Trump Dump: Internal Policy (Thread I)

[His Divine Shadow]

Mark Blyth on some show talking to some dude, talking sense as usual, expresses disappointment in Elizabeth Warren (overhyped from the start IMO)
http://foxprovidence.com/2017/06/07/67- ... e-of-mind/

[The Romulan Republic]

This just breaking: Trump accuses Comey of perjury.

http://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/ ... mp-perjury

On Twitter Friday morning, President Donald Trump accused former FBI Director James Comey of making “false statements and lies” in his congressional testimony (while also claiming that the testimony somehow delivered him “complete vindication”):


It’s nothing new for Trump to accuse his political enemies of lying, but what makes this a particularly serious accusation is that Comey was under oath before Congress. So if he was lying, he was committing perjury. And if found guilty under the general federal perjury statute, Comey could get a prison sentence of up to five years.

But Trump’s accusation is very difficult to believe here, for several reasons.

First, Trump himself has raised the prospect that he could have “tapes” of his conversations with Comey.


So Comey knew weeks ago that there was a possibility that his conversations with Trump were recorded. Why in the world, then, would the former FBI director go give false testimony about them, if he’s well aware there could be irrefutable evidence contradicting his claims and exposing him to prosecution? Comey’s behavior makes a whole lot more sense if, as he said, he believes any tapes will vindicate him. (“Lordy, I hope there are tapes,” he testified.)

Second, while there are certainly many cases in which administration officials have committed perjury, it makes most sense when done to protect the president or higher-ups in the administration. The hope would be that the president’s allies could shield them from prosecution or, failing that, that the president could pardon them (as in Iran-Contra).

This makes no sense in Comey’s case, because he would have to be deliberately committing perjury in order to hurt the president, knowing full well that the president’s allies would be highly motivated to try and prosecute him for even the smallest factual discrepancies.

Third, where the factual record is in dispute, Comey has evidence, and so far Trump has presented none.

Despite the president’s claim Comey told many lies, a statement from his personal lawyer Marc Kasowitz only names two specific instances in which he says Comey’s testimony is false. They are:

“The President never, in form or substance, directed or suggested that Mr. Comey stop investigating anyone, including suggesting that Mr. Comey ‘let Flynn go.’”
“The President also never told Mr. Comey, ‘I need loyalty, I expect loyalty’ in form or substance.”
This contrasts with Comey’s testimony, which claims:

“[On February 14, President Trump] then said, “I hope you can see your way clear to letting this go, to letting Flynn go. He is a good guy. I hope you can let this go.”
[At a dinner on January 27] the President said, “I need loyalty, I expect loyalty.” ... [Later in the dinner] he then said, “I need loyalty.”
But Trump’s lawyer presents zero actual evidence that what Comey said is false. In contrast, Comey wrote contemporaneous memos documenting each interaction that he wrote and shared with FBI leaders.

So essentially the president is accusing Comey of lying under oath about both of these topics, and in the memos he wrote and distributed months ago. If Trump has any evidence that his accusations are true, it’s nowhere to be seen. And note that while Comey’s side of the story was given under oath, Trump’s has not been.

Well, he's going Full Putin now, trying to jail his critics. Fortunately, America still has an independent judiciary. He's apparently also saying he'd be willing to testify under oath.

Please, please, please let Dickless Donald testify under oath. He'll perjure himself repeatedly in the first five minutes.

[Simon_Jester]

I'm not sure Trump is actually trying to get Comey imprisoned. He's just reflexively calling Comey a liar, which is exactly what he's done literally every time anyone's said anything bad about him for fifty years.

This is not a new strategy for Trump. He always does this, regardless of circumstances, because he's a psychopathic narcissist manchild. People like that basically never let any negative statement about them stand. Not unless they are smarter than hell and deduce how stupid it makes them look to frantically deny obviously true bad things about themselves... And Trump is not that smart of a psychopathic narcissist.

