It is true that El Blob is incapable of reading a book, but there is neither any evidence that he can sit through a motion picture and comprehend the plot.
So, no funding for the World Health Orgainzaiton and no funding for the United States Postal Service? Gee, I wonder what those two outfits have in common. I mean besides showing that the damn drity lying sack of dung lied.
The “Executive Branch” executes the directives put forth by Congress. Traditionally, there has been a fair amount of discretion (cf., Ukraine aid and the whole impeachment thing) lent the former, because the country never expected to have a totally FUITH President in there.
I’m pretty sure I’ve figured out what he’s going to do. He’ll reopen, May 1st at the latest. They’ve raided the Treasury, their work is done. No need to keep things shut down any longer. It was never about disease prevention, that was cover for the robbery. The states can follow or not. But if they don’t, he’ll
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Find a way to cut off the enhanced unemployment benefits (the extra $600) to residents of those states that are still unemployed past the Grand Reopening date. “If the states and the governors won’t let people get back to work, let them pay the bill”
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Refuse to forgive the payroll protection loans unless the businesses defy their state governments reopen on his schedule.
He’d love to do this because it will let him deny benefits to the harder hit Democratic states. It may even be a prime motivator.
Yep, this is exactly what I suspect he will do.
Trump and Kushner could reap a pandemic windfall
That’s our boy! And HIS boy!
“This is how ya make money, son-- stay ahead of the suckers! Just watch me and do like I do!”
What worries me - shit what doesn’t these days??!?! - is that contrary to the usual theme of Republicans shirking away from big government, they’re actually jumping into the deep end of that pool. They’re embracing the expansion of stimulus. If we could trust this administration and its acolytes to behave with any sense of ethos, we would welcome the paradigm shift.
Instead, we should be fearful of what it really represents. In many ways, the modern Republican party is embracing a modernized, Americanized and opportunistic form of National Socialism. It’s unabashedly ditching Republican orthodoxy, but not just in terms of expanding stimulus; it’s also saying “Fuck states’ rights.” It’s asserting powers it does not have. Indeed, they have been banging on this drum since impeachment: the president, the executive branch, has supremacy over all others.
Expanding the federal role in the economy should not be seen necessarily as a temporary move in a crisis. This is an attempt to normalize kleptocracy and it should be viewed as a move to normalize the absolute supremacy, not just of the federal government but the absolute supremacy of the presidency.
And they have been enabled by cowards in the Senate and Supreme Court who think they are correcting years of liberal misrule but who are instead preparing the coffin for what was once a robust American democracy. You can go ahead and call me a whiny chicken little all you want, but if you do it’s because you fundamentally fail to see what is happening. This is how Russia ended its fledgling democracy, and how they wanted to end democracy in Ukraine. Coronavirus has also given Putin wannabes in Eastern Europe and elsewhere a new justification to expand their grip on power.
I’m afraid we’re living the late 19th and early 20th Centuries all over again.
That’s right! Back to the “Age of the Robber Barons”.
I’ve been saying since the late 80s that we were headed for a new Gilded Age. No one ever believed me, and yet, here we are. At least some of the Robber Barons thought they ought to do some good with their money, although it doesn’t seem to have affected what they were willing to do to get it. Damn few of our current Robber Barons do so.
I think it’s debatable. I feel there’s a good possibility that Gore wouldn’t have followed the same deregulation path that Bush followed. I also feel that Gore would have continued the Clinton administration policy of containing Iraq and waiting for Saddam to die rather than invading Iraq. And I feel that only fighting one war instead of two wouldn’t have put as much pressure on the economy.
Had to share this from this morning’s Maddowblog:
America! Fucked, yeah!
(The previous is sarcasm, and is not intended as a sincere declaration.)
Does anyone think that this is not the formula that’s being prescribed right now?
Does anyone wonder what Putin and Trump really talk about when they have extensive conversations about how to improve relations between the two countries?
Putin has a vested interest in making America corrupt again. We, after all, are the authors of the Magnitsky Act, and we were the ones, once upon a time, who threatened to create a global network of regulations that would find a way to restrict the movement of Putin’s and his oligarchs networks of dark money that gets shuffled around and laundered from country to country.
Trump’s asserting his absolute authority over states at first seems like a meme-worthy joke - until you see that he’s putting his name directly on stimulus checks and declaring that he is beyond oversight, removing inspectors generals who have the investigative authority to supervise the distribution of taxpayer funds. It’s a declaration - a declaration of the absolute authority to create his own type of kleptocracy. He and his administration will use this financial stimulus as a blunt instrument to reward his loyalists and punish his enemies, jut as Ann Hedonia pointed out. He’ll punish blue states and reward red ones. He’ll punish businesses who don’t support him and reward those who support him the most.
