TGHusker

The Bold: Maybe a faster version of 'Trickle down Economics". The theory behind 'Reaganomics" was that as tax cuts were given to job creators more jobs would be created. Those jobs would then be filled by the average Joe who would then place more money back into the economy via their spending. This does work IF the underlined portion doesn't occur. Jobs grew big time under Reagan by a series of events: Gov't spending (military spending created many military related jobs in industry for example) Tax cuts - more money for job creation and more money for average Joe to spend, & Tax increases supporting spending. As the article notes, CEO salary, stakeholder equity and corp profits all rose substantially while wages stagnated at best and decline in actual buying power. Thus the argument for investing not at the top but at the bottom. To speed up the trickle down by going directly to the consumers with a much higher min wage who will spend the money thus accomplishing 2 things - driving many out of poverty level living and stimulating greater growth in the economy. This is 'globalization' localized. The 'raise all boats' argument of globalism is that as we put manufacturing jobs in poor countries, those workers will earn a living, they will spend and also then demand even more advance type jobs, products and services. You can see this happening in many economies around the world. Those base jobs would then move to an even poorer country and the cycle repeats itself. However, we need to do a better job here to help our poor out of the cycle. Once they have more purchasing power, they too will demand more sophisticated products and services and this will spur more economic development. So if we have tried corporate subsidies and they have fallen short, maybe it is time to cut directly to the bottom and create a trickle down that only has one drop - a higher wage. This might create a trickle up that spurs business growth in multiple sectors. And you are hearing this from a fairly conservative guy . Mark Levin would have a hard time with this but compassionate conservatism has to be more than being pro-life and helping unwed mothers, it has to start in the real world of the average worker.

http://www.defenseone.com/technology/2017/07/us-army-seeks-internet-battlefield-things-distributed-bot-swarms/139533/ Interesting article on robots, drones doing our fighting as well as combating 'tech free' zone areas in a war zone. Johnny goes to war is and will be Johnny robot going to war. The article states that we (USA) has fallen behind in this area as we have fought the ISIS cavemen. We have tech in the battle field, tech in space all so much different that how we won WW 2 by sheer brutal strength. Just think - it was only a 100 years ago (short time in history) in which we faught WW1 with bi-planes, balloons, 1 shot rifles, mustard gas and trench warfare. As society advance we find more sophisticated ways to both kill and defend ourselves. Maybe we should find a way to agree on this planet that war is obsolete & try to work things out peacefully. Unfortunately in a world of good and evil, one has to defend against evil while trying to overcome overall evil with good.

