Today In Biden Land

In other Biden news.

This is behind a paywall so if you don't use noscript you're not going to be able to read it. Here's a relevant chunk:


Biden campaigned on a proposal to increase taxes on the wealthy by roughly $3.5 trillion over a decade. Nobody in Washington currently believes he will sign a tax hike anywhere close to that magnitude. The current predictions floating around — Politico’s tax newsletter is one publication that has used this estimate — peg the total at around a trillion, give or take.
The most striking thing about the decision by moderate Democrats to scale back Biden’s plan by some three-quarters is that we have no idea what the rationale is.
According to The Hill, the lobbyists have argued that Biden’s plan “would slow the U.S. recovery from the coronavirus recession.” It’s not clear what basis they have for this conclusion. If mainstream economists believe Biden’s tax hikes would imperil the recovery, they aren’t saying so publicly. (As economists like Larry Summers did when they loudly warned that Biden’s rescue plan would overheat the economy.)
When the conservative American Enterprise Institute ran the numbers on Biden’s full tax-increase proposal, it found a negligible effect on economic growth: reducing GDP 0.16 percent over the next decade, increasing GDP by 0.19 percent in the following decade, and reducing it by 0.18 percent over the longer run. All those numbers are so tiny they are rounding errors, tantamount to zero.
One of the most “persuasive” arguments, at least judging from its results, is the lobbying campaign to preserve a notorious loophole called “stepped-up basis,” or, more colloquially, “the angel of death loophole.” Here’s how this loophole works: Normally, if you sell an asset, like a stock, you pay tax on the profit. If you bought $1,000 worth of GM stock, and sold it for $2,000, you’d pay taxes on the $1,000 capital gain. However, if you die and pass the asset on to your heirs, then all the gains that occurred before you die are wiped from the books (hence, “angel of death”). Your heirs will only pay tax on the gain that occurred after they inherited the asset.
This exemption allows half of all capital gains to avoid any taxation, ever. The loophole is considered so ridiculous that conservatives often propose eliminating it as an alternative to increasing the estate tax. (Jeb Bush and Mitt Romney have both advocated eliminating the angel of death loophole.) Biden is proposing to eliminate the loophole, with the exception of a generous $1 million exclusion. (Most capital gains belong to staggeringly wealthy fortunes worth well over $1 million.)
Former Democratic senator Heidi Heitkamp is leading a lobbying campaign on behalf of wealthy benefactors looking to save the angel of death loophole. Heitkamp tells The Hill, with a straight face, that the loophole is vital to protect “an emerging entrepreneurial class within the Hispanic community and within the African American community, [who] won’t be able to take advantage of these tax rules” if it is eliminated.
Biden’s proposal includes protections for family-run businesses. That does not satisfy Heitkamp, who argues (in The Hill’s wording) that “many Americans may think that wealthy and well-connected people will most likely benefit from any exemptions.” And so, in the name of Americans who are cynical about well-connected people benefiting from special exemptions, Heitkamp insists we keep in place a notorious loophole that almost exclusively benefits massively wealthy heirs.
Heitkampf is also so committed to combating cynicism that she has declined to disclose the identities of her group’s donors. We can probably assume that they’re mostly the hard-scrabble Black and Latino small business owners she talks about so movingly.
In place of any well-articulated public rationale, the moderate Democrats have instead put forward a transparently disingenuous pretext that their goal is to sign the infrastructure bill as fast as possible. The ten House Democrats, led by Josh Gottheimer, have insisted their goal in opposing the House budget is to get shovels into the ground as quickly as possible. “No Labels,” the anti-partisan group funded by wealthy financiers, is running https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=skOUIP0TeR8 pretending Gottheimer’s clique is supporting Biden’s agenda, emphasizing the infrastructure bill and making absolutely no mention of the tax dispute. Many reporters have repeated Gottheimer’s account of his motives at face value.
The Hill’s less-blinkered account, on the other hand, frankly notes, “Business interests have Democratic allies in Sens. Joe Manchin (W.Va.) and Kyrsten Sinema (Ariz.) and the group of House moderates led by Rep. Josh Gottheimer (N.J.) — all have expressed concerns about the size of the spending plan and potential tax hikes.”
Since budget rules require any permanent costs be paid for, and Biden doesn’t want to increase taxes on households earning less than $400,000 a year, the size of his domestic policy legacy will be determined by how much new taxes on the rich he can get through Congress. His proposal is perfectly ample to finance a historic legacy. A handful of moderate Democrats are starving that legacy very, very quietly. If they had good reasons for their position, you would probably know what they were.



https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2021...-moderate.html



In other lobbyist/bullshit propaganda news:

https://twitter.com/MattGertz/status...44019087204352

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Originally Posted by Kirkland Laing

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Originally Posted by TitoFan

You went "earlier" again. I didn't say "earlier." I said better planning. In fact, it could've been done later, if that's what it would take to make sure the planning was as good as it could be. The U.S. had been there for two decades. A few more weeks wouldn't have mattered much in the grand scheme of things.

BTW... public opinion may be flawed due to lack of knowledge of some people... but it remains a measuring stick against which all Presidents have and will continue to be measured. If the public at least had the perception that a withdrawal was being meticulously and carefully planned... even the inevitable messes would be more excused.

Biden's not Trump. For that we're both glad. But I'm not gonna defend every single decision Biden makes... just like I never condemned every single move Trump made. I like to think that makes me objective.

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I don't know you could plan it any better. If you mean by better planning that everybody gets out without a scratch then that would be great but that's not real life. Deciding what to do in the various possible scenarios is probabilistic. Any option you pick has a chance of going wrong in different ways to the option you eventually pick.

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No... that's not what I meant by better planning. But thanks for the chance to clear that up. Better planning is better planning. I don't have a background on military evacuations from countries being taken over by hostile forces. But I'm sure plenty of bright minds in the government do. Aside from the media sensationalizing everything that happens on the world stage... it's generally accepted that this particular withdrawal was pretty much botched and sloppily done. Of course there will be the usual PR damage control to try and minimize the damage done. But personally, I know more than a few people with personal ties to both civilians and/or military personnel who served in Afghanistan... and in general they're not too happy with the way things were done.

