[y66]

President Trump called off today’s White House celebration for the Philadelphia Eagles after nearly all of the players and coaches of the Super Bowl-winning team said they would boycott the visit.

Mayor Jim Kenney praised the Eagles for how they represented the city in the Super Bowl and their activism off the field and attacked Trump’s decision.

“These are players who stand up for the causes they believe in and who contribute in meaningful ways to their community. They represent the diversity of our nation — a nation in which we are free to express our opinions,” Kenney said in a statement. “Disinviting them from the White House only proves that our President is not a true patriot, but a fragile egomaniac obsessed with crowd size and afraid of the embarrassment of throwing a party to which no one wants to attend.”

[kenberg]

Winstonm, on 2018-June-04, 20:18, said:

The American economy is a lumbering giant that takes years to change. Presidential policies can have small short-term effects, but to understand the long term effects of any major policy change takes years. For example, there is no way to know the long term effects of tariff changes because there is give and take and adjustment on all sides.

The effects of Reagan's policies on health care costs were not fully felt until the late 1990s and into the 2000s. Likewise, we won't know the full effect of Obama's policies for many years.

The economy is not really roaring - it is continuing to recover from the crash. Sometime, probably nearer than further, there will be another recession of which the president can do nothing to prevent.

I agree that it often takes years before we know the effects of various policies, and even then there can be disagreement. People still argue about how effective Roosevelt's policies were in the 1930s. But saying that it takes time, and that assessment is difficult, is different from saying "Anyone on either side who credits any particular president with great impact on the U.S. economy is woefully ignorant of economics." I think presidential choices have a substantial effect on the economy.

I cannot say with confidence what the effects of the tariffs will be. That's not the same as saying that I believe that there will be no substantial effect.
I don't want to be too fussy about wording, but lately I have heard various commentators say that presidential policies have no substantial effect. Taking these words literally, I don't agree.

And of course I would agree that many things having huge effects are largely outside of presidential control. The Arab oil embargo. The Iran revolution. The attacks of 9/11. The collapse of the Soviet Union. It's not that we have no influence at all in these matters, but largely they are out of our control. We were in a large part responsible for the Shah in Iran in the first place, so this could be seen as a partial cause of the Iranian Revolution. The SDI during Reagan's term apparently put some financial stress on the USSR. But these are historical and arguable aspects, not a clear chain of causality. The tariffs, however, I think will have a substantial and traceable effect.

Economic expertise? I don't have it. America First? Well, yes, sort of, in the same way that any head of state is supposed to be watching out for the interests of the people that s/he represents. That's natural, and you don't need a stupid slogan for it. But if we continue to act as we are doing, other countries will consider their own interests and decide they have to cope. It seems unlikely they will decide the best course of action is to collectively kiss our butt. Trump seems to expect that of people and of countries. I doubt that we are going to like the course that they do choose, even if right now I cannot say what that will be. Again, it will take a while before the results are clear. But I don''t think the effect will be minor. Presidential policies matter.

[Winstonm]

kenberg, on 2018-June-05, 06:00, said:

I agree that it often takes years before we know the effects of various policies, and even then there can be disagreement. People still argue about how effective Roosevelt's policies were in the 1930s. But saying that it takes time, and that assessment is difficult, is different from saying "Anyone on either side who credits any particular president with great impact on the U.S. economy is woefully ignorant of economics." I think presidential choices have a substantial effect on the economy.

I cannot say with confidence what the effects of the tariffs will be. That's not the same as saying that I believe that there will be no substantial effect.
I don't want to be too fussy about wording, but lately I have heard various commentators say that presidential policies have no substantial effect. Taking these words literally, I don't agree.

And of course I would agree that many things having huge effects are largely outside of presidential control. The Arab oil embargo. The Iran revolution. The attacks of 9/11. The collapse of the Soviet Union. It's not that we have no influence at all in these matters, but largely they are out of our control. We were in a large part responsible for the Shah in Iran in the first place, so this could be seen as a partial cause of the Iranian Revolution. The SDI during Reagan's term apparently put some financial stress on the USSR. But these are historical and arguable aspects, not a clear chain of causality. The tariffs, however, I think will have a substantial and traceable effect.

Economic expertise? I don't have it. America First? Well, yes, sort of, in the same way that any head of state is supposed to be watching out for the interests of the people that s/he represents. That's natural, and you don't need a stupid slogan for it. But if we continue to act as we are doing, other countries will consider their own interests and decide they have to cope. It seems unlikely they will decide the best course of action is to collectively kiss our butt. Trump seems to expect that of people and of countries. I doubt that we are going to like the course that they do choose, even if right now I cannot say what that will be. Again, it will take a while before the results are clear. But I don''t think the effect will be minor. Presidential policies matter.

