About 40% of the US population.

jerseyhoya wrote:

Gimpy wrote:

jerseyhoya wrote:

David Nakamura @DavidNakamura
@TPUSA has fired A/V aide responsible for including the fake presidential seal at event, calling it the product of a rushed online search for the logo. Trump's enthusiasm for retweeting doctored images and memes comes back to bite him.

Who would believe that?

I mean, it could've been someone pulling a long con getting a job working for TPUSA, and waiting patiently until they could seize their moment to embarrass the president. But they're some of the dumbest people on planet Earth, and might've done a search on Twitter photos or something, had that come up, and just went with it.

Yeah, I think Occam's razor says someone just fucked up. Results are all skewed due to coverage of this event, but it turns up pretty high on a search for Trump presidential seal. You can even rest your head on it

From Gail Collins' column today:

If [Trump] got caught standing with a knife and a pile of murdered puppies, he’d claim that he had actually protected innocent children from a pack of small fuzzy sharks. And around a third of the country would shrug, while Senate Republicans muttered something about danger at the beaches.

momadance wrote:

Monkeyboy wrote:

Brantt wrote:Possible suicide attempt by Epstein in jail............or he was assaulted.

Found semi-conscious in a fetal position in his cell.

Wouldn't be at all shock if someone knocks him off.

I'll give 5-1 odds that he staged it to get transferred.

To a padded cell with no clothes? Sure.

There are reasons someone like him might want to be out of the general population.

momadance wrote:

Monkeyboy wrote:I have noproblem with his reputation being trashed.

He delivered exactly what he said he was going to yesterday. So lets trash his reputation.

It's not because he didn't deliver what he said, it's because he didn't deliver more during the investigation and handed it off to Barr and watched Barr lie about it. Then he sent a half-hearted letter saying it was more involved, then he gave his testimony, again, without really getting across the direness of the situation. He knew what was happening and he just deferred to his boss instead of fighting for the soul of the country. He had several major decisions to make during the investigation and each time he went with the one that missed the mark. Look at the wording of his report. He watered it all down and phrased things to make it sound like the Prez couldn't be exonerated rather than the prez is guilty. He kicked the can to congress when he knew congress wouldn't do anything. He should be sounding the alarm, not giving tepid one-word answers to huge questions.

But yeh, I wasn't expecting much more than what we got. Dems need to come out in numbers needed to overcome the built in GOP advantages, as well as all the other people who will have their thumbs on the scale to help Trump. The fake videos are going to be a real problem, I think.

This ad coming up in this thread on this board amuses me

Just for you, ya psycho.

Another R congressman announces his retirement-- Pete Olson of the Houston Suburbs. Add it to the list of seats Ds can pick up.

This week, Secretary of Agriculture Sonny Perdue unveiled details of the latest aid package for farmers who've lost export sales. It includes $14.5 billion in direct payments to farmers, another $1.4 billion in government purchases of agricultural commodities that will be distributed to food banks, and $100 million in loose change to promote exports to new countries. This is on top of $12 billion in aid that the Trump administration distributed last year.

According to the new study, Chinese tariffs caused the price of soybeans grown in the U.S. to drop by $.78 per bushel. Last year's aid package, however, paid farmers more than twice that much — $1.65 per bushel of soybeans that each farmer produced.

"Most agricultural economists would probably put the damage at $.80 to $1 per bushel" of soybeans, he says. That's about half what the USDA paid soybean farmers last year.

That seems like a substantial gift to the non-costal elite voters. Then there is that USDA SNAP program that needs to be reigned in.

more

House passes anti-robocall bill

Will the senate kill it w/o comment?

thephan wrote:

This week, Secretary of Agriculture Sonny Perdue unveiled details of the latest aid package for farmers who've lost export sales. It includes $14.5 billion in direct payments to farmers, another $1.4 billion in government purchases of agricultural commodities that will be distributed to food banks, and $100 million in loose change to promote exports to new countries. This is on top of $12 billion in aid that the Trump administration distributed last year.

According to the new study, Chinese tariffs caused the price of soybeans grown in the U.S. to drop by $.78 per bushel. Last year's aid package, however, paid farmers more than twice that much — $1.65 per bushel of soybeans that each farmer produced.

"Most agricultural economists would probably put the damage at $.80 to $1 per bushel" of soybeans, he says. That's about half what the USDA paid soybean farmers last year.

That seems like a substantial gift to the non-costal elite voters. Then there is that USDA SNAP program that needs to be reigned in.

more

Hey, votes aren't cheap.

On Thursday, Fox News put out a new round of polling, finding that a slim majority of respondents approved of Donald Trump’s economic policies (52 percent), while Trump’s approval rating sits at an 46 percent. But the more interesting points came when Fox News asked how people felt about Trump&aposs tweets saying that four minority congresswomen should "go back" where they came from. Sixty-three percent of people answering said that Trump "went too far," while only 27 percent see it as an "acceptable political attack," to use the poll’s own words.

