The Trump Presidency: Sweet/Sweat 16

[Skeptic Ginger]

Maybe it's time they reconsidered their political affiliations, since their party only seems to produce candidates that are either directly hostile towards their own interests, or merely tolerates them simply because there's nothing to gain from undermining them.

The only reason evangelical Christians are not focusing on bashing LGBT individuals and agitating against their freedoms is because it would be politically unpopular throughout much of the country.

More of the GOP pretending to want government out of the people's business ... as long as the government is promoting white Christian extremist values of course. It's OK for the government to get in everyone else's business.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

Right. Heart attack or murder. No difference..

If one is measuring for a casket there's no difference.

 

[a_unique_person]

Trump says Jews who support the Democrats are showing "great disloyalty".

 

[The Man]

I think that Belz's comment that this is different than a rent-a-crowd should be uncontroversial. It's similar in some ways, but it's different in that these folk would be giving up their usual pay if they don't attend, rather than getting bonus pay for attending.

They are paid to work, the work they were doing that day was attending. It doesn't require a bonus, normal pay calculation or anything. All it requires is that you are paid while you simply attend. Further, in paying also gives the company/union a say in their actions during that attendance (no disruption). Thus framing it as just normal pay attempts to hide what they were specifically being paid to do that day, attend and not disrupt.

 

[The Man]

It can’t?

The money didn’t come out of President Trump’s pocket, did it?
President Trump didn’t decide that these people should be plaplaced in this position, did he?

I have a hard time placing this in top 300 most discussion-worthy comments and actions from DJT.

Well that in and of itself, "The money didn’t come out of President Trump’s pocket" or from the campaign, may make this a campaign contribution.

 

[The Man]

They're not entirely different. In both cases someone died.

That was the point I was trying to make. Sure, something important is the same between the two scenarios. But the meat of what's going on, which I would consider to be more important both in the analogy and in real life, is quite different. Seriously, I don't know why not everyone sees this, especially since I've explained it in every way I could think of.

But I'll repeat: if McHrozni says "Trump (or his rich backers) are paying people to attend his rallies." I don't expect it to mean "factory workers are forced to attend Trump's speech during work hours lest they are denied their pay." It's misleading at best.

But see the problem is in order to be paying someone more to attend than not to attend you have to be paying them to attend in the first place. Heck, you could be paying them the same to attend as to not attend but that's still paying people to attend.


ETA: Just to clarify the point, I think this is egregiously worse than simply paying someone off the street to attend. Pay me, just off the street, to attend and that's extra money I never would have gotten. If I don't like what's going on I can say so, perhaps get kicked out, not get paid or even have someone take a swing at me. For the workers it was attend or you don't get what you were planning on and perhaps need. If you speak out or disrupt you put your job and career at risk as well perhaps get kicked out, not get paid or even have someone take a swing at you. Plenty more ******** than just paying people to attend.

 

[Regnad Kcin]

Legally, no, he doesn't.
If you are a public figure in the US, and Tlaib is certainly that, Libel is almost impossible to prove.
And what Trump said about Tlaib is no worse then what a lot of people are saying about Trump.
They don't have to legally produce Proof, and neither does Donny.
Still INHO the POTUS should simply not stoop to that level.

I would think by now it’s abundantly clear Trump has never wanted to be president, but rather wants the presidency to be “Trump”.

 

[dudalb]

Trump says Jews who support the Democrats are showing "great disloyalty".

I am so not surprised.

 

[Craig4]

Trump says Jews who support the Democrats are showing "great disloyalty".

Well, any American who supports or votes for Trump is disloyal to our nation.

Trump supporters, they're just not like us; they aren't real Americans.

 

[Regnad Kcin]

That is how Trump has lived his whole life.

In 2016 the electorate gave the keys to the Airbus to a guy who only knows how to make zooming and whoosh noises.

 

[Norman Alexander]

In 2016 the electorate gave the keys to the Airbus to a guy who only knows how to make zooming and whoosh noises.

https://cdn.newsday.com/polopoly_fs/1.12602743.1478873332!/httpImage/image.jpg

 

[rdaneel]

https://cdn.newsday.com/polopoly_fs/1.12602743.1478873332!/httpImage/image.jpg

Gives him too much credit. Does anyone really think he would actually read the manual and not just start punching buttons randomly?

 

[Andy_Ross]

Trump Tweets

Denmark is a very special country with incredible people, but based on Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen’s comments, that she would have no interest in discussing the purchase of Greenland, I will be postponing our meeting scheduled in two weeks for another time....

