Has U.S. Democracy Been Trumped?

[johnu]

No Jens Stoltenberg news lately?

 

NYT: no unnamed sources, no story

 

Very smart of Stoltenberg to praise a narcissist who is desperate for compliments and easily manipulated by praise from people in positions of authority like Putin and Kim Jung-un.

 

As far as no story about a NATO withdrawal,

 

Oh, those crazy Democrats and fake News making things up about Dennison...

 

But there's this from way back in July, 2018

 

Bipartisan Senate proposal unveiled to stop Trump from leaving NATO

 

Two senior GOP senators joined two Democrats on Thursday to propose a bill that would allow Congress to stop President Donald Trump from pulling out of NATO, the U.S.-European alliance that Trump has repeatedly criticized.

 

I'm sure people like Andrei is saying this is just like the bill that was proposed under Clinton or Obama, or any of the other presidents who served since NATO was formed. And they would be idiots because that would be a fantasy.

[y66]

$11 billion. That’s how much the five-week government shutdown cost the U.S. economy, with nearly a quarter of that total permanently lost, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office.

[y66]

From Elizabeth Warren Does Teddy Roosevelt by Paul Krugman at NYT:

 

America invented progressive taxation. And there was a time when leading American politicians were proud to proclaim their willingness to tax the wealthy, not just to raise revenue, but to limit excessive concentration of economic power.

 

“It is important,” said Theodore Roosevelt in 1906, “to grapple with the problems connected with the amassing of enormous fortunes” — some of them, he declared, “swollen beyond all healthy limits.”

 

Today we are once again living in an era of extraordinary wealth concentrated in the hands of a few people, with the net worth of the wealthiest 0.1 percent of Americans almost equal to that of the bottom 90 percent combined. And this concentration of wealth is growing; as Thomas Piketty famously argued in his book “Capital in the 21st Century,” we seem to be heading toward a society dominated by vast, often inherited fortunes.

 

So can today’s politicians rise to the challenge? Well, Elizabeth Warren has released an impressive proposal for taxing extreme wealth. And whether or not she herself becomes the Democratic nominee for president, it says good things about her party that something this smart and daring is even part of the discussion.

 

The Warren proposal would impose a 2 percent annual tax on an individual household’s net worth in excess of $50 million, and an additional 1 percent on wealth in excess of $1 billion. The proposal was released along with an analysis by Emmanuel Saez and Gabriel Zucman of Berkeley, two of the world’s leading experts on inequality.

 

Saez and Zucman found that this tax would affect only a small number of very wealthy people — around 75,000 households. But because these households are so wealthy, it would raise a lot of revenue, around $2.75 trillion over the next decade.

 

Make no mistake: This is a pretty radical plan.

 

I asked Saez how much it would raise the share of income (as opposed to wealth) that the economic elite pays in taxes. His estimate was that it would raise the average tax rate on the top 0.1 percent to 48 percent from 36 percent, and bring the average tax on the top 0.01 percent up to 57 percent. Those are high numbers, although they’re roughly comparable to average tax rates in the 1950s.

 

Would such a plan be feasible? Wouldn’t the rich just find ways around it? Saez and Zucman argue, based on evidence from Denmark and Sweden, both of which used to have significant wealth taxes, that it wouldn’t lead to large-scale evasion if the tax applied to all assets and was adequately enforced.

 

Wouldn’t it hurt incentives? Probably not much. Think about it: How much would entrepreneurs be deterred by the prospect that, if their big ideas pan out, they’d have to pay additional taxes on their second $50 million?

 

It’s true that the Warren plan would limit the ability of the already incredibly wealthy to make their fortunes even bigger, and pass them on to their heirs. But slowing or reversing our drift toward a society ruled by oligarchic dynasties is a feature, not a bug.

 

And I’ve been struck by the reactions of tax experts like Lily Batchelder and David Kamin; while they don’t necessarily endorse the Warren plan, they clearly see it as serious and worthy of consideration. It is, writes Kamin, “addressed at a real problem” and “goes big as it should.” Warren, says The Times, has been “nerding out”; well, the nerds are impressed.

 

But do ideas this bold stand a chance in 21st-century American politics? The usual suspects are, of course, already comparing Warren to Nicolás Maduro or even Joseph Stalin, despite her actually being more like Teddy Roosevelt or, for that matter, Dwight Eisenhower. More important, my sense is that a lot of conventional political wisdom still assumes that proposals to sharply raise taxes on the wealthy are too left-wing for American voters.

