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BlueNinja0 The Mod with the Migraine from Taking a left at Albuquerque Since: Dec, 2010 Relationship Status: Showing feelings of an almost human nature
The Mod with the Migraine
#244676: Jun 7th 2018 at 11:23:48 AM

So today the Trump administration formally decided that it's perfectly fine for every American consumer to be ripped off by eliminating the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. I guess technically it still exists, if you can say that about an organization with 0 employees. Full article text 

President Trump sent budget director Mick Mulvaney over to the federal consumer financial watchdog, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, in order to bleed it dry or hack it into bits, whichever comes first. On Wednesday, Mulvaney took the hatchet approach when he unceremoniously dismissed the watchdog’s 25-member advisory board, the Consumer Advisory Board, which convened industry experts of all stripes, from banking executives to academics and activists, and was charged with setting agency priorities by working with consumer groups to identify and prioritize areas where American consumers were getting ripped off.

So what caused Mulvaney, the interim acting head of the CFPB, to oust this pretty well-intentioned group of experts? The move appeared to have been months in the making, as Mulvaney had already cancelled the group’s scheduled meeting in February, one of two in-person meetings the group is legally required to convene each year. Last week, he cancelled another scheduled meeting of the board. That prompted 11 board members to hold a press conference Monday criticizing Mulvaney’s leadership of the consumer protection bureau that was created in the wake of the financial crisis specifically to protect consumers as part of the 2010 Dodd-Frank financial law. Two days later, Mulvaney dispatched his deputy to axe the group altogether via conference call. The administration officials made a vague attempt to try to make the dismissal look like an effort to by thrifty with taxpayer dollars to the tune of “multi-hundred-thousand dollars a year.” Oh yeah?

Mulvaney’s flouting of the Dodd-Frank rules may be increasingly brazen, perhaps because the cover provided by the outrageousness of transgressions elsewhere in the Trump administration, but his disdain for the methods and mission of the agency he was charged with running is longstanding. As a congressman, Mulvaney called the consumer protection bureau “a joke” and, as acting head, he’s effectively frozen its budget and undermine its authority at every possible turn. But the cherry on Mulvaney’s sundae of sabotage came last week when the leader of the agency empowered to protect consumers from unscrupulous financial actors, like payday lenders, sided with those very payday lenders when they sued the CFPB to block new regulations on the industry.

And of course despite doing pretty well in a lot of primaries, Democrats are poised to seize defeat from the jaws of victory because something-something-Feinstein's-not-liberal-enough. Full article text 

A little over three months ago, the delegates of the California Democratic Party declined to endorse five-term incumbent Dianne Feinstein for re-election. They instead came just shy of endorsing Kevin de León, her progressive challenger and the leader of the state Senate’s Democrats. This seemed, for some, to herald a real and portentous race pitting the party’s newly animated and restless progressive activists against one of the most respected figures of the party’s establishment.

That race never materialized. Feinstein won by over 30 percentage points on Tuesday. De León came very close to losing his spot in a November runoff to a Republican with no money, name recognition, or political experience. His poor showing was a sign of the obstacles facing progressive statewide candidates in California and the dynamics holding the Democratic Party in its current ideological place. Those dynamics have shaped not only Dianne Feinstein’s re-election bid, but the California gubernatorial race as well.

De León’s tepid showing was anticipated by, among others, the Washington Post’s David Weigel, who noted Sunday that de León wasn’t a real presence on television and that his few major backers, like billionaire Tom Steyer, skimped on their spending for him, and a number of articles about his campaign spotlighted lonely drives from stop to stop in his Chevy Volt singing Morrissey lines–“Please, Please, Please Let Me Get What I Want”?—to himself. Beyond the standard disadvantages of running against an establishment incumbent, de León also ran up against California’s electoral makeup. While California is heavily and increasingly Democratic, it isn’t terribly progressive. The electorate, as Five Thirty Eight’s Clare Malone wrote, is dominated by white voters and relatively well-to-do homeowners rather than the voters of color and renters that might boost more left-leaning candidates.

