By Lambert Strether of Corrente.
TTP, TTIP, TISA
CETA: “Belgium’s Wallonia formally approves EU-Canada trade deal” [France24]. “‘The amended and corrected CETA is more just than the old CETA. It offers more guarantees and it is what I will defend,’ [Wallonia’s Socialist premier Paul Magnette] told a session…. ‘With this CETA, TTIP is dead and buried,’ Magnette said.'” I try never to project political narratives from the United States onto foreign countries I know little about. So it’s not clear to me whether this is Clintonian co-optation from a Socialist premier, under pressure from Marxists to his left, over an agreement that at best kicks the can down the road (see next link), or whether the Wallonian political class (see the link after next) has really gamed out the impact on TTIP, or something else entire. Wallonian readers?
CETA: “During a late night appearance on Belgian TV on Thursday, Magnette argued that the concessions Walloons secured in CETA will set a precedent for all future international treaties and, therefore, ‘it is clear that the TTIP is dead'” [New Europe]. Magnette: “We put two latches: the first says we never ratify the agreement if these conditions are not met; the second lock allows the Walloon Parliament to annually review the implementation of the agreement against socio economic and environmental criteria. If the evaluation is negative, the Parliament may request the suspension of the treaty.” This seems to be in addition to the European Court “opinion” described by the FT. And what “request” means is not clear. Who approves the request?
CETA: “The Walloons also asked, perhaps most significantly, for the European Court of Justice to test the legality of the court system in the deal through which foreign investors can sue governments. ‘If they want, [the Belgians] can request the ECJ opinion on anything in line with the established procedures,’ one diplomat told Morning Trade. ‘There’s no big deal here because it doesn’t really change anything'” [Politico].
CETA: “Unlike many European parliaments, the Walloon parliament was also one of the few that took time to study the 1600 pages long treaty and analyse its possible impacts” [EU Observer]. “The parliament held extensive debates and expert hearings over 18 months, raising concerns over negative impacts on public services, agriculture, food standards, and the EU’s precautionary principle. ”
CETA: “Wallonia’s mainstream political parties and the Socialists in particular are losing ground to populist fringe groups standing on an anti-free trade platform. Peoria, Illinois-based Caterpillar Inc., the biggest maker of construction and mining equipment, said in September that it may close its Gosselies factory in Wallonia, which would result in about 2,000 lost jobs” [Chicago Tribune]. “The Socialists are losing voters on a daily basis and they’re trying to get them back by saying ‘We’re the ones who will defend your interests, you workers, you unemployed, you middle class, against the EU and globalization,'” said Regis Dandoy, a political scientist at Wallonia’s University of Louvain.”
CETA: “According to the treaties of the EU, free trade agreements fall under the common EU commercial policy. This means that the European Commission has been conferred the competence to negotiate such agreements directly with the EU’s trade partners, under the supervision of the Council. With the entry into force of the Lisbon Treaty in 2009, the European Parliament gained the power to ratify or reject such treaties” [Euractiv]. “Yet, against the background of the Brexit, the member states managed to make the European Commission concede that CETA was not a classic trade agreement but a ‘mixed’ agreement, which falls under both national and EU competence. Hence, the deal required the approval of all national parliaments, as well as regional parliaments in certain federal states. This explains why, in Belgium, Wallonia was in a position to block the ratification process. From a democratic point of view, this return to national and sub-national parliamentary sovereignty could be welcomed. But the reality is not so simple. The narrow and arguably outdated conception of sovereignty in the European framework raises new democratic dilemmas. Should the Walloon parliament, representing 3.5 million people, be entitled to prevent a policy affecting 510 million Europeans?”
TISA: “From a U.S. perspective, one immediate consequence could be trouble surrounding the Trade in Services Agreement, which is slated to wrap up at a concluding ministerial on Dec. 5-6. A senior official involved in the TISA talks told Morning Trade last week that the Europeans declared the services deal would also be a so-called mixed agreement, which — among other outstanding issues — could hinder negotiators’ ability to cross the finish line this year” [Politico].
2016
Days until: 10.
Corruption
"Mixing of the speech fees, the Clinton foundation and actions by The State Dept which she ran are all intertwined. It's corrupt." Woodward pic.twitter.com/6Beb58FODI
— Pat the Berner✌❤? (@SilERabbit) October 27, 2016
Money
“The Clinton campaign raked in $101 million this month, pressing its cash advantage in the final stretch to election day” [Politico]. “Only about $18 million of the haul came in checks of less than $200.” Ka-ching.
Policy
“From the outset, I’ve argued that without a public option — a Medicare-like plan that would be available to all Americans buying health insurance — insurance competition would dwindle and premiums would skyrocket. Now that they have, it’s time to do now what we should have done then: take the simplest route to a more stable and affordable health care system.” [Jacob Hacker, New York Times]. “Critics of the public option are convinced it’s a one-way ticket to single payer (the government alone provides coverage). History suggests the opposite: The public option isn’t a threat to a system of broad coverage through competing private plans. Instead, it’s absolutely critical to making such a system work.” Notice the equivocation on “Medicare-like plan,” setting up exactly the same kind of bait and switch operation that career “progressives” and Hacker personally ran in 2009.
War Drums
“Political Airpower, Part I: Say No to the No-Fly Zone” [War on the Rocks].
The Voters
“This market barometer says Trump still has a chance at the White House” [MarketWatch]. “The slump [of the Mexican peso, a] key barometer of Trump’s chances represents ‘recognition that the election may be closer than polls suggest and growing fears U.S. political uncertainty may be on the rise,’ [Colin] Cieszynski says.”
Downballot
“‘There’s a danger the dike could break for Republicans,’ says Tim Storey, who analyzes politics for the National Conference of State Legislatures. He found that there has been a sea change in expectations on both sides since Oct. 7 when The Washington Post reported on the existence of the ‘Access Hollywood’ tapes… Republicans have become increasingly concerned that they could lose statehouse majorities in as many as 10 states, Storey said” [RealClearPolitics].
The Trail
“Clinton lead shrinks, even as nearly 6 in 10 expect her to win, Post-ABC tracking poll finds” [WaPo]. Only one poll, so FWIW. “Trump saw his biggest gains among political independents, favoring Trump by a 12-point margin in the latest tracking poll, 49 to 37 percent, after giving Clinton a narrow edge in late last week.” Now that’s volatile!
Funny:
Democrat Email Hairball
“Clinton campaign manager John Podesta apparently thinks Eric Garner’s death was justified” [Mic].
Erica Garner reacts:
I'm troubled by the revelation that you and this campaign actually discussed "using" Eric Garner … Why would you want to "use" my dad?
— officialERICA GARNER (@es_snipes) October 27, 2016
Check the responses…
And then this happened:
Clinton staff wanted to use #EricGarner in oped about gun violence. But he wasn't shot — as @es_snipes points out https://t.co/SBqDV4eXEm pic.twitter.com/SdIm8p2H4F
— Julia Craven (@juliacraven) October 28, 2016
Oopsie.
UPDATES Good heavens!
“FBI to take new ‘investigative steps’ on Clinton emails” [WaPo]. “The FBI will investigate whether additional classified material is contained in emails sent using Hillary Clinton’s private email server while she was secretary of state, FBI Director James B. Comey informed congressional leaders Friday. The announcement appears to restart the FBI’s probe of Clinton’s server, which previously ended in July with no charges…”
“New Emails in Clinton Case Came From Anthony Weiner’s Electronic Devices” [New York Times]. “Federal law enforcement officials said Friday that the new emails uncovered in the closed investigation into Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server were discovered after the F.B.I. seized electronic devices belonging to Huma Abedin, a top aide to Mrs. Clinton, and her husband, Anthony Weiner… The bureau told Congress on Friday that it had uncovered new emails related to the Clinton case — one federal official said they numbered in the thousands.” Then again, if Weiner runs true to form, classification won’t be an issue. But that most definitely does not mean Clinton’s home free.
Quite the Friday afternoon news dump. And not a good week for the Clinton campaign, despite the triumphalism.
Stats Watch
GDP, Q3 2016 (Advance Estimate): “The consumer and the nation’s exports are the headliners in third-quarter GDP which topped expectations at an annualized 2.9 percent. Personal consumption expenditures rose at a solid 2.1 percent annualized rate led by the all important durables component which surged at a 9.5 percent rate. Personal consumption was the largest contributor in the quarter, adding 1.5 percentage points to the quarter’s rate.” [Econoday]. “Another important positive in the report is a second straight quarter of improvement in what has been the long lagging business investment component. Contributing 0.2 percentage points to GDP, nonresidential fixed investment rose at a 1.2 percent rate on top of the second-quarter’s 1.0 percent rate.” But: “Yes of course, this is an improvement. But the consumer went limp [?], and GDP is gamed with inventory hocus-pocus and export-import adjustments. I am not a fan of quarter-over-quarter exaggerated method of measuring GDP – but my year-over-year preferred method showed moderate improvement from last quarter” [Econintersect]. And: “The Federal Reserve has been notably uneasy surrounding investment levels in the economy with a prolonged series of weak releases, although the second-quarter data was revised higher. The third-quarter data will offer some limited relief over investment trends” [Economic Calendar].
Consumer Sentiment, October 2016: “[W]eakened substantially” [Econoday]. “[I]t was one year further back, September 2014, that the expectations component, at 76.8 this month, was this weak. Weakness here points to lack of confidence in the jobs outlook.”
Employment Cost Index, Q3 2016: “Year-on-year, total costs held steady at a moderate plus 2.3 percent with wages & salaries dipping 1 tenth to 2.4 percent and benefits up 3 tenths to 2.3 percent” Econoday]. “This report, which isn’t raising any red flags, is closely watched by Federal Reserve policy makers who, given the strength of the labor market, are on the look out for early signs of wage-related inflation.”