Yes, presidential policies matter - eventually. I pick on Reagan a lot, but that is only because he broke from norms and established an economic basis that is being followed to this day with a sharp cut to government oversights in many areas - turning healthcare, for example, from a government price-controlled model to a market-based approach. It has taken decades for the full effect of those changes to be realized, and the U.S. position utilizing a profit-based free market approach is now to be first in cost of healthcare but last in healthcare results among equivalent nations. In fact, the Affordable Care Act was a direct attempt to confront the effects on healthcare that resulted from Reagan's economic policies. So sure, presidential policies can matter.

The U.S. GDP is gargantuan. What a president and a Congress can do is put into effect policies - how the U.S. economy reacts to those policies over time is all that really matters. Short term ups and downs of stock markets or GDP is of no real or lasting consequence - they are marching to a separate drummer only they can hear. Those short-term ups and downs have to be smoothed with moving averages in order to see the underlying long-term trend - and it is that trend that is almost self-perpetuating, and virtually impossible to change in the short term with policy alone. It would be like trying to steer an iceberg with an outboard motor - it could be done, but a change of directions wouldn't be anytime soon.

Sometimes - often, really - I don't get across in words my understanding, or maybe my understanding is not crystallized first, but studies do a better jog than me of explaining how policies of long ago have effects today - a lowering of social services spending (policy) can have large effects down the line. Here is a study on the effects of housing on healthcare costs.

Quote

A study conducted by the Center for Outcomes Research and Education (CORE) and sponsored by Enterprise Community Partners found affordable housing reduced overall health care expenditures by 12% for Medicaid recipients. Researchers attribute these savings to more cost-efficient use of health services, with an 18% decrease in costly emergency department (ED) visits and a 20% increase in less costly primary care services. The cost savings came without compromising access or quality of care to residents.

So, yes, policy matters, but the ramifications of what is happening economically during the tenure of a president should not be construed as having a cause and effect relationship with that particular president - Democrat or Republican.

[barmar]

ldrews, on 2018-June-04, 16:42, said:

It defies belief that rapid change of GDP growth of 1.5-2% quarterly to projected 4+% quarterly in just a little over a year of inauguration amidst all of the actions taken by Trump are not causally related. Also record lows of unemployment, explosion of consumer confidence, explosion of business investment. And labor shortages so severe that some communities are offering bonuses to people willing to move into the communities to fill the vacant jobs.

Winstonm, the economists he cites, and others who think there is no causal effect must be smoking some strong weed.

Republican policies generally tend to be business-favorable (e.g. reduced regulation, tax cuts). So it's likely you'll get a similar boost any time the GOP controls both Congress and the White House, not just Trump.

[PassedOut]

barmar, on 2018-June-05, 10:05, said:

Republican policies generally tend to be business-favorable (e.g. reduced regulation, tax cuts). So it's likely you'll get a similar boost any time the GOP controls both Congress and the White House, not just Trump.

Historically, the stock market does best with a divided government, preventing either party from implementing their particular cockamamie schemes. From best to worst, the combinations rank this way:

1) President: Democrat, Congress: Republican
2) President: Republican, Congress: Democrat
3) President: Democrat, Congress: Democrat
4) President: Republican, Congress: Republican

Lots of information about this on the web.

But GDP growth tracks a bit differently: GDP Growth Since 1930 During Years with Unified and Divided Government

[kenberg]

PassedOut, on 2018-June-05, 10:56, said:

Historically, the stock market does best with a divided government, preventing either party from implementing their particular cockamamie schemes. From best to worst, the combinations rank this way:

1) President: Democrat, Congress: Republican
2) President: Republican, Congress: Democrat
3) President: Democrat, Congress: Democrat
4) President: Republican, Congress: Republican

Lots of information about this on the web.

But GDP growth tracks a bit differently: GDP Growth Since 1930 During Years with Unified and Divided Government

I was browsing through the graphs, mostly fot fun.
http://politicsthatw...ctancy-by-state
Minnesota has the third best life expectancy! Maybe I need to move back there. Maryland doesn't make the list of the top 13.

I am not sure I want to make too much of any of the various tables, but it is amusing that 12 of the top 13 states in life expectancy tend to Democrats and all of the 13 worst states are Republican.
A slogan: Vote Dem, Live to be 90.
Nah. probably not.
Or: Minnesota, where all the old people are above average.

