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Billy_TParticipantI disagree. Yes an innocent person would send that 🙂 Its just lawyer stuff, Billy. His lawyers did it, not him. There’s no downside to arguing every possible angle on a legal issue. They are just throwing everything including the kitchen sink at him.
Its an awful argument, of course.
w
vWV, you’re an actual lawyer, and I haven’t even played one on TV . . . but are you saying that if you were Trump’s lawyer, and you knew he’s innocent, you’d threaten the special counsel like that? You’d claim that your client has the Constitutional authority to shut down the investigation into your client’s campaign, and any other investigation he so chooses? You’d go out of your way, write up a memo, and send it to the prosecutors, telling them your client can shut them down any time he wants to?
. . . .
I’ve been rereading the Constitution today, and can’t find any language to support his claim. There is no mention whatsoever of law enforcement, criminal investigations, prosecutions, even relevant departments, in the section on presidential powers. And even if one accepts the premise — I don’t — that once something falls under the Executive, then the president has full operational control of it, there’s no supporting language for that, either. No evidence from absence, from the unsaid, just absence of evidence, etc.
Anyway, hope all is well —
June 3, 2018 at 11:28 am in reply to: Trump lawyers sent bombshell memo to Mueller in January #86993Billy_TParticipantTrump wants to turn the US into the same sort of autocracy that his hero, Putin, presides over.
And nearly half the country is cheering him on.
Hamilton’s Grand Experiment in democracy is boiling over the edge of the beaker and burning holes in the bench top.
Putin is supposedly worth roughly 200 billion. I may be mistaken, but I don’t think Putin has ever held a job outside the Russian public sector. He accrued all of his money while supposedly being a “public servant.”
My gut tells me Trump went into the election thinking he’d likely lose, but that he’d gain an edge along those lines, either way . . . . and a win would mean ginormous additional powers to add billions to his coffers. It was worth the risk. We’ve already seen umpteen examples of this, with the latest being his saving of ZTE in exchange for half a billion dollars.
And now we learn his lawyers are seeding the idea that he’s above the law, controls the law, controls all investigations, including the one into his own campaign.
He’s already gone beyond Nixon when it comes to a power grab, and I’m guessing he has a much better chance to get away with it, tragically.
Billy_TParticipantSo, msnbc has a story about a boy who raised $6000.00 with his lemonade stand to pay for his terminally ill brother’s medical bills. They reported it as an inspirational story.
However, the story’s not inspirational. It’s a tragedy and should be reported as such. It’s a tragedy because a family has to figure out a way to pay for the medical bills of a dying child. The horrible grief isn’t a big enough price to pay.
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Yup. And that kind of story/dynamic is repeated on the corporate news, NON-STOP 24 hours a day, seven days a week. That kind of story/angle. Nonstop.
And YOU are a leftist. Leftists notice that instantly. Libruls dont see it.
w
vThing is, most Americans are one bad accident away from that kind of situation. I’m very lucky that I established excellent credit over the decades, or I’d be selling lemonade too. Most Americans aren’t so lucky.
But all of that could change easily next year. Deductibles go back to dollar one, and max yearly payout too. All bets are off if serious health issues continue into 2019.
It doesn’t get much attention in the MSM, but literally tens of millions of Americans are close to the edge right now (43% of the country, according to the United Way), and neither party is doing what’s necessary to fix it, to put it all too nicely.
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This reply was modified 6 years, 3 months ago by Billy_T.
June 3, 2018 at 10:17 am in reply to: Trump lawyers sent bombshell memo to Mueller in January #86985Billy_TParticipantHopefully, our resident lawyers can help on this one, but I couldn’t find any mention in the Constitution of the president’s supposed control over all criminal prosecutions, etc. etc. And it certainly doesn’t say anything about the Justice Department, cuz that didn’t even exist until 1870.
It was, according to Wikipedia, put in place primarily (during the Grant administration) to fight domestic terrorist groups like the Ku Klux Klan and to protect Civil Rights. Judging from their early prosecutions, that appears to be at least one valid rationale.
The claims of “Constitutionally supported” X, Y and Z, I’ve noticed, all too often lack any support whatsoever when we read the actual document. Again, I hope our lawyers here can add context and analysis, but it strikes me that all too many of those claims are BS. Like the radically inflated “rights” now associated with the 2nd Amendment. They’re just not in the BOR or the Constitution. They don’t exist anywhere, other than subsequent “rulings” that in turn lack any actual connection to the founding document itself.
