Zooey wrote:

Billy_T wrote:

I think the evidence is overwhelming that Trump colluded with the Russians. In fact, the sheer overwhelming nature of the evidence may be helping Trump. His scandals, his endless lies, cover-ups, obstruction of justice, have hit the “unbelievable” point, and too many Americans have either tuned it all out, or just don’t believe it’s possible…

It’s like an en masse TL;DNR syndrome. Too long, did not read. Americans, already weakened by the Internet and smartphones, just don’t have the attention span anymore for this kind of onslaught . . . and I’m guilty of this too.

But that doesn’t matter.

Donald Trump, and his associates, are not being tried in the court of public opinion. They are going to be tried elsewhere, and whether Americans have combat fatigue or not is not relevant at this point. Everybody treats this like what matters are his poll numbers.

Public opinion will matter only if Mueller turns the entire enchilada over to congress where all those assholes will decide to impeach or not based on their own constituencies.

But when that happens…the entire thing will get a reboot. That is…all the charges will be laid out specifically, and everybody will pour over the actual charges. Right now, like you said, it’s overwhelming and hard to follow. But once it’s laid out, it will be classified by category (financial crimes, Russian interference, campaign coordination, transition contacts, and obstruction of justice), and the lists of names, dates, and crimes will all be laid out. It will be overwhelming because this thing is a fucking Gordian knot, and some shit is going to still be Classified since it will involve people/contacts still in “the field,” but my point is…the actual conclusion of the investigation is going to hit the reset button, and we will start brand new with everything laid out clearly.

So right now, it is overwhelming as we learn something new almost every day, and you’ve got Trump and his supporters out there running their fog machines full blast, and everyone claiming Mueller is just making crap up out of nothing…none of that will matter when he drops his set of encylopedias on the table.

I realize there’s a huge difference between the public “ruling” (or opinion-making) and the legal one. But Trump and company no doubt hope they can sway public opinion for at least two reasons:

1. If they actually allow Mueller to drop those encyclopedias, and I don’t think they will, Trump is trying to set up a bogus, entirely “political” case for ignoring the results entirely. If the GOP-controlled Congress fears that public view enough, they may well dismiss the findings too, or seek ways to suppress them. They suppressed a recent study on unsafe drinking water across the nation. Why wouldn’t they suppress Mueller?

2. The public crusade is there to give Trump and friends cover for killing the investigation, firing all those involved, and the GOP obviously won’t stop Trump from replacing these people with sycophants. He’s already done a ton of that.

In short . . . while I HOPE you’re right about this, I’m not sanguine about it at all at this point. Trump has gotten away with more than I thought humanly possible already. I fear he’ll get away with this too . . . one way or another.

An attempt at not being TL; DNR:

I find it appalling that a sitting president may well get away with calling for a DOJ investigation INTO the investigation INTO his own criminal activities.

Anyone who enables this, directly or indirectly, is aiding and abetting a thug, a monster, and the monstrous ideology that surrounds him — which is far right. That some of this comes from “the left” makes it all the more sickening.

Goddess, but I want to leave this country a thousand times over. We’ve jumped the proverbial shark.

Cal wrote:

Billy,

Can you compare the growth in income in, say, the last 2 years of Obama and Trump’s first 18 months?

That’s a significant piece of the picture. I cite manufacturing jobs, because as I said earlier, I see the crappy jobs added by Wal-Mart, McDdonald, Home Depot as part of the problem.

The fact that WalMart continues to expand and add jobs is not encouraging.

The growth in income is lower under Trump, compared with Obama’s last six years.

I’m trying to find good articles about this, or the clips from Morning Joe. But they’ve put up the charts several times in the last few months showing this. I’ll post them when I can.

Enjoying the discussion, Cal. Gotta head out.

Cal wrote:

But what are those policies, Cal?

I paid very close attention to Trump during the campaign, and he never spelled them out for anyone. And I would ask his supporters what they were, and they couldn’t answer, other than to say Make America Great Again.

If he does get credit for the economy, it will likely only be among the people who would vote for him anyway, and he’ll get it from them without ever revealing exactly what he’s done to “earn” that credit.

