From Bloomberg today:
As confusion about the possibility of a trade deal between Washington and Beijing reigns, Chinese soybean buyers are taking no chances and are turning to U.S. rivals in South America to secure supplies for next year.
Graph of Brazil premium speaks volumes:
So despite Trump’s assertion the Chinese “want deal”, what some people characterize as a price “blip” continues.
There are choices out there, to show us a better way. Would Bernie do tariffs?? Possibly, but he would do them in a more multilateral fashion, and find new sources of government revenue for farmers (if needed) than just robbing the now middle class funded U.S. Treasury.
https://twitter.com/CWAUnion/status/1165742675619995648
Unions were once strong in this nation, they can be again if people unite and scabs get what they have coming to them. Bernie is intelligent and reflective, he’s not going to enact measures that solid economists say have overall negative consequences.
Trade is the issue where Bernie is farthest off from making sense. “Tougher than Trump on trade,” yuck. He would be a disaster as a candidate on this and as a president. However, he will not be the candidate, despite having a 26 year old pop star supporting him who he thinks is a “genius.”
@ Barkley Junior
If Menzie doesn’t filter this out of fear of hurting your feelings in some shape or form, you might be interested in these numbers. Unlike you Barkley Junior, I check the sample size and methods before squawking. 800 adults, done by BOTH landline and cell phone.
https://www.monmouth.edu/polling-institute/documents/monmouthpoll_us_082619.pdf/
https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/458848-sanders-scores-national-labor-union-endorsement
https://www.politico.com/story/2019/08/26/bernie-sanders-elizabeth-warren-joe-biden-poll-1475440
Barkley Junior, please don’t cry over Kamala’s national August numbers, I hear frauds and phonies are overwhelmingly popular in the northeast Virginia region.
*northwest Virginia, excuse me.
Moses,
I have said this several times here, although you have not noticed. I have said that Warren is rising, Biden weak, Bernie stagnant (getting a union endorsement does not change that), and Harris has fallen. Duh.
What I am wondering what your view of Warren is. I have no problem with her. You were the one who went off the deep end denouncing her. It was out of trying to put her down that you came up with your incorrect and totally wacko theory about population genetics.
The problem with both Bernie and Warren, although Warren is in better shape on this than Bernie has to do with the trade issue. Do you think Bernie is going to be winning any votes with this ridiculous nonsense about trying to be “tougher on trade than Trump” when Trump’s trade wars are threatening the entire global economy. Have you been paying any attention at all to Menzie’s many posts on how the trade war is hurting US soybean farmers? Are you in there with CoRev that Trump’s policies are just fine and that the US soybean farmers are suffering because of bad weather?
OK, Moses, are you calling me a “fraud” or a “phony”? I note that you already accused me of lying, but it turned out that you were dead wrong. That was when you claimed there was no poll in Iowa showing Warren and Harris ahead of Biden. But there was. When you were asked to apologize you made a complete ass of yourself by demanding that I produce a number out of that poll. You then inaccurately claimed that the sample size in that poll was super small when in fact it was pretty standard for polls at the state level. You have just sunk lower and lower and lower and lower.
And now you come up with another false charge that you will not have a shred of a chance of defending. You are utterly beneath contempt.
@ Barkley Junior and assembled
Let’s select out the better parts of Barkley Junior’s quote here for Menzie and Jim’s readers. But I will put the entire link here for context:
https://econbrowser.com/archives/2019/07/of-sugar-highs-uncertainty-and-recession#comment-227560
Discussing Kamala Harris, Barkley Junior said “Last poll in Iowa has her second to Warren, with Biden in third place and Bernie in fourth. Warren and Bernie clearly have an edge in NH, but Harris is likely to do well in next-up SC. You really do not know the order of the races do you, Mose? SC will be the serious Harris-Biden showdown.”
Barkley Junior continues on about Kamala Harris: “Oh, and in WaPo this morning the head to heads were Biden 53-Trump 43, Bernie 49-Trump 48, Harris 48-Trump 46, with both Warren and Buttigieg tying Trump in the low 40s. So, Harris does second best against Trump head to head after Biden and ahead of Bernie, who is gradually sinking.”
Here’s some educational links for you Barkley:
https://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2020/president/sc/south_carolina_democratic_presidential_primary-6824.html
The Post Courier poll ALONE surveys more than 1200 potential voters, which is more than twice what Barkley Junior apparently thinks is a reliable sample size number for an entire state.
Barkley, my eyesight is getting bad—can you tell me what Harris’s % number is in those latest August polls for South Carolina?? I’m squinting and it’s really hard for me to make it out, it looks like 12%, but if you could confirm that would be so awesome—just, you know, type that here in this thread so I can see it?? I know it must be higher than 12%, because I rank you up there with the great “Princeton”Kopits on your political analysis and I know Harris’s numbers have to be higher than that, as you said, what was it, again?? Let me see directly from Barkley Junior’s own words here….. here it is!!!—- “SC will be the serious Harris-Biden showdown.”
You ever think of doing “political analysis” on network or cable TV Barkley?? I think we can get you a seat right next to that fat porker Chris Christie on ABC, you just nudge him with your elbow and he’ll scoot on over for a heavy hitting political prognosticator like you Barkley.
By the way, the number Barkley Junior refused to quote was 6—6 potential voters was what Kamala’s 1% “lead” equated to, over Biden in the crap poll he was quoting.
