No one wants to sit with the "weird" kid on the bus, or be on the elevator with the "weird" angry old guy in your building. But these two - super rich and they believe their to important to follow good social behavior and laws. Boy, what a surprise they got to their boorish behaviors and narcissism is that the simple word "weird" has stuck on them like no insult ever heard at them has before!

Maybe Trump has discovered that he's not God's gift to the rest of the world. Wonder what kind of spoiled 3-year old kid tantrum he's gonna have after that?

Trump deserves to lose by a landslide. Arrogant, immature, unAmerican, tax cheat, fraudster, groper, theif of TS classified documents, insurrection inciter, and whiner-in-chief and fabulist-in-chief

Trump encouraged Russia to hack the DNC in 2016. No one in the DNC would ask Iran to hack anyone in the United States Trump. Poor Tchump. Karma bites!

#18: Replying somewhat facetiously:

He grew up in rural Ohio & had a kind of rough youth. He wrote a book; he was a USMC Public Affairs Officer; he went to Yale Law; he worked at Goldman Sachs; he worked for Peter Theil, a Stanford Law alum, & a founder of Pay Pal, & Bilderberg board member; and he was recently to be the junior senator from Ohio for 18 months. He's also been married multiple times.

Overall, that's bigger resume than most. But he's Trump's running mate

Doesn't keep him from being a jerk who lives money over principle.

Kamala Harris must flaunt her youthfulness and quick wit, and not let Trump and Vance get away with boorish behaviors like stage stalking, name calling and sexist or bigoted verbal rants. Emphasizing appreciation for all vs Trump & Vance's disdain for nearly everyone, and her willingness to listen and find solutions collaboratively. For every fault Trump & Vance have, the contrast between her and them has to be spotlighted.

Funny!

#20: Campaign Schedules this week:

Trump:
8/9, Montana

VP Harris:
8/6, Pennsylvania
8/7, Michigan
8/7, Wisconsin
8/8, North Carolina
8/9, Arizona
8/10, Nevada

Trump's disorientation has steadily worsened. Follow the timeline:

In the Trump-Biden debate it was clear to anyone listening to Trump that his talking points were BS on everything and his grasp of facts horrible. That was overshadowed by how shocking Biden's low energy was and by his early bout of confusion.

At the GOP Convention Trump's acceptance speech went OK for maybe 15 minutes but it continued on as a self-absorbed stream of consciousness another 60 minutes, completely invalidating everything said in the initial 15 minutes.

Now, look at Trump's recent incoherent ramblings on social media and in campaign rallies. There's no "there" there in any of them. It's the same thing all the time: a salad mix of rants and insults and self-congratulation and BS promises with no boundaries or concerns for facts and real data.

Perhaps smart GOP senators should convince Trump to step aside for the good of the Republican party?

Echoing similar thoughts from a similar blog:

In the Trump-Biden debate it was clearto anyone listening to Trump that his talking points were BS on everything, and his grasp of facts horrible. That was overshadowed by how shocking Biden's low energy was and by his early bout of confusion.

Trump's acceptance speech at the GOP Convention went OK for maybe 15 minutes but continued as a self-absorbed stream of consciousness another 60 minutes completely invalidating everything said in thep initial 15 minutes.

Now, look at Trump's recent incoherent ramblings on social media and in campaign rallies. There's no "there" there in any of them. It's the same thing all the time: a salad mix of rants and insults and self-congratulation and BS promises with no boundaries or concerns for facts and real data.

Perhaps smart GOP senators should convince Trump to step aside for the good of the Republican party?

I&W is military shorthand for "indications & warnings".

For more than a month before Jan. 6, 2021 the I&W that the Trymp rally was going to be trouble. It seems that Secret Service, FBI, National Guard and local law enforcement should have been more prepared for the Proud Boys and Q fans and other violent groups advertising to rally at the Mall to "stop the steal".

Even weeks before, callers to George Noory on his late night talk show advertised on-air how Jan 6's rally with Trump in DC was "gonna be a riot".

Has the lesson been learned?

If the agencies that should've been paying attention to these I&W haven't learn their lesson yet, they should definitely begin following these right-wing social media. There's enough I&W here to be taken very, very seriously.

It was obvious in the Tchump v Biden debate to anyone listening to Trump that his talking points were BS on everything, and his grasp of facts horrible. That was overshadowed by how shocking Biden's lack of energy was and by his early bout of confusion.

Then came Trump's acceptance speech at the GOP Convention, that if kept to less than 15 minutes would have been frighteningly uncharacteristic in its moderateness. But Tchump blathered on in his typical self-absorbed stream of consciousness way for another 60 minutes completely invalidating every good thing about his initial 15 minutes.

