Harry Marks wrote:In a couple of months our election will choose.

In that time, the unemployment rate will rise again. The signs are too strong to ignore - bankruptcies, evictions, the tide of consumer demand turning downward again. It will not be a huge increase like 2008-9 (certainly not like March and April) since some forces are pushing the economy upward. But it will happen, and desperation will increase with it. And I think the election may very much hinge on whether the desperation creates more violence among the frustrated marginal workers who are laid off and kicked out of their homes, or more wake-up call to those who are watching denialism blow up common sense.

Forecasters are expecting a fall in the unemployment rate. Maybe they have access to info I don't. On the other hand, they predicted a fall for today's new unemployment claims numbers, and instead the numbers went up slightly. The thing is, the forecasts go heavily by "flash" reports, mostly through the Federal Reserve Banks, that rely on calls or automatic reports from larger businesses. So, sure, larger businesses are mostly well on the way to recovery (though not department store chains and maybe not airlines), but the carnage is mainly among small businesses, especially in the hospitality industry - hotels, bars, restaurants, etc. They are the ones who got inadequate help in the first bailout round, and have more trouble getting a bank to spot them the funds.

Harry Marks wrote:Today we learned that a report on the intelligence finding of Russian interference in this election, 2020, was withdrawn. Even though the intel community has "high confidence" that Russian trolls are spreading disinformation about Biden's health, including mental health, the report is not to be published. Why? "It was poorly written." (Insufficiently on message, one presumes). And yet low confidence results about radical agitators in Portland were published.

Does this pattern disturb you as much as it disturbs me? Anybody remember those Weapons of Mass Destruction that Saddam Hussein was threatening us with?

For a similar reason, the daily intelligence briefing will not be given orally to the president, according to John Ratliffe, the new Director of National Intelligence (Orwellian overtones). So now, the president doesn't have to listen to anything about what Russia is doing to interfere in our affairs. But he will still be given the brief in its written form, so no worries--the pres is a famous reader.

I was, it's fair to say, dumbfounded to realize that Trump is leading the way for Russia to add its own disinformation on the legitimacy of mail-in voting. Russia is amplifying Trump's false statements about massive, fraudulent mail-in votes. Making Russia's job so much easier. Spasiba, Donald Trump!

ant wrote:When you rig the primaries that's enough.

When you push forward a senior with clear indications of cognitive decline it's enough

When your Speaker responds to the question of lawless rioting by saying " people will do what they do" and not come close to denouncing it, it's enough.

When you push Russian conspiracy theories for months and months without clear and convincing evidence, it's enough.

And when you get otherwise sane people to buy your garbage about conspiracy theories, it's more than enough.

Most of these assertions are just more troll bait and don't really deserve any attention. But the sentence (in bold) is especially absurd. There's no question that Russia tried to interfere in the 2016 election in order to help get Trump elected and that Trump's campaign welcomed that assistance. Trump’s campaign advisers worked with the Russians to release damaging information, even going so far as sharing polling data with Russian intelligence officers. Trump, Cohen, Trump Jr., Manafort, Kushner, and others had several contacts with Russian intelligence in the months leading to the 2016 election. This has been corroborated by Mueller's investigation and more recently a bipartisan Senate panel. To say that these are "Russian conspiracy theories" not based in evidence and fact is sheer nonsense. As the New York Times reported: "The report is an exhaustive look at the various ways that the Kremlin’s intelligence services exploited ties to the Trump campaign to help carry out a stealth attack on American democracy."

I'm aghast that some Americans persist in believing that the Russian interference is a "conspiracy" or "witch hunt" despite the mountains of evidence that show otherwise. At best, you can make the case that Donald Trump and the idiots he surrounds himself with were ignorant about the inappropriateness and illegality of working with a hostile foreign power, but whether you call this "collusion" or just "cooperation" seems to me a disingenuous distinction.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/18/us/p ... eport.html

Trump denies "vehemently" that he privately called war dead "losers". Astonishingly, no one believes him. Why? Well, there was the public comment about John McCain. And about the gold star family. And the general way bullies behave. And the bone spurs. Dear Leader has no concept of patriotism, or sacrifice, or doing things for others, or even doing things for the general good. This is a man who stole from his charity.

The Republicans are trying to spin him as a "bodyguard" for their values. If I had a bodyguard who was only interested in what was in it for himself, I would worry for my life. I would fire him as soon as possible.

We also learned today that the rot is seriously setting in around the party. Steve Scalise, R LA, shared a video clip that he or his staff had doctored to make it sound like Biden wanted to decrease funding for the police, when in fact Biden has opposed the idea and proposed a $300 million increase in funding for police departments, as Bill Clinton had done in the 90s.

Project Veritas pioneered this sort of clever strategic editing with their supposed "sting" projects. And the fact that so many people still believe those lies, because they want to believe them, tells you exactly what Scalise was thinking. Wouldn't he know he would get caught? Wink, wink. Maybe so.

