Politics & Stuff

[Sir Mikel OBE 4,920]

Wrong thread

Edited August 25 by Sir Mikel OBE

[robsblubot 3,508]

The information in https://www.cnn.com/2024/08/25/politics/mcmaster-trump-book-account/index.html matches a lot other reports on his behavior in the White House--in short what you see is exactly what you get behind doors.

Quote

n his blistering, insightful account of his time in the Trump White House, McMaster describes meetings in the Oval Office as “exercises in competitive sycophancy” during which Trump’s advisers would flatter the president by saying stuff like, “Your instincts are always right” or, “No one has ever been treated so badly by the press.” Meanwhile, Trump would say “outlandish” things like, “Why don’t we just bomb the drugs?” in Mexico or, “Why don’t we take out the whole North Korean Army during one of their parades?”

 

[KEVINAA 101]

RUSSIA'S OWN 911 TOWER BUILDING EXPLOSION BY DRONE.

 

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The Fact Checkers

[KEVINAA 101]

More bad luck with Boeing planes

 

 

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[cosmicway 1,326]

HITLER AND ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE
------------------------------------------
You live in a dystopian or utopian state -as you like- and the fuhrer is Adolph Hitler.
He has been resurrected thanks to a new magical DNA process.
But we are also in the advanced age of computers and technological miracles.
All the reich's ministries are equipped with artificial intelligence machines performing various tasks.
One day Hitler thikns he should lower the taxes across Germany.
He says "we must fulfill the promises of the national socialist revolution to the agrarian population".
But the AI disagrees. It says "fuhrer you gone bonkers ? we should double the taxes and crush the agrarian population".
Hitler has a luger in his belt. He can shoot and kill the artificial intelligence if he wants to, like he used to do with his generals.
But the AI is just a piece of furniture in a corner. No sense in shooting it.
Who will win the argument ?
Fuhrer and the agrarian population pay less taxes or the artificial intelligence ?
My money is on the artificial intelligence.

Edited August 28 by cosmicway

[YorkshireBlue 3,122]

On 25/08/2024 at 13:01, Vesper said:

 

The word misogynist should be banned from society ever being able to use that word again. 

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6 hours ago, YorkshireBlue said:

The word misogynist should be banned from society ever being able to use that word again. 

Absolutely not. Misogyny and oppression based off it runs riot on a global basis.

[YorkshireBlue 3,122]

6 hours ago, Vesper said:

Absolutely not. Misogyny and oppression based off it runs riot on a global basis.

It’s a word that’s used by so many people that don’t even know what it means, it’s now the go to word because it’s the “in” word.

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1 hour ago, YorkshireBlue said:

It’s a word that’s used by so many people that don’t even know what it means, it’s now the go to word because it’s the “in” word.

When I use it I do so in an entirely proper fashion.

[YorkshireBlue 3,122]

21 minutes ago, Vesper said:

When I use it I do so in an entirely proper fashion.

Shame that can’t be said about 90% of the people that use it.

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16 minutes ago, YorkshireBlue said:

Shame that can’t be said about 90% of the people that use it.

It is not that high a percentage of misuse.

99% of the time it is applied to Trump, for instance, it is a factual claim.

Trump is a brutal, public (and in private as well) misogynist, one who has a decades long history of it, especially when it come to women of colour, and even more so when it come to black women in particular (it is then called misogynoir).

 

Of course, millions of his POS supporters heed the call of their master's voice and feel empowered to let their misogyny flow freely as well.

 

[YorkshireBlue 3,122]

3 hours ago, Vesper said:

It is not that high a percentage of misuse.

99% of the time it is applied to Trump, for instance, it is a factual claim.

Trump is a brutal, public (and in private as well) misogynist, one who has a decades long history of it, especially when it come to women of colour, and even more so when it come to black women in particular (it is then called misogynoir).

 

Of course, millions of his POS supporters heed the call of their master's voice and feel empowered to let their misogyny flow freely as well.

 

Trumps just one extreme example, i am talking the misuse in normal everyday people, you get called a misogynist these days because you won’t buy a random slapper a drink in a bar.

