Trump lost moving on with new year go Biden
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Democrats Are Better Than Republicans
1. Historical data from up to 70 years
1. Debt and Deficit. In the past 17 Presidential terms , nine were GOP led and eight Democratic. Of nine GOP Presidents, six added to debt/GDP and deficit/GDP as a percent. The only three that did not, had a Democratic House and Senate. Of eight Democrats, each one, reduced deficit/GDP and debt/GDP as a percent. That is 66 years of rhetoric of fiscal responsibility with zero net results for GOP. What makes matters even worse, is the fact that the president who added a historical 20.7% to the debt has one unique aspect of his presidency – President G. W. Bush had a GOP majority House and Senate.
2. Spending. The Republican Party often talks about financial responsibility, but did you know that since 1978-2011, spending has gone up 9.9% under Democrats versus 12.1% under GOP .
3. Federal Debt. Republicans love to tell us how they will not close tax loopholes on millionaires and billionaires, yet never bring to our attention that from 1978-2011 debt went up 4.2% under Democrats versus 36.4% under the GOP.
4. GDP. The only thing that the Democrats have a higher numerical yield than the GOP led administrations, is the GDP. It’s a good thing to have it at 12.6% versus a GOP 10.7%. From 1960 to 2005 the gross domestic product measured in year-2000 dollars rose an average of $165 billion a year under Republican presidents and $212 billion a year under Democrats.
5. Big Government. Federal spending (aka “big government”): It has gone up an average of about $50 billion a year under presidents of both parties. But that breaks down as $35 billion a year under Democratic presidents and $60 billion under Republicans. If you assume that it takes a year for a president’s policies to take effect, Democrats have raised spending by $40 billion a year and Republicans by $55 billion.
6. Federal Deficit. Under Republican presidents since 1960, the federal deficit has averaged $131 billion a year. Under Democrats, that figure is $30 billion. In an average Republican year, the deficit has grown by $36 billion. In the average Democratic year it has shrunk by $25 billion.
7. National Debt. The national debt has gone up more than $200 billion a year under Republican presidents and less than $100 billion a year under Democrats.
8. Inflation and Unemployment. Democratic presidents have a better record on inflation (averaging 3.13 percent compared with 3.89 percent for Republicans) and on unemployment (5.33 percent versus 6.38 percent). Unemployment went down in the average Democratic year, up in the average Republican one.
Outcome: Based on the data, Democrats have had a much more successful run when it comes to economy, job creation, debt and deficit, and shockingly, even spending.
Plain facts, but what about the qualitative data. Let’s look at some of the best aspects of economy, and drill-down to specific presidencies to see which one added what to the economy. I look at the pivotal economic factors and researched which president added:
1. Greatest gross domestic product (GDP) growth?
2. Biggest jobs increase?
3. Best after-tax personal disposable income rise?
4. Highest industrial production growth?
5. The lowest Misery Index, which is inflation plus unemployment?
6. The lowest inflation?
7. The largest federal budget deficit reduction?
There answers are, if you are done guessing? Okay , here are the answers: 1. Clinton; 2. Truman; 3. Carter; 4. Johnson; 5. Kennedy; 6. Truman; 7. Truman; 8. Clinton.
Outcome: It is also a Democratic sweep.
So, now you are thinking two things. One, this does not mean too much because it takes time for a President’s policies to come into effect and two, what about Obama since this is all in the past?
To address our first question, I gathered this information: First, the analyses presented above took into account the transition time to for policies to kick-in and factored in relative adjustments. Plus, I find it hard to believe that it was just a fluke a that six of nine GOP Presidents failed in terms of GDP and Debt, and not even one of eight Democrats did. So I wanted to look at GOP Presidents that followed at least two GOP terms and Democratic Presidents that followed at least two Democratic terms. Here is the verdict: Truman, who followed two Democratic terms and still succeeded in all areas of economy, while Bush senior, who followed two Republican terms still added to debt and deficit through excessive spending.
Outcome: This highlights an interesting point that somehow Democrats who follow Democrats still outperform economically, and Republicans who followed GOP presidents somehow still failed to perform in absence of policies of the other party impacting them anymore.
Now, the second part, Obama. So, some people who supported him in 2008 are fed up a little. He shows no leadership in the face of stiff tea party politics. But here is the truth about the man who promised you to pass the health care reform, who promised you to repeal Don’t Ask Don’t Tell, who promised you that, while it will take time, he will slow down economic failure and he promised you that he will do everything to keep manufacturing jobs in the US. In his defense, he did all of that and then some.
He passed the Health Care Reform Act. He repealed the discriminatory DADT policy. Since he has become president, he has already created more net jobs in his first two years than Bush administration did in 8 years altogether. While GDP growth is slow, it has been positive now for 8 straight quarters since the stimulus was passed, which also worked. Not to mention, Obama inherited an economy in a wreck where the GDP had fallen to over 8.8 percent, the banking industry has just collapsed, two wars were going on for about seven years, and above all, he took over from a President who had raised the debt ceiling a historic, record six times while taking a 53% debt at the beginning of his first term and transforming it into an 84% by the end. According to my research, the Obama administration added more jobs to the economy than eight years of the former President Bush did. The GDP has now been positive for 8 straight quarters bouncing from a negative 8.8%.
Obama extended Bush bailouts and bailed out the auto industry because many US jobs were at risk and our auto industry was soon to become foreign at the hands of global buy outs. Well, this past May, Chrysler paid off its loans . The American auto industry is still American, those jobs in the Mid West still exist. Obama, despite the roughest opposition that any president has faced, still did all he promised. But, here is an eye-opening compilation on more: See what else Obama has done. Also, I must include the fact that we have half as many troops in Iraq, a 2014 plan to be out of Afghanistan, and Osama bin Laden is dead. You don’t need a hyperlink for that, do you? Oh, and he also became the first president ever to have to deal with a distraction of proving, through his birth certificate, that he is an American.
I would like to make one more really important point here because a lot of Republicans often cite their desire to vote for GOP candidates despite their stiff opposition to social and civil freedoms in exchange of offering small government. It is a fact that as Americans we are living in the time of the smallest government in half a century. We are paying the lowest taxes, some of the largest free-trade agreements, and a proposal to pay even lower corporate taxes, small business reliefs, and to lower income taxes down from 6.2% offered by President Bush to 3.2% proposed by Obama and the democrats. It is even mentioned in a post at FOX News.
Outcome: The Obama administration has done everything they promised to do when elected, socially and economically. Democrats have failed to improve the economy but have been very successful in creating jobs and avoiding further economic slip. Actually, this administration has now added over three million jobs in 23 straight months of positive employment gains. 2010 and 2011 also mark the first years since 1997 to see positive gains in manufacturing jobs, as shown in this interactive graph. Additionally, March 2012 marks the month in which the Nasdaq hit 3,000 mark for the first time since dot-com bubble. The Dow Jones hit 13,000 for the first time, growing at 63% under Obama which is the fifth best for any president, and the S&P 500 hit 1,400 for the first time since 2008 showing a remarkable economic recovery on the free-floating capital indexes.
Living standard review of GOP vs. Democratic states
Finally, it’s not fair to highlight just money issues. How about the living standards? None of us desire to live in poverty, food scarcity, without health insurance or earn below a minimum wage. Here is an eye-opening part of my analysis that truly shook me.
The worst standards of living are in states that have Republican legislatures. One can argue that it is just that the poor in the deep South that vote a GOP heavy legislature, but when coupled with all the economic statistics listed above, that argument starts to appear very vulnerable. These conservative states have highest poverty levels despite having all GOP fiscal policies in place, for example:
Poverty. Not even one liberal state has over an 18% poverty rate – six GOP states including Texas do.
Labor Abuse. Not even one liberal state has over 8% of its population being abused through earning lower than minimum wage, but nine GOP states do including Texas.
