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Meanwhile over at truth Social, the former president is busy confessing to crimes.

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rich, arrogant assholes who equate luck with genius

You are here: Home / Economics / C.R.E.A.M. / Tuesday Morning Open Thread: The Revenge of Warren G. Harding

Tuesday Morning Open Thread: The Revenge of Warren G. Harding

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A return to ABnormalcy, people!

On the one hand, cynics might point out that Melania would seem to be all too happy to poison her spouse, if that becomes necessary. Unfortunately, things move so much faster these days, I’m not sure we can tread water for another six years. Bess Levin, at Vanity Fair: “Pro-Business President Throws His Hair-Curler In Wall Street’s Bathtub”:

Something you may have picked up on in the 71 years that Donald Trump has polluted the earth is that he has a pathological need to take credit for events, real or imagined, even—or perhaps especially—when his connection to said events is incidental at best… Nowhere, however, does this phenomenon rear its papaya-colored head more readily than when it comes to the economy. So obsessed is Trump with the idea of having the power to move markets that he once straight-up bragged about crashing healthcare stocks. In general, though, the 45th president has stuck to taking credit for positive economic indicators, even if the actual credit belongs to his predecessor. So it’s rather curious that Trump has lately seemed intent on scaring the ever-loving hell out of investors—a strategy that Monday resulted in the Dow falling nearly 758 points midday to close down 458.92 points; the S&P 500 dropping 58.99 points; and the NASDAQ sinking 193.33 points. For the history buffs out there, equities recorded their worst second-quarter start since 1929, shortly before the Great Depression.

So far, the president has been unusually bashful about the matter, not tweeting even once to claim credit for sending the market off of a cliff (if he had, we assume the tweet would have been along the lines of “I moved on those tech stocks like a b*tch”), despite the fact that he may actually deserve it. Granted, diagnosing markets is generally a losing game, but experts believe that yet another of Trump’s early-morning tantrums about Amazon combined with a sluice of Trumpian bullshit to precipitate Monday’s slide…

Nor did Trump’s outlook on trade in general, which was served a dose of reality over the weekend when China announced it would slap tariffs as high as 25 percent on 128 American-made imports, including wine, pipes, and pork—the latter being a significant moneymaker for farming regions that voted for Trump. China had been expected to hit back following the president’s tariffs on aluminum and steel, but this was a more significant response than expected, with Beijing presumably taking one look at the White House’s additional China-targeted tariffs and saying, Screw it, we’ll do it live.

Taken together, these factors had Wall Street in a cold sweat. “The Trump administration’s announcements on trade sanctions in total so far encompass a relatively small portion of overall U.S. trade,”Jason Pride, chief investment officer at Glenmede Wealth Management, wrote in a note to investors. “However, this could only be the beginning, as the Trump administration ponders the extension of further sanctions on the Chinese trade relationship.” Nick Raich, C.E.O. of The Earnings Scout, told CNBC: “The new bearish narrative is that tariffs implemented by the Trump administration will spur a global trade war that would spiral the world into a recession. We understand the fear. We get how bad a global trade war would be on future profits.”…

Professional Republican:

Reader Interactions

146Comments

  2. 2.

    Tony Jay

    Fox Business scrolling headline – “Obama poison pill restricts record market boom. President Trump cites illegal Chinese tariffs as evidence of Clinton Collusion with Red Menace.”

  3. 3.

    Cermet

    Not too surprised by all the losses – the fundamentals of the economy are far from sound; over and above the growing wealth inequality best reflected in the extremely low minimum wage (which hurts all wage groups.) Then add school debt (while college degree’s are still getting more expensive). Medical cost still rising (strangely, drug costs, which is a major factor is often overlooked as a factor) and credit card debt and frankly, the stock market is vastly over valued. Can’t see what these corrections shouldn’t go on (regardless of the orange fart cloud) except people refuse to follow logic relative to investing.

  4. 4.

    kd bart

    The one day last week, Monday, the market went up, Trump tweeted about it. Taking credit for it. Nevermind that the market had fallen about 5% the Thursday & Friday before. Was quiet the remainder of the week.

  5. 5.

    OzarkHillbilly

    I love the timing of China’s tariff on pork. A shot across the bow of American agriculture. Every single midwestern farmer is now wondering whether they should bank on soybeans or not this year, and they have to place their bets real soon.

  6. 6.

    satby

    Whatever phase my life is in, the Republican party has always ruined it and made my life harder. This is just more of the same. It surprised me though, that more people have never figured that out.

