Blame Canada!
Donald Trump has apparently decided to take the advice of that impressive fount of political wisdom, South Park. It's hard to come to any other conclusion, really, when you recall that one of the songs from their first big movie (a song nominated for an Academy Award, no less) was titled: "Blame Canada." President Trump was obviously inspired by the lyrics: "With all their beady little eyes / And flapping heads so full of lies," when he began his tweetstorm against Justin Trudeau after Trump left the G-7 meeting early.
Satire-becoming-reality aside, though, it's worth pondering exactly what led to this episode in how not to conduct international relations with longtime allies. Because I have a sneaking suspicion that what lies at its heart is a false worldview crashing into the brick wall of reality. And that can be a very dangerous thing.
Ever since Trump became president, there has been a huge struggle among his top economic aides. On one side are those who counsel against tariffs and trade wars, and on the other side are people like Larry Kudlow and Peter Navarro. They are the ones who have now won this struggle, quite obviously, as Trump has now either levied or threatened to levy tariffs against: Europe, Canada, Mexico, Japan, South Korea, China, and a whole bunch of other countries (just for good measure). Trump has been convinced (not that he needed much convincing, really) that trade wars are in actual fact easy to win, and that all the other countries would immediately back down and do whatever Trump told them to do.
This sounds oversimplified, but I truly believe it isn't. I think what is going on is what might be called an economic version of neo-conservatism. The neo-cons back in the George W. Bush administration were not satisfied with wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, and pushed for a pre-emptive military strike against Iran, to stop it from working towards a nuclear weapon (do a web search on the phrase: "Real men go to Tehran," if you've forgotten this political argument). Their reasoning was that America would just fly in and bomb a few key facilities in Iran, and then Iran would be so terrified of our awesome military might that it would fail to militarily retaliate in any way. They would, instead, immediately see the error of their ways, stop working towards a nuke, and perhaps even overthrow their leaders and install a government more to our liking, for good measure. No, really -- this was indeed what the neo-cons believed. Some still do, in fact.
This fantastical thinking is now being applied to world trade. The pro-tariff Trump advisors convinced Trump (again, not that hard to do, since this was pretty much already his own way of thinking) that all he had to do was to slap some tariffs on a whole bunch of countries, and what would happen next is that they'd all be so scared of America's vast economic might that they would immediately come to the table and reverse their own trade policies so that Trump could dictate to them what the new world economic order was going to be. Most importantly, they would never dare to retaliate by slapping tariffs on American goods. It would never happen, because they would be so eager to get in Trump's good graces that they'd do whatever he wanted them to.
Last week, that paragraph might have been laughed at. It's so oversimplified and so wrong-headed that it couldn't possibly be what Trump and his top economic team were really thinking. Now, however, it is not a joke, it is in fact U.S. trade policy.
The only big problem with this way of thinking is that all the other countries in the world are, for the most part, refusing to follow the script. What they are doing instead was entirely predictable -- they are responding to Trump's new tariffs with tariffs of their own. Sometimes these are narrowly targeted towards changing certain American politicians' minds (such as the tariffs on bourbon, which is made in Mitch McConnell's home state), and sometimes they are more broadly intended to show Trump's staunchest supporters how a trade war is going to personally hurt them (such as all the tariffs on farm products). Again, all this was entirely predictable -- indeed, most economists warned Trump that this was what would inevitably happen.
This is where the "false worldview hitting a brick wall" thing comes into play. Trump advisors Larry Kudlow and Peter Navarro seemed to firmly believe that no country would dare retaliate against American tariffs, and indeed they previously made this argument on television. But that crashed up against Justin Trudeau's press conference during the G-7 summit. Trudeau, notably, did not say anything demeaning about Donald Trump, instead pointing out (as he has been doing for a while) that America using "national security" as the reason for aluminum and steel tariffs against Canada was "kind of insulting," since they've stood shoulder-to-shoulder with us in every war since World War I. He also gently and politely pointed out that his job was to look out for Canada and Canadians, not Donald Trump or Americans, and so he would indeed be going forward with some retaliatory tariffs against American products.
If you actually watch this press conference or read a transcript of Trudeau's remarks, you would wonder what all the fuss was about, since there was no name-calling or insulting language at all. But when Trump and his crack team of economic advisors heard about it, they hit the roof. Navarro, on Fox News Sunday actually said there was a "special place in Hell" awaiting Trudeau, because I guess Trump has been promoted to God, now? Or something. Both Kudlow and Navarro were trying to outdo each other in the "unhinged rage against Trudeau" department on the Sunday morning political shows, in fact. They both accused Trudeau of "back-stabbing" and disloyalty. Perhaps someone needs to explain to them that world leaders from other countries are not supposed to swear loyalty to American presidents?
