Mega-Thread: Trump Focused Discussion

[Breccia]

Ugh. What is going on?

Nancy Pelosi's idea to retroactively lift the limit on state and local tax deductions would be almost useless for people who need the most help

"Hey, that's from March!"

It's still valid to current content.

Pelosi said the change could be made for people who filed their 2018 and 2019 taxes, allowing them to get more money back from the federal government.

"They'd have more disposable income, which is the lifeblood of our economy, a consumer economy that we are," the California Democrat said.

Yet that measure would do almost nothing for most people catching the economic brunt of the virus' fallout, like hourly workers. Instead, the tax cut would shower wealthier households with additional cash to spend.

The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget found in an analysis last year that repealing the SALT cap would primarily benefit millionaires with a tax cut of nearly $60,000 per year.

This was either a mistake, a trap ("Hey the GOP voted against this, here are their names") or kitchen sink policy. This would work as well as the payroll tax cut -- poorly -- and it's past April 15.

(checks news)

Oh right, taxes aren't due yet. Technically. Well it's still either mystifying or a bad idea.

[Lenonis]

Still no word of what Obama actually did that was so "evil", i mean we all know there's no smoking gun this is simply a repeat of tactics used on Hilary but this time they even got less to go on.

There is also a fundamental problem. Trump has repeatedly claimed that the president is basically all powerful and untouchable. Can't be investigated. Should be allowed to do whatever he wants with whatever information he wants.

So for him to try to claim Obama exceeded his authority in some corrupt manner runs completely counter to his own view of the unitary executive.

[Zan15]

Pence self-isolates.

I know you love Trump records!!!


https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/mark...rtan-ntp-feeds

The United States on Tuesday reported a record $738 billion budget deficit in April as an explosion in government spending and a shrinking of revenues amid the novel coronavirus pandemic pushed it deeply into the red


Not that he didn't already hold the record....

The previous record budget deficit for any month was $235 billion in February 2020.


And another record

The fiscal year-to-date deficit surged to $1.48 trillion compared to a $531 billion deficit in the comparable period in 2019, blasting past the previous monthly deficit record of $870 billion in April 2011.

[arandomuser]

Still no word of what Obama actually did that was so "evil", i mean we all know there's no smoking gun this is simply a repeat of tactics used on Hilary but this time they even got less to go on.

CIA and fbi were investigating his campaign because they couldnt stop getting help from the russians and turks.
FBI had surveillance on charles lindbergh because he was a nazi asset.
weird to see so many "america first" patriots defending russians

[Edge-]

https://www.newsweek.com/white-house...ndemic-1503570

White House: Submit to the capitalist death-cult or there shall be consequences.

[some guy]

There is also a fundamental problem. Trump has repeatedly claimed that the president is basically all powerful and untouchable. Can't be investigated. Should be allowed to do whatever he wants with whatever information he wants.

So for him to try to claim Obama exceeded his authority in some corrupt manner runs completely counter to his own view of the unitary executive.

Remember, the unbridled hypocrisy of the GOP isn't a bug, it's a feature.

[Edge-]

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/whi...m_npd_ms_tw_ma

Apparently the virus is beginning to reach rural areas in TN and KA, they're seeing 1000% increases in cases lately.

https://www.documentcloud.org/docume...ml#document/p3

Here's the report, page 4 shows some of the biggest increases. Thankfull many are low and only saw new cases in the "hundreds" despite 1-400% increases in newly reported cases. But the worst hit country in TN's 1000% increase led to nearly 2,000 new cases in the last week. In context, that 11K cases per 100K people, or around 10% infection rate. Which is pretty fucking big.

[Thepersona]

https://www.newsweek.com/white-house...ndemic-1503570

White House: Submit to the capitalist death-cult or there shall be consequences.

Question... if after this there's a real left in the US (and by that i mean a revolutionary left) could they stoke the fires of revolution?

[Edge-]

Question... if after this there's a real left in the US (and by that i mean a revolutionary left) could they stoke the fires of revolution?

Violent revolution? No. I'm skeptical of the claims that such an attempt would even have a remote chance in a modern, developed nation like the US.