Tuesday’s results suggest Feinstein really is, as her supporters say, a candidate who reflects the current preferences of the Democratic electorate in the state of California. That fact does not fundamentally resolve, though, the question of whether it is good for the Democratic Party—and for a country whose democratic institutions are already wildly and intentionally unrepresentative of the population by age—that a 26-year incumbent, who will end her likely next term at the age of 91, will be returning to the United States Senate. This isn’t, of course, a fundamentally important question to party leaders—who aren’t solely motivated, as progressives seem to believe, by antipathy to progressive boat-rockers like de León, although that antipathy is clearly real. If they wanted to, party leaders could have pushed Feinstein to make an exit and replaced her with another establishment-friendly Democrat. They did not: As far as the Democratic Party is concerned, the seat that Dianne Feinstein currently holds belongs, personally, to Dianne Feinstein, who deserves to hold it until she drops dead.

Defenders of Feinstein’s incumbency generally cite her competence and experience. Feinstein is indeed well-versed in the kind of transactional, collaborative, bipartisan politics that no longer exists in the United States Congress. This is something like being fluent in Esperanto. The primary responsibilities of a Democratic senator in 2018 are writing legislation that cannot pass and grandstanding in support of Democratic messaging. These are things that can be accomplished by political veterans and newcomers alike.

The through-line in Democratic messaging in advance of this year’s midterm elections is opposition to President Trump—a very easy task for Democrats that has proven inexplicably difficult for Feinstein. In August, she told an audience that Trump could be a good president with some personal growth, a line with which most Democrats who have followed the policies being implemented by the president and his behavior over the past several years would probably disagree. Five Thirty Eight’s numbers show, moreover, that Feinstein has cast more votes for the Trump agenda than most of her colleagues and more than one would expect given Hillary Clinton’s margin of victory in California. Almost all of those votes were for several of Trump’s nominees, and a vote for CIA Director Gina Haspel even seemed possible too earlier this year. Feinstein was initially undecided, but ultimately voted no over Haspel’s involvement with the CIA’s torture program under George W. Bush.

This move is in keeping with Feinstein’s prior work investigating that program and is a bit out of step with her long-standing support for another form of state sadism. When she first ran for statewide office in 1990, Feinstein goaded delegates at the state party convention into booing her over her support for the death penalty. Those boos were later used in her campaign advertising. The bloodlust among moderate Democrats that similarly encouraged Bill Clinton to make a point of executing a mentally disabled man in 1992 has since fallen out of fashion. A growing number of Democrats now view the death penalty, correctly, as an expensive way to send disproportionately black and sometimes innocent prisoners to grisly, pointless deaths.

Feinstein has been one of the party’s holdouts, having expressed support for capital punishment as recently as 2013. Word came a couple of weeks ago, though, that Feinstein, glancing over her shoulder at de León, has since changed her position. “It became crystal clear to me that the risk of unequal application is high and its effect on deterrence is low,” she said in a statement to the Los Angeles Times in May. The Times’ Sarah Wire wrote that Feinstein’s staffers “could not pinpoint exactly when the shift occurred.” A few weeks earlier, Feinstein, long one of the Democratic Party’s most committed drug warriors, told reporters that she no longer opposed legalizing marijuana.

This, like it or not, is how progress happens for Democrats. The California governor’s race offers another tidy lesson about the party’s habits. Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom and former Los Angeles mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, both Democrats, were the presumptive front-runners. Had they both taken the top two spots in yesterday’s jungle primary, they would have faced each other in November’s general election, shutting the Republican candidates out from contention entirely.

This seemingly would have been the ideal outcome for Democrats—months on end of two promising Democratic figures advancing Democratic ideas to the public ahead of an election the party literally cannot lose. It is not, however, the outcome Gavin Newsom preferred. His campaign spent over $1 million on statewide ads putatively attacking Trump-endorsed Republican candidate John Cox’s record on guns and has mass-texted registered voters, including voters the campaign knows are registered Republicans, about Trump’s support for Cox. Both were moves, as Newsom all but admitted himself, that were actually intended to boost turnout and support for Cox, who Newsom correctly reasoned would be an easier opponent for him to beat than Villaraigosa. On Tuesday, Cox won. His presence on the ballot is a blow to Democratic House candidates who worry that Republicans will have more of a reason to show up to the polls in November, as well as Villaraigosa backers who supported a rival Republican in the hopes of dragging Cox into third place.

