The world is laughing.

[Slobodan Blagojevic]

... From John McCain...

Would that be the same "Bomb, bomb, bomb Iran" McCain?

[RSL]

You left out what Paul Ryan, Mitch McConnell, and other Republicans are saying.

From John McCain: No prior president has ever abased himself more abjectly before a tyrant.

From Jeff Flake: I never thought I would see the day when our American President would stand on the stage with the Russian President and place blame on the United States for Russian aggression. This is shameful.

I left out the part of your post that would most embarrass you, Omer. But the idea that McCain and Flake are anything other than "never Trump" RINOs is ridiculous. Who cares what they say?

[OmerV]

Would that be the same "Bomb, bomb, bomb Iran" McCain?

...and?

Better bomb Iran than N. Korea. Or is it now Germany, France, Canada and Mexico? Sigh, so many choices. First world problems. Ah well.

[OmerV]

I left out the part of your post that would most embarrass you, Omer. But the idea that McCain and Flake are anything other than "never Trump" RINOs is ridiculous. Who cares what they say?

Do Republicans even exists? Isn't it the Dear Leader Trump Party now?

[Slobodan Blagojevic]

...and?...

And we are supposed to pay attention what a war hawk says about attempts to avoid wars?

[RSL]

Do Republicans even exists? Isn't it the Dear Leader Trump Party now?

If McCain actually had been a Republican he'd have been president. As it was, his run pretending to be a Republican was ridiculous.

[LesPalenik]

I always thought that it was the choice of his running mate.

“John McCain put the former mayor of a town of 9,000 with zero foreign policy experience a heartbeat away from the presidency.”

https://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/08/opinion/08kristol.html

[Alan Goldhammer]

Regarding products we make, it's not down.  I thought that too until I checked.  Actually, the percentage of manufacturing against the GDP, around 18%, has been constant for decades.  What's down is the number of Americans who are needed to produce manufactured products.   It's like what happened to farming.  We produce huge amount of farm products.  But due to automation, we don;t need as many farmers and farm hands.  Look how cars are built.  Automation has reduce the amount of car workers.

This is why the promise of jobs from Trump is just a con.  The manufacturing base of lots of jobs is never coming back.  Tariffs or the lack thereof are really not going to change that.  Service economies don't care about tariffs.

[RSL]

I always thought that it was the choice of his running mate.

https://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/08/opinion/08kristol.html

Hi Les. Apparently you're embarrassed to tell us your age, but it's pretty clear you weren't around when Harry Truman got on the ballot as VP. He really was nothing much more than a small-time ward heeler at the time. FDR never even told him about the A Bomb. When he suddenly found himself President of the U.S. it turned out he had what it took. He used the bomb when it was time to use the bomb, even though it was obvious there was going to be a huge reaction. I was there. I missed WW II by a hair but immediately got myself into Korea. I disagreed with Harry on a whole lot of things, but he was a strong president; a huge surprise to everyone. I'm not sure what you had in mind with Bill Kristol's article, but considering his current position it's hard to believe the guy has a clue what's going on.

[Alan Klein]

This is why the promise of jobs from Trump is just a con.  The manufacturing base of lots of jobs is never coming back.  Tariffs or the lack thereof are really not going to change that.  Service economies don't care about tariffs.

You got it wrong again.  You conflated two points that aren't related.  The fact that there are less people manufacturing does not mean that higher tariffs don't effect our exports.  They still do.  The fact is 18% of economy is still manufacturing as it's been for decades.  It's just that there's less people needed to produce those products than there were before.  So anything we can do to have other nations lower their tariffs will help our manufacturing base and 18%  of our economy.   

Regarding the loss of jobs and Trump promises, it is true that many former jobs will not come back.  But Trump said he would do what he could do to help those workers whose industries have been replaced.  Hillary insulted them calling them the "deplorables".  She lost the election because of her snooty, liberal, condescending contempt for former working-class Democrats who were trying to make ends meet.  People want to have hope.  Hillary offered none of that.   

