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[Incandenza]

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I'd expect to hear similar stories from programs that deal with climate science in NASA, DOE, and of course, NOAA. They might just turn NOAA into a weather prediction service.

On the electoral college, you better believe that if the situation is reversed--if Clinton lost the popular vote by 3 million but won the EC--we'd be hearing about an effort to overturn the electoral college by now. But the fact is that changing the Constitution like that requires 2/3 of the House and Senate to approve and approval from 3/4 of the states. It's simply not going to happen because the current system benefits small states and swing states, and the states that would be the biggest losers are Republican controlled.

[Amor de Cosmos]

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As far as I can figure out, the existing trade agreements mostly favor capital over labor on both sides of the borders. Mexico has more labor than capital, broadly speaking, so that's how it goes. But if there weren't anything in it for somebody in Mexico, they wouldn't have signed it. Same in Canada.

But having no agreement is worse.

Apparently the trade agreement between Canada and the US that preceded NAFTA has never been repealed — don't know if the same applies to Mexico. I suppose it/they could form the basis for any new agreements.

[Geoffrey de Ste. Croix]

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I see both Sartre and the postmodern left have infiltrated the Republican Party and the Executive Office again. Fun fact- Foucault invented lying in 1963.

[Incandenza]

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delicatemoth wrote: EPA apparently freezes grants, restricts media contacts

This sounds quite big.

USDA researchers have been told that they cannot communicate with the public apart from publishing in journals.

https://www.buzzfeed.com/dinograndoni/trump-usda?utm_term=.fxWQx1M2#.ccaPKlor

[Etienne]

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Trump says environmentalism is out of control.

From despair to where?

[Incandenza]

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Something that was brought up on Chapo Trap House yesterday: Trump's signature looks nothing like his name.



I'm used to signatures that are basically just one line with a little bit of a curve in it, so that it resembles a simple shape more than any actual letters. Trump seems to be adding in more letters than he actually has. I also don't know how the P in Trump seems to be capitalized.

Yet it's something that he's clearly practiced and thought about.

[The Awesome Berbaslug!!!]

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I thought it was traditional to spell Donald with an o.

I'm not sure that free trade agreements have to necessarily lead to a reduction in living standards for the poor, any more than being in the EU single market leads to an economy based on Sports direct and phone centres. It's really mostly about the intention of the govts involved. The US govt had a very clear image of how they saw this relationship with Mexico working out, and the Mexican govt has never seemed particularly interested in the plight of most of their citizens.

But I think that the most relevant thing here is regardless of whether or not nafta has been a good or bad thing, one thing is for sure is that fucking around like this is going to make the current shitty situation, vastly worse, and as always, most of the shit is going to rain down on the most vulnerable, and go a long way to substantially expanding their numbers.

I'm fascinated with the current strategy of Trump. He's essentially said that he wants his largest trade partner and net investor (the EU) to break up. he's picking huge fights with canada, and mexico, going to undermine the structure of much of his own economy to no net gain, and he's trying to start a trade war with the country that will soon be the biggest economy in the world, while abandoning Asia to its economic influence. Oh and he's continually calling Nato obsolete, berating his own military establishment, and he wants to align the US with Russia, a petro fuelled gangster state, with an economy the size of New York state, and six times the population.

Has anyone considered that he may be a spy?

[Ginger Yellow]

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Setting aside the Putin mole theory, it seems pretty clear that he hates the idea of multilateral institutions (hardly surprising for a narcissist), and wants to tear them down in favour of bilateral deals. To the extent there's a strategy rather than a pathology behind it, it's that he thinks the US has, or could have, the upper hand in bilateral deals, whereas it's weaker negotiating against/with a block. In the abstract, if you squint really hard, it's not entirely without merit, but only if you ignore the diplomatic and geopolitical context and don't mind pissing off and weakening your allies while emboldening and strengthening your enemies. It also ignores the possibility of other countries forming their own multilateral institutions without you.

[Tubby Isaacs]

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That's a good way of putting it. I might nick that off you for another place.

It also rather ignores China.

[Ginger Yellow]

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China was implicit in the last two sentences.

