The Trump Administration

[Keith Pommerening]

9 hours ago, 41chevy said:

Communism is dead in most of the world but is has been replaced by Social Democrats, The government controls or regulates most all services,Water, Food, Energy, Education, favors and promotes unions and most media is pro S.D. but they allow business and property ownership and free trade as long as they severly regulate and tax it. Here is the Britannia link  (a non reliable link as per her, probably tied to Trump)

https://www.britannica.com/topic/social-democracy

It is interesting that the January 10 Congressional record is considered fake news by her. I can only assume that Albert S. Herlong Jr was laying the ground work for fake news and Trump? Or isn't it approved revisionist history? Or a carefully faked record in the Congress' archives?

Bernie :Cheech" Sanders is not a Communist, his is a Socialist and Hillary the "President Select" is as she stated "a Progressive Democrat or PDA" . Like our little ray of doom and gloom.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Progressive_Democrats_of_America

That is some pretty good  work and documentation.  The last link to the PDA answers a lot of question about todays politics,  Thank you.  Keith

[41chevy]

6 hours ago, Keith Pommerening said:

That is some pretty good  work and documentation.  The last link to the PDA answers a lot of question about todays politics,  Thank you.  Keith

But hamstergrrl says it's false and old fake news and the country isn't like that..Just another blunder by me.

[Freightrain]

I had to laugh this morning, the whole leaving the clean air agreement crap was getting covered by Matt Lauer on the Today show.   Matt was drilling this Director of Commerce guy just trying to make it into a great tragedy that we bowed out.   The guy simply stated: "You make it sound like it is just because Obama started it, that makes it right"?  Matt didn't know what to say.  They just wanted to make it so that everything thinks Trump is wrong.  I'm so tired of the crap.

[HeavyGunner]

On 6/2/2017 at 8:50 PM, Freightrain said:

I had to laugh this morning, the whole leaving the clean air agreement crap was getting covered by Matt Lauer on the Today show.   Matt was drilling this Director of Commerce guy just trying to make it into a great tragedy that we bowed out.   The guy simply stated: "You make it sound like it is just because Obama started it, that makes it right"?  Matt didn't know what to say.  They just wanted to make it so that everything thinks Trump is wrong.  I'm so tired of the crap.

I'm tired of this crap too. I've been saying for years that all his global warming is a crock of sh*t. Remember in the 70's and 80's it was global cooling? Then it was global warming and now it's climate change.  Hmmm wonder why every decade and a half or so the left changes their argument slash name of this global tragedy? Maybe it's because it's a load of sh*t that they profit off of the monetarily and through votes?  Remember Al Gore said we wouldn't have polar ice caps by 2015? Huh if you google Forbes online article about the satellites NASA put above both polar ice caps in 1979 you'll find that they are now bigger than ever before! Now enough of this common sense. Let's keep letting china and other countries produce everything to us with slave labor while polluting to high hell and say we're saving the earth. 

[ranchhopper]

There is big money in the so called global warming look at that POS Gore he made a fortune spewing that crap. Its sickening all the Hollywood celebutards telling the little people (us) we have to burn less fossil fuels as their hypocritical ass makes its way up the stairway into their private jet to fly them to the Bahamas to soothe their hurt feelings.

 

[kscarbel2]

 

[Dirtymilkman]

"Climate change" is inevitable. No matter what the climate will change. Always have. Always will. Is it China's fault the ice age ended?  Is it America's fault the dinosaurs went extinct? Not at all. Yes we may have been accelerating climate change, but we can't control it. 

I also don't understand why they say the sea level will rise? If you take a glass and fill it with ice and water, what happens when the ice melts? The glass sure doesn't run over. I believe I remember learning the polar caps are nothing but ice, so they're already in the glass of water. 

[Freightrain]

Only if you could stack enough ice above the top of the glass could it overflow.  I don't know who much ice is above the current water line of the continents but I doubt enough to flood everything.

[Underdog]

3 hours ago, Freightrain said:

Only if you could stack enough ice above the top of the glass could it overflow.  I don't know who much ice is above the current water line of the continents but I doubt enough to flood everything.