But I have problems being too mad that people are so disgusted with the system, because holy shit when you look close enough it's fucking grim. Outside of hugboxes/bastions of partisanship (and even inside them): the U.S. is increasingly moderate. What party represents U.S. moderates? You pick one or two issues as your hill to die on and hope for the best. Or you just, you know, don't vote. Even outside the process itself: try entering a hugbox with any kind of non-hardline stance. They'll fuckin' devour you. And yes, it's actually become worse over time IMHO.

Sidenote: why do you think I continue to post here? Not that I have thin skin, I'm just fucking tired of "political discourse" on 99% of the Internet being the equivalent of the "Xbone vs Playstation" flameware. And don't get me wrong, the Internet actually is a large portion of the problem, which in of itself is a multi-faceted problem.

Not that you are, but every click-bait trash spewer on the Interwebs seems to be, but you can't point to just one thing as to why people are disgusted by the system a guy like Trump could get traction when up against a monolith like HRC. It's this long, littered road of shit. The only difference is, this last cycle, the outgoing pres left office almost squeaky clean. So, ALL that blame had to go somewhere else. And boy did it.

The troubling bit is, this leads to situations like the "South Park compromises" Flagg likes to deride where people do this demented Golden Mean thing and assume that because there are two parties, and they don't LIKE either of them, the truth must be "fuck them both, vote for the entertaining guy" or "fuck them both, just try to arbitrarily split between them 50/50 on every issue."

[The Romulan Republic]

Regarding Trump and Comey: Perhaps, but he can't be oblivious of the implications of accusing someone of lying while they were under oath to Congress.

Weather the Justice Department presses charges, of course, remains to be seen. I almost hope they do because, as horrifying as that would be, I'm about 90-95% sure the judicial branch would smack it down just as hard as they did the Muslim ban, and possibly subpoena Trump (and any tapes he might have) into the bargain.

Also... couldn't Comey now sue Trump for slander, were he so inclined?

[Ralin]

Regarding Trump and Comey: Perhaps, but he can't be oblivious of the implications of accusing someone of lying while they were under oath to Congress.

Yes he can.

[The Romulan Republic]

Eh, I think Dickless has faced, and launched, enough lawsuits to at least be familiar with what constitutes "perjury".

[JI_Joe84]

Eh, I think Dickless has faced, and launched, enough lawsuits to at least be familiar with what constitutes "perjury".

It doesn't matter what legally constitutes perjury to people like Trump. People like him think there is a different set of rules for them to play by than what people like us have to play by. At least that is the world they would like to have, anyways.

[Simon_Jester]

Regarding Trump and Comey: Perhaps, but he can't be oblivious of the implications of accusing someone of lying while they were under oath to Congress.

I'm sure if you sat him down and walked him through it, he'd think of it.

But. Psychopathic narcissistic manchild, remember? Donald Trump has impulse control problems, and his tweets are very much a reflection of his impulsiveness.

Publicly calling someone a liar for saying bad things about him is going to be his first impulse in almost every imaginable situation, and Twitter means he gets to do it without consulting lawyers or PR experts who could tell him that he's technically accusing Comey of perjury. It wouldn't occur to him before he does it. Because nothing occurs to him before he impulsively does anything, he just does whatever the fuck he wants and invents justifications for it after the fact, using one of a small set of specific, stock tricks and deflections and denial methods to pretend he didn't do anything wrong. Which in his own mind, he hasn't.

Because psychopathic narcissistic manchild.

[Lord Revan]

I think a major part of the problem isn't just Trump thinks he didn't do anything wrong but rather that he thinks he cannot do anything wrong. It's a sudtle but important difference.

[Gandalf]

Why not? Bluster got him into the White House, so why not keep blustering about anything and everything?

[Simon_Jester]

Thing is, blustering isn't even a strategy he adopts on purpose to advance his interests, I suspect. I honestly doubt he could learn NOT to bluster, NOT to shout "that's a lie!" every time anyone says anything bad about him, NOT to invent improbable threats and make vague references to how he'll fix everything and come out on top every time the situation looks grim.

