Now that we have a new thread, in order to ensure that this thread continues to meet TL standards and follows the proper guidelines, we will be enforcing the rules in the OP more strictly. Be sure to give them a complete and thorough read before posting!
NOTE: When providing a source, please provide a very brief summary on what it's about and what purpose it adds to the discussion. The supporting statement should clearly explain why the subject is relevant and needs to be discussed. Please follow this rule especially for tweets.
Your supporting statement should always come BEFORE you provide the source.
On July 06 2026 15:14 Acrofales wrote: Has Trump attended a single world cup match yet? Or is tonight's going to be the first? Seems the lack of participation by him is a performance of its own with how obnoxiously loud he is about everything else. I guess it doesn't look good to "truth" about immigration when France is showing what a successful melting pot looks like, the USA themselves are an intentionally inclusive team and he already got into a fight with the women's team last term: there probably isn't much political upside for him in football, so unless he likes it personally (which definitely doesn't seem like it), he's making a deliberate point of staying far away from the greatest sports tournament worldwide? At least it spares us the celebrity cam spotting him. Showing Infantino pretty much every match is already one too many punchable faces.
You feel snubbed as someone whose continental sport is soccer because the leader of the free world hasn't gone to enough World Cup Games hosted in his country compared to your expectations (whatever they may be based on). This is reading too much into it.
I would bet money that had POTUS gone to more World Cup Games you would be going "Look at the security nightmare and waiting lines Trump forced upon innocent viewers to satisfy his vanity," blaming him for the bad experience citizens and tourists got as a result, and chastising him for watching sportsball instead of presidenting. Then ironically saying oh it's better that he's watching sportsball instead of presidenting since he messes everything up anyway. Would I win money?
Rare time I agree with oblade. People will be complaining either way.
Some people will always complain, can’t really be helped. Can’t say I care especially either way, it is pretty standard to have the head of state or head of government of a host nation show up for a few games. Some attend more than others, but it’s pretty standard shrug one’s shoulders stuff
Less standard is such a figure ringing the head of FIFA to sidestep their own disciplinary procedures, but not exactly surprising behaviour from either Trump or Infantino
You got to give it to Trump, the guy knows how to control headlines. Last week it was revealed that he stole a couple billions in crypto and insider trading. Today nobody cares anymore and we're talking about a phone call he made to help his football team.
I totally missed that. Would you mind posting a source/article?
I tried to bring it up and even replied to you since we were at the time being buried in "Trans sports" debate but it didn't really catch on.
I found this a pretty good breakdown:
I've also tried to write up reports on the Kushner / Witkoff / Lutnick kids running around with the Trump kids all across the world getting bribes in the form of business deals.
There was also quite a few posts about Trump kids board seats on Kalshi and Polymarket, insider trading there, $600 million for a $40 million "defense contractor" from Pentagon, "Vulcan technologies" also backed by Don Jr. etc.
There is so much shit that it boggles the mind, but our resident Centrists get very upset and want to deport anyone who stole a loaf of bread to feed their family, as long as they are sufficiently brown, the president they elected steals billions and uses the goverment to enrich his family and friends, they don't bat an eye.
On July 06 2026 15:14 Acrofales wrote: Has Trump attended a single world cup match yet? Or is tonight's going to be the first? Seems the lack of participation by him is a performance of its own with how obnoxiously loud he is about everything else. I guess it doesn't look good to "truth" about immigration when France is showing what a successful melting pot looks like, the USA themselves are an intentionally inclusive team and he already got into a fight with the women's team last term: there probably isn't much political upside for him in football, so unless he likes it personally (which definitely doesn't seem like it), he's making a deliberate point of staying far away from the greatest sports tournament worldwide? At least it spares us the celebrity cam spotting him. Showing Infantino pretty much every match is already one too many punchable faces.
You feel snubbed as someone whose continental sport is soccer because the leader of the free world hasn't gone to enough World Cup Games hosted in his country compared to your expectations (whatever they may be based on). This is reading too much into it.
I would bet money that had POTUS gone to more World Cup Games you would be going "Look at the security nightmare and waiting lines Trump forced upon innocent viewers to satisfy his vanity," blaming him for the bad experience citizens and tourists got as a result, and chastising him for watching sportsball instead of presidenting. Then ironically saying oh it's better that he's watching sportsball instead of presidenting since he messes everything up anyway. Would I win money?
Rare time I agree with oblade. People will be complaining either way.
Some people will always complain, can’t really be helped. Can’t say I care especially either way, it is pretty standard to have the head of state or head of government of a host nation show up for a few games. Some attend more than others, but it’s pretty standard shrug one’s shoulders stuff
Less standard is such a figure ringing the head of FIFA to sidestep their own disciplinary procedures, but not exactly surprising behaviour from either Trump or Infantino
You got to give it to Trump, the guy knows how to control headlines. Last week it was revealed that he stole a couple billions in crypto and insider trading. Today nobody cares anymore and we're talking about a phone call he made to help his football team.
I wouldn’t conflate a resigned lack of surprise for folks not caring.
Trump doing something blatantly corrupt with no consequence is about equivalent to me posting a daily update that yes, today is a day of the week that ends in a ‘y’.
