Miscellaneous And Off Topic Subjects

[Dr. Strangelove]

I am remiss in not saying a fond farewell to Kris Kobach. He was a darling of this board's conservatives, the guy who was finally going to EXPOSE the MASSIVE voter fraud occurring everywhere thanks to George Soros and his importation of millions of illegal voters. Somewhere crash, Geezer, and Kapture are sobbing around a pitcher of Stroh's and talking about the good old days.

His political career is in tatters. Now he can return to his true calling, the one profession where incompetent, fraudulent, and unlikeable people can still make a decent living: lawyerin'

[Dr. Strangelove]

And, honestly, I don’t know what Trump was thinking. There is such a better life out there for a billionaire (or a hundred millionaire, whatever he is).

Ego. And surrounding himself with people whose only reason to exist is to feed said ego.

And I'm not joking when I say he thought the job would mainly be ribbon-cutting, fund-raising, and having dinner with celebrities.

[Jeff Buchanan]

On Biden's path to November ..... The importance of selecting his running mate trumps everything else.. If he rolls with Kamala Harris, I won't vote on the presidential ticket. I doubt I'm alone in that view and it will hurt Biden's chances for an unequivocal popular vote and electoral college win that dampens Trump's chances of contesting the outcome.

A China consensus in the US? No. That's because a cogent policy has yet to emerge - after two successive administrations - and the formulation of one will continue to be plagued by competing interests (see talent's post). The TikTok and Huawei stuff is demonstrative of the impact of competing interests preventing the formulation of a straight forward China policy that elevates the PRC to public enemy #1.

DSL, no question Trump is trying to shape a realty that misrepresents what is actually happening. He says stuff that can be easily proven wrong and the press jumps on that. The actual impact of C-19's disease burden is certainly greater than how he characterizes it to be but it isn't anywhere near as bad as the press has been characterizing it. He could have a winning PR strategy from his bully pulpit if he would trumpet the economic and social costs of draconian mitigation missteps that his D opponents have implemented or called for with very little PH benefit derived therefrom.

[Dr. Strangelove]

I know no one cares and there's bigger fish to fry but...whatever, this is weird.

Pompeo asked Trump to fire the State Dept. Inspector General. The IG was apparently investigating Pompeo himself for...whatever. They replaced him with Stephen Akard, a Mike Pence ally. Now, after less than three months on the job, he's abruptly resigned just before a report on the end-around Congress Trump/Pompeo did to sell weapons to Saudi Arabia.

https://www.cnn.com/2020/08/05/politics/akard-resigns-state-oig/index.html

[Dr. Strangelove]

On Biden's path to November ..... The importance of selecting his running mate trumps everything else.. If he rolls with Kamala Harris, I won't vote on the presidential ticket. I doubt I'm alone in that view and it will hurt Biden's chances for an unequivocal popular vote and electoral college win that dampens Trump's chances of contesting the outcome.

A China consensus in the US? No. That's because a cogent policy has yet to emerge - after two successive administrations - and the formulation of one will continue to be plagued by competing interests (see talent's post). The TikTok and Huawei stuff is demonstrative of the impact of competing interests preventing the formulation of a straight forward China policy that elevates the PRC to public enemy #1.

DSL, no question Trump is trying to shape a realty that misrepresents what is actually happening. He says stuff that can be easily proven wrong and the press jumps on that. The actual impact of C-19's disease burden is certainly greater than how he characterizes it to be but it isn't anywhere near as bad as the press has been characterizing it. He could have a winning PR strategy from his bully pulpit if he would trumpet the economic and social costs of draconian mitigation missteps that his D opponents have implemented or called for with very little PH benefit derived therefrom.

Myself and probably the majority of the public do not see the two extremes as equal evils, however.

Politician A says the disease is no big deal, occasionally calls it a hoax. Tells people to live their lives. Ignore the so-called experts who are just trying to hurt me politically and ruin the country. Don't let anyone try to order you around. This is America.

Politician B says we're all doomed unless we shut down most businesses and lockdown in our homes for the next month or two. Unemployment will soar so we'll have to hand out a lot of free money and explode the deficit but everyone's life is at stake.

A few months go by and 160,000 people caught the disease and died. Which politician will the general public be more forgiving of? The one who preached doom and "only" 160,000 died or the guy who promised you'd be safe and "only" 160,000 people died?

[Jeff Buchanan]

I don't take great stock in the capacity of the markets to reflect actual economic conditions but one can't ignore what's going on this week. While the press continues to spread C-19 doom and gloom, the DJIA rose above 27000 today and this isn't the tech sector leading the way. It's blue chippers like Disney. I'll allow that there is good evidence that there is a disconnect between the forward looking economic data and the markets but over the last 3 months the upward trends would seem to predict the US economy is much better off than I know that I feel it is.

[Tom W]

Ego. And surrounding himself with people whose only reason to exist is to feed said ego.

And I'm not joking when I say he thought the job would mainly be ribbon-cutting, fund-raising, and having dinner with celebrities.

Well, it kind of worked like that for the last guy. He wasn't exactly qualified, but he was adept at reading teleprompters, a fawning press and a laminated race card.

[lineygoblue]

Well, it kind of worked like that for the last guy. He wasn't exactly qualified, but he was adept at reading teleprompters, a fawning press and a laminated race card.

And he's still using that race card.