BTW, I tried to get this comment in days ago when Barkley was ashamed his sad poll he quoted was a 6 potential voter “lead” he was giddy over for Kamala. I’ve edited out the “amazingly offensive” reference to a commonly eaten food item, in case this was why it was filtered. It may also interest readers to know, that the math challenged PhD in Virginia apparently can’t recognize that Bernie Sanders’ numbers rose 6% in the Monmouth poll, and were not “stagnant”. The very highly respected “Politico” refers to it as a “surge”. Well, what some people view as a 6% surge, Barkley Junior views as “stagnant”, but who’s counting really??
Can people just restrict yourselves to the subject at hand in each post? Sincerely, the Management/(Menzie)
I would answer you in detail, Moses, but will obey Menzie’s request. All I shall say is that nothing you quoted from me in your latest post is incorrect. I stand by all of it. Over and out for now.
I get the sense that Trump knows he is losing big time so he just might make a deal with the Chinese on their terms. Sort of like how he tore up NAFTA 1.0 and then put his name on NAFTA 0.9 and put his name on it. USMCA! USMCA! Sing it ala the Village People!
You assume that the Chinese trust him enough to make any deal. If I were them, I wouldn’t bother. He’s got a history of treating deals he made as just so much fluttering tissue and went bankrupt multiple times. He’s bankrupt now, the Chinese know it, and would just as soon negotiate with a real negotiator, not a flake. They can rely on Brazilian producers and other sources for soybeans and other things, so why would they waste their time? Why would anybody? There’s a reason no bank would lend to Trump after a while. This is the same thing, just bigger, and with far more nationally detrimental consequences. I do not expect soybean prices to recover any time soon in this country. We all need to start developing a taste for tofu and soyburgers.
Willie says: “You assume that the Chinese trust him enough to make any deal. If I were them, I wouldn’t bother. He’s got a history of treating deals he made as just so much fluttering tissue” and “They can rely on Brazilian producers and other sources for soybeans and other things, so why would they waste their time? Why would anybody?”
DIng Ding Ding DIng!!!! Exactly. Trump has literally lost every single trade deal he’s tried to make. USMCA was supposed to be some major YUUGE improvement over NAFTA. Not. Plus he’s already proven that he is willing to flout the USMCA at a moment’s notice.
The world has finally woken up that it is not okay to just let Trump save face and get a fake win, assuming the adults in the world will all realize it’s complete BS. Doing so just makes everything worse. And, Trump is such a brazen liar and supported by such an expert propaganda machine that he can convince 44% of the american public that any face-saving outcome is a massive victory. I mean look at CoRev. He clearly has at least a high school education as evidenced by his ability to write in complete sentences, and yet he cannot see through the Trump reality distortion field.
Does anyone even remember when China was going to fly to DC to sign “The Deal” but Trump called it off? Remember the White House narrative? I do. The WH insisted it was China’s fault because China was being sneaky and were trying some last second changes to the agreed deal. China never said a word. Anyone with half a brain knows what happened. Trump has a well-known tell. He always accuses others of exactly what he is guilty of. Remember when obviously crooked candidate Trump, in the midst of the lawsuit over the obviously fraudulent Trump University crap branded Hillary “crooked Hillary?” China will not agree to a deal because they understand that any agreement with Trump is meaningless.
Trump has gone nowhere with China and the EU. He has spent all his political capital proving to the world that he really and truly cannot be trusted. There will be no China deal until after 2020.
Moses Herzog writes, “Unions were once strong in this nation, they can be again if people unite and scabs get what they have coming to them. Bernie is intelligent and reflective, he’s not going to enact measures that solid economists say have overall negative consequences.”
Please tell me how a prospective President Sanders will go about repealing all of the Right to Work laws that are enacted at the state level and are the SINGLE biggest impediment to trade unions. Most of his ideas are so half baked as to be laughable when one sits down to figure out how they will be paid for.
Well this is a fair question. How would a U.S. President separate children from their parents and in essence kidnap them, put them in ICE/CBP cages, starve them and sexually abuse them?? Hypothetically, if a presidential candidate wanted to do that, how to do that legally?? He’d have to make it real clear as he was campaigning as Mr. Goldhammer can’t stomach anything that’s “half baked”. For crying out loud I almost upchucked typing the word “half baked”. I guess people get done what they want to get done, and the lily-livered among us or defenders and rationalizers of the wealthy tell us why we can’t.
Try telling a group of hospital nurses, factory workers, food service workers etc it’s “illegal” to walk out when they can’t feed their children or pay their utilities, or when they work overtime they don’t get paid for—- let’s see how that one goes. “Right to Work” laws are just another Republican party attempt to brainwash people into thinking they “can’t do” things that are as easy as snapping your fingers. It’s not legal to change lanes without using your signal light as well. And I’m sure it scares the holy F— out of people who do it every two minutes about 365 days a year. Lets cart them ALL off to jail tomorrow, shall we?? Funny how the AMA (a doctors’ union) rarely gets badmouthed or told what they “can’t do”. Or if the “National Association of Realtors” (a Union for realtors) gets upset, a U.S. Senator nearly pisses his pants. But talk about Unions for the average working man, and people like Mr. Goldhammer suddenly lose their lunch—not out of fear of the union, but because workers might realize it’s their last recourse for being crapped on by employers. That scares the holy hell out of them.
Alan,
The actual answer to your question is for the Congress to repeal Section 14-B of the 1847 Taft-Hartley Act, which allowed states to pass Right to Work Laws. For a dozen years prior to that federal law forbade Right to Work laws. So, if both a president and Congress want to, it could in theory be easily done.