Most of an iceberg is under the surface already.

[Freightrain]

Correct.   But just for arguments sake, "IF" there was enough volume of ice above the surface, that it "could" actually raise the level.  But, like I said, I highly doubt that.

The whole scenario with a glass of water hinges on the fact that the ice does not fit well, with all the voids around the cube helps the glass from overflowing when melted.  But, if you could stack it high enough over the rim that it could actually overflow when melted.

[DailyDiesel]

To answer the rise in sea level questions here are some explanations from National Geographic, I assume they are still a trusted source of information.

Quote

• Thermal Expansion: When water heats up, it expands. About half of the past century's rise in sea level is attributable to warmer oceans simply occupying more space.
• Melting Glaciers and Polar Ice Caps: Large ice formations, like glaciers and the polar ice caps, naturally melt back a bit each summer. In the winter, snows, primarily from evaporated seawater, are generally sufficient to balance out the melting. Recently, though, persistently higher temperatures caused by global warming have led to greater-than-average summer melting as well as diminished snowfall due to later winters and earlier springs. This imbalance results in a significant net gain in the ratio of runoff to ocean evaporation, causing sea levels to rise.
• Ice Loss from Greenland and West Antarctica: As with the glaciers and ice caps, increased heat is causing the massive ice sheets that cover Greenland and Antarctica to melt at an accelerated pace. Scientists also believe meltwater from above and seawater from below is seeping beneath Greenland's and West Antarctica's ice sheets, effectively lubricating ice streams and causing them to move more quickly into the sea. Higher sea temperatures are causing the massive ice shelves that extend out from Antarctica to melt from below, weaken, and break off.

Now we can argue for days about why temps are rising, or why oceans levels are rising but facts are facts. If anything, we better learn how to deal with the consequences.

[Underdog]

10 hours ago, Freightrain said:

Correct.   But just for arguments sake, "IF" there was enough volume of ice above the surface, that it "could" actually raise the level.  But, like I said, I highly doubt that.
The whole scenario with a glass of water hinges on the fact that the ice does not fit well, with all the voids around the cube helps the glass from overflowing when melted.  But, if you could stack it high enough over the rim that it could actually overflow when melted.

I learned in grade school science that water is an odd compound, in that it is in its most dense as a liquid. Ice has a lot of airspace that disappears when it melts. Water takes up less space than ice.

[Freightrain]

True.

[kscarbel2]

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[kscarbel2]

 

[Keith Pommerening]

This must be one of teammmstergirl's crediable sources.  When listening to PBS one must remember they are a welfare, tax payer supported branch of the progressive democrat party and they know who butters their bread.  A little payback is always in their offerings.

[kscarbel2]

5 hours ago, Keith Pommerening said:

This must be one of teammmstergirl's crediable [credible] sources.  When listening to PBS one must remember they are a welfare, tax payer supported branch of the progressive democrat party and they know who butters their bread.  A little payback is always in their offerings.

Keith, recently relating to news events, I've limited myself almost entirely to posting news video from PBS* (Public Broadcasting Service) videos, because, to paraphrase DailyDiesel, I assumed they were still generally considered to be a trusted source of information.

I myself still consider them to be reputable among news sources (my gut feeling.......I have no way to confirm. I'm always open to being wrong.)

I don't understand why you take my post and attack another BMT member. Over my post, I'd rather you belittle me.

* http://www.pbs.org/

[TeamsterGrrrl]

Some of the left as well as the right doesn't trust public broadcasters, being as they're largely funded by big corporations. Given that the right doesn't trust public broadcasters either, that suggests that public broadcasters are relatively unbiased.

[TeamsterGrrrl]

8 hours ago, Keith Pommerening said:

This must be one of teammmstergirl's crediable sources.  When listening to PBS one must remember they are a welfare, tax payer supported branch of the progressive democrat party and they know who butters their bread.  A little payback is always in their offerings.

