Florida resident indicted by NY DA

[Phalanx]

I still think it might be beneficial to achieve free trade with Europe.

Trump already blew up 1 US/EU trade agreement during his first term so using Mafia-style tactics to force a new agreement doesn't sound wise. The barriers between trade between the US and the EU are already low and this is an absurd way of trying to go about making that area even smaller, while at the same time forcing the rest of the world to go to China for its stability.

It's a dumb strategy that is going to hurt the poor and middle-class not just here but everywhere.

Seems like Trump made a pretty good deal with the EU in the end.

Embedded Tweet

[Duck07]

We pay 15% Tariffs on European goods now, previously we paid ~2%, that's a big L for the American consumer.

[Phalanx]

We pay 15% Tariffs on European goods now, previously we paid ~2%, that's a big L for the American consumer.

Yeah, I don't think it is that simple. Aside from the ubiquitous reports that tariffs are not leading to price inflation yet, there is also the undergirding of the petrodollar trade that might lead to a more favorable currency exchange rate (we have already seen a few ticks in our direction since the deal was first announced). Meanwhile, the design of tariffs in general is to increase domestic production and protect American jobs, so we'll see what effect the deal has in that direction. I can't help but feel like this deal creates a stronger negotiating point for Trump as he deals with China as well. Add to this the increase in revenues back to the government and who knows, maybe we can get that AAA rating back and improve interest rates - we have already seen a positive move in that regard since the deal was announced as well. I wasn't a fan of the 'Big Beautiful Bill' in general, but it did extend the expiring tax cuts Trump passed during his first term, which included the doubling of the standard deduction that affects most Americans. If Tariff revenue can replace tax revenue without causing significant inflation, that feels like a win. I guess we'll see.

[Duck07]

We pay 15% Tariffs on European goods now, previously we paid ~2%, that's a big L for the American consumer.

Yeah, I don't think it is that simple. Aside from the ubiquitous reports that tariffs are not leading to price inflation yet, there is also the undergirding of the petrodollar trade that might lead to a more favorable currency exchange rate (we have already seen a few ticks in our direction since the deal was first announced). Meanwhile, the design of tariffs in general is to increase domestic production and protect American jobs, so we'll see what effect the deal has in that direction. I can't help but feel like this deal creates a stronger negotiating point for Trump as he deals with China as well. Add to this the increase in revenues back to the government and who knows, maybe we can get that AAA rating back and improve interest rates - we have already seen a positive move in that regard since the deal was announced as well. I wasn't a fan of the 'Big Beautiful Bill' in general, but it did extend the expiring tax cuts Trump passed during his first term, which included the doubling of the standard deduction that affects most Americans. If Tariff revenue can replace tax revenue without causing significant inflation, that feels like a win. I guess we'll see.

The rich get richer and the poor get poorer,

If your priorities are for the 1% then these things are going great. IF they lie elsewhere, this is all a disaster.

[Phalanx]

The rich get richer and the poor get poorer,

If your priorities are for the 1% then these things are going great. IF they lie elsewhere, this is all a disaster.

Sheesh.

[jBeavertonduck]

“ The rich get richer and the poor get poorer,

If your priorities are for the 1% then these things are going great. IF they lie elsewhere, this is all a disaster”

I’m certainly not an expert on international trade, but it seems that there were additional items agreed to other than the tariff levels.

[Duck07]

I’m certainly not an expert on international trade, but it seems that there were additional items agreed to other than the tariff levels.

Yes, Europe will buy more Natural Gas from us (since we blew up the Nordstream 2 pipeline...) as well as buying more Bombs - 2 industries that don't help 99% of Americans.

Meanwhile, we're the largest market for Pharmaceutical drugs in the world and over 80% of those drugs are all made in China, India and Europe and they just all became more expensive and for what reason again?

Nothing like the reverse Robin Hood, steal from the poor to give to the rich!

[Phalanx]

Just looking at Novo Nordisk stock today. Getting hammered the last two days on lowered guidance, citing 'copycat' drugs for Ozympic and Wegovy being produced in the U.S. undercutting their sales. Tariffs are designed to encourage this process and increase domestic productivity. I'm willing to wait and see what else develops. I doubt highly that imported pharmaceuticals are going to increase by the same factor as the tariffs - at least it doesn't seem to be happening yet.

