Sound The TRUMPets! A Thread for Presidential Pondering 2016-2020(?)

[Karl Henning]

The White House plans to announce it is extending $12 billion in emergency aid to farmers caught in the midst of President Trump's escalating trade war

Byline 1:  White House hereby essentially acknowledges that it doesn't know what it's doing.

Byline 2:  Too bad "tax reform" was just a giveaway to the fat cats – the little people are going to pay not only for the trade war, but for the resulting farm bail-out, too.

[Zeus]

Trump's economic policy looking more and more like Nixon's.

Will he be able (like Nixon) to trigger a wave of inflation?  Maybe, but it takes time.

Inflation leads to rising interest rates.  Rising interest rates plus large and rising deficits leads to fiscal crises. 

Those who don't understand the past are destined to repeat it.

[Mahlerian]

Those who don't understand the past are destined to repeat it.

I doubt that Trump understands much that isn't laid out for him on Fox and Friends.

[drogulus]

Trump's economic policy looking more and more like Nixon's.

Will he be able (like Nixon) to trigger a wave of inflation?  Maybe, but it takes time.

Inflation leads to rising interest rates.  Rising interest rates plus large and rising deficits leads to fiscal crises. 

Those who don't understand the past are destined to repeat it.

     It's more the case that market interest rates rise as the economy strengthens. The Fed should not preempt a stronger economy to the degree it does by raising interest rates too soon. The Fed is properly the tail of the dog and should stop trying to wag it.

     I agree with the last sentence. I'd add that those who don't understand the past can't repeat it when they should. They iz dumb both ways.

     Rising and falling deficits don't indicate a fiscal crisis, though changes in fiscal balances will depict all the conditions including those of a crisis nature. The best way to view it is functionally. What are deficits for? Ignore for the moment the presumptive goodness or badness of how they fluctuate until you form a better idea of how they function in the economy.

[SimonNZ]

Ivanka Trump to Shutter Doors of Her Fashion Company

"When we first started this brand, no one could have predicted the success that we would achieve," Ivanka Trump said in an emailed statement to CNBC. "After 17 months in Washington, I do not know when or if I will ever return to the business, but I do know that my focus for the foreseeable future will be the work I am doing here in Washington, so making this decision now is the only fair outcome for my team and partners."

[SimonNZ]

White House stops announcing calls with foreign leaders

"The White House has suspended the practice of publishing public summaries of President Donald Trump's phone calls with world leaders, two sources with knowledge of the situation tell CNN, bringing an end to a common exercise from Republican and Democratic administrations.
It's unclear if the suspension is temporary or permanent. A White House spokesman declined to comment.

Official descriptions of the President's calls with foreign leaders -- termed "readouts" in Washington parlance -- offer administrations the chance to characterize in their own terms the diplomacy conducted at the highest levels between countries. While news is rarely contained in the rote, often dry descriptions, they do offer the only official account that a phone call took place. Readouts are still released internally.

Trump has had at least two calls with other leaders in the last two weeks, including Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The White House confirmed that the calls took place after they were reported by foreign media, but declined to elaborate on what was said."

[SimonNZ]

Trump Proposes Mueller Interview With No Obstruction Questions

"Donald Trump would agree to an interview with Special Counsel Robert Mueller's investigators if it's limited to questions on whether his presidential campaign colluded with Russia in the 2016 election, lawyer Rudy Giuliani said on Monday night.

Trump is demanding in return that he isn't asked questions about obstruction of justice in the probe into election interference, under a proposal the president's legal team submitted to Mueller, Giuliani said."

[SimonNZ]

Trump makes a wild claim: Russians don't want him to be president, so they will help Democrats in the midterms

"President Donald Trump said in a tweet Tuesday that he was "very concerned that Russia will be fighting very hard to have an impact on the upcoming Election."

But rather than benefit his own party, as Russia sought to do in 2016, Trump claimed without evidence that Russia "will be pushing very hard for the Democrats" because, Trump said, "no President has been tougher on Russia than me."

