Trump's Card

[anton pulisov]

So Trump is the prez and used to get generous loans from Deutsche Bank who were being run by the son of a Supreme Court Justice.

It really is exactly how Goerge Carlin described it, huh. It's a big club.

[The Awesome Berbaslug!!!]

a bit under 13 out of 88, is really close to 1 in seven.

[Tubby Isaacs]

Sorry Tubby. No excuses for being rude.

You're fine.

[Amor de Cosmos]

So Trump is the prez and used to get generous loans from Deutsche Bank who were being run by the son of a Supreme Court Justice.

It really is exactly how Goerge Carlin described it, huh. It's a big club.

Yeah. Him and Lenny Cohen (again.)

Everybody knows that the dice are loaded
Everybody rolls with their fingers crossed
Everybody knows the war is over
Everybody knows the good guys lost
Everybody knows the fight was fixed
The poor stay poor, the rich get rich
That's how it goes
Everybody knows

[The Awesome Berbaslug!!!]

What else has the washington post noticed lately?

[ursus arctos]

Quelle surprise

https://twitter.com/washingtonpost/status/1012858017736511489?s=19

[Satchmo Distel]

It's not deep state but blindingly obvious hiding in full view state.

[ursus arctos]

Three days apart

https://twitter.com/mattyglesias/status/1013142590793895936?s=21

[Tubby Isaacs]

Seem to be a surprising number of "OPEN BORDERS" and "CRIME" support among his own senators.

[Nefertiti2]

AMERICAN DEMOCRACY ON THE BRINK

A long opinions piece from Joseph Stiglitz,

.

The clearest case of institutional rot can be found in the US Supreme Court. In the space of just a few days, the Court has issued four divisive rulings that appear to have been designed to entrench illiberal Trumpism for years to come. Making matters worse, on Wednesday, Justice Anthony M. Kennedy, the Court’s longstanding swing voter, announced his retirement, paving the way for Trump to appoint another justice who has been hand-selected by the right-wing Federalist Society.

The Court’s rulings this term have all but confirmed the widely held view that it is no longer acting as a wise and impartial adjudicator of the inevitable disputes that arise in any society. Instead, it has become merely another instrument for advancing an extreme right-wing agenda, one that has subjected the United States to minority rule.

Recall that, in the 2016 election, Trump received three million fewer votes than Hillary Clinton, and Republicans held onto the Senate, even though Republican candidates received fewer votes overall than Democratic candidates. Similarly, in the US House of Representatives, Republicans won a majority far larger than their actual share of the total vote, owing to partisan gerrymandering after the 2010 census. In 2000, the Supreme Court handed the presidency to George W. Bush, who, like Trump, won fewer votes than his opponent. Now it has upheld the Republicans’ gerrymandering, as well as Republican legislation that has suppressed voting among groups more likely to vote for Democrats.

[ursus arctos]

Prof Tribe is the greatest constitutional law scholar of his generation, but I'm afraid he's been hitting the Wacky Backy

https://twitter.com/tribelaw/status/1013178684730159105

[Satchmo Distel]

If Roe v Wade were going to swing an election, it would have done it in 2016.

[Tubby Isaacs]

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez
Verified account @Ocasio2018
Whenever we as US citizens agree w/ military actions like weapons deals & air strikes, or when we hop on board with trade deals like NAFTA or the TPP, we should ask ourselves:
“Are we prepared to deal with the people who will seek refuge in the US due to our actions?”

TPP causing refugees?

How do I get that old guy who was deselected back?

[Tubby Isaacs]

[Ginger Yellow]

Navarro's been a busy boy.

[anton pulisov]

And then the petrodollars stop flowing into the US and American economy collapses.

Go on Donald, I dare you.

[Flynnie]

The socialists got Abolish ICE into a mainstream Democratic talking point within weeks, packing the court might take even less time than that.

[Satchmo Distel]

FDR did it, I think.

[ursus arctos]

He tried, but ultimately was convinced/forced to give it up.

[blameless]

It's only a small victory (and a defeat he's probably already forgotten), but a nice reminder that the petulant manchild doesn't always get his own way:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotla...tland-44681278

[Ginger Yellow]

Also this. The loan terms he was demanding sound insane (as evidenced by his actual bids).

[ursus arctos]

My guess is that they thought they could get the same kind of deals in Scotland that they were getting in Azerbaijan and Georgia

[ursus arctos]

https://twitter.com/dmataconis/status/1013787591911641088

[Ginger Yellow]

I was thinking, maybe they weren't so insane, RBS did some crazy zero-skin-in-the-game lending before the credit crisis. Maybe this was a pre-crisis deal.

His attempt to buy the former University of St Andrews hall of residence for £23m was made in October 2008. Two months later, Sorial proposed a “50/50 joint venture or partnership” between HBOS and Trump’s firm.

October 2008. The month after Lehman collapsed. More than two years after UK commercial real estate prices started to fall and well before the bottom was reached. It's bonkers.

Edit: Oh yeah, and by this point, Lloyds had been bullied into acquiring HBOS and that month took a massive government bailout because of, um, all the crappy loans on HBOS's balance sheet. There's no way they'd have been doing this sort of lending at that point. You basically couldn't get a construction loan of any sort from any UK bank until 2010.

[Patrick Thistle]

This article citing comments from 1934 saying Jews should be less critical of Hitler reminded me of some of the comments on this thread about how we should be nicer to Trumpists.

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/dispatc...icer-to-nazis/