President Trump

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DavidG
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Re: President Trump

Post by DavidG »

Made the NPR news this evening. The Donald's ass-Trumpet continues to blow further and further out of tune with reality. Whether it's out of tune with the majority of the electorate is the question that worries me. A lot can happen in 3 months - an eternity in politics - and I shudder to think of what's in store for us.
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JimHow
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Re: President Trump

Post by JimHow »

The difference in coverage between CNN and Fox is staggering.
It's like they are in two different universes.
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JimHow
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Re: President Trump

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FINALLY, Maine Senator Susan Collins rejects Trump.

I've been calling for her to do this for months.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions ... story.html
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JCNorthway
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Re: President Trump

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She makes her case well, but you can almost read between the lines how hard this decision was for her.
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JimHow
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Re: President Trump

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As usual, it takes someone from Maine to stand up to tyranny.
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Racer Chris
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Re: President Trump

Post by Racer Chris »

That op-ed was easy to write. The hard part for Sen. Collins was affixing her name to it.
She's no pioneer in that regard though. The list of prominent Republicans who have denounced their candidate is already long.

Over the weekend Mr. Trump tried attacking the democratic candidate with many of the negative points the democrats have been making about him.
I said to my wife "he's playing I'm Rubber, You're glue", and a few hours later that's exactly what someone on MSNBC called his latest strategy.
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jal
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Re: President Trump

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So I looked at Trump's tax proposal, and I like some parts of it a lot; the elimination of the carried interest deduction, the childcare deduction, some other parts I like a lot less like the drop in the brackets, tearing down existing agreements. It does however look coherent and somewhat rational even if a bit too right wing for me, but at least it's a plan and an articulate vision. Problem is the man is still a megalomaniac narcissistic buffoon who should not be trusted with a car, let alone a nation.

I just hope that puts some pressure on Hillary to show some vision of her plans and address them in a clearer manner instead of just attacking Trump at every meeting. I think attacking him is counter productive, he can self destructs without help and it deflects for the real issue - what does a Hillary presidency hold in stock.
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Racer Chris
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Re: President Trump

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He made a big deal of eliminating the death tax in his speech yesterday.
It sounded like everyone in the audience was convinced that he was going to save them big bucks, except no one in the audience is affected by the death tax.
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jal
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Re: President Trump

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Racer Chris wrote:He made a big deal of eliminating the death tax in his speech yesterday.
It sounded like everyone in the audience was convinced that he was going to save them big bucks, except no one in the audience is affected by the death tax.
The estate tax is just an exercise in populism as far as I'm concerned. Very little is collected annually (about 0.6% of total federal revenue), the ultra rich usually have set up schemes through trusts to avoid paying it.

The problem is that In some cases, the middle class is squeezed by the state estate taxes with a low exemption even more than the federal one, in Massachusetts for instance, the exemption is just $1million. The tax has created a situation where rich individuals leave states like New Jersey, Minnesota, and Massachusetts to settle in tax friendly states like Florida or Texas.

I would rather see both candidates focus on real issues of tax reform.
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Blanquito
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Re: President Trump

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jal wrote:
Racer Chris wrote:He made a big deal of eliminating the death tax in his speech yesterday.
It sounded like everyone in the audience was convinced that he was going to save them big bucks, except no one in the audience is affected by the death tax.
The estate tax is just an exercise in populism as far as I'm concerned. Very little is collected annually (about 0.6% of total federal revenue), the ultra rich usually have set up schemes through trusts to avoid paying it.

The problem is that In some cases, the middle class is squeezed by the state estate taxes with a low exemption even more than the federal one, in Massachusetts for instance, the exemption is just $1million. The tax has created a situation where rich individuals leave states like New Jersey, Minnesota, and Massachusetts to settle in tax friendly states like Florida or Texas.

