[Thanos]

Latest American victims of ridiculous trade war launched by ridiculous idiot revealed - over 400 workers to lose jobs by Labour Day if Missouri nail manufacturer has to halt operations:

https://www.rawstory.com/2018/06/missou ... labor-day/

$1:

A spokesperson for a Missouri manufacturer of nails says President Donald Trump’s tariff on steel has cut orders by over 50 percent and may result in the business being shut down, putting close to 500 employees out of work.

According to MissouriNet, Mid Continent Nail Corporation in Poplar Bluff, which is the last major nail producer in the U.S. — has already laid off 60 temp workers and is making plans to lay off 200 permanent employees by the end on July in order to stay afloat. Should the business stay in a death spiral company officials warn they could close by Labor Day.

The report notes that Mid Continent is one of the largest employers in Butler County and eliminating the remaining 440 jobs, which pay an average of $12.50 an hour, would devastate one of the poorest counties in the state.

At issue is the fact that Mid Continent is owned by Mexico-based Deacero, which has been hit hard by a 25 percent tariff for importing steel to its own employees to turn into nails.

“Something would have to happen very fast, within days in order for us to know that things were going to improve. We’re hoping that this could get pushed through very quickly,” company spokesperson Elizabeth Heaton explained.

“There are only about 15 of these companies left and Mid Continent produces about 50% of the nails out of those 15,” she added.”If you could imagine, if it were to go out of business and that is of course worse case scenario, we want to do everything that we can to make sure that does not happen, that would be a huge blow to that segment of the industry. It’s a big deal, not just for Missouri and for the economy there, but for the whole industry.”

According to the spokesperson, company executives are seeking an audience with Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross to plead their case.

Tough luck, losers. You should have been born rich if you didn't want things like this to happen to you. MAGA cares not for collateral damage among the proles and klooges and lunchbuckets anyway.

[Jabberwalker]

BartSimpson BartSimpson:

Jabberwalker Jabberwalker:

"Fascism Deniers"

It's a new, Twentyfirst Century thing.

You're a fascist.

" and your little dog, too!"

[BartSimpson]

Okay, at least you're not a fascism denier!

[Thanos]

This will probably kick off a stampede of moderate GOP and other still-sensible conservatives to do the same thing - hold your nose and vote Democrat across the board in all the upcoming November midterm elections because Trump's abuse and illegal activities are corrosive to the founding principles of the nation. QUARANTINE DONALD TRUMP:

https://www.rawstory.com/2018/06/longti ... -november/

$1:

Conservative columnist George Will is hoping President Donald Trump’s horrifying zero-tolerance policy on the border that led to the separation of thousands of kids from their parents will be the last straw for many people planning to vote Republican in the 2018 midterms.

In a striking op-ed for the Washington Post, Will made his point directly in the headline: “Vote against the GOP this November.”

“The congressional Republican caucuses must be substantially reduced. So substantially that their remnants, reduced to minorities, will be stripped of the Constitution’s Article I powers that they have been too invertebrate to use against the current wielder of Article II powers,” he writes. “The Republican-controlled Congress, which waited for Trump to undo by unilateral decree the border folly they could have prevented by actually legislating, is an advertisement for the unimportance of Republican control.”

Trump’s malicious and incompetent border policies are just the beginning of Will’s problems with the Republican Party.

He rails against the Republicans’ refusal to curtail the president’s abuse of his congressionally granted tariff powers. He is equally scathing toward Stephen Miller and Corey Lewandowski, two of the most corrosive figures in Trump’s orbit.

“Meaningless noise is this administration’s appropriate libretto because, just as a magnet attracts iron filings, Trump attracts, and is attracted to, louts,” he writes.

He is almost equally disdainful of House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-WI): “Ryan traded his political soul for . . . a tax cut.”

Essentially, his argument boils down to this. The president is out of control, and Congress currently provides no check on his powers. To those who oppose the legislative agenda Democratic majorities would pursue, Will points out that they would hold little power to accomplish much of anything without the presidency or supermajority control of the Senate.

“So, to vote against his party’s cowering congressional caucuses is to affirm the nation’s honor while quarantining him,” he writes. “And to those who say, ‘But the judges, the judges!’ the answer is: Article III institutions are not more important than those of Articles I and II combined.”

[martin14]

Thanos Thanos:

$1:

Conservative columnist George Will

Nope.

$1:

On May 8, 2017, Will was announced as an MSNBC and NBC News political contributor, a paid position in which he is expected to provide regular political input on shows such as Today, Morning Joe, and The 11th Hour.[3]

So he has flipped to the Democrats.

[BRAH]

_____________

The Hypocritical, Tolerant Left.

