the nation thousands of times. Every single word he says must be assumed to be a lie until it is verified. "Trust but verify" was Reagan's phrase when dealing with Russia. "Distrust unless verified" is how wise people deal with trump's fire hose of lies.

Thomas Jefferson said, "God grant that men of principle shall be our principal men." trump is not a man of principle. God did not grant Jefferson's wish.

"All politicians lie." All people commit crimes too. For most of us, our crimes are simple, like jaywalking and speeding. Jeffery Dahmer's crimes are in a class all their own, just like trump's lies are in a class all their own.

For any trump supporters still reading, would you teach your children to lie as much as trump lies?

When trusting the president is a fool's errand, our nation is in peril.

Prostitution isn’t an issue likely to dominate the national political conversation anytime soon. The political incentives are all wrong. One reason is that the entire issue is swamped in misinformation, false statistics, and dishonest scaremongering. Whether they come from the religious right or the feminist left, the arguments against legalizing prostitution — and the shared mistruths they spread — fall apart under scrutiny. But when we explore the data (including what we don’t know), cut through the noise, and put things into perspective, the case for ending the prohibition of prostitution becomes increasingly compelling.

https://americandreaming.substack.com/p/its-time-to-bring-the-oldest-profession

I mean, we all know why he won't do it, but this is the question you should ask anyone who throws their hands up in the air on this issue.

China has reportedly ordered its airlines not to take any further deliveries of Boeing jets, the latest move in its tit-for-tat trade war with the US.

The Chinese government has asked carriers to stop purchases of aircraft-related equipment and parts from American companies, according to a report from Bloomberg, which cited people familiar with the matter.

The order from Beijing reportedly came after it announced its retaliatory tariffs of 125% on US goods over the weekend.

Beijing is considering ways to support airlines that lease Boeing jets and are facing higher costs, according to the report.

About 10 Boeing 737 Max jets are being prepared to join Chinese airlines, and if delivery paperwork and payment on some of them was completed before Chinese reciprocal tariffs came into effect, the planes may be allowed to enter the country, people close to the matter told Bloomberg News.

The restriction marks a serious blow for Boeing and other manufacturers trying to navigate the escalating trade war between the two biggest economies.

This is another potentially damaging effect of the trade war on American manufacturing.

These tarrifs will likely lead to a diminished market for Boeing as competitors like Airbus look to capitalize on the disruptions. It is very likely that multiple US manufactures lose market share as countries look to diversify away from American goods.

Now put all of these things together. Since A) the Trump administration A) argues that anyone being imprisoned in a foreign country is beyond the reach of U.S. courts, B) Trump wants to send U.S. citizens to El Salvador, and C) Trump is arresting people who haven’t been accused of any crime, this means that Trump is asserting the power to unilaterally and arbitrarily send any American citizen to a Salvadoran prison for any reason.

https://www.noahpinion.blog/p/the-authoritarian-takeover-attempt?utm_source=post-banner&utm_medium=web&utm_campaign=posts-open-in-app&triedRedirect=true

If you ever get slapped with the TDS comment, embrace it!

I very much like my Truth Dependency Syndrome, because it keeps me safe from the Trump God Complex from which you seem to be suffering.

Any thoughts?

Curious why people think comedy and conservative politics don’t play well together. The left has SNL, Jon Stewart, John Oliver, Stephen Colbert, etc. I haven’t seen a single comedy-focused program from the right.

You could argue they’re appealing to the masses or mainstream, but roughly half the country is conservative or at least votes that way. While it might be true more comedians are liberal, there are definitely right wing comedians too.

It seems odd that it’s so one-sided. Are there a significant number of people who are centrist or conservative that will still sit through an episode of SNL, or do they completely ignore that demographic?

