Regulating Endocrine-Disrupting Chemicals Could Improve the Health of the Next Generation Environmental Health News
Geek Out Over This $1.5 Million Star Trek Home Theater CEPro. I debated whether to make this Guillotine Watch, but the spending level isn’t high enough to warrant inclusion.
Full Scale of Olympic Financial Disasters Revealed MIT Technology Review (rfd)
Brexit
Elite crew to steer City through Brexit Financial Times. Ugh.
Why Britain’s Path to Free Trade Won’t Be Smooth Wall Street Journal. Important.
Why France is unlikely to spoil the Brexit party Politico. I hate to be tacky, but see picture. Out of curiousity, is May particularly tall, Hollande particularly short, or does May have a thing for super high heels?
Visegrad urge post-Brexit EU reform Financial Times
Italy’s bail-in conundrum Politco. By a writer at Bruegel we’ve cross posted occasionally. Has some detail I have not seen before on junior bondholder exposures. Also appears to have been written before Draghi gave support for the idea of a waiver of the BRRD rules
How Trichet threatened to cut Greece off ekathimerini (TF). Important.
Swedish Women Urged to Wear Headscarf – Or Be Raped Sputnik (Swedish Lex). I’ve heard stories less extreme than this from France, of non-Muslim women being told to wear headscarves.
France at War New York Review of Books (resilc)
China?
Why China’s Trapped Economy Won’t Find Easy Escape Wall Street Journal
Here’s a controversial idea about China’s economy that no one wants to hear Business Insider
Goldman under spotlight in 1MDB complaint Financial Times. Couldn’t happen to a nicer bunch.
Ukraine/Russia
Russia and Turkey’s Rapprochement Foreign Affairs (furzy)
Turkey
EU calls Turkey measures ‘unacceptable’ BBC
Emigre Super Bloc: The Failed Turkish Coup – An Exploded View Vineyard of the Saker (Michael Hudson)
The Crisis in Turkey Could Swallow Us All Reader Supported News (furzy)
Erdogan’s Prophecy Foreign Affairs (furzy)
Syraqistan
As Anti-ISIS Forces Close In on Mosul, Coalition Leaders Focus on What’s Next Defense One (resilc)
Big Brother is Watching You Watch
Edward Snowden’s New Research Aims to Keep Smartphones From Betraying Their Owners Reader Supported News (furzy)
Facebook’s Giant Internet-Beaming Drone Finally Takes Flight Wired (resilc)
Spotify is now selling your information to advertisers engadget
Trade Traitors
Battle lines harden in push for services deal Politco. TISA is in doubt.
2016
Spend, spend, spend! Clinton campaign puts million into advertising that’s had a mixed effect on her standing against Trump in the polls Daily Mail (Li)
Labor Clinton Rust Belt Bloomberg. Resilc: “Versus free trade Clintons.”
Good as Goldman: Hillary and Wall Street Counterpunch
US election: Donald Trump promises a ‘safer’ America BBC
Republicans rip Trump over NATO plan Politico (furzy)
Money Talks: Trump Does a U-Turn on Israel Counterpunch
Donald Trump’s New York Times interview reveals a dangerously lazy mind at work Vox (resilc)
‘I was looking at the next president of the United States’: the verdict on Trump’s speech Guardian
Donald Trump gave Bernie Sanders a shout-out in his RNC speech, and Sanders was not amused Vox (resilc)
Trump ascends at Republican convention: As it happened Financial Times. Liveblog with lots of tweets. Interesting to see how upset the punditocracy is at how downbeat The Donald’s message is. Scaring people for 15 years warnings about terrorists under every bed, increasingly aggressive policing and surveillance (independent of actual crime risk), lousy wage growth, high under-employment, and short job tenures will do that.
Trump’s RNC speech was an exercise in fearmongering. But he’s not entirely wrong on crime. Slate
Peter Thiel: I Miss the Days of Strong, Daring Federal Spending Intercept (resilc)
Is Donald Trump So Popular Because of How He Talks? A Linguistics Explainer Motherboard (resilc)
How Trump’s Supporters Understand His National Security Views Defense One (resilc)
Trump takes heat from NATO officials for interview comments Fox (furzy)
Roger Ailes to leave Fox News immediately Financial Times
Aetna-Humana Merger: Aetna CEO Mark Bertolini Vows To Continue Merger And Fight Justice Department Lawsuit David Sirota, International Business Times
In Dallas & Baton Rouge, Media Ignores That Veterans Pulled the Trigger Reader Supported News (furzy)
Young Black Protesters Blockade Police Facilities Across the Country Truthout. Maybe Lambert, who follows Black Lives Matter on Twitter, will have more details in Water Cooler tomorrow, but (predictably), I see nada in the MSM.
Oil Rally Hopes Crushed As Inventories Hit All-Time High OilPrice
CalPERS … Private Equity … and the Quest to Be Governor CityWatch. Note that Marcie Frost will not start as the new CalPERS CEO until October.
Pointing a Finger at the Fed in the Lehman Disaster New York Times. Consistent with what we wrote in 2008, but good to have it confirmed. Hank Paulson made it clear there would be no more bailouts on his watch after Bear. And then he quickly backtracked after Lehman.
Central Bank Faustian Pacts Blonde Money (Scott). Today’s must read.
Class Warfare
Amazon wants to sell you everything, including student loans Quartz
Amazon Prime’s Newest Perk: Discounted Student Loans Fortune (resilc)
Antidote du jour:
Good morning. I’m Hunter, and this photo is of our sweet girl, Reagan. She passed away on Monday after a battle with cancer. I would be thrilled if you memorialized her in your antidote. I think this photo captures her spirit perfectly. Thanks for the consideration. Here’s me eulogizing – you can use whatever you see fit:
This is Reagan, and we let her cross the rainbow bridge Monday. We rescued her five short years ago from a shelter in AL after a severe tornado decimated the area. The shelter said that she was found with a whole litter of brothers abandoned in a parking lot. She was the only one left unadopted, and our hearts melted. My wife and I were only dating at the time, still in college, and learning how to grow. She was both of our first real dependent that we had sole responsibility for. Our sweet Reagan girl taught us so much about selflessness, unconditional love, and how we could care for others (human and canine). She helped us realize our true love of dogs, and we have since rescued two more and saved/placed several others. Most importantly, I believe that she was placed into our lives to prepare us for raising children. She fought the disease for a year or so – about 8 months post-diagnosis. Unfortunately, her symptoms were hidden, and she was wrongly diagnosed until the cancer had spread inoperably into her lungs. She fought bravely and with incredible dignity – never showing any signs of real pain until the end. Ultimately, she let us know that she was ready over the weekend, and we said a very tearful goodbye on Monday. Although I am happy that she has been released from this horrible disease, I don’t know what to do about this hole in my heart. She was so special to me, and I can’t stop imagining our fun times together everywhere I go. I’ve barely stopped crying since Monday. We miss her so much, but I’m glad that I have a place to memorialize her and share her story. Run free, sweet girl. Thank you for making us better people, and I hope we can be together again.
See yesterday’s Links and Antidote du Jour here.
320 comments
Comments are closed.
“Labor Clinton” — they don’t call her “Rodham the Riveter” for nothin’ …
Re: Trump’s Sanders shout-out/Sanders not amused –
Shut up, Bernie Sanders. So all of a sudden now you’ve figured out how to launch a pointed attack against a political opponent, after MONTHS of us begging you to go after Hillary Clinton? Really?
Perhaps you should have been live tweeting during Ted Cruz’s speech instead, so you could give him advice on how to give a sycophantic endorsement even if the endorsee did you dirty.
And please stop speaking on behalf of those who voted for you. Many of us may very well vote for Trump, believing substance trumps party loyalty, no pun intended.
Thank you. Well said.
Yep. My Trump sign will go up as soon as it arrives (which should be about two days).
Ugh, a dose of vitriol to start the day. Do you ever get tired of kicking the guy? Do you have anything new to say?
Sure. How about this:
– Ted Cruz is more of a revolutionary than Bernie Sanders
And:
– Apparently live tweeting one’s support of the establishment candidate is part of the “agreement”… that apparently he agreed to but NO-ONE on the Republican side did
Try harder. Substitute facts for wit and hyperbole, please.
I agree the Cruz was courageous. He has the courage of an asshole who thinks to rule the world. Bernie is not an asshole so his courage shows differently. He is working within the system and that further alters the look of courage. We don’t know, yet, whether he will complete the courage he began with his campaign.
We need all kinds of courage. It would be good for you, and all others with feelings similar to yours, to recognize this.
We have one wretched misplaced action of Sanders, an action that tails him. The bulk of his actions over the decades have been solid (yes, from the inside). The bulk of Cruz’ actions have been destructive as have Trump’s (business practices).
Your vote is yours. Just know what you are doing.
Since it’s what many former Sanders supporters are thinking, isn’t good that it’s being said? We should all appreciate honesty and forthrightness after all, and when the sentiment is repeated we should pay even more attention to it.
We should never tire of calling OUR REPRESENTATIVES out on their BS. That we do is one reason we end up with the same nonsense every four years.
Great! Trump can’t talk for 10 minutes without spewing some BS. I anxiously await your serial takedowns thereof.
Trump says things that are not “politician speak”, but I’m not hearing him commend those whose viewpoints are in complete contradiction to his.
And I think his popularity can be tied to the fact that his campaign is like the everyman’s campaign, rather than the over polished, focus grouped, politically correct campaigns we’ve been subjected to of late.
he changes his positions a lot, so yeah he commends people he disagreed with a week ago, but now agrees with. i’m just glad bernie didn’t adopt the tactic of smearing poor people who get screwed by the cops. if he does, he will deserve the kinds of criticism you level at him.
+1
Pointless self-indulgent butthurt resulting from unrealistic expectations that Sanders=Magic Jesus presidential candidate is not useful.
It distracts from the important fact that these ideas were introduced to the public as serious platform planks and they succeeded beyond the wildest dreams of the blue dogs and Rockefeller Republicans that make up the DNC.
If everyone takes their ball and goes home crying because of one loss then it is night night time for democracy. If every negotiated truce has to result in spearing the wounded and killing the generals then we are all conservatives now.
My eyes lit up when I read your comment. Wonderful! I smile whenever I think of how many new fellow Trump supporters statements like this make.
Your reaction says more about you than the comment, which struck me as a breath of fresh air.
So you really are a conservative. Explains your insistence a while back that the Orlando shooter was an ISIS terrorist.
Rather than saying that I am a conservative, I’ll say that conservatives, as being influenced by Trump, are becoming sane, whereas under Clinton “progressives” are losing their minds.
Seriously when Peter Theil gets up and addresses the Republican Party at the convention saying that social issues are bullcrap distractions from the economic misery of the American people and the Huffpost runs a headline in huge bold letters at the top of the page saying: THEIL TELLS REPUBLICANS HE’S PROUD TO BE GAY, I just have to laugh.
Democrats and those phony corrupt liberals aligned with them are done.
Trump is more progressive than Hillary in many areas.
On paper, at least (and we must remember Hillary is even less trustworthy).
Finally, that throne will have to be occupied (as Bill Clinton said, let me get back to the business of America, paraphrasing here…business of America? government as business? The business of America is business – that quote?)
Sane?
Your definition of sanity must be very different than mine.
Most Trump supporters embrace fear and from where I’m sitting there is nothing sane about that. They’re something very childish about expecting a political candidate to insulate you and keep you “safe” from everything that is different from you.
Mind you,Momma Hillary Clinton and her and the Democrat Party brand of fear aren’t much better, but this idea that Trump is anything other than Vanilla to her French Vanilla is as insane as it can get.
Most of the conservatives I know that plan on voting for him at least seem to acknowledge that the guy is a “wild card” that doesn’t really have a stable viewpoint(but that is preferable to them then 4 years of corrupt Clinton.) It’s a little sad that you don’t.
That’s a mischaracterization of my stance on Trump.
Sanity: at least ostensibly thanks to Trump Republicans no longer hate gays. Republicans are now against, or at least they’re willing to lie about it which is much further than Clinton is willing to do, neoliberalism and neoconservatism. That is sane. Compare it to the batsht crazy stuff the Clinton corterie jammed into the Democratic Party platform over the objections of the Sanders people and…
Yep. I’d say Trump and the Republicans are seeming pretty darn sane at the moment.
If you have a jester as president, and that jester is conservative and the rest of the government is extremely liberal, do you think the jester is going to be taken seriously?
Conversely, if you have a sociopathic socialite as president, whose liberal, with a largely liberal government, don’t you think that the racket will continue, perhaps with more frenzy?
