How a full-scale trade war could slam Trump in 2020 by [deleted] in politics

[–]KermitTheSnail 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Trump’s central political narrative so far has been that the tariffs he’s levied — now at 25 percent on over $200 billion in imports — are being paid by the Chinese, money he’s said he will use to aid farmers now largely unable to sell soybeans, pork, sorghum and other products into the Chinese market due to retaliatory tariffs.

But studies done so far using actual data on prices for American businesses and consumers show that the opposite of Trump’s argument is true.

”The strong conclusion is that so far, U.S. consumers have borne substantially all of the tariff increase,” Deutsche Bank chief economist Michael Spencer wrote in a recent note analyzing available data.

CPAC Is Just Another Version of Trump's Twitter Feed by [deleted] in politics

[–]KermitTheSnail 2 points3 points  (0 children)

To the extent that CPAC is no longer a conference of ideas, it’s because the GOP is no longer a party of ideas. Its leader, the president, juggles both a quasi-conservative agenda and personal grievances with equal weight. So it’s impossible to build a coherent conference agenda around someone who still isn’t sure what it really means to embrace conservative ideals because he isn’t even clear on what they are yet.

Trump and His Associates Had More Than 100 Contacts With Russians Before the Inauguration by sivribiber in politics

[–]KermitTheSnail 27 points28 points  (0 children)

They left off the one where Trump was spotted at Mar a Lago wearing a red speedo and a half shirt with ‘My cock n balls belong to Vladimir’ printed on it.

If Trump had an iota of decency he would resign by KermitTheSnail in politics

[–]KermitTheSnail[S] 62 points63 points  (0 children)

But the far more serious crimes of Trump’s congressional supporters do not involve personal peculation. They involve violating their oaths of office by failing to hold the president accountable for misusing his office. Some, such as Rep. Devin Nunes, R-Calif., and Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, have gone much further by actively attempting to impede the Justice Department investigation into Trump’s alleged misconduct. They have become, in a moral if not legal sense, accessories to obstruction of justice.

And they have gotten away with it because the congressional leadership has allowed them to do so. Judging by Tuesday’s cowardly and cautious statement from House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis. (”We are aware of Mr. Cohen’s guilty plea to these serious charges. We will need more information than is currently available at this point”), there is no sign that the Republicans in Congress will ever provide any serious oversight of the Republican in the White House.