....The Prime Minister was able to save a great deal of expense and effort for both the United States and Denmark by being so direct. I thank her for that and look forward to rescheduling sometime in the future!

 

[Stacyhs]

Trump Tweets

Denmark is a very special country with incredible people, but based on Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen’s comments, that she would have no interest in discussing the purchase of Greenland, I will be postponing our meeting scheduled in two weeks for another time....

....The Prime Minister was able to save a great deal of expense and effort for both the United States and Denmark by being so direct. I thank her for that and look forward to rescheduling sometime in the future!

I'm sure the PM and the Danes are just heartbroken.

 

[Minoosh]

Trump Tweets

Denmark is a very special country with incredible people, but based on Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen’s comments, that she would have no interest in discussing the purchase of Greenland, I will be postponing our meeting scheduled in two weeks for another time....

....The Prime Minister was able to save a great deal of expense and effort for both the United States and Denmark by being so direct. I thank her for that and look forward to rescheduling sometime in the future!

Good on the prime minister not wasting money but I don't think that's the real reason he canceled.

 

[a_unique_person]

He is postponing their meeting because she won't talk about sheer fantasy and apparently there was nothing else to talk about.

 

[Arcade22]

Trump Tweets

Denmark is a very special country with incredible people, but based on Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen’s comments, that she would have no interest in discussing the purchase of Greenland, I will be postponing our meeting scheduled in two weeks for another time....

....The Prime Minister was able to save a great deal of expense and effort for both the United States and Denmark by being so direct. I thank her for that and look forward to rescheduling sometime in the future!

Well, isn't it a shame folks? America won't be buying a barren icehole populated by suicidal innuits. What an unfortunate turn of events,

 

[Armitage72]

Who exactly does he think they're being "disloyal" to?

The assumption is Trump was referring to Israel, but last time I checked, Israel was a separate country from the U.S., and being a citizen of one did not automatically make you a citizen of the other.

While speaking to the Republican Jewish Coalition in Las Vegas earlier this year, he referred to Netanyahu as "your Prime Minster". Apparently, all Jews are part of Israel.

 

[phiwum]

Trump Tweets

Denmark is a very special country with incredible people, but based on Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen’s comments, that she would have no interest in discussing the purchase of Greenland, I will be postponing our meeting scheduled in two weeks for another time....

....The Prime Minister was able to save a great deal of expense and effort for both the United States and Denmark by being so direct. I thank her for that and look forward to rescheduling sometime in the future!

Wait. Was that really the purpose of the meeting?

Holy cow. I just thought he had a meeting planned and the news about Greenland was mostly coincidental. Do you suppose that until the news broke, the Danes had no idea he wanted to meet in order to talk real estate?

Well, some people went to a lot of trouble to transport the baby balloon for nothing.

To partially answer some of my own questions or maybe to muddy the waters, from WaPo:

Trump had been scheduled to visit Denmark in two weeks. He said Sunday that his visit was not related to his interest in Greenland.

“Not for this reason at all,” he said.

 

[Delphic Oracle]

So how to fix the economy and head off an upcoming recession?

Why, Tax cuts of course!

https://www.cnn.com/2019/08/20/politics/white-house-payroll-tax-cut-economy/index.html
...officials have discussed the possibility of a potential payroll tax cut to stave off anxiety over an economic slowdown in recent days.

Admittedly, a payroll tax cut would be better than what the republicans did last time (largely corporate tax cuts and estate tax cuts), it would still drive up the deficit even more, and the U.S. would still have to deal with certain infrastructure problems.

Let me rip the bandaid off of "payroll tax cut" right now.

What are your payroll taxes?

Social Security and Medicare.

It doesn't do squat to the deficit, as these are entirely compartmentalized components of the budget. The Social Security Trust fund takes your payroll taxes and buys Special Issue Treasury Bonds. This is an instrument solely available to the SSTF and conversely, the only instrument the SSTF may use (attempts to allow them to sell them into a secondary market have been tried, though). It's there to keep up with inflation and completely isolate the economic risk. If the treasury defaulted on an SITB, the dollar would basically not exist, so our retirement program would kinda be #7,514 on the priority list of things going wrong.

This is the forked-tongue truth of the argument that the trust fund is full of "IOUs that Congress already spent" because yeah, essentially the Trust Fund is loaning the government money. Just like the footprint of every bank is filled with Treasury Securities as collateral for capital to fund daily operations. As I said, if we start defaulting on this stuff, you'd better have your bunker stocked.

Also, your payroll taxes are matched by your employer. Unless it's decoupling the funding, it sounds like a cut for workers, but it's exactly the same cut for the owners.