Mega-Thread: Trump Focused Discussion

[Belize]

There actually are. There's nothing inherently evil about smaller government and personal responsibility. What we've seen in the last four years isn't that.

I'm scratching my head as to when Republicans last held those values.

Goldwater maybe?

[Felya]

I'm scratching my head as to when Republicans last held those values.

Goldwater maybe?

From what I understand, it was the Bush jr election giving birth to NeoCons.

[Breccia]

I'm scratching my head as to when Republicans last held those values.

Start with all the Republicans who either left the party, or stayed with the party but voted for Biden.

They're in there somewhere.

[Belize]

From what I understand, it was the Bush jr election giving birth to NeoCons.

Not even remotely.

Saint Reagan was not an advocate for small government, using his time in the office to use the full power of government to enforce policies on both public and private institutions. He's more responsible for the religious nutters taking over the GOP than anyone else.

[Breccia]

The U.S. Supreme Court on Friday canceled oral arguments next month over President Donald Trump’s bid to keep Congress from seeing material withheld from former Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s report on Russian political meddling, raising the possibility that the justices may never rule on the issue.

"On what grounds?"

My guess? On the grounds that, soon, Biden will be President. Trump's defense is going to have to dramatically change.

[kaid]

The U.S. Supreme Court on Friday canceled oral arguments next month over President Donald Trump’s bid to keep Congress from seeing material withheld from former Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s report on Russian political meddling, raising the possibility that the justices may never rule on the issue.

"On what grounds?"

My guess? On the grounds that, soon, Biden will be President. Trump's defense is going to have to dramatically change.

Yup I am guessing their grounds are mootness once biden takes over its no longer a question for the SCOTUS.

[Breccia]

I found this article to be an entertaining read. It's a side-by-side "tasteless test" of Donald Trump vs. Benjamin Harrison.

"They guy who died?"

No, but her's a paragraph to tell you if you should read the rest or not.

At the same time as Harrison was trying to raise more revenue for the country through tariffs – something Cleveland called “indefensible extortion” in his third State of the Union speech – he went on an unequalled spending spree. According to an official White House history, Congress appropriated $1 billion, a record in peacetime. When critics attacked “the billion-dollar Congress,” Speaker Thomas Reed replied: “This is a billion-dollar country.”

[cubby]

GOP Senators seek to block arms deal sale to UAE.

I mean, F-35's to the middle east? Can't wait to see what Jared was supposed to get as a kickback for that deal.

- - - Updated - - -

The U.S. Supreme Court on Friday canceled oral arguments next month over President Donald Trump’s bid to keep Congress from seeing material withheld from former Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s report on Russian political meddling, raising the possibility that the justices may never rule on the issue.

"On what grounds?"

My guess? On the grounds that, soon, Biden will be President. Trump's defense is going to have to dramatically change.

Yeah, they may not say, but it's moot now that Trump has lost the election.

Interestingly - one could reasonably infer that this kind of non-ruling is a very big indication of how SCOTUS will rule if any election court cases reach them.

[Gerron]

Are you sure though?

The Million MAGA March turned out to be the Couple Thousand Boomer Short Walk.

I've seen a few polls that seem to indicate broad Republican support for Trumps claims. This article kind of goes over what I'm referring to.

https://fivethirtyeight.com/features...ts-after-2016/

Now that doesn't mean anything will happen but it's concerning.

[Breccia]

The beginning of the end of the pandemic started with the leadership of President Trump

-- McEnemy

Cases, hospitalizations, and deaths are still going up, you lying c

-- Breccia

[Zan15]

Exit poll caveats apply, but Trump won 54-42 among families making over $100K.

- - - Updated - - -


Same exit poll as above, Trump won among people that work full-time for pay, Biden won handily among people that don't.

i wonder how many of that 54% are farmers that would not be making over 100k without the 100 billion in new subsidies...i mean socialist payouts...

[Omega10]

Trump and Mnuchin and McConnell apparently plan to tank the economy presumably to trigger the libs.

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/trump...132252537.html

Title: Trump strips US Fed of emergency credit powers in latest scorched-earth move

Excerpts:

The Trump Administration is to shut down the emergency lending powers of the US Federal Reserve, taking extraordinary action to block reserve funds for the incoming Biden Treasury and prevent a Democrat bail-out of state and local governments.