Edited August 29 by YorkshireBlue

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Does capitalism make ‘non-playable characters’ of us all? An uncanny exploration

 

https://aeon.co/videos/does-capitalism-make-non-playable-characters-of-us-all-an-uncanny-exploration

‘There will never be enough nails in the wood.’

The ‘pseudo-Marxist’ Austrian art collective Total Refusal creates short films with visuals generated entirely from within popular video games. In Hardly Working, they train their focus on just a few of the hundreds of non-playable characters who populate the background in the western action-adventure game Red Dead Redemption 2 (2018). These often-seen, rarely scrutinised carpenters, laundresses, stable boys and street sweepers occupy a circular, uncanny reality centred on the repetitive tasks that hardly make a mark on the world around them. At first dryly humorous, the proceedings grow disquieting as the narrator prods the viewer to consider the ‘infinite loop of labour performance’ of life within a capitalist system.

Directors: Susanna Flock, Robin Klengel, Leonhard Müllner, Michael Stumpf

Website: Total Refusal

 

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Vance tells Harris to ‘go to hell’ for cemetery criticism she didn’t give

Trump and his allies are known to flout political norms, but the crass language Vance used to criticize a political opponent Wednesday is particularly unusual in modern politics.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2024/08/29/vance-trump-comments-attacks-harris/

Republican vice-presidential nominee JD Vance said at a campaign event on Wednesday that he thinks Vice President Kamala Harris “can go to hell,” adding to the increasingly personal attacks former president Donald Trump’s campaign has lodged against the Democratic presidential nominee in recent days.

A reporter at the campaign event asked Vance about an altercation involving Trump campaign staff that took place at Arlington National Cemetery, which the former president visited Monday to mark the third anniversary of the Islamic State bombing that killed 13 U.S. service members during the evacuation from Afghanistan.

Federal law prohibits election-related activities at military cemeteries and as The Washington Post previously reported, a cemetery employee tried to enforce the rules as provided to her by blocking Trump’s team from bringing cameras to the graves of U.S. service members killed in recent years, according to a senior defense official and another person briefed on the incident. A larger male campaign aide insisted the camera was allowed and pushed past the cemetery employee.

Vance said at his campaign stop in Erie, Pa., on Wednesday that the press was “creating a story where I really don’t think that there is one.” He said the family members of fallen service members in attendance “invited [Trump] to be there and to support them.” But the Ohio senator, a military veteran, then used the question to tie the Biden administration’s handling of the withdrawal to the Democratic presidential candidate.

“Kamala Harris is disgraceful. We’re going to talk about a story out of those 13 brave, innocent Americans who lost their lives? It’s that Kamala Harris is so asleep at the wheel that she won’t even do an investigation into what happened,” he asserted, though there have been extensive federal investigations into the Abbey Gate bombing.

 

Vance accused Harris of criticizing Trump’s visit to the cemetery, saying: “And she wants to yell at Donald Trump because he showed up? She can — she can go to hell.”

Harris, who began a two-day bus tour in Georgia on Wednesday, did not bring up the issue on the campaign trail. In an interview with CNN that aired earlier Wednesday — before Vance’s campaign events — Harris campaign spokesperson Michael Tyler said the cemetery incident was “pretty sad” but “not surprising coming from the Trump team.” The Harris campaign did not immediately respond to The Post’s request for comment about Vance’s comments about the Democratic nominee.

Trump and his allies have been known to push past the boundaries of political norms during the former president’s nearly decade-long political career. But the type of crass language Vance used to condemn a political opponent Wednesday is particularly unusual in modern politics.

Defense officials said the confrontation occurred when an Arlington National Cemetery staff member warned people employed by the Trump campaign that while they were permitted to take photos and videos in the cemetery, they could not do so in Section 60, the final resting place for many U.S. service members killed in recent conflicts.

Trump campaign spokesman Steven Cheung responded to the first report of the altercation, from NPR on Tuesday, by baselessly accusing the employee of “suffering from a mental health episode.” Defense officials said the employee was trying to do her job and the claim of a mental health episode was false. On Wednesday, Cheung said the employee “initiated physical contact that was unwarranted and unnecessary.”