  9. 9.

    Waldo

    Note to POTUS: When begging the Chinese to call off the disastrous trade war you started, DO NOT CONGRATULATE!

  10. 10.

    eric

    it is very hard to time an upward surge in the market. it is VERY easy to short the market when your utterance can drive the market lower. just saying.

  11. 11.

    Wag

    The Chinese tariffs targeting the wine industry would be perfect if only Iowa was the heart of Napa Valley instead of California. By targeting wine the Chinese are going to hurt trump resisting regions in additional to trump loving regions.

  12. 12.

    Schlemazel

    Off thread but the topic came up here the other day. The Arlo and Janis cartoon strip this week is about how they realize that they have no need for great grandma’s fine china & are drying to dump it off on the kid.

    I pulled all my 401k out of the market late last fall expecting the worst. It took longer than I would have guessed but I am ahead of the game so far. I have been looking at investing in some ETFs that are inverse of the market because I expect things to get much worse before they get better.

  18. 18.

    TS

    @satby:

    They’re the biggest welfare queens.

    And they’ll be screaming for more welfare to help them survive the China Tarriffs

  22. 22.

    Kay

    I think a lot can be explained by the fact that cable tv hosts are running the country.

    The president* gets every day off to a flying stupid by enjoying Executive Time with the Fox News morning show, Three Dolts On A Divan. Now, we discover that Lou Dobbs, a man whose trolley departed the tracks and flew into a sun a decade ago, has been calling into policy discussions.
    We made jokes about government-by-talk-show for a long time in 2015 and 2016. Those jokes are now not funny any more. It’s only a matter of time before Cabinet meetings are interrupted by commercials for hair-loss products and auto glass.

  23. 23.

    Immanentize

    @Schlemazel:
    My retirement savings had a nice run with Obama. They were well ballanced and are in good shape. But now? Who knows? I still have at least a decade of input. Bonds? Tech? I’m seeing a financial adviser Thursday but they probably have no clue about this either. The mattress is not an option.

    With so many more people owning IRAs and 401ks and 539 accounts than even possible when Reagan was President, the subburbs may be shocked. But the core Social Security base will not be much affected?

  24. 24.

    Kay

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    whether they should bank on soybeans or not this year, and they have to place their bets real soon.

    It’s even better timing than that. Most of them already placed their bets. The President doesn’t know anything, about anything. That continues to be a problem.

  26. 26.

    satby

    @Immanentize: the SS base still has to buy food and other items. Prices going up will get their attention, because it hits limited incomes hardest. Just the rise in gas prices so far this year has been a pinch, and that’s going higher too.

  29. 29.

    satby

    @Kay: Ozark means when they actually plant. Corn has to go in soon, soybeans (in my area) are a little longer window to plant. They may have already bought seed, but where I used to live they still might change from one to the other based on how soon they could actually work the fields. They can hold seed over year to year if they have to.

  32. 32.

    Schlemazel

    @Immanentize:10 years is not that much time, I am at 4 and already don’t have enough. Our planner couldn’t come up with actual safe investments because the bond market will go to hell to from the Fed action. So the sidelines are where I am.

  33. 33.

    Schlemazel

    @debbie:
    USPS management goes by the theory it is safer not to piss anyone off. The result is they won’t say anything while the business is burnt to the ground

  36. 36.

    TS

    @Immanentize:

    I’m seeing a financial adviser Thursday but they probably have no clue about this either

    I’m already retired with most of my money in investment funds – do have a variety of investments and a good manager – thus said my advisor told me he thought we had 2 years of growth with trump when I ran scared in Nov 2016. Seems he was out by a year.

    I am partly willing to suffer a major loss if it helps get rid of trump. Took about 3 years to recover from the 2008/9 losses so I’m hoping this will be similar, although it will need someone to take over from trump & get the recovery underway.

  37. 37.

    Kay

    @Immanentize:

    I don’t know. Kucinich is the candidate of low information liberals :)

    I can’t stand him. I just think he’s completely full of shit. He’s not even that liberal. In his previous incarnations he was an ordinary urban (white) Democrat – like Marcy Kaptur. He reinvented himself as this gadfly progressive when it became harder for white urban Democrats to win.

    I’m going to a multi-county meeting tonight so I’ll let you know what I hear. I’m a big supporter of Cordray. You will not find someone better on economic issues- authentic “populism”. He was a great attorney general. He’s bad on guns, that’s true, but I’m not a single issue voter. Kasich is leaving a billion dollar hole in the budget. There isn’t enough revenue. When the economy tanks, and it will, the state will hit a wall.

