Miscellaneous And Off Topic Subjects

[Jeff Buchanan]

called it

Apparently, US missed on a concession from Mexico that would have had the greatest potential for stemming the flow of asylum seekers to the US from Central America: Seeker has to request asylum in the first foreign country he lands in. For Guatemalans crossing the contiguous boarder with Mexico, that means Mexico. For Honduran and Salvadoran asylum seekers presenting at the American boarder they'd be sent to Guatemala.

There were talks with representatives of the Honduran and Salvadoran government and acting Homeland Security Secretary Kevin McAleenan last week. It is not clear what was resolved between them. My guess is that like Mexico, these two governments were not willing to agree to accept immigrants seeking asylum or, if they were trying to get to the US, unwilling to let US officials interview them on Guatemalan soil.

I'm pretty sure that stopping asylum seekers from presenting at the US boarder by holding them up in Mexico or Guatemala, then having US officials interview them there to see if they meet asylum criteria in the US, is what the Trump administration was after and if that is the case, the whole tariff threat was, not surprisingly, a failure. Reps from all three governments saw that Trump was in a political bind and, like the Chinese - who will patiently wait until the 2020 election - weren't going to give up shit.

You can't put lipstick on a pig ...... the touting of a great deal between the US and Mexico on immigration or trade is shameful buffoonery when you get down to the nuts and bolts level of the agreement. When it is shown up for what it is, essentially nothing of immediate value to the US's efforts to reduce immigration flows, it's just setting up a pattern of big stick tactics that are going to get laughed at by negotiators sitting across any kind of negotiating table from Trump's people. Count Iran and the Chinese among them.

[Ghengis Jon]

Heh. Birds of a feather.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2019/06/08/whitey-bulger-gushed-trump-bashed-mueller-prison-letters/1393394001/

[Kapture1]

Need to know the details. Doesn't sound like Trump's people got everything they were demanding.

Though it does make you wonder, if tariffs are so good for America, why don't they just enact them all over the place? Trump keeps selling it as foreign countries 'paying' us and the US govt getting rich off of them.

tariffs are not good in the long term, but they work. we hold the economic trump card in the world, its about time we started acting like it.

[Ghengis Jon]

Here's a great pictorial history of the WWJ, the world's first commercial radio station. Started out as a birthday gift from father to son. I listen to "all news" WWJ on the morning commute.

https://www.detroitnews.com/picture-gallery/news/local/michigan-history/2015/11/08/wwj-the-worlds-first-commercial-radio-station/75308222/

[Dr. Strangelove]

Three Mexican officials state they're aware of no side agreement to buy more 'agricultural product'. There's nothing in the joint declaration about it.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-06-08/mexico-never-agreed-to-farm-deal-with-u-s-contradicting-trump

And the NY Times had a story last night that most of what Mexico agreed to do, they had already promised to do in secret talks with Nielsen months ago.

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/08/us/politics/trump-mexico-deal-tariffs.html

It was unclear whether Mr. Trump believed that the agreement truly represented new and broader concessions, or whether the president understood the limits of the deal but accepted it as a face-saving way to escape from the political and economic consequences of imposing tariffs on Mexico, which he began threatening less than two weeks ago.

[Dr. Strangelove]

Trump suggests that he cut some sort of secret deal with Mexico...the details of which cannot be revealed now because the time is not "appropriate". But trust him, it's a huge win for us. So if you're not impressed by the terms of the deal that ARE public, rest assured that these secret details are very impressive. TRUST HIM!

Every time I hear stuff like this from him I'm reminded of October 2018 when he suddenly announced that he was having lawmakers draw up another tax cut, one aimed solely at the middle class, so vote Republican in November. No one had any idea what he was talking about and it should be obvious at this point that he made the whole thing up.

[Ghengis Jon]

One of the few things Chump has right in his Chinese trade debacle is placing restrictions on Huawei. The administration can't even get that right - the proposed restrictions don't go into effect for 2 years, politely allowing Chinese intelligence services continued access to our communications network during that time. Now contractors are whining and want restrictions pushed out to 4 years. Remember, in Trumpworld, it's money over national interests, no exceptions.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trade-huawei/trump-acting-budget-chief-asks-for-delay-on-huawei-restrictions-idUSKCN1TA0T1?il=0

[Jeff Buchanan]

It will be interesting to see if the Trump administration can recover from the embarrassment of the Mexican tariff threat mis-step. The news has been replete this morning with how foolish this move by Trump was and how much damage it has probably done to the perception of the US's reputation as a leader of the free world. The make-shit-up thing, obvious to anyone, after an alleged agreement was reached over the weekend that appears to have been reached months ago just makes things worse.

DSL was quick to point out to me when I defended the executive and called for scaling back political attacks on Trump that Trump was his own worst enemy. This is a clear example of that. talent has also pointed out that Trump has the exasperating penchant for doing something right, gaining some momentum or the high ground then absolutely screwing himself and the US in the process by doing something dumb. Again, the Mexico tariff gambit a perfect example.

Trump had plenty to gain by being resourceful with boarder security - something that most Americans can get behind. But choosing to threaten Mexico with tariffs to allegedly extract concessions from Mexico when there were so many good levers to pull in the effort to reduce the flow of immigrants across the Southern boarder with Mexico was monumentally stupid. It is going to mark Trump's presidency, along with his many other blunders on the world stage based on his gut feelings - many of them perpetrated against the advice of his advisers - as doing more damage to America's stature on the world stage by his erratic behavior than any other US president.

[Dr. Strangelove]

[Dr. Strangelove]

[iam416]

Ahab sails on.

[iam416]

From Dr. Strangelove's former home county: https://legalinsurrection.com/2019/0...erlin-college/

Here is the nuts and bolts:

Fucking. Awesome. Best part -- those were just compensatory damages -- the punitive phase starts Tuesday -- could be treble damages. So glad to see #GentryProgs eat shit for their standard race-baiting bullshit lies -- and especially in DSL's neck of the woods!

[Dr. Strangelove]

[iam416]

I know it's a painful loss for you.

[Dr. Strangelove]

I know it's a painful loss for you.