The Trump Presidency: Sweet/Sweat 16

[carlitos]

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!

Indistinguishable from parody.

 

[phiwum]

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 basically to keep up with inflation and completely isolate the economic risk. Basically 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.

When Obama lowered the payroll tax temporarily, he increased the deficit to put money into the trust funds and make up for the lost investment, if I understand correctly. So lowering payroll tax may be paired with an increase of the deficit -- or a diminishment of the Social Security trust.

This is all from memory of a recent WaPo article, so take it with a grain of salt and forgive any misuse of terminology.

 

[phiwum]

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

This is unfair. He allowed that they could be displaying "a total lack of knowledge".

So not all Jews who support Democrats are disloyal. Some of them may be stupid.

 

[Delphic Oracle]

When Obama lowered the payroll tax temporarily, he increased the deficit to put money into the trust funds and make up for the lost investment, if I understand correctly. So lowering payroll tax may be paired with an increase of the deficit -- or a diminishment of the Social Security trust.

This is all from memory of a recent WaPo article, so take it with a grain of salt and forgive any misuse of terminology.

Interesting mechanism there and I'm glad that kind of foresight helped. I now see also that employer/employee rates were decoupled under that scheme, too.

So as they say, the devil is in the details on whether that will be true again.

But there's also a part of the whole thing that seems like it's a lot of rearranging deck chairs to just end up with the same conclusion.

 

[Arcade22]

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

Basically what he's doing, intentionally or unintentionally, is making support of Israel a partisan issue. I note here that this is probably not a good thing as far as Israel is concerned, because it means that Democrats would be far more willing to act against them, simply to take a political position opposite that of Trump and the GOP.

If the goal is to try and take Jewish voters from the Democrats it might work, to some degree. However many American Jews are not supportive of the current Israeli government and the direction the country has been going, and this might even just make them even more hostile.

 

[phiwum]

Basically what he's doing, intentionally or unintentionally, is making support of Israel a partisan issue.

I don't think there's any question. He is doing this intentionally.

I know there's an awful lot of things he does that might be intentional, might not, but this one seems pretty clear to me.

 

[Checkmite]

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....

Holy mother of **** he was actually serious about it.

My god, when will this nightmare end?

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

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

Or, much more likely, calling the idea stupid offended the 'wiwil snowflake'.

In addition, he's bound to know the press will ask him embarrassing questions about his ignorant comment and his ignorance of global warming.

 

[Foolmewunz]

Trump Tweets

Spoke to my two good friends, Prime Minister Modi of India, and Prime Minister Khan of Pakistan, regarding Trade, Strategic Partnerships and, most importantly, for India and Pakistan to work towards reducing tensions in Kashmir. A tough situation, but good conversations!

He's really pimping for that Nobel Peace Prize nomination, isn't he? He's been told by both India and Pakistan that he has no place in any talks concerning Kashmir. He threw out an offer to China to help work out a solution to the HK demonstrations. China ignored him.

Why would anyone want to get this clueless lout involved in discussions any more complicated than "So what'll we serve, Chocolate or Vanilla"?

 

[The Atheist]

Indistinguishable from parody.

I'm sure I've seen that position somewhere before...

My god, when will this nightmare end?

January 2025.

Why would anyone want to get this clueless lout involved in discussions any more complicated than "So what'll we serve, Chocolate or Vanilla"?

You might need to re-think that a little - his tactics seem to working brilliantly with KJU. Trump has gone from threatening annihilation to exchanging love letters as Kim fires missiles into the ocean.

 

[newyorkguy]

This is the quote NBC News reported:

"I think any Jewish people that vote for a Democrat — I think it shows either a total lack of knowledge or great disloyalty, alright?" Link

Before anyone jumps to defend poor misunderstood Donnieboy, they might want to mull this over. From the same report:

Halie Soifer, Executive Director of Jewish Democratic Council of America, called Trump's comments "yet another example of Donald Trump continuing to weaponize and politicize anti-Semitism. At a time when anti-Semitic incidents have increased — due to the president's emboldening of white nationalism — Trump is repeating an anti-Semitic trope," she said in a statement.