Same thing happened with “corporate personhood,” for another example. It’s not in the Constitution.
As the young kids used to ask, What’s up with that?!
Billy_TParticipantA slightly different take on this from the Washington Post:
by Rosalind S. Helderman June 2 at 7:14 PM Email the author
Lawyers for President Trump argued in a secret memo submitted to special counsel Robert S. Mueller III in January that Trump could not have obstructed the FBI’s probe into Russian interference in the 2016 election in part because, as president, he holds complete control over federal investigations.
The president has the power to “order the termination of an investigation by the Justice Department or FBI at any time and for any reason,” Trump lawyers John Dowd and Jay Sekulow argued in the letter to Mueller, which was published Saturday by the New York Times.
As the nation’s chief law enforcement officer, Trump could “even exercise his power to pardon if he so desired,” they argued. A person familiar with the letter confirmed its authenticity.
The 20-page letter offered a sweeping assertion of the powers of the presidency as well as a detailed and robust defense of Trump’s actions in dealing with the unfolding Russia probe, including his firing of FBI Director James B. Comey in May 2017. It concluded that Trump’s actions were in keeping with the expansive powers of the presidency and could not constitute crimes.
The most generous way of seeing this, IMO, if one is still unwilling to just say he’s guilty: Trump really does want sweeping, autocratic powers, and he thinks he has legal support for them.
We the people need to force our government to pass laws to check the power of the Executive — and Congress too — with real teeth. Trump has proven that “norms and traditions” only work when the relevant powers agree to these completely voluntary, abstract ideas. It looks like they’ve agreed not to agree with them.
Billy_TParticipantthing that still baffles me is why so many people trust Trump and the GOP. I understand perfectly saying FU to the Dems. But it’s just not logical to choose Trump and the GOP as a champion of truth and anti-corruption. If the issue is a lack of trust for any political party, shouldn’t it be both of the majors? Or, if it’s “government” in general, both parties too?
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Well, i guess at some point people just decide to believe in something. I mean, how in the world do people believe Alex Jones? How do people believe in Lizard-People? How do people believe Trump? Hitler? On and on.
I think Lie-Factories and Dirty-Rotten-Systems just…damage people. And damaged-people are prone to latch on to anything, Fascism, Trumpism, anything. Humans iz dangerous.
w
vTrump is restoring “white” to its proper place at the top of the social/economic hierarchy.
All other considerations are secondary to that.
Not that it wasn’t already there. It’s always been there. His supporters just think it wasn’t. They view equality as oppression.
That’s true. I think sometimes we try too hard to figure this all out — I’m definitely guilty of that. Too many surveys about Trump voters make this very clear. It’s about the fear of lost white privilege, and that didn’t just start with Trump either. The GOP has been courting that vote aggressively since at least the 1960s. It’s just that Trump has dropped all the public pretenses about this and has gone full-fascist playbook.
(Find a “volk.” Endlessly smear and scapegoat minorities, immigrants, women, the poor, “the left,” unions, etc. etc.; whip that volk into a frenzy of hatred and fear for all of those various “Others” and pose as the champion of that volk. It’s classic far-right bamboozlement.)
Bannon should have been honest in 2014 when he came up with the slogan, MAGA. It should have read MAWA all along.
Billy_TParticipantBoth major parties, corporate America, the intel community, the Pentagon, etc. I’m just not really seeing how this is all that different from, or worse than . . . 50 years ago, with one caveat:
I think corporate lying has gotten far more sophisticated (and coordinated), and since the early 1970s,..
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Well the corporate component of the system is huge, I’d say. And I think its gotten worse as the Media has come under the control of fewer and fewer Corpse.
I also think the new technologies have helped the lie-factory. Except for the internet. And thats why, of course, the internet is coming under control of the Lie-Factory. At least they are trying. I wouldnt bet against them.
w
vThat makes sense. Fewer and fewer media companies, but far bigger and more powerful than ever before. They’ve become “too big to fail,” basically.
And now Sinclair has bought up almost every local news channel, and they’ve been caught recently spreading government propaganda about drinking water, the environment, covering for Scott Pruitt, etc. etc.
That’s dangerous because a lot of people, for some reason, tend to trust their local news folks but not the Networks.
I don’t trust any of them without corroboration, etc. etc. Which is where the Internet can really help.
