Mega-Thread: Trump Focused Discussion

[Gabriel]

And farmers be prepared to lose half of your workforce to forced deportation raids.

It's almost like Trump is trying to put American farmers out of job so that his buddies could buy their lands and farms for pennies on the dollar.

But surely Trump wouldn't do that to his voters?

[Breccia]

Writing an op-ed and doing nothing further is quite the action! Man of action, in action!

Actually, no. Read the article. He did not say "go get vaccinated". He did literally nothing. Anyone claiming it's a responsible stance is lying.

You should look through this list of Trump supporters responses to RFK Jr's statement. They are not fans, calling him another Fauci.

"They sound angry, even betrayed."

Yep. His spokesman resigned. Like, just now.

They should sound betrayed, they were. He has a long history of being anti-vaccination, including going on FOX News *ding* and saying vaccines cause autism. Still false, by the way.

This change in stance is not a responsible one at all. It's the sudden realization that this is both his problem and also his fault. And, even faced with all that...he didn't tell people to get vaccinated.

"Well at least he wasn't promoting an unrelated medication instead of actual treatment."

Um...

"You're kidding."

You do realize the Trump administration has a habit of making bad things worse, right?

While no antiviral medication is approved for measles patients, Kennedy also touted vitamin A as a way to "dramatically reduce measles mortality." The Centers of Disease Control & Prevention recently updated its recommendation in support of vitamin A being administered in certain cases under physician supervision. Doctors hope to debunk claims, though, that vitamin A stops children from getting the measles, according to the American Academy of Pediatrics.

"Vitamin A is recommended for children diagnosed with measles to help prevent complications, particularly in children who are hospitalized,” Dr. Sean T. O’Leary, chair of the AAP Committee on Infectious Diseases, said in a statement. "It should not be used to try to prevent measles, and high doses of vitamin A are potentially very harmful. The only effective way to prevent measles is the MMR vaccine."

Yeah, "reduce mortality" is a nice way of saying "because your kid didn't get a vaccine, this might help reduce the chance they die from that decision". It is not a cure, we don't have a cure, that's why we make vaccines.

"But...he didn't say it was a cure!"

*ahem* Ivermectin.

In the end, no, this was a decision made purely to make a bad situation worse. No leadership was given. No steps were taken. The only advice given was "make the call that's right for you, and if it leads to your child going to the hospital, take Vitamin A to maybe save their lives, trust me, I'm a doctor".

"...he's a doctor?"

So is @cubby who is also a lawyer. Neither are medical doctors. Here is a list of 17,000 medical doctors who predicted exactly this, by the way. None of them said this was a responsible stance.

[Edge-]

I'm so glad we have the homeopathy non-doctor guy in charge of the health department so he can make health recommendations based off his 0 years of professional experience as a practicing doctor or researcher.,

[Breccia]

How did this happen???

(re-reads last hour of posts)

Oh, right. All that stuff Trump did.

[Edge-]

what will donald use as his indicator of their yuge success if not the stock market?

that was his go-to his last administration.

is he gonna look to crypto markets or something?

[Breccia]

More on the Epstein files!

Attorney General Pam Bondi was duped into thinking she had all the files related to investigations into disgraced financier and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, she told Fox News host Mark Levin over the weekend while defending Thursday’s widely mocked document dump.

“I kept saying, there has to be more. There has to be more,” Bondi said Saturday. “I was assured that’s it.”

Bondi said she found out from a “whistleblower” after releasing 100 pages of flight logs and Epstein’s contact lists that the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York is “sitting on thousands of pages of documents” that had not been handed over to her. She is now seeking additional information through the FBI.

Bondi vowed that Americans will eventually see “the full Epstein files.”

“We will get everything,” she told Levin. “We will have it in our possession. We will redact it, of course, to protect grand jury information and confidential witnesses, but American people have a right to know.”

So, yeah. After it turned out to be a dud, they just magically created a whistleblower and thousands of pages and now the real conspiracy is...look, nobody buys this. This is just another attempt to explain why they can't get results. Bondi is in charge. If she doesn't have the info, she's incompent, she's a failure, she's lying, or there isn't any.

[Edge-]

More on the Epstein files!



So, yeah. After it turned out to be a dud, they just magically created a whistleblower and thousands of pages and now the real conspiracy is...look, nobody buys this. This is just another attempt to explain why they can't get results. Bondi is in charge. If she doesn't have the info, she's incompent, she's a failure, she's lying, or there isn't any.

