When I first heard about Nancy Pelosi coming to terms with Trump on the NAFTA trade deal earlier this week, I thought WTF? Why give the sloshing orange colostomy bag a “win,” especially while the bastard is being impeached? This makes me kinda rethink that:
News: Sens. Sherrod Brown and Ron Wyden will endorse the USMCA shortly, citing the inclusion of labor standards enforcement they pushed for the deal.
In 25 years in Congress, Brown has *never* voted yes on a trade deal, until now.
— Jim Tankersley (@jimtankersley) December 13, 2019
I haven’t read up on the terms closely, but if Brown is in favor, it sounds like Pelosi was right when she said this deal is worth doing because Democrats ate Trump’s lunch during the negotiations. Nancy was right! I was wrong!
Also, looks like Pelosi and team weren’t the only ones who snatched the KFC bucket and Big Mac out of Trump’s tiny mitts:
Here’s some back of the napkin math on China deal:
China agrees to buy $50B of ag products next year, increase of $29B from pre-tariff trade.
Tariffs cost U.S. farmers $11B. Then taxpayers put up $28B in emergency ag payouts.
So…we lost/spent $39B. Gained $29B.
Nice work!
— Chris Murphy (@ChrisMurphyCT) December 13, 2019
We’ll have to wait to see the details, but it looks like Team Xi hosed Team Trump. Greatest negotiator in the world, fellow citizens — he’s already tooting his own horn about it and will continue to forever, no matter how badly he gets pantsed nor how widely acknowledged and documented the pantsing.
Just yesterday, Trump publicly claimed that his vapid boneheaded fraud of a daughter “created 14 million jobs,” even though only 6 million total jobs have been created during his administration, and ZERO were created by anyone named Trump, unless foreign sweatshop worker jobs, international shakedown henchman positions and undocumented housekeeping gigs, etc., count.
Also, I’ve gotta think the constant lying voids any credit Trump might otherwise receive outside MAGAland, but who knows? Anyhoo…open thread!
Jacel
A few days ago I saw Barbara Boxer on MSNBC (I forget which show). The subject of the trade agreement came up. Boxer said she would vote for this one, and she had never voted for one of these during her years as Senator. That’s consistent with the current Senators who are stating their approval of this one.
Olivia
I saw a clip of Doug Collins last night bellowing that someone, he doesn’t know who, slipped wording into that bill that gives federal workers 3 months paid family leave. He was incensed that the American people had to put up with that kind of nonsense and that is why we hate Congress. I had heard earlier that there are several such Easter eggs hidden in the bill.
Baud
The China deal is about paying of Patriot Farmers. They don’t care about whether it’s a net win for the U.S.
Baud
@Olivia:
That’s the NDAA, not NAFTA 2.0. The NDAA deal includes:
ETA: Official House Summary of NDAA
Olivia
@Baud: Thanks!
Lapassionara
@Olivia: The family leave was in the funding bill for space force, not in the trade deal. That one made me cringe, because of course Javanka will take credit for family leave, and the space force is nonsense, but as BC would say, “Anyhoo….”
Patricia Kayden
Lapassionara
@Baud: so thanks for posting that good information.
Kent
Well, it looks like the Dems got hosed on the recent defense bill so I guess this one was the exception.
Yutsano
@Baud: As a fed, it will be interesting to see how the family leave is going to work. There’s a lot of federal workers who don’t necessarily have family that would qualify under the new leave rule, and benefits are supposed to be spread to the workforce as equitably as possible. Should make the next round of bargaining very entertaining should this pass.
Leto
Nobody wins with a colostomy bag :(
mrmoshpotato
@Patricia Kayden: ? I suppose there was no “Russia, if you’re listening…” moment either, according to these gaslighting a-holes.
hells littlest angel
Pelosi is one of the best political leaders this country has ever had.
piratedan
labor standard enforcement is kind of a big deal, if all worker standards are raised and adhered to, less motivation for companies to pick up or offshore, so that’s actually a big-Biden-deal. Now, it may be post Trump before any of this gets actually honored and monitored but getting it on the books is a good thing imho.