Good honest soul searching and well written article good quote here: I believe that we in the American political and economic elite face an extraordinarily inconvenient but undeniable truth: Our country will not get better until our fellow citizens feel better; and they will not feel better until they actually do better. And this is the hard part for many of you: The American people will not do better until they are actually paid more. And they won’t be paid more until we change the way we manage our economy. This is the stark, simple fact at the heart of our ailing political system. Nothing is going to get better until we enact laws and standards that persuade or oblige every business to pay every worker a fair, dignified and livable wage. Everything else, from Trump on down, is a distraction or a lie. I also would like to see the #s that support the claim that increase min wages increases jobs and does not delete jobs. Perhaps it is true and has been documented someplace: President Trump promises to restore the middle class to its former glory by bringing back old industrial-era jobs—as if slashing environmental regulations could somehow make coal competitive again with plummeting solar prices, let alone our fracking-induced glut of cheap natural gas. This is magical thinking. Manufacturing as a percentage of the overall economy, and of jobs, has been declining globally for decades. This trend will not reverse. Trump cannot restore the middle class with empty promises to bring manufacturing jobs back from the dead. No, the only realistic near term way to insure Americans do better is to make existing jobs into good jobs by requiring they be paid adequately. There is no earthly reason why an entry-level job at low-wage employers like Walmart or McDonalds could not pay $15 or even $20 per hour with full benefits, the way an old factory job used to. There is nothing “unskilled” about a barista or a home health care worker, and no economic principle that prevents these workers from earning a living wage. The only difference between today’s service workers and yesterday’s manufacturing workers is that most service workers have no union, and thus have no power. People have never been paid what they are worth, despite what the trickle-downer’s will tell you. They are paid what they negotiate. And working people have lost their ability to negotiate decent wages. Union jobs that used to pay people middle-class wages and that delivered the job security and benefits that enabled a dignified, stable and secure life have been eliminated and replaced with minimum-wage jobs. Low-wage employers tell us that this is all they can afford. That, too, is a lie. When Starbucks and Walmart and McDonalds say they cannot provide their workers with middle class wages and benefits like General Motors and IBM used to, they really mean they’d prefer not to do so. Why? Because if wages are low, profits and bonuses are high. I want to underscore that I do not think it reasonable for any company, even the size of Walmart, to be expected to unilaterally raise the wages of their workers to double the national minimum wage. In a viciously competitive market, such an action is unrealistic. What is unforgivable (and in a sense, inexplicable) is the failure of Walmart’s leaders to lead the charge to level the playing field by raising the federal minimum wage, so that every company is required to pay their workers fairly. After all, who would get the biggest share of these extra consumer dollars? Our nation’s largest retailer: Walmart. To be clear: raising wages simply does not kill jobs. Raising wages will no more kill jobs than eliminating slavery killed jobs, or giving women the right to vote killed democracy (both of which arguments were made at the time). In fact, the opposite is true. Despite what our good friends at the Chamber of Commerce and the National Restaurant Association (the other NRA) may tell you. If raising wages really killed jobs, the empirical evidence would be abundant. We’ve raised the federal minimum wage 22 times since 1938, and unless the economy was already in or heading into recession, employment always increased. And if you look further into the data by sector, the results are even more dramatic. The more effected the industry sector by the increase, the better it did. The lowest wage sectors had better employment effects than higher wage sectors.

McMullin and Kasich would be a great place to start. If those two came out in the next 6 months announced a Kasich/McMullin ticket to challenge Trump in 2020, that'd be great... (insert "Office Space" gif) U can start the Draft K & M organization.

Sometimes you have to wander in the desert for a while. Barry Goldwater did - and then a guy named Ronald Reagan gave a campaign speech on Goldwater's behalf - The Time for Choosing Speech. (Rendezvous wt Destiny). The rest is history. It took Reagan 16 years to end up in the WH. Shorter version of the speech: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lvg7lRsCVJ8 The full speech: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qXBswFfh6AY

Can we have a 2016 Do Over? Take Hillary, Trump, and all of the Republican leadership & San Fran Nan, and NY Sen Schumer out of the election pool and just start from scratch. Or can we impeach Trump, The Turtle, and Paul Ryan?

Now if I can get some of you guys to read some conservative journals! We all do need to read opposing literature as it challenges our assumption and may help us to see things differently. Actually, too many conservative outlets, at this time still haven't taken the leap of cutting ties to the Republican plantation. We conservatives thought all of the stars came into alignment wt the 2016 election - we dodge a bullet (no Hillary), you control house, senate, WH - you expect great things. But what has happened since then convinces me that philosophical, constitutional conservatives need to disconnect from the Republican party. Liberals on the other hand have a more philosophically pure party to be a part of. With the conservative movement hitched to the republican leadership as it now exists, we will be continually disappointed.

Yes, I was going to bring up the tax records and didn't when I posted that article. It seems to me that this is the primary reason those taxes weren't opened to the public - why they have been 'with the auditor' for all of these years. I suspect that we have a guy who may turn into a Russian puppet due to the financial strings attached to him. This will make the Clinton Foundation look pretty small in comparison if my suspicions are true.

https://nebraska.rivals.com/news/blades-breaks-silence-will-attend-arizona-western-in-2017 This may have been discussed previously, but did we have a huge miss in not 'protecting' him while he was at JUCO? From the article: What’s interesting is Minnick said he didn’t have any contact with the Husker coaching staff about possibly placing Blades at Arizona Western. Blades and his camp initiated the contact on their end, which means he will not be a recruit Arizona Western protects and sends back to Lincoln in two years. “If Nebraska would’ve placed him here, he’d be protected,” Minnick said. “But Nebraska didn’t place him here, so he could go anywhere he wants. “If Nebraska would’ve called and said, ‘hey we want to send this kid here and get him back,’ it would be a different story. They didn’t call me about him. We recruited him, so he could go wherever he wants to go.” Last year Arizona Western had 27 players going Division I, and this year they already have 14 with early Division I offers according to Minnick.

