Trump 2.0

[IFocus]

View attachment 204762

.​

In further news from the Trump administration about Epstein….. OOOH LOOK OVER THERE TRANS ATHLETES, CLINTON IS A TRAITOR BLA BLA

 

[basilio]

This essay on how Trump works the room is illuminating.

The key to understanding Trump? It’s not what you think​

Arjun Appadurai

Everything the US president does is for money – and in serving his avarice, he’s managed to triumph over the market

Sun 27 Jul 2025 09.00 EDT


Donald Trump embodies dealmaking as the essence of a particular form of entrepreneurship. Every deal begins with his needs and every deal feeds his wants. He thus appears to be like other super-rich people: seemingly bottomlessly greedy, chasing the next buck as if it is the last buck, even when they have met every criterion of satiation.

But Trump is different, because his brand of greed harks back to an idea of leadership that is primarily about adversarial dealmaking, rather than about innovation or improved managerial techniques. Trump’s entire career is built on deals, and his own narcissism is tied up with dealmaking. This is because of his early socialization into his father’s real-estate dealings in and around New York. Real estate in the United States, unlike the money-making modes of super-rich individuals in other countries, relies on deals based on personal reputation, speculation on future asset values, and the ability to launder spotty career records. Profits and losses over time can be hard to identify and quantify precisely, as Trump’s auditors and opponents have often confirmed, since profits, which depend on speculation and unknown future value, are by definition uncertain.

Trump’s incessant boasts about being an apex dealmaker cast light on almost every aspect of his approach to his presidential decision-making. Numerous observers have long cast doubt on Trump’s image as a consummate dealmaker, pointing to his many failures in his long real-estate career, his abortive political and diplomatic deals, his backsliding and reversals, and his overblown claims about deals in progress. But these criticisms miss the point.

Trump has figured out to an exceptional degree that dealmaking does not need to be successful in order to massively increase his wealth

Deals, whether in finance, real estate, or in any other part of the economy, are just one step in the process of reaching full-fledged, binding agreements subject to the force of law. They are a stage in the negotiation process that has no force until it is finalized as a contract. It is, at best, an agreement to agree, which can turn out to be premature, poorly conceived or unacceptable to one or other party. Put another way, it is an engagement, not a wedding. A deal allows a negotiator like Trump to claim victory and blame the other party or some other contextual variable if things do not work out

The key to understanding Trump? It’s not what you think

Everything the US president does is for money – and in serving his avarice, he’s managed to triumph over the market

www.theguardian.com

 

[The Triangle]

Sickening. Typical white privileged men trying to shut down a Muslim from speaking in public. These are the dangers of democracy destroyers like Trump and Farage who unleash hatred against Muslims. I hope these men are prosecuted to the fullest extent of the laws for racism and hate crimes.

Terror probe as man charged over disturbance on Easyjet flight to Glasgow

Footage has been circulating online showing a man shouting "death to America, death to Trump" on the flight from Luton to Glasgow.

www.bbc.com

This essay on how Trump works the room is illuminating.

The key to understanding Trump? It’s not what you think​

Arjun Appadurai
View attachment 204826
Everything the US president does is for money – and in serving his avarice, he’s managed to triumph over the market

Sun 27 Jul 2025 09.00 EDT


Donald Trump embodies dealmaking as the essence of a particular form of entrepreneurship. Every deal begins with his needs and every deal feeds his wants. He thus appears to be like other super-rich people: seemingly bottomlessly greedy, chasing the next buck as if it is the last buck, even when they have met every criterion of satiation.

But Trump is different, because his brand of greed harks back to an idea of leadership that is primarily about adversarial dealmaking, rather than about innovation or improved managerial techniques. Trump’s entire career is built on deals, and his own narcissism is tied up with dealmaking. This is because of his early socialization into his father’s real-estate dealings in and around New York. Real estate in the United States, unlike the money-making modes of super-rich individuals in other countries, relies on deals based on personal reputation, speculation on future asset values, and the ability to launder spotty career records. Profits and losses over time can be hard to identify and quantify precisely, as Trump’s auditors and opponents have often confirmed, since profits, which depend on speculation and unknown future value, are by definition uncertain.

