Buying oil you need is also “trading”. Saying that trading is not allowed is basically saying that no factory is allowed to buy oil…

But I kinda like pretty and big churches. E.g. Sagrada Família is amazing - that was built for all of us to enjoy, not just the church narrowly.

They feel different to me than a megachurch pastor buying his second personal jet.

So I am an atheist, but the last 2 popes have been pretty nice people, right? The Vatican doesn’t seem obviously corrupt. Nothing at all like the insane blatantly abusive megachurches in the US.

Who plays a game that’s obviously rigged against them?

The market is not just a casino. There are actually people who use oil who buy oil futures. Exiting the “game” would mean not buying or using oil in America, for them.

LLMs don’t have any intentions.

Eh. The output from LLMs is usually pretty goal-oriented, so it arguably has intentions.

The LLM is not designed to deceive though, so in that sense it is correct that it is not lies.

So Tucker Carlson admits he helped get the Antichrist elected? Not something I would put on my resume.

None of those in that list are fleeing soldiers, which is the case I listed. You are obviously incapable of reading comprehension, so it is meaningless for me to reply further.

An attack on an unarmed vessel during a ceremonial voyage 2000 miles from the illegal war… yeah no. Not a valid target.

You are literally allowed to shoot fleeing soldiers, under the Geneva Conventions. I agree that the war itself is illegal, but under the laws of war it was a valid target. Please stop saying false things because they feel “truthy” to you.

I hope you are being sarcastic and not an ignorant monster.

The war is evil. But a military ship is legally a valid target. The lying characterization that a warship is not a valid target is what we object to. We don’t like liars.

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine started as a military exercise. Just because a military unit is on an “exercise”, it does not mean it is not combat capable, or a valid military target.

You are in serious need of education.

Try a mirror.

Russia thinks the Trump Presidency is amazing for them. First Trump cuts support for Ukraine, then Trump blames Ukraine for keeping the war going by dastardly not surrendering to Russia. And now Trump is raising global oil proces, radically increasing the income of the Russian state. All while delegitimizing the US.

China probably cheers on the weakening of US power too. And US Republicans also overwhelmingly supports Trump, for reasons known only to them.

So if you add up Russia and China (enemies of America) and Republicans (but I repeat myself), way less than 98% of people wants Trump dead.

Best Easter since 2026 years ago.

What does that even mean?

Gold is fluctuating wildly in price. It is meaningless to talk about measuring commodity prices in gold.

A Shakespeare quote is relevant here, about those blowhards:

It is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.

It allowed unserious people to sound tough on Iran on TV. But until Trump, there were no chance of them actually going through with it, if given power. They truly had to ignore even the most basic of Iran expertise, known even to laymen like me.

Everybody but Trump knew that Iran would close the strait of Hormuz. Which made it incredibly stupid to go to war with Iran. For reasons which are right now self evident, not that they were not evident before.

So no, nobody but a mentally declining idiot like Trump would have gone to war with Iran.

The Iran War seems likely to be a result of Trump’s fancy though, not a move chosen by Trump’s puppeteers.

While Vance is a puppet of Thiel, this is not a zero sum game. Vance would probably do less damage than Trump.

Please tell us where your window is - how can we avoid climbing through your window, if we don’t know which window we are not supposed to climb through.

And yet in this, as in too many other things, Trump continues to again and again be given the assumption of seriousness and competence. It is as if all the “serious people” in this country have the memory of a mentally challenged goldfish. Case in point, from OP:

The primetime speech, which pre-empted scheduled television programming on all broadcast networks at the request of the White House

Why oh why would the networks agree to give Trump specifically live television time? Why not have your journalists watch it first, and then report on it in the next news segment if Trump said anything relevant? Especially in this case, where it was obvious that Trump would say nothing truly time critical requiring live broadcast.

I am too lazy to make a list, but I am pretty sure Trump has done this exact stunt of announcing a “major policy speech coming” before. And then announcing nothing new in the speech.

A significant part of the GOP base are in a Trump cult. I think the Republican party will implode, if the Republicans are seen as in any way helping depose Trump.

They can hope Trump dies, but I don’t think they have any other way out.