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Baron Von Humongous
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Posted: Fri Sep 21, 2018 6:17 am Post subject:

Goldenwest wrote:

Just can’t make this stuff up, trade war with China, issues with trumps Supreme Court pick, apparently low approval raitings, ‘Russian collaboration’ and the stock market shrugs everything off and hits an all time high, and unemployment is at record lows....as long as trump has this going dems will have a tough time to counter it

Maybe Trump and the GOP get a boost if these economic conditions persist into 2020, but he's been uniquely unpopular and this GOP Congress doesn't seem to be inspiring much enthusiasm.

Broadly, I think the teacher strikes in West Virginia, Oklahoma, and Arizona along with Missouri's rejection of their "right-to-work" union busting law demonstrate the same popular dissatisfaction with the current economic recovery that buoyed up Bernie and Trump in 2016 - "if the economy is so great, why isn't it doing better for me?" and the dark thought behind that, "if I'm this bad off now, what happens when the economy gets worse again?"

Anyway, I need to track down the paper, but I read an interesting study a few weeks ago that measured financial investor confidence under Democratic and Republican-led governments, and you'll surely guess under which party leadership they tend to be more bullish about the market even with all else being equal.
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Baron Von Humongous
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Posted: Fri Sep 21, 2018 6:23 am Post subject:

adkindo wrote:

kikanga wrote:

DOW setting records yet wages can't keep up with inflation.
It's almost as if trickle down economics help a small, rich minority of the country more than everyone else.

Alibaba pulled 1 million American jobs because of our fun little trade war. And our trade deficit rose 9.5% in 1 month. But hey, hedge funds are making a killing. So it's alll gooood!

I am not sure what exactly the claim is....are you suggesting there is a large segment of the population that is doing worse in the current economy than they were 2,4,or 6 years ago? If your complaint is that in a booming economy, the rich benefit more on a net dollar basis.....then I am not sure how you would remedy that, or why you feel it needs remedied at all. The Rich will always gain more on a net dollar basis in a growing economy.

I am all for Democrats being upset over trade wars, tariff's, and anything that prevents free trade, but I have to ask where have you guys been the last 40 years? During my lifetime, a small minority of Democrats have supported free trade, and have mostly favored protectionist trade policies very similar to the actions Trump has taken. The only support that Obama received on his free trade initiatives were from the right side of the aisle. Even Clinton relied on Republicans to pass his trade agreements.

There have been more Patty Murrays than Sherrod Browns in the Democratic Party mainstream over the last twenty five years. Obama's views on trade didn't come out of a vacuum and his NSC/NEC were staffed with centrist Dems pushing the TPP and TTIP as the centerpieces of U.S. economic foreign policy.

Obviously the progressive wing has been pushing back against Clintonian "neoliberal" free trade and are aligned with traditional pro-labor Dems from Midwest manufacturing hubs. A major goal of the Party going forward is finding ways to synergize labor protection at home without protectionism.
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Last edited by Baron Von Humongous on Fri Sep 21, 2018 6:37 am; edited 1 time in total

Baron Von Humongous
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Posted: Fri Sep 21, 2018 6:28 am Post subject:

Wilt wrote:

I'm somewhat happy that over 60 percent of the American people realize that economic prosperity shouldn't overshadow a clear assault on democracy, political institutions, the free press, and facts. It would easy to come to the conclusion that the economy is doing well and that the status quo should remain. But a true believer in this country's potential for greatness should come to the conclusion that, despite the apparent prosperity, we will lose everything else if Trumpism survives in the long term.

But I'm not really happy because a third of the population has clear authoritarian tendencies, motivated by outdated and dangerous notions on race and gender.

That's why we should keep fighting, even if the Dow keeps breaking records.

Don't forget the Islamophobia!
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ribeye
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Posted: Fri Sep 21, 2018 6:52 am Post subject:

The Thief wrote:

Should you really be touting free press and facts in the same sentence?

Absolutely. Mistakes are made but nearly always they are corrected.

The Thief wrote:

I think the past couple years has shown that's been a major problem on both sides of the fence. And if the democratic leadership wants to win back votes they need to regroup and come up with a plan that's going to appeal to the more centric voters.

I tend to agree on that myself, but we may be seeing a real cultural shift as people see themselves slipping further and further behind with a system, beginning around the 1980's, whereby the wealthy gain a larger and larger slice of the pie.

The Thief wrote:

I found this article pretty interesting read:
https://decentralize.today/dump-the-failing-toxic-democratic-party-brand-and-start-over-80b945db01e9
"Fairly or unfairly, at least 40% of American voters think the Democratic Party’s brand, its commonly perceived principles, are: political correctness, welfare, big government, open borders, and high taxes."

