Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

It’s all just conspiracy shit beamed down from the mothership.

Russian mouthpiece, go fuck yourself.

Never entrust democracy to any process that requires Republicans to act in good faith.

The willow is too close to the house.

Is trump is trying to break black America over his knee? signs point to ‘yes’.

The most dangerous place for a black man in America is in a white man’s imagination.

Keep the Immigrants and deport the fascists!

Imperialist aggressors must be defeated, or the whole world loses.

Giving up is unforgivable.

There is no right way to do the wrong thing.

Those who are easily outraged are easily manipulated.

Baby steps, because the Republican Party is full of angry babies.

We are builders in a constant struggle with destroyers. keep building.

They are not red states to be hated; they are voter suppression states to be fixed.

Stand up, dammit!

She burned that motherfucker down, and I am so here for it. Thank you, Caroline Kennedy.

In after Baud. Damn.

Celebrate the fucking wins.

A fool as well as an oath-breaker.

“Can i answer the question? No you can not!”

Roe is not about choice. It is about freedom.

This isn’t Democrats spending madly. This is government catching up.

They punch you in the face and then start crying because their fist hurts.

Republicans got rid of McCarthy. Democrats chose not to save him.

You are here: Home / Elections / Election 2016 / Friday Morning Open Thread: Low Bar

Friday Morning Open Thread: Low Bar

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While on the other side of the argument…

I’m gonna quote one of those candidates, too: “We win. They lose. That’s my strategy.”
***********
Apart from the running #facepalm tally, what’s on the agenda as we wrap up a long ragged week?

Reader Interactions

172Comments

  1. 1.

    Baud

    I’ll never understand why the GOP always gets such high marks for handling the economy.

    It’s like people were taught that in high school and they just stick to it.

  2. 2.

    OzarkHillbilly

    Why do you hate me so, Anne? Here’s hoping all the razor blades aren’t well hidden

  3. 3.

    Mustang Bobby

    Ben Carson is being touted as the next Senator from Florida, and Marco Rubio is being talked about as the next governor.

    Sea level rise can’t happen fast enough.

  5. 5.

    Ben Cisco

    Violence at these rallies will eventually turn into violence in the streets if left unchecked. As one of those who would have a target on his back, this angers me beyond belief. One of these goobers is going to find out the hard way that life comes at you fast outside your bubble.

    Also, screw the media and the authorities for winking and nodding at this crap.

  6. 6.

    bystander

    Just wondering what would have happened if Michelle Obama had taken an active role in pursuing something as political as drug policy the way Nancy did?

    Just glad we taped “Untamed Youth” and “And God Created Woman” last night. Insulation against accidentally seeing Reagan’s funeral and hearing the lies.

  9. 9.

    BillinGlendaleCA

    @bystander: Not getting there that crap, even though it’s happening about 35 miles from here.

    I’m so excited, my camera has been converted and will be headed back across the country this morning. I can’t wait, it’s like Christmas in March?.

  13. 13.

    bystander

    @BillinGlendaleCA: And miss seeing Joe and Mika?

    Just saw the pics of last night’s party with the Trudeaus at the White House on C&L.

    President Obama, in his toast to Canada:

    “We see this in our current presidential campaign. Where else could a boy born in Calgary run for president of the United States?”

  14. 14.

    PaulWartenberg2016

    I’m thinking of teaching a “How to E-Publish” class at the library for next month. But that means I need to finish up a new story in 14 days and make my own book cover for it.

  17. 17.

    Schlemazel (parmesan rancor)

    @Ben Cisco:
    It already has. For example there was a Buddhist attacked because the moron thought he was a Muslim just this week. There have been others & my guess is several we have not heard about.

    I used to compare todays political climate to the 1850s but recently the parallels to the 1930s are too strong to ignore.

  19. 19.

    PaulWartenberg2016

    @Mustang Bobby:

    Ben Carson is being touted as the next Senator from Florida, and Marco Rubio is being talked about as the next governor.

    Neither will happen. There’s already a few names up for Senator on the GOP side that Carson won’t be able to beat, and Rubio’s disdain for doing his job will kill him when he goes up against the likes of Putnam (who is reportedly gearing up a major push for the Gov’s seat).

    Still, if either do win their primaries I hope that becomes enough incentive for the Democrats in-state to FINALLY f-cking show up to vote on midterm cycles and out-vote the minor party here (there’s 5 million Dems to 4 million GOP, and yet poor turnout in off-years kills our state again and again).

  20. 20.

    BillinGlendaleCA

    @bystander:

    And miss seeing Joe and Mika?

    It’s going to be raining here today, I avoid any driving in the rain whenever possible. Also, my invitation got lost in the mail.

  23. 23.

    BillinGlendaleCA

    Apparently, the local(Griffith Park) mountain lion decided he wanted to go out for Australian the other night; he picked up a Koala bear from the zoo.

  25. 25.

    amk

    Today’s msm spin. The gop debate was civil, so let’s forget all that batshit crazy that happened till now, ignore their still present racist and war mongering views and move on to GE.

  26. 26.

    Mustang Bobby

    @PaulWartenberg2016: I know they won’t really happen, but the idea of either of them being considered even halfway seriously is enough, to quote Charlie Pierce, to make me want to guzzle anti-freeze.

    Your point about the Florida Democratic Party is well-taken. In short, there isn’t one. The bench is so thin they have to recruit used Republicans (Charlie Crist).

  27. 27.

    BillinGlendaleCA

    @Baud: Nope, the mountain lion got into the Koala enclosure and nabbed a bear. The mountain lion is pretty much a celeb(he does live right above Hollywood with a nice view), there are pics of him looking out over the city.

  30. 30.

    Schlemazel (parmesan rancor)

    @BillinGlendaleCA:
    The local zoo had a rare silver peacock that was free to roam the grounds. HAD. One morning it roamed into the polar bear enclosure and gave the bear something interesting to do while providing a light breakfast.

  31. 31.

    Keith G

    @bystander: To consider your point more accurately, one must include the context of the time period. Yes Nancy Reagan did help further the horrendously stupid War on Drugs as did so many so-called liberal types as well. It was the thing to do.

    Also recall that she had received incredible amounts of pushback from others as far as being an out-of-touch, rich clothes horse who was more interested in dinnerware than the suffering of others.

    It’s not as if she got a free ride.

  39. 39.

    Schlemazel (parmesan rancor)

    @Baud:
    Lots of crap roams Florida. They had a monkey problem in Central Florida years ago. Had to clean them out. A lot of the problem stems from stupid people playing “Free Willy” with pets that find the climate tolerable and the natives defenseless.

  40. 40.