I am sorry that Moses gave his reply. As seems to increasingly the case, he has let his brain fall out of his head onto the sidewalk where he proceeded to step hard on it. He does not know what he is talking about and indulged in worthless shrieking.
Barkley,
I seldom read Moses Herzog’s posts as they usually off topic. I agree that repealing Taft-Hartley would solve things but that is something that proposed President Sanders could not do. I am also sure that there would be a lot of litigation by Republican states that have RTW laws on the books and this would ultimately end up at the Supreme Court which might not like this infringement upon state’s rights.
BTW, I still have my union card for the Launderers and Dye Workers Union from a summer job many years ago.
I trump your card with my yellowing International Brotherhood of Teamsters card going back to the Hoffa days.
The irony of course is that as corrupt as they often were, they did get better wages and benefits for their membership.
But collective action is inherently un-American…
Hah! I had a Teamsters card from when I was in high school, was a member of the taxi drivers union in New York in the 1980s, and then more recently was an IBEW member working on substations for a bit. As long as we are bragging about our authenticity and all. Collective action is one of those American founding principles we seem to have forgot – We hang together or we hang alone. Now, back on topic – export markets and tariffs are also a collective action. The consequences of the tariffs and subsequent trade war have an effect on the entire farming community and will spill over to the rest of us soon enough.
@ Goldhammer (I have to specify, as another narcissist on this blog will assume I am referring to him)
It’s really funny to see people start arguments with people/commenters who go on to say they “rarely read their posts”. Commenters run that little number out on the dance floor on this blog all the time. Do YOU believe it when other people say it?? Nobody buys it, so why say it?? What it mostly telegraphs is a kind of narcissism by whoever says it, thinks anyone cares that “person X” (themselves, who else??) skipped over their comment.
I know this much, if Menzie and “pgi” have enough time to obsess over CoRev’s comments, (and I know Menzie is probably the busiest person reading this blog) I’m not going to be butt-hurt that the guy who just told on himself that he’s bothered by something I wrote “seldom reads my comments”. This is kind of like your wife asking you if her butt is too big, and then soon after telling you she’s never cared what you thought anyway. Do me a favor, just never read my comments. Then you’ll know my real feeling towards you and about 7/8 of the regulars on this blog:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=39pTkWqej-E
Does Menzie sit around in his office crying soybean farmers don’t visit his blog en masse?? Words aren’t written/typed for people who it will apparently never register with anyway
Wow, Moses, you could not be embarrassing yourself more if you went out of your way to do so. I do waste time reading your posts, I guess because I need to keep track of the latest lies and misrepresentations you are spouting about me. But the hard fact is that you post way more stuff that is simply off-topic, as Alan Goldhammer notes. And Menzie has now made it clear more than once that really is not keen on lots of off-topic posts, although he seems to let you do it.
Where you have really made a complete ass of yourself on this one is going after Menzie and pgl for their extended debates with the annoying CoRev. Here is the difference: those have all been on-topic. Now you may think that Menzie has put up too many posts showing flaws i CoRev’s argumenta about the soybeans markets, and I have at times suggested that perhaps he has. But he is co-running this blog, and what he (and Jim H.) post are what define the topics. CoRev has also been on-topic when he has raised his many misleading and inaccurate criticisms of Menzie’s and pgl’s on-topioc comments.
You, however, continue to make numerous off-topic posts, against Menzie’s specific requests, many of which are just completely ridiculous, including this idiotic and inappropriate whine at Alan. It is time seriously for you to really STFU, boy.
The gyrations will continue. Trump is too old to change his ways, and he’s never had discipline. He’s never faced consequences. He’s never had to think beyond satisfying whatever his latest urge is. Chinese buyers are just as rational as everyone else. If they can’t figure out what is going to happen with trade wars with the US, they will spend their money elsewhere. It boggles my mind that a “businessman” cannot figure this out. While running my own business, my biggest headaches were trying to figure out what cash flows were going to be so I could make rational decisions about when to invest and when not to. American businesses are feeling the strain, and the Chinese, who have options, are doing business with Brazil and others not run by an erratic brat.
Oh, and based on the RV sales analysis Professor Chinn just posted as one more data point and tea leaf to read, the outhouse economist says recession starts in Q3, 2020, if not sooner.
Don’t believe the FAKE news. America’s socialist welfare farmers are “winning”:
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/27/us/politics/trump-farmers-china-trade.html
The man in the NYT picture is not Sonny Perdue. It’s a 25 year old physically intimidating and menacing male Mexican immigrant who was disguised to look like socialist welfare central planner Sonny Perdue by Antifa militants. Don’t believe your own eyes people. MAGA dork spy #008, code name James “all immigrants are male and over age 21” Lankford signing off.
Update from MAGA dork spy #008, code name “James Lankford”
“Now the word is out on the street in Central America — that if you claim to be a minor, 17 years old or younger, you rapidly get into the United States,” U.S. Sen. James Lankford said.
How does MAGA dork spy #008 James Lankford go behind enemy lines and know “the word on the street in Central America” with his albino toned skin?!?!?!?! The man is AMAZING:
https://www.koco.com/article/james-lankford-kendra-horn-paint-different-pictures-as-migrant-children-head-to-fort-sill/27983557
The fires in the Amazon correspond to the season when farmers are preparing for planting. (see here: https://www.accuweather.com/en/weather-blogs/weathermatrix/5-things-the-media-wont-tell-you-about-the-amazon-fires/70009150)
This makes me think South America is ramping up soybean production to prepare to sell to China.