Maybe related to the article I posted above??

https://www.vox.com/2017/7/18/15983910/donald-trump-russia-putin-natalia-veselnitskaya-collusion Good article - pretty revealing. Follow the money not the politics as the article states. I copied large sections of the article but read the whole link to get the flow. The most important quote is what I highlighted in bold - the very last sentence. It is frightening to consider the consequences. Quotes from the article/interview: To understand the roots of the collusion, set aside Putin and follow the money.” That’s what Seva Gunitsky, a politics professor at the University of Toronto and the author of Aftershocks, told me in a recent interview. I reached out to Gunitsky on Monday after he posted a short but incisive thread on Twitter about the financial roots of the Trump-Russia collusion case. Gunitsky, who was raised in Russia, has followed the evolving relationship between Donald Trump and Russia for more than a decade. He says the prevailing narrative about Putin interfering in the American election in order to undermine democracy is wildly overstated. Putin is happy to sow confusion and distrust in America’s system, of course, but to assume that’s the basis of this operation is to overlook a much simpler motive: money. The financial connections between Trump and various Russian banks and oligarchs (business elites with ties to the Kremlin) stretch back decades, which is likely a big reason why Trump won’t release his tax returns. Trump’s election, Gunitsky contends, presented Russian oligarchs with an opportunity to recoup losses and leverage Trump’s debts for political gain. I asked Gunitsky to lay it out for me as clearly as possible, and to explain the financial dealings between Trump and his Russian business partners. Here’s what he told me. Seva Gunitsky I think it's justifiable for you to say that it seems impossibly convoluted, but I would say it's still much simpler than this idea that there's a global conspiracy designed to bring down democracy. I'm not saying the political dimension is unimportant — surely it is. But if we're talking about the roots of the collusion, we have to look at where Trump's links with Russia begin. And it begins with money. [These roots] don't start with the election; they start with money, and namely Russian oligarch money. Sean Illing So walk me through the trail. Where does the money lead? Seva Gunitsky Again, this doesn't start with the election; it starts with Russian oligarch money pouring into Trump's real estate and casino businesses. Many of them Trump has been working with for years, well before he developed any serious political ambitions. And we’re not talking about small change here; we’re talking about hundreds of millions of dollars. Possibly even enough to keep Trump out of another bankruptcy. Sean Illing And we know this how, exactly? Seva Gunitsky We know because they’ve told us. We can talk about specific cases in a minute, but Donald Trump Jr. has already admitted the importance of Russian money to their business ventures. He said publicly in 2008 that "Russians make up a pretty disproportionate cross-section of a lot of our assets. We see a lot of money pouring in from Russia." It doesn’t get much clearer than that. Sean Illing And this is why you think Western media has overplayed the centrality of Putin in all of this? We have this notion of Putin as a kind of master strategist playing 10-dimensional chess with Trump. I think it’s obvious that once Putin saw an opportunity he took it, but these financial ties go back a long way, long before the 2016 election. Seva Gunitsky I think that’s right. Putin is often put up as this sort of central antagonist, but the Russian government is not this shadowy monolith. It's sometimes portrayed this way in the West, but in reality the Russian government is messy and disorganized and ad hoc. So Prevezon is a holding company with links to Russian elites that has been accused of laundering hundreds of millions of dollars through New York City real estate. It's also part of Hermitage Capital, an investment fund that was being investigated by Magnitsky (the Russian lawyer who was killed in a Moscow prison in 2009) more than 10 years ago. Prevezon was part of this giant tax fraud scheme that Magnitsky uncovered in 2008, which led to his death and which led indirectly to the Magnitsky Act of 2012. The U.S. Attorney’s Office was also preparing a massive case against Prevezon last year. Until it was abruptly dropped. Sean Illing We’ll circle back to the case being dropped in a second, but let’s stick to the role of the Russian lawyer that Trump Jr. met with. Seva Gunitsky Now, Prevezon’s lawyer was Natalia Veselnitskaya, who of course met with Trump Jr. last year. She had been pushing for a long time to get something done about the Prevezon case. So it's very possible that she went into that meeting essentially asking for help, in return for which she would give the Trump campaign dirt on Hillary and the DNC. It’s impossible to know for sure what happened in that room, but these are extremely plausible interpretations. It’s hard to say what the groups’ motivations were. These motivations are all entangled — I want to stress