I have no interest in defending Trump. But what I would like to do is have an accurate picture of the conditions in our country.

How would you explain the fact that an important industry saw a small retraction in 8 of the 12 months before Trump AND then reversed course and saw significant growth in 12 of the 13 months after Trump took office?

Is that just a coincidence? Maybe, the economy does seem a bit mercurial to me.

But i know–and I think you do too–what Republicans will say.

And they have a damn good argument too.

Here’s a link to an interview from the time of the discussions about the tax cuts that underscores the arguments that Republicans will be making in the mid-terms if the trends in job growth continue.

https://www.marketplace.org/shows/marketplace/11162017

I don’t know about that one change. But, again, overall, Trump has fewer new jobs per month than Obama averaged in his last six years, and income gains for workers are lower under Trump, too.

What’s more important? The overall numbers, or one small sector?

Anyway, I personally don’t think the GOP has any good arguments regarding the economy. They always do very stupid things when they gain control. No credible economist, for instance, thought it was a good idea to slash taxes in the middle of one of the longest recoveries on record, when unemployment was already at 4%, corporations were already sitting on trillions, the debt was already at 20 trillion and counting.

And, remember when the GOP bashed Obama endlessly for deficits? Suddenly, since they’re in power again, deficits don’t matter. They meant the end of the world while Obama and the Dems ran things. Now they’re apparently meaningless.

The smart thing to do would have been to actually raise taxes on the rich — it would have been a Nixon goes to China moment — balance the budget while times are good and start to pay down the debt.

America is pretty much the only OECD country not to try to some form of debt reduction while the economy is relatively good.

Cal wrote:

By my math, the US spent 560 billion on safety net programs (SNAP, EIC, Medicaid, TANF, HUD) in 2016.

We spent 2.4 Trillion on everything besides medicare and social security, which should be paid for with payroll taxes. See my link to wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_federal_budget#/media/File:CBO_Infographic_2016.png

So, about 1/5 of the budget, apart from medicare and social security costs, went to supporting the safety net.

Based on that graphic from Occupy Democrats, I would have paid 200 bucks in taxes if 1/5 of my taxes went to supporting the safety net. I paid a helluva lot more than that last year. And I’m probably unusual in that I can claim 3 kids.

I’m not against helping the poor. I’m just arguing that the system is broken and conservatives who complain about an over sized safety net have a point.

This country needs to do a better job of providing poor people with good paying jobs.

Cal,

The problem with conservatives in this case, though, is that they’ll never force companies to pay better wages. In fact, their agenda is to remove the all too lax regulations we do have on the books, and to crush unions to death, which once were able to ensure higher wages for everyone — even non-union workers — and much better benefits.

In short, they want to shrink the safety net but offer nothing else to replace it. Just more of the same old same old hard neoliberalism. The Dems, unfortunately, counter with soft neoliberalism, so there is no party in power fighting for workers, the poor, the consumer or the environment — at least not enough to matter.

As mentioned upthread, I’d rather we had the kind of economy that provides for everyone upfront, so no government offsets are needed later. I’d rather it do its job so there isn’t any need for help from charities or the public sector.

As long as we have capitalism, however, that’s not going to happen. Capitalism is built to concentrate wealth, income, privilege and power at the top. It’s always going to generate poverty in its wake, and the working poor, and a shrinking middle. If there isn’t any government intervention to offset this, those people will suffer even more.

In short, we can’t have capitalism and no safety net at the same time. That’s just sadism on steroids, and we’d end up with revolution in the streets, too.

Cal wrote:

There is a shift in the political wind. It’s happening. I don’t know how big it is, but it’s underway. And not just because Trump is a jerk, but…because of his policies.

I don’t want to sound like a Trump supporter because…well gag me.

But there’s a ton of positive stuff happening for Trump right now.

The North Korea talks and reconciliation with South Korea is amazing. Before those developments there seemed to be murmurings in the MSN about Trump’s incompetence leading to a nuclear showdown. Now peace seems to be on the horizon.

