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

[71 dB]

She's Hindu, and if the New Yorker piece on her last year is accurate, outside of the mainstream variants of the religion.  I have as good a chance at being elected president in 2020 as she does.  Some lefties will believe her religion does not matter.  It does.  It's the wrong decade for her to run.  Talk of her foreign policy or economic policies is irrelevant twaddle.

Dude, people elected Trump. Maybe people are fed up with the system and willing to try out things like electing reality tv baffoons and Hindus? When someone is offering you healthcare, education and better life in general, perhaps the president not being Christian isn't a problem. All the Christian presidents showed they don't give a f**k about regular people.

What is the right decade for her?

[JBS]

Dude, people elected Trump. Maybe people are fed up with the system and willing to try out things like electing reality tv baffoons and Hindus? When someone is offering you healthcare, education and better life in general, perhaps the president not being Christian isn't a problem. All the Christian presidents showed they don't give a f**k about regular people.

What is the right decade for her?

You're talking about America.  For many Trumpniks, if they know there's a difference between Hindus and Muslims, they probably think of them as those people in Bombay who are staff the phone banks that should rightly be staffed by Real Americans.

[SimonNZ]

Trump Administration: Reuniting Some Separated Migrant Families Might Be Too Hard


The Trump Administration Says Fixing the Child Welfare Crisis It Caused Would Cause A Child Welfare Crisis

[SimonNZ]

Trump's factually challenged tweets might be backfiring

"A record number of Americans now grasp that climate change is happening and that it poses a present danger. What's behind the big change? Believe it or not, President Trump might have something to do with it.

Two public opinion polls out this week show that Americans are beginning to see that global warming isn't just a problem for polar bears — it's a hazard unfolding where they live. One from Yale and George Mason University revealed the record level of concern. Another found that nearly three-quarters of Americans say that recent events like hurricanes, droughts, floods, and heatwaves influenced their views on climate change.

Anthony Leiserowitz, director of the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication, pointed to the factually challenged President Trump's tweets as a possible reason that Americans are finally coming around to the science.

"Because he's become such a polarizing and divisive political figure, whenever he speaks about climate change, immediately he drives the majority of the country in the opposite direction," Leiserowitz said. Tweets like this one from over the weekend, for instance, might backfire by leading media outlets to cover the comments and thus raise more awareness:

"Be careful and try staying in your house. Large parts of the Country are suffering from  tremendous amounts of snow and near record setting cold. Amazing how big this system is. Wouldn't be bad to have a little of that good old fashioned Global Warming right now!"

A total of 73 percent of Americans now accept that global warming is underway, according to the latest national survey from Yale and George Mason. Acceptance has zigged and zagged over time, but this is the highest percentage since the universities started keeping tabs on the data in 2008.

"We're seeing record-high levels on all the major indicators we've been tracking over the past decade," Leiserowitz said. Sixty-nine percent of Americans now say they're worried about global warming, more than ever before. The number who are "very worried," 29 percent, is up 8 points since last March. "We've never seen a jump that high in the past decade," Leiserowitz said.

"What happened since March?" you might ask. Plenty besides Trump's tweets. We saw Hurricane Florence, Hurricane Michael, and the deadliest wildfire in California history — not to mention harrowing scientific reports, including one that laid out how climate change would hit every single region of the United States.

"One of the clearest and most consistent observations we had is that for many Americans, climate change remains a distant problem," Leiserowitz said. The recent results suggest that's beginning to change. About half of Americans understand that climate change made last year's hurricanes and wildfires worse, according to the Yale survey. The highest-ever proportion, 46 percent, said they'd personally experienced the effects of global warming.

The wild weather we've been having lately appears to be shifting Americans' perspectives on climate change. Sixty-one percent are at least "a little worried" about the effects of extreme heat and flooding in their own backyards, according to the other new poll from the Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research at the University of Chicago.

Nearly half of Americans, 48 percent, say they find climate science more convincing than they did five years ago, the poll showed. What's with that? Lucky for us, the survey asked respondents to pinpoint the factors that had influenced their views on the science. Seventy-one percent pointed to their personal observations of the local weather.

The public is more convinced that climate change could hurt them, their families, and their communities than ever before, the Yale survey shows. Roughly half think they'll personally be hurt by global warming, but even more think that others will bear the brunt of the damage — especially future generations and the poor.

So while it's heartening that Americans are finally getting a grasp on reality after all these years, there's a lot of room for improvement. "Look, we're only at 73 that accept it is real," Leiserowitz said. "That would be above 95 percent if we're talking about Japan."

And still, a total of 59 percent of Americans say they rarely or never discuss climate change with their friends and family. The good news? This number is down from 74 percent last March.

Let's face it. Despite all the cliches, we Americans actually enjoy talking about the weather — especially weird weather. I mean, I really saw wildfire-induced ash fall from the sky in Seattle last year. As more and more see how climate change is changing storms, heatwaves, and winters, we might just end up slipping it into conversation more often."