30% of the voters are wacko, simply the flock who accept everything that most Republicans say as gospel, and ~40% support Trump, so most in that 40% group would not be my target. Another way of saying political correctness is decency; another way of of saying welfare, is providing a safety net for children, the elderly, and those encountering misfortune; another way of saying big government is saying we need rules and laws to protect citizenry, workers, and the environment against greed and corruption; open borders is a false characterization of most; another way of saying high taxes is paying as you go and not living an inflated lifestyle today at the expense of our children.

The Thief wrote:

"The leftmost segment of the Democratic Party wants the party to go hard left and double-down on higher taxes, more government entitlement programs, and an even stronger concentration on gender tolerance and abortion protection.

The remainder of the party seems to have no coherent philosophy or program beyond “The Republicans Are Wrong” and “We Are The Nice People.”

You can’t sell Fords with the message that “Chevys are bad cars” and neither can you sell them with the message, “Ford is a nice company.”

"If you oppose the Republican’s Rich-Get-Richer policies, if you don’t believe in “trickle-down” economics, if you don’t believe that corporations should be set free to do to consumers whatever they can get away with, if you want to rebuild the working class and the middle-class instead of further enriching the upper class, and if you want to get elected to Congress in a suburban or rural area in Indiana or Utah, leastwise in South Carolina or Texas, you will have to run under a new banner, one that will differentiate you from the liberal, political-correctness, tax-and-spend, big-government labels that today are inextricably associated with the Democratic Party in much of the country."

Redundant
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ribeye
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Posted: Fri Sep 21, 2018 7:01 am Post subject:

Goldenwest wrote:

Stock buy backs work

If I might add to the above . . . for the have-mores.

Also to support my point, "Real average hourly earnings increased 0.2 percent, seasonally adjusted, from August 2017 to August 2018".

https://www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/realer.pdf
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jodeke
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Posted: Fri Sep 21, 2018 7:50 am Post subject:

Kavanaugh's accuser and the curious George Soros links LINK _________________ Be who you are and say what you feel because those who mind don't matter and those who matter don't mind. America will never be destroyed from the outside. If we falter and lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed ourselves.

Baron Von Humongous
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Posted: Fri Sep 21, 2018 7:55 am Post subject:

Since some folks here are into conspiracy theories, how about the doppelganger theory tweeted out by Ed Whelan, President of the Ethics & Public Policy Center, last night?

Here's a brief rundown (link):

Quote:

Amid the maneuvering, the nomination was roiled further late Thursday by incendiary tweets from a prominent Kavanaugh friend and supporter who publicly identified another high school classmate of Kavanaugh’s as Ford’s possible attacker.

Ed Whelan, a former clerk to the late justice Antonin Scalia and president of the Ethics and Public Policy Center, pointed to floor plans, online photographs and other information to suggest a location for the house party in suburban Maryland that Ford described. He also named and posted photographs of the classmate he suggested could be responsible.

Ford dismissed Whelan’s theory in a statement late Thursday: “I knew them both, and socialized with” the other classmate, Ford said, adding that she had once visited him in the hospital. “There is zero chance that I would confuse them.”

Republicans on Capitol Hill and White House officials immediately sought to distance themselves from Whelan’s claims and said they were not aware of his plans to identify the former classmate, now a middle school teacher, who could not be reached for comment and did not answer the door at his house Thursday night.

On Friday morning, Whelan said he had made an “inexcusable mistake” by identifying Kavanaugh’s classmate.

“I made an appalling and inexcusable mistake of judgment in posting the tweet thread in a way that identified Kavanaugh’s Georgetown Prep classmate,” he said on Twitter. “I take full responsibility for that mistake, and I deeply apologize for it. I realize that does not undo the mistake.”

Whelan has been involved in helping to advise Kavanaugh’s confirmation effort and is close friends with both Kavanaugh and Leonard Leo, the head of the Federalist Society who has been helping to spearhead the nomination. Kavanaugh and Whelan also worked together in the Bush administration.

Kavanaugh and his allies have been privately discussing a defense that would not question whether an incident involving Ford happened, but instead would raise doubts that the attacker was Kavanaugh, according to a person familiar with the discussions.

Despite Whelan's retraction, his preposterous doppelganger theory was boosted by the dolts on Fox & Friends this morning. And the conservative Twittersphere is revealing that whispers of Whelan's bombshell had been floating around D.C. over the past few days. In fact, Matt Whitlock - Orrin Hatch's Deputy CoS - and unnamed sources in a Politico article (link) from yesterday morning were amplifying hype for Whelan's "bombshell" before it dropped.