I would rather see both candidates focus on real issues of tax reform.
Just reaffirming my vote here for the Levy-How ticket... Love this stuff. More red meat than 2 weeks of conventions in a single post.
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Re: President Trump

Post by JScott »

Agree that of all the many issues of the moment estate taxes doesn't crack the top ten, but it's not a nothing burger. Agree with Jacques that the significant estates the government would like to tap are generally well-protected by legal maneuvering, so it's the relatively unsophisticated and unprepared, middle and lower middle class that gets tagged. In my area, for example, there are farmers that work like dogs their whole life for a very modest income and the value of their life's work is in their property. The family farm gets sold to some agribusiness to meet the tax requirements on someone who spent their life toward the bottom of the scale. Add in the costs of ducking the taxes for the people with means, effort that does nothing to add to productivity, and the fact that it's money that has been taxed multiple times already as it was accumulated, and it seems to me a punitive arrangement. But then I'm not a huge fan of most tax any way.....
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JimHow
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Re: President Trump

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I don't know if you've been watching Fox News lately, especially Hannity, but some of the stuff they are putting on there is incredible.
Wow is Hannity suffering right now, I love it. I hope he doesn't get the last laugh though.
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DavidG
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Re: President Trump

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I agree with Jacques that on a macro level the estate tax means almost nothing, other than a sound bite/rallying point for those generally opposed to taxes.

But I also agree with Scott that on a micro level there are people who are hurt by the estate tax. I don't know if it's the only or main reason that family farms end up selling to agribusiness conglomerates, but I don't doubt that it's a significant factor. I'd like to see changes there, and since it isn't a big source of revenue, it shouldn't be that big a deal to fix it. Except for general R vs D intransigence (on both sides).

Jim, I avoid Fox because I'm afraid I'll throw something at my TV and break it, but I can imagine they must be having some interesting times there. You mean they're not just doubling down on the party line?
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jal
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Re: President Trump

Post by jal »

You guys are reiterating my point. As David said, it's a useless unpopular tax that does nothing except provide a rallying cry for the left who would like it expanded and the right who would like it abolished. My problem with it is that instead of taxing the ultra rich, it creates inefficiencies and distortions in wealth in the middle classes especially on the state level. It should be fixed at the very least and I wouldn't mind seeing it gone but it's not worth debating it that much. More pressing tax inefficiencies need to be addressed first.
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jal
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Re: President Trump

Post by jal »

JimHow wrote:I don't know if you've been watching Fox News lately, especially Hannity, but some of the stuff they are putting on there is incredible.
Wow is Hannity suffering right now, I love it. I hope he doesn't get the last laugh though.
I boycott Fox News on my TV, so I can't say I have ever watched or listened to any of these guys.

He was attacked mercilessly by Bret Stephens in his WSJ piece on Tuesday: http://www.wsj.com/articles/sean-hannit ... 1470698528
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Jacques
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JScott
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Re: President Trump

Post by JScott »

Sounds like we are fairly unanimous on the estate tax.

I watch Fox News at intervals to the extent that I can tolerate it. I try to watch or read as many different sources as I can, because these days any pretense of objectivity has completely disappeared. They all view their journalistic duty as not just reporting facts but deciding for us which ones we need to focus on. Dan Rather's recent statement is illustrative. Inconvenient reality just magically disappears, no mention, or it goes through a funhouse mirror. That said, I can only tolerate so much Hannity or O'Reilly. For me it's less aggravating than it is soul sucking. I actually feel dumber afterwards. Okay, it's aggravating too. But in the interest of fairness, there are stalwarts on every other network that are also hard to watch.
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Re: President Trump

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I see the commercial television "news" industry as hardly worthy of the moniker, and more interested in ratings than anything else. They'll cover anything outrageous, regardless of truth or fiction. Heaven forbid they actually investigate or ask a follow-up question for fear that their "breaking new" will evaporate. Absent anything outrageous, they will try to create controversy around the frontrunner, since a close race keeps the viewers watching.

