More winning, I for one am getting sick of it now

[jimboky]

the falling rate of unemployment has increased under Trump, Obama never saw over 2% growth, now at over 3, even with the Hurricanes
Under Obama the main cause for the growth was Fracking, and that only because Obama couldn't stop it

[voice]

its still essentially Obamas economy though, you said that yourself not so long ago (when it was bad news it must be noted) as Trump hasn't done anything much to change the economy (having got no legislation of note passed), so well done to Obama for handing over a robust enough system even Trump couldn't feck things up

[flatandy]

But I will say this, my 20% of positive Trump news - Trump has managed to not f**k it up, so well done on this one, Donald.

He even might be appointing the least bad new Chair of the Fed on his shortlist. There's never been a good reason to get rid of Janet Yellen - and traditionally Fed Chairs stay in the job - but given that he was going to do that one stupid thing, he's managed to do it about as well as he could,

[voice]

Well done sh!t head

US Army soldier Bowe Bergdahl will be spared prison time after deserting his Afghan outpost in 2009, a judge has ruled.
Under the sentence in his court martial, the 31-year-old sergeant will be dishonourably discharged, reduced to private in rank and lose pay.
Mr Trump has repeatedly denounced Bergdahl as "a traitor" and criticised the Obama-era prison exchange.
The judge, Army Col Jeffery R Nance, considered the president's remarks as a mitigating factor in sentencing Bergdahl, whose lawyers argued he could not receive a fair trial because of the comments.

www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-41860828

[jimboky]

Hiring Rebounded in October, Unemployment Rate Fell to 4.1%
The U.S. jobless rate fell to a 17-year low in October and employers hired at a strong pace, showing the labor market bounced back from recent hurricanes.

www.wsj.com/articles/hiring-rebounds-in-october-unemployment-rate-falls-to-4-1-1509712307

[voice]

Still Obama's economy as you reminded us last month Jim, though Trump not totally f**k**g things up by being ineffectual and achieving nothing has certainly helped

[voice]

woops, corrupt and illegal, another great day for the orange snowflake.

A top member of Donald Trump's administration has business links with Russian allies of President Vladimir Putin who are under US sanctions, the Paradise Papers have revealed.

Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross has an interest in Navigator Holdings, which earns millions a year transporting oil and gas for Russian energy firm Sibur.

Two major Sibur shareholders are under some form of US sanctions.

A commerce department spokesman did not dispute the revelations.

www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-41876939

still he does work for the Trump crime family and we're getting used to the idea this current administration is very much a kleptocracy

[voice]

He's such a needy little cnut though isn't he, what a manbaby.

Trump wants thanks from UCLA 'shoplifters' freed by China

www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-42002009

[Marshall]

Trump's nominee for federal District Judge:

Never tried a case in his life
Unanimously deemed “not qualified” by the American Bar Association
His wife is a WH lawyer who just happens to be a witness in Trump's obstruction investigation.

"All the best people."

[voice]

another massive win today, not sure I can get much sicker with all this winning, but I suspect I will

US Judge permanently blocks Trump's sanctuary city order

A US judge has permanently blocked a presidential order that would have cut funding from US cities refusing to co-operate with immigration officials.
The California judge, who temporarily blocked the order in April, ruled that it was a violation of constitutional rights and separation of powers.
The decision was in response to a lawsuit filed by city of San Francisco and Santa Clara County.
It is considered a blow to Mr Trump's crackdown on illegal immigration.
US District Judge William Orrick said on Monday the executive order was "unconstitutional on its face".
"The Constitution vests the spending powers in Congress, not the President, so the Executive Order cannot constitutionally place new conditions on federal funds," he wrote.


www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-42060108

[Woolf]

Nov 21, 2017 20:01:53 GMT voice said:

another massive win today, not sure I can get much sicker with all this winning, but I suspect I will

US Judge permanently blocks Trump's sanctuary city order

A US judge has permanently blocked a presidential order that would have cut funding from US cities refusing to co-operate with immigration officials.
The California judge, who temporarily blocked the order in April, ruled that it was a violation of constitutional rights and separation of powers.
The decision was in response to a lawsuit filed by city of San Francisco and Santa Clara County.
It is considered a blow to Mr Trump's crackdown on illegal immigration.
US District Judge William Orrick said on Monday the executive order was "unconstitutional on its face".
"The Constitution vests the spending powers in Congress, not the President, so the Executive Order cannot constitutionally place new conditions on federal funds," he wrote.


www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-42060108

Get ready for a 3am, cocaine fuelled, Twitter rant from the man baby.

About the only good thing you can say about Trumplethinskin, is that he is so useless, he has been unable to pass any legislation.
Which given the quality of "all the best" people he has appointed, is something to be thankful for.

[jimboky]

I suspect this judge will be overturned,
presidents don't pass legislation, they can only propose it, and then if it makes it through congress sign it. it is true that the Republican Senate has had problems passing legislation that they ran on while campaigning, I don't think Trump saw that coming, not sure if they can manage to pass a tax cut, and they call themselves Republicans,,, ;(

[Marshall]

I know - can't manage to pass a tax cut for the rich at the expense of the middle class and they call themselves Republicans. Shameful!