  38. 38.

    debbie

    @Kay:

    There isn’t enough revenue. When the economy tanks, and it will, the state will hit a wall.

    Yeah, but there’s that rainy day fund Kasich refuses to use, even to help with the opioid crisis.

  39. 39.

    Kay

    @satby:

    The problem here is they rent the ground. They lease it in January. A lot of our “farmers” are really just landholders. They’re in the leasing business. The people who lease- the people actually growing – are incredibly sensitive to price changes, because it’s an up-front investment.

  40. 40.

    Betty Cracker

    Not a parody account:

    Jesus Tap-Dancing Christ.

  41. 41.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Kay: @satby: Around here, they’ve turned their fields but there won’t be any planting for at least another 2-3 weeks, maybe more if the rains don’t let up. Most, if not all, have already placed their seed orders but they may be able to change them with this much time left.

    Farming in the best of times is an uncertain business. The last thing they need is more uncertainty.

  43. 43.

    Kay

    @Immanentize:

    I’m just tired of him. I’ve been listening to his bullshit for years. I was hoping FOX was his new career. He ran against Marcy Kaptur for the House and he’s fucking identical to her but idiot liberals concocted this huge conspiracy theory that she was “the establishment” candidate. There is no difference between them except she’s anti-abortion and admits it and he’s anti-abortion and lies about it. That’s where they came from- they had a base of urban Catholics- former immigrants. The difference is she didn’t reinvent herself when it became harder for urban “labor” Democrats to win. She won, BTW.

  46. 46.

    Baud

    @Kay: If the Dems are shaping up this way, I fear that the GOP will win even if it’s Cordray. Hard to see unity after the primary.

  47. 47.

    satby

    @Kay: @OzarkHillbilly: and Drumpf made his protectionism obvious when he was running. They voted for him, so fuckem.
    They vote against food stamps, for g-d sakes, and that’s a farm subsidy.
    Time for them to reap what they’ve sown.

  53. 53.

    Amir Khalid

    @NotMax:
    It seems like every move Trump’s administration takes, every step it takes, is the one most damaging to America’s interests and in particular to the most vulnerable Americans. Someone should be watching him.

  54. 54.

    Kay

    @Baud:

    I don’t know but I don’t really agree with that. My sense is Kucinich is more popular with national media as a token gadfly than he is with Ohio Democratic voters. I went to the ’08 national convention and I stayed in the “Ohio hotel” and I was struck by how Kucinich was surrounded by people from California. Marcy Kaptur treated it as a working trip. She spent hours talking to her actual constituents. I think he disappears (again) if he loses. Back to FOX, where I don’t have to hear him.

  56. 56.

    john carter

    So is now a good time for all of us weathy liberals (cough cough nudge nudge wink wink) to use all of that extra tax money we got from that wonderful tax bill (!) to buy short and sell high when the market goes back up in a few weeks?

    Isn’t that what this is all about…causing the down side so the wealthy can buy low with that extra cash then sit on it for a while and sell later?

    Trump couldn’t think this far ahead…wonder who is telling him to do this? Couldn’t be the Kochs or Mercers. Why would they want more money? Oh, probably George Soros! Right! LOL!

  58. 58.

    Baud

    @Kay:

    On Fox, however, you don’t think they have him talk trash about how the Dem establishment rigged the primary against him?

  61. 61.

    Kay

    @Baud:

    They’re fighting like mad. That’s because DeWine isn’t a Trump Republican but he now has to pretend he is. DeWine is completely and utterly without principle. He’s in that awful position people like that get, where everything he does just shows he believes in nothing. He satisfies no one- too far Right for moderates, too far Left for Trumpians. He will say anything.

  65. 65.

    Kay

    @Baud:

    I guess so but are there really reliable Democratic voters who get their information from Fox? I feel like he’s made a national career as a professional Lefty, which is a much different thing than governor. I’m not sure national politics translates = to state races like governor. It’s not like Clinton/Sanders where all of Bernies trashing was actually relevant to that race. At the end of the day it’s Ohio voters and it will be Ohio issues.

  67. 67.

    satby

    @TS: I would trade my entire small stake to get rid of Tangerine Twitler.
    Or I will take what’s left and get outta Dodge if the election this November doesn’t go our way. It’ll go farther in another country.

  69. 69.