[Thanos]

a place to stay, enough to eat
somewhere old heroes shuffle safely down the street
where you can speak out loud about your doubts and fears
and, what's more, no one ever disappears
you never hear their standard issue kicking down your door
you can relax on both sides of the tracks
and maniacs don't blow holes in people by remote control
where everyone has recourse to the law
and no one hurts the children anymore
no one hurts the children anymore....

this dream is driving me insane

[BeaverFever]

...a list of Trump’s lies from the past week, or as Bart would put it “not once has anybody ever pointed to a single thing he’s said that’s untrue”

$1:

Trump, again and again, describes a world detached from reality

Trump Twitter
Jaap Arriens | NurPhoto | Getty Images
This week repeated a striking, if familiar, pattern: President Trump described a world detached from reality.

On Twitter, at the White House, and on the campaign trail, Trump did more than get facts wrong. Over and over, he painted fundamentally false portraits of people and events to flatter himself, discredit predecessors and rivals, and promote his political objectives.

Some highlights:

Monday

At 6 a.m., Trump sought to contrast his immigration policies with Germany's, tweeting crime "is way up" there. German government data show crime at a 25-year-low.

Two hours later, in the wake of a Justice Department report criticizing former FBI director James Comey, Trump called special counsel Robert Mueller "Comey's best friend." No evidence suggests that is true.

To make his economic stewardship sound more impressive, Trump said he has cut more regulation than the US president who served 16 years. No US president has served 16 years.

"The whole world is looking up to the U.S.," he declared, making the country "respected again." Gallup reports that the worldwide image of U.S. leadership is weaker than at any point under presidents George W. Bush or Barack Obama.

Tuesday

Justifying his tariffs, Trump said the US suffers a trade deficit with Canada. U.S. government data shows the opposite.

Citing a newspaper report, Trump said Canadians smuggle shoes from the U.S. to avoid import tariffs. Neither Canada nor the U.S. imposes tariffs on shoes made in the other country.

Trump called himself the first president since Ronald Reagan to achieve a major tax cut. Bush did it twice.

Trump claimed credit for adding 3.4-million jobs since Election Day 2016 – which "nobody would have believed" back then. Since 4.1 million jobs were created in the previous 19 months, the claim makes no sense.

Wednesday

Recounting a meeting with House Republicans, Trump tweeted that "they applauded and laughed loudly" when he demeaned Rep. Mark Sanford, a Trump critic who lost his seat in a primary. GOP lawmakers called the assertion untrue.

Trump falsely said Obama admitted he lacked legal authority for the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program even as he implemented. He falsely said wages for US workers had begun rising for the first time in 20 years; they rose during the latter years of Obama's term.

At his packed rally in Duluth, Minnesota, Trump tweeted, at least 10,000 people were turned away. The mayor of Duluth said 2,000 people were turned away.

Thursday

After the Supreme Court allowed states to impose some new online sales taxes, Trump called it a "great victory for consumers." It was not; consumers will pay more.

Justifying his assault on trade agreements, Trump asserted that "nobody ever looked at trade deals" over the previous 25-30 years. Administrations of both parties continually negotiated new trade terms during that time.

Touting the document he and Kim Jong Un signed at their summit, Trump declared, "If people actually read it to the public, you'd see: number one statement, we will immediately begin total denuclearization of North Korea."

The document includes no such commitment. It observes "mutual confidence building can promote the denuclearization of the Korean peninsula."

Friday

Throughout the week, Trump justified border policies separating immigrant children from their parents. Without his tough approach, the president said, millions of illegal immigrants would pour into the U.S. and unleash a crime wave.

He invoked the horrors of MS-13 gang members, boasting his administration was deporting them "by the thousands." He closed the week alongside survivors of people killed by illegal immigrants.

That painted a false picture. Illegal immigration across the southern border has been declining for more than a decade. Illegal immigrants, studies show, commit fewer crimes than native-born Americans. MS-13 has roughly 10,000 US members, and authorities told Politifact roughly 1,200 were arrested between Oct. 2016 and the end of 2017.

The president's aides and critics have offered multiple explanations for his misstatements.

He's new to politics, unconventional and sometimes ill-informed. He exaggerates for salesmanship and negotiation – as Trump himself has acknowledged. He is, as GOP Sen. Ted Cruz once charged, a "pathological liar."

Tony Schwartz, who got to know Trump as co-author of their 1987 best-seller Art of the Deal, offers a different explanation. He says narcissism warps Trump's perception of reality about himself and others.

"Every move he makes is a response to this distorted inner world he lives in," Schwartz told me. That condition, he warns, is "getting progressively worse."

https://www.cnbc.com/2018/06/22/preside ... ality.html

[DrCaleb]

BartSimpson BartSimpson:

DrCaleb DrCaleb:

So, let's review.

