Re: Politics

542
From the tone of your post, can't help thinking you defend this moron as well as a child molester Sad. :oops: :oops:
“Every day is a new opportunity. You can build on yesterday's success or put its failures behind and start over again. That's the way life is, with a new game every day, and that's the way baseball is.”
-- Bob Feller

Re: Politics

543
The economy’s rate of economic growth was revised up Wednesday to the fastest pace in three years, the Commerce Department said Wednesday.

Gross domestic product grew at a 3.3 percent annualized rate in the July through September period, an increase from the previous estimate of three percent. The increase means economic growth was stronger in the third quarter than previously believed despite the damage done by hurricanes Harvey and Irma

The revision also shows that the economy has been growing at a rate closer to what President Donald Trump said he would achieve than what many economic forecasters thought was likely.

Consumer spending grew at a 2.3 percent rate. Corporate pretax earnings rose 5.4 percent compared with a year earlier.

Re: Politics

544
Despite Harvey and Irma the best growth in 3 years.

Last quarter of 2015 it was 0.5. First quarter of 2016 it was 0.6.

On top of the great job and economic numbers I posted the other day he also got a Supreme Court Justice appointed, and a ton of federal and appelate judges appointed. Most federal judges appointed since Reagan I think I remember reading.

In just 1 year. With a RINO "never Trump" congress and liberal press fighting him every step of the way. Epic. Just epic.

Re: Politics

547
McCain and Murkowski both announce they will support tax cut bill in senate. With that news the Dow jumped up over 200 more points, to over 24,000. Yet another new all time high. Which happens constantly since Trump has been president.

Calvin Coolidge cut taxes and from '21-'28 tax revenue rose 60%. ... Kennedy cut taxes and from '61-'68 tax revenue rose 62%. ... Ronald Reagan cut taxes and revenue rose 99.4%.

We've had a boom to the economy just on Trump cutting a ton of regulations and the promise of tax cuts. Once the tax cuts take effect I suspect we are going to have some huge growth.

Re: Politics

548
I don't know if Trump has anything to do with the market up turn. I doubt if he even knows half of what's in the tax bill and I doubt very seriously if he's read any of it. This is a Republican tax bill which Trump is only a small part of. I downloaded all 480 some pages of the bill. I started to read it but I might need an attorney to understand it. I'm hoping to read more this weekend.

When Trump says he's the big loser in this deal, I know he hasn't read the bill. I wish he'd release his tax returns like every other president has done the last 3...4 decades so we can find out what a big loser he really is in this deal. Trump speaks and acts like a kindergartener which leads me to believe he hasn't read nor understands any of the tax bill. He's not concerned with us, he's committed on fulfilling campaign promises and paying back those billionaire supporters of his. Republicans have come out and admitted such.

It's Kind of like the constitution. I don't think he's read it, understands it, or believes in it either or he wouldn't be tweeting and promoting all the crap that he does. Even I know there are only 7 articles in the constitution, not 12.

If John McCain is good with this tax bill, I'm ok with it also. If he believes this won't kill Medicare or Medicaid or completely gut Obamacare. I can live with this tax bill. John McCain is one of a dozen or so Republicans that I trust and can believe in.

I compare politicians to car dealers, you can't trust any of them. They all lie on both sides of the aisle. I don't think I've heard anything truthful that comes out of Trump's mouth (has he reached lie 1000 for the year yet?). He may be having a small part in driving the economy but he's destroying our image at home and abroad with his tweets and lies. :oops: :oops:
We've had a boom to the economy just on Trump cutting a ton of regulations and the promise of tax cuts. Once the tax cuts take effect I suspect we are going to have some huge growth.
I will be anxiously waiting for that trickle down effect and how it will impact us.
“Every day is a new opportunity. You can build on yesterday's success or put its failures behind and start over again. That's the way life is, with a new game every day, and that's the way baseball is.”
-- Bob Feller

Re: Politics

550
It's impossible to mention all of the terrible things the president has done so for in his first year. He hasn't accomplished much. His only claim to fame so far is ripping apart Obama's legacy. He hasn't filled one campaign promise yet. The tax bill may be his first real break.