The depths of their rage and the overreaction from Trump himself can only really be explained by the fact that Trudeau going forward with retaliatory tariffs completely obliterated their carefully-constructed fantasy world where other countries would quickly fall into line rather than actually fight back against Trump's trade war. Psychologists will tell you that when someone has built up a false worldview, they lash out in frustration and anger when it is proven to be false. That's what we saw from Kudlow, Navarro, and Trump this weekend. The G-7 was supposed to be the point where everyone else in the world backed down and did what Trump wanted them to do, and things just didn't work out that way at all. Trudeau just happened to bear the brunt of this anger, but it could easily have been any of the other six world leaders in attendance.
Or maybe not. Maybe Trump really did watch the South Park movie, and decided to follow its plot in real life. With Trump, you just never know. In the movie itself, Canada is a convenient scapegoat for rage, because it is so much easier to have such a scapegoat than to examine what is really going wrong. Sound familiar? "Blame Canada" ends with the following lyrics, which seems a good place to end this column, too:
The laughter and fun,
Must all be undone,
We must blame them and cause a fuss,
Before somebody thinks of blaming us!
-- Chris Weigant
Follow Chris on Twitter: @ChrisWeigant
such a difficult problem! donald must now be asking himself, what would brian boitano do?
JL
NYP [1] - LOL!
Every policy seems to be tilted towards Russia's strategic aims - normalization of Putin and discord within the Western Democracies.
Now Dennis Rodman is in Singapore ... wearing a potcoin.com (marijuana financial services) shirt.
The lunatics are running the asylum - this is what happens when a sophisticated country gets taken over by the stupid and willfully ignorant.
So my first reaction to Don [2] was "F-off Don"
Come to think of it, that is my second and final reaction as well.
Quit the BS that sane progressive policies are equal to the lunacy from the right at the moment because they both happen to use money to get their point of view out.
We get it - there is too much money in politics. But you know what is going to keep that in perpetuity? If one side uses it to win every single election because the other side thinks there are a majority of Americans who care about election finance policies. Find something that people care about and move the dial, the Don Quixote act is getting boring. Once we have sanity in the Supreme Court we can address Citizens United. That is going to take people voting against the current right wing regime.
Canada: sorry about the cheap shots from the American BIC (Buffoon in Chief). He is old and not at all well. You are a good neighbor and deserve respect.
CW - I'm begining to suspect that Underpants Gnomes hold key positions in the Trump Admin. How do gnomes get security clearances?
Neilm-3
So many little green men keep popping up in this story. It has all the attributes of a classic Russian intelligence operation. Trump gets a few days relief in Singapore, but it will all be hanging over him when he gets back home.
CW: Psychologists will tell you that when someone has built up a false worldview, they lash out in frustration and anger when it is proven to be false.
Exactly right, and fear is the through-line in near everything they do, the fear of being exposed as the ignorant, bloviating con artists and frauds that they are. Cameras don't lie and reveal that Justin Trudeau said nothing in his press conference that remotely resembles Trump's version of events, and the meltdown on Twitter is a psychological exercise in projection and classic example of a Trumpertantum.
In their summit, BLOTUS and BLONK allowed only interpreters and no others who could verify what they spoke about. This is the ideal scenario and quite the necessity for cons such as these who thrive on propaganda and the fictional narrative. Is there anyone out there paying attention who doubts that their versions of events will prove to be widely divergent?
A photo op. Did anybody expect anything else from this clown? He just wants to be the center of attention - sadly for his supporters he doesn't care if he looks like the World's biggest idiot, but they will just have to live with that.
One Demand can begin being effective by 2020.
No, it can't. I mean, if we lived in a parallel universe where Americans cared about electoral finance deeply and it was the major voting issue, then it could work.
But in this universe you need to find leverage points on the progressive voting base to get them to give the politicians who actually care about our country in power.
Wasting time and energy on an issue that only motivates the already motivated is pointless, and worse than pointless when there are issues that your time and effort could help to get progressive politicians elected.
You are just on an ego trip. We have a complete idiot in the White House, no oversight from Congress, and enough bigots motivated to vote to keep them there if we don't act effectively.
Strutting around on a hobby horse criticizing everybody else who isn't on your hobby horse isn't helping - it is distracting.
