It keeps gnawing at me that reason he keeps kissing Russia and NK’s ass while tucking tail in the G7 is because he needs a place to live that won’t ship him back after this investigation drama is over. Strictly a conspiracy theory.
Well, a trade war would be a fucking mess for Canada. Not like the US would come out looking pretty either. I pointed out the dairy tariff issue because it is a slight point, but really, this whole thing is so fucking dumb. Canada has arguably been our most fair and honest trading partner, not to mention willing to work on most things. So they want to protect their dairy farmers. Big fucking deal. Is this really something we're just utterly unable to live with? REALLY? The "special place in hell" tirade was perhaps and the most cringe worthy statement to come out of the administration thus far, and that's really saying something.
No, but it's a stupid media talking point that manipulates people that don't understand the bigger picture... it's a line-item "SEE!?!?" that he can point to and use that to rationalize his entire stance, and that his base can point to and say, "what about the dairy, huh?" When you try to understand and interact with the word via twitter, you lose context and understanding and nuance. People are rallying behind tweets and these types of talking points rather than educating themselves on what is going on and drawing their own conclusions. To think that the US is the big fucking swinging dick that can do no wrong or suffer no consequences of these actions is fucking laughable. Can you take your ball and run away and not play with others? Yep. But it will cost you. And by you, I don't mean the idiots in the White House. They're doing just fine. Just last year Ivanka and Jared made some $81 million. This is after quitting their companies and becoming unpaid advisors at the White House. https://www.usatoday.com/story/news...-kushner-earn-more-than-81-million/693042002/ Nope... they're doing just fine. It'll be the normal people who will suffer. Let's take a look at your national steel and aluminum manufacturing... you can't even begin to manufacture what you need yourselves... you don't have the infrastructure or manpower. But hey, let's put a tariff on them! That'll show them! Anyone here buy steel or aluminum recently? I hang out on some welding forums and prices are already going up. Way up. For EVERYONE. Including US metalworkers. That means already thin margins are going down. You guys get about half of your aluminum from Canada... and there are now tariffs on that import. Needlessly. "GO 'MURICA!" Oh, I know... it's about FREE TRADE and applying pressure for NAFTA, I get it.... I mean, he's a 1-trick pony, after all... bully the world and they'll come crawling back. It's the "Art of the Deal!" But then at the G7, they talked about just that... FREE TRADE... and everyone signed off on the communique with some apparently solid progress on exactly that... only to have Trump fuck off to Air Force One and then back out of it. So yeah... in a trade war, we'll get bloodied up pretty well... but so will you. It won't kill either of us, but it might put some people around here out of a job, needlessly.
Steel and aluminum tariffs are one of the strange areas that Trump gets slightly more support from the Democrats than the Republicans. The Democrats have been calling for harsher taxes on imports for a decade and was one of their bigger criticisms of Obama.
But didn't they want a slight increase, a few percent, in order to help motivate the internal growth of manufacturing, as opposed to a 25% tariff?
It’s all over the place. Some wanted that, others just want to fuck China, some like Warren want higher %.
It honestly shocks me how fucking naive some people are. Do we have more clout than the average player? Definitely, but how anyone could think that somehow translates to 'Can do whatever the fuck we want, whenever we want, nobody can do anything about it ever and will be forced to sign anything we want...' - I really don't get it. It's a very dangerous line of thinking, and while I am (or should I say would have been?) glad that trade is being talked about such a simplistic worldview isn't going to help things. I'm surprised Merkel didn't just put her hand on Trump's shoulder and say "Donald, trade is complicated." Isn't this the sort of spark that typically causes Trump to have some grand epiphany? Sigh. The price hikes have been fucking insane. Demand around here still hasn't really stagnated, but at some point it has to. In better news it looks like the denuclearization of the Korean peninsula might actually happen.
Interesting transcription from the North Korean talks: https://www.vox.com/world/2018/6/12/17452624/trump-kim-summit-transcript-press-conference-full-text Nah... he gets it... as you can tell by this snippet from the above-linked transcript... "I had a very good meeting with the G7. I left the meeting. I’ll be honest. We are being taken advantage of by virtually every one of the countries. Now the United States because of bad management at the top and presidents that did not care about trade or did not understand it or whatever reason, for many years with China being obviously the most successful at it and the European Union is second. $151 billion we lost. They were represented at the meeting. We are taken advantage of on trade. Canada does have very big advantages over us in terms of trade deficits. We have a big trade deficit with Canada. It is a surplus. It is not a surplus. It is either 17 or it could be 100. I don’t know if you saw it. We found it. Perhaps they were trying to show $151 billion we lost. They were represented at the meeting. Perhaps they were trying to show the power they have. It is close to $100 billion a year loss with Canada. They don’t take our farm products. Many of them. They charge what was 270 percent, but somebody told me the other day a few months ago they raised it to 295 percent for dairy products. It is very unfair to our farmers and unfair to the people of our country."