Trust, lies. The thing that still baffles me is why so many people trust Trump and the GOP. I understand perfectly saying FU to the Dems. But it’s just not logical to choose Trump and the GOP as a champion of truth and anti-corruption. If the issue is a lack of trust for any political party, shouldn’t it be both of the majors? Or, if it’s “government” in general, both parties too?
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This reply was modified 6 years, 3 months ago by Billy_T.
Billy_TParticipantI think a lot about being able to go back to a medieval world, to its simplicity and relative order, though without any aristocracy in place. No capitalism. No ruling class. Just independent, small producer economies, democratically, cooperatively arranged.
That was funny. Python was a miracle.
I do want the impossible, and I fully realize it’s the impossible. Going back — not sure the ideal century, or the ideal place — before mass production, before the Industrial Revolution, before capitalism took over. But, with all the civilizational knowledge we’ve accrued up to now.
Start over. Simplify. Get back to craftsmanship, artisanship.
Was thinking about that, oddly enough, while watching Billions, a very good series on Showtime. One of the leads has more money than he knows what to do with, and is always searching for more, but does spend it on the “finer things,” whenever possible. Exotic, one of a kind things. And I watch this and think, the finer things to me would be no plastics, no synthetic components, no cheap metals used in any item. Just the basics. The handcrafted basics for everything. If I could afford it. And I’d want everyone to be able to afford that.
If I’m stuck in this time, though, and happen to be as rich as this guy? I buy a medieval village and a hire/train people to build everything possible from scratch, using the old ways, the pre-industrial ways, stone, cloth, wood, iron, steel, glass. I’d have them build everything that way for me, from the house, to the horse carriage, to clothes, to glasses, utensils — everything. I’d pay them more than well. But I’d surround myself with one of a kind things built by hand.
. . . .
Dreaming of another world, another life, etc. etc.
Billy_TParticipantI on the other hand am a system-blamer (not a ‘government’ blamer).
I think babies are born with brains that can be very selfish or very self-less. Its systems/environment that will nudge people toward selfishness or selflessness.I think corporate-capitalism nudges people toward greed, individualism, superstition, and all the other stuff you dont like about Americans these days.
(I am wildly over-simplifying here as usual, but its a message-board post. Ya know.)That’s pretty much where I am too.
And I’d add, that we all admit that life is far more complicated in the system we have now than it was two hundred years ago. Isn’t it logical to deduce an even greater role for “systems” in that case? As in, with the complexification and commodification of life, aren’t parents more detached from their own kids than they used to be?
George Scialabba talks about this in his excellent What Are Intellectuals Good For, especially in his essays about Christopher Lasch.
The very system of capitalism itself destroys the family unit, and conservative intellectuals once saw this too, back in the 1960s. They tear the father away from the family, the rearing of the child, when both parents were home (in the pre-capitalist world) as a matter of course . . . small farms, artisans, home producers, etc. etc.
Lasch thought this increased the likelihood of narcissistic children, for a host of reasons, but mostly because they no longer saw their parents at work daily, so more detachment and mystery got between parent and child.
And the dependence on an employers saps at our self-esteem too.
I think a lot about being able to go back to a medieval world, to its simplicity and relative order, though without any aristocracy in place. No capitalism. No ruling class. Just independent, small producer economies, democratically, cooperatively arranged. But maybe with Netflix somehow. And NFL Sunday Ticket too.
;>)
Billy_TParticipantThe conspiracy stuff drives me crazy. The political right has promoted some truly sick examples for generations, but some parts of “the left” are echoing these today and that needs to stopa…
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Ok, but ask yourself how and why the conspiracy stuff has just taken off recently.
(or has it? seems like it has to me, but i dunno the history)Seems to me, so many people are susceptible to conspiracy-stuff BECAUSE they have figured out they are being LIED to so much and so often by the official powers-that-BE.
To me, the conspiracy stuff is a SYMPTOM of something large and ugly that is wrong with the Corporotocracy.
A related issue is the anti-science stuff that is common now. People dont trust science-news.
Add it all up and eventually, it could mean the end of the biosphere as we know it.
Which would be a shame. It’d be a shame to lose the Orcas and Tapirs. If only we could just get rid of the humans.
w
vWV,
You and I agree about the lying. But I think we may differ a bit regarding its recent acceleration. I don’t see that, really. I see the same forces spinning their BS, just like always. Both major parties, corporate America, the intel community, the Pentagon, etc. I’m just not really seeing how this is all that different from, or worse than . . . 50 years ago, with one caveat:
I think corporate lying has gotten far more sophisticated (and coordinated), and since the early 1970s, they’ve been supported to the nth degree by both parties. I’d say their lying has become a part of the woodwork so that Americans don’t even see it anymore, and with the collapse of “the left,” or a left that thinks in terms of class analysis, especially, there is almost no exposure of this any longer. We don’t have a modern day Frankfurt School, basically, going after this part of the nexus.