And does HRC’s wide-unblinking-eyes not scare you at all? If anything, I would say she appears less sane than Trump. I also think she is just as ungrounded as Trump. Imagine that HRC has been around Bill (the serial rapist), senators, hedge fund managers, and other ilk all trying to buy political favor. At least Trump hasn’t been molded by that kind of environment. Of course, he is imminently dumber than Clinton, but I find that to be actually somewhat reassuring.
“Most Trump supporters embrace fear”
cwaltz, the Trump supporters I know are in no way fearful. They are working class women who are dealing with a terrible economy for themselves and their families. They are hoping Trump will improve their ability to get jobs that pay enough to live on. That is all.
When there are things to be afraid of, it can be severely maladaptive not to feel it. (I don’t know what “embrace” connotes, in this context).
“I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain.”
In typical Trump fashion Trump has been both for and against gay marriage.
Don’t fool yourself.
http://www.westernjournalism.com/what-donald-trump-just-said-about-gay-marriage-will-create-serious-buzz/
The one thing I can guarantee you that Trump is for? Trump.
Not exactly what I want in a public servant.
Anyway both of the main party candidates are awful so six in one half dozen or the other which self serving megalomaniac wins this year.
Serious platform planks?
You missed your calling. You should be doing comedy specials for HBO.
Anybody who thinks that progressive platform planks are anything but window dressing is delusional.
And conversely, if you believe platform planks are really there to be implemented, I guess you must love the ones that are pro-TPP, pro “reforming” Soc Sec, etc.
Just so long as you acknowledge that any nods in the peasant’s direction in the Republican platform is also BS, we are on the same page.
However, if Sanders goes back to Washington and hammers away at the platform planks and never lets anyone forget what they were, then he’s doing fine by me. If you expect the Republicans in Congress to do likewise with Trump’s populist posturing, then I think you will be sadly mistaken. They will be forgotten the same way Obama’s bloviating about change was forgotten the second he bagged the big prize.
im glad the ideas were introduced, i just think the best way to fight for them is by fighting clinton’s election. i’m not ripping bernie, he did a hell of a lot more than anybody expected, but as he himself has said, he can’t deliver his supporters to her.
Hey, look, internet meme speak. You’re so cool and hip! Straight Outta 4chan yo!
It’s not about Sanders not being a Messiah, it’s about him not at least doing what he consistently claimed he would do and taking it all the way to the convention.
Yes. Bernie (former independent)wasn’t even a democrat until this cycle, and now he seems to have gone full on tribalist.
“Those who voted for me will not support Trump who has made bigotry and divisiveness the cornerstone of his campaign” Hillary hasn’t used divisive identity politics, what about “Bernie Bros” among others.
“Trump is wrong. The real cause of instability in the Middle East was the Bush-Cheney invasion of Iraq. By the way, where is President Bush?”
so Clinton’s support for the French push to oust gadaffi and destabilize Libya, Obama’s and her support of Saudi Arabias war in Yemen and “moderate rebels” in Syria and of course signature strikes have done nothing to cause instability in the region?
He said he would give his endorsement not shill for her, this certainly goes beyond him just keeping his word in my view, will he do the same to hillarys speeches?
I am disappointed.
Anyone who is disappointed knows nothing about Sanders. He has endorsed every Democratic presidential candidate since he was elected mayor of Burlington, why would this cycle be any different?
And why would he sacrifice his chance to be chair of the Budget Committee for the sake of a bunch of comment wankers who never showed up for phone bank, never showed up for canvass, never showed up to caucus, and generally are of little use in an actual campaign?
Somehow, this time, this cycle, it felt different.
He has never felt so alienated (or negative) as to run against a Democratic presidential candidate in the primary phase before.
His endorsement is not fully explained by that every presidential candidate tradition But it can be understood by his promise to the elites of the D party.
How much of that was known to his voters? I don’t know.
Should he have been absolutely clear about that? Well, people can divide and argue over that.
It’s not something that unites.
why would he sacrifice his chance to be chair of the Budget Committee for the sake of a bunch of comment wankers who never showed up for phone bank, never showed up for canvass, never showed up to caucus, and generally are of little use in an actual campaign?
So Bernie is “just another politician” who will trade his endorsement for a spot at the table? That’s a different Bernie than the one I voted for.
Huh? You’re nuts, he’s a political survivor, power in itself is not bad, it’s what you do with it.
This is text book Sanders. He’s been around for so many years…Sanders has always been a mediocre D and it was clear from his campaign he was going to continue neocon foreign policy. He’s been captured on video giving speeches but what is forgotten is he then votes for legislation he declared he’d never vote for.
What?
Which video?
I’m sorry you’re upset that Sanders didn’t adopt your preferred tactics.
Oh, but he did adopt said tactics. Just not against Her, back when, you know, it would have actually counted for something, American people-wise.
World views (and demographics, environment influences, economic/political priorities) are undergoing yuge shifts right now. Things will look very different in 4 years, 8 years, 12 years…
Short term thinking has gotten us this far. Long term thinking will (probably) get us even further.
Short term thinking has gotten us the Housing Crisis and subsequent QE, both of which have caused immense harm and woe to the American people. Short term thinking has gotten us the shallow, generic manager CEO’s that run the boardrooms of Big Business. Short term thinking has caused genocides, because short term thinking doesn’t look at impact or history, it merely runs off the primal instincts in us humans for immediate gratification, gluttony, and sloth.
Long term analysis has gotten us everything for which we take granted for. Long term thinking got us the computer, for example, which took thousands of years to develop if you think about how we first had to master manipulation of electricity, then transistors, etc.
I don’t think you paid any attention to Bernie’s campaign. He said from the get go that he was not running against Hillary Clinton, he was running against Wall Street. He wanted to talk about worker’s rights, raising the minimum wage, defeating fracking, KXL pipeline, TPP,, and adopting a single payer healthcare system. He wanted to increase social security benefits and provide tuition free university education, and wanted to expose our rigged economic system. That is what he did and what he continues to do. Bernie is not interested in Clinton hatred, never was, never will be.
+1
It is so tiresome all this butt-hurt (h/t Binky above)
Just a hypothesis but I bet all these guys are Anglo. Folks of color will overwhelmingly not vote for Trump, not cuz they hate him but cuz they fear him.
All well and good to crow over having the establishment Ds scared, but not at the expense of regular people who happen not to look like you.
This Trump is racist, Hillary isn’t trope is getting old and worn, Trump has said racist things that are in your face. Hillary is a stealth racist who gets racist things done.
I believe this will help end your “but he’s a racist and hillary isn’t trope.”
https://www.thenation.com/article/hillary-clinton-does-not-deserve-black-peoples-votes/
http://www.racismreview.com/blog/2015/04/12/hillary-clinton-good-for-white-feminism/
http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_slatest/2016/04/14/bernie_sanders_calls_out_hillary_clinton_for_racist_language.html
And don’t forget her tireless support for the private prison and prison/deportation industry. Minorities may well fear trumps in your face racism, but I think the dems and hillarys stealth racism is much worse it allows “goodthinkers” to pretend it doesn’t exist.
Trump says a lot of things Americans of all income levels, party affiliations, etc do but don’t say.
Maybe this election will lead to some sort of catharsis or cognitive dissonance resolution.
Thought strawmanning was frowned on here – did I say Hillary wasn’t racist? That ain’t my trope!
And I believe those links are from when Bernie was still running. Context being everything.
“All well and good to crow over having the establishment Ds scared, but not at the expense of regular people who happen not to look like you.”
Your comment implies (at least to me) that somehow the dems and by extension hillary are somehow better than trump on racism, neither is good, but pretending a vote against the dems will somehow make things worse for “regular people” is the issue I have. Again one is in your face, one is stealth racism they are both horrible for “regular people”. But one exposes the injustice to those in denial and another keeps incrementaly increasing misery in the shadows.
I’m a little confused how time based context matters, hillary said and supported racist policies (actions). She did these things time or context does not change that.
Acting racist, but not saying it actually lulls people into complacency.
That’s why we have all these racist shootings today but no one (or hardly anyone) is using racist words.
Get rid of political correctness, and we will see where the are hiding.
I rather see where the enemy snipers are.
I see political correctness not as helping, but hindering progress.
Relevant.
Wowsers, excellent! This is simply brilliant schooling on white privilege. Really appreciate your comments generally btw.
Reminds me of Jane Elliott.
Jane Elliott’s Blue Eyes Brown Eyes
On the evening of April 4, 1968, Elliott turned on her television and learned of Martin Luther King Jr.’s assassination. She says she vividly remembers a scene in which a white reporter with the microphone pointed it toward a local black leader and asked, “When our leader [John F. Kennedy] was killed several years ago, his widow held us together. Who’s going to control your people?” Shocked that a reporter could feel that Kennedy was a “white people’s leader”, she then decided to combine a lesson she had planned about Native Americans with a lesson she had planned about Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. for February’s Hero of the Month project. At the moment she was watching the news of King’s death, she was ironing a teepee for use in a lesson unit about Native Americans.[2] To tie the two together, she used the Sioux prayer “Oh, Great Spirit, keep me from ever judging a man until I have walked a mile in his moccasins.”[3] She wanted to give her small-town, all-white students the experience of “walking in the moccasins” of someone of color.
The following day, she had a class discussion about the lesson and racism in general. She later said: “I could see that they weren’t internalizing a thing. They were doing what white people do. When white people sit down to discuss racism what they are experiencing is shared ignorance.” Most of Elliott’s eight-year-old students were, like her, born and raised in the small town of Riceville, Iowa and were not normally exposed to black people. She felt that simply talking about racism would not allow her all-white class to fully comprehend racism’s meaning and effects.[3]
I would argue that the in-your-face explicit racism is worse. Racism is built into the status quo and the system, and Hillary represents that. I’m not defending that. What I am saying is that the overt racism that Trump encourages and normalizes, including such gems as beating up protesters and expelling entire groups of people based on race, national origin, and/or religion, is going to reflect potentially far worse on us as a nation.
Once again not to defend the institutionalized racism that Clinton represents.
Unlike Clinton it’s not really Trump’s style to pay random internet commenters to “correct the record”, but maybe he should! I am exceptionally gratified that so many people like you are willing to donate their time and effort towards ensuring a Trump presidency.
If not for you, Trump wouldn’t have been able to spend zero dollars, as compared to Clinton’s tens of millions of dollars, and yet remain neck and neck with her in the polls. Even though you are playing the villain at the moment I have tremendous respect for you and I hope your campaign to get Trump elected bears fruit.
Clinton IS Wall Street.
He may be encouraging his supporters not to vote for Trump, but in the tweets I just read I didn’t see him mention Clinton once so any endorsement of her seems tepid at best. One of his more prominent supporters has already endorsed Stein and I haven’t heard Bernie complain about that yet.
Understanding politics is often about reading between the lines. Just sayin’…
My prediction: He’s going to do very little, if any, campaigning for the Hillster. His endorsement has already cost him quite a bit of support. And he saw what happened to Elizabeth Warren.
This is what he said about Sanders:
He belittled the D party, not Sanders personally.
Why not get angry at the DNC instead?
Or better yet canvas for another option besides the duopoly. Use the anger productively to change things.
“Hillary Rodan Clinton”
Think Godzilla vs…
Any background info on SaveAndInvest.org?
One thing’s for sure, they are not into saving and investing in the Earth.
Large non recyclable plastic envelope from FINRA containing their sales pitch, more non-recyclable plastic wrap on their non recyclable DVD etc.
Today’s antidote is another proof that NC is the best website this side of the universe.
omg i can’t stop crying….
That makes two of us.
Rainbow Bridge makes real the hope that we will meet those we love and love us again, somehow. I know I want to believe it. So until the day Reagan gets to greet Hunter and his family, may she romp happily in fields of flowers. Sweet, sweet girl.
I am crying with you, what a sweet amazing obituary. Rest in peace Reagan.
No, it means NC has the best readers in the universe.
Hunter here from the antidote. I think my first comment was lost in the ether. Thank you, Yves, for sharing Reagan’s story. It gives me comfort to spread her joyous spirit. Thanks, also, to all of the commenters for all of your kind words. I have been a constant reader here, but never commented. Perhaps I will start.
How about, both are true. And not mutually exclusive.
In multiple universes, not less.
And through multiple reincarnations (this one I am less certain, because I lack scientific proof…so far).
I couldn’t imagine a better way to put it.
May we all meet again on the Rainbow Bridge.
Seems each party was a custodian to the other, given each party’s abilities….