Food Insecurity. Not even one liberal state has over 17% of its population living “food insecure.” Four conservative states do, including Texas.
Healthcare Access. Not even one liberal state has over 20% of population living without health insurance but four GOP states do, again, including Texas.
This study highlights how a huge population of Texans live under an extreme poverty-stricken climate earning below minimum wage, without health insurance access, and without access to daily food while being abused as workers.
Outcome: While GOP policies seem exciting in rhetoric, when given full liberty to implement them through a Republican controlled legislature like the one in the southern states, they are very ineffective. When Democratic financial policies are given full freedom of being implemented, like in the liberal states, they have been much more effective.
I already explained the GOP vs Democrats on social issues in my other post , through which we understand some fundamental differences such as democrats wanting to legalize gay marriage while GOP candidates run clinics to cure gays, GOP candidates working on legislation to criminalize gays and ban gay marriage, GOP legislation to outlaw Islam, and so on and so forth. But, about economic report, here is a recap and conclusion.
1. GOP Presidents have failed, Democrats have not. Historically over last six decades, Democrats have been consistently successful economically, while six of nine Republicans have failed. Keeping in mind the argument that policies of previous administrations haunt the following, the Democrat Truman that followed two Democratic terms still reduced debt and deficit, the Republican, Bush senior, that followed two Republican terms, still added to both.
2. GOP States have lowest living standards, Democratic states do not.
3. Obama has done what he promised and the economy is getting better. It is just hard to climb out of a financial black hole overnight. He still created more jobs than lost, delivered eight straight positive GDP quarters, and the debt that was growing at $3.65 trillion over four years, is now slowed down to about $1.6 trillion. You were not expecting him to change the economy overnight; I know I was not.
4. The GOP offers rhetoric, Democrats offer plans. I will really back this one for you through solid examples. Remember the debt crisis? Democrats took into account an earlier GOP report in which the GOP stated that the most optimum for economic growth is a deficit reduction plan that has an 85-15 split between cuts and revenues. Democrats offered an 83-17 with $6 in cuts for just $1 in return in tax loophole expiration on millionaires and billionaires. It was a mammoth $4 trillion debt reduction offer. The GOP walked away from it, and failed to offer an alternative. Similarly, remember Heathcare reform? Democrats took a major step by offering a plan under which most Americans would be covered, people would be allowed to stay on parents’ insurance after college graduation, insurance companies will no longer be able to increase cost or drop people after an illness, neither will they be able to refuse insurance to people with a preexisting condition. The GOP is currently running on an agenda to repeal that. The GOP alternative? It does not exist.
5. Democrats are willing to sacrifice, the GOP has evolved into a party of “Always No”. The shared Retirement Sacrifice Act of 2011 , which would require lawmakers to wait until the age of 66 to collect their pensions and take a pay cut has been introduced by an Ohio Democrat. Her logic is that congress should also take a pay cut and delayed retirement like other Americans do. Do you know why her simple bill is not passing? The GOP has it blocked. Additionally, as the Democrats fight to raise the age and reduce benefits for themselves and their GOP peers, Rep. John Fleming (LA), a republican responded to a proposed tax loophole expiration on millionaires and billionaires by saying that “by the time I feed my family, I have maybe $400,000 left over.” Thus, fighting against another democratic plan.
6. Democrats reform, GOP wants to take a step back without reform. Last election Democrats offered ideas that would alter the future such as Healthcare reform, the repeal of don’t ask don’t tell, creation of anti-discriminatory laws, Postal Services Reform which is happening right now, lower taxes on small businesses, tax write-offs on first 104K paid in employee salary for large businesses, and increase education funding to keep America’s edge. Have you notices the GOP platform this year? It has been: Repeal Healthcare reform, repeal the end of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell, ban gay marriage, ban building of Islamic religious institutions, block tax reform on millionaires and billionaires, block the jobs act, block deficit reduction plans, abolish the Department of Education, and abolish the EPA. Do you notice a trend? It’s a step back through repeal without alternatives or abolishing of institutions without an alternative plan.
Certainly, I understand these are politics, and all GOP donations come from big businesses but to letting America’s credit rating fall to protect millionaires and billionaires just because the 2012 election is on the horizon is probably not the best approach for America. While a Democratic donation averages $69 and comes from every day Americans, GOP donations average large sums from huge lobby groups and in order to be competitive the GOP has to protect its interests. But at the end of the day, we hire politicians not to win but to make America succeed. I want you to take these facts into account, remember, you are the CEO and you have a choice to make. I exhort you to make that choice keeping our social freedoms and financial facts into account.
I exhort you to educate yourself. When the GOP tells you that they want to lower taxes on millionaires and billionaires and cut education funding and corporate regulations to help the economy grow, understand that capitalism is not pro-business, it is pro-consumer. Businesses thrive with regulation and demand it. Understand that the GOP wants to cut educational funding because we see a direct link between higher education and an increase in more liberal voting patterns. Please understand that tax cuts for millionaires and billionaires do not funnel into an economic spur, as one of the best investors Warren Buffet, who saved GE, Goldman Sachs, and now the Bank of America from a colossal collapse explains
I have presented you past data, current policies, poverty statistics, and current party agendas. I wanted to just ask myself one last litmus test question. What have GOP and Democratic states added to America to see what kind of societies GOP versus Democratic governments create? If GOP economics really work, then we should see them work in states where we vote GOP legislatures and vice versa for Democratic states.
From the entertainment industry based in California to IT in Silicon Valley, each one of the Ivy League schools to Health Care and Life Sciences industry based in Philadelphia-NJ area, from banking based in NYC to the services hub in Boston, and all the way down to high-tech in Seattle, almost all of America’s progress comes from liberal states. But what is even more shocking is that a lot of southern progress happened in places like Atlanta, with large telecommunications’ industry development post 1996 Olympics, where about majority of Atlanta’s population is liberal and ascends from the north east. The truth is, this alone is a litmus test. Democrats have financially outperformed GOP governments economically and are offering actual plans as opposed to simple repeal ideas. Republicans have carved societies that are drastically behind in economic, living standards, or academic progress.
1. Historical data from up to 70 years
1. Debt and Deficit. In the past 17 Presidential terms , nine were GOP led and eight Democratic. Of nine GOP Presidents, six added to debt/GDP and deficit/GDP as a percent. The only three that did not, had a Democratic House and Senate. Of eight Democrats, each one, reduced deficit/GDP and debt/GDP as a percent. That is 66 years of rhetoric of fiscal responsibility with zero net results for GOP. What makes matters even worse, is the fact that the president who added a historical 20.7% to the debt has one unique aspect of his presidency – President G. W. Bush had a GOP majority House and Senate.
2. Spending. The Republican Party often talks about financial responsibility, but did you know that since 1978-2011, spending has gone up 9.9% under Democrats versus 12.1% under GOP .
3. Federal Debt. Republicans love to tell us how they will not close tax loopholes on millionaires and billionaires, yet never bring to our attention that from 1978-2011 debt went up 4.2% under Democrats versus 36.4% under the GOP.
4. GDP. The only thing that the Democrats have a higher numerical yield than the GOP led administrations, is the GDP. It’s a good thing to have it at 12.6% versus a GOP 10.7%. From 1960 to 2005 the gross domestic product measured in year-2000 dollars rose an average of $165 billion a year under Republican presidents and $212 billion a year under Democrats.
5. Big Government. Federal spending (aka “big government”): It has gone up an average of about $50 billion a year under presidents of both parties. But that breaks down as $35 billion a year under Democratic presidents and $60 billion under Republicans. If you assume that it takes a year for a president’s policies to take effect, Democrats have raised spending by $40 billion a year and Republicans by $55 billion.