Newsom and Villaraigosa backers are far from the first Democrats to imagine helping Republicans amounts to shrewd and savvy politics. Don Blankenship’s loss in West Virginia’s Senate primary last month was undoubtedly a relief to the families of the 29 workers who died in his intentionally unsafe mine in 2010. One imagines the Democratic operatives who spent over a million dollars trying to assist his campaign felt differently. Claire Mc Caskill was proud enough of her work bringing controversial Missouri Congressman Todd Akin to victory in the state’s 2012 Republican Senate primary that she bragged about it in her memoir. “[W]e spent more money for Todd Akin in the last two weeks of the primary than he spent on his whole primary campaign,” she wrote in an excerpt published by Politico.

What often seems lost on Democratic strategists and politicians like Newsom, Villaraigosa, and Mc Caskill is that elections are more than contests to fill particular offices or seats. They’re opportunities for parties to organize and mobilize their activists, volunteers, and voters, promote their ideas to the public, and perhaps win over a few converts in the electorate. If you had asked an average Democrat in 2012, absent any action from the Mc Caskill campaign, whether it would be good for the people of Missouri broadly, and the women of Missouri specifically, for the Republican Party to nominate Todd Akin—a fanatical spreader of falsehoods about abortion and birth control—to the United States Senate, they probably would have said no, that it would actually be quite bad for the people of Missouri, especially the women of Missouri, for the Republican Party to further elevate one of the more unhinged disseminators of lies and poison about abortion and birth control, in our political discourse. They would have been right. Mc Caskill helped the Republican Party do just that anyway.

The Democratic Party is a gerontocracy driven primarily by careerism and convenience. The pathologies that make Feinstein’s return to the Senate a given and convince Democrats burning cash on the Republican Party’s Blankenships, Akins, and nobodies out in California are the dynamics keeping unambiguously corrupt New Jersey Sen. Robert Menendez in the party’s good graces. They are the pathologies that encouraged Nancy Pelosi to resist asking John Conyers—an easily replaceable congressman representing one of safest Democratic seats in the country, a man who’d been in Congress for over a half-century—to step down for over a week after he was credibly accused of sexual assault and harassment by over half a dozen women. They are the pathologies that allow Bill Clinton to dismiss questions about his sexual misconduct with confidence that party leaders will never cast him aside. They are the pathologies that encouraged the Hillary Clinton campaign to consider, seriously and aptly, adopting “Because It’s Her Turn” as its slogan in 2016. The Democratic Party is a professional fraternity only secondarily interested in advancing the proposals in its grab bag of policy ideas—proposals that Democratic candidates are, in fact, free to oppose provided they can raise cash easily and appeal to voters who will inevitably tire of them and vote for the Republican candidates and policies they are likely to eventually prefer.

Careerism and convenience are, of course, important forces in the Republican Party as well. But the Republican Party is about to select its third speaker of the House this decade. This is churn driven largely by internal debate and dissent about how the Republican Party can best advance its particular vision for American society—how it can more deeply empower the white, wealthy, and thus worthy citizens of this country. Every Republican politician is, really, no more than an instrument for that project, and the Republican Party is not terribly particular about who they hire to fulfill it: Accused pedophiles and mad reality show hosts are welcome to apply. The majority of Republican politicians live in constant fear that they’ll be canned for someone who might be more deeply committed to the party’s vision. The vast majority of Democratic politicians do not share a similar fear, a problem given that the well-being of struggling Americans and the planet depends on the Democratic Party uniformly taking on a bold and cohesive ideological agenda. It’s only the striving opportunism of potential candidates like Kirsten Gillibrand and Cory Booker that’s moving the party in this direction. “The days of Democrats biding our time, biting our tongue, and triangulating at the margins,” De León crowed in February, “are over.” They are not, actually. Not yet.