That's the truth. It was revealed that something we knew to be corrupt in 2025 is still corrupt in 2026. The shocking thing would be if the crypto was suddenly discovered to be above board.
And you're expecting a news bounce from ... wait for it ... "The April trading in the midst of markets’ tariff turmoil was typical for the president’s accounts."
Are we pretending this is novel, just so we can pretend that he cleverly wiggled his way out of a bad news cycle?
On July 06 2026 15:14 Acrofales wrote: Has Trump attended a single world cup match yet? Or is tonight's going to be the first? Seems the lack of participation by him is a performance of its own with how obnoxiously loud he is about everything else. I guess it doesn't look good to "truth" about immigration when France is showing what a successful melting pot looks like, the USA themselves are an intentionally inclusive team and he already got into a fight with the women's team last term: there probably isn't much political upside for him in football, so unless he likes it personally (which definitely doesn't seem like it), he's making a deliberate point of staying far away from the greatest sports tournament worldwide? At least it spares us the celebrity cam spotting him. Showing Infantino pretty much every match is already one too many punchable faces.
You feel snubbed as someone whose continental sport is soccer because the leader of the free world hasn't gone to enough World Cup Games hosted in his country compared to your expectations (whatever they may be based on). This is reading too much into it.
I would bet money that had POTUS gone to more World Cup Games you would be going "Look at the security nightmare and waiting lines Trump forced upon innocent viewers to satisfy his vanity," blaming him for the bad experience citizens and tourists got as a result, and chastising him for watching sportsball instead of presidenting. Then ironically saying oh it's better that he's watching sportsball instead of presidenting since he messes everything up anyway. Would I win money?
Rare time I agree with oblade. People will be complaining either way.
Some people will always complain, can’t really be helped. Can’t say I care especially either way, it is pretty standard to have the head of state or head of government of a host nation show up for a few games. Some attend more than others, but it’s pretty standard shrug one’s shoulders stuff
Less standard is such a figure ringing the head of FIFA to sidestep their own disciplinary procedures, but not exactly surprising behaviour from either Trump or Infantino
You got to give it to Trump, the guy knows how to control headlines. Last week it was revealed that he stole a couple billions in crypto and insider trading. Today nobody cares anymore and we're talking about a phone call he made to help his football team.
I wouldn’t conflate a resigned lack of surprise for folks not caring.
Trump doing something blatantly corrupt with no consequence is about equivalent to me posting a daily update that yes, today is a day of the week that ends in a ‘y’.
That's the truth. It was revealed that something we knew to be corrupt in 2025 is still corrupt in 2026. The shocking thing would be if the crypto was suddenly discovered to be above board.
And you're expecting a news bounce from ... wait for it ... "The April trading in the midst of markets’ tariff turmoil was typical for the president’s accounts."
Are we pretending this is novel, just so we can pretend that he cleverly wiggled his way out of a bad news cycle?
Yeah, POTUS almost doubling his net worth in less then year and a half is just fine and dandy, normal thing.
Doing investments in to companies he awards goverment contracts just before those are rewarded, all just completely normal, right?
I don't usually engage with you because you are a weird person as evidenced with the "IDF was completely in the right in murdering 8 and 11 year old boys" situation, plus the obvious AI use in most of your posts, but not even you can be so vapid to think that this kind of stupid attempt to give cover to Trump would work here.
On July 06 2026 15:14 Acrofales wrote: Has Trump attended a single world cup match yet? Or is tonight's going to be the first? Seems the lack of participation by him is a performance of its own with how obnoxiously loud he is about everything else. I guess it doesn't look good to "truth" about immigration when France is showing what a successful melting pot looks like, the USA themselves are an intentionally inclusive team and he already got into a fight with the women's team last term: there probably isn't much political upside for him in football, so unless he likes it personally (which definitely doesn't seem like it), he's making a deliberate point of staying far away from the greatest sports tournament worldwide? At least it spares us the celebrity cam spotting him. Showing Infantino pretty much every match is already one too many punchable faces.
You feel snubbed as someone whose continental sport is soccer because the leader of the free world hasn't gone to enough World Cup Games hosted in his country compared to your expectations (whatever they may be based on). This is reading too much into it.
I would bet money that had POTUS gone to more World Cup Games you would be going "Look at the security nightmare and waiting lines Trump forced upon innocent viewers to satisfy his vanity," blaming him for the bad experience citizens and tourists got as a result, and chastising him for watching sportsball instead of presidenting. Then ironically saying oh it's better that he's watching sportsball instead of presidenting since he messes everything up anyway. Would I win money?
Rare time I agree with oblade. People will be complaining either way.
Some people will always complain, can’t really be helped. Can’t say I care especially either way, it is pretty standard to have the head of state or head of government of a host nation show up for a few games. Some attend more than others, but it’s pretty standard shrug one’s shoulders stuff
Less standard is such a figure ringing the head of FIFA to sidestep their own disciplinary procedures, but not exactly surprising behaviour from either Trump or Infantino
You got to give it to Trump, the guy knows how to control headlines. Last week it was revealed that he stole a couple billions in crypto and insider trading. Today nobody cares anymore and we're talking about a phone call he made to help his football team.
