SINCERETALK

U ntil fairly recently , President Donald Trump’s MAGA fold mostly united around a certain set of beliefs. But researchers have now confirmed that at least one of their founding principles is based on the complete absence of any hint of fact in their lives or in their circle. “Psychology researchers Christopher Stockus, now at Marietta College, and Ethan Zell of the University of North Carolina at Greensboro … designed a project to measure whether an objective gap in factual knowledge exists between [left-leaning and right-leaning] political groups,” reports PsyPost . “The researchers wanted to investigate if this knowledge gap might explain the differences in how each group views the necessity of environmental policies. Plenty of scientists have tested specific partisan misconceptions or beliefs in conspiracy theories, but comprehensive tests comparing overall knowledge across political groups are relatively rare. But Stockus and Zell established a systematic method to evaluate ge...

Former White House Deputy Press Secretary Sarah Matthews says nobody can escape Father Time, and right now Father Time is trampling boot marks all over President Donald Trump’s mind. Her opinion came after a painful series of photos of Trump appearing to nod off and go straight into REM sleep at an important Oval Office Thursday conference, augmented with citations of Trump’s more unnerving late-night posts . “I just think it's gotten even worse in the sense that it's a little bit more extreme. In the first administration, we didn't have him posting about wanting to annihilate an entire civilization . And so … it seems like he's lost his fastball and that he's not beating Father Time,” said Matthews, who worked in Trump's first administration. “Look, you can't beat father time. And I think old age is catching up with him. And so he's not as on it and as sharp as he once was. And I think that is also just enhancing the craziness that was already kind...

President Donald Trump was “desperate” for a Nobel Peace Prize in 2025, noted a prominent right-leaning commentator on Thursday — but now he has proved just how unworthy of that honor he truly was. “With the Middle East in flames, President Donald Trump’s desperate lobbying campaign for the Nobel Peace Prize looks ever more bizarre,” wrote Doug Bandow , Senior Fellow at the right-leaning think tank the Cato Institute, for The American Conservative. “Of course, his claim to have ended and prevented numerous wars is more fantasy than reality.” Bandow pointed out that Trump’s surprising bombing of Iran during peace negotiations on two occasions reveals that he cannot be trusted to pursue peace. His proposed massive military buildup further demonstrates the insincerity of his earlier claims to be a peacemaker. “He has ostentatiously flouted Alfred Nobel’s desire to reward those who did ‘the most or the best work within the past year for building fraternity between nations, for the abo...

President Donald Trump won the White House in 2024 by bashing down the “blue-state firewall” that frequently falls into Democrats’ corner. And Wisconsin voters were among those swing-state voters who definitely swung to Trump that November. But the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reports voters who helped give Trump a second term have had it with him. “Love him or hate him. That has been a truism for years about President Donald Trump – that America is roughly divided between a big bloc of Trump lovers and a big bloc of Trump haters. But in one important respect this is becoming less true all the time,” reports the Sentinel, citing a recent state survey. In a new national poll by the Marquette University Law School, the share of adults who “strongly” approve of Trump’s performance as president has sunk to 17 percent – less than a fifth of the population. Meanwhile, the share of adults nationally who “strongly” disapprove of his performance has risen to 48 perent – roughly half the pop...

President Donald Trump’s pick to lead a top US security agency withdrew his nomination on Wednesday after more than a year of controversy — including from his own Republican Party. Sean Plankey, Trump's pick to lead the government’s civilian cyber defense agency, withdrew himself from consideration after his candidacy languished in the Senate, wrote Politico's John Sakellariadis and Dana Nickel on Wednesday , adding that Plankey informed Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin (R-Okla.) and confirmed the information to POLITICO.” Trump tapped Plankey last year in March. Although Plankey was initially viewed as a non-controversial choice, but he quickly ruffled feathers. Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.) reportedly objected to Plankey’s policies regarding a Coast Guard shipbuilding project and resisted advancing Plankey’s renomination earlier this year. “During Trump’s first term, Plankey served in cybersecurity roles on the National Security Council and the Energy Department,”...

President Donald Trump has “caved and run out of cards” in the war against Iran, according to an official who served under him during his first term. “Officially, if you are in Tehran right now and you are part of the new government that has supplanted the people who were there before, you are reading this message right now and thinking you are in control of these negotiations,” explained Miles Taylor , who served as Homeland Security deputy chief of staff and senior advisor to former chief of staff John Kelly, in a podcast appearance with former CNN anchor Jim Acosta. “You are seeing what Donald Trump said and realizing the President of the United States has caved — that he has run out of cards and that he is terrified to do what he just said hours ago he was going to do, which was that he was so eager to begin bombing. He said if the deadline passes, he's going to resume bombing and that the military would.” Noting that Iran did not do anything which could reasonably be const...