Mega-Thread: Trump Focused Discussion

[alach]

Totally not suspicious behavior, eh? Everything they are doing are making themselves look more and more guilty. He could have been completely innocent and left Epstein soon as he found out about him like he said, but how they have acted they are now guilty in the eyes of the public.

[Draco-Onis]

Congressman Ro Khanna said that what was released today was 2.5 gb. The files are over 300 gb.

Trump and his administration are violating the law that was signed about it.

I don't think anyone who has been paying attention thinks Trump cares about the law besides he has the supreme court in his back pocket.

[fwc577]

God I hate how stubborn conservatives and republicans are. I've seen quite a few friends now (including a couple family members) realize who they support & / or voted for are truly awful. But instead of having retrospective on this, they just go full shut down mode. According to them, is it their fault? No, but they supported something bad so they recluse. Do they have the self reflection to realize maybe they shouldn't vote for this again? Maybe, but they won't vote at all if that's the case.

God I hate idiots like this. They voted for this mess, wholly support a lot of it (Or some of it) but now that it's going well beyond their 'initial line in the sand' of bigotry, now they don't. But they won't support 'the other side', they'll just hide away in shame and not improve. I fucking hate this type of person. It boils my blood these people will see family members suffer or disappear and still have a thought in the back of their head going 'I might just vote for this again.'

I've thought about cutting these people out of my life for their awful political choices but I think people can be redeemed and change but fuck is it difficult.

I'm tellin yall. In 4 years, you won't be able to hardly find a single Trump supporter.

[Breccia]

Speaking of math: WaPo is now openly saying they don't trust Trump's numbers anymore.

“We knew we’d have to take this data with a grain of salt; I just didn’t know we’d have to make it this salty,” said Diane Swonk, chief economist at KPMG. “This week’s data really adds more confusion than clarity.”

Employment data on Tuesday showed a decline of 41,000 jobs in October and November, while the unemployment rate inched up to 4.6 percent, offering a sobering picture of an already slowing labor market. Two days later, the consumer price index came with more optimistic economic news: Inflation, it said, had cooled from 3 percent in September to 2.7 percent in November. But economists largely shrugged off both reports, saying they were unlikely to be reliable snapshots because the 43-day government shutdown had upended the way federal agencies gather data.

The Labor Department’s monthly household survey, used to calculate the unemployment rate, was scrapped altogether for October. The data for November was far less reliable than usual, with a survey response rate of 64 percent, the lowest on record. (Two years ago, by comparison, 70 percent of households responded.) As a result, some said they weren’t putting much stock into the 4.6 percent unemployment rate. It’ll take a few more months of data, they said, to get a better read on the job market.

“Yes, the unemployment rate rose, but I didn’t pay too much attention to it, to be honest,” said Kathy Bostjancic, chief economist at Nationwide. “The survey process was completely disrupted by the shutdown.”

That was also the case for Thursday’s consumer price index. Economists widely dismissed the figures, saying it was probably skewed lower by delays in data collection. Government officials didn’t begin tabulating prices until Nov. 14, when many items had already been marked down for Black Friday sales and other holiday promotions. More significantly, a third of the inflation index looks lower than it otherwise would because the government’s data appears to show no increase at all in rent and homeowners’ housing costs for October.

Yep. Trump got caught tiny orange bruised handed lying about the numbers to artificially lower reported inflation by putting in 0's for missing data.

[Rasulis]

Speaking of math: [url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2025/12/19/us-economy-data-shutdown/]a third of the inflation index looks lower than it otherwise would because the government’s data appears to show no increase at all in rent and homeowners’ housing costs for October

Rent in November 2025 is probably lower than October. Although still higher than November 2024.

With the exception of a few cities, asking rent in November 2025 on average had gone down 0.3% from last month. Asking rent in Austin and Denver went down 3% and 1.8% from October 2025. I expect rent to keep going down for a while. Slow down in the real estate market ended up increasing the rental market housing stock.

[Gorsameth]

Rent in November 2025 is probably lower than October. Although still higher than November 2024.

With the exception of a few cities, asking rent in November 2025 on average had gone down 0.3% from last month. Asking rent in Austin and Denver went down 3% and 1.8% from October 2025. I expect rent to keep going down for a while. Slow down in the real estate market ended up increasing the rental market housing stock.

I'm sure you know better then actual Economists...

[Breccia]

DHS moves to deport Joe Ceballos of Coldwater, Kansas, back to Mexico.

"That'll show justice to that dirty Mexican drug-using rapist!"