I wouldn’t conflate a resigned lack of surprise for folks not caring.
Trump doing something blatantly corrupt with no consequence is about equivalent to me posting a daily update that yes, today is a day of the week that ends in a ‘y’.
That's the truth. It was revealed that something we knew to be corrupt in 2025 is still corrupt in 2026. The shocking thing would be if the crypto was suddenly discovered to be above board.
And you're expecting a news bounce from ... wait for it ... "The April trading in the midst of markets’ tariff turmoil was typical for the president’s accounts."
Are we pretending this is novel, just so we can pretend that he cleverly wiggled his way out of a bad news cycle?
Yeah, POTUS almost doubling his net worth in less then year and a half is just fine and dandy, normal thing.
Doing investments in to companies he awards goverment contracts just before those are rewarded, all just completely normal, right?
I don't usually engage with you because you are a weird person as evidenced with the "IDF was completely in the right in murdering 8 and 11 year old boys" situation, plus the obvious AI use in most of your posts, but not even you can be so vapid to think that this kind of stupid attempt to give cover to Trump would work here.
I dunno if my read of that post would be the same. I took it to be a similar stance as mine, namely that Trump being corrupt is hardly news, and there’s no cleverness in being blatantly corrupt if you’re not gonna face censure for it and can just openly indulge in it.
The goldfish voters don't know how corrupt he is because they get their news from highly curated social media. Very, very occasionally some bit of real news breaks through to them, but how to do that consistently is still an open problem in electioneering.
On July 06 2026 15:14 Acrofales wrote: Has Trump attended a single world cup match yet? Or is tonight's going to be the first? Seems the lack of participation by him is a performance of its own with how obnoxiously loud he is about everything else. I guess it doesn't look good to "truth" about immigration when France is showing what a successful melting pot looks like, the USA themselves are an intentionally inclusive team and he already got into a fight with the women's team last term: there probably isn't much political upside for him in football, so unless he likes it personally (which definitely doesn't seem like it), he's making a deliberate point of staying far away from the greatest sports tournament worldwide? At least it spares us the celebrity cam spotting him. Showing Infantino pretty much every match is already one too many punchable faces.
You feel snubbed as someone whose continental sport is soccer because the leader of the free world hasn't gone to enough World Cup Games hosted in his country compared to your expectations (whatever they may be based on). This is reading too much into it.
I would bet money that had POTUS gone to more World Cup Games you would be going "Look at the security nightmare and waiting lines Trump forced upon innocent viewers to satisfy his vanity," blaming him for the bad experience citizens and tourists got as a result, and chastising him for watching sportsball instead of presidenting. Then ironically saying oh it's better that he's watching sportsball instead of presidenting since he messes everything up anyway. Would I win money?
Rare time I agree with oblade. People will be complaining either way.
Some people will always complain, can’t really be helped. Can’t say I care especially either way, it is pretty standard to have the head of state or head of government of a host nation show up for a few games. Some attend more than others, but it’s pretty standard shrug one’s shoulders stuff
Less standard is such a figure ringing the head of FIFA to sidestep their own disciplinary procedures, but not exactly surprising behaviour from either Trump or Infantino
You got to give it to Trump, the guy knows how to control headlines. Last week it was revealed that he stole a couple billions in crypto and insider trading. Today nobody cares anymore and we're talking about a phone call he made to help his football team.
I wouldn’t conflate a resigned lack of surprise for folks not caring.
Trump doing something blatantly corrupt with no consequence is about equivalent to me posting a daily update that yes, today is a day of the week that ends in a ‘y’.
That's the truth. It was revealed that something we knew to be corrupt in 2025 is still corrupt in 2026. The shocking thing would be if the crypto was suddenly discovered to be above board.
And you're expecting a news bounce from ... wait for it ... "The April trading in the midst of markets’ tariff turmoil was typical for the president’s accounts."
Are we pretending this is novel, just so we can pretend that he cleverly wiggled his way out of a bad news cycle?
Yeah, POTUS almost doubling his net worth in less then year and a half is just fine and dandy, normal thing.
Doing investments in to companies he awards goverment contracts just before those are rewarded, all just completely normal, right?
I don't usually engage with you because you are a weird person as evidenced with the "IDF was completely in the right in murdering 8 and 11 year old boys" situation, plus the obvious AI use in most of your posts, but not even you can be so vapid to think that this kind of stupid attempt to give cover to Trump would work here.
The only way I can make sense of your post is that you missed the crypto stuff in 2025, so now 2026 is a big shocker to you.
Or maybe the point of your post is to remind others why you don't usually engage with me, which is also the unsurprising forum convention of, "I don't usually respond to trolls, but..."
On July 06 2026 15:14 Acrofales wrote: Has Trump attended a single world cup match yet? Or is tonight's going to be the first? Seems the lack of participation by him is a performance of its own with how obnoxiously loud he is about everything else. I guess it doesn't look good to "truth" about immigration when France is showing what a successful melting pot looks like, the USA themselves are an intentionally inclusive team and he already got into a fight with the women's team last term: there probably isn't much political upside for him in football, so unless he likes it personally (which definitely doesn't seem like it), he's making a deliberate point of staying far away from the greatest sports tournament worldwide? At least it spares us the celebrity cam spotting him. Showing Infantino pretty much every match is already one too many punchable faces.
