kurtster I admire your loyalty to your candidate to a point but when that loyalty (as viewed against Trump's accelerating self-inflicted implosion) starts to look like blind loyalty... isn't it time to cut bait? Continuing to support that buffoon through sh*t storm after sh*t storm begins to call your own credibility into question.

If not "cutting bait" entirely... maybe "going dark" is a better idea? At least until he is finally able to pull himself together (not that I think that is even possible given his track record). 

 Red_Dragon wrote: 
He's also got his surrogates out now suggesting the election will be 'rigged' and that there will be violence unless he is elected. This is completely reprehensible. Our history and policy of ballots not bullets *regardless* of the outcome is paramount.  This is the reason that EVERYONE should be denouncing this total trainwreck of a candidate. That there are not more Republicans publicly denouncing them is astounding to me. This guy represents the worst in our nation. If you stand with him, you are part of the problem.

Scarborough: Trump asked adviser why US can't use nuclear weapons

This REALLY should be the final nail in his coffin. The man has absolutely no business being president. 

It is no longer a matter of partisanship, it is now a measure of basic competence and mental balance. 
Since the DNC,  Trump has gone completely off the rails, imo. Do we really want to elect an "unbalanced person" to be a change agent? Really?

First Read: GOP, Trump Go From 'Unraveling' to 'Break Glass' Mode

 sirdroseph wrote: 
Yep

 fgsee wrote: 



Damn right, either Jill Stein or Gary Johnson are acceptable choices.

It seems to me that the neglected class here, the ones that are completely overlooked and ignored, are the youth that will inherit all of this mess.
Talking globally, they are marginalized as uncaring and ignorant.
This could not be farther from the truth!
They are hip to the environment, hip to the lies of elders, hip to the feelings of generosity and love... 

The litmus test for ALL candidates should be how much they consider youth and the environment.
So far, it's a clear choice 

 kurtster wrote: 
I did not miss that part about POTUS not being a learn as you go position. As I stated in my response to your video post, the near-total meltdown of our economy and the following Great Recession weren't crises that you could prepare for. They were almost unprecedented. Bush and Obama had to learn as they went along. Obama's rueful joke about some shovel-ready projects being not quite shovel-ready seems a lot less flippant in that light. 

Your comment above the video of Obama ("Really ?  $800 billion later and this is what we get ?") indicates to me that you do not understand the rapidity and severity of the crises that Bush and Obama faced. You also don't seem to understand that the policies of Bush (really, Hank Paulson; IIRC Bush didn't get very involved) and Obama prevented Great Depression 2.0. 

You wrote "TARP and the Stimulus are separate items by the way.  Just thought I would mention that."

Sorry but I did know that. Apparently you weren't reading my post of 8/2/16 @8:21pm Eastern very closely. Here's the bit you missed: 

"You can play that clip of Obama's rueful joke as much as you want, but the stimulus and accompanying financial market policies such as TARP and the Fed's quantitative easing programs worked." 

Whether Pence voted against TARP is irrelevant. Whether you were against TARP at the time is irrelevant. I really do not give a flying fuck what you and Pence thought and did back then. 

The opinion piece from a columnist that you linked to has no economic data, analysis or links to back up its wild assertions that the Obama administration's actions amounted to wasteful fraud. Frankly, I'm going to believe the two highly respected professional economists who provide lots of data in support of their conclusions. 

This has nothing to do with Trump who proves with each passing day that he is dangerously unprepared and irretrievably incapable of being President. Let's stick to Trump in this thread because I have zero faith that you have anything serious or worthwhile to say about our federal government's response to the economic crisis of 2007-2008. 

 BlueHeronDruid wrote: 
Shame is one thing he doesnt have.

It keeps getting more shameful all the time.

 BlueHeronDruid wrote: 
I know you do. Shameful covers a lot more territory than just this. It is a diversion. A distraction. Part and parcel of a much greater evil that efforts ever creeping into our lives. Deny it the space in your mind and heart. Resist the very notion of futility. If you don't count it, it won't count. It's not denial to deny betrayal the power rule the world with fear and loathing.

 kcar wrote: 
The vid was in response to a remark,  "and the POTUS isn't a learn-as-you go position. " made by another poster.  Maybe you missed that part.  