He's the mayor. Well, he was until just now. He resigned because he's being deported. But he was first elected in 2021 and was on the City Council before that.

"...but clearly a filthy Democrat!"

He's a Republican and got 83% of the vote.

"Uh...look, you always make me say stupid shit and then immediately correct me. Just get to the explanation."

Ceballos, the Trump-supporting Republican, committed election fraud. @Edge- would be shocked, shocked, well not that shocked. Anyhow he got his green card in 1990 and applied for citizenship in Feb 2025. In between those, he voted for Trump at least three times. That's a felony.

State Rep. Kyle Hoffman, a Coldwater Republican, told The Star last month that he doesn’t believe Ceballos should be deported. “I feel for Joe and the community, and I hope it can get worked out in the legal system,” Hoffman said.

I do look forward to seeing either option. Either people getting what they voted for...well, half of what they voted for, I guess...or this goes purely partisan and prove it was never about immigration. The dude's a felon and committed election fraud. Making him a citizen now won't change that. He'll have to be pardoned.

Incidentally, Ceballos left Mexico when he was four and does not speak Spanish.

[Rasulis]

I'm sure you know better then actual Economists...

The numbers are easy to verify. Zillow, Redfin, Apartments.com, etc. keep up-to-date data on rental rates. You can go to any of them and check the trend. 2025 has been a renter's market. I expect the same through 2026.

BTW, I did not disagree with the post. I was simply adding missing data.

- - - Updated - - -

https://www.npr.org/2025/12/19/nx-s1...nding-overhaul



while we're all sure that the administration will fight and slow walk this and act in bad faith, once again the courts rule that the administration can't be intentionally capricious and cruel in violation of laws and rules.



Ok surely the judge is overstating things?



Once again: This administration is filled with genuinely bad people. Fundamentally evil. Deeply dishonest. Hateful people.

The damage done will outlast this administration. The dumbing down of the Federal agencies will have serious detrimental repercussions for the next decade or more.

[Gorsameth]

Its funny because if they just had the government (who knows who is a citizen and eligible to vote) mail every citizen a ballot this form of fraud wouldn't even exist.

[Rasulis]

My wife wants some rib's eye roast for Christmas. Looked up prices. Yikes. Rack of lamb imported from New Zealand it is. Way cheaper. And frozen goose from 99 Ranch Market. $3.99 per pound. Should be thawed by Christmas. I love goose. Goose fat >>>>>>> Pork fat.

Despite historic demand, beef supply remains low, and prices stay high.

[Zaydin]

My wife wants some rib's eye roast for Christmas. Looked up prices. Yikes. Rack of lamb imported from New Zealand it is. Way cheaper. And frozen goose from 99 Ranch Market. $3.99 per pound. Should be thawed by Christmas. I love goose. Goose fat >>>>>>> Pork fat.

Despite historic demand, beef supply remains low, and prices stay high.

Almost like the factory ranches/farms want to maximize profits.

[Rasulis]

All Bay Area employers are advising their H-1B, H-4, F, J, and M visa holder employees not to leave the US unless it is absolutely necessary. Unless the travel is absolutely essential, it is better to stay put.

[Draco-Onis]

I'm sure you know better then actual Economists...

The real estate market is imploding it's one of the stories that's gone unnoticed amid the chaos. The "hot" red states like Florida, Texas, Carolinas are seeing prices collapse in some zip codes 25-40%, the rent's gone down with it because the demand isn't there for all the new units that were built during the COVID years. Ironically the evil blue states are the only ones holding the tides. The combination of brutal immigrant crackdowns, bat shit crazy laws, sky rocketing insurance and energy prices, crumbling infrastructure is reversing all that population growth in red states.

Red States apparently didn't realize that all their population growth was due to immigrants, reading data is hard you know.

[Kaleredar]

The real estate market is imploding it's one of the stories that's gone unnoticed amid the chaos. The "hot" red states like Florida, Texas, Carolinas are seeing prices collapse in some zip codes 25-40%, the rent's gone down with it because the demand isn't there for all the new units that were built during the COVID years. Ironically the evil blue states are the only ones holding the tides. The combination of brutal immigrant crackdowns, bat shit crazy laws, sky rocketing insurance and energy prices, crumbling infrastructure is reversing all that population growth in red states.

Red States apparently didn't realize that all their population growth was due to immigrants, reading data is hard you know.

A lot of the temporary growth may also have been due to wealthy individuals who grew their businesses in blue states due to better populations, higher incomes, and better overall economic circumstances who then balked at contributing to said blue states and tried to spirit their money away to a red state… only to find that economic situations there were far less advantageous because all the lower wages meant they had to sell everything for less.