Free trade seems like the most efficient model, but I am old enough to remember the effect NAFTA had on domestic employment. Seems like it helped other countries more than it did the U.S. Anyway, the rich got a lot richer and the poor got poorer.

I love how you just wave away arms and oil/natural gas industry in the U.S. Those are not barista jobs at Starbucks, but some people do okay in those sectors.

[Duck07]

Just looking at Novo Nordisk stock today. Getting hammered the last two days on lowered guidance, citing 'copycat' drugs for Ozympic and Wegovy being produced in the U.S. undercutting their sales. Tariffs are designed to encourage this process and increase domestic productivity. I'm willing to wait and see what else develops. I doubt highly that imported pharmaceuticals are going to increase by the same factor as the tariffs - at least it doesn't seem to be happening yet.

Free trade seems like the most efficient model, but I am old enough to remember the effect NAFTA had on domestic employment. Seems like it helped other countries more than it did the U.S. Anyway, the rich got a lot richer and the poor got poorer.

I love how you just wave away arms and oil/natural gas industry in the U.S. Those are not barista jobs at Starbucks, but some people do okay in those sectors.

Literally the worst thing for American's has been our overwhelming run of endless foreign wars and the sheer transfer of US tax dollars to those specific industries via corporate welfare. What grand society did it build us? Or, did all of that have the effect of destroying the middle class and making things worse for the long-run?

You can't argue for free trade and then support tariffs and none of these actions (as has been shown in previous arguments about these tariffs) were based on any real economic foundations where you could argue that it was done to enhance "fair trade" reasons.

We live in a morally broken society though which is why you think its good that we build more bombs to drop on kids (because money = good) rather than creating and supporting industries that don't do heinous and vile things. Trump goes on about starving kids in Gaza while being one of the overwhelming reasons why they are starving. It's disgusting and inhumane behavior and more people should be ashamed of this kind of diplomacy and leadership.

[Phalanx]

I guess this is the part of the debate where we get increasingly shrill and accusatory and start arguing like 12-year-olds. There is a pretty big difference between encouraging Europe and Canada to pay for their own defense and supporting dropping bombs on kids. I would actually like to see the U.S. shut down military bases in Europe and let people on the other side of the world sort out their own issues. It seems like Trump is moving in that direction and is at least an improvement over Bush and Obama in terms of foreign policy.

I completely disagree with your hot takes regarding oil and natural gas. Trump assumed office in an era where Russia had Europe beaten into submission over energy such that they were forced to accept every move Putin made to annex new areas, Georgia, Crimea, and now Eastern Ukraine if Putin decides not to take the whole enchilada. The EU is a totally impotent body with no military might who does a lot of talking while Putin does whatever he wants. Obama tried to address this by encouraging wars all over the Middle East in order to create new access lines to oil and gas via pipelines through Syria and Turkey. Russia was able to use their influence with Assad to keep that from happening. Trump's answer is to try to develop oil and gas from the U.S. where no wars are necessary. It seems doubtful that he will be able to provide enough energy exports to meet these huge numbers being thrown around in all these trade deals, but in my estimation, any effort to circumvent the foreign policy of the last 30 years is a positive. Ron Paul used to talk about using trade to avoid wars, and that seems to be Trump's approach to some degree as well.

As for Israel, I have already said in this thread I am not in favor of their actions in Gaza. I think it's funny though that you have repeatedly given a thumbs up to Hamas killing Israeli babies on 10/7 while sitting here accusing me of the same. The only one actually supporting killing babies in this thread is you, but maybe all babies aren't equal in your mind?

"Esau have I loved and Jacob have I hated" -Duck07

[dd10snoop28]

There is a dizzying amount of misinformation flying around in this thread. All I'll say is I'm both astounded and impressed that republicans have managed to maintain their framing of the Russia investigation for as long as they have.

The 2017 intel assessment in question was right about almost everything. And because of that, this entire "Obama is a traitor" Epstein deflection is based upon an alternate reality in which Obama's administration tried to convince Americans that Putin was trying to change votes -- which isn't what happened.

Much of what was in the 2017 intel assessment (as well as the Mueller report) was focused on Russia's verified and genuine misinformation campaigns aimed at turning Americans against each other while tipping the scales toward Donald Trump. It didn't matter that Putin thought Trump would lose. (Almost everyone thought Trump would lose.) What mattered was his intent, and he had a clear favorite. (It wasn't Hillary.)

