   | | Political discussion involving past and present political events, candidates and elections. Please read Msg #1 before posting. |
Msg #72790
1 replies | Steve King of Iowa | By MikeC/TX on 8/18/19 8:34pm
I don't understand how Iowans in his district have continued to re-elect this clown unless they are stupid as he is.
His latest - he says there would not be human population today if it were not for rape and incest. What he said was recorded on video.
That may be why only TWO people showed up for his town hall this week. Also on video.
And now he is demanding -DEMANDING -that the media and the GOP apologize to him for talking about WHAT HE ACTUALLY SAID.
There really has to be an idiocy test before you can be a member of Congress. I can think of at least three current members that couldn't pass it, and King is one of them.
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| Msg #72789
0 replies | What's going on here? | By MikeC/TX on 8/18/19 7:52pm
Trump attacked Fox News today - Fox News, the network that got him elected! - because their most recent polls show that his support is slipping. He said, "there's something going on at Fox News"' as if they have joined the "Fake News" conspiracy against him - because to Trump, any news that is critical of him is fake news.
The Fox News polls are considered by many to be very accurate, so here's a question - if you are a Trump cultist and think the Fox News polls are BS, why are you still watching Fox News???
The Fox entertainment/propaganda division (Hannity, et al) continues to shill for Trump, but the news division - the journalists and reporters who do real actual news - has been trying to report the reality, and they know it's not pretty.
Fox News does not manipulate the poll, they just report the results. The fact that Trump doesn't like it doesn't make it fake.
More signs that there's something going on: Trump holds a campaign rally in NH. Usually, there's a wall of people behind him, waving signs. This time, I'm looking at video of the event and there are a lot of empty seats behind him. His advance team couldn't find or hire bodies to fill those seats? What kind of message does that send?
And speaking of hiring supporters, it's been widely reported that workers at a Shell plant in PA this week were given the option of attending a Trump speech at the plant - with the caveat of not protesting - and being paid for their time, or going home and getting nothing. So we see an event - essentailly a campaign rally - with a lot of people who are there only because they are being paid to do so. Classic Trump.
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| Msg #72771
4 replies | Recession? | By MikeC/TX on 8/14/19 7:50pm
The yield curve went to full inversion, which is historically a sign of a recession in the next 10 months or so.
The yield curve refers to the dividends that Treasury bonds will yield; the way it normally works is that the longer you invest and hold the bond, the higher the yield will be - so in a strong economy, the curve trends upwards. 30-year bonds affect long term loans such as mortgages.
When investors start to abandon stocks for bonds, the yields are higher for short-term investments than they are for long-term investments - the curve inverts and it trends downwards. What has happened is that the yield for a 30-year bond is now lower than it is for a short-term bond - that's the inversion. Historically, this has happened before every recession we've had and it's the reason the markets tanked today.
Some people, including former Fed chair Yellen, are saying that it's a false indicator this time and that we're not headed for a recession. We'll know in a few months.
But our Dear Leader - who famously took credit for all the economic growth after his inauguration - even though it was just a continuation of the growth that began under his predecessor - is now desperately trying to find someone else to blame for the impending crash. He's starting with the Fed - chaired by a man HE appointed to the job - which has nothing to do with any of this. Eventually, it will become either Obama's or Hillary's fault. At no point will he acknowledge the fact that a lot of this is due to the uncertainty his ignorance of economics and economic policy are causing among investors. POTUS is supposed to lead, and he's incapable of doing that.
More importantly, he will never ever, ever, EVER admit that he did something wrong. The good things are always to his credit, even if he had nothing to do with them; the bad things are ALWAYS someone else's fault. That's how he has behaved for 40 or 50 years in business, and that's how he is running his presidency. MAGA.
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| Msg #72770
0 replies | How does this work, exactly? | By MikeC/TX on 8/13/19 7:11pm
Trump announces he's going to impose additional tariffs on Chinese imports starting September 1, repeating his lie that China is paying us billions of dollars in tariffs. Aside from the fact that China is not paying a dime - the tariffs are paid by the importers on our side and passed along to consumers - China has devalued its currency, making their goods cheaper to import even with the tariffs. So where are these billions of dollars coming from? They're coming from your wallet. I don't know why the Trump cultists can't grasp that basic economic concept, but that's how tariffs work - they are essentially a tax on the consumer.
Today, Trump announced that he is delaying imposing many of those tariffs until December because of concerns about how they might affect the Christmas shopping season.
