@#2 ... Both sides said they reached consensus on lowering tariffs for a $60 billion batch of non-sensitive goods, but there was no timeline for adoption. At the same time, a deadline for a broader trade accord was pushed into next year....

So, no definite timeline for what seem to be the major agreement of the summit?

And just saying that the deadline has been pushed into the vague future?

Is this Pres Trump's Art of the Deal?

Or was just Pres Trump out-maneuvered by Pres Xi?

@#14 ... Remember when Marco Rubio SWORE he wasn't going to run for another term as senator ...

Found this ...

@#4 ... When I attended university I knew of a girl who was raped by a star member of the basketball team, campus police went to great lengths to sweep it under the rug and the basketball team virgorously shamed her publicly. ...

Cornell U. seems to be responding in a better manner in this instance.

From what I've seen, ~cooperating and helping law enforcement."

And, appropriately, the chapter of the frat has been disbanded by Cornell U.

More from the OpEd ...

... Kraepelin, of Munich, helped lay the groundwork for modern psychiatry. Chief among his contributions are his descriptions of "mixed states" in manic depression (known today as bipolar disorder).

People with bipolar disorder do not toggle between euphoria (mania) and gloom (depression). Elements of both states can be suffered at once.

Extreme anxiety, for example, can produce excitement and depression together -- a mixed state.

In reading Kraepelin's book, one cannot help but notice that over and over again he is describing Donald Trump. Most of this column will simply quote Kraepelin, from R. Mary Barclay's translation of "Manic Depressive Insanity and Paranoia," (Ayer Co., 1987).

Anyone who reads the news can fill in the blanks.

"(T)he delusion formation peculiar to paranoia ... may develop in the two fundamental directions of ideas of injury and of exaltation. ... At first it remains within the limits of suspicious conjectures, arrogant and overweening self-conceit; but these draw ever-fresh nourishment from the prejudiced evaluation of the experiences of life, and they become more and more fixed. ... The patients become arrogant and high flown; when they are contradicted, or on other trifling occasions, they fall into measureless fury, which is discharged in outbursts of rank abuse."

In mixed-state insanity, patients "display exalted self-consciousness, are pretentious and high-flown, but by no means of cheerful mood; they rather appear dissatisfied, insufferable, perhaps even a little anxious. They have something to find fault with in everything, feel themselves on every occasion badly treated ...

"Mood is permanently exalted, careless, confident. The patients have very marked self-confidence, put an extremely high value on their own capabilities and performances, boast with the most obvious exaggeration. They wholly lack understanding for the morbid imperfection of their temperament. Rather they are convinced of their superiority to their surroundings."

Kraepelin calls this a "grumbling mania." ...

@#13 ... but Stateline reports that experts have cautioned that the stat "doesn't reflect the effects of new federal policy changes that will be hitting households hard this year" -- such as cuts to Medicaid and food assistance. ...

Yeah, Pres Trump's Big Beautiful Bill purposefully seems to have delayed some major cuts until after the 2026 election.

Almost as if the GOP Congress knew those cuts would not be A Good Thing for the voters.

Another view ...

@#13 ... The main issue for most individuals is going to be the fact that prices and inflation is outstripping wage growth, and so that's obviously some diminution of real incomes for some people ...

Yeah, that's the problem

The inflation caused by Pres Trump's tariffs and war of choice in Iran are causing price increases that outstrip the rate of increases of wages.

So, the bottom line is that while workers may be getting pay increases, the value of those dollars they receive is diminishing more quickly than the rate that their wages are increasing.

And the crazy current price of diesel has yet to make its way to the grocery store shelves.

@#9 ... TRUMP: "We have the best poverty numbers ever." ...

From the cited article ...

... It is true that, according to US Census Bureau data released earlier this month, the poverty rate dropped to a historic low of 10.2 per cent last year, but Stateline reports that experts have cautioned that the stat "doesn't reflect the effects of new federal policy changes that will be hitting households hard this year" -- such as cuts to Medicaid and food assistance.

"The main issue for most individuals is going to be the fact that prices and inflation is outstripping wage growth, and so that's obviously some diminution of real incomes for some people," Steven Durlauf, of the University of Chicago, told the outlet. ...

From the #7 link

... President Trump visited soldiers Tuesday at Walter Reed Military Medical Center, but chose not to meet with 14 who were injured in the war in Iran.

CBS reports that Trump made time to meet service members while he was at the medical center for his six-month physical, but did not meet any of the ones who were recovering from the recent war, and the White House refused to discuss the matter. ...

Whoa, wait, what?

Pres Trump did not meet with the service members recovering from his war of choice in Iran?

And the White House refused to respond to questions on that?

@#15 ... I'm always a little skeptical when people who presumably wouldn't have minded Taylor Swift's fame have a problem with it. ...

Yeah, Ms Smith's fame seems to be the commented-upon issue here.

For me, I don't care one way or they other about Ms Smith. I don't see anything in what she creates that catches my attention.

So, for me she is a huge... who cares?

@#9 ... TRUMP: "We have the best poverty numbers ever."

No where else has poverty like us!

Our poverty is Yuge!!

USA!!! USA!!! USA!!! ...

That seems to be a pretty correct interpretation.

