Trump's America

[RedDenver]

http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2017/08/07/trump-tpp-deal-withdrawal-trade-effects-215459

 

The decision to pull out of the trade deal has become a double hit on places like Eagle Grove. The promised bump of $10 billion in agricultural output over 15 years, based on estimates by the U.S. International Trade Commission, won’t materialize. But Trump’s decision to withdraw from the pact also cleared the way for rival exporters such as Australia, New Zealand and the European Union to negotiate even lower tariffs with importing nations, creating potentially greater competitive advantages over U.S. exports.

A POLITICO analysis found that the 11 other TPP countries are now involved in a whopping 27 separate trade negotiations with each other, other major trading powers in the region like China and massive blocs like the EU. Those efforts range from exploratory conversations to deals already signed and awaiting ratification. Seven of the most significant deals for U.S. farmers were either launched or concluded in the five months since the United States withdrew from the TPP.

Man of the people Donald Trump pulls out of the TPP. Shocking the result, right?

That's a very one-sided article as it mentions the pros of TPP, especially for the agriculture sector, but none of the cons. The investor-state dispute settlement is particularly worrisome.

[zoogs]

I think it's good to present the other side and the TPP criticisms and welcome you to keep sharing it. Can you expand on ISDS?

 

The argument here, which has always resonated with me, is that we're not better off in the trade game by exiting the trade game. We're instead ceding ground and landing ourselves in a lesser position. We'll still have to fight for deals, but from scratch and with less leverage and interest. In these respects it's a mirror of the wrongheadedness of Brexit. On the other hand, I understand there are socialist issues with trade and capital on a very fundamental level.

[RedDenver]

I think it's good to present the other side and the TPP criticisms and welcome you to keep sharing it. Can you expand on ISDS?

 

The argument here, which has always resonated with me, is that we're not better off in the trade game by exiting the trade game. We're instead ceding ground and landing ourselves in a lesser position. We'll still have to fight for deals, but from scratch and with less leverage and interest. In these respects it's a mirror of the wrongheadedness of Brexit. On the other hand, I understand there are socialist issues with trade and capital on a very fundamental level.

Here's a critique of ISDS by the Roosvelt Institute. Here's a key part of the article:

While defenders of ISDS sometimes claim that it prevents discrimination against foreign firms, foreign firms have sued—and won—even when they are treated no differently from domestic firms. In fact, these provisions discriminate in favor of foreign firms: A foreign firm can sue the U.S. government in private arbitration for cash rewards if it thinks government actions violate the new rights and privileges granted by TPP, but domestic American firms have no such recourse in U.S. courts. Two arbitrators can, in effect, undermine decisions of Congress and the president, ordering billions of dollars in payments for their lost investment value and guesstimated lost profits.

Under TPP, foreign investors could sue over pretty much any law, regulation, or government decision. The agreement guarantees a “minimum standard of treatment,” a vague standard that corporate-friendly arbitrators have interpreted liberally in past decisions, inventing obligations for governments that do not exist in the actual text of agreements or host countries’ laws.

In an earlier case using NAFTA’s similar provisions, arbitrators ordered Canada to pay American waste disposable company S.D. Myers $5.6 million because the country prohibited the export of toxic industrial waste—exports that were banned by international treaty that applied to Canadian and foreign firms alike. The company’s lawyer boasted, “It wouldn’t matter if a substance was liquid plutonium destined for a child’s breakfast cereal. If the government bans a product and a U.S.-based company loses profits, the company can claim damages.”

 

 

And on the other side, here's a ISDS-friendly view from the US Trade Representative. Main point:

For some critics there is a discomfort that ISDS provides an additional channel for investors to sue governments, including a belief that all disputes (even international law disputes) should be resolved in domestic courts. Others believe that ISDS could put strains on national treasuries or that ISDS cases are frivolous. Based on our more than two decades of experience with ISDS under U.S. agreements, we do not share these views. We believe that providing a neutral international forum to resolve investment disputes under international law mitigates conflicts and protects our citizens.

