monitoring Trump and relevant contemporary events

Years ago I was working with some native speakers and the topic of the Soviet's 5 year plans came up. They joked about the way some plants achieved the plan and it got more and more elaborate. I'm sure they were pulling my leg, but one explained that if a shoe factory fears they won't hit their quota, they will manufacture only one size to speed up and meet the plan. Shortages were common, because if you only produce size 10's .... only people with size 10 feet could buy shoes that fit. But the factory was just fine because they met the plan. They offered a few other examples (all counter productive) and finally one woman said that if the Soviets ran the Sahara desert, it would run out of sand in 4 years.

I guess the moral of the story: Communism is not efficient, and not everyone can wear a size 10 shoe.

That's the exact truth in my view. Trump is a Russian asset, and always has been. He was groomed and 'cultivated' by them as an influence agent, not necessarily with the aim of making him president, but as an asset one could use for political influence, one way or the other. It succeded beyond the FSB wildest dreams.

My guess is Trump hates his master, though. His macho self resents having to toe Putin's line. He's not as docile as Putin would want.

Quote Glitter:

Shortage seemed to be the way of life behind the Iron Curtain. Essentially all your free time was apparently spent waiting in long lines for one necessity or the other. Here's a pic of Russians waiting in line for bread in 1991:

Quote Olivier:

I dunno, Trump looks pretty scared to me. I think apart from the grooming there is the almost certainty that Putin has stuff on Trump that Trump is simply terrified will come out, so he makes it his business not to get in Putin's way.

Putin has begun to dump on Trump publicly. Just the other day he publicly proclaimed the end of the American Empire, then kindly allowed that Trump realizes it and always listens when Putin explains the international facts of life to him. As if Trump was Putin's student. Putin is really pouring it on for the world to see.

Putin has always bragged that everything he owns is better than, he's smarter than, he has the most beautiful women...he told Obama that his dog was stronger than Obama's dog....All of the Russian officials do it, I just seethe every time I think about the two Russians and entourage in the Oval Office like they were measuring for the drapes....laughing with Trump over the ineptitude of the FBI and our intelligence agencies. They were at home in that room like they planned to be sitting behind the desk. Drives me freeping nuts. It is so offensive, I don't know why the Republicans put up with him.

The only reason I posted that little snippet is to counter cj's suggestion that there still might be some evidence of a "false flag" incident. I agree, saying "CNN Sucks" is hardly a reason to assume that someone is a domestic terrorist. but it does enhance his pro-Trump credentials.

Now this has been a long time coming.

Trump forces the prices for pharmaceuticals down by as much as 80%.

Americans have been getting ripped off to the max for medications.

Good on you prez for helping out the people.

"Might have been"?? It's documented fact that Clinton was working for the Russians, in many more ways than one.





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There's three million links to stories like this.

Are you NeverTrumpers on another timeline, or just thick as bricks?

"Media Bias Checks " lists "Investors Business Daily " as strongly right wing frequently using stereotypical association, strong language , misrepresentation
and actual false reporting.

I always get a grip on my facts by seing what side of the street they come from and whether or not their descriptors include falsification (not of the Popperian variety)

A pretty common occurrence these days is for some investigative reporters in the mainstream media will work assiduously on a story, pursuing leads, talking to sources, and checking facts. The story is then published and picked up by other media outlets. Soon the public is familiar enough with the bare outline of the story so that it gets referred to in a sort of shorthand like "collusion", "fake news", "bigger than Watergate", or "uranium deal" and everyone thinks they know what the terms and phrases mean.

Once the terms gain traction the right-wing populist press get to work. Combing the stories for the tiniest inconsistency they begin their counter-narrative, re-interpreting statements, casting doubt on people's veracity, and jumbling timelines. And then the revisionist accounts begin appearing in the conservative media, all purporting to show how the facts "really" fit together. The amazing thing is that they can spin these fables without doing any serious investigation on their own. All they need is some glib wordsmith to cobble together a clever pastiche misusing other people's facts and misrepresenting their claims and voila — we now get to read "the other side of the story". This is represented as a real scoop, dutifully shared by slack-jawed subscribers on social media and presented as factual when all it really is is an example of creative editing. Extra points for including an unappealing photograph of the subject.

this was a really easy way to figure out who was initially reporting on the Khashoggi story in US media. It took nearly a week before a photo appeared (in US media) where he didn't look hideous. Who supports Saudi Arabia in the US? yeah

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-46002549

Shooter in custody.

Odds on them being white?

___

Absolutely hate this.

#45's response to this is certainly different from his response to pipe bomb incidents and Khashoggi murder.