People can bitch and moan about the intel community not being willing to approve of every single thing that went into the final report, but Obama had a responsibility as president to inform the public of Russia's actions to influence the election. He didn't feel Trump would have handled that appropriately, and I believe time has shown that Obama's concerns were extremely well placed. Trump has bent over backward to bury all signs of Russia's interference and to discredit substantiated findings (such as those in the Mueller Report) at every available opportunity. Trump's fans love to blame the Democratic Party and "the deep state" for running out the clock on Trump's first term, but nobody got in his own way more than himself. Firing Comey, trying to extort Zelensky, refusing to work with Congressional investigators even while claiming everything was a hoax... Trump's aggressiveness is his strength, but when combined with his pride and stupidity it's also an exploitable weakness, one he's been incredibly slow to correct.

Anyway, rather than read through the inevitable wall of bullet point "yeah, buts" I'm going back to the football forum. Have fun! I'll keep an eye out for the unity posts on releasing all the Epstein files. We should all be in agreement that it's past time we know how everyone was involved with that. (And I'm sure all of us will be furious if Trump pardons Maxwell so she can no longer be used to implicate anyone!)

Everything in this post is wrong so I don’t want to revisit it but I do want to issue you (Pez) a challenge to test your actual knowledge of the bold claims that you made about "Putin clearly favoring Trump":

Point to one piece of evidence and/or intelligence that demonstrated that Putin had a desire to have Trump win the election. Just one piece. That's it. Ok, that’s part one. For the second part, you have to disclose who was the source of that information.

Good luck!

[dd10snoop28]

There is a dizzying amount of misinformation flying around in this thread. All I'll say is I'm both astounded and impressed that republicans have managed to maintain their framing of the Russia investigation for as long as they have.

The 2017 intel assessment in question was right about almost everything. And because of that, this entire "Obama is a traitor" Epstein deflection is based upon an alternate reality in which Obama's administration tried to convince Americans that Putin was trying to change votes -- which isn't what happened.

Much of what was in the 2017 intel assessment (as well as the Mueller report) was focused on Russia's verified and genuine misinformation campaigns aimed at turning Americans against each other while tipping the scales toward Donald Trump. It didn't matter that Putin thought Trump would lose. (Almost everyone thought Trump would lose.) What mattered was his intent, and he had a clear favorite. (It wasn't Hillary.)

People can bitch and moan about the intel community not being willing to approve of every single thing that went into the final report, but Obama had a responsibility as president to inform the public of Russia's actions to influence the election. He didn't feel Trump would have handled that appropriately, and I believe time has shown that Obama's concerns were extremely well placed. Trump has bent over backward to bury all signs of Russia's interference and to discredit substantiated findings (such as those in the Mueller Report) at every available opportunity. Trump's fans love to blame the Democratic Party and "the deep state" for running out the clock on Trump's first term, but nobody got in his own way more than himself. Firing Comey, trying to extort Zelensky, refusing to work with Congressional investigators even while claiming everything was a hoax... Trump's aggressiveness is his strength, but when combined with his pride and stupidity it's also an exploitable weakness, one he's been incredibly slow to correct.

Anyway, rather than read through the inevitable wall of bullet point "yeah, buts" I'm going back to the football forum. Have fun! I'll keep an eye out for the unity posts on releasing all the Epstein files. We should all be in agreement that it's past time we know how everyone was involved with that. (And I'm sure all of us will be furious if Trump pardons Maxwell so she can no longer be used to implicate anyone!)

Everything in this post is wrong so I don’t want to revisit it but I do want to issue you (Pez) a challenge to test your actual knowledge of the bold claims that you made about "Putin clearly favoring Trump":

Point to one piece of evidence and/or intelligence that demonstrated that Putin had a desire to have Trump win the election. Just one piece. That's it. Ok, that’s part one. For the second part, you have to disclose who was the source of that information.

Good luck!

Still waiting...

[dd10snoop28]

There is a dizzying amount of misinformation flying around in this thread. All I'll say is I'm both astounded and impressed that republicans have managed to maintain their framing of the Russia investigation for as long as they have.

The 2017 intel assessment in question was right about almost everything. And because of that, this entire "Obama is a traitor" Epstein deflection is based upon an alternate reality in which Obama's administration tried to convince Americans that Putin was trying to change votes -- which isn't what happened.

