Fogbow

So all his promises for infrastructure were bullshit, too?
Say it ain't so!

https://www.washingtonpost.com/national ... story.html

President Donald Trump called his acting attorney general nearly every day at the end of last year to alert him to claims of voter fraud or alleged improper vote counts in the 2020 election, according to two people familiar with the conversations.

The personal pressure campaign, which has not been previously reported, involved repeated phone calls to acting attorney general Jeffrey Rosen in which Trump raised various allegations he had heard about and asked what the Justice Department was doing about the issue. The people familiar with the conversations spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive legal and political issues that are not yet public.

Rosen told few people about the phone calls, even in his inner circle. But there are notes of some of the calls that were written by a top aide to Rosen, Richard Donoghue, who was present for some of the conversations, these people said.

sugar magnolia wrote: ↑Wed Jul 28, 2021 8:37 pm So all his promises for infrastructure were bullshit, too?
Say it ain't so!

Good thing you southern belles all have those big fans.

raison de arizona wrote: ↑Wed Jul 28, 2021 8:33 pm

Statement by Donald J. Trump, 45th President of the United States of America
07/28/21

Hard to believe our Senate Republicans are dealing with the Radical Left Democrats in making a so-called bipartisan bill on “infrastructure,” with our negotiators headed up by SUPER RINO Mitt Romney. This will be a victory for the Biden Administration and Democrats, and will be heavily used in the 2022 election. It is a loser for the USA, a terrible deal, and makes the Republicans look weak, foolish, and dumb. It shouldn’t be done. It sets an easy glidepath for Dems to then get beyond what anyone thought was possible in future legislation. It will be a continued destruction of our Country. Our Borders are horrible, crime is at an all time high, taxes and inflation are going way up, the economy is going way down, and now this. Don’t do it Republicans—Patriots will never forget! If this deal happens, lots of primaries will be coming your way!

Here's the list, tough guy:
Blunt
Burr
Capito
Cassidy
Collins
Cramer
Crapo
Graham
Grassley
Hoeven
McConnell
Murkowski
Portman
Risch
Romney
Tillis
Young

Not a damn word about 'good for the country" because, if its not good for him, who cares?

I also missed the part where taxes have been raised one damn dime. The closest we came to that was a provision to try to catch billionaires cheating on their income tax and Republicans "noped" that. The inflation is driven by two thins, energy price increases because the reopening of the economy is expanding demand faster than supply, I'm positive that in one of the classes I took getting a doctorate in economics there was a rule about supply, demand and price. The other thing driving inflation is rising housing prices, and that sucks for poor people whom he gives zero phucks about, but is good for rich white people whose home equity is going up.

I'm in a very mean mood tonight.

Gregg wrote: ↑Wed Jul 28, 2021 10:55 pmThe inflation is driven by two thins, energy price increases because the reopening of the economy is expanding demand faster than supply.

I remember one episode of "The West Wing' in which WH Press Secretary C. J. Craig, played by Allison Janney, was asked about inflation. Her reply was that the Bartlett administration was more than happy to take credit for a booming economy. (Every time I hear Jen Psaki speak, it think she is channeling C.J.)

That's kind of what is happening now. My wife was complaining about gas prices going up recently, here in northern Ohio. They're hovering around $3 per gallon. Last summer, the price was more like $2.25, maybe a little less. We just had the July 4th weekend, when a lot of people travel. Travel in general is up. Gas prices always go up in the summer. Its all happening because the economy is coming back. People are going out more and driving more.

I think a contributing factor is that the oil companies are still having trouble finding enough truck drivers who are certified to haul gasoline, so they are having trouble supplying the stations. This is, in part, a holdover from the pandemic when drivers were laid off.

noblepa wrote: ↑Wed Jul 28, 2021 11:46 pm

Gregg wrote: ↑Wed Jul 28, 2021 10:55 pmThe inflation is driven by two thins, energy price increases because the reopening of the economy is expanding demand faster than supply.

I remember one episode of "The West Wing' in which WH Press Secretary C. J. Craig, played by Allison Janney, was asked about inflation. Her reply was that the Bartlett administration was more than happy to take credit for a booming economy. (Every time I hear Jen Psaki speak, it think she is channeling C.J.)