OF CONCERN

Hollywood access:

This one is really concerning. Who really believes that was not Trump's voice on the tape? Trump has basically said as much. Trump lies so much, he can't tell the truth from a lie. He issued that defiant apology for those lewd remarks caught on that tape. "I said it, I was wrong and I apologize". Then Trump said he tried to "f**k" a married woman and bragged about being able to grope women because of his "star" status. "I'm automatically attracted to beautiful (women)" and just start "kissing them." Who really does not believe his accusers? Nice behavior for a president of the United States. The guy should be in jail, yet he chastizes Matt Lauer at NBC News. Same with Conyers. Trump called for Al Franken's resignation yet endorses Moore. Takes one to know one I guess. If I were Al Franken, I'd challenge Trump to a "Let's Make a Deal" challenge. I'll resign if you resign. I'd make the challenge if I were Franken.

"NEWSWEEK

TRUMP IS NOMINATING UNQUALIFIED JUDGES AT AN UNPRECEDENTED RATE

President Donald Trump has nominated more unqualified judicial appointees than any other president so quickly into his first term, a whopping four out of 58, according to the nation's preeminent legal group. The American Bar Association’s Standing Committee of the Federal Judiciary, which has been evaluating judicial appointments since the 1950s, has assessed 53 of Trump's 58 nominees and found four "not qualified." Experts worry that if Trump succeeds in getting his unqualified nominees to the bench, the core of the federal judicial process will be hollowed out.

'Unqualified Judges'

The last time the ABA's Standing Committee doled out its lowest ranking before Trump was in 2006 when the Bush administration put forth Michael Wallace for the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals. Wallace was Bush’s seventh and last judicial nominee deemed unqualified by the group. In the next 10 years, the committee reviewed more than 600 candidates for federal judicial posts, all of whom were deemed qualified for the bench. But that streak was broken in October when the ABA ranked Trump nominee Charles Goodwin unqualified. A month later, three more of Trump’s nominees—Leonard Grasz, Holly Teeter, and Brett Talley—received the same ranking.

Talley's nominations was particularly striking. Better known as a right-wing blogger, Talley is just 10 years out of law school and has never tried a case. It's also been reported that Talley "has a fervent interest in investigating and writing about paranormal activities" and appears to have defended the Ku Klux Klan in online forum. It has also been recently revealed that Talley is married to the White House council's chief of staff, a potential conflict of interest he did not disclose during his Senate Judiciary hearing. Brett Talley said gun control was 'the greatest attack on our constitutional freedoms in our lifetime' after the Sandy Hook massacre.

Note: This is a lifetime seat if approved

Grasz, senior counsel at Husch Blackwell LLP, was nominated to become a judge in the Eighth Circuit in August. Two months later, the ABA Standing Committee unanimously ranked Grasz as unqualified, with one abstention.

http://www.newsweek.com/trump-nominatin ... ght-710263

"NPR POLITICS"

Trump's Nominee To Be USDA's Chief Scientist Is Not A Scientist

The chief scientist of the U.S. Department of Agriculture is typically a low-profile job in any presidential administration. But President Trump's nomination of his former Iowa campaign manager for the post is raising concern in the scientific community and beyond about the politicization of science policy in the Trump administration.

If confirmed, Clovis would oversee the agency's $3 billion research budget, which funds, among other things, research to help farmers and ranchers adapt to climate change. Clovis is currently the White House liaison to USDA.

"I have looked at the science," Clovis said, "and I have enough of a science background to know when I'm being boofed. And a lot of what we see is junk science."

Note: We all know how Donald Trump feels about climate change and environmental issues

https://www.npr.org/2017/09/04/54793401 ... -scientist

"THE ATLANTIC"

The Dismal Future of Trump's Least Favorite Agency

Mick Mulvaney, the controversial head of the OMB, might soon direct the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, an agency he once called “a sick, sad joke.”

The strangest thing about the man who's expected to be named the next leader of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is that he has long opposed the agency's work. This is the agency established in the wake of the 2008 market crash, whose regulatory reach touches countless financial products that Americans use every day—student loans, payday loans, credit cards, mortgages, and so on.

The brainchild of Senator Elizabeth Warren, the Bureau was founded in 2010 as a provision of the Dodd-Frank Act, as a financial watchdog acting in the interest of American consumers. Since its founding, the agency has created new mechanisms for citizens to bring complaints and concerns about financial institutions and products, provided educational resources, and weighed in with rules and regulations regarding payday loans, prepaid cards, and fiduciary responsibility, among other issues. These are areas for which consumers voices weren’t represented in any regulatory agency prior to the financial crisis.

https://www.theatlantic.com/business/ar ... mp/546131/

"CNN POLITICS

At a Navajo veterans' event, Trump makes 'Pocahontas' crack

"I just want to thank you because you are very, very special people. You were here long before any of us were here," Trump said. "Although, we have a representative in Congress who has been here a long time ... longer than you -- they call her Pocahontas!"