[71 dB]

You're talking about America.  For many Trumpniks, if they know there's a difference between Hindus and Muslims, they probably think of them as those people in Bombay who are staff the phone banks that should rightly be staffed by Real Americans.

So why is Tulsi Gabbard running for president if it's impossible for her because of wrong religion?

[Karl Henning]

Lock him up!

Federal prosecutors issue sweeping subpoena for documents from Trump inaugural committee, a sign of a deepening criminal probe
https://wapo.st/2Gl6OoO

[SimonNZ]

Fox News Laments That Schoolchildren Are Being Taught Fairness. Bewildered by polls that show Americans want to tax the rich, the network blames the Golden Rule

[SimonNZ]

Was. Not. Disappointed.   

Please elaborate.

[bhodges]

A complete train wreck, as his speeches usually are. Best parts: Pelosi's barely contained contempt, and Stacey Abrams's clear, impassioned response.

--Bruce

[SimonNZ]

Is it true he took credit for there being more women in Congress?

I guess in a roundabout way that's true.

Also: I see Nancy Pelosi had two red balls on her blue necklace.

[BasilValentine]

Is it true he took credit for there being more women in Congress?

I couldn't continue listening after the first fifty minutes or so. :-)~~

Also: I see Nancy Pelosi had two red balls on her blue necklace.

That's perfect!

[Christo]

I couldn't continue listening after the first fifty minutes or so. :-)~~

No worries, it will have been his last one.

[Karl Henning]

Chris Christie: New Subpoenas Of Trump Inaugural Committee 'Much More Serious Threat to the Administration' Than Mueller."

[drogulus]

Fox News Laments That Schoolchildren Are Being Taught Fairness. Bewildered by polls that show Americans want to tax the rich, the network blames the Golden Rule

     The Fox newsies teach their children to kill helots for practice in a nice Christian way.

     No, they don't do that. People who have separate standards for personal and public behavior are operating on a theo-political basis. virtues inside the tent, malice for outside. To some extent everyone does this and though you don't need religion it's the most common way it's done, kind of like mental TV dinners you can pick up at the Idea Store and fix in a jiffy. Repubs are getting to where you can buy the Repub one with a religion pre-installed.

[drogulus]

Oh, my.  "U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren, just days away from launching an expected run for president, was hit with a stunning setback when The Washington Post reported she listed herself as "American Indian" on a Texas state bar application...That card, the Post added, was filled out in blue ink and was in her own handwriting. "Her office didn't dispute its authenticity," the Post story added, and she signed the card."

https://www.bostonherald.com/2019/02/05/new-document-in-elizabeth-warren-case/

     It's probably a good thing if she gets out. I want her in the Senate. In terms of presidential politics she's too hot. That's nothing to do with tribes, it has to do with her confrontational approach. She is an Inquisitor:

     

     A presidential inquisitor is not what people want. I'm a people and I think a president should use inquisitors while not being one.

[BasilValentine]

Trump's best straight lines from last night:

"Fifty seven percent of the new jobs went to women" — cut to the Democratic side of the House where all the new female representatives are on their feet laughing, spinning and high-fiving each other.

"You can't have legislation and investigation. It doesn't work that way." — Stephen Colbert completes the thought: "Who ever heard of law and order. Come on, you can't have both!"

[arpeggio]

Five years from now you will have problems finding anybody who will admit they voted for trump.

[drogulus]

Five years from now you will have problems finding anybody who will admit they voted for trump.

     I disagree. Trumpism will survive Trump. It will be the latest version of the "Lost Cause" for the ideologically white.

[Ghost of Baron Scarpia]

Even if, five years from now, he has been convicted and executed for treason, he will still have 30% approval rating from his "base".

[drogulus]

     Even God Couldn't Beat Dollar-Cost Averaging

What makes the Buy the Dip strategy even more problematic is that we have always assumed that you would know when you were at every bottom (you won't).  I ran a variation of Buy the Dip where the strategy misses the bottom by 2 months, and guess what?  Missing the bottom by just 2 months leads to underperforming DCA 97% of the time!  So, even if you are somewhat decent at calling bottoms, you would still lose in the long run.

     You have been warned. The best investment strategy is a simple saving strategy. However much you save each month, you invest. As your income grows you'll increase the amount you save/invest. You will not sell for market reasons. Like all rules you'll violate them on occasion. That should be for a purpose, not market timing, which isn't a purpose for you.

     I thought I would answer the worries about what a Trump or socialist might do to the economy, past-present-future whatever. This is not something you can effectively worry about, and the reason is that the best strategy will be the same under all plausible scenarios.

     Trump will not help you, Obama didn't help you. Good policy can help, bad policy can hurt. That's not something you act on. You're getting what's available to be got either way.

     What I do is consistent with the DCA approach, but is not the DCA approach. I have too much purpose in what I do, which makes me a DCA criminal.