Who knows how this will play out but definitely a good first step.

China will 'significantly increase' purchases of US goods and services

I'm glad we aren't going to get into a trade war with China, but this is just another example of how Trump is all bluster.

Not really the first step.

First step was the tariff threat that Trump announced or the sanctions on ZTE. China then responded with tariffs of their own while purchasing from other countries including Russia. Trump then announced that we need to start allowing ZTE phones into the US and to remove sanctions even though China has done nothing to assuage fears of why they were sanctioned in the first place.

Question I have is are we trading National Security just so Trump can say that he's increasing jobs and employment? Those are two areas where we aren't really hurting right now

The ZTE stuff has been going on for awhile. Don't think that had anything to do with the trade war. Seems like he dropped that when his company got $500 million from the Chinese government to build resorts in Indonesia.

New poll from Germany: 14% of Germans consider the United States to be a reliable partner. In comparison, 36% of Germans think Russia is a reliable partner. Tough to overstate how bad this is. pic.twitter.com/zvZpz4CI4d

— Marcel Dirsus (@marceldirsus) May 18, 2018

Trump maybe setting a record for lies in one "tweet-fest" this morning:


https://www.cnn.com/2018/05/20/polit...ets/index.html

Sam Nunberg blurted out the name of the FBI Informant on MSNBC this morning:


Ex-Trump Advisor Sam Nunberg Blurts Out Name Of FBI Informant During MSNBC Interview - YouTube

I bet he fires Mueller before the long weekend.

Everybody thank Jill Stein for today's anti-employee decision by SCOTUS. If only the "principles progressives" who voted for her had voted for "corporate whore" Hillary Clinton, we might've actually had a good decision for workers today.

There's now a White House Military Office coin for the upcoming Trump Kim Jong Un summit. The North Korean dictator is referred to as "Supreme Leader Kim Jong Un." pic.twitter.com/tFAmE813Y1

— Jim Acosta (@Acosta) May 21, 2018

A.K.A., Snoke.

Uh, why do we need a freakin' coin for a peace summit?

Also, had no idea that there was a White House Military Office. Do you need one when you have the Pentagon?

There's a coin for everything in the military,

And we've legitimized Un, just like he wanted.

WHMO oversees

Several of those used to operate independently, the WHMO was formed in 1957 to bring them into a more unified structure. It's effectively like having a relatively small "joint services" command on-site, which is able to work in conjunction with other executive branch entities.

Seems like the coin is a common thing and they mint them for special trips. Basically a token to give out to people who help plan the trips which are not easy to do. I don't have a problem with that at all.

Also as mentioned earlier, the military has a ton of coins.

There's a way to make a coin without making "Supreme Leader" have equal status to the U.S. President.

So I was looking up challenge coins and according to wikipedia South Korea is a major manufacturer of them. Go figure.

Yep. Most military units order from South Korea. If you walk outside the gates at most installations you can usually find a shop within 50 feet of the gate that sells coins and takes large orders...and another across the street from that one and another just down the street, etc, etc, etc...

US-China trade agreements are ‘face-saving’ and ‘lose-lose,’ says Moody’s chief economist

So how far does trump go in interfering with a federal investigation? Is he allowed to go far enough, so that the DOJ will be an executive weapon?



I was reading an article about the spread of false and misleading news, and how the battle of being able to separate fact from fiction will become increasingly harder over time. Advances in AI and computer technology will allow people to completely mimic a persons voice, and attach it to film or video and 'make' any person, say anything. As time goes on, it will be nearly indistinguishable from reality. The only way to verify what a person actually said, will be to be there in person. It's a powerful weapon that someone like trump could use as basis for consolidating power and asserting dictatorial power.

He'll go as far as the GOP majority in Congress allows him to.

And, I don't think they'll give him carte blanche. I believe they've told him to let the investigation play out or else. Really the only reason that I can figure that Trump hasn't fired Rosenstein and Mueller so far.

I honestly think Rosenstein and Wray are just trying to keep him satisfied until Mueller can finish his investigation. Which gets a pillar added to his Obstruction case with this latest farce.

So the Obamas have signed a development deal with Netflix-I expect Trump will start tweeting about Netflix illegal methods soon. Conservatives are already getting a head start:


Conservatives Threaten Netflix Boycott Over Obama Deal: 'I Will Read The Bible Instead'

Obama is the anti-christ after all, so it's not that big of a stretch for them.

I'm just boycotting Netflix over Bright, Iron Fist, and The OA.

Why the boycott?

Michael Cohen's business partner in the taxi business, a Russian immigrant, avoids jail time after making a plea deal with the Feds:


https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/22/n...operation.html

Thanks for the info, JonInMiddleGA! It sounds like a pretty useful office, unlike some parts of the federal government.