[Alan Goldhammer]

You got it wrong again.  You conflated two points that aren't related.  The fact that there are less people manufacturing does not mean that higher tariffs don't effect our exports.  They still do.  The fact is 18% of economy is still manufacturing as it's been for decades.  It's just that there's less people needed to produce those products than there were before.  So anything we can do to have other nations lower their tariffs will help our manufacturing base and 18%  of our economy.   

Regarding the loss of jobs and Trump promises, it is true that many former jobs will not come back.  But Trump said he would do what he could do to help those workers whose industries have been replaced.  Hillary insulted them calling them the "deplorables".  She lost the election because of her snooty, liberal, condescending contempt for former working-class Democrats who were trying to make ends meet.  People want to have hope.  Hillary offered none of that.   

I ignore all the anti-Clinton screeds because she was not my candidate of choice and I knew that she would be a disaster from the time they tried to coronate her as Queen Hilary (I have an equally intense dislike of Senator Sanders).

I have yet to see any effort the Trump administration has done to help out those whose jobs have been displaced whether they are/were in manufacturing or mineral extraction (which includes his beautiful American coal industry).  I would like to see him come up with some proposals that are worthy of consideration.  Remember tariffs are just a not so hidden tax on consumers and we are already seeing increases in prices because of this.  How this will play out in Peoria and other Republican strongholds will await a decision of the electorate in November.  We are already hearing from farmers and manufacturers that things are not going well.  Trade wars never end well.

Regarding the comment I made about protecting our domestic sugar industry, here is an ANALYSIS from American Enterprise Institute (yes, I do read a lot of different think tank reports from both the left and right sides of the political spectrum.  "Over the last 10 years the sugar program has eliminated more than 14,000 confectionery jobs and more than 75,000 food manufacturing jobs." 

[Chris Kern]

If McCain actually had been a Republican he'd have been president.

I always thought that it was the choice of his running mate.

Sigh.  I never thought I would feel nostalgic for the days when I worried that an ignoramus might be a heartbeat away from the presidency.

[Alan Klein]

I ignore all the anti-Clinton screeds because she was not my candidate of choice and I knew that she would be a disaster from the time they tried to coronate her as Queen Hilary (I have an equally intense dislike of Senator Sanders).

I have yet to see any effort the Trump administration has done to help out those whose jobs have been displaced whether they are/were in manufacturing or mineral extraction (which includes his beautiful American coal industry).  I would like to see him come up with some proposals that are worthy of consideration.  Remember tariffs are just a not so hidden tax on consumers and we are already seeing increases in prices because of this.  How this will play out in Peoria and other Republican strongholds will await a decision of the electorate in November.  We are already hearing from farmers and manufacturers that things are not going well.  Trade wars never end well.

Regarding the comment I made about protecting our domestic sugar industry, here is an ANALYSIS from American Enterprise Institute (yes, I do read a lot of different think tank reports from both the left and right sides of the political spectrum.  "Over the last 10 years the sugar program has eliminated more than 14,000 confectionery jobs and more than 75,000 food manufacturing jobs." 

No one's arguing for long-term tariffs.  Trump understands that tariffs raise costs to consumers and a trade war benefits no one.   However, lowering tariffs in other countries would provide more jobs to Americans as well as more wealth for the US. 

So, the point of the tariffs is to get others to reduce theirs so we can export more.

Which reminds me of the joke that I posted on another thread.  It applies here too"



It seems a farmer was complaining to a friend about the trouble he was having in getting his stubborn mule to move. After listening to the farmer's complaint, the friend said he knew just what to do.


"Get a two-by-four board and whack the mule across the head with all your might," advised the friend. The farmer was taken aback. "But how will that get him to move?" asked the farmer. "Well, you see," the friend said, "first you've got to get his attention!"

[OmerV]

Sigh.  I never thought I would feel nostalgic for the days when I worried that an ignoramus might be a heartbeat away from the presidency.

