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Edited by Mrph1 on Nov 30th 2023 at 11:03:59 AM
Only slightly relevant: I've seen the "America does bad things tooooooooo" excused by a left-wing self-proclaimed communist to... I dunno if "defend" is the right word but it's the closest one I got. Anyway, they used it in response to Russia's meddling in the 2016 election, their reasoning being that since we've meddled in foreign governmental affairs, Russia meddling in ours was just desserts. Naturally I pointed out how Russia's been messing with other Europeans countries for decades and framing their involvement in ours as some sort of karmic retribution was nonsense.
...the above story just reminded me of that, is all.
i'm tired, my friendFor anything he's said that's been checked against other intel, the source of that other intel is going to be a better citation anyway.
For anything he's said that can't be checked against other intel, his status as a perjurer is going to make it difficult to use as credible testimony.
Either way, prosecutors will likely avoid bringing any of Manafort's testimony into court.
My Tumblr. Currently side-by-side liveblogging Digimon Adventure, sub vs dub.Since flipping the bastard probably wasn't going to happen, its not an outright loss either. And this is the third Trump aide (after Flynn and Cohen) who has lied about contacts with Russian governmental and intelligence figures, so it helps prove a pattern regardless.
Politics is the skilled use of blunt objects.Ilhan Omar just went off on Elliott Abrams
for his involvement in the Iran-Contra affair and the El Mozote massacre. Goddamn, she's great.
https://whatthefuckjusthappenedtoday.com/2019/02/13/day-755/
https://www.cnn.com/2019/02/13/politics/trump-border-security-deal/index.html
2/ Paul Manafort and Rick Gates met with a Russian political operative in August 2016. Prosecutors believe that Manafort and Konstantin Kilimnik may have exchanged key information relevant to Russia and Trump's presidential bid, including a proposed resolution to the conflict over Ukraine and Manafort sharing internal polling data from Trump's presidential campaign to the Russian associate. (Washington Post)
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/10/us/politics/manafort-mueller-russia-inquiry.html
📌 Day 750: Mueller's team accused Paul Manafort of lying to them about "an extremely sensitive issue" in hopes of increasing "his chances for a pardon." Prosecutors allege that Manafort worked on Ukrainian political matters from August 2016 to December 2018 – after his first indictment by the special counsel in 2017 – and that he tried to avoid providing information that could be damaging to Konstantin Kilimnik, a Manafort business partner in Ukraine. Prosecutors believe Kilimnik is connected with Russian intelligence. Kilimnik also attended Trump's inauguration. (Politico / New York Times / Washington Post / Bloomberg / CNN)
https://www.cnn.com/2019/02/07/politics/paul-manafort-hearing-kilimnik/index.html
📌 Day 727: Konstantin Kilimnik "appears to be at the heart of pieces of Mueller's investigation" into Russian interference in the 2016 election. Kilimnik is a Russian tied to Moscow's intelligence services and is connected to Manafort. Prosecutors filed a 31-page affidavit from an FBI agent, and another 406 blacked-out exhibits, after a federal judge ordered them to lay out the "factual and evidentiary basis" for their claims that Manafort repeatedly lied after his plea deal and as a result had breached his cooperation agreement. (CNN / Washington Post)
https://www.cnn.com/2019/01/15/politics/mueller-kilimnik-manafort/index.html
📌 Day 719: Paul Manafort gave 2016 polling data to a former employee with ties to Russian intelligence services. The exchange was inadvertently revealed when Manafort's lawyers failed to fully redact Manafort's interview with Robert Mueller in a court filing. Manafort's attorneys meant for Mueller's line of questioning to remain private, but the text in question was easily readable when opened with a word processor. (Washington Post / CNBC / Daily Beast)
3/ House Democrats plan to launch their own probe into Trump's connections to Russia. Using their new subpoena power, Democrats plan to focus on potential money laundering by using the multiple committees they control to host hearings and public sessions that could stretch into 2020. Democratic members of Congress plan to interview new witnesses and go back to previous witnesses, who they believe "stonewalled" committees under the Republican majority. The House Intelligence Committee will lead the effort, with the House Financial Services Committee focusing on money laundering, and the House Foreign Affairs Committee looking into possible Russian connections. (Axios)