Political revolution? Potentially, but I doubt it would be in the swift, whiplash inducing form that many leftists want/believe it will be. But rather it will be "slowly boiling the frog" a la the ACA. Slowly introduce more and more progressive initiatives, show they work, let folks realize that they're not so bad and they actually kinda like them, and that becomes the new baseline while progressives keep pushing left. The ACA is literally the roadmap for how to drag around half the country kicking and screaming towards their best interests. It's not perfect. It's messy for a whole host of reasons. But it gets there.

[Thepersona]

Violent revolution? No. I'm skeptical of the claims that such an attempt would even have a remote chance in a modern, developed nation like the US.

Modern... Yes. Developed... that's more debatable, but i agree with your sentiment. Even with that, i think these are the death throes of neoliberalism, and thank the universe if it dies for good.

- - - Updated - - -

The ACA is literally the roadmap for how to drag around half the country kicking and screaming towards their best interests. It's not perfect. It's messy for a whole host of reasons. But it gets there.

You have a great point here. And there i ask one question, Why on earth so many republicans vote against their own interests?

[Edge-]

You have a great point here. And there i ask one question, Why on earth so many republicans vote against their own interests?

Same reason Democrats sometimes do: Because we're human. It's not necessarily a left/right thing either, even if we're seeing some of that play out in modern times.

You can convince people of anything if you present them with the correct information. Which is why conservative media, especially talk radio, is so wild to liberals when we hear it. Because to us, it's all cookyville whacko stuff for the most part. But when that's "your world", it all makes perfect sense.

I forget who it was (sorry!), but they shared the Bundyville podcast a while back and it delves into a lot of this stuff. I still need to finish it (about halfway through) but it's worth a listen to help provide some context for why folks believe "insane" stuff like it's normal (they talk early about why Cliven holds his beliefs, and when you hear the stories his views seem a bit more sensible....still nuts, but there's a reason he believes it) - https://longreads.com/bundyville/season-one/

And because the myth of the rugged individual and that "If I'm smart, work hard, and play by the rules I too can become a millionaire!" myth are still very much alive and well in many parts of America. Despite the fact that the very people who may believe this are often pretty smart, definitely work hard, and usually play by the rules and are still poor and struggling.

[Thepersona]

Same reason Democrats sometimes do: Because we're human. It's not necessarily a left/right thing either, even if we're seeing some of that play out in modern times.

You can convince people of anything if you present them with the correct information. Which is why conservative media, especially talk radio, is so wild to liberals when we hear it. Because to us, it's all cookyville whacko stuff for the most part. But when that's "your world", it all makes perfect sense.

I forget who it was (sorry!), but they shared the Bundyville podcast a while back and it delves into a lot of this stuff. I still need to finish it (about halfway through) but it's worth a listen to help provide some context for why folks believe "insane" stuff like it's normal (they talk early about why Cliven holds his beliefs, and when you hear the stories his views seem a bit more sensible....still nuts, but there's a reason he believes it) - https://longreads.com/bundyville/season-one/

And because the myth of the rugged individual and that "If I'm smart, work hard, and play by the rules I too can become a millionaire!" myth are still very much alive and well in many parts of America. Despite the fact that the very people who may believe this are often pretty smart, definitely work hard, and usually play by the rules and are still poor and struggling.

I understand. Thanks, i will catch on the podcast as soon as i'm finished with a task i'm doing right now.

[Nellise]

And there i ask one question, Why on earth so many republicans vote against their own interests?

In addition to what Edge said, there seems to be a pretty big disconnect between what someone believes a party is versus what the party actually does. Like how many people still believe Republicans are the deficit hawks?

And then there are a lot of single issue voters. Anti-abortion people are not going to vote Democrat (in general) no matter how crappy all the rest of the Republican policies might be for them.

[Edge-]

https://www.cnn.com/2020/05/12/polit...ded/index.html

Not Trump, but adjascent and similar.

Indiana's Attorney Generally cannot Attorney General for the next 30 days.

He's suspended from practicing law in the state after a hearing found that he violated judiciary rules stemming from accusations that he groped four women previously.