Why?? He's been telling us that China is paying the tariffs and prices for consumers will not go up. If that's true, why would all of that money China is allegedly paying us have a negative effect on our Christmas shopping season? Is it possible that Trump is admitting that he is lying to us? Do YOU, Trump cultists, finally realize that this has all been a con and he has been lying to YOU?
His trade policy is a dumpster fire - no side ever wins a trade war, and the last major one we had pushed us and the rest of the world into the Great Depression.
Google "Smoot–Hawley Tariff Act". Trump has no concept of history because he doesn't read and has shown an incredible ignorance of history. As the saying goes: Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it...
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| Msg #72766
0 replies | Trump spreads unfounded comspiracy theory... | By MikeC/TX on 8/11/19 8:03pm
.. about Epstein's suicide - a conspiracy theory that claims Bill Clinton was responsible for the death - and Don Jr tweets his dismay about why it's not trending higher, claiming it shows Twitter's bias.
So much to unpack here...
First of all - WTF is this POTUS doing accusing a former POTUS of murder when there is absolutely zero evidence to indicate that this happened? If that doesn't convince you that he is mentally unstable and unfit for the office he holds, what will?
Secondly, Epstein was being held at the Manhattan Correctional Center in NYC, which is under the control of the DOJ. The DOJ is controlled by Trump's sycophant, William Barr. Both Bill Clinton and Donald Trump had a relationship with Epstein. If you're going to believe the ridiculous conspiracy theory that Epstein was murdered to keep him quiet - and I do not - connect the dots. Who had direct access to him? Hint - it wasn't Bill Clinton.
Third - Don Jr. is a bigger idiot than his father is, and I didn't think that was possible. He doesn't understand how Twitter works. He complained that the hashtag #TrumpDeaths was trending higher than #ClintonDeaths because there were more #ClintonDeaths hashtags (right there we have a serious problem, because why are we even talking about this???), and therefore, in his fevered mind, Twitter was discriminating against them.
Let me take a step back and make sure I 've gotten this right - Don Jr is saying that Twitter is discriminating against his father because they don't promote his conspiracy theory above a competing conspiracy theory. This is just batsh*t crazy stuff.
For the record, trending on Twitter is not determined by how many tweets there are - it's determined by the frequency of those tweets. That means there could be a bunch of tweets with a specific hashtag posted all at once vs a bunch of tweets posted with a different hashtag over time, and the latter is the one that will be trending. The Trumps and the radical conservatives who think they're being censored don't understand how this works, so they blame the platform rather than their own ignorance about how the platform works.
And because of their ignorance, they want to control the social media platforms. If that doesn't scare the sh*t out of you, there's something seriously wrong with you.
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| Msg #72756
2 replies | The latest from Hoolywood Liberal idiocy | By bagger on 8/9/19 10:00am
Michael Moore says he is turning in his Soul Cycle membership because of their support for Trump.
I see 2 problems here for this sack of poopoo.
1. I seriously doubt if Moore has ever spent more than 5 minutes on a stationary bike.
2. Soul Cycle does not offer memberships.
Can you say hypocrite?
I knew you could.
The lefties are self imploding, and it's fun to watch!
I'm enjoying this, Hugh are you?
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| | | Msg #72747
1 replies | How low can the anti-Trumpers sink? | By bagger on 8/8/19 9:09am
Pretty low.
Frank Figliuzzi, an NBC contributor told Brian Williams that Trump ordering flags to be flown at half staff until 8/8 suggests that Trump is connected to Hitler!
According to this ding dong, H is the 8th letter of the alphabet, sooooo 8/8 equals H/H, meaning Heil Hitler.
Can MSNBC get any worse?
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| Msg #72739
18 replies | Video games are not the problem | By MikeC/TX on 8/5/19 6:38pm
President Trump and others pointed to violent video games as a cause of the recent mass shootings.
No, sorry, the cause of the massacre in El Paso was not video games - it was racial hatred, spurred on by white supremacism. The shooter himself said so in a "manifesto" he posted shortly before the attack on 8chan- a social media platform for hate groups, linked to at least two other mass shootings, was shut down today by the company that hosted it. Video games had nothing to do with it - the shooter was radicalized by white supremacists, much the same way that Muslims are radicalized by ISIS and Al Qaeda.
Trump denounced white nationalism and white supremacy today but give it 24-48 hours - if past history is a guide, he will walk it back on Twitter, where we'll learn there are "good people on both sides".
There is no such thing as a good white supremacist. Period.