 

[zoogs]

Thanks!

[TGHusker]

 

Mad King Donald made his nuclear threats to North Korea off the cuff. This is American foreign policy -- brinksmanship and escalation, to be precise -- conducted by one man with no review, meditation, or forethought. https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/09/us/politics/trump-north-korea.html These are the actions of a dangerous loon who should never have been let near the presidency. Those who enabled it, shame.

 

More on our unhinged commander-in-chief: https://theintercept.com/2017/08/09/the-madman-with-nuclear-weapons-is-donald-trump-not-kim-jong-un/

 

 

 

At one point during the meeting, according to Scarborough, the then-GOP presidential candidate asked his adviser, “If we had them, why can’t we use them?” (...)

 

To be so blasé, enthusiastic even, about the deployment of the ultimate weapon of mass destruction is a stark indicator of Trump’s childishness, ignorance, belligerence and, yes, derangement. Here is a president who is impulsive, erratic, unstable; whose entire life and career have been defined by a complete lack of empathy for others. Remember his strategy for defeating ISIS? “Bomb the sh#t out of ‘em” and “take out their families.”

 

So do you think civilian casualties were on his mind in Bedminster on Tuesday when he issued his “fire and fury” warning? Come. Off. It.

 

 

Congress has the power and the authority to vote him out. To abstain from action is to take ownership of the man and everything he so plainly is; one can no longer feign surprise when another careless provocation ends up in conflagration. Impeach him now before he sets the world on fire. This is no laughing matter.

 

Zoogs you have written many passionate posts over the years, but I'll have to say this is your most passionate, precise & well stated. Some times the fewest words wt passion drives home the urgent point better than a long argument. The Intercept article is spot on as well. He is a one man state department without the understanding, rational, or expertise to do the right thing - only the temperament and narcistic personality to do the wrong thing at this critical time.

[knapplc]

[TGHusker]

I would expect to find such nonsensical garbage on a tabloid headline, but this is an actual factual thing that was said.

 

 

This dude preached at Trump's inauguration. Frickin' crazies, man.

 

 

I just saw an article on that also. This is what happens when a pastor/religious leader gets in bed with a rouge politician. The pastor forgets his true 'calling' and empowers the misfit in charge to be more of a misfit/tyrant/dictator. Think of the silence of the church of Germany during Hitler's rise (of course not just church's or religious people got sucked in by Hitler - out of preservation).

 

However there is a much better example - Dietrich Bonhoeffer - the leader of the Confessing Church in Germany. He could have and was asked to 'ride out the war' in England or the USA but instead he insisted that the church remain the church and speak out against the oppression. So he went back to Germany and spoke out against the crimes of the Hitler govt. His fate was sealed. But he did what was right not what was expedient and he refused to be a mouth piece for the evil in power. He lived "The Cost of Discipleship" the book he is most famous for. ( And yes I am a fan of the man)

 

Some Bonhoeffer quotes:

 

The test of the morality of a society is what it does for its children.

Only he who believes is obedient and only he who is obedient believes.

We must learn to regard people less in light of what they do or omit to do, and more in the light of what they suffer.

 

Action springs not from thought, but from a readiness for responsibility.

 

If you board the wrong train, it is no use running along the corridor in the other direction.

 

The ultimate test of a moral society is the kind of world that it leaves to its children.

 

One act of obedience is better than one hundred sermons.

 

A god who let us prove his existence would be an idol.

 

God's truth judges created things out of love, and Satan's truth judges them out of envy and hatred.

 

It is very easy to overestimate the importance of our own achievements in comparison with what we owe others.

