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EvC Forum Side Orders Coffee House The Trump Presidency

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Author Topic:   The Trump Presidency
dwise1
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Posts: 5930
Joined: 05-02-2006
Member Rating: 5.8


Message 3179 of 4573 (860561)
08-08-2019 2:17 PM
Reply to: Message 3177 by JonF
08-03-2019 2:07 PM


Re: What the world thinks
How the rest of the world sees us is reflected in recent film & TV.
In the British "Years and Years" recently on HBO, Trump won a second term and a couple days before leaving office conducted a preemptive nuclear strike against a Chinese artificial island. Every other nation imposed sanctions against the US. OBTW, Pence was the next President. But the British leaders were even worse.
"The Wolf's Call" on Netflix is a French modern submarine thriller. In it, the EU was pretty much on its own because the US had apathetically isolated itself.
I'm sure that there are many other examples.

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dwise1
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Posts: 5930
Joined: 05-02-2006
Member Rating: 5.8


(1)
Message 3181 of 4573 (860673)
08-09-2019 5:30 PM


Presidential Golfing for Profit
This morning while running errands, a caller on the Thom Hartman Show brought up Trump's golf trips to his own resorts.
She cited the cost to us so far as totaling $200 million -- around the end of last year I saw it reported as over $100 million plus I don't know what her source was.
Also, we don't know the break-down of these figures. Do those figures just include what the resort gets paid? Or does it include all the costs including ones that Trump cannot profit from such as transportation (boy, are we lucky Trump Airlines no longer exists), salaries for his security entourage, support teams and the cost for their operations, etc? We need a full accounting of all those costs, including the bills from Trump's resorts. Of course, Trump will refuse all requests for those records and ignore all subpoenas for them. What is he hiding that he is so intent on covering up? We will eventually find out.
They started out with that meeting between Trump and the Irish Prime Minister in an airport lounge next to the vending machines. Originally, Trump wanted the meeting to be at his local golf resort. In the discussion between Thom and the caller, it was pointed out that that Trump resort was in financial trouble approaching bankruptcy, so obviously Trump wanted some free publicity to promote it (I got that from news coverage at the time of that meeting). Also, Trump planned to rent three cars from his resort to take everybody there at a cost of $1 million. Plus there was all the income for that resort serving food and drinks, etc, for everybody who would be there to cover this meeting -- image Ray Kroc, creator of the MacDonald's chain, as the US President who insists on having a big event at a MacDonald's and you would understand Trump's motivation. Ireland declined and wanted that meeting to be at an Irish government building since it was official, so Trump, miffed that he couldn't make any money on this deal, instead had it in an airport lounge next to the vending machines.
I should note at this point that when I presented to Faith how Trump is personally profiting monetarily from his far-too-frequent golf trips (Message 522), she chose to deflect and divert (Message 523), and completely ignored my request that she at least attempt to justify Trump's profiteering at every opportunity (Message 525).
Of course, Trump's golf profiteering was not my first clue, but rather that was his Presidential campaign. You don't even need anyone to paint the picture for you. Trump's campaign headquarters leased office space from Trump and those campaign workers were fed by Trump-owned catering services, etc. Campaign contributions came in and ended up in Trump's pockets, which on the face of it would be a very convenient form of money laundering. And then what was Trump's nearly-first move in office? He immediately registered his re-election campaign, so that he could keep that cash-cow alive and continue to provide a pipeline for campaign contributions into his pocket. Later on, we discovered that some of those "campaign offices" that Trump was receiving lease payments for had never even been staffed (none of the locals ever saw anybody arrive nor leave), but rather was empty unused office space.
The inauguration is also illuminating. I'm operating from memory, so do please check the figures, but Trump did for once in his life do something never seen before: he collected far more contributions for his inauguration than any President before, at least two or three times more than for Obama's. The difference is that Trump's inauguration didn't have much of anything to show for it, especially compared to Obama's star-studded affair. For having received so much in contributions, Trump's affair (dare we call it "tawdry"?) was very lackluster, especially compared to Obama's. So where did all that money go? It's been about a year since I last heard any news on this, but there was still about $50 million not accounted for. Previous inaugural committees had been able to close their books and account for all the money within six months, but to my knowledge Trump's inaugural committee has yet to close its books and to account for all the money -- please correct me if I'm off here (your brain-fever illusions don't count, Faith).
The inauguration, and the Inaugural Ball especially, is illuminating. The Inaugural Ball and related events were held at the Trump International Hotel, as negotiated by Ivanka Trump, which overcharged the inaugural committee. This should inform us of the bills that Trump racks up at his golf resorts. Does Trump pay greens fees (ie, do we pay greens fees for Trump?)? What are they? Does he get any "owner's discount", or do they charge the full rate? Does he or any of his entourage ever get any kind of discount? Or are they all charged full price or even more? All indications speak for the latter, that Trump is bilking the government for every single dollar he possibly can. Because making money is all that he cares about ... apart from having his fragile ego fluffed to compensate for his many short-comings.
And consider his Trump International Hotel. Anyone, including foreigns, who want to curry favor with Trump will stay at that hotel. There was that affair in which there was some big veterans' event and some "unnamed benefactor" reserved a block of rooms in the Trump International Hotel for veterans to stay in for free. That "unnamed benefactor" turned out to be a Saudi seeking to curry favor with Trump. Money laundering much?
In that radio program, Thom Parkman described Trump's profiteering off of his golf resorts as a violation of the Constitution's Emoluments Clause because the Constitution prohibits the President from profiting from his office. I remember very early after the 2016 election Trump bragging that he would be the first President to make a profit from the office.
Remember all the statements of irony that, considering all the horrendous crimes he had committed, the only way to send Al Capone to prison was for tax evasion? Wouldn't it be ironic that the only way we could impeach and remove Trump was because of his profiteering from his golf trips?