Eight months into a new Presidency, I'm disappointed that Biden has given Trumpers new ammo (legitimate or not). Now it's time to look forward and hope things go better in the heap of other issues facing Biden and his administration.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by TitoFan

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Originally Posted by Kirkland Laing

Quote:

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Originally Posted by TitoFan

You went "earlier" again. I didn't say "earlier." I said better planning. In fact, it could've been done later, if that's what it would take to make sure the planning was as good as it could be. The U.S. had been there for two decades. A few more weeks wouldn't have mattered much in the grand scheme of things.

BTW... public opinion may be flawed due to lack of knowledge of some people... but it remains a measuring stick against which all Presidents have and will continue to be measured. If the public at least had the perception that a withdrawal was being meticulously and carefully planned... even the inevitable messes would be more excused.

Biden's not Trump. For that we're both glad. But I'm not gonna defend every single decision Biden makes... just like I never condemned every single move Trump made. I like to think that makes me objective.

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I don't know you could plan it any better. If you mean by better planning that everybody gets out without a scratch then that would be great but that's not real life. Deciding what to do in the various possible scenarios is probabilistic. Any option you pick has a chance of going wrong in different ways to the option you eventually pick.

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No... that's not what I meant by better planning. But thanks for the chance to clear that up. Better planning is better planning. I don't have a background on military evacuations from countries being taken over by hostile forces. But I'm sure plenty of bright minds in the government do. Aside from the media sensationalizing everything that happens on the world stage... it's generally accepted that this particular withdrawal was pretty much botched and sloppily done. Of course there will be the usual PR damage control to try and minimize the damage done. But personally, I know more than a few people with personal ties to both civilians and/or military personnel who served in Afghanistan... and in general they're not too happy with the way things were done.

Eight months into a new Presidency, I'm disappointed that Biden has given Trumpers new ammo (legitimate or not). Now it's time to look forward and hope things go better in the heap of other issues facing Biden and his administration.

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I'm sure there are a bunch of people who think it was handled badly. But all of these "there had to have been a better way" people fail to articulate what the better way would have been. If there'd have been a bunch of obvious stuff that could have been done better you can bet the GOP would have been hitting Biden over the head with it relentlessly but the best they can come up with is that he shouldn't have given Bagram up even though the military told him that was the least worst way to do things.

And I'm pretty sure when things went tits up they immediately put the best people they had on working out how to evacuate. There will be things they could have done better but I don't think there'll be anything really significant. The big decisions -- leave Bagram, let the Taliban handle security in Kabul and so on all seem to have been the least worst options.

Here's somebody with relevant experience of overseeing an American evacuation from a hostile country on what she thought of the whole thing. Keep scrolling:

https://twitter.com/lizzyshackelfor/...50982630330368


Anyway, proper prior planning prevents piss poor performance:



https://twitter.com/eds_manifesto/st...20336906104836

Before this summer, in other words, it was possible to read all the grim inspector general reports and document dumps on Afghanistan, count yourself a cynic about the war effort and still imagine that America got something for all that spending, no matter how much was spent on Potemkin installations or siphoned off by pederast warlords or recirculated to Northern Virginia contractors.


Now, though, we know that in terms of actual staying power, all our nation-building efforts couldn’t even match what the Soviet Union managed in its dotage.



Yet that knowledge has not prevented a revival of the spirit that led us to this sorry pass. I don’t mean the straightforward criticisms of the Biden administration’s handling of the withdrawal. I mean the way that in both the media coverage and the political reaction, reasonable tactical critiques have often been woven together with anti-withdrawal arguments that are self-deceiving, dubious or risible.



The argument, for instance, that the situation in Afghanistan was reasonably stable and the war’s death toll negligible before the Trump administration started moving toward withdrawal: In fact, only U.S. casualties were low, while Afghan military and civilian casualties were nearing 15,000 annually, and the Taliban were clearly gaining ground — suggesting that we would have needed periodic surges of U.S. forces, and periodic spikes in U.S. deaths, to prevent a slow-motion version of what’s happened quickly as we’ve left.



Or the argument that an indefinite occupation was morally necessary to nurture the shoots of Afghan liberalism: If after 20 years of effort and $2,000,000,000,000, the theocratic alternative to liberalism actually takes over a country fasterthan in its initial conquest, that’s a sign that our moral achievements were outweighed by the moral costs of corruption, incompetence and drone campaigns.




Thus you have generals and grand strategists who presided over quagmire, folly and defeat fanning out across the television networks and opinion pages to champion another 20 years in Afghanistan. You have the return of the media’s liberal hawks and centrist Pentagon stenographers, unchastened by their own credulous contributions to the retreat of American power over the past 20 years. And you have Republicans who postured as cold-eyed realists in the Trump presidency suddenly turning back into eager crusaders, excited to own the Biden Democrats and relive the brief post-9/11 period when the mainstream media treated their party with deference rather than contempt.


Again, Biden deserves plenty of criticism. But like the Trump administration in its wiser moments, he is trying to disentangle America from a set of failed policies that many of his loudest critics long supported.
Our botched withdrawal is the punctuation mark on a general catastrophe, a failure so broad that it should demand purges in the Pentagon, the shamed retirement of innumerable hawkish talking heads, the razing of various NGOs and international-studies programs and the dissolution of countless consultancies and military contractors.
Small wonder, then, that making Biden the singular scapegoat seems like a more attractive path. But if the only aspect of this catastrophe that our leaders remember is what went wrong in August 2021, then we’ll have learned nothing except to always double down on failure, and the next disaster will be worse.



https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/31/o...tan-biden.html

I've never made Biden the "singular scapegoat", for the record. I think the Afghanistan 20-year chapter is way too complicated for that. In order to truly and objectively assess every phase of the Afghanistan chapter, from beginning to inglorious end... you'd have to include the "why" the U.S. went in there in the first place. This of course, is a touchy, sensitive topic to discuss... if only because of the many American lives that were lost there and all the sacrifices made by American families throughout the years. But discussed it should... because hopefully it'll provide lessons for the future.