Baud
It’ll be interesting to see if Warren and Bernie decide to support NAFTA 2.0 or say it’s not good enough.
zhena gogolia
@hells littlest angel:
I am so proud of Pelosi, Schiff, Swalwell, Himes, Neguse, Demings, Harris, Murphy, Hirono, and a host of other Democrats in Congress. WE HAVE THE BEST PEOPLE. Just hands down — smarter, nicer, better. I wish it could keep me from despairing.
MaxUtil
Can someone explain how the changes to NAFTA 2.0 work? This is a trade deal between Canada, the US and Mexico. How do negotiations between congress and the administration then make it into a trade treaty without consulting the other two countries? Or is it just domestic aspects of the agreement that they’re making changes to?
Baud
@zhena gogolia: You’re funny.
Baud
@MaxUtil: That’s a good question. I don’t know the mechanics.
David ??Booooooo?? Koch
I think the most important factor is the AFL-CIO and United Steel Workers are in favor of it.
Gravenstone
@Olivia: Um, that federal leave was ostensibly traded for Trump’s Space Farce! Surely Collins wouldn’t want to deprive Dear Creeper of one of his signature items?
The Moar You Know
@Baud: The usual suspects will holler and whine, probably not knowing that the DoD is totally on board with anything that will insure that they don’t literally run out of gas. This is right up their alley, and they’ve already been instituting it.
Betty Cracker
@Baud: That WILL be interesting! But if Sherrod Brown is for it, I’ve got to think it’s pretty pro-worker.
Also, speaking of Sanders, he withdrew his endorsement of Uygur.
The Moar You Know
@MaxUtil: They don’t. But Mexico has already given what is essentially a blanket signoff on anything we choose to put into the USMCA.
Canada has not, so that could get interesting.
Baud
@Betty Cracker: Thanks for the update on Cenk. Do you know why? Was there pushback?
zhena gogolia
@Baud:
Why?
NotMax
Let a thousand taco trucks bloom.
:)
clay
This has been observed before, but the media (and many others) are simply not prepared to deal with a compulsive liar like Trump. Most politicians will spin, and fudge a number here or there, but most of the time when an elected official makes a claim, it’s based off of SOMETHING. And so your typical journalist might look at that claim about Ivanka and think, well that number may be off by a bit, but the real number must be something close to that.
But there is no real number! It’s completely fabricated!! It isn’t even something that can be fact checked — there’s nothing to check!
There was an article in (I think) Forbes a while back that talked about this. The author talked about covering Trump in the ’80s and ’90s. And Trump would send in his (supposed) net worth for their list, and they would think, well it might be off by a few percentage points, everyone does that, it’s no big deal.
And the author described how it eventually dawned on them — no, it’s not off by a little bit. His claims might be fully double what Trump was actually worth. But he got away with it for so long because none of them ever imagined that he would bullshit that much.
We see the same thing happening now, in real time. Trump says he’s about to close a deal with China — people react like there’s something there. After all, a President wouldn’t say something like that unless it were true! But he’s been “about to close a deal” for almost three years now! The media is structured to treat a President’s Statements as Very Important, not as complete bullshit. Something has to give, but I don’t know if it will.
Baud
@zhena gogolia: You seem simultaneously enthusiastic and pessimistic at the same time. It’s like you have a devil and an angel on your shoulder competing for you attention.
Jay
@MaxUtil:
Canada and Mexico were kept informed and were part of the negotiations through out the process, and encouraged the changes, to the point that less than 4 hours after Nancy had garnered the votes for NAFTA 2.1, both Canada and Mexico had signed the new agreement.
Mexico had already ratified NAFTA 2.0 so 2.1 should just fly through the process.
Canada had tabled NAFTA 2.0 for a ratification vote, but the election intervened. NAFTA 2.1 should face even fewer hurdles in ratification.
Patricia Kayden
sdhays
@Patricia Kayden: She’s technically correct. The President demanded an announcement of an investigation of a rival. He didn’t care about an actual investigation because any supposed wrongdoing wasn’t even part of the point.
Betty Cracker
@Baud: [Trying this again since the last comment was a code train wreck] TONS of pushback. Here’s the statement:
Kind of passive-aggressive too, what with the “Cenk is rejecting all endorsements.” Uygur said he wouldn’t accept any FURTHER endorsements, and Sanders took that opportunity to walk it back.
His organization is just godawful at vetting, in every respect. How many people have they had to cut loose? And there are plenty on board who SHOULD be cut loose, including the comms director who outs rando Twitter critics. This tells me Sanders would be a really shitty president.