https://www.cnn.com/2019/02/13/politics/michael-cohen-personal-bank-records-charges/index.html
4/ A Manafort-linked super PAC failed to report a $1 million contribution it received just before the 2016 election. The Federal Election Commission has asked the Rebuilding America Now PAC for more information about the contribution, which was disclosed in an amended filing two years after the fact. Mueller, meanwhile, is reportedly investigating whether Rebuilding America Now illegally received foreign funds. (Talking Points Memo)
poll/ 33% of voters support shutting down the government again over Trump's demand for a border wall while 60% of voters oppose another shutdown. 52% of voters would blame Trump and the Republicans for another shutdown, while 37% say they would blame Democrats. Voters remains split when it comes to building a border wall along the southern border, with 47% in favor and 47% opposed. (Politico)
https://www.politico.com/story/2019/02/13/poll-voters-shutdown-border-wall-1166401
poll/ Trump's approval rating jumped seven percentage points to 44% approval after the 35-day shutdown ended. The approval rating is one percentage point shy of his personal best. (Gallup)
https://news.gallup.com/poll/246662/trump-approval-economic-confidence-rebound.aspx
https://apnews.com/91b54fd7207c45eb93523567152e43dc
A record 7 million Americans are 90 days or more behind on their car payments – more than 1 million higher than the peak in 2010 following the worst downturn since the Great Depression. Economists warn that this is a red flag, saying car loans are typically the first payment people make because it's how they get to work, and that as car loan delinquencies rise, it is usually a sign of significant duress among low-income and working-class Americans. (Washington Post / CNBC)
The FEMA administrator resigned. Brock Long was the subject of a Homeland Security investigation last year into his use of government vehicles to travel between Washington and his home in North Carolina. (NPR / Washington Post / CNN)
https://www.npr.org/2019/02/13/694444978/fema-administrator-brock-long-says-he-will-step-down
The Senate passed a public lands conservation bill, designating more than one million acres of wilderness and hundreds of miles of wild rivers for environmental protection and reauthorizing a federal program to pay for conservation measures. The Trump administration, however, has worked to strip away protections on public lands, shrinking national monuments, and opening up large swaths of land up for oil, gas and mining leases. (New York Times / The Guardian / Washington Post)
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/feb/13/senate-bill-public-lands-national-parks-expanded
Trump called for the Tennessee Valley Authority to keep an aging coal plant open that buys coal from a company chaired by a leading donor to Trump's 2016 presidential campaign. (Washington Post)
Trump installed a $50,000 room-sized "golf simulator" at the White House, allowing him to play virtual rounds by hitting a ball into a large video screen. It replaced an older, less sophisticated simulator that Obama had installed. (Washington Post)
Trump complained that getting a dog would make him feel "a little phony." The Trumps are the only modern first family to not have a pet of any kind. (ABC News)
https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/president-trump-feel-phony-dog/story?id=61018468
With what I've been hearing from Donald and Cortez lately, I began to think economics bachelor's degrees minimum should be mandatory for politicians with influence over economic policy, to avoid this kind of illiteracy... then I remembered that Trump somehow graduated from Wharton 50 years ago. So I guess that wouldn't work either.
Thank god the Fed at least remains technocratic and nonpartisan... as much as people like Donnie and Sanders would like it to be otherwise.
Edited by Kamiccolo on Feb 13th 2019 at 6:23:59 AM
Agreed, that and her sincere apology for Israel comment are a really good showing on her part.
Yes, Trump's a moron with terrible policy.
Why not provide some actual substantive criticisms of AOC? Because this sure as hell isn't that.
Edited by Fourthspartan56 on Feb 13th 2019 at 9:23:49 AM
"Einstein would turn over in his grave. Not only does God play dice, the dice are loaded." -Chairman Sheng-Ji YangTry taking a glance
at that "Green New Deal" sometime.