 

 

 

from Wiki:

Dietrich Bonhoeffer was a German pastor, theologian, spy, anti-Nazi dissident, and key founding member of the Confessing Church. His writings on Christianity's role in the secular world have become widely influential, and his book The Cost of Discipleship has become a modern classic.^[1]

Apart from his theological writings, Bonhoeffer was known for his staunch resistance to Nazi dictatorship, including vocal opposition to Hitler's euthanasia program and genocidal persecution of the Jews.^[2] He was arrested in April 1943 by the Gestapo and imprisoned at Tegel prison for one and a half years. Later he was transferred to a Nazi concentration camp. After being accused of being associated with the plot to assassinate Adolf Hitler, he was quickly tried, along with other accused plotters, including former members of the Abwehr (the German Military Intelligence Office), and then executed by hanging on 9 April 1945 as the Nazi regime was collapsing.

 

a few more quotes:

 

“Judging others makes us blind, whereas love is illuminating. By judging others we blind ourselves to our own evil and to the grace which others are just as entitled to as we are.”

― Dietrich Bonhoeffer, The Cost of Discipleship

“Cheap grace is the grace we bestow on ourselves. Cheap grace is the preaching of forgiveness without requiring repentance, baptism without church discipline, Communion without confession...Cheap grace is grace without discipleship, grace without the cross, grace without Jesus Christ, living and incarnate.”

― Dietrich Bonhoeffer

“Music... will help dissolve your perplexities and purify your character and sensibilities, and in time of care and sorrow, will keep a fountain of joy alive in you.”

― Dietrich Bonhoeffer

“When Christ calls a man, he bids him come and die.”

― Dietrich Bonhoeffer, The Cost of Discipleship

“We are not to simply bandage the wounds of victims beneath the wheels of injustice, we are to drive a spoke into the wheel itself.”

― Dietrich Bonhoeffer

“There is nothing that can replace the absence of someone dear to us, and one should not even attempt to do so. One must simply hold out and endure it. At first that sounds very hard, but at the same time it is also a great comfort. For to the extent the emptiness truly remains unfilled one remains connected to the other person through it. It is wrong to say that God fills the emptiness. God in no way fills it but much more leaves it precisely unfilled and thus helps us preserve -- even in pain -- the authentic relationship. Further more, the more beautiful and full the remembrances, the more difficult the separation. But gratitude transforms the torment of memory into silent joy. One bears what was lovely in the past not as a thorn but as a precious gift deep within, a hidden treasure of which one can always be certain.”

― Dietrich Bonhoeffer

“Jesus himself did not try to convert the two thieves on the cross; he waited until one of them turned to him.”

― Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Letters and Papers from Prison

“By judging others we blind ourselves to our own evil and to the grace which others are just as entitled to as we are.”

― Dietrich Bonhoeffer, The Cost of Discipleship

“Jesus Christ lived in the midst of his enemies. At the end all his disciples deserted him. On the Cross he was utterly alone, surrounded by evildoers and mockers. For this cause he had come, to bring peace to the enemies of God. So the Christian, too, belongs not in the seclusion of a cloistered life but in the thick of foes. There is his commission, his work. 'The kingdom is to be in the midst of your enemies. And he who will not suffer this does not want to be of the Kingdom of Christ; he wants to be among friends, to sit among roses and lilies, not with the bad people but the devout people. O you blasphemers and betrayers of Christ! If Christ had done what you are doing who would ever have been spared' (Luther).”

― Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Life Together: The Classic Exploration of Christian Community

“In normal life we hardly realize how much more we receive than we give, and life cannot be rich without such gratitude. It is so easy to overestimate the importance of our own achievements compared with what we owe to the help of others.”

― Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Letters and Papers from Prison

“If you board the wrong train, it is no use running along the corridor in the other direction.”

― Dietrich Bonhoeffer

“When all is said and done, the life of faith is nothing if not an unending struggle of the spirit with every available weapon against the flesh.”

― Dietrich Bonhoeffer, The Cost of Discipleship

“In a word, live together in the forgiveness of your sins, for without it no human fellowship, least of all a marriage, can survive. Don’t insist on your rights, don’t blame each other, don’t judge or condemn each other, don’t find fault with each other, but accept each other as you are, and forgive each other every day from the bottom of your hearts…”

― Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Letters and Papers from Prison

“We must be ready to allow ourselves to be interrupted by God.”