I would've thought that the U.S. would've learned from the futility of the prior Soviet invasion/occupation attempts on Afghanistan. Even the unpopular and not very successful war in Vietnam. But I guess not. The reasons for invading a country can always be subjected to very good second-guessing. I understand after 9/11 there was a wave of emotion and patriotism that made even George W. Bush look like a genius (he was anything but). So invading Afghanistan in the hopes of... of... of... (I honestly don't know what they were hoping for) probably didn't meet with too much public opinion resistance. But as we all know... days turned into weeks, which turned into months, which turned into years. And if we must judge the effectiveness of the gargantuan efforts put forth and sacrifices made... and we use the same standard afforded to endeavors in industry or any other aspect in life, where it's the end result that matters... the whole thing was an abject failure. The Taliban just had to wait it out... and now they have the run of the country again. Maybe... just maybe... another approach would've been to devote all that time and effort to strengthening other aspects of our national security, such as intelligence (domestic and abroad), anti-terrorism strategies, etc. But again... all of this is second-guessing.

Biden was given the short end of the stick and was bound to get the criticism he's received. But we all realize the Afghanistan chapter had to end some time... and someone was going to pick the short straw.

I think it's time for some honest-to-goodness, introspective, intelligent discussions on exactly WHAT the role of the U.S. should be in this new age, regarding foreign policy. I think it's time to reexamine the old view of the U.S. as "The World's Policeman", from a practical point of view, as well as moral, and global perspectives.

There's no chance of any of that happening though is there. The GOP won't want to spend time talking about the first nineteen plus years of the war, which they fully supported, or the first six months of the twentieth year after Trump signed the withdrawl agreement, which they also supported. They're going to want to talk about the last three weeks and nothing else. When they get control of either the House or Senate in 2022 they're going to launch dozens of Benghazi like investigations to try and fuck Biden up for the 2024 election. The first nineteen and a half years will be forgotten about.

The Democrats will want to get some kind of investigation done before the midterm elections. They'll want to cover the first nineteen and a half years and show that once the Afghan army collapsed that a messy withdrawl was inevitable. Let's see who gets the type and the quantity of media coverage and influence on public opinion that they're after.

My prediction: two years of sensationalised Benghazi-like bullshit will completely wipe out the public's goldfish-like memory of any factual stuff that came out in the pre-midterm investigations and the wrong lessons will be learnt leaving America free to launch an equally stupid and self destructive invasion of somewhere else in a few decades from now.

The South Vietnamese army, the Iraqi army and the Afghan army all fell apart in no time. The South Vietnamese army actually lasted over two years. The other two fell apart against ragtag armies in pickup trucks armed with AKs in a matter of days. All three attempts at army/nation building were accompanied by decades of lies from the top down, all the senior politicians and military are complicit in the ongoing loss of thousands of American lives on a pack of lies, not to mention tens of thousands wounded and millions of dead foreign nonentities. And not a single person has ever been or will ever be held accountable.

The bullshit mountain after the midterms and before the 2024 election will be created from the withdrawl from Afghanistan over the past few weeks.

The bullshit mountain from the end of the last election until the midterms is being created from bullshit claims that the election was stolen. A reminder that the people creating the bullshit, at least the vast majority of them, know that it's bullshit and don't care that they're destroying democracy in America by doing it:

https://twitter.com/funder/status/1432768038466621442

Pretty bleak outlook. But one... all in all... that is totally deserved given past history. If politics was the poison that ruined good intentions in the past... it's certainly become magnified given the last four years. People don't think right and wrong, like they at least made it seem like they used to. People think in one-upmanship and my Party is better than your Party. I've plenty of discussions with Trumpers, even outside this forum, where I've seen time and again that logic goes absolutely nowhere. This is why stolen election lies get swallowed hook, line, and sinker. This is why a previously unthinkable event, like a forced breach of the Capitol by a vicious mob, becomes the subject of debate along predictable Party lines. To watch and hear Congresspeople, paid by taxpayers money, call January 6th a peaceful demonstration... is to realize just how far down the rabbit hole this society has fallen. Which is why I refuse to identify fully with any Party. They have proven incapable of objective thought all the way up to the highest levels. Credibility is a word of the past. Democrats had four years to constructively prepare for 2020... and IMO they did a horseshit job. For sure Biden is an upgrade from Trump. But that's about as far as I'm willing to go with that. When the bar is Trump... a trained sub-human primate is an improvement.

So yeah... your bleak outlook is justifiable. Surely Afghanistan will offer few, if any, lessons learned. History will repeat itself ad nauseam.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/polit...id=mailsignout


Gee... THIS is heartening. :rolleyes: Not that anyone was expecting anything different.

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Originally Posted by TitoFan

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/polit...id=mailsignout


Gee... THIS is heartening. :rolleyes: Not that anyone was expecting anything different.

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& RightWingers will easily forget it is the mainstream media deriding him with headlines like:

Baker On Afghanistan Fallout For Biden: 'It Has Damaged Him Politically'

https://youtu.be/zEjJ580P7YY

Afghan War Veteran: "I Will Never Forgive My Country For This'

https://youtu.be/DztdH9DylNw


They can easily spin it...but they aren't. Headlines to videos articles, columns like:
* President Biden Faces Backlash For Afghanistan Withdrawal
*War-Thirsty Media Demanding Another War


Such headlines aren't needed from the right when the left hollars out HEY! LOOK AT THIS TITLE!!
Nicolle Wallace On What Everyone Got Wrong About Biden

https://youtu.be/HgIDaQzvh-Q

Again, MSNBC.


When I went to Ron Paul Liberty Report? He was the closest thing I saw to objective reporting:
Weekly Update --- Afghanistan: A Tragically Stupid War Comes to a Tragic End


https://youtu.be/qmjOrmOPZME
If you peruse any video, this is the one I would reccomend. it is only 4 minutes and Paul derides the origin of the war, the weakness of Trump to do nothing and then a tragic pullout
What is hurtful IMO is the comments of how Rons' supporters dont give a damn that he said he would have done the same thing...Or as he was asked in 2008 how would he end the war on terror he replie: Just Bring them Home.

We all know there was a never a plan and before Osama's death he even stated they were most patient because they have nothing so when USA does tire and grow weary....they will be waiting - they aint got shit else to do!
So whenever we pull out - they would be laying in the wings...


He's dealing with an awful pullout- unlike when Reagan pulled out and didnt fight when our Marines were murdured in Lebanon...the Nation was not polarized with ideology back then- so we all came together...not anymore - it is ALL Biden's fault. All Democrat's planning the fall of our nation.