[ldrews]

President Donald J. Trump Accomplishments

https://www.promiseskept.com/

[Winstonm]

Another Dennison accomplishment:

Quote

Democratic state Rep. Lauren Arthur flipped a Missouri state Senate seat on Tuesday, triumphing over Republican state Rep. Kevin Corlew by a double-digit margin in Missouri’s first special election since the resignation last month of Republican Gov. Eric Greitens.

Arthur, a former middle school teacher, is the first Democrat to win the state’s 17th Senate District seat in more than a decade, according to the Kansas City Star. She amassed 59.6 percent of the vote, compared with 40.3 percent for Corlew. It was a district that both Donald Trump and Mitt Romney had won by a 4-point margin.

[y66]

From Grifters Gonna Grift by the NYT Editorial Board:

Quote

This is shaping up to be another red-letter week for Draining the Swamp.

On Monday, Paul Manafort, President Trump’s former campaign chairman, splashed back into the news when members of the special counsel Robert Mueller’s team accused him in court papers of witness tampering. Swamp-watchers will recall that Mr. Manafort is facing a smorgasbord of charges related to tax, lobbying and money-laundering violations. Prosecutors now say that he has been using his free time while awaiting trial to try to contact some former European business associates in order to coach them into lying about his work on behalf of pro-Russia political interests in Ukraine. Mr. Manafort’s secret lobbying scheme is alleged to have been impressively elaborate — as, also, efforts to cover it up. But the straightforward phrase that leaps out from this latest court filing comes from a witness telling the F.B.I. that Mr. Manafort had tried to “suborn perjury.” Such an effort would qualify as a definite legal no-no.

Meanwhile, Scott Pruitt, head of the Environmental Protection Agency, has once again burnished his reputation as the Trump administration’s biggest grifter. On Monday, Democrats on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee asked the committee’s chairman, Representative Trey Gowdy, to subpoena the E.P.A. for documents relating to Mr. Pruitt’s “multiple abuses of authority in using agency staff for his own personal purposes.”

Specifically, Democrats want to know more about Mr. Pruitt’s reportedly asking his agency scheduler, Millan Hupp, to handle various tasks for him, including finding him a new place to live last summer — a monthslong, labor-intensive process — and trying to help him buy a used mattress from the Trump International Hotel in Washington.

The mattress caper was, at least, more exotic than Mr. Pruitt’s usual shopping misadventures — the nearly $10,000 to decorate his office, the dozen customized fountain pens for $1,560, the $43,000 soundproof phone booth. It even could be seen as a positive sign that he has abandoned his spendthrift ways. No matter: By Tuesday, Mr. Pruitt’s furnishing needs became old news when it was revealed that he had also asked an aide to help his wife, Marlyn, procure a Chick-fil-A franchise. Calls were arranged and the application process begun, but Mrs. Pruitt never did open a restaurant.

Now, as delicious as Chick-fil-A may be, using the agency’s staff to run one’s personal errands is, of course, a breach of ethics rules. Which may explain in part why, as The Washington Post reported, Mr. Pruitt took it upon himself to contact the C.E.O. of Concordia, a nonprofit in New York, to scare up work for his wife. According to its chief executive, Matthew Swift, Mrs. Pruitt received a few thousand dollars to help organize Concordia’s annual conference last year.

And so Mr. Pruitt continues to dazzle with his inventive capacity for misusing his position.

To be fair, the E.P.A. chief is hardly the only official in Washington who’s been testing ethical boundaries. Just a few days before he announced last week that he would not seek re-election, Representative Tom Garrett, a Republican from Virginia, was publicly accused by former aides of turning his staff into “personal servants.”

Likewise, Mr. Manafort is not alone in playing fast and loose with lobbying rules. One of the more enlightening aspects of his indictment, in fact, was how it revealed the extent to which the K Street crowd dismisses as a joke the Foreign Agents Registration Act, or FARA, which requires Americans lobbying on behalf of foreign entities to disclose who is paying them. Mr. Manafort’s experience prompted nervous chatter among his fellow lobbyists as to whether his high-profile case would bring greater scrutiny of, and a crackdown on, FARA abuses more broadly.

More often than not, however, such misbehavior stays in the shadows. Or, when it comes to light, it’s shrugged off as politics as usual. It takes something — or someone — pretty special to cut through the white noise of cynicism that surrounds Washington. Which is precisely what the Trump era is providing: a breathtaking, overly vivid circus of conflicts of interests, abuses of office, ethical lapses and breaches of democratic norms that has captured the public’s attention with its audacity.

