@#2 ... This is what Republicans voted for. ...

Seems that way.

Just look at the Cabinet of Pres Trump.

How many of those Cabinet members are experiencing concerns about how to put food on the table or pay for health care?

Does Sec Bessent have a concern about his ability to pay for the feeding his family?

@#73 ... I'm right here. ...

@#57 ... I'm not in the mood to read your posts today. Bye. ...

?

... A convicted participant in the 6 January 2021 US Capitol attack who was pardoned at the start of Donald Trump's second presidency has been ordered to serve seven years in prison after a jury found him guilty of committing a burglary in Virginia in May 2025. ...

Is there a list of the convicted crimes committed by those who previously had been pardoned by Pres Trump?

Found this old one ...

@#69 ... You call me fake? ...

I'm still deciding.

... This is just my take on the matter. Not looking for a debate. ...

Yeah, I notice the manner in which your current alias eschews discussion of the issues it notes.

Typical religious fanatic ... post and run ...

@#68 ... You fake Christian, pedophile supporters are a mystery to me. ...

Once the Christians started to try to affect politics, well, then they lost it.

The concern I have are the White Nationalist Christians who insert their religion in areas where it should not be inserted.

Case in point: Sec Defense Hegseth.

More from the article ...

... Adjusted for inflation, the average hourly wage for American private sector workers grew by just 1.3% from 2024 to 2025, according to Oxfam and ITUC's analysis. In comparison, earnings for the 384 CEOs in the S&P 500 for whom pay data is available increased by 25.6% between 2024 and 2025.

CEOs are paid an average of 281 times more than the typical worker, according to a September 2025 report by the Economic Policy Institute, with CEOs taking home an average total of $22.98 million in 2024. That's up from a ratio of 60 just three and a half decades ago.

"What the data shows is that we cannot have a conversation about the affordability crisis without talking about extreme inequality, and in particular the extreme inequality between CEO pay and worker pay," Patricia Stottlemyer, labor rights policy lead for Oxfam America, tells CNBC Make It. ...

@#3 ... Retes sat zip-tied in the dirt for four hours. "The entire time I was sitting there, they only asked for my ID once," he says. He told them it was in his car -- the one with the disabled veterans license plate. "I don't know if they ever went to go check my ID."...

"He told them [his ID] was in his car -- the one with the disabled Veterans license plate"

!!!

@#4 ... Putin's dying?!? ...

If so, will his replacement be less militaristic towards the good people of Ukraine?

... Russian President Vladimir Putin has said he thinks Russia's conflict with Ukraine is coming to an end ...

Color me skeptical.

I'll believe it when he returns all the lands he annexed by use of his military during his unprovoked invasion of a sovereign Ukraine.

@#62 ... The statue was not commissioned by the government or the Republican Party. It was financed by a group of cryptocurrency investors promoting a meme coin called $PATRIOT.

...

The prayer circle, the clergy, the blessing, the phone call from the president of the United States. All of it, for a crypto promotion." ...

Typical of Pres Trump's grifting of his presidency?

... "I will not rule over Hungary -- I will serve my country," Magyar said ...

I wonder if Pres Trump would ever utter something similar, say ...

"I will not rule over America -- I will serve my country."

@#21 ... It would take generations for the US to get to a point where we are prepared for a pandemic. The public has been too malinformed and undereducated ...

I agree, with one comment, though ...

Yes the public has been misinformed by some, and that has led to much of the public digesting problematic medical information.

And now, one of the largest purveyors of that problematic medical information is determining the health policies of the Country.

So, yeah, it is going to take a while to recover.

@#13 ... Logan Act violation. ...

How so?

Please be specific.

thx.

... A prominent Baptist pastor told Fox News on Saturday that President Donald Trump has a "better understanding" of the bible than Pope Leo XIV when it concerns the military conflict with Iran ...

Wow.

@#2 ... higher fuel and food costs ...

Also, higher costs for everything transported by trucks that use diesel fuel.

fwiw, I filled up my car's gas tank on March 2: $3.90 per gallon

Today, I filled it up again: $5.39 per gallon

From the reporting I've heard this afternoon, what is being passed back and forth via Pakistan is little more than a list of topics to be discussed in the future. Granted it is still early reporting, so take it as that ...

... After seven months on the graveyard shift, working from midnight to 8 a.m., Retes was eager to move to a daytime schedule and spend more waking hours with his family. ...

Pres Trump says he is deporting only the most violent and criminal undocumented immigrants.

More from the article ...