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dwise1
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Posts: 5930
Joined: 05-02-2006
Member Rating: 5.8


(2)
Message 3219 of 4573 (861442)
08-21-2019 11:01 AM
Reply to: Message 3218 by jar
08-21-2019 10:19 AM


Re: More TrumpStupidity.
Simply applying lessons learned from the British concentrations camps in the Boer War c. 1900 where 26,000 Afrikaans women and children died in the overcrowded camps from malnutrition, lack of sanitation, and disease.
Everybody knows what's going to happen because of this.
When Trump is removed from office and has to pay for his many continually mounting crimes, who will have dibs on him? The Feds? SDNY? The World Court for crimes against humanity?
Edited by dwise1, : Pondering Trump's legal future.

This message is a reply to:
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dwise1
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Posts: 5930
Joined: 05-02-2006
Member Rating: 5.8


(1)
Message 3229 of 4573 (861512)
08-22-2019 1:46 PM
Reply to: Message 3227 by ramoss
08-22-2019 12:28 PM


Re: Trump is Jesus.
From what I heard, Trump was going on like that for about 45 minutes. Kind of a stream of quasi-consciousness narrative.
Our Wed night dance classes are in a bowling alley bar (good size dance floor, been a staple dance community venue for decades). They usually have FOX News on the TV. Last night, even they had a report about mental instability, though I don't know what their take on it was.
Also, Rep Underwood has joined her voice supporting impeachment inquiries, but with a difference. Most support impeachment proceedings based on Volume 2 of the Mueller Report which describes multiple acts of obstruction by Trump and his administration. Her decision is based on Volume 1 which describes Russian meddling and the Trump campaigns collusion with them in which the campaign actively sought out help from a hostile foreign government (Russia) and are doing so even now.

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dwise1
Member
Posts: 5930
Joined: 05-02-2006
Member Rating: 5.8


Message 3253 of 4573 (861779)
08-26-2019 6:43 PM
Reply to: Message 3241 by JonF
08-25-2019 8:57 AM