that. I don’t want to insist that this was all about the money. I’m only So what happened with the Prevezon case? Seva Gunitsky Several months after Trump takes office, the Prevezon case is dismissed. So what happened? The U.S. attorney was carefully preparing a case against Prevezon Holdings. They were all set to go forward, and then suddenly the case was settled. Prevezon's own lawyers were kind of shocked. We know they paid something like $6 million, which is a fraction of what the lawsuit was about. So they were extremely happy about it. Congressional Democrats have openly expressed concerns about what happened here. They want to know why it was settled so quickly. Was pressure being applied from above? In any case, we can see the possible motivations of the people approaching Trump for favors. When I say the collusion starts with financial interests, this is what I mean. It’s not that obstructing democracy wasn’t important; it’s that it was potentially a happy byproduct of these financial relationships. And I think for Trump it was always about the money. It's just that now he's undergoing a level of scrutiny that he’s never experienced before. Sean Illing Do we have any evidence that Trump was involved in any way with Prevezon? Seva Gunitsky We don't know that Trump was involved in any way with that. Obviously, it's kind of his wheelhouse, New York City real estate, so I am sure he at least heard about it. But we don't know if he has any direct connections. But it's not even necessary for him to have any direct connections here. They're only asking for some relief in this case, in return for certain compromising documents. So the interesting thing for me is, was there pressure placed on the U.S. Attorney's Office by the administration, by the Department of Justice? What we know is that Preet Bharara, the attorney in charge of the case, was fired in early March, and shortly thereafter the Prevezon case was dropped saying that the financial motivations in all of this have been understated in relation to its importance. Sean Illing Do we know of any public reactions to the dismissal of the Prevezon case from the Russian lawyer or from anyone else associated with this? Seva Gunitsky Veselnitskaya was ecstatic about the Prevezon case on her social media. She said it was "settled on Russian terms"; that's a direct quote. She said it was the beginning of the end of the Cold War, and she said there'd be more to come. Again, like so much of the evidence here, this doesn’t prove anything definitively. But there’s an unbelievable amount of smoke, and a massive web of overlapping interests. Sean Illing As hard as it is to make sense of all this, it does help to explain Trump’s unusual consistency on all things Russia. This is a guy without a fixed ideological core, but his bizarre pro-Russia posture is arguably the only issue on which he’s been consistent. Seva Gunitsky I’d only slightly disagree here and say the thing about which he’s been most consistent is the desire to make money. And if we take that, then his consistency on Russia becomes much more sensible. I think you're absolutely right that he has no strong ideological commitments. We've seen that painfully over and over during the last few months. But if his financial interests are tied up with Russian oligarchs, who in turn are tied up with the Kremlin and thus have parallel interests, then Trump’s “consistency” becomes much more explainable. And if we emphasize this financial angle a bit more, it also makes a lot of sense that he would not want to release his tax returns. Because that would expose just how deeply embedded he is with Russian money. Sean Illing To be clear about what you’re saying, you’re not denying the political motivations of Putin or the Kremlin. In your mind, this is about understanding what catalyzed the alleged collusion process, right? Seva Gunitsky That’s right. I think the idea of parallel interest is key here, that the Russian intelligence service, once they saw what Trump was doing, quickly latched on in order to push their own agenda, which was very similar to the Russian oligarchy agenda. And it's hard to even separate the two because, as you probably know, in Russia the distinction between political power and economic power is very fuzzy. Sean Illing Looking at the timeline here helps to clarify your broader argument. It’s not like the Russians foresaw back in 1987, when they first started dealing with Trump, that he might become president in 2017. It seems clear enough that the financial ties were already there, and when the opportunity presented itself, the Kremlin took full advantage of it. Seva Gunitsky Absolutely. There’s a tendency here, in part because of our Cold War inertia, to see Putin as this creature with his tentacles in every part of the country. And I think that may be overstating the case just a bit. He's been in power for 17 years, the people who support him are starting to itch a little bit, and he has to keep them happy. They're not happy about sanctions; they're not happy about restrictions on their financial dealings. If they have financial leverage over Trump, and they clearly do, then why wouldn’t they want him to become president of the United States?