A 200k five room mansion might be nice, but then when you realize everyone around you only makes $7 an hour and you have to live in the crack ass of nowhere with almost zero infrastructure and your local and likely state legislature are full of crazy people who’d rather spend money fighting trans kids than investing in roads and energy it starts to lose its luster.

[CastletonSnob]

Trump hasn't had an original thought in decades. He's just a ventriloquist dummy for right-wing conspiracy theories and talking points.

[Dontrike]

"I hereby give myself $1 BILLION!" is yet another stupid thing Trump says as he bitches at his latest speech bringing up how he was investigated so much for all the crimes he did.

In a wide-ranging speech in North Carolina on Friday, which was billed as remarks on the economy, the president digressed into his complaints, now inflating that potential sum to $1 billion.

“We have all the evidence, and we have to do something about it,” Trump boomed as the crowd erupted in claps and cheers. “I brought a lawsuit, and I’m winning the lawsuit. There’s only one problem. I’m the one who has to settle it. In other words, I am suing, and I’m the one that’s supposed to settle it.”

“So, maybe I'll give myself $1 billion and give it all to charity,” he then suggested before changing his mind. “Actually, maybe I shouldn't give it to charity. Maybe I should keep the money.”

He then recounted the series of events as if he were reading aloud newspaper headlines: “Donald Trump sues the United States of America. Donald Trump becomes president. And now Donald Trump has to settle the suit.” The president then said: “I hereby give myself $1 billion.”

Trump once again appeared to waver about what to do with the potential sum. “Actually, maybe I shouldn’t give it to charity. Maybe I should keep the money. No? A lot of people say: ‘Do it.’ I don’t wanna do it,” he told the crowd.

“But whatever happens, it’s all going to good charities. Is that ok? All going to good charities. But isn’t that a strange position to be in? I’ve gotta make, I’ve gotta make a deal. I negotiate with myself,” the president concluded.

- - - Updated - - -

And in that same speech Trump starts talking about Melania's panties when bitching about the search that took all those documents he stole.

Trump also returned to the years-old raid Friday after making a stop in North Carolina for a rally-style speech, ostensibly about the economy, on his way to Mar-a-Lago for two weeks Christmas vacation. During his remarks, Trump blasted the raid as “illegal and disgusting,” alleging agents searched through his wife’s “panties” drawer.

“I was the hunted…I had these animals trying to attack me at Mar-a-Lago,” the president said Friday. “They went into my wife’s closet and I'll say this, number one, it's very bad, but it sounds a little strange. They looked at her drawers.

He added that the first lady is a “very meticulous person. Everything is perfect. Her undergarments…sometimes referred to as panties, are folded, perfect. They’re so perfect, I say: ‘That’s beautiful.’”

Even Melania looks surprised he's that crazy.

“I think she steams them,” he added, moving his hands as if he were steaming clothes, which prompted chuckles from the audience.

“We came home. I wasn't there when the raid took place,” he said. “She opened the drawers and it was not that way. They were a mess.”

“It was all over the place. And she said, 'Oh, what happened? That's so terrible.’...They went into my young boy's room. These thugs are disgusting, and we cannot let them get away with this stuff.”

“We have all the evidence, and we have to do something about it,” Trump concluded, his voice rising. The crowd clapped and cheered in response.

[Breccia]

How Trump ruined Christmas

Quoting the whole thing. Bolding for emphasis.

Trump has weathered scandals, impeachments, investigations, electoral defeats, and enough lawsuits to make a mid-size law firm weep. But this winter, he’s facing something he can’t bluff or bark away: prices. Real prices. Grocery-store prices. The kind that glare at you from the receipt like a personal insult.

And Americans are tired of being insulted.

His approval rating has fallen to depths not seen since Nixon started sweating through his suits. Even Republicans are beginning to admit something is off. Strategists are panicking. Voters are grimacing. Nothing feels stable anymore, except the cost of groceries, which is now apparently welded to the price of rare minerals.

The moment the floor gave way came on Dec. 7, when Trump turned on “Fox & Friends,” his long-time emotional support animal, and found Peter Schiff calmly pointing out that Americans can’t afford much of anything right now. Schiff didn’t yell or blast the president. He simply stated the obvious: prices are rising, wages aren’t and Trump’s tariffs are making everything worse.

Trump’s response was instant and volcanic. He accused Schiff of being a “Trump-hating loser,” demanded producers be investigated, and suggested some unnamed force was infiltrating the network.