Disheveled Marsupial…. in that is where myself finds…. where the beauty transcends the moment…
Transcript of Trump’s speech – here
I always prefer to read political speeches so I don’t get caught up in emotion. Found almost nothing Bush or Obama did surprised me when I began reading instead of listening to their speeches because they mostly said what they were going to do. Whether that’s true of Trump, who know?
+1
My sense is Trump likes a Giuliani type naturally, and Giuliani has been advising Trump since last year. If they weren’t both NY residents, Giuliani would have been the guy.
So I’d look to Guiliani’s past.
Just reading as lack the patience to watch him spiel for 80 minutes. The speech does have a bit of the “stabbed in the back” flavor that the Nazis were so fond of. And of course he is very much exaggerating when he suggests all the current chaos is the result of Hillary as S of S. In fact it was Dubya’s war of civilizations that kicked off much of the current chaos and bipartisan pandering of Israel that can be fingered as the long term trend. Still, the NYT says most of his statistics are accurate this time.
http://mobile.nytimes.com/2016/07/22/us/politics/donald-trump-fact-check.html
Trump has denounced Bush’s attack on the Middle East during one of the debates and a pity he didn’t do that here. The Goppers might not have like it.
I say get his daughter to run. She seems perfectly normal.
There was a great deal I disagreed with in that speech. Especially on the environment, the idiotic attacks on Iran, his shout out to scalia and much more.
But what does it say about our country and neoliberalism, that all dumb shit he advocated for in that speech (minus most of his foreign policy, and populist positions) seems miles better than any of that Other Candidates (she who shall not be named) positions, stated or tacitly supported.
His environmental positions alone make me cringe uncontrollably, but I still view him as the lesser evil by magnitudes. That I must vote for someone who has more positions I disagree with than agree, because the other candidate is a corrupt (Clinton foundation), warmongering (Libya, nuland SOS, Russian confrontations etc), psychopath whos positions and actions I find so overwhelmingly odious, that I will vote for Trump to stop her.
Thanks dnc, msm, et al for ensuring I couldn’t vote for Bernie I very much hope you get bitten hard in November and down ticket. And thanks for going against and overcoming all the odds Bernie, I can still wish you hadn’t been so g** d*** nice while doing it though.
BDBlue
July 22, 2016 at 7:22 am
Thank you much for that – I also prefer to read the speeches cause I’m kinda slow and when people are talking the words go whizzing by and don’t stick in my brain….
Of course, way more on crime and terrorism than necessary….but these are republs. The speech I think shows that fissures are forming in America’s parties – the repubs are the first to implode and begin the process of reexamining their “principals” – IMHO the most interesting points:
And that the Republican Party would get 60 percent more votes than it received eight years ago.
….The Democrats on the other hand, received 20 percent fewer votes than they got four years ago, not so good.
Household incomes are down more than $4,000 since the year 2000. That is 16 years ago.
(((interesting that instead of JUST 8 years, Trump decided to give Bush another twist of the shiv…. good for Trump!!!)))
Her (Clintoon) bad instincts and her bad judgment, something pointed out by Bernie Sanders are what caused the disasters unfolding today.
(((How much will Trump go gorilla warfare and attack from the left or at least not orthodox right???)))
Big business, elite media and major donors are lining up behind the campaign of my opponent because they know she will keep our rigged system in place. They are throwing money at her because they have total control over every single thing she does. She is their puppet, and they pull the strings. That is why Hillary Clinton’s message is that things will never change. Never ever.
(((a repub nominee says big business is bad!?!?!!)))
When I am president, I will work to ensure that all of our kids are treated equally, and protected equally. Every action I take, I will ask myself: Does this make life better for young Americans in Baltimore, Chicago, Detroit, and Ferguson who have really come in every way, have the same right to live out their dreams as any other child in America?
(((I find it remarkable that Trump actually uttered “Ferguson” – sure, its boilerplate, but Trump didn’t have to say it at all)))
This time, the terrorist targeted LGBTQ community.
No good. And we’re going to stop it. As your president, I will do everything in my power to protect our LGBTQ citizens from the violence and oppression of a hateful foreign ideology. Believe me. And I have to say as a Republican, it is so nice to hear you cheering for what I just said. Thank you.
(((Trump displays some actual self awareness of repub ideology and the contradiction he is espousing “….say as a Republican” – now all he has to do is protect the LGBTQ from a hateful DOMESTIC ideology…)))
We must abandon the failed policy of nation- building and regime change that Hillary Clinton pushed in Iraq, Libya, in Egypt, and Syria.
America has lost nearly-one third of its manufacturing jobs since 1997, following the enactment of disastrous trade deals supported by bill and Hillary Clinton. Remember, it was Bill Clinton who signed NAFTA, one of the worst economic deals ever made by our country. Or frankly, any other country. Never ever again.
(((we’re in the realization that “globalization” wasn’t everything it was cracked up to be – it appears bipartisanship with regard to trade is ending )))
I am going to bring our jobs back our jobs to Ohio and Pennsylvania and New York and Michigan and all of America and I am not going to let companies move to other countries, firing their employees along the way, without consequences. Not going to happen anymore.
(((the first commandment of the church of economics is free trade and free markets – Here Trump declares he is a heretic…)))
Of course it wasn’t a terrorist in Orlando…far from signaling how heterodox he will be, I think he is pandering and polarizing all over the place.
The “law and order” speech…told an AA friend and Bernie supporter yesterday I’m not voting for HRC. He replied simply, that’s cuz you’re not AA.
I predict he will get very little of the non white vote. Funny that last round the big take-away for the Rs was that they needed to broaden their base.
ChiGal, I am curious what you think of the rationale in this post, if you are willing:
http://www.counterpunch.org/2016/07/19/the-time-is-now-to-defeat-both-trump-and-clintonian-neoliberalism/
Thanks for sharing, interesting piece. I will answer your question by summing up the difference between my friend and me.
I am class and color (partially: half WASP, half Tamil) if not gender privileged. I have a master’s degree from an elite university and am a licensed professional. He came up gangbanging on the streets and did hard time during his twenties, has been out for 15 years, during which time a social service agency took a chance on hiring him which worked out well (until IL budget woes got him laid off last year) and he got a college degree in IT. Now with the felony on his record he has been out of work almost a year and is pretty bitter.
I suspect the arguments in that article – that Trump is awful but voting 3rd party even at the risk of him being elected is worth getting Clinton and the neoliberals out – would not appeal to him at all.
They do to me, because I don’t live hand to mouth. I can afford a certain amount of risk. With his record and skin color, he cannot run the risk of Trump doubling down on the police state, as the article acknowledges is likely.
perhaps another way to put it is we experience time differently. He is trying to get through TODAY, my frame of reference is larger. He has PTSD from the streets and like many his sense of time is foreshortened.
Yes, thanks. I cringed a bit when reading it, as the author seemed willing to offer up those on the front lines, which he isn’t. IMO, only those there can do such offering, and dang, I doubt I’d be willing, at all. Esp since there’s no powerful large leftist group to support and defend them.
Reasons for going third party would need to be different, IMO. It’s a crapshoot. Even worse, no-win.
My sympathies to your friend, even though he’d probably not want it. Life is just crap sometimes. I hope he’ll be ok.
I, too, am not voting for Trade Treason Agreements. I, too, am not voting for supporting and arming cannibal jihadi headchopping terrorists against Assad in Syria. I, too, am not voting to support neo-nazi coupmakers in Kiev. I, too, am not voting for increased risk of war with Russia.
I guess that’s because I, too, am not African American.
Let us see how many African Americans cover themselves in glory this November by voting to support Trade Treason Agreements, arming and backing the Global Axis of Jihad against the legitimate government of Syria, arming and backing the neo-nazi coup regime in Kiev, and raising the risk of war between America and Russia.
Go ahead, African Americans. Stand up and be counted.
He is trying to wipe the last 28 years off the map.
Thus, some compare his (potential) 4 years to Reagan’s (I don’t say comparing him to Reagan).
But I feel in some way he’s taking the US back to the pre-imperial days, before Woodrow Wilson, before Teddy Roosevelt…just a little.
“No more coaling stations around the world. The natives refuse to pay their fair share.”
Until the day he says he’s bringing all the Trump-branded manufacturing back to the US, all his talk about bringing the jobs back is just that: talk.
I think he’s for better trade deals, not doing away with trade 100%.
It depends on the new regulations he will get Congress to pass.
And to be fair, one can be for bringing back jobs to America while trying to avoid business failure shipping many jobs overseas at the same time, trying to at least save some here with those jobs shipped abroad. (That’s why we have to change the system. One individual effort is not enough, if not suicidal).
He will have to put his business in a blind trust; otherwise, if he fails to meet his own new regulations, he should be impeached.
Recall that Carter put his business(es) into a blind trust. And very little was left after he left the White House.
Welsh analyzes and defends the speech here.
http://www.ianwelsh.net/trumps-speech-not-insane/
Snippets of the speech:
“When that same Secretary of State rakes in millions of dollars trading access and favors to special interests and foreign powers, I know the time for action has come.”
“But his supporters will join our movement, because we will fix his biggest issue: Trade deals that strip our country of jobs and the distribution of wealth in the country.”
“We must abandon the failed policy of nation- building and regime change that Hillary Clinton pushed in Iraq, Libya, in Egypt, and Syria.”
Compare that last one to:
“…to take out seven countries in five years, starting with Iraq, and then Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and, finishing off, Iran.”
The speech is heaviest on immigration and trade. Doubled down on Rodrik’s ‘national sovereignity.’
He defends parts of it, on trade and nation-building. Some he gives a pass saying any pol needs to say that. And some he strongly (“95%”) disagrees with, i.e. immigration, BLM vs the police.
To sum up he says Trump is appealing to poor and working-class whites since professional class whites (HRC) have abandoned them.
Roads.
Highways.
Bridges.
Airports, etc.
That sounds a lot like what people have been recommending here.
ISTR Bernie Sanders talking about an infrastructure rebuilding program that would create 13 million direct jobs.
Appealing to the poor and working class whites because the professional class has abandoned them? Did Trump just say that?
Well, so does Thomas Frank in his latest book, Listen, Liberal.
Thank you for writing this factual summary, which I was going to have to do some review and searches to do accurately.
In a recent thread, the argument over Bernie’s following though on what he told his supporters and the general public he would actually do had one side saying, hey, he lived up to his word and the other, was like, hey, he shoulda gone after Hillary harder. Or close to that.
Yet, as dcblogger makes clear, he made his whole campaign about issues that he believes must become core issues for betterment of the lives of the lower economic quintiles and the Dems really should adopt if they want to remain relevant.
BDBlue, very good way to approach political speeches.
Is Hillary as clear in her speeches? Seems to me she has an uncanny ability to say something but surround, precede,, or follow it with words which leave an amazing amount of wiggle room. Weasely.
I so wish someone had gotten into a private Hillary fundraiser and gotten out what she was telling her peer supporters what she would really do. Probably at this point, they already know and realize she has to
bamboozle the voters to try to get elected and once she is in office she will do what they want her to do.
I find it hard to pin down what she means. As someone said, it’s like trying to pin down mercury. Which is poisonous….
A very moving antidote du jour. Thanks.
+
Beautiful animal+ framed with the flowers=excellent photography.
Deepest sympathy on your loss of Reagan.
Dogs write thier lives on our hearts. Sorry about your loss.
So sorry for your loss, Hunter; she looks like a beautiful, happy girl in that photo, and will be a great way to remember her.
It never gets any easier, saying goodbye; I think animals open our hearts in ways that allow us to feel more and be more, and help us love better – but in doing that, our hearts also hurt more when these special creatures leave this earthly realm.
Thank goodness they live in our hearts forever.
Hunter, I am so happy that you and Reagan were able to share five years of love and companionship, and so sorry that it ended too soon. Your eulogy was very touching; i think all of us who have lost pets (and I have lost many, including the eponymous Nipper) understand your grief and tremendous sense of loss. As Anne so eloquently states above, it is the very depth of the bond we share with them that makes the pain of losing them so acute. Eventually, the memories of the joy will soften the sorrow, but the love will always endure.
You never forget them. Years later, they still live on.
RE: “hate to be tacky, but see picture” & is May particularly tall, Hollande particularly short?
i wouldnt have noticed it otherwise…
François Hollande is supposed to be 174cm tall — i.e. boringly average height.
The numbers I have seen are May 5′ 9″ vs. Hollande 5′ 7″.
Ran into him at the book fair before he was elected. He’s about the same size as Sarkozy, strangely enough.
Nicolas Sarkozy is 168cm — he is distinctly shorter, but still about average.
Anyway, here are the stats.
Again proves that De Gaulle was a giant among mere men.
Teresa May is 5’8
A lot taller than that when she stands on her hubby’s wallet.
