President Trump: The NEW one and only politics thread

Pardon coming up.

 

Alma-
Other than Dukakis, Mrs. Clinton was the most easily beatable candidate of my lifetime.
Mueller Time, or time, will take care of Trump and his henchmen.
I'm more worried about true believers like my mother's neighbors.
I read their vomit on my timeline every day and I do not think they will go lightly if their Lord God is dethroned.

 

Based on results, mine were Mondale and Dukakis.
Hillary allowed the Democrats to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.

I get down on my knees and pray they don't do it again in 2020.

 

Followed by a guest spot on a Fox and Friends and then Substitute host for Laura Ingraham when she buys another kid

 

You beat Trump with turnout. And who has been turning out and voting — educated women and young voters. Don’t fuck this up with Bernie or Biden.

 

Social Security including disability is administered by the Feds and they would be the ones investigating fraud. It gets complicated because SSA for the most part contracts out to the states to do medical evaluations and reevaluations. So the states might get involved if a disability re-evaluation was needed in a fraud case.

 

This is why we can't have nice things ...

Tim Armstrong, the former leader of AOL, is walking away with more than $60 million as he leaves Verizon Communications Inc., VZ 1.08% which recently wrote down half the value of the internet business he led.

The cash and stock awards and other benefits, pieced together from disclosures in a securities filing late Monday, are a combination of Mr. Armstrong’s 2018 compensation, severance and a special incentive package that Verizon granted Mr. Armstrong when it bought AOL in 2015.

Mr. Armstrong formally departed Verizon at the end of 2018, but stepped back from running its internet unit months earlier, passing the reins to K. Guru Gowrappan. That business, now called Verizon Media Group, booked a $4.5 billion accounting charge in the fourth quarter after failing to meet its revenue targets and laid off some staff.

Tim Armstrong, Former AOL Boss, Getting More Than $60 Million as He Exits Verizon

Tim Armstrong, former CEO of Verizon’s digital company -- who has gone from one failure to another (AOL, Yahoo, Oath), each time collecting a bigger paycheck -- is now leaving Verizon with an exit payment of more than $60 million, as Verizon writes down half the value of the internet business he led and lays off staff. Another example of socialism for the rich, harsh capitalism for everyone else. – ROBERT REICH

 

Reminder.

 

1) Possible, sure. That's why I said "ask them for an explanation" (or could've said "take another look at them") and not "kick them off automatically." But I think we should err a little more on the side of encouraging people to work and less on the side of accepting that they can't. Of course there are some people who're too disabled to work, and you've discussed your circumstances, so I'm not trying to go there. An uncle was what we used to call severely mentally retarded. I think his life would have been more fulfilling if there had been some productive work he could do, but I have no idea what that could've been. But work, even if it's not necessarily paid, has value in its own right. Ideally it helps give those who are capable of working a sense of accomplishment and identity that collecting disability doesn't. I think I get the argument that a UBI is supposed to allow people to find accomplishment/identity in other ways, but my impression is that the one or two recent trials in developed countries have been abandoned pretty quickly. I doubt it's politically practical here anyway, and I'm afraid that pushing too hard for that and other progressive policies will just give us four more years of what we have.

Something else I'm trying to get at is that it hurts us as a society that we don't feel we're all in this more or less together. There are many, many good reasons that people (with widely differing political views) don't have this feeling. I'm just old enough to remember when a lot of relatively well-off young men discovered a calling for academia, even divinity school, in the 1960s/70s. My friend whose dad didn't come back from Vietnam, and my relatives whose dad was over there for years, certainly didn't feel like everyone was sharing their burden, or would if they had to. (I'm really digressing, but that's one reason I would very much prefer to vote for a presidential candidate with combat experience. I didn't agree with GHW Bush's invasion of Panama, for example, but I felt better about having him take the decision than if it had been any of his successors who hadn't served in combat.) The college admissions scandal thread has comments with examples why many African-Americans understandably don't feel that the rest of us are supportive of them. A lot of the preferences that have been built into our laws for different actions or groups (including favorable tax treatment or subsidies for favored industries, step-up in capital gains cost basis upon death, lots of others), and pretty much everything Trump & his henchpeople do, aggravate this lack of sense of common purpose. But, getting back to where I started, taking taxpayer money under false pretenses contributes too, and it's not just a problem for the people who have to pay for it, it's a problem for everyone who sees it.

 

A cousin of mine has been “disabled” since the early 90s due to an accident at his railroad job. He plays golf four days per week, used to fly ultralight airplanes and worked as a brick mason to earn extra money over his disability checks (cash only).

He’s also a diehard Trumpist who blocked that liberal Fox News on channel guide and only watches OAN. So he rants about welfare queens while being a disability king.

 

I literally have not mentioned his name on the internet since he became President. I think I stopped somewhere early in his candidacy. I'm not sure if I've ever referred to him by name on this site. His almost manic desire to be the subject of conversation - whether good or bad - made it an obvious choice.

I would never expect any serious journalist to do this, but it would be great if the screeching heads on cable news began collectively referring to him as Individual 1. In fact, I'm now considering doing that instead of referring to him as the President or 45.