monitoring Trump and relevant contemporary events

@BillW,

Quote:

What is so ironic about this is tRump win is 100% due to his promises to unions and the working class which he has done nothing on their behalf.

Given that his life to that point had demonstrating no such proclivities, it would take people who have a rather shoddy connection to reality to vote for the conman.

1 Reply

@blatham,

blatham wrote:

Quote:
What is so ironic about this is tRump win is 100% due to his promises to unions and the working class which he has done nothing on their behalf.
Given that his life to that point had demonstrating no such proclivities, it would take people who have a rather shoddy connection to reality to vote for the conman.

With unscrupulous Russian collusion of course! But, that's a given also.......

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@blatham,

blatham wrote:

Quote:
This shows the unrelenting, immature spite of the billionaire class, beginning with tRump!
It also is just one more incident in a long line of such incidents where busting unions is seen by rich right wing extremists as an essential component of their goal to remove constraints and impediments of gaining maximal wealth and power.

Labor unions in the United states, particularly in the private sector of the economy are dying of their own contradictions and the destructive effect they have on the health of the businesses they infect. Union organizing efforts have been failing for several decades now, even despite the efforts of the last Administration to suppress secret votes by workers, and substitute "card check" processes managed unaccountably by the union organizers themselves. Most new industrial investment and job creation involves non union enterprises, most of which have voted to reject subsequent union organizing efforts. The only real growth in the Union movement over the last few decades has been among State and Federal workers where the organizing is done by fiat by politicians, and worker consent or votes are not involved. In states where government workers are given a choice whether to pay union dues their membership quickly falls.

1 Reply

@georgeob1,

Quote:

And the effects on our economy are so far very beneficial for nearly everyone. GDP growth rates are up from their previous levels; unemployment is decreasing.

So, is there any discernible/measurable economic factor which is not a continuation of trends developed over the last eight years? And if you think so, can you provide some evidence beyond an assertion from you?

And, if you wish to attribute present economic figures to Trump's influence, then would you not have to do precisely the same with the rising statistical trends under the Obama administration?

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@blatham,

blatham wrote:

Quote:
And the effects on our economy are so far very beneficial for nearly everyone. GDP growth rates are up from their previous levels; unemployment is decreasing.
So, is there any discernible/measurable economic factor which is not a continuation of trends developed over the last eight years? And if you think so, can you provide some evidence beyond an assertion from you?

And, if you wish to attribute present economic figures to Trump's influence, then would you not have to do precisely the same with the rising statistical trends under the Obama administration?

Despite the attempts of the entire Republican party to make him fail for 8 full years - given the economy and total failure of a Republican regime before him. Get real Gob1, tRump is succeeding off of Obama sweat, give due where it is preserved

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@snood,

Pay attention to this young man.

Do you enjoy studying political science?

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@hightor,

hightor wrote:

Is the term "terrorists who cannot be successfully prosecuted" just a euphemism for innocent people captured by mistake?

No. It refers to people who are believed to be genuine threats but the evidence does not reach the level required for criminal conviction.

hightor wrote:

Seems that if you're going to label a person a "terrorist" he must have committed some act for which he can be prosecuted.

Apparently not. The government seems to feel that there are a couple dozen people who are genuine threats but cannot be prosecuted successfully.

I confess to not knowing the details of why the government believes them to be a threat and believes them to not be prosecutable. I do know that the Obama Administration reached the same conclusion about this small group of people though.

hightor wrote:

And why is an expensive facility like Guantanamo needed for detention?

So they don't escape, or do harm to their guards/each other/themselves. A similarly-secure facility on US soil would be just as expensive.

hightor wrote:

If the case is so doubtful that the government doesn't feel it can legally hold the suspects on US territory it has no business detaining them at all.

I'm not sure that US soil makes much legal difference. Our courts have given the detainees the same rights that they would have if they were on US soil.

The Obama Administration argued that these people can be detained as POWs until the end of the war. Our courts accepted the validity of this argument.

I'm unsure if I agree with this or not. Sometimes I do and sometimes I don't.

There are essentially four options for dealing with these people:

a) just detain them without regard to legality

b) count them as POWs in our war against al-Qa'ida

c) create an entirely new system to oversee the indefinite detention of people who are deemed to be dangerous but haven't committed a prosecutable crime, with periodic review of their cases to determine if they are still dangerous

d) let them go free, but bar them from ever entering US territory

None of them are ideal options. And it is hard to know which option is "least bad" without knowing precisely who these people are and why the government thinks they are dangerous.