The comment, met with silence from event attendees, revives an insult the President has long thrust upon Warren but restated during a high-profile meeting with the Native American war heroes.

"It is deeply unfortunate that the President of the United States cannot even make it through a ceremony honoring these heroes without having to throw out a racial slur. Donald Trump does this over and over thinking somehow he is going to shut me up with it. It hasn't worked out in the past, it isn't going to work out in the future," Warren told MSNBC shortly after Trump's remark.

http://www.cnn.com/2017/11/27/politics/ ... index.html

"The White House Patch

Nepotism In The White House: How Trump's Family Is A Bigger Liability Than His Twitter Feed

Sometimes, a president's best move is to fire staff members who generate bad press. That's much harder when they're family.

The president's children took on major roles at the Trump Organization.

Now that he sits in the Oval Office and controversy envelops his administration, though, the president's eldest daughter is being lambasted for manufacturing her business's products abroad. Democrats are demanding his son-in-law Jared Kushner lose his top-level security clearance. And Donald Trump Jr. has lawyered up after the all-consuming Russia investigation has centered on him.

Under normal circumstances, the president's choice to work so closely with his children — his daughter Ivanka Trump and her husband Kushner at the White House, his sons Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump at the Trump Organization — is enough to inflame his opponents. Critics say it's wildly inappropriate for Trump's kids to run a business he said he would distance himself from as president. And the inclusion of his daughter and son-in-law at the highest levels of government without the usual qualifications, on the other hand, is seen by some as political malpractice.

https://patch.com/us/white-house/nepoti ... itter-feed

"CNN"

Trump slams CNN International — and journalists fire back

President Trump's latest broadside against CNN is drawing ire from journalists who say he misunderstands the very purpose of news coverage.

A day earlier, Trump took aim at a new target: the network's international programming. His evening tweet tarred CNN International while also boosting Fox News, the president's favored organization.

"Fox News is MUCH more important in the United States than CNN, but outside of the U.S., CNN International is still a major source of (Fake) news, and they represent our Nation to the WORLD very poorly," the president said. "The outside world does not see the truth from them!" (Dangerous Precedent Being Set Here. The outside world depends on CNN International)

A few minutes later, CNN's public relations department fired back: "It's not CNN's job to represent the U.S to the world. That's yours. Our job is to report the news."

http://money.cnn.com/2017/11/26/media/p ... index.html

"The Hill"

Trump's tax returns are missing from tax reform debate

President Trump has repeatedly refused to release his tax returns despite earlier promises to do so and the fact that every presidential candidate has released their returns for the past four decades.

So Mr. President if you want to talk tax reform and use your own taxes as proof of how fair and great your bill will be, lay your cards on the table and show us your tax returns; otherwise, we have every right to suspect that you have a card (or perhaps a Russian ties) hidden up your sleeve.

http://thehill.com/opinion/finance/3597 ... orm-debate

"The Guardian

How Trump is dismantling a pillar of the American state

Donald Trump is presiding over the most withering, devastating, and trenchant attack on the American administrative state this nation has ever known

There is no shortage of adjectives to describe the Trump presidency. Venal. Shameless. Bigoted. Impulsive. Feckless.

Amid the never-ending stream of scandals and outrages, it is easy to lose sight of just what this administration is doing well – and where it is proving to be spectacularly disciplined, calculating and effective.

Donald Trump is presiding over the most withering, devastating, and trenchant attack on the American administrative state this nation has ever known.

Cast largely as liberty enhancing, these deregulatory efforts endanger the safety, health, and welfare of all Americans, not to mention a good deal of the rest of the world who depend on the United States to do its part to combat global warming, banking and securities fraud, and worker exploitation.

Consider the Trump administration in action. While all eyes are drawn to the three-ring circus of White House saber-rattling, indictments, and Twitter wars, Trump and his cabinet secretaries have been quietly at work on this project of regulatory deconstruction.

For now, it is best to remember (and remind others) that bureaucracy was never a swamp but rather a deep reservoir of talented, loyal, and devoted experts, whose effectiveness turned in considerable part on their political independence.