Hotels: “On the one hand, plenty data from STR, HNN’s parent company, shows that things in the United States hotel industry are slowing down. Other the other hand, we have a report that September RevPAR was up 5.6%. And, yes, both are true” [Hotel News Notes]. “The great performance—this was the highest RevPAR growth this year—really reminded me of the better days we have seen in the past few up cycles. Of course, the results are not actually a sign of anything but a calendar shift of the Jewish holidays Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur out of September into October. So I would strongly caution against reading anything, good or bad, into these monthly numbers.”
Rail: “This week the one year rolling average did not worsen – but it remains in contraction” [Econintersect].
Rail: “Two [CSX] trains collided head-on on a stretch of track south of Philadelphia around 8:25 a.m. Friday, leaving four people injured, according to officials” (with classic photo) [NBC Philadelphia]. “It was not immediately clear what caused the trains to be on the same track.”
Shipping: “Shippers, Consignees, Exporters, Importers must take heed to the packing and container transport requirements at both ends of the supply chain” [Shipping and Freight Resource]. “[I]t is clear that in this case, no one considered or was aware of the road weight limitation at the [Point of Departure] or along the route to the final destination… There would have been 2 containers that doesn’t subscribe to the country’s road weight limitation loose on the road.. Such instances could even result in loss of lives. this is ONE OF THE MAIN REASONS a lot of the big importers employ the services of a local freight forwarder who are au fait with these transport and documentary requirements, rules, regulations etc etc in each of their countries.”
Shipping: “United Parcel Service Inc. is forecasting record holiday shipments after traffic surged in the third quarter, spurred by rising e-commerce in the U.S. and robust growth in Asia and Europe” [Wall Street Journal, “Package-delivery company expects record shipments during holiday season as it boosts capital spending, orders new Boeing jumbo jets”]. And: ” United Parcel Service Inc. is placing a big bet on growth in shipping demand” [Wall Street Journal]. “UPS is backing up its bullish outlook by buying 14 Boeing Co. 747-8 freighters, the company’s first aircraft order since 2008. The deal pushes UPS more deeply into jumbo-jet operations at a time when international shipping demand has been soft for many companies and populist anti-trade currents seem to present new barriers to global goods movement. The company is pressing lawmakers to support new trade agreements that are drawing scorn in the presidential campaign but would bring new freight volume for its new, bigger planes. In the meantime, UPS says cross-border e-commerce is surging six times faster than the broader economy, growth that helped the company show big gains across its business lines in the third quarter.”
Shipping: “The tale of two canals – game theory in action” [Splash 247]. Panama and Suez canals play tit-for-tat on infrastructure and pricing.
IT: “The latest data breach count from the Identity Theft Resource Center (ITRC) reports that there have been 809 data breaches recorded this year through October 25, 2016, and that nearly 30 million records have been exposed since the beginning of the year” [247 Wall Street]. ” The 809 data breaches reported so far for 2016 are nearly 22% above the number reported (666) for the same period last year.” Won’t be a problem when we go cashless, though.
IT: “Apple demolished by Microsoft at their respective PC events” [MarketWatch]. Among other minor changes, Apple introduced a programmable “Touch Bar” which replaced the row of function keys at the top of the keyboard — including the ESC key. Fortunately, there’s a solution. For only $69.95:
IT: “New MacBook Pro is not a Laptop for Developers Anymore” [DevTeamSpace Blog]. “[D]evelopers are drawn towards Apple products primarily for software reasons: the Unix-like operating system and the proprietary development ecosystem. But developers need to have a functional keyboard to make use of that software and now they don’t. Why Tim Cook, why?” And: “The 2016 MacBook Pro ships with RAM and processor specs that are nearly identical to the 2010 model. Deja vu?”
IT: “Apple, it seems, is angling for the ‘amateur creative’ and isn’t interested in anything else anymore. It wants the market that sits in coffee shops with its brand and only buys Apple, but doesn’t mind so much if the core demographic disappears. Maybe that’s OK — there’s probably good money in it — but it’s a real shame” [Medium]. Massive takedown, and fun to read.
The Bezzle: “A grown-up Airbnb now has to face regulation” and “New bill could further delay Airbnb IPO, strategist says” [MarketWatch]. “In a sense, recently passed New York regulations on Airbnb Inc. return it to its community roots of sharing homes. The regulation, signed into law Friday, levies a fine of up to $7,500 on advertising short-term rentals of less than 30 days. This means users can still list a room in their home, but cannot advertise entire apartments.”
The Bezzle: “Ruling finds U.K. Uber drivers are workers, not self-employed” [MarketWatch]. “The ruling by the London Central Tribunal will affect tens of thousands of drivers for the ride-sharing company, said law firm Leigh Day, which represented drivers from the GMB Union, in a statement. ‘This judgment acknowledges the central contribution that Uber’s drivers have made to Uber’s success by confirming that its drivers are not self-employed but that they work for Uber as part of the company’s business,’ the law firm said.”
The Bezzle: “Soylent halts sales of its powder as customers keep getting sick” [Los Angeles Times]. “Backed by more than $20 million in venture capital, Soylent has emerged as one of several popular start-ups hoping to change what and how people eat…. People looking for a quick fix, such as software programmers in Silicon Valley, have become devotees.”
Corruption: “The DOJ’s Pilot Program to encourage companies to self report bribery and cooperate with prosecutors doesn’t fix some problems with FCPA investigations and enforcement actions, [vice chair of Covington & Burling] Lanny Breuer said Wednesday” [FCPA Blog]. Lanny Breuer. That’s almost too rich. For readers who may not have savored this:
The Fed: “The next FOMC meeting is next week, on November 1st and 2nd and it seems very unlikely there will be a change in policy at this meeting” [Calculated Risk].
Today’s Fear & Greed Index: 39 Neutral (previous close: 46, Fear) [CNN]. One week ago: 43 (Neutral). (0 is Extreme Fear; 100 is Extreme Greed). Last updated Oct 28 at 11:23am. Big swing to fear!
Big Brother Is Watching You Watch
“Say goodbye to the fingerprint. It’s your digital footprint the FBI wants” [McClatchy].
Militia Watch
“Jury acquits Ammon Bundy, six others for standoff at Oregon wildlife refuge” [WaPo].
Gaia
“Almost exactly 20 years ago, President Bill Clinton signed into law a bill creating an interstate agreement for emergency management. That inconspicuous law has opened the door for the current flood of out-of-state law enforcement agents present at the continuing protests against the Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL) in North Dakota” [DeSmogBlog].
Class Warfare
“Uber unveiled the IDG in New York this spring in partnership with the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers (IAM), a union that has organized other black-car drivers” [Bloomberg]. “The IDG isn’t a traditional union. Drivers didn’t vote for it. It has no formal collective-bargaining rights…. The guild has helped bring Uber management to the table, says driver and IDG organizer Muhammad Barlas. “When they are more comfortable, it’s easier to try and negotiate with them,” he says. In return, the IDG won’t instigate strikes or try to get the government to treat drivers as employees with the right to unionize.” Novel theory.
“[N]ot all anticompetitive behavior shows up as monopoly—a seller that utilizes its dominant market position to raise prices to customers. Sometimes, it shows up as ‘monopsony,’ when a buyer uses its dominance to underpay suppliers, such as employees. The classic example is a town where most of the residents work for a single factory or mine. The lack of competition from other employers enables the factory or mine owner to pay workers less than otherwise” [Wall Street Journal, “How Noncompete Agreements Recreate the ‘Company Town'”]. “Actual company towns are dying off, but virtual company towns are on the rise as shifts in the labor market may have given companies more leverage over their workers. One such factor is the rise of the noncompete agreement.”
“Why do we hear so much about the racism of the white working class and so little about the racism of the ruling class?” [Stumbling and Mumbling].
News of the Wired
“The history of emoji” [Vice]. Wonderful, especially if your a fan of fonts, but also worrying: How sustainable is an iconic language? Will text gradually become a thing for the 10% only?
Readers, feel free to contact me with (a) links, and even better (b) sources I should curate regularly, and (c) to find out how to send me images of plants. Vegetables are fine! Fungi are deemed to be honorary plants! See the previous Water Cooler (with plant) here. And here’s today’s plant (Philip Pitha):
Philip writes: “Mulching the black raspberries with spent coffee grounds. Reusing the plastic bags the grounds come in, but I don’t think they’re recyclable.”
232 comments
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This may get overshadowed by the FBI’s reopened investigation of Hillary. But it shouldn’t:
All the Clintons learned from Bush v. Gore in 2000 was, “We need to steal more votes than they do.”
Did the FBI actually re-open the probe? Some reports, CBS seem to be saying they are they just thinking about it?
What the heck was the other investigation?
Some reports are saying it had nothing to do emails from Wikileaks.
Something else that has been ongoing.
Let’s see: Promoting the notion that it’s okay for one country to interfere with and influence a democratic election of another country. I need to see if I can figure out what the implications of this might be in a current context.
This is who she is. This is who they are.
#DownWithTheOligarchy
Wow, that’s a bombshell…no doubt media will ignore.
“no doubt media will ignore.”
You can count on it.
The famine in Yemen caused by our Saudi allies is receiving very little attention in the US, so I would expect our great American liberals to agree with Clinton that we have every right to rig the elections of furriners.
http://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/millions-starving-as-saudi-bombs-tear-yemen-apart-xdxb23cbb
I keep expecting that right after Clinton wins, the great humanitarian liberals will let out their outrage, suppressed up to this point because of the need to stop Trump. Just kidding.
Thank you for posting that. I had not seen anything about it. That is truly horrible.
This is extraordinarily forthright. No wonder why her aides ensure that all her interviews are scripted in advance.
Don’t miss the part where she seems to allude to the revenge-escalation of “these cultures.”
Quite. With that attitude is certainly does raise new (democratic) dilemmas.
To whom is the quote attributed?
Found it here..
Time for Bill Clinton to head back out to the ole tarmac. Comey is reopening the FBI email investigation!
Bribe was too small.
I expect to see some hard work….. finding FBI Agent spouses to run for office, appoint to think tanks and scam foundations so they can funnel some of that sweet, sweet repressive regime laundered money. A corrupt political party’s work is never done.
