Day: February 7, 2020

Closing Thought–07Feb20

All the events that have occurred in 2019…..nuke expansion from North Korea…..to the Iranian mash-up with the US…..to the walking away from the very treaty that limits nuclear weapons…..so much in geopolitics points toward some unthinkable for Millennials….

In a poll taken 54% of them think a nulear war is coming in the next decade…..

A majority of the world’s millennials believe it’s more likely than not that a nuclear attack will occur in the next 10 years.

They’re not alone in their fear. The non-profit Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists recently moved its infamous Doomsday Clock to 100 seconds to midnight, signalling experts’ growing concern over Earth’s future.

The International Committee of the Red Cross surveyed 16,000 millennials between the ages of 20 and 35 in 16 countries.

“More than half of millennials — 54 percent — believe it is likely that a nuclear attack will occur in the next decade,” the Red Cross reported.

“The fear of a nuclear attack seems to be a trend,” Alex Ward noted at Vox. “The worldwide shudder is understandable. The chance of a nuclear conflict between the U.S. and North Korea isn’t entirely gone. India and Pakistan, two nuclear-armed enemies, could rekindle their decades-long squabble at any time. And the U.S. and Russia — the world’s foremost nuclear powers — have had warheads pointed at each other since the earliest days of the Cold War.”

https://nationalinterest.org/blog/buzz/54-percent-millennials-believe-nuclear-war-will-occur-next-decade-118406

The poll was taken internationally….and 54% of the world’s Millennials think that a nuke war is possible in the next decade.

I believe that we can blame the US for this fear……we have re-started the nukes race with the Russians.

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Dang Yang!

2020 Dem candidate Andrew Yang did not show well in Iowa and he is not the only one….but he the only one making a move to save expenses….it is a first move before bowing out….but for now Yang is still in the running….

The Iowa caucuses didn’t deliver the results Andrew Yang’s team had hoped for—as of Thursday afternoon, with 97% of precincts reporting, he’d earned 1% of the state’s delegates, per CNN—and now that team is apparently much smaller. Four ex-staffers tell Politico they’re among the dozens fired across the country, including senior-level workers like the national policy chief and the national political director. A campaign rep disputes the ranking of the latter two, claiming they weren’t senior level because they “were not good enough.” Yang’s campaign manager, meanwhile, paints the news as non-news. “This was the plan all along,” Zach Graumann tells Business Insider, adding in a later statement that as “part of our original plans following the Iowa caucuses, we are winding down our Iowa operations and restructuring to compete as the New Hampshire primary approaches.”

But the former staffers who talked to Politico say they didn’t expect a staffing overhaul to happen until after the New Hampshire primary next week, and that the firings were somewhat chaotic: Some say they simply didn’t get future assignments or found out they were fired only when their email and Slack accounts stopped working. The ex-workers who talked to Politico say they got at least one month’s worth of severance and still believe in Yang’s mission to get to the Oval Office, despite the circumstances of their firing and what they say was a disorganized culture with managers lacking political experience. “I, wholistically, had a fantastic experience,” one says. “Andrew, taking it this far and continuing as far as he can, is incredibly inspiring to me.” Another adds: “The organization was a mess, but it still managed to do incredible things while being an absolutely f—ing disaster.”

Yang still has his finger in the pie but he will need a good showing in the next debate and next week’s NH primary……if not then we may well see the back of Andrew Yang….

I Read, I Write, I Know

“lego ergo scribo”

I Thought Socialism Was Bad

The term “socialism” is seeing a rebirth…the Right is seeing that old bogey man from the past in everything…..

I guess it is not so bad until used by a conserv to lie about an opponent.

But first one of the tenets of socialism or so dipsticks would want you to believe is the nationalization of companies and put all under government control…..and yet a Trumpite thinks it is a good idea.

And Trump has been throwing around the “S” word liberally (no pun intended) in the past couple of months….after all there is an election coming and he needs a good bullshit story to spread…..

But his AG Barr and good friend and butt boy of Trump has suggested that the US take control of some foreign businesses…..

