[People tend to support those who are like them.
Blacks are more likely to support blacks; Jews are more likely to support Jews; Latinos are more likely to support Latinos; and stupid, immoral, close-minded, bigoted liars are more likely to support stupid, close-minded, immoral, bigoted liars.
The fact that New Yorkers don’t support New Yorker, Donald Trump, tells it all.]
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As though there was not already enough evidence, here is more.
As the Senate votes to acquit President Trump over his bid to extort the Ukrainian government into providing him with domestic political help, TPM has new evidence suggesting that the pressure campaign came far closer to succeeding and at an earlier stage than was previously known.
Months before President Trump pressured Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelensky to open investigations during the infamous July 25 phone call, henchmen working for his attorney nearly succeeded in doing the same with the previous Ukrainian leader.
Hannity and “news” friends.
Text messages obtained by TPM show that former Ukraine President Petro Poroshenko was scheduled to announce investigations into the Bidensand the 2016 election to John Solomon of The Hill in March 2019.
Ultimately, Poroshenko backed out of the interview at the last minute.
The plan was for an investigation of the Bidens to be announced to right-wing “news”man, John Solomon.
Clearly, the motivation for such an announcement was a political plum for Trump, and had nothing to do with American security.
The planned appearance came in the wake of a late February meeting that the then-Ukrainian leader held with Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman, in which they offered what Parnas has described as a “quid pro quo” on behalf of Rudy Giuliani and his client, President Trump: announce investigations into the Bidens and the 2016 election, and receive in return a state visit to the U.S. that could bolster Poroshenko’s re-election chances.
It was, quite simply, a plot involving a foreign government to skew the American elections. The GOP sees nothing wrong with this.
Poroshenko’s planned appearance suggests that he had, at least initially, agreed to the deal, before backing out.
It also highlights that the campaign to turn Ukraine into a domestic political bludgeon for Trump began far earlier than Giuliani’s aborted May 2019 dirt-digging trip to Kyiv.
“This was not just the July 25 call, it was a months-long scheme, or effort, or whatever you wanna call it put together by the President, Giuliani, and others,” Parnas told TPM in a telephone interview with his attorney Joseph A. Bondy.
It took Trump and Giuliani months of pressure to convince Poroshenko’s successor, Zelensky, to agree to a TV news appearance,w on CNN in September. Zelensky also backed out at the last minute. e
Trump, Giuliani, and Parnas had the entire show scripted. Trump’s “perfect” phone call came near the end of the plot.
Parnas sent Poroshenko’s press secretary a list of questions ahead of the planned interview: “this will be questions,” Parnas said in an accompanying text.
The questions, obtained by TPM, goad Poroshenko into describing the allegations that Trump would later want Zelensky to investigate.
The questions cover two distinct topics: allegations that Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch was bad-mouthing President Trump in Kyiv and allegations that Joe Biden had abused his position to have a Ukrainian prosecutor fired in a bid to protect his son Hunter Biden from an investigation.
One question on the Yovanovitch portion appears to reference a May 2018 letter sent by Rep. Pete Sessions (R-TX)to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, demanding the ambassador’s removal.
Even GOP members of Congress were in on the scheme.
“I recently was shown a letter from a member of Congress who suggested Ambassador YO-van-NO-witch was saying derogatory things about president Trump. Do you have any evidence that has happened?” the question reads.
The line of questions about the Bidens conclude in the following sequence:
“Did VP Biden have an interest personally in the prosecutor’s office and its activities?” “Was the VP’s son and his company Barisma Holdings under investigation and how serious were the allegations?” “What happened to that case after the vice president’s intervention?”
The scheme was planned so closely, that even the sequence of questions was predetermined.
Parnas told TPM that Solomon formulated the questions. The topics do not cover allegations of Ukrainian interference in the 2016 election — a right-wing hobbyhorse raised on Trump’s call with Zelensky, and a story in which Poroshenko is supposedly implicated.
Parnas’ allegations about the Poroshenko pressure campaign are supported by contemporaneous Russian-language texts between Parnas and Yuriy Lutsenko, Ukraine’s prosecutor general at the time.
A series of texts beginning in early March shows Parnas attempting to arrange the Poroshenko interview through Lutsenko, who was present at the February meeting in Kyiv.
The House Intelligence Committee released the texts the week before the Senate began the third impeachment trial in U.S. history. Parnas supplied the panel with the texts after receiving them from Manhattan federal prosecutors as discovery in his criminal campaign finance case.
That information was ignored by the GOP-led Senate,
On March 8, Parnas sent Lutsenko the names of Solomon and Fox News’ Sean Hannity along with a March 5 Washington Post article that took a critical look at “the feedback loop between Fox News and the Oval Office.”
When a news medium is in cahoots with politicians, to set up a political story on behalf of a political party, it no longer is a news medium. It is a lobbying organization masquerading as a news medium.
In response to the messages, Lutsenko began to complain about Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch and the State Department’s support for her as a response.
But then, Parnas told Lutsenko, using a diminutive for Yuriy, that, “Yura, we’re aware of everything.”
“Try to do an interview tomorrow at one,” Parnas added, apparently referring to an interview that Lutsenko later had with Solomon.
Lutsenko replied that he would try to call, and then wrote that an unnamed person “will definitely be in the Administration,” apparently referring to the Presidential Administration, which houses Ukraine’s executive offices. “I will try to connect you earlier.”
One minute later, Parnas wrote “and be sure that this will be a friendly interview with the President of Ukraine, a state partner of America !!!” Parnas added in a later text that “we will try to agree that that they do an interview with you tomorrow as well.”