Cheung also said the campaign would release footage to support his claim, but it has not. The Trump campaign on Wednesday posted a video to TikTok that was recorded at the cemetery; in it, Trump is seen at the Tomb of the Unknowns and walking among marble headstones as soft guitar music plays and the former president’s words are heard criticizing the Biden administration’s handling of the withdrawal.

Vance’s harsh language Wednesday came hours after Trump went on a posting spree, sharing increasingly conspiratorial and sometimes vulgar posts on his Truth Social profile aimed at Harris and his political opponents.

Trump shared another user’s post with an image of 2016 Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton and Harris, amplifying a vulgar joke about a sex act — an apparent reference to the Monica Lewinsky scandal and Harris’s short-lived romantic relationship with former San Francisco mayor Willie Brown. Another repost showed an AI image of his political opponents — including Harris — in prison. One image called for military tribunals aimed at former president Barack Obama. He also reshared other users’ three QAnon-related images and posts, including an image depicting Trump holding a “Q+” symbol.

QAnon is a baseless conspiracy theory that imagines Trump in a battle with a cabal of deep-state saboteurs who worship Satan and traffic children for sex. Its devotees shared their claims in online conservative forums during much of Trump’s presidency, and the radical ideology has been credited for helping fan the flames of extremism that led to the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol.

Trump’s reshares on social media came on the heels of special counsel Jack Smith’s filing of an updated indictment against Trump. Trump faces the same four charges related to his alleged attempts to overturn Joe Biden’s 2020 election victory.

Many of the posts Trump shared were related to the case — including one that superimposed red eyes and horns over Smith’s face and another saying Smith should be prosecuted.

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Trump campaign and Arlington Cemetery staff clash at event

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/ckgwnn11x18o

A wreath-laying ceremony at Arlington National Cemetery turned contentious when former President Donald Trump's campaign staff got into an "altercation" with cemetery staff over filming at the burial site for military members.

Cemetery officials publicly offered few details, beyond saying "there was an incident" and a "report was filed".

The incident occurred when a Trump staffer attempted to film in a restricted area and a cemetery employee tried to stop them.

The Trump campaign denied the allegations and said it received permission from families of fallen service members to film. But federal law prohibits political campaign activity at military cemeteries.

Trump was at the memorial to honour the 13 US military service members who were killed during the US withdrawal from Afghanistan three years ago Monday.

An unnamed source told NPR that Trump staffers were attempting to film and photograph a section of the cemetery where the recent US casualties are buried.

Federal law restricts recording there. Trump staffers were told beforehand that they could not photograph or film that part of the grounds, cemetery officials said.

When the cemetery employee tried to stop the campaign from entering that section, campaign staff verbally abused and pushed the official aside, the unnamed source told NPR.

Defence officials told CBS, the BBC's US news partner, that some Trump campaign staff were unprofessional and both verbally and physically aggressive towards the cemetery official.

Steven Cheung, a Trump spokesperson, disputed that there was a physical altercation and said the campaign was prepared to release video to confirm its account.

The campaign did share some footage of the visit on social media on Tuesday, but the alleged altercation was not included.

In his statement, Mr Cheung said: "The fact is that a private photographer was permitted on the premises and for whatever reason an unnamed individual, clearly suffering from a mental health episode, decided to physically block members of President Trump's team during a very solemn ceremony."

Arlington National Cemetery said it would not release further information or the identity of the worker involved in order to protect the person.

The employee has declined to press charges over the matter, US media report. They feared retribution from Trump's supporters, according to the New York Times.

Questions over the filming

In a post on Truth Social, Trump shared a statement from family members of the fallen soldiers honoured at the event, expressing their approval.

“We had given our approval for President Trump’s official videographer and photographer to attend the event, ensuring these sacred moments of remembrance were respectfully captured and so we can cherish these memories forever,” the families said in Trump's post.