Trump’s incessant boasts about being an apex dealmaker cast light on almost every aspect of his approach to his presidential decision-making. Numerous observers have long cast doubt on Trump’s image as a consummate dealmaker, pointing to his many failures in his long real-estate career, his abortive political and diplomatic deals, his backsliding and reversals, and his overblown claims about deals in progress. But these criticisms miss the point.

Deals, whether in finance, real estate, or in any other part of the economy, are just one step in the process of reaching full-fledged, binding agreements subject to the force of law. They are a stage in the negotiation process that has no force until it is finalized as a contract. It is, at best, an agreement to agree, which can turn out to be premature, poorly conceived or unacceptable to one or other party. Put another way, it is an engagement, not a wedding. A deal allows a negotiator like Trump to claim victory and blame the other party or some other contextual variable if things do not work out

The key to understanding Trump? It’s not what you think

Everything the US president does is for money – and in serving his avarice, he’s managed to triumph over the market

www.theguardian.com

Illuminate me on how it is illuminating?

Do you have any capacity to post anything other than links to other people's opinions?

 

[Dona Ferentes]

Illuminate me on how it is illuminating?

Do you have any capacity to post anything other than links to other people's opinions?

you overlook the capacity to do things in bold text. I mean, otherwise you might think I'm shouting

 

[basilio]

you overlook the capacity to do things in bold text. I mean, otherwise you might think I'm shouting

So xucking clever Dona.

Truly one of your most insightful, elegant contributions to these Forums.

But Shirley, you must know that already.

 

[orr]

In-prison the files and release to pedophiles ....

On Murdoch.
WSJ for the hard heads.
Fox for the bone heads.

 

[JohnDe]

Option 1: Pay $0- get $0 and deal with constant Trump barrage and lawsuits for the next 3.5 years.
Option 2: Pay $X - get $Y-X and get Trump off your back.

Guilty or not - any sensible person would go for option 2.

I think its the same as many of these trade deals. All these countries know Trump is going to be gone in a few years - so just settle, give the man your lunch money, avoid a beating for a while and know President Clooney will reverse them next semester.

There is a lot of fact in what you say, but not all. At the end of the day everyone has a choice, principles or riches. Harvard look to be chasing riches. But in the end, it may turn out well for universities, as they become more balanced.

Mr Trump has turned full guns on that supposed hotbed of antisemitism and left-wing indoctrination. The government has sought to review some of Harvard’s coursework as Mr Trump has pressured it to hire fewer “Leftist dopes” and discipline pro-Palestine protesters. When the university refused, his administration froze federal research grants worth $3bn and tried to bar it from enrolling foreign students.​

Harvard has fought back and sued the government twice. Its many constituencies have loudly supported this resistance. Seven in ten faculty who took part in a poll by the Crimson, a student newspaper, said the university should not agree to a settlement. Yet it seems likely that Harvard will fold in the manner of Brown University and Columbia; reports suggest it will pay up to $500m.​

Harvard’s lack of ideological diversity will not be fixed by fiat. In 2023 a Crimson poll found that less than 3% of faculty identified as conservative. Now the university is reportedly considering establishing a centre for conservative thought akin to Stanford’s Hoover Institution. Across campus it is understood that too many students seem ill-equipped to deal with views that challenge their own, says Edward Hall, a philosophy professor.​

What Donald Trump is teaching Harvard
Under pressure, America’s oldest university may make a deal

At Harvard you can study negotiation. This being Harvard, there is in fact an entire academic programme dedicated to the craft. The principles are simple. Understand your alternatives—what happens if you fight rather than compromise—and your long-term interests. This being Donald Trump’s America, Harvard itself is now the case study.