Which means our focus is almost entirely on political parties, government, intel, the FBI, etc. etc. And mostly just Dem versus Republican. Dumb versus Dumber.
The above is a thousand times necessary, of course, but I think we need to expand our view to include class, the economic system, how it actually owns the two parties, and needs to be held to account along with them.
(I’m not saying you. You’ve seen the Big Picture stuff for decades, likely well before I started to)
But, yeah. We need to keep the tapirs and the orcas.
Billy_TParticipantThe conspiracy stuff drives me crazy. The political right has promoted some truly sick examples for generations, but some parts of “the left” are echoing these today and that needs to stop.
The “spygate” bullshit is one example, and it’s ensnared people like Glenn Greenwald. Here’s a fellow Intercept author’s take on it and it strikes me as far more credible than GG’s take:
https://theintercept.com/2018/05/31/spygate-trump-russia-fbi-informants/
No one should be aiding and abetting Trump right now, especially in his usage of new political physics, which posits some kind of magical “embedding inside” a campaign by a person who never gets remotely close to it.
As in, if asking three people whom Trump has said were unimportant, peripheral people in his campaign — Clovis, Page and Papadopoulos — just asking them questions, places that person magically inside a campaign, then why not say all salespersons, reporters, IT guys, caterers, telemarketers, etc. etc. . . are suddenly “inside” a campaign too?
(No one gave him a job. No one invited him into any campaign meetings. He was never, ever “inside” it.)
Boiled down, Trump and Clinton seem to have caused mass insanity in America, left, center and right. It’s time to give a big old FU to both of them and move on.
Billy_TParticipant“So why do so many folks think this disgusting health-care system is just fine and dandy?”
I don’t know. Sometimes I think we look at everything from a political view when stuff can be fairly simple. IMO “so many folks” have their own physician that they favor for a variety of reasons. So the mention of single payer or universal care causes anxiety over the prospect of losing that personal relationship with their doc. I don’t think it has much to do with the bad guys propagandizing the good guys as much as we want it to.
As far as being selfish I again don’t think the bad guys have caused this. We are born selfish. The baby cries cause he or she wants something. Gimme gimme gimme-until they get it. As the baby gets older the movies, television, etc tells the individual its OK to “gather” stuff and it becomes a matter of entitlement and “what’s in it for me”. The key to having a more compassionate society is to “learn” how to be unselfish. The only way I know how that can be done is through parenting. And good luck with that. But the first thing that needs to be done is to stop blaming big government and the politics for all that ails us. That’s simply an easy answer. The difficult one is how to teach a parent who has been raised with a sense of entitlement to reverse that in their children. And that’s difficult because to do that one has to lead by example. But that’s hard as most of us would rather sit back and say its the smelly leftists or the reactionary right wing or capitalism or corporations or this or that -when the real answer is within themselves. Any change in the form of government or its leaders won’t matter a lick if the “people” have no sense of empathy toward those of less fortune.
Now enough of my soap box theories.
Waterfield,
A Single Payer system won’t take doctors away from patients. Quite the opposite. It will ensure they can continue to see them, while private insurance company after private insurance company says no to their claims.
And, no, we’re not born “selfish.” Science tells us we’re born with an innate sense of fairness and a desire to share, as studies of small children show again and again. Kids will loudly insist that toys and food are shared equally, and they actually have been observed getting angry when this is not the case.
This is later beaten out of us via propaganda from above that it’s a dog eat dog world and that we must compete to survive. But that’s just cover for the tiny percentage of humanity that truly is “born selfish” and acts on that. And let’s not forget, locked as we are in a Eurocentric, capitalist mindset, that for our first 300,000 years on this planet, we lived communally, cooperatively, shared pretty much everything. This lasted in some parts of the world well into the 20th century too.
Btw, babies are born helpless and with the instinct for survival. Of course they’re gonna call for attention and nourishment. Selfishness? No. That’s just the will to survive and the almost instantaneous realization of helplessness and dependency. “Gimme gimme gimme” means “I want to live!”
Billy_TParticipantMy chemo is a bit less than 30K a session now. In fifteen years, as far as I can tell, no delivery-side costs have fallen. None. They’ve mostly gone up and up and up, as has my insurance premium.