Barr suggests US govt take control of major foreign telecoms

In comments that appear far-afield of his normal law enforcement duties, Attorney General Bill Barr suggested in a speech on the “threat” of China that the US government should buy out control of Nokia Corporation and Telefonaktieboladget LM Ericsson (generally referred to as Ericsson) and use them to fight against China’s Huawei Technologies.

The Trump Administration has long viewed Huawei with hostility, and has been making the rounds internationally, threatening and cajoling other nations not to do business with Huawei on 5G infrastructure.

The problem is, Huawei is broadly the market leader in telecommunication infrastructure, and the preferred option for many in 5G transitions. US objections are generally not to Huawei’s competence, but rather to them being Chinese, leading the administration to claim they’re a spying risk.

Barr suggests that Nokia and Ericsson could compete better with Huawei if they had the financial might of the Federal government behind them. But they’d need to be American companies to do that, and Barr says they should be either outright state-controlled by the US, or held through a consortium of private US corporations that would make them quasi-state-controlled.

It’s not clear how this could be achieved. Nokia is a $23.8 billion corporation, and Ericsson is another $27.3 billion. As they are Finnish and Swedish, respectively, there is no obvious mechanism by which the United States could nationalize other nations’ major telecommunications companies

(antiwar.com)

Seriously?  Does anyone else see how moronic this idea really is?

Once again this show just how ignorant the toads are that work for this person in the White House truly are…..

Nationalization of foreign companies is one of the first steps to socialism…Iran in the 1950s, Fruit in Guatemala in the 1950s, Chile in the 1970s for examples….

Maybe some idiot in the White House should take this dolt aside and explain this move to him.

I thought he, Barr,  was an idiot and nothing but a yes man for Trump from the beginning of his lame ass mouth began talking…..now I know….

He is another mental midget in the seat of power.

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

DNC–The Idiocy Of Perez

The head of the DNC is a Clintonian slug and I have not thought he would do anything to help Dems get elected…..and in 2020 it has been proven in Iowa…..

Perez has weighed in on the caucuses in Iowa and the chaos it has given birth to……

The chairman of the Democratic National Committee called on Thursday for a “recanvass” of the results of Monday’s Iowa caucus, which was marred by technical problems and delays, per the AP. ”Enough is enough,” party leader Tom Perez wrote on Twitter. He said he was calling for the recanvass in order to “assure public confidence in the results.” With 97% of precincts reporting, Pete Buttigieg, a former mayor of South Bend, Indiana, and Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders are nearly tied. The Hill explains that a recanvass is different from a recount: It would require “a hand audit of caucus math worksheets and reporting forms to ensure they were properly tallied and reported.” Perez still wants results to be reported in the interim.

The caucus crisis is an embarrassing twist for state party officials after months of promoting Iowa as a chance for Democrats to find some clarity in a jumbled field. Instead, after a buildup that featured seven rounds of debates, nearly $1 billion spent nationwide, and a year of political jockeying, caucus day ended with no winner and no official results. At issue is an app that the Iowa Democratic Party used to tabulate the results of the contest. The app was rolled out shortly before caucusing began and did not go through rigorous testing. A coding error yielded problematic results Monday. And backup phone lines for reporting the outcomes were jammed, with many placed on hold for hours in order to report outcomes.

The chaos has petitions being passed around to Perez to step down….it may not be his fault directly but he is the head of the DNC so he has to fall on his sword for the good of the party.  But will he?

Calls for Tom Perez to step down as the head of the Democratic National Committee grew louder Tuesday in the aftermath of the Iowa caucus fiasco in which party mismanagement of the process delayed the results from Monday night’s contest and left the 2020 Democratic presidential primary in disarray.

“The Iowa caucus debacle is so insulting to the candidates, their volunteers, the caucus-goers, and the DNC’s own process,” tweeted HuffPost senior reporter Zach Carter. “Tom Perez has to resign.”

Multiple petitions on Change.org called on Perez to relinquish his position as chair of the DNC. One of the most popular ones had over 13,600 signatures at press time. #ResignTomPerez trended on Twitter overnight. 

https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/02/04/tomperezresign-dnc-chair-under-fire-iowa-disaster-favoritism-billionaire-oligarch

I agree Perez needs to go….I never thought he would do anything good for the party except keep the party glued to corporations…the same thing Clinton made “popular”…..