Mr Trump has turned full guns on that supposed hotbed of antisemitism and left-wing indoctrination. America’s oldest and richest university would be his most satisfying trophy and its capitulation would become a template for coerced reforms across higher education. The government has sought to review some of Harvard’s coursework as Mr Trump has pressured it to hire fewer “Leftist dopes” and discipline pro-Palestine protesters. When the university refused, his administration froze federal research grants worth $3bn and tried to bar it from enrolling foreign students.

Harvard has fought back and sued the government twice. Its many constituencies have loudly supported this resistance. Seven in ten faculty who took part in a poll by the Crimson, a student newspaper, said the university should not agree to a settlement. Yet it seems likely that Harvard will fold in the manner of Brown University and Columbia; reports suggest it will pay up to $500m.

Consider Harvard’s options. Litigation has succeeded initially: a judge paused the ban on foreign students. Harvard had a sympathetic hearing in its lawsuit to restore government funding. Yet the university knows that it cannot count on the Supreme Court, with its conservative majority. Meanwhile, the potential damage from Mr Trump’s campaign looks both acute and existential. Losing federal funds would transform Harvard from a world-class research university to a tuition-dependent one. They constitute 11% of the operating budget and represent almost all the discretionary money available for research. Making do without while maintaining current spending levels would see the university draw down its $53bn endowment by about 2% a year. That is possible for a while, though it would erode future income and much of the endowment is constrained by donor restrictions anyway.

Already Harvard has frozen some hiring and laid off research staff. More trouble awaits. The Internal Revenue Service is considering revoking Harvard’s tax-exempt status. Elise Stefanik, a Republican congresswoman, has suggested that the university committed securities fraud when it issued a bond in April and failed initially to tell investors about the government’s demands. She wants the Securities and Exchange Commission to investigate. The Department of Homeland Security has sought records about foreign students who participated in pro-Palestine protests.

Alumni, faculty and students report pride in Harvard’s president, Alan Garber, resisting Mr Trump’s extortion scheme. Yet more and more faculty are calling for a deal, especially in medicine and science since they have the most to lose. Steven Pinker, a psychology professor, has argued for a “face-saving exit”: Mr Trump may be “dictatorial” but “resistance should be strategic, not suicidal”.

A deal similar to Brown’s would not be so hard to swallow. To restore its federal funds, that university will pay $50m to workforce-development organisations. A likelier model is the one reached with Columbia, which coughed up $200m to the government. Most of its federal funding, worth $1.3bn, was reinstated and probes into alleged civil-rights violations were closed. Viewed from the outside, the price paid by Columbia looks arbitrary—there was no explanation for how it had been calculated.

Columbia also agreed to dismantle DEI initiatives and will hire faculty specialising in Israel and Judaism, among other concessions. An outside monitor will ensure compliance. Claire Shipman, the university’s acting president, said Columbia had not accepted diktats about what to teach or whom to hire and admit.

Maybe so, but the settlement was still a shakedown. Mr Trump skipped the legal process by which the government can cancel funds. By law the administration has to offer a hearing and submit a report to Congress at least 30 days before the cut-off takes effect. None of that happened. Of course coercive, bilateral deals are Mr Trump’s métier—he has achieved them with law firms and trading partners.

Harvard has been making changes on campus that may be labelled as concessions in any eventual settlement. Some do appear designed to assuage Mr Trump. Since January the university has adopted the government’s preferred definition of antisemitism; ended a partnership with Birzeit University in the West Bank; removed the leadership of the Centre for Middle Eastern Studies; and suspended the Palestine Solidarity Committee, an undergraduate group. DEI offices have been renamed and their websites scrubbed.

Harvard’s lack of ideological diversity will not be fixed by fiat. In 2023 a Crimson poll found that less than 3% of faculty identified as conservative. Now the university is reportedly considering establishing a centre for conservative thought akin to Stanford’s Hoover Institution. Across campus it is understood that too many students seem ill-equipped to deal with views that challenge their own, says Edward Hall, a philosophy professor.

