Cont: The Trump Presidency: Part 19

[Garrison]

Maybe Go-Golfing Donald should spend more time dealing with his dangerous country than whining on Twitter.

What I found most interesting there is the fact that mass murders/shootings are increasing even as the overall homicide rate drops.

 

[newyorkguy]

This is getting scarier than I expected.

The president of the United States actually wrote that?

All they want to do is investigate to make me hate them even more than I should.

Even more than he should? What does Trump consider the correct amount of hate? I'd make a crack about, "When do the death squads get started?" but the reality is: If Trump ran into New York governor Andrew Cuomo at some function, Trump would laugh it off. As he once told Hillary Clinton, "In politics you sometimes have to say things you don't really mean."

It's just red meat for his followers. And it works. He went after Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Ilhan Omar and they have become absolute pariahs in right wing social media groups

 

[Bob001]

....
Even more than he should? What does Trump consider the correct amount of hate? I'd make a crack about, "When do the death squads get started?" but the reality is: If Trump ran into New York governor Andrew Cuomo at some function, Trump would laugh it off. As he once told Hillary Clinton, "In politics you sometimes have to say things you don't really mean."

It's just red meat for his followers. And it works. He went after Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Ilhan Omar and they have become absolute pariahs in right wing social media groups

I saw an interview with Michael Moore recently where he blamed New York City for inflicting Trump on America. He said everybody in New York knew who and what Trump really was, but instead of slapping him down as a fraud and a crook with mob connections, everybody treated him as an amusing entertainer and fed his fantasies. And now here we are.

 

[Trebuchet]

Can't Trump just add homeless to ISIS tasks? Just deport them to Mexico, nobody will notice!

I assume you meant ICE rather than ISIS!

 

[Andy_Ross]

Trump Tweets

Crazy Nancy Pelosi should spend more time in her decaying city and less time on the Impeachment Hoax!

 

[newyorkguy]

I saw an interview with Michael Moore recently where he blamed New York City for inflicting Trump on America. He said everybody in New York knew who and what Trump really was, but instead of slapping him down as a fraud and a crook with mob connections, everybody treated him as an amusing entertainer and fed his fantasies. And now here we are.

I don't agree with that totally but there is a lot of truth in it. Trump was a semi-regular on the Late Show with David Letterman appearing thirty times. But having a regular diet of Trump over the years I think most New Yorkers were wise to him. Back in 2015 I wrote here that I was astounded to see Trump mentioned as being in the running for the 2016 Republican presidential candidacy. I wrote that he had "zero chance."

People in the entertainment business also blame Mark Burnett, the producer of The Apprentice for reinventing and repackaging Trump in a way that explains a lot of his popularity outside New York City. (Trump lost the 2016 vote in NYC by 20-80 and was booed when he arrived to vote at his neighborhood polling station.)

“The Apprentice” portrayed Trump not as a skeezy hustler who huddles with local mobsters but as a plutocrat with impeccable business instincts and unparalleled wealth—a titan who always seemed to be climbing out of helicopters or into limousines. “Most of us knew he was a fake,” ["The Apprentice editor Jonathon] Braun told me. “He had just gone through I don’t know how many bankruptcies. But we made him out to be the most important person in the world. It was like making the court jester the king.” Bill Pruitt, another producer, recalled, “We walked through the offices and saw chipped furniture. We saw a crumbling empire at every turn. Our job was to make it seem otherwise.” Link

 

[Delphic Oracle]

Gee, whatever happened to the Steele Dossier?

The same thing that happened to the "a bunch of Republican primary candidates" dossier.

They are the ones who funded the document coming into existence. Shopping it to Clinton was just extra profit at that point.

 

[Bob001]

I don't agree with that totally but there is a lot of truth in it. Trump was a semi-regular on the Late Show with David Letterman appearing thirty times. But having a regular diet of Trump over the years I think most New Yorkers were wise to him. Back in 2015 I wrote here that I was astounded to see Trump mentioned as being in the running for the 2016 Republican presidential candidacy. I wrote that he had "zero chance."

People in the entertainment business also blame Mark Burnett, the producer of The Apprentice for reinventing and repackaging Trump in a way that explains a lot of his popularity outside New York City. (Trump lost the 2016 vote in NYC by 20-80 and was booed when he arrived to vote at his neighborhood polling station.)

Here's the link to the full New Yorker story:
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/...d-donald-trump-as-an-icon-of-american-success

Burnett's consulting psychologist said of Trump:

“That somebody can become that successful while also being that emotionally undisciplined—it’s so macabre that you have to watch it,” he said. “And you keep waiting for the comeuppance. But it doesn’t come.”