They can't keep track of legal filings and court documents? That seems to be a pretty basic and important task for an Attorney General.

[Breccia]

We should spend less time worrying about Putin, and more time worrying about migrant rape gangs, drug lords, murderers, and people from mental institutions entering our Country - So that we don’t end up like Europe!

-- Trump, after the Zelensky disaster

"Which anonymous source made that up?"

He posted it himself on his own social media.

By the way, would you like to know whether the USA or Europe a higher incidence of murder?

"Uh...not really?"

Too bad, Trump just made it an official US statement of policy. In 2022 the US had 6.38 murders per 100k and that is hardly the worst in the world.

Name one EU country that's higher.

"Uh...Liechtenstein!"

...what?

"They had 2 murders, and that country is tiny!"

...well first of all, not in the EU. You're thinking of...God only knows, really. Second of all, no, still lower.

"Finland?"

1.21 and one of the highest in the EU.

"The UK?"

Basically the same.

"Just London by itself?"

2.7 and lower than NYC's 3.4 and both are lower than the USA.

"Sokovia?"

Fictional.

"Latvaria?"

Also fictional.

"Italy? It's run by the Mafia!"

0.55 and one of the lowest in the world.

Trump also repeated the lie about mental institutions. It's always charming when the leader half of your country voted for continues to use the same objective falsehoods as an excuse to raise taxes. Yes, tariffs are taxes, don't forget that part.

[Moralgy]

How did this happen???

(re-reads last hour of posts)

Oh, right. All that stuff Trump did.

I am sure someone is somewhat concerned about this, or are they busy diverting the conversation to a tweet or something.

[Rasulis]

How did this happen???

(re-reads last hour of posts)

Oh, right. All that stuff Trump did.

The problem there is that 7 stocks are worth 35% of the market value. Those stocks are taking a beating right now. Especially Tesla (-28% in February). Nvidia quarterly report was good. However, a total ban of Nvidia chips export to China, instead of the current partial ban, could reduce the company's revenue by 4 - 5b.

[Breccia]

I am sure-

Hold on, it's down over 900 now. Sorry to interrupt, but if someone's concerned about this, they'll want the most up-to-date information to make them feel better about teh dang market collapsing.

[Mayhem]

That's the weird part to me. If you worked for the Feds; if you had contracts with the Feds; if your business depended on imported raw materials; if your business exported to other countries; if you received SS, SSI, Medicare, Medicaid, VA assistance; if you are a farmer or manufacturer dependent on migrant workers; etc., why did you vote for Trump? He told you exactly what he is going to do when is in power.

Ahem

"He is just joking, he is just making libruls mad and freak out, lol, losers"

something like this

[Draco-Onis]

I'm so glad we have the homeopathy non-doctor guy in charge of the health department so he can make health recommendations based off his 0 years of professional experience as a practicing doctor or researcher.,

You are just part of the woke DEI agenda wanting qualified people for jobs, I vote we replace all of Trump's doctors with mechanics especially the surgeons.

[Breccia]

Why the February jobs report may push a jittery stock market toward a correction

Before we begin, "correction" is when the market drops 10% to 20% according to Charles Schwabb or Investopedia. So, this is not great news.

Angst over the health of the U.S. economy has investors nervous about the possibility of an approaching recession — and the next big jobs report may not be enough to calm nerves for very long.

That’s because investors and traders will be eyeing Friday’s nonfarm-payrolls report for February through the lens of recent developments that have led to mounting fears about consumer demand and a potential economic downturn, triggering notable drops in stocks and Treasury yields.

Those developments include sinking consumer confidence in a Conference Board report on Feb. 25; signs of a contraction in a key S&P Global survey of services-sector activity on Feb. 21; and disappointing earnings guidance from Walmart Inc. on Feb. 20.

“Investors are on edge, so it wouldn’t take much to trigger a full-blown correction,” said Brian Jacobsen, chief economist at Annex Wealth Management in Wisconsin, which manages about $6.5 billion in assets. “If the jobs number is slightly weak, the fear is that disruptions from tariffs could turn slight weakness into something more severe.”

“My fear is that any slowdown could snowball into something worse,” Jacobsen said. “We no longer have a wave of positive consumer sentiment to ride.”

