The Donald Trump Score Card

How the trade war is changing minds in a Senate battleground
JONATHAN MATTISE and STEVE PEOPLES
Associated Press
July 7, 2018

How the trade war is changing minds in a Senate battleground

excerpt:

"NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — Jimmy Tosh's sprawling hog farm in rural Tennessee is an unlikely battleground in the fight for control of the U.S. Senate.

Yet his 15,000 acres (6,000 hectares) two hours west of Nashville showcase the practical risks of President Donald Trump's trade policies and the political threat to red-state Republican Senate candidates such as Tennessee's Marsha Blackburn.

Tosh, a third-generation farmer who almost always votes Republican, said he's voting this fall for Blackburn's Democratic opponent, former Gov. Phil Bredesen, in part because Trump's trade wars are hurting his family business — a sizable one with some 400 employees and 30,000 pigs. The cost of steel needed for new barns is up, Tosh said, and the expanding pork market stands to suffer under new tariffs."

 

For Whom the Trump Trolls
By Maureen Dowd
Opinion Columnist
July 7, 2018

Opinion | For Whom the Trump Trolls

excerpt:

That leaves Trump free to grab his phone at all hours to shove and to smear and to spew falsehoods. As Michiko Kakutani writes in her new book, “The Death of Truth”: “Trump, of course, is a troll — both by temperament and by habit. His tweets and offhand taunts are the very essence of trolling — the lies, the scorn, the invective, the trash talk, and the rabid non sequiturs of an angry, aggrieved, isolated, and deeply self-absorbed adolescent who lives in a self-constructed bubble and gets the attention he craves from bashing his enemies and trailing clouds of outrage and dismay in his path.”

 

classic

 

Trump administration takes another major swipe at the Affordable Care Act
by Amy Goldstein
July 7 at 6:46 PM

Trump administration takes another major swipe at the Affordable Care Act

excerpt:

The Trump administration took another major swipe at the Affordable Care Act, halting billions of dollars in annual payments required under the law to even out the cost to insurers whose customers need expensive medical services.

In a rare Saturday afternoon announcement, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services said it will stop collecting and paying out money under the ACA’s “risk adjustment” program, drawing swift protest from the health insurance industry.

Risk adjustment is one of three methods built into the 2010 health-care law to help insulate insurance companies from the ACA requirement that they accept all customers for the first time — healthy and sick — without charging more to those who need substantial care.

 

The govt/ins.industry has been a crazy fascist arrangement > it made me accept a free policy
under duress of a tax penalty . Currently , the insurer receives 14,000 dollars annually for my
policy (with a 7000 dollar deductible) . No , I don't know The Cure ... I only know about pickled
garlic .

 

anybody notice how trump talked about himself in the third person when he was in Montana?

oh yeah, he isn't nuts.

 

Center on Budget and Policy Priorities
Sabotage Watch: Tracking Efforts to Undermine the ACA

Sabotage Watch: Tracking Efforts to Undermine the ACA

 

There's a mountain of evidence that Trump's trade fights will be most harmful to the people who voted for him
Akin Oyedele
Business Insider
July 8, 2018

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/apos-mountain-evidence-trump-apos-110000329.html

excerpt:

The retaliatory tariffs could hit where they hurt the most: ordinary voters' pockets. According to Commerce Department data compiled by Citi, red states accounted for 3.9 million jobs related to goods exports, compared to 2.5 million in blue states.

"With few exceptions (Texas, Florida), many 'red' states lack large, coastal international hubs, which might make each additional exports-related job loss associated with reduced global trade that much more detrimental to per capita income growth," Peterson said.

And five months to the election, it's possible that trade wars become a major campaign issue, she added.

"Every region of the US is affected by trade dispute intensification, but the data suggest that voters living in states that supported President Trump in 2016 may bear the brunt of the negative repercussions of heightened tensions and the imposition of retaliatory measures," Peterson said.

 

So trump goes to meet a person who has orchestrated the murder of hundreds of people. I don't think drumpf knows what the kgb was.

 

More Trump ignorance and lies.


Amid Harley feud, Trump hails economy at future factory site
By DARLENE SUPERVILLE and JONATHAN LEMIRE Associated Press
June 28, 2018 — 5:41pm

Amid Harley feud, Trump hails economy at future factory site

excerpt:

"He also boasted that he was the first Republican to capture Wisconsin since 1952. In fact, the GOP had since won the state with Ronald Reagan, Richard Nixon and Dwight Eisenhower."

 

Well, I have to put in here...NOT PUTIN HERE! There hasn't been evidence of nexus between this incident and Putin. I'm not ready to lodge an accusation so soon. However, it looks bad at first inquiry. Let's wait for more evidence exposure.

 

OK, I'll admit I had not heard of that last batch of names. And I'll admit Russia is know to be the only one who manufactures this substance. Being a student of public law, I wanted more information on two areas: (1) Has any other party manufactured this substance? (2) Is there proof Russian agents have acted in these attacks? And I was asking my self that last question after remembering the two Libyan agents who were identified in Malta in connection with the Lockerby incident. I would like to see solid proof of a Russian connection, not say for example a Ukrainian connection or a Polish connection where the chemicals were acquired through former Soviet client state activity.

 

Americans are going to have to learn to spell "deterioration" in daily life experiences.

 

Ivanka Trump's Chinese-Made Products Conveniently Spared From Dad's Tariffs
Mary Papenfuss
HuffPost
July 9, 2018

Ivanka Trump's Chinese-Made Products Conveniently Spared From Dad's Tariffs

excerpt:

Despite the president’s mantra to “buy American and hire American” the Trump family retains major business operations overseas, and the Trump Organization continues to manufacture most Trump products in foreign factories.

The president even continues to profit from partnerships involving the Chinese government through state-supported companies and investments, including in developments in Dubai and Indonesia, notes the Washington Post. Ivanka Trump won a number of valuable trademarks in China just as her father was pushing to lift U.S. sanctions against Chinese telecom company ZTE, over the objection of congressional leaders. Trump announced his support for ZTE 72 hours after the Chinese government agreed to put half-a-billion dollars into the Indonesian project. The deal raised “serious ethical issues,” the head of the U.S. Office of Government Ethics said.

 

Donald Trump’s longtime private driver sues for thousands of unpaid overtime hours
Former personal chauffeur Noel Cintron claims he is owed 3,300 hours of unpaid overtime
Chris Riotta New York
July 9, 2018

Donald Trump’s longtime private driver sues for thousands of unpaid overtime hours