You feel snubbed as someone whose continental sport is soccer because the leader of the free world hasn't gone to enough World Cup Games hosted in his country compared to your expectations (whatever they may be based on). This is reading too much into it.
I would bet money that had POTUS gone to more World Cup Games you would be going "Look at the security nightmare and waiting lines Trump forced upon innocent viewers to satisfy his vanity," blaming him for the bad experience citizens and tourists got as a result, and chastising him for watching sportsball instead of presidenting. Then ironically saying oh it's better that he's watching sportsball instead of presidenting since he messes everything up anyway. Would I win money?
Rare time I agree with oblade. People will be complaining either way.
Some people will always complain, can’t really be helped. Can’t say I care especially either way, it is pretty standard to have the head of state or head of government of a host nation show up for a few games. Some attend more than others, but it’s pretty standard shrug one’s shoulders stuff
Less standard is such a figure ringing the head of FIFA to sidestep their own disciplinary procedures, but not exactly surprising behaviour from either Trump or Infantino
You got to give it to Trump, the guy knows how to control headlines. Last week it was revealed that he stole a couple billions in crypto and insider trading. Today nobody cares anymore and we're talking about a phone call he made to help his football team.
I wouldn’t conflate a resigned lack of surprise for folks not caring.
Trump doing something blatantly corrupt with no consequence is about equivalent to me posting a daily update that yes, today is a day of the week that ends in a ‘y’.
That's the truth. It was revealed that something we knew to be corrupt in 2025 is still corrupt in 2026. The shocking thing would be if the crypto was suddenly discovered to be above board.
And you're expecting a news bounce from ... wait for it ... "The April trading in the midst of markets’ tariff turmoil was typical for the president’s accounts."
Are we pretending this is novel, just so we can pretend that he cleverly wiggled his way out of a bad news cycle?
Yeah, POTUS almost doubling his net worth in less then year and a half is just fine and dandy, normal thing.
Doing investments in to companies he awards goverment contracts just before those are rewarded, all just completely normal, right?
I don't usually engage with you because you are a weird person as evidenced with the "IDF was completely in the right in murdering 8 and 11 year old boys" situation, plus the obvious AI use in most of your posts, but not even you can be so vapid to think that this kind of stupid attempt to give cover to Trump would work here.
I dunno if my read of that post would be the same. I took it to be a similar stance as mine, namely that Trump being corrupt is hardly news, and there’s no cleverness in being blatantly corrupt if you’re not gonna face censure for it and can just openly indulge in it.
Perhaps my read is off that’s just how I took it
That's sort of my point though. We know Trump is corrupt because he receives gifts in exchange for favorable policies, because he sells pardons for 1M$, because he rewards his friends with federal contracts, because he uses his influence to cheat at football, etc. The thing is, all those things represent a couple million dollars. Here we are a talking about Billions, and everyone is just like "meh, Trump being Trump".
On July 06 2026 15:14 Acrofales wrote: Has Trump attended a single world cup match yet? Or is tonight's going to be the first? Seems the lack of participation by him is a performance of its own with how obnoxiously loud he is about everything else. I guess it doesn't look good to "truth" about immigration when France is showing what a successful melting pot looks like, the USA themselves are an intentionally inclusive team and he already got into a fight with the women's team last term: there probably isn't much political upside for him in football, so unless he likes it personally (which definitely doesn't seem like it), he's making a deliberate point of staying far away from the greatest sports tournament worldwide? At least it spares us the celebrity cam spotting him. Showing Infantino pretty much every match is already one too many punchable faces.
You feel snubbed as someone whose continental sport is soccer because the leader of the free world hasn't gone to enough World Cup Games hosted in his country compared to your expectations (whatever they may be based on). This is reading too much into it.
I would bet money that had POTUS gone to more World Cup Games you would be going "Look at the security nightmare and waiting lines Trump forced upon innocent viewers to satisfy his vanity," blaming him for the bad experience citizens and tourists got as a result, and chastising him for watching sportsball instead of presidenting. Then ironically saying oh it's better that he's watching sportsball instead of presidenting since he messes everything up anyway. Would I win money?
Rare time I agree with oblade. People will be complaining either way.
Some people will always complain, can’t really be helped. Can’t say I care especially either way, it is pretty standard to have the head of state or head of government of a host nation show up for a few games. Some attend more than others, but it’s pretty standard shrug one’s shoulders stuff
Less standard is such a figure ringing the head of FIFA to sidestep their own disciplinary procedures, but not exactly surprising behaviour from either Trump or Infantino
You got to give it to Trump, the guy knows how to control headlines. Last week it was revealed that he stole a couple billions in crypto and insider trading. Today nobody cares anymore and we're talking about a phone call he made to help his football team.
I wouldn’t conflate a resigned lack of surprise for folks not caring.
Trump doing something blatantly corrupt with no consequence is about equivalent to me posting a daily update that yes, today is a day of the week that ends in a ‘y’.
