Trump Trainwreck - Ongoing diary of betrayal and evil

[pbrower2a]

(12-01-2017, 12:20 PM)David Horn Wrote:

(12-01-2017, 10:38 AM)pbrower2a Wrote: Mike Flynn is expected to plead guilty to lying to the FBI, a technicality in contrast to what he might have been charged with.

It's done.  Now to see what emerges from that.  Assume a long delay before we know.

I expect few leaks, but much damage to the Trump regime. There are bigger fish, including the Attorney General, the Vice-President, and the Royal Family.

[pbrower2a]

Well, well, well. America is about to become an absolute, pure plutocracy. Only one commodity matters now in America: asset ownership. All else means nothing. Not talent, ability, morals, or toil. America is going to go from about the tenth-best country in which to live to about the sixtieth.

If I were younger and had children I would emigrate. If one isn;t born rich one will have no chance in America except to suffer for people with great wealth and no conscience.

[rds]

(12-01-2017, 02:55 PM)pbrower2a Wrote: Well, well, well. America is about to become an absolute,  pure plutocracy. Only one commodity matters now in America: asset ownership. All else means nothing. Not talent,  ability, morals, or toil. America is going to go from about the tenth-best country in which to live to about the sixtieth.

If I were younger and had children I would emigrate. If one isn;t born rich one will have no chance in America except to suffer for people with great wealth and no conscience.

That's two of us.  It's been somewhat clear since around the time of Hurricane Katrina that this might not end up so well.  Most but not all hope is gone.  I really thought Hillary would squeak through, but that didn't happen.  What's the chances that we will see something like the slow disintegration of the US over the next 80 years, sort of like the Russians had with their crappy seculum?

And that cheery view depends upon no nuclear war, which is not looking so great at the moment.  It's pretty obvious a big war is brewing from the Mideast to most of Asia.  And another war is brewing roughly along the lines of Russia's Western border.

Good Times!

[pbrower2a]

While many of us rightly bemoan the greatest heist in American history, let us remember the old saying that the power to tax is the power to destroy.

A government that uses the tax code to punish people whose demographics suggest that they do not support the leadership has taken off on the fast track to tyranny.

I regret being an American today.

[Ragnarök_62]

(12-01-2017, 02:55 PM)pbrower2a Wrote: Well, well, well. America is about to become an absolute,  pure plutocracy. Only one commodity matters now in America: asset ownership. All else means nothing. Not talent,  ability, morals, or toil. America is going to go from about the tenth-best country in which to live to about the sixtieth.

If I were younger and had children I would emigrate. If one isn;t born rich one will have no chance in America except to suffer for people with great wealth and no conscience.

Agreed and the GOP tax rip-off is an unmitigated disaster. As a matter of fact it's a declaration of class warfare against all working people. Yeah, such a sweet deal if you're a speculator or a rentier. You get lower tax rates than folks who work. However, let it be known, that is economically unsustainable. That which is unsustainable will at some point stop. What's Corporate America to do when there's no customers? That's a problem as most of the E-shit is imported so there's not much recycling of money spent in our economy anyway. Most of the money goes to stock owners and overseas manufacturers. Debt is pretty much the only thing fueling consumer demand now. I think after a while demand will collapse and take the economy with it if policy does not change. And... the Neoliberal privatize everything is a gift that just keeps giving, man.

Hello Flint, you have a buddy that also went through the privatize everything Neoliberal song.
http://www.pgh2o.com/lead-facts


So yeah right, the private sector does everything right, bullshit!
https://www.wired.com/2016/10/pittsburgh...ated-lead/

Those CEOs belong in prison, now.

So , there you go. The Republicans have a vision alright,
#MAGA Make America Gilded Again.  With all the worker abuse and pollution to go with it. 

So, let the fireworks begin. I hope the economy crashes and takes Der Trumpenfurfur and his merry gang of GOP fuckwits with him.

[pbrower2a]

A reminder:



Less than one year, and at my last count I see three plea bargains which each involve an indictment and a conviction,  and one indictment with the accused under house arrest. No prison sentences yet.

He's way ahead of Nixon at this stage.

...if you count only the illegal stuff, President Obama looks like the biggest do-nothing as President ever!

[Eric the Green]

(12-03-2017, 04:27 AM)Ragnarök_62 Wrote:

(12-01-2017, 02:55 PM)pbrower2a Wrote: Well, well, well. America is about to become an absolute,  pure plutocracy. Only one commodity matters now in America: asset ownership. All else means nothing. Not talent,  ability, morals, or toil. America is going to go from about the tenth-best country in which to live to about the sixtieth.