But that goes against federal policy, an Arlington National Cemetery spokesperson told the BBC.

US law prohibits political campaign or election-related activities on the grounds of military cemeteries, including photographers, content creators or anyone directly supporting a partisan political candidate's campaign, the cemetery spokesperson said.

Utah Governor Spencer Cox, who is running for re-election, also attended the ceremony and posted a photo on X of himself with Trump and the family of Staff Sgt Darin Hoover, of Utah, who was killed during the withdrawal.

But he later came under fire for using the photo in a campaign email, forcing an apology post via X on Wednesday that acknowledged it should not have been sent: "This was not a campaign event and was never intended to be used by the campaign."

Sgt Hoover's grave is next to that of Master Sgt Andrew Marckesano, who died by suicide after six tours in Afghanistan in 2020.

Sgt Marckesano's sister said that despite her family's support for the Hoover family, Trump campaign staff "did not adhere to the rules that were set in place for this visit".

She urged visitors to remember that those buried there were "real people" who should be "honoured and respected".

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Call It What It Is — Trumpflation

https://washingtonspectator.org/call-it-what-it-is-trumpflation/

Sharply rising prices in 2022 and 2023 made “Bidenflation” a Republican talking point. Inflation, Republicans claimed, was due to a 2021 Democratic spending bill that gave substantial money to people while the US economy suffered the effects of Covid. As this money was spent, prices rose.

Reality repudiates this Republican fiction. Presidents have limited control over prices charged by firms. The main responsibility for controlling inflation has fallen to central banks. If anyone is to blame for our recent inflation, it should be Jay Powell, Trump’s appointee to lead the Federal Reserve.

A simple test also shows that the Democratic spending bill did not cause high inflation. In 2021 few nations provided people with considerable additional money. If Republicans are right, inflation should have been much higher in the US than other developed nations.

US inflation was 8% in 2022. In Canada, Denmark, Germany, New Zealand, and the UK, inflation ranged from 6.8% to 7.9%. On the other hand, Belgium Italy, the Netherlands, Spain and Sweden had inflation rates of between 8% and 10%. In these nations, and in others, inflation rose from around 2% to around 8% (plus or minus a little). By early 2024, inflation rates had fallen from 8% to around 3% in these countries — within striking distance of the 2% target set by most central banks.

Clearly inflation was a global phenomenon. It was not due to misguided US policy. Supply-chain problems in 2022, which largely ended by late 2023, were mainly to blame. The Democratic spending bill didn’t cause inflation; but it did keep US unemployment low compared to other developed nations (see “A Tale of Two Policies” in the March-April 2024 Washington Spectator). Rather than Bidenflation, we have in fact had Bidengrowth.

Nonetheless, we could have done better battling inflation. Our failure to do so however was not Joe Biden’s fault. Despite its limited power, the Biden administration’s targeted policies helped restrain inflation.

President Biden released oil from the US strategic petroleum reserve and got other nations to follow suit, leading to lower gas prices. He called out the National Guard to help unload ships on the west coast when Covid reduced the supply of dockworkers able to unload boats. He lowered prescription drug prices by allowing imports from Canada and negotiated with big pharma to limit prices on drugs sold in the US (including insulin).

Even more telling, President Trump had signed a bill in 2017 allowing hearing aids to be sold over-the-counter rather than through a doctor (which cost around $5,000). Most experts agreed a doctor visit was unnecessary. The Trump administration though then failed to issue rules to make this cheaper option available to millions of Americans. It was left to the Biden administration to make this happen.

Spending on these goods and services, however, constitutes a small part of what people buy and cut inflation by only a few tenths of a percentage point. The big picture concerning inflation is that since the 1990s, foreign goods and immigration kept US inflation low. The Trump administration sought to restrict both, thus opening the door to higher inflation in the US.

Fewer foreign goods deprives consumers of low-priced goods, reduces competition, and increases inflation. So does a reduced labor supply resulting from immigration restrictions. Inflation remained low during the Trump administration because the economy was not really booming, there were no massive supply-chain problems pushing up prices, and the Trump administration was relatively ineffective in keeping out foreign goods and immigrants. When economies began to reopen following the Covid pandemic, a labor shortage exacerbated by Covid pushed up wages as firms sought to hoard workers. In conjunction with supply-chain problems, these factors led to increased prices.