Previous estimates from Stanford engineers of meeting power demand through clean, renewable zero-emission energy sources put capital costs at $14.6 trillion (almost three-quarters of current annual GDP). The running costs, coupled with all the other environmental programs, would therefore take up a huge chunk of economic resources, effectively cutting vast private sector activity.
That's why the resolution seeks to mobilize society as in World War II, which Ocasio-Cortez claims is the appropriate analogy. If the nation can be convinced the overwhelming social goal is countering the existential threat of climate change at all costs, then people would be willing to make sacrifices — be it lost economic growth, fewer flights or less beef. Yet it's difficult to make that case when you then tack on a myriad unrelated policies to the program. According to the resolution, decarbonization must also be supported by a massive expansion of social spending. Ocasio-Cortez's plan suggests it's not true that we must take a hit today to ensure the planet's future — according to this we'll be richer too!
For universal basic income, the cost has been estimated at $3.8 trillion a year. A narrower program that only covered, say, one out of three Americans who are “unable or unwilling” to work, it would cost about $1.3 trillion. By comparison, free college would be cheap at about $47 billion a year. Affordable housing for the entire nation could cost a lot, depending on what that means, but let’s ignore that for now.
So this quick, rough cost estimate — which doesn’t include all of the promises listed in the FAQ — adds up to about $6.6 trillion a year. That’s more than three times as much as the federal government collects in tax revenue, and equal to about 34 percent of the U.S.’s entire gross domestic product. And that’s assuming no cost overruns — infrastructure projects, especially in the U.S., are subject to cost bloat. Total government spending already accounts for about 38 percent of the economy, so if no other programs were cut to pay for the Green New Deal, it could mean that almost three-quarters of the economy would be spent via the government. And all this is assuming that repurposing essentially all of the nation’s economic resources doesn’t cause any loss in economic efficiency. History and the experiences of other countries suggest that this wouldn’t be the case.
Well, no, not even accounting for political exaggeration. The latest employment numbers are from the June jobs report. They show that only 4.8 percent of employed Americans hold multiple jobs. That’s lower than before the [2008] Great Recession and lower than during the 1990s boom. Indeed, that number has been declining for years. As the BLS noted in a 2015 report: [...] And as a 2014 Pew Research analysis noted: "Based on recent media reports, many people may think that, because of the tough economy and stagnant wage growth, more and more people are working multiple jobs. You may have read that more Americans are moonlighting with a part-time night shift at Target, selling homemade jam at farmers’ markets on the weekend, or cobbling together two, three or more part-time jobs to approximate a living income. However, that assumption would be wrong. Both in terms of raw numbers and as a share of all employed people, fewer Americans are working more than one job than in the mid-1990s."
"The goal is to use the expansion of renewable energy sources to fully meet 100% of our nation's power demand through only renewable sources in 10 years, but since no one has yet created a full plan to hit that goal, we are currently unsure if we will be able to decommission every nuclear plant that fast," Ocasio-Cortez's office said in an FAQ.
Not only is she against building new nuclear power, she wants to decommission every nuclear power plant within 10 years.
Edited by Kamiccolo on Feb 13th 2019 at 6:33:45 AM
TBF, that's from the FAQ that was later removed because it was a bad copy or something. The current resolution doesn't seem to mention nuclear at all.
Here's a link to the text of the resolution as it stands.
Still, the fact that the original FAQ stated a desire to not have nuclear is not really encouraging.
Edited by M84 on Feb 13th 2019 at 10:32:43 PM
Disgusted, but not surprisedWhat, Bloomberg a news source funded by a pro-market billionaire doesn't like a government program that involves taxing the wealthy and radically restructuring the economy?
<gasp>
I am truly shocked!
And you also have an op-ed from USA Today, truly a devastating couple of sources. <rolls eyes>
Not only is she against building new nuclear power, she wants to decommission every nuclear power plant within 10 years.
We've already discussed this, yes it's bad that they oppose nuclear power but since that's not part of the GND it is not in-fact a criticism of it.
Cost can be addressed through taxation and debt. Because guess what, deficit hawkism is ridiculous when we're talking about dealing with an existential threat.