It is Biden forcing us to be vaccinated.
It is Biden continuing the war on heterosexuals
It is Biden running up the deficit (cause now they care)

When the Vatican stated they wanted to deny him communion? Damn...
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/polit...ion/ar-AAL2Chm

I wouldn't be surprised if his numbers drop into the 30% range...as we don't need FOX, OAN, NEWSMAX to tell us this...all of the above is MSNBC alone!!

Last week, Democratic senator turned anti-tax lobbyist Heidi Heitkamp, who represented North Dakota for one term before losing in 2018, appeared on https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dl9vQvO3MOM to make a surprisingly emotional appeal against President Biden’s plan to close a notorious loophole for the wealthy. The loophole, called “stepped-up basis” or “the angel-of-death loophole,” allows capital gains to escape any tax at all as long as the owners pass the asset on to their heirs before they sell it.
Heitkamp’s thoughts were with the victims of this reform. She did not invoke the tax implications for the handful of extremely wealthy families that have been financing a lobbying effort to preserve their tax advantages, including the group that currently employs her as its public face. Instead, she cited the burden of an imaginary working-class man named “Sam.”
The scenario that troubled Heitkamp was that Sam, or people like him, would inherit a family-owned cabin that had become extremely valuable and now have to pay tax on the estate. “The truck driver — let’s say truck-driver Sam, who let’s say makes $100,000 a year — all of a sudden now has a tax that he owes on inheriting that property,” she complained.
In fact, the original Democratic proposal allowed for a $1 million exemption per spouse, and it allowed heirs a 15-year period to spread out the payments. So poor Sam would only have to pay tax on whatever value his cabin had over $2 million, which seems like a rather lavish spread for a working-class fellow, and he would have enjoyed a comfortable period over which to make those payments.
Even so, the pleas made by Heitkamp and other moderate Democrats on behalf of the rural petite-bourgeoisie heirs to landowning fortunes exceeding $2 million were felt. Democrats in Congress proposed to raise the exemption to $5 million per spouse. Surely, now that truck drivers inheriting cabins worth less than $10 million would be spared, Heitkamp would have softened her opposition.............



https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2021...ax-reform.html



Vaccine mandates:

https://twitter.com/mattyglesias/sta...79193146724353



Vorsprung durch technik:

https://twitter.com/mattyglesias/sta...67186854506500



Some people who didn't get saturation media coverage way back when and could maybe do with a hand:

https://twitter.com/dlippman/status/1435687715618557960



American justice system latest:

https://twitter.com/attackerman/stat...81317088980995



Oh and not political but fantastic reading. Keep scrolling:

https://twitter.com/incunabula/statu...03410902167552

Republican campaign managed who has run GOP presidential campaigns in the past on Republican vaccine politics:

https://twitter.com/stuartpstevens/s...67717275459585



related:

https://twitter.com/steinkobbe/statu...86541080748040

what is that?
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/E_Oac3XV...jpg&name=small
https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/n...oto/1235181192

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k_R3TU1q4Jg

Two days after the January 6 attack on the US Capitol, President Donald Trump's top military adviser, Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Mark Milley, single-handedly took secret action to limit Trump from potentially ordering a dangerous military strike or launching nuclear weapons, according to "Peril," a new book by legendary journalist Bob Woodward and veteran Washington Post reporter Robert Costa.Woodward and Costa write that Milley, deeply shaken by the assault, 'was certain that Trump had gone into a serious mental decline in the aftermath of the election, with Trump now all but manic, screaming at officials and constructing his own alternate reality about endless election conspiracies.'
Milley worried that Trump could 'go rogue,' the authors write.
"You never know what a president's trigger point is," Milley told his senior staff, according to the book.
In response, Milley took extraordinary action, and called a secret meeting in his Pentagon office on January 8 to review the process for military action, including launching nuclear weapons. Speaking to senior military officials in charge of the National Military Command Center, the Pentagon's war room, Milley instructed them not to take orders from anyone unless he was involved.
"No matter what you are told, you do the procedure. You do the process. And I'm part of that procedure," Milley told the officers, according to the book. He then went around the room, looked each officer in the eye, and asked them to verbally confirm they understood.
"Got it?" Milley asked, according to the book.
"Yes, sir."
'Milley considered it an oath,' the authors write.


https://edition.cnn.com/2021/09/14/p...ear/index.html

It can be argued that Trump was unfit to figuratively "have the keys" to the nuclear launch button since Day One of his Presidency. His personality does not check the right boxes for someone with that power.

The fact it took until after January 6th to come to that determination is worrisome.

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Originally Posted by TitoFan

It can be argued that Trump was unfit to figuratively "have the keys" to the nuclear launch button since Day One of his Presidency. His personality does not check the right boxes for someone with that power.

The fact it took until after January 6th to come to that determination is worrisome.

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I am sure they knew earlier but a democratically elected leader who needs guidance was probably what they were thinking. I bet they were holding their breath until he finally left. Trying to stop him from doing his worst but hoping for the best for their country.

Cannot have been easy.

Good to see Democrats still winning as the California governor survives a bid to oust him.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-58565271

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Master

Quote:

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Originally Posted by TitoFan

It can be argued that Trump was unfit to figuratively "have the keys" to the nuclear launch button since Day One of his Presidency. His personality does not check the right boxes for someone with that power.

The fact it took until after January 6th to come to that determination is worrisome.

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I am sure they knew earlier but a democratically elected leader who needs guidance was probably what they were thinking. I bet they were holding their breath until he finally left. Trying to stop him from doing his worst but hoping for the best for their country.

Cannot have been easy.

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It gets even "less easy" when the ex-President starts yelling "treason."

https://www.yahoo.com/news/trump-say...221700296.html

Quote:

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Originally Posted by TitoFan

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Master

Quote:

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Originally Posted by TitoFan

It can be argued that Trump was unfit to figuratively "have the keys" to the nuclear launch button since Day One of his Presidency. His personality does not check the right boxes for someone with that power.

The fact it took until after January 6th to come to that determination is worrisome.

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I am sure they knew earlier but a democratically elected leader who needs guidance was probably what they were thinking. I bet they were holding their breath until he finally left. Trying to stop him from doing his worst but hoping for the best for their country.