Again, I hate the guy, and wonder how much–if any–credit he deserves for this development. But you know he will take credit for resolving the problem. And millions of Americans will accept that and give him credit.

Jobs, jobs, jobs. The economy keeps adding jobs. Manufacturing has added 245,000 jobs going back to last April. Again, Trump will attribute this growth to his tax cuts and take credit.

I suspect people who are now working and making more money won’t argue with him.

Mining industries have added 86,000 jobs since last April. Do you think that growth would have occurred with anyone besides a Republican?

Trump appears to be actually fighting and working for American manufacturing jobs. I know your no fan of Obama, but I can’t recall Obama doing much to defend and support American manufacturiong.

(All this info comes from the bureau of labor and statistics. Just google “job reports”)

When I read the tea leaves I don’t see much positive apart from the Mueller investigation. We’ll see, but I’m not hopeful.

Cal,

Trump is averaging fewer jobs per month so far than Obama did in his last six years. It’s roughly 187K to 203K. He’s also averaging a lower rate of income gains than Obama.

I wasn’t a fan of Obama’s governance, because I saw him — and still do — as governing like a moderate Republican. But the results were better for him than for Trump.

Also, if people are happy with a few dollars more on their paychecks (after the tax cuts), they should think about a coupla things at least:

1. All of that money was borrowed and has to be paid back.
2. The tax cuts made economic inequality skyrocket, because most of them went to the rich. Trump himself should pocket tens of millions more each year, and his heirs could potentially pocket billions — if he’s as rich as he says he is.

Cal wrote:

BT wrote

I’d also disagree with Trump voters who claim the government’s social safety net is out of control. It’s actually been curtailed

The number of people who receive benefits like SNAP has steadily increased since the 1970’s. Back then, it was 7-9% of the population that received SNAP benefits.

Currently that number is 13% or so. When the US pays SNAP benefits for an extra 4% of the population that’s over a billion dollars a year. It’d be nice to put those billions dollars a year to solve some other problems.

And that’s just SNAP. I’d bet there’s been a similar increase in the percent of people who receive WIC, EIC, Mecicaid, housing, and other benefits.

Cal,

SNAP goes to mostly children and the elderly. They are the largest recipients, by far. That’s food they wouldn’t otherwise be able to afford. It keeps those 45 million people from going hungry. To me, there isn’t a better way to spend that money . . . and it all works its way through the economy too. Not only does it feed children and the elderly, it also boosts the economy, from farms to grocery stores, etc. etc.

As for why the numbers have grown: Wages for the rank and file in America have been largely flat since 1973, which was the end of our one and only middle class boom. Since then, more and more families had to switch from one income to two, and then use a credit card, and then mortgage their house, just to keep above water. If business owners/corporations paid better wages, we wouldn’t need the SNAP program, or most of the rest of the safety net. It’s there because of the immense greed at the top of the pyramid.

If the private sector paid fair wages, we could do without a great many of the programs that bother you. Walmart is a great example of this. Many of their employees are on SNAP — this while their CEO makes 1200 times as much as their rank and file.

A side note on the “self-interest” thing.

Read an excellent history of the Paris Commune of 1871, its backstory and the philosophy of several of its major thinkers, especially Peter Kropotkin, William Morris and Elisee Reclus:

Communal Luxury
The Political Imaginary of the Paris Commune
by Kristin Ross

https://www.versobooks.com/books/2253-communal-luxury

She touches upon a very interesting divergence between Western and Eastern (in this case, Russian) evolutionists. We in the West take for granted the idea of the survival of the fittest, and a kind of endless battle to stay alive. The Russian evolutionists of the time — mid to late 19th century — were convinced that a very different scenario took place, that we survived as a species because we worked together, worked cooperatively, and instead of fighting each other to the end, as if we were automatically each other’s enemies, we joined forces to fight against our real enemies, or obstacles, or dangers . . . the elements, predators in the wild, etc. etc.

I took this to also mean that Darwinian theory may well have been influenced by capitalism and its modus operandi . . . competition. That Darwin and his followers may well have been overly influenced by their own day’s economic system, back-dating its rules and internal logic . . . and forcing it to fit our earliest days on this planet.