In fact, Trump’s policies were pushing up prices even before Covid. Trump imposed tariffs on Chinese goods, but also on goods from Canada, Mexico, India and the European Union. In contrast to nearly every economist, he believes that foreign firms pay this tax, just as he believes that Mexico paid for his “glorious wall.” In fact, the wall was not built because Mexico, understandably, wouldn’t pay for it, and Congress wouldn’t allocate the funds. Tariffs get added to the price of goods coming into the US just as sales taxes get added to the price of purchased goods. Consumers pay the tax and face higher inflation.

Consumers, of course, buy many things besides foreign-made goods. That’s why a 10% tariff doesn’t lead to 10% inflation, but something closer to 1 percentage point of additional inflation. The largest household expense by far is housing. Housing costs have risen more than just about anything else over the past half decade. Several Trump policies contributed to housing inflation.

When the housing bubble burst in 2008, housing construction tumbled in the US. That business sector shut down and construction workers found other employment or retired. The housing industry never really recovered. Nearly a decade later, when the supply of excess homes disappeared, there were not enough construction workers to build the new homes that people wanted. Trump’s immigration policies, which sought to keep foreign workers out of the US labor market, increased labor costs for constructing new homes and raised home prices as a result. Covid then made things much worse, as people sought larger homes and additional homes in more rural areas.

Climate change also contributes to housing inflation. Hot and humid weather makes it harder to labor outdoors. Lower worker productivity, in turn, increases labor costs and prices.

In addition, climate change directly increases prices (see “Will Inflation Crush the Biden Presidency” in the March-April 2022 Washington Spectator). The cost of home (and car) insurance rises with weather-related disasters, including torrential rain and wildfires. Warmer water hurts the fishing industry, increasing the price of fish; higher land temperatures reduce crop yields and increase food prices. Climate change also makes home building more expensive. Housing construction requires a substantial amount of lumber. With milder winters, trees don’t grow as strong, and the lumber needed to build homes becomes more expensive. Higher prices for new homes then push up the cost of used homes.

Remarkably, Trump refuses to believe that climate change is real. He complains about wind turbines killing birds and toilets that don’t flush. His main anti-inflation policy is “drill, baby, drill”. The fossil fuel consumption he promotes generates climate change and increases inflation. Housing has been a major casualty of this folly, with home prices now far greater than what middle-class Americans can afford.

Finally, the major Trump policy achievement, the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, also increased housing costs. Besides giving large tax breaks to large corporations and the rich, the bill increased the standard deduction, leading to a sharp drop in US households itemizing their deductions. Many households can no longer deduct mortgage interest on their tax returns. Further, the $10,000 limit on the SALT (state and local tax) deduction means that many middle-class homeowners cannot deduct all their property taxes. These changes increased the cost of owning a home and also sent more people into the rental market, thereby increasing rents.

Things look much worse for inflation if there is a second Trump Presidency, as 16 Nobel laureate economists recently warned. Trump wants to devalue the dollar, which would make all imported goods more expensive. He vows to increase tariffs further, and even suggested he might replace the income tax with higher tariffs, something that would require tariffs exceeding 100% just to keep government revenues from falling. More worrisome, Trump promised to rescind Biden’s policy to prohibit junk fees and to repeal the Affordable Care Act, which saves low- and middle-income households thousands of dollars a year on health insurance. And he plans to expand his 2017 tax cuts, even though this would push up the national debt and create the same demand-side inflationary forces Republicans blame on President Biden.

Tax cuts for corporations and the rich, as well as restrictions on immigration and imports, lead to higher US inflation. This is not Bidenflation. It is Trumpflation.

 

Steven Pressman is a part-time professor of economics at the New School for Social Research, professor emeritus of economics and finance at Monmouth University, and author of Fifty Major Economists (Routledge, 2013)