President Donald Trump: The Thread

[RockRaines]

That tax plan is bad for anyone who isnt rich as well as the government overall. I dont get it.

[Quin]

That tax plan is bad for anyone who isnt rich as well as the government overall. I dont get it.

 

It's good for people that are rich.

 

That's the GOP goal.

[Quin]

That tax plan is bad for anyone who isnt rich as well as the government overall. I dont get it.

 

It's good for people that are rich.

 

That's the GOP goal.

[RockRaines]

It's good for people that are rich.

 

That's the GOP goal.

Like really really rich though. Biggest benefit is if you've inherited over 5M. Why would we do that?

[Quin]

Like really really rich though. Biggest benefit is if you've inherited over 5M. Why would we do that?

 

Those people are the ones that pay the bills?

[ChiliIrishHammock24]

I don't post in this thread often, if ever, as I hate politics, but this new GOP House bill is really going to swiftly kick me right in the nuts, and more directly, the wallet.

 

https://electrek.co/2017/11/02/buying-tesla...t-gop-tax-bill/

 

$7500 jump in price for my car. Really f***ING sweet.

[caulfield12]

Saving fossil fuels and getting passed while standing still on electric cars by the Chinese....brilliant stuff!!

[StrangeSox]

Trump on the Russia probe: “It’s a disgrace, frankly, that they continue.” (via CBS) pic.twitter.com/3vwEvvOWnR

— Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) November 3, 2017

 

Trump: I'm not involved with the DOJ

 

Trump, seconds later: But the DOJ really should investigate my political foeshttps://t.co/MOaeZu7soN

— Mark Berman (@markberman) November 3, 2017

 

Edited November 3, 2017 by StrangeSox

[StrangeSox]

What happens when the 2020 campaigns really start kicking off and Trump starts calling for investigations of his political opponents?

[GoSox05]

What happens when the 2020 campaigns really start kicking off and Trump starts calling for investigations of his political opponents?

 

Jeff Flake and Ben Sasse will give speeches about how they are very disappointed that President Trump had Bernie Sanders sent to Guantanamo Bay and then not do anything.

[StrangeSox]

Probably.

 

We already saw how badly Republicans will abuse their Congressional powers with all of the Benghazi nonsense, and even now they're starting to ramp up the cover for Trump with the Uranium One non-scandal investigations they're kicking off.

 

They're normalizing so much awful, damaging behavior that it's becoming harder and harder to see a path where we fully recover and get back to normal governance.

[Dick Allen]

Trump now doesn't remember the March 31st meeting. Didn't he just tell us he has the greatest memory in the history of memories? He can remember it was long and unimportant but nothing else. I think the con man is going to hang himself. (Not literally)

Edited November 3, 2017 by Dick Allen

[GoSox05]

Nothing is surprising anymore, but it's pretty crazy that the President almost always refers to a sitting U.S Senator as "Pocahontas".

 

 

 

[bmags]

Nothing is surprising anymore, but it's pretty crazy that the President almost always refers to a sitting U.S Senator as "Pocahontas".

 

I mean, what's worse, is as many pointed out, if what Trump just tweeted about demanding FBI/DOJ to investigate political opponents was in an uncovered email, it would be a scandal. It still is.

 

 

[StrangeSox]

I mean, what's worse, is as many pointed out, if what Trump just tweeted about demanding FBI/DOJ to investigate political opponents was in an uncovered email, it would be a scandal. It still is.

 

He's openly bemoaning the fact that he can't just order the FBI and DOJ to stop investigations he doesn't like and to launch frivolous investigations of his (former) political opponents. He's being so open and honest about how badly he wants to corrupt our federal justice system and obstruct any investigations he doesn't like.