― Dietrich Bonhoeffer

“Costly grace is the gospel which must be sought again and again and again, the gift which must be asked for, the door at which a man must knock. Such grace is costly because it calls us to follow, and it is grace because it calls us to follow Jesus Christ. It is costly because it costs a man his life, and it is grace because it gives a man the only true life. It is costly because it condemns sin, and grace because it justifies the sinner. Above all, it is costly because it cost God the life of his Son: 'Ye were bought at a price', and what has cost God much cannot be cheap for us. Above all, it is grace because God did not reckon his Son too dear a price to pay for our life, but delivered him up for us. Costly grace is the Incarnation of God.”

― Dietrich Bonhoeffer, The Cost of Discipleship

[schriznoeder]

Wars and recessions and natural disasters have never been enough to postpone a general election, but apparently a handful of confirmed cases of voter fraud would be. Makes sense...

 

[TGHusker]

OMG - stop election under any president would be total disaster for the principles of liberty, but under this president it would be horrific. Can you say Venezuela ? (or more aptly Russia)

 

 

PS speaking of 2020 - I hope Evan McMullin starts a 2020 exploratory campaign soon. I'm liking this guy more an more. If he runs as an Indep maybe he can get a moderate Dem to run with him and create

a 'unity ticket' to get things done. Yea, I know I'm in dream land to think that would happen - but I can only hope.

[zoogs]

I'm sure he'll at least consider it. Why wouldn't he? He probably could pull it off (at least, if the election were tomorrow, he could in this climate) and get away with it, for who knows how long. And if he holds off he'll be the darn hero that allowed an election to proceed as normal, the same way it has through America's entire history.

 

--

 

Important reminder:

[Danny Bateman]

Greenwald is a little too anti-______ for my tastes a lot of the time. In this case, I wholeheartedly agree with Mueller's decision to raid Manafort's house. Is Manafort currently innocent of wrong? But we're not third-rate authoritarian sham democracy just yet. The investigationS into Manfort for both his dealings as campaign manager and his own shady Ukranian past didn't happen on accident, and to pretend it's some violation of his civil liberties is ludicrous.

Those of us that point that out shouldn't be called rubes for our intelligence agencies.

[RedDenver]

Greenwald is a little too anti-______ for my tastes a lot of the time. In this case, I wholeheartedly agree with Mueller's decision to raid Manafort's house. Is Manafort currently innocent of wrong? But we're not third-rate authoritarian sham democracy just yet. The investigationS into Manfort for both his dealings as campaign manager and his own shady Ukranian past didn't happen on accident, and to pretend it's some violation of his civil liberties is ludicrous.

 

Those of us that point that out shouldn't be called rubes for our intelligence agencies.

I don't think Greenwald is claiming it's a violation of his rights. He's pointing out that the FBI only raids the houses of innocent people because there's no reason to raid a convicted person's house. At least that's how I'm readin the last post.

 

Regardless, no one can say whether Manafort's rights were violated or not unless they've read the search warrant affidavit, which isn't public and hasn't been leaked AFAIK.

[Landlord]

Trump literally just watches House of Cards and acts accordingly.

[zoogs]

Yeah, I think what he's point out is that those of us who are opposed to Trump can get led down some strange paths ourselves (he could look in the mirror, in some respects).

 

In this case, deference to the security state. Trump is (oddly) at war with the FBI, CIA, etc, or at least makes like he is. These are not institutions that deserve uncritical admiration, and yet circumstances are causing those on the left -- who might otherwise be expected to feel differently -- to give it freely.

[StPaulHusker]

I just wanted to point out that there was a bombing of an Islamic center in Minneapolis and a talking sh#t pile of a human that was speaking on behalf of our Dear Leader refused to condemn it or acknowledge it's heinous nature because they believe it may have been staged by "The Left"