monitoring Trump and relevant contemporary events

Sounds as though he found someone who is capable of giving good advice.

Sometimes you can be right for the wrong reasons.

snood wrote:

blatham wrote:

Quote:

Pretty clear that Mother Jones (and Blatham) want to suggest that the market has been falling off since Trump was elected

Neither said nor implied.

That's so interesting... It was neither said, nor implied - yet it's "pretty clear" to Finn. Must be some kind of ESP. That, or he's drawing again from that bottomless reservoir of knowledge, the library of 'pulled out of his arse'.

Well Finn hasn't been the same since he discovered our secret. You know, Blatham is the liberal leader of us sheep. Is it really such a mystery why he
concocts so much paranoid poppycockery.? I've reported all of this to our Queen, the ruler of the feminists and spiritual rabble-rouser. Out Queen likes Blatham quite a bit and often consults him for advice.

Martin Shkreli, 34, has confidently courted controversy in recent years, bulldozing his way into Wall Street and the drug industry, raising the price of a lifesaving drug by 5,000 percent overnight, boasting that he would outwit prosecutors in his federal fraud case, and live-streaming and tweeting throughout his five-week trial.

But on Friday, after five days of deliberations, jurors convicted him on three counts of fraud in federal court, and he now faces up to 20 years in prison on each of the first two counts, and up to five years on the final count.

It's not difficult to understand why it continues to rise under the current administration and why at some point the bubble will burst once more and whoever's in office gets to bask in a chorus of opprobrium.

The ferocity of the attacks coming from the faction of the party allied with Stephen K. Bannon, the president’s chief strategist, had General McMaster’s associates convinced that it was no coincidence. At one point on Friday, Breitbart News, formerly run by Mr. Bannon, had close to a dozen headlines on its home page about General McMaster, like “McMaster ‘Deeply Hostile to Israel and to Trump.’”

The #FireMcMaster hashtag was tweeted more than 50,000 times since Wednesday. Echoing the drumbeat were social media organs tied to the Russian government. According to the Alliance for Securing Democracy, a bipartisan group created to focus attention on Russian interference in the West, the top hashtag among 600 Twitter accounts linked to Russian influence operations at one point on Thursday was #FireMcMaster.

Capitalism can and does provide a rich breeding ground for psychopaths. Here's one.

Quote:

Martin Shkreli, ....

A truly absurd opening proposition, utterly devoid of factual backup. My impression is that Lenin, Mao, Stalin, Hitler, Castro and the vaunted Maduro and his deceased predecessor of the "Bolivarian Revolution' of poor, unfortunate Venezuela were quite opposed to free market capitalism.

Just a couple of pages back Blatham was criticizing any suggestion that the accelerating economic growth; the surge in labor market participation and the rising stock market we have seen over the past six months could not possibly be associated with the rhetoric or policies ( both enacted and promised) of our current President and Congressional majorities. In doing so he cited the lack of clear factual connections in a complex environment.

Oddly his "rigorous standards" for such arguments appear to have quickly disappeared.

It is certainly true that many causal factors influence economic activity and do so with varying lead times. It's also observable that that politicians of every stripe are usually quick to claim responsibility for good news and blame their predecessors for bad stuff happening on their watch. It is also observable that Trump has indeed influenced Federal policy in a number of ways likely to stimulate growth and that he has also stimulated economic expectations - both factors likely to have some influence on current activity.

The United Nations Security Council has agreed on fresh sanctions against North Korea over its missile programme.
A resolution banning North Korean exports and limiting investments in the country was passed unanimously.
Pyongyang tested two intercontinental ballistic missiles in July, claiming it now had the ability to launch a strike against the entire United States. The tests were widely condemned.
However, experts doubt the capability of the missiles to hit their targets.
The tests were condemned by South Korea, Japan and the US, and prompted the drafting of the new UN sanctions.
The export of coal, ore and other raw materials to China is one of North Korea's few sources of cash.
Estimates say that North Korea exports about $3bn worth of goods each year - and the sanctions could eliminate $1bn of that trade.
Earlier this year, China suspended imports of coal to increase pressure on Pyongyang.
However, repeated sanctions have so far failed to deter North Korea from continuing with its missile development.
China, North Korea's only international ally and a veto-wielding member of the UN Security Council, voted in favour of the resolution this time. It has often protected Pyongyang from harmful resolutions in the past.
The isolated state's repeated missile and nuclear weapon tests have been condemned by neighbours in the region.
But South Korea says it may hold direct talks with the North during a regional meeting this weekend.
Foreign Minister Kang Kyung-wha said she was willing to talk to her counterpart from Pyongyang, if the chance "naturally occurs".
Foreign ministers from the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) are meeting in Manila in the Philippines.
South Korea's Yonhap news agency reports "cautious expectations" that Kang Kyung-wha would meet North Korea's Ri Yong-ho on the sidelines of the forum.
"If there is an opportunity that naturally occurs, we should talk," Ms Kang told the agency.
"I would like to deliver our desire for the North to stop its provocations and positively respond to our recent special offers [for talks] aimed at establishing a peace regime."
US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson will also be attending the weekend's talks, where North Korea's nuclear programme is expected to be a main topic.
As the meeting began, Asean members issued a joint statement saying they had "grave concerns" over North Korea's actions, which "seriously threaten peace".

You could make the reasonable argument that Trump so far has not caused a decline in the existing trend, but that's the only warranted claim.

Just a couple of pages back Blatham was criticizing any suggestion that the accelerating economic growth; the surge in labor market participation and the rising stock market we have seen over the past six months could not possibly be associated with the rhetoric or policies ( both enacted and promised) of our current President and Congressional majorities.

Fox New host Eric Bolling has been suspended while the network conducts an investigation into whether he sent photos of male genitalia to female colleagues, a Fox News spokesperson told TPM Saturday.

Trump Says Mueller Just Called Him and Said He’s the Most Innocent Person Ever
By Andy Borowitz

“It was the middle of the afternoon, and he just picked up the phone to say how innocent I was,” Trump said. “He said I was the most innocent person he’d ever come across, and maybe in history.”

It Is Not Okay for Sessions to Threaten That He’ll Go After Reporters

...Here’s the thing though, Sessions: If you truly “respect the important role that the press plays,” then you’re not going to be threatening subpoenas or even jail time for journalists for publishing leaked information like you did on Friday.