That’s the epitome of privilege right there, not considering armed nazis a threat to your life. - Silasw
LSBK Since: Sep, 2014
#244677: Jun 7th 2018 at 11:53:36 AM

[up]Eh, let's not take one sanctimonious voice as speaking for the coming future.

edited 7th Jun '18 1:36:51 PM by LSBK

BlueNinja0 The Mod with the Migraine from Taking a left at Albuquerque Since: Dec, 2010 Relationship Status: Showing feelings of an almost human nature
The Mod with the Migraine
#244678: Jun 7th 2018 at 11:55:42 AM

[up] Sorry, I'll try harder to phrase things in a suitably condescending manner without potholing to Sarcasm Mode.

That’s the epitome of privilege right there, not considering armed nazis a threat to your life. - Silasw
Rationalinsanity from Halifax, Canada Since: Aug, 2010 Relationship Status: It's complicated
#244679: Jun 7th 2018 at 12:08:47 PM

Slate gonna Slate.

Politics is the skilled use of blunt objects.
M84 Oh, bother. from Our little blue planet Since: Jun, 2010 Relationship Status: Chocolate!
Oh, bother.
#244680: Jun 7th 2018 at 12:25:56 PM

Seriously, where do they find these chucklefucks?

Disgusted, but not surprised
sgamer82 Since: Jan, 2001
#244681: Jun 7th 2018 at 12:27:01 PM

https://whatthefuckjusthappenedtoday.com/2018/06/07/day-504/

Day 504: Acid-wash.

1/ Rudy Giuliani to Stormy Daniels: "I don't respect a porn star the way I respect a career women or a women of substance." Daniels' attorney, Michael Avenatti, called Giuliani an "absolute, disgusting pig" and demanded Trump fire him "immediately." He added that "it doesn't matter what a women's profession is. It has nothing to do with their credibility or whether they should be respected." Giuliani defended his statement, saying: "I don't have to undermine her credibility. She's done it by lying." (NBC News / ABC News / CNN)

https://www.cnn.com/2018/06/07/politics/michael-avenatti-rudy-giuliani-comments/index.html

2/ The Justice Department will brief lawmakers next week about the FBI's use of an informant in connection with its investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election. The new offer is a concession to Republican demands for more information about the probe. The Justice Department and FBI "are prepared to brief members on certain questions specifically raised by the speaker and other members" and allow lawmakers "to review certain supporting documents that were made available during the prior briefing." Democrats are concerned that the briefings could allow Trump's legal team with access to sensitive details of the investigation. (Washington Post / CNBC)

https://www.cnbc.com/2018/06/07/doj-to-show-lawmakers-more-classified-documents-on-fbi-informant-report.html

3/ Sean Hannity suggested that witnesses in the Robert Mueller probe "follow Hillary Clinton's lead" by destroying their personal phones before handing them over to prosecutors. Hannity told witnesses to "delete all your emails and then acid-wash your emails and hard drives on the phones, then take your phones and bash them with a hammer to little itsy bitsy pieces." Hand them over to Mueller, Hannity continued, "and say, Hillary Rodham Clinton, this is equal justice under the law." Hannity later insisted that he was kidding. (The Hill / Business Insider)

http://thehill.com/homenews/media/391115-hannity-advises-witnesses-in-mueller-probe-smash-their-phones-to-little-itsy

4/ Colin Kaepernick's lawyers plan to subpoena Trump and Pence as part of his collusion case against the NFL in an attempt to gain information about Trump's political involvement with NFL owners. One of Kaepernick's attorneys recently claimed that an unnamed NFL owner admitted under oath during a deposition that he decided not to offer Kaepernick a contract after Trump called for the firing of players who refused to stand for the national anthem. (Yahoo! Sports / USA Today / Axios)

https://www.axios.com/colin-kaepernick-subpoena-trump-pence-nfl-national-anthem-b0196310-2a7e-4000-a274-defefa5b4af8.html