Nice amateurish attempt at character assassination. Being as you live in western Minnesota, we probably share a congressman, Colin Peterson. Colin supported Bernie as well as LGBT and native rights and labor, yet he's pro-life and an NRA endorsed 2nd amendment supporter. For most of the above reasons I strongly support Colin, but the progressive democrats don't always support Colin. Thus I spend as much time arguing for 2nd amendment rights and against EPA excesses with democrats from the cities as I do arguing against the "return to the 19th century" conservatives here. So your attempt at labeling fails, badly. 

[Keith Pommerening]

I don't trust PBS any more then the rest of the rating seekers-the truth is not their main function.  The agenda shines through as they follow the herd.  About the only time they are worth watching is when they another of their excessive funding drives, other wise is just more attempts to channel discussions to bolster their opinion.  They pick what the want to cover, they go to the people who will tell them what they want to hear, they ignore the news that really NEEDS to be covered....

I don't know of a consistently reputable news source.  Even Fox news is slipping as the offspring continue to liberalize and bastardize a one time better source.  I would suggest you don't hang your hat on musings of PBS.  I do agree with your "gut feeling" and PBS news, the end product of your gut and their news coverage is similar.

As far as Teammmstergirl goes..  I don't think she needs your help to defend herself, she has proven herself more then capable.  We have some history on credible sources.  There is nothing wrong with a little friendly bantering among us poster.  "Attack" is a little over the top--lighten up.

Thanks,  Keith

[TeamsterGrrrl]

Keith, PBS and most public broadcasters don't care about ratings- Their funding tends to be long term, while commercial broadcasters will kill a show within days of a sponsor pulling their ads. As for pledge week, I know some of the folks who keep Pioneer Public TV on the air- They're a low budget operation that relies on us small donors to survive. You probably get Prairie or Lakeland Public TV, they're very similar low budget operations.

As for my politics, I just weighed in on a facebook debate between some republican and democratic legislators over the 10 year old Ford pickup a republican just bought. I took to task a democratic legislator who told the republican he should have bought a new hybrid or electric car instead... And I'm a "progressive" "leftie" "democrat"?

[kscarbel2]

 

[kscarbel2]

 

[kscarbel2]

Paul Manafort: how decades of serving dictators led to role as Trump's go-to guy

The Guardian  /  October 30, 2017

A multimillion-dollar spending spree, allegedly using funds from the former Soviet bloc, appears to have caught up with Trump’s one-time campaign chief

A home improvement company in the Hamptons, New York, is on the list for more than $5m. An antique rug store in Alexandria, Virginia, is down for almost $1m. A men’s clothing store in New York: $849,215. A clothing store in Beverly Hills, California: $520,440. A contractor in Florida: $432,487.

An indictment unsealed on Monday morning lists dozens of alleged payments by Paul Manafort, Donald Trump’s former campaign chairman, to stores and businesses since 2008. In nearly all the transactions, cash flowed from accounts in tax havens such as Cyprus and St Vincent and the Grenadines.

For years, the transglobal torrent of money drenched luxury retail outlets and real estate offices from New York to California and back again, the indictment says. Art galleries, landscapers, car dealerships – none of the retailers seem to have checked very carefully where the cash came from.

Amid the shopping sprees, Manafort himself returned frequently to the alleged sources of his fortune in the former Soviet bloc. The consultant-for-hire had set up shop at 4 Sophia Street in Kiev back in 2005, as Ukraine struggled through waves of election, revolution and reverses.

There, Manafort found high demand for his skills as a former Washington lobbyist for some of the world’s most notorious despots – Zaire’s Mobutu Sese Seko, the Philippines’ Ferdinand Marcos and Angolan rebel Jonas Savimbi among them. Soon, his sphere of operation came to include members of the Russian oligarchy.

But none of those clients was as significant as the one waiting in his future: Donald Trump. For five months in the spring of 2016, as Trump scrambled to lock down a resistant Republican party, Manafort stepped in as campaign chairman, offering all the street smarts that 40 years of selling advice out of a briefcase had taught him.

Manafort’s partnership with Trump appears to have ended for good on Monday, when Manafort surrendered at FBI headquarters, without a word from the president in his defense. Along with a former business partner, Rick Gates, Manafort faces federal charges including conspiracy, money laundering and tax evasion.