Now I'm not a conspiracy theorist, but I'm skeptical Ed Whelan came up with this alternate narrative all by his lonesome and that he had this bombshell he thought would exonerate his friend and didn't let anyone else know at least the outlines of his lame doppelganger theory before tweeting it all out last night. Maggie Haberman of the failing NYTimes agrees:

Quote:

Maggie Haberman
@maggieNYT
Sort of surprising that people seem to think Whalen did this by sifting through Google in the dark. The move was incredibly irresponsible to put some citizen’s name out there. But he was clearly working off oppo. Who helped him/knew is a valid question.

Then the next logical question has to be "how much did Brett Kavanaugh know about his friend Ed Whelan's doppelganger theory before Thursday?"
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The Thief
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Posted: Fri Sep 21, 2018 8:28 am Post subject:

jodeke wrote:

Kavanaugh's accuser and the curious George Soros links

LINK

Apparantly she has ties to a pharmaceutical company called Corcept Therapeutics. If this information is accurate that could certainly be seen as a motive if you believe Kavanaugh is going to be the vote to make abortion illegal.

"Corcept Therapeutics (Corcept.com) manufacturers and markets an abortion pill drug called mifepristone, and Christine Blasey Ford is a co-author of at least eight published scientific papers produced by the pharmaceutical giant to promote its pills. You can see Blasey’s name listed on several publications at this Corcept.com web page detailing their research papers.

Corcept Therapeutics, Inc., a $166 billion market cap company (stock symbol CORT) reportedly has current annual sales of $216 million. The company offers just one drug, mifepristone, which is widely known as an “abortion pill” or RU-486."

"If Kavanaugh were to be confirmed on the U.S. Supreme Court and be part of a decision that overturns Roe vs. Wade, it would make the prescribing of Corcept’s drug for abortion illegal, directly impacting the bottom line profits of the company for which Christine Blasey works."

https://www.naturalnews.com/2018-09-20-kavanaugh-accuser-christine-blasey-exposed-for-ties-to-big-pharma-abortion-pill-maker.html

The Thief
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Posted: Fri Sep 21, 2018 8:36 am Post subject:

Baron Von Humongous wrote:

Broadly, I think the teacher strikes in West Virginia, Oklahoma, and Arizona along with Missouri's rejection of their "right-to-work" union busting law demonstrate the same popular dissatisfaction with the current economic recovery that buoyed up Bernie and Trump in 2016 - "if the economy is so great, why isn't it doing better for me?" .

You always here teachers complaining about pay. Out of curiosity my wife and I looked up our child's kindergarten teacher's salary and her total benefits package was well over 100k a year. At least in California it seems teachers are doing just fine. You can see the information for your local town here.
https://transparentcalifornia.com/agencies/salaries/school-districts/

yinoma2001
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Posted: Fri Sep 21, 2018 8:38 am Post subject:

The Thief wrote:

Baron Von Humongous wrote:

That's CA. Look up other states. It's appalling.
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ribeye
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Posted: Fri Sep 21, 2018 8:42 am Post subject:

The Thief wrote:

jodeke wrote:

Kavanaugh's accuser and the curious George Soros links

LINK

Seems like a bold statement to assert:

Quote:

Now it’s all suddenly clear: Christine Blasey fabricated false allegations against Kavanaugh to protect her job and her employer’s profits

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The Thief
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Posted: Fri Sep 21, 2018 8:50 am Post subject:

yinoma2001 wrote:

The Thief wrote:

Baron Von Humongous wrote:

That's CA. Look up other states. It's appalling.

Do other states have a similar type of site? Would be interesting to compare.

The Thief
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Posted: Fri Sep 21, 2018 8:54 am Post subject:

ribeye wrote:

The Thief wrote:

jodeke wrote:

Kavanaugh's accuser and the curious George Soros links

LINK

Seems like a bold statement to assert:

Quote:

Now it’s all suddenly clear: Christine Blasey fabricated false allegations against Kavanaugh to protect her job and her employer’s profits

I don't think it's unreasonable that it could be a piece of the puzzle if she is not being truthful in her claim.

Goldenwest
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Posted: Fri Sep 21, 2018 9:03 am Post subject:

yinoma2001 wrote:

The Thief wrote:

Baron Von Humongous wrote:

That's CA. Look up other states. It's appalling.

In 2017 Annual salary for school teachers in California was 60k. Forget buying a house with that salary, maybe 2 bedroom apartment (not new) would work. But the economy is booming - !

jodeke
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Posted: Fri Sep 21, 2018 9:08 am Post subject:

The Thief wrote:

ribeye wrote:

The Thief wrote:

jodeke wrote:

Kavanaugh's accuser and the curious George Soros links

LINK

Seems like a bold statement to assert:

Quote:

Now it’s all suddenly clear: Christine Blasey fabricated false allegations against Kavanaugh to protect her job and her employer’s profits

I don't think it's unreasonable that it could be a piece of the puzzle if she is not being truthful in her claim.