That's the truth. It was revealed that something we knew to be corrupt in 2025 is still corrupt in 2026. The shocking thing would be if the crypto was suddenly discovered to be above board.
And you're expecting a news bounce from ... wait for it ... "The April trading in the midst of markets’ tariff turmoil was typical for the president’s accounts."
Are we pretending this is novel, just so we can pretend that he cleverly wiggled his way out of a bad news cycle?
Yeah, POTUS almost doubling his net worth in less then year and a half is just fine and dandy, normal thing.
Doing investments in to companies he awards goverment contracts just before those are rewarded, all just completely normal, right?
I don't usually engage with you because you are a weird person as evidenced with the "IDF was completely in the right in murdering 8 and 11 year old boys" situation, plus the obvious AI use in most of your posts, but not even you can be so vapid to think that this kind of stupid attempt to give cover to Trump would work here.
The only way I can make sense of your post is that you missed the crypto stuff in 2025, so now 2026 is a big shocker to you.
Or maybe the point of your post is to remind others why you don't usually engage with me, which is also the unsurprising forum convention of, "I don't usually respond to trolls, but..."
The extent of the "crypto stuff" was revealed last week. Also, the fact that he was actively trading while himself causing massive market movement with his tariffs.
On July 06 2026 15:14 Acrofales wrote: Has Trump attended a single world cup match yet? Or is tonight's going to be the first? Seems the lack of participation by him is a performance of its own with how obnoxiously loud he is about everything else. I guess it doesn't look good to "truth" about immigration when France is showing what a successful melting pot looks like, the USA themselves are an intentionally inclusive team and he already got into a fight with the women's team last term: there probably isn't much political upside for him in football, so unless he likes it personally (which definitely doesn't seem like it), he's making a deliberate point of staying far away from the greatest sports tournament worldwide? At least it spares us the celebrity cam spotting him. Showing Infantino pretty much every match is already one too many punchable faces.
You feel snubbed as someone whose continental sport is soccer because the leader of the free world hasn't gone to enough World Cup Games hosted in his country compared to your expectations (whatever they may be based on). This is reading too much into it.
I would bet money that had POTUS gone to more World Cup Games you would be going "Look at the security nightmare and waiting lines Trump forced upon innocent viewers to satisfy his vanity," blaming him for the bad experience citizens and tourists got as a result, and chastising him for watching sportsball instead of presidenting. Then ironically saying oh it's better that he's watching sportsball instead of presidenting since he messes everything up anyway. Would I win money?
Rare time I agree with oblade. People will be complaining either way.
Some people will always complain, can’t really be helped. Can’t say I care especially either way, it is pretty standard to have the head of state or head of government of a host nation show up for a few games. Some attend more than others, but it’s pretty standard shrug one’s shoulders stuff
Less standard is such a figure ringing the head of FIFA to sidestep their own disciplinary procedures, but not exactly surprising behaviour from either Trump or Infantino
You got to give it to Trump, the guy knows how to control headlines. Last week it was revealed that he stole a couple billions in crypto and insider trading. Today nobody cares anymore and we're talking about a phone call he made to help his football team.
I wouldn’t conflate a resigned lack of surprise for folks not caring.
Trump doing something blatantly corrupt with no consequence is about equivalent to me posting a daily update that yes, today is a day of the week that ends in a ‘y’.
That's the truth. It was revealed that something we knew to be corrupt in 2025 is still corrupt in 2026. The shocking thing would be if the crypto was suddenly discovered to be above board.
And you're expecting a news bounce from ... wait for it ... "The April trading in the midst of markets’ tariff turmoil was typical for the president’s accounts."
Are we pretending this is novel, just so we can pretend that he cleverly wiggled his way out of a bad news cycle?
Yeah, POTUS almost doubling his net worth in less then year and a half is just fine and dandy, normal thing.
Doing investments in to companies he awards goverment contracts just before those are rewarded, all just completely normal, right?
I don't usually engage with you because you are a weird person as evidenced with the "IDF was completely in the right in murdering 8 and 11 year old boys" situation, plus the obvious AI use in most of your posts, but not even you can be so vapid to think that this kind of stupid attempt to give cover to Trump would work here.
I dunno if my read of that post would be the same. I took it to be a similar stance as mine, namely that Trump being corrupt is hardly news, and there’s no cleverness in being blatantly corrupt if you’re not gonna face censure for it and can just openly indulge in it.
Perhaps my read is off that’s just how I took it
That's sort of my point though. We know Trump is corrupt because he receives gifts in exchange for favorable policies, because he sells pardons for 1M$, because he rewards his friends with federal contracts, because he uses his influence to cheat at football, etc. The thing is, all those things represent a couple million dollars. Here we are a talking about Billions, and everyone is just like "meh, Trump being Trump".
Which is fair, I just don’t think it denotes a lack of caring about it.
It’s patently disgraceful conduct, I just can’t be arsed to discuss every disgraceful thing Trump does. I’m not even American, and various American systems are seemingly impotent to do anything about his egregious conduct.
I did respond to the football stuff, but that was somewhat influenced by me being a giant, giant football nerd and thus possibly privy to some context others may not be.