When Trump stated on TV at the very beginning of his crusade in favor of tariffs and against free trade, that he wasn't scared of trade wars because "Trade wars are easy to win", it occured to me that he is too ignorant of the principles of economics to realize that THERE ARE NO WINNERS OF TRADE WARS, at the national level.
When anybody or anything whatsoever restricts or inhibiits free trade at any and every level (NOT just international), all parties lose!
Individual special-interest groups can gain by restricting free trade (think the UAW if we refused to allow foreign automakers to export cars to us), but the losses to the whole country invariably exceed the gains to the special interest group.
Unfortunately, the special interest groups all have lobbiests distributing "campaign contributions" (aka "bribes") but the general population has no lobbiests
The great meet and greet is over. Other than cheerful footage, nothing of substance seems to have been decided. It wasn't a zero sum game. Both Trump and Kim got their fannies tickled. Big smiles from a genuine dictator and aspiring one. The war goes on, but the wargames have been canceled. The press has been mostly wide eyed and slack jawed about the whole thing. Hard to blame them.
THERE ARE NO WINNERS OF TRADE WARS, at the national level.
Thanks CRS. Can you convince the rest of the clowns in your party of this?
@CRS,
canada restricts certain elements of trade and wins big. canadian dairy farmers stay in business, and canadian citizens support them. "free trade" dairy farmers in wisconsin are going out of business because there are no regulations to prevent an unstable price cycle.
@neil,
although his attempt at a solution is impractical for the reasons you outlined, don is somewhat right about the paradigm shift from people to money. there is a preponderance among both democrats and republicans who are looking out for the financial interests of their donors, not their constituents. that is why i strongly support NHrebellion and other attempts to reform campaign finance, and don't at all consider them to be a waste of time or effort.
@don,
even if 110% of citizens wanted "Big Money out of politics," no, that would not be sufficient. it's not BS, it's a different dimension of public opinion that your funding model ignores. just about everybody here has tried to explain to you why one demand won't work unless you solve a few fundamental problems, but you seem to see these criticisms or suggestions as "no true scotsman" rather than genuine engagement on the issue.
“Politics is the art of the possible, the attainable — the art of the next best”
-otto von bismarck
Posts 2 & 8 with a nod to 4 & 10
Just in: Saints Rita, Jude Thaddeus, Philomena and Gregory of Neocaesarea are unanimous in their heavenly verdicts! "Give it up man! OneDemand isn't hopeless, it's just plain stooopid!"
canada restricts certain elements of trade and wins big. canadian dairy farmers stay in business, and canadian citizens support them. "free trade" dairy farmers in wisconsin are going out of business because there are no regulations to prevent an unstable price cycle.
OK, if you want the Canadians to cut tariffs, are you also willing to eliminate subsidies to to the U.S. dairy industry? Subsidies and tariffs are two sides of the same coin.
Dairy is a commodity, and, like coal, a commodity that has a shrinking market. We are drinking 37% less milk than we did in 1970. Dairy is also, like coal, environmentally problematic. Why are we concerned about this industry, instead of say, software, robotics, etc.?
neilm [13]
"My party" (Libertarian) doesn't really count, and anyway, we're already in favor of free trade, but actually most Reps are too. It's the party of labor unions (i.e. Your party) that pushes anti-free-trade policies.
Poet
If it's true that Canadian dairy farmers "win big", by keeping out low-cost U.S. imports, that can only be because all the non-dairy farmer Canadians are losing MUCH BIGGER - law of economics.
If Canada were to put a big tariff on FL or CA citrus, potential Canadian orange growers could "win big" by growing oranges in hothouses, but all the rest of the non-orange-growing Canadians would lose MUCH bigger, resulting in a net national loss - same principle as the dairy thing.
neilm
It's beside the point to your direct [18], but I doubt the accuracy of the 37% reduction in milk consumption. Perhaps less fluid milk, but way more yougurt, cheese, etc.
and provided facts such as 80% of citizens wanting the Big Money out of politics
Then I guess you missed the part where the Republican party, with the full support of most of their party faithful, gave immense tax breaks and a big wet kiss on the lips to their big money donors. It was informally called 'The Donor Boner Bill', even by its supporters.
So much for bipartisan support for getting big money out of politics. Sometimes Republicans mouth the words you'd like to hear, but trust me, they don't believe a bit of it.
When the history of the last week is actually written, it will be more remembered for Trump's treatment of our allies at the G7 meeting than it will be for the World's Most Expensive Photo Op in Singapore.
And Trump's pre-conference unprompted support for Russia re-joining the G7 will be viewed as a big gift to Bob Mueller, not because it will aid that crucial investigation, but rather because it reminded us all of why there is a Mueller Investigation in the first place.