ETA: Code still fucked up but less so. [insert eyeroll emoji…]
Baud
@Patricia Kayden:
I thought that was my path.
Baud
@Betty Cracker:
He’s awful. I am also saddened and ashamed that we constantly ding other candidates for long-ago transgressions, but nobody has the courage to call Bernie to account for the acknowledged sexism and racism of his 2016 campaign.
David ??Booooooo?? Koch
@Baud:
Mary G
@zhena gogolia: I agree. I think all these proceedings have been excellent free advertising for the Democratic Party. And I enjoy all the “progressives” on Twitter who spend all their time calling Nancy SMASH names yelling “SQUIRREL” about other stuff right now.
gene108
@mrmoshpotato:
That was a joke, locker room talk. Quit being such a snowflake.
Betty Cracker
@clay: You’re right on all counts. But this time, the Chinese also say there’s a deal in principle, so maybe it’s really true. The last several times Trump made the claim, China either disputed that or remained silent…
Jay
Baud
@David ??Booooooo?? Koch:
Interesting that he gets reported on like a Republican would.
Baud
@Jay:
Oooh. Good get.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@clay: Yeah, when I saw an alert on my computer about Phase I of a China deal, I said I’ll just wait until I see some paper with Xi’s signature on it. Trump is the king of vaporware(old term for software that endlessly hyped but never makes it to market).
Baud
@?BillinGlendaleCA: It wouldn’t surprise me if there’s a deal. It would surprise me if the deal is fair to the U.S.
smintheus
The only thing that matters about any deal with China is whether there are effective teeth to punish China when it renegs/obstructs/forgets to enforce all the provisions it agreed to. With Trump there was never going to be any meaningful enforcement mechanism, and now that he’s in panic mode over impeachment he’ll probably agree to adding teeth to punish the US when China renegs.
Kay
But it isn’t going to help us politically and it is going to help Trump. So if what you’re saying is win/win I can accept that. Democrats got concessions on a trade deal in exchange for Trump getting a political win.
that’s the trade off. The political value is to Donald Trump and more than Trump- it’s to midwestern Republicans, so senate seats too.
FelonyGovt
@zhena gogolia: Ted Lieu as well. Hopefully he is now recovering after his heart procedure.
zhena gogolia
@Baud:
I do!
Cacti
Jonathan Chait with another inconvenient take on the parallels between the Corbynites and the far left of US politics:
American Leftists Believed Corbyn’s Inevitable Victory Would Be Their Model
Corbyn also had Wilmer’s formal endorsement.
Go figure.
Jay
https://www.google.ca/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/business/2019/dec/13/china-confirms-phase-one-trade-deal-us-tariffs
So, that’s about it for now from the Chinese view.
Betty Cracker
Okay, everyone else can drop out now:
Kay
I went to a D political event last night and they trust Sherrod so they aren’t unhappy with the trade deal. But to a man or woman they all think the political value is to Trump. I agree. I think that’s obviously true.
So if it’s “substance over politics!” okay. We know how well that works :)
Baud
Supreme Court granted cert. on Trump’s subpoena cases. Good thing the House didn’t wait on the courts.
Jay
https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/hamedaleaziz/ice-immigrant-surgeries-deaths-jails-whistleblower-secret
smintheus
@Baud: Ever so slightly better than calling them “contentious” or “colorful”.
Jay
Iz our Media learnin?
Hard no.
Jay
We are in no way ready for this:
Betty Cracker
@Kay: If any kind of deal is a win for Trump, I guess that’s true. My original WTF reaction was based on reports that the new deal was just reshuffling the NAFTA deck chairs so Trump could claim victory. But it sounds like Trump wanted XYZ but got force-fed ABC. He’ll still call it a win, of course. (He calls everything a win.) But maybe you’re right, if it indeed improves his (and other Republicans’) prospects and doesn’t let Dems make the case that they’re the ones who got the goodies for workers.
Kay
And I feel like you can tell the political value is to Trump- that’s why Sherrod is reassuring his supporters that it’s a good deal.
Trump doesn’t have to sell this- he was at “zero”- anything is an improvement. Democrats have to sell it to their voters. Trump could have scribbled on a napkin with a Sharpie and the Trumpsters would have supported it. It’s all upside for him.
