[The Soup Nazi]

Originally Posted by Skuj

I cannot imagine a more dishonest evil POTUS. Surely this is the bottom, right? It will never be worse than this?

Every limbo boy and girl
All around the limbo world
Gonna do the limbo rock
All around the limbo clock
Jack be limbo, Jack be quick
Jack go unda limbo stick
All around the limbo clock
Hey, let's do the limbo rock

Limbo lower now
Limbo LOWER now
HOW LOW CAN YOU GO...

[The Soup Nazi]

By the by, on Saturday I was watching Axelrod's interview with Mitch Landrieu (I'm really liking this guy, but who the fuck knows what will happen — we still have a wakazillion years of Trumpocalypse) but THEN they up and cut to breaking news because some asshole in L.A. (armed, of course; God bless the squirt-of-shit that is the Second Amendment in the U.S. — the greatest country in the WORLD!) decided to storm a Trader Joe's. Bollocks...

[The Soup Nazi]

Hooooo yeah...

12 audio files sent to prosecutors in Michael Cohen probe

PLEASE LET IT BE HANNITY
PLEASE LET IT BE HANNITY
PLEASE LET IT BE HANNITY

[The Soup Nazi]

Originally Posted by _tunic_

wish there was a higher resolution version, I can't read it ...

Dood, Google Images is your fwend...

 

[The Soup Nazi]

Originally Posted by The Soup Nazi

Y'know, I think Drumpf was just trying to quote Guided By Voices is all:

 

Tower to the skies
An academy of lies
And what goes up
Surely must come down
And we felt the mighty blow-up
With the walls coming down
Or something like thaaat...

Robert Pollard is a golden visionary GOD!

[Skuj]

Cracks me up when some news orgs say "This is approaching Nixonian levels" in response to Trump demonization of Int people.

As if Trump's mischaracterization of the FACTS that were presented to him by DNI/FBI etc was somehow much less than Nixon's "smoking gun".

Oh how times have changed.

The current POTUS can spew a lie per minute and it doesn't fucking matter, does it?

[ilduclo]

So, the judge who is determining the attorney client privelidge issues for the Cohen seizures is Kimba Wood..for those who don’t know, Clinton’s 2nd AG nominee, before Janet Reno got the job....she was sandbagged by Repubes due to LEGALLY hiring of a non documented housekeeper (aka Nannygate).

So....

“this gum wrapper? Inadmissable!”
“this Papa John’s pizza box? inadmissable!”
“these 16 portable hard drives, 6 iPads and 14 phones? Admissible!”

Maybe we can look forward to Merrick Garland ruling on some corruption cases soon...

[h8kurdt]

"I’m very concerned that Russia will be fighting very hard to have an impact on the upcoming Election. Based on the fact that no President has been tougher on Russia than me, they will be pushing very hard for the Democrats. They definitely don’t want Trump!"

Classic Trump

[!@#$%!]

Originally Posted by h8kurdt

"I’m very concerned that Russia will be fighting very hard to have an impact on the upcoming Election. Based on the fact that no President has been tougher on Russia than me, they will be pushing very hard for the Democrats. They definitely don’t want Trump!"

Classic Trump

i don’t fucking know how suckers keep believing him, but they do

incomprehensible

[Skuj]

Yep, just turn the script (ie facts) around, and presto! We have a new story.

The mid-term will be rigged, and Putin helped the Dems.

You will hear this a million times now.

Peltor and tesla will start saying it.

[!@#$%!]

here’s the one that’s making my brain explode:

trump just tweeted a $12 billion rescue package for farmers harmed by his idiotic tariffs

so, basically, he’s turned a prosperous industry into a soviet nightmare that drains the economy

who will pay for it? not him, as he doesn’t pay taxes (“that makes him smart”)

socialism, republican style... fmlx20

[Skuj]

The best tariffs.

[ilduclo]

It's about time someone on cable news said the truth. Trump's "support" among voters is far less than 25% of the electorate, and it's shrinking. But you wouldn't know that listening to the mainstream media's obsession with "The elusive Trump Voter." (This isn't Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom, people.) How about paying some attention to the needs and desires of the majority who find Trump to be illegitimate and terrible? That doesn't get ratings does it kthxbye.

And thanks to Lawrence O'Donnell and John Heilemann for having this conversation:

LAWRENCE O'DONNELL: A new poll shows that the president's approval rating is far below a majority. But 88% of Republicans say they support the president. Unfortunately, in most of the media, they never do the math on what that actually means, since only 26% of voters are Republicans.