    Gimlet

    Don’t be stupid, be a smarty
    Come and join the Republican party

    pittsburgh.cbslocal.com/2016/03/10/report-46000-pa-democrats-become-republicans-due-to-trump/

    PITTSBURGH (KDKA) – Nearly 46,000 Pennsylvania Democrats have switched to Republicans since the beginning of the year.

    There’s even a title for the movement. It’s called “Ditch and Switch” and calls for lifelong Democrats to abandon the party, register Republican, and help ensure Trump’s place in the general election.

    The numbers are similar in other states as well.

    The paper says in Massachusetts, as many as 20,000 Democrats have gone from blue-to-red this year with Trump cited as a primary reason. And in Ohio, as many as 1,000 blue collar workers have promised to switch parties and vote for Trump.

    Numbers show that some Republicans are also switching to the Democratic party, but nowhere near the numbers that are switching to Republican.

  41. 41.

    Patricia Kayden

    @bystander: Mrs. Obama appears to have stayed out of political discussions beyond supporting her Husband’s Presidential campaigns. Her push to support military families, and to encourage gardening and exercise is as a-political as you could get, in my opinion.

  43. 43.

    Schlemazel (parmesan rancor)

    @BillinGlendaleCA:
    I just saw a program a few weeks ago that tracked an urban lion – maybe this one? – it crossed highways. I assume a river wouldn’t be much of a deterrent either.

  44. 44.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Baud: Some people around here use them as “guard” birds. Make a racket when ever somebody comes around.

  45. 45.

    Baud

    @Gimlet:

    Numbers show that some Republicans are also switching to the Democratic party, but nowhere near the numbers that are switching to Republican.

    And who the hell writes a sentence like that.

    As president, I will increase jobs by requiring all publications to employ copy editors.

  47. 47.

    Mustang Bobby

    @Baud: Legend has it that they were imported to decorate various estates to give them an exotic touch back in the old days. Well of course they flew the coop and have settled in the Miami suburbs of Pinecrest, Palmetto Bay, and Cutler Ridge. There aren’t any natural predators so they breed and roost wherever they want, including my roof and patio enclosure.

    This time of year seems to be the mating season; I’ve seen the males strutting around with their tail feathers abloom and making a call that sounds like a banshee crossed with a Klaxon. They also have been known to do property damage to cars and boats. And they have major attitude issues. I’ve named the worst of the offenders Trump, followed by his pals Shut Up and You Heard Me.

  50. 50.

    paradox

    …as being an out-of-touch, rich clothes horse who was more interested in dinnerware than the suffering of others.

    This was, in fact, precisely who she was.

  51. 51.

    BillinGlendaleCA

    @Schlemazel (parmesan rancor): Depends on the weather, the river wouldn’t be too easy to cross today(rain). They think P-22 probably came down the flood control channels from either the San Gabriels or the Verdugo Hills.

  53. 53.

    Betty Cracker

    @Mustang Bobby: I’m fond of the peacocks. But probably only because the closest are about a quarter mile away, so their “HeeYAH!” doesn’t wake me up out of a sound sleep!

  54. 54.

    Patricia Kayden

    @Gimlet: I have a hard time believing that any Democrat who voted for Obama could vote for Trump. But that’s just me. I just don’t see how you could have voted for such a calm, dignified, classy and intelligent person like Obama and then turn around and support a crass, loudmouthed, bigoted blowhard like Trump who has zero qualifications to hold the office of the President. Something just doesn’t compute.

  55. 55.

    Baud

    @debbie: To be perfectly fair, I assume a reporter is under tremendous pressure to draft something quickly, so I can see first drafts of articles having these types of mistakes. It’s the publication’s responsibility to have someone who can clean it up. This article doesn’t even seem like it’s breaking news, so the only reason they didn’t proofread it is because they want to cut costs and not hire editors.

  58. 58.

    Kay

    Democrats gotta do better than that on the economy. She can’t be even with Trump on the economy.

    Democrats rank education as much more important than Republicans do. Partly that’s because of ideology- Republicans rank education lower because the ideology demands it be state and local. I personally think she needs a much clearer and simpler policy on college. I wonder why she didn’t go with Obama’s “free community college”. I thought that had some potential appeal to lower and middle income people and it’s simple. Ohio has a (state-wide) program now where high school students can take college classes free for college credit. It’s primarily centered around community colleges. It is WILDLY popular. They’re filling school lunchrooms with parents at the information sessions and they are lower and middle income. Mine was packed. The uppers assume they’ll be able to afford the traditional “go away to college for 4 years” experience, but people really seem to be taking to the idea that they can cut costs with shaving off a year or two- getting that head start free.

  59. 59.

    Betty Cracker

    Regarding a possible Hillz vs Trump match-up, I like our chances, but she’s got to come up with a better answer on trade. In fact, she should have done so before going up against Sanders. The thing is, it’s an incredibly complex issue in reality but one that is vulnerable to visceral oversimplifications. And in politics, if you’re explaining, you’re losing. I’m confident Hillz understands the nuances. Whether or not she can find a way to communicate them in a soundbite remains to be seen.

  60. 60.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @BillinGlendaleCA: @Schlemazel (parmesan rancor): Rivers not a barrier at all for wild critters but highways can be a major problem. In critical locations they are building “underpasses” for wildlife so that they can more freely move around. It isn’t just the danger of animals getting hit, it is also their reluctance to cross a busy road. Fences can be major problems too, as they are in WY for the antelope migration.

  63. 63.

    BillinGlendaleCA

    @OzarkHillbilly: They’ve been talking about doing that out here on the 101. There are underpasses that go under the freeway between here and Griffith Park for horses.

  64. 64.

    debbie

    @Patricia Kayden:

    I have a hard time believing that any Democrat who voted for Obama could vote for Trump. But that’s just me.

    Could it be more an indication of their opinion of Mitt than support for Obama?

  66. 66.

    Kay

    @Baud:

    Thanks. I had no idea. I suggest she start every college plug with that. I haven’t hear a word about it but I didn’t watch every debate. One of our legal assistants has 4 kids and she is elaborately plotting her kids’ college course schedule while they are in high school. She will get every free credit Ohio is offering! She’s one of those people who get 20 tubes of free toothpaste with clever couponing.

  68. 68.

    Patricia Kayden

    @Betty Cracker: “Whether or not she can find a way to communicate them in a soundbite remains to be seen.”

    That’s the crux of the issue. When I hear talk about trade, my eyes start to glaze over but I understand that trade and economic issues are huge issues for millions of my fellow Americans and our side has to find a way of addressing those issues in a succint manner which ordinary people can understand and digest.