Because, well.

Psychopathic. Narcissist. Man-child.

[The Romulan Republic]

I don't pity his lawyers. I mean, I'm sure they're assholes if they're working for the Donald, but it must be one hell of a thankless job trying to reign in that asshat and keep him from undermining himself at every turn.

[Flagg]

Regarding Trump and Comey: Perhaps, but he can't be oblivious of the implications of accusing someone of lying while they were under oath to Congress.

I'm sure if you sat him down and walked him through it, he'd think of it.

But. Psychopathic narcissistic manchild, remember? Donald Trump has impulse control problems, and his tweets are very much a reflection of his impulsiveness.

Publicly calling someone a liar for saying bad things about him is going to be his first impulse in almost every imaginable situation, and Twitter means he gets to do it without consulting lawyers or PR experts who could tell him that he's technically accusing Comey of perjury. It wouldn't occur to him before he does it. Because nothing occurs to him before he impulsively does anything, he just does whatever the fuck he wants and invents justifications for it after the fact, using one of a small set of specific, stock tricks and deflections and denial methods to pretend he didn't do anything wrong. Which in his own mind, he hasn't.

Because psychopathic narcissistic manchild.

Yarp. The worst part was telling people before what passed for an election in calm, as non-overly negatively as possible that President Droopydogface was pathologically... Wrong.

His brain is the equivalent of a bunny born inside out, only he has enough cognitive function and was lucky to be born with a golden buttplug up his ass, so instead of killing and raping (maybe in that order) a girl his age and being sent to old sparky, he's not needed to kill 'em to keep them quiet and the ugliness has carried over into every aspect of his malformed, disgusting brainfunction.

[Flagg]

Regarding Trump and Comey: Perhaps, but he can't be oblivious of the implications of accusing someone of lying while they were under oath to Congress.

Yes he can.

Yeah. This. The entity was in so far over its head before the joke of an election, and likely has been it's entire existence that, this.

[Thanas]

[FaxModem1]

Quartz Media

The first new US coal mine of the Trump era will employ fewer people than an average supermarket
The Acosta Mine in Pennsylvania
All new and shiny. (AP Photo/Dake Kang)
SHARE

WRITTEN BY

Zoë Schlanger
June 13, 2017
The US’s first new coal mine in years, heralded by president Donald Trump as a fulfillment of campaign promises, will employ 70 people, according to Fox News. That’s significantly fewer than the 92 jobs created by the opening of one American supermarket on average (based on 2015 numbers from industry groups and and the US Bureau of Labor Statistics).
The Acosta mine, owned by Corsa Coal Company, opened June in Somerset County, Pennsylvania. Trump referenced the open-pit mine during his June 1 speech announcing his decision to withdraw the US from the international Paris agreement on climate change, the Associated Press notes.
“When I ended the ‘war on coal,’ I said I would put our incredible miners—and that’s what you are, incredible—back to work,” Trump said in a video message that played at the mine’s opening ceremony.
Corsa Coal Company CEO George Dethlefsen told Fox News that 400 people applied for the 70 positions available at the mine.

So, meet the great changes Trump is making for the US by backing out. A place so great that it could be beaten by a Piggly Wiggly in its effect on the local economy.

[Simon_Jester]

To be fair, the coal mine will probably pay people considerably more than a Piggly Wiggly, if only because the kind of guy you can trust to handle massive excavator machinery is harder to find than the kind of guy you can trust to handle a case of soup cans. So there's going to be more overall effect on the local economy from the workers and their salaries- just not that much. Not orders of magnitude from the salaries alone.

But yeah, not a lot of jobs. Many saw this coming; the employment levels mining and manufacturing gave America in the relatively happy days of the '90s or earlier are not coming back.

[Thanas]

So the House voted to repeal Dodd-Frank. Obviously banks should do more shady business. Make the financial crisis great again.

