This is poker. Trump is dangling pardons and the 'free conscious' of fighting the liars, for those who stand fast with him and Mueller is saying to those that are in between, thinking about what to do, that if you cooperate they will let you off and have the 'free conscious' of cooperating. Fascinating stuff.

Well your post was about a one day drop in the market and rise in gas prices so again not really sure what the point was then of the original post as it doesn't go along with any of this at all. Don't disagree with the other stuff you have said but your original post was gas and Dow with an "Amen" from the echo chamber on here.

This has turned into the general "political/economic news of the day" thread around here. But I'll make sure to better coordinate who responds to my posts from now on, thanks for the tip.

Sure don't disagree that Trump is a narcissist and bring this on himself and on top of that 3-4 posts in I don't have the most comfortable feeling that I am somehow in the position of defending the guy but good lord there is plenty to criticize the guy over a one day blemish on the stock market and pretty significantly low gas prices would not be one of them.

Generally in federal criminal court (i.e. indigent drug and gun guys), cooperators don't get breaks this large because the government still has all the leverage. In my office, defendants are not given any promises if they want to cooperate. They tell the government what they know, and they take their chances.

Here's some very rough info on reduced sentences expressly based on substantial assistance: https://www.ussc.gov/sites/default/f...17/Table30.pdf

So guys, in general, can get about half their time reduced. Some get more, and some get less. And, in reality, it's a lot more complicated because the prosecutor has a lot of power over what the recommended sentence is in the first place. (For instance, there is a common federal gun charge that carries a five-year mandatory consecutive sentence to whatever else you get. A prosecutor can decide not to bring that charge, which is effectively a 60-month reduction that would not show up on a chart like this).

All of which is to say this case is different. It is much closer to a negotiation between equals. Flynn, etc. have the non-zero possibility of a pardon out there, so if Mueller plays hardball, they will just try to rely on that. Also, this isn't a case of Mueller trying to go after some rando drug dealer in Roanoke. His targets are high profile, and there's a very limited universe of guys who were inside enough to have the information that he needs. He can't just keep arresting street-level drug dealers until he finds one who will flip in exchange for 6 months off his sentence.

So Flynn has a lot of leverage, and his lawyers know that and maximized it. It isn't typical, but nothing about investigating a foreign power attacking our elections is typical.

It would seem that this is also an opportunity to send a message to others that may potentially cooperate. Mueller can signal that telling the whole story will be generously rewarded, and with the Manafort stuff, he's also saying lying will be harshly punished.

I would say that - like Trump, ironically - you are bringing it on yourself. I was just posting my amazement/frustration over both things occurring at the same time. Mainly, that I figured on Monday that I could wait until Tuesday to fill up, and it cost me $8 for nothing. :)

Great point.

If I had any connection to anything shady regarding Russian interference, and my last name weren't Trump, I'd be all-in with Mueller.

I think it is very likely that Trump will pardon himself and his family members for anything that they did or might have done. But I'd be very reluctant to rely on that if I weren't that close to him. He's a mercurial narcissist who seems incapable of showing loyalty and has a history of screwing over his business partners.

I'm not saying that Trump won't pardon the whole group of them. I really have no idea. But does anyone doubt that he'd have no trouble letting all of these loyal guys rot in federal prison if he got a notion that he might have a slightly bad news cycle if he pardoned them?

Thanks for the explanations with sentence terms and plea deals. I just think the starting point for these are just too low-14 days for Papadoplous and the suggested none for Flynn. These guys are lying to Congress and the FBI, as well as election crimes and collusion with a foreign government-they shouldn't be rewarded for finally telling the truth because they got caught lying. They need to see the inside of a jail for a while and learn what's it like to not have all the things they have outside of jail. I'm okay with them making deals, but there should be more punishment involved for these types of crimes.

I think Trump will only pardon himself and his family. He dangles a pardon just to get people to stay loyal to him.

Trump has shown pretty clearly that loyalty to him is a one way street, why anyone would trust him is beyond me. His loyalty to you is equal to what perceived value you are bringing him today.

Family aside of course.

Even with family he seems more concerned with how they reflect on him than anything else.

Great eulogy by W. The last couple of lines brought tears to my eyes. Your father would be proud, sir.

George W. Bush cries delivering eulogy for his father, George H.W. Bush (Full Eulogy) - YouTube

I agree with this but it would give me some incentive to vote for him in 2020. If the market is stumbling and economy is in a recession, it'll definitely give me less incentive to consider him.

Stock market and economy isn't everything but its pretty darn important.