    Highway Rob

    I wish I were better at the twitter machine. On the theory of “there’s a tweet for everything,” I’d love to see if Our Only President (copyright Molly Ivins) ever attacked President Obama for “picking winners and losers,” and assuming he did, I’d love to see it juxtaposed with his Amazon ugliness.

  71. 71.

    OzarkHillbilly

    Hate speech exploded on Facebook at the start of the Rohingya crisis in Myanmar last year, analysis has revealed, with experts blaming the social network for creating “chaos” in the country.

    Evidence of the spike emerged after the platform was accused of playing a key role in the spread of hate speech in Myanmar at a time when 650,000 Rohingya refugees were forced to flee to Bangladesh following persecution.
    …………………..
    One cyber security analyst in Yangon, who asked to remain anonymous for fear of online attacks, said: “Facebook is arguably the only source of information online for the majority in Myanmar.”

    In early March, UN Myanmar investigator Yanghee Lee warned that “Facebook has become a beast.” “It was used to convey public messages but we know that the ultra-nationalist Buddhists have their own Facebooks and are really inciting a lot of violence and a lot of hatred against the Rohingya or other ethnic minorities,” she said.
    ………………………..
    But Davis said the damage was done. “I think things are so far gone in Myanmar right now … I really don’t know how Zuckerberg and co sleep at night. If they had any kind of conscience they would be pouring a good percentage of their fortunes into reversing the chaos they have created.”

    I wouldn’t hold my breath waiting for that..

  73. 73.

    WereBear

    @Dorothy A. Winsor (formerly Iowa Old Lady): In the days after the election, I just went ahead and shoved mine into money markets and bonds; anything but the stock market. I knew the asshole would tank it; I just didn’t know how often and how deep.

    We’ve been investing what little we have in our own business; buying computer equipment as needed, expanding our living space to accommodate a home business, getting supplies. This is why my laugh is very ironic when the local Republicans solemnly tell me they vote the way they do because they have a small business; like Republicans care about your piddly store or your local fuel oil empire.

    These people are expendable, just like me. I don’t flatter myself that Republicans care, that’s all.

  78. 78.

    Baud

    The political consulting firm at the heart of a scandal involving Facebook data didn’t just use its legally questionable methods in an attempt to help Donald Trump win the presidency.

    In 2014, it also may have helped Republicans capture control of the Colorado state Senate, assisted in the campaign for U.S. Sen. Thom Tillis of North Carolina, and was involved in candidate Arthur B. Robinson’s unsuccessful bid for an Oregon state Senate race.
    …..
    Democratic state Sen. Andy Kerr, who narrowly won reelection against one of the Cambridge Analytica-backed candidates, specifically recalls the mailers the political consulting firm sent out.

    “Now that I know which ads they sent out, I clearly remember those because they were very deceitful and beyond the scope of even normal negative advertising, saying that I supported gender-specific abortions” Kerr says. “Also, they were sending things out to a lot of people we knew were strong Democrats, and at least one of the mailers was pro-choice. We thought at the time their targeting was just off, but maybe with this new Facebook data, that’s exactly what they were trying to do.”

    http://www.governing.com/topics/politics/gov-colorado-cambridge-analytica-states.html

  80. 80.

    Another Scott

    @Schlemazel: Be careful.

    It’s easy to think that the market or the economy has to do badly because Trump is so horrible, but remember – there’s still a huge amount of money out there looking for a home. Money that should have been used for productive things (infrastructure, education, sensible wages, etc.) has been sitting in CDs and Picassos and luxury condos and Uber. That money is still out there and still looking for returns. People with money aren’t going to just sit on it.

    If money comes out of the market, where is it going to go? It’s hard to see better, safer, more sensible places to invest over the medium term than in the US economy. And if you believe that, then staying in the market to some extent makes sense.

    (If you’re thinking long term and are willing to accept huge swings in value, and risk from corruption and legal changes, then India and Vietnam and places like that look to have huge potential. But nobody knows what the future brings.)

    (Of course, being diversified (low fee stock index funds, bond index funds) makes a lot of sense.)

    “Dollar cost averaging, baby.”

    “If you get out, how do you know when to get back in?”

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  81. 81.

    OzarkHillbilly

    Donald Trump has asked a federal judge to order private arbitration in a case brought by a porn actor who claimed she had an affair with him.

    Trump and his personal attorney, Michael Cohen, filed papers in federal court in Los Angeles on Monday asking a judge to rule that Stormy Daniels’ case involving a non-disclosure agreement must be heard by an arbitrator instead of a jury.

