The policy and politics of Trumpism

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TIDE-HSV

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What advanced Democracies in the world do not offer free college tuition for students who qualify? Even Brazil and Argentina provide free college tuition in their Federal University systems for qualifying students.

It is a fact that the western Europeans have the best free educational systems on the globe and even India and Asia dwarf us in terms of technology graduates.

Yet we choose to lower our educational system to third world standards!
This is the secret. You have to qualify through testing. Here, you sort of do, and, if you score highly enough, a lot of the financial burden is lifted off your family. In most first world countries, it's lifted entirely. However, in most other first world countries a huge portion of educational funds go into vocational training, which has been sorely neglected here...
 

TIDE-HSV

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Bolton is the quintessential Nut Bag. I guess as the old saying goes, "it takes one to know one".
Yes, but you're not a Fox commentator and thus don't have the president's ear daily. Think about it as an expansion of the Great Reality Show. The motto of the White House should be "Fake it."
 

CharminTide

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Yes, but you're not a Fox commentator and thus don't have the president's ear daily. Think about it as an expansion of the Great Reality Show. The motto of the White House should be "Fake it."
Since Trump is replacing all his real lawyers with TV lawyers, it seems to me that he doesn't plan to fight Mueller in the courtroom. He will fire the Special Counsel, and the job of his TV lawyers will be to go on Fox News and defend it.
 

CharminTide

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Rosenstein is supposed to make a big announcement today, right after news broke that the DNC hacker was a Russian intelligence officer and that Trump's advisers were communicating with him. If past is prologue, Rosenstein will make a disparaging remark about Russia and immediately be fired, paving the way for a renewed Nixonian effort to remove the people investigating the president.

https://twitter.com/abc/status/[LEFT][COLOR=#14171A][FONT="Segoe UI"]https://twitter.com/ericgeller/status/976940479597219840[/FONT][/COLOR][/LEFT]

https://twitter.com/abc/status/[LEFT][COLOR=#14171A][FONT="Segoe UI"]https://twitter.com/attackerman/status/976958304810426370[/FONT][/COLOR][/LEFT]

https://twitter.com/abc/status/[LEFT][COLOR=#14171A][FONT="Segoe UI"]https://twitter.com/NoahShachtman/status/976981527790870530[/FONT][/COLOR][/LEFT]

 

UAH

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I think the problem is you are assuming whiteboard economics is the same as the real thing when it rarely is the case. Deficit-spending models work if governments raise taxes after the recovery but they rarely do. Supply-side economics works in the theory but haven't been shown to work in practice. The reality is that we rely too much on other nations to be overly retributive in tariffs. We're just robbing Peter to pay Paul. The result is market uncertainty due to the "butterfly effect"-like unpredictability tariffs will have on the economy as a whole. For example, our consumer electronics market is highly dependent on China. What if they decide to start taxing consumer electronics being manufactured in their borders? Oh, we just move those jobs back right? Yeah, good luck...Apple and others are on record stating that we have deficiency in electronic manufacturing skills that would likely take several decades to build up to reach the same level of quality as Chinese manufactured electronics. This stuff can happen all over the place but this is one market I actually know something about...
Very reasonable comments I agree that billions would need to be spent to even begin to manufacture consumer electronics. After all we gave up that entire industry to Asia in the 1980's. At another level I believe attacking China with such a blunt instrument doesn't consider all of the issues we have on the table with them such a North Korea. It definitely doesn't consider the fact that they are probably the largest holder of our incredible debt.
It is absolutely a complex problem that has developed over three decades and Trump has no idea about the approach we might take to begin to adjust our economic relationship with China.
 

92tide

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and the next chapter in the continuing saga of "why we can't have nice stuff"

link
A Muslim aerospace engineer has sued the Spirit Boeing Employees Association for religious discrimination stemming from a party at a lake in the US state of Kansas.

The American Civil Liberties Union filed a federal lawsuit Friday on behalf of Munir Zanial, a Malaysian national of Indian ancestry.

The association declined to comment.

Zanial rented the group's lake last year to host a party to celebrate Malaysian Independence Day. The lawsuit alleges the association reported him out of fear he used the lake to hold an Islamic State meeting.

It alleged an American flag that had been "desecrated by ISIS symbols." But the flag was actually a Malaysian flag and the guests included people of Malaysian Indian ancestry, some wearing hijabs.
 