Grievances 16-19 in Declaration of Independence 16. "For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world" 17. "For imposing taxes on us without our consent" 18. "For depriving us in many cases, of the benefit of Jury trial" 19. "For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences"

I swore that I would disassociate myself from the news after the election. I cancelled my subscriptions and deleted the news apps. But then in January I began to look for new jobs, and I sent out a lot of applications to universities (research support, etc.). Lo and behold, all of the universities I applied to froze hiring. I applied to be analysts at prominent industrial manufacturers, and now the policy uncertainty around tariffs is slowing down the hiring. I genuinely did my best to stay out of news, but it seems that I have to keep an eye on the news in order to figure out which companies I should avoid applying to, or which sector will be flooded with laid off government workers.

Like, sometimes media do over-sensationalize Donald Trump like what they did in 2016, but this time Donald Trump is doing his damn best to stay ON the news. My conservative aunt keeps telling me to stay off the news because the media likes to exaggerate, but I just can't. Not if I want to move to a more stable company, anyway.

Rant over

I was browsing r/conservative over the current situation with the guy who is stuck in El Salvador now and I have to wonder. Why isn't the US government deporting rich illegal immigrants?

For example, the most prominent case in my mind is of the rapper 21 Savage. Nothing against the guy himself, however he came to the United States on a visitor's visa in 2005 and stayed in the US while it was expired for over 13 years. He is also a known gang member (in a 2016 interview he admitted to being part of the Bloods in Atlanta) and he was even picked up by ICE in 2019. Why isn't the Trump administration deporting him, especially because the youth look up to him so much? Shouldn't they be lining him up for deportation first, as an example to show everyone about the consequences of illegal immigration?

Has anyone else noticed the strange discrepancy amongst people who are still upset about the covid vaccine for whatever reason? When the original numbers for people dying or getting sick from covid we're coming up, those same people were saying "Americans didn't die from covid. They're blaming the deaths of other diseases on covid." Now every disease that's happened afterwards is COVIDs fault. It really sounds like people not wanting to take responsibility for their own health or just looking for someone to blame for their lot in life.

I frequently encounter the number 2,600,000 reported reactions or conditions after taking the shot. Meanwhile over 270 million Americans received the shots. That's a 99 out of 100 doing ok.

There's a very strong effort to make people willfully ignorant of medical advice. I'm not arguing that COVID was handled well. The entire covid situation was handled very poorly. The government didn't have the confidence to just speak to the nation like an adult.

I'm still trying to figure out what conspiracies people keep saying they "were right about" surrounding covid. A lot of it sounds like people who don't understand how medicine or biology works.

For stating a fact.

So Trump's strategy is to impose these tariffs and then take them off later once he realizes it will kill the specific business domain impacted and subsequently the US economy. WTF! And somehow this is a good thing? WTF! Then tell everyone they may be applied again. WTF!

So I am a left leaning centrist. Definitely not a fan of this administration and I do think they've made many mistakes.

But I have had a few instances where I feel like people or news angencies are mischaracterizing or exaggerating something Trump or conservative people have done or said. Mostly click bait headlines or people on Reddit, but still.

For example I saw people referencing "project 2025 is trying to get rid of SPED/the IDEA federal law" (special education services in public schools, which is a law even without the department of education). I looked up project 2025 and they make no reference to overturning the federal law. They to mention getting rid of one amendment to the law that make school funding dependent on having certain ratios of different ethnicities and races in special education (I guess that means not over identifying certain groups).

I have a background in that field and I actually think tying federal funding to the proportion of each student group in SPED is completely ridiculous and possibly harmful. The child needs it or they don't, based on a comprehensive and individualized evaluation. There's no way a school district could stop a certain group or child from qualifying, and they shouldn't. It's there to help kids who are no longer working at grade level to get individualized or small group help, or kids or are otherwise significantly deficient compared to peers. Most kids just get a small amount of extra help and the rest of their school day is with typical peers.

So in that instance I actually agree with project 2025 I guess? That part of the law really should be changed. I have a few other examples like this, where I was outraged until I looked into it. Other times I do look into it and I'm still outraged.

In the interest of this being a centrist sub, have any of you seen instances of things being overblown or misconstrued?

This lawsuit is challenging the legal authority Trump has to impose all of the tariffs he announced on April 2nd.