5/ Trump's new national security adviser has not had a Cabinet-level National Security Council meeting on North Korea after two months on the job. In April, Trump blamed John Bolton for derailing the upcoming summit with North Korea after Bolton said the U.S. would make no concessions unless North Korea denuclearized. Trump instead has driven the preparation for the summit almost exclusively on his own, consulting with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. (Politico)

https://www.politico.com/story/2018/06/07/trump-bolton-north-korea-630362

6/ France and Germany won't sign the joint G7 statement without major concessions from the U.S. on tariffs, the Iran nuclear deal, and the Paris climate accord. The joint statement details a range of policy issues that all leaders of the G7 group agree with. French president Emmanuel Macron urged the other members of the G7 to stand up to the U.S. over Trump's decision to impose steel and aluminum tariffs against the European Union, Canada, and Mexico. The G7 summit is scheduled for June 8-9 in Quebec. (Bloomberg / Politico)

https://www.politico.eu/article/france-emmanuel-macron-wont-sign-g7-statement-without-concessions-from-donald-trump-report/

U.S. Renewable energy companies shelved more than $2.5 billion in renewable energy projects following Trump's tariff on imported solar panels. (Reuters)

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-trump-effect-solar-insight/billions-in-u-s-solar-projects-shelved-after-trump-panel-tariff-idUSKCN1J30CT

poll/ 48% of voters say they're more likely to back a congressional candidate who promises to serve as a check on Trump. 53% say they're less likely to vote for a candidate who supports Trump on most issues. (NBC News)

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/first-read/poll-economic-satisfaction-under-trump-isn-t-helping-his-party-n880721

Dept. of Swamp Things.
Mick Mulvaney fired all 25 members of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau's advisory board days after some of the members criticized his leadership as acting director of the watchdog agency. The CFPB plans to revamp the Consumer Advisory Board in the fall by hiring all new members. "The outspoken members of the Consumer Advisory Board seem more concerned about protecting their taxpayer funded junkets to Washington, D.C., and being wined and dined by the Bureau than protecting consumers," said a spokesperson for the agency. (Washington Post)

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/business/wp/2018/06/06/mick-mulvaney-fires-members-of-cfpb-advisory-board/?utm_source=reddit.com&utm_term=.6aa6939c1451

Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross says the U.S. has signed a deal with Chinese telecom giant ZTE to end the crippling sanctions against the company. The deal includes a $1 billion penalty against ZTE and requires that U.S-chosen compliance officers be placed inside the company. ZTE will also be required to change its board of directors and executive team within 30 days. (CNBC)

https://www.cnbc.com/2018/06/07/commerce-secretary-wilbur-ross-the-us-strikes-a-deal-with-zte.html

A U.S. district judge ordered the EPA to provide documents used by Scott Pruitt to claim that human behavior is not a "primary contributor" to climate change. (Scientific American / The Hill)

http://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/391130-judge-rules-pruitt-must-provide-evidence-used-for-climate-change

The White House asked Scott Pruitt to stop visiting a West Wing restaurant. Pruitt has complained that EPA doesn't have a cafeteria of its own or private dining quarters. (Politico)

https://www.politico.com/story/2018/06/06/pruitt-white-house-lunch-603350

BlueNinja0 The Mod with the Migraine from Taking a left at Albuquerque Since: Dec, 2010 Relationship Status: Showing feelings of an almost human nature
The Mod with the Migraine
#244682: Jun 7th 2018 at 12:53:15 PM

[up][up] I don't agree with the constant doom-and-gloom refrain nor the bashing of Feinstein after her rather Curb-Stomp Battle primary win, but I do agree with the article's point that funding Republican candidates, no matter how horrible they are, is a fucking disaster for the Democratic party. As recent events have proven, there are no candidates too horrible for a Republican voter to pick, up to and including unashamed pedophiles and actual Nazis. So what if a race is between two Dem candidates; that's an excellent opportunity to redirect some of that advertising money, as well as running the clean, friendly campaign everyone allegedly wants to see more of.