On July 06 2026 15:14 Acrofales wrote: Has Trump attended a single world cup match yet? Or is tonight's going to be the first? Seems the lack of participation by him is a performance of its own with how obnoxiously loud he is about everything else. I guess it doesn't look good to "truth" about immigration when France is showing what a successful melting pot looks like, the USA themselves are an intentionally inclusive team and he already got into a fight with the women's team last term: there probably isn't much political upside for him in football, so unless he likes it personally (which definitely doesn't seem like it), he's making a deliberate point of staying far away from the greatest sports tournament worldwide? At least it spares us the celebrity cam spotting him. Showing Infantino pretty much every match is already one too many punchable faces.
You feel snubbed as someone whose continental sport is soccer because the leader of the free world hasn't gone to enough World Cup Games hosted in his country compared to your expectations (whatever they may be based on). This is reading too much into it.
I would bet money that had POTUS gone to more World Cup Games you would be going "Look at the security nightmare and waiting lines Trump forced upon innocent viewers to satisfy his vanity," blaming him for the bad experience citizens and tourists got as a result, and chastising him for watching sportsball instead of presidenting. Then ironically saying oh it's better that he's watching sportsball instead of presidenting since he messes everything up anyway. Would I win money?
Rare time I agree with oblade. People will be complaining either way.
Some people will always complain, can’t really be helped. Can’t say I care especially either way, it is pretty standard to have the head of state or head of government of a host nation show up for a few games. Some attend more than others, but it’s pretty standard shrug one’s shoulders stuff
Less standard is such a figure ringing the head of FIFA to sidestep their own disciplinary procedures, but not exactly surprising behaviour from either Trump or Infantino
You got to give it to Trump, the guy knows how to control headlines. Last week it was revealed that he stole a couple billions in crypto and insider trading. Today nobody cares anymore and we're talking about a phone call he made to help his football team.
I wouldn’t conflate a resigned lack of surprise for folks not caring.
Trump doing something blatantly corrupt with no consequence is about equivalent to me posting a daily update that yes, today is a day of the week that ends in a ‘y’.
That's the truth. It was revealed that something we knew to be corrupt in 2025 is still corrupt in 2026. The shocking thing would be if the crypto was suddenly discovered to be above board.
And you're expecting a news bounce from ... wait for it ... "The April trading in the midst of markets’ tariff turmoil was typical for the president’s accounts."
Are we pretending this is novel, just so we can pretend that he cleverly wiggled his way out of a bad news cycle?
Yeah, POTUS almost doubling his net worth in less then year and a half is just fine and dandy, normal thing.
Doing investments in to companies he awards goverment contracts just before those are rewarded, all just completely normal, right?
I don't usually engage with you because you are a weird person as evidenced with the "IDF was completely in the right in murdering 8 and 11 year old boys" situation, plus the obvious AI use in most of your posts, but not even you can be so vapid to think that this kind of stupid attempt to give cover to Trump would work here.
The only way I can make sense of your post is that you missed the crypto stuff in 2025, so now 2026 is a big shocker to you.
Or maybe the point of your post is to remind others why you don't usually engage with me, which is also the unsurprising forum convention of, "I don't usually respond to trolls, but..."
The extent of the "crypto stuff" was revealed last week. Also, the fact that he was actively trading while himself causing massive market movement with his tariffs.
Sure, it's a news story that deserves to be written. But it's not the kind of news bounce that Trump would have to distract from with some FIFA stuff. Contrary to your statement of "You got to give it to Trump, the guy knows how to control headlines," this just doesn't register. It's familiar corruption now, and it's in keeping with the rough scale of the 2025 reporting/disclosures.
At this stage we’re probably at the point where any kind of investing by US politicians should just be outright banned, or subject to extremely stringent scrutiny
I’m sure most do so completely legitimately, but Trump has set a very negative precedent here of blatant conflicts of interest, to egregious degrees
In the UK, and I assume most of our non-US locales, even relatively minor financial impropriety is a huge deal, often career-ending even if in the wider scheme of things we’re talking minor sums of money.
That such staggering sums of money are being made from pretty blatant insider trading is US exceptionalism of the worst kind
He's pardoned enough fraudsters that there's no expectation you'll ever get your money back or anything resembling justice if you get scammed. You'd have to be pretty dumb to invest in any American markets right now.
On July 06 2026 23:26 LightSpectra wrote: The goldfish voters don't know how corrupt he is because they get their news from highly curated social media. Very, very occasionally some bit of real news breaks through to them, but how to do that consistently is still an open problem in electioneering.
That explains some, our goldfish get the news and ignore it because corruption of Trump makes libs mad. Pwning libs is all that matters.
I'm not holding out any hope for Congress telling itself that their families can't trade stocks while in office. Or working in lobbying firms (doing strategic advising or whatever workaround) or joining corporate boards after leaving office. Especially in today's age of hyper-partisanship.
On July 06 2026 23:26 LightSpectra wrote: The goldfish voters don't know how corrupt he is because they get their news from highly curated social media. Very, very occasionally some bit of real news breaks through to them, but how to do that consistently is still an open problem in electioneering.
That explains some, our goldfish get the news and ignore it because corruption of Trump makes libs mad. Pwning libs is all that matters.