    I find this whole Stormy thing funny as fuck. trump and company are just flailing, they contradict themselves left and right. For starters, according to Cohen trump isn’t a part of the deal, so how can he ask that she be held to it? He has no standing.

  87. 87.

    Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    All of the retaliation – Chinese and European – is targeted as much as it can be at GOP House districts.

    Yesterday, our fishwrap had an article about how the bourbon distillers had bestowed some award on turtle – he went on about importance of the industry and how hard he works to protect it. Meanwhile, turtle’s Trump enabling is going to kill margins.

    He talks a good game while doing nothing, in true conservative fashion.

  88. 88.

    Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes

    @Chyron HR:

    I never understood the apparent love for a pressed meat-like product with an HFCS -based mediocre sauce.

  89. 89.

    Jeff

    Thanks to Donald my IRAs have dropped about $12,000 in value since January. Heck of a job Donald.

  90. 90.

    Brachiator

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    I love the timing of China’s tariff on pork. A shot across the bow of American agriculture.

    Well, Trump said that a trade war was easy to win. He just left out the notion that China might win it.

  91. 91.

    Kay

    Classes were canceled Monday for hundreds of thousands of students across two states as striking teachers rallied at capitols in Oklahoma and Kentucky to demand improved funding for education.
    The walkouts come less than a month after teachers in West Virginia ended a nine-day strike that shuttered schools there and less than a week after thousands of Arizona teachers rallied to demand a 20% pay increase.

    I told you guys public education was a sleeper issue for Democrats. It doesn’t matter that I’ve been saying to for 5 years and it finally awoke. It slept late :)

    Democrats could really do something with this- maybe not in Oklahoma (although they flipped a state seat on it already) but in Wisconsin and Ohio and Michigan.

  93. 93.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    @kd bart: So this is Spanky’s game plan here; tank the market, take credit for the dead cat bounce? That sounds so lazy, idiotic and counter productive that this must be what Trump is doing.

    Required by Presidential Order: Do you know this week is a infrastructure week?

  96. 96.

    Kay

    @Baud:

    I agree. I don’t know enough about The Russians which is not my fault because no one told us anything, so I have to assume the worst.

    I’m not surprised they were in state races. We know they were in congressional races, although after the initial reporting we have not heard one word about that. We have no information.

  99. 99.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Kay: Just finished reading this: ‘Double whammy’: teachers strike as healthcare costs cut into earnings

    Legislative pushes to shift health and pension costs on to individual teachers leave many with less take-home pay than five years ago

    “They’ve shifted the healthcare costs and the pension costs on to employees, so employees are making less and they’re spending less,” said Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, which represents 1.7 million members. “It’s a double whammy.”

    Conservative legislatures’ push to shift health and pension costs on to individual teachers means in some states, teachers take home less pay than they did five years ago.
    …………………..
    In states such as Arizona, Oklahoma, West Virginia and Wisconsin, conservative legislatures pushed for all teacher pay raises to go through the statehouse. Now, with mounting labor actions, it’s those same statehouses that face pitched battles to improve teacher benefits.

    “The right wing thought if this would happen we would be less politically engaged,” said Weingarten. “But this requires you to be more politically engaged.”

    In Jersey City, New Jersey, teachers cited the burden of health costs when they went on strike in mid-March. It was the first strike in 20 years.

    “We want nothing more than to get back to work under a contract that respects the expertise of our members and the need for affordable healthcare,” said the teacher union president, Ronald Greco, according to NJ.com. Teachers are required to pay between 3% and 35% of their pay to health insurance, thanks to a recent state law.

    It’s low hanging fruit but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t pick it.

  100. 100.

    TS

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    For starters, according to Cohen trump isn’t a part of the deal, so how can he ask that she be held to it? He has no standing.

    trump is part of the Daniels lawsuit – it is Cohen who said trump was not part of the deal. Trump is in the Daniels lawsuit and he has has replied to Daniels and is counter suing- so he does have standing – this does not mean he will get the private arbitration he is requesting.

  102. 102.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @TS:

    trump is part of the Daniels lawsuit – it is Cohen who said trump was not part of the deal. Trump is in the Daniels lawsuit and he has has replied to Daniels and is counter suing- so he does have standing – this does not mean he will get the private arbitration he is requesting.

    You can’t ask a court to enforce a private arbitration agreement you are not a party to. trump is being sued in a public court of law, that is where he has to fight it. Unless I have no idea of what I am talking about, which it wouldn’t be the first time.