And why we're all left shaking our heads like we've got water in our ears.
Why do you oppose this so much when it is targeted at voters that will not vote for Democrats and would waste their vote by staying home in 2018?
Because that's not the way it shakes out in real life, Don. The biggest support for anti-money campaigns have always come from the left, not the right. Think Bernie.
And we just went through a cycle in which the Democratic nominee was successfully tarred with the charge of being a 'big money democrat', leading to enough abstention from the left to throw the election to the Big Orange Clown. We really don't want to do that again.
Concern about big money isn't bipartisan, Don.
See [20] for details.
Didn't miss it at all. That is why One Demand is available for the majority of Republicans that want the Big Money out of politics to use on Republican candidates.
Nope, you missed it. If the majority of Republicans really want Big Money out of politics, they could stop voting for Republicans who give big spanking tax breaks to big money donors. Democrats don't do that.
This puts the Dems at a perennial fundraising disadvantage, because although tax breaks aren't the only thing that congress can mete out to mollify donors, it is the most effective. As a result, Dems are usually far behind the GOP in fundraising. What we don't need is Democrats self-limiting their donation amounts. We need all that we can get, frankly, just to achieve parity.
Blotus apparently performed his usual blowjob on North Korea's murderer-of-a-dictator because that's where Blotus lives - he likes to swim in the ejaculate of the most evil people on earth. He hopes they'll pat his orange head and tell he's a good boy and it's ok to separate children from their parents at the border, hike rental prices for subsidized housing in order to torture poor Americans, and bring back pre-existing conditions. His pod-people traitors turn on their FOX Propaganda and wait for their talking points.
Larry Kudlow had the good sense to have a heart attack - he may have found a way out of the WH cesspool that offers "cover" before his reputation - such as it was - tanks, like that of every other grifter/criminal/fool that goes to work for the traitor-in-chief.
From the AP: "BREAKING: Trump says he talked up North Korea's real estate, beachside hotel opportunities in Kim Jong Un meeting."
I'm sure the pod people will think that's just great.
DH-I'm willing to believe 80% of voters consider big money in politics a problem....but there is plenty of data that indicate voters don't consider it the most important issue....or even high on the list.
Attached is a link to a summary multiple polls asking Americans to prioritize their voting issues (2008-2018). Big Money in politics doesn't win, place or show in any of them...it's too small to warrant mention, although it may contribute to "other" "none of the above" or "not sure" catch-all categories at the bottom of the list.
http://www.pollingreport.com/prioriti.htm
Once again, your reasoning is sloppy and misleading.
And meanwhile:
Sorry to interrupt the wall-to-wall hamburger and dictator coverage, but this a BFD. The billionaire who funded Brexit (Arron Banks) literally just told Nigel Farage in a live interview that "low level" Russian collusion maybe kinda sorta happened in the Brexit campaign.
Tweetstorm follows: https://twitter.com/RVAwonk/status/1006255372552818688
Key point: Enter Assange. Farage, flush with his Brexit electoral victory, cashed in his prior association with Trump; and Trump with Farage;and Roger Stone in the mix. FSB and GRU were knee deep in the Trump campaign...Assange was the conduit of electoral interdiction, Farage and Stone, the messengers."
Paula [27]: Kudlow's reputation wasn't all that great, except among the pod people. Ditto and double for John Bolton.
[31] Balthasar: That's what I thought - Kudlow is a joke. But now he's a joke working for a traitor. Maybe he figured that out. Or he figured out the traitor he's working for is both wicked and a fool. If you're going to work for the bad guy you want the bad guy to be competent. There has to be a pay-off for selling your soul but people who work with Blotus find out he get's all the benefit and they get slimed.
The billionaire who funded Brexit (Arron Banks) literally just told Nigel Farage in a live interview that "low level" Russian collusion maybe kinda sorta happened in the Brexit campaign.
Speaking of big money in politics. ahem.
We actually always suspected that, didn't we? Sorta nice to hear one of them inadvertently blurt the truth once in a while.
The more that Trump insists that he was unaware of any collusion, the more me paints himself as a naif surrounded by wolves. And I am the King of Siam.
[32] Don: At this point you can't be taken seriously at all. If you actually cared about your plan you wouldn't be spending all your time screaming down this rabbit-hole. But you don't. You just like failing continually and then blaming other people for it. You don't want to do the real work, you want other people to do real work and give you the credit.
Democrats didn't do that this time because the Republicans didn't need them to. They have in the past and most likely will again when they need to because that's what their Big Money donors want them to do.