Republicans are doing so well in early voting, and at the polls, and now this “Shooting” stuff happens and the momentum greatly slows - news not talking politics. Very unfortunate, what is going on. Republicans, go out and vote!

All of you are already intimidated. I had nothing to do with it. Your governments and media have you intimidated enough already.

The same way you are here to lie? The more you complain the better I look.

http://www.michellesmirror.com/2018/10/the-msm-will-tell-you-who-is-leader-of.html#.W9Ri2KJWj6c

After meeting with pharma lobbyists, Trump drops promise to negotiate drug prices

The new plan is tax cuts and deregulation.

By Matthew Yglesias@[email protected] Jan 31, 2017, 11:50am

A lot happened in the 2016 campaign, but one of the things Donald Trump did to win the election was shift to the left on a number of key issues — promising to avoid cuts in Social Security and Medicare benefits and adopting a longstanding Democratic pledge to let Medicare negotiate bulk discounts in the price it pays for prescription drugs.

Today, after a meeting with pharmaceutical industry lobbyists and executives, he abandoned that pledge, referring to an idea he supported as recently as three weeks ago as a form of “price fixing” that would hurt “smaller, younger companies.” Instead of getting tough, Trump’s new plan is that he’s “going to be lowering taxes” and “getting rid of regulations.”

New drugs are generally covered by patent monopolies, so drug companies have a lot of pricing power; other companies can’t produce the same drug without paying royalties, so there’s little competition. But most countries use their nationalized health care systems to negotiate a good deal on drug prices. Manufacturing pills is cheap, so it’s usually still profitable for a company to sell medicine at a pretty steep discount.

The United States doesn’t have a nationalized health care system, but we do have Medicare for senior citizens, and since the USA is a very large country, that’s still a huge potential bulk purchaser. But a 2003 law written by congressional Republicans and signed by George W. Bush prohibits the federal government from using that negotiating power.

As recently as January 11, President-elect Trump was promising to revisit this policy.

“Pharma has a lot of lobbies, a lot of lobbyists and a lot of power. And there’s very little bidding on drugs,” he said at a press conference at Trump Tower in Manhattan. “We’re the largest buyer of drugs in the world, and yet we don’t bid properly.”

Today he apparently changed his mind. According to Herb Jackson, the designated pool reporter for the day, Trump’s new policy on prescription drugs is that drug companies should get tax cuts and deregulation (emphasis added):

I'll oppose anything that makes it harder for smaller, younger companies to take the risk of bringing their product to a vibrantly competitive market. That includes price-fixing by the biggest dog in the market, Medicare, which is what's happening. But we can increase competition and bidding wars, big time.

So what I want, we have to get lower prices, we have to get even better innovation and I want you to move your companies back into the United States. And I want you to manufacture in the United States. We're going to be lowering taxes, we're going to be getting rid of regulations that are unnecessary.

Many people watching the chaotic rollout of Trump’s executive orders on immigration, his demands for investigations into phantom vote rigging, his mysterious ties to Russia, his financial conflicts of interest, and his bizarre lies about Inauguration Day crowd size have found themselves wondering why more Republicans don’t stand up to him.

This event with PhRMA lobbyists explains why. On most of the big public policy issues of the day, Trump is a very conventional Republican. And on those issues where he hasn’t been conventional, Republican Congress members and business executives feel confident they can turn him around. On some issues, they probably won’t. But on this issue, it seems like they did.

I should acknowledge that some reporters who cover this beat don’t agree with my read of these remarks. But Trump picked an HHS Secretary who’s opposed price negotiations, and other ideologically orthodox Republicans to run Medicare and Medicaid and his Office of Management and Budget. When congressional Democrats tried to get an amendment supporting price negotiation into the senate’s budget resolution, Trump didn’t lift a finger to stop them. It seems to me that Trump is now aligning his statements with the actual policy he is pursuing, namely to speed drug approvals at the FDA and not change anything about Medicare pricing.

What do you think about “mainstream” NBC “failing” to report that the individual Creepy Porn Lawyer claimed could corroborate his creepy client’s claim about Brett Kavanaugh contacted them to adamantly deny she knew anything about the insane accusation? Unfortunate mistake.

How much coverage of the ricin letters sent to Republican figures was there as compared to the coverage of the bomb letters?

Did you hear or see anyone in the so-called MSM referring to the guy who tried to kill GOP congressmen as the “Sanders Shooter?” (As opposed to the “Trump Guy Bomber” or “MAGAbomber”)

Do white people kill people deader than people of color? I have never heard that one before. Why is race so important to you? You do nothing but keep the hate and division alive.