More like the white-wash didn’t take. Clinton needs another coat.
Does the House have to wait until after the November election to start impeachment proceedings?
Kennedy was absolutely right on this: Ask not what the House can do for you; ask what you can do for the House.
Stop Hillary on Nov. 8.
Do not risk a battle between Congress and a commander in chief with the Executive branch under her control.
We the Little People can do it!!!
No, as a former SoS (and Senator, for that matter) they can impeach her after she left office if it is connected to anything she did whilst she held the position.
Article II: “[H]e shall take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed.” I assume that would apply to all ongoing investigations.
Article IV: “”The President, Vice President and all civil Officers of the United States, shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for, and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors.” Fundamentally a political judgment about which there are many conflicting theories. In the case of the Clinton Dynasty, it’s interesting to note that it’s not stated whether the acts must have occurred while the President was in office, though that seems to have been the intent of the Framers. But imagine a President elected under false pretences because they successfully concealed a crime. Surely there’s a case for impeachment there? I don’t know.
Since the purpose of impeachment is removal from office, why would an impeachment take place if someone has left office? Nixon escaped impeachment precisely because he resigned,
I’m not saying that a present office holder can’t be impeached based on past behavior, just that you have to have a current position from which you can be impeached.
Can the FBI investigate itself as well?
“Let’s look into what happened the last time.”
I’m skeptical. Maybe this is just about throwing Huma under the bus and a pretext to restore FBI morale while diverting attention from the abundant evidence the FBI is sitting on which easily proves Clinton’s many crimes?
Surprising. I had assumed that we could have video footage of Hillary barbecueing babies and the FBI would just say “There was no intent! Nothing to see here folks, move along”.
K think that something along those lines is operative here. When I heard Trump in NH on npr saying how maybe ‘the system’ was not that bad….
Don’t want they losing side about to launch a revolution after all!
This is by Eichenwald, so take with salt… but it seams plausible.
http://www.newsweek.com/hillary-clinton-emails-fbi-comey-donald-trump-anthony-weiner-huma-abedin-514918
You never know though, they could find an email that Clinton bleach bit after Huma printed it.
See Greenwald on Eichenwald here; and this episode. I’d take the salt by the truckload; in other words, I’d regard the column as reflecting the views of ClintonLand.
https://mobile.twitter.com/DJTurboNips/status/792237372435894272
Tweet regarding Eichenwald made me chuckle.
It looks as though an “October surprise” is coming from an unexpected place–the FBI. There are numerous articles about this on the web now, but this one contains a decent analysis.
I’ve been saying something big would happen before Election Day, as it would be uncharacteristic of this crazy cycle to have a quiet home stretch. Kim Dotcom was claiming a couple of days ago that he has her emails and sent them on to Wikileaks and Gowdy.
But I’m unsure of how this FBI investigation plays out. Obviously, the FBI won’t release findings on the new emails for months. And, FBI is not Wikileaks, they don’t dump the emails for the public to review.
Something tells me this is Comey covering his (and FBI) ass. Perhaps he’s been made aware that an outside source, e.g., Wikileaks, has the emails and is going to release soon, so he’s trying to get ahead of it.
I have no doubt that her emails are out there somewhere, I’m certain the NSA has had them all along and has been using them for leverage. Any script kiddie could have hacked that joke of a server they were running in their closet, let alone the NSA.
The response is the investigation has nothing to do with WL or hacking. So yes, I’d go with it’s him trying to get out in front of what he knows is coming.
Putin has gotten to the Republican bureau director.
Krugman: “Comey needs to provide full info immediately..otherwise, it’s partisan.”
And did you see this?
http://finance.yahoo.com/chart/%5EDJI#eyJtdWx0aUNvbG9yTGluZSI6ZmFsc2UsImJvbGxpbmdlclVwcGVyQ29sb3IiOiIjZTIwMDgxIiwiYm9sbGluZ2VyTG93ZXJDb2xvciI6IiM5NTUyZmYiLCJtZmlMaW5lQ29sb3IiOiIjNDVlM2ZmIiwibWFjZERpdmVyZ2VuY2VDb2xvciI6IiNmZjdiMTIiLCJtYWNkTWFjZENvbG9yIjoiIzc4N2Q4MiIsIm1hY2RTaWduYWxDb2xvciI6IiMwMDAwMDAiLCJyc2lMaW5lQ29sb3IiOiIjZmZiNzAwIiwic3RvY2hLTGluZUNvbG9yIjoiI2ZmYjcwMCIsInN0b2NoRExpbmVDb2xvciI6IiM0NWUzZmYiLCJyYW5nZSI6IjFkIn0%3D
I’ll bet that Wall Street thought that Clinton’s e-mail scandals had already been baked in. They have recovered some, but that is one mighty jumpy graph.
If the FBI wanted to speed things up, they should have the HFT computers read Hillary’s e-mails.
a 2fer…flash crash assets back to reality! actually a 3fer…global citizens would thank us…hell a 4fer…remove the growing target off US !
Looking at it again, it looks like they have managed to quantify Hillary’s value in (to?) the markets; still looking shaky.
TisTis: Trump Hopes “Justice Will Finally Be Done” As FBI Reopens Probe Into Hillary Clinton Emails
JUSTICE WITHIN 2 WEEKS? i don’t think soooo Rats and roaches live by competition under the laws of supply and demand; it is the privilege of human beings to live under the laws of justice and mercy. ~Wendell Berry
AP tweet:
That takes Platte River Networks and Datto out of the picture.
So what are we talkin’ about here … some kinda whistle blower?
Kim Dotcom and the NSA dropped a dime on her?
Apparently it is from none other than , wait for it, Anthony Weiner.
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/29/us/politics/fbi-hillary-clinton-email.html?smid=tw-nytimes&smtyp=cur&_r=0
Agent Danger … you are being decommissioned.
The weiner that just keeps on giving.
i swear i saw today where the DOJ was giving a ‘speech’ about Whistleblowers…can’t find it. maybe i saw it yesterday…DOJ getting in front of this??
OOPS i saw it HERE AT THE COOLER…my apologies Lambert…i’m sleep deprived
Should Hillary be working on ‘due to stress and bad health, I am quitting’ speech?
From Nixon’s last speech:
Considering who her VP is, maybe the goal all along was for her to somehow crawl across the finish line then turn over all the evil doing to Kaine while she enjoys her lavish rewards in the nursing home.
That’s clearly the intention. I’m reading online that if she has to drop out any time before election day all the votes get thrown out and they have to do the election over with Bernie as the nominee of the Democratic Party.
Anybody know if that’s even technically accurate?
> “reading online”
Got a link?
No, it’s not. It would be up to the electors from each state. If someone (say Obama) asked them to vote for Bernie because Hillary dropped out they would most likely comply.
Sounds like an Able and Kaine story?
NYT: “the F.B.I. seized electronic devices belonging to Huma Abedin and her husband, Anthony Weiner.”
Ah ha … wouldn’t it be a hoot if the FBI’s probe of Carlos Danger sexting a 15-year-old turned up evidence that was right under their noses … if they’d only bothered to convene a grand jury and subpoena it.
Heads gonna roll.
Fortune teller Trump on Twitter, Aug 3rd:
Whoa that’s just spooky.
oh this Cat Fight will be over in Sugar Ray seconds!!!
this is fuckingunbelieveable…Huma knows ALLLLL
Trump relies on Russian astrologers, I think.
Remember in the debate (2?) when he forcasted a financial crash?
Trump: I call your pussy and raise you a Weiner!
Can you imagine the headline writers at the New York Post right now—-their heads must be exploding.
Check out the photo ménage à trois currently up at the Post.
Hillary Shafted by Weiner Device
For those who don’t look, it’s very 2016….
On your left is Abedin leaning her head away with a face palm. In the center is Weiner, shirtless, dopey wide eyed expression taking a selfie. On the right is Clinton, squinting with a hand up blocking the glare of the bright lights being shone on her.
hahahaha that’s brilliant! Great for a laugh on this dark and rainy Friday afternoon.
hahahaha. That’s the funniest thing I’ve read in a week.
craazyboy outdid the NY Post, whose cover luridly trumpets “Dickileaks” and “STROKING GUN” with the infamous Weiner selfie:
Wait a minute. Huma is still married to that guy?
Huma, what’s the matter with you? Got a touch of the Stockholm Syndrome?
i caught his documentary with her in it…found it strange myself that she’s still around…then a toddler waddled into the frame.
can’t help ponder they hadn’t planned this for awhile…
It seems reasonable to assume that all “power couples” are sham marriages for the salt-of-the-earth quaintsters. I have no idea how one might objectively rebut that conjecture regarding any particular case.
what if he attempted to send a 15 yr old a picture a selfie, and accidentally sent the detailed plans for attacking syria one week after the election.
I think the punishment was to be the ones to go through all of Weiner’s pictures.
If there is an email from Hillary, whether containing top secret info or not, which was pertinent to Clinton’s performance at State (and thus pertinent to the FBI inquiry,) but FBI never received it or recovered it, then that shouldould make an open and shut case of obstruction and lying to the FBI against her. Of course it’s too late to stop her legally. But politically she could be kneecapped. Impeachment proceedings launching during Inaugural speeches and balls are a real turd in the punch bowl.
Could it be Abedin sending receiving on her computer with an address through Clinton’s server not involving Clinton at all? It is all exempt under the ‘I don’t recall’ principle anyway.
If the OverClass has the power to prevent that impeachment, the OverClass will prevent that impeachment.
Hillary is the designated Obama 2.0 President. Her job is to cement the Obama legacy just as Obama’s job was to cement the Bush legacy.
Don’t expect any impeachment anytime soon.
The only way to stop Hillary is to vote for Trump and get Hillary defeated.
Can’t remove a sitting president…unless you have the votes to impeach…the comey show…announce something..and gosh darn it…got timed out by the election…
And yet the timing is awkward.