That went up $500 per month from 2017 to 2018, and is expected to nearly double in 2019.
I’ll need to figure out something else, because I’ll be priced out of the exchanges next year if that occurs.
It’s coming to a head, folks.
We need to go to tax-funded delivery side medicine, and tax-funded insurance options. Both. Not just Single Payer . . . though that would be a massive, life-saving improvement over what we have now. It would literally save tens of thousands of lives a year. But Single Payer, too, will hit a wall, if we don’t do something about radically lowering delivery costs. To me, the best way to go is to update the old ways:
Towns used to hire their own doctors and nurses, and no one paid for their visits unless they wanted to bring them a chicken or something. It was just part of the deal when you lived in this or that town.
Update this for 2018 and beyond. Have Single Payer for backup costs and certain kinds of long-term or specialty care.
We’re just flat out not going to be able to afford for-profit medicine in this country, for the non-rich, if we don’t de-commodify.
Billy_TParticipantThe problem is complicated, of course, and more than just on the insurance side . . .
I went in for labs today and was told a request for a PET Scan had been turned down by my insurance company. This is rather important, as it was supposed to give the oncologist the best map for the remainder of my treatments. A good PET Scan could mean ending the full blast chemo and perhaps going to a maintenance regimen instead. A bad PET Scan would mean extending the full blast stuff, perhaps through July — which is taking its toll. I’ve been violently ill after the last two rounds.
(Ironically, the PET scan could save the insurance company money.)
But I don’t think the insurance companies are the only problem here. As long as our health care is subject to a for-profit model, anywhere in the process, there will always been massive conflicts of interest. For instance, on the delivery side — and I’ve heard doctors talk in these terms — they’re going to basically ask for as much as they can get away with. When I’ve expressed concerns about total costs, doctors have as much as said, Why worry? Insurance will pick it up.
An insurance company can act as a check on this, saying, We’ll pay X amount, but not X+++. Or it can deny coverage altogether. Either way, there is no win/win scenario, especially for the patient.
As I’ve mentioned before, I think we should have an all non-profit economic system, for everything, but well shy of that, we should at least carve out certain areas that can no be commodified.
Education and health care strike me as immediately logical candidates — and I mean womb to tomb/cradle to grave, not just a certain chunk of time.
Billy_TParticipantThe failure in Vermont didn’t have anything to do with costs. How could it? Single Payer is cheaper in every way. It cuts overhead by at least 30%.
Too many Americans need to take a refresher in math.
If product or service X requires ___ amount of both taxation and private sector spending, all that matter is the total cost. If our taxes go up, but the total goes down, we get a better deal.
It’s just math.
So, yeah, in European countries they pay higher taxes, but they get more for their money. Everyone is covered. Out of pocket costs are almost non-existent. And their total bill for health care is half what we pay.
You could do a thought experiment with pretty much 99% of the things we buy, and you’d come out the same. If our public sector were allowed to be truly public and all non-profit, there is virtually NOTHING it couldn’t offer for less than the private sector — and do it sooner, and distribute it more widely.
The private sector will always have to charge more, if for no other reason than its overhead is always more, plus you have to make a profit, pay shareholders and huge executive salaries.
The ONLY Americans that benefit from the system we currently have are rich Americans. Everyone else pays far more for far less, because of the capitalist system . . . . and rank and file workers will always be paid less because of capitalism as well.
Billy_TParticipantThere’s a double-standard when it comes to double-standards.
I’ve experienced this for decades now. Call out someone (or American history) on racism, and they’ll either claim it’s racist to even talk about it, or claim that you owe them an apology for saying such an ugly thing.
As in — and this is almost completely a matter of right-wing America — they want to equate the exposure of racism with racism itself, and put them on the same moral plane.
Now we have the Samantha Bee thing, which isn’t quite the same, but it has the same basic angle. Bee used some rough language to call out Ivanka Trump for doing bad shit, or turning a blind eye from the bad shit, so conservative pundits are trying to equate the two. Not just Bee’s words with Barr’s, but Bee’s words with the actions of the Trump crime family.
Made me think of this little all-purpose analogy:
“You’re a fucking, vile, piece of shit arsonist!!”
“How dare you say that about me!!”
“Well, you ARE an arsonist!!”
“Yeah, of course, but you owe me an apology for saying it that way, and your company should fire you!!”Billy_TParticipantOn #3.
