US Politics: Follow the Money!

[drawkcabi]

1 hour ago, Pony Empress Jace said:

To be fair, every other week there's a high profile 'What Trump Voters Feel' piece somewhere. Nobody gives a fuck how the people who want equality feel.

Except for channels like MSNBC and CNN, papers like The Washington Post and The New York Times, news sites like The Huffinton Post and Salon, Radio like NPR, YouTube Channels like The Young Turks and GQ, film makers like Michael Moore, Mark Ruffalo, Alexandra Pelosi, and Barry Jenkins, Politicians like John Lewis and Kamala Harris, TV shows like Vice, Wyatt Cenac's Problem Areas, The Daily Show, Real Time with Bill Maher, The View, The Talk, Jimmy Kimmel, Stephen Colbert, Ellen DeGeneres, Oprah Whinfrey...

And I like much of what I listed above and very glad we have it, my only point is that people who want equality are getting their voices heard and people are taking to heart what they say, not enough, but far from nobody caring. Whether the left side or the right side is heard more, yeah it's probably the right right now but it is debatable.

[DireWolfSpirit]

Israel unrestrained-

I like the ring to this, looks like a good read- 

"Jesus Was A Palestinian" is a critical analysis of the Bible set against the historical, archaeological and the political background of the Hebrew people both past and present, in the ever changing landscape of the Middle East. ... Google Books

 

Originally published: September 12, 2015

Author: Katherine Frisk

 

 

[OldGimletEye]

Donald Trump: American Aerys

http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/white-house-thanks-trump-we-are-now-respected-feared-and-loved

Quote

Deputy White House Press Secretary Hogan Gidley has developed something of a reputation for delivering notable quotes. In February, for example, a day after the Justice Department brought criminal charges against Russian operatives who attacked our democracy, Gidley seemed eager to defend the Russians, saying it’s Democrats and American journalists who were actually responsible for creating “chaos.”

It was around this time that the president’s deputy press secretary also described Trump as “a real-life Superman.”

Over the weekend, Gidley presented us with a new gem.

“We are now respected, we are now feared, we are now loved because of this president. He has good relationships with our partners and allies. In fact, I would even argue they’re stronger.”

Stronger than what, he didn’t say, though I suppose Gidley probably meant U.S. relationships with “our partners and allies” have improved as compared to the Obama era.

The trouble, of course, is that reality keeps getting in the way.

If Cersei Lannister and Curly Howard had a love child, I'd imagine it would come out as Donald Trump.

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

Yes, conservative sorts of people there is a very strong case for the government to negotiate drug prices.

And your conservative self says, "but, but, won't that interfere with the free market!".

But, the thing is that there is no free market when it comes to pharmaceuticals. Or at least there isn't one that fits the purely competitive model of your conservative imaginations.

The patent system makes the purely competitive model inapplicable to the market for pharmaceutical drugs. 

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/12/opinion/whats-good-for-pharma-isnt-good-for-america-wonkish.html

Quote

So Donald Trump broke another promise: he did not, after all, empower Medicare to negotiate lower drug prices. Instead he (and Michael Cohen, who definitely isn’t his bagman) took money from drug lobbyists, appointed them to key positions, and announced a plan that sent drug stocks soaring. I’m sure you’re shocked.

But promise-breaking aside, would introducing a policy of bargaining drug prices down have been good for America? Actually, yes.

 

Quote

Let’s start with where things are right now. After a drug company gets a patent, it has a temporary monopoly on sales of its drug. So its situation looks like that of a standard monopolist, as shown in Figure 1:

 

[LongRider]

4 hours ago, Pony Empress Jace said:

To be fair, every other week there's a high profile 'What Trump Voters Feel' piece somewhere. Nobody gives a fuck how the people who want equality feel.

No shit!  I'm sick of NPR profiling those dumbshits!  

 

3 hours ago, Sword of Doom said:

Bingo. 

Bingo is right, their man won now could they just sit down and stfu please!

[A Horse Named Stranger]

56 minutes ago, OldGimletEye said:

“We are now respected, we are now feared, we are now loved because of this president. He has good relationships with our partners and allies. In fact, I would even argue they’re stronger.”

I think that might be caused by a German accent. You know ze Germans and the th-sound. Loved, loathed. I can see where the misunderstandings comes from.

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

I left for my family’s cabin Thursday after work, and got home late last night just in time to watch the Warriors cave the Rockets’ heads in, and let me get this straight:

(i) Gambling on sports is now legal, or at least the path to making it legal is now cleared

(ii) Trump advocated for Chinese workers

(iii) Then Trump’s development deal got a half billion dollar investment from China

(iv) Israel just said screw it and killed over 50 protestors

The hell is going on here?!?!?

[Morpheus]

34 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

The hell is going on here?!?!?

We’re great again, haven’t you heard?

