Donald Trump and the Deathly Fallout (Part 15)

[RoseWilder]

Trump is hovering very close to rock bottom: 

 

[VelociRapture]

4 minutes ago, GreyhoundFan said:

Don't forget that he'd have to slam Hillary and/or Obama in his Tweet.

My apologies:

"Spoke to Newtown Mayor Dawn Hochsprung today to offer condolences on the shooting at Sandy Hook. She is strong and doing very well." (1/2)

"Just remember the Sandy Hook Truther movement was started by Crooked Hillary. She's a bigly liar! Sad!" (2/2)

[VelociRapture]

Ugh. My dad shared a photo on Facebook posted by Breitbart. Now I'm sitting here torn between wanting to ask him why and not wanting to cause issues. 

[RoseWilder]

I'd like to feel sorry for Florida, but they helped hand this election to Trump: 

 

[Ali]

2 hours ago, onekidanddone said:

No response. He would be bigly quiet.  Or make it about him.  I was trying to come up with a tweet he might give and I just couldn't. 

He might find a way to blame it on Muslims or Mexicans.

Fake media said it was a white man. They are trying to cover for Muslim extremist and blame it on a good American. Sad!

[Cartmann99]

2 hours ago, fraurosena said:

Ok everyone, it's time for the absurd. As it's about one of the main 'news sites' where Trumpolini (thanks Keith for that one) gets his 'truth', I'm posting it here.

Alex Jones, of Infowars fame, claimed that her royal majesty, Queen Elizabeth II is being forced to convert to Islam.

I kid you not. It's true. Believe me.

This is such bullshit! Everybody knows Queen Elizabeth is one of the shape-shifting lizard people, and they all worship a black obelisk named Hal. 

 

[JMarie]

4 hours ago, onekidanddone said:

My niece was in Georgetown on Saturday.  She said she saw three helicopters flying over head. Assuming they were Trump's she told me she flipped him the bird with both hands.  Love that girl.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/dc-sports-bog/wp/2017/03/28/report-trump-in-talks-to-throw-ceremonial-first-pitch-at-nationals-opening-day/?hpid=hp_local-news_nats-945am%3Ahomepage%2Fstory&utm_term=.af6ef5b3d43a

I think the Nationals had to ask him to keep up the tradition and he declined because he knew he would get booed off the mound. SAD. The toddler might get his itty bitty feelings hurt.

But he claims to be so good at baseball!  I know I heard it somewhere.  Oh yeah, it was Rachel to the rescue.

 

26 minutes ago, Cartmann99 said:

This is such bullshit! Everybody knows Queen Elizabeth is one of the shape-shifting lizard people, and they all worship a black obelisk named Hal. 

 

Yes, let's turn Queen Elizabeth against us.  As if the British aren't angry enough with us.

[GreyhoundFan]

"Republicans would rather have a king than a president"

Quote

Though Republicans profess to despise Big Government, especially the federal kind, it seems that what they really don’t like is Democracy — and indeed prefer a monarchy.

Yes, yes , the czarina sighed, signaling her weariness with the palace historian’s inevitable scold. I know America is a Republic and not a pure democracy, but let’s not quibble over distinctions that make no difference. They’ve elected a king whether they realize it or not!

The czarina has a point. While it is true that the U.S. Constitution protects minorities from the majority, there’s more than one way to build a kingdom and hustle the little people. To wit, The Don and his Damsel in the pale blue dress.

Or is it distress?

It’s been ages since New York City’s paparazzi have been able to capture the queen — her lapis lazuli eyes and haughty cheekbones mere recollections from snapshots past. These days, Melania Knauss Trump keeps mostly her own company, touring the cells of her vast tower prison, tending the king’s son and remembering colder days in Slovenia when she knitted her own sweaters.

Who knows what Melania really thinks? Perhaps only her parents, who reportedly spend much of their time between Trump properties in New York and Palm Beach — her father’s years as a member of the Communist Party all but erased from a résumé that features the creating of the first lady of the United States of America.