Why is it so easy for him to say “They won’t take our farm products.” but it’s impossible for him to say why?
CNN is fucking surreal. I get it. You don't like Trump. But holy fucking shit, how hard are you going to try to spin everything into negative news? The situation has a long ways to go, and we can't trust NK, no doubt about it, but that article blows my mind. I know it isn't news that CNN isn't news, but wow, just wow.
I just don’t get what goes through their heads when they write their articles and headlines. They act like they’re on some special mission to “beat” Trump at a game he’s much better at. If they just stuck to the facts Trump does enough dumb shit for 10 lifetimes. Give credit where it’s due, write objective facts and stop sensationalizing every little thing Trump does because it gives people fatigue when he/his administration does actual harmful stuff. Also the people who are complaining about Trump meeting with Kim I don’t get either. I understand that he’s a brutal dictator, but do these people think in some magical land whoever takes over next will be any better? We’ve tried our hand at installing leaders, and that generally hasn’t gone well, if we could even do that in North Korea, which isn’t going to happen. I’m not going to even try to fake understanding the complex relationships between Russia, China and North Korea, but you can only negotiate with the people who are in charge. So unless we are planning on going to war (see Middle East) or completely isolate them (bombs, eventually they’ll get one right, so another bad idea).
CNN had another editorial where they criticized Trump for not lecturing Kim on human rights. Yeah, hes a piece of shit and I can think of few worse diplomats from our side to meet with. But this is hopefully a big step forward. Lets take that before he turns around starts refueling the nukes.
That's the part that gets me. Trump will give you plenty of opportunities to criticize him. Trying to spin every single thing he does with total disregard to the circumstances isn't going to help take him down. Sheesh. I'm pretty sure I would vote for her in both the primaries and the general if she ran, but has she shown any indication that she will? It seems like she's taking the traditional route. Started with the city council, then went to the state house, and now the national house of representatives. She's pretty young, but I'm honestly at a loss as to who I would even vote for in either party right now. Yes, there's certainly people I would vote for over Trump come 2020, but it would kind of be hard to get excited about most of the candidates being thrown around. The funny thing with Gabbard is you would think she would be THE candidate for the "Diversity is our greatest strength!" crowd, but apparently a lot of them don't like her. Allegedly because she isn't full blown retarded on Islam and actually tried to work with republicans instead of just throwing a tantrum. My only knock on her is that I'm worried she's going to skirt a little too far left on economics and immigration for my liking, but I'll take it. My guess is she doesn't run for the big office for another ten years or so though.
I mean this take is basically identical to what a lot of experts were saying ahead of the summit, and was the underlying rationale for previous presidents not meeting with Kim without preconditions. It's hardly spin; it's the default analysis of the situation that Trump will need to prove wrong if the meeting is to be considered a success.
CNN has been solely an editorial outlet for some time. So far N Korea has done a lot more this time around than I can ever remember in the past. Trump might have done less than hoped in the first outing but by all outward accounts NK seems to be more serious than other regimes have done in similar situations. It is funny to see the exact same arguments one side’s pundits made being made by the opposite spectrum in nearly the same situation.
Then the default analysis fucking blows. If North Korea is lying then we're back where started. That's a risk I can live with.
I think her biggest problem running is that she’s a Hindu. And many people will have a problem with that because different.
Well, Bernie was an atheist and was polling ahead of everything the republicans had to offer, not just Trump. We don't know what would have happened, but I don't know if the average American actually cares that much anymore. Some do to be sure, but a lot of them are in the republican camp no matter what and are irrelevant to what she would have to do in a campaign. I just remembered that if she runs we're going to have to hear that endless chorus of "Oh oh OH! You're only criticizing her because she's a woman!" shit again. Ugh, please, just no. If the criticism isn't about someone being a woman than shut the fuck up about it being about the person being a woman. I don't think she's going to be like Hillary and play endlessly off that stupid shit though. She would have a few things helping her out in my opinion: - She's not a corporatist, which is a big thing among a growing segment of the left. - She's genuine. See Hillary Clinton. Look under fail. - She supported Bernie. That alone will get her a lot of votes. - She stood up to the DNC when virtually no other figures in the party did. - She's really hot. It may sound silly, but hey, it does help get people to pay attention to you. - The field she would hypothetically run against is probably going to suck. This is the biggest. - She was against the Iraq war. That still matters. - She has a stronger military record than, I think any president since Eisenhower. - She's a milestone candidate, and unlike Hillary appears to actually be a female human and not a shape shifting asexual reptile. I hope she runs. Still don't think it's likely though.
I don’t think we’ll be voting in another brown Hawaiian Democrat for a while. Though I’ve not heard her be as divisive as other democratic rising stars, see Kamala Harris.
Gabbard has a lot of things going for her. She’s a decorated front-lines war hero, has appeal towards both conservatives and liberals, and can surf tasty waves with the best of them.