And in response to "Does Trump respect racial minorities?" 52 percent of white respondents and a whopping 73 percent of nonwhites gave a resounding "no." Interestingly, 34 percent of all respondents answered "yes" to that question (brought down from previous polls by a 14 point drop among Republicans), which is well below the 46 percent who have a favorable view of Trump. That suggests there’s a solid contingent of people who both support Trump and believe he’s racist.

I am sure this is in heavy rotation on FNC.

I’m going to go out on a limb and guess those voters will vote with their pocketbooks rather than use their vote to express displeasure with Trump’s tweets about The Squad.

thephan wrote:

House passes anti-robocall bill

Will the senate kill it w/o comment?

It's Chuck Schumer's only issue; I'm sure he'll swap some judges for it; they Baileys HATE robocalls

JFLNYC wrote:I’m going to go out on a limb and guess those voters will vote with their pocketbooks rather than use their vote to express displeasure with Trump’s tweets about The Squad.

I would say a huge chunk of those voters don't give a shit about their own pocketbooks, as long as they get to cheer on the continuing caging of brown children. Do not underestimate the power of identity politics for these white racists. And this kind of behavior has a long history--all those confederate soldiers who were not plantation owners but still committed treason in defense of slavery in fact were also defending an economic system that caused their impoverishment, because slavery is a pretty effective way to depress wages.

Much of Trump's support is due to his celebration of cruelty. Hillary I think understated things with her deplorables comment.

TenuredVulture wrote:

JFLNYC wrote:I’m going to go out on a limb and guess those voters will vote with their pocketbooks rather than use their vote to express displeasure with Trump’s tweets about The Squad.

I would say a huge chunk of those voters don't give a shit about their own pocketbooks, as long as they get to cheer on the continuing caging of brown children. Do not underestimate the power of identity politics for these white racists. And this kind of behavior has a long history--all those confederate soldiers who were not plantation owners but still committed treason in defense of slavery in fact were also defending an economic system that caused their impoverishment, because slavery is a pretty effective way to depress wages.

Much of Trump's support is due to his celebration of cruelty. Hillary I think understated things with her deplorables comment.

I’m sorry if I have any impression I was “underestimating the power of identity politics.” The point of the post to which I responded was that most of those Trump supporters at least claim to object to his hateful tweets. And the point of my post is that, even if they’re sincere in the objections (which is suspect) they still will vote with Trump whether they publicly agree or not with his hateful tweets.

I thought @JFL was responding to the farmer payout. Those guys need the cages sprung for the harvest. But the good government money cannot be ignored.

WRT the overpayment for crops I had three thoughts:

1) How many of the crops compensated for were sold to a different market making it substantial profit on top of the payout
2) How many farmers applied for the aid against crops they were not intending to export
3) How much graft was there in submitting for fields with no crops in them

My basis is that I know a family that double dipped in Montana. They got paid to not farm (fwiw, they were not farmers, just land owners), then they leased the fields to a farmer. Of course these prominent citizens were all over government waste, especially paying out those takers in the cities where they previously called home. Given that I can see easily tat some would take funds and make profit every which way. Its a god given right.

Where I am happy that TMobile/Sprint can finally be more competitive through the DOJ merger approval, I am not thrilled that they spent $200K staying at Don's hotel as a base for their lobbying effort.

pacino wrote:

thephan wrote:

House passes anti-robocall bill

Will the senate kill it w/o comment?

It's Chuck Schumer's only issue; I'm sure he'll swap some judges for it; they Baileys HATE robocalls

My absolute favorite thing about Chuck Schumer is that the Baileys used to be the O’Reillys until Chuck decided that was “too ethnic.”

traderdave wrote:Trump's grift knows no bounds:



Pack of 10 for $15

Liberal paper straws don’t work. STAND WITH PRESIDENT TRUMP and buy your pack of recyclable straws today.

BPA free
Reusable & Recyclable
9" long
Pack of 10 identical straws as shown
Laser engraved
Made in USA

The campaign manager was at dinner with his wife, when his paper straw, an environmentally-friendly and government-mandated drinking instrument, became soggy, crimped, and useless. “I’m so over paper straws,” Parscale tweeted along with a picture and the hashtag “#LiberalProgress.”

The little bit of boomer humor went viral. Almost 10,000 people registered similar frustration with likes and retweets. The so-called Trump straw was born.

For $15, plus shipping, conservative consumers can now buy a pack of 10 identical and reusable red plastic drinking straws. Each comes laser engraved with “Trump” on the side, all are manufactured in the USA, and every purchase counts as a political contribution to the reelection campaign of the 45th president of the United States of America.

The Trump campaign ordered 200,000 straws last week, then scrambled to order more when the first batch sold out. They told RealClearPolitics they expect sales to exceed half-a-million dollars by early next week.

Like 30k people in this great country have spent $15 on Trump straws in the past couple of weeks.