At the risk of stating the obvious, the July 2019 US Politics Thread is horse-sh*t

A person with $250 in net assets has 25 as much times wealth as a person with +$10 in net assets.

A person with $250 in net assets has __ as much times wealth as a person with negative $10 in net assets.

So the comparison is not especially meaningful.

Translation courtesy of Google (tm):

Because the peasants always live hand to mouth, have zero savings, do not even own the miserable huts in which they live, and owe more on their remaining possessions than they would be worth if sold, it becomes necessary to lump them in with a considerable number of middle class people with modest wealth, before their "negative wealth" is sufficiently offset to be able to compare the resulting aggregate with the ultra super rich, who control most of the nation's wealth.

if u say so Yam

That’s right, The Trump Foundation gave away 100% plus, with Zero rent or expenses charged, and has been being sued by Cuomo and New York State for years - another part of the political Witch Hunt. Just in case anyone is interested - Clinton Foundation never even looked at!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 1, 2019

In a court filing, Ted Cruz says the rule that he can withdraw only $250,000 from his campaign is like telling “Rosa Parks [to sit] in the back of the bus.” pic.twitter.com/NeFwGf3511

— Adav Noti (@AdavNoti) July 1, 2019

that WaPo "fact checker" previously said Bernie was being misleading when he said that millions of Americans had to work extra jobs to make a living, because there are only 8 million Americans working more than one job and that's just 5% of the workforce so who cares, right?

sounds like their fact checker is as rigorous as the White House's

can't believe these fine patriots turned out to be horrible people

https://splinternews.com/members-of-secret-border-patrol-facebook-group-mocked-d-1836015342

U.S. Border Patrol Chief Carla Provost called the Facebook posts “completely inappropriate” and said any employees found to have violated CBP’s Standards of Conduct would be “held accountable.”

Belching during the sermon is "inappropriate". Giving an employee a poor mark in their annual review is "holding them accountable". Those Facebook posts were blatantly racist garbage aimed at the very people they wield power over, and should result in their immediate firing.

And flogging

Just in case anyone is interested

noooooope

“It’ll be like no other. I’m going to say a few words and we’re going to have planes going overhead, the best fighter jets in the world, and other planes, too. And we’re going to have some tanks stationed outside. You’ve got to be pretty careful with the tanks, because the roads have a tendency not to like to carry heavy tanks. So we have to put them in certain areas, but we have the brand new Sherman tanks and we have the brand new Abrams tanks.

“And we have some incredible equipment, military equipment on display — brand new. And we’re very proud of it. You know we’re making a lot of new tanks right now. we’re building a lot of new tanks in Lima, Ohio — our great tank factory that people wanted to close down until I got elected and I stopped it from being closed down, and now it’s a very productive facility and they do, it’s the greatest tank in the world.”

"The Best, Jerry--The Best!"

This was in fact the type of toilet we saw in the cell.

Except there was just one, and the sink portion was not functioning - @AyannaPressley smartly tried to open the faucet, and nothing came out.

So the women were told they could drink out of the bowl. https://t.co/rcu9Rt6B2x

— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) July 1, 2019

Boston's own

Rep. Ayanna Pressley: "I learned a long time ago that when change happens it's either because people see the light or they feel the fire.

"We're lifting up these stories in the hopes that you will see the light. And if you don't, we will bring the fire." https://t.co/nlBLDXa7Cs pic.twitter.com/98XCO5embR

— ABC News Politics (@ABCPolitics) July 1, 2019

This is some freaky sounding shit Trump and Tucker are talking...https://t.co/NTmtmXRViQ

— Jeffrey St. Clair (@JSCCounterPunch) July 2, 2019

“It’s a phenomena that started two years ago,” Trump said, drawing a connection between the beginning of this and the early days of his time in the White House. “It’s disgraceful.”

The numbers of homeless people in the United States has stayed relatively level in the three years between 2016 and 2018, ticking up from 550,000 to 553,000 last year. But these numbers represent a significant drop over the past decade. An average of 630,000 people experienced homelessness per year between 2007 and 2012, according to federal data. And an average of 580,000 people were homeless a year between 2012 and 2015.

The president went on at some length, painting a dark picture of life in some American cities without giving specifics for how he would address the issue.