 

But public opinion surveys show overwhelming support for raising taxes on the rich. One recent poll even found that 45 percent of self-identified Republicans support Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s suggestion of a top rate of 70 percent.

 

By the way, polls also show overwhelming public support for increasing, not cutting, spending on Medicare and Social Security. Strange to say, however, we rarely hear politicians who demand “entitlement reform” dismissed as too right-wing to be taken seriously.

 

And it’s not just polls suggesting that a bold assault on economic inequality might be politically viable. Political scientists studying the behavior of billionaires find that while many of them push for lower taxes, they do so more or less in secret, presumably because they realize just how unpopular their position really is. This “stealth politics” is, by the way, one reason billionaires can seem much more liberal than they actually are — only the handful of liberals among them speak out in public.

 

The bottom line is that there may be far more scope for a bold progressive agenda than is dreamed of in most political punditry. And Elizabeth Warren has just taken an important step on that agenda, pushing her party to go big. Let’s hope her rivals — some of whom are also quite impressive — follow her lead.

[johnu]

Since Andrei apparently is a fanboy of Mission Impossible, I wonder if he is a fanboy of the Sicario movie? Dennison apparently gets a lot of his intelligence briefings by watching movies. :( :rolleyes: Wouldn't be the first White House person to take their marching orders from the works of fiction:

 

Dick Cheney Still Thinks He Was a Character on "24"

 

You may not remember, but there was a time when actual government officials talked about the television show 24 as though it were not absurd escapist entertainment, but a real representation of reality.

Rachel Maddow brought this up in her show.

 

WAS TRUMP’S PRAYER RUGS TWEET REALLY FROM ‘SICARIO 2’?

 

Did Trump unknowingly pull a plot point from Sicario: Day of the Soldado to bolster his administration’s fabricated narrative about Muslim terrorists infiltrating the United States across the southern border with Mexico?

Or that smugglers and migrants are using super cars and trucks to cross the border and outrun border agents?

 

What Are The 'Unbelievable' And 'Stronger' And 'Better' Vehicles Currently Assaulting Our Border?

 

Or that women are being kidnapped, taped and bound, and brought into the US

 

Trump claimed women were gagged with tape. Then Border Patrol tried to find some evidence.

 

Apparently also plot features from movies.

 

Question: Is it better that Dennison gets his intelligence briefings from fictional movies and TV action series, or from Fox Propaganda?

[kenberg]

From Elizabeth Warren Does Teddy Roosevelt by Paul Krugman at NYT:

 

 

 

I don't always appreciate Krugman but he is not my sworn enemy and in particular I like this piece. I like the TR quote "swollen beyond all healthy limits." I like the reference to social health rather than justice. Since there are things for the Ds to decide, I am going to say more.

Loretta Lynn has a song that begins "They say to have her hair done Liz flies all the way to France". Becky doesn't do that, nor do I, but neither of us cares if someone else does. This sort of extravagance is not the problem. The problem is that great wealth brings social and political power. And, if extreme, that's unhealthy. Assuming that a person made his/her fortune honestly, invented Google or Windows perhaps, or BBO(!), the justice of having great wealth is maybe debatable but it's hard to see it as a priori evil. Otoh I have no trouble at all believing that it is socially unhealthy for so much wealth to be so concentrated. (Relax Fred, I don't think you have reached the Sergei Brin wealth level yet.)

 

I think the distinction is important. "Injustice" suggests we view the wealthy as villains, as bad people. I don't. Some rich people are bad people, some aren't, same as with the rest of us. But the situation is unhealthy. Yes, that seems obvious, and I guess TR saw it the same way. Most people don't want to go through life filled with resentment, not toward the rich, not toward anyone. But dealing with an unhealthy distortion, yes.

[barmar]

I think the distinction is important. "Injustice" suggests we view the wealthy as villains, as bad people.

Indeed. Warren Buffett is not only one of the richest men in the world, from all I've seen he's also one of the most decent. He's a big philanthropist (along with Bill and Melinda Gates he created the Giving Pledge) and has complained that the tax policy that allows him to pay a lower tax rate than his secretary is wrong. Yes, he's shared his wealth with his children, but he also raised them with proper values.

 

And a century ago there was Henry Ford. He made sure that he paid his factory workers enough that they could afford to buy his cars. He understood that true economic growth comes from "trickle up", not "trickle down". Healthy working and middle classes buy lots of things, which keeps the economy humming and everyone benefits.