    Cohen is a part of that agreement. He can ask that it be sent to arbitration, but how does her speaking about her affair with DD harm him? If he suffers no harm does he have standing? Have no idea how that works.

  103. 103.

    Immanentize

    @rikyrah:
    Hi!! I don’t know if you’re still here, I had to drop the Immp at the train today…. I have a lot of updates.
    First, the Immp’s robotics team crushed it at the Scranton Super Regionals, basically coming n second behind their friends, Gluton Free (great robotics team name). So, it’s on to the WORLD CHAMPUONSHIPS! in — another garden spot — Detroit at the end of April.
    May is the month of testing: SAT May 5, two AP exams mid-may, and SAT subject specific exams June 2…. As well as his course finals.
    This summer he is looking for an internship where he might do some cool, difficult, programming. Still looking if anyone has a lead in the greater Boston area. Boy will travel!

  105. 105.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @TS: Further thought, Daniels has sued him, but he is not a part of the agreement at the center of the lawsuit (yes Cohen is the only one who has said that but trump having yet to say one way or the other never signed it) as far as I can see should not the proper legal course be to ask that he be dropped from it?

    My point is only they are trying to be too cute by half. trump and Cohen are doing everything they can to keep trump at a public distance from the whole affair while asserting he has a legal right to participate in it but wanting to keep it private.

  106. 106.

    germy

    Mike Lindell (the man who invented a pillow) spent easter weekend at mar-a-lago, dining with drumpf. He is definitely NOT pulling his ads from Laura’s show.

  107. 107.

    Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes

    @Chyron HR:

    And the obesity which comes from power-gobbling two of them in a sitting is a slap at Michelle Obama’s vegetable advocacy. Take THAT, libtards!

  108. 108.

    Yarrow

    @Kay: @OzarkHillbilly: I love that teachers in Oklahoma are striking. Oklahoma! It’s such a red state and they’ve been gutting education for such a long time. It’s fantastic to see.

  109. 109.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    @OzarkHillbilly: I was talking to my sister who is a programmer last weekend and she was ranting at me about how outraged she was the movie Bladerunner 2049 and the book Lord of the Flies dared to tried to get her to think of something besides programming. I keep on thinking that’s the same mentality in action at Facebook.

  111. 111.

    danielx

    So far, the president has been unusually bashful about the matter, not tweeting even once to claim credit for sending the market off of a cliff (if he had, we assume the tweet would have been along the lines of “I moved on those tech stocks like a b*tch”), despite the fact that he may actually deserve it.

    The man is nothing if not subtle.

    We have gone from a man accused of playing eleven-dimensional chess to one who clearly has difficulty with one-dimensional checkers.

  114. 114.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Yarrow: Last year the OK teacher of the year quit working there and now works across the state line in Misery making something like a third more (IIRC). We don’t treat our teachers all that well so that says a lot about how unOK OK is.

  115. 115.

    rikyrah

    @Immanentize:

    Whew!
    I got exhausted just reading that. So glad that Little Imma’s team has done so well. I have no proclivity towards that area, so I was always jealous of those minds that could create like that..and, so young! Fabulous!

  116. 116.

    rikyrah

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    My point is only they are trying to be too cute by half. trump and Cohen are doing everything they can to keep trump at a public distance from the whole affair while asserting he has a legal right to participate in it but wanting to keep it private.

    I have been following this, but something that someone posted here still sticks in my mind..

    How could a contract be notarized if everything wasn’t signed?
    And, if everything wasn’t signed, how could it be legal?

  117. 117.

    rikyrah

    How is this remotely ok?

    I agree with someone on Twitter – Bezos should purchase Twitter out of his petty cash and shut down his account.

    Now, according to four sources close to the White House, Trump is discussing ways to escalate his Twitter attacks on Amazon to further damage the company. “He’s off the hook on this. It’s war,” one source told me. “He gets obsessed with something, and now he’s obsessed with Bezos,” said another source. “Trump is like, how can I fuck with him?”

    According to sources, Trump wants the Post Office to increase Amazon’s shipping costs. When Trump previously discussed the idea inside the White Hose, Gary Cohn had explained that Amazon is a benefit to the Postal Service, which has seen mail volume plummet in the age of e-mail. “Trump doesn’t have Gary Cohn breathing down his neck saying you can’t do the Post Office shit,” a Republican close to the White House said. “He really wants the Post Office deal renegotiated. He thinks Amazon’s getting a huge fucking deal on shipping.”

    https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2018/04/trump-war-with-amazon-and-the-washington-post-is-personal

  118. 118.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @danielx:

    one who clearly has difficulty with one-dimensional checkers.

    and when he loses he takes a baseball bat to the game board.