This a plaque posted at the American Holocaust museum:



Discuss.

1. Powerful and continuing nationalism is not uniquely a facet of fascism. It is a necessary component of any sovereign nation. The reason it is on this list is because nationalism necessarily interferes with the goals of the globalist socialists.

"Powerful" is the key. Xenophobia might be a symptom, for example; tearing up all the agreements a country once made around the world in order to withdraw and regroup within it's own borders.

BartSimpson BartSimpson:

2. Disdain for human rights is also not unique to fascism. Plenty of 'progressive' countries these days hold basic human rights such as property rights, freedom of speech, freedom of conscience, and self defense in contempt.

It's not unique, but it is a symptom. Freedom from unlawful search and seizure. Freedom from being surveilled* by the State. (* I love using words that my browsers dictionary think are wrong ) Freedom from unnecessary prosecution. Freedom to be a minority and not being shot by police. All of these are going on right now in the U.S.

BartSimpson BartSimpson:

3. Identification of enemies as a unifying cause? If so then all of the people on this site who endlessly demonize people they disagree with are fascists.

That's not what it's saying. It means that a Fascist entity tends to use an outside or minority group as a 'cause' for all the troubles it sees in society and uses that to create a socially acceptable 'pogrom' against that group. This unifies people around the group that will 'protect' them from the outsiders.

In Germany, the Nazis used the Jews, Communists, intellectuals to this end. In the U.S right now, how often do you hear the terms "liberal", "progressive", "socialist", "immigrant", "globalist" in a negative way? How often do you use them that way?

I'm not implying you are fascist, nor is history repeating itself. I'm just pointing out the 'rhymes' to the various 'lyrics' given by the sign at the Holocaust Museum.

BartSimpson BartSimpson:

4. Supremacy of the military? Nope. Plenty of military dictatorships have existed that were not fascist and even in Germany the military was not supreme, it was the Nazi Party and its secret police and politically aligned paramilitaries who held the actual military in check.

None so far have injected the Military into sporting events, where they weren't even involved. Even the President has equated 'taking a knee' with disrespect for the Military, when that was never the point of the protest. Why inject "the Military" into the discussion, if the Military isn't seen as a powerful way to end the protest?

BartSimpson BartSimpson:

5. Rampant sexism. Well, the sexism that occurs today comes in the form of bias against men in many professions and educational opportunities but that still has nothing to do with actual fascism.

How many times have you, and other conservatives, pointed out how the current generation is becoming less 'manly' and more 'feminine'? How about the President admitting to his sexism, without admonishment from his base?

BartSimpson BartSimpson:

6. Controlled mass media. Like the EU is implementing? Like the UK does? Like what people keep calling for in the USA in order to silence dissent on the internet?

Two words: "Fake News". This is how the US administration is controlling the message. They call anything they don't like 'Fake News', without providing any details about how it's fake; while issuing their own 'news' based on inaccuracies and complete falsehoods.

BartSimpson BartSimpson:

7. Obsession with national security. Every country should to some degree or another have an obsession with national security. Waiting for the enemy to pillage your cities before this becomes important is...well...French.

Do other countries arrest people and hold them for two weeks for running on a beach? Do other countries take children away from parents, deport the parents and keep the children because they forgot who belongs with who? Does every country intercept diplomatic aircraft and force them to land because they think Edward Snowdon is on board?

Every country may be concerned about national security, but the US has taken it up a notch.

BartSimpson BartSimpson:

8. Religion and government intertwined. Again, this is not unique to fascist governments.

Not unique, but always present.

BartSimpson BartSimpson:

9. Corporate power protected. Utterly untrue. Fascism by definition is the notion that large corporations should serve the state and this means that the government either directly operates these large enterprises or else that it has a day-to-day direct influence on operations, products that are manufactured, and these governments also tend to prohibit trade unions that interfere in the government's control of these corporations.

10. Labor power suppressed. Yup...see above.

No, Fascism is the notion that large corporations are the State, that Corporations and the State have the same goals in mind and that their interests are aligned. Therefore the State should be beholden to the corporations, over the citizens.

Ask yourself, why the US always insists on it's copyright and patent laws be the new standard in any trade deal it makes? Why are the US's interests in Trade always superior to that of the country they trade with? Why is the US using it's economic advantage to bully countries into accepting it's laws in this regard as part of any trade deal?

BartSimpson BartSimpson:

11. Disdain for intellectuals and the arts. That should read as a selective disdain for intellectuals and the arts. And it is not a facet of fascism but instead recurs in many authoritarian systems such as the communist systems of the past century. This disdain also presents itself in our most liberal colleges as conservative speakers are shouted down and sometimes prohibited from speaking and challenging the intellectual monocultures of those institutions.