But no matter how many enemies he invents, voters know when they’re being squeezed. A recent Reuters/Ipsos poll found only 26 percent of Americans think Trump is handling the cost of living well.

Even former House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.), who has defended every Republican president since the Bronze Age, has finally waved the red flag. Ignoring affordability, he warned, isn’t a strategy but political self-harm. You can yell “Fake news!” at a reporter. You can’t yell it at a supermarket shelf. As Gingrich put it, any Republican who denies the problem “is not listening to the American people.” Prices feel real because people feel them, and in a free country, perception becomes reality fast. When your voters decide groceries are unaffordable, no spin or late-night rant can drag them back into believing otherwise.

And the sting of rising prices is now paired with something even harder to ignore: Trump’s increasingly erratic behavior. When he’s not comparing female reporters to farm animals, he’s on Truth Social unloading a stream of consciousness that reads like a diary no one asked to see. He’s always been a ranter, of course, but the recent eruption didn’t register as a mere tantrum. It operated on an entirely different level. Hundreds of posts an hour. AI images. Conspiracy theories running around like mice in a grain silo. He accused Michelle Obama of controlling President Biden’s autopen. He suggested Canada was meddling in American elections. He claimed Democrats faked affordability statistics. He warned of shadowy enemies and imaginary plots. It was a kaleidoscope of fury, paranoia and capital letters.

And he did it in December, the one month Americans beg for a break. They want lights. Carols. Hot chocolate. They want to forget their overdrafts and pretend the economy isn’t hanging by a thread. They want peace on earth, or at least silence from their president at 3 a.m.

But instead, they got a man firing off posts like an overcaffeinated teenager locked in a basement with three routers and a grudge.

Christmas didn’t stand a chance.

Families are already tiptoeing around budgets. Four in ten say they’re cutting back. Six in ten say gifts for others are on the chopping block. This year, stockings across America will be filled not with gadgets or toys but with the one gift every politician hands out for free: disappointment.

Tariffs have turned holiday shopping into a form of financial stunt work. Small businesses are being squeezed so hard they now measure success by whether they can make it through one more import cycle without crying.

Take a fragile economy. Add a president broadcasting his own mental turbulence to millions. Mix in a month that demands emotional stability more than any other. The result is simple: Trump stepped on Christmas, barefoot, and shattered it.

[s_bushido]

How Trump ruined Christmas

Quoting the whole thing. Bolding for emphasis.

I guess they and their fellow journalists shouldn't have spent the past decade normalizing the unhinged piece of shit, then. Shame.

[Kaleredar]

I guess they and their fellow journalists shouldn't have spent the past decade normalizing the unhinged piece of shit, then. Shame.

You must turn on your “monke media brain” and cast it back to the previous election.

Make article, article say “Trump crazy”. Left-wing no want read about it; already know. Right wing no want read about it; don’t believe it.

“Trump crazy” article get no click.

Make article, article say “Joe Biden old.” Left wing click; concerned about Biden going into election. Right wing click, want be validated in think trump better.

“Joe Biden old” article get many click, make many “Joe Biden old” article.

Fastforward to now

Turn out Trump was crazy. Biden old probably not relevant. But now economy bad. Make article about “economy bad.” Left-wing click because they being proven correct. Right wing click because they feel bad economy in pocket, maybe try to find way to not blame Trump. Maybe post angrily in comment section that it Biden’s fault. But angry post is still click.

Introspection from article makers? No, just need click. More click = more ad revenue. Line for shareholder go up.


Now turn monkey brain off again.


The only “silver lining” is that the click-chasing media outlets (that aren’t in right-wing trump-aligned pockets) have no actual incentive to carry water for Trump. The clear bad part is that they don’t tell people what the truth is, they just tell them what they think they want to hear insofar as it gets eyes on their articles. But if people want to hear about how Trump is fucking everything up then that’s what the news will report.

[Rasulis]

President Donald Trump’s decision to allow Nvidia to sell H200 chips to China has produced a flood of national security concerns, but that’s not all.

His demand that the government also get a cut of the proceeds is raising a whole other set of questions, including: Did he just raise taxes?

His demand that Nvidia and other semiconductor companies pay 25 percent on their China sales looks to some a lot like a tax increase, and it comes in the face of Republicans’ long-standing opposition to tax hikes and the fact that tax policy is supposed to be set by Congress, not the White House.

It would actually be the second charge the administration has imposed on Nvidia. Earlier this year, the administration said it would permit the company to sell an older chip (H20) to China provided it paid the government 15 percent.