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@blatham,

blatham wrote:

because it is giving the movement conservatives and corporate interests pretty much everything they've long wanted.

Is it, though? Seems like there are two contradictory narratives. One is that the GOP's trifecta control over presidency and Congress is helping them run roughshod over established policies and standards, with destructive results. The other is that the Trump presidency has actually been strikingly impotent, especially considering the party's trifecta control, and that the GOP's serial failures on health care underscore its failure so far to push through any big, signature program or policy.

Obviously something to both stories, and I keep going back and forth about which is the more important one.. but the contradiction seems big enough, at least, to make it hard to argue that Trump's "administration .. is giving the movement conservatives and corporate interests pretty much everything they've long wanted". Half the time, the administration seems rather to end up derailing GOP plans, if inadvertently.

A recent example of the "weak presidency" narrative is here:

Quote:

President Donald Trump’s rage at the media had boiled over. This time, he demanded action.

“Network news has become so partisan, distorted and fake that licenses must be challenged and, if appropriate, revoked,” Trump wrote on Twitter on Oct. 11. “Not fair to public!”

He sounded like an autocrat, scarcely different than repressive leaders from Turkey to Venezuela. Advocates for press freedom sounded the alarm.

And then nothing happened. Again.

Trump does not have the power to revoke broadcast licenses to punish people for critical speech. Nobody at the Federal Communications Commission took any action to try. The story about Trump’s extraordinary breach of democratic norms vanished in 48 hours, replaced by other Trump stories.

The pattern has been repeated itself throughout Trump’s presidency. [...] He talks like a strongman. He is, in practice, a weak man.

“The political science view is that Trump is a very weak president. He is saying these things in public because he cannot make anyone do what he wants in private,” said Brendan Nyhan, a Dartmouth College professor of government [...].

Trump has not even been able to exercise absolute power over his own hand-picked officials. A series of stories in U.S. news outlets suggest his aides and appointees have often treated him more like their eccentric grandpa than their boss, responding to demands issued out of fury or spite by declining to take action until he simply forgets what he has told them to do.

His unusual combination of authoritarian words and invisible followup has posed an interpretation challenge to the U.S. media and public. As some observers have dismissed Trump’s anti-democratic ravings as posturing or emoting signifying nothing other than impulse-control issues, others have warned of the potential for lasting harm.

(Not that this means there's no reason to worry, the piece proceeds to warn...)

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@Setanta,

Setanta wrote:

Canadians are far better informed about the United States than Europeans. Most of the population of Canada lives near the border, and they readily have access to American television and radio stations. Although certainly the actions of the American government may affect the rest of the world, the effect on Canada is usually greater and happens sooner. Trade between the United States and Canada means that economic decisions made in Washington, and in state capitals affect Canada a good deal more than other nations. Additionally, Mr. Latham has traveled and lived in the United States.

I specifically referred to the internal workings of the Democratic Party. Even well-informed Europeans who are not actually academics making a study of the United States would find it difficult to obtain that sort of detailed, arcane information.

I'm sure that, in aggregate, Canadians are better informed about US politics than Europeans. But that's rather irrelevant to whether any individual person commenting on a politics thread here would be. Let alone on whether they'd have any business to even try.

It's not like the average American -- or the average American poster here on A2K -- is demonstrating any particularly great command of "detailed, arcane" internal party processes. Little evidence that Olivier, or whatever foreign poster, would be at any great disadvantage to Americans -- here or elsewhere -- spouting off on their political opinions.

1 Reply

@nimh,

nimh wrote:

A recent example of the "weak presidency" narrative

I don't know how much power the President has to revoke broadcast licenses, but he does have power over the executive branch should he choose to use it. It is certainly within his power to order the FBI to conduct a major investigation of Democratic wrongdoing.

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@blatham,

blatham wrote:

Quote:
And the effects on our economy are so far very beneficial for nearly everyone. GDP growth rates are up from their previous levels; unemployment is decreasing.
So, is there any trends developed over the last eight years? And if you think so, can you discernible/measurable economic factor which is not a continuation of provide some evidence beyond an assertion from you?