If I were younger and had children I would emigrate. If one isn;t born rich one will have no chance in America except to suffer for people with great wealth and no conscience.

Agreed and the GOP tax rip-off is an unmitigated disaster. As a matter of fact it's a declaration of class warfare against all working people. Yeah, such a sweet deal if you're a speculator or a rentier. You get lower tax rates than folks who work. However, let it be known, that is economically unsustainable. That which is unsustainable will at some point stop. What's Corporate America to do when there's no customers? That's a problem as most of the E-shit is imported so there's not much recycling of money spent in our economy anyway. Most of the money goes to stock owners and overseas manufacturers. Debt is pretty much the only thing fueling consumer demand now. I think after a while demand will collapse and take the economy with it if policy does not change. And... the Neoliberal privatize everything is a gift that just keeps giving, man.

Hello Flint, you have a buddy that also went through the privatize everything Neoliberal song.
http://www.pgh2o.com/lead-facts


So yeah right, the private sector does everything right, bullshit!
https://www.wired.com/2016/10/pittsburgh...ated-lead/

Those CEOs belong in prison, now.

So , there you go. The Republicans have a vision alright,
#MAGA Make America Gilded Again.  With all the worker abuse and pollution to go with it. 

So, let the fireworks begin. I hope the economy crashes and takes Der Trumpenfurfur and his merry gang of GOP fuckwits with him.

Nice to see you back, and of course I completely agree with the above.

[pbrower2a]

Speculators do not create wealth. Rentiers do not create wealth. They can only grab what there is.

[rds]

(12-03-2017, 04:27 AM)Ragnarök_62 Wrote: So , there you go. The Republicans have a vision alright,
#MAGA Make America Gilded Again.  With all the worker abuse and pollution to go with it. 

So, let the fireworks begin. I hope the economy crashes and takes Der Trumpenfurfur and his merry gang of GOP fuckwits with him.

The only things they specialize in are cruelty, stinginess and hypocrisy.  The sooner this pack of animals masquerading as men are thrown on the dustbin of history the better.

[David Horn]

(12-04-2017, 12:01 PM)rds Wrote:

(12-03-2017, 04:27 AM)Ragnarök_62 Wrote: So , there you go. The Republicans have a vision alright,
#MAGA Make America Gilded Again.  With all the worker abuse and pollution to go with it. 

So, let the fireworks begin. I hope the economy crashes and takes Der Trumpenfurfur and his merry gang of GOP fuckwits with him.

The only things they specialize in are cruelty, stinginess and hypocrisy.  The sooner this pack of animals masquerading as men are thrown on the dustbin of history the better.

Don't assume anything.  We may be in this for a lot longer than we think.  2018 will tell a lot of tales.  If the vote leans heavily white. male and older, it will prove that we learned nothing.  Worse, we're already inured to a level of bad behavior we haven't witnessed since the ACW.

[Ragnarök_62]

(12-04-2017, 02:47 PM)David Horn Wrote:

(12-04-2017, 12:01 PM)rds Wrote:

(12-03-2017, 04:27 AM)Ragnarök_62 Wrote: So , there you go. The Republicans have a vision alright,
#MAGA Make America Gilded Again.  With all the worker abuse and pollution to go with it. 

So, let the fireworks begin. I hope the economy crashes and takes Der Trumpenfurfur and his merry gang of GOP fuckwits with him.

The only things they specialize in are cruelty, stinginess and hypocrisy.  The sooner this pack of animals masquerading as men are thrown on the dustbin of history the better.

Don't assume anything.  We may be in this for a lot longer than we think.  2018 will tell a lot of tales.  If the vote leans heavily white. male and older, it will prove that we learned nothing.  Worse, we're already inured to a level of bad behavior we haven't witnessed since the ACW.

True enough on what thing[s] will herald the coming of shore of the 2nd half of the 4T hurricane. I chose economic crash because it is the least worst thing and stawks are too damn high!  In select locations , well. because...






But yeah, there's way too many things we're doing that ain't sustainable.

I really don't think the world's population can stay as high as it is, let alone get any bigger. Earth'll do what earth'll do.  The same as it always was, war, famine, and pestilence reduce our population if we don't do it voluntarily.

Pollution. With Der Trumphenfurfur and our very own from Oklahoma , Scott Pruitt .

I just wonder how long it will be before I see flammable rivers.