I am extremely unimpressed with those arguments. So no, don't imply that I haven't look at the Green New Deal just because I don't agree with ridiculous hit pieces.
Correct, it was from her office.
Edited by Fourthspartan56 on Feb 13th 2019 at 9:34:39 AM
"Einstein would turn over in his grave. Not only does God play dice, the dice are loaded." -Chairman Sheng-Ji Yang"It's astronomically expensive", shockingly, is not a good reason to determine government policy. Governments have to really try at it to go bust.
And all the money they spend has to go somewhere, so other people get more money to spend in the private sector that writer thinks would suffer, so...
Nah, the risk is inflation.
x6 I’m too tired to go into why 90% of that is wrong, but I’m just gonna point out that I did a quick google and AOC and Trump both have bachelor’s degrees. In economics.
I’m not joking.
But furthermore, having a bachelor’s degree doesn’t make you smart or not smart, it means you did certain course work.
Plenty of high school drop outs and trade school grads are really smart. Plenty of people who went to college with me were irresponsible spoiled idiots. God knows there’s some goddamn morons with law degrees and medical degrees.
So let’s back off that sort of comment, yeah? And it’s crappy to call her an “idiot” because she vaguely opposes nuclear power.
Edited by wisewillow on Feb 13th 2019 at 9:38:06 AM
I will however point out this bit in the actual resolution:
(i) by dramatically expanding and upgrading renewable power sources; and
(ii) by deploying new capacity;
Note that nuclear energy is not technically renewable since uranium — the primary fuel source in most nuclear power plants — is not renewable.
So there's that.
Disgusted, but not surprisedNor does the political will exist for it. Nearly 40% of voters in solid blue California opposed a 1% tax increase to the earnings of the 0.9%. You can only imagine what the country as a whole would think of actual, substantive tax increases to the bulk of the population that would be needed to pay for it. In left wing France there were literal riots over a minor gas tax.
She's actually heavily damaging the cause by tying what should be common sense environmental policy to wildly unpopular far left economic policy.
Edited by Kamiccolo on Feb 13th 2019 at 6:48:27 AM
Have you heard of this thing called the New Deal? It was pretty effective! (Aside from the massive racism that screwed over Black people and other people of color from accessing many New Deal programs).
I’d like to see a source and context for that.
Edited by wisewillow on Feb 13th 2019 at 9:40:40 AM
![]()
California Prop 55, extension in 2016. 37% against/63% for extending a tax increase from 9.3% to 10.6% on families making above $250,000, 9.3% to 11.6% on those making above $300,000, and from 9.9% 50 13.2% for those making over 1,000,000.
Edited by Kamiccolo on Feb 13th 2019 at 6:46:37 AM
It's not an ad-hominem to point out that they're publishing in a site that is slanted a very specific way, furthermore, I don't know anything about them as a professor so that does not especially move me.
It's "laughable and impossible" because you have declared it is, and for no other reason.
"It's hard so why even try" is a ridiculous standard.
The threat of climate change is extremely serious, I'd rather actually try an ambitious plan (that can and will be amended!) then succumb to the whining of defeatists who have no alternative.
Now you're just lying, to claim that it has very little to do with environmentalism is a blatant and obvious falsehood.
What "wildly unpopular far-left policy" is in it and what evidence do you have that it will sabotage anything?
Seriously?
Cortez literally named the GND after it.
Both are extensive programs meant to address serious national issues. The comparison is obvious.
Edited by Fourthspartan56 on Feb 13th 2019 at 9:48:32 AM
"Einstein would turn over in his grave. Not only does God play dice, the dice are loaded." -Chairman Sheng-Ji Yang

And in today's installment of "Republicans Being Shitty Excuses For Humanity": Major GOP Donor and Trump inaugural chief Tom Barrack justified the Khashoggi murder. Because America also does bad stuff, and dictators should be allowed to do as they please because rule of law...?
https://www.cnn.com/2019/02/13/politics/tom-barrack-trump-donor-khashoggi/index.html
Politics is the skilled use of blunt objects.