Her persistent absence notwithstanding, Melania is nothing if not dutiful — “obedient” is how her first modeling mentor described her long ago. She does what’s required of her station, as royals tend to do. But clearly this doesn’t include living in the pedestrian little cottage quaintly known to the ever-reverential peasantry as the White House. Her Highness was scheduled to depart her Fifth Avenue fortress for Washington on Wednesday to attend the International Women of Courage Awards, about which she may know something. It took courage for a teenage Melania to leave her home and country for Milan’s runways and then, upon reaching the fairy-tale Land of Opportunity, to surrender her resplendent beauty to the king of gaudeville, our very own, homegrown American Midas, for whom there can never be too much gold.

Donald Trump’s selection as voice of the Everyman seems, if one were unkind, deliciously absurd and suggests what we might call the “subservient imperative,” companion, perhaps, to Robert Ardrey’s “territorial imperative.”

n the same way that Ardrey traced the human drive (born of animal instinct) to claim and protect some degree of physical space as one’s own, why not, too, the need to follow someone of greater physical status (obviously not hands) but pertaining to wealth, possessions, territories, fecund females and nation-resorts bearing one’s name? To the extent that one creature designated himself a leader, usually by steamrolling all other contenders, why not an equal inclination by others to be dominated?

Monarchical tendencies abound in the person of The Don, and the willing hordes find his splashy displays of ego and overabundance not just tolerable but, apparently, admirable. Desire for drama and pageantry — the commission paid to peasants for their complicity in the master-servant duet — is on full display, whether The Don is entertaining world leaders at his Mar-a-Lago palace or working deals over golf at one of his eponymous resorts.

Meanwhile, the king installs his family in the people’s palace, rationing offices for commerce, diplomacy and foreign policy. Blood runs thick in royal clans. Daughter Ivanka, the ravishing offspring of Wife No. 1, is the only one Trump seems to really trust. He keeps her and husband Jared Kushner (the favored son?) close, while sending the eldest Trump boys on quests for fresh greens to conquer.

Never mind that the little people are paying millions for the protection of all these Trumplings as they cross continents or sidewalks. The king’s Secret Service begged an extra $27 million for next year — to protect Trump Tower and keep Melania’s tresses from public reach — plus $33 million for various travel expenses for Trump and others.

How dare you criticize the king , shout the minions at the jesters. He’s going to bail us out, get us jobs and cut our taxes!

Of course he is. Right after he repeals the Affordable Care Act, builds a wall and bans all those barbarians at the gate. And don’t forget, when the king parades buck naked down Worth Avenue, be sure to note the finery and the richness of his raiment.

...

 

[47of74]

45 minutes ago, GreyhoundFan said:

"Republicans would rather have a king than a president"

 

Of course I gotta go here right away....

He really nailed it. 

[47of74]

I just saw this about Ford's response to the Orange Tapeworm doing a victory lap over the news about Ford's expansion;

nbcnews.com/business/autos/trump-flaunts-ford-s-1-2b-investment-ford-says-it-n739476

Quote

Ford will invest $1.2 billion in three Michigan facilities, a move signaled overnight through a tweet from President Donald Trump — though Ford had originally planned to make the official announcement itself ahead of a Tuesday meeting with Michigan officials.

While Trump was quick to take credit for the investment, the plan is "consistent with what we announced previously," Joe Hinrichs, Ford's President of the Americas, told NBC News, noting that all three projects were in the works well before Trump took office — the largest, involving an $850 million assembly plant investment, approved as part of a deal with the United Auto Workers Union in 2015.

The largest project will see $850 million go into the Michigan Assembly Plant, about 15 minutes west of the automaker's Detroit headquarters. The factory had been producing a mix of small cars, including the Ford Focus, which will now be moved to a plant in Mexico.