Really? Then tell me when the last time was that Democrats voted as a bloc for big spanking tax breaks for the rich when they didn't have to.
[34] Balthasar: We actually always suspected that, didn't we? Sorta nice to hear one of them inadvertently blurt the truth once in a while.
Yep. In England it looks like they may be getting to the bottom of all this - maybe because England is not yet overrun by collaborators. Hopefully they will go after these Putin-puppets aggressively.
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2018/jun/10/arron-banks-mps-call-for-police-investigate-russia-links?CMP=share_btn_tw
So: MPs are calling for the police and parliament to investigate the links between the millionaire Brexit donor Arron Banks and the Russian government, after it emerged that he met the Kremlin’s ambassador to the UK three times, rather than once as he originally claimed.
Further down in the piece, Banks says: ...he planned to take a “hostile” approach when giving evidence to the committee. “As far as we are concerned, the committee has been creating fake news,” he said.
Right there he betrays himself.
It was never necessary for the Democrats to vote as a block to help Republicans.
So the answer is no, of course, you can't think of an example that fits the theory. The Democrats' program is to build prosperity from the bottom up, while the Republicans still believe that you can build prosperity from the top down, despite all of the numerous examples from history of the folly and naivete of that approach. Their ideal system is called 'feudal'.
The answer is not to limit the amount of cash entering the system, but rather to direct it to ends that will result in more of it reaching the bottom, so that it will empower as many folks as possible as it inevitably works its way back to the top.
So we don't want to withhold money from Democratic candidates, we want to actually lavish them with cash so that they can produce a government that works for all, not just for the few.
Don-
Doing real work is real work like updating your site or fixing the link in your name. Tasks you have proven unable to do. Pestering is not real work. Spamming is not real work. Both have likely made CW and anyone else with whom you inflict with your silly ego trip dig in their heels and ignore you on principle (to which I applaud). The most glaring flaw with your idea is you and your complete inability to execute. Until you fix that, I don’t see why anyone should give you even the time of day...
Don: "PART OF DOING THE REAL WORK IS TRYING TO GET PEOPLE LIKE CW OR RALPH NADER TO ADDRESS THE IDEA AND COMMENTING HERE IS ONE WAY BUT NOT THE ONLY WAY I DO THE REAL WORK."
Have you heard of the 80/20 rule? 20% of your efforts bring 80% of the results. Hanging around here whining about people not pushing your idea isn't bringing you results - it just makes you a pest and a bore.
BTW: you agreed with CW to limit your posts about OD to one per thread.
[43] Bashi: Yep.
it looks like they may be getting to the bottom of all this - maybe because England is not yet overrun by collaborators.
And giving the lie to the GOP talking point that this is really all about the Democrats being sore that they lost the presidency.
The rest of the world has gotten wise to Putin's shenanigans. Germany is also investigating Russian interference in their elections.
Now if only they could convince the idiot that's running this country. Fat chance. We'll have to do it the hard way, ourselves.
@don,
what i mean by dimensions is that public opinion on an issue is rarely if ever a yes-no dichotomy. political scientists don't always agree on which dimensions to use, but five that tend to recur are direction, intensity, salience, stability and information.
direction is which way people lean, intensity is how strongly they lean that way, salience is how important they think the issue is, stability is how subject their opinions are to change as they learn more about the subject, and information is how much they already know. depending on the particular issue, these dimensions may correlate with each other, but they're not the same thing.
thus, 80% of people may agree that the involvement of large sums of money in politics are bad (notwithstanding questions about the sampling of data and how the question was worded), but that does not justify your conclusion that citizens think it is an important issue. these are two very different questions.
JL
neilm
9
A photo op.
Yes, sir.
Did anybody expect anything else from this clown?
Cons will be cons. BLOTUS says he trusts BLONK, exclaiming what a great personality he has and saying he believes it's going to happen fast that "he's de-nuking the whole place."
BLOTUS admitted he might be wrong about BLONK but confessed he'd most likely blame somebody else. Believe him.
Trump gives new meaning to the word "moron," but he too shall pass. :)
@bashi,
good point about updating the link, just did that myself. my link was to my defunct livejournal from ten years ago!
JL
So apparently Pence told Mattis that the Pentagon can still play war games with the South Koreans, and he's allowed to keep playing 'Madden Football' with Don Jr.
Don H
You're getting perilously close to turning your "OD" into 'OCD'.
Don Harris
8
One Demand can begin being effective by 2020.