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

3 hours ago, OldGimletEye said:

Donald Trump: American Aerys

http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/white-house-thanks-trump-we-are-now-respected-feared-and-loved

If Cersei Lannister and Curly Howard had a love child, I'd imagine it would come out as Donald Trump.

Hogan Gidley is the epitome of everything people hate about politics. He goes from a holier than thou anti-Trumper to one of his chief communications mouth pieces. He stands for nothing other than self-advancement.  

[Fragile Bird]

1 hour ago, Tywin et al. said:

I left for my family’s cabin Thursday after work, and got home late last night just in time to watch the Warriors cave the Rockets’ heads in, and let me get this straight:

(i) Gambling on sports is now legal, or at least the path to making it legal is now cleared

(ii) Trump advocated for Chinese workers

(iii) Then Trump’s development deal got a half billion dollar investment from China

(iv) Israel just said screw it and killed over 50 protestors

The hell is going on here?!?!?

A slow news day?

[Bonnot OG]

7 hours ago, drawkcabi said:

Except for channels like MSNBC and CNN, papers like The Washington Post and The New York Times, news sites like The Huffinton Post and Salon, Radio like NPR, YouTube Channels like The Young Turks and GQ, film makers like Michael Moore, Mark Ruffalo, Alexandra Pelosi, and Barry Jenkins, Politicians like John Lewis and Kamala Harris, TV shows like Vice, Wyatt Cenac's Problem Areas, The Daily Show, Real Time with Bill Maher, The View, The Talk, Jimmy Kimmel, Stephen Colbert, Ellen DeGeneres, Oprah Whinfrey...

And I like much of what I listed above and very glad we have it, my only point is that people who want equality are getting their voices heard and people are taking to heart what they say, not enough, but far from nobody caring. Whether the left side or the right side is heard more, yeah it's probably the right right now but it is debatable.

Lol oh god you think equality means giving white supremacists platforms and doing fluff pieces on them.

Peak privileged white guy.

 

[Zorral]

7 hours ago, drawkcabi said:

Except for channels like MSNBC and CNN, papers like The Washington Post and The New York Times, news sites like The Huffinton Post and Salon, Radio like NPR, YouTube Channels like The Young Turks and GQ, film makers like Michael Moore, Mark Ruffalo, Alexandra Pelosi, and Barry Jenkins, Politicians like John Lewis and Kamala Harris, TV shows like Vice, Wyatt Cenac's Problem Areas, The Daily Show, Real Time with Bill Maher, The View, The Talk, Jimmy Kimmel, Stephen Colbert, Ellen DeGeneres, Oprah Whinfrey...

And I like much of what I listed above and very glad we have it, my only point is that people who want equality are getting their voices heard and people are taking to heart what they say, not enough, but far from nobody caring. Whether the left side or the right side is heard more, yeah it's probably the right right now but it is debatable.

You know what -- the list above also publishes and broadcasts talks about the pain of dumbster voters all the time, especially the NY Times and the WaPo.  Nearly every day there's an opinion pieces scolding "the left" for not listening, for angering them, about guns about race about women about culture.  Nearly every day these voices are scolding 'the left' for not being fair, for being superior, for everything indeed -- again it's all the fault of those people who won't sit down and shut up -- and because they won't sit down and shut up -- and, above all, agree and worship the alt right -- it makes them angry and so there we have school shootings.  That's kind of the logic that is used.  In fact, we've seen people use it right here.

To that many justifiably say, "eff that.  It's a good way to die, not protesting for fear of making those people so angry that they kill us."

[Zorral]

52 minutes ago, Fragile Bird said:

A slow news day?

What's going on here is dumbster being so smart he's selling out his promises to his base in order to get his own payday.

https://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/yep-that-500-m-from-china-to-trump-project-looks-like-a-pretty-big-deal

Quote

 

First some basic details. The mega project is something called the Lido City development about an hour outside of Jakarta. It’s like a mini-luxury city set on 3,000 hectares, which is just over 7,400 acres. Trump has a hotel there and a golf course and various other facilities. There’s also an amusement park planned on the grounds. That’s going to be built by a subsidiary of a Chinese state-owned company called Metallurgical Corporation of China (MCC). They appear to be essentially bringing with them $500 million in Chinese-government backed loans for the development of the amusement park. Makes sense: they’re both parts of the Chinese government. That’s the commitment that came just before Trump’s tweet and which has gotten all the attention.

Now, the question I had was “is this just one more component of a huge development that Trump also just has one part of?” The answer seems pretty clearly to be no. The overall project has two backers: MNC corporation of Indonesia (huge diversified mega corp) and the Trump Organization (family company of American strongman). A corporate financial/promotional document for MNC says the company “is currently developing the MNC Lido City project; both theme park and smart city — in partnership with The Trump Hotel Collection (emphasis added)”

So MNC actually says that it and Trump Org. are developing the theme park jointly. That sounds pretty tight. They actually refer to the whole project as a “Trump Community.” In other documents, they refer to the Trump Organization having licensing and management contracts for facilities in Lido City beyond the Trump buildings and residences.