Weather! CoRev will tell us this explains everything. Of course soybean prices are still low so let’s hope CoRev figures out whether this shifts the world supply curve outward v. inward. BTW – don’t hold your breath.
Could be, DWB. Then again, probably not, based on what appears to be reasonable and factual evidence.
I have some news which will either give Menzie a chuckle, make Menzie frown, or both in non-synchronized fashion. I just got my hands on one of the “Bibles” of MMT.
https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/modern-money-theory-l-randall-wray/1129061302?ean=9781137539908
I will be reading its contents and horrendously bastardizing the knowledge therein in blog comments soon, at a theater near you.
Off-topic
I thought this is important enough issue (and something that Professor Chinn and Professor Hamilton might be interested in knowing themselves) that Menzie would tolerate me posting this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l9KZIE98lhQ
So now Tulsi Gabbard is forced by default to go to FOX news to get her message out. FOX is the one letting her speak. That’s the world we now live in—let that sink in for a couple minutes. What was once “conspiracy” and “paranoia” about MSM and “establishment media” has now become REALITY. We are now there folks:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mb-4EF6bb2Y
I hope Representative Gabbard phones the DNC sometime in 2020 and tells them she’s running as an independent. If Tom Perez and the DNC want to sabotage legitimate candidates, she needs to phone them up and let them know TWO can play this game. Then the DNC, Tom Perez, and Wasserman Schultz will discover the true meaning of a “pariah”. There are more military member Republicans who like Tulsi than people are recognizing right now—she’ll peal off enough voters to embarrass BOTH parties.
More off-topic garbage about Gabbard. Good riddance. If she runs as an independent, anybody voting for her rather than whoever is the Dem candidate will be voting for Trump. Disgusting.
Moses,
I guess Tulsi was a “loose cannon” and an effective one at that. She must have refused to play ball and they didn’t have anything compromising on her, so they banned her so she couldn’t Kamalalize Biden or Warren.
@ sammy
Thanks for humoring my thought train digression here. I suspect the base issue goes back to Debbie Wasserman Schultz back in 2015-2016.
https://www.nbcnews.com/meet-the-press/congresswoman-endorses-bernie-sanders-steps-down-dnc-n527481
https://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/358569-former-dnc-vice-chair-democratic-primary-was-rigged-for-clinton
You’ll notice the date on the NBC story is February 2016, so the DNC has been looking for “payback” for awhile now. Of course the DNC (and those they easily lead around by the nose) argue the candidates need to be “filtered down”. I don’t necessarily disagree with this. But you let that “filtering down” occur in a natural fashion, not by manipulating the process. I think we have had at least 3 drop out in the last month. Also, you could have the similar format again—two days of debates, instead of one day where each candidate gets two minutes talk time for the entire evening in-between TV commercials. Would Tulsi (who is my 2nd favorite candidate in this race) survive into March 2020?? Probably not, but the voters should decide that, not a party bureaucracy playing musical chairs with debate entry requirements so they get the candidates they like. BTW it isn’t JUST the way the DNC bureaucrats are treating Tulsi that shows there is A LOT of “funny business” going on here—Tulsi’s situation is just one more brick in the wall, of many bricks, which adds to people’s cynicism about the voting process and hurts voter turnout come November:
https://theintercept.com/2019/08/29/dscc-colorado-senate-democrats/
https://theintercept.com/2019/03/25/dccc-blacklist-democratic-party/
https://theintercept.com/2019/03/22/house-democratic-leadership-warns-it-will-cut-off-any-firms-who-challenge-incumbents/
https://theintercept.com/2019/08/15/senate-democrats-2020-chuck-schumer/
If voters in individual states or individual districts are excited/enthusiastic about candidates, and we have Pelosi and Schumer phoning in from the hospice telling them “We’re going to cut you off at the knees” how does that help the party?? Keep in mind here, the enthusiasm and FREE headlines Ocasio-Cortez has warranted and drawn over the last few months—-Pelosi and company worked against her eventual victory. It’s not healthy to the process or the Democrat Party.
Sammy says the following semi-coherent things ” She must have refused to play ball and they didn’t have anything compromising on her, so they banned her so she couldn’t Kamalalize Biden or Warren.”
Baseless conspiracy theory much?
@ Dave
This is one of the rare times (as much as it pains me) I would stick up for “baffling”—can it be proven?? Not objectively —but there is enough there for some strong theorizing. Let me put it this way—if there’s a large “cottage industry” for Marilyn Monroe death documentaries, JFK death documentaries, Murrah building bombing missing suspect documentaries, Howard Hughes death documentaries, and, coming soon to a theater near you, Jeffrey Epstein death documentaries, books, and pedo action figures—-then “baffling” and I can theorize on the DNC conspiring against Tulsi.