Much of what was in the 2017 intel assessment (as well as the Mueller report) was focused on Russia's verified and genuine misinformation campaigns aimed at turning Americans against each other while tipping the scales toward Donald Trump. It didn't matter that Putin thought Trump would lose. (Almost everyone thought Trump would lose.) What mattered was his intent, and he had a clear favorite. (It wasn't Hillary.)

People can bitch and moan about the intel community not being willing to approve of every single thing that went into the final report, but Obama had a responsibility as president to inform the public of Russia's actions to influence the election. He didn't feel Trump would have handled that appropriately, and I believe time has shown that Obama's concerns were extremely well placed. Trump has bent over backward to bury all signs of Russia's interference and to discredit substantiated findings (such as those in the Mueller Report) at every available opportunity. Trump's fans love to blame the Democratic Party and "the deep state" for running out the clock on Trump's first term, but nobody got in his own way more than himself. Firing Comey, trying to extort Zelensky, refusing to work with Congressional investigators even while claiming everything was a hoax... Trump's aggressiveness is his strength, but when combined with his pride and stupidity it's also an exploitable weakness, one he's been incredibly slow to correct.

Anyway, rather than read through the inevitable wall of bullet point "yeah, buts" I'm going back to the football forum. Have fun! I'll keep an eye out for the unity posts on releasing all the Epstein files. We should all be in agreement that it's past time we know how everyone was involved with that. (And I'm sure all of us will be furious if Trump pardons Maxwell so she can no longer be used to implicate anyone!)

Everything in this post is wrong so I don’t want to revisit it but I do want to issue you (Pez) a challenge to test your actual knowledge of the bold claims that you made about "Putin clearly favoring Trump":

Point to one piece of evidence and/or intelligence that demonstrated that Putin had a desire to have Trump win the election. Just one piece. That's it. Ok, that’s part one. For the second part, you have to disclose who was the source of that information.

Good luck!

Still waiting....

Also, still waiting for the arm of justice to hold accountable those who perpetrated the Russian hoax.

James Clapper, John Brennan, Andrew Weissman, and many others. Only way to prevent future abhorrent abuses of the government institutions is to come down hard on the people who abused them.

[StevensTechU]

Second person murdered in Minnesota. We sure look a lot like Russia, Iran, Uganda, etc. right now. Freedom, eh?

Edit: Facetious is my native language, but this is a frightening point in time for our country. Masked dropouts with less than 6 weeks of training and with no judicial warrant can enter any home they want and put people in cuffs, the government puts out doctored images on a regular basis, dozens have died in detention, two citizens have been murdered (I don't care to hear your boot-licking opinion on why you think it's justified, which ultimates comes down to "it's fine when it's liberals murdered"), and then the government and state-supported media goes on a spin spree to affect the national dialogue just enough to keep people from recognizing how fucked this all is... It's a dark time. I don't know where this will lead and whether my dual citizen family will stick around to find out.

[dd10snoop28]

Let me get this right:

1-previous administration ILLEGALLY promotes and allows for 15-20 million of criminals, terrorists, cartel members, and enemies of our country to come into America
2-of those that came here illegally, thousands of them have committed ILLEGAL murders / crimes while in America.
3-instigators and disruptors in Minnesota spend all day ILLEGALLY disrupting law enforcement from legally carrying out the law of the land (deporting illegal aliens)

So of all the outrage you could have had on parties #1-3 above to prevent this situation all together, you choose to post about how trying to enforce the law makes us like Iran? OK, move to Iran!

This is exactly what was happening during Portland during 2020-2021. Antifa/BLM took over the streets and caused death, destruction, and mayhem every single night. Yet, 95% of the people arrested during the summer of 2020 were released without any charges. People like STU/Pez made no fuss about the destruction going on but rather chose to focus on the "brutality" of police officer using a baton to protect himself (that officer was charged by the Portlnad DA).

What ensued was the total decimation of downtown Portland because police were hamstrung by violent agitators, and eventually backed down out of fear b/c of their leaders.

The same thing is happening here except law enforcement is (rightly) continuing to carry out their duties even with risk of bodily harm and extreme resistance.

This is why whenever people like STU assume any political position, they end up destroying the area that they govern over.