That's kind of what is happening now. My wife was complaining about gas prices going up recently, here in northern Ohio. They're hovering around $3 per gallon. Last summer, the price was more like $2.25, maybe a little less. We just had the July 4th weekend, when a lot of people travel. Travel in general is up. Gas prices always go up in the summer. Its all happening because the economy is coming back. People are going out more and driving more.

I think a contributing factor is that the oil companies are still having trouble finding enough truck drivers who are certified to haul gasoline, so they are having trouble supplying the stations. This is, in part, a holdover from the pandemic when drivers were laid off.

oil prices have been up too

Gregg wrote: ↑Wed Jul 28, 2021 10:55 pmThe inflation is driven by two thins, energy price increases because the reopening of the economy is expanding demand faster than supply.

I am guessing we are also seeing the effects of the asymmetric inflation we previously saw in the investment space from all that stimulus starting to spread out a bit more and become general inflation.

Between the non-trump endorsed candidate winning in TX and the bipartisan vote to proceed with infrastructure, I'm wondering what internal polling looks like.

keith wrote: ↑Thu Jul 29, 2021 6:15 am

noblepa wrote: ↑Wed Jul 28, 2021 11:46 pm

Gregg wrote: ↑Wed Jul 28, 2021 10:55 pmThe inflation is driven by two thins, energy price increases because the reopening of the economy is expanding demand faster than supply.

I remember one episode of "The West Wing' in which WH Press Secretary C. J. Craig, played by Allison Janney, was asked about inflation. Her reply was that the Bartlett administration was more than happy to take credit for a booming economy. (Every time I hear Jen Psaki speak, it think she is channeling C.J.)

That's kind of what is happening now. My wife was complaining about gas prices going up recently, here in northern Ohio. They're hovering around $3 per gallon. Last summer, the price was more like $2.25, maybe a little less. We just had the July 4th weekend, when a lot of people travel. Travel in general is up. Gas prices always go up in the summer. Its all happening because the economy is coming back. People are going out more and driving more.

I think a contributing factor is that the oil companies are still having trouble finding enough truck drivers who are certified to haul gasoline, so they are having trouble supplying the stations. This is, in part, a holdover from the pandemic when drivers were laid off.

oil prices have been up too

But, again, that is due in large part to increased demand, which is, in turn due to reopening economies.

Gas and oil prices are greatly influenced by a very small group of traders on Wall Street, or at least that was true 10 years ago, and I can't think much has changed since then, other than for the worse. See, e.g., https://www.peri.umass.edu/fileadmin/pd ... June20.pdf

I don't really think that high energy costs are a bad thing, and further, if I ruled the world with an iron fist, water would be pretty damn expensive beyond a daily allocation of 5 gallons per person give or take.

Using half of lake mead to grow produce in a desert in California is not a good use of the resource. I could go on for a few hours on water but I won't. Just suffice to say, higher energy prices lead to less pollution and more research into renewable energy, which long term is a good thing.

True dat.

If we look at the US inflation rate over the last 100 years, some trends show up.

If you look at the beginning, you see a post-WWI/Spanish Flu spike. There is a later spike when things started turning during the Depression. The super big spike I believe is post-WWII and represents the time when people were ready to start buying but business was still madly trying to revert back to consumer goods along with attempting to bring returning vets back into the companies.

Skipping over the post-1970s fun, we see another spike after the Great Recession (not nearly as big as the early ones) and now the spike after businesses are trying to catch up as people are out and about more.

Oh yeah, and in the north, gas goes up around Memorial Day every year as vacationers head out and the stations change to a summer blend. A jump in inflation/prices now is not unusual and is actually, expected. The right, however, will always blame it on a Democrat even if Biden has not been in office long enough to influence any economy (and I have doubts how much a President can influence it anyway).

This does not mean that Wall Street will not try to capitalize on this and push it higher. That's how they roll.

Did Trump follow his pledge to donate the last 6 months of his presidential pay? It’s a mystery.

Donald Trump promised to give away his $400,000 presidential salary. And he kept that promise, publicly announcing each gift — at least, for his first three and a half years in office.

Then, in the middle of last year, the announcements stopped.

Trump’s White House never said where — or even if — he donated the last $220,000 of his salary, covering the final six months of 2020 and the first 20 days of 2021.

