Day 34: Frankly, We Have a Lot Right Now
Still shaking my head over Trump’s interview with Tucker Carlson. While asked about evidence supporting Trump’s claim that President Obama wiretapped him, Trump said, “Frankly, we have a lot right now.”
Bring it, buddy. And with less bullshit because frankly, we have a lot right now.
While you’re at it, bring your tax returns as evidence you’re not violating the Emoluments Clause or in bed with Russia.
Reminder: you’ve got 34 days until we expect to see a 2016 income tax return.
Non-Tax Return Stuff:
UK’s PM Theresa May denies Indy Ref 2.0 before Brexit — When you need a break from American leadership stupidity, just take a look at May. Here’s an unforced error of hubris and hypocrisy; telling the Scots they can’t have a vote to leave the UK after the UK had a vote to leave the EU is just asking for the Scots to hold a referendum on their own. Nicola Sturgeon has already rebutted, calling May’s block “undemocratic.”
Fed Chair Yellen said, “The data have not notably strengthened” after rate hike — Between increases in energy and health costs not offset by decreases in food and apparel costs, the consumer price index rose 2.7% over the last 12 months. Private sector compensation only rose 2.2% over the same period. Consumer spending has been lackluster and businesses are not investing. The post-crash boom is petering out and nothing this administration or Congress is doing will help. A billionaire can only buy so many condos and yachts to keep the economy afloat, and workers can’t buy much on their chicken feed minimum wage at part-time jobs while they have to budget for increasing health care expenses. (I should point out here that the CPI detailed report won’t be produced after June 2017 thanks to Trump’s diktats. How convenient.)
Trump tells Michigan auto workers he’s fighting for their jobs — Sure he is. This guy is fricking clueless about manufacturing (ex: Carrier in Indiana) including the automotive industry. Detroit’s cheese is being eaten by entirely new entrants who don’t worry about emissions standards and whose mileage concerns are of an entirely different nature. After decades of Detroit’s inadequate R&D sunk into battery-powered vehicles combined with vacillating leadership on the future of fossil-fueled combustion engines, Michigan’s auto industry is now battling for market share with companies like Tesla, while Tesla is already seeing new competition emerge like Lucid Motors. Tesla and Lucid are both located in the U.S. Meanwhile, Trump’s budget plans revealed today are a shiv in Michigan’s back; why live and work here if the lakes aren’t clean, schools are underfunded, mass transit is suppressed?
Dispatcher punished in Tamir Rice case — What a bunch of crap. The officer who had the ultimate final and mortal power in Tamir Rice’s case — shooting Rice in seconds after arrival at the playground — should have been criminally prosecuted. Meanwhile, a dispatcher who never saw the victim or the scene of the shooting was suspended.
I feel awful now, after reading so much about Trump and writing about that last piece. Treat this like an open thread though I can’t look in again until I do something positive to get the Trumpish off me.
Yes, May is making huge tactical errors here in response to being caught off guard by Sturgeon on Monday. The best promoters of Indy have also been dictatorial home counties Tory politicians. Lovely to watch them turn on all that tact and charm as they lecture about what they will and won’t tolerate from the bloody Celtic hinterlands.
She’s now said she’ll go on a “consensus tour”. That should be fun to watch. I’m not sure she’s capable of a political strategy other than STFU and do what you are told.
Theresa May makes Hillary Clinton seem animated. As another wag said about Clinton during the campaign, calling May robotic threatens to anthropomorphize a computer.
You nailed some of Michigan’s problems on the head. Mr. Trump’s – and the GOP’s and establishment Democrats’ – priorities actively work against the needs of Michiganders (and other Americans) not living on a CEO’s pension package, or even a former general counsel’s pension package. Like Mr. Bush, Mr. Trump seems to be buying support from corporate America by giving it what it wants. In this case, Trump is following the neoliberal playbook and allowing corporations to externalize the costs of the health, safety, and environmental damage they cause.
As with the Dutch election, the loss of votes by establishment parties – and the rise of so-called populist right-wing parties – I see as protests against the neoliberal agenda. This involves, in part, large sustained cuts in government social programs, from libraries to schools to pension and health care funds, all to subsidize business. The Dutch didn’t want Wilders as PM; they did want to send a message to establishment parties that what they’re doing is not working for them. Let’s see how this plays out shortly in France and Germany. We’re beginning to see it play out here.