Jay
Mary G
@Baud: Do you follow any women on Twitter?
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Kay: Democrats would have been painted as obstructionist if they’d not agreed to a deal they liked on substance. If you watched the Judiciary committee hears that was the Republican line.
Baud
@Baud: We’ll find out in June whether the president is above the law (when not being sued by Paula Jones).
Baud
@Mary G: I don’t really do political twitter.
hilts
OT
Mayor Buddha Was Part of McKinsey Team That Pushed Postal Service Privatization
h/t https://www.huffpost.com/entry/pete-buttigieg-mckinsey-postal-service_n_5df3dca0e4b0ae01a1e00863
Kay
@Betty Cracker:
I don’t know because I don’t know what the “Wyden-Brown” mechanism is. I assume it’s an enforcement method because that’s what trade deals lack- the only enforcement method that works is tariffs.
All I heard was Trumpka saying he got 16 dollars an hour for new-hire auto workers. That’s not a meaningful concession. I mean, it is in Mexico, which is great, but it’s probably a wage cut in Canada and a break even in the US. Of these three countries Canada would be the “gold standard” on workers- despite US claims to be the “gold standard”, we’re not. We’re like the..bronze standard.
mrmoshpotato
@sdhays: Comey interference 2016 was going to be Ukraine interference 2020.
Cacti
FTFY
Kay
@?BillinGlendaleCA:
I don’t believe “obstructionist” is valid politically for one simple reason- Democrats said it about Republicans all thru Obama’s two terms and it made not a bit of difference. No one cares about “obstructionist” other than political media.
So you have to give me something else :)
Brachiator
Trump’s trade war with China has always been stupid. It has no meaningful goals. And yet the GOP will continue to give him props for this.
I would like to see something about the projected impact on the remainder of the holiday shopping season on removing/not applying tariffs.
Interesting. I would like to know more why this is a big deal, and what the ramifications for the Democrats are.
Of course, isn’t the other side of this the fact that Trump also gets a massively bloated defense bill approved?
Kay
But I am glad Sherrod is talking about it because if it has to be sold to Democrats (and it does) he would be a credible salesperson.
Nicole
The Mary Sue has a pretty good summary of the vote yesterday for those of us in the colonies.
https://www.themarysue.com/uk-votes-conservative-labour-snp-brexit/?utm_source=mostpopular
One thing that stuck out- 18 million voted against Johnson, and 14 million voted for, but due to the number of parties, the votes against Conservatives (because to this Yankee, they seem to be more different from the Tories than they are different from each other) were divided. The bit in the article is from a tweet by someone saying this is why we need ranked voting, but it’s also a reminder that a multi-party system comes with its own issues (since I know “third party! third party!” is a clarion call to a certain type of voter here).
gene108
@Cacti:
Sander’s 2016 loss to Hillary wasn’t close.
Hillary got 55% of the vote to Bernie’s 43%.
He had a stronger showing, than anyone expected, but he was out of it be early spring.
gene108
@Cacti:
Sander’s 2016 loss to Hillary wasn’t close.
Hillary got 55% of the vote to Bernie’s 43%.
He had a stronger showing, than anyone expected, but he was out of it be early spring.
germy
So there was frustration and pushback.
mrmoshpotato
@clay: clay, They. Don’t. Care.
This is the same media that spent the 2016 election screaming about 3 fucking emails, read from a hacked email dump on the air, and vomited hours of Dump’s empty podium onto voters’ TVs even if Clinton or Sanders was giving a speech at that very moment.
Percysowner
@Baud: Eh, I’m somewhat convinced the Court will find a way to hold off making a decision until AFTER the election. If Trump wins, then he gets everything he wants. If he loses then it’s open season on subpoenaing Presidents.
I hate the fact that I no longer trust our court system, but thanks to McConnell and Trump, there it is.
gene108
@Kay:
Problems that come from actually wanting to govern, and not just rule to handout patronage to your benefactors.
Baud
@Percysowner: I don’t see how they’ll be able to put it off. Roberts would know how that would look.
Mary G
@Baud: There was pretty much a shitstorm of blowback consisting of clips of horrible things Cenk has said about women where I hang out.
Here’s a Jezebel article about him from today:
mrmoshpotato
@Cacti: Haha, 4.1 million more primary votes is close in Chait’s eyes. That’s adorable.