Cannot have been easy.

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It gets even "less easy" when the ex-President starts yelling "treason."

https://www.yahoo.com/news/trump-say...221700296.html

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The worst part is that even now we know that the senior folks in the Trump administration including Milley and Barr all thought Trump was certifiable and shouldn't be prez there are still tens of millions of Americans who will happily vote to give him the nuclear codes again.

Relatedly:

https://twitter.com/allahpundit/stat...06145504612352

Two articles that explain a huge amount about how America works. Firstly the tax system:


For six years, Audrey Ellis and Adam Feuerstein worked together at PwC, the giant accounting firm, helping the world’s biggest companies avoid taxes.


In mid-2018, one of Mr. Feuerstein’s clients, an influential association of real estate companies, was trying to persuade government officials that its members should qualify for a new federal tax break. Mr. Feuerstein knew just the person to turn to for help. Ms. Ellis had recently joined the Treasury Department, and she was drafting the rules for this very deduction.



That summer, Ms. Ellis met with Mr. Feuerstein and his client’s lobbyists. The next week, the Treasury granted their wish — a decision potentially worth billions of dollars to PwC’s clients.



About a yearlater, Ms. Ellis returned to PwC, where she was immediately promoted to partner. She and Mr. Feuerstein now work together advising large companies on how to exploit wrinkles in the tax regulations that Ms. Ellis helped write.



Ms. Ellis’s case — detailed in public records and by people with direct knowledge of her work at the Treasury and at PwC — is no outlier.

The largest U.S. accounting firms have perfected a remarkably effective behind-the-scenes system to promote their interests in Washington. Their tax lawyers take senior jobs at the Treasury Department, where they write policies that are frequently favorable to their former corporate clients, often with the expectation that they will soon return to their old employers. The firms welcome them back with loftier titles and higher pay, according to public records reviewed by The New York Times and interviews with current and former government and industry officials.


From their government posts, many of the industry veterans approved loopholes long exploited by their former firms, gave tax breaks to former clients and rolled back efforts to rein in tax shelters — with enormous impact.



After lobbying by PwC, a former PwC partner in the Trump Treasury Department helped write regulations that allowed large multinational companies to avoid tens of billions of dollars in taxes; he then returned to PwC. A senior executive at another major accounting firm, RSM, took a top job at Treasury, where his office expanded a tax break in ways sought by RSM; he then returned to the firm.



Even some former industry veterans said they viewed the rapid back-and-forth arrangements as a big part of the reason that tax policy had become so skewed in favor of the wealthy, at the expense of just about everyone else. President Biden and congressional Democrats are now seeking to overhaul parts of the tax code that overwhelmingly benefit the richest Americans......



https://dnyuz.com/2021/09/19/how-acc...de-government/


The same thing applies to the financial industry. One minute they're white shoe firm lawyers representing the banks and the funds, the next they're financial regulators writing the rules and overseeing the conduct of their former clients, deciding on whether they face charges and so on. One example:

https://www.pogo.org/press/release/2...mary-jo-white/


and guess where she went when she left the head regulator job:



Mary Jo White, the former top government securities law enforcer, is returning to Debevoise & Plimpton, the New York-based law firm where she previously headed its litigation department.



https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/15/b...-plimpton.html

Second example. The military/national security apparatus. Spicoli, if you're reading I'm interested in your opinion of this. I have to post the whole thing because it's from a business publication and I can't link it:




One autumn afternoon a few years ago, I took the subway from my Brooklyn apartment to a mansion on the Upper East Side. I was nervous. I had never met President Obama before, and it wasn't clear to me why I'd been selected to meet with his National Security Council and brief him on the situation unfolding in Iraq. I had no special knowledge of the country. All I knew was what I had been given in my prepared materials. ISIS forces, represented by a bright-red arrow, were making a push toward Baghdad, sending in suicide bombers and threatening the US Embassy. Iraq's prime minister was asking Obama to reinsert American troops into an active ground war.
When I arrived at the mansion, of course, I didn't brief the real Obama. Playing the role of the president that day was Max Boot, a seasoned think-tank veteran who, like almost every other self-appointed member of America's foreign-policy elite, had championed the invasions of both Iraq and Afghanistan. The scenario was an exercise, part of a conference I attended as a newly appointed associate at a leading think tank. As the word "exercise" implies, it was a game, but a serious one, part of a larger campaign by the foreign-policy leaders of the reigning generation to indoctrinate their successors. Over the next several years, I would attend events hosted by the Aspen Institute, the New America Foundation, the Hudson Institute, the Atlantic Council, the Council on Foreign Relations, and the Brookings Institution, among others. I had a formal luncheon with a Middle Eastern ambassador, a buffet breakfast with Thomas Friedman, and a guided tour of an Ohio-class nuclear submarine. At a conference table inside the headquarters of SEAL Team 6, I was told that SEAL Team 6 did not exist. I flew over the White Sands Missile Range in a Black Hawk helicopter, where I did my part for civilian-military relations by vomiting all over the seats and floor.
What I didn't do was actually go to Iraq or Afghanistan. Instead, I ate free buffet lunches, collected business cards, and mainlined off-the-record propaganda that both of America's long-running wars were worthy undertakings, steered by capable hands. Much of what we did included participation by the military, but that didn't strike any of us as odd. In fact, the uniforms and armaments are what made the whole thing seem real, something more than a bunch of kids in suits and ties playing Model United Nations. We weren't just drafting foreign-policy resolutions; we were helping guide our country to a better understanding of whom to kill, and how to kill them.
I didn't know it at the time, but I was being absorbed into what Ben Rhodes, Obama's speechwriter and longtime policy advisor, called the "Blob," the amorphous pro-war Washington establishment that Obama was supposed to oppose. In the Blob's view, it's the role of the Blob, not the voters or even the White House, to decide when America goes to war. The internal mechanics of those decisions are a black box, but we do know something about the inputs and outputs. Into one end of the Blob goes the money — gifts from corporations, wealthy individuals, and, in some cases, foreign governments. Out the other end comes white papers, books, op-ed articles, salaries, fellowships, and panel discussions. The content of the output varies widely, and contains occasional notes of disagreement, which is what makes it so much more slippery and effective than the classical authoritarian propaganda of the 20th century, which was intended to awe and manipulate crowds by playing to their basest emotions. Call it blobaganda, a process through which intelligent people are gently led to a preordained conclusion, brought to you by Raytheon and General Dynamics.