Another insight you will glean in a Harvard negotiation class is to grasp your opponent’s interests. In Mr Trump’s practice, this means bagging a deal and bragging about it. He wrote a whole book on the topic. It could go on a syllabus. ■

 

[DB008]

I think Hillary is going to be doing time

.​

 

[DB008]

Declassified Durham Annex Released by Chairman Grassley


https://www.grassley.senate.gov/imo...sley.pdf?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email



.​

 

[IFocus]

So how was it under age girls (children) were at Mar Largo?

 

[basilio]

So how was it under age girls (children) were at Mar Largo?

It was a summer job for her.

Pressed further on whether the workers poached by Epstein included Giuffre, then a Mar-a-Lago pool locker-room attendant whose groundskeeper dad got her a job there, Trump confirmed she was among the poachings.

Trump says Epstein ‘stole’ victim Virginia Giuffre from Mar-a-Lago

President tells reporters he cut off contact with Epstein because he was poaching employees from his club before amplifying that they were ‘young women’

www.independent.co.uk

 

[basilio]

The Boy Genius Who Killed 14 Million Poor People​

What is the moral weight of responsibility for the men who carried out DOGE’s work?​

Jonathan V. Last
Aug 01, 2025



(Composite by Hannah Yoest / Photos: Michel Lunanga/Getty Images / Shutterstock)

1. Booksmart​

On The Next Level yesterday Sarah, Tim, and I talked about this monster Bloomberg profile of Luke Farritor. I cannot recommend it highly enough.

You probably have not heard Farritor’s name before. He is one of Elon Musk’s 23-year-old DOGE bros who helped dismantle key parts of the federal government, including USAID.

The particulars of Farritor’s story are idiosyncratic—he is in almost every way an outlier. Yet the moral component is universal because it presents a simple question: What is the nature of accountability?

The Boy Genius Who Killed 14 Million Poor People

What is the moral weight of responsibility for the men who carried out DOGE’s work?

www.thebulwark.com

 

[basilio]

Intro to Luke Farritor

Luke Farritor could have been an artist, or a builder, or someone dedicated to seeing a great historical mystery through. Instead he wound up at the Department of Government Efficiency, slashing, dismantling, undoing.​

By Susan Berfield, Margi Murphy and Jason Leopold

July 29, 2025 at 5:00 AM EDT

• Before he was called a patriot and a traitor for following Elon Musk to Washington to join DOGE; before he was hired by the US government despite a résumé that would have been previously rejected; before he was granted extensive access to sensitive data and invited to brief the country’s vice president; before he met his Twitter heroes in Silicon Valley; before he became a Thiel Fellow, which required him to become a college dropout; before he was celebrated internationally for using AI to help detect passages in a scroll charred by the eruption of Mount Vesuvius; before all of that, Luke Farritor, now 23, was a homeschooled kid in Lincoln, Nebraska, who called himself lukethecoder64.

Back then, he responded to the prompt “You Know You’re a Nerd When…” with “you listen to ‘White ’n nerdy’ by Weird Al and think it’s a biography of you.” The Martian was one of his favorite books. He was a bell ringer at church. He played piano and golf, chess and Kerbal Space Program. During his high school summers, he helped build an app that could link those in need to local charities. It’s still in use.

Back then, his father introduced him to an artist, Charley Friedman, who wanted to create a musical installation that people could move through, hearing different notes at different times, an experience individual and communal. “I’ve always been interested in how humans are easily manipulated by power, by bright lights,” Friedman says. He needed someone who could code and build and commit to a project that was then a concept. Farritor was around 15 when he began working with Friedman and 19 when they first exhibited Soundtracks for the Present Future, composed of 59 hanging, computer-controlled guitars and mandolins, at a contemporary arts center in Omaha. Farritor called it magical. It was featured on public television in Nebraska and traveled to museums around the country. Friedman always referred to Farritor as the exhibition engineer.