The decision to put the Ranger and Bronco into the Michigan Assembly Plant was actually locked into place in the four-year contract that Ford signed with the United Auto Workers Union in late 2015. The one major development is that Ford has decided to increase its investment in the factory from $700 million to $850 million, which appears to reflect optimism for the sales prospects for the two vehicles.

Jesus every time someone takes an orange shit (yeah, I know, pleasant mental image) and packages it up this idiot is right there to claim credit.

[RoseWilder]

I have no idea what thread to put this in, but since it involves someone from the White House, I'm sticking it here:

 

[Childless]

8 hours ago, 47of74 said:

I just saw this about Ford's response to the Orange Tapeworm doing a victory lap over the news about Ford's expansion;

nbcnews.com/business/autos/trump-flaunts-ford-s-1-2b-investment-ford-says-it-n739476

Jesus every time someone takes an orange shit (yeah, I know, pleasant mental image) and packages it up this idiot is right there to claim credit.

The question is, how much of that $850 mil will be used to automate processes that will result in fewer non-skilled assembly jobs, which is what Trump supporters (most non-degreed and low skilled) need?

[GreyhoundFan]

10 hours ago, RoseWilder said:

I have no idea what thread to put this in, but since it involves someone from the White House, I'm sticking it here:

 

She is slime. I read that at least one of the prospective NSA heads refused the job because they wanted her out and Agent Orange said no. Sorry, I don't have a link, it was weeks ago, and the sheer volume of crap coming out of this administration is overwhelming.

 

"Trump is now the CEO of a very public company. He should start acting like it."

Quote

As the White House reboots for Trump 2.0 after a largely unsuccessful first two months, one lesson should be obvious: The radical, polarizing politics of the campaign trail don’t work well in governing the country.

The United States isn’t Russia or the Philippines. Our system has speed bumps, carefully constructed by our founders. Presidents don’t rule simply by executive order. They must shape policies that are comprehensible to the public and can be enacted into law.

In President Trump’s first months in office, he too often behaved as an insurgent and disrupter, rather than a chief executive. He paid a severe price, seeing the collapse of his health-care legislation and, in a Gallup tracking poll this week, receiving the lowest approval ratings for any modern president so early in his term.

There are some signs that Trump’s inner circle gets it. On foreign policy, plans are being assembled carefully as part of a broad national-security strategy. Before making big announcements on North Korea, China, Russia and the Middle East, officials want to see how the pieces fit. Trade policy, now under the supervision of Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross, looks less crazily destructive than it initially did. Similar coordination is badly needed on tax policy.

The biggest danger to Trump 2.0 is the president’s own impulsive, embattled style — which shows most clearly in his handling of the FBI and congressional investigations of Russia’s covert action to influence the U.S. election. The best course for Trump (and our system) is for the White House to cooperate with the inquiry, let it run its course — and, meanwhile, concentrate on doing the public’s business.

Weirdly, Trump continues to do the opposite. He’s still arguing the discredited, bogus issue of President Barack Obama’s supposed wiretaps on Trump Tower. And he’s coyly dealing with House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes (R-Calif.) to foster this distraction.

The Trump-Nunes allegation seems to have morphed into a contention that Trump associates were picked up incidentally in lawful foreign-intelligence intercepts of others, but that their names weren’t properly masked (or “minimized,” in the jargon) in subsequent intelligence reports that were then disseminated and leaked.

This may satisfy Trump’s desire for a counterpunch. But does any reasonable person really believe that this technical legal issue is more important than whether Trump associates cooperated in a Russian covert action against the United States, which is what FBI Director James B. Comey has said the bureau is investigating?

A better approach for dealing with the inquiry was shown this week by Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law and perhaps now his most important adviser. Kushner’s Russia problem was that he met after the election not just with Ambassador Sergey Kislyak but also with a Russian banker named Sergey Gorkov, who was prepared to act as an intermediary to President Vladimir Putin. Did Kushner blame leaks, or Nazi-like behavior in the intelligence agencies? No, he agreed to testify to Senate investigators about the meetings.