92tide

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Rosenstein is supposed to make a big announcement today, right after news broke that the DNC hacker was a Russian intelligence officer and that Trump's advisers were communicating with him. If past is prologue, Rosenstein will make a disparaging remark about Russia and immediately be fired, paving the way for a renewed Nixonian effort to remove the people investigating the president.

https://twitter.com/abc/status/[LEFT][COLOR=#14171A][FONT="Segoe UI"]https://twitter.com/ericgeller/status/976940479597219840[/FONT][/COLOR][/LEFT]

https://twitter.com/abc/status/[LEFT][COLOR=#14171A][FONT="Segoe UI"]https://twitter.com/attackerman/status/976958304810426370[/FONT][/COLOR][/LEFT]

https://twitter.com/abc/status/[LEFT][COLOR=#14171A][FONT="Segoe UI"]https://twitter.com/NoahShachtman/status/976981527790870530[/FONT][/COLOR][/LEFT]

and yet we will be inundated with trump minions and i'm totes against trump, but hillary folks saying that there is no proof of collusion with russia and that this is just libtards being sore losers and not focusing on the real problems with america which are political correctness run amok and trump supporters not getting pats on the head for being so brave in standing up for their values.
 

jthomas666

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I think the problem is you are assuming whiteboard economics is the same as the real thing when it rarely is the case. Deficit-spending models work if governments raise taxes after the recovery but they rarely do. Supply-side economics works in the theory but haven't been shown to work in practice. The reality is that we rely too much on other nations to be overly retributive in tariffs. We're just robbing Peter to pay Paul. The result is market uncertainty due to the "butterfly effect"-like unpredictability tariffs will have on the economy as a whole. For example, our consumer electronics market is highly dependent on China. What if they decide to start taxing consumer electronics being manufactured in their borders? Oh, we just move those jobs back right? Yeah, good luck...Apple and others are on record stating that we have deficiency in electronic manufacturing skills that would likely take several decades to build up to reach the same level of quality as Chinese manufactured electronics. This stuff can happen all over the place but this is one market I actually know something about...
No, I was assuming that you were on drugs. ;)

My earlier comment was more a reaction to the "neoliberal" label. I agree that supply side economics doesn't work--it is based on the assumption that the upper class will reinvest their additional earnings in job-producing endeavors. That *might* work in a manufacturing-based economy, but not in our economy.The Reagan recovery didn't happen until he ramped up defense spending--which forced companies to invest in expansion and create jobs. Fun times. I had a CD earning 20%.

Between Trump's tariffs and the ascendancy of John Bolton, I'm growing truly scared about our future.
 
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92tide

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No, I was assuming that you were on drugs. ;) My earlier comment was more a reaction to the "neoliberal" label. I agree that supply side economics doesn't work--it is based on the assumption that the upper class will reinvest their additional earnings in job-producing endeavors. That *might* work in a manufacturing-based economy, but not in our economy.The Reagan recovery didn't happen until he ramped up defense spending--which forced companies to invest in expansion and create jobs. Fun times. I had a CD earning 20%.
Between Trump's tariffs and the ascendancy of John Bolton, I'm growing truly scared about our future.
what i find most scary is the 80+% approval rating among the gop. and to add to that, the fact that i would find it scary, would make almost the entire 80% think that's a good thing.
 

rgw

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No, I was assuming that you were on drugs. ;) My earlier comment was more a reaction to the "neoliberal" label. I agree that supply side economics doesn't work--it is based on the assumption that the upper class will reinvest their additional earnings in job-producing endeavors. That *might* work in a manufacturing-based economy, but not in our economy.The Reagan recovery didn't happen until he ramped up defense spending--which forced companies to invest in expansion and create jobs. Fun times. I had a CD earning 20%.
Between Trump's tariffs and the ascendancy of John Bolton, I'm growing truly scared about our future.
It is a new form of classical liberalism that informs the policy of global free trade, strong corporations, and weak states. Classical liberalism only sought to level the relationship between citizens and their state. This is very likely why the rise of nationalism in Europe occurred after the liberal revolution disruption. Peoples wanted to order themselves among their kind within a single state. I think neoliberalism is partly what people ascribe to libertarianism (a concept/politic alignment that really didn't exist until mid-century at the earliest): The best way to assure personal and economic freedom is with a nation-state that is weak. Conservatism has an odd relationship to capital because conservatism itself was a response to the liberal revolutions of the late 18th to mid 19th century which brought the economic freedom of capital markets to the masses in the West. What people thought was immutable such as social order and class stratification was proven to not be material and easily destroyed. Conservatism had a stand-offish relationship to capital because they deplored the up-jump nature and lacking aristocratic grace of the new wealth. Conservative theory came to realize that there was no going back to the old order of things but they could recreate something new but familiar within the modern constraints. This is how conservatism chummed up to the captains of industry in the back half of the 19th century. They could be the new aristocracy using money as a way to impart morality upon the masses. This is the crux of the paleo-con v. neo-con continuum. It is interesting that Marx saw the same problems with the liberal revolutions that furiously burned across Europe in the 19th century. His parent's generation was sold on the liberty and prosperity that would come with capital and democracy/republicanism but the practicality of it was that the old lords were replaced with bosses which only differed in that they had no divine rights (the death of the social gospel in favor of the prosperity gospel helped to fix that issue though!). What Marx had identified early on was how quickly the liberal revolution momentum was lost and what had developed was a new order same as the old order.
 