JOHN HEILEMANN: Here we go.

O'DONNELL: 88% of 26% is something like 23%...

HEILEMANN: Yeah.

O'DONNELL: ...of voters support Donald Trump.

HEILEMANN: The Republican party is shrinking. Man, you talk about getting abused by Fox News. I'm going to get abused for saying that.

O'DONNELL: That's just a numerical fact.

HEILEMANN: This will be the third time today I talk about this. We spend a lot of time on the Trump supporter. It is the way to try to understand what Trump is doing. It explains a lot of his tactical maneuvers and his long-term plan to try to survive the onslaught he is facing right now on a variety of legal fronts. But in the end, the country is not with Donald Trump.

O'DONNELL: Right.

HEILEMANN: And we normally, in every election I have ever covered, we focus on moderate voters, swing voters. We focus on all kinds of voters that make that difference in elections. Now all we talk about is the Trump base, the Trump voters. Instead of focussing on the fact that the ABC News Poll today said 75% of the American people are against him attacking NATO. The vast majority is against Trump on these major issues. We have to focus on his supporters because it is so important to what he's doing in the White House. We also have to focus on the bigger picture, which is that the country is not with him.

[Skuj]

I have a really hard time believing 25%. I wish it was true. But, I dunno....

He sounded positively desperate at the Veterans thing today. "Just believe me, never the news" type thing. He always pushed that, of course, but now he sounds very sad and worried.

[Skuj]

26% of voters are Republican? Really?? I dunno Man.....

[!@#$%!]

Originally Posted by Skuj

I have a really hard time believing 25%. I wish it was true. But, I dunno....

don’t contradict ilducio on any point or he’ll call you a trump lackey and put you on ignore haaa haa haa.

but he’s about right— registered democrats are about 30%

the largest block is actually registered as independent at 42%

oh yeah

but guess what— independents tend to lean republican, so they make up the difference.

a lot of independents voted for trump unfortunately. yeah. and they will continue unless the democrats put forward a better proposition.

think about it. many classic republicans like, say, george will, have repudiated trump because he’s anathema to many conservative principles.

trump’s base is from neither here nor there— many trumpets voted for obama before. yeah. republican politicians are cowardly riding his wave (or cowardly retiring like the speaker of the house) but THE MULE (see asimov’s FOUNDATION for reference, lol) is pulling populists from all parts.

the trumpet used to be a registered democrat actually. true story.

he’s not a principled person but an opportunist though.

i could share some interesting links of stuff i’ve been reading about this whole mess, and i read from all parts of the (reasonable) spectrum because i want a clear picture of reality, but that doesn’t sit well with der komissar, lol, so read at your own peril.

ps- i sometimes even read from the unreasonable spectrum like breitbart to know wtf they’re thinking because in my wildest nightmares i myself can’t come up with the sort of shit they publish

[!@#$%!]

eg the breitbart headline at this moment is that the trump-endorsed candidate beat the non-trumpet in the georgia governor runoff election.

*shudder*

—

meanwhile, look at interviews with young republicans featured in yesterday’s washington post

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/...nd-with-trump/

[Skuj]

I have quick look at Fox every day. It makes me ill to think that millions eat that shit up.

So.....CNN got Cohen's tape!! I don't know if it has smoking gun shit on it, and I won't listen to a single word that fuckwad Giuliani says. (I actually admired that man....once.)

But it's safe to say that Cohen has turned on Trump.

Everyone who comes into Trump's orbit will end up smelling like shit.

[_tunic_]

Thanks a lot Soup for the higher resolution image. I had been trying to find myself, but my Google skills are apparently lacking



As I work in the automotive industry, this is what worries me very very much. This is a Google translation of a Dutch press article of this morning, with some minor editing by myself. I guess you guys do not have an expression "sweat the breast" (meaning something like buckle up)?

'Car Wars': why do not we want an American car?

Today, 7:39
Foreign , Economy

Reuters
Written by
André Meinema Reporter economy



There are too many Mercedes cars, BMWs and other European cars around the United States and too few Chryslers, Chevrolets and Cadillacs in Europe. That must and will be different, according to the American president Trump. Europe needs the American car, made in USA.

According to Trump, it is the fault of the unfair and protectionist Europe, that American cars impose an import duty of 10 percent, while the US only charges 2.5 percent on European cars.

If the EU does not cancel this levy, European car manufacturers will be able to buckle up for an American tax of at least 20 percent and perhaps 35 percent. For this reason EU Committee Chairman Juncker is traveling to Washington today to prevent a threat of 'War on Cars'. After the skirmishes around steel and aluminum, the punitive levies on Harley-Davidsons, peanut butter and jeans, a hard price war about cars is something nobody wants.