    Since it was President Bill Clinton who popularized the phrase “It’s the economy, stupid”, perhaps he’ll help Secretary Clinton come up with a catchy phrase of her own for this election cycle.

  69. 69.

    Kay

    @Betty Cracker:

    I saw Sherrod Brown on MSNBC and he said he would be the trade explainer (in so many words). He said he “trusts” her on trade which goes a long way, but I wish they would roll him out.

    It pisses me off to no end that Republicans have completely co-opted “fair trade”. The first time I saw it was when Rob Portman ran. Two campaign aides came up to me while we waiting to get into an Obama event pre-2010 midterm. They had fliers- Portman is for “fair trade”. I was outraged, because “fair trade” is actually a whole set of ideas. It’s the response to “free trade”. It’s a coherent set of ideas and policies and it’s different than (ideological) “free trade”.

  70. 70.

    Gimlet

    @debbie:

    Would be interesting to see the age group(s) this phenomenon reflects. Maybe it’s the older “get off my lawn” Fox “News” viewer.

  71. 71.

    Kay

    @Baud:

    Oh, I disagree. I think that’s a middle ground and one lower and middle parents would hear. This is hotly discussed in parental circles- How To Afford College.

  73. 73.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Patricia Kayden: The article never said they voted for Obama; it said they were registered Democrats.

    I could actually see some 2008 Obama voters switching to Trump. There were a lot of one-shot voters for Obama that year who were just giving a big fuck-you to the powers that be, because Bush sucked so hard and the economy had fallen in. If some of those people are still hurting (and people in Pennsylvania definitely are) even though someone on the TV says things are fine, I could see that person getting even more pissed off and supporting Trump for the same reason.

    A 2012 Obama voter, that’s harder to see. That’s someone who voted for Obama again even though he didn’t fix everything. A lot of white people, particularly, switched back to voting Republican that year, though the electoral map didn’t look all that different.

  75. 75.

    Patricia Kayden

    @debbie: I see your point but I would assume that if you voted for President Obama for any reason (including that Romney was awful), you wouldn’t turn around and vote for someone like Trump (who is awful in different ways than Romney).

  77. 77.

    Kay

    @Baud:

    It’s Sherrod Brown’s “signature issue”. He wrote a book about it.

    I want trade, and I want more of it. But Ohio workers and manufacturers deserve trade under a different set of rules. That means enforcing laws that prevent cheap, illegally subsidized imports from flooding our markets. It means preventing countries like China and South Korea from undervaluing their currencies, which artificially prices their products below American ones. And it means ensuring a level playing field for Ohio manufacturers by requiring that our trading partners play by the same environmental and labor laws that we do.

    The currency piece is huge. Brown worked with Portman on a currency bill in the last session. They both promoted it heavily to their respective voters. Portman is running right now so the currency piece would be a beautiful thing for Clinton to use in OH but also MI, IL, WI- Republicans can’t attack Rob Portman’s position on currency manipulation. It’s perfect for Brown too- he’s almost smug (as smug as Brown gets, which is not very) that Democrats are finally where he’s always been on trade.

  79. 79.

    What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?

    @Baud: That’s sort of it. My theory is most Americans, if they know anying about economics at all, know 101 which is all about how free markets are the bomb – they never cover the down side much in 101. So, most people are predisposed to believe deregulation and free markets are better for the economy. I think the financial meltdown hurt them on that front though. It’s also a legacy of the perception that the Reagan years were the most fantabuloius years for the economy ever. They weren’t but people remember them that way.

  80. 80.

    Just One More Canuck

    @BillinGlendaleCA: they wouldn’t be much of a deterrent to him – I grew up in Victoria, and cougar sightings (the 4-legged kind) were fairly common, even in the downtown area

  81. 81.

    Kay

    @Baud:

    To think about fair trade you have to start with this: US companies are not “US companies”. They produce and sell all over, the large ones. They are not necessarily on the “side” of the US position on trade. It’s a hard thing to tell people because we want to think we’re the biggest and baddest market that ever was, and we want to believe we have US companies and they’re always aligned with US domestic economic interests, but they’re not. If they’re producing in China and selling in India that is their market too. In many ways it’s a more important market, because it’s growing. Once you accept that reality US trade deals make a lot more sense. It’s not “US trade negotiators and US companies on one side of the table and these other countries across from them”. It’s not that at all. That’s hard for Americans, right? That they’re not “the world” to these companies.

  82. 82.

    Betty Cracker

    @Kay: They can’t roll him out soon enough! It’s not a huge issue in Florida, which was always a service economy, but I’m sure it is in Ohio and other states that will be voting in a few days.

  83. 83.

    Matt McIrvin

    Lots of nervousness about Hillary Clinton’s potential foreign policy (contrasted with Obama’s) in this LGM thread.

    Remember 2012 when we were all arguing about whether Obama was a worse warmonger than Bush?

  84. 84.

    BillinGlendaleCA

    @Just One More Canuck: I’ve been to Victoria, LA’s a bit more urban. Griffith Park is bordered by freeways on 3 sides with Hollywood to the south. My guess is that he’s got plenty of game in the park, so I don’t think he’d need to risk crossing the freeway or the river(though that wouldn’t be a problem most of the time).

    ETA: The only wildlife in the park that I’ve seen on my hikes are lizards and a skunk. They say there’s deer there, but I’ve never seen any(I have in the Verdugos and even in the city up near the mountains).

  85. 85.

    Kay

    @Betty Cracker:

    I know. I’m comforted somewhat by the fact that Sherrod Brown runs great political campaigns. He bucked the Democratic Party in his first run and hired a campaign manager who came from labor instead of the person who came out of the Dem “establishment”. The Washington Post did a piece on how he cracked the code for how a liberal Democrats wins in a swing state, because he is liberal on “social issues”. He doesn’t shy away from that at all.

  86. 86.

    delk

    Trump Rally and auditions for So You Think You Can Dance are walking distance from my place today.

    Think I’ll stay in today.

  87. 87.

    Davebo

    @OzarkHillbilly: On my drive between Banff and Lake Louise last year I couldn’t figure out why a highway overpass had trees growing on it. By the third one I drove under I realized they were for the critters.

  88. 88.

    Robert Sneddon

    @Davebo: Years ago British road builders were encouraged to lay down small tunnels under major roads after efforts from people complaining about the numbers of squashed hedgehogs on the roads. They had to upscale size of the tunnels after a while when they found badgers digging out the entrances to the tunnels to make setts for themselves. Later, wildlife observers noted foxes laying in wait at the ends of the tunnels to catch weasels, stoats and, yes, hedgehogs using the tunnels.