[André]

Trump makes a wild claim: Russians don't want him to be president, so they will help Democrats in the midterms

"President Donald Trump said in a tweet Tuesday that he was "very concerned that Russia will be fighting very hard to have an impact on the upcoming Election."

But rather than benefit his own party, as Russia sought to do in 2016, Trump claimed without evidence that Russia "will be pushing very hard for the Democrats" because, Trump said, "no President has been tougher on Russia than me."

It's win-win for the bone spur prez: if the Democrats win the mid-terms, Trump will claim a collusion between them and Russia resulting in a rigged election. If the Repubs win, they will have surmounted great odds, what with the collusion between Dems and Russia. The week following the election, the words Russia/collusion will be associated with the Democrats, no matter the result. It's written in the sky.

[71 dB]

I hear you.  We all need to find coping mechanisms to protect our spirits.  Trump (and Trumpism) is within our circle of concern, but outside our circle of influence, to use Stephen Covey's language.

Hang in there.  Every day is a gift.  Count your blessings, one by one.  Nothing is ever as good or as bad as it seems.  You are not alone.  Et cetera.

It's been a heatwave in Finland for the last two weeks. It's +30°C (+86°F) inside and I can't even sleep at night. Seems like people are starting to die in Finland "the country of polar bears they say" because of heat. Looks like it's been cooler in Turkey than in Finland lately! So yes, when you can't sleep and you suffer all the time because of the heat, Trump the climate change denier get's on your nerve!!!

[lisa needs braces]

https://www.thenation.com/article/its-time-to-abolish-ice/

https://twitter.com/seanmcelwee?lang=en

This is the guy who started the "abolish ICE!" campaign. He's a fierce and admirable leftist activist who lives in DC. I've been following him on twitter for years. He was always tweeting negatively about ICE..incessantly and obsessively. His messaging then coalesced into "abolish ICE!", a piece of rhetoric that is now non-taboo among a substantial portion of the Democratic party base.

Regardless of the politics it was interesting seeing this guy's anti-ICE rhetoric from its infancy to its now near-adoption by the Democratic party. He describes himself on his Twitter profile as "overton Window mover." 

[Karl Henning]

The inconvenient truth Putin Republicans won't admit

"Without the Russians, Trump wouldn't have won"

[71 dB]

He describes himself on his Twitter profile as "overton Window mover." 

Well, the Overton Window needs to be moved to the left a few steps in the US. Where it is right now causes social democrats been called socialists or even communists. In Finland social democrats are one step left from center and there is a separate left party on the left side of social democrates and even they are not considered socialists or communists. Seen through the American Overton window there's no right wing parties in Finland *, only centrists to far left parties. 


___________
* On economic issues that is. On social issues, especially regarding immigration, abortion and gay rights there are a couple of right wing parties. Right wing immigration policies are explaned with xenophobia used as a form of populism and opposition to abortion/gay rights is explained by religious beliefs.

[BasilValentine]

Last week, Uri Friedman of The Atlantic wrote that the official White House transcript and video of the Helsinki press conference with Putin, posted online, have both been falsified. What actually was said reads as follows:

Jeff Mason of Reuters:
Q - President Putin, did you want President Trump to win the election, and did you direct any of your officials to help him do that?

Putin:
Yes, I did. Yes, I did. Because he talked about bringing the U.S.-Russia relationship back to normal.


The falsified WH transcript says this:

Jeff Mason of Reuters:
Q - And did you direct any of your officials to help him do that?

Putin:
Yes, I did. Yes, I did. Because he talked about bringing the U.S.-Russia relationship back to normal.


As you can see, the original question has been edited and now the subject under discussion is unclear and both the question and answer are meaningless. The WH also doctored the video to eliminate the beginning of Mason's question, the part defining the subject under discussion.