Even if Friday’s report produces an upside surprise or as-expected job gains, investors could end up focusing instead on the prospect of softer employment growth in the months ahead. That is because February’s round of data will not reflect federal cutbacks, and the economy may be due for a slowdown anyway regardless of what the Trump administration does.

That was published March 2nd, aka yesterday. They're talking about this coming Friday. None of the market's drop today is in it.

But this is:

Trump’s ongoing trade threats against other countries have only added further uncertainty to the U.S. outlook

That comment aged extremely well.

producing big swings in stock, bond and currency markets.

The past week’s worth of data has included an updated estimate that revealed the U.S. economy grew at a 2.3% annual rate during the final three months of last year.

Before those months, the economy produced a GDP growth rate of more than 3% on a quarterly basis for most of the time between the third quarter of 2023 and the same period in 2024. This stretch was “an exceptionally long period of time for GDP to be growing above potential,” outside of time periods immediately following recessions, said Simons of Jefferies.

Via phone, Simons said his expectation for below-consensus job growth in February is based on a general cooling-off period that he expected to occur during the first six months of 2025.

By contrast, this was posted today:

Options traders are bracing for a stock-market crash

at 12:50pm NYSE time, when the market was actually about the highest it was today.

U.S. stocks were struggling on Monday after the latest manufacturing report from the Institute of Supply Management showed activity contracted in February. That helped send the Atlanta Fed’s GDPNow forecast for first-quarter GDP to minus 2.8%. If that comes to pass, it would mark the first quarterly contraction in U.S. economic activity since early 2022.

"What is the Friday jobs forecast expected to say?"

Well I'll be honest, it tends to be full of surprises and then revised. But, it's the initial shock that will cause concern...so...here's what I found.

Four important reports will come this week: The Standard & Poor's final U.S. Manufacturing PMI and the Institute for Supply Management's Manufacturing report for February. Both organizations report Monday morning.

On Wednesday morning, both organizations issue similar reports on the services economy.

They start by looking at the current situation. Then, they offer glimpses of what businesses see coming ahead.

A bad PMI report can tank a stock-market rally in a heartbeat and can push the U.S. dollar lower.

A reading above 50 suggests the economy is expanding. Below 50 suggests it is weakening. Wall Street now expects these indexes to be greater than 50. The ISM's January manufacturing report signaled manufacturing was getting stronger after 26 months of modest contraction.

"Well that's not so bad!"

So far, Wall Street sees the reports coming in at above 50. Some respondents, the ISM says, are worried about tariffs. As many people know, the Trump administration sees tariffs as an important weapon and he has threatened to impose them widely. Whether they work and how they will affect the economy is not yet clear.

"Oh. Right."

The article goes on to say the March report (comes in April, of course) will show all the DOGE layoffs. So...hide your kids, hide your wife, hide your 401k and run for your life.

[Draco-Onis]

More on the Epstein files!



So, yeah. After it turned out to be a dud, they just magically created a whistleblower and thousands of pages and now the real conspiracy is...look, nobody buys this. This is just another attempt to explain why they can't get results. Bondi is in charge. If she doesn't have the info, she's incompent, she's a failure, she's lying, or there isn't any.

Anyone who thought that Epstein's best friend and bosom buddy Donald Trump was going to let the cat out of the bag is delusional. That list probably matches the current cabinet heck Epstein even hooked up President Musk's brother with a girlfriend.

[Breccia]

By the way:

Reciprocal tariffs start on April 2. And I wanted to make it April 1, but I didn’t want to do it, I didn’t want to go April Fool’s Day, because that costs a lot of money, so we’re going April 2

Trump said that. Does anyone want to explain why changing April 2 to April 1 would have cost a lot of money? I mean, besides the fact that it would be an extra day of taxing the American people.

Also, Trump delayed the tariffs because he said Canada and Mexico were doing their share at the border. Um...what changed? Also, if they were willing to help at the border to block fentanyl, in exchange for avoiding tariffs, and Trump put out tariffs anyhow...why would they do this?

"Weren't you the person who said they were already complying?"

Yes, I was, thanks for remembering! Now, take that "we were already helping" situation and...add Trump's tariffs. They can, very realistically, reassign those 10,000 people to literally anything else. Like, pay them to stay home. At this point, they're being penalized, they owe us nothing.

[Xath]

The problem there is that 7 stocks are worth 35% of the market value. Those stocks are taking a beating right now. Especially Tesla (-28% in February). Nvidia quarterly report was good. However, a total ban of Nvidia chips export to China, instead of the current partial ban, could reduce the company's revenue by 4 - 5b.