    The Law of Unintended Consequences strikes again.

  89. 89.

    Betty Cracker

    @Matt McIrvin: The Atlantic article was pretty fascinating. So many myths exploded. Been meaning to post about it, but no time so far (not that I’m the most qualified to discuss it around here anyway). Still, I’m interested in folks’ thoughts.

  90. 90.

    Just One More Canuck

    @BillinGlendaleCA: Depending on how high above grade the freeways are, he could go underneath, but you’re right- he’s probably got lots to eat where he is .Google maps makes it look like the freeways around there are pretty low to the ground

  91. 91.

    Robert Sneddon

    @Kay: A bit over ten years ago the Bush administration put tarriffs on Canadian lumber and New Zealand lamb, against WTO rules. This action was touted to protect American markets. In response the WTO put punitive tarriffs on US exports, not of lumber and lamb but aircraft, specifically Boeing airliners. The tarriffs on limber and lamb came off real quick.

    The opposite of free trade is a trade war, and everybody loses in a trade war. We in Britain are facing a referendum soon on whether to continue being member of the EU. The Get Out brigade promise us that if we’re on the outside of the EU, our biggest trading partners we’ll still get all the free trade benefits we’ve been paying for as members of the club, somehow, because we’re “special”. The EU has stated clearly that there would be at least a 2.5% tarriff on British goods in the EU if we leave.

  92. 92.

    JMG

    @Kay: I’m actually surprised she leads in that category. One of the most enduring popular fallacies of our lifetime is that rich people must know more about the economy than the rest of us. One of the enduring truths of politics is that simplest answer requiring the least amount of effort for the voter wins. Trump has the edge on both counts.

  93. 93.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Davebo:

    On my drive between Banff and Lake Louise

    In a previous life my family and I took a hike around the lake. When we had completed about 2/3 of the circuit we were passed by a man carrying a set of bagpipes going in the opposite direction. Just before we reached the parking lot, he began to play.

    I have loved bagpipes ever since.

  94. 94.

    danielx

    @Patricia Kayden:

    Yet statistics show that overall the economy does better under Democratic Presidents.

    Quite true. But for that fact to matter, one would have to presuppose that your average Republican/Trump voter has any use for statistical and/or empirical data.

    They don’t.

  95. 95.

    Matt McIrvin

    @JMG:

    One of the most enduring popular fallacies of our lifetime is that rich people must know more about the economy than the rest of us.

    Also, that “the economy” and “the deficit” are the same thing, and the people you can trust on the deficit are Republicans because they’re tight-fisted about spending. These seem to be notions that took hold in the 1980s and 1990s (though they blatantly weren’t justified even then) and they are almost impossible to kill.

  96. 96.

    Betty Cracker

    @danielx: It’s true that facts don’t matter to that group. But we needn’t convert Republican voters. We just have to motivate Democrats to turn out and attract independents to win.

  99. 99.

    HRA

    @Patricia Kayden:

    Democrats who voted for Obama did not like how the Clintons campaigned against him. They do not like how they are campaigning now as well. IOW its a anybody but Clinton reason. I hear a lot of criticisms about HRC from Democrats among family and friends. No has said they are voting for Trump. Some have said they are not voting at all.

  100. 100.

    cmorenc

    @Gimlet:

    PITTSBURGH (KDKA) – Nearly 46,000 Pennsylvania Democrats have switched to Republicans since the beginning of the year.

    Vanishingly few of whom have voted for democrats in elections in quite awhile – and finally, some catalyst comes along which nudges them to actually switch their registration to R. This is exactly what the pattern was in deep-red southern states from the mid-1970s onward.

    It’s not as if the democratic party lost many voters who hadn’t already been lost for a couple of decades.

  102. 102.

    Baud

    @cmorenc: The fact that these voters are switching when the Dem primary features an unabashed, full-throated progressive of the type that these voters were supposed to be waiting for proves to me that they were permanently lost a long time ago.

  103. 103.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Matt McIrvin: I still laugh at Reagan railing against the unconscionable $60 billion deficits that Carter was running in ’79-’80. Then Reagan, IIRC, promptly tripled it to over $180 billion with tax cuts and defense spending. Unlike today’s GOP, Reagan was at least on speaking terms with reality and raised taxes again.

  105. 105.

    Kay

    @Robert Sneddon:

    The opposite of free trade is a trade war, and everybody loses in a trade war.

    Well, luckily no one is calling for the “opposite of free trade”. I don’t mean this personally, but ideological free traders have basically shut down any discussion of this by labeling everything except the far Right and libertarian position on free trade as “protectionist” or “opposition to trade”. We can do better with trade than we’re doing but we can’t even have the debate if ideological free traders consist to insist no debate is even possible – that any and all free trade policy or actions or deals are the best and there’s no possibility of improvement. I just saw President Obama do this- he entertained absolutely no criticism or dissent on his trade deal. He can’t do that. Obviously, it’s an issue with voters. Not a problem for him, but it is boiling over and it will have to be addressed in some other way than “we’re helpless before world markets so just suck it up”

  106. 106.

    LanceThruster

    A sad difference to me is that Trump doesn’t take Israel Lobby money and has mentiomed being a fair broker whereas Clinton ratchets up the rhetoric to Israel’s delight and her financial benefit from donors who make Israel their sole issue.

  107. 107.

    Kay

    @Robert Sneddon:

    Here’s the complaint in a nutshell, Robert. The US is negotiating trade deals not solely or even mostly on behalf of “American workers” but instead on behalf of US companies and US companies are not “US companies” in any real sense.

    The interests of large US companies sometimes diverge from the interests of US workers. Is that a true statement? If so, what is the place of government among those competing interests? Could government be MORE on the side of US workers without a trade war? I think so.

  108. 108.

    Kay

    @Robert Sneddon:

    I think shutting down debate has actually hurt free traders. They never made their case to the public. They didn’t have to- it was such a dominant idea for 20 years among policy people and politicians on both the Left and the Right they never had to defend it on the merits as it impacts US workers. Now that it’s an issue the debate will be dominated by people like Donald Trump but as far as I’m concerned that’s the fault of the “elite” consensus on trade. They never bothered to explain it to the people who are directly impacted by it. There’s arrogance in that.

  110. 110.

    Scotian

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    Be VERY glad that person was skilled with the bagpipes then. I’m a Nova Scotian, so the pipes are a fairly common instrument (relatively speaking) around here, and I’ve on a few occasions been treated to not only excellent piping but also the sonic weapons/disasters that are people still learning how to play. THAT would be enough to put most people off the pipes evermore if that was their first exposure, I can promise you that! I can think of few (actually on reflection maybe that should be if any) sound experiences in my life that was as acutely painful as one particularly enthusiastic yet clearly very inexperienced piper trying to figure out how to play, and that includes all kinds of construction noises, jet turbulence at close range, speaker feedback blowouts, etc.