She beat him like a rented mule, and he had no chance at the nomination come May.
Baud
@Percysowner: Roberts would know how that would look.
JPL
@Baud: Is there a non political twitter?
danielx
@Betty Cracker:
Yowsah! Now THAT is a top shelf endorsement.
Also, too, since the shitgibbon’s followers proudly proclaim they believe anything and everything he tells them, I hope he tells them they can walk on water. Today.
m.j.
I don’t really care for the name. It replaces a unified North America with borders. Also, I can’t get the Village People out of my head.
Baud
@Mary G: I hope Bernie doesn’t get away with just “retracting” his endorsement, but he probably will.
Fleeting Expletive
@Baud: This seems to be a huuuge tarpit the Supremes will find themselves in, in that they’ll have to contemplate some bottom line separation-of-powers issues that no one right now is prepared for. This is some scary constitutional shit. I just left MSNBC, their legal hot take people, the ones on deck for the previous segment, seemed genuinely astonished.
How did the cert vote go when they agreed to take up this question?
mrmoshpotato
Cert? And are you being sarcastic about the courts? I can’t tell.
Baud
@JPL: Aren’t there some accounts that focus on dogs and cats?
Fleeting Expletive
@Baud: This seems to be a huuuge tarpit the Supremes will find themselves in, in that they’ll have to contemplate some bottom line separation-of-powers issues that no one right now is prepared for. This is some scary constitutional shit. I just left MSNBC, their legal hot take people, the ones on deck for the previous segment, seemed genuinely astonished.
How did the cert vote go when they agreed to take up this question?
@Percysowner:
Baud
@Fleeting Expletive: They never announce who voted for cert, but it only takes four, so it’s possible Roberts was forced to take this.
cokane
People are not going to vote for Trump based on a trade deal passed a couple of weeks before Christmas.
Trump being a corrupt and awful president doesn’t preclude getting some necessary stuff done.
People need to calm the hell down about the electoral consequences of this deal. It’s not going to be an issue come October/November 2020. It’s barely being covered by the news right now!
Miss Bianca
@Betty Cracker: God, I must be old/out of it. I have no idea who this is.
Brachiator
@Nicole:
This is somewhat misleading. You’re not talking about a national vote, but a vote in numerous constituencies.
The Conservatives were annihilated in Scotland. But Corbyn lost constituencies which had voted Labour since the beginning of time.
You also have things like the continuing righteous oddity of Sinn Fein winning 7 seats, but refusing to sit in Parliament.
I am not sure that proportional voting would have been any better, but I would like to see someone run alternative numbers. The noxious BREXIT Party did not win a single seat. I wonder how they might have done under a different voting system.
ETA: One wild thing I got from watching the news. The candidates in the various constituencies had to all stand together, so you got to watch those who lost stand and deal with their defeat when the vote was finally announced.
Baud
@Fleeting Expletive:
If the Supremes rule for Trump in the Vance case, we’ll probably need a constitutional amendment. The other case will probably just lead to the restoration of the House prison, since they won’t be able to enforce their subpoenas anymore.
TS (the original)
@Baud: For trump, the China deal is why he created the tariffs in the first place.
David ??Booooooo?? Koch
@Baud: which means they’ll likely sit on a ruling until the last week in June, before they break for the summer.
Baud
@David ??Booooooo?? Koch: It’s not even going to be argued until March. It’ll definitely be among the very last opinions.
randy khan
@Kay:
The Union sign off tells me it will be politically helpful to the Dems as well.
And with all the reporting about Trump giving away the store, he may not benefit that much.
David ??Booooooo?? Koch
SCOTUS will craft a nuanced ruling stating Congress can only subpoena Democratic office holders and IOKIYAR
Ruckus
@Betty Cracker:
He is 78 thousand yrs old, without the benefit of having done anything positive his entire career, just the sort of person who would be a real replacement for trump. All his so called wonderful ideas, how is he going to get one of them made into law? I mean what experience does he have of at least trying to get anything passed as a law? Does he even know any one in congress?
Jeffro
@Lapassionara: Watching Ivanka promote family leave and job creation yesterday (well, I watched the clip yesterday…no idea what day it was that she actually got behind a podium) scared the crap out of me.