Sorry if I was unclear. I don't say "goldfish voters" to mean just stupid people in general. It's in reference to swing voters that change their voting intention based off of whatever's happened in the past 72 hours. In 2016 Hillary Clinton was polling over 10 points ahead of Trump after the "grab em by the pussy" tape came out, it dropped down to about 4 points after the FBI announced they were re-opening their investigation into her email server. There's no particular reason why you should consider bragging about sexual assault to be preferable to using a private email server, they just heard "scandal" and their minds changed. Those same voters turned out big for Joe Biden in 2020 because they were inflamed by how terrible Trump's response to COVID was, but they promptly forgot about that colossal mismanagement and decided to switch to Trump or stay home in 2024.
"Pwn the libs" voters are consistently Republican. As revolting as they are as human beings, they at least have object permanence.
On July 06 2026 15:14 Acrofales wrote: Has Trump attended a single world cup match yet? Or is tonight's going to be the first? Seems the lack of participation by him is a performance of its own with how obnoxiously loud he is about everything else. I guess it doesn't look good to "truth" about immigration when France is showing what a successful melting pot looks like, the USA themselves are an intentionally inclusive team and he already got into a fight with the women's team last term: there probably isn't much political upside for him in football, so unless he likes it personally (which definitely doesn't seem like it), he's making a deliberate point of staying far away from the greatest sports tournament worldwide? At least it spares us the celebrity cam spotting him. Showing Infantino pretty much every match is already one too many punchable faces.
You feel snubbed as someone whose continental sport is soccer because the leader of the free world hasn't gone to enough World Cup Games hosted in his country compared to your expectations (whatever they may be based on). This is reading too much into it.
I would bet money that had POTUS gone to more World Cup Games you would be going "Look at the security nightmare and waiting lines Trump forced upon innocent viewers to satisfy his vanity," blaming him for the bad experience citizens and tourists got as a result, and chastising him for watching sportsball instead of presidenting. Then ironically saying oh it's better that he's watching sportsball instead of presidenting since he messes everything up anyway. Would I win money?
Rare time I agree with oblade. People will be complaining either way.
Some people will always complain, can’t really be helped. Can’t say I care especially either way, it is pretty standard to have the head of state or head of government of a host nation show up for a few games. Some attend more than others, but it’s pretty standard shrug one’s shoulders stuff
Less standard is such a figure ringing the head of FIFA to sidestep their own disciplinary procedures, but not exactly surprising behaviour from either Trump or Infantino
You got to give it to Trump, the guy knows how to control headlines. Last week it was revealed that he stole a couple billions in crypto and insider trading. Today nobody cares anymore and we're talking about a phone call he made to help his football team.
I wouldn’t conflate a resigned lack of surprise for folks not caring.
Trump doing something blatantly corrupt with no consequence is about equivalent to me posting a daily update that yes, today is a day of the week that ends in a ‘y’.
That's the truth. It was revealed that something we knew to be corrupt in 2025 is still corrupt in 2026. The shocking thing would be if the crypto was suddenly discovered to be above board.
And you're expecting a news bounce from ... wait for it ... "The April trading in the midst of markets’ tariff turmoil was typical for the president’s accounts."
Are we pretending this is novel, just so we can pretend that he cleverly wiggled his way out of a bad news cycle?
We already knew the people actively managing his accounts trade what would amount to an average of once every 5-10 minutes. We know they have 22,000 trades in a year. The real revelation that hit our colleague's media loop is SOME of those trades actually happened on a day BEFORE Trump did a thing.
On July 06 2026 15:14 Acrofales wrote: Has Trump attended a single world cup match yet? Or is tonight's going to be the first? Seems the lack of participation by him is a performance of its own with how obnoxiously loud he is about everything else. I guess it doesn't look good to "truth" about immigration when France is showing what a successful melting pot looks like, the USA themselves are an intentionally inclusive team and he already got into a fight with the women's team last term: there probably isn't much political upside for him in football, so unless he likes it personally (which definitely doesn't seem like it), he's making a deliberate point of staying far away from the greatest sports tournament worldwide? At least it spares us the celebrity cam spotting him. Showing Infantino pretty much every match is already one too many punchable faces.
You feel snubbed as someone whose continental sport is soccer because the leader of the free world hasn't gone to enough World Cup Games hosted in his country compared to your expectations (whatever they may be based on). This is reading too much into it.
I would bet money that had POTUS gone to more World Cup Games you would be going "Look at the security nightmare and waiting lines Trump forced upon innocent viewers to satisfy his vanity," blaming him for the bad experience citizens and tourists got as a result, and chastising him for watching sportsball instead of presidenting. Then ironically saying oh it's better that he's watching sportsball instead of presidenting since he messes everything up anyway. Would I win money?
Rare time I agree with oblade. People will be complaining either way.
Some people will always complain, can’t really be helped. Can’t say I care especially either way, it is pretty standard to have the head of state or head of government of a host nation show up for a few games. Some attend more than others, but it’s pretty standard shrug one’s shoulders stuff
Less standard is such a figure ringing the head of FIFA to sidestep their own disciplinary procedures, but not exactly surprising behaviour from either Trump or Infantino
You got to give it to Trump, the guy knows how to control headlines. Last week it was revealed that he stole a couple billions in crypto and insider trading. Today nobody cares anymore and we're talking about a phone call he made to help his football team.