Re: Donald Trump's Twitter-verse
The real problems are that Trump is clueless about macroeconomics and trade, and thinks everything is a zero-sum game. He can't conceive of a win-win.
That is the key to his failures.
Trump has no clue how to actually negotiate. He was always in the dominant position of being the one to that sub-contractors were coming to, so he always was the one to dictate all the terms; when he's up against a co-equal, he has no idea what to do.
From his normally dominant role, he can bully everybody as long as he would want to, because they all want to get a contract out of him. He is used to a zero-sum game in which he wins by everybody else losing. That is in direct contradiction with the goals of diplomacy and traditional parlimentary politics in which you try to arrive at some kind of compromises in which everybody wins something. Trump's mentality of "I can only win if you lose" completely short-circuits any possible negotiation.
We also see a typical CEO tactic: create a crisis and then resolve it. E.g, there's a layout of a hotel lobby with a potted plant in a particular location. It's current position is a complete disaster, so you the CEO, the only one who can do it, move it less than a meter away and suddenly the crisis has been resolved, but only by your own incredible leadership. We see so many examples of this from Trump day after day.
I think that Trump is proof positive that that old GOP trope, "Put a businessman in charge of the government; he knows how to run a business so he also knows how to run a government." is pure crap. While some skills are transferable, running a government is very different from running a business, especially in your business goals. Running a government exactly like a business has never been known to work well.
For example, decades ago I practiced Aikido in which you blend with your opponent's energy (ie, motion, state of mind (we could "throw" people without even ever touching them)), combine them, and then move both energy systems within the same single framework (ie, around your own center) which inevitably results in leading your attacker "into a fall" (you never "throw" anyone, but rather you "lead them into falling"). When I started learning partner dancing, I immediately applied my Aikido training (mainly because that was my only background to get me through the turns in the warmup) and that tapped me very early into how to lead. However, as similar as they can be in principle and some levels of execution, the targeted end result is totally different: Ki (mind, spirit, life-force -- basically, virtually the moment the Force was ever mentioned I recognized it as Ki). In Aikido we lead your "partner" into a fall, whereas the Ki in partner dancing directs her around a common center. Same basic principles and techniques, but applied differently for diametrically opposed outcomes.
So even though some Aikido skills and principles were transferable to dancing, treating a dance like a self-defense situation could only result in disaster. Just as treating government as a business can only result in disaster.
Business is in the business of making profit by any means possible (hopefully legal). Government is in the business of managing resources for the benefit of the governed, which has very little to do with profit. Businesses will cut back on the services they provide in order to make more profit; government needs to provide those services as efficiently and effectively as possible. It makes business sense for Business to develop the attitude of screwing its customers as much as it can get away with; Government cannot do that.
Government is not a business and must not be run as one.
ABE:
Going bankrupt is a valid and much used business practice; Trump is very well practiced in going bankrupt. Bankruptcy is not a viable option for Government.
And Trump's suggested solution of just printing more money is a non-starter. From the Weimar Hyperinflation (1921-1923) where that's exactly what the German government did, we know exactly what will happen, unlike that m.o.r.o.n Trump. I have a copy of a magazine graphic showing postage stamps from that period for sending a postcard: the price started at 10 Pfennigs and ended up costing over a billion (milliard) Marks. Cheap and stiupid tricks like that might work for a business, but not for a government.
Donald J. Trump. Failed businessman. Failed president. Failed human.
Edited by dwise1, : Lost the bubble, but got it back now. Completing the thoughts.
Edited by dwise1, : ABE

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dwise1
Member
Posts: 5930
Joined: 05-02-2006
Member Rating: 5.8


(2)
Message 3268 of 4573 (861929)
08-29-2019 1:32 PM
Reply to: Message 3267 by ringo
08-29-2019 12:14 PM


Or maybe He just hates America.
What's to hate? The "true Christians" are all adulating The Beast and wearing the Mark of the Beast upon their foreheads (MAGA hats).
[voice=Monty Burns]Everything is proceeding according to plan. Excccellent![/voice]

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dwise1
Member
Posts: 5930
Joined: 05-02-2006
Member Rating: 5.8


Message 3271 of 4573 (861956)
08-29-2019 7:34 PM
Reply to: Message 3269 by caffeine
08-29-2019 1:37 PM


Re: Representation of immigrants
Part of the problem is that the utilization of the census data has expanded beyond the mandated counting for representation. Though I see merit in your complaints in that regard. The censuses have expanded to collect demographic data that's needed to understand the composition and needs of each region and community.
Actually, even the original model didn't really work strictly for the original purpose of representing electors (borrowing your usage for those able to cast a vote). Neither women nor children (arguably more than half the population) could vote, yet they were counted. Slaves most definitely could not vote, yet they were also counted at a 3:5 ration (a compromise for the slave states).
There's another wrinkle about residence requirements that I've glimpsed.
It is kind of common for US citizens to retire out-of-country in order to be able to stretch their pension dollars in an more forgiving economy. I've seen something similar in "house hunters" type shows where British retirees look to move to the Continent, as well as the classic "A Year in Provence". While travelling with my Mexican family in Mexico (shortly before they kicked me out), some of the local guides would point out where the US retirees were living. US citizens, so they should have voting rights but for where?
When I was serving on active duty, we had to declare a state of residence (it's been nearly three decades, so I forget the actual precise term). I don't remember the exact details, but I'm sure that I could get an absentee ballot for voting in California even though I was stationed in North Dakota; and I'm also pretty sure that my then-wife had to register and vote locally (she won't talk to me about anything at all, so I have no way to check that out).
Then I came across a statement of a requirement for Social Security recipients that if they leave the country for more than 60 days then they stop getting their benefits. I'm not sure just where I saw that.
Lots of weird twists and turn for ex-patriots, both long- and short-term. And this administration is pushing to make it all incredibly more weird.