Some of this stems from the Russia investigation. In examining how Mr. Trump’s inner circle operates, Mr. Mueller is uncovering all manner of questionable dealings — some of them illegal, others merely appalling.

That said, the Trump Effect extends beyond the Mueller inquiry and into the shameless, often hapless characters with whom this president surrounds himself. Let’s not forget, among others, Tom Price (private jets), John McEntee (financial crimes) or Rob Porter (spousal abuse) — and down, down the drain they go.

When candidate Trump vowed to drain the swamp, he most likely didn’t do so with the thought of targeting his own cadre of aides and advisers. But whatever his intentions, the Trump era is proving to be a master class in the many ways to abuse power — and the many ways to get busted for it.

[Winstonm]

From New Yorker: https://www.newyorke...nd-donald-trump

Quote

Coincidences do happen, but this seems to be an unlikely one. On Sunday morning, seemingly apropos of nothing, Donald Trump posted a message on Twitter that stated the following: “As only one of two people left who could become President, why wouldn’t the FBI or Department of ‘Justice’ have told me that they were secretly investigating Paul Manafort (on charges that were 10 years old and had been previously dropped) during my campaign? Should have told me!”

Even by Trump’s standards, this message seemed a bit weird. A few minutes later, the President posted another one, which said, “Paul Manafort came into the campaign very late and was with us for a short period of time (he represented Ronald Reagan, Bob Dole & many others over the years), but we should have been told that Comey and the boys were doing a number on him, and he wouldn’t have been hired!”

Trump says a lot of things on Twitter, of course. But prior to this outburst, he hadn’t talked much recently about Manafort, who made millions of dollars working as a political consultant for despots around the world and is facing trial in two federal courts on charges that include money laundering, bank fraud, and failing to disclose his U.S. lobbying work for a foreign government—all of which were brought by the special counsel, Robert Mueller. Why Trump’s sudden interest? One possible inference was that the President had somehow heard that there was more bad news coming about Manafort, and he was trying to limit some of the damage in advance of its release. If that was indeed the case, we now know the source of Trump’s concern.

In a filing made in U.S. district court, in Washington, on Monday night, Mueller’s office accused Manafort, who is out on bail, of trying to tamper with potential witnesses earlier this year, and asked a judge to consider jailing him before his trial. At this stage, obviously, we don’t know how the court will rule. But Manafort is already facing considerable pressure to coöperate with the special counsel’s investigation. If the court were to revoke his freedom, this pressure would sharply increase.

When a mainstream news source smells something curious about a Dennison tweet, smells it so strongly they publish a story about it, you have to know something is weird.

How did Dennison hear in advance about Manafort's problems?

[barmar]

ldrews, on 2018-June-06, 07:49, said:

President Donald J. Trump Accomplishments

https://www.promiseskept.com/

I really don't care about promises kept, because the things he promised were bad ideas in the first place. The majority of Americans who voted agreed with me.

[Winstonm]

Seriously, how stupid, naive, or plain childish do you have to be to believe such nonsense?

Yahoo reports:

Quote

TEL AVIV, Israel (AP) — Former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani said Wednesday that special counsel Robert Mueller's team is trying to frame President Donald Trump.

Idiotic nonsense like this "frame claim" might work with the Breitbart's and Alex Jones's crews, but those relative few is not enough support when it's all you have left.

[Winstonm]

Hmmmm. Wikileaks and the Mercers. Where have I heard those names before?

https://www.theguard...sange-wikileaks

Quote

A former director at Cambridge Analytica said she visited with WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange in February of last year at the Ecuadorian embassy in London—and told confidants that it was to discuss what happened in the U.S. election, according to a report from The Guardian. The director, Brittany Kaiser, also said she channeled cryptocurrency payments to WikiLeaks. Both entities are the subject of investigations in the U.S. and the U.K.

[Winstonm]

To gain a little perspective, the political breakdown as of Oct. 2017 looked like this:

Quote

Gallup. As of October 2017, Gallup polling found that 31% of Americans identified as Democrat, 24% identified as Republican, and 42% as Independent.

Now, concerning how much sway the Dennison "base" may make takes a little more interpretation. For example, we have this:

Quote

Of those Americans who say at least some of their information on the FBI’s investigation came from Fox News, 65 percent strongly disapproved of Mueller

Unsurprising. But there is more.

Quote

Mueller got higher approval from those watching other networks, with 60 percent of those following the investigation on CNN saying they strongly approved and 70 percent of those getting news from MSNBC giving the special counsel strong approval. Some people followed the story on multiple networks.