None of the cash that helped Manafort “enjoy a lavish lifestyle” had made a stop at the Internal Revenue Service, prosecutors claim.

It seems a dazzling fall for a man who just one year ago was on the verge of celebrating one of the greatest political upsets of all time, the election of Donald Trump as president of the United States. Manafort might have hoped the victory would deliver him from legal peril – and it could yet, given the president’s powers to grant pardon.

But the conversion of a campaign chairman to potential felon represents a criminal crisis of historic dimensions for US politics, and the culmination of a presidential campaign story that seems out of place for American democracy – even as it seems of a perfect piece with the nominee.

Manafort, 68, began his career in politics in 1976, working as a field lieutenant on the floor of the Republican national convention to stave off an attack on the incumbent president, Gerald Ford, by an upstart called Ronald Reagan.

Four years later, Manafort was working for Reagan, and directly after his 1980 victory, Manafort opened a lobbying firm with the future Trump adviser Roger Stone, Charles Black and, later, Peter Kelly. The firm came to specialize in cultivating favors in Washington on behalf of foreign clients with difficult images.

“Black, Manafort, Stone and Kelly lined up most of the dictators in the world that we could find,” Stone said in a podcast last year. “Pro-western dictators, of course. Dictators are in the eye of the beholder.”

A 1992 Center for Public Integrity report placed the firm atop its rankings of a group it called “the Torturer’s Lobby”. Manafort, who has denied all wrongdoing, has said that his consulting work helped to achieve victories for democracy in otherwise out-of-reach places.

Trump liked Manafort’s sales pitch. In February 2016, the real estate tycoon had already won three stunning victories in state primary contests, but the campaign feared the Republican party would find a way to rob Trump of victory at the last minute, at the national party convention.

Given the comparative placidity of recent presidential contests, almost no one had relevant experience of herding delegates in a convention setting, with one notable exception: Manafort.

Manafort’s CV was a perfect fit for Trump. But for a candidate who prized personal loyalty above all else, even more important was Manafort’s status as a downstairs neighbor. In 2006, Manafort had spent $3.7m on an apartment in Trump Tower in Manhattan.

Trump hired Manafort, who quickly rose to the level of campaign chairman. Trump secured the presidential nomination. And then, with a reality TV showman palpably close to the presidency, everything came under a microscope as it never had before.

Manafort did not last long under the scrutiny. It emerged that a handwritten ledger recovered from the home of the former Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovych listed $12.7m in payments to Manafort’s company. As questions mounted about Manafort’s undisclosed work for Kremlin-linked political interests, he was forced to step down from the campaign, just one month after the convention euphoria.

Under pressure from investigators, Manafort registered as a foreign agent in June 2017 – but by then it was too late. Reports had emerged that special counsel Robert Mueller was scrutinizing Manafort on suspicion of money laundering. A month later, FBI agents stormed Manafort’s home in a pre-dawn raid, seizing computers and documents.

At the time, Trump spoke in Manafort’s defense.

“I’ve always found Paul Manafort to be a very decent man,” Trump said at the time. “He’s like a lot of other people, probably makes consultant fees from all over the place, who knows, I don’t know.

“But I thought it was pretty tough stuff.”

[kscarbel2]

The United States is the only country in the world that taxes the “foreign-earned” income of its citizens.

If you’re a UK citizen working in France, you naturally pay taxes on your salary to the French government. However you pay nothing to the UK. Why would you?

Based on what we’re being told, Manafort received payments overseas working as a consultant. That’s not a crime.

Manafort apparently didn’t like the idea of paying taxes twice on his foreign-earned income, once to the foreign country where the money was earned, and again to the US. I can appreciate that.

He put his foreign-earned income in tax havens such as Cyprus, St Vincent and the Grenadines. He has no right to place his foreign-earned income where he wants?

For the record, generally speaking, I dislike consultants and politicians (because it means they’re a cheat and a liar. And when they’re not kissing babies, they’re stealing their lollipops).