I'm still a bit surprised that Michelle and Oprah didn't team up to run for President/VP. The fawning press would be dancing with orgasmic delight.

[Dr. Strangelove]

Well, it kind of worked like that for the last guy. He wasn't exactly qualified, but he was adept at reading teleprompters, a fawning press and a laminated race card.

Trump uses teleprompters all the time, if you haven't noticed. When he doesn't he's recommending people inject themselves with UV light or drink bleach. You might as well complain about Obama golfing or leaving DC too much. Such an honest, good faith complaint in retrospect, huh?

[lineygoblue]

This trucking company says they won't deliver to areas that move to defund their local police departments.

https://www.foxbusiness.com/economy/trucking-company-not-going-cities-pushing-defund-police

I don't believe that all trucking companies will refuse to ship or receive in every area that defunds police, but I can see trucking companies telling clients that they won't send trucks into their areas during non-daylight hours, or some other restrictions. I could see some companies headed for especially volatile areas insisting on state police escorts for deliveries.

Third shift shipping and receiving is usually prime time for most truckers. There's less traffic, and trucks can move about more freely. What may happen is at dusk, most trucks will lay up short of their destinations, and wait until the morning to deliver their loads. That's not a good thing. Most of the big box stores do all of their shipping and receiving at night. If bad guys know that there are no cops around, those shipments will have a huge bullseye on their backs.

[lineygoblue]

Trump uses teleprompters all the time, if you haven't noticed. When he doesn't he's recommending people inject themselves with UV light or drink bleach. You might as well complain about Obama golfing or leaving DC too much. Such an honest, good faith complaint in retrospect, huh?

I was especially impressed with the time Michelle and her mom flew off in the back-up Air Force One to Hollywood to appear on the "Ellen" show, and then afterward they detoured to Aspen for a little shopping trip on their way back to DC. Barack then followed her a few days later on the "real" Air Force One to Hollywood, to yuck it up with Jimmy Kimmel.

Nah... they were never self-serving.

[Tom W]

Obama never had to deal with the levels of hostile resistance that started the moment that Podesta stepped to the stage because HRC was too wasted to personally admit defeat. Sure you can toss out examples of how "racists" reacted to his election- you can find anything on the internet. But, it was NOTHING like the reaction that the dems have consistently displayed since 2016. It is pathetic and would be hysterical if it wasn't so deeply embedded into otherwise sane, decent people.

[Dr. Strangelove]

I don't take great stock in the capacity of the markets to reflect actual economic conditions but one can't ignore what's going on this week. While the press continues to spread C-19 doom and gloom, the DJIA rose above 27000 today and this isn't the tech sector leading the way. It's blue chippers like Disney. I'll allow that there is good evidence that there is a disconnect between the forward looking economic data and the markets but over the last 3 months the upward trends would seem to predict the US economy is much better off than I know that I feel it is.

Jeff- I don't want to say anything that sounds remotely negative about the stock market, but...I assume you're possibly referencing the ADP jobs report that came on this morning? That's probably a preview of Friday's official report? Compared with the 3.3 M jobs recovered in May and the 4.3 M recovered in June, we only had 167k in July

https://www.cnbc.com/video/2020/08/05/us-adds-only-167k-jobs-versus-1m-expectedfour-experts-on-whats-next-for-the-economy.html

Dunno if you watch CNBC much but Steve Liesman is sort of their Fed Reserve + Economist "expert" and he made an offhand comment the other day that he's never seen the market so willfully ignore fundamentals before. The market just keeps going up whether the news is good or bad. It may just be all the excess cash that people got, who knows? I'd still stand by my old suggestion though that index stocks are extremely hot right now and growth isn't widspread in certain sectors. IOW Apple may be doing very, VERY well but lesser known midsized companies are treading water. But only one of those two impacts the DOW or Nasdaq ticker.

An enormous amount of the Nasdaq's total value is held in just five companies that are well-known to millenials and day-traders: Apple, Amazon, Facebook, Microsoft, and Alphabet. Those 5 together make up around 45% of the Nasdaq's total value. The other 95 companies make up the rest.

Maybe I'm more bearish than y'all becuase so many people on CNBC seem to be...or at least baffled at how the market has behaved since April.

[Dr. Strangelove]

Obama never had to deal with the levels of hostile resistance that started the moment that Podesta stepped to the stage because HRC was too wasted to personally admit defeat. Sure you can toss out examples of how "racists" reacted to his election- you can find anything on the internet. But, it was NOTHING like the reaction that the dems have consistently displayed since 2016. It is pathetic and would be hysterical if it wasn't so deeply embedded into otherwise sane, decent people.

Well, I don't know about initial reactions to Obama because Republicans got so horse-whipped in 2008 it would've been madness to claim fraud or immediately scream RESISTENCE

But right before the 2010 midterms Republicans were signing pledges that under no circumstances would they compromise with Obama on anything and vowing to make sure he was a one-term President.

*****************

Here’s John Boehner, the likely speaker if Republicans take the House, offering his plans for Obama’s agenda: “We're going to do everything — and I mean everything we can do — to kill it, stop it, slow it down, whatever we can.”

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell summed up his plan to National Journal: “The single most important thing we want to achieve is for President Obama to be a one-term president.”

https://www.politico.com/story/2010/10/the-gops-no-compromise-pledge-044311

[lineygoblue]

LOL ... John Boehner ...

Yeah, he sure messed up Obama's presidency, didn't he?