Relax, don’t worry it’s below the all important 50k paedo protection threshold so we can talk about this and everything else for the time being

Well not taking anything from him, but with so many people involved in a TV production I think it would have come out in some form that dissent was being suppressed.

Banning something is a sure fire way to give it oxygen. Streisand effect

The problem Trump has in doing this type of suppression is that it gains more attention and riles people up more than if he had let the interview air. Sure the interview might have said things he didn’t want to be said, but now he has made this a much bigger issue and he looks weak because he is scared at the mere prospect of some words being uttered.

“To impress a chick…”

Maybe I was not eloquent enough, but I don’t object to the research being done. I think though that the result is the expected one and therefore it is not noteworthy enough to post on here. Doubtless this paper with end up highly cited.

I mean this feels like an obvious result. Are we thinking this is ground breaking?

Like comparing 3 ways of making a table, hand tools, power tools or paying someone to make it for you. Then asking which required the most effort.

I mean I know it’s important to confirm even expected results but this feels so intuitive.

When you shit your pants regularly, having lots of the same suit makes it easier to do a quick change and not have it noticed.

If you give people no credit for admitting they were wrong or give them no chance to atone, then you give them no reason to do it and they will continue down the path they are on. To me it is preferable that she stops being toxic vs her continuing if those are the two choices.

I am not saying she should be forgiven, but if she is genuine, and that remains to be seen (she has a lot of work to do to prove that), then continuing to punish or otherwise vilify her, sends her the message that she’s damned is she does and she’s damned if she doesn’t so why not continue being toxic. Why should she try to be better?

If she continues to atone and does some very positive things in future (again doubtful) there should at least be some consideration given that she may have changed.

I didn’t actually say she was deprogramming anyone, just that she is in a position where she could.

That said, the fact that she is speaking out against him has unquestionably lead other people to doubt him.

Whether she is trying to take his place is not a point I tried to address directly, but I do believe she is behaving this way because she sees it as a way to further her own political career.

Always felt like we are too good at snatching defeat from the jaws of victory. Scotland are consistent only at being inconsistent. It has been like this for decades, through complete changing of the guard. What is it about our nation that makes it such a comical inevitability that we can make it to the quarter finals of the world Cup one day and screw up the four/five/six nations the next?

My most charitable thinking about this is that she s always just playing to win. The way she acted was just that, an act. She did it because she knew it appealed to a particular segment of society that could get her elected. Now there is a sea change she is smart enough to know MAGA is doomed and she had jumped ship early because she thinks it will be more politically advantageous in the long run.

She may be genuinely remorseful if she is good for her, but it doesn’t erase the things she had voted for, against, and the things she said that harmed people or incited violence deliberately or accidentally.

That said, she is somewhat uniquely positioned to assist in the deprogramming of MAGA members so, though I don’t trust her, the things she is doing and saying today are leading people away from Trump, and that is the most vital mission right now.

You don’t think it’s progressive that the USA has its first black president closely followed by it’s first orange president? I’d say that’s a society that is closer to saying it doesn’t see colour.

Seriously though, I think the fact America hasn’t had a female leader is strange for a country that used to claim to be the greatest nation on earth.

Well maybe I am, but I also think there is a tendancy to dismiss a lot of trump’s behaviour as delusional, or dumb when I see it as intentional malice with moments of dementia woven in.

I do think he is not very bright, but not so dumb as many want to believe. It feels good to think of him as dumb, but the fact of the matter is he convinced tens of millions of people to vote for him. He has steam rollered the USA and imposed his will. He is clever enough to have understood his to manipulate the public masterfully up to his second election, despite being a convicted felon by that point. To say he is stupid and somehow lucked his way into all of that is not impossible but improbable. I think his issue now is that he underestimated how the public would respond as he got positive reinforcement for many years even when doing harmful things because of his blind support from MAGA. He underestimated how much they would put up with.

It is entirely possible that he pulled the number out of the air but I don’t think that’s how he works. Some of what he says is rooted in a truth that he then distorts and exaggerates to serve him, which is why I think the number comes from his deliberate misunderstanding than from nowhere.

The deception doesn’t require him to accept he was wrong. It requires mental gymnastics. Something he has proven to be an Olympic gold medalist at.

Just to be clear I am not defending him I am advising caution. Writing him off as stupid means you are in some way excusing his actions as being accidental and leads to the “of its just trump being trump” rhetoric that has let him get away with so much. He is a dangerous, dangerous man. I can’t decide if he believes the things he says or simply wants you to believe the things he says. I lean towards the latter.

As I wrote this I am reminded of Boris Johnson who is someone who spent a great deal of time convincing the UK public he was a harmless, likeable idiot. He was not. He was an intelligent, deceptive man who wore his public image like a mask to hide his nefarious intent. Boris is not trump of course, but I see Boris as a cautionary tale and it makes me view Trump differently than I perhaps would if Boris had not existed.

Fully accept I may be wrong about all of this, but just want to share my opinion.

I’m not sane washing. I believe it’s how he sees it and now he’s probably been told that’s not how it works, he continues to use this method as a way to make the number bigger. So it crosses from idiocy to deliberate deception. IMO

Why is no one concerned about how unfair this is for the puppy?

More importantly does Tim Cook know he’s Ellen DeGeneres?

When he says he’s going to reduce drugs by thousands of percent, I think he looks at the price of drug x in, for example, Germany and sees a price of $10 then he looks at the price in the USA of $160. So the USA price is 1600% of the Germany price.

He claims to reduce them to the Germany price, and then screws up on how percentages work and says he’ll reduce it by 1600%, instead of what he should say, which is reducing it by 94%.

So that’s how I understand the comments he makes. Either way he’s full of shit and won’t actually reduce them at all, but I think I get why he thinks he is correct in stating percentages in the thousands.

I think I would say "more like was wolf " Makes the same point without explaining even if it sounds a little clunky.

Cue Ted Cruz: “Nice university ya got here. Be a shame if something happened to it”

Does this not destroy his argument or betray his own lies.

Either:

A. His assertion is that the FBI under Biden’s direction or agents into the crowd to indie violence. This is demonstrably false since Biden did not control the FBI and therefore could not have done this. He could have said agents but he chose to lie that it was the FBI, and in doing so, crippled his own argument.

Or

B: There were agents in the crowds tasked with inciting violence. These agents must have been working under Trumps direction as it was his FBI. Therefore he is telling on himself. This time the lie is under whose orders the agents were acting.

I believe there were no agents there. Just a bunch of sycophants who revere trump so much they would be willing to root in jail for him and that their cause is so righteous that overruling democracy is fine.