    It makes believing that my Scottish ancestors created this instrument not only as a weapon to strike fear into the hearts of the enemy when being played as their battle cry, but also as a weapon against each other to prove their bravery of all during the learning experience a fairly easy thing for me…LOL

    Scotian

  111. 111.

    Betty Cracker

    @HRA: Well, who could argue with that strategy? Politicians always pay attention to the needs and concerns of non-voters; everyone knows that!

    @Kay:

    The interests of large US companies sometimes diverge from the interests of US workers.

    Bingo.

  112. 112.

    Paul in KY

    @BillinGlendaleCA: Hope the meal doesn’t mess with him/her. Koalas have a very high eucalyptus content & plant is generally inedible to most creatures (except Koalas).

  113. 113.

    danielx

    @Betty Cracker:

    We just have to motivate Democrats to turn out and attract independents to win.

    All too true. I do not and never will understand why Dems don’t get out and vote, at midterms and at any other time. Republican base voters, whatever else you can say about them, do get out and vote in primaries, midterms, local and any other elections. Democrats don’t, at least in my observation. They get fired up every four years and then go home and hope for the best.

    Case in point being your own fair state. I’m still wondering how they elected Voldemort as governor, and now there’s talk of Marco Rubio for governor? You’d think after the examples of Jindal, Brownbeck, Walker, Scott, Pence, Snyder, et al, that people would have tired of their states being used as test beds for Republican ideology, which always seem to end up with those states as economic and environmental smoking ruins. Ben Carson as senator doesn’t bother me all that much if he replaces another Republican senator* – one more senatorial dipshit won’t make a huge amount of difference, and it’s not like Carson is a major thinker or policy genius. State governors have a lot more influence on the quality of people’s lives at the day-to-day level.

    With apologies to W.B. Yeats (again)…

    The best lack all conviction, while the worst
    Are full of passionate intensity.

    *Edit: except for confirming (again) my suspicions about Republican voters; they’d vote for an alligator with an R after its name.

  114. 114.

    Robert Sneddon

    @Scotian: Scotland only got a National Piping School a decade or two back. The school was retrofitted into an older building in Glasgow with individual practice cubicles for the students. The soundproofing requirements were something else, apparently.

  115. 115.

    Paul in KY

    @HRA: Tell them that Pres. Obama is cool with her (had her as SS) & that we need a Democrat in Presidency & it will be her or some craptard Republican & if they help that bad result, they are worse than their imagined Hillary ever was.

  118. 118.

    Yutsano

    @BillinGlendaleCA: I can’t find the link now, but they’re fundraising to build an animal overpass so the Santa Monica lions can get out of their isolated territory and out into the hills to the east. It’s based on projects in Europe that have done similar benefits to wildlife there. I THINK it’s a Kickstarter but don’t quote me on that.

  119. 119.

    Robert Sneddon

    @Kay: Tarriffs, punitive or protective means the trade slows down or diverts to other nations that don’t impose tarriffs. If the US puts tarriffs on, say, Chinese goods to “protect American workers” then China will retaliate by putting tarriffs on US cars and US aircraft and the slack will be taken up by Mercedes-Benz and Airbus and Toyota. The result is lost sales and factory closures in the US as demand dries up.

    There are few, very very few, US-produced items that can’t be sourced elsewhere in the world. A lot of them are intellectual property, computer designs, movies, TV series etc. and they just don’t employ people the way Boeing or GM does, especially in the union hands-on businesses.

    That’s why I say a trade war is bad news for everyone and why the WTO ensures a level playing field in trade between nations. Swivel-tongued demagogues can blame dastardly foreigners taking “their” jobs but the jobs only exist in large part because those dastardly foreigners are buying the product of their labour. That’s why it’s called a “trade”.

  120. 120.

    FlipYrWhig

    @Matt McIrvin:

    Also, that “the economy” and “the deficit” are the same thing, and the people you can trust on the deficit are Republicans because they’re tight-fisted about spending.

    Yup. I’m actually pretty sure that people have no idea what “the economy” is or what the government’s relationship to it is or should be. And they’re even more clueless about “the deficit.” At least we’ve sort of gotten over equating “the economy” to “the Dow.” We tend not to hear that one so much anymore.

  121. 121.

    Baud

    @FlipYrWhig:

    At least we’ve sort of gotten over equating “the economy” to “the Dow.” We tend not to hear that one so much anymore.

    Thanks, Obama.

  122. 122.

    Kay

    @Robert Sneddon:

    Part of the fair trade argument is that other countries DO limit imports. The charge is the US went very far on free trade before other countries did and that put US-made goods at a huge disadvantage. US workers are paid more than workers in South Korea or Mexico, so the charge is US politicians and policy people aligned with US business interests determined that US workers could take the entire hit from the promotion of free trade and at some point these other countries would allow frictionless import of US goods if we “led on trade”. That hasn’t happened. They protect their own markets. They don’t allow US imports in. We just don’t protect ours.

  123. 123.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Kay: The interests of large US companies nearly always diverge from the interests of US workers.

    FTFY. You’ll get my bill in the mail.

  124. 124.

    jonas

    @Robert Sneddon: A better strategy than tariffs would be to close the corporate tax loophole that allows companies to stash vast amounts of otherwise taxable profit in offshore accounts or subsidiaries. Tell them they can bring that cash back home and get a huge discount provided its spent on investment, wages, or new jobs (as opposed to stock buyback schemes or something). Otherwise Uncle Sam takes 50% of it.

  126. 126.

    Baud

    @jonas:

    Tell them they can bring that cash back home and get a huge discount provided its spent on investment, wages, or new jobs (as opposed to stock buyback schemes or something). Otherwise Uncle Sam takes 50% of it.

    How does this get the money back home?

  127. 127.

    Kay

    @Robert Sneddon:

    Free traders would have more credibility if they ever enforced their own deals, but they don’t. President Obama doesn’t either. We’re told again and again there will be a “leveling of the playing field” but nothing ever happens. They engage in endless negotiationss- 4 and 5 and 6 years- and nothing ever happens to countries that violate the agreements. President Obama has a PRIOR trade agreement where he didn’t keep any of his promises on enforcement. How, exactly, are they planning on making these enforcement sanctions real? They’re going to impose what amounts to economic sanctions on South Korea? Of course not.

    It’s a fake threat and they all know it. The least they could do is admit it. The parts of these deals that benefit US workers are unenforceable.

