U.S. Politics: One NothingBurger with 100% Mos-Cow, Side of Orange Slices and a Banana Daiquiri, Please

[OldGimletEye]

I’d imagine the Republican Party would go apeshit.

https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/7/11/15950664/trump-jr-russia-meeting-clinton

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Imagine the names were different.

Imagine Chelsea Clinton had taken Bill Clinton and campaign chair John Podesta to a meeting set up by a Chinese government intermediary who claimed to have damaging information about Donald Trump’s tax returns and said over email they were willing to share the information in a bid to defeat Trump.

 

..............................

There is the conservative version of events. And then there is the reality based community’s version of events.

And if they ever meet, it’s pure coincidence.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2017/07/10/republicans-say-medicaid-is-broken-heres-how-the-people-it-covers-feel/

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But as Republicans feverishly work to revise a health-care bill that would trigger deep cuts to the program over time, a massive new survey reveals that people enrolled in Medicaid rate their health care pretty high.

On a scale of 0 ("the worst health care possible") to 10 ("the best health care possible"), more than 270,000 people covered by Medicaid in 46 states rated their health care at an average of 7.9, according to an analysis in the journal JAMA Internal Medicine. That's just slightly worse than how Medicare enrollees rated their health care — and not far behind how privately insured patients feel about their coverage.

.................................................

Krugman’s review of conservative “thinkers”.

https://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2017/07/09/when-was-the-golden-age-of-conservative-intellectuals/

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William F. Buckley is a problematic icon. Surely one needs to mention his spirited defense of white supremacy in the South, and National Review’s weird infatuation with Generalissimo Francisco Franco. I’d also note that while God and Man at Yale castigated my alma mater for its downgrading of religion, he seemed equally dismayed by the fact that it was teaching Keynesian economics — you know, the stuff that has been so thoroughly vindicated these past few years.

Also, I’ll add, that God and Man at Yale, I do believe, was largely about restricting academic freedom so as to teach Buckley’s “truth”, even though everyone else’s truth was the Great Depression and having to deal with people like Buckley.

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In macroeconomics, there’s no question that Milton Friedman and, initially, Robert Lucas performed a useful service by challenging the case for policy activism, especially fiscal activism. Circa 1976 the track record of Chicago macroeconomics was impressive indeed.

Lucas might have been a very good mathematical economist. But, you know, when your theories lead you to believe that aggregate demand shortfalls aren’t a problem, even though history, says otherwise, there’s a problem.

He may have made some important contributions, but I say his influence is mixed at best. For one he put the whole profession in a methodological straitjacket (microfoundations only). And his methodology was suspect. Now OGE is highly influenced by people like Clower, Leijonhufvud, Malinvaud etc. so Lucas’ neoWalrasian project was suspect from the get (though it won in the 1970s largely) causing Lucas later to pull a few things out of his ass to explain why money matters.

Also, tried to create a “conservative safe space” by saying the economics profession should ignore issues of wealth inequality. Luckily, people are now starting to ignore his advice.

Called the well respected Christina Romer a fraud. For the most part Lucas can take a hike. Though he did endorse Hillary over Trump.

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So when was the golden age of conservative intellectuals? Actually, there never was one. Certainly, the supposed era in which only conservatives had all the interesting ideas while liberals rehashed tired dogma never happened in any field I know well. That said, there was a period when conservatives contributed some useful stuff to the discourse. But that era ended a long, long time ago.

Yup.

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Yeah, “just in time scheduling” is a really shitty practice.

https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/7/10/15924644/oregon-fair-workweek-law

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In the next upcoming battle for workers’ rights, activists aren’t asking for more money or more time off. They just want workers to get a little advance notice about what their schedule will be.

 

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

9 hours ago, dmc515 said:

I don't envy the mental gymnastics and, as you mentioned above, changing of the goal posts Trump defenders have to continue to engage in.  However, anyone one that says this is "standard practice" for campaigns has no idea WTF they're talking about.

It's a shame you didn't become a regular poster earlier on in the campaign. @Altherion's gymnastics back then were a lot more..........interesting. By comparison, now he's rather resigned to the fact that Trump is an absolute disaster.  

[Fez]

Don Jr. just posted a statement and the entire email chain to twitter. 

 

I'm not sure if his account got hacked or if he's a complete idiot. It confirms everything in the NYT's story.

ETA: Its always possible I guess that he knows he's finished and is trying to make sure Kushner gets brought down with him.