Or we can go back to around 1970 and have this again, [ Current Day Delhi India ]

Here's   a roach in the MIC.  The other roaches are aircraft carriers are defunct against large powers now, scraping the bottom of the barrel wrt recruits.  Yes, if you smoked weed or have assorted mental conditions, luck you, join right up. I see the egg case as the MIC is mired in bureaucracy, defense contractor bribes and lobbies, turf protection, and it's too big. It's beyond reform and needs to be restructured.  <- Fat Chance.

[pbrower2a]

(12-04-2017, 02:47 PM)David Horn Wrote:

(12-04-2017, 12:01 PM)rds Wrote:

(12-03-2017, 04:27 AM)Ragnarök_62 Wrote: So , there you go. The Republicans have a vision alright,
#MAGA Make America Gilded Again.  With all the worker abuse and pollution to go with it. 

So, let the fireworks begin. I hope the economy crashes and takes Der Trumpenfurfur and his merry gang of GOP fuckwits with him.

The only things they specialize in are cruelty, stinginess and hypocrisy.  The sooner this pack of animals masquerading as men are thrown on the dustbin of history the better.

Don't assume anything.  We may be in this for a lot longer than we think.  2018 will tell a lot of tales.  If the vote leans heavily white. male and older, it will prove that we learned nothing.  Worse, we're already inured to a level of bad behavior we haven't witnessed since the ACW.

Indeed the only sure lesson of history is that corrupt elites do everything possible to entrench themselves in power and, to the extent possible, either corrupt their possible competition or opponents or obliterate those opponents. That is why rebels were broken at the wheel and witches were burned at the stake. The usual command of an oppressor is "Suffer for me, or die horribly!"

I can see the current bare majority in power in America resorting to mass murder to keep their economic and political power. They have crossed into the zone of infamy. That is why Stalin's courts so readily issued the sentence "ten years without the right of correspondence". The person receiving such a sentence was quickly shot with no ceremony or appeal. He certainly never corresponded with anyone after that, did he?

This President better resembles infamous dictators than any prior President of the United States in practice. This Crisis could give us an America with torture chambers, concentration camps, and sites of mass killings. This President better resembles Slobodan Milosevic or Ferdinand Marcos than any prior President of the United States. He4 admires dictators -- not even conservative leaders like Reagan or Thatcher.

[pbrower2a]

P.S. -- our tycoons and executives are no better than the ones who supported Hitler because he promised them that he would destroy unions, support monopolistic business, and restart the lucrative war production.

[pbrower2a]

the source
[/url]
[url=https://www.google.com/search?q=trump+and+fourteen+signs+of+fascism&client=firefox-b-1&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjOtI7IrPPXAhVJKiYKHQ0HCDwQsAQIXg&biw=1360&bih=656#imgrc=6NPwiBkZWLdY9M:]

[rds]

(12-05-2017, 11:58 AM)pbrower2a Wrote: Indeed the only sure lesson of history is that corrupt elites do everything possible to entrench themselves in power and, to the extent possible, either corrupt their possible competition or opponents or obliterate those opponents. That is why rebels were broken at the wheel and witches were burned at the stake. The usual command of an oppressor is "Suffer me, or die horribly!"

I can see the current bare majority in power in America resorting to mass murder to keep their economic and political power. They have crossed into the zone of infamy. That is why Stalin's courts so readily issued the sentence "ten years without the right of correspondence". The person receiving such a sentence was quickly shot with no ceremony or appeal. He certainly never corresponded with anyone after that, did he?

This President better resembles infamous dictators than any prior President of the United States in practice. This Crisis could give us an America with torture chambers, concentration camps, and sites of mass killings. This President better resembles Slobodan Milosevic or Ferdinand Marcos than any prior President of the United States. He4 admires dictators -- not even conservative leaders like Reagan or Thatcher.

What amazes me is that the attitude of "it can't happen here" is so firmly into the psyche that most people I talk to just give me a dumb look when I say things can get much worse.   Everyone knows the barbarity of the Nazi's and most know about Pol Pot, but they can't adjust their thinking to see it could happen here, all too soon.  This is why objectifying people is so self destructive, most Americans here would read your statement about the death camps, and think you were bonkers, because they 'know' the German people of the '20s and the Khmer Rouge were just animals.  Just this morning there's a report out that Trump wants to set up a private intelligence service with his old bud Erik Prince.  I can't decide if they'll mutate into 'right wing death squads' or a new Praetorian Guard.  Either way, not good.

[pbrower2a]

(12-05-2017, 01:44 PM)rds Wrote:

(12-05-2017, 11:58 AM)pbrower2a Wrote: Indeed the only sure lesson of history is that corrupt elites do everything possible to entrench themselves in power and, to the extent possible, either corrupt their possible competition or opponents or obliterate those opponents. That is why rebels were broken at the wheel and witches were burned at the stake. The usual command of an oppressor is "Suffer (for) me, or die horribly!"