That’s the epitome of privilege right there, not considering armed nazis a threat to your life. - Silasw
Rationalinsanity from Halifax, Canada Since: Aug, 2010 Relationship Status: It's complicated
#244683: Jun 7th 2018 at 12:55:48 PM

Trump isn't doing adequate, or any really, preparation for the North Korea summit.

https://www.cnn.com/2018/06/07/politics/donald-trump-north-korea-attitude/index.html

He's about to make Kim look good....

Politics is the skilled use of blunt objects.
DeathorCake Since: Mar, 2016
#244684: Jun 7th 2018 at 1:07:53 PM

[up][up][up]

Now would be an excellent time for our Prime Minister to actually do a thing and stand with France and Germany on the tariffs. I think even the rabid Brexiteers would leave their feathers unruffled on this one.

[up][up]

Re: Democrats, I'm sure they will do a very good job winning elections when the other side puts up literal neo-nazis, but even if they win the presidency in 2020 I doubt they're going to bring particularly radical change once they get there. The Republican Party and the European Right have both got used to their opponents doing pretty much exactly what they do but nicer and with more compromise, I suspect they'll fracture completely before they allow themselves to be dragged back to the Eisenhower turf, and the Democrats don't have the cohesion or the mental equipment to make that happen because after thirty years of neoliberalism they and the wider population is almost as freaked out about socialist ideas as the Right.

This is part of a wider worry I have about current politics. The only thing the left is doing at the moment in most countries is teaming up with the centrists and sometimes the centre-right to act as a giant blocking coalition to stop the nazis, racists and crazies getting to power or doing stuff like Brexit, which leaves them permanently on the defensive. These one-party races look like a good situation for an entire campaign of nothing but policy education, but instead they're spending money on their opposition.

Fourthspartan56 from Georgia, US Since: Oct, 2016 Relationship Status: THIS CONCEPT OF 'WUV' CONFUSES AND INFURIATES US!
#244685: Jun 7th 2018 at 1:29:35 PM

Re: Democrats, I'm sure they will do a very good job winning elections when the other side puts up literal neo-nazis, but even if they win the presidency in 2020 I doubt they're going to bring particularly radical change once they get there. The Republican Party and the European Right have both got used to their opponents doing pretty much exactly what they do but nicer and with more compromise, I suspect they'll fracture completely before they allow themselves to be dragged back to the Eisenhower turf, and the Democrats don't have the cohesion or the mental equipment to make that happen because after thirty years of neoliberalism they and the wider population is almost as freaked out about socialist ideas as the Right.
Well this is a gigantic bit of nonsense, the Democratic Party is moving towards single payer healthcare and for a while has supported pro-labor legislation and general economic policy.

I for one have no intention of accepting your defeatist irrationality, there is zero reason to believe any of this and your Democrat bashing is completely unsupported by an actual evidence or logic.

This is just a terrible post that has no connection to reality.

"Einstein would turn over in his grave. Not only does God play dice, the dice are loaded." -Chairman Sheng-Ji Yang
AmbarSonofDeshar Since: Jan, 2010
#244686: Jun 7th 2018 at 1:31:21 PM

Something something neoliberal is not, and never has been, a rational critique of the Democratic Party.

Fourthspartan56 from Georgia, US Since: Oct, 2016 Relationship Status: THIS CONCEPT OF 'WUV' CONFUSES AND INFURIATES US!
#244687: Jun 7th 2018 at 1:33:11 PM

Yeah we're not in 2001 anymore, the Democratic Party hasn't been neoliberal in quite awhile (by any actual definition of neoliberal that isn't a slur to mean "moderate or establishment person I don't like").

edited 7th Jun '18 1:33:47 PM by Fourthspartan56

"Einstein would turn over in his grave. Not only does God play dice, the dice are loaded." -Chairman Sheng-Ji Yang
tclittle Professional Forum Ninja from Somewhere Down in Texas Since: Apr, 2010
Professional Forum Ninja
#244688: Jun 7th 2018 at 1:35:57 PM

Tennessee hardware store has "No Gays Allowed" sign up.

"We're all paper, we're all scissors, we're all fightin' with our mirrors, scared we'll never find somebody to love."
Matues Since: Sep, 2011
tclittle Professional Forum Ninja from Somewhere Down in Texas Since: Apr, 2010
Professional Forum Ninja
#244690: Jun 7th 2018 at 1:49:04 PM

Ah, well, he's put it back up. It's trending on Twitter.