So I watch them all with a jaundiced eye.

Except for Fox. I skip them. And not just because they tweak my liberal sensibilities. If Fox had reasonable or even believable arguments to make, they would be worthy of my attention. Just to see what the opposing viewpoint is and what's behind it. But Fox is so bereft of truth, let alone objectivity, that it just makes no sense for me to watch them. I suppose someone other than the truly faithful/deluded needs to watch them, just to see what they've cooked up and call them on it, but I wont give them my time.
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Re: President Trump

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Last night Hannity had the following guests:

Two doctors saying Hillary needs to release he medical records and they showed her coughing during several speeches, tripping on a top step as she boarded a plane, and lost her train of thought while giving a quick interview while walking off a stage, as though she had early onset dementia.

They interviewed a now middle aged woman who had been raped when she was 12 by a woman who Hillary defended as a public defender in the late 70s.

They showed Hillary's unfortunate Robert Kennedy statement in the 2008 primary as proof that she wished for Obama's assassination.

Much talk about emails, of course.

And then of course finishing it up with Rudy Gulliani.
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Re: President Trump

Post by JScott »

Certainly sounds fair and balanced. At one time they had Combs on as a supposed counterpoint. Al Franken's book referred to them as Hannity and Combs, which made me laugh out loud. I can't imagine there's anyone who tunes into Hannity expecting to hear a serious critique. But objectively I'd say the same about most of the network broadcasts, too. NBC is breathless about Hillary and makes no attempt to conceal contempt for Trump. I wish they'd all just be honest and call them "current event shows" instead of pretending it's news. The truth is at this point most of the public doesn't know the difference any way. I read somewhere that in polls millennials named John Stewart as their main source of news.
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Re: President Trump

Post by JimHow »

Yeah, the mainstream media is indeed very weak.
Myself, I don't get the John Stewart phenomenon.
He does nothing for me, I don't think he's funny at all.
But, to each his own.
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Re: President Trump

Post by JScott »

God what a pair of shitty candidates. This week has been another perfect microcosm of each. He simply has no filter and somehow can't resist going beyond decorum. She apparently can't resist skirting the lines and with every potential opening instead has to explain another horrible decision she made, the sum total of which looks at a minimum like contempt for the rules of the little people. The well is apparently going to be infinite for both of them, and for the next two months we'll be hearing them both explain why they're not as shitty as they look. This was the week they each announced their economic policies, and both are below the fold.
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Comte Flaneur
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Re: President Trump

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Did you guys see this?

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=88jEBKNKHFA

Extraordinary.
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Blanquito
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Re: President Trump

Post by Blanquito »

Many friends of various political stripes and I found Franken's, Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them, hilariously funny. I laughed so much reading it in 2004 my sides hurt.

Image
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Re: President Trump

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Jon Stewart is one of my heroes (with a lower case "h") and for many, many years it was (for me and my old school palate) the funniest show on TV that also managed to be highly topical, edgy and informative.
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Re: President Trump

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I thought the other guy was funny, the Colbert guy.

Cheer up, Curt Schilling says he's running for president in 4-8 years, I'm sure he'll solve all of our problems.
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Re: President Trump

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Once again, I want Clinton to have a press conference and Trump to release his tax returns. Is this too much to ask?
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Blanquito
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Re: President Trump

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Curt Shilling would have made a good Vice Presidential running mate with Trump.
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Re: President Trump

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I don't know which is more demented:

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/curt-schill ... ntial-run/
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JimHow
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Re: President Trump

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Hey, Whuzzup and I were at the bloody sock game at Yankee Stadium in October 2004. Oh, I didn't mind his politics then, did I.
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Blanquito
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Re: President Trump

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Cashman could have had Shilling after the 2003 season but instead got Javier Vazquez. Talk about epic fail, that single personnel move cost the Yanks at least one World Series title.
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DavidG
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Re: President Trump

Post by DavidG »

Loved Al Franken's book.
Never laughed out loud at Jon Stewart though I liked his stuff OK.
Colbert could usually get me to LOL when he was on Stewart's show.
Now I like Samantha Bee when I remember to watch.