To be clear, these are phrases. We don’t know what the underlying contractual connections are or what the value of these various relationships and management contracts are. If experience is any guide, Trump tends to keep his investments limited and relies on the Trump brand to leverage upsides and revenues from management and licensing. But the press references to this project being “connected to” Trump seem to significantly understate the relationship.

More to come.

 

 

[drawkcabi]

3 minutes ago, Zorral said:

You know what -- the list above also publishes and broadcasts talks about the pain of dumbster voters all the time, especially the NY Times and the WaPo.  Nearly every day there's an opinion pieces scolding "the left" for not listening, for angering them, about guns about race about women about culture.  Nearly every day these voices are scolding 'the left' for not being fair, for being superior, for everything indeed -- again it's all the fault of those people who won't sit down and shut up -- and because they won't sit down and shut up -- and, above all, agree and worship the alt right -- it makes them angry and so there we have school shootings.  That's kind of the logic that is used.  In fact, we've seen people use it right here.

To that many justifiably say, "eff that.  It's a good way to die, not protesting for fear of making those people so angry that they kill us."

I'm glad for that. I don't have to agree with them but it helps make sure I don't get caught in a bubble consisting of feedback of nothing but my own all ready established opinions. I do not believe in the both opinions are equally valid position and am frustrated that many news sources seem to, but I don't want to be blindsided to knowing those differing opinions exist and to be able to freely think for myself why I disagree.

My only point was disagreeing with "nobody gives a fuck about those that want equality" we might be at a time where the other side is getting more attention than it deserves, but I know where to find many resources to find people caring, supporting and informing me about equality struggles.

33 minutes ago, Sword of Doom said:

Lol oh god you think equality means giving white supremacists platforms and doing fluff pieces on them.

Peak privileged white guy.

 

go spew your hate elsewhere

[Shryke]

8 hours ago, Fall Bass said:

I'm honestly curious as to why the NYT and other papers are so heavily writing these stories. Are those articles really generating a lot of profitable traffic? Are the journalists writing them just so weirded out that these nice people could be Trump supporters still that they keep picking at it? 

I guess it could be a narrative. It wouldn't be the first time that the mainstream political press in the US became fixated on a narrative about a person or people, and then could only be budged with great pressure and time from it (see "Paul Ryan, conservative policy wonk and Serious Man"). The narrative seems to be that the White Working Class voted for Trump because of economic pain. 

It's because they had to find a way to explain the Trump win the day after the election and the narrative that immediately emerged was "the white working class swung for Trump because we all ignored them, Democrats will need to pander to them like crazy to win ever again so let's figure out what these voters are like".

And so was born a million hot take pieces.

[Shryke]

15 minutes ago, Zorral said:

What's going on here is dumbster being so smart he's selling out his promises to his base in order to get his own payday.

https://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/yep-that-500-m-from-china-to-trump-project-looks-like-a-pretty-big-deal

 

Not just his own base, also US national security since there's been serious concerns about ZTE being used as vectors for data gathering by the Chinese government from what I read.

But it's standard Trump. He's a corrupt grifter. This is what he does.

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

1 hour ago, Fragile Bird said:

A slow news day?

This actually gets to a major fear of fine: Trump’s craziness has been normalized.

[S John]

44 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

This actually gets to a major fear of fine: Trump’s craziness has been normalized.

I'm pretty sure that ship has sailed.  There's too much noise.  All the scandals on top of the tweets and whatever other crazy shit Trump is doing.  There are now 'sides' even when dealing with simple objective facts.  It's like, fuck, I have to go to work and pay the bills.  I can't keep up with all of this.  And really, whats the point?  I've never had much desire to be politically active on my own time and I already know how I'm voting come November.  Fuck it.  

[Kalbear]

53 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

This actually gets to a major fear of fine: Trump’s craziness has been normalized.

 

4 minutes ago, S John said:

I'm pretty sure that ship has sailed.  There's too much noise.  All the scandals on top of the tweets and whatever other crazy shit Trump is doing.  There are now 'sides' even when dealing with simple objective facts.  It's like, fuck, I have to go to work and pay the bills.  I can't keep up with all of this.  And really, whats the point?  I've never had much desire to be politically active on my own time and I already know how I'm voting come November.  Fuck it.  

Yep. Trump's shit was already normalized as of, like, March 2017, and then later when he said both sides are bad when talking about actual nazis. The real normalcy came when droves of Republicans retired and then criticized Trump, because they knew that they could not both criticize Trump and get re-elected. 

Over 70% of Republicans now believe Mueller's investigation is a witch hunt and is not legitimate. 

[Fragile Bird]

FYI, McConnell just said 1/8 of all circuit court judges are now Trump appointees.

Just think about that.

[Fragile Bird]

Oh...and the cowards did not bring up the McCain apology at today's lunch at all, for all their squawking.