I’m still working this past week on summarizing and assessing the 2006 Jonathan Haidt book THE HAPPINESS HYPOTHESIS. I can’t quite wrap it up today, or soon, because we’re doing a quick trip down and back to LA tomorrow and Sunday, and probably won’t do any posts over the weekend. For now, I’ll note the usual political items.
The story all over the news yesterday and today:
The New Republic, 6 Nov 2025: Trump Just Stands There After Man Collapses During Press Conference, subtitled “One of the guests at Donald Trump’s press conference on weight loss drugs passed out during the event.”
A man appeared to collapse Thursday during a press conference to debut a deal to make those drugs more affordable, while President Donald Trump simply looked on.
As if annoyed that his press conference had been interrupted. Concern? Of course not; that would betray compassion. Trump (and MAGA) is not compassionate, or empathetic.
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Briefly noted items:
- Media Matters, 6 Nov 2025: Fox News demanded that presidents know whom they pardoned. Then Trump said he didn’t know the crypto tycoon he pardoned., subtitled “Fox News has spent 1 hour and 23 minutes discussing Biden’s use of the autopen while airing only 3 minutes of coverage on Trump’s pardon of founder of Binance. Trump claimed on 60 Minutes that he knew ‘nothing about’ the pardon.”
- Heather Cox Richardson covered this too.
- More nonsensical claims from the current administration:
- JMG, 7 Nov 2025: Oz: Every American Will Lose 400 Pounds By Midterms — — Dr. Mehmet Oz predicted that “Americans will lose 135 billion pounds by the midterms.” The current US population is 342 million. Do the arithmetic.
- JMG, 7 Nov 2025: CNN Busts Trump On Walmart’s Thanksgiving Deal — — Trump claims that Walmart’s Thanksgiving meal baskets are cheaper this year than last year, ignoring the fact that this year’s basket are significantly smaller.
- JMG, 7 Nov 2025: Trump Pardons Corrupt Ex-Tennessee GOP Speaker
- Right Wing Watch, Kyle Mantyla, 6 Nov 2025: Josh Bernstein Urges ICE To ‘Become The Gestapo, But For A Good Cause’ — — Does this need to be said? They think they are the good people. History will regard them as evil.