New on Friday usually means that the majority of Americans will have forgotten everything but their name by the time Monday rolls around. All the MSM has to do is find another bright shiny object to write about together on the weekend. Their past open collusion with HRC’s campaign makes that a foregone conclusion.
Chances are the FBI will ask Hillary which of the Weiner’s emails she deems important.
I think Comey overestimated his standing and the standing of “FBI Director” with the populace at large and expected everyone to just applaud when he criticized Clinton and expected Clinton to win big or Republican voters to sour on Trump providing him protection going forward.
Heres what I believe scares Comey, the GOP base hasn’t soured on Trump, Hillary won’t big, and the GOP House will remain intact with me ears under pressure for not supporting the elected GOP leader. No one has really voted for Paul Ryan (Veep doesn’t count) outside of one congressional district.
The “left” (everyone who isn’t a Republican and isnt on the CGI payroll is what I mean) won’t defend Hillary or actions to protect her past the 8th. If Comey has acted in anyway inappropriately and has mutininous agents, he will be in trouble.
Or the proverbial horse’s head just showed up on his desk. And it ain’t from Clinton, Inc.
Absolutely right and along with that the FBI just discovered Abedin’s insurance policy details.
Is this the weekend (many) people set aside some time to think about the coming election?
Most people are trying NOT to think about the election. Normal ones, that is.
“Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta criticised the FBI’s “extraordinary” timing.
He said on Friday: “The (FBI) Director owes it to the American people to immediately provide the full details of what he is now examining.”
oh you silly fool, the only way we ever get the full details of anything is on Wikileaks.
Be careful what you ask for…
hmmm… Clinton’s had the inside dirt on the first round of the investigation. Seems like an Abedin issue.
Further… didn’t she get immunity? Seems like Comey needs to re-open, re-question and cover these items under the immunity also so she can’t be prosecuted for them in the future.
Well, the Ruling Class remained silent in Public until Trump. Then the ugly truth was revealed was revealed on TV, by both Trump (Mexicans) and Clinton (Deplorables).
And possibly by Romney as wee in his comment about the 49% who don’t pay (income) taxes, and the republican meme of Makers and Takers (stated in the wrong order I believe).
Front page of the Seattle Times had side-by-side articles of a Dakota Pipeline story (dozens arrested) beside the story of the acquittal of Bundy’s bunch. They’re so factually different though. One story involves powerful interests using and abusing the land to their own economic advantage and squandering the land resources for future generations and the other story involves . . .
Or the racism of the middle class. People are tribal and arguably it is baked into our DNA. That doesn’t excuse the mental laziness of trafficking in stereotypes but one could make a case that racism is as much a matter of ignorance as of evil character. Obama with his “bitter clingers” and HIllary with her “deplorables” are talking about people about whom they probably know almost nothing. One of the long ago arguments for school integration was that propinquity fosters mutual understanding. This met with a lot of resistance. And for people like our Pres and would be Pres a broader view of the electorate would be inconvenient. They might have to turn into actual liberals.
The McClatchy article on ‘digital fingerprints’ has a wonderful quote that should be hammered into everyone’s minds:
“We do freely make available information about ourselves episodically that we may think isn’t terribly revealing but aggregated, it reveals a whole lot.” — Rebecca Weiner, New York City Police Department
People who don’t worry about what’s actually lost in information disclosure and leakage simply lack creativity. They don’t conjure up the broader (or lateral) contexts for simple data to take on broader meaning. It’s actually nice to see this admitted openly and clearly by someone from the NYPD. The next time someone speaks apologetically of surveillance because they have, “nothing to hide,” I may use this as part of a retort and pivot to a discussion on naivete and trust of authority.
Were any of the defendants Black? I rather doubt it. Just as Driving-While-Black can be a capital offense, I would assume that the penalty for Seizing-Federal-Property-While-Black is quite severe also. The sentencing stage for Driving-While-Black is sometimes reached before there has even been a trial.
I think you have impunity if you’re white and right wing; a distinction that’s lost on my Twitter feed, at least.
Occupy, after all, was the target of a 17-city paramilitary crackdown orchestrated by the Federal government.
Weren’t many of the bundy gang FBI informants? I think this was the FBI and DOJ covering their own asses.
I think WaPo has an agenda to push on this one. Here’s an Oregon paper: http://www.oregonlive.com/oregon-standoff/2016/10/oregon_standoff_verdicts_annou.html
Sounds like some shenanigans.
i suspect they had informants in the occupy movement, too. somehow that wasn’t a defense there, though.
Judging from Comey’s ineptitude, it wouldn’t surprise me if there was some garbage going on in the background that they had to let them walk.
That said, I give him props for not pulling a Janet Reno/ATF/Waco.
The prosecution dropped the ball and was incredibly complacent. They barely spent any time laying out the charges. The whole trial amounted to the defense sucking up all the oxygen in the courthouse.
It’s disappointing but I’m even more disappointed by the fact the migrating birds didn’t return early and attack the yeehadists. After they come north they’re all horny and mate. It makes them particularly aggressive against puny humans who get in their way.
The last time I was at Malheur a kindly Federal employee warned me away from the tower the yeehadists were using as a sniper nest. Owls have been known to attack insignificant humans in Oregon. It’s their nesting ground.
I wondered if it was jury nullification. Any signs of that?
Nope. That’s not something I’d try on a judge in Oregon. I’ve heard of an instance where a potential juror tried that to get out of serving by using it and the judge held him in contempt and jailed him for 24 hours.
I hate to say this but I’m not sure I could convict them based upon the conspiracy charges in spite of my bemused contempt. Trespassing, misuse and destruction of government property, menacing the public would be no brainer conviction but conspiracy?
Conspiracy implies a degree of planning and organization that they didn’t demonstrate at any given time. They weren’t prepared for any occupation of Malheur. They were begging for supplies. It apparently wasn’t even any of the defendants idea to even take over the wildlife refuge in the first place. Everything that transpired seemed to be on an ad-hoc basis. Additionally the feds admitted they had at least nine informants among the yeehadists. On any given day they didn’t have more than 40 people there so we’re looking at the feds making up a third of more of the group. It’s like when the FBI made up half the membership of the American Communist Party.
I’m not kosher with how the FBI and other law enforcement agencies act while under cover. They contrive to goad you, the mark, to commit a crime. In my mind that makes them party to any crimes that were committed and grounds to throw the charges out. It’s one thing for undercover informants to report or even participate in crimes committed to maintain cover but another to take an active part in initiating any crimes. None of this was made very clear during the trial which lends credit to presumed innocence.
If there’s any legal experts that want to set me straight I’d really like to indulge my confirmation bias and spite. Please tell me how wrong I am!
Great….another Comey cockup.
Ah, yes, the old Entrapment Ploy, wherein some of the illegality comes about through incitement by informers/agents provocateur. Works wondrously well if you can keep the identities of the informers/agents provocateur a secret, but no so well if you can’t. I should imagine that the Bundy folks might have been on the lookout for tells, such as when the individual who generally is passive, or stays in the background starts making, uh, suggestions. Counter-intelligence 101.
Are you making a suggestion?
Hah! If you can’t spot a agent provocateur you’re probably stupid enough to do something that should land you in prison. The Department of Homeland Security’s fusion centers in Portland and Salem were busy during the wildlife refuge takeover. All those radicalized hipsters and lefties supporting/harassing the yeehadists with their edible sex products et cetra.
-_^
Gotta help the white people collecting welfare via the US Intelligence community to keep receiving those checks. I gotta wonder though if activists were targeted for inflammatory internet speech/actions or if their Mormon co-religionists in the federal government didn’t appreciate what amounted to a crowdsourced psychological warfare campaign.
Oh well.
In case no one else posted this: a juror has written to the Oregonian saying that the prosecutors arrogantly failed to prove the conspiracy charge. Further, he claims the jury were closely following the judge’s instructions; from the quote, it sounds rather like the judge didn’t think it was proved, either.
This juror, at least, is saying it’s a straight-out case of prosecutor incompetence; “arrogance” is the juror’s word. Apparentlyt he rest of the jury agreed with him.
Re: “This market barometer says Trump still has a chance at the White House” et al.
The polls – Rasmussen, LA Times & IBD – say that Trump has a 50% (or more, since electoral votes=independent-minded states determine the winner of the presidential race) chance at the White House. The race continues to be a dead heat nationally, just as it has been for two or three weeks now.
The FBI is making news at this hour, but is this going to be the Podesta email that makes the largely worthless & discredited press wake up and take notice?
https://www.reddit.com/r/DNCleaks/comments/59vhcy/hallelujah_here_it_guys_the_internal_clinton/
If Trump doesn’t win it, we all have to bow down to the magnificent greatness of our media.
Throw Rasmussen out. It is notoriously right-wing biased. IBD is right wing too but its polls could be straight up.
GFK, who is running polls for AP JSM believes, was mentioned in comment chains elsewhere as having a number of contributors to the Clinton campaign, found perhaps through OpenSecrets.
It is nearly impossible for this observer to put any stock in the ABC, NBC & AP polls which have resulted in the trumpeting/splashing of double-digit polling leads into the ears and eyes of anyone paying attention, which did much to lead many into saying the race is over.
Word is, according to ZH and others, that the ABC poll ‘magically’ came down to 6% after its sampling blocs (for lack of the technical termingology) were realigned with a more realistic distribution of the electorate.
Hate on Drudge all you want, but he says these were the most accurate polls in 2012, and the LA times poll JSM recalls was one of the best (seemed most free from bias) during the Democratic primary.
JSM similarly puts 0 stock in the odds coming out of 538 and NYT. 538 has no credibility. SIlver rose to prominence with metrics (favorability chief among them) best correlated to winning; he reneged on everything that made him reliable during the primary to ‘prove’ that HC won fair & square.
I think all the polls rely heavily on turnout models to reweight what they sampled to match the expected electorate. I have doubts that the standard demographic turnout models will be applicable this year.