“Police officers are getting sick just by walking the beat,” he claimed. “We cannot ruin our cities. And you have people that work in those cities. They work in office buildings and to get into the building, they have to walk through a scene that nobody would have believed possible three years ago."

“We have to take the people,” he said. “And we have to do something.”

so uhh he's claiming things have gotten worse with him in the white house?

he'd say he's not mayor

he’s like the worst guy on nextdoor

Heard "this is what he's best at, planning a show, he's a showman" on the news this morning. Ok, so shutting down Reagan International airport with military flyovers and threatening the structural integrity of the Lincoln memorial with "the latest" tanks from WWII is him at his best? Happy Birthday America.

i mean it probably is him at his best, or at least his most actively destructive - i'd much rather he spent all his energy on playing elaborate games with his military toys on home soil than building more concentration camps or glassing the middle east

his least actively destructive, i mean

At his best, this marketing genius calls an 80 year old tank the latest military technology, I mean, c'mon.

So this secret CBP FB group.

I just can't

no it's cool, the cbp have promised that 'any employees found to have violated our standards of conduct will be held accountable' so they'll probably suffer awful consequences up to and including paid leave

And being called "bad apples", the ignominy

weird how often people forget the 'spoils the whole bunch' part of that phrase huh

9,500 bad apples

and the rest of the CBP is prob just annoyed they weren't invited to the group

CPB looking like quite the accountable upstanding outfit with that and reports from members of Congress about the overall conditions and treatment from the officers on the border.

yeah but one of those members of congress used to be a bartender

good thing the senate are only approving an extra $4.59 billion for their efforts to humiliate, torture and murder asylum seekers

I have three people on FB who posted this idiot meme about how the border crisis is all the Dems fault because they won't approve more funds for toddler jail and man do I get heavy domestic violence "look what you MADE me do" vibes from it

these fucking monsters will whinge about how actually the camps were set up under obama or how the lack of toothbrushes or food or fresh water is down to budget problems all day every day and never think twice about actually changing things long past the point where the asylum seeker concentration camps have become overt death camps rather than the covert death camps they are now

good luck usa

Those apples gave me the shits for weeks, thank you mr grocer

I guess you can't expect better from the agency we send all our bastards, rapists and disgraced nobility

so apparently there are protests against the camps both today and Friday the 12th

WASHINGTON — President Trump’s re-election campaign and the Republican National Committee on Tuesday said they had raised $105 million in the second quarter of this year, dwarfing what President Barack Obama raised in the equivalent period during his re-election campaign.

The campaign and the R.N.C. said they had a combined $100 million in cash on hand, and that they had raised more money online in the second quarter than in the first half of 2018. The staggering total figure can be plowed into television and digital advertising, get-out-the-vote efforts and other activities related to the 2020 election.

Mr. Trump and his committees raised $54 million, they said, and the R.N.C. raised $51 million. The campaign officials did not say how many individual donors had contributed, or how many gave money in increments of $200 or less. The official report, which will include spending, will be filed with the Federal Election Commission on July 15.

a spectre is haunting the republican national committee

the tax cuts are working!

money laundering for everyone

I will restate that border patrol and ICE applicants that I did background checks for 3 years on were by far the worst category of people that needed security clearances. All seemed to not be able to maintain jobs and their ex-spouses/other parent of child(s) all tried to avoid me interviewing them.

I don't really understand what campaign $$ does for Trump. Everyone knows about him. Everyone either loathes him or worships him.

They just want people to know he raised more money than Obama.

don't they lay out an obscene amount for Facebook ads?

someday i would like to hear about all the jobs yerac has had

don't they lay out an obscene amount for Facebook ads? Russian Hackers

Fixed.

House Ways & Means Com'tee suing to get the taxes btw

raging against the NY AG this morning hmmmm

Fuck you i won't tweet what you tell me

Does trump call any caucasians racist or does he just reserve the term for other ethnicities?
Noticed that he used the term for both the members of the squad and Elijah Cummings.

In related news, I'm sure glad Ronnie wasn't a racist!