This independence enabled them to serve across presidential administrations; to develop technical proficiency uncorrupted by political fads; and to speak truth to power to Democrats and Republicans alike.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfr ... tive-state

"The New York Times"

DISMANTLING THE FOREIGN SERVICES

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/27/opin ... udget.html

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CALL IT WHINING.....CALL IT WHAT YOU WANT.....AS AN AMERICAN.....I'M DEEPLY CONCERNED....

LATE NIGHT TV BALDWIN, MYERS, AND COLBERT A WELCOME COMEDY RELIEF FROM THE DEPRESSING NEWS THESE DAYS.....

I'M PROUD OF THE WOMEN COMING OUT AGAINST SEXUAL IMPROPRIETIES AND ASSAULTS, THEY ARE TAKING DOWN A LOT OF HIGH PROFILE INDIVIDUALS......

TWO MORE TO GO ?!?!?!
“Every day is a new opportunity. You can build on yesterday's success or put its failures behind and start over again. That's the way life is, with a new game every day, and that's the way baseball is.”
-- Bob Feller

Re: Politics

551
That was a good one SeaGull 8-) 8-)
“Every day is a new opportunity. You can build on yesterday's success or put its failures behind and start over again. That's the way life is, with a new game every day, and that's the way baseball is.”
-- Bob Feller

Re: Politics

552
Heard the news tonight. Mitch temporarily cancels vote on tax bill. What's up? McCain... reversing field.
“Every day is a new opportunity. You can build on yesterday's success or put its failures behind and start over again. That's the way life is, with a new game every day, and that's the way baseball is.”
-- Bob Feller

Re: Politics

553
Time to drain the swamp in Washington :?: :?:
“Every day is a new opportunity. You can build on yesterday's success or put its failures behind and start over again. That's the way life is, with a new game every day, and that's the way baseball is.”
-- Bob Feller

Re: Politics

555
For all you Bernie Sanders supporters out there ...

THE WASHINGTON TIMES - - Thursday, November 30, 2017

ANALYSIS/OPINION:

Not so long ago Venezuela, which stumbles along as if on a national breadline, was the wealthiest country in Latin America. And why not? It has the world’s largest proven oil reserves and abundant fertile farmland. Its governmental institutions were once efficient and largely free of corruption. With a few good funerals, times could be good again.

But things look rather different now. The country’s GDP has collapsed; it’s only 60 percent of what it was only four years ago. By contrast, the Gross Domestic Product declined by 28 percent during the Great Depression in the United States. The poverty rate is north of 82 percent; it was 48 percent in 2014. Three quarters of Venezuelans have lost weight in recent years, by an average of almost 20 pounds per person.

Usually it takes a war, an earthquake or a tidal wave of immense and historic proportions to cause a collapse so calamitous. The collapse of Venezuela is wholly man-made. President Nicolas Maduro and his late predecessor Hugo Chavez are the authors of the ruin in their land. Mr. Chavez, who was in power for 15 years before his death in 2013, pledged to build a Venezuela where everyone would share everything equally. In a sense he succeeded. Venezuelans now share equally in misery, as in Cuba, where the government bequeathed by Fidel Castro, the mentor of Messrs. Castro and Maduro, produce misery for all.

Hugo Chavez nationalized various industries only to plunder them, and the baleful results were utterly predictable. Industries collapsed, and Venezuela became “the poor man of Latin America.” He raised interest rates far beyond usury, further devastating the economy. He spent lavishly on social programs, destroying the nation’s rainy day fund. When oil prices dropped, as they always do, there was no way to get in out of the rain.

Nicolas Maduro has succeeded in making things worse. Coming off a stellar career as a bus driver, Mr. Maduro has turned to printing money, and the government can hardly find money to buy the paper to print the currency on. It might turn to printing the currency on toilet paper, but there’s a severe shortage of that, too. With the fall in oil prices, there’s hyper inflation: last year, consumer prices rose 800 percent. Because the government is running out of dollars it can no longer import goods. Hence the shortages of food, medicine and everything but misery.

Mr. Maduro has turned, as despots will, increasingly authoritarian. Opposition leaders are thrown in jail. A sham election this summer packed the government with his cronies. Torture of prisoners is widespread. The only good news is that this suggests he’s afraid his regime can’t last. He’s trying to persuade Beijing and Moscow to throw him a lifeline. If it’s true that it’s darkest before the dawn, President Maduro’s end is in sight.