Trump also tried to make the argument that it was not the fault of the gun, it was the fault of the person pulling the trigger. I would argue that it's the fault of a system that ALLOWED that person to pull the trigger. I am not advocating eliminating guns, but I am advocating common-sense gun laws. Comprehensive background checks are a good starting point - the House has passed two bipartisan bills that would start the process, but Moscow Mitch has blocked them from even being considered by the Senate. Why?
He has also blocked bipartisan House bills addressing election security. Why? Who is he working for? Clearly, it's not the American people.
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| Msg #72738
0 replies | Trade wars are easy to win | By MikeC/TX on 8/5/19 6:03pm
China has called Trump's bluff and is now playing hardball. By devaluing their currency, they have made their exports cheaper and their imports more expensive. So even with the Trump tariffs - of which China is not paying a dime, despite Trump's willful ignorance about how tariffs work - Chinese goods become less expensive for American consumers while American goods become more expensive for the Chinese. The same dynamic affects every other trading partner China has, such as the EU, but that's collateral damage because the target of their move was the US.
China has already instructed state-owned agencies to stop buying American agricultural products, which is going to further cripple the American farmers who are already suffering under the effects of the trade war.
Remember when we were told that a trade war was easy to win? Nobody wins a trade war.
Trump's trade policy is an unmitigated disaster so far - he thinks he knows more than anyone else about everything and won't listen to his economic advisers. That booming economy he likes to take full credit for? What are the odds that he will take responsibility when it tanks because of his policies?
The most dangerous person to be in a position of authority - the one who makes the final decisions - is the one who doesn't know what he doesn't know and won't listen to advice from those who DO know. That, folks, is our current POTUS.
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| Msg #72736
17 replies | Trump in Ohio | By MikeC/TX on 8/2/19 7:32pm
At a rally in Cincinnatti the other night, Trump took his lies to a whole new level.
He told his cultists that we are about to cure childhood cancer. Don't take my word for it - the video of him saying this is available online.
This is a President who has cut funding for cancer research and scientific research in general, and he thinks NOW we'll find a cure?? Who knew you could find a cure by eliminating funding for research? If this is true, why didn't we start doing it years ago? It must all be Obama's fault...
For the record, there is no such disease as "childhood cancer" - there are children with cancer, but it encompasses many cancers that adults also have and a few that are specific to children. Wiping out cancer in children is not even a remote possibility at this point, so Trump's statement that we're about to "cure childhood cancer" is meaningless at best.
As someone who has cancer, I found his statements to be truly offensive - not only doesn't he know what he's talking about (as usual), but he's pandering to his base and making promises that he can't possibly deliver on. This guy will lie about ANYTHING with no remorse - he just makes it up as he goes, and the MAGAts lap it up.
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| Msg #72726
8 replies | President Trump in VA | By anotaryinva on 7/30/19 6:55pm
http
//m.youtube.com/watch?v=k-8EiAVfyKQ
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| Msg #72714
2 replies | 2.5 years, amazing! | By anotaryinva on 7/25/19 10:06am
Hope this works,
https://t.co/q5tjNpEzH0
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| Msg #72713
0 replies | A couple of things I walked away with after | By MikeC/TX on 7/24/19 6:46pm
Mueller's House testimony. I didn't watch all of it, but I saw a significant part of it:
1. The Republicans didn't dispute a single finding in the report. They attacked Mueller and his team personally, they attacked the reason the investigation started in the first place, but there was really nothing in the report itself that they could dispute. One GOP rep. took issue with the fact that Mueller said he could not exonerate the President of obstruction, saying he didn't have the authority to do so, but that argument falls apart because both Trump and Barr said the report exonerated Trump of the charges (not true); you can't have it both ways. What the report showed was that Mueller had evidence to show that Trump committed obstructive acts, but was constrained by DOJ policy from bringing an indictment. Having evidence and being unable to use it is not the same thing as saying someone should not be prosecuted. What Mueller was saying is that he could not conclude that Trump was not guilty.
2. Another Trump lie exposed (over 10,000 so far)- for months, Trump has said that Mueller wanted the job of FBI Director and interviewed with him for it and that he (Trump) decided Mueller wasn't a good fit. When questioned about that, Mueller, said - under oath- that he did NOT interview for the job; what he said was that the interview was to discuss what type of person should be in that job, but that he himself was not interested in it. He characterized it as a consultation and not a job interview.
Everything else, at least from the Dem side, was about what was in the report. Most Americans haven't read it; the other day FBI Director Wray said HE hadn't read it, which is unsettling. I think back to an interview I saw with a participant at a Justin Amash town hall who said she had no idea that the report said anything bad about Trump - she only followed conservative media, and they weren't talking about the bad stuff in the report.