[BasilValentine]

While I'm on transcripts, here's my own transcription of the most interesting part of the in person conversation between Trump and Michael Cohen about setting up an Llc to pay off Karen McDougal through AMI, the publisher of The National Inquirer:

C: "I need to set up a company for the transfer of all that info" [Cohen stresses the word strangely as if to indicate it isn't info being transferred] "regarding our friend David" [He means David Pecker of AMI, the guy who kills the story about McDougal] "You know, so that ..."
T: Give it to me. [C is apparently handing Trump a piece of paper, possibly with the amount to be paid written on it?]
C: I'm actually gonna do that right away. And I've spoken with Alan Weisselberg about how to set the whole thing up ...
T: So what are we going to do?
C ... funding.
T: (inaudible)
C: Yes, with all this stuff ...
T: We've got to be thinking about that.
C: Yeah, here. You never know about that company.
T: Maybe he gets hit by a truck.
C: Correct. So, I'm all over that. When it comes time for the financing, which'll be ...
T: Uh, what financing?
C: We'll have to pay ...
T: We'll pay cash.
C: No. No, no, no, no. I've got ...
T: We should.
C: No, no, no, no ... I've got this.

So Trump knew about the setting up of a dummy corporation to pay for the suppression of the story about his affair with Karen McDougal, and he wanted to pay in cash! Who does that except mobsters and criminals? A suitcase with $150K in it? Moreover, Trump is not at all surprised about the procedure of setting up a dummy corporation for a payoff. Nothing has to be explained to him, so it is clear he is familiar with the process. One should remember that the slush fund from which the payment is made received donations from Russian oligarchs (Victor Veckselberg, for example) and several large American corporations.

[drogulus]

     There seems to be a pattern in all of the WH decisions on public information, an important function I think should be universally agreed to, but isn't. Once again we see a check in a fascist box. It's not just the Big Lie, though it's that in spades, it's the disappearance of fact. Trump considers anything smacking of neutral criteria as a threat and he's right, I mean he should know!

     The disabling of truth in the fascist playbook is not about this fact or that, threatening as they may be, it's to disable the establish of a truth function independent of the ruler. I don't think the centuries old marriage of a free press with democratic government is happenstance. The reasons for it are structural, so that the "Fourth Estate" isn't puffery.

     Trump never talks about freedom or democracy. He doesn't want to associate with countries that belong to that tradition. I'm unmoved by arguments that these countries aren't "really" democratic, because the social relations in the free world are remarkably free in so many ways, including government ways, that the phenomenon remains distinct.

     The path to fascism from depression/chronic austerity is clear enough that we should be moving towards an understanding of how we intend to recover from it. Even Trumpists will reach the "it's not me, I didn't mean it, do it to Julia" crisis point.

     Watching the remarkable French TV series Un village français has been an education. Here we see French people in 1943 talk about losing the war! A German police officer discusses with his French mistress the untranslatable concept of "double isolation", how defeat will leave them alone with each other and despised by the world. Now, I'm not literal about this, Trumpists are not going to have it easy (ask Shawn Spicer) but women won't have their heads shaven and ICE will be purged but few will be charged with crimes.

     

[drogulus]

     Wilbur Ross actively pushed to add citizenship question to 2020 Census, documents show

     Why do Trumpist official issue false denials? I judge there's a difference between an individual predisposition to lie and the functional abandonment of openness under Trump. It not that Ross isn't predisposed to lie and act corruptly, he is so disposed. It's that this makes him valuable to a Trumpist regime, as valuable as Trumpism is to him. But consider also that part of the value Ross has is like the value of a gang member with a face tatooo. Where's he gonna go?

[Karl Henning]

     There seems to be a pattern in all of the WH decisions on public information, an important function I think should be universally agreed to, but isn't. Once again we see a check in a fascist box. It's not just the Big Lie, though it's that in spades, it's the disappearance of fact. Trump considers anything smacking of neutral criteria as a threat and he's right, I mean he should know!

Yeppers!

Trump creates an alternative reality, and he wants you to join him there (be there, on Fox & Friends!)

[zamyrabyrd]

"Without the Russians, Trump wouldn't have won"

[bwv 1080]

Can we blame the Russians for Bernie and Jill as well?

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2018/02/17/indictment-russians-also-tried-help-bernie-sanders-jill-stein-presidential-campaigns/348051002/