    In March 2012, Mr. Obama inaugurated a free trade pact with South Korea and in many ways, it provides a template for what we may expect from a broader TPP.
    Imports from South Korea are up 3.6 billion, U.S. exports are down marginally and the U.S. trade deficit with the Asian nation has swelled to 5 billion. That free trade deal alone has killed about 25,000 American jobs—mostly in high paying manufacturing activities—and added to downward pressures on wages and worsened income inequality.

    The moment anyone asks about enforcement they pull out the “trade war” card and then it’s an urgent matter of foreign policy that we not upset anyone.

    They’re not asking to “shut down the borders” as President Obama so dishonestly claimed. They’re asking their government to negotiate on their behalf to some extent.

  128. 128.

    HRA

    @Paul in KY:

    First I want to say these are not Democrats who did not ever vote or crossed party lines. I have tried to reason with them by pointing out the danger of having any of the occupants of the Republican candidates win the election. Their answer is I am not voting for any Republican. I am now trying to get them to at least vote for the other Democrat candidates.

  130. 130.

    Paul in KY

    @HRA: Thank you for your response. Still think you should tell them what I said. We all have to do distasteful things sometime in the noble effort to stop Repubs from fucking over our country. For them it is voting for Hillary (if she’s the nominee).

  131. 131.

    Matt McIrvin

    @FlipYrWhig: Wasn’t there some town-hall event back in 1992 at which a person in the audience asked Bill Clinton what he was going to do about the deficit, and his response pivoted immediately to jobs/the weak economy and said nothing about the deficit whatsoever?

    Clever man, Bill Clinton.

  132. 132.

    Betty Cracker

    @Kay: As much as I loathe evil, bulbous shower-drain genie Trump, he isn’t entirely wrong when he says the US gets screwed on trade deals (the workers, at least) and that other countries are playing us. His eventual Democratic opponent (probably Hillz) needs an answer. It would also make sense if she’d segue into a discussion that links the loss of manufacturing jobs to the larger reality that the economy has evolved since the post-WW2 period and that the only reason assembly line work was ever a “good” job is because the pay was good. There are still jobs in the US. It’s just that the pay is shit. It doesn’t have to be.

  133. 133.

    MomSense

    @Kay:

    Peter Morici? He is a fox news analyst who wrote an article about why Donald Trump’s foreign policy makes sense.

  134. 134.

    Kay

    @Robert Sneddon:

    This is part of what they’re complaining about:

    TPP will make it easier for American entrepreneurs, farmers, and small business owners to sell Made-In-America products abroad by eliminating more than 18,000 taxes & other trade barriers on American products across the 11 other countries in the TPP—barriers that put American products at an unfair disadvantage today.

    The US “led” on trade by removing barriers for other countries to enter US markets but those same countries kept their barriers in place. That put US workers and products at a disadvantage, but it sure dd lower US wages! You can see why people feel this was done deliberately- they were earning higher wages so it was determined they could take the hit in pursuit of free trade policy. This went on for 30 years. It wasn’t at all a “level playing field”. Their wages were essentially sacrificed in return for empty promises from other countries that they would allow US products in under the same terms that the US was letting their products in.

  136. 136.

    NotMax

    @MomSense

    why Donald Trump’s foreign policy makes sense

    A phrase wherein the total is significantly less than the sum of its parts.

  138. 138.

    catclub

    @BillinGlendaleCA: That is not very far for a mountain lion.
    They timed a mountain lion crossing the Grand canyon from sill to sill in something like 9 hours.

    (A city would be harder due to shyness.)

  139. 139.

    Kay

    @MomSense:

    Okay, then try these people. There are a lot of them. Democratic majorities didn’t support Obama’s trade deal. Fast track passed due to GOP support.

    A belief that most Americans will not benefit from this trade agreement is one of the biggest arguments against the TPP. A recent study from the liberal-leaning Center for Economic and Policy Research predicts that 90 percent of workers in the United States would see a decrease in real wages under the TPP. CEPR also asserts that cumulative GDP gains in the United States won’t be much more than 0.13 percent by 2025 — not much more than a rounding error.
    Democratic Reps. George Miller (Calif.), Rosa DeLauro (Conn.) and Louise Slaughter (N.Y.) wrote an op-ed in the Los Angeles Times this week lambasting the effect the TPP could have on middle class Americans, saying “this agreement would force Americans to compete against workers from nations such as Vietnam, where the minimum wage is $2.75 a day.

    The President should have spent less time attacking Warren and Brown and shutting down any debate and more time explaining why this deal is in the interests of US working people. They have a right to ask how it benefits them. It is their government negotiating it. This uber-sophisticated approach where they’re told they simply don’t understand “world markets” isn’t really cutting it, although it worked like a charm for 30 years.

  140. 140.

    Scotian

    @Robert Sneddon:

    Scotland only got a National Piping School a decade or two back. The school was retrofitted into an older building in Glasgow with individual practice cubicles for the students. The soundproofing requirements were something else, apparently.

    That thought made me wince as I read it! The soundproofing requirements to have cubicle environment pipers learning individually at the same time would indeed be something else! I would have hated to see the bill for that one, and to retrofit an older building to manage it must have been its own special joy too. I mean that not just on cost and building challenges but even in design too, bagpipes are particularly good for resonance creation. I love bagpipes, they are one of my favourite instruments of all in humanity’s vast creation, but I know too well the downsides of them also. I mean any instrument you invent/use the word “skirling” (as in the skirling of the ‘pipes) to describe its sound says a lot about it IMHO…*chuckle*.

    Wow, the more I think abut that school, the more my head hurts. I need more coffee now. Thanks…LOL

  141. 141.

    Robert Sneddon

    @Betty Cracker: That’s weird, our UKippers say exactly the same thing about how Britain gets screwed on trade deals with, among others, the US. I know the same argument is going on in Japan with nationalists wanting restrictions on goods from China and Korea because they’re foreigners cheating on trade deals and stealing Japanese worker’s jobs. The Koreans are probably saying the same thing about the Japanese. How… strange. Perhaps they’re all bending the truth?

    The bad news is that the well-paid assembly line jobs are gone forever along with the steel-making plants employing thousands and all the other labour-intensive industries like coal-mining thanks to mechanisation, robots and cost-cutting.

    The UK employed 500,000 people to mine coal in the 1950s, that’s out of a total population of 50 million. They used picks and shovels and pony-drawn waggons deep underground to get that coal. By the 1970s the mining labour force was down to less than 100,000 men using power machinery to extract more coal each year than the half-million labour force did twenty years before. Now all the economically-available coal is gone and the coal industry labour force doesn’t exist any more but the population’s still gone up.