Look at what you wrote there. You chided the Communists for what they did, then did the exact same thing to liberals. Free speech that you despise is the only true free speech.

BartSimpson BartSimpson:

12. Obsession with crime and punishment. This is not unique to fascist governments and to a great degree modern day liberal governments are more obsessed with crime and punishment but mostly they focus on 'crimes' that challenge the authority and supremacy of the state as opposed to common crime such as robbery, rape, and illegal immigration.

[citation needed]

BartSimpson BartSimpson:

13. Rampant cronyism and corruption. Where is this NOT a problem?????

Places that have limits on political donations by individuals and outright bans on political donations by corporations.

BartSimpson BartSimpson:

14. Fraudulent elections. I guess the entire world is fascist.

Nope. Some of us vote using unhackable and verifiable paper ballots.

[Thanos]

More American jobs to be lost to MAGA's stupidity:

http://calgaryherald.com/transportation ... oplay=true

$1:

President Donald Trump’s trade war with the European Union is undermining Harley-Davidson Inc., a manufacturer he embraced soon after taking office, by costing the company as much as US$100 million a year and spurring a shift in motorcycle production out of the U.S.

The EU’s tariffs retaliating against Trump’s steel and aluminum levies will cost Harley about US$2,200 per bike shipped to Europe, according to a Monday filing. Passing that on to dealers or customers would cause an “immediate and lasting detrimental impact” on the company’s business in its second-largest market, so it’ll bear the brunt of the expense.

While Trump has repeatedly claimed that the U.S. can win trade wars, victims are starting to pile up at home and abroad. Daimler AG warned last week that escalating tension between the U.S. and China will impair earnings its Alabama SUV plant and lower profit this year. Harley tied its higher costs to a sequence started by Trump, who praised the company as a model American manufacturer during a February 2017 meeting at the White House.

“A company that is as connected to America, and Americana, as Harley is probably going to be laying off U.S. workers in favor of foreign workers and going to be losing money as a result of this,” James Hardiman, an equity research analyst with Wedbush Securities, said by phone from New York. “There’s a lot of irony here, to put it mildly.”

Harley didn’t specify which international plants will boost output for EU markets. The company operates manufacturing facilities in Brazil, India and Australia, and is beginning production in Thailand this year.

“We are currently assessing the potential impact on our U.S. facilities,” Michael Pflughoeft, a company spokesman, said in an email. “We are hopeful the U.S. and EU governments will continue to work together to reach an agreement on trade issues and rescind these tariffs.”

Harley estimated facing US$30 million to US$45 million in costs linked to the tariffs for the remainder of 2018. Analysts project the company will earn about US$591 million this year on US$5 billion of revenue.

Harley estimated that ramping up output in international plants for the EU may take at least nine to 18 months. While the company said it’s committed to making motorcycles in the U.S., it suggested it has no other choice but to move production from its home market. The company sold almost 40,000 bikes in Europe last year, and the continent’s share of total deliveries was the highest since 2011.

“Increasing international production to alleviate the EU tariff burden is not the company’s preference, but represents the only sustainable option to make its motorcycles accessible to customers in the EU and maintain a viable business in Europe,” the company said in the filing.

The irony of it all is just so poetic. Why, no one could have every predicted anything like this would ever happen.

[DrCaleb]

New images show 'rapid' upgrades at North Korea nuclear site, says watch group

[DrCaleb]

‘What the hell does that mean?’ Trump criticizes Canada, then says he doesn’t understand what he just read

[BartSimpson]

DrCaleb DrCaleb:

New images show 'rapid' upgrades at North Korea nuclear site, says watch group

Well, now if Trump orders an airstrike against DPRK nuclear assets then no one can accuse him of not first going the extra distance to seek peace.

But like your article implied, the Singapore summit was about setting the stage for negotiations. Nothing's actually been agreed to just yet.

[DrCaleb]

BartSimpson BartSimpson:

But like your article implied, the Singapore summit was about setting the stage for negotiations. Nothing's actually been agreed to just yet.

Quite so. But you also have to ask; if he's planning on dismantling it, why work all those people to death improving it?

[Coach85]

BartSimpson BartSimpson:

DrCaleb DrCaleb:

New images show 'rapid' upgrades at North Korea nuclear site, says watch group

Well, now if Trump orders an airstrike against DPRK nuclear assets then no one can accuse him of not first going the extra distance to seek peace.

But like your article implied, the Singapore summit was about setting the stage for negotiations. Nothing's actually been agreed to just yet.

Quite the change of tune, Bart.

We were sold that this was an epic accomplishment. The deal was done. No more nukes from NK.

Did DJT lie to you and us?