Excuse me, I meant to say sammy was the one I was semi-defending there, No disrespect to sammy intended. Just a brain lapse there on my part.
gabbard simply does not have the appeal right now. she needs more seasoning as a congresswoman to inspire confidence in her abilities as commander in chief. same thing with beto. the debates and such are meant to find the best candidate, not necessarily to enhance or embrace a particular position on the topics. a person with a coherent set of positions and policy plans is not necessarily electable. the dnc cannot afford to put another unelectable candidate up for election. gabbard begins with two strikes against her hailing from hawaii, with little political clout and media, and a disadvantageous time zone. i love hawaii, would move to maui in a heartbeat. it is a great place to disappear into, not a good quality for a federal candidate.
the problem with the democratic party right now is they do not have any charismatic young starts like obama was, with experience. the bigger problem is they do not seem to have a plan in place to groom the next star. probably because really good, quality people do not want to enter what has become the joke of political theater. the dems need to find some rising star, but let them spend time learning how government operates before moving to the big stage, lest you produce something silly like rubio. my guess is mayor pete has the potential, but he needs much more state and federal experience before considering him to be commander in chief material. this is a shame, because trump was vulnerable last election and beatable this election, with a quality candidate. front runners like bernie and warren promote too much socialism in their platforms to get the needed independent swing votes. medicare for all and free college are not electable platforms, in my opinion.
@ baffling
Apparently U.S. military service in a theater of war in the MidEast with commendations does not count as “seasoning” for Representative Gabbard?? That’s a new one to me. Maybe as some commenter here would have us believe, we should look to the public school buses of Berkeley California in a white school district for a “rough-and-tumble” candidate?? The same ones who run scared from open questions from the public??
https://www.politico.com/story/2019/08/22/kamala-harris-health-care-1471421
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/meet-the-press/live-blog/meet-press-blog-latest-news-analysis-data-driving-political-discussion-n988541/ncrd1048031#liveBlogHeader
For one short moment I was really starting to get scared that if Kamala gave a speech to working class Americans in a very large labor union she might lose her endorsements from Pfizer and Novartis. Whew!!!! That was a close one!!!!!
“Apparently U.S. military service in a theater of war in the MidEast with commendations does not count as “seasoning” for Representative Gabbard??”
moses, we have thousands of troops who have served overseas in battle. perhaps they are all ready to be commander in chief as well? she is simply not ready for the position. neither is beto or mayor pete. look, trump was totally unprepared to be commander in chief. you can see the result in the execution of his policies. its a train wreck. we have some young dems, but they need to sit down in congress, work on a variety of committees, accomplish some legislation and show they can handle leading a government. they all need more “seasoning”.
Tulsi Gabbard’s main issue is she is a soldier who opposes the war mongering, militarist way of the US empire. What is “not seasoned” is actually she is “not bought in” to the military industry complex trough filling ‘faith’ that is required by both of THE parties.
The Circular Firing Quad welcomes the second term of the tRump presidency. Way to go guys and gals!!!
https://www.reddit.com/r/HongKong/comments/cx2vo5/829_the_girl_who_was_shot_in_the_eye_by_the/
It’s still “a losing battle”. But one cannot help but have high regard and deep respect for the effort, and just like “Tank Man” in 1989 and all the student protesters from Tsinghua University and Peking University she’s going to be remembered and marked in the history books as a positive force for humanity.
Uh-oh…….. the Kamala jumbo jet is leaking fuel badly, and now Kamala has decided she’s way too important a person to answer direct questions from voters. Apparently Kamala thinks the “Medicare?? What’s that??” strategy is working. But the August polls aren’t spelling out that scenario for her:
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/amp/live-blog/ncna988541
She’s going to have a harder and harder time getting the black vote when her policies spell out damaged black communities that Kamala is afraid to even field questions from. Apparently it’s not enough anymore to pretend you’re “cool with” weed while putting minorities in prison for usage of it. Oh yeah, Kamala wants everyone to know she likes rap music also.
Two links, and one statement. Deutsche Bank has recently admitted they do in fact have donald trump’s tax returns. I thought this was interesting. Here are two links of note:
https://oversight.house.gov/news/press-releases/dhs-abruptly-blocks-committee-staff-visits-to-border-detention-facilities-after
Jennifer Taub is very well respected on Financial Regulation issues like Menzie Chinn is respected on Financial Economics. Professor Taub basically confirms what George Conway (or CNNPolitics) is alleging here—it’s a very serious charge and a very serious crime—which, BTW, has nothing to do with Russia whether you believe there was collusion or it was just a hoax:
https://twitter.com/gtconway3d/status/1167102474806841344/photo/1
https://i.redd.it/s3ys6m42bjj31.jpg
Oh dear. I must apologize to all readers of this blog that it may be that my efforts to get Moses Herzog to post fewer off-topic comments as Menzie Chinn has requested has backfired probably due to his hatred and vendetta against me personally. If I make the demand, he will show everybody what for.
So here after all this discussion we have four in a row off-topic comments, even after he has been criticized by others besides me and Menzie for this conduct. I am not going to comment on these posts or related discussions, beyond noting that some of them are completely idiotic.
Off topic but.
Tomorrow September 1, 1939
A day to ponder and remember the great crime that started on that date.