[voice]

the Kock Brothers are expecting him to deliver on their investment

[voice]

in other Trump news

On Tuesday afternoon, Donald Trump took part, for the first time, in what is perhaps the dumbest annual tradition of the American presidency: the formal pre-Thanksgiving pardon of a pair of giant, ugly, bewildered-looking turkeys in the White House Rose Garden. Following in the footsteps of Tater and Tot, the lucky birds spared last year by President Obama, Drumstick and Wishbone will now peacefully live out their remaining days at an agricultural science facility on the Virginia Tech University campus called "Gobbler’s Rest," a name that, incredibly, I did not just make up.
Previously, the turkey pardon has been known more for horrible Thanksgiving-themed Dad Jokes than for references to partisan politics. However, because the only coherent item on this president's policy agenda, even after a year in office, remains "Figure out what President Obama did and then do the opposite," Donald Trump couldn't even make it through a goofy National Turkey Federation photo op without making reference to his muse.

www.gq.com/story/donald-trump-turkey-pardon

He does the best pardons. No one knows Turkeys as well as Trump. In fact many people from Turkey are his best friends. They love him. He has the greatest Turkeys waiting to be pardoned, which he is the best at, by the way folks. He is the greatest pardoner of Turkeys, president, ever. Fact. There were more Turkeys at his inauguration than there were people in the world. Period. He’ll pardon so many Turkeys that you’ll get sick of not being able to eat them.

[voice]

Looks like Rex is heading for the door, and the game of WH musical chairs continues, though given he's been trying and failing to get Sessions to resign for ages it makes you wonder if can get it together enough to give Rex the old heave ho.

www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-42187070

The White House is discussing plans to replace Secretary of State Rex Tillerson with CIA chief Mike Pompeo, US media say.
Mr Tillerson has been at odds with Mr Trump over foreign policy recently.
The secretary of state was even reported to have privately described the president as a "f**k**g moron".

[flatandy]

Tillerson has been quite astonishingly inept at State. He's not been actively malicious like Sessions. He's just been amazingly, staggeringly useless. His achievements appear to involve trying to turn diplomacy into a lean outsourced business model, meaning that all the diplomats have left their jobs or just sat at their desks doing nothing.

Pompeo moving to State would - of course - be terrible, given that his entire raison d'etre is that he hates Muslims, so we really might end up at war with Iran. But he might at least have some drive, and be able to maintain the structures of the diplomatic service.

(One interesting consequence of all this is the possibility of Cotton going to CIA to replace Pompeo, opening up another possible seat in the Senate in 2018 - Arkansas's not a strong pick-up chance for the Democrats, but Cotton's predecessor was a Democrat, and the previous governor was Democrat, so there is an outside chance which means that it's at least another seat that has the Republicans on the defensive - given that they were only defending 9 seats or something in 2018, it would provide a tiny bit of relief for Democrats defending in places like Indiana and West Virginia and Missouri and North Dakota).

[voice]

Rex, like most of the Trump admin is indeed incredibly inept, but what do you expect from a bloke who was an oil company CEO and close with Putin and like most of the admin had zero experience in diplomacy or public service and little understanding. Not that he's quite as useless as Carson, but he's certainly up there. The best you can say is at least he's not done anything too harmful.

[flatandy]

Looks like they've managed to screw up passing their disastrous tax bill for the time being. The bill was already utterly terrible - basically an attempt to repeat the utterly failed tax cuts in Kansas which basically provided no growth but left the state broke and with ever worse education programs meaning it will be even more broke in the future.

And planning on doing this by cutting taxes to people, a tiny bit, for 5 years; but cutting taxes to businesses forever. Because obviously Walmart's shareholders need more money than the general public do.

Anyway, this was going to cost $1.5tn over 10 years. A lot of us aren't really that bothered by deficit spending, but it's odd to see Republicans who shat their pants about the debt for 8 years under Obama completely relaxed about adding a 13 digit sum to the debt.

Anyhoo - a couple of Republicans actually did care enough, and they said that if the tax cuts didn't create the magical massive growth that the Randian supply-side laffer-curve morons said it would, then they'd need some safeguard.

To do this they put something called a "trigger" in, that would automatically trigger tax rises if they didn't get the "predicted" growth.

This, hilariously, is an even worse idea than the rest of the Republican tax bill, because basically it would increase taxes and cut investment if the US ever started to slow down. It's like anti-Keynesianism. Killing the economy at exactly the worst time.

Anyway, the Republicans were fine to include this moronic idea. But it turns out that it wasn't legal - it's actual policy making rather than just sorting out spending, which means it couldn't be done under a 50-vote reconciliation.

Now they've all had to go back to their offices to re-write the bill.

(Remember, this is only phase 2 of, I think 6, in passing the bill - First we get a House bill. Then we get a Senate counter-bill. Then the two go to "conference" where senators and representatives try and find a balance between the two. Then House and Senate both need to vote on the final product. I have no doubt that we'll get something, eventually, but it's going to be very painful for some Republicans).

[voice]

It also looks like slippery Steve at treasury has massively fcuked this up by basickly lying about 100 people in treasury working round the clock to score the Koch relief bill, turns out it was simply not true, now an inquiry has been set up to look into this and find out what happened to any treasury figures.