[Amor de Cosmos]

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Yes. As many have pointed out Trump sees every deal as a zero sum game, there has to be a winner and loser, and the winner has to be the USA (or Trump himself, assuming they're congruent.) That formula just doesn't work in a multilateral context.

So far as NAFTA's concerned from a Canadian perspective I don't know how much difference it's made to people's lives. We still drive down there in droves to get a better deal on stuff. It's also led to a cottage industry in mail drops on the other side of the border, as many US companies won't mail to Canada anymore (which seems antithetical to the idea of free trade.) Otherwise on a corporate level it's maybe made a difference, I really can't say. I do know that Mexico's been royally shafted, particularly their agricultural industry, due to the influx of heavily subsidised US produce, especially corn. Both Canada and Mexico have trade deficits with the US, which would seem to indicate that if anyone's "winning" NAFTA it's not the little guys.

[anton pulisov]

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The rest of the world might decide America Last. However, as long as oil is bought and sold using greenback, the US can still get away with quite a lot.

Things would have been different if petty European politicians hadn't destroyed the world's confidence in the Euro on such an epic scale.

[Tubby Isaacs]

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Aren't you doing a bit zero sum game there?

Having a trade deficit doesn't mean "losing". If we buy a load of Chinese computers, does it mean we have to sell them something back or else we've lost? Surely not. The trade, in the abstract sense, benefits both sides.

And according to this, Canada and Mexico both have a trade surplus with the US.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_the_largest_trading_partners_of_the_United _States

[Amor de Cosmos]

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According to that both countries import more than they export, so a negative trade balance. No?

Having a trade deficit doesn't mean "losing". If we buy a load of Chinese computers, does it mean we have to sell them something back or else we've lost? Surely not. The trade, in the abstract sense, benefits both sides.

Exactly. But that's not the way Trump appears to think, which was the point I was trying to make.

[Tubby Isaacs]

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Anything with negative numbers in usually throws me. But Mexico and Canada show a negative balance- same as China. That means the US has a deficit, doesn't it?

Apol for mistaking you for Trump!

[Amor de Cosmos]

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Actually you're right about the graph. I was reading it as each nation's deficit with the US, rather than vice-versa.

[The Awesome Berbaslug!!!]

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antoine polus wrote: The rest of the world might decide America Last. However, as long as oil is bought and sold using greenback, the US can still get away with quite a lot.

Things would have been different if petty European politicians hadn't destroyed the world's confidence in the Euro on such an epic scale.

I don't know. The euro could be up for a bit of a comeback. Once you bear in mind that Italy can't default on its debt, and neither can greece, and the amounts of money involved in portugal are relatively small. They made a lot of changes to the operation of the Euro in 2012 with the Fiscal compact treaty. There's a much greater degree of central supervision, and a much greater requirement to lay out your spending over several years. There's also measures to prevent encouraging bubbles. Once Brexit is out of the way, and everyone can see the benefits of being in the single market, then perhaps you might see a bit of an upturn.

I mean compared to the US, the EU is a haven of stability.

[ursus arctos]

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So, today's assignment for Spicer was to confirm that Trump really believes that 3-5 million illegal votes cost him the General Election.

And to say that they "might" look into what would be the greatest case of electoral fraud in US history by several orders of magnitude, but that it didn't really matter because he won the Electoral College.

In other news, federal prosecutors appear intent on charging virtually all of the 200 or do people arrested at the inauguration with felonies. The most likely reason for this is to try to force defendants to accept plea deals based on lesser charges rather than go to trial with serious jail time and a loss of civil and economic rights in the balance.

[The Awesome Berbaslug!!!]

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I can't help thinking that trump doesn't realise that the world's multilateral structures have been created by America to run the world on their terms. And that America does all the shit it does because it is a long term massive net beneficiary of the way things are.

now if Trump reckoned that America had a good deal, but could do a little better, I think I might understand, but I don't think he's trying to bully a better deal out of the same arrangements. he seems to think that America is getting a bad deal out of all of the arrangements it has made for itself over the years and is planning on wrecking them all.

[Tubby Isaacs]

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Amor de Cosmos wrote: Actually you're right about the graph. I was reading it as each nation's deficit with the US, rather than vice-versa.