 

[OmerV]

Well, I don’t envy the conservative side of the LuLa forum luminaries. Donald has stepped back his waffling support for the American “Deep State” and now full heartedly supports it. Okay, he’ll probably change his mind tomorrow, but we’ll take it a day at a time, no?

Supporting a “wreck of a man”(according to George Will,) can’t be easy. Still, it seems the pressure of political expediency by folks like McConnell has scored some pragmatic points as there is no doubt the Democrats were salivating over how best to use Donald’s remarkable blunder at Helsinki.

Definitely, it’s one day a time with this bro’.

[Alan Goldhammer]

I wonder if one of Sacha Baron Cohen's alter egos could get an interview with Trump.  Amazing to me how many people who ought to know better have fallen into his snare and embarrassed themselves on his "Who Is America" program.  His 'Kinder-Guardian' loving Israeli counter-terrorist office was top rate.

[Rob C]

You're changing the subject.  The issue is tariffs.  Yours are higher than ours.  That's not fair.  Reduce your tariffs to our level and we have a deal.

There is no change of subject; it is all absolutely connected at the hip. It's one man's way of riding roughshod over anything and anybody that doesn't fit his electoral stance, however much he does or does not himself believe in the sense of what he says. Unilaterally tearing up mutually accepted terms and contracts is not the way you live and behave in a civilized society: you wait until expiry of said contracts and then renegotiate or, should you prefer, walk away then.

Also, as others have pointed out, there can be no renewal of many rust-belt (and other) jobs; time, requirements and methods have moved on and going backwards is no longer an option. The best you can do to preserve the status quo is to say enough! innovate no further; either accept that we keep jobs going for the less intellectual, or we agree to put them on permanent life-support via state pensions and remove their dream of ever finding grunt employment again. And hey, it's not reserved to the States! All modern countries face the same problem of future generations without the ability, capacity to gain the skills they will need to keep up in the race to have work. I think that I, too, would have been almost unemployable were I a youth today: my skills were not in the sciences and even less in mathematics. Worse, I never felt the least interest in those fields, which says all that needs saying about personal wiring and ability to get to the top in said applications which are, today, ever more the basis of employment and success.
 

[Farmer]

If you're talking about tariffs without talking about subsidies and any other assistance or restrictions then you're talking nonsense.  Protection exists in many format including grants, tax breaks, promotion, tariffs, subsidies, quotas, foreign investment restrictions, restrictions of certain technologies, administrative barriers, anti-dumping legislation, exchange rate control or limitations or restrictions, certain patent situations, political campaigns, preferential government spending, and so on.  That's just off the top of my head.

Comparing just one of those components, and not all of them, is nonsense.

[Alan Klein]

There is no change of subject; it is all absolutely connected at the hip. It's one man's way of riding roughshod over anything and anybody that doesn't fit his electoral stance, however much he does or does not himself believe in the sense of what he says. Unilaterally tearing up mutually accepted terms and contracts is not the way you live and behave in a civilized society: you wait until expiry of said contracts and then renegotiate or, should you prefer, walk away then....
 

Rob, I'm sorry that we now have a hard-nosed business man as president who knows how to play the game as well as the Europeans do.  Our last president rolled over because he just wanted to be liked by the world.  Trump puts America's interest first as an American president should.  I wouldn't expect anything less from your leaders.  They certainly know how to do that so please don't make believe that you don't put your country first as well.  In any negotiation, each side tries to bargain the best deal for their side. 

In any case, there's no agreement as far as I know that allows the EU to charge 10% tariffs on American cars sent there while we charge only 2.5% on European cars sent here.  So let me suggest the following.  EU and American trade negotiators should sit down and try to get rid of all tariffs on both sides of the Atlantic so we can have free and fair trade across the board.  In the meanwhile, we will match your higher tariffs, tariff for tariff. 

What do you say?

[Chairman Bill]

If McCain actually had been a Republican he'd have been president.

Ah, the old "No True Republican" tactic. Nicely done.