And, if you wish to attribute present economic figures to Trump's influence, then would you not have to do precisely the same with the rising statistical trends under the Obama administration?

I was clear and accurate in my statements above regarding what has changed so far and what is merely hoped for or expected.

Political Administrations of all stripes are quick to take credit for good economic news and blame adverse events on others. Some economic changes are cyclical; others arise from specific causes, often involving economic bubbles arising from excess capital flows from either private or government sources; while others are at least partly attributable to specific economic policies enacted by current and past Administrations.

The 2007 deep recession arose from a bubble in the housing market partly a result of excess flows of cheap capital into the market from the former Fannie Mae & Freddy Mac, augmented by private sector investors cashing in on fast rising valuations. The Recession was sharp and deep. and the recovery was, in typical fashion, fairly rapid and augmented & sustained by the Fed's policy of Quantitative Easing. Obama's well publicized stimulus package was well-intended and timely but plagued by the widespread lack of the promised "shovel ready" projects . However t did sustain state transportation bureaucracies in a lean year for tax collections. Despite the rapid onset of recovery our economy leveled off at GDP growth rates over a percent/year less than those of all previous recessions. This, I believe was augmented by a number of adverse regulatory actions taken by the Obama Administration plus various features of the Ill-conceived Dodd-Frank legislation.

Evidence of increased growth rates and continued reductions in unemployment are confirmed in readily available government data for the last two quarters. That's a relatively short period of time, but rising expectations resulting from the changed direction of Federal regulations affecting economic activity, and the promise of tax reform, strongly suggest that will continue, and possibly accelerate. Time will tell. As I indicated, the next things we need to see are a restored rise in the previously declining workforce participation rate and real growth in wages. Certainly the behavior of the stock markets since the election strongly suggests that expectations are rising - something that is significant in itself.

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@georgeob1,

Quote:

The 2007 deep recession arose from a bubble in the housing market partly a result of excess flows of cheap capital into the market from the former Fannie Mae & Freddy Mac, augmented by private sector investors cashing in on fast rising valuations.

The GFC was an orchestrated financial coup by a bunch of crooks in bankster outfits. I thought this was common knowledge. And because they weren't given specific instructions by prez Obama about what they should do with their taxpayer bailouts, they handed themselves performance bonuses.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FzrBurlJUNk

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https://media0ch-a.akamaihd.net/51/24/4554589e31ef5753b17e96de86754e8e.jpg

1 Reply

@Real Music,

Aw, what a cute little tyke! Smile

But appearances can be deceiving. Haven't you heard of The Bad Seed? This one loves to bite, and he bites hard! So, beware!

https://www.democraticunderground.com/emoticons/scared.gif

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@nimh,

If "spouting off about their political opinions" is a shot at me, it's a cheap shot. I'm not the one here who has been pontificating on the faults of the Democratic Party. As I've pointed out, Mr. Latham is well informed about the United States, and has traveled in the U.S. extensively, and has lived in the United States. The culprit here is Olivier, who claims to be French, although the evidence at this site is both that he can't write worth a damn in French, while displaying an excellent command of idiomatic American usage. That was the core point of my remark. I don't believe he's French, and any Frenchman who was not an academic dedicated to the study of the United States and its political institutions would not be likely to understand that arcana.

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@Setanta,

Setanta wrote:

If "spouting off about their political opinions" is a shot at me, it's a cheap shot.

No, it was a reflection of the fact that we're all just a bunch of random people spouting off about our opinions. Some more informed, some less; but on the whole certainly not setting any kind of particularly significant bar that a non-American would then have trouble meeting before being fully entitled to join in.

Setanta wrote:

As I've pointed out, Mr. Latham is well informed about the United States, and has traveled in the U.S. extensively, and has lived in the United States. The culprit here is Olivier, who claims to be French, although the evidence at this site is both that he can't write worth a damn in French, while displaying an excellent command of idiomatic American usage.

And Olivier has pointed out that he's lived in the US for many years too. So that means that (a) Blatham's extensive travels in the US don't set a standard Olivier fails to meet and (b) there's nothing suspicious about Olivier's command of idiomatic American usage.

Quote:

That was the core point of my remark. I don't believe he's French, and any Frenchman who was not an academic dedicated to the study of the United States and its political institutions would not be likely to understand that arcana.

There was nothing all that intimidatingly arcane about the topic at hand.