[The Romulan Republic]

As expected.

I feel sorry for whoever comes after Trump and the current Congress- they're going to have to spend years, if not decades, cleaning up the clusterfuck these assholes made. And that's in the best-case scenario.

[Napoleon the Clown]

Savings and Loans 2.0, or would it be 3.0? Should we consider the housing collapse of 2008/2009 to be Savings and Loan 2.0?

However we choose to classify this, it's gonna be ugly.

[The Romulan Republic]

I daresay it makes perfect sense to these assholes. Fleece the American people through every dirty economic trick they know, and if it causes a depression, well, you can always blame the loss of jobs on regulation and those dirty immigrants/brown people. That's how they got in power in the first place, after all.

[TheFeniX]

They'll be in for a fight in the senate. Less insane Republicans know they need more than a few Democrats to cross party lines to get something passed and they won't get those votes by cutting the leash on Wall Street and leaving Main Street to burn. This could even lead to another revolt among moderate Republicans in the senate and Trump could crush the whole thing during one of his "doesn't go too far enough" tantrums.

Last I checked, they weren't even looking for a vote on the revised ACA repeal until August at the earliest, so we don't even know where that's going.

Not to say this is a good thing, but House Republicans just seem to be throwing their weight around and pushing whatever vile trash they can while the Senate position is much less solid (they need Democrat votes) AND dealing with intra-party fighting from Republicans who aren't suicidal and are actually trying to represent their electorate, not their party.

If the Republicans can't play nice (which is a distinct possibility), then they'll get nothing passed and hemmorage seats as the electorate turns on them. Because Republicans have convinced them "everything is fucked because of Obama, we'll fix that." This type of electorate doesn't give credit for "oh wait, we didn't because we suck." Best case, at least from what I've paid attention to the past 16 years, is those voters will just stop voting. Worst case, another mid 2000s happens where enough swap votes for more charismatic Democratic candidates to make a huge difference.

Sure, they COULD (and have) try and pass blame onto obstructionism Democrats, but that hasn't historically been all that successful.

Now, the "interesting" (for lack of a better term) part for me is, if this happens, how well will the changes in partisan strongholds hold up? They made significant changes to districts and voting habits. But what happens if even your die-hard fans just stop giving a fuck because they view you as weak and ineffectual? Like, Texas has been gerrymandered to high-hell, but looking at election results there's a breaking point and it seem a lot less stable than you would think considering that Texas has a more than deserved reputation (in some areas, mind you) as a conservative shithole.

Honestly, hoping for some slash and burn here in the near future with Cruz at the front, continuing to take the heat. Rourke is kind of considered a joke contended right now, but he looks to be playing his cards right and man I would love to see Cruz go down in flames next year. I mean, Cruz is a guy even GW Bush doesn't like. Seriously, how shitty a person are you when GW looks at a Texas Republican and says "that boy just ain't right."?

[Elheru Aran]

A few quick factoids before I go lay down to keep the thread current:

--Robert Mueller apparently interviewed at the White House shortly before Comey was fired. Unknown (to me) what for.

--Mueller's investigation will apparently be digging into pretty much the entirety of Trump's and Kushner's finances. Some fun stuff should turn up.

--Speaking of which, there are now three emoluments clause suits against Trump, two by Maryland and Virginia (or is it DC? anyway).

--The deputy AG issued an official DOJ news blurb saying, essentially, "don't trust any leaks". Translation: There are probably going to be leaks pretty soon, probably of a highly compromising/embarrassing nature.

--Everybody is lawyering up. Pence has lawyered up. Trump's own lawyer, bizarrely, has lawyered up.

--The new tactic by Trump's underlings to avoid giving anything away? Any and all conversations with the President are subject to executive privilege, so they can't talk about stuff that he's told them, even if he hasn't actually invoked executive privilege yet.