Everything that Pres Trump does seems to be, in his opinion, the best and greatest of all that has been done before him.

So now, Pres Trump is also crowing about the poverty his administration has rained upon Americans.

... Why Abortion Faded from America's National Conversation? ...

Simple ...

Rising costs, leading to the dinner table discussions about the ability to live and feed the family are currently a higher priority.

@#6

The Moody Blues have some great lyrics.

The lyrics you quote are from the end of the album version of the song Nights in White Stain.

Lemme see what I can find ...

There's this ...

@#1

So, private equity seems to have found a very profitable area, with low regulation.

An area, health-care for profit, where it seems to prioritize profits over patients?

More from the article ...

... Private equity transactions are difficult to regulate and often not reviewed by antitrust authorities, as they tend to be below the federal mandatory reporting threshold (Federal Trade Commission A, 2020). More than 90% of PE-related takeovers or investments are not reviewed as there is little regulation of PE investment (Schulte, 2022). The acquisitions that are reviewed can still have widespread impacts on health care markets. ...

@#43 ... Five men who were arrested on suspicion of terrorism offences near RAF Fairford are being released on police bail, counter-terror police have said. ...

Also worth noting, is that the laws in the UK regarding suspects, and how they are treated, are different than those of the US.

Just like the difference in the spelling of offenses and other words. :)

@#1 ... Of course, I am being facetious that this is piggy's fault, but the timing is REALLY odd ...

Back in my days of working for a Top-5 Fortune 500 company, I had reported to an Executive VP of the company.

One time I saw that his actions seemed to intentionally cause disruption in another division that was separate from ours.

So I asked him, what was his purpose in doing that?

He was surprisingly blunt and candid in his reply to me ...

He told me that if he can cause chaos in that other division, then that gives him an entry point to try to take over that other division.

Back to the current ...

Did Pres Trump try to sow ~troubles~ in Ireland for his own purposes?

Update ...

@#38 ... Trump's war ...

Good to see the baby steps your current alias is taking.

@#21

... and, fwiw, SUVs being considered to be trucks, not passenger vehicles seems to pre-date fmr Pres Obama.

To wit ...

@#1 ... Tightening the "Light Truck" Definition: Starting in model year 2030, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) is amending the fleet classification system. The rules make it structurally more difficult for automakers to use specific design elements and equipment additions to trick the system into classifying small SUVs and crossovers as light trucks. This forces more of these high-volume vehicles back into the stricter passenger car regulatory bucket. ...

I agree. Finally taking SUVs out of the less-regulated "light trucks" category and placing them into the passenger car category is A Good Thing. I have been commenting that SUVs are not trucks for months, maybe even years.

If only Pres Trump had not seriously weakened the emission requirements for passenger cars, though.

... attending a college football game Saturday in Knoxville, Tennessee, where he was loudly booed. ...

Pres Trump was booed in an event in Tennessee?

... Media commentators in the MAGA movement shredded Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders ... a new TV ad depicting white male gamers as the target of a state welfare fraud crackdown " and claimed the Republican hadn't injected enough race into her messaging. ...

Wait, what?

So, if she had used a Black person in the ad, the MAGA commentators would have been happy and supportive?

@#8 ... FWIW we are on the brink of a new age in rock ...

That seems to be the case every 10 or so years. Sometimes more frequently.

I summarize...

60's - British invasion
late 60's to early 70's - progressive rock
mid- to late-70's - disco
80's - new wave (a reaction to disco)
90's - grunge (a reaction to new wave)
etc. ...

At this point, I remain a bit skeptical regarding any aspect of a "blue wave" in 5 weeks.

What people tell pollsters may not be the same choices they enter on their ballot.

Time will tell.

Related ...

More from the article ...

... For the best part of a century, the biggest threat to the residents of Svalbard was polar bears. Increasingly, it now comes from Russia.

Fears are growing that Moscow could use the sprawling Arctic archipelago -- a part of Norway with an unusual legal status -- to test NATO militarily amid growing uncertainty over the U.S. commitment to European defense.

Allies suspect Russia of probing crucial undersea cables in the waters off Svalbard and staging military-style events that test the limits of the rules governing its presence there. As Russia ramps up hybrid attacks across Europe, Oslo is racing to boost its naval and surveillance capabilities to protect its northern flank, while local authorities on Svalbard are investing in critical infrastructure -- and even have an evacuation plan in place.

"There is more tension in the Arctic and in the north, and of course also Svalbard is a part of that," Norwegian Defense Minister Tore Sandvik told POLITICO. "We know that Russia ... uses a lot of ways to try to provoke or find ways to do hybrid threats."

Despite its status as Norwegian territory, the archipelago's main island, Spitsbergen, is home to a Russian town.

For decades, Moscow and Oslo have largely kept tensions from boiling over -- but that delicate balance is now under growing strain. Western countries are increasingly worried about Russian hybrid attacks in Europe and warn that Moscow could attempt a limited incursion against a NATO member by the end of the decade.

"Russian leadership is highly unpredictable and more and more risk prone," said Kari Aga Myklebost, a Russian history professor and Svalbard expert at Norway's Arctic University. "I wouldn't close out any scenario when it comes to the Kremlin's will to confront NATO." ...