Bezzle Airbnb: [a fine of up to $7,500 on advertising short-term rentals of less than 30 days. This means users can still list a room in their home, but cannot advertise entire apartments.”]
Won’t people just code their advertisements…. bdrm 900 sq ft, own kitchen and bath, sleeps 6. Owner travels.
“Advertising” means listing it on AirBnB.
Talking in pix or emojis gives a certain latitude, even deniability, which words, with their specific meanings, (confound it,) just can’t offer. Words can be tracked down, and mean specific things, and hold you to account. We don’t need that anymore. What we need in today’s world is cover for our vague jumble of impressions and our nagging feeling that global warming is simply going to solve all of our problems for us – panic. Calm down, I say. Stop thinking in words, and things will get a lot simpler for you.
Talk about everything old is new again…. we’re so advanced we’re using pictographs (on tablets) again.
Words have specific meaning?
Twenty lashes with fresh pasta!
The rise of a picture-based alphabet and imagery as a dominant communication medium seems to signify the return of the goddess/matriarchy culture, which is in a sort of cyclic opposition to the alphabetoc/patriarchic culture, according to The Alphabet vs The Goddess. It is a fascinating historical study of tensions between rigid alphabetic fundamentalists, who tended to be patriarchal, and get into knocking the noses off sculptures and worshipping various scriptures, and more matriarchal cultures with heiroglyphic-type pictogram alphabets.
re: Apple, it seems, is angling for the ‘amateur creative’ and isn’t interested in anything else anymore.
A few years back I bought a used 2009 Mac Pro for $800, upgraded the firmware to 2010-12, upgraded the CPUs to two 2.8 ghz 6 cores for $400 and the memory to 24 GB 1333 MHz DDR3. I suspect that when I shuffle off this mortal coil this machine will still be the fastest and most functional Mac I’ll ever have owned. Too bad the PCIe bus is old-timey but I’m not much of a game player.
For the last few years all of the released Macs have been a letdown.
I hope that one day I can get one of those 2013 trashcans for cheap but calling them Mac Pros is completely inappropriate. Where I somewhat disagree with the author of the article is that the trashcans were the proof that Apple had no interest in making a highly functional, professional machines. These new, slower, unrepairable MacBook Pros are just more of the same for the portable crowd.
Moore’s law is dead and buried but no one wrote an obit. Apple is a bank wannabe that sells some other products.
“Please re-elect Gerald. Please.”
Now, THAT is a political ad I would enjoy watching more than once. Matter of fact, I just did.
Is there a more accurate term than militarized police? They are former military, military equipment, military training, military practices etc. They went around the constitution to put military on the streets… They are more accurately mercenaries. Anyone familiar with any terms for the backdoor military?
The irony is that, in the military, the cops have some of the worst discipline problems.
Thanks for the Apple IT links. Looks like the Touchbar was especially designed to sync with Adobe graphics programs and other camera/photo programs, which would have been a nice addition to the function keys. A Touchbar as a replacement to the function keys? Privileging app users over program developers? (shakes head, mutters inaudibly)
Apple began to lose me with the MacBook Pro when they made it un-openable and replaced the nice metal power button with just another key. Now it just seems like they have run out of incremental things to “improve” with a machine that really has no huge issues, other than the need to keep up with ongoing technological changes.
My guess: Apple bought a lot of tech properties before it knew how it would integrate them, and before it had a project for them (e.g. bought wireless headphone maker Wi-Gear) . In this new release Apple seemed to let the parts drive the project; to kludge together a few of these acquired techs. Just a guess.
Robby Mook just deleted all his tweets….
https://twitter.com/RobbyMook
Anticipatory obstruction of justice.
Book him, Dan-o!
New emails were from Weiner’s sexting. investigation.
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/29/us/politics/fbi-hillary-clinton-email.html?smid=tw-nytimes&smtyp=cur&_r=0
Wow… Did she really get herself involved in the Weiner mess? I really, really can’t wait to read those.
Are we sure he had tweets prior to this?
Just did a search for “Robby mook tweeted” and had plenty of results.
http://www.voanews.com/a/donald-trump-gun-owners-hillary-clinton/3457799.html
You had better luck than I did with my search. thanks! The one tweet left on his account makes it sound like he just joined, even though the joined date says August 2015. Very odd.
Just a reminder: all the tweets that have ever been tweeted are available … for a price:
How Despots Use Twitter to Hunt Dissidents [Bloomberg]
I’m not from belgium, but the belgian SP/PS = basically neoliberal, while the Belgian labor party (PvdA) is more properly thought of as Socialist (i.e., well to Bernie’s left). (For reference, in NL it’s the other way around: the SP is actually socialist, while the PvdA is neolib with a bleeding heart contingent that carps ineffectually from the sidelines, always accepting that “the revolution will happen mañana”. It may be that this was an act by Magnette, in the hope that he could pacify that contingent, in or outside his party; I don’t know who organized the reading + discussion of CETA in the Wallonian Parliament.)
It looks like the Walloon SP is a typical social dem party that has become neoliberal, but they are being pushed hard in the regional elections by the Workers’ Party of Belgium (PvdA-PTB). I think this is an attempt by them to square the circle and give in to the demands of the EU ruling class and attempt to head off the growing threat to their left. Seems incredibly cynical to me, rather than coming from any genuine place. It remains to be seen what would happen if the Workers’ Party gained regional control after this: would they, too, capitulate or would they force a confrontation?
I don’t follow belgian politics, so I don’t know the answer. What puzzles me most is to hear that they had an actual reading + discussion of the ceta treaty. Who decided on that? Magnette? The PvdA? I doubt the latter would capitulate, though. Principles thing, whereas Magnette is and has to be in favor of “free trade”, because “respectable”.
Hillary’s speaking live in Cedar Rapids Iowa … playing the woman card; just yammering on and on about it.
It’s as obnoxious as if her opponent asserted, you should vote for me because I’ve got a big schlong and she don’t.
Off with their heads!
hey Jim…if she gets a heckle about the fbi, let us know if she responds. (i’ll gladly pay you tuesday as i cannot bring myself to EVER listen to her)
Friday, 2:25 p.m.
Hillary Clinton isn’t saying anything yet about the FBI decision to investigate new emails linked to her private email server.
Clinton ignored shouted questions from reporters about the FBI investigation as she walked off her plane Friday in Cedar Rapids, Iowa.
She smiled and waved to reporters gathered on the tarmac, but made no comments.
Clinton spent about 25 minutes on the plane after it landed before she emerged. Following Clinton off the plane was famed photographer Annie Leibovitz. She was shooting photos of the candidate for at least part of the time reporters were waiting for the candidate.
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_CAMPAIGN_2016_THE_LATEST?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2016-10-28-14-46-15
Like Sanders, Trump should ask for one more debate.
“Should the Walloon parliament, representing 3.5 million people, be entitled to prevent a policy affecting 510 million Europeans?”
Of course not! Ridiculous. The 510 million Europeans should be represented by a gaggle of “free-trade” experts in Brussels instead.
“The Army said Friday it has determined that suicide was the cause of death of a two-star general who was found dead in his home on a military base in Alabama, the AP reports. Maj. Gen. John Rossi was found dead July 31 at Redstone Arsenal, two days before he was to assume command of Army Space and Missile Defense Command. He is the first Army general to commit suicide on active duty since record-keeping began in 2000, according to the Army; USA Today reports that he is “the highest-ranking soldier ever to have taken his own life.”” hmmm
I’m worried about “Bill.” Hope he’s got a food taster up in Chappy.
(Just think what’s on his phone.)
Do they screen pilots more rigorously than commanders of Space and Missile Defense Command?
How many can a suicidal pilot take down compared with this?
I assume they’re referring to U.S. soldiers. For suicides by higher ranking officers, here are some examples, derived from this Wikipedia category:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Military_personnel_who_committed_suicide
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hataz%C5%8D_Adachi Lieutenant General
Marcus Antonius. I don’t know what his rank was, but it was certainly higher than Major General
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Powlett,_5th_Duke_of_Bolton Lieutenant General
Which reminds me: why is a Lieutenant general higher in rank than a Major general? That has long confused me.
Field Marshall Erwin Rommel, took his own life on Oct. 14, 1944.
They don’t come any higher ranking than a Field Marshall.
Brutus fell on his own sword.
Was Brutus lower in rank than a field marshal?
War minister Anami when Imperial Japan surrendered, also killed himself (this time, by seppukku) and left a cryptic note.
No one ranks higher than the Leader though.
It’s Bill Clinton’s interstate emergency management agreement (then pitched for FEMA-type emergencies) and not the PATRIOT Act’s DHS Fusion Centers that are managing law enforcement response to #NoDAPL, eh? That means that the federal agencies are not particularly involved yet, doesn’t it?
Might be interesting:
Counterspin interview w/Color of Change/Brandi Collins
http://fair.org/home/brandi-collins-on-black-lives-surveillance/
et
Standing Rock commentaries
http://www.nativeamericacalling.com/friday-october-28-2016-october-news/
If anyone hasn’t enjoyed the #draftourdaughters meme yet, this might make you chuckle.
http://dailycaller.com/2016/10/28/draftourdaughters-is-the-perfect-hashtag-for-todays-military-social-engineering/
What a perfect combination of opening up the selective service to women with a warmongering neoconservative HRC. Some of them hit hard, so be careful.
They are good. [Grandma always wished she died with Grandpa in WWII. Now my daughter can fulfill her dream. I’m with her.] I’m still waiting for one with a “Stand with ISIS” theme.
https://twitter.com/hashtag/draftourdaughters?f=tweets&vertical=news&src=hash
People shake their heads when Trump says that he took advantage of tax loopholes like any other businessman, but they are okay with the same law compliance bullshit that Hillary resorts to with the emails, Clinton foundation etc.
this election has just really hammered in the message that people will simply ignore any logical or factual realities if they contradict their own prejudices, even as they loudly proclaim their moral and intellectual superiority in choosing the “right” candidate.