Now, six months after he left office, it’s not clear where Trump donated that remaining salary — or if he donated it at all.
Trump had given all his previous donations to federal agencies, paying out $100,000 every quarter. But The Washington Post surveyed all major federal agencies, and none has reported receiving anything from Trump after a gift in July 2020.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics ... story.html

There's a big surprise

MsDaisy wrote: ↑Fri Jul 30, 2021 9:27 am Did Trump follow his pledge to donate the last 6 months of his presidential pay? It’s a mystery.

Donald Trump promised to give away his $400,000 presidential salary. And he kept that promise, publicly announcing each gift — at least, for his first three and a half years in office.

Then, in the middle of last year, the announcements stopped.

Trump’s White House never said where — or even if — he donated the last $220,000 of his salary, covering the final six months of 2020 and the first 20 days of 2021.

Now, six months after he left office, it’s not clear where Trump donated that remaining salary — or if he donated it at all.
Trump had given all his previous donations to federal agencies, paying out $100,000 every quarter. But The Washington Post surveyed all major federal agencies, and none has reported receiving anything from Trump after a gift in July 2020.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics ... story.html

There's a big surprise

The surprise is that he donated for those seven halves.

Nah… it was for the propaganda value.

$100K seems like real money to his base, but to him? Pfft. He pays more than that for a coffee table.

roadscholar wrote: ↑Fri Jul 30, 2021 9:57 am Nah… it was for the propaganda value.

$100K seems like real money to his base, but to him? Pfft. He pays more than that for a coffee table.

Slight correction. The builder and seller pay more than that for the coffee table. He pays nothing,

He made more than that charging the gov't for hotel rooms. Once that option was off the table after the election, no need to do it any more.

just saw this.

POLITICS
Trump tax returns must be released by IRS to Congress, DOJ says

https://www.cnbc.com/2021/07/30/trump-t ... r=sharebar

Haven't read it yet.

KEY POINTS

*The income tax returns of former President Donald Trump must be released by the IRS to Congress, the Department of Justice said.

*The DOJ’s Office of Legal Counsel said that Congress had made a legitimate request to see Trump’s tax returns.

*The decision a year after the Supreme Court said that Trump’s tax returns and other financial records had to be turned over by his longtime accountants to Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr., because of a subpoena issued as part of Vance’s criminal probe of the Trump Organization

I texted a coworker BOOM! after CNN mentioned that news. She'd been out walking and not listening to news and called me back within seconds. We're like

I am less thrilled about this than I am about the release of the DOJ notes. The release of the tax returns to Ways and Means does not equate to making them public. It just means Ways and Means can get their hands on them presumably to figure out how to write better tax laws or audit procedures. A leak from the Dems would not be good.

filly wrote: ↑Fri Jul 30, 2021 2:22 pmIt just means Ways and Means can get their hands on them presumably to figure out how to write better tax laws or audit procedures.

A criminal referral is possible. (And, as always, a referral is a request, not a command.)

bob wrote: ↑Fri Jul 30, 2021 2:37 pm

filly wrote: ↑Fri Jul 30, 2021 2:22 pmIt just means Ways and Means can get their hands on them presumably to figure out how to write better tax laws or audit procedures.

A criminal referral is possible. (And, as always, a referral is a request, not a command.)

True. I wonder if the Manhattan DA has any ideas?

zekeb wrote: ↑Fri Jul 30, 2021 9:32 am

MsDaisy wrote: ↑Fri Jul 30, 2021 9:27 am Did Trump follow his pledge to donate the last 6 months of his presidential pay? It’s a mystery.

Donald Trump promised to give away his $400,000 presidential salary. And he kept that promise, publicly announcing each gift — at least, for his first three and a half years in office.

Then, in the middle of last year, the announcements stopped.

Trump’s White House never said where — or even if — he donated the last $220,000 of his salary, covering the final six months of 2020 and the first 20 days of 2021.

Now, six months after he left office, it’s not clear where Trump donated that remaining salary — or if he donated it at all.
Trump had given all his previous donations to federal agencies, paying out $100,000 every quarter. But The Washington Post surveyed all major federal agencies, and none has reported receiving anything from Trump after a gift in July 2020.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics ... story.html

There's a big surprise

The surprise is that he donated for those seven halves.

The surprise is that nobody has asked what really happened to those 'donations' since those 'Federal Agencies' are prohibited by law from receiving private donations.