[ldrews]

Zelandakh, on 2017-December-10, 17:47, said:

Your trolling earns every last insult you get here shitface. Get used to it.

On a lighter note, can anyone from over The Pond tell me where you come from. I am a little confused.

Edit: and on the case of money, the WP was the top link when I googled trump inheritance:



PS: I answered your questions. Now try answering mine.

I guess you are right, I should get used to insulting behavior from you since that does seem to be your nature. I will try.

Quote

if I am aware that someone I know has committed a felony and not only choose not to report it but also actively attempt to derail the investigation, that is going to land me in some very hot water. When the POTUS does it, is it just carrying out the duties of the Executive branch?

I do believe that the situation you describe would be obstruction of justice if proven. However, didn't one of Trump's attorneys take the blame for sending that tweet? If that is indeed the case, then Trump is still off the hook. And there is also the legal theory being asserted by some that the Pressident, as the head of the justice system, cannot obstruct justice to begin with and is probably not indictable. Impeachable yes, indictable no.

Did I answer your question?

[ldrews]

hrothgar, on 2017-December-10, 17:58, said:

Can I prove any of this in a court of law? Don't have to... that what we have the Mueller investigation for.

I didn't ask you to prove it in a court of law, I asked if you have any evidence of your assertions. Sounds like you are just engaging in fantasies.

[hrothgar]

ldrews, on 2017-December-10, 18:52, said:

I didn't ask you to prove it in a court of law, I asked if you have any evidence of your assertions. Sounds like you are just engaging in fantasies.

Sounds like you are too lazy to read more than the first line of a post...

In all seriousness, by ignoring 90% of what I posted - all the factual data that directly documented my assertions - you are being completely dishonest.
Not only that, you doing so in a remarkably stupid way because its blatantly obvious what you're doing.

You wonder what some many people on this list treat you like scum...

Its just this sort of behaviour... lazy ignorant belligerence

[ldrews]

So what does everyone think about the full-scale audit of the Department of Defense? Seems to me to be long overdue and hopefully a step toward reigning in the DOD spending. We didn't see anything like this under previous presidents.

[Winstonm]

It is queer to hear the Trump narrative repeated with such accuracy. And just like Fox News, the repetition does not mean accurate facts.

How do we know that Trump is a successful businessman? Because he says so. But without seeing his tax returns or knowing who he is indebted to and how much he owes, any claim of success or wealth is only that: a claim from a known consistent liar. The only things we know for sure are the bankruptcies.

Did the claim that Trump's lawyer wrote his tweet let Trump off the hook? The law is not on the side of that alibi. The law looks on the assistance of a lawyer as evidence that the tweet is even more accurate. Had it only been Trump without his lawyer he would have had a better argument that it was a mistake - he pays his lawyer to help him avoid those mistakes. That's how the courts will look at it. His lawyer wrote it at his direction; therefore, it is more likely an accurate reflection of his knowledge at that time. Oops!

[blackshoe]

ldrews, on 2017-December-10, 18:57, said:

So what does everyone think about the full-scale audit of the Department of Defense? Seems to me to be long overdue and hopefully a step toward reigning in the DOD spending. We didn't see anything like this under previous presidents.

1. Yes, it's long overdue, etc., and no, we've never seen it before.
2. The next step should be to audit the Fed.

[Winstonm]

So what does everyone think about this week's coordinated attack on Bob Mueller, the FBI, and the Justice Department by Fox News talking heads?

[Winstonm]

Here is new data that helps explain what Trump has accomplished thus far as president:

Quote

The percentage of people who identify as or lean Republican has fallen 5 points from 42 percent of the population to 37 percent, according to the poll comparing November 2016 with November 2017, which was released last week. The percentage of voters identifying as Democratic has remained at 44 percent.

[barmar]

ldrews, on 2017-December-10, 18:46, said:

I do believe that the situation you describe would be obstruction of justice if proven. However, didn't one of Trump's attorneys take the blame for sending that tweet? If that is indeed the case, then Trump is still off the hook. And there is also the legal theory being asserted by some that the Pressident, as the head of the justice system, cannot obstruct justice to begin with and is probably not indictable. Impeachable yes, indictable no.

Why does it matter who sent the tweet? It describes something the President did. If it's accurate, it describes obstruction.

And impeachment is an indictment, but with the House of Representatives taking the role of the Grand Jury. If they impeach him, he's tried by the Senate, with the Chief Justice presiding as the judge. See Wikipedia for a summary of the full process.

[Zelandakh]

ldrews, on 2017-December-10, 18:46, said:

I guess you are right, I should get used to insulting behavior from you since that does seem to be your nature. I will try.

Oh it's not, you can ask anyone here. I reserve the insults specifically for pieces of ***** like you, and only then when they have outlived their amusement value. You remain a joke at BBF, just that the disruption from your trolling is more detrimental to these forums than the entertainment your attempts to support the indefensible provide.

ldrews, on 2017-December-10, 18:46, said:

I do believe that the situation you describe would be obstruction of justice if proven. However, didn't one of Trump's attorneys take the blame for sending that tweet? If that is indeed the case, then Trump is still off the hook.