  120. 120.

    rikyrah

    BREAKING: Trump proposes to end funding for ACA insurance exchanges. pic.twitter.com/RBrOFhVxlt

    — Andy Slavitt (@ASlavitt) April 2, 2018

  121. 121.

    chopper

    @Yarrow:

    seems to me, what with O’s popularity and the fact that he hasn’t attacked trump at all, that this is not going to work out the way dumb donald thinks it will.

  122. 122.

    rikyrah

    Breaking: Beto O’Rourke says he has raised a staggering $6.7 million in the first quarter of 2018. It’s an eye-popping number that poses a new category of threat to Ted Cruz. #tx2018 https://t.co/27RXfBPEO0 pic.twitter.com/8k10fFLF8g

    — Texas Tribune (@TexasTribune) April 3, 2018

  123. 123.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @rikyrah: That notary is in trouble. Not sure how much, possibly just at risk of losing her status as such, but she broke some rules/regs when she signed it.

  124. 124.

    rikyrah

    Hmmmmmmmmmm

    Plane carrying US Special Forces gets stuck on a sandy airstrip in a remote area in Kenya near the Somalia border. The US-registered aircraft belonged to Erik Prince, founder of Blackwater, Trump’s unofficial war advisor. (Note men in the bushes) #AlShabaab #USSF #Somalia #Kenya pic.twitter.com/ZevLjVn1TE

    — Margot Kiser (@margotkiser) April 2, 2018

  125. 125.

    Barbara

    @Immanentize: I don’t know if this is still a thing, but at an earlier time in my life, when it was totally inappropriate for my circumstances, I read about people who use “bond ladders” to avoid the downside risk to the value of bonds from rising interest rates. You have to own the bonds — you can’t rely on mutual funds — but the idea is that you establish a position in bonds with maturity dates being “laddered” or staggered, so that when you need money you can either sell some bonds (e.g., the ones that interest rates have not devalued) or you can redeem the bond that is closest to maturity (and thus least affected by short term swings in interest rates). Interest rates have been so low for so long that many people simply cannot do what they have in the past, which is live off of bond income, so I would imagine it’s not too common anymore. Nonetheless, you might want to ask the adviser about this kind of strategy, which I would call ultra-conservative.

    @Another Scott: To this I would add what I told my husband in 2008 when he kept me up night after night demanding to know why I had not liquidated everything we owned and put it into cash — How close you are to retirement is probably the most important factor in determining how conservative you should be, but for those of us — that is, almost all of us — who do not have reserves of gold or some other means to survive a financial cataclysm, our safety depends on a shift back to policy sanity, much as in 2008, the future depended on a shift back to optimism and willingness to do what it took to save GM and Chrysler, stimulate the economy, and so on. However much we wish, our individual investment decisions are not going to save us from a true meltdown even if those decisions are wise, rational, and well-timed.

  126. 126.

    Dorothy A. Winsor (formerly Iowa Old Lady)

    Apparently Rosenstein issued an addendum to Mueller’s authorization that’s mostly redacted. It was produced in court when Manafort claimed Mueller was exceeding his authority. Huh. It’s been nice knowing you, Rosenstein. (I’d link but FYWP is being a butthead. It’s on CNN)

  130. 130.

    Leto

    @Immanentize: Congrats to immp! You mentioned looking for summer internships, and while this one has already closed, maybe he can look at it for next year? Summer Internship Program at the Information Directorate of the Air Force Research Laboratory. It’s right next door in Rome, NY.

    The 2018 application cycle has now ended for our Summer Internship Program at the Information Directorate of the Air Force Research Laboratory. This is a paid summer internship opportunity for students currently enrolled in an accredited college or university at the freshman level through PhD level (U.S. CITIZENS ONLY) to work on-site with AFRL researchers on a wide variety of research projects.

    The majority of the students selected will be majoring in technical fields such as Electrical and Computer Engineering, Computer Science, Mathematics and Physics. For basic information on the areas of research that the selected interns will be working in please view the AFRL/RI Core Competencies using the link below. There could be a few positions available in accounting and finance and multimedia (graphic’s, graphic communications, marketing, etc.)

    Here’s a list of DoD STEM Internships.

  131. 131.