If the GOP ditches the corrupt tangerine and starts putting smiling, pretty faces up there that lie about all the right things while looting the country blind…we’re going to end up looted and blind.
Looted-er and blind-er, that is. Completely looted and blind? You know what I mean.
Jay
@Brachiator:
NAFTA 2.1 “internationalizes” some wage, worker protections and environmental standards across borders. As a result, there is less benifit for Corporations to shop for the lowest environmental and labour costs for some products.
while a Ford “plant” might move jobs from Canada or the US to Mexico, because of commonality and efficiencies created by the construction of a new plant in Mexico, they won’t be moving as many jobs around due to lower wages, benifits and environmental costs, ( if enforced).
NAFTA and NAFTA 2.0/2.1 have supernational Trade Courts which can be used if a country, Corporation or other actor is not in compliance with, or fails to address NAFTA 1.0, 2.0, 2.1 Trade rules.
The WTO would also be a regulatory body, except that the US has broken the WTO compliance system, has refused to allow it to be fixed, so everybody else , other than the US, has agreed that a shadow WTO compliance system will be used instead.
The only upsides for the Democratic Party is an economic stabilization, a NAFTA 2.1 that is a bit more “fair” to trade, workers and the environment than NAFTA 1.0, includes trade forms that didn’t exist/have changed since NAFTA 1.0, and if they can sell it, credit for not allowing Trump to blow up NAFTA or trash a working system that is the key foundation of North American industry and trade.
Brachiator
@Jeffro:
Ha! Yeah. The ongoing Trump con requires more descriptive superlatives for their audacious thievery.
Jeffro
@Betty Cracker: I’ll take an “LFG” t-shirt, size XL, plz Liz and Megan. Sign me up!
randy khan
@Percysowner:
That’s my working theory about what will happen. Any decision during the 2020 election cycle would be dangerous for the Court.
Betty Cracker
@Miss Bianca: Soccer goddess and activist. Led the US team to World Cup victory this year.
WaterGirl
@Baud: Bernie gets away with pretty much everything. Why would this be different?
Jay
@Brachiator
Brexit bailed on the Election handing everything over to the Tories and UKIP,
https://www.google.ca/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/dec/13/brexit-party-nigel-farage-boris-johnson-labour-leavers
Kent
@Kay: Honestly, I don’t think it makes any difference what Dems do or don’t do and what the truth is or what was actually contained in NAFTA2. Trump is going to like like mad about it like he does everything and it will just become noise. We are way way past the boy who cried wolf with Trump. Fox and the rest of the RW media are going to praise him regardless. And will attack dems regardless. There is, of course, benefit in doing the right thing. But don’t expect any credit for it.
Ryan
Kim of North Korea knows Florida Man is up for re-election. I wonder what he’ll want to not cause mischief.
David ??Booooooo?? Koch
The cases are about Dump’s taxes and financial records, not Congress’s overall subpoena power. SCOTUS will issue a narrow ruling striking down the tax laws saying if you can force someone to turn over their tax returns then you can force them to eat broccoli.
WaterGirl
@Baud: My prediction, which is worth absolutely nothing, is that they will delay a ruling until whatever they decide has absolutely no impact on the outcome.
Jay
Jay
randy khan
@Baud: Just come up with some question that requires additional briefing. They can make it look legit.
Philbert
@WaterGirl: Bingo, the Court hopes something, anything, will happen to make their decision moot. LIke just f’rinstance LEAKS.
trnc
Sorry, this is wrong. The goal has been
– a combo of nationalist crap posing as policy
– a platform for lying about Obama trade
– a plausible reason for making trade announcements large enough to sway the markets, preceded by e-mini trading that potentially were timed with trade announcements that, in some cases, were patently false
Remember, DT always risks other peoples’ money for his deals, and now he has ours to play with. He personally comes out on top no matter how any given deal turns out.
Jay
debbie
@Baud:
Did you see this tweet:
Miss Bianca
@Betty Cracker: *googles*
Oh, HER! Wow! Yeah, all right!
trollhattan
@Betty Cracker:
The both have the right enemies, that’s for sure!
debbie
I emailed Nancy Pelosi’s office and thanked her for guiding her caucus throughout the impeachment hearings. I then asked her to do what she could to strip Gohmert of his committee assignments because he BROKE THE LAW by revealing the whistleblower’s identity during the nationally televised hearings on Wednesday night.
trollhattan
@Jeffro:
Heh! “Warren 2020, LFG!” would be an epic slogan.