I imagine this showed up elsewhere, but it should also be recorded here. Apparently, Kellyanne was heard to say “* This is COVID-19, not COVID-1 folks, and so you would think the people in charge of the World Health Organization, facts and figures, would be on top of that.*”
The really stupid bullshit being put forth by this clusterfuck is deeply disturbing.
I imagine this showed up elsewhere, but it should also be recorded here. Apparently, Kellyanne was heard to say “* This is COVID-19, not COVID-1 folks, and so you would think the people in charge of the World Health Organization, facts and figures, would be on top of that.*”
The really stupid bullshit being put forth by this clusterfuck is deeply disturbing.
Completely agree with this. The number of things that would have been different in our present day had there been a Gore administration instead of a Bush II administration is hard to bear.
Not only would we have never invaded Iraq, we’d have never taken our eye off the ball as regards why we went into Afghanistan. We would have completed that mission of eradicating Al Qaeda and punishing the Taliban. And we would have gotten the fuck out instead of slipping into the old quagmire of nation-building. Many fewer lives lost and trillions saved.
Gore would never have permitted the deregulation that led us into the banking mess of 2007-08. Trillions saved. Many lives not upended by financial ruin. No Koch brothers’ “tea party.”
Gore would have aggressively pursued a green economy and unhitched us from a global oil economy to the greatest extent possible. We would have been at the forefront of green technology, leading the way instead of barely acknowledging how important all this is. Trillions earned, good start on addressing climate change.
Gore understood the importance of social safety nets. He campaigned on putting social security into a “lock box,” beyond the reach of Congress.
He was ridiculed for the way he said “lock box.” Hurr, hurr.
I happen to view Trump’s election/administration as simply a continuance of the Bush administrations. And without Bush II, there would never have been a Trump. The top would still be spinning mostly level, not careening wildly from one extreme to the other, the nation so divided we may as well be in another civil war. Bush II is when it really got swinging.
Anyone who is paying attention can see how many former Bushies are/were again hard at work doing their evil in the era of Trump. Bolton, Barr, McGahn, Azar, Jerome Powell, Elaine Chao, Dina Powell, Alex Acosta, Dan Coats, Tom Bossert, Kirstjen Nielsen, Brock Long, Elaine Duke… there are many more. Does anyone think it is was a happy coincidence that Trump pardoned Dick Cheney’s pet, Scooter Libby?
The most important election that happened in my lifetime? It was in 2000. 2016 is just a continuation of 2000, so for fuck’s sake, let’s get it right this time in 2020, 2024, 2028…
[A brief intermission of good news](https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-election-enthusiasm-exclusive/exclusive-democrats-furious-with-trump-much-more-keen-to-vote-now-than-four-years-ago-reuters-ipsos-idUSKCN21X1AQ) (Reuters):
[QUOTE]
When Republicans in Wisconsin pushed through state elections last week in the middle of the coronavirus pandemic, Jessica Jaglowski donned a protective mask and headed for the ballot box, determining her best shot at self-preservation was not to stay home but to vote Republicans out of office.
Come November, when Republican President Donald Trump is up for re-election, Jaglowski, a 47-year-old Democrat in Milwaukee, says she will be even more determined to vote, even if the deadly virus continues to ravage her community.
“He’s half the reason we’re in this mess right now,” she said, criticizing Trump for downplaying the threat of COVID-19 before it hit the country hard. “If I have to wait in line for 12 hours, in a storm, I don’t care. I’m voting for whoever can get Trump out.”
After three years in the White House, this much about Trump is clear: Those who want to deny him the presidency are much more determined to vote now than they were four years ago.
[/QUOTE]
These sentiments are true the whole country over. If we are committed to voting, Trump can't win in 2020.I do not believe that this is a supportable claim. A major change in the “net securities” rule in '04 by the SEC allowed financial institutions to over-leverage, a major component of the crisis, and that rule remains in effect even after the crisis and after 8 years of that “arrgh, socialist” Obama administration. Much of what led to the crisis was not actually W’s fault, per se, and it is not obvious that a Gore administration, facing a Republican-controlled Congress, would have been strong enough and/or smart enough to rein in the financial sector. Granted, without W’s tax vandalism, perhaps there would have been somewhat less capital in play, but, on the other hand, it could have made the lenders even more aggressive.
Someone like that evil fiend Ralph Nader, with a compliant Congress, might have been able to prevent or greatly mitigate the crisis, but such a kind of person (e.g., Liz Warren) is simply unelectable.
As long as the Pubbies permit Democrats to vote and permit Democrats’ votes to be counted. I expect to see lots more dirty tricks in this department.
You’re not alone.
The Kentucky Republican legislature just overrode the Democratic governor’s veto to require voter IDs, at a time when the DMV offices are closed.
Kellyanne Conway wants to know why the medical professionals weren’t able to come up with a cure after the first 18 Covids.