 

https://twitter.com/benjaminwittes/status/926269757443190785

 

At least, for now, he's being frustrated by the system because he's not successful at his attempts at corruption. But how long will that hold? Will Republicans, either elected officials or the voters, ever hold him accountable?

https://twitter.com/benjaminwittes/status/926417953750384640

[StrangeSox]

Nothing is surprising anymore, but it's pretty crazy that the President almost always refers to a sitting U.S Senator as "Pocahontas".

 

Three days ago, Trump declared November "National Native American Heritage Month"

 

This is the President of the United States.

Edited November 3, 2017 by StrangeSox

[Balta1701]

It's good for people that are rich.

 

That's the GOP goal.

I'm actually amazed at how specifically they targeted the tax increases to hurt people who vote democratic. Line for line.

[GoSox05]

Three days ago, Trump declared November "National Native American Heritage Month"

 

This is the President of the United States.

 

 

Next election is going to be fun. Trump yelling racial slurs at his opponent and trying to have the DOJ investigate them.

[Balta1701]

Next election is going to be fun. Trump yelling racial slurs at his opponent and trying to have the DOJ investigate them.

So 2016 all over again except race instead of woman? (or race + woman combined? Or woman again?)

[bmags]

I'm actually amazed at how specifically they targeted the tax increases to hurt people who vote democratic. Line for line.

 

also as if there aren't millions of republicans in those states.

 

But they've clearly been right that many voters care more about antagonizing libs than getting anything that helps them.

[GoSox05]

So 2016 all over again except race instead of woman? (or race + woman combined? Or woman again?)

 

 

Could you imagine him going against Kamala Harris.

[StrangeSox]

also as if there aren't millions of republicans in those states.

 

But they've clearly been right that many voters care more about antagonizing libs than getting anything that helps them.

 

This isn't the smoothest segue, but on "getting anything that helps them"

 

 

Awaiting Trump's coal comeback, miners reject retraining

 

WAYNESBURG, Pa. (Reuters) - When Mike Sylvester entered a career training center earlier this year in southwestern Pennsylvania, he found more than one hundred federally funded courses covering everything from computer programming to nursing.

He settled instead on something familiar: a coal mining course.

 

”I think there is a coal comeback,” said the 33-year-old son of a miner.

 

Despite broad consensus about coal’s bleak future, a years-long effort to diversify the economy of this hard-hit region away from mining is stumbling, with Obama-era jobs retraining classes undersubscribed and future programs at risk under President Donald Trump’s proposed 2018 budget.

 

Trump has promised to revive coal by rolling back environmental regulations and moved to repeal Obama-era curbs on carbon emissions from power plants.

 

“I have a lot of faith in President Trump,” Sylvester said.

 

But hundreds of coal-fired plants have closed in recent years, and cheap natural gas continues to erode domestic demand. The Appalachian region has lost about 33,500 mining jobs since 2011, according to the Appalachian Regional Commission.

 

Although there have been small gains in coal output and hiring this year, driven by foreign demand, production levels remain near lows hit in 1978.

 

In Pennsylvania, Corsa Coal opened a mine in Somerset in June which will create about 70 jobs – one of the first mines to open here in years. And Consol Energy recently expanded its Bailey mine complex in Greene County.

 

But Consol also announced in January that it plans to sell its coal holdings to focus on natural gas. And it has commissioned a recruitment agency, GMS Mines and Repair, to find contract laborers for its coal expansion who will be paid about $13 an hour - half the hourly wage of a starting unionized coal worker. The program Sylvester signed up for was set up by GMS.

 

The Pennsylvania Department of Labor has received about $2 million since 2015 from the federal POWER program, an initiative of former President Barack Obama to help retrain workers in coal-dependent areas. But the state is having trouble putting even that modest amount of money to good use.

 

In Greene and Washington counties, 120 people have signed up for jobs retraining outside the mines, far short of the target of 700, said Ami Gatts, director of the Washington-Greene County Job Training Agency. In Westmoreland and Fayette counties, participation in federal job retraining programs has been about 15 percent of capacity, officials said.

