American Politics from 2019 on

[Tero]

The dog that caught the bumper won't let go
https://www.congress.gov/bill/119th-con ... e-bill/722
abortion bill

[Brian Peacock]

I don't need prevagen. My memory is as sharp as it ever was. I also don't need prevagen.

[Tero]

[Tero]

Elsewhere, on a thread where the topic was "what did Biden do wrong?"

Fear of being seen doing a good thing.
Biden's political Life, not just his Presidency, was based on appealing to an imaginary older white voter who wants things to stay the same when in fact his world has already gone down the drain but he can still pretend.

The Biden administration did unquestionably good ( for US standards) for Climate Change and consumer protection, but they didn't want to talk about it for fear of the C word.

And pretty much anything but looking like Netanjahu's puppet and apologist-in-chief would have made him look less pathetic.

[Tero]

Hard workkng billionaires will get their well earned tax cut. 50 senators owe them that.
https://www.threads.net/@senwarren/post ... m_vvAuv3Eg

[Tero]

Benefit cuts in spending bill:
One amendment proposed by Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., would have prohibited the bill from cutting taxes for the wealthy if even $1 is cut from Medicaid, a health care program for low-income Americans.
It was rejected 49-51, with just two Republicans joining Democrats in favor of it: Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, and Josh Hawley, R-Mo.

Just two amendments passed. One of them, offered by Sen. Dan Sullivan, R-Alaska, would create "a deficit-neutral reserve fund relating to protecting Medicare and Medicaid." But Democrats balked at the proposal, saying it was designed to give political cover to Republicans on the issue and that millions of Americans would lose their coverage.

"The language in this amendment is code for kicking Americans with Medicaid coverage off their health insurance if they’re not sick enough, not poor enough, or not disabled enough," said Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., who spoke in opposition.
The Senate plan would be narrower and would not include renewing the tax cuts that were a signature accomplishment of Trump's first term. Instead, those tax cuts would come in a second reconciliation package later this year, senators have said.

If the House and the Senate can get on the same page and pass an identical budget resolution, that would only be the start of a very long and complicated legislative process. In the House, conservatives are demanding steep spending cuts, while more moderate Republicans are getting skittish due to potential cuts to Medicaid.

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/amp/rcna192893

[Tero]

"Trump is threatening to impose tariffs on rivals and allies alike, without any satisfactory explanation of why one is being tariffed and the other not, and regardless of how such tariffs might hurt U.S. industry and consumers. It’s a total mess. As the Ford Motor chief executive Jim Farley courageously (compared to other chief executives) pointed out, “Let’s be real honest: Long term, a 25 percent tariff across the Mexico and Canada borders would blow a hole in the U.S. industry that we’ve never seen.”

"My favorite tutor in these matters is the Oxford University economist Eric Beinhocker, who got my attention when we were talking the other day with the following simple statement: “No country in the world alone can make an iPhone.”
"Think about that sentence for a moment: There is no single country or company on earth that has all the knowledge or parts or manufacturing prowess or raw materials that go into that device in your pocket called an iPhone. Apple says it assembles its iPhone and computers and watches with the help of “thousands of businesses and millions of people in more than 50 countries and regions” who contribute “their skills, talents and efforts to help build, deliver, repair and recycle our products.”

"We are talking about a massive network ecosystem that is needed to make that phone so cool, so smart and so cheap. And that is Beinhocker’s point: The big difference between the era we are in now, as opposed to the one Trump thinks he’s living in, is that today it’s no longer “the economy, stupid.” That was the Bill Clinton era. Today, “it’s the ecosystems, stupid.”

"The old days, he added, “where you made wine and I made cheese, and you had everything you needed to make wine and I had everything I needed to make cheese and so we traded with each other — which made us both better off, as Adam Smith taught — those days are long gone.” Except in Trump’s head."

"Instead, there is a global web of commercial, manufacturing, services and trading “ecosystems,” explains Beinhocker. “There is an automobile ecosystem. There’s an A.I. ecosystem. There’s a smartphone ecosystem. There’s a drug development ecosystem. There is the chip-making ecosystem.” And the people, parts and knowledge that make up those ecosystems all move back and forth across many economies."

"Ditto today for the most advanced microchips. They are now made by a global ecosystem: AMD, Qualcomm, Intel, Apple and Nvidia excel at the design of chips. Synopsys and Cadence create sophisticated computer-aided design tools and software on which chip makers actually draw up their newest ideas. Applied Materials creates and modifies the materials to forge the billions of transistors and connecting wires in the chip. ASML, a Dutch company, provides the lithography tools in partnership with, among others, Carl Zeiss SMT, a German company specializing in optical lenses, which draws the stencils on the silicon wafers from those designs. Lam Research, KLA and firms from South Korea to Japan and Taiwan also play key roles in this coalition."
"If you stand back and look at the big sweep of economic history, Beinhocker explains, “it is really a story of scaling up our networks of cooperation to harness and share knowledge to make more complex products and services that give us higher and higher standards of living. And if you are not part of these ecosystems, your country will not thrive.”

"And trust is the essential ingredient that makes these ecosystems work and grow, Beinhocker adds. Trust acts as both glue and grease. It glues together bonds of cooperation, while at the same time it greases the flows of people, products, capital and ideas from one country to the next. Remove trust and the ecosystems start to collapse.

"Trust, though, is built by good rules and healthy relationships, and Trump is trampling on both. The result: If he goes down this road, Trump will make America and the world poorer. Mr. President, do your homework."

Thomas L. Friedman in the "New York Times."

[Tero]

jreakle
1h
Posobiec: Trump can't violate the Constitution because "Trump is the living embodiment of the American Constitution."
This is just textbook fascism.
It is antithetical to everything our Founders fought for.

[Tero]

dakotawillink
17h
Okay, Jim Jordan. I want you to tell my 80 year-old grandma that she has to get a job if she wants Medicaid to pay for her nursing home.

jasmine.lorimer
2h
THEORY: Trump is going to fabricate a story about “stolen” gold from Fort Knox with the intent of sewing distrust in the Federal Reserve.
Why, you ask? Because he needs a catalyst for panic. By framing that the US gold reserve “was all a lie” it provides incentive for people to lose trust in the Fed. Bitcoin, $TRUMP coin, Musk’s XMoney, and BRICS will be patiently waiting in the wings.

[JimC]

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-02-25/ ... /104330552

The US has split with its allies to vote against a UN resolution calling on Russia to pull its troops out of Ukraine.
US President Donald Trump says he is in "serious discussions" with Russian leader Vladimir Putin about ending the war, and future "major economic development transactions" between their nations.

I'm starting to think that the leftist conspiracy theory that Putin has the material to blackmail Trump might actually be true...

[Tero]

[Tyrannical]

posted silly pic

First Hitler.....now Satan..... is Trump = Cthulhu next?

[Svartalf]

stop insulting nice Mr Cthulhu by comparing him to that scum.
but I'd not be surprised if musk actually happened to be an avatar of Nyarlathotep.

[pErvinalia]

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-02-25/ ... /104330552

The US has split with its allies to vote against a UN resolution calling on Russia to pull its troops out of Ukraine.
US President Donald Trump says he is in "serious discussions" with Russian leader Vladimir Putin about ending the war, and future "major economic development transactions" between their nations.

I'm starting to think that the leftist conspiracy theory that Putin has the material to blackmail Trump might actually be true...

Yeah, been thinking the same thing.

[Tero]

We already know that 1 how things look is most important to Trump. Big planes to haul illegala away
2 humiliation inspires him to do things. In fact we can blame it all on Obama at the correspondents' dinner.