Personally, I think the Russian evolutionists make a hell of a lot more sense. I don’t think we ever would have survived if we had the dog eat dog mentality of the capitalist world back then. Hobbes’ war of all against all would have meant some other species would have surpassed us, most likely.

waterfield wrote:

I have many republican friends. Some are wayyyyyy to the right whom I don’t care for. Others are moderate. But to a person they ALL say they would vote for Trump again notwithstanding their distaste to the man himself.Their reasons? His policies.

Notwithstanding the polls-I think this is a real problem. We are born with “self interest” and he preaches to that. We want what WE want-not what others need. The capitalistic system teaches us that our happiness is dependent on what we “gather” not what we can give. Trump’s claimer is “hey I may be an Ass hole but I can give you (not others in need ) more toys you can enjoy.

So what can be done?

While I have been an optimist for soooooo many years I no longer am. Not because of Trump but because of my “friends” who I talk to. Where in the world did they learn its all about “them”. Is there anything that can practically be done?

Here’s what I think we should do: Stop trying to understand, court, pamper, coddle or work with right-wingers when it comes to making public policy. Instead, we on the left should do everything we can to defeat them and keep them from power. Just utterly defeat them, keep them from power, and once we’re in power, make the best public policy we can for everyone — which necessarily means ignoring right-wingers.

The reason I say the above: It goes to your discussion via “self-interest.” That view is itself “self-serving,” because it’s not at all supported by science, common sense, history or logic. As in, we never would have survived as a species if not for literally hundreds of thousands of years of communal organization, sharing everything, cooperating with each other, helping each other out. I think the vast majority of people prefer that way of life to the dog eat dog world promoted by capitalist propaganda, and I know it’s the better way to view things when making public policy.

(To keep the post relatively short, I’ll add to this later)

• This reply was modified 6 years, 3 months ago by Billy_T.

This reminds me a bit of football games and referees who see the last punch thrown, not what preceded it.

Israel restarted the conflict with Iran AND the Palestinians, attacking both, provoking a response. They responded in their various ways, and Israel hit back, saying they had the right to defend themselves. Blamed Hamas and Iran for it all.

Israel was like the offensive linemen who cuts blocks the DE, trying to end his career. The DE sees what just happened and responds. The referee ONLY sees that response.

Of course, it’s far, far worse than that, because, when it comes to the Palestinians, it’s like a thousand NFL offensive linemen trying to end the career of a Pop Warner DE.

I despise bullies.

Meanwhile, we had split screen images of Trump, his family, the Kushners oblivious to all this, talking about peace while they no doubt cut their kickback deals to enrich both families. And they brought with them among the most despicable and odious far-right pastors on the planet.

wv wrote:

Billy_T wrote:

I was thinking this morning about Cohen’s pay to play stuff, in relation to Maher’s bit about the mob.

DC, prior to Trump, did its graft, grifting, bribery and pay to play in a much different manner. Most of it was legal, and was almost always done according to Hoyle. Trump campaigns on a promise to end all of that, and his fans bought it, hook, line and sinker.

In reality, what Trump has done is to break apart the process and go direct. Instead of doing the deals according to Hoyle, and filling out all the paperwork — like, if you’re a foreign agent or domestic lobbyist, you fill out the paperwork for this, etc. etc. . . . Trump, Flynn, Manafort, Cohen and Pruitt, et al, have basically just bypassed the usual channels.

One could say this is “refreshing.” Or, one could step back and think of a third option. Rather than accept the old ways, the legalized graft, grifting and bribery, end all of it. Trump could have gone that way. But he chose, instead, to innovate off the old system while retaining the graft, the grifting and the pay to play.

I hope smart people don’t see him as some kind of heroic rebel against the establishment. Cuz that’s not what any of this is. To be heroic would mean to end the corruption, period, not redirect it and cut out most of the middlemen.

==================

And now that Trump has lowered the bar so completely — and now that people see that IT WORKS — things will never be the same.