I’m fairly sure sarkozy fiddled those figures, probably with the help of Mme Lagarde.
Edward Snowden and Bunny Huang‘s research.
It is important to mention the the EFF is representing Huang in a challenge to the DMCA (thanks Clinton/Frank).
https://www.eff.org/press/releases/eff-lawsuit-takes-dmca-section-1201-research-and-technology-restrictions-violate
Regarding the link to “Swedish Women Urged to Wear Headscarf – Or Be Raped”, it hasn’t been established who put up these stickers, and they could easily be the work of anti-immigrant individuals, as has been the case in the past. Why, for example would “women who don’t wear a headscarf are asking to be raped” be in quotes, if that was the explicit message? The Sputnik piece has a few sentences on the original story, and then pads with other examples of purposely vague stories of harassment in Sweden and seem primarily intended to be incendiary.
I agree that might well be the case, but I have also heard first hand stories of women in France being harassed for not wearing headscarves. So there is an issue of some Muslin immigrants wanting to impose their norms on European women. How prevalent this is I have no idea but this does happen in various forms.
Maybe the women being harassed in France for not wearing headscarves were Muslim women to start with or members of a predominately Muslim ethnicity? I find this the most likely circumstance; Moroccan, Turkish orwhatever origin or descent. I remember reading an amusing story about headscarves in a local Amsterdam newspaper several years ago. When visiting Morocco for vacation, Moroccan girls (first generation?) living in Amsterdam were asked by their female Moroccan relatives why they were wearing headscarves when they didn’t.
It’s more of a case of women living in Muslim majority neighborhoods getting harassed to put on a scarf. It can be good natured “cousine, mets un foulard” (cousin, put on a scarf) or more aggressive at high schools where it’s linked to bullying.
I can remember when immigrants had to adopt to the culture of the societies they immigrated to, instead of the opposite. Of course, that was back in the day when many immigrants were political refugees fleeing persecution, not mainly economic refugees, who insist on bringing the “pld ways” with them.
Funny how some people make excuses for the behavior of Muslim conservatives (diversity= universal good), but pitch a fit over Christian conservatives.
(For the record, I think they isn’t a dimes worth of difference between them)
Of course, I’m a Neanderthal. The new standard seems to be the “gold standard”, by which those with the bucks and the numbers rule, and the displaced locals who may have lived there for generations can go pound sand.
We need to be tolerant of other people’s limits to tolerance.
Let’s look at what Muslims are trying to accomplish by urging women to wear scarves. It isn’t a mere matter of different customs; it is religious law right out of the Koran, the hadith, and the tafsir (quotes of Mohammed and traditional commentaries of the Koran).
A believer in Islam expects the laws of Allah to apply for all souls, everywhere, at all times. Heretics to the laws of Allah are to be slain. They are a filth upon this world, and the mere sight of them is an affront to all that is holy.
Many Islamic laws apply to the subservient role of women, and their obedience at all times to whichever man is answerable for them — their father, their brothers, their uncles, their husband. If she acts in such a way as to dishonor any of these men, death is the solution.
Islam is a religion that encompasses every act, every thought and deed of every day. There is no such thing as a Sunday Muslim. Either you are following the laws of Allah, or you are subject to immediate censure and punishment by true believers, for there is no greater insult to a believing, practicing Muslim than to see heretics behaving with abandon, insolent and disobedient to the will of Allah. Defense of the one true faith, jihad, is the proper response.
The above is to point out that this is not a clash of personalities, neighborhoods, or cultural norms, It is a direct collision of civilizations, of religions. Those are always the bloodiest and most intractable things humans fight about.
If tolerant Muslims are to become the norm, it will take at least a generation. And unless the Koran is rewritten to make tolerance a higher virtue than obedience to Allah, there is nothing to stop anyone from adopting its harshest laws and punishments and applying them to non-believers.
‘There is no such thing as a Sunday Muslim’
For one thing, their holy day is Friday, not Sunday.
For another. I know well some muslims who do not fit your all-or-nothing description.
tolerant muslims aren’t helped by the propagation of radical saudi wahhabism
Its a very common thing for second generation immigrant muslim women to adopt the headscarf as a sort of symbol of pride – a female Turkish friend of mine told me of her horror at finding that her German cousins had opted for wearing headscarfs, something which was never a choice of any of the women in her urban middle class family. But I suspect its less religious inspired than a cultural thing – you often find first generation immigrants to a country who perhaps don’t feel part of that culture overemphasising their origins (like Irish Americans decking themselves out in green on St. Patricks Day). I think its rarely more malign than that, although no doubt it varies from culture to culture.
And if an “ethnically Muslim woman” has decided that, living in France, she wants to adopt the customs and practices of her host society? Is she any less deserving of respect and protection than an “ethnically French woman”?
No, they were American tourists, albeit not the fanny-pack/running shoe type. Very white Anglo or German-looking.
I also won’t deny that this absolutely happens, I’m just concerned about the continued singling out of Muslim immigrants, as they are already the target of far too much suspicion and hate. There are infinite examples of “she was asking for it”, both online and in real life, from western men that do not receive the same treatment.
Oh come on, there’s loads of examples that this type of sh*t is negatively impacting society. And it doesn’t really help their general standing in society as well.
In some primary schools in the Netherlands, for instance, head scarfs and the like were explicitly forbidden. Now why was that? Well, because the kids not wearing them (mostly also muslims by the way, this was a so-called “black” school), were being bullied for not being proper muslims. Teachers were not having anything of that, and rightly so. Indoctrinating kids, already at that age, is a big no-no to me. And what do you get on top of it all? The teachers get harassed or threatened; big surprise there.
I didn’t see this week’s French attack reported here…
Le Dauphiné Libéré (the local newspaper) says it’s a because of a gesture, and has nothing to do with clothing. The attacker suffers from schisophrenia, apparently. See
http://www.ledauphine.com/hautes-alpes/2016/07/21/un-geste-deplace-pourrait-etre-a-l-origine-du-coup-de-folie (in french)
Still more muslim/ immigrant bashing here.
Do you not acknowledge that Islam dictates that females be subjugated?
According to the article he shouts three times “allahu akbar” but religion is not a motivation?
If he suffers from schizophrenia, and his medication wasn’t working or he wasn’t taking it, then you can pretty much rule out everything and anything other than schizophrenia as any kind of cause to the event.
Schizophrenia can find all sorts of reasons to do things, most of which are devoid of rational thought.
I would go a step further and say that they are obviously anti-immigrant trolling; look at the “Dearbornistan” example. I would be fascinated to hear about these “less extreme” stories from France, where the last headscarf debate I heard was about banning it from public schools.
Woa! When did the term “Dearbornista” become a thing? I am from Dearborn and cannot say I have ever encountered that one!
Here’s a six year old editorial from the Detroit Metro Times, indicating the phrase has been in use a while.
Could be trolling or could be the case of ‘it only takes one loony individual.’
Strange that the religiously-offended don’t harass topless European women at French beaches (American women unlikely, is that right?), as long as they wear a headscarf?
“You can work in this gentlemen’s totally birthday suit club, but have a headscarf on at all times. That’s a special request.”
While it’s not clear who placed that sticker, what is known is that two women were gang raped in separate incidents last night near Kalmar (which is close to where these stickers appeared) and another girl was gang raped on Tuesday night in the same area. In none of these cases are the police releasing a description of the rapists.
And what does that prove, other than there are violent evil men of unknown background? Here’s another recent example where the victim of a group attack allegedly noted that they were speaking in the local Swedish accent (link in Swedish):
http://24kalmar.se/2016/07/22/flera-man-forsokte-valdta-kvinna-i-borgholm/
The rapes took place in Småland and so skånska is not the local dialect but the one from Skåne, which is to the south (where Malmö is located). All kids who grow up there, even Muslims, speak in their very distinct dialect. So in this third case of an attempted rape all that we can safely assume is that they were not recent refugees who attempted the rape. Beyond that we know nothing.
so they could well be local non immigrants.
Theresa May is 5’8″ Francois Hollande is 5’7″. My guess is that in the picture she is standing at least partially on a higher step.
Further important research indicates that she does do heels. There is a Telegraph story on Theresa May’s greatest footwear hits. Some do look like their in the 3″+ range.
Dear Hunter, i too lost a rescued animal to cancer. i didn’t see coming the profound pain that would overwhelm me to the point my family members worried. four days later i reached out to some online friends and received this blissful peace…(hope it helps and keep sharing her):
Take my body from the ivory casket and let it rest
Upon pillows of orange blossoms.
Lament me not, but sing songs of youth and joy;
Shed not tears upon me, but sing of harvest and the winepress;
Utter no sigh of agony, but draw upon my face with your
Finger the symbol of Love and Joy.
Disturb not the air’s tranquility with chanting and requiems,
But let your hearts sing with me the song of Eternal Life;
Mourn me not with apparel of black,
But dress in color and rejoice with me;
Talk not of my departure with sighs in your hearts; close
Your eyes and you will see me with you forevermore.
I have passed a mountain peak and my soul is soaring in the
Firmament of complete and unbound freedom;
I am far, far away, my companions, and the clouds are
Hiding the hills from my eyes.
The valleys are becoming flooded with an ocean of silence, and the
Hands of oblivion are engulfing the roads and the houses;
The prairies and fields are disappearing behind a white specter
That looks like the spring cloud, yellow as the candlelight
And red as the twilight.
The songs of the waves and the hymns of the streams
Are scattered, and the voices of the throngs reduced to silence;
And I can hear naught but the music of Eternity
In exact harmony with the spirit’s desires.
I am cloaked in full whiteness;
I am in comfort; I am in peace. Kahlil Gibran
Edward Snowden and Bunny Huang‘s research.
EFF is representing Huang in a challenge to the DMCA (thanks Clinton/Frank), as his work with Snowden is not allowed under section 1201.
https://www.eff.org/press/releases/eff-lawsuit-takes-dmca-section-1201-research-and-technology-restrictions-violate
So it turns out that outsourcing large parts of a highly complex aerospace project has negative consequences.
Who could have predicted?
Boeing will take $2 billion hit to earnings for 3 jet programs
The good news is this will not affect the golden parachutes of the top executives, most of whom are retired, who made the brave, gutsy, one could almost say Galtian decision to outsource to overseas producers many of the most important components. Maybe the 787 should be renamed the IBGYBG-liner.
The problems with turning Boeing from a “manufacturer” into a “component assembler” were pointed out at the time. Of course, the guys working on the shop floors and the engineering departments don’t know jack……
The 787 still has issues, many of which will never be fixed. Weight being the primary one. The latest in a getting longer list of composite airplanes that end up being heavier than they were supposed to be.
Expect more of these fiascos in the future. The guys running these companies think they can get by with engineering “managers” directing a bunch of 1099 types. The multitude of problems created by this plan don’t filter up to the “suit” level until the problems are too big/expensive to ignore. For starters, a good/skilled 1099s loyalty only lasts until a better paying contract shows up. Then his replacement has a “reinventing the wheel” stage, “fixing” the first guys work. Then he leaves. Problems later? The guys that designed it have moved on to greener pastures.
In aviation, both in engineering and maintenance, there are basically 50 year old guys the PTB are trying to shove out the door, and newbies learning the Tribal knowledge. And not learning it nearly fast enough.
So, everyone will be paying for the same mistakes twice. But by that time, the suits that called the shots will have moved on to greener pastures. The “numbers” will be great until the chickens come home to roost. But by that time, the guy calling the shots will have moved on to a bigger paycheck screwing up another company.
thanks for delivering the story about Good Reagan. I’m having some tearing around the eyes.
Unions stumping in the Rust Belt for Ms. Misery. What a bunch of chumps. What’ll ya see how fast she changes on TPP if elected. She’s a disgrace as a human being. How many lives has she ruined? Crime Bill; Welfare Reform Bosnia Syria Iraq Libya NAFTA. Get ready for the Wicked Witch of the White House.
Okay, I’ll say it.
Finally a Reagan worth remembering.
To me anyone who spends more than a few hundred bucks on a TV has their priorities screwed up.
It’s the “log 80/20 rule,” Steve: for every order of magnitude increase in price, you get an extra 1 percent of functionality.
Just as one can generally get 90% result from 50% effort in most endeavors. The futility of spending exponentially more for marginal return is the very essence of luxury consumption and status seeking.
Seems worth it.
Old saying in the aviation business:
Want it cheap?
Want it fast?
Want it right?
Pick two.
Velocity of money… on the bright side the guy apparently blew a wad employing tradespeople on a heavily margined A/V kit.