    The Golden Era of the post-war industrial boom in the US was a never-to-be-repeated one-off situation and wishful thinking won’t bring it back. Sorry.

  142. 142.

    Kay

    @Robert Sneddon:

    To a certain extent, Robert, free trade rested on the notion of trickle down. If these large companies did better, then working people would do better too. That was the deal. There would be disruption but there would be a NET GAIN for working people somewhere along the line if they just trained for the “right” work and adapted constantly, they could win if business interests were winning.

    When trickle down was discredited, free trade went along with it. Obama actually argued trickle down when he tried to sell the TPP, but very few people believe it anymore.

  143. 143.

    Gin & Tonic

    @catclub: A few years back a mountain lion was struck and killed by a car on a highway in Connecticut. The details are hazy in my memory, but through some DNA analysis and a tracking database held by some wildlife service they determined that it came there from South Dakota. I’m sure someone with more time and interest could Google the story.

  144. 144.

    Robert Sneddon

    @Scotian: It wasn’t just the sound separation of the cubicles so that students practicing didn’t interfere with others, it was necessary to make the music played inside the cubicles sound as if they were playing in the open as that’s where most piping performances take place. The occasional indoor piping events tend to be after strong drink has been partaken of by the audience – military mess dinners and Burns Suppers are the ones that spring to mind. As for open-air performances, the Lone Piper is probably the most famous of them.

  145. 145.

    MomSense

    @Kay:

    Kay, the president didn’t attack Warren and Brown. Saying he disagreed with them and thought they were wrong on this issue is not an attack.

    I think there are more problems than just trade policy because trade policy alone can’t account for the mega manufacturing losses that happened before the trade deals.

  146. 146.

    Fair Economist

    @Robert Sneddon:

    That’s why I say a trade war is bad news for everyone and why the WTO ensures a level playing field in trade between nations. Swivel-tongued demagogues can blame dastardly foreigners taking “their” jobs but the jobs only exist in large part because those dastardly foreigners are buying the product of their labour. That’s why it’s called a “trade”.

    The problem with “free trade” is that it makes it harder to redistribute income, and that probably outweighs any gains from efficiency. Yes, widgets are cheaper at Walmart, but the flip side is that minimum wage laws and unionization cause jobs to get moved abroad. The economy in the sense of total production value increases, but the top takes so much that median incomes have been flat for 40 years in the face of massive productivity increases. If protectionism had *just* kept us at 70’s level at the price of completely destroying ALL productivity improvements since then the average person would be – just as well off as they are now.

    Empirical estimates of the gains from free trade are only a few percent of world production, so in a fair trade world with moderate tariffs the 90% would be better off than they are now even though the 10% would be worse off. The total dollar value of the economy would be lower, but because a dollar for an average person provides many times the benefit of a dollar for Donald Trump, we’d actually be better off as a society.

  147. 147.

    Kay

    @MomSense:

    The truth of the matter is that Elizabeth is, you know, a politician like everybody else. And you know, she’s got a voice that she wants to get out there. And I understand that. And on most issues, she and I deeply agree. On this one, though, her arguments don’t stand the test of fact and scrutiny.

    Well, we disagree. He questioned her motives when she made a completely valid point about challenges to US regs under trade agreements. She was right, too. No sooner had she said it and he denied it than there was a challenge to US regs on food labeling that violated a trade deal. Her arguments did stand the test of fact and scrutiny, almost immediately.

    He did the same thing with labor unions. He dismissed their concerns as purely parochial, but labor unions are international. Some of their main complaints about his PAST enforcement of labor protections have to do with workers in Mexico and Central America. He misrepresented their motives, too. He turned it into US workers versus workers in other countries, which is Free Trade 101 as far as tactics. I supported Obama wholeheartedly but he didn’t cover himself in glory on that trade deal. I get that he wanted it badly, but not accepting any criticism or debate is not okay. He would have done better to debate it. He never made his case. Now he’s faced with Donald Trump defining his legacy trade deal.

  149. 149.

    Kay

    @MomSense:

    This is what he denied as not factual:

    The World Trade Organization (WTO) has ruled in favor of Canada and Mexico in an ongoing dispute with the United States over country-of-origin labeling (COOL) on meat.
    The latest U.S. labeling rules, put into effect in 2013, require meat sold in grocery stores to indicate the country, or countries, where the animal was born, raised and slaughtered.
    According to a WTO report released on Monday, the labeling rules unfairly discriminate against meat imports and give the advantage to domestic meat products. But the WTO compliance panel also found that the labels do provide U.S. consumers with information on the origin of their food, countering Canada and Mexico’s assertion that the labels do not serve their intended purpose.
    Back in November 2013, Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said that the WTO should have the final say on COOL, suggesting that the U.S. might give in to whatever the WTO compliance panel determined.

    This was in Congress while he was saying Warren’s concerns had no basis in fact and that she’s a politician like everyone else. It’s not a big deal. Maybe people don’t care about country of origin meat labeling, although I think they probably would if they knew about it because they would be concerned about lower food safety standards in (some) other countries. But it’s a fact that US laws can and do butt up against trade agreements and he never made the case for why his trade deal doesn’t.

  151. 151.

    Kay

    @FlipYrWhig:

    It’s a false choice, though. No one is saying there shouldn’t be trade deals. One of the things they want to “level the playing field” is for worker advocates to have the same right to bring complaints and appear in front of the various governing tribunals to enforce labor protections (or environmental protections) as private entities do. If companies can protect their property and commercial interests, and countries can act on behalf of their interests, it seems fair to labor enforce their interests or a “public interest” (environmental). They don’t want that side of it to be wholly up to state actors because they feel the state actors have NOT protected their interests and enforced those provisions.

  152. 152.

    feebog

    @Kay:

    There are a couple things that contribute to the decline in manufacturing jobs and wages in general. One is that we still incentivize companies to move jobs overseas and to Mexico. The second is the decline of Unions in this country. Of course the former would take an act of congress, so good luck with that. But a democratic NLRB should be moving aggressively to make Union organizing easier and faster.

  153. 153.

    Miss Bianca

    @bystander:

    President Obama, in his toast to Canada:

    “We see this in our current presidential campaign. Where else could a boy born in Calgary run for president of the United States?”

    Have I mentioned *how much* I love PBO?

    Statesman, scholar…and stand-up comedian

  154. 154.

    Kay

    And Robert the reason I think this is (somewhat) class-based and honestly oddly old-fashioned is the assumption I always see that this affects some other group of workers, people who dig ditches or make cars or do some other, olde-timey, less prestigious work:

    The Golden Era of the post-war industrial boom in the US was a never-to-be-repeated one-off situation and wishful thinking won’t bring it back. Sorry.