I’m not sayin everyone will be as bad as Trump but things will never go back to the pre-trump level of corruption and loathsomeness.

…i really wish i could get a Finland-English newspaper everyday. One assumes humanity looks a bit better from Finland. Are there more critical thinkers in Finland, BT? Or am i just imagining a place where peoples brains havent been so damaged and colonized…

Is it fair to say Fox News, Talk Radio, and the Corporate-MSM do ‘violence’ to citizens’ brains? The lies/propaganda is incessant now. 24 hours a day. Lies beaming into citizens brains. Has there been anything quite like this before?
Can we compare this to Nazi Germany or not? Is propaganda more effective now or not? More subtle?

w
v

I agree with what you say above, and your questions are beyond fair.

Finland? I have no first hand experience, but judging from results, pretty much all of Europe has better education than we do, better public access to cultural venues, free tuition for colleges . . . with some countries (like Germany) even willing to pay overseas tuition . . . They live happier, healthier, longer lives . . . and they beat us on pretty much every quality of life metric there is.

I’m guessing they have their issues too, like anywhere else, but in relative terms? It’s a better overall place to grow up and grow old. It’s a better place to try to cut through the bullshit.

I would have moved there long ago if I could have afforded it . . . well, plus family matters, health issues, etc. etc. But I’m still hoping to retire to Portugal, or France, or Spain, or Ireland, if the fates allow.

I was thinking this morning about Cohen’s pay to play stuff, in relation to Maher’s bit about the mob.

DC, prior to Trump, did its graft, grifting, bribery and pay to play in a much different manner. Most of it was legal, and was almost always done according to Hoyle. Trump campaigns on a promise to end all of that, and his fans bought it, hook, line and sinker.

In reality, what Trump has done is to break apart the process and go direct. Instead of doing the deals according to Hoyle, and filling out all the paperwork — like, if you’re a foreign agent or domestic lobbyist, you fill out the paperwork for this, etc. etc. . . . Trump, Flynn, Manafort, Cohen and Pruitt, et al, have basically just bypassed the usual channels.

One could say this is “refreshing.” Or, one could step back and think of a third option. Rather than accept the old ways, the legalized graft, grifting and bribery, end all of it. Trump could have gone that way. But he chose, instead, to innovate off the old system while retaining the graft, the grifting and the pay to play.

I hope smart people don’t see him as some kind of heroic rebel against the establishment. Cuz that’s not what any of this is. To be heroic would mean to end the corruption, period, not redirect it and cut out most of the middlemen.

Strangely enough, WV, there ARE some ways the MSM actually help Trump tremendously and hurt the Dems’ chance to return to power.

One biggie I’m noticing now? The normalization of corruption. It’s almost as if they all got the same memo. Whenever they talk about Cohen taking all of that money from corporate America and a few corporations overseas, they feel the need to add, “Well, this is the way DC works.” I rarely ever see their talking heads outraged over this direct Pay for Play, even though they covered it whenever Trump accused HRC of this during the campaign. Now it’s all supposed to be normal and A okay.

They did the same with Kushner when he took meetings with two large corporations in the Oval Office and then got 500 million in loans from them.

Trump has set new records for grifting while in office, and before he got there, and as mentioned earlier, Americans are being overwhelmed by this. I think the MSM too often treats it as just another day in the neighborhood, and might as well just add “blah blah blah” to each story.

Naturalizing and normalizing Trump era corruption helps him and the GOP and hurts the Dems.

As usual, the caveat for me is: I want BOTH parties to get the hell out of Dodge. Forever. They make me sicker than the chemo.

So, again, WV, I probably misunderstand you. But if you’re seeing a symmetrical dynamic of some kind between a “Dem-MSM” and a right-wing MSM . . . . I don’t agree. It’s asymmetrical, to begin with, and, as mentioned, I don’t think the first part exists.

I think ALL of the MSM tilts right, and that the only reason it appears, in places, at times, to prefer the Dems to the GOP is when it’s just impossible for them to maintain the lie regarding “balance” or “both sides are the same” or “they both have equally valid positions.”