6. Federal Deficit. Under Republican presidents since 1960, the federal deficit has averaged $131 billion a year. Under Democrats, that figure is $30 billion. In an average Republican year, the deficit has grown by $36 billion. In the average Democratic year it has shrunk by $25 billion.
7. National Debt. The national debt has gone up more than $200 billion a year under Republican presidents and less than $100 billion a year under Democrats.
8. Inflation and Unemployment. Democratic presidents have a better record on inflation (averaging 3.13 percent compared with 3.89 percent for Republicans) and on unemployment (5.33 percent versus 6.38 percent). Unemployment went down in the average Democratic year, up in the average Republican one.
Outcome: Based on the data, Democrats have had a much more successful run when it comes to economy, job creation, debt and deficit, and shockingly, even spending.
Plain facts, but what about the qualitative data. Let’s look at some of the best aspects of economy, and drill-down to specific presidencies to see which one added what to the economy. I look at the pivotal economic factors and researched which president added:
1. Greatest gross domestic product (GDP) growth?
2. Biggest jobs increase?
3. Best after-tax personal disposable income rise?
4. Highest industrial production growth?
5. The lowest Misery Index, which is inflation plus unemployment?
6. The lowest inflation?
7. The largest federal budget deficit reduction?
There answers are, if you are done guessing? Okay , here are the answers: 1. Clinton; 2. Truman; 3. Carter; 4. Johnson; 5. Kennedy; 6. Truman; 7. Truman; 8. Clinton.
Outcome: It is also a Democratic sweep.
So, now you are thinking two things. One, this does not mean too much because it takes time for a President’s policies to come into effect and two, what about Obama since this is all in the past?
To address our first question, I gathered this information: First, the analyses presented above took into account the transition time to for policies to kick-in and factored in relative adjustments. Plus, I find it hard to believe that it was just a fluke a that six of nine GOP Presidents failed in terms of GDP and Debt, and not even one of eight Democrats did. So I wanted to look at GOP Presidents that followed at least two GOP terms and Democratic Presidents that followed at least two Democratic terms. Here is the verdict: Truman, who followed two Democratic terms and still succeeded in all areas of economy, while Bush senior, who followed two Republican terms still added to debt and deficit through excessive spending.
Outcome: This highlights an interesting point that somehow Democrats who follow Democrats still outperform economically, and Republicans who followed GOP presidents somehow still failed to perform in absence of policies of the other party impacting them anymore.
Now, the second part, Obama. So, some people who supported him in 2008 are fed up a little. He shows no leadership in the face of stiff tea party politics. But here is the truth about the man who promised you to pass the health care reform, who promised you to repeal Don’t Ask Don’t Tell, who promised you that, while it will take time, he will slow down economic failure and he promised you that he will do everything to keep manufacturing jobs in the US. In his defense, he did all of that and then some.
He passed the Health Care Reform Act. He repealed the discriminatory DADT policy. Since he has become president, he has already created more net jobs in his first two years than Bush administration did in 8 years altogether. While GDP growth is slow, it has been positive now for 8 straight quarters since the stimulus was passed, which also worked. Not to mention, Obama inherited an economy in a wreck where the GDP had fallen to over 8.8 percent, the banking industry has just collapsed, two wars were going on for about seven years, and above all, he took over from a President who had raised the debt ceiling a historic, record six times while taking a 53% debt at the beginning of his first term and transforming it into an 84% by the end. According to my research, the Obama administration added more jobs to the economy than eight years of the former President Bush did. The GDP has now been positive for 8 straight quarters bouncing from a negative 8.8%.
Obama extended Bush bailouts and bailed out the auto industry because many US jobs were at risk and our auto industry was soon to become foreign at the hands of global buy outs. Well, this past May, Chrysler paid off its loans . The American auto industry is still American, those jobs in the Mid West still exist. Obama, despite the roughest opposition that any president has faced, still did all he promised. But, here is an eye-opening compilation on more: See what else Obama has done. Also, I must include the fact that we have half as many troops in Iraq, a 2014 plan to be out of Afghanistan, and Osama bin Laden is dead. You don’t need a hyperlink for that, do you? Oh, and he also became the first president ever to have to deal with a distraction of proving, through his birth certificate, that he is an American.
I would like to make one more really important point here because a lot of Republicans often cite their desire to vote for GOP candidates despite their stiff opposition to social and civil freedoms in exchange of offering small government. It is a fact that as Americans we are living in the time of the smallest government in half a century. We are paying the lowest taxes, some of the largest free-trade agreements, and a proposal to pay even lower corporate taxes, small business reliefs, and to lower income taxes down from 6.2% offered by President Bush to 3.2% proposed by Obama and the democrats. It is even mentioned in a post at FOX News.
Outcome: The Obama administration has done everything they promised to do when elected, socially and economically. Democrats have failed to improve the economy but have been very successful in creating jobs and avoiding further economic slip. Actually, this administration has now added over three million jobs in 23 straight months of positive employment gains. 2010 and 2011 also mark the first years since 1997 to see positive gains in manufacturing jobs, as shown in this interactive graph. Additionally, March 2012 marks the month in which the Nasdaq hit 3,000 mark for the first time since dot-com bubble. The Dow Jones hit 13,000 for the first time, growing at 63% under Obama which is the fifth best for any president, and the S&P 500 hit 1,400 for the first time since 2008 showing a remarkable economic recovery on the free-floating capital indexes.
Living standard review of GOP vs. Democratic states
Finally, it’s not fair to highlight just money issues. How about the living standards? None of us desire to live in poverty, food scarcity, without health insurance or earn below a minimum wage. Here is an eye-opening part of my analysis that truly shook me.
The worst standards of living are in states that have Republican legislatures. One can argue that it is just that the poor in the deep South that vote a GOP heavy legislature, but when coupled with all the economic statistics listed above, that argument starts to appear very vulnerable. These conservative states have highest poverty levels despite having all GOP fiscal policies in place, for example:
Poverty. Not even one liberal state has over an 18% poverty rate – six GOP states including Texas do. Labor Abuse. Not even one liberal state has over 8% of its population being abused through earning lower than minimum wage, but nine GOP states do including Texas. Food Insecurity. Not even one liberal state has over 17% of its population living “food insecure.” Four conservative states do, including Texas. Healthcare Access. Not even one liberal state has over 20% of population living without health insurance but four GOP states do, again, including Texas.This study highlights how a huge population of Texans live under an extreme poverty-stricken climate earning below minimum wage, without health insurance access, and without access to daily food while being abused as workers.
Outcome: While GOP policies seem exciting in rhetoric, when given full liberty to implement them through a Republican controlled legislature like the one in the southern states, they are very ineffective. When Democratic financial policies are given full freedom of being implemented, like in the liberal states, they have been much more effective.
I already explained the GOP vs Democrats on social issues in my other post , through which we understand some fundamental differences such as democrats wanting to legalize gay marriage while GOP candidates run clinics to cure gays, GOP candidates working on legislation to criminalize gays and ban gay marriage, GOP legislation to outlaw Islam, and so on and so forth. But, about economic report, here is a recap and conclusion.
1. GOP Presidents have failed, Democrats have not. Historically over last six decades, Democrats have been consistently successful economically, while six of nine Republicans have failed. Keeping in mind the argument that policies of previous administrations haunt the following, the Democrat Truman that followed two Democratic terms still reduced debt and deficit, the Republican, Bush senior, that followed two Republican terms, still added to both.
2. GOP States have lowest living standards, Democratic states do not.
3. Obama has done what he promised and the economy is getting better. It is just hard to climb out of a financial black hole overnight. He still created more jobs than lost, delivered eight straight positive GDP quarters, and the debt that was growing at $3.65 trillion over four years, is now slowed down to about $1.6 trillion. You were not expecting him to change the economy overnight; I know I was not.