The message is that Kushner thinks he did nothing wrong and has nothing to hide. One assumes he will tell the Senate that he wanted to explore opening a discreet channel to Putin, similar to those he established with numerous other global leaders during the transition. But after the secretary of state nomination went to Rex Tillerson, a genuine friend of Putin, Kushner apparently concluded Trump didn’t need any such back channel. We’ll see if that’s the whole story, but cooperating with the Senate investigation is the right start.

Kushner is apprenticing for the role of Trump’s Henry Kissinger. He’s the secret emissary, the evaluator of talent, the whisperer of confidential advice. He’s the only person in this White House who Trump can’t fire, really. All these qualities strike me as beneficial, so long as Kushner uses them to make Trump a better president who learns how to compromise and govern.

Trump’s problem is that he’s used to operating a family business, where people such as his daughter and son-in-law and a few hired guns are the only operatives he needs and trusts. He doesn’t seem to understand that he runs a public company now. His stockholders are the American people. He has disclosure requirements. He has fiduciary responsibilities.

...

 

[GreyhoundFan]

Gee, what a surprise: "Trump promised to bring back coal jobs. That promise ‘will not be kept,’ experts say."

Quote

President Trump lifted a moratorium on federal coal leases Tuesday, paving the way for excavation of a fossil fuel on public land in the West that few mining companies seem to want.

With coal miners gathered around him, Trump signed an executive order rolling back a temporary ban on mining coal and a stream protection rule imposed by the Obama administration. The order follows the president’s campaign promise to revive the struggling coal industry and bring back thousands of lost mining jobs in rural America.

“I made them this promise,” Trump said, “we will put our miners back to work.”

But industry experts say coal mining jobs will continue to be lost, not because of blocked access to coal, but because power plant owners are turning to natural gas. At least six plants that relied on coal have closed or announced they will close since Trump’s victory in November, including the main plant at the Navajo Generating Station in Arizona, the largest in the West. Another 40 are projected to close during the president’s four-year term.

As power companies switch fuels, “the amount of coal in the national energy generation mix (both Fuels and Electricity Generation) has declined by 53 percent since 2006,” according to a Department of Energy report released in January. Over the same period, electricity generation from natural gas increased 33 percent.

...

In this shaky financial environment, coal companies are struggling. Two of the largest, Contura and Arch Coal, emerged from bankruptcy only recently, and another giant, Peabody Energy, recently filed a reorganization plan for its path out of bankruptcy, according to the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis.

As Trump vowed to resurrect the coal industry and jobs at the Environmental Protection Agency, he promised to increase production of the resource that experts say is killing them. “We will unlock job producing natural gas, oil and shale energy. We will produce American coal to power American industry.”

The IEEFA disagreed. “Promises to create more coal jobs will not be kept — indeed the industry will continue to cut payrolls,” the group said in its 2017 U.S. Coal Outlook. “These losses will be related in part to the coal industry’s long-term business model of producing more coal with fewer workers.”

The industry has a fundamental problem it has not addressed even as businesses fail, the IEEFA said: “Too many companies are still mining too much coal for too few customers.”

Coal has another problem that dogs power companies: health. Studies have shown that the risk of death from heart disease, including heart attacks, was five times higher for people who breathed pollution from coal emissions over 20 years than for those who were exposed to other types of air pollution. Burning coal releases fine particles with a potent mix of toxins, including benzene, mercury, arsenic and selenium.

...

During the signing ceremony, Trump also touched on the resolution he signed. “We’ve already eliminated a devastating, anti-coal regulation, but that was just the beginning,” he said. “My administration is putting an end to the war on coal, going to have clean coal, really clean coal.”

Paul Bledsoe, a lecturer at American University’s Center for Environmental Policy, an Interior official under President Bill Clinton, called Trump’s attempt at job creation “sheer nonsense.” Coal’s decline is too steep.

