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Edited by Mrph1 on Nov 30th 2023 at 11:03:59 AM

kkhohoho (4 Score & 7 Years Ago)
#191001: May 30th 2017 at 7:36:41 AM

[up]Come on Twitter. Take a stand. Ban his ass. FIGHT THE POWER!

Swanpride Since: Jun, 2013
#191002: May 30th 2017 at 7:39:24 AM

Wow....the German politicians are really talking themselves into a rage by now....(reposted from European politics)

https://twitter.com/MuslimIQ/status/869554080498298881

For the record, that is Merkel's opponent in the upcoming election.

edited 30th May '17 7:40:03 AM by Swanpride

Luigisan98 A wandering user from Venezuelan Muscat Since: Oct, 2013 Relationship Status: I <3 love!
A wandering user
#191003: May 30th 2017 at 7:41:24 AM

[up] Even he knows how fucked up Trump is!

The only good fanboy, is a redeemed fanboy.
DrDougsh Since: Jan, 2001
#191004: May 30th 2017 at 7:50:16 AM

God, Schulz does that index finger-to-thumb-circle gesture that Trump loves to make... I can't stand that gesture. I hope classes on public speaking don't recommend it.

Swanpride Since: Jun, 2013
#191005: May 30th 2017 at 8:09:48 AM

[up] Well, personally I can't stand Schulz, partly because of the way he holds himself. But it is kind of reassuring that no matter who wins this election, both parties know exactly where Germany has to stand when it comes to the EU, UK and the US.

OrionAurora Constellation from Andromeda Galaxy Since: Mar, 2012 Relationship Status: Abstaining
Constellation
#191006: May 30th 2017 at 8:14:21 AM

<Crawls out of lurking>

Seriously? Donald just got 3 million illegal votes fake twitter followers? I just... I just...[lol]

<Returns to cave>

We are all made of star stuff. Very, very weird star stuff.
DrDougsh Since: Jan, 2001
#191007: May 30th 2017 at 8:14:25 AM

[up][up]You're lucky to have two frontrunners who are even semi-acceptable. Most of the rest of us have to pick between adequacy and disaster when we vote.

edited 30th May '17 8:14:44 AM by DrDougsh

TobiasDrake (•̀⤙•́) (Edited uphill both ways) Relationship Status: Arm chopping is not a love language!
(•̀⤙•́)
#191008: May 30th 2017 at 8:16:15 AM

Come on Twitter. Take a stand. Ban his ass. FIGHT THE POWER!

Trump getting banned from Twitter might just be the worst thing that can happen to our cause. Twitter is the most reliable place to see Trump making an ass of himself. Imagine a world where Trump delivers one of those half-decent speeches that make the news start talking about how this was so Presidential and is totally the moment he finally became the President of the United States....

...and then the next day, Trump does NOT go on a tirade about how the existence of Muslims is a Mexican conspiracy to destabilize our economy or some shit. Instead, he remains blissfully silent until his next halfway decent speech.

My Tumblr. Currently side-by-side liveblogging Digimon Adventure, sub vs dub.
Superdark33 The dark Mage of the playground from Playgrounds and Adventures Since: Jan, 2013 Relationship Status: watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ
The dark Mage of the playground
#191009: May 30th 2017 at 8:28:04 AM

Banning him now is too little, too late.

Also: drinking game: every time someone uses an Insult to Rocks joke/statement in this thread, finish your bottle.

edited 30th May '17 8:28:25 AM by Superdark33

Luigisan98 A wandering user from Venezuelan Muscat Since: Oct, 2013 Relationship Status: I <3 love!
TrashJack Confirmed Doomer from beyond the Despair Event Horizon (4 Score & 7 Years Ago)
Confirmed Doomer
#191011: May 30th 2017 at 8:45:21 AM

[up] As if squishy human livers can handle the tiniest fraction of that amount of alcohol. Superior robo-livers are where it's at.

edited 30th May '17 8:46:06 AM by TrashJack

"Cynic, n. — A blackguard whose faulty vision sees things as they are, not as they ought to be." - The Devil's Dictionary
TobiasDrake (•̀⤙•́) (Edited uphill both ways) Relationship Status: Arm chopping is not a love language!
(•̀⤙•́)
#191012: May 30th 2017 at 8:49:04 AM

Point is, Trump's Twitter is our best window into the realm of Batshit, F*cksylvania where logic goes to die. A daily reminder to the American people that this is not normal.

My Tumblr. Currently side-by-side liveblogging Digimon Adventure, sub vs dub.
AmbarSonofDeshar Since: Jan, 2010
#191013: May 30th 2017 at 8:52:10 AM

[up]What would be perfect, though, would be if Twitter tried to ban him and then Trump demanded that because he is the President they cannot. It would make him look like even more of a total petty ass, and involve abusing his power to interfere with a private company.