4. The GOP offers rhetoric, Democrats offer plans. I will really back this one for you through solid examples. Remember the debt crisis? Democrats took into account an earlier GOP report in which the GOP stated that the most optimum for economic growth is a deficit reduction plan that has an 85-15 split between cuts and revenues. Democrats offered an 83-17 with $6 in cuts for just $1 in return in tax loophole expiration on millionaires and billionaires. It was a mammoth $4 trillion debt reduction offer. The GOP walked away from it, and failed to offer an alternative. Similarly, remember Heathcare reform? Democrats took a major step by offering a plan under which most Americans would be covered, people would be allowed to stay on parents’ insurance after college graduation, insurance companies will no longer be able to increase cost or drop people after an illness, neither will they be able to refuse insurance to people with a preexisting condition. The GOP is currently running on an agenda to repeal that. The GOP alternative? It does not exist.
5. Democrats are willing to sacrifice, the GOP has evolved into a party of “Always No”. The shared Retirement Sacrifice Act of 2011 , which would require lawmakers to wait until the age of 66 to collect their pensions and take a pay cut has been introduced by an Ohio Democrat. Her logic is that congress should also take a pay cut and delayed retirement like other Americans do. Do you know why her simple bill is not passing? The GOP has it blocked. Additionally, as the Democrats fight to raise the age and reduce benefits for themselves and their GOP peers, Rep. John Fleming (LA), a republican responded to a proposed tax loophole expiration on millionaires and billionaires by saying that “by the time I feed my family, I have maybe $400,000 left over.” Thus, fighting against another democratic plan.
6. Democrats reform, GOP wants to take a step back without reform. Last election Democrats offered ideas that would alter the future such as Healthcare reform, the repeal of don’t ask don’t tell, creation of anti-discriminatory laws, Postal Services Reform which is happening right now, lower taxes on small businesses, tax write-offs on first 104K paid in employee salary for large businesses, and increase education funding to keep America’s edge. Have you notices the GOP platform this year? It has been: Repeal Healthcare reform, repeal the end of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell, ban gay marriage, ban building of Islamic religious institutions, block tax reform on millionaires and billionaires, block the jobs act, block deficit reduction plans, abolish the Department of Education, and abolish the EPA. Do you notice a trend? It’s a step back through repeal without alternatives or abolishing of institutions without an alternative plan.
Certainly, I understand these are politics, and all GOP donations come from big businesses but to letting America’s credit rating fall to protect millionaires and billionaires just because the 2012 election is on the horizon is probably not the best approach for America. While a Democratic donation averages $69 and comes from every day Americans, GOP donations average large sums from huge lobby groups and in order to be competitive the GOP has to protect its interests. But at the end of the day, we hire politicians not to win but to make America succeed. I want you to take these facts into account, remember, you are the CEO and you have a choice to make. I exhort you to make that choice keeping our social freedoms and financial facts into account.
I exhort you to educate yourself. When the GOP tells you that they want to lower taxes on millionaires and billionaires and cut education funding and corporate regulations to help the economy grow, understand that capitalism is not pro-business, it is pro-consumer. Businesses thrive with regulation and demand it. Understand that the GOP wants to cut educational funding because we see a direct link between higher education and an increase in more liberal voting patterns. Please understand that tax cuts for millionaires and billionaires do not funnel into an economic spur, as one of the best investors Warren Buffet, who saved GE, Goldman Sachs, and now the Bank of America from a colossal collapse explains
I have presented you past data, current policies, poverty statistics, and current party agendas. I wanted to just ask myself one last litmus test question. What have GOP and Democratic states added to America to see what kind of societies GOP versus Democratic governments create? If GOP economics really work, then we should see them work in states where we vote GOP legislatures and vice versa for Democratic states.
From the entertainment industry based in California to IT in Silicon Valley, each one of the Ivy League schools to Health Care and Life Sciences industry based in Philadelphia-NJ area, from banking based in NYC to the services hub in Boston, and all the way down to high-tech in Seattle, almost all of America’s progress comes from liberal states. But what is even more shocking is that a lot of southern progress happened in places like Atlanta, with large telecommunications’ industry development post 1996 Olympics, where about majority of Atlanta’s population is liberal and ascends from the north east. The truth is, this alone is a litmus test. Democrats have financially outperformed GOP governments economically and are offering actual plans as opposed to simple repeal ideas. Republicans have carved societies that are drastically behind in economic, living standards, or academic progress.
Lies, Non-Truths, Falsehoods and Misleading Statements: The Revisionist History of Trump's Team
Senator Al Franken of Minnesota said Tuesday that he now believes Attorney General Jeff Sessions is guilty of perjury. Sessions isn't the only member of President Trump's operation to be accused of producing falsehoods to a congressional committee, however. Below are 10 core members of Trump's team and a sample of the untrue or misleading statements they have made.
As ProPublica notes, the attorney general took a detour from the question at hand to say something false at his confirmation hearing. Asked by Al Franken about reports that Trump staffers and associates were in contact with Russian officials repeatedly during the campaign, Sessions had this to say:
"Senator Franken, I'm not aware of any of those activities. I have been called a surrogate at a time or two in that campaign and I did not have communications with the Russians."
But a Washington Post report last week found Sessions spoke to Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak on two separate occasions during the campaign. Since the report, Sessions and his camp have alternately said he misunderstood the question, that he "did not recall" the specifics of their conversation, and that they only made "superficial comments about election-related news."
However, Sessions responded similarly to a written pre-hearing question about Russian contacts from Senator Patrick Leahy.
He later clarified his testimony to the Senate Judiciary Committee. Senator Franken called that response "insulting," and later made the perjury claim.
Sean Spicer
Barely 24 hours into his job as White House Press Secretary, Sean Spicer claimed that his boss' inauguration was "the largest audience ever to witness an inauguration, period." It was not. When CNN's State of the Union turned down the chance to host Spicer's colleague Kellyanne Conway because of issues with her credibility, Spicer subsequently said CNN "walked back or denied" those reports. That was not true. He also cited a terror attack in Atlanta three separate times while defending the travel ban. There was no attack, and Spicer later said he "clearly meant Orlando."
And way back during the campaign, Spicer defended Trump's comments in The Mobile Locker Room to The Weekly Standard by questioning if what Trump described—grabbing women "by the pussy"—was sexual assault. Spicer then accused the Standard of fabricating his quote, so they released the audio of him saying it.
Scott Pruitt
The EPA administrator—and, as Oklahoma attorney general, frequent suer of the EPA—was asked about an issue vital to the nation's conservatives: email.
"Have you ever conducted business using your personal email accounts, nonofficial Oklahoma attorney general email accounts, text messages, instant messenger, voicemails, or any other medium?" Senator Cory Booker asked Pruitt in a pre-hearing questionnaire.
"I use only my official OAG email address and government-issued phone to conduct official business," Pruitt responded.
But in a February 17 report, ProPublica pointed out that Oklahoma City's local FOX 25 News found Pruitt did occasionally use a private account. The report was corroborated by the Associated Press and the Oklahoma attorney general's office. Pruitt could ask for some advice here from Vice President Mike Pence, who railed against Hillary Clinton's use of private email throughout the campaign and also used an AOL account for official business as Indiana governor.
Kellyanne Conway
While questions remain as to whether the special counsel to the president believes in the concept of objective truth, she's certainly run afoul of it. The most infamous example was the "Bowling Green Massacre," an entirely fictional terrorist attack Conway referenced in multiple interviews with different outlets. When she was called on it, she said it was "an honest mistake."
Steven Mnuchin
In written pre-hearing testimony, ProPublica notes, the new Treasury Secretary wrote that his former bank, OneWest, did not "'robo-sign' documents" while foreclosing on homes in the aftermath of the Great Recession.