When they can no longer play that game, and they finally come out and show the reality that the GOP engages in more destructive shhht than the Dems, it just seems they back the Dems.

It’s not going to happen in my lifetime, but I hope America evolves beyond the two party system, cuz it’s killing us. Both parties are horrifically bad for us, and the planet, with the GOP being substantially worse. Our only chance is to move beyond them to include the far, far better voices, ideas, ideals and policies to the left of the Dems. Well to the left of them, IMO.

. . . . The Dems are the real “conservative party” now, and have been, really, since the early 1970s. In order to actually represent the entire political spectrum, they should be considered America’s “right-wing” party, and they should be opposed by true left-wing alternatives which I’d support . . . again, like the DSA platform and further to the left. My own preference being for staunchly anticapitalist, small is beautiful, localized, egalitarian, cooperative economies, federated, under a fully democratized economy and society . . . . antiwar, mind-your-own business, protector of the environment, etc. etc.

wv wrote:

Well before we even get to the changed landscape between now and the 70’s — there’s the issue of THE TAPES. Nixon taped himself doing all this shit. Without that unique dynamic, Nixon would have stonewalled and survived.

But as to the video — 70 percent of Americans trusted the MSM back in the 70s. Was that a ‘good‘ thing? Good ole days of trusting the corporate media?

I agree with the commentator that things are a dumpster-fire now. And i agree that things have changed with the rise of the rightwing-lie-machine.

But things were not good in the olden days either. It was a different kind of dumpster-fire back in the 50’s, 60s, and 70s, etc. Back then i was listening to TV-MSM and i was being mislead every night. (Now, with the internet I have at least a small chance of finding my way toward the light.)

I think the vid makes some good points about the change, but where I’d disagree is that he kinda tries to make the case that the MSM was more truthful back in the 70’s — because there was hardly any rightwing media. But i think the MSM has always been in the pocket of the Corps, as Chomsky talked about in the 80’s in Manufacturing Consent. Its just that now we have the Right-MSM lying to us from the right, and the Dem-MSM lying to us from the ‘left’. What do we do with that?

Its also been my experience that Tucker Carlson (wacko that he is) is sometimes way more insightful on some issues than the Dem-MSM. On Syria for example. What to do with ‘that’ ?

To me the voters are staggering toward catastrophe because they DO trust EITHER Fox OR NPR/MSNBC. They ought look at both behemoths as Factories-Of-Lies. But they trust one or the other. They ‘say’ they dont trust the MSM but they do — they trust one of the lie-machines. Or the other.

Used to be we had one lie machine. Now we have two. So yes, things have changed.

Just my opin-yun. Call me Mary Sunshine.

w
v

Good point about the tapes.

We agree about so much of the above . . . but I part ways with you on the concept of a Dem-MSM and a right-wing MSM. Though I’m probably misreading you . . .

I don’t see NPR or MSNBC as necessarily pro-Dem or anti-Republican. I see some individual water-carriers for the Dems, like Maddow and Hayes, but if you look at their entire lineup, it leans to the right. They have as many conservative hosts as so-called “liberal” hosts. It’s just that their conservatives can’t stand Trump, but they don’t support the Dems, at all.

NPR is deathly afraid of offending conservatives, so it tends to be as straight down the middle as possible, which will always skew reality. The reality is, from empirical evidence, that the right’s view of the world, on down to its individual issues, is just not in sync with that world, and wrong on solutions. So if media try to be “fair and balanced,” and give as much validity to right-wing thought as left of center, it’s not telling us the truth. If you have an argument between a flat-earther and a normal human, and you set things up as equally valid, you do the nation a huge disservice.

But that’s what the MSM does. And it doesn’t want the Dems to win more often than the GOP. It wants a a horse race, a food fight, a conflict — that sells. It doesn’t want reality, evidence or facts to overcome “fake news” as presented by the right, because that hurts ratings. It wants a horse race between the two parties . . . which wouldn’t occur if Americans actually knew what was going on and voted their own best interests. Roughly 90% of them, at least, would vote Dem over Republican, with just those two choices.