As some pundits have said, this was about getting the facts out to those who haven't read the book and would rather see the movie. In general, I think the Dems did a good job of surfacing and hammering home the most damaging parts of Mueller's report, while the GOP just attacked the messenger.
What happens next, I have no idea. I still don't see impeachment as an option right now, because the current Senate will never vote to convict, so what's the point? Uness public opinion starts to go against them, the GOP will be in lock-step on this.
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| Msg #72699
11 replies | Liberal hypocrisy | By bagger on 7/23/19 12:34pm
Well, well, well the chickens have come home to roost!
Seems lie the ultimate socialist (Bernie) has had to learn a lesson in Micro-economics.
Everybody has a RIGHT to a livable wage (except if you work for Bernie.)
Some of his staff were paid less than BS’s standard of $15/hour, and they vocalized it to the press. So, now Bernie is going to give them a raise to $15/hour. But wait, he is also going to cut their hours. Net/net these workers will most likely end up earning less.
Bernie is so disappointed with them, they may get fired.
Hasn’t this been the stance of those opposed to a minimum wage? In the end, it will cost jobs.
Welcome to the real-world Bernie, it’s so easy to spend someone else’s money, just don’t touch your wallet.
Bernie as a candidate is now officially toast.
And, hopefully the people will begin seeing through these lying Socialists.
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| Msg #72698
0 replies | More Trump lies - when will we ever learn? | By MikeC/TX on 7/22/19 6:43pm
President Trump, during the press gaggle today with the Prime Minister of Pakistan, repeated his lie that Congress gave Puerto Rico $92.5 billion in aid after Hurricane Maria.
That's actually an estimate of what the final cost will be. Congress allocated $42.5 billion, of which less than $14 billion has been spent. All of this is easily verified online.
And it seemed if you watched it, that Trump still can't grasp the fact that Puerto Rico is part of America - he made it sound like we were giving this money to a foreign country. Would he complain about giving this money to Texas or Lousiana for hurricane relief?
He just makes stuff up, and the MAGAts buy into it. What the heck is wrong with you people? What happened to critical thinking?? What happened to the ability to hear or read something, do some research and decide, "No that can't be true because I found this from a reliable source"? Whatever Trump says is the truth?? Is that what you really think??
Don't believe your eyes and ears - believe what you're told. A bunch of sheep...
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| Msg #72697
7 replies | I saw this meme today on Twitter that I thought was | By MikeC/TX on 7/22/19 5:28pm
brilliant and says everything you should know about the First Amendment:
If you are one of those upset that Amerian citizens are criticizing our country and our President, or that the press is criticizing the President and his policies, you are free to leave this country and move to another one where that type of behavior is illegal.
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| | Msg #72693
0 replies | This should be obvious, but it's not to some people | By MikeC/TX on 7/21/19 6:54pm
Disagreeing with the policies and beliefs of POTUS does not mean you hate America - it means you disagree with his policies and beliefs, which is something you have an absolute Constitutional right to do. Our allegiance is not to the man who currently holds the office - it is to the country and the Constitution. There's no law that says we have to agree with him.
"America - Love It or Leave It" was a catch-phrase during the Vietnam War era. It makes as little sense now as it did then. Trump's sycophants are desperately trying to reframe his racist remarks about the four Congresswomen - suggesting that they "go back and fix the problems where they came from before telling us how to run our country" - as being about policy rather than race, but the American public is not that stupid.
First of all, three of them were born here, and the fourth is naturalized. Second, if they hated this country, why did they run for office? Third, "telling us how to run the country" is exactly what they were elected to do - they weren't elected to sit there and rubber-stamp what the Congressional leaders or POTUS wanted to do. They were elected because their constituents believed in their message, and their constituents expect them to start delivering on it.
AOC primaried a sitting Rep who had been there for about 20 years, was high in House leadership and was so sure he had the seat locked up that he didn't even show up for a debate with her, sending a surrogate instead. She crushed him in the primary -her message resonates with her constituents.
Finally, Trump has been lying about what he claims they've said. Ilhan Omar never praised Al Qaida, AOC never said that America was garbage, yet this is the snake oil Trump is trying to sell and his MAGAts are buying it. Meanwhile, someone on MSNBC this morning read off a LONG list of Trump's tweets since 2014 - not fake news, they actually exist - in which he talked about how bad the country was and called Obama's policies garbage - the exact same thing he is accusing the Congresswomen of doing.
Maybe he should go back to where he came from.
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