    Barbara

    @rikyrah: Meanwhile, states and localities are slobbering all over themselves to see who can best flatter Amazon with tax breaks and whatnot to get the next service center. I know it shouldn’t keep surprising me that (as my husband says) Trump can’t see more than five millimeters past his nose, but somehow it does because the sheer range of subjects that he manages to make about himself is really kind of stunning. Of course, his obsession with Bezos, much like his obsession with Obama, is fueled almost totally by jealousy.

  132. 132.

    rikyrah

    Instead of guiding his media allies, Trump is the one being guided
    04/03/18 08:00 AM
    By Steve Benen

    During a recent meeting on veterans issues, Donald Trump reportedly called a Fox News personality, Pete Hegseth, “to get his opinion” on pending legislation. As the investigation into the Russia scandal intensifies, the president has sought legal guidance from Fox News personality Jeanine Pirro.

    And the Daily Beast reported yesterday that Trump has an especially close relationship with Lou Dobbs, a likeminded Fox Business host, to the point that Dobbs’ voice is literally part of White House discussions.

    During the first year of the Trump era, the president has patched in Dobbs via speakerphone to multiple meetings in the Oval Office so that he could offer his two cents, according to three sources familiar with these conversations. Trump will ask Dobbs for his opinion before and after his senior aides or Cabinet members have spoken. Occasionally, he will cut off an official so the Fox Business host can jump in.

    Dobbs, these sources all independently recounted, has been patched in to senior-level meetings on issues such as trade and tax policy…. During the more intense days of the tax-bill push, Trump made sure to have his White House personal secretary get Dobbs on the line. And toward the conclusion of one memorable meeting, when the line was disconnected and Dobbs said farewell, Trump looked up, smiled, and simply told the room, “Love Lou.”

  133. 133.

    rikyrah

    The national significance of Oklahoma’s teacher walk-out
    04/02/18 04:05 PM—UPDATED 04/02/18 06:25 PM
    By Steve Benen

    There are areas across the country where policymakers refuse to make necessary investments in education, but some of the details in this Washington Post piece on Oklahoma put conditions in the Sooner State in an especially unflattering light.

    [Spending cuts] in Oklahoma also had dire consequences for schools. Districts have not been able to maintain buildings, so students shiver through the winter in classrooms with faulty heating and become accustomed to a rotating cast of teachers. Many school districts have moved to four-day school weeks because they cannot afford to keep the lights on for five days.

    Adjusted for inflation, the amount the state spends per student has fallen nearly 30 percent over the past decade, according to the left-leaning Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.

    The report added, “Oklahoma’s schools and educators have endured some of the steepest cuts in education in the last decade, reductions that are evident in dwindling supplies, aging textbooks and the pay stubs of teachers. Before last week, state lawmakers have not raised the minimum salary for teachers in a decade, making them among the worst paid in the nation.”

  137. 137.

    danielx

    Hmmmm….four inches of snow on Easter, all melted yesterday, and two inches of rain so far this morning, starting around five am. Plus weather is expected to be seriously sporty all day long…cold this morning, warm front this afternoon, cold front tonight. High winds and hail anticipated……

    Everybody isn’t making love, but we are definitely expecting rain.

  140. 140.

    FlipYrWhig

    @rikyrah: Why is he SO fucking stupid? It really is a sight to behold. He’s a stupid fucker about EVERY. LAST. THING.

    It probably doesn’t reflect well on my mindset but I really do fantasize about just beating him to a bloody pulp. I haven’t been in a fight since I was like 8 years old. I am not this kind of person. But it would be so satisfying. I hate him and want him to feel pain.

  141. 141.

    MomSense

    @Immanentize:

    Congratulations to Immp!!! That is exciting news. I heard a WBUR segment several months ago about a citywide program to teach coding to high school students. Maybe he could help teach or tutor there this summer. I think the program is funded by Massachusetts companies and state funds.

  142. 142.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @rikyrah:

    the president has sought legal guidance from Fox News personality Jeanine Pirro.

    Yes, all the BEST lawyers, the BIGGEST firms want to work for him.

  145. 145.

    Kathleen

    @debbie: According to one PAC DeWhine is a Hillary Clinton liberal. Have you seen that ad? They’re also targeting Trump voters. DeWhine doesn’t share Trump ‘s values. Hilarious.

    On another note Sherrod Brown tweeted in support of Trump and the tariffs. After piling on Hillary icw remarks in India.

  146. 146.

    debbie

    @Kathleen:

    I know you’re long gone, but yes, I’ve seen that ad. It’s always followed by a DeWine ad slamming Taylor as a “slacker.” I’d love to know who schedules the ads and how they decide on the order.

Comments are closed.