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dwise1
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Posts: 5930
Joined: 05-02-2006
Member Rating: 5.8


(2)
Message 3272 of 4573 (861960)
08-29-2019 8:15 PM
Reply to: Message 3265 by Trump won
08-28-2019 11:10 PM


the vice president is a YEC, what a great time to be alive.
How could you ever figure that?
You are saying that the VP (known during his governorship of Indiana as "Mike Dense" -- kind of like how Rick Perry's governorship led to his predecessor, George W. Bush, being referred to as "the smart one") being so ignurunt of science as to be fooled by the false claims of YEC is supposed to be a good thing?
Well, here's a quote I have from a former governor of Mississippi (circa 1990) to justify his attempts at educational reform:
quote:
We've already tried ignurunce, so we know that it doesn't work!
I do not doubt that a lot of the anti-science pro-ignurunce pro-Christian-Nationalism BS coming out of this adminstration is coming from Mike Dense. Because Trump is little more than a conduit for the worst intentions of everybody around him.
... to having a president who courts the religious right ...
Yeah, because that's how he rolls. During the 2016 campaign, a woman at a rally expressed to him her concerns about what he was saying. He "reassured" her that he didn't mean anything that he said, but rather he was just saying what the crowd wanted to hear. That turned her into a Trump supporter, which baffles any normal. If a candidate told me that everything he said was a lie playing to elements that he's trying to mislead, for myself I would have run away from that cluster-fuck immediately.
Trump has his own goals (self-aggrandizement and ego-stroking (short strokes, from what we've heard) and profiteering with copious servings of corruption) and cares nothing about anything else.
... and a VP who is a born again YEC.
Really?
First, aren't you a Catholic? Sorry if I got that wrong, but I'll continue this thought based on the initial assumption. Keep in mind that I'm speaking from the perspective of USA fundamentalism.
Basically, fundamentalist Christians hate all other Christians, especially Catholics (just review some of forum member Faith's undiluted vitriol against Catholics (search on variations of "RCC"), as being not only wrong but as fighting on the wrong side (ie, Satan's side). I've spoken with a young woman from such a sect and while fundamentalism appears homogenous to normals viewing it from the outside, on the inside it is a ... fur-ball (think of old cartoons where two cats or a cat and a dog start to fight). As a normal, I just cannot keep up with such minutiae, so I'll just call all of them "fundamentalists". Even if you just happen to be Catholic and holding to fundamentalist beliefs.
 
So then, you're a YEC? What do you base that on? Nothing other than your misunderstanding of Scripture and Doctrine?
Or do you claim to have scientific evidence that the earth is no older than 10,000 years?
If you claim to have such evidence, then do please present it.
I started studying "creation science" around 1981. To date, I have yet to encounter any evidence for "creation science", let alone the narrower question of the age of the earth.
If you possess any evidence that the earth is young, then do please present it.
Edited by dwise1, : Having to correct for farking stiupid censorship within a quote, you farking iceholes!

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dwise1
Member
Posts: 5930
Joined: 05-02-2006
Member Rating: 5.8


(1)
Message 3276 of 4573 (862069)
08-31-2019 3:23 AM
Reply to: Message 3275 by Chiroptera
08-30-2019 7:49 PM


Re: Trump wants to kill the furrin kids
Well, those are actual children, not fetuses. Don't expect conservatives to care.
Years ago, I heard an atheist group point out that they are the true pro-lifers since they believe in life after birth and before death, whereas the "true Christian" faux "pro-lifers" only believe in life before birth and after death.
And we are seeing that difference in action more and more, day after day.