Also, “Warren 2020, game day best day” might could work.
Ruckus
@Nicole:
Our system doesn’t reward third parties so the vast bulk of folks fall into one of our two parties. Parliamentary systems are designed to have more than 2 active parties. It allows you to vote however you want and elect representatives but requires cooperation to form an actual government. In the end it’s six of one/half dozen. At least that’s my take.
debbie
@Betty Cracker:
I listened to NPR interviewing Rapinoe while out walking (around 3:30pm). I don’t know when it was actually taped, but she said she wasn’t ready to endorse anyone. ¿Huh?
Shana
@Baud: I’m seeing the SC agreeing to hear arguments on the tax documents subpoenas not the testimony the House is/was trying to get. Your comment kind of makes it sound you were referring to the latter. Am I misinterpreting?
Ruckus
@Baud:
You think that most of them care? I’m not sure, especially if they think they get to rewrite or just write history.
gene108
@Ruckus:
Parliamentary systems the Party controls, who gets to stand for seat, who the leaders will be, etc.
You don’t get primaries to choose, who will contest the election.
The Party is an actual, centrally, controlled entity and unless you put your time in working for the Party, you don’t get a say in what the Party does.
This allows Parties to be more tightly focused, if they don’t think they cannot appeal to a broader group of the electorate.
Brachiator
@Jay:
In the long run, I think this a futile gesture. You cannot protect jobs in a global economy. Automation and frictionless relocation is becoming easier and more efficient. Investment moves easily to where it is most profitable. Free movement of people is not a total solution, but it may be better than trying to “save” jobs.
This is one of the great under-reported business news stories of recent weeks. And I don’t think that Trump was smart enough to come up with this idea all by himself. But throttling the WTO definitely works to Trump’s advantage in trade issues.
Sadly, most people will view this solely as a Trump victory, making the Democrats come around to his way of thinking.
Bill Arnold
@Jay:
<blockquote>We are in no way ready for this:</blockquote>
Getting there though. An order of magnitude faster and vigorous targeted responses would make it a real fight/have an significant blunting effect. Have those accounts been properly characterized yet?
@Jay:
chris
@Miss Bianca:Deleted. I should read more closely.
WaterGirl
@Miss Bianca: Did you see her acceptance speech earlier this week? She is a powerhouse off the field, as well as on.
David ??Booooooo?? Koch
@trollhattan: Warren FC!
Jay
@debbie:
as I posted upthread, China says that all that Trump’s yuuge trade deal consists of is removing the tariffs on Chinese goods.
there is no quid pro quo.
Jay
@Brachiator
We have had versions of this in North America since the 1980’s. Free movement of labour doesn’t work, because the movement isn’t free, and the movement of labour is used to drive down wages and benifits.
Free Trade blocks are not about “free trade” they are about regulated trade within a fixed trading block.
Workers will never be able to move anywhere near as fast as capital, which can jump the globe in a fraction of a second.
NAFTA 2.1 comes closer to ensuring that all the players inside NAFTA 2.1 are bound by the same rules, and that trade deals with partners outside of NAFTA cannot undercut NAFTA.
In a globalised world where free trade is actually fully free, 1% of the world will be like the Hamptons and 99% will be Somalia.
Kathleen
@Nicole: I’m playing comment catch up this evening and I was hoping I’d see you on a recent thread. I just want to send healing light to you and let you know you are in my prayers. Please take good care of yourself. I hope you have the energy to work on your writing and podcasting. Exercising your creativity and experiencing your brilliance would be healing for you. Besides, our creative power is our greatest weapon against this darkness, both the personal and the political.
West of the Rockies
@germy:
Dicks arose, ensued, were stepped upon…
Brachiator
@Jay:
One of the principles of the EU is the free movement of people. I noted that this is not a perfect solution to the ability of capital to move instantaneously, but it is an attempt to provide some kind of remedy.
Not necessarily. And the world is globalized. This is reality. And in the long run, you cannot really protect jobs. We have to rethink this issue. There is no easy answer.
J R in WV
@Baud:
But would Roberts CARE how that would look? Some think not…
burnspbesq
@Brachiator:
That hardly makes Trump unique. “Massively bloated defense bill” is redundant.