--Trumpster meanwhile appears to be going around the bend, over the waterfall, in a flaming shit-barrel of tweets aimed at the investigation and anybody even slightly connected to it. The REALLY fun bit? The US judiciary decided that social-media posts by the President are official statements (used as evidence to strike down the travel ban, yet again).

--And in stuff not related to the Russia investigation... (it really says fucking something that you have to elaborate on news that -aren't- connected to the investigation) Trump removed a chunk of Obama's Cuba regulations, restricting travel and trade once more, in a pathetically frank sop to Marco Rubio and the Cuban-American Republican population.

EDIT: I would have included links, but a.) didn't want a wall of links, and b.) didn't really have the time. All of this is readily Googleable at trustworthy news sites.

[The Romulan Republic]

I believe the emoluments suites are Maryland and DC.

There is also a suite by some 200 Democratic legislators, which hilariously came down just in time for the Donald's birthday.

[FaxModem1]

Remember that sweet job deal Trump made with Carrier? Turns out it's not so sweet.

CNBC

Trump's Carrier deal is not living up to the hype — jobs still going to Mexico
Carrier's plant in Indianapolis is preparing to lay off 600 employees beginning next month.
Carrier, a division of UTC, will employ about 1,069 people for 10 years in exchange for $7 million in incentives. But there are crucial details in the fine print.
State and local governments spend at least $70 billion on corporate incentives each year to lure companies, according to Good Jobs First.
Scott Cohn | @ScottCohnTV
Sat, 24 Jun '17 | 12:15 PM ET
CNBC.com
PLAY VIDEO
President-elect Donald Trump(R) and Vice President-elect Governor Mike Pence visit the Carrier air conditioning and heating company in Indianapolis, Indiana on December 1, 2016.
More than 600 employees at a Carrier plant in Indianapolis are bracing for layoffs beginning next month, despite being told by President Trump that nearly all the jobs at the plant had been saved. The deal, announced with great fanfare before Trump took office, was billed not only as a heroic move to keep jobs from going to Mexico but also as a seismic shift in the economic development landscape.
Nearly seven months later the deal has not worked out quite as originally advertised, and the landscape has barely budged.
"The jobs are still leaving," said Robert James, president of United Steelworkers Local 1999. "Nothing has stopped."

In fact, after the layoffs are complete later this year, a few hundred union jobs will remain at the plant. But that is far different from what then-President-elect Trump said just three weeks after the election.
"They're going to have a great Christmas," Trump said to cheering steelworkers and local dignitaries on Dec. 1. The plan to close the plant and lay off 1,400 workers had become a frequent topic in the Trump campaign. He said 1,100 jobs would stay in Indianapolis, thanks to the deal.
"And by the way, that number is going to go up very substantially as they expand this area," he said. "So the 1,100 is going to be a minimum number."
But as in any deal, there are crucial details in the fine print.
The heart of the deal