It should be pointed out that the state governments that most need bailing out are New York and a bunch of red states. This COULD be a way to trigger the state of California - YOU DON'T HAVE A BUDGET DEFICIT SO YOU DON'T GET ANY FEDERAL FUNDS. <But the good red states with high crushing deficits - we'll give them lots of federal money!>.

The US Treasury Secretary, Steve Mnuchin, has told the Fed that he will not roll over five of its nine Great Depression powers under the Article 13 (3) of the Federal Reserve Act. There will be a suspension of its lending facilities for companies, local governments, and ‘Main Street’ loans at the end of the year.

“The most obvious interpretation is that the Trump administration is seeking to debilitate the economic recovery as much as possible on the way out of the door,” said David Wilcox, the Fed’s former chief economist, now at the Peterson Institute.

“Circumstances are very tenuous at the moment. If the situation unravels and really goes South this could prove to be a very damaging step. Secretary Mnuchin will go down in history as the man who took away a safety net when it was really needed,” he said.

The Treasury also instructed Fed Chairman Jay Powell to return the unused portion of a $454bn account approved by Congress during the market meltdown in March.

Mnuchin already instructed the Fed to return the unused and presumably still available funds to use as stimulus money, making them unavailable unless Congress, I mean McConnell, agrees.

These new restrictions will go into effect at the end of the year. Presumably - hopefully? - Biden will be able to reverse this on January 21?

Still, this would mean no help for states or local governments or any businesses until AT LEAST January 21, by which time it might be that any aid would be on the late side.

This seed money gave the Fed $4.5 trillion extra lending power under a policy of 10:1 leverage and had an electrifying effect on market confidence – avoiding the errors made in 2008.

The 454 billion is only a tenth of what was provided in stimulus money in March and April, but it's still a good chunk of change.

Roughly $250bn remains and could be amplified into a real lending bazooka under Joe Biden if Congress blocks his reflation plan. It has therefore become a high stakes bone of contention.

This is a little confusing. Is this 250 billion in addition to the 454 billion previously mentioned, or a part of it? It sounds like there are two pots of money still left that could conceivably be used

The Federal Reserve issued a plaintive statement warning that the “full suite of emergency facilities” remain necessary as a backstop for “our still-strained and vulnerable economy".

Congressman Bharat Ramamurti, a member of the House oversight committee on stimulus, called Mr Mnuchin’s move “an unjustified and ideological decision by the Treasury Department. It is incumbent on the Fed to reject this request”. That would be courting fate.

This is also confusing, and means that Trump administration attempts to gum up the works are easily fixed. The treasury can just reject the request of Mnuchin?

Gregory Daco from Oxford Economics said a Biden Treasury can still raid $70bn of uncommitted funds in the Treasury’s Exchange Stabilisation Fund (normally used for currency intervention) but this is a popgun by comparison. “We estimate its lending firepower would be 10 times smaller,” he said.

The market fall-out from this dispute is far from clear. The Fed may be forced to step up QE in order to compensate for the loss of its credit instruments. The economy may muddle through if vaccines come soon enough and optimism holds up. But risks are mounting.

The focus of this article is how these things effect the stock market. No mention or care is given to the people that actually live here in the country. And although the article does a good job of making the case that the Trump administration is TRYING to tank the economy - presumably so that in 2024 republicans can blame democrats for anything bad that happens between now and then - it is completely unclear if any or all of these measures can be undone on January 21 even with McConnell fighting to prevent them. January 21 is 2 months away, so the economy could fall quite far by then. But presumably recovery could start then partially by Biden undoing a lot of what Trump is doing now.

McConnell worked hard to make Obama a one-term President from the very beginning. He failed, but WAS able to set the stage for Trump and his 250k virus deaths. No doubt he will work just as hard to make Biden a one-term President. Fulfill his dream by voting in President Harris in 2024!!!

Could someone with more knowledge of the logistics of how this all works weigh in and explain the pots of stimulus money that are still available?