“No company will bid on new leases when there’s already a glut of unwanted coal on the market,” Bledsoe said. “Trump’s false promise that he can bring back coal is really exposed as so much coal dust and mirrors by this executive order, since utilities will continue to use natural gas instead of coal.”

 

 

[iweartanktops]

*pops a Xanax*

I'm sorry, I am about to read the thread. I finally felt like I could handle watching Sean Spicer be a completely racist, foolish, disrespectful PIECE OF SHIT this morning. I've just seen it, and I'm literally shaking. Someone should have slapped him fucking silly over that. 

I I think Trump (if you remember how he treated her about a month ago) and Spicey and the rest of the bigots, are intimidated by April Ryan. She's intelligent, professional and RESPECTFUL. And the fact that she is Black and a woman is just too much for these low lifes to handle. 

 FUCK THOSE ASS HOLES 

[GreyhoundFan]

"President Trump’s company pursues second Washington hotel"

Quote

President Trump’s company is actively seeking to open a second Washington hotel as part of a planned nationwide expansion, potentially creating another venue where he stands to benefit financially from customers doing business in the nation’s capital.

Representatives of the Trump Organization, now run by the president’s adult sons, have inquired in recent months about converting one of several boutique, medium-sized hotels in upscale neighborhoods in and near downtown and reopening it under the company’s new Scion brand.

Unlike the luxurious Trump International Hotel on Pennsylvania Avenue, which Trump and his family own, the more affordable Scion hotels would be owned by other developers who would pay the Trumps’ company for licensing rights and management.

“They’re trying hard to do Scion in this market and they’re trying hard in other markets also,” said developer Brian Friedman, who owns the Carlyle Hotel in Dupont Circle and Kimpton Glover Park.

...

“Definitely there are groups that say they are going to do a Trump Scion hotel,” he said. “These are just people running around saying ‘I have money and the brand is Scion.’”

While some of the inquiries predate the election, the company has continued to look for a Washington partner.

Eric Danziger, chief executive of the Trump Organization’s hotel division, more recently toured the 199-room Beacon Hotel, at 1615 Rhode Island Ave. NW, with an interest in converting the property to a Scion, according to a real estate executive who was not authorized to discuss the Trump Organization’s interest and spoke on the condition of anonymity. No agreement was reached.

“I think he liked it,” the executive said. “He said it was perfect. It just didn’t work out.”

Danziger said in a statement issued by the company that he wouldn’t disclose new properties until he has firm agreements in place but that he has signed “over 30” letters of intent — preliminary agreements — with developers to open Scions in cities across the country.

The Trump International Hotel, which opened last fall, has become a touchstone in the controversy over the president’s decision to retain ownership of his business.

By hosting political groups and foreign embassies as clients, the luxury property has prompted protests, lawsuits and criticism from ethics experts who think Trump has the potential to profit from the prestige and power of the presidency. Trump has dined there multiple times with family and administration officials, including this past Saturday night when he was joined there by his daughter Ivanka and her husband, Jared Kushner, who both work in the White House.

The addition of a more informal Scion Hotel in the District would provide a chance for less well-heeled groups to do business with the president’s company — albeit at a property that would not bear his name.

The process of opening a new hotel could take years.

The company relies on a Washington attorney, Bobby R. Burchfield, to review proposed deals for ethical minefields.

“We do not discuss hotel projects that have not been finalized as we have a rigorous review and approval process,” Danziger said. “It is also very common in the hospitality business that some projects do not come to fruition. So, we prefer to be sure that all potential deals are appropriately vetted and also completely negotiated before any announcement.”

Described in marketing materials as a “lifestyle brand,” Scion is designed for customers who are loyal to the Trump brand but who want to spend less money or, in some cases, stay in places where there is no luxury, five-star Trump hotel.

...