 

I don't know if I've seen it discussed explicitly, but I wonder if today's attitudes by many rich people has a racist component. Probably the majority of the poorest segment of the country are black and brown; policies that reduce income inequality also reduce racial inequality. OTOH, the richest people are mostly old white men. I'm not saying that they're all racist, but I wouldn't be surprised if most of the ones encouraging regressive fiscal and tax policies are.

[Winstonm]

WaPo tackles the new illegal immigration numbers from Individual-1:

 

The Pinocchio Test

Once again, we have an example of the president — who probably has access to more information than any other person on Earth — latching on to dubious numbers that he saw on television. Compounding this error, he apparently misunderstood one number, assuming “aliens” meant “illegal aliens,” and then tweeted it out to the nation as a new, unknown fact.

 

Given that immigration is supposed to be the central issue of his administration, there’s little excuse for such sloppy use of statistics. The president earns Four Pinocchios.

(my emphasis)

 

If there is a genuine problem that is emergent, one would not have to rely on fictionalized numbers from tv and fictional narratives from movies to make the argument.

[PassedOut]

Trump really tweets like a moron: Another winter, another Trump call for 'good old fashioned Global Warming'

 

On Sunday, Trump asserted on Twitter that the United States could use "a little of that good old fashioned Global Warming" after temperatures tumbled below freezing for an extended stretch.

 

@realDonaldTrump

Be careful and try staying in your house. Large parts of the Country are suffering from tremendous amounts of snow and near record setting cold. Amazing how big this system is. Wouldn’t be bad to have a little of that good old fashioned Global Warming right now!

 

This is hardly the first time Trump has tried to used chilly winter weather to dismiss global warming. It isn't even the first time he has tweeted something phrased just like this.

Now that the arctic has warmed to the point that the polar vortex wanders all around, we're going to see these extremes more and more. And these extremes will be coming back for a long time, now that we've failed to address the problem.

 

I realize that a number of folks who don't know better think the same way as Trump, but having a moron in the white house is causing a lot of damage.

[y66]

Mike Bloomberg on Twitter:

 

Today I announced I'll outline a plan for a Green New Deal, accelerating US transition to 100% clean energy. The 1st pillar will be investing in people & communities that powered our economy for decades. The econ benefits of a Green New Deal must reach every corner of the country

That's the smartest thing I've heard any politician say on this topic since Angela Merkel assured German auto and coal workers that "Changes are going to happen, but we are thinking of you first, and not of the CO2 emissions first." Not that it was enough, but a good start.

[Chas_P]

This seems right. Possible Stone has information, which if it were independently verifiable, could be useful but basically no one should trust anything he says. I vaguely recall some youngster from the '72 Nixon campaign who became (in)famous for dirty tricks. Stone turned 20 in August of 72 and was in the Nixon campaign, so I suppose he's the guy I heard of back then. Like Mozart, he started young.

 

Friday night on PBS Newshour Judy Woodruff was interviewing a former prosecutor who is now a defense lawyer and she asked what he would do if he were defending Stone.He said the first thing he would do would be to tell Stone to shut up. Beyond that, he had few ideas. Hope for a pardon seemed to be the best he had to offer.

 

The country is in deep stuff. I hope for the best.

 

I read today that Mueller sent in more men (clad in body armor and carrying loaded semi-automatic weapons) to arrest 66 year-old Roger Stone, indicted by Mueller for lying to Congress, than were sent in to attempt a rescue of Chris Stephens and other Americans when they were under siege by Islamic militants in Benghazi during the Obama Presidency with HRC as Secretary of State. If this is true I agree with you 100%. The country is in deep stuff and I too hope for the best.

[Winstonm]

I read today that Mueller sent in more men (clad in body armor and carrying loaded semi-automatic weapons) to arrest 66 year-old Roger Stone, indicted by Mueller for lying to Congress, than were sent in to attempt a rescue of Chris Stephens and other Americans when they were under siege by Islamic militants in Benghazi during the Obama Presidency with HRC as Secretary of State. If this is true I agree with you 100%. The country is in deep stuff and I too hope for the best.

 

That's awfully white of you. <_<

[kenberg]

I read today that Mueller sent in more men (clad in body armor and carrying loaded semi-automatic weapons) to arrest 66 year-old Roger Stone, indicted by Mueller for lying to Congress, than were sent in to attempt a rescue of Chris Stephens and other Americans when they were under siege by Islamic militants in Benghazi during the Obama Presidency with HRC as Secretary of State. If this is true I agree with you 100%. The country is in deep stuff and I too hope for the best.