... Retes isn't sure how long he was held down before someone zip-tied his hands. Agents picked him up and walked him to the farm where he works. Officers began asking who would be responsible for Retes. "The entire time they were walking me back, they were passing me off to other agents, asking, 'Who's going to take responsibility for what happened to him?'" he says.

Confused as to what had just happened and why, Retes waited for an opportunity to prove he was a citizen. "I mean, I didn't do anything wrong," he says. "I just figured they were going to finish doing whatever they were doing and they were going to let me go." Retes sat zip-tied in the dirt for four hours. "The entire time I was sitting there, they only asked for my ID once," he says. He told them it was in his car"the one with the disabled veterans license plate. "I don't know if they ever went to go check my ID."

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) had been adamant that its immigration raids were focused on the "worst of the worst criminal illegal aliens."

So it was reasonable for Retes, who was perhaps racially profiled by officers, to think he'd be free to leave after proving his citizenship. ...

More from the article ...

... "I do everything for my kids," says the 25-year-old father. "That's what it's all for." When he finally got the new schedule, he saw it as a perfect opportunity.

Things seemed normal that Thursday as he drove along the back roads to work his first day shift. But as Retes pulled up to the entrance to his workplace, he saw pandemonium: cars everywhere blocking the road, cars without drivers, drivers zigzagging around other cars. Along with other federal agencies, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) was out in force, and so were people protesting.

President Donald Trump had started to roll out his mass deportation campaign in early 2025. By June, workplace raids were happening across Southern California as agents tried to reach a goal of 3,000 arrests a day, inciting widespread panic and disorder. After protests erupted in Los Angeles, Trump sent in roughly 4,000 National Guard members to quell the turmoil.

But without a call from work warning him not to come in, Retes pressed on. "I still got to go to work like normal," he says. "I need to get paid. I still need to keep a roof over my kids' heads." ...

Making his way through parked cars and protesters, Retes eventually reached a line of agents blocking him in the middle of the road. Still hoping to make it in on time, he pulled up and asked to pass. "I was a good distance away, and I put my car in park," he says. "I got out, stood by my car."

The agents started yelling, Retes says. "Get the fuck out of here!" "Leave!" "Get back in your car!" "Pull over to the side!" "You're not going to work." "Work is closed." Retes asked for a badge number that he could give to his boss when he didn't show up on time. But that made the agents madder.

Roughly three out of four ICE detainees have no criminal record, according to a November 2025 Cato Institute report, and are otherwise law-abiding undocumented immigrants -- but some of the people arrested are, like Retes, U.S. citizens.

"Literally the first words out of my mouth was that I was a U.S. citizen, that I'm just trying to get work ... and they just didn't care," Retes says. "They were immediately hostile from the get-go."

Rather than escalate any further, Retes got back into his car to follow the agents' directions and leave. But the agents unexpectedly moved forward, surrounded the car, and started banging on its windows and pulling on its door handles, telling him to get out. Another agent yelled at him to reverse, and another told him to pull over to the side of the road. "They're all yelling contradictory things when all I was already trying to do was leave like they were asking me to do," says Retes. "Like, what am I supposed to do?" ...

@#57 ... I would guess you have to use your common sense. ...

My common sense tells me that the President of the United States should be more careful when he speaks.

But Pres Trump is not careful when he speaks, he routinely lies and says stupid things..

So I ask again ...

"and how do you differentiate between the times he says idiotic things and he is just "thinking out loud," and when he says stupid things and he really means it?"

@#2

"Excursion" is so last week.

Lately it has been a skirmish.

And Pres Trump still seems to be desperately seeking an off-ramp.

Related ...

More from the article ...

... Tisza holds 141 seats out of 199 in the new parliament -- up from zero, a result of the party being founded just two years ago.

Tens of thousands of people are expected to take part in a "celebration of freedom and democracy" outside parliament in Budapest, along the shores of the Danube. Magyar has told Hungarians to step through the "gateway of regime change".

Orbán's Fidesz party crumbled from 135 to 52 seats, and shows signs of imploding.

He and other key party figures have decided not to take their seats in parliament, and their political future is uncertain, beyond a vague commitment to "rebuild the national side".

Each day brings new revelations or allegations of corruption against a party which has governed Hungary almost unchallenged since 2010. Magyar has promised a "change of system" as well as a change of government. ...

@#51 ... Regarding his comment, I call it thinking out loud ...

... and how do you differentiator between the times he says idiotic things and he is just "thinking out loud," and when he says stupid things and he really means it?