Legally there is not a huge difference between what Trump's lawyer states in his name and what DT himself says or writes, other than what he says without legal advice can sometimes be inadmissable. The tweet itself is naturally alone not proof of obstruction but it certainly is evidence that can be used against him.

ldrews, on 2017-December-10, 18:46, said:

And there is also the legal theory being asserted by some that the Pressident, as the head of the justice system, cannot obstruct justice to begin with and is probably not indictable. Impeachable yes, indictable no.

"Some" presumably means the lawyers of Trump and Nixon. I am not sure it is a great accolade for the POTUS to be placed in a group of two with RN.

ldrews, on 2017-December-10, 18:46, said:

Did I answer your question?

Close enough. I assume this answer means in turn that you would support impeachment if further evidence were to come to light that DT was involved in OoJ, correct?

[hrothgar]

Zelandakh, on 2017-December-11, 01:04, said:

"Some" presumably means the lawyers of Trump and Nixon. I am not sure it is a great accolade for the POTUS to be placed in a group of two with RN.

Alan Dershowitz has also come up with a few doozies...

[RedSpawn]

ldrews, on 2017-December-10, 16:43, said:

According to Wikipedia The Trump Organization has 500+ subsidiaries. Out of that you have identified 4 that have gone into bankruptcy. You should have such a record. And by the way, taking a company into bankruptcy is often a good business strategy; it is not always a sign that the business has failed.

Trump has taken a 1 million dollar loan from his father and turned it into a multi-billion dollar enterprise. He has survived and prospered in the NY real estate market, probably the toughest real estate market in the US. So I would assume that he has some business acumen.

Trump would probably never apply for the CEO position of your hypothetical company. If he was interested in that business he would probably just buy it.

But yes, as I look into your virtual eyes, I am happy to announce that I would gladly consider Trump for the position of CEO.

Trump's wheelhouse is that he is a Brand Marketer. In fact, he is a brand marketing genius.

But herein lies the problem:

In 2016, America didn't have a brand marketing problem. It didn't need a brand marketing solution.

America needed hard-core leaders with the moral courage to make some tough policy choices. America also needed leaders who understand government bureaucracy; how to cut through government fiefdoms and get opposing governmental agencies to share information and communicate; and how to assign performance metrics to agencies and require them to monitor, report, and control said metrics for operating effectiveness.

We needed a leader who has a track record of exercising financial discipline which is typically not consistent with being notorious for stiffing your contractors upon completion of services and filing for bankruptcy repeatedly as a glorified tax avoidance scheme.

We have a leadership crisis or vacuum in America and Trump is not the best person to fill that void. We need an articulate, forward-thinking, visionary business leader who has a strong grasp of process control improvement and knows how to drive financial results to budget.

[Zelandakh]

Zelandakh, on 2017-December-11, 01:04, said:

Legally there is not a huge difference between what Trump's lawyer states in his name and what DT himself says or writes, other than what he says without legal advice can sometimes be inadmissable. The tweet itself is naturally alone not proof of obstruction but it certainly is evidence that can be used against him.

One more thing on this point that seems relevant. The official WH position is now that the tweet was accurate and DT was personally aware of Flynn lying to the FBI back in January. According to (unconfirmed) reports, Mueller's team is now going through the 18 days between this information being known and Flynn being fired to see if there is an OoJ case to be answered and if so by whom. The recent attacks on Mueller, which give almost an impression of panic within conservative ranks, suggests that there may well be something more to find. The question is whether DT will fire Mueller before he gets the chance and how the American voters will react if he does.

[Winstonm]

This may explain why the hard right is so panicked about Mueller: From WaPo and NBC

Quote

And Mueller is looking at this, per NBC:

Mueller is trying to determine why Flynn remained in his post for 18 days after Trump learned of Yates’ warning, according to two people familiar with the probe. He appears to be interested in whether Trump directed him to lie to senior officials, including Pence, or the FBI, and if so why, the sources said.

If Trump knew his national security adviser lied to the FBI in the early days of his administration it would raise serious questions about why Flynn was not fired until Feb. 13, and whether Trump was attempting to obstruct justice when FBI Director James Comey says the president pressured him to drop his investigation into Flynn.

Bob Bauer, a former White House counsel, emailed me this about the NBC report:

“This is a potentially serious development in this investigation. Should there be evidence that the president directed or encouraged Flynn to lie, he faces an obstruction charge, and the constitutional defenses his supporters have been claiming are irrelevant. Of course, this legal exposure extends to any other officials who were involved in a decision to have Flynn make these false statements.”