If only whining and trolling would make it so, but like my Daddy used to say: "Wish in one hand and shit in the other... see which one gets full first." :)
C. R. Stucki
11
It is notable that I agree 85% with your post.
Individual special-interest groups can gain by restricting free trade (think the UAW if we refused to allow foreign automakers to export cars to us), but the losses to the whole country invariably exceed the gains to the special interest group.
Unfortunately, the special interest groups all have lobbiests distributing "campaign contributions" (aka "bribes") but the general population has no lobbiests.
Stucki, you just named the lobbyists and the PACs of the "general population": the unions. <--- not to be construed as berating unions, far from it. :)
TS
12
The war goes on, but the wargames have been canceled.
I seriously doubt that, and Dumb Duck Donald proves the depths of his ignorance and utter lack of fitness as commander in chief in even uttering the term "wargames." Moron.
The press has been mostly wide eyed and slack jawed about the whole thing. Hard to blame them.
Likely gobsmacked too at the faith BLOTUS places in BLONK... based on his "feelings."
So here's a story that should bring us all together:
DNC Quietly Adopts Ban On Fossil Fuel Company Donations
The Democratic National Committee voted over the weekend to ban donations from fossil fuel companies, HuffPost has learned.
The resolution ? proposed by Christine Pelosi, a party activist and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi’s daughter ? bars the organization from accepting contributions from corporate political action committees tied to the oil, gas and coal industries.
The DNC will consider a second resolution at a full board meeting in Chicago in August to ban contributions over $200 from individuals who work for the fossil fuel industry.
I swear the question marks got in there by accident.
"My party" (Libertarian) doesn't really count, and anyway, we're already in favor of free trade, but actually most Reps are too.
CRS - the current situation proves that the Republican Party cares little about free trade. They canceled TPP, they are letting Trump eviscerate NAFTA and they are cheering from the slidelines as he starts trade wars.
Libertarians are not a party, they are a high school glee group for the Republican Party, or at least that is their role in American politics.
@don,
80% of citizens may also like chocolate ice cream or hate reality tv, but that's not related to their intensity or salience as public issues. the rest of the evidence you cited is anecdotal (i.e. no numbers to back it up), and counter-evidence is much stronger. public research firms regularly take reports of top voter priorities, and sadly campaign finance isn't even in the top twenty.
JL
Kick-55
I assume BLONK = Big Liar Of North Korea. Bravo!
Over promise and under deliver is the proven marketing approach of both these con men.
here's an interesting article about campaign finance:
http://time.com/4182502/campaign-finance-reform/
Don-
You don’t wear bitchy well, but OK I’ll give 41 a try. First off do you have any data what so ever that those who likely won’t vote in 2020 will not vote because of big money in politics? Or dare I say, even know the issue exists? Second, for the sake of argument let’s assume they are dedicated to your idea. How will they find you? Your name link is dead and One Demand in a google search does not bring up your site within 20 pages of results. Just because you have become fond of the word bullshit does not make any of the criticisms that you toss it at false. Your name link being dead and the inability to find your site with a search engine are easily verifiable. As nypoet22 can probably attest, fixing your name link is supper easy. I would say my criticism is far from bullshit and quite accurate...
Paula
30
Banks admitted that he handed over telephone numbers for members of Trump's transition team to Russian officials.
Yes, ma'am. That same transition team for which Mueller has all their emails. Is it any wonder then why several of them have decided to retire abruptly and/or forego reelection? ;)
Don Harris
40
Paula-
BULLSHIT.
None of you here are worthy of being taken seriously the majority of the time.
Then shove off, Don. You've already received your answer, and the rest of us are obviously not worthy of your brilliance. TYA, pal. :)
Balthasar
42
So we don't want to withhold money from Democratic candidates, we want to actually lavish them with cash so that they can produce a government that works for all, not just for the few.
Winner, winner... chicken dinner!
And since the federal government already limits the amounts "we the people" as individuals may contribute to said candidates, Don's bullshit is simply an unnecessary and impractical load of utter superfluous nonsense. :)
Don-
Where are the data points I asked for on 41?
People can sign up for 2018 right now. People can understand the idea from the website as it is right now.
No they can’t. You pretty much don’t exist on the net...
Do people who are not likely to vote in 2020 even know CW exists?
Don Harris
56
You wouldn't constantly hear about average contributions of 27 dollars, 40 dollars, etc. if there wasn't indications that there are a significant number of citizens that do think it is important.
Don, you should allow yourself to consider the fact that you're confusing campaign rhetoric and propaganda with reality. The obvious object of the exercise of the repetition of rhetoric... yours or anyone else's... is to give credence to bullshit, and that's exactly why Benedict Donald bleats out "no collusion" and "fake news" like verbal diarrhea and why the morons and minions spew it back despite all evidence to the contrary.
Stability. The amount of citizens making small contributions has increased and is trending to increase more.
The rhetoric has increased, and the population has increased. Statistics are pretty static, however, but the majority give well below your "One Demand" by continuing to contribute the amount of zero, but don't let facts stand in the way of your fantasy.
And just because no one here can accept that their worldview, which precludes them form considering participating in anything like One Demand, is not everyone's worldview and is no reason to assume that other people will not consider participating in One Demand if they were to learn more about it or learn about it at all.
Any individual who contributes more than zero to a given candidate is already "participating" in the federal government's version of your "bright idea" to limit their individual contributions to political campaigns. No one's "worldview" precludes their ability to participate... I promise. :)
Don Harris
63
And even if I did shit in my hand there is no way it could be as full of shit as your head.
I think you have missed the point entirely that you have been shitting in your hand for the past two years on this blog and coming up empty, but then missing the point seems to be right up your wheelhouse.
<iBut go ahead. prove me wrong. see and respond to comment 41 instead of chickening out and coming up with more bullshit to avoid addressing the issue at hand.
The fact that your hands remain empty after two years of wishing, hoping, and trolling this board is not our problem. No one here is required to answer your questions. Nevertheless, we keep doing it and giving the same answer.
What part of "no" is at all confusing? Moron.
TS
64
I assume BLONK = Big Liar Of North Korea. Bravo!
Yes, it does. Props to Paula, though; I just followed her term "Blotus" out to its natural conclusion to fit the other lying authoritarian.
Over promise and under deliver is the proven marketing approach of both these con men.
Yes, sir... but... oh, wait... BLONK is beginning to appear to deliver with the rolling of BLOTUS. :)
[68] Kick: That same transition team for which Mueller has all their emails. Is it any wonder then why several of them have decided to retire abruptly and/or forego reelection? ;)
Yep.
Don Harris
77
Thank you for proving my point that you are full of shit.
If you'd pull your head out of your ass and open your eyes and ears, I promise you the shit will dissipate.
No one here is required to answer my questions. But claiming you have when you haven't doesn't make it true.
"No" is an answer, Don. You just don't like the answer.
I am not required to stop posting my opinions or to stop pointing out your bullshit.
One can dream, though. I would pay well beyond your "One Demand" to the author as long as he continues to ignore your bullshit, but even I know that CW owes me nothing. Clue in.
The fact that you want me stop and won't answer my questions when I answer pretty much all the bullshit and distractions and tangents and making stuff up and moving the goalposts, etc. over and over again proves that there is something about it that you fear.
Fear? Oh, wait. I see your problem now, Don. Your sanity has jumped the rails, and you believe there's a reason to fear you?!
Pardon me... just cleaning the liquid from my screen where I laughed so hard I spewed.
There seem to be an awful lot of Democrats here who are a lot more like Republicans than they think they are. Morons. Pussies. Feckless... well-you get the idea.
I'm still neither a Democrat nor a Republican, but I'm infinitely aware that your name calling of the posters on the board will not likely help your cause nor likely be a catalyst that would entice the author to come to your aid.
So do us a favor, Don... rather than hanging out with us mere mortals and "pussies" who are wasting your precious time, why don't you henceforth email the author directly and leave us out of it?
http://www.chrisweigant.com/email-chris/
Kick -82
Huzzah! Nice shooting Captain Kick..you've straddled the bastard. I see secondary explosions. I don't he'll sink ' cause his hull is full of ping pong balls. I'm going to cease fire myself. The poor bugger isn't a credible threat, just a navigational nuisance putting on airs. A
The A is gratuitous...screen size glitch....old tablet.
Don Harris
83
NO does not explain how it would be better if voters that would vote in 2018 would stay home rather than participate in One Demand or what harm would be caused if people that would not vote in 2018 participated in One Demand.
Again, you seem to be missing the entire point that I and several other posters have made ad nauseam that "One Demand" offers nothing that those voters aren't already free to participate in if they choose to do so. Limits on individual campaign contributions already exist, the majority already contributes well below your "One Demand" in the form of zero, and "One Demand" supplies nothing that does not already exist wherein eligible voters could choose to vote and/or contribute in the future. It's not exactly a novel concept you got there when the federal government has beaten you to it, albeit in different amounts.
It is technically an answer, but not a very good one- even for someone of limited ability to understand concepts.