Bell’s eight-bedroom, 27,000-square-foot home was listed at $35 million in 2014, although he later took it off the market at the request of his children, who wanted to finish school in the home they grew up in
HaHa ill bet thats the reason his 27,000sqft residential warehouse boondoggle was taken off the market!.
What is the market for someone else’s used money pit fantasm at $35mm when it bumps into builder remorse reality?
http://simpsons.wikia.com/wiki/The_Homer
…and in my book, anyone who spends more on an entertainment system than most people will make in a lifetime is definitely a finalist in the Guillotine Watch category…just sayin’
Hunter, about that hole in your heart…. They say,
“grief never dies, it just goes to a quieter place”. It’s so true. I have lost 3 Newfies now over 20 years. Your grief will always be there. It will quiet down. I promise.
++++
So true. Grief is like a sine wave, Over time the highs and lows smooth out. The pain is there, but it doesn’t hurt as much when it comes over you. In one awful year, I lost a 13-year-old lab/brittany mix to cancer, who I had raised from a small puppy, then a long-haired dachsund who showed up at our back door, homeless, then a wire-haired pointer who ate something he shouldn’t have. I don’t remember much about 2010 beyond that. It is not so painful now, but I miss them all every day.
Everything I read in #Brexit links and #Brexit analysis is about the outward facing, trade related problem. There is little to no analysis of the origins of the precipitating event in the imbalances within England, that very large numbers of the English are looking at an economy that has not worked for them since 1980-something. Any durable solution has to confront that part of the problem, and start to do it before the outward facing problem can be ‘fixed’.
In that vein, what is needed is a robust industrial policy that gives the indigenous natives hope of a brighter future. Look for something along those lines in Philip Hammond’s Autumn statement. Once that is done, and sold effectively to the country, I think the ‘immigration scare’ will recede into the background, and a Four Freedoms inclusive solution can be better countenanced.
Granted that this is a very big ask for a Tory government ….
Although I find it totally incredulous that Peter Thiel (one of the most toxic individuals on the planet) is asking for exactly such a strong industrial policy on this side of the waters. And if the Republicans turn on the money and infrastructure spigot, it will provide a lot of support for the English Tories to do it too.
Noting that it is a function of the House and Senate, not the administration du jour, to actuate the money flow.
Thank you efschumacher for this balancing effort. As if the only thing in an economy that matters is international trade… (I seem to recall some NC posts about that last year.) This piece by the astute Jonathan Cook summarises nicely the paradigm shift taking place in UK politics: an instinctive aversion to TINA by people many of whom have never known an alternative!
http://dissidentvoice.org/2016/07/why-corbyn-so-terrifies-the-guardian/#more-63419
But it’s going to be a long messy process I fear.
Per his PR, Obama has been doing his part:
“Jobs And The Economy:
Putting America Back To Work
Lowering Discretionary Spending
President Obama has led the way on forcing government to live within its means through a balanced approach that protects key priorities and ensures that everyone pays their fair share. In August, President Obama signed into law a bipartisan agreement that kept our nation from defaulting and achieved significant deficit reduction, including a down payment on reform of about $1 trillion, by reducing discretionary spending to its lowest level as a share of the economy since Dwight D. Eisenhower was President while protecting critical investments critical to our long-term competitiveness. And under this agreement, Congress must pass another $1.5 trillion in deficit reduction, or trigger massive cuts to domestic and defense spending, providing an incentive for both sides to come together. The agreement is consistent with the President’s values of achieving meaningful deficit reduction in a common-sense balanced manner, in which low-income and middle-class families do not bear the entire burden, in which the most fortunate Americans pay their fair share, and in which cuts are spread across both the security and non-security sides of government.” There is more smoke and mirrors and dissimulation at the link. For those who are not just “looking forward, not back.”
https://www.whitehouse.gov/economy/reform/lowering-discretionary-spending
What! Massive cuts to the defense budget! After the latest gaius post I’m amused at the flat out republican messaging. Oh, and gun control, what if all those assault rifles we give away overseas find their way to our shores? OMG!
Obama doing the Republicans work for them. That approach is why he’s gotten so little done. But maybe that was the plan.
The problem is Brexit is not the solution to that problem. The US has manufacturing that is 50% more relative to GDP than the UK does, and ours is largely in control of domestic players. The biggest UK manufacturing sector s transport, is almost entirely controlled by foreign players. They have the skills and the international network. The UK has no foundation for any sort of industrial policy on its own. The US would face enormous obstacles in reindusrializing in a big way and we are light years ahead.
It is frustrating that readers do not want to understand that the UK has lousy options. Plus the UKIP/Tory plan for Brexit was NEVER about helping workers. It was about escaping those EU regulations that impose environmental and labor standards on the UK. They plan to drive wages even further down outside the EU.
Please stop romanticizing Brexit. It was a cynical power play in the Tory party that got totally out of control (Johnson never wanted Brexit to win, he just wanted to raise his stature) and that to the extent that there was any real plan there, it was to help corporations and squeeze labor even further.
Security researcher Lauren Weinstein is not impressed with Snowden’s and Huang’s Introspection Engine. From a broadcast to his email list yesterday, 7/22:
Cellphones report location and their IMEI (ID) by their very nature, a connection to the cell tower.
To keep you location secret do not have a cellphone. or take the battery out.
When you turn it on, you will identify your location to the carrier. That’s how it works.
Smartphones, not dumb phones. Dumb phones don’t track their own location.
– Emigre Super Bloc: The Failed Turkish Coup – An Exploded View
“Gulen is the leader of what is known as Pan Turkism. The goal is to unite all the Turkic people in Asia.”
“In 1997 Gulen stated “Turkey […] today encompasses 60 million. Together with the Turks in Central Asia it is 120-130 million. If it manages to break down the Chinese wall and to unite with the Turks there, it will be 300 million.“
Wiki sez “Turkic languages are spoken as a native language by some 170 million people, and the total number of Turkic speakers, including second-language speakers, is over 200 million”
So Gulen is probably overstating an already good case, as politicians tend to do. But I am noting as a layman, whereas the philologist who submitted the post has expertise.
That “Good as Goldman” piece in CounterPunch by Jeff St Clair is well worth the read. St Clair and the late Alex Cockburn (RIP) catalogued the Clinton pair’s greed and corruption over the decades. Excerpt:
[My emphasis]
–Good as Goldman: Hillary and Wall Street
Plus ça change…
Hey Hillary, how did that “loosening of federal financial regulations” work out for us all?
Musing about frames of reference, the difference between true believers and those whose primary criteria of analysis is the magnitude of the net worth of their extended locus of control, how Gulan’s people buy the label of ‘moderate’ with a million-buck donation to the Clinton foundation, the Bankists who believe anybody can be bought, Putin as a nationalist who can relocate the capital of Russia a thousand miles from anywhere if Moscow glows in the night, the Dominionists who may be satisfied with just one nuke over Megiddo, and weighing which candidate opens Pandora’s box the wider:
The problem with cash as criteria, in a fiat economy, is that the external world becomes an externality.
It doesn’t matter how it worked out for “us all”. What matters is how it worked out for *her*. and the banks.
Clinton faces pressure to pick VP who is tough on trade, Wall Street [Reuters]
As if. In the end, the base will be forced to suck it up
and become Kainiacs, undergo a Vilsacktomy or sign on to Booker and Blow.
I personally am rooting for Vilsack, if only to remind all those Clinton voters of what he did to Shirley Sherrod.
Vilsack actually believed that a video edited by Breitbart was an accurate representation of what Sherrod said. He later had to apologize. Sherrod sued Breitbart and settled for an undisclosed amount.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firing_of_Shirley_Sherrod
My knowledge of the Breitbarting of Sherrod is limited (and far be it from me to play apologist for Tom Vilsack, blech), but didn’t he walk back his statements and offer her another job? (seriously asking)
He did.
My memory is dim at this point, but I vaguely remember that the “other job” she was “offered” was to be a job with no authority or power over anything, and no staff of any kind.
She was most POINTedly NOT offered her PRIOR job BACK.
My memory is that she recognized what a deceitfully-intended poisoned-chalice the so-called “other job” was and she therefor declined to accept it.
I remember reading about this at the time in Acres USA ( that farm and agronomy paper I have mentioned from time to time). Acres USA covered this some because it considered this to be a treacherous aggression against the non-rich bottom levels of the farming community.
Clinton Inc wants Kaine because he appears to be a nice, friendly guy even by politician standards (believe it or not, I bet Trump and Hillary are as lovely in person as long gone as you aren’t lower tier staff as their followers claim them to be), and they understand Hillary is seen as an ice queen. Of course, Clinton brand politics represents the triumph of the shallow over substance, so naturally Clinton Inc can’t grasp the reason why Hillary is unlike is her terrible policies because people in the Clinton orbit are doing fine.
Given their views on polling, they should probably be worried about Kaine’s numbers in Virginia. He’s way less popular than Warner who squeaked out a win over an under funded, little known, and completely unrelated to Virginia politics Ed Gillespie.
I hardly see how any of this matters. The election will come down to which party’s election voting rigging scheme outdoes the others. No serious attention has been paid in the MSM about the likely rigging that took place in the primaries, so expect both parties to get away with whatever they have in the works.
Michael Parenti on vote rigging and suppression in 2004.
Democracy has been a sham for some time now.
I was thinking about this the other day. So many life and death comments about whether to vote Green, Trump or HRC or whatever, analysed in such intricate detail, yet the vast majority of such commenters (myself included) are not part of the priviledged few whose vote will matter because they live in battleground states (and that is before counting election fraud).
For example, Sanders said he’s voting for HRC, and it was this huge scandal. But since he votes in Vermont it doesn’t matter whom he votes for (besides some empty symbolism). I think it would behoove us all to put the quadrenniel electoral extravaganza in perspective.
+1
And omg the $$ spent on keeping us riveted to bread and circuses. Think of the good those hundreds of millions could do – it’s crazy!
On the other hand, we have to consider the Butterfly Effect, when one butterfly in Argentina could impact the world most unexpectedly, or a voter in Vermont might change the course of history….it’s unpredictable.
On the other other hand, we should also consider the Butterfly Ballot Effect, when a
butterfly ballot in one county in Florida could impact the world most unexpectedly …
Have those butterfly ballots gone extinct? They seem more resilient than the butterflies I used to see.
One doesn’t have to live in a swing or battleground state to vote meaningfully. The two party U.S. duopoly is very harmful, so we need to strengthen third parties. If a third party Presidential candidate gets at least 5% of the vote, that candidate or the candidate’s party will quality for federal government grant money. Pepole who live in California, Texas, New York, Illinois, and other states where we know in advance who will win, should vote for the Green or the Libertarian candidate.
Aside from that, down ticket races can be very important.
I’m afraid I don’t have an easy solution for that. We need paper ballots for every election, so that effective recounts are possible. I just don’t know how to persuade TPTB to do this.
If your view of election rigging is correct, then the person rig-elected will be a tip-off to which community-of-interest was strongest and most able to carry out the rigging.
My feeling is that the Overclass wants Hillary to be President. If the Overclass decides who an election is rigged for, then it will be rigged for Hillary. If the Republican Party thinks a Party victory is more important than giving the Overclass its preferred President ( Hillary), then the Republican Party will try counter-rigging the election the other way. It might be a Battle of the Contrary Riggers.
What perplexes me as an historian (albeit of Britain, but I know something about my own country’s history) is that the idea of the “balanced ticket” (Bush with Reagan) and the idea of picking someone (like LBJ) who could bring with him or her an important state, is almost completely absent recently after it was deadly important for over 175 years. Pence does nothing, electorally-speaking, for Trump as far as I can see, and Clinton doesn’t seem to have any interest in either a balancer or a person who can bring a purple state into the fold. It’s all personality-driven, as in, who does the Numero Uno Honcho feel chummy with. Anyone have any insight on this, because it perplexes me.
I won’t begin to address Clinton’s choices, but I don’t think Trump is chummy with Pence. He was a strategic choice once Kasich made it clear that there was no way he would be on the ticket. As much as Trump has thumbed his nose at much of the Republican establishment, he still needs some of their tools for this upcoming election. Pence was an acceptable establishment Republican who also brought some evangelical bonafides to the more religious factions within the party. The balanced ticket was not the concern, the more immediate Never Trump rebellion was.
The reference to rape threats for failure to wear head scarves may or may not be accurate to facts on the ground but it is moving and plausible because of the larger cultural clash and because this sudden large scale threat of violence is such a change.
My eyes are watering over the Europe I visited where young women could move safely alone across the continent. The topless beaches are a symbol of freedom as well as joie de vivre. I returned later for my honeymoon in part because that assumption of nonviolent civic space was meaningful for an American. We have other strengths but we are always personally on guard re possible violence.