Anyone can support certain policies. Not everyone can act like a President.

As usual, I found the video of W slipping Michelle Obama a piece of candy, even at his father's funeral, ridiculously touching.

I know this is a hypothetical but I would beg you not to vote for a white supremacist no matter the state of the economy :(

I honestly don't see Trump as a white supremacist. They are part of his base and he does cater to them for support, there are undertones but not to that level IMO.

There are plenty of other reasons not to support Trump in 2020. All I am saying is if the economy, stock market are doing really well and oil is way down, it will be an strong input (not necessarily the deciding one) in my decision.

(I do agree with Ksyrup that he has "soiled" the office).


.

The thinking error we make with presidents and the stock market and economy is that our starting baseline is incorrect. We assume a perfectly average president will result in, I guess, slow growth, and then anything above that = good president, and everything worse than that = bad president. But that's not the right baseline. The economy is impacted, primarily, by things other than the president. So the economy might trend up, but, it may have gone up even more with a competent president. And the economy might trend down, but, it may have trended down even worse with a less competent. An excellent president might contribute to stopping an inevitable recession from becoming a depression. A terrible president may preside over an OK time in the economy, when different policies and more competent president would have led to economic and technological booms.

And that's all assuming that the U.S. president has any significant impact on the economy at all. But if they do, the relationship has to be more complex.

Edit: I've actually never heard of a convincing explanation about anything a president actually did, on his own, to impact the economy. A president can react, in a limited way, to influence economic events that have already happened.

And you have to include the role of the legislative branch. Let's assume that Obama had great ideas that if written and passed would have led to a booming economy, but the GOP legislature kept that from happening. Does that make Obama a good or bad president?

But I'm more and more convinced that a sizable portion of the population wants to be ruled by a king, so seeing everything through the lens of a single point of action is unfortunately common.

Out of interest how 'short-termist' are you in nature - would you vote 'Trump' if the stocks are up and Oil is up even if the obvious fundamentals of the country are increasingly fouled and you can see a crash coming?

I'm asking because the current 'rally' is nearly entirely fuelled (imho) by the giveaway to corporations rather than anything real ... if you allow corporations to pay less taxes then yes they will post huge profits and yes their stocks will rise ... however this also means the debt for the country is increasing at a huge rate and the much needed investment in infrastructure etc. isn't happening ... as such at some point there will be a crash and it won't be pretty ...

(I can fully understand if you're only voting in terms of 'self' that you might ignore this and consider you can simply 'profit' from such a crash by adjusting your situation - I'm in a reasonable financial position myself but I worry about the world my kids are heading into, they're at University presently and will be attempting to make their way in their careers in 3-5 years time)

I had an economics teacher in high school who told us in 1987 that whoever wins the Presidency in 1988 was going to be a one-term President because we were at the end of a cycle and a recession was a certainty around 1990.

Things Presidents get way too much blame/credit for:

The stock market
the price of gas

This was my thought for the 2016 election, but the massive stimulus passed by the GOP may push that until after the 2020 election.

It’s a report of a report, and not sure where the Daily Beast fits into the political spectrum, but I saw this article at lunchtime...

Trump says he doesn't care about predicted US national debt explosion because ‘I won't be here’ | The Independent

And that Alex is all you need to know about Donald Trump. Democrats running for President in 2020 should show that in every campaign ad.

We move closer and closer to Boomsday.

I did say economy, stock, oil. I'm not saying healthy economy = healthy stock market or vice-versa but there is a relationship. Really, for oil, I'm okay with it being higher because I want us to grow our own oil capabilities and I want us to go to alternate fuels (go Tesla). Economy and Stock Market are probably in the Top 5 of importance to me.

I don't think you can see a crash coming. Sure there are symptoms and a select few have predicted crashes but have they done it consistently or just gotten lucky? I've been waiting for China's economy to crash for a while now but hasn't happened (I know they manipulate their nos. and what gets out to the public but you get the idea). So short of a crystal ball, I don't think anyone can see/time a crash coming.

Tax cuts definitely helped but do think its more than that. Trump is more business friendly (or at least perceived to be so) over the Democrats. Prior to this most recent "crash", most were saying the fundamentals were good etc. And although I believe Trump does get some credit, Obama and how he navigated us through the GR also gets credit.

So with all that said ...