TARP and the Stimulus are separate items by the way.  Just thought I would mention that.

Even better, VP nom Pence voted against TARP, which I agree with and am on the record here as having said so at the time the vote was taken.  

Do we want to go back and dig up the phony zip codes used to say where the stimulus benefited so many ?  Solyndra ?  Do we really want to go there ?  
.
iffen you do, i'll catch up tomorrow.
g'nite. 

 oldviolin wrote: 
Of course you're right and I know this. But fucking A. This stuff is shameful.

 BlueHeronDruid wrote: 
But there is. You don't need to look so hard for it out there in the words and opinions of others. Just open your heart to it and it will appear from the shadows where it's kept waiting for you...

 kurtster wrote: 
If that's all you got in terms of digging into facts, then you're the one who's failing. You're not even bothering to back up your assertion about Obama's stimulus. 

Please: if you don't think that Zandi and Blinder can be trusted, provide us with links to credible and substantive economic analyses claiming that Obama's stimulus didn't work. Or serious critiques of Zandi and Blinder's paper. Or evidence that Moody's Analytics' work in general can't be trusted—although such evidence wouldn't speak to Blinder's academic and professional career and his reputation amongst economists .

 kcar wrote: 
You are kidding right ?

They are both subsidiaries of Moody's Corporation or am I missing something important ?  Right hand, left hand of the same organization.   Do you really believe that one sub of a company is going to indict the other?   I want some of what you're smoking.

Fail. 

 kurtster wrote: 
You do know that Moody's Analytics and Moody's Investors Service are separate businesses with separate functions, don't you? 

You'd be better off finding credible and substantive economic analyses that claim Obama's economic stimulus didn't do any good. Good luck with that.
 


From Wikipedia:

Moody's Analytics is a subsidiary of Moody's Corporation established in 2007 to focus on non-rating activities, separate from Moody's Investors Service. It provides economic research regarding risk, performance and financial modeling, as well as consulting, training and software services. 


Wikipedia article on Moody's Investors Service: 

Moody's Investors Service, often referred to as Moody's, is the bond credit rating business of Moody's Corporation, representing the company's traditional line of business and its historical name. Moody's Investors Service provides international financial research onbonds issued by commercial and government entities and, with Standard & Poor's and Fitch Group, is considered one of the Big Three credit rating agencies. 

Trump has interesting friends.

And there is no decency left in this nation at all.

 kcar wrote: 
You do know that Moody's bogus ratings were largely responsible for the collapse don't you ?

Moody’s, a division of Moody’s Corp., and S&P, a unit of McGraw Hill Financial Inc., gave triple-A ratings to those mortgage deals, making it possible for even conservative investors to buy securities backed by subprime loans that later turned out to be risky. When the housing market collapsed, losses on those bonds spread everywhere and deepened the crisis, costing investors billions of dollars.
...
Based in New York, and the world’s second-biggest ratings firm behind S&P, Moody’s was a major issuer of triple-A ratings on residential mortgage-backed securities before the crisis.
...

Moody’s had “inadequate models and methodology” to gauge the risk of subprime mortgages and exhibited a “relentless drive” to win market share, said Phil Angelides, the former California state treasurer who led the bipartisan Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission, which included a case study of Moody’s in its 2011 report.

“What we found at Moody’s was very similar to the practices and conduct at Standard & Poor’s. The conduct and results were the same,” said Mr. Angelides. The 10-member commission concluded that credit-rating firms were “essential cogs in the wheel of financial destruction.”

 kurtster wrote: 
Irrelevant question. 

This guy wants to be President. A President shouldn't get involved with personal confrontations on a numbingly regular basis, often with little or no provocation.

Right now Trump is destroying his candidacy by still—STILL—fighting with the Khans and getting into confrontations with Paul Ryan and John McCain. Republican candidates are quietly planning on trying to ignore Trump during their own campaigns. Even if he does get elected, he will have NO allies in Washington. 

Let's put aside questions on morality or standards of behavior. Based only on a pragmatic, cold-eyed view of the campaign, Trump should disengage from fighting with the Khans, if only to stop damaging his popularity and alliances.

But he is doubling down. Trump's behavior is ugly as a political spectacle. As a public display by a national figure, it's deeply disturbing. I am convinced that Trump is seriously mentally ill.