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dwise1
Member
Posts: 5930
Joined: 05-02-2006
Member Rating: 5.8


(1)
Message 3285 of 4573 (862549)
09-06-2019 12:49 PM


Another Way Putin Benefits from Trump's Wall
You should find this segment of last night's Rachel Maddow Show interesting:
Basically, Obama responded to Putin's invasion of the Ukraine with four measures:
  1. Imposing sanctions on Russia and Russians. One of Trump's first acts as President was to remove those sanctions, but Congress (yes, the GOP-controlled Congress) overwhelmingly voted against Trump's actions such that it was veto-proof.
  2. Russia was expelled from the G-8, making it now the G-7. And we recently saw Trump at the G-7 meeting single-mindedly lobbying to let Russia join them again -- the other members just listened politely and then conducted business without Trump.
  3. $1 billion aid to the Ukraine, including military aid. Last week, Trump asked that this program be reviewed. As long as the review lasts, the money cannot be spent and there's a time-limit on these funds such that if they are not spent by the end of September 2019, then they expire and will go away and will never be spent. IOW, this is a sneaky way to cut off aid to the Ukraine.
  4. The European Reassurance Initiative (ERI), called at other times the European Deterrence Initiative (EDI). These are military programs intended to demonstrate our solidarity with our European allies that "we have their back" as they need to stand up against Russian aggression. $1 billion was allotted to fund the ERI and EDI. This is the crux of this message and has everything to do with Trump's Wall.
So we see that Trump is working hard for Putin's benefit. But what does this have to do with the Wall? This part starts at around 6:45.
Last week, Trump had the DoD transfer $3.6 billion away from military projects to fund the building of the Wall. The press has been paying a lot of attention to the direct impact that this will have on our troops at home and the detrimental effects this will have on our military readiness. In the midst of that, there are usually a few words mentioning that some of the projects affected are overseas.
Well, when you look at the list of projects affected you see that over 25 of those overseas projects being cut are part of the ERI and EDI. Basically, Trump is using this back-door move to eliminate that last measure against Russian aggression.
So Trump is not only stealing funding from the military in a move to bypass Congress' power of the purse, but he is also benefiting Putin by weakening our deterrence against Russian aggression in Europe and betraying our allies.
And what's getting attention? Trump's violation of federal law by issuing false weather warnings and falsifying official weather maps, AKA "SharpieGate". Whenever Trump does something really stiupid, consider it a diversion and that you need to look at the real harm that he is doing.

  
dwise1
Member
Posts: 5930
Joined: 05-02-2006
Member Rating: 5.8


Message 3323 of 4573 (863436)
09-25-2019 8:33 PM
Reply to: Message 3319 by Theodoric
09-25-2019 3:35 PM


Re: It's even more damning than expected
Last night (Tues, 24 Sep 2019) on MSNBC, the official in charge of such things in the Obama Administration described the process -- as I recall, he was in charge of the Situation Room. Of course, he could only describe the process he ran and he does not know how Trump is doing it.
First, no recording of the actual conversation. That went out with Nixon "for some odd reason". You have a small team (from the intelligence community, as I seem to recall) listening in and taking copious notes about what's being said. Then they compare notes and write it up together -- or else each does an individual transcript and then they compare transcripts and notes and arrive at a consensus of a final draft, which the team leader reviews. Eventually, they come up with the final transcript, which is not verbatim but which they all agree conveys what was said.
What's done under Trump is unknown. Previous presidents had a historian who maintained a transcript of every conversation the President had. One of the first positions that Trump got rid of was the historian, saying that he would depend on video and audio recordings for that. How that's working is anybody's guess.
ABE:
That individual would be Larry Pfeifer, former Chief of Staff, CIA, talking about NSC staff working in creating the transcripts when he was in the Obama Administration. Right now, he's on the west coast feed of The Last Word with Laurence O'Donnell, MSNBC. I would assume that interviews with Pfeifer will show up on YouTube at some point.
Edited by dwise1, : ABE

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dwise1
Member
Posts: 5930
Joined: 05-02-2006
Member Rating: 5.8


Message 3356 of 4573 (863807)
09-30-2019 4:59 PM
Reply to: Message 3354 by JonF
09-30-2019 4:15 PM


"Doing so is a violation of federal law."
So what's the violation of one more federal law to Trump? He's run out of room for any more notches on his belt (and he does have a very long belt).
Speaking of which, does anybody know the status on getting Trump's tax returns and loan documents from Deutsche Bank?
Edited by dwise1, : "Speaking of which" The mind is after all much quicker than the typing fingers.