• I don't believe one can predict a crash with any level of assurance or timing. So can't short the market and make money
• The deficit is enormous. As a % of GDP, in 2017 its close to where Obama got us to and left us. Sure there was a good reason, but there are always "good" reasons
• Regarding the deficits, if there was a candidate that truly will reduce the deficit I would seriously consider him/her. The reality is I've lost faith in either party doing this. Its not just the President but Congress also
• I do worry about the future for my kids. Best way to prepare them is to teach them about adaptability, not overspending, saving for retirement, learning other cultures and languages, getting into a good field where it won't be impacted (or reduced) by outsourcing, AI, China's growing dominance etc. This also includes leaving them an inheritance if possible

EDIT: an additional food for thought. I believe in immigration (I am one and I know you are thinking about being a citizen). The US is not making enough babies and unlike some others, I do believe there is plenty of space for more immigrants. I just want to greatly encourage the "right" immigration policy which, selfishly, means the higher educated but still provide means for the folks willing to do the work the US won't (e.g. guest worker programs).

Thanks for sending me down the rabbit hole of reviews about Corsi's book on trump on Amazon. That was a colossal waste of time. I'd keep saying, some people, but I'm afraid I'll find family members who have written reviews on this stuff.

He was primary figure behind the conspiracy theory that Obama wasn't a US citizen because he was black.

Is he wearing a white hood and burning crosses, no.

When you cater to a group, thus emboldening them and their actions, and giving strength to their rhetoric, you are equally as culpable.

Wow I thought Haley was a low bar for UN Ambassador. I was wrong. She is like Kissinger compared to this one. I think Trump picks these ones based on if he would sleep with them or not.
Trump to pick State Department spokeswoman for U.N. ambassador: source

Dang. You're not kidding.

Well I guess that's one way to put Fox News out of business-hire all their talent for the adminstration. Democrats will show her no mercy in the confirmation hearings.

Pretty sure he just hires people who say nice things about him on Fox News. Isn't Whitaker also a pundit for the network? The guy watches cable news all day, where else is he going to find candidates?

CNN evacuated during Don Lemon's show tonight by a bomb threat.

CNN got the bomb threat shortly after Trump tweeted again about fake news being the enemy of the people. He's clearly getting a head start on the big Mueller stories tomorrow-tweeted about Arizona along with the boarder (his spelling) and military bracing for a massive surge at a non-walled area, and calling on Chuck and Nancy to support the building of the wall, and then quote a few people on the Mueller investigation including Jerome Corsi. and why is the fake news harping on the Dems taking the House and not the Republicans adding to their Senate majority,



He's very very nervous right now.

We should agree on a definition of a "white supremacist" before going down this path so we are not talking past each other.

Can we skip 3 days of arguing about the definition of White Supremacist and just agree that Donald Trump is a racist piece of shit?

And, then, lets think about whether there is some level of economic gain that would justify, as a voter, supporting such open racism in any election anywhere, much less the president of the united states.


Unless you disagree that this president has a long and proud history of racist action and rhetoric - in which case there's no point in even having a conversation because we exist in different realities so far apart that it will be impossible to bridge them and find reasonable common ground.

My response: "there is not."

The response of mankind at various points throughout history: "As long as I get mine, everybody else can fuck off."

That's more or less what history tells us this conversation always boils down to. Individuals can do amazing things in defense of the marginalized.

En masse, though, people find it difficult to get incensed about the treatment of marginalized groups or racial/ethnic "others" if their own lives are comfortable.

The Baby Boomers have been spectacular in this regard.

Regarding the boomers, I find it particularly interesting that the generation was somewhat defined by films like Easy Rider, and to a large degree media spent the last 30-40 years suggesting that it was the anti-establishment hippies that overwhelmingly won that culture battle, yet the more and more hindsight we're given, the more it appears that the corporate conservatives were perhaps always the majority, and that's who leads and represents that generation today.

Even during the Vietnam War the Boomers were more supportive than older generations. The hippies were visible, but always less than a majority.

CNN has reported this morning the John Kelly is expecting to resign shortly-not holding my breath, but it would be a distraction to the Mueller news today,

Papadoplous has been released from prison, and is said to be travelling to DC with his wife for some conference of right-wing progandists.

Glad this guy keeps losing his elections:


Conservative pastor: ‘The floor of Congress is now going to look like an Islamic republic’ | TheHill

Woke Ammon Bundy is a plot twist I didn't see coming.

There's a celebrity he's starting to look like, I can't put my finger on it.

I figured Trump would be an exception to that "the presidency ages you" phenomenon, but, he does look like shit there.

Didn’t realise she was the fuckwit who used the Normandy landings as an example of the closeness of the US / Germany relationship.

Sounds like the perfect person to be the international face of US global reations :rolleyes: