Tucker Carlson criticizes Trump left, right and center for getting the US within minutes of war with Iran over the drone shootdown.

Weird times indeed.

Think about it: they'll be making documentaries about this in fifty or sixty years, when the files are declassified - just like the Cuban Missile Crisis.

This time, we are witnessing it ourselves. We've even got front-row seats, if you want to see it that way.

Well, provided we make it to the next decade. At all.

Weird indeed, some media claim "Fox News' Tucker Carlson Reportedly at Center of Trump's Decision Not to Bomb Iran".
If true, do more of the same.

Leaving aside the over over weird that a US President gets most of his intelligence briefings, advice and direction from Fox News hosts.

Some media are advancing the theory that the Iran and deportation policy reversals are due to Trumps concerns about 2020 reelection.
They say that images of dead Iranian civilians being carried from burning buildings or screaming women and children dragged from homes of illegal immigrants would be negative for him. Agreed 2020 election is a long way away but such images can be kept and replayed by rivals on the campaign trail.

A more extreme theory is that Trump would be the last Republican President!! Based on the fact that firstly he has destroyed the GOP image as the party of Fiscal thrift; he has increased the national Debt by more than $2 Trillion and is on track to increase it by more than Obama did despite claiming on the campaign trail he would wipe it out!

Also he has reinforced the GOP image as a party that is anti-colour, anti-gay, anti-LGBT and anti-women. Just look at all the photos he tweets of himself surrounded by white males.

Of course the economy is doing well under Trump although wage increases are still minimal. Other than the 2017 tax cuts, it is not obvious what Trump does/did to improve the economy.

Why would anyone think that.

Maybe the strategy is just to put Tucker in the spotlight more, he totally deserves high credit.

I think this is how Fox manages to keep Trump followers believing the magic. They criticize him now and then, sometimes for a whole minute or two, which gives the appearance that they're "fair and balanced". Compare that to CNN (one example) that tries to spin nearly everything Trump does as a negative. Their so-called conservative commentator that's part of any panel isn't really that conservative.

I am glad the credit that the CNN used to get is not given for granted, anymore. At least that. The fact that the Tucker is home at Fox is pretty interesting on its own. Visibility.

Not sure what you mean? Tucker has been at Fox since 2009.

Of course, and?

People diss FOX as the home of all idiocy, but it happens to be hosting Tucker, for that long. He isn't exactly brainless, is he.

Not sure where you hear "People diss FOX as the home of all idiocy"?
There are some very clever people working for Fox; but that does not mean the opinion team is not biased.

Contrariwise the Fox news team headed by Shepard Smith is both excellent and unbiased.

He ain't exactly smart either. He's shrill.

He generally gets on people he knows he can bully, and when he has to have someone on with a modicum of intellect, he gets owned hard...then waits a week, cuts a video of their interview, taking half-quotes from the other guy that appear ridiculous, refutes them and pretends he won. The master of the Treppenwitz.

I agree with this.

Let us take a moment to enjoy that time when Stewart pwned Tucker on CNN


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aFQFB5YpDZE

That never gets old, Carlson lost the crossfire gig after that, you can see him get more and more flustered as Stewart takes him apart.

That claim never held much water to begin with. At least since Reagan, with the exception of Obama, the democratic POTUS' would right the budget and decrease federal indebtedness whereas the Reps would increase it.

Found this graph below, seems all Presidents increased debt

The only Democratic presidents since Reagan have been Clinton and Obama. Not a pattern, really.

4 terms. Admittedly not that much but better than waiting a century to get a double-digit number of events.

If you want to back a bit longer and include Nixon and Ford, for example, the picture doesn't change. The GOP's claim that they're fiscally prudent simply doesn't hold up. They fail left, right, and center.
First, linear scales are completely useless, usually outright deceiving, when it comes to values on the y-axis that increase multifold. Use a logarithmic scale instead or dump it immediately.

Absolute values are much less meaningful than relative ones. $1trillion additional debt is a footnote nowadays whereas it would have blown everybody's mind before Reagan. Hence not debt but indebtedness as a GDP percentage.

In the late '90ies the financial gurus and financial markets altogether were preparing for a time (believed to arrive very soon) without long-term US government bonds, and wondering what other benchmark to use for long-term interest rates. In fact the Fed had already stopped issuing 30yr bonds for some time when Clinton left.

And along came Dubiah.

You would also have to normalize that figure to adjust for inflation and GDP growth, and compare as well debt as % of GDP.

The linear scale shows that when each President finished their term the debt was higher than when they started. None of them were fiscally prudent QED