According to The Columbus Dispatch, however, the bank used the practice in Ohio:
But a Dispatch analysis of nearly four dozen foreclosure cases filed by OneWest in Franklin County in 2010 alone shows that the company frequently used robo-signers. The vast majority of the Columbus-area cases were signed by 11 different people in Travis County, Texas. Those employees called themselves vice presidents, assistant vice presidents, managers and assistant secretaries. In three local cases, a judge dismissed OneWest foreclosure proceedings specifically based on inaccurate robo-signings.
Nice. On the way to foreclosing on more than 36,000 homes, OneWest also reportedly foreclosed on a 90-year-old woman over 27 cents.
Stephen Miller
The White House senior adviser's pet topic is voter fraud. He said on the Sunday shows that thousands were bussed into New Hampshire from Massachusetts to vote for Hillary Clinton, a claim first made by former Gov. John Sununu and rated "pants on fire" by Politifact.
He also said that "you have millions of people who are registered in two states or who are dead who are registered to vote. And you have 14 percent of noncitizens, according to academic research, at a minimum, are registered to vote, which is an astonishing statistic." The Washington Post rated Miller's claims false: While one study did show some voter registration records were out of date, the study's author has specifically said it provided no evidence of voter fraud:
David Becker
✔ @beckerdavidj
We found millions of out of date registration records due to people moving or dying, but found no evidence that voter fraud resulted.
12:18 PM - 28 Nov 2016
Betsy DeVos
ProPublica reminds us that Senator Kelly Ayotte of New Hampshire suggested the now-Secretary of Education was involved in a family foundation that has provided millions in funding to anti-LGBT groups.
When Democratic Senator Maggie Hassan pointed out that DeVos sits on the board of the foundation, DeVos bluntly replied, "I do not."
As The Intercept found, though, DeVos was listed as a vice president of the foundation on IRS filings for nearly two decades. DeVos called this a clerical error.
Elsewhere, DeVos had some trouble with the numbers. In written pre-hearing testimony, according to NPR, DeVos defended virtual charter schools—where high-school students take all their classes online—in general terms. That was fine, but then she provided some specific data about graduation rates at some of those institutions:
Idaho Virtual Academy (IDV A): 90 percent
Nevada Virtual Academy (NVV A): 100 percent
Ohio Virtual Academy (OHV A): 92 percent
Oklahoma Virtual Charter Academy (OVCA): 91 percent
Texas Virtual Academy (TXVA): 96 percent
Utah Virtual Academy (UTV A): 96 percent
Wisconsin Virtual Academy (WIV A): 96 percent"
As NPR pointed out, all these numbers were wrong. Nevada Virtual, for instance, had a 63 percent rate—not 100. Ohio's was 53, and Utah's was 42. The Trump administration did not respond to NPR's request for comment on the faulty numbers, but they appear to come from a report by the for-profit company that runs these virtual schools.
Reince Priebus
The White House chief of staff, whose name is clearly an anagram, claimed on CBS' Face the Nation in January that John Podesta's email was easy to hack because his password was "password." There is no evidence this is true, so it's unsubstantiated at best.
Rex Tillerson (Maybe)
The water is murkier here, but when asked about his history of lobbying against sanctions on Russia, the Secretary of State offered: "I have never lobbied against sanctions. To my knowledge, Exxon never directly lobbied against sanctions."
However, as ExxonMobil's CEO, Tillerson TK would have known about this piece of lobbying, documented by Politifact:
Government lobbying records show that in 2014 and 2015, Exxon paid the Nickles Group over $193,000 to press "issues related to Russian sanctions impacting the energy sector," along with a number of other matters. It paid another $120,000 in 2014 and 2015 to Avenue Solutions for work on a range of issues, including "energy sanctions in the Ukraine and Russia." In the same time frame, according to public logs, Tillerson visited the White House five times to see Jeffrey Zients, director of the National Economic Council. The meetings started about a week after President Barack Obama authorized the first of three rounds of sanctions. Bloomberg reported that Tillerson saw Treasury Secretary Jack Lew seven times in the second half of 2014. The Treasury Department oversees how sanctions are carried out.
Politifact rates Tillerson's answer as "artfully crafted" but "pretty misleading" and, ultimately, "mostly false." Moreover, Foreign Relations Committee Chairman and Republican Bob Corker reminded Tillerson in the hearing that he had called him personally in response to the sanctions. Corker later gave Tillerson a bail-out opportunity, which he took, claiming that "ExxonMobil participated in understanding how the sanctions are going to be constructed," rather than lobbied against them.
This Level of Corruption Is Unprecedented in the Modern History of the Presidency
Just like the fire department would really rather come into a building when there was smoke coming out of one window instead of when there are flames coming out of every window, because it's a lot easier to control the fire early on, it's much easier to control an epidemic early on. It's almost as though the entire bureaucratic immune system of the government is reacting to an invading virus. The worst thing any of us can do is assume that the ascent of El Caudillo del Mar-A-Lago was not the sui generis event that it clearly was, and that he, himself, is not the sui generis occupant of the White House that he clearly is, and that he has not surrounded himself with dubious quacks and hacks that are sui generis in their approach to government as they clearly are. There is a level of intellectual—and, perhaps, literal—corruption that is unprecedented in the modern history of the presidency and that is a genuine and unique threat to democratic institutions that are the objects of destructive contempt. ...
www.esquire.com
This Level of Corruption Is Unprecedented in the Modern History of the Presidency
And it's threatening our democracy.
The important part about dealing with epidemics is to deal with them early. Just like the fire department would really rather come into a building when there was smoke coming out of one window instead of when there are flames coming out of every window, because it's a lot easier to control the fire early on, it's much easier to control an epidemic early on.
It's almost as though the entire bureaucratic immune system of the government is reacting to an invading virus. The worst thing any of us can do is assume that the ascent of El Caudillo del Mar-A-Lago was not the sui generis event that it clearly was, and that he, himself, is not the sui generis occupant of the White House that he clearly is, and that he has not surrounded himself with dubious quacks and hacks that are sui generis in their approach to government as they clearly are.
There is a level of intellectual—and, perhaps, literal—corruption that is unprecedented in the modern history of the presidency and that is a genuine and unique threat to democratic institutions that are the objects of destructive contempt. The man ran on chaos. He won on chaos. And now he's governing on chaos. The checks and balances and safety valves of the Constitution—the things that, well, constitute—the immune system of this self-governing republic are facing a threat that is as different as it is lethal.
The man ran on chaos. He won on chaos. And now he's governing on chaos.
The latest manifestation of this phenomenon is the sudden firing of U.S. Attorneys all over the country—specifically, those appointed by the previous administration. It is true that every president can do what this president did, and that most have. But the people who said all through the campaign that the rules changed with the elevation of Donald Trump cannot say that the rules are back now that he's president. In addition, what he did on Friday was precipitous in the extreme and so much so that it seems to have been improvised on the spot, and that it might have been prompted by a virulent paranoia at the White House about "deep-state" saboteurs, a feeling encouraged by the hardbar caucus in Congress and pimped heavily by the conservative media auxiliaries.
By contrast, in 2009, the newly elected Barack Obama put his U.S. Attorneys in place, but he didn't fire all of the incumbent ones all at once without having the faintest idea who their replacements might be. And this was in the wake of the naked politicization of the DOJ during the Bush Administration. From Tiger Beat On The Potomac:
"I expect that we'll have an announcement in the next couple of weeks with regard to our first batch of U.S attorneys," Holder said Thursday during a House Judiciary Committee hearing which stretched out over most of the day due to breaks for members' votes. "One of the things that we didn't want to do was to disrupt the continuity of the offices and pull people out of positions where we thought there might be a danger that that might have on the continuity—the effectiveness of the offices. But...elections matter—it is our intention to have the U.S. Attorneys that are selected by President Obama in place as quickly as they can." Holder's comments begin to resolve questions in the legal community about whether the new administration would hesitate to replace the chief prosecutors en masse because of the intense controversy that surrounded President George W. Bush's unusual mid-term replacement of nine U.S. attorneys in late 2006. In addition, legal sources said some Bush appointees were looking to burrow in, in part to avoid a grim economic climate for private-sector legal jobs."