The agreement does guarantee that Carrier, a unit of United Technologies Corp., will continue to employ at least 1,069 people at the Indianapolis plant for 10 years in exchange for up to $7 million in incentives. In addition, the company has promised to invest $16 million in the facility.
But fewer than 800 of those 1,069 jobs — 730 to be exact — are the manufacturing jobs that were always at the heart of the debate. The rest are engineering and technical jobs that were never scheduled to be cut.
"To me this was just political, to make it a victory within Trump's campaign, in his eyes that he did something great," said T. J. Bray, a 15-year Carrier employee who will keep his job due to seniority. "I'm very grateful that I get to keep my job, and many others, but I'm still disappointed that we're losing a lot."
As for Trump's claim that the $16 million investment in the plant would add jobs, United Technologies CEO Greg Hayes told CNBC in December that the money would go toward more automation in the factory and ultimately would result in fewer jobs. That is not lost on the union.
Robert James, president of United Steelworkers Local 1999
Harriet Taylor | CNBC
Robert James, president of United Steelworkers Local 1999
"I don't see Carrier hiring anytime in the near future," James said.
Hayes said in an interview this week that the company is meeting its commitments "to keep the 800 jobs in Indianapolis to keep the factory open."
"The Indianapolis situation was difficult," he said.
Hayes said the laid-off workers would be offered jobs at other factories across the country.
"We're going to be hiring something like 5,000 people this year," he said.
But union officials say they have heard nothing from the company about any job offers elsewhere within the company. All they have received is the official notice, as required by federal law, that the first round of cuts — 338 jobs — will take place on July 20, with an additional 290 employees terminated on Dec. 22, three days before Christmas.
Elaine Bedel, the president of the Indiana Economic Development Corp., which signed the agreement with Carrier, calls it a "victory" for Indiana. She believes that without the deal, the company would have eliminated not only all the manufacturing jobs — including the 730 that were saved — but the engineering and technical jobs as well.
"Obviously, having those jobs here — high wages jobs — is helpful to our economy," she said.
Bedel points out that the agreement allows the state to claw back some of the $7 million in subsidies if the company does not stay for 10 years. But union officials say there is little real incentive for Carrier to stay. United Technologies booked $57 billion in revenue last year.
"I don't think they built that facility in Monterrey, Mexico, just to have four departments in there. It's a little too large for that," James said.
Shoring up US jobs

In announcing the deal with Carrier, Trump said he was sending a signal to corporate America that the rules would be changing in his administration. Moving jobs to Mexico or elsewhere offshore would no longer be tolerated.
"They can leave from state to state, and they can negotiate good deals with the different states and all of that. But leaving the country is going to be very, very difficult," Trump said.
But experts, business leaders and economic development officials agree very little has changed since then. Ford announced this week that production for its next-generation Focus is being moved out of Kentucky, and will be going to one of Ford's existing plants in China.
Trump took credit when Ford announced earlier this year that a factory planned for Mexico to build the car was being canceled.
And Bedel acknowledges that the Carrier deal, once held up as a prototype for the new way of doing things, was "a special situation" because it involved paying a company not to leave.
"We offer incentives for businesses to grow here, to add jobs to what they already have or to bring a full new company here," she said. "We don't do retention very often, because you don't want to get into that situation where a company says, 'I'm going to leave if you don't.'"
Of course, that was exactly the situation with Carrier.
"If companies know they can do it and get money that's laying around on tables, money that's there for the taking, that hurts the tax base," said Greg LeRoy, executive director of Good Jobs First, a nonprofit Washington, D.C., watchdog group that is critical of state subsidies to business.
The big payoff

LeRoy estimates state and local governments are spending at least $70 billion a year on incentives. He says the money states are spending to lure companies like Carrier and others could be better spent on schools, infrastructure, training "and all the things that really do grow the economy over the long run, because they benefit all employers, not just those few that can game the system."
Even United Technologies' Greg Hayes acknowledges that the subsidies have limited impact on site selection.
"Frankly, the states are offering incentives, but at the end of the day, you want to be close to where your employees are, and [relocating] it's terribly disruptive," he said. "So unless you have a compelling cost reason to do it, it's really tough to do."
Nonetheless, he says, "A month doesn't go by when I don't hear from the economic development group from one state or another."
But Hayes says the contacts have not increased since Trump issued his call for more deal-making, and Bedel says it is business as usual at her agency as well.
"It really hasn't changed anything," she said. "We have been doing this since 2005."
And that means there are victories as well as defeats.
The Indiana Economic Development Corp. says already this year it has landed commitments for 80 new projects, adding more than 5,700 jobs. And that does not include the jobs saved at Carrier.
But at the same time, industrial manufacturer Rexnord is moving forward with plans to move 350 jobs out of Indianapolis, most of them going to Mexico.
Correction: This story has been revised to reflect the fact that Ford is moving production for its next generation Focus to an existing plant in China.

To sum up, general labor jobs are going away, either to Mexico, or by new automation that is being funded by the 7 million tax cut Pence worked out for them.