[Red Tiger]

2 hours ago, Tywin et al. said:

It's a shame you didn't become a regular poster earlier on in the campaign. @Altherion's gymnastics back then were a lot more..........interesting. By comparison, now he's rather resigned to the fact that Trump is an absolute disaster.  

Ah good times. The Social Darwinism was in full effect.

[Mexal]

12 minutes ago, Fez said:

Don Jr. just posted a statement and the entire email chain to twitter. 

 

I'm not sure if his account got hacked or if he's a complete idiot. It confirms everything in the NYT's story.

ETA: Its always possible I guess that he knows he's finished and is trying to make sure Kushner gets brought down with him.

Yea, "This is obviously very high level and sensitive information but is part of Russia and its government’s support for Mr. Trump."

I mean, that does it right? The crown prosecutor of Russia giving information and it's clear in the email that he's trying to get information from the Russian government who supports Trump. How can anyone argue otherwise at this point, especially after the lied over and over?

[Trebla]

12 minutes ago, Fez said:

Don Jr. just posted a statement and the entire email chain to twitter. 

 

I'm not sure if his account got hacked or if he's a complete idiot. It confirms everything in the NYT's story.

ETA: Its always possible I guess that he knows he's finished and is trying to make sure Kushner gets brought down with him.

I always assumed Eric Trump was the Fredo Corleone of the Trump family but it appears as if there are TWO Fredos. I wonder if this is a message to the Mueller camp that he's ready to talk in exchange for immunity?

[Fez]

16 minutes ago, Trebla said:

I always assumed Eric Trump was the Fredo Corleone of the Trump family but it appears as if there are TWO Fredos. I wonder if this is a message to the Mueller camp that he's ready to talk in exchange for immunity?

As someone on twitter (maybe Josh Barro?) pointed out a while ago, the problem with the 'Fredo' analogy is that it would mean there's a Michael Corleone somewhere in the Trump family. And that does not seem to be the case.

I'd also heard that the main reason Eric is at the Trump business is to keep an eye on Don Jr. But I don't know if that means Eric is actually more competent or if this is a really a Bluth Family analogy and Eric is like G.o.b Bluth keeping an eye on the construction business.

[drawkcabi]

It's quite depressing but all too believable how Trump's supporters can stand firm in denial, devalue the first amendment, and pretty much betray their country all over loyalty to their guy, and maybe the worst of it is their guy is as trashy, repugnant, tactless, and undignified as one can get. 

[Mexal]

So if Trump Jr is releasing these, what else is out there that is worse? There has to be something right? They haven't been at all transparent up until this point but suddenly they are? I don't buy that.

[OldGimletEye]

But wait, I thought the Orange One had a healthcare plan ready to go. It was based on buying insurance across state lines or something.

So there was no plan? No way, I don't believe it? I can't believe that Trump nor the Republican Party never had a serious plan.
http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/mike-pence-voices-support-radical-health-care-alternative

Quote

Donald Trump published a tweet two weeks ago in which he said he supports a repeal-and-delay model in which Congress immediately repeals the Affordable Care Act, and then figures out a replacement model at some point down the road. Yesterday, Rush Limbaugh asked Mike Pence if he’s on board with such an approach, and the vice president, after dismissing the idea of bipartisan policymaking out of hand, replied:

Guess Pence was looking for the Republican Party's leader for approval. That great conservative thinker Rush Limbaugh.

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Quite right. As regular readers may recall, the CBO found back in January – when “repeal an delay” was widely seen as the preferred Republican approach – that a full repeal along the lines of what Pence described yesterday, would cause premiums to spike and would take health coverage from 32 million Americans over the next decade.

Guess that's why Pence likes it.

[drawkcabi]

7 minutes ago, Fez said:

As someone on twitter (maybe Josh Barro?) pointed out a while ago, the problem with the 'Fredo' analogy is that it would mean there's a Michael Corleone somewhere in the Trump family. And that does not seem to be the case.

I'd also heard that the main reason Eric is at the Trump business is to keep an eye on Don Jr. But I don't know if that means Eric is actually more competent or if this is a really a Bluth Family analogy and Eric is like G.o.b Bluth keeping an eye on the construction business.

I think Ivanka quite well fits the "Michael" mold. But to jumble the analogy further, Vito is not Trump, but Trump's father and instead of Michael being Vito's son s/he was the grandchild. Trump is Sonny. That's who's running the fucking country.

[Ice Queen]

12 hours ago, The Anti-Targ said:

Never heard of the book. Probably would be an interesting read. Alas I will probably never get a chance to prioritise it for reading.