The problem is far more than just that do you have any idea of the havoc that is happening to the auto industry right now due to tariffs?

[Breccia]

The problem is far more than just that do you have any idea of the havoc that is happening to the auto industry right now due to tariffs?

From KBB itself 2 weeks ago:

Round one involves possible tariffs of 25% on all goods imported from Canada and Mexico. Trump initially proposed those for February but delayed them until March. If enacted, they could raise the price of the average new car by at least $3,000, with some full-size trucks seeing $10,000 spikes. Even cars built in the U.S. would see their prices rise, as all vehicles built domestically use imported parts.

Uh, oops.

“Imports accounted for roughly half of the U.S. auto market last year,” Bloomberg reports. Even domestic automakers build many cars outside the U.S. and sell them here. GM, for instance, imports 46% of the vehicles it sells.

Cars built domestically use parts that would likely be subject to the new tariffs.

“The U.S. imported about 8 million new passenger cars and light trucks last year, with a total value exceeding $240 billion, according to Commerce Department data,” Bloomberg notes.

KBB then quoted the CEO of Ford. We've seen that.

[Moralgy]

Hold on, it's down over 900 now. Sorry to interrupt, but if someone's concerned about this, they'll want the most up-to-date information to make them feel better about teh dang market collapsing.

Lol s+ tier post right here.

Normally I would be terrified of the incoming recession and possible depression but America picked this path so fuck yea America. Let's become Argentina as someone posted earlier woooooo.

[Rasulis]

Texas Wildfires Are 'Ticking Time Bomb' For State's Homeowners

Texas, while not the first state that comes to mind when thinking about fire risk, had more wildfires in 2023 (7,102) than any other state besides California (7,364), according to a Redfin study. In 2022, it actually had the highest number of wildfires in the nation.

"Aside from California, the Lone Star State also has the greatest number of homes in the wildland-urban interface (WUI)—the part of the country where developed land intermingles with undeveloped land, making it especially vulnerable to wildfires," Redfin wrote.

Wildfires are common in Texas, "particularly during the summertime when grasses and other fuels can dry out," John Nielsen-Gammon, Regents Professor and Texas State Climatologist at Texas A&M University's Department of Atmospheric Sciences, told Newsweek.

While winds are typically light in the summertime, making such fires rarely dangerous, "more concerning are fires during the winter-spring wildfire season in west and west-central Texas, which feed on winter-dormant grasses before spring green-up and can be spread by very strong winds," Nielsen-Gammon said. "Those fires can grow much larger and spread very quickly."

According to Nielsen-Gammon, the weather dynamics that fueled the Los Angeles County wildfires in January are unlikely to present themselves in the Lone Star State. "Texas doesn't get extreme dry winds anywhere near as often as California," the climatologist said, referring to the Santa Ana winds that drove the L.A. fires across the entire county.

"Even West Texas rarely sees winds exceed hurricane force, but that just means the wildfires in West Texas won't move as rapidly into urban areas, not that they won't move at all," he added.

Steven Haynes, Assistant Professor of Practice, Finance and Managerial Economics at the University of Texas at Dallas, fears that the fires could, in fact, move far enough to create enormous damages—in part because the Lone Star State isn't as well equipped as California to handle this threat.

Texas doesn't have an equivalent for the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (Cal Fire) in the Golden State, which works to prevent and control wildfires at the state level. "Instead, we rely very much on our local firefighters for loss prevention, actual treatment, enforcement, and things of that nature against wildfire risk," Haynes told Newsweek.

Insurers "are taking notice, especially because of California," of the risks posed by more frequent, unpredictable wildfires, Haynes said. "Insurers like State Farm don't want to write business in Texas, because they're seeing these losses," he added.

Haynes agrees that insurers in Texas are already "pricing in the losses they can expect to have in the future," Haynes said. "When I first moved into my house 20 years ago—and I live in Allen, Texas—, I was paying maybe $1,100 a year for homeowner's insurance," he explained.

"Today, I'm paying $4,600 a year with less coverage. So, in 15-20 years time, it's gone up 300 percent. And I have a lot of friends who are in the country who are having a hard time finding coverage because they're being priced out," he said.

If there is one state that depends on US Forest Service wildland firefighters and airplanes, that would be Texas.