Being around artists allowed Farritor to see “how they approach their careers, how they approach their lives,” he said in a university news story. “It really rubbed off on me, I think.” He considered becoming an artist. He started to create what he called an exploding toaster. “He was devising some things that he thought were kind of art pieces,” Friedman says. But at 21, after seven months as an intern at Musk’s SpaceX Starbase in Texas, he told Friedman he thought of himself differently: I realized what I love to do is to solve other people’s problems.

https://www.bloomberg.com/features/2025-luke-farritor-doge/?accessToken=eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJzb3VyY2UiOiJTdWJzY3JpYmVyR2lmdGVkQXJ0aWNsZSIsImlhdCI6MTc1Mzk3MjE2MCwiZXhwIjoxNzU0NTc2OTYwLCJhcnRpY2xlSWQiOiJUMDVMMDZHUTdMOFYwMCIsImJjb25uZWN0SWQiOiJFNEMyNEQ2MjVCQzM0MTVGQTFEMUM5RUZGMzE0QTkyNyJ9.iumX4RU9uo9i0gJBhZaIV0XVwyDddKi_9sjpFEO4LfA&leadSource=uverify%20wall

 

[IFocus]

The Boy Genius Who Killed 14 Million Poor People​

What is the moral weight of responsibility for the men who carried out DOGE’s work?​

What's interesting is that many US citizens would see themselves as Christians, a large majority of them would be paraphrasing the teachings of Jesus Christ..... most of all would be so called conservatives espousing Christian values.....

 

[DB008]

 

[Craton]

The crime rate in Washington DC has been going down but the deniers are in power so, what do they do?
From the SMH 12 Aug 2025

‘Bloodthirsty criminals’: Trump seizes control of Washington police, deploys National Guard​

Extracts from the article.
<snip>

This is the exact kind of criminal episode US President Donald Trump seemed to have in mind on Monday, as he announced a dramatic takeover of policing in the US capital.

Declaring a “crime emergency”, Trump will also deploy 800 members of the National Guard to the streets of Washington – just as he did to quell anti-government protests in Los Angeles in June.
“You people are victims of it too,” he told reporters during a rare appearance in the White House press briefing room.

<snip>

But statistics from the DC Metropolitan Police show violent crime is trending down after spiking during the COVID-19 pandemic and into 2023.
So far in 2025, homicides are down 12 per cent compared with this time in 2024, assault with a dangerous weapon is down 20 per cent, and robbery is down 28 per cent.

DC Mayor Muriel Bowser, a Democrat, said Trump’s view of Washington was coloured by the experience of his first term amid the Black Lives Matter protests and later COVID crime wave.
“It was true that those were more challenging times,” she said. “We have been able to reverse that 2023 crime spike. Crime isn’t just down from 2023, it’s also down from 2019. We’re at a 30-year violent crime low, [but] we’re not satisfied, we haven’t taken our foot off the gas.”

<snip>

George Derek Musgrove, a historian at the University of Maryland who wrote a book on Washington’s history, said the present circumstances did not constitute a real emergency – but Trump did have the power to decide.

“Unfortunately, for the city’s sake, the law leaves the determination of whether the city is experiencing an emergency or not to the president,” Musgrove told this masthead.

“The president has already shown his willingness to lie about conditions on the ground in the city to get his way.”
Novak, a lawyer and registered Democrat who is still recovering from his injuries sustained in May, is against Trump taking over the police and deploying the Guard.

He said it was ironic that Congress had cut $US1 billion ($1.54 billion) from DC’s budget just as Trump was pressuring the district to get tougher on crime.

“It seems like they’re trying to create an emergency that they want to use federal force to solve,” he said.

“Historically, this is what fascist governments have done – take national control over enforcement that’s supposed to be at the local level. That’s very scary.”

When Novak was attacked, the police were nearby – out of sight, but close enough to hear his screams. But the neighbours who came to his aid were more helpful than the officers, he said.

He believes better police training is warranted, not brute force. “I still go out. I still generally feel safe when I go out,” he said.
“Like any city, there are areas that could be improved. But overall, I’m very proud to live in the district, and feel that it already is a very beautiful city – despite whatever’s on the news that they’re trying to magnify.”

So what is this administration really up to then, hmmm?