And this:

Quote

Most Fox News viewers ― 68 percent ― also thought that the FBI was biased against President Donald Trump, while 61 percent either had little or no trust in the FBI. (The kind of people who turn to Fox News, of course, are also probably likely to be the most suspicious of the probe to begin with: About half of the Trump voters who’ve been following the story say they’ve tuned into Fox.) More than three-quarters of Americans say they’ve heard at least something in the news lately about Mueller and the FBI’s Russia investigation ― and among that group, nearly half said at least some of their news came from cable TV.

So, it would seem to me that if even half the independent voters were placed into the Republican pile, only 65% of that total would believe Mueller and the FBI were biased against the president - so that would mean the "base" is actually more in the range of 35% of voters.

I guess we can count "conning the base" as one of his accomplishments.

[ldrews]

barmar, on 2018-June-06, 09:24, said:

I really don't care about promises kept, because the things he promised were bad ideas in the first place. The majority of Americans who voted agreed with me.

But not the electoral college, which is the vote that counts.

[johnu]

Dennison invokes War of 1812 in testy call with Trudeau over tariffs. "Didn't you guys burn down the White House?"

https://www.msn.com/...iWs7?li=BBnb7Kz

OK, so it was the British who burned the White House, but British, Canadians, Mexicans, does it make a difference, the point is it was those foreigners who don't speak American that were responsible. I give Dennison an "A" in History class for knowing about the War of 1812 and nearly being successful in using it in a real world conversation.

[Winstonm]

Oh, look, another Dennison accomplishment:

Quote

New York State Judge Jennifer Schecter, in the case, Zervos v. Trump, 150522/2017, New York Supreme Court, New York County, has rejected arguments by Trump that he is immune from litigation under the Constitution.

I am wondering how long it will be before we start hearing the cries that Dennison would have been a great president but the left treated him SO unfairly!

[Winstonm]

Lordy, I wish there were tapes. It just keeps getting weirder and weirder, with daughter of Dennison involved.

Quote

Amid intense scrutiny of contacts between Donald Trump's inner circle and representatives of Vladimir Putin, Ivanka Trump's name has barely come up. But during the campaign, she connected her father’s personal lawyer with a Russian athlete who offered to introduce Donald Trump to Putin to facilitate a 100-story Trump tower in Moscow, according to emails reviewed by BuzzFeed News and four sources with knowledge of the matter.

Quote

A spokesperson for her attorney wrote that Ivanka Trump did not know about the Trump Moscow project “until after a nonbinding letter of intent had been signed, never talked to anyone outside the Organization about the proposal, and, even internally, was only minimally involved. Her only role was limited to reminding Mr. Cohen that, should an actual deal come to fruition (which it did not) the project, like any other with the Trump name, conform with the highest design and architectural standards.”

But emails and interviews suggest that her involvement ran deeper.

Why all the continued denials of this bunch?

[kenberg]

Ivanka was Trump's daughter only for a brief period of time in the early part of the campaign and anyway it is Mueller's fault.

[ldrews]

The cognitive dissonance on this forum is amazing.

Trump was elected by a majority of the Electoral College, the only way to be elected President. That means he won the popular vote in the states with the majority of electors. This is how you do it in the "United States of America".

Two years ago Obama and the economists where telling us to get used to 2% annual GDP growth, and that those manufacturing jobs were never coming back. Today, after 18 months of Trump administration, GDP growth is approaching 5% on a quarterly basis, unemployment is at record lows, wages are rising, workers have received bonuses, businesses are making significant investments, and today it was announced that there are more jobs available than people to fill them.

ISIS is decimated, North Korea is coming to the negotiating table, troops are being withdrawn from Syria.

Major trade imbalances are being rectified by renegotiating trade agreements, Trump is tackling China head on.

Trump's Cabinet contains a black person (Dr. Ben Carson), an indian-american (Ambassador Nicki Haley), and a Taiwanese-American (Elaine Choa). Trump has appointed several women to senior executive positions, and has appointed the first gay Ambassador (to Germany). So from the direct evidence, Trump is not racist, anti-feminist, nor homophobic.

Trump's popularity continues to rise, currently between 45%-50% depending on which polls you believe. He apparently is gaining significant support among blacks (called "leaving the plantation") and hispanics. The Trump base voters continue to remain loyal. Trump's prospects for a 2nd term continue to improve.

After 18 months of investigation there is no evidence publicly available that Trump colluded with the Russians during the 2016 election, while there is ample public evidence that Hillary Clinton and the DNC did do so.

So, given all of this, exactly what is your beef with Trump?