But, as we are relentlessly told by people who are whistling past a considerable graveyard, Donald Trump is different. He certainly is. Already, there are serious questions about his violations of the Emoluments Clause of the Constitution, about how and where he got his money, about how seriously we should take his claim to have divorced himself from his business interests, and about the precise relationship he has with kleptocrats the world over, especially in Russia. In that context, his decision all at once to decapitate the Justice Department at the local level takes on a more sinister character.
And then there's the case of Preet Bhahara, the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York and the scourge of the money power in New York City, which definitely includes the current president* of the United States. The man was the swamp-drainer supreme. The situation with Bharhara already is stranger than usual. In the first place, a week ago, Attorney General Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III had asked Bhahara to stay on. Also, Bhahara has a number of investigations that may or may not hit too close to home at the White House, including one involving Fox News. And, as has become customary with this administration, the whole matter was handled with the delicacy of a monkey trying to fck a football. From The Washington Post:
Within the Justice Department, some are questioning whether a recent phone call from Trump to Bharara may have contributed to the decision to remove the Obama holdovers, according to a person familiar with the matter. On Thursday, a White House aide called and left a message for Bharara, saying the president wanted to speak with him, though the prospective topic of discussion was unclear. Bharara consulted his staff and determined that it would probably be a violation of Justice Department protocols for him to speak directly to the president, this person said. That protocol exists in order to prevent political interference—or the appearance of political interference — with Justice Department work.
He's shaking up Washington! He's exploding political norms! He's also lighting his own pants on fire. By forsing the administration to fire him, Bharara managed to maneuver the World's Greatest Dealmaker into elevating Bharara's profile even higher, and to draw the spotlight down on what Bhahara's investigations, past and present. He also set up Bhahara as a free radical in our politics; the defrocked U.S. Attorney already is talking about his "absolute independence," which ought to freeze the bowels of a lot of people with plans for the future. If, one day, we're all talking about Senator Preet Bhahara, then the current president* will get a big assist.
He's shaking up Washington! He's exploding political norms! He's also lighting his own pants on fire.
There's a kind of momentum building inside and outside the government right now. For a long time, I thought the Republicans in Congress could hold out against the encroaching chaos long enough to pass their wish list, which the president* would sign, because that beats working and he doesn't know anything. But the way they've botched health-care makes the congressional majorities look as though they've both been hit in the head with a hammer. (The mischief out in the states, however, is still ongoing, and as strong as ever.)
It's possible that too many things are coming from too many directions for that strategy to work any more. The way you'll know if that situation reaches a tipping point will be if the various legislative intelligence committees of the Congress looking into the Russia business give up the job either to a special prosecutor or to some sort of blue-ribbon 9/11-type commission. You want chaos? That will be chaos, and the patient may flat-line.
Senator Al Franken of Minnesota said Tuesday that he now believes Attorney General Jeff Sessions is guilty of perjury. Sessions isn't the only member of President Trump's operation to be accused of producing falsehoods to a congressional committee, however. Below are 10 core members of Trump's team and a sample of the untrue or misleading statements they have made.
As ProPublica notes, the attorney general took a detour from the question at hand to say something false at his confirmation hearing. Asked by Al Franken about reports that Trump staffers and associates were in contact with Russian officials repeatedly during the campaign, Sessions had this to say:
"Senator Franken, I'm not aware of any of those activities. I have been called a surrogate at a time or two in that campaign and I did not have communications with the Russians."
But a Washington Post report last week found Sessions spoke to Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak on two separate occasions during the campaign. Since the report, Sessions and his camp have alternately said he misunderstood the question, that he "did not recall" the specifics of their conversation, and that they only made "superficial comments about election-related news."
However, Sessions responded similarly to a written pre-hearing question about Russian contacts from Senator Patrick Leahy.
He later clarified his testimony to the Senate Judiciary Committee. Senator Franken called that response "insulting," and later made the perjury claim.
Sean Spicer
Barely 24 hours into his job as White House Press Secretary, Sean Spicer claimed that his boss' inauguration was "the largest audience ever to witness an inauguration, period." It was not. When CNN's State of the Union turned down the chance to host Spicer's colleague Kellyanne Conway because of issues with her credibility, Spicer subsequently said CNN "walked back or denied" those reports. That was not true. He also cited a terror attack in Atlanta three separate times while defending the travel ban. There was no attack, and Spicer later said he "clearly meant Orlando."
And way back during the campaign, Spicer defended Trump's comments in The Mobile Locker Room to The Weekly Standard by questioning if what Trump described—grabbing women "by the pussy"—was sexual assault. Spicer then accused the Standard of fabricating his quote, so they released the audio of him saying it.
Scott Pruitt
The EPA administrator—and, as Oklahoma attorney general, frequent suer of the EPA—was asked about an issue vital to the nation's conservatives: email.
"Have you ever conducted business using your personal email accounts, nonofficial Oklahoma attorney general email accounts, text messages, instant messenger, voicemails, or any other medium?" Senator Cory Booker asked Pruitt in a pre-hearing questionnaire.
"I use only my official OAG email address and government-issued phone to conduct official business," Pruitt responded.
But in a February 17 report, ProPublica pointed out that Oklahoma City's local FOX 25 News found Pruitt did occasionally use a private account. The report was corroborated by the Associated Press and the Oklahoma attorney general's office. Pruitt could ask for some advice here from Vice President Mike Pence, who railed against Hillary Clinton's use of private email throughout the campaign and also used an AOL account for official business as Indiana governor.
Kellyanne Conway
While questions remain as to whether the special counsel to the president believes in the concept of objective truth, she's certainly run afoul of it. The most infamous example was the "Bowling Green Massacre," an entirely fictional terrorist attack Conway referenced in multiple interviews with different outlets. When she was called on it, she said it was "an honest mistake."
Steven Mnuchin
In written pre-hearing testimony, ProPublica notes, the new Treasury Secretary wrote that his former bank, OneWest, did not "'robo-sign' documents" while foreclosing on homes in the aftermath of the Great Recession.
According to The Columbus Dispatch, however, the bank used the practice in Ohio:
But a Dispatch analysis of nearly four dozen foreclosure cases filed by OneWest in Franklin County in 2010 alone shows that the company frequently used robo-signers. The vast majority of the Columbus-area cases were signed by 11 different people in Travis County, Texas. Those employees called themselves vice presidents, assistant vice presidents, managers and assistant secretaries. In three local cases, a judge dismissed OneWest foreclosure proceedings specifically based on inaccurate robo-signings.
Nice. On the way to foreclosing on more than 36,000 homes, OneWest also reportedly foreclosed on a 90-year-old woman over 27 cents.
Stephen Miller
The White House senior adviser's pet topic is voter fraud. He said on the Sunday shows that thousands were bussed into New Hampshire from Massachusetts to vote for Hillary Clinton, a claim first made by former Gov. John Sununu and rated "pants on fire" by Politifact.
He also said that "you have millions of people who are registered in two states or who are dead who are registered to vote. And you have 14 percent of noncitizens, according to academic research, at a minimum, are registered to vote, which is an astonishing statistic." The Washington Post rated Miller's claims false: While one study did show some voter registration records were out of date, the study's author has specifically said it provided no evidence of voter fraud:
David Becker
✔ @beckerdavidj
We found millions of out of date registration records due to people moving or dying, but found no evidence that voter fraud resulted.