Here is W.H.Auden’s poem.
https://poets.org/poem/september-1-1939?fbclid=IwAR0jL8-sTlgYXkepwqYHDSYswCq7KOqOuLecAgaOpCGg48anxd1oK9UJe0s
Remember folks, Republicans are about “family values”. Oh yeah, and don’t say hurtful things about others—even if it’s the TRUTH and can open people’s eyes about life and about individuals’ true internal machinations—‘cuz that’s like “evil” and stuff. It’s “evil” and makes people feel bad about themselves. You know that. Say stuff that makes people feel comfortable because fog and haze makes people feel good about life. OK?? We want people to feel comfortable on this blog AND in the White House. Be calm. Calm is good, and if people speak truth immediately label them a “drunk”—it’s the “classy” route in life. Are you taking notes people?? I’m trying to teach you how to get ahead in like Stephen Moore and Judy Shelton have. There’ll be a quiz later.
https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2019/08/madeleine-westerhout-trump-ousted-assistant-tiffany.amp
Also, never make leaks that are “false”. Because then we have to explain how something is a leak and also “false” at the same time and that’s, like, annoying and, like, “evil” and stuff, OK?? People may wonder how something can be a leak and false at the same time, and that makes people feel awkward, self-contradictory, and, like, uncomfortable and stuff, so it’s. like, “evil” and stuff, so don’t do that. OK?/ You know that….. You know that……..
https://youtu.be/zqE4hKIP4n0?t=14
Watch that video, where donald trump is talking about a 7 year old girl, and tell me you’re “shocked” your president was friends with Jeffrey Epstein.
I’m mildly surprised. “Protestors” in China tend to be of the mild variety. If my math isn’t off, there’s roughly a 12 hour time difference between middle USA and east coast China–it makes it easy, you just switch or am to pm or your pm to am. So it should be about 1am there now. It should be noted this live feed is hosted by a Russian website–but as far as I can tell, the LIVE footage seems very real and legit to my eyes. I mean they could loop an old tape or something, but other than that I don’t know how they’d make it look this real. And conceivably they could manipulate the story by showing the sections of Hong Kong that tell the story they want to tell (cherry-picking a small minority of protesters who are violent, and misleading people this is the “typical” HK protester. They also “implant” or “embed” police spies and PSB spies into the protesters who impersonate as “violent protesters” when they are paid by the Beijing government to sew discord among protesters):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Len_QbaL01Y
Tomorrow is a day to remember. 80th anniversary of the invasion of Poland.
Here some poetry to help remember the era:
https://poets.org/poem/september-1-1939?fbclid=IwAR2EUeviuUNZ0nGOlXm5h9l3iX_50CKvQaJYhJ__dSqPlG7bN1G_V_a_2y0
The last two stanzas are the punch line.
best to all in these strange times.
I stated on this blog before that I was bullied by the China PSB in a northeast province internet bar once. They wanted my passport, If you’re there for an extended period of time, you don’t carry your passport on you (no one does) because you know the chances of it being stolen or lost rise dramatically if you take it everywhere. So this guy gets “high and mighty” on me. I tell him I wanna see badge and his own ID. He has to call about 10–15 of his PSB buddies just to escort me back to my dorm so they can look at my passport like it’s the first one they ever saw in their lives. It took 10+ of them to take me (a man roughly 6 feet tall and of medium build) about 3 blocks back to my home. This is how they operate, they talk big and tough but they never confront anyone (including women) until they have about 10-to-1 numbers:
https://www.reddit.com/r/HongKong/comments/cxxrbb/a_tourist_being_pushed_against_the_wall_by_at/
I’ll tell you something else— if not for the threat/possibility of the ensuing results from the foreign embassy of whatever country that man was from—the PSB would have brutalized him until he was a sop of blood on the floor, without a single ounce of guilt afterwards.
“Baseless conspiracy theory much?”
David,
It’s the opposite of a conspiracy theory. They don’t have one. So they just wrote her out of the discussion. Gabbert was able to call out Warren on her fake indian ruse, or Biden on his fairly obvious dementia. Not acceptable. Goodbye. Let’s see if some other candidate steps into the breach.
Sammy,
Yeah, you Trumpsters would just love to have Garbage Gabbard on the debate stage more, even though she has not been about 3% on any poll, is way down and going nowhere. You want her to d hing Warren on “Pocahontas” grounds? I have seen Fox News going on and on about that, even though she has apologized. As for Biden, he is making a lot of gaffes, although nothing on the level of the insane lies Trump hands out almost daily. But I would like to see some of these Dems who support him take a bit more seriously how badly he is messing up. Gabbard is not needed to point that out.
As for her big slam on Harris, it has not been widely publicized that what she said was an almost Trumplike distortion and misrepresentation of the facts, so far off she caught Harris off guard, although obviously Harris needs to be prepared to deal with that sort of stuff, which she did not do well at in the second debate.
As for Biden, he is making a lot of gaffes, although nothing on the level of the insane lies Trump hands out almost daily. But I would like to see some of these Dems who support him take a bit more seriously how badly he is messing up.
No doubt that Biden is a gaffe machine. And over the years he’s come down on the wrong side of many issues. And his age is a serious concern for me. He also had a plagiarism problem 50 years ago. But…but…but, I still like the guy. It’s hard not to like him. I think he has genuine empathy. He connects well with working class whites and non-white voters. And apparently Obama thought enough of him that he put him on the ticket as vice-president, so that surely counts for something. And back then Biden was just as big a gaffe machine as he is today, but Obama managed to get past it. Remember his hot mic “Big f***ing deal” comment? If elected I would expect Biden to pick someone like Jared Bernstein to be one of his key advisers. Bernstein was Biden’s chief economic adviser during the Obama years and as far as I know they still have an excellent relationship. Compare that to a Bernie Sanders economic adviser! And right now Biden looks like the strongest candidate against Trump, and for me that’s really all that counts. And Biden would be especially tough to beat if he picked someone younger, less white and not male as his running mate. Someone like Sen. Kamala Harris or Stacey Abrams would be good choices. People would take that as an implicit promise to only serve one term while preparing a new generation. But at the end of the day I don’t think it’s really going to matter all that much which Democrat wins because the realities of Congressional and Senate politics will severely constrain any Democratic president. Medicare for All isn’t going to happen regardless of who wins, but fixing Obamacare and adding a public option could happen but won’t happen if a President Warren or President Sanders tilts at windmills and insists on fighting a losing battle for Medicare for All. And that’s especially true if Sen. McConnell wins re-election and the GOP holds the Senate. Same story with the Green New Deal. At this point I’d be happy for a competent caretaker presidency until demographics wipe out the GOP.