I think part of Moore's point was that there should have been more severe legal consequences for Trump's antics: financial and tax fraud, cheating contractors, hiring illegal workers and violating labor and environmental laws, harassing tenants that he wanted to get rid of, etc. NYC never took him seriously enough to use its available tools against him.

 

[Ladewig]

The president of the United States actually wrote that?

I was most frightened by President Trump projecting his emotions and wrongdoings onto others since before the election. Now he is accusing others of losing their minds.

 

[TragicMonkey]

I was most frightened by President Trump projecting his emotions and wrongdoings onto others since before the election. Now he is accusing others of losing their minds.

He's also accused people of being fat and stupid!

 

[Minoosh]

In California you don't need to go anywhere. A sleeping bag is enough shelter all the way up to the Bay area.

A slow migration from other areas, and people who went bankrupt, lost health etc keeps adding to homeless in CA.

Thanks for pointing out the obvious that Trump deliberately ignores.

 

[GlennB]

He's also accused people of being fat and stupid!

Which is fair enough - he's in great shape and has a huge IQ

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

Of course not. What a stupid thing to say.

Did I need a sarcasm alert there?

That seems unrelated to this.

That's because you think everything I said I was talking about you when I was talking about Trump. Except my first sentence and that was a general comment, 'something a Trump supporter would say' doesn't mean you are that supporter.

 

[tyr_13]

To the surprise of NONE of us in manufacturing, tariffs backfired. No ****** Who would have thought.

 

[Trebuchet]

To the surprise of NONE of us in manufacturing, tariffs backfired. No ****** Who would have thought.

DEEP STATE! DEEEP!

 

[Aridas]

Ugh.

Trump and the Stock Market Are the Winners in the Fed’s Repo Loan Binge; Here’s the Losers

Really short version? Nearly all American taxpayers.

An unprecedented spike to 10 percent in the repo market is a harbinger that one or more of the borrowers in this market is in trouble and lenders don’t want the exposure so they are backing away from lending. This is how free markets are supposed to work. They are supposed to be allowed to send pivotal warning signs from time to time through an efficient pricing mechanism.

But instead of allowing the free market and efficient pricing components to function, the Fed cut this short and drew a dark curtain around this part of the market by flooding cheap, electronically-created money to Wall Street’s trading houses.

On December 12, the New York Fed upped the ante. It announced that over the next month it would shower the trading houses (primary dealers) on Wall Street with a cumulative total of $2.93 trillion in short-term loans.

Now Wall Street has made it clear what the cheap money is being used for. It’s not being loaned out to help the general economy – it’s being used to push the stock market to record highs each day.

*twitch*

U.S. taxpayers are also the big losers. The Federal Reserve’s balance sheet is ballooning again as a result of these repo loans and is now back over $4 trillion. If its balance sheet is this big now, what’s going to happen if Wall Street blows itself up again and the Fed has to intervene as a legitimate lender of last resort. Are we looking at an unthinkable $8 trillion balance sheet at the Fed? U.S. taxpayers are ultimately on the hook for any losses at their central bank.

U.S. investors and U.S. citizens are also the big losers. A euphoric stock market undermines the case in Congress for making the critically-needed reforms of Wall Street’s mega banks before they blow themselves up again with derivatives.

And, finally, the next generation and their children are the ultimate biggest losers of all. By funneling cheap loans to Wall Street’s trading houses instead of using its bully pulpit to demand reforms at the casino-like mega banks, the Federal Reserve is aiding and abetting and guaranteeing that the next market crash will be worse than it needs to be. That crash will result in more fiscal spending to shore up the economy, ballooning the national debt exponentially. This will mean that our children and their children will experience a blighted standard of living as more and more of Federal tax revenues are diverted to service the debt load instead of going to healthcare, education, and rebuilding the nation’s crumbling infrastructure.

None of this seems to have been properly deliberated at the Fed. Based on its minutes, its main concern appears to be that the Wall Street banks borrowing from it might end up being “stigmatized.” The insular Fed needs a hard reminder from Congress as to whose interests it is supposed to serve.

 

[Ladewig]

Thanks for pointing out the obvious that Trump deliberately ignores.

It may not be a case of his knowing it and choosing to ignore it. He really may be ignorant enough to believe the BS he is peddling.

 

[Tero]

I assume you meant ICE rather than ISIS!

Yeah, it's hard to keep track of acronyms, let alone social media.

I offered him a solution on Twitter:

 

[a_unique_person]

Trump Tweets

Any answers Nancy?

Donald J. Trump
@realDonaldTrump
Wow Crazy Nancy, what’s going on? This is big stuff! https://twitter.com/text88022/status/1210570523970850816

It was all about getting Ukraine of its compromising and destabilizing addiction to Russian gas.

 

[a_unique_person]

He's also accused people of being fat and stupid!

And having blood coming out of their whatever.