I can see the current bare majority in power in America resorting to mass murder to keep their economic and political power. They have crossed into the zone of infamy. That is why Stalin's courts so readily issued the sentence "ten years without the right of correspondence". The person receiving such a sentence was quickly shot with no ceremony or appeal. He certainly never corresponded with anyone after that, did he?

This President better resembles infamous dictators than any prior President of the United States in practice. This Crisis could give us an America with torture chambers, concentration camps, and sites of mass killings. This President better resembles Slobodan Milosevic or Ferdinand Marcos than any prior President of the United States. He4 admires dictators -- not even conservative leaders like Reagan or Thatcher.

What amazes me is that the attitude of "it can't happen here" is so firmly into the psyche that most people I talk to just give me a dumb look when I say things can get much worse.   Everyone knows the barbarity of the Nazi's and most know about Pol Pot, but they can't adjust their thinking to see it could happen here, all too soon.  This is why objectifying people is so self destructive, most Americans here would read your statement about the death camps, and think you were bonkers, because they 'know' the German people of the '20s and the Khmer Rouge were just animals.  Just this morning there's a report out that Trump wants to set up a private intelligence service with his old bud Erik Prince.  I can't decide if they'll mutate into 'right wing death squads' or a new Praetorian Guard.  Either way, not good.

We had slavery and Jim Crow.

Last night I saw Frontline on PBS, covering the 'patriot' takeover  of a wildlife refuge in Oregon. In the footage, Cliven Bundy (one of the leaders) dropped the suggestion that blacks were happier as slaves actually producing things than collecting welfare.

(No, blacks are much happier when they are getting honest pay for honest work, as is true of just about any identifiable group of people!)

Cliven Bundy and his kind are close to being fascists, anyway.

We have small groups who believe in Nazi-like ideologies, including Ku Kluxism. We have a heritage of Big Business forming private militias to suppress union organization with murderous violence.

OK. The Germans (including Austrians, if you wish) are a sophisticated and cultured people whose achievements in  literature are essential to the great corpus of Western civilization. Considering the Germans and Austrians alone one has Schutz, Bach, Handel, Telemann, Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert, Wagner, Bruckner, Brahms, the Strauss family, Mahler (Czech Jews were culturally German), Richard Strauss, Reger, Hindemith, and Stockhausen. Liszt was ethnically German, and Bartok had a German mother.  Although mathematics, science and technology are not quite culture, Germany had impressive achievements in both.

So how does a country give the world Bach, Goethe, Euler, and Planck, but fall for Hitler? Mediocrities and worse intellectually who fall for a demagogue, and rapacious plutocrats who decide that they want complete power over working people. Hitler appealed to greed of elites and the resentments of people in economic distress. We Americans are no better just for being Americans. Before someone talks about religiosity in America, right-wing Christianity has shown through its support of pedophile Roy Moore that America has plenty of vipers claiming to be Christians.

It would be foolish to confuse the Republican Party, which used to be clearly for democratic norms and the rule of law and free from religious bigotry, with the Nazi Party, which always showed contempt for democracy and the Jews. There has never been an equivalent of the Beer-Hall Putsch in the history of the Republican Party. Likewise, anyone who confuses Trump to Hitler has gone off the deep end. To be sure, Hitler began bad and became horrific, which Trump may get no chance to do. To be sure, both Trump and Hitler represent reckless, cynical demagogues, which is dangerous enough in itself. If anything we Americans are in more danger of a Pinochet-like caudillo taking over in the name of rescuing America from the dangers of democracy gone awry than we are of Trump becoming a full-blown fascist dictator.

But enough Americans did fall for a demagogue, the most dangerous figure in democratic societies short of a puppet of a foreign power. Trump is the symptom, and not the disease. Too  many American are simply too gullible to perform the one act needed in a democracy if one is to participate in that democracy. Trump could unwittingly prepare Americans for a left-wing demagogue, which is no better.

Oh, yes -- private, politicized militias responsible to no formal government are a great bane of democracy, whether Mussolini's Black Shirts, the SA and SS in Germany before Hitler took power, the Klan and similar groups at any time in American history, the Croatian Ustase, the Hungarian Arrow Cross, or the Romanian Iron Guard. If one thinks that the Left is incapable of harm with private, politicized militias not responsible to formal government, consider that the Communist-dominated Action Committees in Czechoslovakia facilitated the Communist coup of 1948 in Czechoslovakia. Blackwater or its successor operating unchecked in America? Good grief!

