President Trump: The NEW one and only politics thread

Lulz

 

There may be self-driving cars some day, but I imagine they won't drive on roads as we know them now. Something more like trains.

 

What Michael Flynn Could Tell the Russia Investigators

"A three-month Bloomberg investigation has found that Flynn, who was fired for having lied to the FBI and the vice president about his contacts with Russians, had a slew of other problematic entanglements. Previously unreported documents, including Pentagon contracts, emails and internal company papers, point to overlapping business conflicts around the world.

Self-dealing is, in some ways, at the core of the Mueller inquiry, which is looking at money laundering, contact with foreign (especially Russian) officials and a blending of personal profit with public policy. During the campaign, the transition and his few weeks as national security adviser, Flynn was in Trump’s inner circle. While it remains unclear what he’s providing Mueller, his history of mingling business with government could point investigators to look for similar overlaps among other Trump insiders.


“These conflicts of interest and hidden deals are highly relevant to what was going on with the Russians,” said Nick Akerman, a former Watergate prosecutor, noting that Flynn was in close touch with Russian Ambassador Sergei Kislyak while also being close to Trump. “His hidden business entanglements and his back channel communications with foreign governments raise a lot of possibilities.”

 

The day of reckoning in American retail is coming. All that debt from leveraged buyouts is going to spill red ink and layoffs nationwide. This is from late 2017, but seems even more relevant right now:

"The root cause is that many of these long-standing chains are overloaded with debt—often from leveraged buyouts led by private equity firms. There are billions in borrowings on the balance sheets of troubled retailers, and sustaining that load is only going to become harder—even for healthy chains.

The debt coming due, along with America’s over-stored suburbs and the continued gains of online shopping, has all the makings of a disaster. The spillover will likely flow far and wide across the U.S. economy. There will be displaced low-income workers, shrinking local tax bases and investor losses on stocks, bonds and real estate. If today is considered a retail apocalypse, then what’s coming next could truly be scary."

This article goes back to Nov. 2017, but I look at Toys R Us and worry. Trump's administration is busy dismantling consumer protections against Wall Street, big banks, and the like. It's scary. I have not forgotten 2008.

America’s ‘Retail Apocalypse’ Is Really Just Beginning

 

If, as seems increasingly likely, the Dems win control of the House, this could be huge. Elijah Cummings in charge of the House Oversight Committee could make things very unpleasant indeed for Trump and the R's.

The Oversight Storm That Could Paralyze The Trump Presidency | HuffPost

 

There is an old mall in town with Macy's and Sears as anchors, that never seem to be on the closure list. (There's another Macy's at the gilded mall a couple of miles down the street.)

I bought a tie, blazer and khakis at the gilded Macy's in 2017. The tie started de-threading as soon as I wore it; two buttons fell off the Michael Kohrs blazer literally the moment I touched them, and the leather label on the Levi's khakis ran in the first wash and ruined them.

The transmission of the washer I bought three years ago at Sears disintegrated. The store wouldn't help at all, so I called Sears HQ in Chicago. The unhelpful and belligerent woman I talked to insisted that it wasn't her problem. When I insisted that this is precisely what was at the heart of Sears' decline, she disagreed. I noted how CEO Eddie Lampert was sucking the life out of the company. "Our stock is doing great!" she said. (It was off about 50% y-o-y at that point.) I laughed and said she'd better lock up her diaphragm before Eddie Lampert sold that, too.

 

Why is mocking her looks necessary? It’s fucking childish.

 

You sure showed her.

 

This is why we can't have nice things. And I mean that literally.

 

Well, shit:

Self-driving Uber car involved in fatal accident in Arizona

 

You bought a washer at Macy's? Are there no appliance stores there?

 

Come to think of it, I bought my washer/dryer at Sears 6+ years ago. No issues, though.

Never even knew Macy's sold them.