For years, Washington think tanks talked up the resilience of the Afghan government — only to watch it collapse in a matter of days as American troops withdrew. "Propaganda" is a loaded word, but I think it's appropriate to apply it here. The foreign-policy think tanks that hosted the military-adjacent events I attended take great pains to present themselves as neutral organizations, where diverse groups of officials and scholars and opinion writers can exchange views without fear of being quoted in The Times or shouted down by Code Pink protesters. But as I learned from the five years I spent inside the bubble of the foreign-policy establishment — all the off-the-record gatherings and the cozy meet-and-greets I attended — the neutral deliberations that take place behind closed doors occur within carefully managed boundaries. You can't work in Washington and not cross paths with smart, influential people who have been paid substantial amounts of money from a foreign-policy think tank, or the powerful dons who sit on one of their boards. If you have control over who's in the room, and who gets to sit onstage, there's no need to script the action. The ideologically correct opinion will organically percolate through the network. This is known as social contagion, and it goes a long way to explaining why America's leading foreign-policy experts keep producing disasters like Afghanistan.
In 2017, for example, the Aspen Institute invited a small group of ambassadors and cabinet-level officials to "a private breakfast conversation" with "representatives from Lockheed Martin Space Systems Company." According to an internal list of invitees, John Brennan, Michael Chertoff, Avril Haines, and Antony Blinken all RSVP'd that they would be there. I was not in the room, but I do have a copy of the outline for the discussion. It expresses worry about things like "the capacity surge of rising powers" and the maintenance of "critical security pacts." These are reasonable concerns. But it's worth asking why Lockheed Martin spent money for access to that particular group of people, and what it got in return. At that same conference, Gen. Joseph Dunford, then the chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, gave a public talk to a large gathering. In 2019, when he retired, he joined Lockheed Martin's board.
To understand how blobaganda works, you have to look for what isn't there. Not much airtime is given to dissent from what's often called "the rules-based order" or "the liberal international order." These terms sound technical and boring and unobjectionable; perhaps that is by design. In plain English, "rules-based order" has effectively come to mean "war is good." The foreign-policy establishment is ideologically committed to the faith-based proposition that America can use force against a country thousands of miles away and, if not remake it in our own image, then at least leave it better than we found it. "Liberal" and "rules" are strange words to apply to campaigns that rely so heavily on drone strikes and covert CIA operations. At one event hosted by the Blobosphere, I remember one of my peers raising his hand to ask how we could convince the American public that it was worth going to war to defend Montenegro, as we are obliged to under Article 5 of the NATO treaty. The room turned and looked at him as if he'd gone insane.

To understand how the Blob gave us Afghanistan — and why it wanted thousands of American troops to remain there indefinitely — we need to unpack the terms foreign policy and national security. They're euphemisms. What we're really talking about here is war and peace. It was much easier to argue for the moral value of aggressive militarism during the years after World War II, when US firepower underwrote sustainable democracies in Germany, Japan, and South Korea. Interventionism remained a guiding light during the Cold War, and it somehow survived the US defeat in Vietnam. But today, for someone of my generation, it sounds crazy, even as it continues to walk the earth, a zombie worldview that is endlessly promoted by the legacy media and establishment stalwarts.

As long as the war in Afghanistan continued, the national security elite could go on pretending that foreign policy was still their private domain.

Article I of the US Constitution states, "Congress shall have power … to declare War." That sounds like a political process. The Blob's raison d'être is to control the conversation around war by putting it on a plane above politics, in the domain of experts who supposedly know something about the world that voters and elected officials do not. Some politicians, especially august senators like John Kerry and John McCain, have traditionally played a role in these high-level conversations. But the most important parts happen between the military, the White House's national security apparatus, and the array of private interests whose livelihoods depend on the conversation's outcome.
After 9/11, the Blob united behind the invasion of Iraq, working to manufacture false justifications and secure endorsements from The New Yorker and The New York Times. When the invasion went south, and the promised weapons of mass destruction failed to appear, the Blob threw a few scapegoats overboard (Judith Miller, George Tenet) and disavowed the worst excesses (Guantánamo, Abu Ghraib). Then, with freshly soaped hands, the Blob turned its attention to preserving the "good war" in Afghanistan.
Trump was a problem. He was the first president since Jimmy Carter who didn't care about the Blob. He wanted to leave Afghanistan, but he couldn't find a secretary of defense or a national security advisor who would help him to do it. So he wound up settling for a deal with the Taliban that passed the question of withdrawal on to his successor. The Blob, meanwhile, claimed that Trump was an illegitimate exception and that the normal transatlantic warmongering under a Blob-aligned president would resume as soon as he was out of office. As long as the war in Afghanistan continued, even in an extremely limited form, the national security elite could go on pretending that foreign policy wasn't beholden to politics, that it was still their private domain.
The Blob's seductive power was clearest to me on the evening of June 20, 2019. I was at a reception at a prominent think tank a couple of blocks away from the White House, as Trump was considering how to respond to Iran shooting down a US drone. One of my fellow Blobsters passed on a well-sourced tidbit. Trump had ordered a series of missile strikes as reprisal, which meant that war with Iran — a long-standing dream of the Blob — might finally be underway.
Trump wound up calling off the strikes at the last minute. But the fact that the attacks never took place didn't matter. As we stood around munching on roast-beef crostinis, it was the real deal, and what should have been a moment of fear or solemnity was instead charged with excitement. We knew, a couple of hours in advance, what was going to happen. It was easy to confuse that feeling with participation, or even control.
The Blob was optimistic that Biden, like Trump, could be deterred from following through on his campaign promise to exit Afghanistan. Like Trump, Biden could not find a secretary of defense who shared his vision. He chose Lloyd Austin, a retired general who had made as much as $1.7 million from serving on the board of Raytheon, one of the biggest contractors in Afghanistan. Not surprisingly, Austin wanted Biden to extend the deadline for withdrawal past September 11. In April, according to the Times, Biden had to personally tell Austin that he expected the military to carry out his decision.
But the Blob wasn't done with Biden. Towards the end of Trump's presidency, Congress had established the Afghanistan Study Group, a private body of retired generals, senators, and business executives. The quasi-official nature and neutrality of such groups make them indispensable in public-relations campaigns. And yet the Study Group was anything but independent. Its 15 members held seats on the boards of major contractors and think tanks, including Caterpillar, Raytheon, BAE Systems, Lockheed Martin, the Atlantic Council, and the Council on Foreign Relations. In an 88-page report published two months into Biden's presidency, they recommended that the US postpone its departure without giving a concrete timeline for withdrawal. The report was rolled out in a congressional hearing and in a Washington Post op-ed article coauthored by a Study Group member, Meghan O'Sullivan, who also sits on the board of the Council on Foreign Relations. "It's wrong to pull US troops out of Afghanistan," the headline declared. The Post neglected to mention that O'Sullivan held a seat on the board of Raytheon. It also neglected to mention that it had accepted money from Raytheon for a customized ad campaign, as well as a series of "Post Live" discussions with national security luminaries.