I talk to rank and file Dems, and I think they honestly believe the Dems can’t do X, Y or Z because the country won’t accept “progressive” policies. At the same time, they’ll complain that Republican and right-wing voters in general have been bamboozled. I will never understand why they think this sort of thing can only work on the right. That it’s only on the right that voters can be persuaded, basically against their own will, to vote against their own best interests. How much easier would it be to change minds when the proposals themselves are concretely and obviously beneficial?
Again, sales, marketing, personality, etc. Those things keep Republicans and conservadems in business. They can’t win on policy. But they can win when they put on a cowboy hat, get in their pickup truck, and make a connection with the voters.
Dem rank and file seem to never get that this could work for them, too, and if they ran on seriously leftist policies, they wouldn’t have to lie about the benefits.
Sales, marketing, personality. Amazingly enough, the Dems could use those things too, in the service of all Americans and the planet.
Billy_TParticipantIf the Dems wanted to run a “far left” agenda, backed it entirely, with no apologies, and no undermining, they could win election after election, for a host of reasons:
1. Americans want the best deal possible, as they perceive it. The “far left” can provide that better than any other part of the political spectrum, and it’s not close. They can provide the best possible deal, in concrete terms, and no other part of the spectrum comes close.
2. The right wins on deeply unpopular platforms. They can’t make the case that any of their policies provide the best possible deal for Americans, ever, not once, not ever — unless they’re super-rich. But they keep winning.
3. Americans can be convinced of almost anything, tragically. Sales and marketing, personality, charisma, self-confidence, a certain presence, a certain ability to connect — these things win elections, not policies. If they didn’t, centrist and right-wing candidates in both parties would never win a race.
4. Certain parts of the political spectrum aren’t “extreme” due to their distance from the mythical and mythological center. They’re “extreme” based on their distance from reality, from what’s best for humanity and the planet. So, a “center” which supports endless war, coups, regime changes, ecological destruction, the surveillance state, skyrocketing of economic inequality, the carceral state, etc. etc. is the very definition of “extreme.”
5. It’s pretty obvious why neither the GOP nor the Dems will move well to the left. It’s not about winning elections, cuz, again, they would easily win with a far left agenda. They won’t do it because it would hurt their donors and themselves, being in the 1%. They won’t do it because it would mean the dispersal and sharing of power, as close to equally as is humanly possible, and they didn’t get into the game for that. Nor did their donors.
Billy_TParticipantI agree with the writer that without the replacement of capitalism itself, we’re not going to make it as a species, and “the left” is the only part of the political spectrum that gets this. The internal drives, rules, laws (especially of competitive motion), incentives and mechanisms of the system itself all push us toward an ecological meltdown. It can’t be helped.
Naomi Klein came to that realization not too long ago:
https://thischangeseverything.org/
And even the most optimistic projections for an in-system fix rely on something that has never existed under the capitalist system: sufficient cooperation among relevant competing entities, regardless of lost profits, loss of market share, stock prices, etc. etc. That cooperation would have to put us and the planet above profits and all the rest. It would, in essence, have to be “selfless” to the extent a corporation can be selfless. And because it’s on such a ginormous scale — the entire earth — and the problem to be solved is so immense, it would have to be ongoing.
As in, an ongoing, mass, cooperative movement between naturally competitive capitalist enterprises, with sustained, selfless actions, vision and follow through.
It would be easier to just change the system itself.
Billy_TParticipantExcellent article, Zooey.
Thanks.
Billy_TParticipantEconomic growth through the first quarter of 2018.
Why do so many people think Trump is having such a positive effect on the economy?
Well the economy is continuing to improve. There were more jobs added in Trump’s first year than any year when Obama was president. (I’m looking at the Q4 data from the first table from this link:
https://data.bls.gov/pdq/SurveyOutputServlet )Wages are still growing slowly, but steadily. Maybe a bit behind Obama, but pretty much in the same ballpark.
The economy’s growth is part of Trump’s con. He’s basically using millions, if not billions, from the public coffers with his tax cut and pouring that into the economy. So it makes sense to see some improvement and benefit. At least, for a short time.
Cal,
Do you have a working link for that jobs tally? Having troubles with it.
Last time I checked the graphs, Obama, in his last six or seven years, averaged more jobs per month than Trump has so far.
I think some of his supporters actually started counting new jobs toward Trump’s totals after the election, instead of after he actually took office.