    A recent study from the liberal-leaning Center for Economic and Policy Research predicts that 90 percent of workers in the United States would see a decrease in real wages under the TPP.

    I think just about everyone has an interest in this. I actually think one of the reasons it’s hitting now is it finally reached white collar, college-educated workers, even those in the “right” fields- engineering, technology. The only people who will be unaffected are those in employment that is “place based”, so human services or policing or teaching or medical practioners or construction skilled trades. I have a lawyer friend who says “the great thing about my job is I have to show up– they can’t do it without me” He’s only half-kidding :)

    I just want an admmitance that this is not about “the other people”, the lower rungs. 90% is MOST people.

  156. 156.

    Kay

    @feebog:

    I’m amazed not that unions have declined under a really unrelenting assault, but that the idea won’t die.

    People insist on attempting to form or join non-state worker orgs. Every time I think it’s over there’s a Fight for Fifteen or online media people joining unions or policy people talking about “worker voice” and then descibing something that sounds a lot like a union. It won’t go away, despite really overwhelming odds. :)

    My conclusion is no one replaced it. It may suck but no one ever came up with anything better. That void WILL be filled, or they will die trying!

  157. 157.

    Kay

    Substantive (damning) piece on Trump U.

    Donald Trump is about to find out what running for President is really like. He’s going to miss his days sparring with the not-very-bright Marco Rubio.

  159. 159.

    jackmac

    @BillinGlendaleCA: Trump’s here in Chicago today. We’ll see what types of yahoos show up and if they’re a little better behaved. I’m not hopeful. Protests are planned outside the University of Illinois at Chicago Pavilion and that could offer a volatile mix.

  160. 160.

    FlipYrWhig

    @Kay: This is all fine, and highly desirable, and has the benefit of actually being about trade qua trade. But what I’m getting at is that “trade deals” and then “trade” (without the word “deals”) are getting all mixed up with job losses. Both Trump and Sanders do that. I am sure that trade deals result in job losses. There are also job losses that have nothing to do with trade deals. Attributing job losses and Detroit-level desperation to “free trade policies” isn’t very much of the story, is it? I want Sanders to actually talk about trade policy, not just decry the fate of the working class in the last half-century.

  161. 161.

    Linnaeus

    @Kay:

    [A]s far as I’m concerned that’s the fault of the “elite” consensus on trade. They never bothered to explain it to the people who are directly impacted by it. There’s arrogance in that.

    Paul Krugman (certainly no protectionist) agrees with you:

    But it’s also true that much of the elite defense of globalization is basically dishonest: false claims of inevitability, scare tactics (protectionism causes depressions!), vastly exaggerated claims for the benefits of trade liberalization and the costs of protection, hand-waving away the large distributional effects that are what standard models actually predict.

  163. 163.

    FlipYrWhig

    @Kay:

    The only people who will be unaffected are those in employment that is “place based”

    I’d like to see a radical scaling up of “place based” (useful phrase) kinds of jobs, including health care, child care, and all manner of infrastructure.

  164. 164.

    Linnaeus

    And as a follow-up, so I don’t get thrown into the moderation queue, here’s a good piece by Mark Kleiman:

    So when the modern Republican Party (R.I.P), in the name of “small government” and opposition to “class warfare,” set its face against policies to redistribute the gains from economic growth, it destroyed the theoretical basis for thinking that a rising tide would lift all the boats, rather than lifting the yachts and swamping the trawlers. Free trade without redistribution (especially the corrupt version of “free trade” with corporate rent-seeking written into it) is basically class warfare waged downwards.

  165. 165.

    Kay

    @FlipYrWhig:

    I agree with you there. Sanders gets on my nerves a little because a lot of people have been saying this for a long time and they appear to be better-informed. It’s a big group in the Dem Party. They may even be annoyed. Sherrod Brown said almost snarkily on Chris Hayes that he’s glad everyone has come over to his side.

    Obviously I’m biased, but even there I would put some of that on free traders. They let this fester so long unaddressed that “NAFTA” has become a kind of proxy for “everything that is wrong with the US economy”- people here use it in that shortcut way you see with political issues – are you for or agin a whole set of ideas based on this code word, “NAFTA”

    I know you don’t see it this way, but I think they let it go unaddressed because of class. It wasn’t a concern for college educated people so it wasn’t discussed.

    THEY (we, college educated white collar) use a big basket too- “rust belt, blue collar, white men, manufacturing” when it’s bigger and broader than that. We’re speaking past each other.

  166. 166.

    Betty Cracker

    @Robert Sneddon: My comment you were replying to explicitly acknowledged the evolution of the post-WW2 economy, so stuff the “sorry.” My point is our leaders should be honest with us about it. I don’t think that’s too much to ask. YMMV.

  167. 167.

    Linnaeus

    @FlipYrWhig:

    I agree it’s a more complicated story and that the effects of trade deals are only one part of it. But, going back to my comment upthread where I linked Krugman, I think the elite defenders of trade deals shoulder some of the responsibility for the confusion that you describe. When you’re not really telling people the whole story of what trade deals do and don’t do, it’s not surprising that they’ll question the benefits of those deals.

  168. 168.

    Kay

    @FlipYrWhig:

    and all manner of infrastructure.

    They would respond to that, the people who are Trump-curious.. My middle son is an apprentice electrician. He does big projects- hospitals, schools. He will soon be working on a new federal courthouse which took ten years to approve. It was front page of the Toledo Blade.

  169. 169.

    Paul in KY

    @Linnaeus: They NEVER believed that. They knew it would do what it did, which is why they were for it.

    Please don’t ever think they really believe the BS they come out with to justify their ripping stuff off.

    Edit: Guess I’m yelling at Mark Kleiman, who’s probably a water carrier for those evil sociopaths.

  170. 170.

    Kay

    @FlipYrWhig:

    Brown might even be annoyed w/Sanders being Mr. Trade because Brown endorsed Clinton. I imagine it complicates his life. He’s with the NAFTA she-devil :)

  171. 171.

    The Other Chuck

    Trump is going to face 2017 finding everyone hating him. The left for being, well, Trump, and the right for being a loser who took the Republican party with him. I hope the fucker dies alone and has a grave conveniently located to piss on.

  172. 172.

    Bob In Portland

    Was the Qatari arms deal with the US in 2011 in any way coincidental with the large Qatari donation to the Clinton Foundation? And was it the way the US supplied weapons to anti-Assad rebels and anti-Khadafy rebels?

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