Five times as much

Cars account for about 10 percent of total trade between the US and EU. According to the ACEA, the association of the European car industry , European car manufacturers exported five times as many cars to the US in 2017 as vice versa. The EU shipped 1.15 million passenger cars to the US, accounting for 37.4 billion euros. In turn, the US spilled 234,065 cars in the EU, worth 6.2 billion euros, which is one-fifth of US car exports as a whole.

Germany is the largest of European car manufacturers. The country of BMW, Audi, Volkswagen and Mercedes sold in 2017 for 17.3 billion euros cars in the US. The US did not go beyond 5 billion euros in Germany. Europe's car manufacturer number two, the United Kingdom, spent 7.5 billion euros and imported 1.6 billion euros. And the third car manufacturer, Italy, exported 4.3 billion euros from the US, but the US sold only 166 million euros to Italians. In this way, a rather skewed balance.



420,000 jobs

Trump assigns the 10 percent import tax as the cause. But the Japanese have also paid 10 per cent for years to sell their Mazda's and Toyota's on the European market. Incidentally, in the recently concluded trade agreement between Japan and the EU (Jefta) it was agreed that this rate should be abolished step by step and by 2025 at the latest.

The US is also not open when it comes to unfair and skewed rates. On European vans and pick-up trucks, the Americans impose a tax of no less than 25 percent, while Europe only charges 10 percent.

In the US there are also factories of European car manufacturers. And Chrysler, one of the Big Three car manufacturers, is owned by the European Fiat. Those plants in the US where European cars are built, produced 2.9 million cars last year, of which 60 percent were sold abroad, including in the EU. They also provide many jobs, ACEA estimates. 120,000 jobs in the factories, and another 420,000 jobs if you include garages, dealers and suppliers.



VS taste

Why do not we want American cars? It's simple: Americans simply do not build cars that the European consumer wants to have, unlike the Japanese, says Wim Van Weernink.
"American manufacturers have been trying to get a foothold in Europe for years, but our audience does not like the US taste, with a few exceptions: Ford exports the Mustang exclusively to Europe - for enthusiasts - and Chrysler does the same with the big Dodge. Ram pick-ups, but it's always a few thousand cars a year and not millions like the export of Europe and Japan to the US. "

"American cars are not pretty in terms of model, they are often designed for a different kind of use, different distances and for the maximum 65 mph on the Interstate Highways, they are too big for our roads and the city, and they are not really economical, which is not really necessary when you look at the American petrol price. "

European cars apparently appeal much more to the American consumer. "The latest models Mercedes or BMW fly like hot cakes over the counter, even though they are more expensive." The Japanese have felt much better about what Europeans like and want.



Carwars

It can all be true, but the EU is not doing anything right now. The import tariffs will have to go down if the car industry does not want to be in the foot. There is too much to lose, [Dutch bank] Rabobank has calculated that with a 20 percent import levy the European car industry has a loss of 11.5 billion euros.

Lower rates for American cars will leave European competition unaffected, because the consumer does not want to switch for a few thousand euros to an American car.

An unsettling car war with higher taxes on cars and car parts actually hits the US harder than the EU. American consumers have to pay more for the car of their choice and American cars are also more expensive, because many cars have foreign parts, from engines to gearboxes.

It will also cost jobs. Think Tank Peterson Institute has calculated that in the event of a tariff increase the American car sector wastes 195,000 jobs and, in a full trade war, no less than 624,000 jobs. "It is not a game of 'the loss of the one is profit for the other', but a loss for all ', concludes the think tank.



German and French cars

Commission President Juncker stands for the task of convincing Trump of his wrong, and that will be difficult. Another thing is that the European car industry is not in line and has different interests.

The Germans want to scrap European tariffs to accommodate Trump. The French think differently about that. Peugeot, Renault and Citroën do not export cars to the US and are therefore not so afraid of American taxes.

[tesla69]

Recently, special counsel Robert Mueller indicted a dozen Russian operatives working in Russia for hacking into the DNC mail server and sending the emails to Wikileaks. Meanwhile, said server is nowhere to be found (it’s been misplaced) while the time stamps on the files that were published on Wikileaks show that they were obtained by copying to a thumb drive rather than sending them over the internet. Thus, this was a leak, not a hack, and couldn’t have been done by anyone working remotely from Russia

and who killed Seth Rich?