In your country - did you get any news on the mushroom killer in Australia

@Thinkerbell I doubt he wanted the reminder of the toadstool d**k comments made about him..😷

@whowasthatmaskedman

Yes, but this was CNN.
They would have welcomed a chance to mention the toadstool comments.

@Thinkerbell But in truth, since it wasnt about him he probably didnt know about it..😷

@whowasthatmaskedman

No, he wasn't, but CNN missed an opportunity to claim Erin Patterson is a deranged MAGA supporter.

@Thinkerbell True. But although she is clearly a convicted plotting triple murderer, I dont think she is that evil..😷

@whowasthatmaskedman

Well, that may be the prevailing opinion in Oz, but CNN has a much different agenda.

@Thinkerbell OK. Clearly Americans and Australians have a different view of what constitutes evil. We only have to compare recent election results to see that..😷

@whowasthatmaskedman

Well, the difference of opinion lies in the degree of evil and what is the cause vs what is the effect.

CNN would like to say, "See, MAGAs become triple murderers," whereas you say, "Being a triple murderer doesn't qualify for MAGA; to qualify, they would have to have done something much worse, like vote for Trump."

@Thinkerbell I get your point. Now lets lock up kids and deport citizens who cant defend themselves and subject woman to the consequences of the repeal of Roe V Wade and pretend no one was harmed. Or maybe look at the consequences of the anti vax stand or even hark back toi the carelessness of the Covid handling. Just dont try to tell me no one died or that people who made those decisions were not aware..You get my point?😷

@whowasthatmaskedman

Let's assume everything you say about Trump and his depredations is true.

The primary cause of his re-election was the absolute ham-handedness of the Democrats and their complicit media... lying about Biden's obvious mental decline for years, politicized prosecutions without the slightest regard for how they would appear to the public, choosing a totally unqualified nincompoop for vice president as part of a political deal to save Biden's floundering primary campaign in 2020...

So if anyone is responsible for MAGA 2, it is the Democrats who enabled it, as James Carville has so aptly pointed out, not the voters who were thoroughly turned off by the Democrats' abject fumbling.

I gave you this link before, but you seem to need a refresher. 🤭

[media=https://youtu.be/kaH8s3zd7CE]

@whowasthatmaskedman

I think there was a (relative) brain trust that was actually running the show with Biden as a figurehead. Exactly who they were, I don't know.

I think the plan was to pull doddering old Joe past the finish line in 2024, knowing full well that he could never serve another complete term in office. But no matter, the old figurehead could be replaced by another one, in the form of Kamala.

But that all fell apart with old Joe's disastrous debate performance. The brain trust had painted itself into a corner from which it could not escape.

It was now too late. They had to dump Joe, but couldn't dump Kamala, and instead had to continue the pretense, no matter how foolish it looked to any intelligent observer.

@Thinkerbell That sounds reasonable.. Equally, although for different reasons, I see the same outcome for Trump..😷

@whowasthatmaskedman

Well, if your pessimistic view is correct, perhaps we will see a Hegelian thesis-antithesis-synthesis.

@Thinkerbell Someone has been eating their thesaurus.. Challenge accepted. Just to prove there are intelligent Americans out there who can come out of the classroom and walk the talk (and give a pretty good demonstration of your theory) I give you Jeffrey Sachs, who touchs on so many factors of America today..(And China today)😷
[media=https://youtu.be/_FZ2KILar24]

@whowasthatmaskedman

Oh, yes... the Einstein of economics, the #1 economist in the world today, who made his name solving the Bolivian hyperinflation and acting as advisor to post-Soviet Poland and Russia and having "a certain messianic quality about him," according to George Soros.

However, his "messianic quality" does not seem to include any criticism of China, whether it be its treatment of the Uyghurs, or the origin of the Covid virus, or its environmental depredations, or its one-party de facto fascist dictatorship. Instead, one can always seem to count on his promotion of the coming Chinese hegemony.

And if the American collapse has been going on for forty years, where was he when Clinton or Obama was president? Well, he didn't think much of them either.

[media=https://youtu.be/8l4cX8HecoQ]

[media=https://youtu.be/mQnpsvqqP7o]

@Thinkerbell No one economist has the answers. If I had to pick one I believed in it would be Josph Stiglitz. But thats another story.. I just think that particular speech at a diplomatic forum, well outside his goldfish bowl, does bring up a number of Americas "pre-existing conditions" that have been building up since the American post war expansion and how they have been gradually corrupted.. Now those chickens will be coming home to roost.😷