M84 Oh, bother. from Our little blue planet Since: Jun, 2010 Relationship Status: Chocolate!
Oh, bother.
#191014: May 30th 2017 at 8:56:24 AM

[up][up] That said...

"And if you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you."

All things considered, that might be offensive to eldritch abysses.

<shotguns a beer>

Disgusted, but not surprised
NativeJovian Jupiterian Local from Orlando, FL Since: Mar, 2014 Relationship Status: Maxing my social links
Jupiterian Local
#191015: May 30th 2017 at 9:20:42 AM

Sorry, I just thought you said that North Korea would attack the United States. They'd be lucky to hit an island in the Pacific. They are a regional threat, nothing more.
A nuclear-capable North Korea with ICBM capability is not outside the realm of possibility in the medium term. They won't have anything like the arsenal of most other nuclear-capable countries, but they don't need that. Honestly, they don't even need to be able to reach the mainland US — the US is not going to do anything that would get Tokyo nuked, and North Korea may have the capability to do that already.

There's a reason that we're willing to risk pissing off China by putting missile defense systems in South Korea. The threat of a nuclear North Korea is both legitimate and goddamn terrifying.

The good news is that all it really means is that nobody can fuck with them too much. They can't use it offensively, because as soon as they launch anything, half the nukes on the planet will be headed for Pyongyang, and they're sane enough to know that. The bad news is that being unable to apply military pressure — or even the threat of it — against North Korea means we lose of our tools in the toolbox we use to keep North Korea under control (and an out-of-control North Korea is a bad thing for everybody).

Actually, the really bad news is that it's really hard to tell the difference between "launching nukes at North Korea" and "launching nukes at China", so there's a non-zero chance of a second-strike launch against North Korea turning into a generalized nuclear war. Which would be a Bad Thing, obviously.

This is why the preferred outcome for everyone involved is for North Korea to not become nuclear-capable in the first place, but they've done a very good job of ensuring that any decisive steps taken to stop them would be a cure worse than the disease. Remember that North Korea has the ability to level Seoul with purely conventional artillery, so there's sort of a mini-MAD situation with them already. Our ability to force them to do anything is sharply limited, which is how they've been able to develop their nuclear and missile programs as far as they have already.

edited 30th May '17 9:21:19 AM by NativeJovian

Really from Jupiter, but not an alien.
fruitpork Since: Oct, 2010
#191016: May 30th 2017 at 9:37:55 AM

[up] at this point I'm thinking if North Korea actually nukes Japan or South Korea china will just leave them to die. They're sick of their antics, and North Korea has even been antagonizing them as of late.

M84 Oh, bother. from Our little blue planet Since: Jun, 2010 Relationship Status: Chocolate!
Oh, bother.
#191017: May 30th 2017 at 9:43:33 AM

So Trump is calling for the filibuster to be killed again.

POS POTUS knows it's the only way his awful AHCA and tax cuts will pass the Senate.

Disgusted, but not surprised
DingoWalley1 Asgore Adopts Noelle Since: Feb, 2014 Relationship Status: Can't buy me love
Asgore Adopts Noelle
#191018: May 30th 2017 at 9:46:55 AM

[up] At this point, not even killing the Filibuster would save either; neither Trump's Budget (which is dead) or the AHCA (which is being heavily re-worked by the Senate) would pass on 51 votes...

Rationalinsanity from Halifax, Canada Since: Aug, 2010 Relationship Status: It's complicated
#191019: May 30th 2017 at 9:47:25 AM

The US and its allies could limit themselves to flattening NK with conventional arms if it attacks. China is unlikely to defend them in that case, and might even step in and overthrow Kim.

Politics is the skilled use of blunt objects.
Wyldchyld (Old as dirt)
#191020: May 30th 2017 at 9:56:56 AM

Looks like he's got his hands on his twitter account again. He's had a busy morning so far.

He's railing against Germany.

And the Russian investigation...

And he's quoting Fox who have a 'source' (unnamed - he doesn't seem to mind that when it's Fox) that says Kushner never asked for a backchannel.

So, looks like Donnie's back.

Edited to add:

Actually, looks like he's been back since the 28th, with a rant about Fake News:

It is my opinion that many of the leaks coming out of the White House are fabricated lies made up by the #Fake News media.

Whenever you see the words 'sources say' in the fake news media, and they don't mention names....

....it is very possible that those sources don't exist but are made up by fake news writers. #Fake News is the enemy!