It’s not a big deal. But I’m pretty sure Trump is lagging behind Obama in both jobs and income gains. Nittany shows it’s not so great via GDP, either.
And the United Way (ALICE project) shows that under both presidents, far too many Americans struggle(d).
Billy_TParticipantAs the young kids used to say, OMG!!
I love body-surfing in the ocean. But those waves look about a thousand times higher than I could handle on my best day.
Amazing feats of athleticism and courage.
May 29, 2018 at 12:29 pm in reply to: Giuliani admits "Spygate" is PR to ward off impeachment #86749Billy_TParticipantEconomic growth through the first quarter of 2018.
Why do so many people think Trump is having such a positive effect on the economy?
https://www.bea.gov/newsreleases/national/gdp/gdp_glance.htm
As mediocre as things were under Obama, as far as the “recovery” went . . . they’re actually slightly worse under Trump.
Lower new jobs numbers and income gains, per month, if we compare Trump so far with Obama’s last six to seven years.
And there’s this recent study too: It’s not good for nearly half of the country:
http://money.cnn.com/2018/05/17/news/economy/us-middle-class-basics-study/index.html
Almost half of US families can’t afford basics like rent and food
by Tami Luhby @Luhby May 18, 2018: 8:42 AM ETMay 29, 2018 at 12:25 pm in reply to: Giuliani admits "Spygate" is PR to ward off impeachment #86748Billy_TParticipantBTW Billy, Do you believe that there are stark differences between democrat and republican congressmen and women? I don’t. The Bushes, are the same as the Clintons and Obama. Many Americans deceive themselves into thinking Republican vs Democrat. Clinton and Bush partied together! They don’t like Trump because he’s an outsider who wants to stop the Globalist Gravy Train. That’s why they hate him. The lame stream media are run by the CIA.
I’ve researched Uranium One. Hillary, FBI, CIA, Obama, and others are tied to it directly. I don’t care what a bunch of Republican crooks in congress said. Why would you take the word of corrupt Republican congressmen? Or democrat congressmen? If you want, I can connect you with over 100 hours of Uranium One information. Just ask if you’re interested.
Ramsey,
Please be honest. Are you the poster formerly known as BNW?
As for your questions. I wish there were stark differences on all issues between the two major parties. I wish we had wide choices, lots of options, and all kinds of alternatives. Like the ability to say no to capitalism altogether, to endless wars, to empire, the surveillance state, the carceral state, the war on drugs, etc. etc. But we don’t. On the big issues, we have degrees of difference when we need real options. We have the center-right Dems and the further right Republicans. Thanks to Trump, we have the solidifying of a far-right GOP fringe. As in, white supremacists, neo-Nazis and neo-Fascists. Trump never would have won the election without them.
Also, Trump was never an outsider. Not in the slightest. He was never going to “drain the swamp.” He IS the swamp, and he’s brought in more direct cases of Pay to Play, Self-Dealing and Grifting than any politician since Boss Tweed, and a host of billionaires for his cabinet.
As for Clinton and Bush partying together. Trump used to be a Dem and gave money to the Clintons and pols like Schumer — all the time. His children and Chelsea were friends before the election. And, Trump has signed off on all the bills brought to him by Ryan/McConnell, including the judges they wanted, the tax cuts for the rich they (and Trump) wanted, the massive deregulation they all wanted, etc. etc.
How has Trump gone against the GOP mainstream? He hasn’t. He threatened trade wars here and there, only to back off and do carveouts for various nations and industries.
As for going up against the so-called “deep state.” Think about it. He hasn’t once tried to help anyone outside his own campaign or himself, if they’ve been ensnared in the CIA/FBI/NSA web. It’s only been about him and his own legal troubles, which are beyond serious.
Let me know when he becomes an actual civil libertarian for all Americans, and I’ll happily reassess my views on at least that issue.
May 29, 2018 at 10:10 am in reply to: Giuliani admits "Spygate" is PR to ward off impeachment #86736Billy_TParticipantBtw, Ramsey,
And I say this as someone who can’t stand the Clintons and didn’t vote for her . . . the Uranium One thing is a phony scandal, investigated to death already by a GOP Congress. They found nothing. Clinton was at the head of one of nine federal departments that signed off on the deal, and there’s no actual evidence that she was involved with the negotiations, and none of the uranium left America for Russia. It can’t under the terms of the deal.
In short, it’s pure distraction and a classic case of seriously weak “whataboutism.”