I wouldn’t conflate a resigned lack of surprise for folks not caring.
Trump doing something blatantly corrupt with no consequence is about equivalent to me posting a daily update that yes, today is a day of the week that ends in a ‘y’.
That's the truth. It was revealed that something we knew to be corrupt in 2025 is still corrupt in 2026. The shocking thing would be if the crypto was suddenly discovered to be above board.
And you're expecting a news bounce from ... wait for it ... "The April trading in the midst of markets’ tariff turmoil was typical for the president’s accounts."
Are we pretending this is novel, just so we can pretend that he cleverly wiggled his way out of a bad news cycle?
We already knew the people actively managing his accounts trade what would amount to an average of once every 5-10 minutes. We know they have 22,000 trades in a year. The real revelation that hit our colleague's media loop is SOME of those trades actually happened on a day BEFORE Trump did a thing.
On July 06 2026 23:26 LightSpectra wrote: The goldfish voters don't know how corrupt he is because they get their news from highly curated social media. Very, very occasionally some bit of real news breaks through to them, but how to do that consistently is still an open problem in electioneering.
That explains some, our goldfish get the news and ignore it because corruption of Trump makes libs mad. Pwning libs is all that matters.
Sorry if I was unclear. I don't say "goldfish voters" to mean just stupid people in general. It's in reference to swing voters that change their voting intention based off of whatever's happened in the past 72 hours. In 2016 Hillary Clinton was polling over 10 points ahead of Trump after the "grab em by the pussy" tape came out, it dropped down to about 4 points after the FBI announced they were re-opening their investigation into her email server. There's no particular reason why you should consider bragging about sexual assault to be preferable to using a private email server, they just heard "scandal" and their minds changed. Those same voters turned out big for Joe Biden in 2020 because they were inflamed by how terrible Trump's response to COVID was, but they promptly forgot about that colossal mismanagement and decided to switch to Trump or stay home in 2024.
"Pwn the libs" voters are consistently Republican. As revolting as they are as human beings, they at least have object permanence.
On July 06 2026 15:14 Acrofales wrote: Has Trump attended a single world cup match yet? Or is tonight's going to be the first? Seems the lack of participation by him is a performance of its own with how obnoxiously loud he is about everything else. I guess it doesn't look good to "truth" about immigration when France is showing what a successful melting pot looks like, the USA themselves are an intentionally inclusive team and he already got into a fight with the women's team last term: there probably isn't much political upside for him in football, so unless he likes it personally (which definitely doesn't seem like it), he's making a deliberate point of staying far away from the greatest sports tournament worldwide? At least it spares us the celebrity cam spotting him. Showing Infantino pretty much every match is already one too many punchable faces.
You feel snubbed as someone whose continental sport is soccer because the leader of the free world hasn't gone to enough World Cup Games hosted in his country compared to your expectations (whatever they may be based on). This is reading too much into it.
I would bet money that had POTUS gone to more World Cup Games you would be going "Look at the security nightmare and waiting lines Trump forced upon innocent viewers to satisfy his vanity," blaming him for the bad experience citizens and tourists got as a result, and chastising him for watching sportsball instead of presidenting. Then ironically saying oh it's better that he's watching sportsball instead of presidenting since he messes everything up anyway. Would I win money?
Rare time I agree with oblade. People will be complaining either way.
Some people will always complain, can’t really be helped. Can’t say I care especially either way, it is pretty standard to have the head of state or head of government of a host nation show up for a few games. Some attend more than others, but it’s pretty standard shrug one’s shoulders stuff
Less standard is such a figure ringing the head of FIFA to sidestep their own disciplinary procedures, but not exactly surprising behaviour from either Trump or Infantino
You got to give it to Trump, the guy knows how to control headlines. Last week it was revealed that he stole a couple billions in crypto and insider trading. Today nobody cares anymore and we're talking about a phone call he made to help his football team.
I wouldn’t conflate a resigned lack of surprise for folks not caring.
Trump doing something blatantly corrupt with no consequence is about equivalent to me posting a daily update that yes, today is a day of the week that ends in a ‘y’.
That's the truth. It was revealed that something we knew to be corrupt in 2025 is still corrupt in 2026. The shocking thing would be if the crypto was suddenly discovered to be above board.
And you're expecting a news bounce from ... wait for it ... "The April trading in the midst of markets’ tariff turmoil was typical for the president’s accounts."
Are we pretending this is novel, just so we can pretend that he cleverly wiggled his way out of a bad news cycle?
We already knew the people actively managing his accounts trade what would amount to an average of once every 5-10 minutes. We know they have 22,000 trades in a year. The real revelation that hit our colleague's media loop is SOME of those trades actually happened on a day BEFORE Trump did a thing.
He linked a story on the trades after the tariff announcement in order to talk about the trades that happened before the tariff announcement? I can't imagine why. I'll give him the benefit of the doubt and say he meant to link a different news story, or confused two different news stories in his feed simultaneously.
EPT