I really wonder how many conservatives watch Netflix.

Why would a streaming tv/movie service divide among political views?

Conservatives are skewing older. Netflix watchers likely skew younger. I don't think it's a stretch to think that the average Netflix viewer is more liberal than the average cable viewer.

Demographics, content, viewing habits. Maybe even cost. I would assume conservatives skew older and are more tied to network viewing (or just Fox News) and cable/satellite.

Though, maybe if Last Man Standing comes to Netflix. *shurg*

After the number of conservatives that have claimed to cancel because of Dear White People, Bill Nye's show, the Obama Show, and Michelle Wolfe there shouldn't be many left watching.

Federal Judge says President Trump can't block people on Twitter:

https://knightcolumbia.org/sites/def...20judgment.pdf

This will probably make him way more mad than things that actually matter.

wow I'm gonna need Ari Melber to interpret all that. :) Looks like Scavino and Trump lost and this judgement might have some bearing on the impeachment issues. Look near the bottom under Relief and Conclusion for that. She may have become my favorite judge :)

Personally I think the ruling is pretty silly. It basically says that Trump's twitter threads create a public forum and his blocking users functions as a government action restraining free speech in violation of the first amendment. It's simply a declaratory judgment, which is simply a statement of saying, hey plaintiffs, you win. If Trump doesn't unblock them, I assume they could try to seek an injunction or some other judgment to force him to actually unblock them. Hard for me to see how this has much of any import to anything other than an additional twitter rant or 12.

I think that she's playing the long game.

She says that she could force the President to do it, but she won't.

And that she could force his subordinate to do it, but she won't.

Instead, she will just note that the blocking is unconstitutional and trust them to do the right thing.

If they don't, then it helps make a later injunction stick.

The key that was outlined is that blocking someone prevents them from seeing that person's tweets. Early on in Trump's Presidency the White House got tired of constantly clarifying what was and wasn't an official statement from the President in his tweets and just said you should consider all of his tweets official statements. This was the obvious end to that game.

Which is totally ridiculous. The idea that a public figure(president or otherwhise) has less rights to control their social media account than a private individual insane, not to mention the more basic point that free speech is a right to speech. Not the right to a platform on which to disseminate it. It's every bit as wrongheaded as the money=speech stuff has always been.

When your tweets are considered official White House statements then it muddies the water a bit IMO.

This was a necessary ruling. Setting the precedent of the POTUS being able to decide who and who doesn't receive official White House statements based on their political beliefs would have been incredibly dangerous.

As a government employee, this is something that has been the case for a very long time already - The Hatch Act has been around since 1930 putting extra limits on our speech. For most of us it is slight, but our regional directors can't even post about politics on social media according to the interpretation of the Act.

I still think the bigger issue is the opacity concerning who has the ability to send a tweet through his account. The public should know, both in general and specifically with each tweet who is speaking as the President.

It's all fun and games until Jared starts WW3.

And he is clearly not using it as a private citizen. I doubt anybody would mind him blocking people if he were posting movie critiques, commenting on how deep dish pizza is clearly better than thin crust or how Liverpool will absolutely beat Real in the CL final.

He is (ab)using twitter as a platform for his politics as president of the United States and made it his megaphone, so of course it has to be considered as such. If he is communicating stuff relevant to his presidency, there is no way he should be able to decide on who has access to it and who doesn't.

No one tells him what to communicate or where to. If he doesn't want everyody to read his "insights", all he needs to do is not post it. But you can't have him comment on official matters relevant to his presidency on an open platform and then have him decide who gets access ...

I felt this way before but if you read the ruling it actually makes sense. He still has the right to mute people which garners the same result on his end. The ruling also extends to all public officials.

https://knightcolumbia.org/sites/def...20judgment.pdf

Twitter is kind of a weird platform to test the case on but if you look at other examples, it works. Public officials should not be allowed to block others from a public forum. At the highest levels it's a bit eye-rolling because you can find workarounds to see the President's tweets. But at the local level it makes more sense.

Your local township ban certain individuals from showing up to town halls just because they don't like their politics. They can't decide to only mail out important government information to those who are friendly to their party.

While Trump and Twitter is kind of a weird case, I do think it's important that public officials can't ban political opponents from a public forum.

I'm sure glad that after nearly 18 months that trump has resolved all the issues in the South China Sea.

Is “blocking” on Twitter really keeping someone from seeing his communications, though? Can’t you just log out and see everything you want?

Yup. Just logged out and went to twitter.com/realdonaldtrump and I can read all the Trump foolishness I can handle without logging in.

Nicolle Wallace of MSNBC issued a disclaimer before showing Trump's comments this morning. Should become a regular thing:


https://www.politicususa.com/2018/05...-comments.html