[y66]

From Matt Yglesias' post today on the Trump economy:

Quote

A funny thing happened on Inauguration Day, and the exact same economic conditions that had existed throughout 2016 — steady but nonspectacular job growth, low unemployment, sluggish but real wage growth, record stock market valuations — changed political valences.

Suddenly, performance Trump labeled disastrous under Obama was spectacular under Trump.

In some ways, even more oddly, while in 2016 pundits saw Trump's political success as a sign that real economic conditions were worse than the statistics in, say, 2017, pundits marvel that Trump could be so unpopular despite the strong economy.

A more useful exercise, I think, is to consider the international context:

The American stock market is up a lot in 2017, but the German and Japanese markets are up by more.

The S&P 500 is at an all-time record, but so are markets in the United Kingdom, Canada, South Korea, Taiwan, and elsewhere.

The US unemployment rate is the lowest in more than 17 years, but Japan's is the lowest in more than 20 years. The UK and Germany are the lowest since the 1970s.

A particularly telling sign about all of this is that while America's GDP growth has come in above expectations this year, so has eurozone GDP growth — and in fact, the eurozone has grown more rapidly than the United States. Japan is growing more slowly than we are (which is what happens when your working-age population is shrinking), but their GDP numbers are also beating expectations this year.

Long story short, whatever the good news about the economy is, it's something quite general. They don't have record-low joblessness in Japan, above-expectations growth in Europe, and stock markets at an all-time high in the UK because Trump ended Obama's war on coal or whatever. The real truth is that there simply isn't that much to explain about Trump and the economy — either how he's impacted or how it's impacting his poll numbers — because there isn't much happening.

[andrei]

Good job guys, keep yourself informed.

y66, on 2017-December-11, 21:27, said:

From Matt Yglesias' post today on the Trump economy:

Quote

The American stock market is up a lot in 2017, but the German and Japanese markets are up by more.

Dow Jones: Dec 30, 2016: 19762.6 , today: 24386.03 , up by 23.39% YTD
Nikkei: Dec 30, 2016: 19114.37 , now: 22894.5 , up by 19.77% YTD
DAX 30: Dec 30, 2016: 11481.06, today: 13123.65, up by 14.3% YTD

So the German and Japanese markets are up by more, right?

Winstonm, on 2017-December-10, 19:19, said:

And just like Fox News, the repetition does not mean accurate facts.

LOL, who needs Fox News when we have Vox, NYT, WaPo.

[cherdano]

GREAT JOB ANDREI YOU HAVE FOUND A MISTAKE IN A VOX ARTICLE AND PROVED THAT VOX IS WRONG AND FOX IS RIGHT! YOU WON THE INTERNET!!!

[cherdano]

It's actually interesting to see why Matt Yglesias got this wrong (assuming it is - I haven't checked whether a broader set of numbers would give a different picture). He clearly quoted this from memory, and indeed in beginning of November his claim would have been true.
What has changed? Well, clearly tax reform has become more likely in the US. Which leads us to the shocking conclusion that a tax "reform" that raises taxes on many middle class families but gives a big tax cut to corporations (i.e. gives
a bigger payout to shareholders) increases the value of stocks. Shocking!
(The other event that happened since early November was, of course, the collapse of the German government negotiations. Good job Donald infiltrating the FDP!)

The lesson as always - don't make arguments based on short-term stock performance.

[PeterAlan]

andrei, on 2017-December-11, 23:24, said:

Good job guys, keep yourself informed.

Dow Jones: Dec 30, 2016: 19762.6 , today: 24386.03 , up by 23.39% YTD
Nikkei: Dec 30, 2016: 19114.37 , now: 22894.5 , up by 19.77% YTD
DAX 30: Dec 30, 2016: 11481.06, today: 13123.65, up by 14.3% YTD

So the German and Japanese markets are up by more, right?

LOL, who needs Fox News when we have Vox, NYT, WaPo.

Yglesias' article specifically cited the S&P 500 index, not the Dow Jones, which is a much narrower 30-constituent index (as is the DAX 30).

S&P 500: Dec 30, 2016: 2238.83, today: 2659.99, up by 18.81% YTD

PS: CDAX: Dec 30, 2016: 1042.86, today (close 11 Dec): 1221.58, up by 17.14% YTD Edit: 1222.01 was the 12 Dec opening index; 1221.58 the 11 Dec close

[Zelandakh]

PeterAlan, on 2017-December-12, 06:23, said:

Yglesias' article specifically cited the S&P 500 index, not the Dow Jones, which is a much narrower 30-constituent index (as is the DAX 30).

S&P 500: Dec 30, 2016: 2238.83, today: 2659.99, up by 18.81% YTD

PS: CDAX: Dec 30, 2016: 1042.86, today (close 11 Dec): 1222.01, up by 17.18% YTD

Could you post numbers for 9th and 10th Dec too Peter? Maybe Vox actually took the time to check the numbers before publishing - a concept likely to be completely alien to a conservative audience - and at the time of writing the DAX was indeed higher?