12:18 PM - 28 Nov 2016
Betsy DeVos
ProPublica reminds us that Senator Kelly Ayotte of New Hampshire suggested the now-Secretary of Education was involved in a family foundation that has provided millions in funding to anti-LGBT groups.
When Democratic Senator Maggie Hassan pointed out that DeVos sits on the board of the foundation, DeVos bluntly replied, "I do not."
As The Intercept found, though, DeVos was listed as a vice president of the foundation on IRS filings for nearly two decades. DeVos called this a clerical error.
Elsewhere, DeVos had some trouble with the numbers. In written pre-hearing testimony, according to NPR, DeVos defended virtual charter schools—where high-school students take all their classes online—in general terms. That was fine, but then she provided some specific data about graduation rates at some of those institutions:
Idaho Virtual Academy (IDV A): 90 percent
Nevada Virtual Academy (NVV A): 100 percent
Ohio Virtual Academy (OHV A): 92 percent
Oklahoma Virtual Charter Academy (OVCA): 91 percent
Texas Virtual Academy (TXVA): 96 percent
Utah Virtual Academy (UTV A): 96 percent
Wisconsin Virtual Academy (WIV A): 96 percent"
As NPR pointed out, all these numbers were wrong. Nevada Virtual, for instance, had a 63 percent rate—not 100. Ohio's was 53, and Utah's was 42. The Trump administration did not respond to NPR's request for comment on the faulty numbers, but they appear to come from a report by the for-profit company that runs these virtual schools.
Reince Priebus
The White House chief of staff, whose name is clearly an anagram, claimed on CBS' Face the Nation in January that John Podesta's email was easy to hack because his password was "password." There is no evidence this is true, so it's unsubstantiated at best.
Rex Tillerson (Maybe)
The water is murkier here, but when asked about his history of lobbying against sanctions on Russia, the Secretary of State offered: "I have never lobbied against sanctions. To my knowledge, Exxon never directly lobbied against sanctions."
However, as ExxonMobil's CEO, Tillerson TK would have known about this piece of lobbying, documented by Politifact:
Government lobbying records show that in 2014 and 2015, Exxon paid the Nickles Group over $193,000 to press "issues related to Russian sanctions impacting the energy sector," along with a number of other matters. It paid another $120,000 in 2014 and 2015 to Avenue Solutions for work on a range of issues, including "energy sanctions in the Ukraine and Russia." In the same time frame, according to public logs, Tillerson visited the White House five times to see Jeffrey Zients, director of the National Economic Council. The meetings started about a week after President Barack Obama authorized the first of three rounds of sanctions. Bloomberg reported that Tillerson saw Treasury Secretary Jack Lew seven times in the second half of 2014. The Treasury Department oversees how sanctions are carried out.
Politifact rates Tillerson's answer as "artfully crafted" but "pretty misleading" and, ultimately, "mostly false." Moreover, Foreign Relations Committee Chairman and Republican Bob Corker reminded Tillerson in the hearing that he had called him personally in response to the sanctions. Corker later gave Tillerson a bail-out opportunity, which he took, claiming that "ExxonMobil participated in understanding how the sanctions are going to be constructed," rather than lobbied against them.
This Level of Corruption Is Unprecedented in the Modern History of the Presidency
Just like the fire department would really rather come into a building when there was smoke coming out of one window instead of when there are flames coming out of every window, because it's a lot easier to control the fire early on, it's much easier to control an epidemic early on. It's almost as though the entire bureaucratic immune system of the government is reacting to an invading virus. The worst thing any of us can do is assume that the ascent of El Caudillo del Mar-A-Lago was not the sui generis event that it clearly was, and that he, himself, is not the sui generis occupant of the White House that he clearly is, and that he has not surrounded himself with dubious quacks and hacks that are sui generis in their approach to government as they clearly are. There is a level of intellectual—and, perhaps, literal—corruption that is unprecedented in the modern history of the presidency and that is a genuine and unique threat to democratic institutions that are the objects of destructive contempt. ...
This Level of Corruption Is Unprecedented in the Modern History of the Presidency
And it's threatening our democracy.
This Level of Corruption Is Unprecedented in the Modern History of the Presidency
And it's threatening our democracy.
The important part about dealing with epidemics is to deal with them early. Just like the fire department would really rather come into a building when there was smoke coming out of one window instead of when there are flames coming out of every window, because it's a lot easier to control the fire early on, it's much easier to control an epidemic early on.
It's almost as though the entire bureaucratic immune system of the government is reacting to an invading virus. The worst thing any of us can do is assume that the ascent of El Caudillo del Mar-A-Lago was not the sui generis event that it clearly was, and that he, himself, is not the sui generis occupant of the White House that he clearly is, and that he has not surrounded himself with dubious quacks and hacks that are sui generis in their approach to government as they clearly are.
There is a level of intellectual—and, perhaps, literal—corruption that is unprecedented in the modern history of the presidency and that is a genuine and unique threat to democratic institutions that are the objects of destructive contempt. The man ran on chaos. He won on chaos. And now he's governing on chaos. The checks and balances and safety valves of the Constitution—the things that, well, constitute—the immune system of this self-governing republic are facing a threat that is as different as it is lethal.
The man ran on chaos. He won on chaos. And now he's governing on chaos.
The latest manifestation of this phenomenon is the sudden firing of U.S. Attorneys all over the country—specifically, those appointed by the previous administration. It is true that every president can do what this president did, and that most have. But the people who said all through the campaign that the rules changed with the elevation of Donald Trump cannot say that the rules are back now that he's president. In addition, what he did on Friday was precipitous in the extreme and so much so that it seems to have been improvised on the spot, and that it might have been prompted by a virulent paranoia at the White House about "deep-state" saboteurs, a feeling encouraged by the hardbar caucus in Congress and pimped heavily by the conservative media auxiliaries.
By contrast, in 2009, the newly elected Barack Obama put his U.S. Attorneys in place, but he didn't fire all of the incumbent ones all at once without having the faintest idea who their replacements might be. And this was in the wake of the naked politicization of the DOJ during the Bush Administration. From Tiger Beat On The Potomac:
"I expect that we'll have an announcement in the next couple of weeks with regard to our first batch of U.S attorneys," Holder said Thursday during a House Judiciary Committee hearing which stretched out over most of the day due to breaks for members' votes. "One of the things that we didn't want to do was to disrupt the continuity of the offices and pull people out of positions where we thought there might be a danger that that might have on the continuity—the effectiveness of the offices. But...elections matter—it is our intention to have the U.S. Attorneys that are selected by President Obama in place as quickly as they can." Holder's comments begin to resolve questions in the legal community about whether the new administration would hesitate to replace the chief prosecutors en masse because of the intense controversy that surrounded President George W. Bush's unusual mid-term replacement of nine U.S. attorneys in late 2006. In addition, legal sources said some Bush appointees were looking to burrow in, in part to avoid a grim economic climate for private-sector legal jobs."
But, as we are relentlessly told by people who are whistling past a considerable graveyard, Donald Trump is different. He certainly is. Already, there are serious questions about his violations of the Emoluments Clause of the Constitution, about how and where he got his money, about how seriously we should take his claim to have divorced himself from his business interests, and about the precise relationship he has with kleptocrats the world over, especially in Russia. In that context, his decision all at once to decapitate the Justice Department at the local level takes on a more sinister character.
And then there's the case of Preet Bhahara, the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York and the scourge of the money power in New York City, which definitely includes the current president* of the United States. The man was the swamp-drainer supreme. The situation with Bharhara already is stranger than usual. In the first place, a week ago, Attorney General Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III had asked Bhahara to stay on. Also, Bhahara has a number of investigations that may or may not hit too close to home at the White House, including one involving Fox News. And, as has become customary with this administration, the whole matter was handled with the delicacy of a monkey trying to fck a football. From The Washington Post:
Within the Justice Department, some are questioning whether a recent phone call from Trump to Bharara may have contributed to the decision to remove the Obama holdovers, according to a person familiar with the matter. On Thursday, a White House aide called and left a message for Bharara, saying the president wanted to speak with him, though the prospective topic of discussion was unclear. Bharara consulted his staff and determined that it would probably be a violation of Justice Department protocols for him to speak directly to the president, this person said. That protocol exists in order to prevent political interference—or the appearance of political interference — with Justice Department work.