Despite its concerted effort to keep Biden in Afghanistan, the Blob lost. It had issued a public veto, and the president had gone ahead and overridden it. Control of the White House national security apparatus is the Blob's core product. This was like Apple losing the rights to the iPhone.
Even in defeat, though, the Blob has refused to surrender. Richard Haass, who receives $1.7 million in annual compensation as president of the Council on Foreign Relations, remains a leading critic of the Afghanistan withdrawal. "The foreign policy establishment has gotten a lot right," he told the Times. "History suggests there's just as much risk in under-reaching as overreaching." The war in Afghanistan, as his oddly revisionist take made clear, was no longer about Afghanistan. It was about maintaining the reputations and interests of the people who wanted us there.
In retrospect, it's astonishing that the Blob was able to keep the war in Afghanistan going for so long. A decade ago, Obama vowed that the final withdrawal would begin in July 2011. The following year, during a vice-presidential debate, Biden declared, "We are leaving in 2014, period." Two years later, Obama promised to "turn the page" and exit by the end of his second term in 2016. The Pentagon claimed it was using the repeated extensions to build up the Afghan military, investing billions in something that was exposed, in the moment of withdrawal, to be nothing but a fantasy. The Blob wasn't learning what it needed to learn about Afghanistan, but it was perfecting its mastery of the US political process. What may have started as an earnest bid for victory evolved into a domestic opinion-managing campaign to perpetuate an expensive war that voters did not want, without much to show in the way of progress or results. We're seeing the tail end of that campaign now, as the Blob insists that Biden should have kept a small force in place, in perpetuity. If victory was not an option, at least no one had to know that we had already been defeated.

The Blob's pro-war tilt was evident in the Iraq simulation I took part in. The prepared materials we were given laid out five options: maintain the status quo, deploy one of three "force packages" — sized small, medium, or large, like french fries — or withdraw. I instinctively pushed for withdrawal. It was, after all, one of the official "options for POTUS," and I remained unclear about the purpose of our being in Iraq in the first place.
But when it came time for us to debate the options, the Army colonel who was guiding our deliberations quickly relegated my view to the margins. I don't recall precisely what he said, but the gist was that this was a crisis. Conditions on the ground were rapidly deteriorating and would continue to do so until we did something or ISIS came crashing through our front door.
We wound up recommending the small-force package. Today, that colonel is a two-star general.

https://twitter.com/DanPriceSeattle/...65795544092676

https://twitter.com/rp_griffin/statu...72350611447812

Meanwhile in america

https://www.vice.com/amp/en/article/...mpression=true

the guy switching the meme cards is just comedy genius.

:S, Bojos French and Kermit quotes seem pretty sensible now.

Marjorie Taylor Greene won her Georgia Congressional District with a whopping 74.6% of the vote.


"The government you elect is the government you deserve." ~ Thomas Jefferson

https://graphics.reuters.com/USA-BID...L/nmopagnqapa/


Hmm..... interesting.

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Originally Posted by palmerq

Meanwhile in america

https://www.vice.com/amp/en/article/...mpression=true

the guy switching the meme cards is just comedy genius.

:S, Bojos French and Kermit quotes seem pretty sensible now.

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https://www.saddoboxing.com/boxingfo...tid=5911&stc=1



Here she is submitting to government tyranny and hiding her strong Native American features behind a mask.

People like this are the beginning of the end of the democratic system in America.

I'm not sure if this will link. Apparently I can share articles behind this paywall, let's see. Long read but very good:

https://wapo.st/3APwS4H


Also, too, random economic stuff:

https://twitter.com/gabriel_zucman/s...85454880112642

It's unfortunate that today in the U.S. the political banter has become "your guy's/party's blunders are worse than my guy's/party's blunders."

It's a sickening game of one-upmanship that shows nothing positive, and strives to sweep the current administration's deficiencies under the rug.

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Originally Posted by TitoFan

It's unfortunate that today in the U.S. the political banter has become "your guy's/party's blunders are worse than my guy's/party's blunders."

It's a sickening game of one-upmanship that shows nothing positive, and strives to sweep the current administration's deficiencies under the rug.

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https://twitter.com/MarkJacob16/stat...87928174153728



Keep scrolling. Nine posts.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Kirkland Laing

I'm not sure if this will link. Apparently I can share articles behind this paywall, let's see. Long read but very good:

https://wapo.st/3APwS4H

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Did anybody click this? Anybody manage to read it or did it tell you to fuck off?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Kirkland Laing

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Kirkland Laing

I'm not sure if this will link. Apparently I can share articles behind this paywall, let's see. Long read but very good:

https://wapo.st/3APwS4H

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Did anybody click this? Anybody manage to read it or did it tell you to fuck off?

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Works on my phone at least, will give it a read this evening.




Yellen Warns of ‘Catastrophic’ Consequences From Debt Limit Breach https://nyti.ms/3zNPPU3

Now what's this all about, just the normal American political wranglings or something potentially bad? I see the git before biden had ever increasing deficits and looks like debt ceiling was increased then too without much problem?... Default certainly sounds pretty bad, could well just be the normal fun and games though.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Kirkland Laing

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Kirkland Laing

I'm not sure if this will link. Apparently I can share articles behind this paywall, let's see. Long read but very good:

https://wapo.st/3APwS4H

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Did anybody click this? Anybody manage to read it or did it tell you to fuck off?