“The IRS rule apparently used by Trump and many others dates back to 1918. Put simply, businesses can “carry forward” tax losses to future years. In other words, if a business loses $50,000 one year, and makes the same amount the following year, it is considered to have “broken even.” If a business takes a loss of $1 million, it could theoretically make $100,000 for the next ten years and pay no taxes.
In fact, in 1995 (the same year of Trump’s tax return), 500,000 people used the same tax advantages that Trump apparently used. However, unlike Trump’s losses of nearly a billion dollars, the average American’s claimed loss was $97,500.
These losses are allowed to flow through the business to the benefit of the business owner. So, the loss of the business can be used to offset personal income of the business owners.
Using the rule is perfectly legal, assuming of course that the losses claimed are legitimate losses under the tax code. Losses must be real net operating loss, enough to cancel out any profit made.
Advantages for Real Estate Owners
Real estate has a number of losses that can be claimed, including depreciation of the value of real estate assets, real estate taxes, and costs to maintain the property. Real estate owners also can use losses in real estate, to offset non-real estate gains in certain cases. So, for example, if property depreciates, those losses can cover not only any profits made from the real estate itself, but also any other business ventures the real estate owner may be involved in. Owners of investment real estate, however, may be subject to the “passive activity” rules, which limit the owner’s ability to use real estate losses against other business income.
Real estate owners can also defer taxes by flipping property. If a developer exchanges property routinely, the losses can be continually carried forward so that no taxes are actually paid.”http://www.davidtobacklaw.com/what-is-the-trump-tax-loophole/
“Clinton foundation etc.” would take up too much bandwith and unfair to other NC posters BUT YOU GET THE POINT, RIGHT?
if not let’s settle this with her own record… Forbes: Christopher Preble points out “Clinton supported every one of the last seven U.S. military interventions abroad, plus two others we ended up fighting.” For instance, while First Lady she pushed for U.S. intervention in the Balkans—attacking the Bosnian Serbs and then Serbia. She was an enthusiastic war advocate, explaining: “I urged him [her husband] to bomb.” Alas, Bosnia remains badly divided while Kosovo has turned into a gangster state which, according to the New York Times, is “a font of Islamic extremism and a pipeline for jihadists.”
“Sen. Hillary Clinton supported the overbroad Authorization for Use of Military Force after September 11, which 15 years later the Obama administration claims as warrant for its very different war against the Islamic State. She strongly backed the Iraq invasion. Only after it turned out badly and threatened to damage her political career did she acknowledge her mistake. Of course, that was too late to retrieve the thousands of American lives, hundreds of thousands of Iraqi lives, and trillions of dollars squandered. At the same time, she said she was sorry for opposing the 2007 “surge” of troops, despite what Iraq became. Worse, a former State department aide reported that Clinton later announced she would not feel “constrained” in the future by the failure in Iraq.”
That information on the trump tax was clarifying- thanks! It will help me in discussions with Clinton supporters.
Sorry, but nothing will help you in discussions with Clinton supporters, who turn into Zombies at the mere mention of her name. Indeed, they are often seen wandering aimlessly in groups on sunny afternoons looking upward, seeking apparitions of her image floating by in the clouds. If you are quick, look upward when you hear them gasp, and you might see one too.
Real estate is a tax shelter.
This is the best description of what Trump did. Sheppard is one of the top tax experts in the world:
http://www.taxanalysts.org/content/news-analysis-donalds-double-dip
#DraftOurDaughters (First we take down Trump, then we take down Putin) (It’s Our Turn)…. Buzzfeed picked it up? and then dropped it. Please tell me BF did not actually do a write up.
https://www.buzzfeed.com/tylerbrandon/hillary-clinton-wants-to-get-more-women-in-the-mil-2nrn5
This came back at the Buzzfeed site with page not found. Now, file not found.
It’s working but I can’t tell if they are serious or if that is some epic level trolling. That seems to be consistent with the theme of this election though.
James Comey was on the Board of Directors of HSBC while they were money laundering for drug runners and terrorists, he has done squat to stop GamerGate, he has a horrible record as director of the FBI and should have never been nominated, never been confirmed, and is a completely horrible person.
Mark Felt was of the same mind when it came to being passed over after J. Edgar Hoover died. And recall that he gained notoriety as Deep Throat.
Mark Felt had already gained notoriety before Watergate because he was one of the FBI’s special agents who was charged for conducting illegal surveillance on American leftists. It’s one of those things all those conspiracy theorists don’t emphasis about COINTELPRO and other programs. The only people actually charged and convicted in the matter were FBI agents.
Here is a chance to redeem himself and stop Hillary.
The race is Trump’s to lose now.
Sounds perfectly qualified.
He was also general counsel of the largest defense contractor in the world (Lockheed Martin) and
general counsel of the largest hedge fund / personality cult in the world (Bridgewater).
Just a small town lawyer. If the town is Davos.
Perhaps that’s part and parcel to our current heroin epidemic …….
Perfectly Qualified –
In a situation where one has an truly abysmal leader, that leader will need sidekicks who are obviously worse. The abysmal leader can position herself to the reasonable / competent side of the “bad cop” sidekicks, thus being not exactly the “good cop” but the “better cop” while still going in the desired direction of crazy and misery for all.
If things get a bit out of hand, the blame can be pinned on the sidekick “going overboard” and the sidekick publicly sacrificed to “restore confidence” and “look forward”.
Why Obama needed Biden around, George Bush had Cheney … The European Left has the Islamists and the Social Democrats has the neo-liberals to bisect against.
PS:
I think there is some possibilities, The rusty old ship “The Foundation” has simply sprung yet another leak and there is more evidence for FBI to dismiss and immunities to be doled out to fix the situation
Enough mail-votes have come in to predict a crushing victory for Trump. Comey realizes that he is maybe on the wrong side of this whole thing and goes for “incompetence” being part of his legacy rather than “conspiracy”
Something so nasty has come up so that the oligarch factions forming the “inner party” decided that Something Must be Done About The Situation – or Else. Jeffrey Epstein did home movies, apparently.
However, I think that it is just FBI doing another fix for Hillary.
I read the comments earlier in the day so not sure if this has been noted. In a new emergency procedure, the Left Party is still trying to block the CETA agreement in the final hours before the agreement. It is not clear whether the application has reached the court in time. I think it would be called the Federal Constitutional Court. Preventatively the Left Party has also submitted an alternative claim should the first one be too late to be considered
site in German http://deutsche-wirtschafts-nachrichten.de/2016/10/28/wagenknecht-reicht-in-karlsruhe-eilantrag-gegen-ceta-ein/
This could be interesting…Clinton campaign sitting on Trump tapes since March 2016? It’s not specific, though.
https://twitter.com/wikileaks/status/791831793884286976
Email from late February of 2016 also to Palmieri discusses status of “swift boat” attack against Trump..,
https://wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/emailid/27434
I began to read today’s Water Cooler and went, “What? Is this a parody?”, about a link I no longer recall, BUT I kept saying that to myself as I read on And felt the same about some other reports I came across today. Have we passed some “red line” into another dimension?
These really are real links?
(Yeah, I know they are…it’s just that they seem like they shouldn’t be….)
Penny ante but completely typical:
When Hillary becomes “adamant,” nobody dares to confront her, even if her demands are illegal.
Building permits are for little people. Hillary can grant herself a retroactive permit with an executive order.
An acquaintance of mine said of the Clintons: “They define success as how much they can get away with.” Clearly, this is just the latest example.
“The pain is not about having cheap people around…. real pain is the fact that there are some people with a price to start with.” Sameh Elsayed
Or as Dorothy Parker presciently quipped about the Clintons:
Crazy — there are more problems than just the lack of building permits:
I’m not seeing much basic competency here in executing home ownership responsibilities. Next I’ll hear Bill steals the neigbor’s Sunday newspaper off their porch.
More likely he steals the neighbor’s teenage daughter for a midnight ride.
Interesting tidbit about the Illinois US senate race. The incumbent, the Republican Mark Kirk, had a stroke and since then has made notably non-PC comments. Last night he made a comment about Tammy Duckworth’s Chinese heritage (her mother is Chinese born in Thailand), and that comment has drawn attention to his overall neurological health.
A friend of mine had a stroke which deeply affected the part of the brain responsible for impulse control. He used to be highly organized, extremely conscious of ramifications of his actions, spent carefully, prepared for exigencies, etc. Since the stroke, and especially when he’s feeling more energetic, he spends like a drunken sailor, swears like one, has no care about consequences of his actions. If he’s feeling under pressure this is even more exaggerated.
Kirk’s recovery from his stroke has won him some sympathy, but I gather there’s has not been much reporting about any personality changes. The debate made this change a bit more open to scrutiny and other examples are apparently being discussed.
Anyone from Illinois know more?
http://www.politicususa.com/2016/10/28/senator-mark-kirk-mocks-disabled-war-vet-tammy-duckworth-mixed-race-heritage.html
NC started the “Thanks Ms. Lewinsky for saving Social Security” meme ;
I don’t think this scandal alone will sink Clinton, but if it does, would that make Anthony the ‘boy Monica’?
Trump’s yuuuge Weiner?
In line with the Corruption theme, check out the election fraud documentation at Fraction Magic – Short Version video recently released. It shows manipulation of actual vote files (Statement of Votes Cast) and how locations selected for audit were not tampered with.
The hero of the story is Bennie Smith, a soft-spoken Memphis TN-based genius who has skills in computer programming and databases; accounting; and political demographic analysis. By luck those are the same skills that convicted felon Jeffrey Dean had. (Dean wrote the software for the Diebold voting machines–and I’ve been told they can now prove that Dean was the originator of the fractionalized vote-counting software for the central tabulators.)
A longer version of the video is due out in days–in the meantime, the 9 min. excerpt on the Short Version is amazing. Check out the tips at the end–how the public can help.
Lanny Breuer……Nathan Thurm. Twins separated at birth?
http://tinyurl.com/nnccu6o
Still not sure I get all the hubbub about context sensitive function keys. The ESC key will still be available for everyone’s vi/Vim sessions.