“Oh what the hell, lets raise the rates anyhow. ” WTF. The economy is predicted at .9% growth and they raise rates? I’m missing something here.
Then again you can count on the Orange Turd to do something, like cut taxes for the wealthy to jump start everything. I bet they buy lots of jets and fast yachts and everyone will be happy. Not.
There’s an upside to rate increases up to the point where they create drag. By increasing the rate now under current conditions, more money will leave the stock market where it is driving volatility without any underlying reason to do so. The money will end up moving where it can be invested or loaned by banks, reducing some of the market churn.
This isn’t the so-called Orange Turd’s doing, thank fuck. Cutting taxes on the wealthy does jack for economic stimulus.
Internal Trump administration data undercuts travel ban 3/16/17 12:01pm https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/internal-trump-administration-data-undercuts-travel-ban/2017/03/16/9a2dc6b4-098e-11e7-93dc-00f9bdd74ed1_story.html
Still boggles my mind the Great Cheeto was so angry after the Hawaii decision that he couldn’t speak right away in Nashville Tuesday night — he needed a couple hours to chill out and he still shot himself in the foot by mouthing off about the decision when he spoke.
“Bring it, buddy. And with less bullshit because frankly, we have a lot right now.”
Go ahead, Dirty Donny.
Make my day!
Here’s a good summary of the situation May finds herself in after being outplayed by Sturgeon and the SNP: http://www.politics.co.uk/blogs/2017/03/16/may-just-handed-nicola-sturgeon-the-greatest-gift
The Washington Post, day late, dollar short. It is useful to report that internal government reports concede that Mr. Trump’s travel ban is unlikely to promote its publicly stated “national security” purpose. More than one federal judge has already agreed. It has been obvious to commentators on both sides of the aisle for some time.
Alienating entire national populations, and by extension the entire Muslim world, seems unlikely to make America safer. It is counterproductive for the same reason that drone-bombing a wedding party or a funeral procession, mistaking it for a meeting of insurgents because an algorithm told you so, then demeaning the deaths as imperial collateral damage does not make America safer.
Conceivably, being irrational, or making a virtue of the inescapable, is this administration’s objective. At that, it is as effective as its dismissal of its frequent cruelty with a simple, “Shit happens.”
Martin Rowson on a deflating week for Trump and the European right – cartoon:
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/picture/2017/mar/16/martin-rowson-trump-geert-wilders-cartoon
May had better be careful. There are some Scots still alive that will go Braveheart on her and the Lords.
I know Donald doesn’t do rational, even on his tax returns, but why would the global imperial power cut its Department of State’s budget by nearly 30%? Is it because most of our foreign policy already emerges from the Pentagon or the West Wing, not Foggy Bottom, and all the world knows it? Or did some junior foreign service officer once tweet that he thought Donald’s hair was fake? It can’t be about cost cutting: State already has the smallest budget of any USG department, even though the Secretary of State is so important that he’s fourth in line to succeed the president.
And not to be outdone in the irrational department, Donald wants to cut the Army Corps of Engineers and HHS over 16%. I guess we don’t need no stinking levees, epidemiologists or anti-virus experts.
Hey, Rayne, as a former Michigander with the surname Frick, may I suggest the adjective “freakin'” rather than “fricking”?
LOL my bad…though you just spawned some wicked flashbacks about a sports bar bearing the family name.
Really can’t win here — if I write “fucking,” somebody has a problem with the colorful language. If I use asterisks, somebody will complain about being chickenshit. And now this. Henceforth, I’ll avoid fricking and write fucking and anybody complaining will get put in time out. The women at this site are known potty mouths and that’s just too fucking bad if anybody doesn’t like it.
neigbor7 says:
March 16, 2017 at 7:33 pm
Hey, Rayne, as a former Michigander with the surname Frick, may I suggest the adjective “freakin’” rather than “fricking”?
Better yet fu*king. totally descriptive adjective with nothing left to the imagination here, and cannot be mistaken for someone’s surname.
I’ve long used a Munch-scream emoji f!0!, in tribute to Prince’s squeals that he recorded over the word in sanitized versions of some of his songs.