 

I have no strong opinion, make that no opinion, comparing these two events. I am massively ignorant of the details of either. As a guess, Mueller secured an indictment, however that is done, and then informed the FBI, and then left the details of the arrest to them. I doubt that Mueller told the FBI how many agents they should use to make the arrest. I would assume the FBI agents are often/usually/always armed when they go to arrest someone on substantial multiple charges. Already I am doing a lot of guessing and assuming. I really don't know arrests at all. Isn't there a song like that?

 

 

As far as his age is concerned, 66 is a youngster. I don't own a gun, and I don't run as fast as I used to, but also I am not expecting the FBI to appear at my door either.

 

I rarely second guess such things. They could have sent in fewer agents, then maybe there would have been a tussle, maybe someone would have been shot, then people would say why didn't they send in enough agents to keep that from happening. If I take up a second career as an FBI agent I'll have opinions on how best to make an arrest.

Short answer: Surely nobody really cares how many agents were sent. Or at least I don't.

 

[johnu]

...

Fox Propaganda and Roger Stone sh*t deleted

...

You have no self control and are embarrassing yourself once again. As I said last month

Posted 2018-December-16, 22:48

View Postjohnu, on 2018-October-25, 20:20, said:

 

Apparently you have Dennison's disease and can't remember that you quit this forum. Or maybe you just don't have any integrity and your word means nothing. :rolleyes:

At least try to have some fake self respect. Just create a new username and pretend that you are a new poster. I can suggest a couple of names for you:

 

Chas_Miller

Chas_Barron

Chas_Dennison

and a new one, Chas_R_Stone

[Al_U_Card]

If I take up a second career as an FBI agent I'll have opinions on how best to make an arrest.

Short answer: Surely nobody really cares how many agents were sent. Or at least I don't.

Mueller surely wouldn't either....he never had anything to do with the FBI...

Besides, they sent 20 cops to arrest someone that snuck into the Texas theatre without paying, didn't they?

When intimidation is your best weapon, you are certainly hiding something about the veracity and value of your position.

[hrothgar]

I have no strong opinion, make that no opinion, comparing these two events. I am massively ignorant of the details of either. As a guess, Mueller secured an indictment, however that is done, and then informed the FBI, and then left the details of the arrest to them. I doubt that Mueller told the FBI how many agents they should use to make the arrest. I would assume the FBI agents are often/usually/always armed when they go to arrest someone on substantial multiple charges. Already I am doing a lot of guessing and assuming. I really don't know arrests at all. Isn't there a song like that?

 

 

As far as his age is concerned, 66 is a youngster. I don't own a gun, and I don't run as fast as I used to, but also I am not expecting the FBI to appear at my door either.

 

I rarely second guess such things. They could have sent in fewer agents, then maybe there would have been a tussle, maybe someone would have been shot, then people would say why didn't they send in enough agents to keep that from happening. If I take up a second career as an FBI agent I'll have opinions on how best to make an arrest.

Short answer: Surely nobody really cares how many agents were sent. Or at least I don't.

 

Fox and Friends has been making much about the fact that armed agents were sent in to arrest Stone and, as such, there's quite of lot of easy to find information about why the FBI choose to act in the way that it did...

 

1. The FBI sent agents rather than letting Stone surrender because they wanted to be able to seize property that the feared Stone would otherwise destroy. (Cell phones, computers, etc)

 

2. The FBI chose to send armed agents because the charges against Stone included threatening violence against Corsi.

 

All of this is completely standard practice by the FBI...

[Winstonm]

Charles_P...come on down! You're the next contestant on the exciting new game show: False Equivalency!

[andrei]

1. The FBI sent agents rather than letting Stone surrender because they wanted to be able to seize property that the feared Stone would otherwise destroy. (Cell phones, computers, etc)

 

Like HC did?

 

It was common knowledge he was under investigation, so if he needed to destroy some evidence it was already taken care of.

 

Like HC did.

 

2. The FBI chose to send armed agents because the charges against Stone included threatening violence against Corsi.

 

Is this for real?

 

 

All of this is completely standard practice by the FBI...

 

Sending tens of agents?

[hrothgar]

 

Is this for real?

 

Sending tens of agents?

 

FFS, do some basic reading before you gift us with your inane opinions...

 

https://www.lawfareblog.com/roger-stones-arrest-was-appropriate-not-heavy-handed

 

I do applaud your transparent attempts to ignore the fact that Stone was arrested, preferring instead to invent complaints about the manner in which he was arrested...

 

Not quite up to the earlier cry of "Benghazi", but at least its a different complaint.