Oh, I needed the clarification - I thought it was the pictures of associates of the Clintons who died under mysterious circumstances Ok I just couldn't resist. I take it back - slap my hand!

Learn something new each day on HB - I didn't know what 'chyron' was until I looked it up. Thank-you for providing this educational service to mankind. It is appreciated.

Another Sound Plan coming from the Negotiator in Chief.

Sounds like a great plan to me. We'll see how it works

http://theweek.com/articles/711503/why-gop-congress-most-unproductive-164-years There is not and there will not be a Republican Utopia. While we may have all thought so on Jan 20th. The stars did not align themselves accordingly. The last 6 months have proved it. Why, because they are a party wt a huge ideological chasm within. The repeal and replace is a picture of this chasm. This article points out that there is a much larger gap between Susan Collins and Mike Lee in the Repub party than the gap between Bernie and the most moderate (don't think you can say conservative wt any dem) Dem Senator. The Dems are more unified ideologically than the Repubs. There is also the gap between house Repubs and Senate Repubs. Expect this to be a real do nothing congress and with a do nothing admin despite the boasts to the contrary. 2018 could set up to be a bloodbath - Dems take over majorities in both house and the senate unless the repubs find a way to work with each other.

I'm surprised there's not a lot of talk about how the ones brave enough to stand up to this GOP bully-machine are all women? And from the day he took office these gals have voted against him on multiple things. Thoughts? I applaud them. I'd suggest maybe McConnell should've diversified his original group of 13 working on his healthcare bill: Should have been a mix from the full senate.

We have an EPIC failure of Congressional & Presidential leadership and that leadership double downs on that failure as both Trump and The Turtle both say it is the Dem's fault. I think the reason Trump and Pence were playing with fire trucks the other day is because they knew it was going to fail and didn't want to be seen as a part of it. But they are in the center of it. You cannot not make a silk purse out of this sow's ear - the voters will see and should see this is an epic failure on the part of the repubs and their ability to lead. Leadership welcomes opposition opinion and should be working with all sides to do what best helps all of us. So now the repubs want to do the same thing they accused the dems of - The Dems had ACA start after an election the Repubs want to repeal and not have a replacement until after an election. The Dems paid a price and now the Repubs will pay a price. By taking this on - they became the sole owners of the issue. They cannot point fingers. They said they had a plan when they had none. I don't know who in DC can be trusted. And we are suppose to trust them with tax/budget reform that is coming up next. Fool me once... There will be no by me if these guys get turned out in 2018.