As to Sen. Warren, we need to remember that one consequence of her winning is one more GOP senator and one less Democratic senator. I think she’d be a fine Attorney General, but if control of the Senate hangs in the balance, then she should stay in the Senate.
2slug,
I also happen to like Biden personally and a year ago thought a Biden-Harris ticket looked good (I think Abrams is overrated). But some recent gaffes by Biden have gone beyond the sort of things has always done, which have mostly not too big of a deal. In particular this most recent bit about the award for a soldier seems to have involved at least a half dozen full-blown errors, although Biden did give that soldier an award. This level of messing up, and not admitting to it, looks Trumpian in degree, but what worries me is the trend: that his gaffing seems to be getting worse at this age. I have seen people his age start to become more forgetful and then go into a major decline of their mental capabilities. I am seriously worried that is what may be going on with Biden, and if his supporters do not figure it out soon enough and move on to someone like Harris soon enough, we may have a complete disaster on our hands.
On the matter of Gabbard seriously misrepresenting Harris’s record, see mercurynews.com/2019/01/dmocratic-debate-kamala-harris-tulsi-gabbard-joe-biden-fact-check , although Harris herself has agreed that some things she did were wrong and has changed some of her positions.
I had not thought about the problem that Warren would probably be replaced by a GOP senator, at least for awhile. She mostly continues to be doing well generally.
I am not as opposed to Bernie as you are, 2slug, but he definitely has some major electability issues, with some of hit positions highly problematic, notably his idiotic “going to be tougher on trade than Trump” nonsense. The Trump people left him alone last time as he damaged Clinton, but if he is the nominee there is just a whole lot of stuff they will dump on him hard that most people do not know about and that will not go down well in the general election, quite aside from the fact that he is also too old, if not looking like he might be currently losing his marbles as badly as Biden might be.
On the latter, Biden really needs to stop making gaffes as serious as this last one, and I mean right now, and continue to avoid doing so. An occasional failure to remember which state he is in or which city a shooting happened in is one thing, but telling a detailed story about something where the majority of the details are wrong is quite another and really not acceptable, especially if we start seeing more of that.
Oooops, there I go again messing up links. I just should not bother. But I shall try again on this one showing how Gabbard made outright false statements about Harris’s record. If I mess this one up, well, it is easily found by googling.
mercurynews.com/2019/01/democratic-debate-kamala-harris-tulsi-gabbard-joe-biden-fact-check
I agree, 2slug, and have said it several times in several places, that much of the debating between Dems over details of domsestic policies such as health care is just a joke and completely irrelevant if GOP holds Senate, which can easily happen, especisally wiith all these egomaniacs running for president who have no chance of getting the nomination (Bullock, O’Rourke) or claiming to lead some nonexistent movement (Abrams) who would be strong Senate candidates fail to run.
On the matter of Bernie, he really has had it easy. Trump largely left him alone to ding Hillary and for now they are more heavily going after other candidates, and the other Dems do not want to point out all this stuff from his past that the GOP will roll out hard and heavy if he is the nominee out of fear of upsetting his supporters. But he really does have a lot of baggage, although at least honest and consistent darned smart, if arguably too rigid on some of his positions that would probably need to change if he did get the nomination.
@ 2slugbaits
Normally I have high regard for your comments, but if you think Kamala Harris is going to carry “the black vote” and motivate them to show up at the polls—I don’t think you’re paying attention. And in fact, there are people on this blog who have in essence labeled me a “racist”, which is fascinating to me on the proceeding grounds—-
Now let me make it clear I don’t view you (2slugbaits) as a racist. That being said, your apparent assumption that blacks will run out and vote for a candidate who enacts many policies that are harmful to blacks (and other vulnerable groups) is extremely insulting to their intelligence, and could be construed as a more “racist” view or statement than anything I have ever typed on this blog. Yet I strongly wager, that one flew through the blog “filter” faster than many comments I have made in this blog. I’m not crying “foul!!” on the filter choices, just stating what I view to be a near “fact of the matter”.
You know there are things we might call “invisible lasers”. This is when we say things very insulting, that the person making the statement is completely oblivious to. Often blacks listen to these comments and wonder why it doesn’t register with whites how amazingly insulting it is. The days have passed (if they ever existed) when blacks will run out and vote for blacks who are turncoats for pragmatic reasons (Kamala Harris hits all the “markers” and checkboxes on that one). Nearly every poll under the sun is showing the woman is not polling well with blacks, And you may wish to argue with everything thing else I have said in this comment, but that prior sentence is an objective fact which cannot be debated.
Moses Herzog if you think Kamala Harris is going to carry “the black vote” and motivate them to show up at the polls—I don’t think you’re paying attention.