And Bernie’s comment would be …
“I should have persisted as the Not-Hillary choice…a higher ethical demand than keeping my promise to the D party???”
Instead, now it’s Trump?
I am very, very tired of hearing about Hillary’s e-mails.
I’m more tired of Hillary’s females (Nuland, Huma, etc)..
Nice!
Don’t worry, Lloyd Blankfein is checking Comey’s work. FBI today placed the Weiner investigation under their crack Special Agent for Witness Liquidation, Aaron McFarlane.
Hello…According to Reuters, the European Union on Friday lifted limits on Gazprom’s use of a link from its offshore Nord Stream pipeline to Germany, allowing Russia to pump more gas to Europe and bypass its usual routes via Ukraine.
…soooooo they’re going to begin rebuilding Syria
Hillary’s 4-minute apologia pro vida sua in response to Comey’s volte face:
Two word summary: CORNERED RAT
Can’t get over the Nuremberg rally massed flags behind her.
The future’s so bright, she shoulda wore shades. ;-)
UHH @4:30…State Department spokesman Mark Toner said Friday that the department knows nothing about why the FBI reopened its investigation into Hillary Clinton’s private email server just hours earlier.
Toner began the State Department daily press briefing by telling Associated Press reporter Matt Lee that he already knew what the topic of the first question would be. Lee asked Toner what the State Department knew of the FBI’s actions and what may be involved in the reopened investigation. http://freebeacon.com/politics/state-department-knows-nothing-about-fbi-reopening-clinton-email-probe/
“First, what do we know? Not much more than you know, in fact. About the same,” Toner said. “We just learned about this when we saw news reports of the letter.”
“What emails they may be looking at, what they’re looking for, any more details at all, we just don’t know anything about the scope of this new–I’m not even sure it’s an investigation, but this effort to look at additional emails,” Toner continued.
Just like 0bama finding out about HRC’s private email from the press … after he’d been corresponding with her from his own private email address.
With daily practice, the faux naif act comes easy. :-)
I gather that Clintonland is honestly shocked, though. They’re having to expose their talking points unmodified pushed directly by people like Krugman, instead of their normal process of using CTR trolls for cover.
I don’t have an explanation for why Comey would start acting like a law enforcement official at this late date, but it does look like he didn’t notify Clintonland ahead of time, and apparently the State Department has basically been a Clinton sleeper cell for the last four years, so that would include State.
It’s also possible that the emails are more about Clinton Foundation corruption than they are State Department rule breaking, so there wouldn’t be any reason to notify State. (Although how that would connect to the original case without being at least in part about transmitting classified information insecurely is beyond me.)
Maybe Comey needed to get out in front of ticked off FBI worker bees. Better Comey release it himself than have it leaked over the weekend.
Like the Zeiss shades?
Massed flags behind the podium are standard advance work. In fact, the advance people give each other props for good ones.
That’s not to say they’re not Nuremberg-like, but they are ubiquitous and not unique to Clinton.
I don’t read it that way, in terms of her posture. It’s arrogant as hell. She knows the info can’t be released by the election and that information in an investigation is not public information. The “explain this issue” and some of the other remarks are clear criticisms of Comey. She’s trying to brazen this out. Not that this will work, mind you.
But her pushing for an early vote and her tone is all wrong. A real sign of how far she is in her bubble.
Cyberspace opened up the Clinton Foundation’s Pay for Play scams for scrutiny despite the best efforts of corporate media and the connected elite to keep it closed; the endless wars at Saudi Arabia and Israel’s bequest, the purposeful burdening of debt on anyone who needs housing, medical care or education, and the utter contempt for the little people. Corruption so inept that missing Hillary Clinton e-mails are in Carlos Danger’s explicit underage passion filled smartphone in FBI’s possession.
The emails (are said to be) on Abedin’s laptop (shared with Weiner), not on Weiner’s phone.
Intriguing. Maybe these emails have survived so far is, because Abedin’s laptop was shared, it wasn’t on the list of agreed-to-be-destroyed laptops (so far, at least).
I wonder if there will be any public pressure on FBI to go after some of the numerous devices/servers you posted about on other threads about a week ago. If so, no one is talking about it yet.
http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2016/10/u-n-rights-expert-urges-nations-not-sign-flawed-ceta-treaty.html
The international community considers backroom corporate trade deals as one example of the general problem of fragmentation. The US government tries to end-run the UN Charter with NATO. It tries to end-run ILO conventions with the WTO. It tries to end-run economic and social rights with ISDS. It tries to end-run sovereign debt principles (e.g. A/69/L.84) with the Paris Club and the IMF. In response, the international community has been working to synthesize the different legal regimes in an objective way.
http://legal.un.org/ilc/documentation/english/a_cn4_l682.pdf
Corporate special pleading gets subsumed in old-time diplomacy, finding common ground, so the pitched-battle narrative is absent, but when Zayas comes out and says ISDS cannot negate human rights, this is the context. They’re trying to preserve a non-hierarchical regime in which the only absolute is the purposes and principles of the UN: peace and development, which comes down to human rights.
Feds, Utahns worry that Oregon standoff verdicts will set violent tone for land battle [SLC Trib]
And so it begins:
`Restoring balance … resolve issues’ is Sage Brush Rebel for `My way or the RS 2477 highway‘.
I really don’t like that these guys will perceive themselves as having a second victory (the first one being the Feds backing down on Bundy ranch).
That’s a good link on RS2477.
Ditto re: RS2477. I wonder if other states have loopholes/giveaways like this. It might have been well-intentioned & seemed practical at the time. On the other hand it’s easy to sneak in legislation for exactly for those reasons–it seems sensible on the face of it, but the loopholes have been baked in.
That is a Federal law, dating I believe to the post-Civil War period and then repealed in 1976, but with a grandfather clause. Other states have made claims, but Utah is the world record holder.
There was an amusing article in my USA Today-derived local paper this morning about the Utah state parks department applying to have 16 of their parks designated as Dark Sky sites, which drives astro-tourism. It’s hilarious because other parts of the Utah state government, and some of the counties where those parks are located, are pushing for maximal drilling, mining and other light-intensive activities near those same parks. The RS 2477 claims are part of that picture.
OMG. Thanks for catching my oversight about it being a Federal law. Ugh. The implications are even worse than I thought.
Clinton blows off DAPL concerns by promising to ‘listen’ which might as well be ‘have a conversation’ or completely ignor.
https://twitter.com/SimonMoyaSmith/status/791773651007746048
More journalists to add to the shit list. They were all obvious Clinton hacks though.
https://twitter.com/mtaibbi/status/792026046191300608
Why, it’s Neera Tanden to John Podesta:
“brown and women pundits”. Neera so woke.
I’m guessing Harvard graduate Matt Yglesias is thrilled to find out that Clintonland views his usefulness primary through the prism of his skin color, particularly given that his family background not actually all that “brown.”
hard to believe Clinton is stumbling this weekend over another unleashed member
Phishing for Fools, Hipster Edition:
Emails show how Clinton campaign chairman apparently hacked [AP]
And if the ploy was that low-grade, that means that the Russki superbrains in the KGB didn’t have to be behind it. Dear Lord.
This really is a hubris followed by nemesis thing, isn’t it? And how sad it is, how tragic, that it was Brooklyn that brought Podesta down. Somehow I think Delavan is going to have a hard time getting a job in politics again, but he did the country a great service.
Social engineering wins again. This was something I learned about long ago when Black Box Voting.org started (approx. 2004). It was one of the many vulnerabilities in various points of election systems, both with paper and paperless. Very easy to get officials to reveal passwords that allowed access–that’s in addition to the corruption situations. (Or rather, the social engineering angle would be just one of the tools used by insiders.)
Delavan also reminded Podesta to wire $1200 to that poor Nigerian businessman who needed the fees to collect his $2.5 million settlement.
DOJ Complaint Filed Against FBI Director James Comey For Interfering In Presidential Election
http://www.politicususa.com/2016/10/28/doj-complaint-filed-fbi-director-james-comey-interfering-presidential-election.html
LOL he had no choice
http://www.newsweek.com/fbi-reviewing-more-clinton-emails-514825
i wouldn’t think the clinton campaign would welcome that complaint, unless they’re more desperate than i think.
They probably got someone to file it. It just reeks of holier then thou temper tantrum. But Comey had no choice, he had to amend his testimony.
maybe clinton made the decision unilaterally, which is quite possible. seems like the campaign would want to bury the email scandal instead of going on the offensive. i do so hope this means their internal polling is scaring them.
This close? no way. she needs a full rebuttal.
Maybe it can be used to cut off the FBI’s internet access until the elections are over?
I think my 1st year university student daughter [business with high distinctions] summed up the election in the car whilst taking her to work – its stupid – and can’t believe these are adults running for president of America of all places….
Roseanne Barr is becoming one of my favorite people to follow on twitter.
https://twitter.com/therealroseanne/status/792219643951714304
Police snipers killed 11 year old at #NoDAPL.
https://twitter.com/LivingOnChi/status/792226590776299520
I’m seeing things that its a fake… he is an actor or something trying to stir shit. never mind.
Here is what actually happened. It wasn’t much better.
http://sacredstonecamp.org/blog/2016/10/28/police-from-5-states-escalate-violence-shoot-horses-to-clear-1851-treaty-camp
This may be an inappropriate way to use the comments section, but I’m taking a shot. This is a question for you, Lambert. It looks like Bernie Sanders HAS been certified as a write-in candidate in California. I can vote for Bernie if I want.
I had pretty much settled on voting for Stein. I had initially wanted to vote for the Peace & Freedom candidate. But I figured Stein must be on the bubble of getting 5% nationally, and therefore federal funding, automatic ballot access for the Greens, etc. Peace & Freedom has no shot at anything like that. Voting for Stein gives my vote at least a splash of leftist instrumentality. So do I stick with that reasoning, or indulge myself in a Bernie vote? Is there any instrumental value in a Bernie vote? I don’t think they’ll even be counted unless Trump’s much closer in the final vote than Padilla (our corrupt Secretary of State) is likely to allow. Your scorn for the Greens is well-documented. Is there any reason NOT to give them funding and ballot access? The only one I can imagine would be if you think they’re so incompetent or self-indulgent that they will get in the way of creating a strong left opposition in the dark days to come. But that seems unlikely to me.