And Trump blames .......... The Democrats http://www.newsmax.com/US/trump-twitter-healthcare-democrats/2017/07/18/id/802238/ Here is what one Trump backer posted in the comments section. This is really telling of the brainwash. At first I thought the guy was being sarcastic but no, he is a true believer: Roger Ron L • 9 minutes ago Ron L, You are right about the not acting part, he just does! If you have to act like you are a president, you shouldn't be but that's not President Trump! Greatest president and leader in the history of the world! DONALD TRUMP IS MY PRESIDENT and PRESIDENT for all AMERICANS! He has built a cabinet of carefully selected advisers that can only help him make America, safer, stronger, more prosperous and greater, greater than ever before! President Trump is so right so often about so much, that it is unbelievable! He is an unstoppable genius! Sixteen Republican challengers couldn't stop him, the lying, fake news mainstream media couldn't stop him, adversaries in his own party couldn't stop him, the Democrats and Hillary Clinton with her underhanded cheating and doing everything she could to rig the election including being fed the questions likely to be asked before the debates, couldn't stop him and no one is going to stop him! President Trump did more in his first eight days than Obama did in eight years!

I still don't know enough about her. But there is time to research and see who else jumps in the ring. If she is a far left progressive, I won't go there but if she is more moderate - I am open.

Politico asks "Is Trump Fit (physically) to be president http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2017/07/18/is-the-president-fit-215385

the trump pic reminded me of this: http://www.history.com/topics/us-presidents/presidential-elections/videos/tank-ride?m=528e394da93ae&s=undefined&f=1&free=false <iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.history.com/embed/21153272" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> History Dept. Dukakis and the Tank The inside story of the worst campaign photo op ever. By Josh King November 17, 2013 Matt Bennett can still hear the reporters laughing, all 90 of them. He can still picture Sam Donaldson doubled over, guffawing, on a riser that looked out over a dusty field in suburban Detroit. Bennett was a 23-year-old political rookie in 1988 when he was sent to a General Dynamics facility in Sterling Heights, Mich., to organize a campaign stop for Democratic presidential nominee Michael Dukakis: a ride in a 68-ton M1A1 Abrams Main Battle Tank. The visit, meant to bolster the candidate’s credibility as a future commander-in-chief, would go down as one of the worst campaign backfires in history. Following the event, after the reporters’ laughter subsided and Dukakis’s entourage was preparing to leave, one of the candidate’s traveling aides approached Bennett. “Nice event, Matt” he deadpanned. “It may have cost us the election. But beside that, it was great.” Story Continued Below * * * Dukakis and the tank. The image of the diminutive Massachusetts governor pretending to be something he wasn’t and, in the process, making a fool of himself on Sept. 13, 1988, has haunted me, as it has every other advance person who has been entrusted—for a few hours or even a few minutes—with a candidate’s fate. Like Bennett, I too worked on the Dukakis campaign, and we went on to serve together in the Clinton White House. I sat in countless meetings in which some smartass warned that a stop on the president’s schedule had the makings of a “Dukakis in the tank moment.” The caution usually came when some type of costume was involved, and the tank ride is still to this day invoked anytime politicians decline to put hats on their heads—as President Obama did earlier this year when he was handed a Navy football helmet but refused to try it on. (“You don’t put stuff on your head if you’re president,” he said. “That’s politics 101.”) But the story of the disastrous tank ride also endures as an example of the broader laws of unintended consequences in political stagecraft. And that, to me, has always been the most fascinating part of this disaster story, a mystery to be solved: Why had an event that everyone now agrees was such a terrible idea ever happened in the first place? Twenty-five years after the notorious disaster, I set out this summer—with help from Steve Silverman, a fellow advance man from 1988 and a longtime Clinton colleague—to discover what had set the infamous tank ride in motion and why no one had put a stop to it. In more than 20 lengthy interviews, I found a story that surprised me: The truth is, many of Dukakis’s advisers did try to forestall the tank ride even while others were convinced the photo op was essential. They argued with each other over it, sent warnings back to headquarters, huddled in anxious meetings and even dispatched an expert fixer, all to no avail. That some tried to stop it but couldn’t is, in its own way, a very human story about simple inertia, the difficulty of changing course once a plan is set in motion. But it’s a story about accountability, too—a failure of leadership that led a candidate who was busy proclaiming his technocratic “competence” to run a myopic and incompetent campaign.

That is so funny....... No wait, that is so SAD

The pro-life/anti-abortion people should be outraged. Yes we should and yes I am. You stop abortions in part by both education and programs like this that prevent the need.