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UAH

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I can absolutely see Trump spitballing the idea that "war is good for approval ratings, so let's just start one."
Even a casual viewer must believe that we are heading into Iran, without I believe the Brits and Europeans this time around. Surely they would not get distracted from the Russia threat on their doorsteps.

It will be interesting to see how future historians deal with the long decline of the US empire in terms of our constant involvement in unwinnable wars and meddling in the affairs of other countries since the end of WW ll. Now more than ever we cannot fund our wars nor do we have the boots to be put on the ground to prosecute a land war. Certainly we do not have the staying power to have forces in the Middle East for the next fifty plus years.

It goes without saying of course Russia would like nothing better than to supply technology and arms to Iran in the manner we did when they were in Afghanistan.

Given our limitations we will resort to bombing them and destroying their infrastructure and create a thousand enemies for each one we kill.
 

TIDE-HSV

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Even a casual viewer must believe that we are heading into Iran, without I believe the Brits and Europeans this time around. Surely they would not get distracted from the Russia threat on their doorsteps.

It will be interesting to see how future historians deal with the long decline of the US empire in terms of our constant involvement in unwinnable wars and meddling in the affairs of other countries since the end of WW ll. Now more than ever we cannot fund our wars nor do we have the boots to be put on the ground to prosecute a land war. Certainly we do not have the staying power to have forces in the Middle East for the next fifty plus years.

It goes without saying of course Russia would like nothing better than to supply technology and arms to Iran in the manner we did when they were in Afghanistan.

Given our limitations we will resort to bombing them and destroying their infrastructure and create a thousand enemies for each one we kill.
You must have been listening to John Bolton. We've slipped one notch closer to Trump being the smartest guy in the room. Next, he fires Kelly and hires Hannity...
 

rgw

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Even a casual viewer must believe that we are heading into Iran, without I believe the Brits and Europeans this time around. Surely they would not get distracted from the Russia threat on their doorsteps.

It will be interesting to see how future historians deal with the long decline of the US empire in terms of our constant involvement in unwinnable wars and meddling in the affairs of other countries since the end of WW ll. Now more than ever we cannot fund our wars nor do we have the boots to be put on the ground to prosecute a land war. Certainly we do not have the staying power to have forces in the Middle East for the next fifty plus years.

It goes without saying of course Russia would like nothing better than to supply technology and arms to Iran in the manner we did when they were in Afghanistan.

Given our limitations we will resort to bombing them and destroying their infrastructure and create a thousand enemies for each one we kill.
Reminds me of this Iran invasion war game our armed forces do every year (or few years) where in 2013 or 2014 the flag officer decided to fight the Iranian notional forces in an asymmetric manner. Iran actually has a competent military compared to Iraq but they would still have to use inventive strategies. Anyway, he basically did the fictional Battle of Blackwater Bay with their limited naval forces from what I've gathered...he also tried to avoid direct confrontation with the strength of the invading force as much as possible. He was owning our military, turning this invasion into an ugly, bloody affair and we're not even to the occupation. I have my doubts about getting into a fight with Iran because they paused the war game and changed the rules so the notional Iranian forces would have "to fight good" so our military industrial complex could come out on top and get warm fuzzies.

I think we've been softened up by picking fights with ineffective enemies with barely functional states. Iran may be the bad guy to us but they are a legitimate regional power with an effective government and orderly military force. I think we'd be lining up body bags at a rate that exceeds Afghanistan, Iraq, Vietnam, and Korea combined potentially.
 
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