 

“I can’t even get them to show up for free food I set up in the office,” said Dave Serock, an ex-miner who recruits in Fayette County for Southwest Training Services.

 

Programs administered by the Appalachian Regional Commission, a federal and state partnership to strengthen the region’s economy, have had similar struggles. One $1.4 million ARC project to teach laid-off miners in Greene County and in West Virginia computer coding has signed up only 20 people for 95 slots. Not a single worker has enrolled in another program launched this summer to prepare ex-miners to work in the natural gas sector, officials said.

 

Sean Moodie and his brother Steve spent the last two years working in the natural gas industry, but see coal as a good bet in the current political climate.

 

“I am optimistic that you can make a good career out of coal for the next 50 years,” said Sean Moodie.

 

Coal jobs are preferable to those in natural gas, they said, because the mines are close to home, while pipeline work requires travel. Like Sylvester, the Moodie brothers are taking mining courses offered by Consol’s recruiter, GMS.

 

Bob Levo, who runs a GMS training program, offered a measure of realism: The point of the training is to provide low-cost and potentially short-term labor to a struggling industry, he said.

 

“That’s a major part of the reason that coal mines have been able to survive,” he said. “They rely on us to provide labor at lower cost.”

 

Clemmy Allen, 63, a veteran miner and head of the United Mineworkers of America’s Career Centers, said miners are taking a big risk in holding out for a coal recovery.

 

He’s placing his hopes for the region’s future on retraining. UMWA’s 64-acre campus in Prosperity, Pennsylvania - which once trained coal miners - will use nearly $3 million in federal and state grants to retrofit classrooms to teach cybersecurity, truck driving and mechanical engineering.

 

“Unlike when I worked in the mines,” he said, “if you get laid off now, you are pretty much laid off.”

 

Follow Trump’s impact on energy, environment, healthcare, immigration and the economy at The Trump Effect - www.reuters.com/trump-effect

 

More people work at Arby's than are employed in coal mining nationally, but coal miners have become a totem of the WWC. Coal is dead largely for economic reasons, not regulatory.

 

[bmags]

Yeah I read that.

 

Also to be clear I'm not trying to make a "vote in your self interest" argument. But given the ethos of republican voters as low tax, raising taxes on them as long as they are in blue states is...interesting. But perhaps their conviction of lower corp tax rate is enough that they would indeed support it.

[StrangeSox]

A highlight of how badly Trump is damaging institutions and how poor an understanding he has of the government he runs:

 

http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2017/...n=sharebutton-t

“Your State Department still has some unfilled positions. Are you worried that the State Department doesn’t have enough Donald Trump nominees in there to push your vision through?” Ingraham asked, adding that “there’s a concern that the State Department is currently undermining your agenda.”

 

Trump responded with his customary eloquence and clarity of mind.

 

“So we don’t need all the people they want,” Trump said. “I’m a businessman, and I tell my people, ‘When you don’t need to fill slots, don’t fill them.’ But we have some people that I’m not happy with there. Lemme tell you, the one that matters is me. I’m the only one that matters, because when it comes to it, that’s what the policy is going to be.”

 

"Aides have a privately said he conflates himself with institutions since he took office "

https://twitter.com/maggieNYT/status/926459518657146880

 

 

 

None of this is surprising, or at least it shouldn't be to anyone. Trump's biggest praise for foreign leaders has always been for autocrats, and this is straight out of the standard "consolidate power into one unquestionable ruler" playbook they all run. Damage institutions, destroy norms, break governance as people know and expect it and never slow down until you have total control.

Edited November 3, 2017 by StrangeSox

[StrangeSox]

First open calls from Congressional Republicans for Mueller to resign

 

Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Florida) introduces a resolution calling for Robert Mueller to resign as special counsel. pic.twitter.com/7GZgD0nlPZ

— Sahil Kapur (@sahilkapur) November 3, 2017