You’re assuming facts not in evidence. I don’t think Joe Biden would need a black running mate in order to garner support among black voters. That’s not why I floated her name. What Sen. Harris would bring to the ticket is the fact that she’s a woman (pretty much a necessity for any male Democrat at the top of the ticket) and her non-white immigrant family experience. Black voters might not be especially enthusiastic about her, but her gender and sympathy with the immigrant experience is something that could sell well in a places like Florida, Arizona and even Texas. My third criteria was to include someone at least a generation younger than Biden. Normally people don’t expect the Veep to do much more than break tie votes in the Senate every once in a while, but given Biden’s age there is a non-trivial chance that he doesn’t serve out a full term. The Democratic party needs to develop a deeper bench beyond the septuagenarians running the party. Unlike you, I like Pelosi but I worry when the top three Democrats in the House are all deep into their seventies and early eighties. With Biden’s age I don’t think we need another septuagenarian on the Veep ticket. But don’t get me wrong. I’m not a big fan of Sen. Harris. She’s okay and someone I could live with, but her main strength is that she would appeal to two key demographics that otherwise might not be excited by Biden; viz., women and families with recent immigrant experience.
@ 2 slugbaits
I’m gonna try and make this succinct and to the point (for others’ benefit as much as my own)
I will admit I have a bias against Senator Harris—I’ve seen her type before both in person and in the public sphere—she sickens me, there’s no getting around it. I don’t like phonies, and I can smell them from 50 miles off. But let me attempt to approach this in purely robotic like method or completely detached from my dislike of the woman (you can form your own judgement if I am capable of said “detachment”)
1) Immigrant vote is not a large vote, in ANY state whatsoever. If it was, we would not have the man in the White House we have right now—the demographics are changing—but not enough in 4 years.
2) Harris has so much baggage to bring on board a two-person Presidential ticket, you’d still have crap to load on after filling two Boeing C-17s all the way to the tail.
3) You appear to be limiting your choices to declared candidates already in the race. If you’re choosing a candidate for purely demographics winning yardsticks, there are many running mates who far outshine Harris—immigrant voters or otherwise. She’s polling 7% in Florida, and 7% in Texas.
4) The word we keep hearing from Kamala Harris’s staff when Kamala’s own record is brought up in debates and in questions to her staff—her campaign staff’s favorite reiterated and now worn-out phrase is “Senator Harris has ‘evolved’ on this issue”. I think what they really mean to say is Kamala puts a small amount of saliva on her index finger holds it up in the air to sense which way the wind is blowing and/or checks the zip code she’s speaking in and changes her “working class” values accordingly in any half-minute time frame.
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/kamala-harris-dodged-sanctuary-state-debate_n_5d07e5eae4b0953278386959
Kamala dodges Medicare, Kamala dodges prison reform, Kamala dodges marijuana sentencing laws, Kamala dodges DNA evidence proving inmates’ innocence. She apparently thinks rapper 2-Pac was all the rage in 1982. You know what happens when you dodge things?? You get busted and run 7% in Texas and Florida. And BTW, Biden is not going to choose a running mate who every time they look at her they think about Biden’s stance on segregation. You don’t charge a man with “racism” and then a few months later hop on his ticket. It would be imbecile and pea-brained on both their parts.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4QHHGHve_N0
“The Democratic party needs to develop a deeper bench beyond the septuagenarians running the party. ”
this is a major crisis, and the reason dems lost to trump in the last presidential election. unfortunately, there does not seem to be a strong young contender for the next election. as i said before, the up and comers still need some seasoning before the big leagues. this leaves biden, sanders and warren as the realistic choices next election. the two men are simply too old now. as time goes on, i think warren becomes the favorite. she needs to learn how to control a debate, especially with trump. but with the right messaging, she can resonate with the middle class who have been left behind and crapped on by trump and the conservatives.
Kamala Harris’s REAL record. These are objective facts Tulsi Gabbard pointed out, and cannot be refuted, that is why Harris stuttered and became mouselike when she was called out by Representative Gabbard:
https://theintercept.com/2017/01/05/kamala-harris-fails-to-explain-why-she-didnt-prosecute-steven-mnuchins-bank/
https://theintercept.com/2019/02/07/kamala-harris-san-francisco-district-attorney-crime/
https://theintercept.com/2019/01/20/a-problem-for-kamala-harris-can-a-prosecutor-become-president-in-the-age-of-black-lives-matter/
AG Harris’s morality becomes an even bigger problem when her prosecution of poor blacks for minor crimes like possession of small amounts of marijuana was much more aggressive than her efforts to punished pedophile priests, which Harris refused to do after literally being begged to take some action:
https://theintercept.com/2019/06/09/kamala-harris-san-francisco-catholic-church-child-abuse/
I guess it’s easier your prosecutorial case win percentage when chasing after poor blacks than going after pedos who have the financial backing of the Catholic church.
Kamala also refused to re-hear or re-try a case in which DNA proved an innocent man was sitting in prison. Again, her case win percentage was more important to Kamala than real justice. This is why the percentage of blacks potentially voting for the woman is smaller than middle class whites. Blacks were much quicker to put together that Jussie Smollett was full of cr*p before 99% of whites had half a clue what had happened. Unfortunately for Kamala, African Americans can smell these type lies from 20 miles off.
https://theintercept.com/2019/01/31/kamala-harris-and-the-myth-of-a-progressive-cop/
https://splinternews.com/why-oppose-a-dna-test-that-could-free-an-innocent-man-1832816713
Fortunately for the black men sitting in prison for decades, the Governor of California, Gavin Newsom, wasn’t worried about his case win percentage like Kamala Harris was, so he gave an executive order allowing the DNA evidence to be heard in court. Now Kamala pretends to be sorry about it when she’s losing the black vote.