It's all becoming very dangerous. Too much.

 

[Checkmite]

He's really pimping for that Nobel Peace Prize nomination, isn't he? He's been told by both India and Pakistan that he has no place in any talks concerning Kashmir. He threw out an offer to China to help work out a solution to the HK demonstrations. China ignored him.

He's getting increasingly desperate for some kind of unassailable legacy.

 

[Checkmite]

You might need to re-think that a little - his tactics seem to working brilliantly with KJU. Trump has gone from threatening annihilation to exchanging love letters as Kim fires missiles into the ocean.

Kim has always been firing missiles into the ocean; Trump's "tactics" have not had a meaningful effect on the situation.

 

[Trebuchet]

This ^

Bottom line, Some people at some Trump rallies are entice coerced with compensation to attend.

Fixed that for you.

And I'm once again reminded to maintain my policy of not arguing with Argumemnon. You get dirty and the pig enjoys it.

 

[Stacyhs]

He's getting increasingly desperate for some kind of unassailable legacy.

He's got an unassailable legacy: the most verified lies told by any US president. A record that will quite likely stand for a long, long time (if not forever).

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

Kim has always been firing missiles into the ocean; Trump's "tactics" have not had a meaningful effect on the situation.

Trump claims they have.

 

[newyorkguy]

More reaction, from a Times of Israel news story:

"Jews have had a long history of being in countries where we are accused of being disloyal,” said Aaron Keyak, former head of the National Jewish Democratic Council and a veteran political operative. “These sorts of attacks are dangerous, reckless, and wrong. Just because President Trump is deeply unpopular in our community is no reason to slander us with echos of some of the most insidious attacks against our people. We’ve seen where this road has led before.” Link

 

[bruto]

As it happens, I've been off on a trip and almost (but not quite) news-free for nearly two weeks, purposely avoiding any news. But as it happens, the trip was to Baffin Island and Greenland, and news travels fast. Within a day of the news first appearing, I spotted the following stencil in Sisimiut:


A little ditty occurred to me on the flight home, and if I can read my jittery jottings, it goes like this:

When Greenland's Icy Mountains thaw,
The plaintive plea goes forth:
We need a better tourist draw.
Please send the Donald North!

As soon as daddy seals the deals,
To build casinos, links and diners,
Ivanka Trump can deal in seals-
kin handbags sewn in China.

For polar bears don't waste your tears,
For when the final curtain falls,
We'll bag their bones as souvenirs,
And sell them in the malls.

When Inuit, no longer frozen,
Come in cheering from the cold,
They'll caddy for the touring pros and
Paint their quaint old dogsleds gold.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

As it happens, I've been off on a trip and almost (but not quite) news-free for nearly two weeks, purposely avoiding any news. But as it happens, the trip was to Baffin Island and Greenland, and news travels fast. Within a day of the news first appearing, I spotted the following stencil in Sisimiut:
View attachment 40569

A little ditty occurred to me on the flight home, and if I can read my jittery jottings, it goes like this:

When Greenland's Icy Mountains thaw,
The plaintive plea goes forth:
We need a better tourist draw.
Please send the Donald North!

As soon as daddy seals the deals,
To build casinos, links and diners,
Ivanka Trump can deal in seals-
kin handbags sewn in China.

For polar bears don't waste your tears,
For when the final curtain falls,
We'll bag their bones as souvenirs,
And sell them in the malls.

When Inuit, no longer frozen,
Come in cheering from the cold,
They'll caddy for the touring pros and
Paint their quaint old dogsleds gold.

That's excellent.

 

[Checkmite]

Interesting bit of news that got buried: at the same event at which he accused Democrat-voting Jews of "disloyalty", just before that statement grabbed all the press; apparently Trump conceded that there might be a "small, two-month recession" on the way, but that it's okay because it's necessary in order to ultimately win the trade war. This despite him and his advisers in recent days expounding that there's absolutely no evidence of an impending recession.