[kenberg]

FFS, do some basic reading before you gift us with your inane opinions...

 

https://www.lawfareb...ot-heavy-handed

 

I do applaud your transparent attempts to ignore the fact that Stone was arrested, preferring instead to invent complaints about the manner in which he was arrested...

 

Not quite up to the earlier cry of "Benghazi", but at least its a different complaint.

 

 

The cited article makes for interesting reading, so thanks.

 

Not surprisingly, the arrest, and the manner of arrest, is explained. But my basic thinking was and is this: If I ever get arrested by the FBI, I really hope I can come up with something better than "Oh horrors, they sent too many agents to arrest 80 year old me". Why anyone would buy into this desperate attempt at distraction totally escapes me. Often I can understand a view even if I disagree.but this just seems nuts. Stone got indicted on multiple and serious federal charges stemming from an investigation of national and international importance. So we will debate how many agents should have been involved in making the arrest? This simply cannot be taken seriously.

 

Basically the article says that the FBI had good reasons for their choices. I'm not surprised, but even if the article said it seemed they used more agents than necessary this would not rattle me to the core. An indicted guy got arrested. He didn't like it. Well, I wouldn't like it if I got arrested by the FBI. Even if it was just one agent I wouldn't like it. So?

 

 

 

 

 

[johnu]

Mueller surely wouldn't either....he never had anything to do with the FBI...

Besides, they sent 20 cops to arrest someone that snuck into the Texas theatre without paying, didn't they?

When intimidation is your best weapon, you are certainly hiding something about the veracity and value of your position.

 

LOL. Stone has said he thought he was going to be indicted (and arrested) since at least May, 2018.

 

Roger Stone acknowledges he might be indicted

 

Maybe he could have avoided the FBI raid by self-arresting himself :lol: or taking a vacation to a country without an extradition treaty with the US. Stone seemed absolutely giddy with happiness after being taken into custody. Just looking at and listening to him, one might have thought that Mueller had dropped all charges against him. That was in sharp contrast to Dennison that same day announcing victory in ending the government shutdown. Dennison looked like his bone spurs were killing him and he had just been drafted into the military.

 

BTW, since you apparently don't know, government's intimidation factor against criminals is the threat of indictment and arrest (and ultimately punishment).

[Winstonm]

Bad news today for Jr. The Republicans named their House Intelligence Committee members so now the committee can meet and vote on sending transcripts of testimony to the Special Council's Office. Lying to Congress is a felony, as Stone and Cohen learned.

 

At the same time, the same Washington Grand Jury that indicted Stone is still in operation meaning there must be more indictments coming concerning contact with WikiLeaks and Assange.

[y66]

From Why Trump’s Tariffs Didn’t Help Create More Steel Jobs by Joe Deaux at Bloomberg:

 

Visiting the massive steel mill in Crawfordsville, Ind., operated by Nucor Corp., the largest American steelmaker, helps explain why the much-ballyhooed steel tariffs promoted by Donald Trump have so far been a bust for the steelworkers he successfully courted in his 2016 presidential bid. The Crawfordsville facility, set amid sprawling acres of farmland, looks like many other plants. But the 30-year-old factory has the ability to shrink or expand production at will, depending on demand by customers, while employing pretty much the same number of workers.

 

That flexibility is why, as the first year of Trump’s steel tariffs comes to a close, the U.S. industry’s biggest players are enjoying increasing demand and revenue but adding few of the jobs promised during the campaign. “They’re expanding production, demand is really strong in the country, and crude steel production will rise as imports remain low, but they’re not hiring much,” says Cicero Machado, a steel analyst at metals researcher Wood Mackenzie. The firm forecast that the number of U.S. steel jobs barely budged last year despite a bump in output from the tariffs.

[Chas_P]

That's awfully white of you. <_<

 

I appreciate your support Winnie. That's awfully white of you too and I thank you from the heart of my bottom.

[Chas_P]

Charles_P...come on down! You're the next contestant on the exciting new game show: False Equivalency!

 

Or Selective Persecution depending on one's point of view.

[Chas_P]

Fox and Friends has been making much about the fact that armed agents were sent in to arrest Stone and, as such, there's quite of lot of easy to find information about why the FBI choose to act in the way that it did...

 

1. The FBI sent agents rather than letting Stone surrender because they wanted to be able to seize property that the feared Stone would otherwise destroy. (Cell phones, computers, etc)

 

2. The FBI chose to send armed agents because the charges against Stone included threatening violence against Corsi.

 

All of this is completely standard practice by the FBI...

 

You may find this interesting.