 

[moXJO]

The crime rate in Washington DC has been going down but the deniers are in power so, what do they do?
From the SMH 12 Aug 2025

Extracts from the article.
<snip>

<snip>

<snip>



So what is this administration really up to then, hmmm?

Wasn't it going down because they stopped reporting it or something dodge?

 

[The Triangle]

DC has more or less the same murders as Australia and Australia has 30x the population... The short-term trend doesn't matter - the city has been a basket case for decades.

So....Maybe...Just maybe... Trump is sick of the crime and wants to have a crack at it? There doesn't have to always be some CIA/Russia/Billionaire Illuminati narrative.

 

[Craton]

Yeah, dunno. Neither Washington DC nor California have Republician mayors, plus DC is surrounded by "blue" states.
Things are not/never as they seem because I noted this snippet of manipulation the other day.

From Snopes and reported as True.
Reads in part (my bolds):

Sections of Constitution were missing from government website.​

Portions of the U.S. Constitution, including sections on habeas corpus and rules against the government issuing titles of nobility, were removed from the text of the U.S. Constitution on Congress' Constitution website in August 2025.

Yes, a coding issue now resolved.

In a post to X (archived) on Aug. 6, 2025, the Library of Congress explained that it was aware some sections of Article 1 were missing from the Constitution's text on its site. It said this was "due to a coding error" and that it expected the issue to be resolved soon. There was also a disclaimer at the top of the website on Aug. 6, 2025, that read, "The Constitution Annotated website is currently experiencing data issues. We are working to resolve this issue and regret the inconvenience."

A later post from the Library of Congress clarified that a tag in the code was inadvertently removed while its team was updating the annotations for that portion of the Constitution. The post said the coding error had been fixed, and the missing portion was restored to the website.

From my POV, seems they are testing the waters

Anyways, as I've said, all is not what it seems and I'd counter that it's not just DC that has been a basket case of crime, plus looking at some of those stats, crime started spiking/upticking since his first term.

However, an internet search squiz reports:

As of 2025, violent crime in Washington, D.C. has decreased significantly, with a 35% drop in 2024 compared to 2023, marking the lowest levels in over 30 years. Homicides are also down, with 99 reported by August 2025, compared to 112 during the same period in 2024. PBS

U.S. Department of Justice

...and this too...

Overview of Crime in Washington, D.C.​

Washington, D.C. has seen significant changes in crime rates over recent years, particularly in violent crime. The following sections provide a breakdown of the latest statistics and trends.

Violent Crime Statistics​

Recent Trends​

• 2024: Violent crime decreased by 35% compared to 2023, marking the lowest level in over 30 years.
• 2025 (Year-to-Date): Preliminary data shows a further decline in violent crime by 26% compared to the same period in 2024.

Breakdown of Violent Crimes (2023)​

Crime Type	Rate per 100,000 People
Homicides	39.4
Aggravated Assaults	242.9
Robberies	295.9
Rapes	25.5

Property Crime Statistics​

Recent Trends​

• 2023: Property crime rates were significantly higher than the national average, with a total of 4,300 property crimes per 100,000 people.

Breakdown of Property Crimes (2023)​

Crime Type	Rate per 100,000 People
Larceny-Theft	1,584.9
Motor Vehicle Theft	509.8
Burglary	169.9

Comparison to National Averages​

• Violent Crime: D.C.'s violent crime rate was 207.4% higher than the national average in 2023.
• Property Crime: D.C.'s property crime rate was 124.7% higher than the national average.

Conclusion​

Overall, Washington, D.C. has experienced a notable decline in violent crime, with significant reductions in homicides and other violent offenses. However, property crime rates remain a concern, significantly exceeding national averages.

USAFacts Wikipedia

Funny how property theft is higher than the national average. Not surprising really with the influx of MAGA zealots. Nothing like a bit of pillaging on the way back to their home states eh?

 

[moXJO]

Crime is a Republican winning point. Democrats generally are viewed as weak on crime. Probably to shift focus on Trumps run of failures