[pbrower2a]

In that episode Frontline I noticed that one blue baseball cap with the words "Make America Great Again". The Trump cap is of course in red,

If anyone has any question that the slogan has a fascistic or reactionary connotation, then this so suggests powerfully'

[Eric the Green]

https://shareblue.com/unemployment-is-ri...s.facebook

Unemployment is rising in swing states that voted for Trump
By Tommy Christopher |
DECEMBER 18, 2017

People in the states that narrowly delivered Trump's tainted electoral victory are finding out just how empty his promises were.

In addition to all the help Donald Trump got from Russia, he was propelled to an electoral victory by the narrowest of margins in key “Rust Belt” states, where he promised to bring back jobs that everyone else knew were never coming back.

Now, with his first year in office nearly complete, people in those states are learning the hard truth about Trump’s promises.

West Wing Report’s Paul Brandus notes that unemployment is on the rise in four out of five Rust Belt states that went for Trump, even as workforce participation has declined:
18 Dec

West Wing Reports
✔
@WestWingReport
Surprise: Rust Belt unemployment on the rise#Indiana: 3.9% (was 3.0% in June)#Michigan: 4.5% (3.7% in June)#Ohio: 5.1% (was 4.9% in May)#Wisconsin: 3.4% (was 3.1% in June)
only bright spot: #Pennsylvania. current 4.7% is low point#Jobs http://Bls.gov

West Wing Reports
✔
@WestWingReport
Unemployment rates typically rise when more people enter the labor force (and are thus counted in monthly data), but in the five Rust Belt states mentioned in previous tweet -IN, MI, OH, WI, PA- the aggregate labor force has SHRUNK by 107,000 in recent months. Folks dropping out
6:43 AM - Dec 18, 2017
18 18 Replies 328 328 Retweets 391 391 likes

Even in that one “bright spot” of Pennsylvania, job growth has been significantly slower this year than in the comparable period in 2016. Pennsylvania added over 40,000 jobs between February and October during President Barack Obama’s last year in office, compared to 23,500 under Trump (source: BLS.gov):

These results may come as a surprise to people who voted for Trump in these states, but the emptiness of Trump’s jobs rhetoric has been obvious since before he was inaugurated, when he bragged about saving jobs at Indiana HVAC manufacturer Carrier.
Despite then-Gov. Mike Pence using taxpayer dollars to bribe Carrier with millions in tax benefits, Carrier wound up killing or moving over a thousand jobs. Trump’s first year in office has seen the loss or outsourcing of nearly a quarter of a million jobs.

That trend doesn’t figure to reverse itself anytime soon, especially if Republicans pass their tax scam. CEOs have already made it clear that they won’t use the benefits to hire more workers or raise wages, and even the Trump administration admits that the plan’s fictional job benefits are conveniently 10 years away.

Trump has long tried to take credit for Obama’s economy, but the facts are catching up to him. Voters in those Rust Belt states will surely follow.


AUTHOR
Freelance Political Writer
Tommy Christopher
Former White House correspondent and politics reporter for AOL, The Daily Banter, and Mediaite, and a longtime liberal journalist and commentator. Follow Tommy on Twitter @Tommyxtopher.

[Eric the Green]

The 12 Months of Trump

1,703,264 Views
George Takei Presents added a new episode.
December 24 at 7:24pm ·
It's been quite the year.

via Newsy News

[pbrower2a]

President Donald Trump on Wednesday offered a fiery response to bombshell reports that Steve Bannon, his former chief strategist, had accused the president of meeting with Russian operatives after Donald Trump Jr.’s meeting with them at Trump Tower in June 2016.

“Steve Bannon has nothing to do with me or my Presidency,” Trump said Wednesday in a statement. “When he was fired, he not only lost his job, he lost his mind.”

The statement continued: “Now that he is on his own, Steve is learning that winning isn’t as easy as I make it look.”


Bannon was quoted by author Michael Wolff ― whose tell-all book about the White House is set for release on Jan. 9 ― as saying there was “zero” chance Trump didn’t know about his eldest son and son-in-law Jared Kushner meeting with Russian operatives. Bannon also called the meeting “treasonous” and “bad shit.”

A preview of the new book published in New York magazine on Wednesday offered stunning details about the chaos that has reigned at the White House since Trump took office. In the piece, Wolff claims that many people in Trump’s inner circle did not think he would win the 2016 election ― and that, indeed, few even wanted him to.
[/url]
[url=https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/donald-trump-steve-bannon_us_5a4d200ce4b0b0e5a7aa6f15]It isn't getting any prettier. Huffington Post - source.