Court ruled that he commited acts of "misdemeanor battery" which violated Indiana Professional Conduct Rules.

Mind you, a special prosecutor investigated the women's claims and found them credible, but charges were not filed.

[Belize]

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/whi...m_npd_ms_tw_ma

Apparently the virus is beginning to reach rural areas in TN and KA, they're seeing 1000% increases in cases lately.

I wonder how such a thing could have happened

[cubby]

Same reason Democrats sometimes do: Because we're human. It's not necessarily a left/right thing either, even if we're seeing some of that play out in modern times.

You can convince people of anything if you present them with the correct information. Which is why conservative media, especially talk radio, is so wild to liberals when we hear it. Because to us, it's all cookyville whacko stuff for the most part. But when that's "your world", it all makes perfect sense.

I forget who it was (sorry!), but they shared the Bundyville podcast a while back and it delves into a lot of this stuff. I still need to finish it (about halfway through) but it's worth a listen to help provide some context for why folks believe "insane" stuff like it's normal (they talk early about why Cliven holds his beliefs, and when you hear the stories his views seem a bit more sensible....still nuts, but there's a reason he believes it) - https://longreads.com/bundyville/season-one/

And because the myth of the rugged individual and that "If I'm smart, work hard, and play by the rules I too can become a millionaire!" myth are still very much alive and well in many parts of America. Despite the fact that the very people who may believe this are often pretty smart, definitely work hard, and usually play by the rules and are still poor and struggling.

And it's the perfect myth for the GOP to push. Despite the fact that very few millionaires exist who only followed the rules. Most break them a lot.

[Breccia]

I know you love Trump records!

Obviously the relief bills are a large part of this.

But just a reminder: "deficit" isn't just spending. "Deficit" is difference between what you spent, and what you earned. The tax cut for the rich already wasn't paying for itself. Hence the Feb 2020 record.

Nobody likes massive unavoidable spending. If your car gets wrecked, it needs to be fixed. But what we're seeing is the difference between "work a full-time job then your car gets wrecked and you need to fix it" versus "cut back to 30 hours a week so you can watch reality TV and eat Cheetos, then your car gets wrecked and you need to fix it".

Both suck. One is worse because of self-inflicted actions.

So, who thinks the rich and the corporations who made massive windfalls off the tax cut for the rich will agree it's fair to reverse it to pay for all those socialist bailouts?

[Thepersona]

And it's the perfect myth for the GOP to push. Despite the fact that very few millionaires exist who only followed the rules. Most break them a lot.

As some (marxist) people say, almost no rich person has become rich without trampling on others, or at least extracting plusvalue from others.

[Benggaul]

83,425 deaths total, 1,630 on the 13th (GMT) which is much lower than I was expecting given that today is usually a big correction day. If we keep up the sub-2k totals for the rest of the week I may allow myself to grow optimistic. Still on pace for 100k by the end of the month, however, and news continues to come out (as I believe Breccia mentioned earlier) that cases are beginning to spike in rural areas--which we expected, but it did take longer to happen than I thought it would.

One REALLY good bit of news for today is that the number of ACTIVE cases has dropped for the first time since this ramped up. Down from 1,041,814 to 1,021,243, which may not seem like a lot but considering it's gone up every day the past few weeks upwards of 10-20k this is a nice thing to see. Hopefully the start of a trend.

Related...did I really see that Trump said COVID-19 cases in the White House was "almost nobody" or something similarly stupid? This off the back of several dozen Secret Service, a couple aides and Fauci and Pence quarantined? Guess it's just another day in this TRUMP SHITSHOW.

Stay safe, folks.

EDIT: OOF, just did some more digging. Illinois topped the Most New Cases chart with 4k, beating both New York and California. That's...pretty bad. Texas and Florida were 4th and 6th respectively and new cases and deaths continue to spike in both, trending generally upwards.

[Breccia]

did I really see that Trump said COVID-19 cases in the White House was "almost nobody" or something similarly stupid?

What is the accepted level of White House members who have a deadly contagious virus? I was thinking "zero" but apparently it's acceptable to go up past "let's quarantine the Vice President while Trump still doesn't wear a mask".