Finally, look at Trump's recent incoherent ramblings on social media and in campaign rallies. There's no "there" there in any of them. It's the same thing all the time: a salad mix of rants and insults and self-congratulation and BS promises with no boundaries or concerns for facts and real data.

Perhaps smart GOP senators should convince Trump to step aside for the good of the Republican party?

It's as binary choice as ever. This is no false dichotomy!

It's as binary choice, and this is no false dichotomy:

Violent, destructive, childish anger to upend everything and enrich the few,
vs
Constructive, optimistic, and patient collaborativeness to benefit the many.

Q. When can you tell Trump is lying?
A. When his lips are moving.

Actually when he's boasting about his intentions to subvert America's democratic institutions, he's likely disclosing his intentions accurately. When he's denying anything, he's absolutely lying.

#17. So Yanukovych was a saint? No. Elected because he campaigned on his agreement with the majority of Ukraine that they should become part of the European Union. In the meantime, he was Putin's puppet and weighed Putin's stick & carrot offer: "either Yanukovych personally take millions of from Putin and do Putin's bidding or ignore Putin's wishes and fall out of a window".

Yanukovych stabbed his people in the back and took the money. Putin was happy and when Ukrainians protested, Yanukovych had his pro-Russian storm troopers shoot into the crowds massacring dozens in the public square. No western intervention led to the desire to be freer and to be governed without orders from Putin and kleptocratic Muscovy.

When Yanukovych fled Kiev to get protection from Putin, his abandoned estate was discovered festooned with opulence no honest Ukrainian could ever afford in 1,000 lifetimes. Today Viktor Y basks in a comfort near Moscow continuing to hate real democracy but presumably living Putin's fascist police state.

Slava Ukrayina! Slava heroyam!

Btw, this thread wasn't ostensibly supposed to be responding to a political question, or was it? The people who don't understand why a large # of recent generations don't aspire to have kids, are from all over the demographic and political spectrum.

Population Geography was one of my favorite graduate degree courses at UCLA. Most Baby Boomers around the world, except in the theocracies of the MidEast and in the poorest least developed countries elsewhere in the world saw the TFR of their child bearing age cohorts fall to below replacement level.

Is that predictive of impending catastrophe? Possibly. But the common elements are: 1) ready availability of birth control; 2) fear of the prospect of global overpopulation's potential dangers to the environment; and 3) the cost and stress raising a family comfortably in today's fast-paced and competitive world.

#31: " ... they don't have skin in the game in creating a better life for their progeny. That is why the childless cat ladies - be it Kamala or Merkel don't care about the trail of destruction that they leave behind."

Where do childless George Washington & childless James Madison fit in the hall of demons you built for Angela Merkel and Kamala Harris. Oddly, that quartet seem far more concerned about the world's edification than some who kvetch about childless adults.

There's no "trail of destruction" left behind by those four. But Mr. Potbellied, philandering and groping Donald (the sick Joke) Trump sure aspires to leaving the world with his "trail of destruction" as his legacy.

Dear Nihilist, yes. I forgot about blackwidow spiders and spawning salmon, etc. Don't think Maslow's hierarchy of needs addresses those species either. I believe that most humans represent a higher life form than insects and spawning fish. At least most.

#26, regarding your thought that "the purpose of life is procreation" that's a simplistic abbreviation. I have no special wisdom to declare what the purpose of life is but as a former world history teacher, I'd suggest that "survival" is a more accurate abbreviation. Maslow's hierarchy doesn't put procreation at the top of his pyramid of needs. Procreation can help certain sects to survive, but it's not essential to any individual's survival and in larger society, over-procreation can lead to catastrophic population collapse, too.

Sticking on why procreation helps survival, however, for some species there is safety in numbers. And for many human cultures in history it's been important too.

Why do many religions urge followers to procreate? To perpetuate the belief. Why does JD Vance demean childless women? For much the same reason that Hitler urged German women to have large families - it was their patriotic duty. Vance represents a theocratic nationalist element of America today. Like other theocratic autocrats, he believes that all good theocratic nationalistic women have a duty to perpetuate their ideology's future. The same thing happens in different parts of the world where birth rates are the highest.

So, Vance's demonizing childless Americans would itself be creepy. But he's trying to demonize Kamala Harris for being childless. Would he have demonized George Washington or James Madison as bad Americans for being childless? Both of those presidents' wives had children from previous marriages, so perhaps Vance wouldn't blame men for being childless, just women. That'd be creepy and sexist too.