Aside from cultural conflict, transitioning large numbers of men out of a war zone carries with it a probability of greater violence, sexual and otherwise. Why are we not seeing evidence that care was taken to prepare for these issues?
Those were the days, eh?
Topless, hell: back in the Mitterand era, we used to joke that the world’s best summer job was the ice cream cart guy, peddling frozen treats to nude lovelies on the plage de naturisme at Arcachon.
It prolly ain’t the same no more …
I suspect this is more of a counter revolution to popular culture. It seems to be there is more casual nudity in pop culture which doesn’t serve a purpose except to say “hey look what we can do,” and I believe that promotes a seemingly prudish society. There is difference between art and a skin flick which is subtle, but there is one. I happen to think we have too many artists who make skin flicks not art. The nudity in “Hair” had a point, but people become repulse at the idea of porn masquerading as culture. The same goes for violence and language. When I saw Django I theaters (I’ve seen four or five movies in the last three years), I realized every movie preview attached to Django was some Taratino knockoff I was repulsed by. I love Tarantino’s shameless rip offs of Samurai movies, but his violence as in your face and extravagant as it is has a point. South Park’s foul language works because that’s how eleven year olds speak when no adults are around. Shameless ripoffs use the same crass language but in the wrong places.
At least originally, part of the top less beach was a protest in favor of gender equality.
Besides, covering up at the beach is a good idea because of UV radiation.
From an article about novelist John Colapinto:
So internet pr0n killed off the dirty book? Or have tastes simply changed?
I’ll opt for change. ‘The Crying Game’ was in 1992, and what was a shocking twist at the time is not so much when Caitlyn Jenner is a star. A normalization as less is left to the imagination.
“The Crying Game” was a pretty solid movie, and it’s about how people choose to live, both being terrorists. They were brave enough to fight the police, but one guy wasn’t brave enough to admit he was gay while fighting for his Irish Catholic heritage. Ra wasn’t passing. People saw what they wanted to see. The twist scene was in the middle of the movie.
Talent and knack matter too.
Rabbit was a pig, not some romantic figure. What was Updike saying about romance and courtly love? His was a backdrop of America on the world stage, and not the U.S. of DeToqueville, a country without meaning. These books were about more than sex unless you think sex is everything, Freud.
This review is about sex, sex, sex. Sex sells, but what is this book in the review about? Didn’t Nabokov already do this? Colapinto said, “we shouldn’t cede arousal to video.” Is It about sex? “Portnoy’s complaint” was about assimilation and immigration as well as sex.
“Call of the Wild” isn’t about dogs. I do think the organic clamor for sex has been killed off or sex as a means of expression has been made devoid of meaning due to popular culture being rife with smut or good beach books being hailed as game changing ideas because they are “explicit” and stick it to Republicans.
i think those are all astute observations. french society is definitely more prudish today than it was in the old millennium and it’s probably only a little bit to do with cultural sensitivities towards the increasing muslim population and more, as you say, a counter-revolution against a culture that has banalised nudity and sexuality.
with respect to the rape threats for not wearing a headscarf, it’s being sensationalised to make it sound like it’s happening often and everywhere. it is possible that women entering de facto ghettoes in france or sweden, or indeed as was reported of whitechapel in london, are really harrassed for not conforming to the more extreme residents’ imported cultural views but this is not tolerated. and i do mean ghettoes in the sense that entire neighbourhoods have been monopolised by a single ethnic community and end up isolated from the rest of the city by custom but not walls. these neighbourhoods, though, are a tiny percentage of the overall area of the country so not difficult to avoid. Most everywhere else, France, Sweden and Britain remain very good countries in which to be a woman.
The U.S. is a very good place to be a human if you don’t live in a dangerous slum. Oddly enough that is not satisfying to the residents of the slums. And the fact that these slums are not “difficult to avoid” if you are well off, does not lead people to think there is no real problem.
Topless without headscarf – no good.
Topless with headscarf – OK.
I think the Paris fashion designers will go to work on the Burka. It could use some improvement, methinks. Sure, every women will have the little black burka for those nights out on the town. But more colors…please!
I wonder if vacationing European women, sunbathing at beaches in many countries, like, for example, Barhain, are buying privilege to impose cultural value in another culture?
That question has been with me since the 1980s, when I saw rich First world vacationers with Sony Walkman playing Rock music in cheaper nations around the world – were they buying access to impose value with the world’s reserve fiat money.
“No. It is inherently beautiful and artistic. People innately are drawn to it.”
See through burka beachwear w uv screen?
.
Its all utter BS that muslim dress code/decorum be injected into french/european society
The human form is what it is, the notion that there is something wrong wuth it and the remedy is seemingly Kubricks Ultraviolence is culturally demented.
If you dont like the society you enter as a guest, move on. As well, the western countrie need to understand that bombing the fk out of other peoples countries is not a sustainable foriegn policy strategy. What part of that is intellectually elusive?
Get the heck out of the ME and repatriate refugees to their honelands if they prefer to live by their historical societal norms.
I think maybe a very loose weave of Kevlar. Provocative, yet secure. 4 inch spike heels would be perfect for the liberated woman that choses fight over flight.
But more colors!
Were you referring to the new British Prime Minister ?
HRC prefers teflon.
W/ depleted uranium buttons inlayed with tungsten :o/
Your comment reminds me of this comedy video (about women fawning over their choice of black burka fashions at a boutique): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dkDMVjhH1Mg
Ha! It’s gonna be big.
I awoke this morning feeling strongly this same sentiment, about the loss of “Europe,” thinking about the Russian track and field athletes being kicked out of the Olympics this summer.
I think there isn’t a doubt that some sort of long-term CIA-associated conspiracy to taint the Olympics, with one goal being the separation of Russia from Europe so they can match their addled Risk game to the Pentagon’s relatively robust conflict models.
“7/7/7” coming on the immediately on the heels of London beating Paris, Saakasvili’s “8/8/8” blowing China’s PR efforts sky high, the coup in Kiev while Sochi was splattered with pinkwash, Pussy Riot, and that sin most dreaded by the arriviste post-Left, tacky kitsch, and now this apparatchik hate-fest in Brazil.
But, but the MSM scoffed when Putin suggested WADA was a US cat’s paw.
Okay, I had to look up “WADA”, which is the World Anti-Doping Agency. At the Wikipedia WADA page I had to wade through the names of about 50 Japanese people named Wada before I got to the agency!
What with all the scandalous speech plagiarism, it’s been hard to pay attention to the real news this week. So thank Ishtar for (Saudi-owned) Al-Arabiya News which has brought our attention to the fact that the 28 pages of the 9-11 Report were declassified and it turns out the attacks were actually the fault of (wait for it)…
There are others who know better how this works (Hi Jeff Goldberg!), but does this mean we can’t blame Putin for 9-11?
looks like we’re about to spend the next six months hearing about the new celebrity couple, the donvlad.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/right-turn/wp/2016/07/21/trump-proves-hes-a-putin-lapdog/
i’m surprised we haven’t seen such headlines as:
RUSSIAN AGGRESSION INTIMIDATES CLEVELAND DELEGATES AS GOP BUCKLES TO PUTIN’S WHIMS
Hee hee.
“The Donvlad”
That’s gold, Jerry.
What this country really needs – Neo McCarthyism – and Jeff Bezos steps up to the plate!
And now with student loans. What pie doesn’t have his finger in it?
Megyn Kelly. But Bezos probably doesn’t want to work for Murdock.
I suspect he may be in a diversification frenzy because the Amazon biz model is getting duplicated by China directly now. There was EBay Stores, but now there is Ali Express, Banggood, and a host of others. Some are setting up US Warehousing. China Post will mail stuff that weighs less than 2lbs for $2 or less, and that includes a cut for our Post Office at this end. I get all my electronics hobby stuff this way now usually far cheaper than Amazon or anywhere else. The only downside is 10-14 day delivery, but I can live with that.
Didn’t know….interesting tip.
… a Ukraine province we’ve not heard about….?
“Vote for the Commie. It’s important!”
Glad to see that Jennifer Rubin at WaPo owns that the United States as a racist, imperialistic international scofflaw. Hopefully, now that the neocons can hold themselves in the mirror as colonial miscreants there is hope for a therapeutic change.
Have to say I was very impressed with Ivanka Trump’s speech and presentation. She projects a relaxed confidence that is nowhere to be seen with Hillary. Ivanka certainly could have a future in politics if she chooses.
RE: Trump gives Bernie a shout-out & Bernie not amused. Bernie sent out some anti-Trump tweets, saying his supporters would not vote for Trump. Bernie’s wrong about that. He actually has not idea who his ex-supporters will vote for nor any control over them. I’m voting for Trump just because I hate the entire democratic party, and I don’t like Bernie if he’s going to suck up to them.
Bernie can’t promise his voters to Hillary.
But he can claim his voters would not vote for Trump.
I suppose that’s possible.
He can believe that (perhaps to some extent, or even largely) true, but he cant’ know it as a fact for all his voters.
“It’s up to my voters. Sorry, it’s up to you.”
I have been fighting the urge to call and let Senator Sanders know that while he is right that I will not vote for Trump it is only because I have other options. In a two person race with no other options between Clinton and Trump, I would vote for Trump. Both are evil, both are hideously bad for America, but I would prefer the guy who has a clue that things are bad out there Add to that he might be disorganized and hated enough that he can’t even do anything dangerous. I have no such guarantees on bellwether for bad Clinton. Why choose the woman who has supported almost every hideously bad choice America has made in the last quarter decade.
I concur wholeheartedly.
Precisely: Why choose the woman who has supported almost every hideously bad choice America has made in the last quarter decade.
And apart from consistent bad judgement with horrific results (Iraq, Libya, Syria), she is a corrupt, dishonest, greedy grifter as well, in bed with the banksters.
Apart from that, Mrs Lincoln, how is the candidate…?
It would be great, wouldn’t it, if there was a way to indicate on our votes why we chose that particular candidate – but there isn’t. There’s no box to check for “because I hate the Democratic Party.”
There is no special pile for the votes cast in protest or punishment – they all go in the same pile. The Democratic Party isn’t going to be able to tell how many people voted for Trump as a way to punish them for their sins.
I guess I have a sort of antiquated approach to voting. I vote for the people who best represent my own views on issues that matter to me. Trump doesn’t do that. Neither does Clinton, although she comes closer on some things. I’m not about to reward Trump for Clinton’s failures. I’m also not about to reward Clinton for not giving a rat’s ass about much more than her own ambition and greed.
If Trump’s views, if his plans (I loved the most recent thing I read, about him wanting to systematically go through the employment rolls of career government workers and fire anyone who is in the Obama/Clinton camp) align with yours, I don’t know why you’d ever have considered yourself a supporter of either Clinton or Sanders.
Your vote is your voice; I’m just not sure the Democratic Party will ever hear what it is your vote for Trump says.
I was for Bernie because he wanted break up the banks, re-instate Glass-Steagall, and adopt a less aggressive attitude with our military. He was one of the smart guys that voted against the Iraq War. Trump was too. (I know–he later said “if we’re there, we might as well win it”, or something like that.) It’s been said you can’t persecute the people that were for the Iraq invasion because only 20% of Americans were against it. Well, I myself was among that 20% and I say it’s high time we recognized that that 20% was the smart people, and the other 80% were idiots. Let’s try to reward the 20%, when possible.
“It’s been said you can’t persecute the people that were for the Iraq invasion because only 20% of Americans were against it”
And that is absolute nonsense. Remember what mom said, “Are you going to jump off the bridge just because all of the other kids are too?!”
I think it is impossible for these fools to admit to any shortcomings in a meaningful way.
If you form an opinion on the basis of lies, the percentages of for/against are meaningless.
And for what it’s worth, Trump didn’t vote on anything, and it’s been difficult to find him actually on the record in opposition to the war at the time.
This is a man who may or may not be smart, but there’s no question he believes, deeply, in whatever BS he’s proclaiming that is designed to make him look smart.
I think Trump sees everything as some form of deal to be made, and whatever deals he makes, they will be designed to keep his ego at maximum psi, regardless of whether they make any kind of sense from a governing standpoint, and regardless of whether the consequences that follow are as he advertised them to be.
Trump, if elected, may be the first president to really try to run the country like a business; I don’t believe, based on his own business history, that that bodes well for the country. If we wanted to hire him to make trillions of dollars for the government on Brand America, that would maybe be something he’d be good at – but putting him in charge of the country? Mmmm, not so much.
Since virtually no one is shifting their vote from the Republicans to the Greens, I feel the clearest message I can send the Democrats is by voting Green.