I read a letter by a self-identified as a centrist…asking Perez to do the right thing and step down…..

Dear DNC officials:

I come from a long line of Democrats. My grandparents survived the Great Depression because of FDR’s New Deal, and both of my parents were loyal Democrats as well. In my adult lifetime, I proudly registered as a Democrat at age 18, in the 1990s. Since then, I have become extremely disillusioned, watching the Democratic Party become more and more corporate-funded and corporate-aligned to the point where I do not recognize it anymore.

https://www.commondreams.org/views/2020/02/04/open-letter-dnc-american-centrist

Perez needs to go before the elections get into full swing…..but sadly we are saddled with him….and sadly he will lead Dems to defeat in November.

Learn Stuff!

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

That Trump Economy

It is just a matter of days before we start picking our Dem candidate for the 2020 election who will in turn meet Trump on the field of politics.

One of the few things that Trump can say for his presidency is that the economy is booming.

You see I do not buy that spin.

The markets are setting records which is great for investors but the average Joe may not be sharing in all this boom……. the stock market grew 31 percent in the 807 trading days before Trump’s election, but it grew by 56 percent in the 807 trading days after it, up through the third anniversary of Trump’s inauguration. 

But seriously folks…..

It should not surprise us in the least that the most dishonest president in U.S. history would spin a fantastical vision of the economy that appears to exist only in his imagination.

…

Indeed, Trump’s version of the U.S. economy is so outlandish that it would be laughable were he not president of the United States. “The United States is in the midst of an economic boom the likes of which the world has never seen before,” he said triumphantly Tuesday at Davos. Throwing out as many buzzwords as he could gather together in one speech, Trump proclaimed, at the risk of sounding repetitive, “America is thriving, America is flourishing, and yes, America is winning again like never before.” And, he claimed, “America’s newfound prosperity is undeniable, unprecedented and unmatched anywhere in the world.” Giving few specifics beyond the standard talking points scripted by his economic advisers, Trump resorted to his usual superlatives, saying, “America’s economic turnaround has been nothing short of spectacular,” and proclaiming, “No one is benefitting more than America’s middle class.”

But when asked about the economy, Americans take a different view from their president. A recent Pew research poll found that “[s]even-in-10 U.S. adults say the economic system in their country unfairly favors powerful interests, compared with less than a third who say the system is generally fair to most Americans.” Large majorities in all income groups from rich to poor are convinced the current system benefits powerful interests such as corporations and wealthy individuals.

https://www.commondreams.org/views/2020/01/24/trumps-rosy-economic-outlook-big-lie

Then there is the slow economic growth…….

The US economy grew at a moderate 2.1% rate in the final three months of 2019, capping a year when growth slowed significantly due to a weaker global economy and trade war uncertainties, the AP reports. The Commerce Department reported Thursday that the fourth-quarter increase in the gross domestic product, the economy’s total output of goods and services, matched the 2.1% gain of the third quarter. Both quarters were well below the 3.1% surge seen in the first quarter. For the October-December quarter, growth was supported by solid but slower consumer spending and an improvement in the trade deficit. Those factors offset a further drop in business investment in new plants and equipment and a slowdown in restocking store shelves. For the whole year, GDP increased 2.3%, the weakest performance in three years.

That was also a slowdown from a 2.9% gain in 2018 when the economy got a boost from President Trump’s tax cuts and billions of dollars in increased government spending. Economists expect even slower growth in 2020 of around 1.8%. But that outcome could be threatened by various threats, from a spreading coronavirus in China to a flare-up in trade tensions between the US and China. Even the US presidential election could end up having an adverse effect on growth if a hard-fought campaign increases uncertainty among consumers and businesses and causes them to cut back on spending. While Trump has not achieved his GDP growth goals, he has seen unemployment fall to a 50-year low during his presidency, and after trade tensions with China began to cool late last year, the stock market rebounded and climbed to new record highs.

The Middle Class is struggling….the wealthy class is rolling in money and benefits….so you tell me who is making out like a bandit.

I Read, I Wrote, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”