Donald Trump Jr. said in an interview recently that he familiarized himself with other markets — and potential partners — while on the campaign trail for his father. The sons have said they are minimizing contact with their father except to provide basic updates on the business.

“Will I ever ask for anything that could otherwise benefit the business? Absolutely, emphatically not,” Eric Trump said recently.

But two lawsuits, one from advocates at Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) and another from owners of D.C. wine bar Cork, cite the D.C. hotel business in taking aim at the president’s continued ownership of his company.

Congressional Democrats have repeatedly asked the General Services Administration, which leases the existing hotel to Trump’s firm because it is located in the federally owned Old Post Office Pavilion, to address the conflicts. But so far the agency has declined, ruling last week that the Trump Organization remained in compliance with the deal by agreeing not to disburse profits to Trump until he is out of office.

The agency’s inspector general, Carol F. Ochoa, has thus far declined to launch her own investigation, writing to Democratic members of Congress March 17 that she will “continue to monitor” the GSA’s management of the lease and “will remain alert to any irregularities” but saying nothing about an investigation.

Another federal watchdog, the Government Accountability Office, told Democrats Friday that it would review the company’s practice of hosting the president at its properties and Trump’s promise to donate profits from foreign governments to the U.S. Treasury.

As it expands into new markets, the Trump Organization is sometimes encountering stiff opposition from local elected officials — though mayors and city council members are sometimes powerless to keep a Trump brand off their skyline.

...

 

 

[47of74]

20 minutes ago, iweartanktops said:

*pops a Xanax*

I'm sorry, I am about to read the thread. I finally felt like I could handle watching Sean Spicer be a completely racist, foolish, disrespectful PIECE OF SHIT this morning. I've just seen it, and I'm literally shaking. Someone should have slapped him fucking silly over that. 

I I think Trump (if you remember how he treated her about a month ago) and Spicey and the rest of the bigots, are intimidated by April Ryan. She's intelligent, professional and RESPECTFUL. And the fact that she is Black and a woman is just too much for these low lifes to handle. 

 FUCK THOSE ASS HOLES 

Thanks for the reminder, I just remembered that I hadn't yet taken my morning medication yet for today. 

 

[iweartanktops]

Here's the video. That worthless fool. He would never say that to a man! 

I want to tell him I'll stop shaking my head after you shut your fucking mouth. 

[GreyhoundFan]

"Kushner, taking new White House role, faces rare scrutiny"

Quote

Jared Kushner has been a power player able to avoid much of the harsh scrutiny that comes with working in the White House. But this week he’s found that even the president’s son-in-law takes his turn in the spotlight.

In a matter of days, Kushner, a senior Trump adviser, drew headlines for leaving Washington for a ski vacation while a signature campaign promise fell apart. The White House then confirmed he had volunteered to be interviewed before the Senate intelligence committee about meetings with Russian officials. At the same time, the White House announced he’ll helm a new task force that some in the West Wing have suggested carries little real influence.

Kushner became the fourth Trump associate to get entangled in the Russia probe. North Carolina Sen. Richard Burr, the chairman of the intelligence committee, said Tuesday that Kushner would likely be under oath and would submit to a “private interview” about arranging meetings with the Russian ambassador and other officials.

he news came as the White House announced Kushner would lead a new White House Office of American Innovation, a task force billed as a powerful assignment for Kushner. But the task force’s true power in the White House remained unclear, according to a half-dozen West Wing officials and Kushner associates who spoke on the condition of anonymity.

The official White House line is that the group would have sweeping authority to modernize government, acting as strategic consultants who can draw from experiences in the private sector — and sometimes receive input from the president himself — to fulfill campaign promises like battling opioid addiction and transforming health care for veterans. White House press secretary Sean Spicer said Monday that it would “apply the president’s ahead-of-schedule-and-under-budget mentality” to the government.