He's shaking up Washington! He's exploding political norms! He's also lighting his own pants on fire. By forsing the administration to fire him, Bharara managed to maneuver the World's Greatest Dealmaker into elevating Bharara's profile even higher, and to draw the spotlight down on what Bhahara's investigations, past and present. He also set up Bhahara as a free radical in our politics; the defrocked U.S. Attorney already is talking about his "absolute independence," which ought to freeze the bowels of a lot of people with plans for the future. If, one day, we're all talking about Senator Preet Bhahara, then the current president* will get a big assist.
He's shaking up Washington! He's exploding political norms! He's also lighting his own pants on fire.
There's a kind of momentum building inside and outside the government right now. For a long time, I thought the Republicans in Congress could hold out against the encroaching chaos long enough to pass their wish list, which the president* would sign, because that beats working and he doesn't know anything. But the way they've botched health-care makes the congressional majorities look as though they've both been hit in the head with a hammer. (The mischief out in the states, however, is still ongoing, and as strong as ever.)
It's possible that too many things are coming from too many directions for that strategy to work any more. The way you'll know if that situation reaches a tipping point will be if the various legislative intelligence committees of the Congress looking into the Russia business give up the job either to a special prosecutor or to some sort of blue-ribbon 9/11-type commission. You want chaos? That will be chaos, and the patient may flat-line.
You have RUSSIA on the brain - they changed nothing.
once again your fact-o-meter....has been fucked
who are you trying to convince me or you.....the WORLD knows better.....just the trump cult a little slow with facts...polls...impeachment....have another glass of kool-aid
Last edited:
Not even the most rabid anti communists in the 50's were as deluded about Russia as the people with TDS. It truly is a sickness. Not to be pittied but to be laughed at and mocked.
another trump cult member still in the dark
Struggling Farmers Are Key to Trump's Hopes in Minnesota
Many farmers in the rural Midwest are frustrated with President Trump’s trade policies. Yet in southern Minnesota, many who voted for him in 2016 plan to support him again next year, which would be key for Mr. Trump as he hopes to flip a state he narrowly lost in 2016.
“In my gut, I still think he’s doing the right thing,” said Mr. Wenner, 56 years old, who grows corn and soybeans on 2,500 acres and raises about 14,000 pigs in nearby St. Peter. “It just so happens we’re on the side that’s getting the short end of the stick.”
In Minnesota, trade tensions are testing farmers’ loyalty to the president as many are still reeling from a late, messy harvest. Yields are down, and farmers are storing as much grain as possible, hoping they can sell when prices rise. With snow on the fields, some have yet to bring in all their crops.
Mr. Trump lost Minnesota in 2016 by fewer than 45,000 votes, or 1.5 percentage points, and he is making a big push for the state in 2020. A recent state poll shows him trailing Democrats in hypothetical matchups by roughly the same margins as some national polls, and no GOP presidential candidate has won the state since Richard Nixon in 1972. But Democrats say they expect a tight race.
Many farmers in the rural Midwest are frustrated with President Trump’s trade policies. Yet in southern Minnesota, many who voted for him in 2016 plan to support him again next year, which would be key for Mr. Trump as he hopes to flip a state he narrowly lost in 2016.
“In my gut, I still think he’s doing the right thing,” said Mr. Wenner, 56 years old, who grows corn and soybeans on 2,500 acres and raises about 14,000 pigs in nearby St. Peter. “It just so happens we’re on the side that’s getting the short end of the stick.”
In Minnesota, trade tensions are testing farmers’ loyalty to the president as many are still reeling from a late, messy harvest. Yields are down, and farmers are storing as much grain as possible, hoping they can sell when prices rise. With snow on the fields, some have yet to bring in all their crops.
Mr. Trump lost Minnesota in 2016 by fewer than 45,000 votes, or 1.5 percentage points, and he is making a big push for the state in 2020. A recent state poll shows him trailing Democrats in hypothetical matchups by roughly the same margins as some national polls, and no GOP presidential candidate has won the state since Richard Nixon in 1972. But Democrats say they expect a tight race.
MSN
www.msn.com
another one trump campaigned for???????????????????
In narrow victory, Louisiana Governor John Bel Edwards ...
...
Democratic Gov. John Bel Edwards will win a second term as Louisiana governor, defeating his Republican opponent Eddie Rispone. Going into Saturday’s runoff election…
John Bel Edwards victory leaves questions about ...
https://www.nola.com/news/politics/article_30a2c5e1-8a2a-5fe3-ac56-e52275c8989c.html
Nov 23, 2015 · Democrat John Bel Edwards ' resounding victory in the governor's race leaves some questions about whether the Louisiana Legislature, which tends to …
Democratic Gov. John Bel Edwards wins reelection in Louisiana
https://www.politico.com/news/2019/11/16/louisiana-governor-race-edwards-rispone-071288
Nov 16, 2019 · Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards won reelection Saturday, the second gubernatorial victory for Democrats in a red state this month. Edwards, the only Democratic governor in the Deep South, narrowly...
In narrow victory, Louisiana Governor John Bel Edwards ...
...
Democratic Gov. John Bel Edwards will win a second term as Louisiana governor, defeating his Republican opponent Eddie Rispone. Going into Saturday’s runoff election…
John Bel Edwards victory leaves questions about ...
https://www.nola.com/news/politics/article_30a2c5e1-8a2a-5fe3-ac56-e52275c8989c.html
Nov 23, 2015 · Democrat John Bel Edwards ' resounding victory in the governor's race leaves some questions about whether the Louisiana Legislature, which tends to …
Democratic Gov. John Bel Edwards wins reelection in Louisiana
https://www.politico.com/news/2019/11/16/louisiana-governor-race-edwards-rispone-071288
Nov 16, 2019 · Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards won reelection Saturday, the second gubernatorial victory for Democrats in a red state this month. Edwards, the only Democratic governor in the Deep South, narrowly...
just more weakening of our alliances to please a dictator
U.S. and South Korea postpone joint military exercise criticized by North Korea
www.latimes.com
U.S. and South Korea postpone joint military exercise criticized by North Korea
U.S. and South Korea postpone joint military exercise criticized by North Korea
Japan’s defense minister, whose country feels threatened by North Korean missile launches, said, “No one could be optimistic about” changing North Korea's behavior.
www.latimes.com
its time they pay what we are worth or we leave GO TRUMPjust more weakening of our alliances to please a dictator
U.S. and South Korea postpone joint military exercise criticized by North Korea
U.S. and South Korea postpone joint military exercise criticized by North Korea
Japan’s defense minister, whose country feels threatened by North Korean missile launches, said, “No one could be optimistic about” changing North Korea's behavior.
yup....just let the dictators take over the world and end democracy around the world.....let the north have the nukes.....and as crazy as they are with their thinking the war is not over they never surrendered....who knows...….but your support for trump and his stupidity doesn't do a lot for our security now does it
How long should we pay we should put that money into space
right.....that is going to save democracy.....you think someone like N.K. cares about space....he cares about payback!
command the high ground win the fight
And it’s a key driver for technological advancements.
we can't control earth right now...…..currently we are sitting by while Russia builds a huge strong hold in the artic....space is important....but right now America is more important and the republicans are more than willing to give the country to Russia for money
in your thinking we would really need space because you republicans are willing to move out and give this to Russia...…..going on right under your blind eyes