Does anyone notice how the Montana Congressional race was such a big deal to Dems & Fake News until the Republican won? V was poorly covered

And then on the 29th:

The Fake News Media works hard at disparaging & demeaning my use of social media because they don't want America to hear the real story!

edited 30th May '17 10:10:08 AM by Wyldchyld

If my post doesn't mention a giant flying sperm whale with oversized teeth and lionfish fins for flippers, it just isn't worth reading.
HextarVigar That guy from The Big House Since: Feb, 2015
That guy
#191021: May 30th 2017 at 9:57:00 AM

I'm imagining Trump with a shotgun trying to stare down a monstrous rhino-like creature.

edited 30th May '17 9:57:25 AM by HextarVigar

Your momma's so dumb she thinks oral sex means talking dirty.
Swanpride Since: Jun, 2013
#191022: May 30th 2017 at 10:30:22 AM

Sometimes I wonder...naturally they have a trade deficit with Germany. They are big, Germany is small, there will always be an imbalance in this regard. Plus, it is not our fault that they never managed to turn "Made in the US" into a brand....

Wyldchyld (Old as dirt)
#191023: May 30th 2017 at 11:12:36 AM

Made in the US is a brand.

Anyway, the Washington Post has picked up on the tweet, and has decided to explore the misconceptions Trump (and his administration) has about Germany, and trade in general. It also explores Germany's misconceptions, too.

President Trump just threatened Germany over trade. Here’s what you need to know.

Trump doesn’t understand Germany’s trade relationships

The Trump administration seems to have some basic misunderstandings of Germany’s economic policy. Trump’s trade adviser, Peter Navarro, seems to think that Germany wants a weak euro. In fact, German officials have spoken out consistently against the European Central Bank’s quantitative easing policy that is helping hold down the euro’s value.

More broadly, the president seems to think of trade in terms of bilateral relationships between pairs of countries that bargain with one another to strike a deal. However, trade relations are much more complex and harder to trace — policy changes in one country can lead to indirect ripple effects that are difficult to trace, but very important.

Even if Trump’s criticism rests on dubious assumptions, the United States is not the only country worried about Germany’s economic policy, and some of the U.S. concerns are both reasonable and long-standing. Germany’s large current account surplus is now in its 15th year and exceeds 8 percent of German gross domestic product. However, neither the Trump nor the Obama administrations, nor, for that matter, other European officials, have convinced the Germans that this is a problem, let alone that they need to solve it.

Germany, too, misunderstands the sources of its own success

As I discuss in a recent paper for the Transatlantic Academy, Germany has responded to such concerns with two complementary rhetorical arguments. First, it says that its large surplus and other countries’ deficits are a simple product of differences in competitiveness. Second, German officials “normalize and apologize.” To do this, they start by stressing that Germany is just like any other advanced economy and that any state willing to do the right policy reforms could enjoy its competitive advantages. When they get pushback, they become apologists, articulating and defending Germany’s uniqueness and purported inability to change.

A better explanation, however, would move the focus away from competitiveness to capital flows — large financial flows between countries that reflect policy-driven changes in incomes, consumption, savings and investment. In Germany’s case, a host of labor market, pension, public investment and fiscal policy changes have helped lower the share of national income that goes to labor. This put far more money in the hands of those who save rather than spend. As a result, German domestic consumption has necessarily grown much more slowly than has national income, and lower consumption, by definition, has meant greater savings. Practically, this means firm profits have soared ever higher, and, more recently, government debt has shrunk — both manifestations of these higher savings. Overall, German national savings grew from about 21 percent of German GDP to 28 percent during the period in which its current account went sharply into surplus (2003-2017). Meanwhile, German private investment stagnated, and public investment fell to among the lowest levels in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. This means that of the three usual sources of economic growth — consumption, investment and trade — Germany has become disruptively reliant on trade since about 2003.

Thus, where German apologists claim that the trade surplus is simply the aggregate result of free consumer choices, it is, in fact, mostly the result of Germany’s capital outflows, which are a result of policy choices, especially those that shift national income from consumers to firms (as profits or capital subsidies) or to government (as budget surpluses). Global capital flows have their own logic and have now grown to dwarf trade flows.

The article then goes on to discuss policy implications.

edited 30th May '17 11:20:37 AM by Wyldchyld

If my post doesn't mention a giant flying sperm whale with oversized teeth and lionfish fins for flippers, it just isn't worth reading.
megaeliz Since: Mar, 2017
#191024: May 30th 2017 at 11:12:45 AM

Trump's White House communications director resigns, just as Russia probe ramps up.

http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/335571-trumps-white-house-comms-director-resigns?amp

http://www.politico.com/story/2017/05/30/mike-dubke-trumps-communications-director-has-resigned-238931

[down] thanks

Although, apparently it was about "personal issues" it does not look very good for the whole Trump/Russia thing.

edited 30th May '17 11:26:24 AM by megaeliz

Wyldchyld (Old as dirt)
#191025: May 30th 2017 at 11:22:12 AM

[up]From what I'm seeing, it was decided before this international trip (I think the WP said 18th May), but he agreed to stay on through the international trip with the resignation being announced today.

If my post doesn't mention a giant flying sperm whale with oversized teeth and lionfish fins for flippers, it just isn't worth reading.

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