1 Reply

@georgeob1,

Quote georgeob1:

Quote:

Despite the rapid onset of recovery our economy leveled off at GDP growth rates over a percent/year less than those of all previous recessions. This, I believe was augmented by a number of adverse regulatory actions taken by the Obama Administration plus various features of the Ill-conceived Dodd-Frank legislation.

And yet our GDP per capita kept rising. The reason our GDP growth is lower now than the 1960s is that our population growth is lower now than the 1960s. As the chart below shows, our GDP per capita keeps rising about the same level for the past 37 years, with a little dip around 2008, for obvious reasons. As usual, your economic theorizing is based on right wing media, not actual facts.

Real GDP Per Capita:

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The current danger to American political institutions comse not from a habitually obstructive Republican-controlled Congress which now balks at Plump's proposed legislative agenda. They balk at it because they have to get re-elected, and in the House, that means every two years. Given that the ACA is popular despite the fulminations of conservatives, they are unlikely to sign on to anything which threatens the coverage of their constituents. That's why Ryan withdrew the bill before it got to the floor for a vote.

The danger to national institutions of governance comes from Plump's appointments. His commerce secretary, Wilbur Ross is a long-time friend and confidant who helped Plump dodge bullets on the four occasions when corporations started by him went into bankruptcy receivership. He also helped Trump to sell his name as a brand-name so that he could continue to earn money from those corporations under their new management. (This is one of the reasons that Plump's tax bill favors the highest income earners. The true one percenters, of whom Plump was never truly a member, earn their money from capitals gains, taxed at 15%. So the new tax laws benefit Plump, who does not possess significant sources of capital gains.) Ross is also implicated in close ties to Putin and a Russian oligarch, for his participation in a corporation of which he has not divested himself. (Commerce Secretary’s Offshore Ties to Putin ‘Cronies’--clickity click)

The education secretary, Betsy DeVos, has been a consistent contributor, organizers and fund-raiser for Republican political campaigns, as has her husband; contributions in the millions of dollars. She supports charter schools, "school choice" and school vouchers, all three, but especially the last two have become notorious as means for getting government hand-outs to religious schools. DeVos (then named Prince) was educated at a private, Protestant reform high school, and attended Calvin College, also a Protestant reform institution, named for John Calvin, the early Protestant reformer. There is not necessarily anything wrong with all of that--unless and until she attempts to funnel Federal dollars to private schools, and particularly religious schools. She also pledged that neither she nor her billionaire husband would make political contributions while she is the secretary of education. She has been taken to task by Senator Murray of Washington on this matter.

Quote:

In the past, DeVos, her husband and his father have given many millions of dollars to political candidates. DeVos pledged during her confirmation hearings, "If I am confirmed, I will not be involved in any political contributions, and my husband will not be, either."

The Detroit News reported this week that her husband, Dick DeVos, this year contributed a total of $5,000 to two Michigan political action committees, which donated the money mostly to Republican campaigns. Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., sent a letter rebuking the secretary, saying she was "concerned that you, your husband and your extended family continue to utilize your vast wealth to influence and impose your agenda on a political system in which you already wield power as the secretary of education."

(Source at NPR)

I've already mentioned Zinke at the Department of the Interior, which is responsible for the Bureau of Land Management. He's from Montana, and most BLM land is in the west. In tnat context, I've already mentioned interior secretary Albert Fall, the first cabinet officer in American history to be indicted, tried, convicted and imprisoned for corruption, in 1929. Zinke in currently under investigation for using charter flights costing the tax payers thousands of dollars, in at last once case, for political fund-raising activities. He is also under investigation for possible violations of the Hatch Act, also concerned with political activities while in office.

I'm not going to attempt to review his entire cabinet--but the image of setting the fox to guard the hen house is very strong here. I agree with Bernie's characterization. I also don't claim that these people are archetypal evil characters. DeVos has spoken out for the rights of LGBT students, and Zinke has spoken out against antisemites and Richard Spencer. I see no reason to suggest that Plump's inability to get his legislative agenda passed constitutes evidence that capitalist are not getting what they want out of this administration.

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@nimh,

This does not address Olivier's apparent inability to express himself properly in French. It also does not address the fact that the internal workings of either political party does constitute arcana.

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@Setanta,

You often stumble while expressing yourself in your native tongue, Set.

But being NPD, you never atone for your sins.

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