Apparently the Russians used it as a textbook for the their military. It's not available in English anyway, or at least it wasn't a few years ago. Sorry, I shouldn't have given you that impression. I have a friend who is a native Russian speaker and he translated it for several of us who were interested and I never forgot it. He left Russia about 20 years ago and doesn't pull any punches about his views on Putin. 

Long story short--Russia is in it for the long haul. They're not messing around and Putin knows exactly what he's doing. He can't wage a direct war against the US and western Europe, so he needed a useful idiot to erode our institutions from within. Mission accomplished.

One of the strategies discussed in the book was getting the UK to leave the EU. Mission accomplished. 

Annexing Crimea and Ukraine was another. Again, mission accomplished. 

If you read up on Dugin, that'll tell you all you need to know. 

 

[Fez]

11 minutes ago, drawkcabi said:

I think Ivanka quite well fits the "Michael" mold. But to jumble the analogy further, Vito is not Trump, but Trump's father and instead of Michael being Vito's son s/he was the grandchild. Trump is Sonny. That's who's running the fucking country.

Ivanka absolutely seems smarter than her brothers or her husband, but that's an extremely low bar and we haven't actually seen any evidence that she's particularly capable either.

Honestly, Tiffany may be the smartest one of them all; she's managed to stay the hell away from all of this.

[Ice Queen]

14 hours ago, mcbigski said:

Lolz to all the Russians under the bed.  They are doing what they can to make lemonade after Trump's election, and the Dem/media establishment are of course useful idiots as per usual.

As Sec of State Clinton was a joke wrt to Russia and the reset button.  Bill got fat donations for the Clinton Foundation and Podesta got millions in Russian bank stocks.  And after co-opting successfully a known quantity, who rationally can think that Putin would prefer Trump, who is in favor of more energy production, which strikes at the heart of Russia's economy?  It's all just more Dem/media posturing, disinformation, fake news, and sour grapes. 

Because Putin, like Trump, can't let anything go. Clinton condemned the voting results in 2011 and he never forgave her for it. He hates her, and would have done anything to see her lose. He said that she was trying to have him overthrown and accused his opponents of being financed by the US. 

You really think he wanted her as president? 

[DMC]

2 hours ago, Tywin et al. said:

It's a shame you didn't become a regular poster earlier on in the campaign. @Altherion's gymnastics back then were a lot more..........interesting. By comparison, now he's rather resigned to the fact that Trump is an absolute disaster.  

Sorry I missed that?  Doubt I am in actuality, but I do recall a few delightfully outlandish things when I visited on occasion.

2 minutes ago, Fez said:

Ivanka absolutely seems smarter than her brothers or her husband, but that's an extremely low bar and we haven't actually seen any evidence that she's particularly capable either.

Honestly, Tiffany may be the smartest one of them all; she's managed to stay the hell away from all of this.

Yeah in terms of intelligence I have a hard time equating any of the Trumps with even Sonny, let alone Michael.  Probably the only remotely appropriate analogy is Melania to the mother - just stays quiet and out of it.

[all swedes are racist]

they're all motherfucking fredos

[DMC]

2 minutes ago, commiedore said:

they're all motherfucking fredos

Except ya actually felt bad for Fredo.

[Mexal]

16 minutes ago, Crazy Cat Lady in Training said:

Because Putin, like Trump, can't let anything go. Clinton condemned the voting results in 2011 and he never forgave her for it. He hates her, and would have done anything to see her lose. He said that she was trying to have him overthrown and accused his opponents of being financed by the US. 

You really think he wanted her as president? 

Yea, Putin blamed her for stoking the fires of the protests of that 2011 election. It was at that moment that the Russian reset failed. He hated Clinton so much.

[OldGimletEye]

9 minutes ago, dmc515 said:

Yeah in terms of intelligence I have a hard time equating any of the Trumps with even Sonny, let alone Michael.  Probably the only remotely appropriate analogy is Melania to the mother - just stays quiet and out of it.

Me thinks the Orange One has Fredo's brains with Sonny's temperament.

[Which Tyler]

1 hour ago, Trebla said:

I always assumed Eric Trump was the Fredo Corleone of the Trump family but it appears as if there are TWO Fredos. I wonder if this is a message to the Mueller camp that he's ready to talk in exchange for immunity?

Aren't you supposed to do that BEFORE you squeal (like a pig)?

And... aren't mob lawyers supposed to know how to barter for immunity, and how to take the 5th?