If the biggest little word in the English language. What IF she is?
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Dr. Laker
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Posted: Fri Sep 21, 2018 9:19 am Post subject:

We should just let the red states secede. All the Pro-Trump people in Cali can do a property exchange with progressives in Texas and Alabama. We can split Florida in half. _________________ On Lakersground, a concern troll is someone who is a fan of another team, but pretends to be a Lakers fan with "concerns".

ribeye
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Posted: Fri Sep 21, 2018 9:21 am Post subject:

jodeke wrote:

The Thief wrote:

ribeye wrote:

Seems like a bold statement to assert:

Quote:

Now it’s all suddenly clear: Christine Blasey fabricated false allegations against Kavanaugh to protect her job and her employer’s profits

I don't think it's unreasonable that it could be a piece of the puzzle if she is not being truthful in her claim.

If the biggest little word in the English language.

Yep. Notice how the statement I quoted omitted that big little word.
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splashmtn
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Posted: Fri Sep 21, 2018 9:27 am Post subject:

Wilt wrote:

and to boot. the dow doing well does not mean most people are doing well financially. there are people with jobs that dont have housing. think about that for a moment. thats how bad its getting.

its always funny how people look the market to say "WE're doing great." No WE aint. A small few are making a lot of money, a few more people are making a little bit of money and the rest of us arent making much of anything because the markets are up.

jodeke
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Posted: Fri Sep 21, 2018 9:28 am Post subject:

Dr. Laker wrote:

We should just let the red states secede.

All the Pro-Trump people in Cali can do a property exchange with progressives in Texas and Alabama. We can split Florida in half.

Why only in half? LINK
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Baron Von Humongous
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Posted: Fri Sep 21, 2018 9:51 am Post subject:

Dr. Laker wrote:

We should just let the red states secede.

All the Pro-Trump people in Cali can do a property exchange with progressives in Texas and Alabama. We can split Florida in half.

We'll have to subsidize relocation fees for all the Dems in red states, too. I assume the red states will help their brethren relocate, as well.
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ribeye
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Posted: Fri Sep 21, 2018 10:29 am Post subject:

The Thief wrote:

Baron Von Humongous wrote:

Why is it that conservatives so hate teacher's being paid a decent salary? I guess I really know the answer to that, they hate unions. Why do they hate unions? Because unions support Democrats. Why is it they so hate Democrats (when they often agree with their policies)? I'm not sure, but it might just be because Democrats supported and support the oppressed: blacks and all people of color, women and their freedom, all religions (though with a wall from government), people with different sexual preferences. That Democrats support consumers, workers, and the environment against excesses of the multi-national corporations and unscrupulous businesses, should find allegiance from both parties rank and file, but the aforementioned must weigh heavier with conservatives.

But the question should be, how much do teachers make relative to other jobs requiring similar education? According to the Economic Policy Institute (self described as non-partisan, but like everything else it seems, described as liberal by conservatives), teachers, including benefits, earn 11% less than similarly educated and experienced workers.

https://www.epi.org/publication/teachers-make-17-percent-less-than-similar-workers/
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Baron Von Humongous
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Posted: Fri Sep 21, 2018 10:43 am Post subject:

Well, looking forward to Rosenstein getting fired. _________________ Under New Management

ChefLinda
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Posted: Fri Sep 21, 2018 10:47 am Post subject:

jodeke wrote:

Kavanaugh's accuser and the curious George Soros links

LINK

The Washington Times is a right wing rag and without even clicking on the link I'm betting it's a conspiracy theory loosely connecting dots that are not related. You should know better.

jodeke
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Posted: Fri Sep 21, 2018 10:53 am Post subject:

ChefLinda wrote:

jodeke wrote:

Kavanaugh's accuser and the curious George Soros links

LINK

The Washington Times is a right wing rag and without even clicking on the link I'm betting it's a conspiracy theory loosely connecting dots that are not related. You should know better.

Better than what? Am I only supposed to link positive inks concerning Ford? Wouldn't that be considered biased? Did you read the link? I support Ford.
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Be who you are and say what you feel because those who mind don't matter and those who matter don't mind.

America will never be destroyed from the outside. If we falter and lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed ourselves.

Last edited by jodeke on Fri Sep 21, 2018 10:56 am; edited 1 time in total

ribeye
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Posted: Fri Sep 21, 2018 10:54 am Post subject:

Baron Von Humongous wrote:

Well, looking forward to Rosenstein getting fired.

Not until after Muller completes his report(s).
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