But others inside and outside the White House cast doubt on the task force’s significance and reach, suggesting it was a lower priority for the administration and pointing out that similar measures have been tried by previous presidents with middling success. The assignment revived lingering questions about whether Kushner had opted to focus his time on a project that would put him at some distance from some Trump’s more conservative and controversial policy overhauls.

...

Kushner, who has been at his father-in-law’s right hand since the campaign, has long been viewed as a first-among-equals among the disparate power centers competing for the president’s ear. Kushner, who routinely avoids interviews, draws power from his ability to access Trump at all hours, including the White House residence often off-limits to staffers.

His portfolio is robust: He has been deeply involved with presidential staffing and has played the role of shadow diplomat, advising on relations with the Middle East, Canada and Mexico. Though Kushner and Ivanka Trump have been spotted with some frequency on the Washington social circuit, the president’s son-in-law is routinely in the office early and leaves late, other than on Fridays when he observes the Sabbath.

While those close to Trump flatly state that Kushner, by virtue of marriage, is untouchable, this is a rare moment when he has been the center of the sort of political storm that has routinely swept up the likes of White House chief strategist Steve Bannon, chief of staff Reince Priebus and senior counselor Kellyanne Conway. It points to a White House whose power matrix is constantly in flux.

...

Philip Joyce, a professor of public policy at the University of Maryland, said the domestic spending cuts in Trump’s budget blueprint suggest that this new committee would most likely focus more on shrinking the government than improving its performance.

Even then, any change would be unlikely to deliver significant budget savings compared to reforming entitlement programs such as Medicare and Medicaid.

“It’s not the main thing we ought to be focusing on,” Joyce said. “It’s at the margins of the big issues facing the country, certainly in terms of the budget.”

Jared needs to go to that uncharted desert isle with the rest of the Branch Trumpvidians.

[CTRLZero]

3 hours ago, GreyhoundFan said:

“No company will bid on new leases when there’s already a glut of unwanted coal on the market,” Bledsoe said. “Trump’s false promise that he can bring back coal is really exposed as so much coal dust and mirrors by this executive order, since utilities will continue to use natural gas instead of coal.”

Washington state blocking coal export terminals - Oregonlive.com

In recent years, my home state has been battling the transport of coal across the landscape and waterways to various ports.  I am sure these efforts will be undermined (pun!) by the Trump administration.  The linked article explains a little of how one proposed terminal was blocked.  It looks like the coal traveling through our state is destined for Asia, so there is a market overseas.

I am amazed at the number of coal trains I see rolling through Nashville, Tennessee (my home away from home).  The heaping freight cars of coal are left uncovered, so I assume dust and grit are scattered as they chug along.  I don't know if that is standard practice and if there are any health impacts.  Vanderbilt University finally dismantled its coal-burning facility, and I believe this is a nationwide trend to switch from coal, but I am still educating myself on this issue.

I linked another article on the hazards of coal fly ash in the Fracking thread in this forum.

 

 

 

[RoseWilder]

Trump's approval ratings have dropped again: 

So let's review. Monday his approval rating was 37%. Tuesday it was 36% and today it's 35%. He's barreling toward rock bottom faster than I expected. (To clarify that last statement: He deserves to be at an approval rating of 0%. The only reason why I'm shocked that his numbers are sinking so fast is because his supporters haven't shown themselves to be intelligent or introspective people. I'm honestly kind of surprised that some of them are admitting they're not happy with Trump.)

[Cartmann99]

50 minutes ago, RoseWilder said:

Trump's approval ratings have dropped again: 

So let's review. Monday his approval rating was 37%. Tuesday it was 36% and today it's 35%. He's barreling toward rock bottom faster than I expected. (To clarify that last statement: He deserves to be at an approval rating of 0%. The only reason why I'm shocked that his numbers are sinking so fast is because his supporters haven't shown themselves to be intelligent or introspective people. I'm honestly kind of surprised that some of them are admitting they're not happy with Trump.)

Looks like we'll soon see if the the 27% crazification theory still holds. 