May 29, 2018 at 10:07 am in reply to: Giuliani admits "Spygate" is PR to ward off impeachment #86735Billy_TParticipantI don’t see any proof of Russia collusion except for the Uranium One collusion. What do I see? Over a year of investigation and zero evidence that Trump did anything wrong. I didn’t trust Trump a year ago, but now I’m coming around. It felt good get a raise at work, pay less taxes, and now Trump is denuclearizing North Korea.
I value policy over personality. I get the fact many folks don’t like Trump’s personality. Compared to Obama and Bush, I like Trump’s policy and effect on the economy.
Here’s the collusion: The Trump Tower meeting with the Russians. Donny Jr, Jared, Paul Manafort. We have the email trail leading up to this. The Russia government offered dirt on Clinton. The Trump campaign accepted the invitation. That’s collusion. And they did it at least twice.
We also now know of numerous similar meeting with other governments, like Israel, the Ukraine, China, Qatar and Saudi Arabia, the Arab Emirates . . . all nations eager to do business with the Trump campaign and help him win the election.
That’s illegal under our campaign finance laws.
And they got their Quid Pro Quo later, with changes to our sanctions policies, help for the Saudis and Emirates against Qatar, help with China on ZTE, help with Israel and Jerusalem, along with massive arms shipments to the Middle East . . . etc. etc.
Trump lied over the weekend when he said that the “crooked” FBI and Justice didn’t warn him. They did. They warned both campaigns back in 2016, and the meetings with the Russians continued, without Trump or his associates telling the FBI. In fact, they kept denying that the meetings ever happened, until they were smoked out and had to admit it.
No innocent person or persons act like that.
May 29, 2018 at 9:58 am in reply to: Study reveals why Trumps voters support him. Hint: nothing to do w/ the economy #86733Billy_TParticipantDo the Democrats have a platform? Somethings besides, “We aren’t Trump!”
I just posted before I saw your question:
If you are new, you’ll find most of the people here aren’t Dems. We’re waaay to their left. I am. I identify, if I have to pick a label, as a libertarian socialist, strongly anticapitalist, radically egalitarian, and radically small “d” democratic.
So my own analysis of the Dems is oppositional in most cases. But I’m even more against Trump and the GOP.
That said, there is a huge difference, IMO, between what the Dems might have as their agenda, and what I think it should be. I can get more into that later.
May 29, 2018 at 9:54 am in reply to: Study reveals why Trumps voters support him. Hint: nothing to do w/ the economy #86732Billy_TParticipant(As usual, trying to break this up into smaller chunks)
To me, the Dems, with their centrist, mushy middle, corporatist, dare-I-eat-a-peach “pragmatism,” set the table for Trump, and before that, the tea party, and before that, Dubya, at least. One could even argue that the Dems — who have never been “radical,” of course, but at least once pushed for “progressive” legislation when pressured enough from their left — even set the table for Reagan . . . cuz they had all but abandoned the working class after the 1960s and its backlash.
(Of course, the GOP can’t even claim to have abandoned them. Because they’ve never been for them in the first place.)
People are desperate for strong action now, especially to reverse decades of plutocratic wins, wins for Capital over Labor, wins for everyone but the poor, the working poor, the middle, etc. And when there is no party fighting hard on their behalf, some Americans — and Europeans — have fallen for conartists on the right and the far right, who are often brilliant at pitting those same groups against immigrants, ethnic, religious and sexual minorities and women . . .
In America, they might wear a cowboy hat and drive a pickup truck, or, in the most bizarre case in our history, be a “billionaire” from New York City, one without any record whatsoever of helping the poor, the working poor, etc. etc. But that siren call of “It’s their fault!! They’re out to screw you!!” has all too often worked. It can’t if there’s a legitimate response to economic inequality and social injustice, which has only ever come from “the left.”
May 29, 2018 at 9:44 am in reply to: Study reveals why Trumps voters support him. Hint: nothing to do w/ the economy #86730Billy_TParticipantMy take on the study — which is in accordance with a series of them since the election — is basically this:
It’s important to know common denominators for voting blocs, and I agree with its conclusions, but I also think it’s a mistake for opponents of Trump to worry about Trump voters, especially those of us on the left. We need to organize our own voters, and pull the Dems our way, politically, to reach out to the only voting population with a potential to be persuaded in the first place . . . . the 100 million who sat home in 2016 and the even larger numbers who sit home during the mid-terms. The Trump voters have already made up their minds. With few exceptions, they’re not an option.
The DSA has the right (as in, left-wing) idea there.
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