Your limited inability to understand concepts notwithstanding, we have now established that "no" is indeed an answer. Take it.
I never claimed CW owed me anything. MORE MADE_UP BULLSHIT!
Yes, Don, you have made up more bullshit if you're equating me stating that I know CW doesn't owe me anything is the equivalent of claiming that you said it. Focus, Don. That was me talking about what I knew and had nothing to do with what you did or did not say. Everything posted on CW.com is not about you or your pathetic ideas, Don, no matter how much you troll it to that end.
I have posted my opinion that someone claiming to be a reality based blogger which is part of the media has a responsibility to address reality and back up their statements and be consistent in their application.
Yes, Don... ad nauseam. It doesn't take a rocket science to discern that you feel like the author owes you something. Please keep making the utter asinine argument that an author "has a responsibility to address" something out of one ass cheek while claiming you never said he owed anything out of the other. Perhaps then you'll understand why you appear to be a complete ass to the rest of us. :)
Then if you're not afraid why do you keep spouting bullshit and avoid addressing the issue at hand?
See above where we have established that "no" is indeed an answer whether you like that answer or not. You refusing to accept the very valid comment that you provide nothing that doesn't already exist is addressing the issue at hand, whether or not you refuse to acknowledge it.
Do you just enjoy putting your stupidity on display?
I will give you a little Don Harris reasoning that even you can understand. If you'd "take responsibility" and accept "reality," there would be no need whatsoever for any poster to comment in response to your bullshit because you'd have long since accepted our answer.
Or is it the opposite, that the questions are too difficult?
The disconnect here is your inability to accept our answers. Your questions aren't difficult due to the fact that your concept and your intellect are mired squarely and inexorably at grade school level... and so shall they remain ever thus, I expect, since you refuse to make wise use of your time to educate yourself.
I guess the reason the name calling was brought for me to respond to in kind could be that you are right and that it will not cause CW to chime in.
It is the definition of insanity to keep doing the same thing while expecting a different outcome. Cursing the posters on this blog and the author for not addressing something they've addressed ad nauseam would also qualify as insanity.
Why don't I email the author directly. I have on a few occasions. What does that remind me of, email the author directly so no one else sees it?
Oh yeah, the NFL telling players they should wait in the locker room during the anthem and not protest visibly. Very Trumpian.
You should pay better attention, moron; Trump is against the players waiting in the locker room. Trump keeps whining ad nauseam that the players have a "responsibility" to stand on the field and perform in a certain manner for the benefit of the citizenry. Who does that sound like? It seems you and Trump share similar warped views of the concept of "freedom of speech."
Whether or not you are a Democrat you sure spend an awful lot of time defending them and cheering them on and certainly qualify to joining them in being more like Republicans than you think you are.
Idiots like you that feel the need to make up labels and apply them to everyone and thereby shove them into little boxes and dismiss them says more about you than it does about anybody else.
Take "no" for an answer, Don; we've established, and you've now accepted that it is one. :)
TS
84
I'm going to cease fire myself.
Yes, sir. I hear you. :)
The poor bugger isn't a credible threat, just a navigational nuisance putting on airs.
Yep... trolling with the same stale bait over and over and expecting something different. ;)
The incessant name-calling and generally mean-spirited comments that are increasing filling the comments sections is doing a great disservice to Chris's blog.
The perpetrators could take a lesson in civil discourse from Prime Minister Trudeau.
"If you don't have anything nice to say to someone, then don't say anything at all."
Not a Trudeau quote, by the way, but it applies.
It's really starting to look like Trump's America ...
Elizabeth Miller
90
It's really starting to look like Trump's America …
Okay, this is awesome, Elizabeth!
For a whole 30 seconds there, it appeared you were serious about not saying "anything at all" unless you had something nice to say. :)
“I know words, I have the best words.”
~donald trump
Something nice to say about ... wait for it ... SOMEONE, you know.
Be nice to your fellow commenters, in other words.
Of course, that doesn't mean that you can't constructively criticize their arguments or make a general statement about the state of affairs.
It's not that hard, you know.
No.
Don Harris
97
Well, you seem to be capable of learning.
You don't.
In this case no is an acceptable response to "Try to keep up."
But alas, that was a response to someone else. Everything is not about you, Don, and you really don't quite seem to comprehend the concept of "freedom of speech" so let me help you. No one is required to give you an "acceptable response" or any response at all. I don't care if you don't like my answers; in fact, I'm quite proud of the fact that you don't.
So let's review:
No. Like my Daddy also used to say: "Let's don't and say we did."
Over and out.