And oh yeah - it sure seems that Trump and McConnell were TRYING to play a good cop / bad cop show. Trump says "We want a big bigger BIGGEST stimulus of all time" while McConnell says "No stimulus will pass."

[Antiganon]

We talked about that before. A charity is allowed to pay people salaries and still be a charity. You could attempt to dodge taxes by making a "charity" and paying yourself and your friends very large salaries, preferably from money stolen from a children's cancer fund raiser.

It would work great, fi you didn't run for office and intentionally bring a spotlight on yourself.

What you can't do though is draw a salary from the charity as a Project Manager and then contract out the projects you are working on to your other business.

[PhaelixWW]

GOP Senators seek to block arms deal sale to UAE.

I mean, F-35's to the middle east? Can't wait to see what Jared was supposed to get as a kickback for that deal.

Wasn't that arms sale supposed to be the condition which caused UAE to agree to acknowledge Israel? If so, then that's a big "ooof" on backing out of the deal after UAE does their part.

[Belize]

I've seen a few polls that seem to indicate broad Republican support for Trumps claims. This article kind of goes over what I'm referring to.

https://fivethirtyeight.com/features...ts-after-2016/

Now that doesn't mean anything will happen but it's concerning.

How many of those would be willing to leave their living room couch and stop screaming at the TV to take any real action?

[cubby]

Wasn't that arms sale supposed to be the condition which caused UAE to agree to acknowledge Israel? If so, then that's a big "ooof" on backing out of the deal after UAE does their part.

Possibly - but those kinds of arms are some of the best-in-the-world, and I don't think it's a good idea for the UAE to get them.

[Bodakane]

So Ed Norton had pretty interesting tweet thread: https://twitter.com/EdwardNorton/sta...183646371.html

I’m no political pundit but I grew up w a dad who was a federal prosecutor & he taught me a lot & I’ve also sat a fair amount of poker w serious players & l’ll say this: I do not think Trump is trying to ‘make his base happy’ or ‘laying the groundwork for his own network’...

...or that ‘chaos is what he loves’. The core of it is that he knows he’s in deep, multi-dimensional legal jeopardy & this defines his every action. We’re seeing 1) a tactical delay of the transition to buy time for coverup & evidence suppression 2) above all, a desperate endgame

...which is to create enough chaos & anxiety about peaceful transfer of power, & fear of irreparable damage to the system, that he can cut a Nixon-style deal in exchange for finally conceding. But he doesn’t have the cards. His bluff after ‘the flop’ has been called in court...

His ‘turn card’ bluff will be an escalation & his ‘River card’ bluff could be really ugly. But they have to be called. We cannot let this mobster bully the USA into a deal to save his ass by threatening our democracy. THAT is his play. But he’s got junk in his hand. So call him.

I will allow that he’s also a whiny, sulky, petulant, Grinchy, vindictive little 10-ply-super-soft bitch who no doubt is just throwing a wicked pout fest & trying to give a tiny-hand middle finger to the whole country for pure spite, without a single thought for the dead & dying

But his contemptible, treasonous, seditious assault on the stability of our political compact isn’t about 2024, personal enrichment or anything else other than trying to use chaos & threat to the foundation of the system as leverage to trade for a safe exit. Call. His. Bluff.

So say he's right for argument's sake....how would we call Trump's bluff exactly?

[Benggaul]

So say he's right for argument's sake....how would we call Trump's bluff exactly?

The point was not to "cut a deal" with him. Let him bluff and bluster his way with the frivolous lawsuits that won't go anywhere. But do not let him off the hook (via pardons, for example) once he's out of office. Because as bad as his tantrums are going to get it will be much more important for him to pay for it all once Biden takes over.

[Bodakane]

The point was not to "cut a deal" with him. Let him bluff and bluster his way with the frivolous lawsuits that won't go anywhere. But do not let him off the hook (via pardons, for example) once he's out of office. Because as bad as his tantrums are going to get it will be much more important for him to pay for it all once Biden takes over.

Yeah but no deal is being offered though right? I haven't heard it suggested...maybe I missed it?

[Bodakane]

He’d need one from SDNY... they aren’t likely to offer one.

Right?!?!?!?! That's why I'm confused by what Norton is saying.