So that’s my question for you: if you were in my place, would you write in Bernie or vote Stein?
Jill’s been teetering around 3% unlikely she will get 5%, but there are various benefits for lower numbers too. As long as Ca will count it, and it looks like they will, I don’t it matters much.
I’m not sure your premise is correct.
That said, and leaving aside the issue of whether I should issue what would inevitably seen as an endorsement by NC (bad idea), “a week is a long time in politics.” So it’s far too early to decide; the propaganda by the Clinton campaign and their branch in our famously free press in favor of early voting can’t possibly be in good faith; they’re worried about more coming out.
Sorry. I didn’t mean to put you in an officially awkward position. I was thinking more of engaging in a robust debate. You often speak to the Greens’ inadequacies, but I was curious if there was an actual argument to be made that empowering them in the next election could be negative in some way. I presume that 2% is artificially low. The media polls have done all sorts of weird stuff with undersampling and overweighting all year. A bunch of polls with the same fundamental bias all being averaged together isn’t going to correct for that bias. Hillary’s campaign is pushing flyers in swing states that have Stein at 4%. I know it’s that suspect NBC poll, but still — that’s the one they chose to use. You’d think if she wanted to convince people that a Stein vote is a wasted vote, they’d chose the lowest possible percentage for her. They’re spending an awful lot of energy and resources scaremongering over someone with 2% of the vote.
My personal dilemma is that I have tried to train myself to resist the temptation to treat my vote as symbolic and as an act of personal expression. And yet now I find myself being emotionally pulled towards writing Bernie in, when it seems there’s no possible instrumentality to that at all. And there are very few places I can go or people I can turn to that can help me navigate this decision process. In fact, I have one place. This place.
But I didn’t mean to put you on the spot. Anybody unofficial want to chime in? I won’t be voting until Election Day. I have plenty of time.
Coming back to add, I do realize my little vote is of almost no value even the best of times, and this could be considered a silly thing to spend more than five seconds in the booth thinking over.
But I always find learning more about a subject useful. And probably some of what’s fueling this is trying to construct some kind of agency and positive action in this sewage pit of a situation. Sigh.
I don’t mean to sound critical, but I don’t see why you regard Stein or the Greens as naturally being at a higher level than their current 2% in the polls. The Greens were only on the ballots of 36 or 37 states until last month. Unlike the major parties, they have pretty much no “get out the vote” apparatus. They are also not a national party. Lambert who has dealt with them to a degree in Maine can give you details as to some of the symptoms of dysfunction he has seen at close range.
Ralph Nader in 2000 was a nationally recognized name, unlike Stein. There was a lot of disenchantment re Gore for being a 3rd term Clinton candidate, with Gore having mixed success in distancing himself from the Clintons, and being a wooden campaigner. And Bush was correctly seen as a lightweight. Even with those advantages, and ballot access in 43 states (v. I believe 45 or 46 now), Nader got 2.8% of the vote.
The Greens have had almost a generation to build the party since then, and a financial crisis that devastated the middle class. I don’t see any evidence of them using the opportunity that the abject performance of the Dems has presented to them. The Dems have lost seats in Congress, they’ve lost governorships, more and more people identify as independents. Yet the Greens have made no progress despite these tailwinds.
I can see the argument for voting for Stein as virtue signaling and a protest vote and perhaps preferable to a write in (as in you are telling TPTB that there is sentiment to the left of where the legacy parties sit). My antipathy for the Greens is that they’ve failed abjectly at upping their game. See Richard Kline on “Progressively Losing”. They strike me as a classic example of wanting to be morally correct and having zero interest in governing. So as long as you see your vote as a communications tool and don’t harbor unwarranted optimism about the Greens, I don’t see anything wrong in voting for them.
http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2011/09/richard-kline-progressively-losing.html
Not to defend the Greens, but “not having any interest in governing” might not be quite accurate. The reason I say this is that many states have laws that prevent 3rd parties from being on the ballot in state or local elections–i.e., exactly where “interest in governing” would be demonstrated–until they have achieved a given percent at the national level. This kind of restriction would make it almost impossible for the Greens.
However it doesn’t excuse their lack of strategy in places w/o this kind of restriction. Political parties can be amazing attractors for dysfunction and power-plays. True independents would be more appealing to me nowadays, but the political, practical, financial & media barriers conspire to prevent this.
I know all this about the problems with the Greens. I read here daily, remember? The reasons I think Stein’s polling is higher is because, as I said, the Clinton machine itself is using a poll that has Stein at 4% in its promotional material, and every time I have dug into the cross-tabs and methodology of these media polls, they have been obviously off, and always in the basic direction: boost long-time Democrats in the weighting and underweight Independents, dramatically undersample people under 40, etc. I know that “unskewed polls” was a big laugher in 2012, but there is copious amounts of evidence that the major media organizations are not even a little bit objective now, and that looks like it extends to the polling organizations they are hiring. Do I know this for sure? No. I had assumed, in fact, that the Greens would fall to their apparently “natural” 2%. But I don’t get why — even in a close race — Clinton would be expending so much of her resources harassing Stein voters if that were true. That 2% isn’t budging.
So this isn’t a question of whether the Greens are a party I should support, in a general sense. This is a question of whether there is any reason why it would actually be bad for leftist change going forward for the Greens to be the only left national party in two and four years with federal funding and automatic ballot access. I can’t think of anything strong. But I recognize that this kind of granular political knowledge is not my strength.
Likewise, is there anything instrumentally good OR bad that could come from my indulging myself and voting for Bernie. It’s not entirely just a question of my personal vote, either. I’m in a position to push for this in ways that would have a knock on effect. Would Clintonland punish Bernie worse if he was known to have picked up a couple of percentage points’ worth of write-in votes in California? Or, is it possible said write-in votes can be made public as a way to continue to demonstrate how illegitimate Clinton is, once installed?
That’s all I was mulling over.
The best argument is ‘throwing sand in the gears.’
Down-ticket is where there’s real leverage, where candidates are available. There are times when gridlock can be broken by small groups in Congress. At the least that can expose pols looking for cover under the Whips numbers management, forcing them in the open instead of casting for voter optics.
There’s also the aspect of the bully pulpit, such as putting bills up in issues which the status quo refuses to acknowledge or split on. Any down-ticket greens can be considered self-motivators, as the party is Clintonian on it’s focus on the top.
*sigh* Let me back off ‘Clintonian,’ since that can imply triple-tapping disloyal subordinates. Not that there’s any Evidence of that with the Democrats, but there’s not even Indication of that with the Greens.
Of course, that could be because the stakes and opportunities are lower with the Greens. Trump is a confirmed liar, but Clinton has lied before Congress, under oath I believe. Is that a matter of internal boundaries, or just that he’s never been put in position at the table?
I’m not debating down-ticket voting. I live in California. We have jungle primaries. The top two vote getters in the primary move on to the general, regardless of party. With the Republican Party all but destroyed here, that means I get to “choose” between two different corporate Democrats for Senate. That’s it. There are no other options. The corporate Democrat for State Assembly ran unopposed in the primary, and thus is likewise unopposed in the General.
That’s probably another reason why I’m obsessing over my Presidential vote. Clinton will take my state. Between the structural Democratic advantage and our corrupt Secretary of State, it’s a done deal. And I don’t really have any other choices on any other races down ballot. I could vote against my Clinton-endorsing Democratic Congressman by voting for a nutjob Republican (really nutjob, like “Holy cow, how to you dress yourself!” nut job.) Otherwise, the Democratic Party has taken away my choices up and down the ballot. So I would like to figure out what, if anything, I can do with my Presidential line so that dragging myself to the polls is about more than voting for Prop 61 (lowering drug prices) — which will probably lose as the California Democratic Party is refusing to endorse it and there is MASSIVE TV advertising against it, claiming that it will raise drug prices for regular people (I guess Chelsea Clinton wrote the ads.)
I didn’t know that about Cali jungle primaries, thank you.
I’ll tell you what. I know of no time that elections have been decided by one vote, and I’ll say the same is likely to apply to Green access. If you write in Bernie and its a one-vote loser for Green access, I’ll give you a hundred bucks.
That’s assuming Bernie is your preferred vote, of course. I’m payin’ for conscientiousness, here.
Part of my dilemma is that I could choose to start heavily promoting the write in Bernie option, choose instead to push voting for Stein, or be silent on this issue on my various social media platforms. I’ve had people reach out to tell me I changed their mind about who to vote for, so I take all this a bit more seriously than I otherwise would. It isn’t necessarily just my one little vote.
But it’s true that I’m not such a high visibility player that I actually have the capacity to impact the outcome. I do recognize that. It’s part of why it is so tempting to write in Bernie as an enjoyable private act. But then if I do it, shouldn’t I fling myself into the fight and try to get other Californians to do it, and so on and so on. It’s self-dramatizing, but isn’t it better than just taking the corruption and theft lying down?
It’s silly. I don’t matter. I’ll be signing off from heavy-duty political chatter on Tuesday to do NaNoWriMo. I could spend the next three days drinking and it would achieve the same effect. Except that drinking triggers migraines for me, unfortunately.
Not sure if it’s news, but apparently Maher’s being a proper petit-bourgeois/respectable tribalist. Bob Linden:
…my favorite ‘its getting deep out there’ moment, when everyone drops shorts for a viewing of what everyone is really carting!
On Apr 10, 2015, at 1:32 PM, John Podesta wrote: >> >>
I know we have been at this for awhile, but do we really want to say paychecks for everyday Americans are at their lowest in decades? That’s not true, is it? Isn’t a more accurate formulation that pay raises are at their lowest?
This from Podesata is refreshingly naive.