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dwise1
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Posts: 5930
Joined: 05-02-2006
Member Rating: 5.8


(1)
Message 3373 of 4573 (864201)
10-07-2019 6:19 PM
Reply to: Message 3372 by RAZD
10-07-2019 5:07 PM


Re: Rolled?
Throws (Christian) Kurds to the wolves.
Correction: "Throws (Christian) Kurds to the (Muslim) wolves."

This message is a reply to:
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dwise1
Member
Posts: 5930
Joined: 05-02-2006
Member Rating: 5.8


(1)
Message 3419 of 4573 (864411)
10-11-2019 9:00 AM
Reply to: Message 3418 by Percy
10-11-2019 7:40 AM


Re: Abiy Ahmed Wins Nobel Peace Prize
  • This space intentionally left blank for an upcoming inevitable misdeed.
  • This space intentionally left blank for an upcoming inevitable misdeed.
  • This space intentionally left blank for an upcoming inevitable misdeed.
  • ...etc...
One thing you can hand to Trump is that he never just sits back and rest on his laurels.
He continually strives to come up with ever more egregious misdeeds, each one even worse than the last.
Edited by dwise1, : Minor grammatical correction

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dwise1
Member
Posts: 5930
Joined: 05-02-2006
Member Rating: 5.8


(1)
Message 3446 of 4573 (864484)
10-11-2019 7:48 PM
Reply to: Message 3445 by 14174dm
10-11-2019 5:25 PM


Re: Abiy Ahmed Wins Nobel Peace Prize
Sorry, but you are understating your case.
He campaign on having a health care plan that covered more people with better coverage at less cost than Obamacare?
A plan, like his other plans, that he would not describe until after you had voted him in. And even then he has not presented any plan. Kind of like his promise to release his taxes after having been elected and has never done; as we see, he is desperate to keep anyone from ever seeing his tax returns.
I noticed that as part of his campaign for reelection was getting started he promised a wonderful new health care plan which he won't describe to us until after he's been reelected. Haven't heard him repeat that same old lie again, so someone must have warned him that we would see through his lie this time.
His tax cut would go to the middle class & not the wealthy?
And to add insult to injury, he went to celebrate it at Mar-A-Lago where his opening line to his rich friends was boasting of how much richer he had just made them all.
And he has tried to promise big tax cuts for the middle class since then, but just how big and how it would work has to wait until we reelect him.
He promised that Mexico would fund the wall construction, not the US. He is building a wall by stripping funding from other needed projects.
Part of that diverted funding from the defense budget came from about 25 defense projects in Europe that are part of the European Reassurance Initiative and European Deterrence Initiative programs where went into place in response to the Russian invasion of the Ukraine and for the purpose of strengthening Europe's defense against Russian incursions. So Trump not only robs those needed programs for his wall, but he also weakens NATO in order to benefit Russia; who says that Trump cannot multitask?
With TRILLION dollar deficits and skyrocketing total debt on top of lack of investment in infrastructure, education, and research, our economy will stagger along with massive cuts to both Medicare and Social Security.
Using the trillion-dollar deficit as a excuse for cutting Medicare and Social Security is a vicious lie on so many levels. Such cuts could never possibly have any effect on the deficit.
First, both programs are funded by special dedicated payroll taxes that are only used for those programs, plus insurance premiums paid by recipients for Medicare Part B (Parts C and D are private medical insurance). The deficit is from the underfunding of the general fund, which has nothing to do with the funding of these two programs. Cutting them will have zero effect on the deficit.
Second, so many of the "entitlement" programs that Trump's administration and GOP congress insist must be cut because of the deficit account for such small parts of the budget that eliminating them would accomplish nothing for the deficit, kind of like trying to save the Titanic by bailing it out with a single bucket. It turns out that more than half the budget goes to defense with huge chunks of that going to contractors and enormous appropriation projects. A lot of substantial and effective cuts could be made to the defense budget with affecting military readiness. For that matter, in diverting funding from defense for his stinkin' wall, Trump didn't take away any money from the contractors or appropriations programs, but rather directly from the military and our service members, thus reducing military readiness.
We need to review this Robert Reich video again, "Where Your Tax Dollars Really Go":

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 Message 3445 by 14174dm, posted 10-11-2019 5:25 PM 14174dm has not replied

  
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