The Bloody Socks - better name for a band or a political party?
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Blanquito
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Re: President Trump

Post by Blanquito »

The Bloody Knee-Highs could be/should be a Scottish punk band.
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Re: President Trump

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We saw Javier Vasquez the next night in Game 7, when he came on in relief as gave up a grand slam to Johnny Damon, the first batter he faced, at which point I was in utter nirvana.
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JScott
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Re: President Trump

Post by JScott »

Comte Flaneur wrote:Did you guys see this?

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=88jEBKNKHFA

Extraordinary.
Yeah, this made the rounds a little while back. And we're going to investigate Hillary's mental health.....
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JimHow
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Re: President Trump

Post by JimHow »

Right now I have Hillary ahead in the electoral college, 347-191.
But I expect that to narrow.

Clinton

california 55
<colorado 9
<connecticut 7
<delaware 3
<d.c. 3
<florida 29
<hawaii 4
<illinois 20
<iowa 6
<maine (state) 3
<maine (cd) 1
<maryland 10
<massachusetts 11
<michigan 16
<minnesota 10
<nevada 6
<new hampshire 4
<new jersey 14
<new mexico 5
<new york 29
<north carolina 15
<ohio 18
<oregon 7
<pennsylvania 20
<rhode island 4
<vermont 3
<virginia 13
<washington 12
<wisconsin 10



Trump

alabama 9
alaska 3
arizona 11
arkansas 6
georgia 16
idaho 4
indiana 11
kansas 6
kentucky 8
louisiana 8
mississippi 6
missouri 10
montana 3
nebraska (state) 3
nebraska (cd) 1
nebraska (cd) 1
north dakota 3
oklahoma 7
south carolina 9
south dakota 3
tennessee 11
texas 38
utah 6
west virginia 5
wyoming 3
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JimHow
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Re: President Trump

Post by JimHow »

I haven't seen any analysis of this yet but it seems to me there's a delicious irony here in North Carolina, the circuit court ruled against the state on voter ID and the state is appealing to the Supreme Court, but even if Kennedy sides with NC it will likely be a 4-4 vote sustaining the circuit court, thus allowing more liberal voting laws in the key swing state of NC, thus benefitting the Democrat.

http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/nor ... ng-n631776
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JimHow
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Re: President Trump

Post by JimHow »

Electoral College update:

Even if you put OH, NC, FL, and IA in Trump's column -- an extremely unlikely scenario -- she still ends up with a solid 278-259 margin.

Hard to see how Clinton loses this race. Ugh. Eight years of Huma and Bill intrigue.
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JimHow
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Re: President Trump

Post by JimHow »

One thing that strikes me: NC has FIFTEEN electoral votes.
That's an enormously growing state.
Rob and Sue say that the population of Charlotte is projected to double in the next ten years.
we saw two great southern cities in our little BWE excursion in March -- Nashville and Charlotte -- harbingers of things to come in the south that should be VERY disturbing for the Republican Party.
They've already lost VA. In the next ten years they are going to lose NC (lost it already?), GA (ditto?), and TX, and that will be all she wrote, the GOP will no longer exist.
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Re: President Trump

Post by AlohaArtakaHoundsong »

a) the election has become boring now that it appears to be decided.
b) if there is no intrigue, what fun is that? Do we really want sound governance? I don't think so what would we all talk about?
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DavidG
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Re: President Trump

Post by DavidG »

Trump hired the Breitbart guy to run his campaign so things may get exciting again. I'm sure he'll be more effective at fanning the Pillory Hillary flames. If Trump will listen to him.

And I think Roger Ailes is working for Trump now too. A stellar cast of characters.
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