"We're all paper, we're all scissors, we're all fightin' with our mirrors, scared we'll never find somebody to love."
BlueNinja0 The Mod with the Migraine from Taking a left at Albuquerque Since: Dec, 2010 Relationship Status: Showing feelings of an almost human nature
The Mod with the Migraine
#244691: Jun 7th 2018 at 1:55:52 PM

TBH I don't expect even a Blue Tsunami to bring "radical change" to the country. I do expect them to do things like reinstate safety regulations, promote health care, and stop persecuting refugees.

... Actually on that last note, what is the likelihood that the UN could charge Trump or someone like the head of ICE for human rights violations and/or war crimes for the intentional separation of children from their parents?note  alsonote 

That’s the epitome of privilege right there, not considering armed nazis a threat to your life. - Silasw
megaeliz Since: Mar, 2017
#244692: Jun 7th 2018 at 2:28:47 PM

A headline from Wa Po

Trump’s tariffs teach Europe a lesson, Putin says

Someone's getting employee of the month again.

DrDougsh Since: Jan, 2001
#244693: Jun 7th 2018 at 2:33:58 PM

Putin's not entirely wrong, though. Trump's presidency has convinced me that Europe does need to show less deference to the US, and generally needs to stop relying on its financial and military alliance with America. Europe's leaders can't act like their interests are always going to align with America when one of America's two ruling parties has integrated Trump's views to such an extent.

edited 7th Jun '18 2:35:49 PM by DrDougsh

Protagonist506 from Oregon Since: Dec, 2013 Relationship Status: Chocolate!
#244694: Jun 7th 2018 at 2:41:37 PM

Well, with the UN America has a lot of power within it, and the UN itself has a pretty bad track record. Plus, the Republican party itself doesn't have a lot of faith in the UN.

Leviticus 19:34
DeathorCake Since: Mar, 2016
#244695: Jun 7th 2018 at 2:45:48 PM

I will absolutely admit that the Democrats have been getting better and I'd much rather see them in power than the alternative, maybe I sounded rather more vitriolic than I meant to. I'm still rather skeptical about their capability to get any of that stuff done rather than fold to calls for bipartisanship and compromise, as well as their sudden change of heart when a lot of them have been in congress for these last few decades and raised a distinct lack of hue and cry at "the end of welfare as we know it" or taking huge piles of money from corporations in campaign donations until comparatively recently.

I like their platform, I have less confidence in their ability to deliver on more than small sections of it given everything Obama did has essentially been rolled up and thrown out in two years, and not because Trump is particularly libertarian. Neoliberalism in the economic "Washington Consensus" sense is still hanging on grimly, I've been listening to a lot of economics talk in the last few weeks so I forgot that it turned into a rather more vague epithet in politics.

megaeliz Since: Mar, 2017
#244696: Jun 7th 2018 at 3:01:51 PM

Trump tweet dump for the last week (there's a lot)

5/31

Iger, where is my call of apology? You and ABC have offended millions of people, and they demand a response. How is Brian Ross doing? He tanked the market with an ABC lie, yet no apology. Double Standard!

The corrupt Mainstream Media is working overtime not to mention the infiltration of people, Spies (Informants), into my campaign! Surveillance much?

Not that it matters but I never fired James Comey because of Russia! The Corrupt Mainstream Media loves to keep pushing that narrative, but they know it is not true!

FAIR TRADE!

6/1

A.P. has just reported that the Russian Hoax Investigation has now cost our government over $17 million, and going up fast. No Collusion, except by the Democrats!

Why aren’t they firing no talent Samantha Bee for the horrible language used on her low ratings show? A total double standard but that’s O.K., we are Winning, and will be doing so for a long time to come!

Canada has treated our Agricultural business and Farmers very poorly for a very long period of time. Highly restrictive on Trade! They must open their markets and take down their trade barriers! They report a really high surplus on trade with us. Do Timber & Lumber in U.S.?