Harry Marks wrote:Forecasters are expecting a fall in the unemployment rate. Maybe they have access to info I don't.

Well, I wasn't just a little wrong - if fell by like 2 percentage points. I am very surprised, but what economist doesn't come away with egg on his face now and then?

The NY Times says the data were gathered in the early part of August, which is before the influences set in that I was looking at. They also say employment is down since then. So maybe a rise will happen in the next announcement. Or maybe I should quit while I'm not too far behind. Apparently there will only be one more announcement of the unemployment rate between now and election day. The signs are mixed - lots of furloughed workers were back on the job last month, but on the other hand the number laid off permanently was up. People who had a job to come back to, thanks to the stimulus package, are now relatively few among the unemployed, and the longer-term jobless are the ones that remain in the 8.4% unemployment rate. So now we find out if we have a real recession or just a bizarre crevasse in the economy, bridged over by the relief bills.

Call me crazy, but I would not want to run for re-election with unemployment over 8 percent.

Harry Marks wrote:Trump denies "vehemently" that he privately called war dead "losers". Astonishingly, no one believes him. Why? Well, there was the public comment about John McCain. And about the gold star family. And the general way bullies behave. And the bone spurs. Dear Leader has no concept of patriotism, or sacrifice, or doing things for others, or even doing things for the general good. This is a man who stole from his charity.

The Republicans are trying to spin him as a "bodyguard" for their values. If I had a bodyguard who was only interested in what was in it for himself, I would worry for my life. I would fire him as soon as possible.

Could that be the last-straw revelation for anyone who is listening and still unsure about re-voting for Trump? I say 'anyone who's listening' because I don't think a large part of Trump's supporters do listen to what he says. They like his belligerence, and offended reactions by the elite and sensitive just make his fans love him more. But he's going to lose some voters with this. He's now behind among members of the military, a rare thing for soldiers to favor a Democrat.

@ Harry Marks: I don’t understand the focus on unemployment numbers, they are irrelevant to outcomes in November. The economy is a side concern along with everything else that seems to be forefront in this election cycle. ‘Trump Watch’ it’s your thread title, it’s the game in play. We can give PSfB some credits for doing some correct things but that’s nothing compared to what he has done to dismantle normalcy in America.

The economic numbers only favor the current power structure, whether they be the ones with skin in the Wall Street money exchange or highly leveraged small business owners. It’s a fantasy economy, a phantom that is being debated. The numbers don’t mean nothing because they’re based on nothing. They’re presented by guessers, albeit, they are educated guessers, but guessers none the less.

PSfB watch is some managed historical record of the failure in real-time of a White House administration. It is a great and noble cause. History recorded in real time.

I’ve no idea of the canon of history that will come of this second and third decade of the second millennium common era, I can only imagine that it will not reflect kindly on those that were not willing to meet mediocrity with nothing less than a sledgehammer.

PSfB is and will remain the story until his story and those who read it out like bedtime fairy tales are laid to rest. That’s the story pure and simple.

To many people think that there is normalcy in what is witnessed daily. There is nothing normal about the world today, nothing normal going on in D.C. .

What we are witnessing is the bassist of animal instincts come to fruition. Biden-Harris aren’t a cure, they are merely the first push on the brakes, we have lost the capacity to contemplate ruin, we are no longer capable of realizing the consequences of action. The ‘market economy’ is the proof of the pudding.

I’m tired...I’m going to relax and go to bed.

Taylor wrote:@ Harry Marks: I don’t understand the focus on unemployment numbers, they are irrelevant to outcomes in November. The economy is a side concern along with everything else that seems to be forefront in this election cycle.
PSfB is and will remain the story until his story and those who read it out like bedtime fairy tales are laid to rest. That’s the story pure and simple.

There is nothing normal about the world today, nothing normal going on in D.C. .

I get what you are saying, and to a significant extent what you say is the right take on it all. However, signs point toward a tight election, and a recent polling exercise found a five point shift among undecided voters in several swing states between the 11 percent unemployment rate announced for July and (then hypothetically) an 8 percent unemployment rate. To those who have not taken a side so far, the economy is actually one of the top few issues, and unemployment has already dropped enough that they might feel safe to re-elect the President.

Many people have held that Trump's racism was the decisive factor in his favor. I still don't see it (though it played a big role in his moving heavily on the nomination). The Blue Wall states who shifted over to him were reacting to a dramatic shift in manufacturing employment in these areas during the 8 years of the Obama administration, a shift almost invisible to the coastal media. So Trump has dramatically failed to bring those jobs back, or make the kinds of big changes in trade policy that those voters were hoping for. Nevertheless, many people in those areas believe he stands for protecting American interests, and theirs in particular, while the Washington Establishment has given up. Biden needs to vigorously confront that perception if he is going to win.

Being the fair and reasonable person you are, I have to ask..,did you ever given Trump credit for his Middle East accomplishment or are you giving yourself and Obama credit for it?

Truth be told, Obama left office with nothing more than a drone bomb legacy.
Remember that?