What I don’t understand from those who are pushing the “get along with others” element in Trump’s message (as opposed to Clinton’s obvious overcompensating hyper-macho posturing) is how is he going to “win” all these “deals” with other countries? I mean, given that the Chinese and the Mexicans are not fools, other than threats and intimidation, how is he going to force renegotiation on them at their expense? Trump’s desperate need to “win” every interaction seems to bode pretty ill for America’s relations with the world, unless you believe, as Clinton does, that all we need do is huff and puff and all those dirty little foreigners will collapse like the little piggy’s house of twigs.
At this point, telling Mexico and China what the new, perhaps unilateral, rules are will not be the major problem. [Besides, when was that ever a problem for America?]
It will be the backlash from the S&P 500. Having a Second Industrial Revolution in America won’t come without difficulty. Those factories are expensive to move around – plus training of American workers! And our pencil pushing finance biz leaders will have to learn how to make stuff. Yikes.
If America had a Protectionist Revolution, the Global Overclass would try to destroy our Revolutionary Protectionist Regime the same way that the Global Overclass tried to destroy the newly established Bolshevik Regime in Russia in the years after WWI.
America would have to expect it and be ready for it, if America went seriously Protectionist.
He wasn’t voting–correct– he was a private citizen, which makes it even more impressive that he was right about the Iraq invasion being a mistake. HRC had a full-time job where she supposedly was studying issues like this for a living, but she made the wrong decision. He’s on some major talk shows saying this. I was a busy man with one and a half jobs at the time but I could not understand the Iraq war at the time. I tried to get people to explain it to me to no avail. You’d have to just have blind faith in the government to not be against that fiasco.
The problem is that there is no evidence that he came out in opposition to the war prior to the invasion, so I’m sorry, but he’s rewriting his own history to make himself look good.
See here
There were a lot of us private citizens who knew in our gut that we were being sold a bunch of lies, but Donald Trump does not appear to have been one of them.
It sounds like he was reluctant and ‘hesitantly responded.’
Did he have faith in the government at that time to be straight with the American people?
Was he, months later, further persuaded by Colin Powell’s UN speech?
I’ve heard him talking against the Iraq War on some talk shows. I don’t know what fact-check.org does to check facts; I don’t know if they are biased or not. Maybe they don’t check talk shows. Maybe they check votes. Of course he was a private citizen and wasn’t voting in Congress.
Hillary Clinton voted for the Iraq War.
Did she have access to classified information that a private citizen would not have?
With Cavuto he said perhaps we should be waiting for the United Nations. He definitely was not a supporter of the Iraq War. He ran Jeb Bush out of the race by saying, in effect, his brother was an idiot, which is true. For running the Bush family out of politics, we can all be grateful. Trump was doubtful about the Iraq invasion. That’s the way I was. Of course we didn’t have access to all the, ahem, “intelligence”, but it didn’t look right. I could not get anybody to explain why we had to invade Iraq. But HRC apparently had a satisfactory explanation.
and the other 80% were idiots
——
I’d more accurately characterize that as the other 80% were lied to and propagandized by the Greatest Propaganda Machine in the world. You also have to keep in mind the majority are busy trying to make a living, and perhaps even trying to have a life in their spare time. Not that many people can keep a microscope/telescope trained on Washington DC so they can discern every slight of hand TPTB deals us.
Tho I have been trying to quantify how many Americans are truly idiots. It’s harder to do than you think. At best I can only do wild ass guesses. Maybe 20-30%?
Acknowledging that nothing can happen in this election cycle, petitioning your state to offer Ranked Choice Voting aka Instant Run Off Voting is a way of opening up the elections to more independent candidates and parties.
Well he has a point about wanting to fire Obama/Clinton supporters. These people are either unbeleivably ignorant, incredibly corrupt themselves, or have no problem with corruption in others–not exactly people you’d want in government.
Thanks Anne as always for your thoughtful comment.
Well, this is what opinion polls are for. If the Ds wanted these answers, they would just need to come up with the proper questions. Or read their hate mail. That would work too.
Truth be told, they don’t want answers to these questions. They want to tell us what the right answers are.
‘Course that applies to the Rs too – and politics in general.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2016/07/22/video-austin-police-body-slam-black-teacher-tell-her-blacks-have-violent-tendencies/
Prosecutors told the Statesman they first viewed the video about two weeks ago and will likely present the case to a grand jury.
…
The video also prompted them to dismiss a resisting arrest charge against the teacher, 26-year-old Breaion King.
==============================
So, reading between the lines, this appears to only have become an issue due to the filing of a resisting arrest charge (it happened in June 2015). One wonders who reviews police videos initially. One wonders also about the mentally of the first police officer, who ACTUALLY thought his conduct was appropriate…. and I assume was instrumental in a resisting arrest charge being filed. Irony.
In looking at the dialog, I have to say that it appears to me that there was manipulation going on to be able to trump up charges, and the charges are being trumped up because the cop simply doesn’t like being asked questions…
Undoubtedly, there are millions of interactions between police and citizens daily that are uneventful. But there does seem to be an imperious attitude among a number of police. To arrest a person and put them in custody is a serious matter, and one has to wonder, if it was at all justified in this case. And one has to wonder, how often before video was it happening, and continues to happen, as nothing would apparently have happened in this case if not for the resisting arrest charges.
Still, being Texas, I suspect the grand jury will essentially do nothing.
Here’s a video without paywall. “violent tendencies” at 8:39.
– ‘who ACTUALLY thought his conduct was appropriate’
There’s yer problem. Police arrest people often (daily?), so what is serious for the subject is routine for the officer. The video is a silent witness that others may judge with less (or different) bias.
And Dan, let’s remember to look back on this in a while when we find out what the grand jury does. The Dallas tragedy may have changed things in unexpected ways. The grand jury decision will be a real moment of consequence.
Can someone explain why some cases are brought before a grand jury and others aren’t? These police misconduct cases always seem to be sent first to a grand jury who inevitably see to it an actual public trial with testimony and evidence never happens. It seems to be used as a convenient way to get guilty people off scott free without the facts coming out publicly, to avoid an actual trial, or perhaps to give the appearance of an accountable process without actually having to have one.
That’s nothing – get a load of Margarethe Vestager, the EU’s competition commissioner, next to. . .well, anybody. But especially humorous were the ones of her and her Japanese counterpart. She’s a tall lady.
A friend of mine put this rather succinctly once: there is no such thing as an equal or reasonable conversation with someone who brings a weapon to it. Regardless of the subject, one person will always have to make calculations and inferences that the other never has to, because, if something goes terribly wrong, s/he can always use the threat of violence to compel the other into acquiescing.
I saw my neighbor looking down the whole time, once, when she was speaking to a PO down the street. I asked her why she was being so timid (it’s not like her), she said she wasn’t being shy, she was just paying attention to where the cop’s hands were relative to his gun.
Much like daily interaction between women and men. If you think women do not constantly evaluate the threat of violence and assault from men they interact with, you should think again.
Of course men rely on this in customer service situations too. Where women get ignored, an angry man is immediately coddled. Some may not realize the dynamic.
First they ran out of beer. Now there’s no Big Macs:
You can buy a Big Mac in some of the poorest countries on earth. But not in hopelessly mismanaged, middle-income Venezuela.
So something IS going right there I guess.
I’d prolly not sweat it and just go to Taco Bell instead.
Noooooooooooo…..!!!
..not taco hell…..
………..”never mind”
Investigative reporter Zaid Jilani questions Comrade Haygood (played here brilliantly by Mark Toner) regarding why he posts every day about Venezuela but ignores Brazil:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ogycKZLGcIM
Washington Induced Venezuela Turrets Syndrome comrades, it can happen to you.
Brazil and the rest of South America don’t have a multiple exchange rate system … or food shortages.
Venezuela’s three exchange rates (Dipro: 100 times overvalued; Dicom: 56% overvalued; black market = fair valued) are economic idiocy that’s literally starving people.
Venezuela’s relatively healthy democracy will eject the toxic Maduro clowngov and its statist fallacies soon enough.
Say comrade … can you spare a thousand bolivares fuertes for a cuppa coffee? :-)
Skynet ate my reply. Venezuela is the only South American country with multiple exchange rates … and the only one with food shortages.
Coincidence? I reckon not!
What do you mean by multiple exchange rates? An official and a black market exchange rate? That’s pretty standard, at least it used to be in Brazil.
Venezuela’s multiple rates (Dipro — 100 times overvalued; Dicom — 56 percent overvalued; black market = real rate) are posted here:
An overvalued exchange rate cleans out foreign reserves (since it makes imports look unrealistically cheap) and drives capital flight (bolivar holders want to get out before it devalues again).
In Venezuela’s tertiary stage of misaligned exchange rates, forex reserves are gone and stores run out of food.
So what?
The Burger King franchise near my house regularly runs out of soda and beef patties. Or the equipment is broke.
Those socialists in Venezuela can’t eff up nearly as good as us Americans.
Hunter,
Thank you for sharing your love and pain. I have two sweet little girls, Rosie and Daisy, who are now 84 and 95 in dog years, both healthy.
They have both taught me — a selfish, self centered unmarried old man — how to love selflessly.
I will kiss both of them more often and more tenderly because of your sharing your loss of Reagan.
Before further analysis of the Trump acceptance speech arrrives, I will point out that FDR, in his first inaugural address, diagnosed the “emotional problem” of U.S. life as well as the continuing economic problem:
“I am certain that my fellow Americans expect that on my induction into the Presidency I will address them with a candor and a decision which the present situation of our people impel. This is preeminently the time to speak the truth, the whole truth, frankly and boldly. Nor need we shrink from honestly facing conditions in our country today. This great Nation will endure as it has endured, will revive and will prosper. So, first of all, let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself—nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance. In every dark hour of our national life a leadership of frankness and vigor has met with that understanding and support of the people themselves which is essential to victory. I am convinced that you will again give that support to leadership in these critical days.
“In such a spirit on my part and on yours we face our common difficulties. They concern, thank God, only material things. Values have shrunken to fantastic levels; taxes have risen; our ability to pay has fallen; government of all kinds is faced by serious curtailment of income; the means of exchange are frozen in the currents of trade; the withered leaves of industrial enterprise lie on every side; farmers find no markets for their produce; the savings of many years in thousands of families are gone.
“More important, a host of unemployed citizens face the grim problem of existence, and an equally great number toil with little return. Only a foolish optimist can deny the dark realities of the moment.”
Fear and grifting and denial. Sound familiar?
There is the distinct possiblity that FDR rose because times were so dire. Is it possible that our times aren’t dire (enough)? Because we have two deeply unserious major-party candidates.
Are we or are we not worse off today than those in 1932?
Depends on who and where you are.
Central Bank Faustian Pacts Blonde Money (Scott). Today’s must read.
“Did you hear that? Over time, it gets worse.”
==================================
Wow….
Imagine next presidential campaign, “Are you better off today than you were 4 years ago” and the answer is….yes. If only we could have 2% growth…..
At least in the depression, you could eat your shoes….now a days, shoes are made out of polypropylene or some such….I guess you can still eat them, just not digest them.
I know i should do my own homework, but sometimes, one takes a shortcut.
What is blonde money?
I believe that is the moniker of the writer of the blog
Thanks, Dan.
It’s not the kind of money gentlemen prefer?
maybe a dumb blonde – dumb money joke?
Have to love how Democrats are using the meme ‘two bit dictator’ about Trump’s speech. This ignores both that Obama has expanded the powers of the executive branch and has solidified the expansions of Bush 2, AND that Clinton will do nothing to change that. In fact her supporters have counted on this as ‘she knows how to get things done’ despite any promise Clinton makes depending on being able to do it unilaterally as she will not have a majority in the House, and possibly not in the Senate either.
Yet another psychological projection on the part of the Clintonites?
After the speech, one of the commentators on radio was saying Trump would be one tired guy, paraphrasing here, attempting to do so many things, as president, he covered in his speech.
I didn’t know they cared that much about him.
Okay, that one makes me laugh. And full credit to them for finding a new way to disparage it without depending on the usual memes.
(I do have to admit that I look at both Sanders and Trump with a fair amount of admiration for their stamina. I don’t think that Clinton has weathered the demands of candidacy quite as well, but she has also kept a schedule that makes me tired. And a larger point to Sanders on this one – he did it without the perks the other two had to make it easier.)
It’s the Dem Panic. You can tell Donald gave a memorable speech because of all the references to Hitler/Stalin/Mussolini. They are getting scared – and they ought to be.
I notice he didn’t mention ‘the wall.’
So far, none has called him out for breaking that promise.