6/2

“John Brennan, no single figure in American history has done more to discredit the intelligence community than this liar. Not only is he a liar, he’s a liar about being a liar.” Dan Bongino on @foxandfriends

....“$17 million spent, it’s a scam Investigation. Americans are being worked. We now know there was Russian collusion, with Russians and the Democrats. The Mueller team is stacked with anti-Trumpers, who actually represented Clinton people (& gave $’s to Crooked H).” Dan Bongino

There was No Collusion with Russia (except by the Democrats). When will this very expensive Witch Hunt Hoax ever end? So bad for our Country. Is the Special Counsel/Justice Department leaking my lawyers letters to the Fake News Media? Should be looking at Dems corruption instead?

The United States must, at long last, be treated fairly on Trade. If we charge a country ZERO to sell their goods, and they charge us 25, 50 or even 100 percent to sell ours, it is UNFAIR and can no longer be tolerated. That is not Free or Fair Trade, it is Stupid Trade!

Why is it that the Wall Street Journal, though well meaning, never mentions the unfairness of the Tariffs routinely charged against the U.S. by other countries, or the many Billions of Dollars that the Tariffs we are now charging are, and will be, pouring into U.S. coffers?

When you’re almost 800 Billion Dollars a year down on Trade, you can’t lose a Trade War! The U.S. has been ripped off by other countries for years on Trade, time to get smart! [[quoteblock]]

Same day, but this one is kind of weird(er) [[quoteblock]] Mattis Accuses Beijing of ‘Intimidation and Coercion’ in South China Sea [1]

Very surprised that China would be doing this?

6/3

Jesse Watters “The only thing Trump obstructed was Hillary getting to the White House.” So true!

As only one of two people left who could become President, why wouldn’t the FBI or Department of “Justice” have told me that they were secretly investigating Paul Manafort (on charges that were 10 years old and had been previously dropped) during my campaign? Should have told me! ....Paul Manafort came into the campaign very late and was with us for a short period of time (he represented Ronald Reagan, Bob Dole & many others over the years), but we should have been told that Comey and the boys were doing a number on him, and he wouldn’t have been hired!

Mark Penn “Why are there people from the Clinton Foundation on the Mueller Staff? Why is there an Independent Counsel? To go after people and their families for unrelated offenses...Constitution was set up to prevent this...Stormtrooper tactics almost.” A disgrace!

CharlesPhipps Since: Jan, 2001
#244697: Jun 7th 2018 at 3:04:49 PM

It should be noted Trump was a guest star in multiple Playboy softcore films.

So, yes, even more hypocrisy.

Author of The Rules of Supervillainy, Cthulhu Armageddon, and United States of Monsters.
LSBK Since: Sep, 2014
#244698: Jun 7th 2018 at 3:15:15 PM

NBC/WSJ poll: Trump's support has gotten deeper — but not broader

Basically, the groups that already loved Trump love him more than ever, but that doesn't translate into better prospects for the GOP during the mid-terms. Also the pro-Dem groups have become more pro-Dem and still have much higher enthusiasm.

SeptimusHeap from Switzerland (Edited uphill both ways) Relationship Status: Mu
#244699: Jun 7th 2018 at 3:17:43 PM

So in other words everybody is becoming more convinced of their own opinion?

"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman
TobiasDrake (•̀⤙•́) (Edited uphill both ways) Relationship Status: Arm chopping is not a love language!
(•̀⤙•́)
#244700: Jun 7th 2018 at 3:27:11 PM

I recall something around this time last year that was talking about how you shouldn't mistake the consistent Republican support for Trump as meaning that his behavior isn't changing minds. The idea, IIRC, was that even though polls consistently show a high Republican support, that doesn't mean he isn't losing support.

Rather, Trump regretters and Republicans who never wanted him in the first place are ragequitting the party. The polls don't include Republicans who stop supporting him because most of those people stop identifying as Republican entirely.

I suspect they're referring to more of that.

edited 7th Jun '18 3:27:37 PM by TobiasDrake

My Tumblr. Currently side-by-side liveblogging Digimon Adventure, sub vs dub.

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