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/07/ronald-reagans-racist-conversation-richard-nixon/595102/

He used it in the anti-speciesist sense, amirite?

it is "funny" how the ppl who complain that "racist" is an overused description NEVER call any living white person racist

arguably there were some white racists in the past, but obviously trump would be fully aware of that and wouldn't, you know, choose one of them as his favorite president

https://i.imgur.com/rro9MEN.jpg

if, hypothetically speaking, there were a racist in the White House, who would it choose as its fav ex-President hmmm

if you can get some kind of mental distance from this administration, it's kind of beautiful:

Jared Kushner’s family real estate firm owns thousands of apartments and townhomes in the Baltimore area, and some have been criticized for the same kind of disrepair and neglect that the president has accused local leaders of failing to address. Residents have complained about mold, bedbugs, leaks and, yes, mice — plenty of mice. And they say management appears in no hurry to fix the problems.

https://www.apnews.com/3b82dd98c56f45d4a97170c3f758cb84

Well, naturally. The GOP plays an active role in creating/perpetuating the conditions they seek to denigrate.

I know, but the hypocrisy is so pure and unadorned sometimes there's a poetry to it

the gaslighting is constant. he only said that about Baltimore in order to draw attention to the awful conditions! He just wants to help! Every single person in Baltimore has personally called and thanked him!

"Not a lot of people know this, but Cal Ripkin said I work harder than he did. Much harder."

NEW: Two former top staffers to Mitch McConnell have lobbied Congress and Treasury on the development of a new Kentucky mill backed by Russian aluminum giant Rusal. McConnell's office won't say whether he's been lobbied by them directly.
w/@theodoricmeyer https://t.co/ENSRyXClqP

— Natasha Bertrand (@NatashaBertrand) July 31, 2019

so the plan is to just say moscow mitch until he legally changed his name to that right?

according to today's NYT story, the Moscow Mitch nickname is the first insult to get under his skin.

we have opened the Ark

fuck yeah, let it flow forth through their eyeballs

what's wrong with being racy

https://cathedral.org/have-we-no-decency-a-response-to-president-trump.html

nice

"no wonder the Fat Sleepy Washington National Cathedral is losing Members!!"

As faith leaders who serve at Washington National Cathedral ¬– the sacred space where America gathers at moments of national significance – we feel compelled to ask: After two years of President Trump’s words and actions, when will Americans have enough?

took them seven months to get around to posting their reply

We all figured that, given time, he would eventually become presidential. I mean, really, who's to say he still won't someday.

Just hope this isn't what presidential comes to mean.
Really the most venal, like.
KIng of the heap etc etc

tbf if the president does something over a long enough period, it's presidential

if the president does it, it’s not illegal presidential

Secretary Eeegad felt the need to address Baltimore

Housing Secretary Ben Carson, the sole African American Cabinet secretary, directly injected himself into President Donald Trump’s attacks on a black congressman, holding a press conference Wednesday in the Democrat’s district and comparing Baltimore to a cancer patient wearing a “nice suit.”

He said the city has serious problems, including buildings with mold, lead and rodent infestation, which can cause serious health problems in children.

“You know, it’s sort of like if you have a patient who has cancer,” Carson said of Baltimore. “You can dress them up and put a nice suit on them, and you can try to ignore it. But that cancer is going to have a devastating effect. You have to be willing to address that issue if you’re ever going to solve it.”

https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/ben-carson-injects-trumps-feud-dems-baltimore-press/story?id=64679253&cid=clicksource_4380645_null_hero_hed

The Department of Housing and Urban Development is the principal Federal agency responsible for programs concerned with the Nation's housing needs, fair housing opportunities, and improvement and development of the Nation's communities.

first Ben has heard this

I've been thinking lately, as I've noticed a slight but undeniable decline in general effort and quality of work product at my job over the last couple of years (and I handle a lot of stuff coming from across the country and outside of our company so I feel like my assessment is based upon a decent sample size), that one approach to those who are still on the fence (perhaps because they don't think Trump-qua-Trump is awful enough to justify voting for the other team) is to ask them to consider the effect that another four years of his influence may have upon those people in your life upon whom your cush existence depends and who are maybe right on the tipping point of saying 'y'know, what's the worst that could happen if, like Teflon Don, I just stop trying?' If the ill-effects of his existence on other communities do absolutely nothing to tug at the cavity where your heart should be, consider how personally inconvenienced you will be as people stop giving a shit en masse. Just as he's reshaping the presidency, so too is he reshaping the populace to some extent. A country filled with iterations of Trump-lite benefits precisely no one.

Good post.

https://www.ilxor.com/ILX/ThreadSelectedControllerServlet?boardid=40&threadid=109246