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It works and is a good read but I really hope they are wrong with their dramatic article.

I wonder when all this "It's the previous guy's fault" shit started.

Former Guy used to blame Obama for everything but the weather.

Current Guy now blames Former Guy (mostly deserved, but what the hell) for just about everything also.

Don't remember if Obama blamed Georgie W about everything... but it seems that's just the norm nowadays.

No mistakes made by the incumbent in the eyes of his followers.

Just a lot of blame to throw around at the previous WH tenant.

So pointless....

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Originally Posted by palmerq

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Kirkland Laing

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Kirkland Laing

I'm not sure if this will link. Apparently I can share articles behind this paywall, let's see. Long read but very good:

https://wapo.st/3APwS4H

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Did anybody click this? Anybody manage to read it or did it tell you to fuck off?

---

Works on my phone at least, will give it a read this evening.




Yellen Warns of ‘Catastrophic’ Consequences From Debt Limit Breach https://nyti.ms/3zNPPU3

Now what's this all about, just the normal American political wranglings or something potentially bad? I see the git before biden had ever increasing deficits and looks like debt ceiling was increased then too without much problem?... Default certainly sounds pretty bad, could well just be the normal fun and games though.

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Every time the debt limit needs to be raised they have a pantomime. Happens no matter who is in office or controls the House or Senate or whatever.

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Originally Posted by Master

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Kirkland Laing

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Kirkland Laing

I'm not sure if this will link. Apparently I can share articles behind this paywall, let's see. Long read but very good:

https://wapo.st/3APwS4H

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Did anybody click this? Anybody manage to read it or did it tell you to fuck off?

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It works and is a good read but I really hope they are wrong with their dramatic article.

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They are not wrong. America is on a glide path for this to happen. If it doesn't happen with Trump it'll happen with one of the Trump impersonators who follow him. If Trump actually runs in 2024 and if he's still breathing he will then he either wins outright and puts loyalists in charge of the DOJ, FBI, army and every other major institution and basically creates a system where the GOP win every election or he loses and the states that have changed their laws to allow them to override the will of the voters do just that. Democracy doesn't have long left to go in America.

This thread is certain to continue losing steam, as most Trump fans have vacated the premises. ;D

However, it's bears pointing out that all problems have not magically vanished since The Orange One is no longer in the White House. This has been my calling card since Day One... where I've lambasted Trump as much as anyone here... but refuse to now put on tinted glasses in the other direction.

It is my firm contention that we have suffered from a lack of true leadership for quite some time. And I'm sorry... but Joe Biden's best quality remains that he's not Trump.

Watching the news on those Americans still stranded in Afghanistan still brings up some inescapable thoughts. #1, what on EARTH would any self-preserving American be doing living in Afghanistan in the first place? Excuse my lack of deep insight (maybe)... but I just don't see (or have ever seen) Afghanistan as an attractive place to set up residence. Business? Money? Hey... if you can't make a decent enough living in the many dozens of other (MORE STABLE) countries out there... choosing to live in Afghanistan might not be the worst of your problems. Granted, I'm not blaming this one on anyone but the people themselves.

#2, NONE OF US HERE are experts on the particular topic of "Withdrawing from a Hostile Country." If they offered that course when I was in college, I must have missed it, or I would've at least considered it as an elective. That being said, it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that if you're planning a withdrawal from a hostile country... particularly one that you've inhabited for YEARS... you put together a foolproof plan. Then you complement it with a Plan B, Plan C, etc. Then you put that plan up for scrutiny again and again and again.

Nobody will ever convince me that all American civilians could not have been safely evacuated FIRST, before any withdrawal of troops, equipment, etc. The U.S. didn't invade Afghanistan 5 years ago. It's been a hell of a lot longer than that. With that comes knowledge... experience. The same "brilliant" minds that plan drone attacks, invasions, and high-level assassinations... could've very well (if directed to do so) have planned a much smoother withdrawal from Afghanistan than what actually transpired.

Contrary to popular opinion in some circles, there WAS no timeframe to adhere to. With all the B.S. Trump slung around, (like post-Maria paper towel rolls) and the little respect he enjoyed in international circles..... YOU THINK Biden didn't have the moral authority to say...

Hey Taliban. Whatever Trump promises as a deadline, we will not adhere to, as we need to ensure the safe passage of our private citizens, as well as our military. We've been here 20 years... a few more weeks/months is not gonna kill anybody. You allow us that new timeframe... we'll ensure it's done safely within that time period. PERIOD.

If Afghanistan was the only area where the Biden administration is severely fumbling the ball, I might even be a bit more magnanimous about deflecting more blame Trump's way. But what about the ongoing border messes?? Can't anyone get ANYTHING right when it comes to protecting the borders in a humane but effective fashion??

No. The Biden thread is bound to become less and less active... as all Trump fans have gone MIA. But I'll be popping in once in a while whenever the situation merits it.

There isn't a single Democrat that Republicans have been taught to view as a politician let alone a person. every blog, column, article, report reflects the need to hate them from the core of their souls.

20 years ago, people stated things like Biden is ok, he just makes gaffes. I even showed a few Trump-worshippers here- their own posts on Biden a decade ago. So sorry if such memories hurt them so bad they left. Not my fault. My fault is typing too long, not contradicting myself just to keep a party in office. Or pretend I dont have hate...then expose it in everyother post.

Today Biden is the worse being on earth since Soros, Obama, Hillary, Bill the hubby, Bill the Gates! Everyone not a Republican has to be loathed. Therefore no reason to consider Joe as anything other than the fall of America Part D as in Democrat.

Interesting viewpoint. But the hate is widespread. If people were already headed toward political polarization as matter of course.... Trump just pushed the accelerator and turned on the turbo.

It used to be about policy, but with respect. Now it's about hate, hate, hate.

BTW... slightly off topic... but I saw some video on Jan 6 the other day I hadn't seen before.

Once again my mind implodes at the thought of Trump and his lackeys claiming with a straight face that that was a peaceful demonstration.

If we've reached that point in politics (accepted by a large portion of the American public)..... nothing is beyond belief anymore.