[GreyhoundFan]

This is an interesting point of view: "Trump is throwing himself into the Democrats’ trap"

Quote

President Trump's biggest weakness is that he doesn't know how to make deals.

That, as Business Insider's Josh Barro points out, seems to suggest a deep unfamiliarity with the urtext of the subject, “The Art of the Deal.” Trump should know that “the worst thing you can possibly do in a deal is seem desperate to make it.” But that's precisely what he has done, first with health care and now with infrastructure.

Indeed, the latest reports are that Trump is hoping to use the prospect of a big infrastructure package to woo Democrats to his side on tax reform, and, in the process, cut the recalcitrantly right-wing House Freedom Caucus out of any negotiations. He apparently doesn't want to deal with them anymore after they played a leading role in scuttling Trumpcare.

There's only one flaw in this plan. It's called reality.

First off, Trump has lost whatever leverage he might have once had over Democrats. If he'd started his term by telling them that he was going to do infrastructure, and it was up to them whether that was on some of their terms or all the GOP's, there's at least a chance that he could have pried a few Democratic votes loose. But, as you may have noticed, that's not how he started his term.

Instead, he did just about everything he could to alienate Democrats, from his, in their view, discriminatory travel ban to his attempt to undo their greatest legislative achievement of the last 40 years in Obamacare. More than that, though, Trump's inability to unite Republicans behind his health-care bill showed Democrats that they don't have to make a deal with him out of fear of him making an extremely conservative deal with the House Freedom Caucus. It turns out he can't make a deal with them at all. Kind of makes it hard to play the two sides off against each other.

If Trump wants Democratic votes, then, it's going to have to be entirely on Democratic terms, which, whether he realizes it or not, are quite different even when it comes to infrastructure. How is that possible? After all, aren't we just talking about building roads and bridges and airports and water systems and electrical grids? Well, yes. But the question is how to pay for it. Republicans want to give private-sector companies tax credits for building approved projects, which they then could charge people to use. Think toll roads, except for everything. Democrats, meanwhile, want the government to take advantage of its still historically low borrowing costs to build whatever we need itself. They're afraid that tax credits would only fund the most profitable projects, not the most necessary ones; that they'd mostly be a windfall for projects that were already going to happen, not promote new ones; and that the money would go to people close to Trump, not the ones who need it most.

The problem is Trump might lose one Republican vote for every Democratic one he gains if he does infrastructure the way they want.

Not that Trump has to worry about this. It probably won't even get that far. That's because Democrats have no incentive to help Trump pass popular legislation when his unpopularity helps them. Why turn him into the winning winner he ran as, who alone possesses the ability to break through the gridlock of Washington, when they can keep him as the losing loser he's governed as, who can't even get a bill through one chamber of Congress his party controls? They won't, at least not on terms that are remotely acceptable to Republicans.

That's what happens when everyone knows you can't afford to walk away from the negotiating table, say, because you have a 36 percent approval rating. Nobody will be afraid of your threats, everybody will call your bluff, and you will cave to whatever they want. That would at least get some deal done if you were only giving in to one set of demands, but when you're trying to give in to two or three mutually exclusive ones, you won't even get that.

You'll get nothing.

...

 

[fraurosena]

40 minutes ago, Cartmann99 said:

Looks like we'll soon see if the the 27% crazification theory still holds. 

And if it does, what then? Not much, I don't think, apart from Tangerine Toddler twitter tantrumming (is that even a word? or should I say tantrumping?) about FAKE POLLS!! 

[RoseWilder]

12 minutes ago, fraurosena said:

And if it does, what then? Not much, I don't think, apart from Tangerine Toddler twitter tantrumming (is that even a word? or should I say tantrumping?) about FAKE POLLS!! 

I think if Trump's approval ratings keep dropping, the Republicans will start to see him as a liability and they'll move to impeach him. They're not going to want to go into the 2018 election season with a president that unpopular weighing them down.