Is one promise (a wall) not the same as another (no new taxes)?
Are some people communicating on different levels (a wall? ha ha…it’s a figure of speech …metaphoric???)????
Actually, he did
Thanks.
I just checked the transcript.
Thank God he did mention it in one sentence and did not dwell on it. If he wants to forget it or becomes too busy or too tired, I have no problem with breaking that promise.
He did say it would be a beautiful wall, so, perhaps designed by a world-class architect, with many gates and will meet federal regulations (i.e. for handicapped people), etc.
“Welcome to America. This new government has moved all the walls and gates at our airports to this Wall with many gates, or rather, we have tied in all those airport walls and gates to this one – real time connected, so we can properly welcome you. Enjoy your stay.”
Maybe it’ll be adorned with frescos and mozaics……….
… on the Mexican side.
U.S. side will be plastered with Homeland Security warnings and silhouettes of robocops pointing machine guns at Americans attempting to escape.
The guy who helped China develop their nuclear arsenal – they tried to stop him from leaving, back in the 50s, I think.
Has anyone ever been to Nogales AZ or San Diego, CA? There’s already a huge wall in place.
Is that a case of Trump saying things people and government are doing already, but not saying them?
Yup. Ever think of hiking across the Cleveland National Forest? (This is the eastern boundary of San Diego. Don’t ask me how it got that name.) Massively mountainous desert and you’ll probably drop dead.
Actually, there was a tunnel under the Nogales wall. Part of the sewage system. I think they put a grate in.
Most of the desert all the way to the Gulf Coast is not crossable on foot. The roads and cities all have crossing stations and walls.
Trump is gonna have trouble finding the water he needs for all the cement.
I think the real problem is they get a tourist visa, head for a “sanctuary city”, and stay forever.
I doubt the Wall Plan will survive the feasibility phase.
As a businessman, a deal-maker, a trader, I wonder if he’s open to buying a no-water-needed used Wall from China?
“The price does not include opening more gates.”
The Wall should be a part of his platform, and I don’t understand the issue with it. We’re a country. A COUNTRY. Why should others have unfettered access to our borders? Why would citizens want that? Why should border patrol have to play daily cat and mouse? Why have immigration laws if we don’t intend to enforce them?
We only enforce customs/immigration laws at our airports…as humanly perfect as possible, i.e. not always 100%.
“I’m sorry, Mr. taxpaying citizen – whose taxes do not fund my job, so please don’t complain to me about it – returning from your vacation in Cuba. I have to frisk you. If we have to detain you for not declaring weed purchased over there, it’s because we are thorough doing our work.”
yeah why should we accept the tired, the poor (who may make bad life choices), the struggling masses yearning to be free, anyway. go bernie.
I don’t know if it’s different today, but our consulate/embassy people used to screen even people who just wanted to vacation here.
Perhaps only in some countries, then as well as now. Not sure on what basis to suspect citizens of one country and not another.
But they asked questions like, how much money you have, are you poor, do you plan on marrying an American man while in America, are you healthy, have you been convicted in your home country, how long do you plan to stay, what hotel, any sponsors, what school, etc.
Always on target, Pretzel
He also did not mention MMT (i.e. a nation can’t go bankrupt borrowing in its own currency).
Equally important, he failed to connect ‘Losing Manufacturing’ to ‘losing the reserve currency status,’ and what potential inflation we could face, with all the dollars we have created.
I’m beyond amused and disgusted by all this. Because it means ignoring the totalitarian nature of Hillary Clinton, including her tacit and not so tacit support of the police state and her use of identity politics to attack her opponents and fear monger. Also calling Trump a fascist ignores the economic fascism that is essential Clinton as dictated by her owners.
Sadly, the Democratic Party may be beginning to understand the mote they dare not remove from their own eye is no longer blinding the public. Or they will.
Our political parties are reaping the harvest sown by Goldwater, Reagan, Bush, Clinton and Obama and their various minions. Both are disintegrating before our eyes and with them much of our so-called Democracy. But as we can see regulars will work to strip every last advantage they can before the rubble overtakes us all rather then reverse course.
Note the further consolidation of the definition of the word ‘dictator’, which in technocratic Acela corridor usage has come to mean “a leader I don’t like”.
I wonder if Hillary can be a Furious Leader?
Can’t you just wait for the Dems to howl when The Donald starts using all those Bushian Imperial Presidency powers that Obama solidified and normalized?
The horror!
I think you’ve got some sneer on your face. Good thing you’ve already lost the nose or people might notice.
If you want to do ad hominem drive-bys, there are plenty of sites on the Internet. This is not one of them. I hope you find the happiness you seek elsewhere.
Roger Ailes to leave Fox News immediately Financial Times
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Ya’d think they’d make Roger hang around and train his replacement before picking up his $40 million severance pay?
Well, how long does it take to say, “Hire the blondes?”
Hunter, I am sorry for your loss. As a lover of dogs and someone that has been in your shoes before I can offer this: When you realize your dog is nearing the end of their life, while there is still time, bring in a new younger dog. It gives to the older dog in having a new pack mate. It also aids in socializing the younger dog on how to behave and thrive in your life. It does not completely salve the loss of the older dog, but it does help. It is better for all concerned.
Re: Turkey
The article linked below holds a more nuanced view imnsho. It suggests that though there are ideological differences between Erdogan and Gulen, what’s really going on is a power grab on Erdogan’s part. The Gulen movement avoided seeking electoral power, preferring to spread it’s influence through the bureaucratic infrastructure, schools, judiciary, etc. They are comfortable working alongside secular groups, largely devoid of anti-semitism, pro science, comfortable with entering business. Hence it was useful for Erdogan to ally with them for awhile. It is also why Erdogan is purging these institutions.
The most important distinction may be that all of these groups grew out of the Nasqhbandi
Sufi Order, AKA “The Pattern Makers”, who quietly continued their practices under Attaturk’s suppression of religion. When that oppression began to gradually lift they had the infrastructure to expand. There are offshoots of offshoots, but Erdogan and Gulen are related because their roots are the same.
The Nasqhbandi are the only Sunni Sufi Order. As such they are able to partner with the Muslim Brotherhood which they are doing. The influence of the Brotherhood, another repressed group that became adept at hidden infrastructure, is visible among other things, in the move to turn secular schools into religious ones. (Also formerly banned.)
Lastly, another reason for the purge is that Sufis do not usually identify themselves as such.
First this is because as progressives they are often persecuted. Secondly, it is because being a Sufi is really considered an end state due to a culmination of mystical practice, where every breath is filled only with the thought of God. Either you haven’t made it there yet or if you have, you ruin it immediately by claiming it. So if you are the shoe shine guy and someone asks if you are a Sufi, you deny it but point to the guy with the gyros stand and say, “Now he’s a real Sufi. Go talk to him.”
But given what is going on it also may be fair to ask
When is a Sufi not a Sufi?
http://www.hudson.org/research/11601-the-naqshbandi-khalidi-order-and-political-islam-in-turkey
I know people do not like to think that Trump can be subtle…. But there were two coded messages in his NATO explanations and Russia friendly declarations:
(1) NATO expansion is dead. The Black Sea nations of Ukraine and Georgia will never be given full membership in NATO.
(2) NATO nations that engaging in military provocation beyond NATO borders will not be able to use Article 5 to claim support for something that they bring down on themselves. Most immediately applicable to Turkey, but also to EU expeditionary nations that want to create a new cold war border in the Ukraine.
Thanks for this.
Ian Welsh has the Trump transcript up:
snippets:
“When that same Secretary of State rakes in millions of dollars trading access and favors to special interests and foreign powers, I know the time for action has come.”
“But his supporters will join our movement, because we will fix his biggest issue: Trade deals that strip our country of jobs and the distribution of wealth in the country.”
“We must abandon the failed policy of nation- building and regime change that Hillary Clinton pushed in Iraq, Libya, in Egypt, and Syria.”
Compare that last one to:
“…to take out seven countries in five years, starting with Iraq, and then Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and, finishing off, Iran.”
The speech is heaviest on immigration and trade. Doubled down on Rodrik’s ‘national sovereignity.’
Teach Like It’s 1895
Make sure to check out the “Student Culture” training video (linked in the article) that was produced by a charter school outfit – if you’ve got the stomach for it.
“No Details are left unaddressed.”
Trump: “I am your voice.”
Hillary: “I am your mother-in-law.”
Trump: Make America great again.
Hillary: America is already great.
Trump: Make America safe again.
Hillary: America is already safe.
Trump: Make Americans healthy again (he didn’t actually say that).
Hillary: Americans already healthy.
You gotta wonder who came up with the stupid “I’m with her.” Trying to construct a Hillary personality cult is never going to fly.
Well when you are coming from a place of entitlement and it is all about being ‘your turn’ what do you expect the candidate to choose?
That was probably the best line of the night, and one that we are going to hear over and over.
I can predict a couple of commercials for the rust belt using that and it will not be pretty.
I read that as “I’m with Her SPITE!”
..the scorned ‘mommys’
Thanks for highlighting that important point.
“I am with Ishtar.”
Welcome to the cult.
Luckily, she’s not Egyptian; there, they call Ishtar by another name.
Whenever I see or hear “I’m With Her,” I’m reminded of those “I’m With Stupid” tee shirts. The ones with the arrow pointing at the person standing next to the wearer.
Yeesh. And it’s not like the Clintons couldn’t have paid for a better slogan.
If Trump can get hisself knighted, then he can counter with his own stupid T-shirt:
You laugh … but one look at “Sir Alan” Greenspan, KBE, will wipe the smile right off your face.
It already flies with many millions of people. Millions of people have been With Her for years, and will remain With Her to the bitter end, and beyond.
You can read their comments at various pro-Clinton blogs, among other places.
West Virginia’s Mountain Party sets sights on governor race
anyone from West Virginia? anyone know anything about this?
Re: Blond Money on the BIS report.
Do the banks in the Federal Reserve system even care about a deposit base anymore? I am sure that there is polite talk about the public service that banks provide by holding depositors money and doing check clearing, but if the Fed has provided $4 trillion in bank reserves then the banks have ample room to lend without issuing any more certificates of deposit.
As Yves has pointed out, the profitability of banks making loans has dropped as the yield curve has flattened. I think the bigger concern for the banks is if the central banks hold their bond assets to term. Then as the bonds retire both reserves and the money supply will shrink leading to more deflation.
RNC lovers and haters are tweeting all over each other to tell the Royal Newfoundland Constabulary just how they feel … and presumably it is not about moving to Canada ;)
I’d like to recommend this article.
http://original.antiwar.com/justin/2016/07/21/trump-enrages-war-party/
Hunter, thank you for your beautiful tribute to your dog, Reagan. It brought tears to my eyes and brought back the pain of losing my two cockers. It does get easier as time goes on, but the loss (for me) is something that doesn’t go away. The happy memories will comfort you and help mend your heart. Love never ends.
The Justice Department charged three Florida health care executives for allegedly carrying out a $1 billion Medicare scam involving numerous Miami-based medical providers.
“This is the largest single criminal health care fraud case ever brought against individuals by the Department of Justice,” Leslie Caldwell, assistant attorney general of the department’s criminal division, said in a statement Friday.
Philip Esformes, owner of a chain of more than 30 Miami-area skilled nursing and assisted living facilities, allegedly conspired with two other people to defraud Medicare by providing medically unnecessary services to people, according to a 34-page indictment released Friday.
“Esformes and his co-conspirators are also alleged to have further enriched themselves by receiving kickbacks in order to steer these beneficiaries to other health care providers,” the Justice Department said. “In order to hide the kickbacks from law enforcement, these kickbacks were often paid in cash, or were disguised as payments to charitable donations, payments for services and sham lease payments.”
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-07-22/u-s-charges-3-in-1-billion-miami-based-medicare-fraud-case
Not exactly chump change…wonder how many of these are out there?
Sounds wildly exaggerated.
Prosecutors have an incentive to juice the numbers, because it produces a longer term under the value-based sentencing guidelines (life imprisonment, in this case).
Surely there is some way Esformes can plead the Hillary rule.
An episode of Better Call Saul…
An example of litigation we’ll be seeing more of, in the wake of the Labor Department’s fiduciary rule and the “Vanguard effect”:
By definition, S&P 500 index funds are identical products, holding the same stocks.
The only reason Mainstay’s index fund can even exist with its uncompetitive 0.35% expense ratio, is because plan sponsors and their sock puppet consultants can shove it down the throats of captive victims in pension plans.
Funds with uncompetitive expense ratios are ubiquitous in pension plans. They have no future. A combination of government regulation and adverse lawsuit decisions is going to take them out.