You don't know what this means to me. It's literally the first time I haven't mucked up something involving a negative number.

[Tubby Isaacs]

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The Awesome Berbaslug!!! wrote: I can't help thinking that trump doesn't realise that the world's multilateral structures have been created by America to run the world on their terms. And that America does all the shit it does because it is a long term massive net beneficiary of the way things are.

now if Trump reckoned that America had a good deal, but could do a little better, I think I might understand, but I don't think he's trying to bully a better deal out of the same arrangements. he seems to think that America is getting a bad deal out of all of the arrangements it has made for itself over the years and is planning on wrecking them all.

Yeah.

I saw this recommended on Twitter.

[Sam]

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Incandenza wrote: Something that was brought up on Chapo Trap House yesterday: Trump's signature looks nothing like his name.



I'm used to signatures that are basically just one line with a little bit of a curve in it, so that it resembles a simple shape more than any actual letters. Trump seems to be adding in more letters than he actually has. I also don't know how the P in Trump seems to be capitalized.

Yet it's something that he's clearly practiced and thought about.

One of the goons standing behind him as he signed his first few orders on inauguration day made a joke along exactly those lines, if I remember rightly.

[G-Man]

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ursus arctos wrote: So, today's assignment for Spicer was to confirm that Trump really believes that 3-5 million illegal votes cost him the General Election.

And to say that they "might" look into what would be the greatest case of electoral fraud in US history by several orders of magnitude, but that it didn't really matter because he won the Electoral College.

In other news, federal prosecutors appear intent on charging virtually all of the 200 or do people arrested at the inauguration with felonies. The most likely reason for this is to try to force defendants to accept plea deals based on lesser charges rather than go to trial with serious jail time and a loss of civil and economic rights in the balance.

This drives home the importance of consistently highlighting the fact that Trump lacks a popular mandate. He knows it, and it's clearly a problem for him. So the narrative that he lacks a popular mandate should be used to the point that it defines his presidency.

Every divisive policy should be queried by reference to his lack of a popular mandate. It's all very well to point out his bigotries and lies and frowns at Melania, but losing the popular vote is his achilles heel. Fire at it, relentlessly.

[Hot Pepsi]

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Indeed, Josh Marshall, who was a bit of a Hillary shill TBH, correctly points out that there's never been an American foreign policy that didn't put "America First." This is obvious to anyone paying even a little attention.

Sometimes it might have put America first with some others close seconds and third, but always in order to amplify our power, and minimize threats to it.

The idea that Obama - and every single fucking president before him - were just giving shit away to Europe and China to be nice is utter lunacy. Their response to any objections to "America First" is "Well, than which country are you going to put first????" Like that's some kind of Aristotle-level genius comeback.

The very idea of "America First" is based on the utterly idiotic premise that everything is a zero sum game and that countries compete with each other for finite market share. But countries don't compete with each other for market share. Firms do, and sometimes workers do, but it's not finite, and even then, they collaborate - collude, even - on a establishing mutually beneficial rules and regulations.

As JV once quoted from The Sopranos:
A few bulls were on a hillside looking down at a bunch of cows. One said "Let's run down their and fuck one!" and the other said. "No, let's move down their slowly and then we can fuck all of them." All of American foreign policy is based on the ideas of the second bull. Trump is the first bull.

[anton pulisov]

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Tubby Isaacs wrote:

I can't help thinking that trump doesn't realise that the world's multilateral structures have been created by America to run the world on their terms. And that America does all the shit it does because it is a long term massive net beneficiary of the way things are.

now if Trump reckoned that America had a good deal, but could do a little better, I think I might understand, but I don't think he's trying to bully a better deal out of the same arrangements. he seems to think that America is getting a bad deal out of all of the arrangements it has made for itself over the years and is planning on wrecking them all.

Yeah.

I saw this recommended on Twitter.

I read most of another of his books... The Bubble and Beyond. He gives an interesting history of debt. Goes back thousands of years to point out that huge debt bubbles were traditionally ended in two ways: by writing off bad debts or by bloodshed. They guy has incredible knowledge about the history of interconnectedness of flows of money.

His knowledge of contemporary politics is a bit iffy.