Parnas wrote that “we are now in the [studio] and will now call the President’s secretary.” He followed up with screenshots of what appeared to be Solomon interviewing Nazar Kholodnytsky, a Ukrainian prosecutor whose firing Yovanovitch demanded.
TPM obtained texts between Parnas and Darya Khudakova, Poroshenko’s foreign media press secretary.
In the March 8 exchange, Khudyakova asked Parnas if it would be possible to schedule an interview that Tsegolko had made her “responsible to negotiate.”
Khudyakova described the interview to Parnas as “an important moment for us.”
Parnas sent her an image showing a document with the list of questions, covering allegations against both Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch and Joe Biden.
Khudyakova told Parnas that she received the questions, and initially agreed to have Poroshenko do the interview on Monday, March 11, after Parnas proposed the day.
But something happened in the intervening time, and Poroshenko called it off.
Lutsenko told Parnas “these are not questions for an acting President — in the heat of the campaign he cannot respond to questions about the ambassador, Biden, etc.”
Khudyakova wrote to Parnas on the day that the interview was supposed to be held that “it seems that a probability of interview with the President late tonight today is very unlikely.”
It would appear from the texts that Poroshenko’s team chose at the last minute to walk away from the interview, perhaps sensing it unwise.
Or, as Lutsenko wrote a few days later, “I’m ready to screw your competitor, but you just want more.”
It would appear from the context that Lutsenko is referring to “Biden” as the “competitor,” but it’s unclear from the text itself.
Could it be any clearer? They were after Biden, and there was no talk of Ukraine “corruption,” as the White House claimed.
Trump saw how well the threat of an FBI investigation of Hillary Clinton worked. He wanted to use the same ploy on Biden.
Interestingly, a proposed FBI investigation of Trump would not have the same effect, because everyone already knows he is a liar and a crook — and his cult followers don’t care.
But Lutsenko himself eventually spoke to Solomon and got his end of the deal, or at least part of it: Yovanovitch was removed from her post as ambassador in late April, and formally removed from Kyiv in early May.
Lutsenko told Bloomberg in a May 16 interview after Yovanovitch’s departure that there was no evidence to suggest wrongdoing on Biden’s part.
“I do not want Ukraine to again be the subject of U.S. presidential elections,” Lutsenko told Bloomberg. “Hunter Biden did not violate any Ukrainian laws — at least as of now, we do not see any wrongdoing.”
To Trump supporters, none of the above means anything. Trump indeed could shoot someone on 5th Ave. and not lose any of his evangelical followers.
Jim Jones, American cult leader promised his followers a utopia after proclaiming himself messiah of the Peoples Temple, an evangelist group.
He ultimately led his followers into a mass suicide, which left more than 900 dead.
Does “printing” money cause inflation? Or is so-called “printing” money the best way to cure inflation?
1. The federal government does not print money. It prints
Federal Reserve Notes (FRN), which are not dollars, but rather are bearer certificates: Titles to dollars.
Only a small percentage of dollars are represented by FRNs.
2. Dollars are balance sheet numbers. They have no physical existence. You cannot feel, see, hear, smell, or taste dollars.
3. The government, being Monetarily Sovereign, has the unlimited ability to create dollars. The government never unintentionally can run short of dollars.
4. Printing FRNs does not cause inflations. The reverse is true. The printing of FRNs results from inflations.
5. The cause of inflations — a general increase in prices — is shortages, generally scarcities of energy and/or food.
Scarcity causes prices to rise, and widespread scarcities of food and/or oil, cause widespread price increases.
6. Federal deficit spending actually can prevent or cure inflations, if the spending cures the shortages.
Case in point: Zimbabwe’s inflation came when its government seized farmland from farmers and gave it to non-farmers, who could not grow enough food.
The resultant food shortage caused hyperinflation, which the government could have cured by deficit spending to purchase food from other countries.
The graph below compares changes in the U.S. money supply (Green – M3) to changes in inflation (red).
Changes in M3 (green) are NOT predictive of changes in prices (red).
The graph below compares changes in the price of oil (blue) (which closely reflect shortages) to changes in inflation. (red).
Changes in the price of oil ((blue — which closely reflect supply changes) ARE predictive of inflation.
The graph below compares the overall Consumer Price Index (Red) to the price index of food and energy (gold). Food and energy prices (which reflect availability) are predictive of overall inflation.
Food and energy inflation (gold) IS predictive of overall inflation (red).
Discussion of federal projects generally lead to the question, “How will you pay for it.” The correct answer never is, “by raising taxes” or “by cutting other spending.”
The correct answer always is, via federal deficit spending.
In summary:
Prices rise (inflation) because of scarcity, usually a scarcity of food and/or energy. Curing the scarcity reduces prices.
Scarcity can be cured by federal deficit spending to purchase the scarce items and distribute them into the economy.
The amount of deficit spending is not the key to inflation or its cure. The key is how the deficit spending is used.
Deficit spending, to purchase the scarce items, cures inflations. Poorly directed deficit spending that does not cure the scarcity, will worsen inflation.
A Monetarily Sovereign government cannot run short of the sovereign currency needed to cure an inflation.
Gap Psychology describes the common desire to distance oneself from those “below” in any socio-economic ranking, and to come nearer those “above.” The socio-economic distance is referred to as “The Gap.”
Wide Gaps negatively affect poverty, health and longevity, education, housing, law and crime, war, leadership, ownership, bigotry, supply and demand, taxation, GDP, international relations, scientific advancement, the environment, human motivation and well-being, and virtually every other issue in economics.
Implementation of Monetary Sovereignty and The Ten Steps To Prosperity can grow the economy and narrow the Gaps:
I just received an advertisement for Trumpcare. Should I join?
The advertisement was in the form of an Email. It came with a nice logo, featuring a symbolic American flag, and looked quite official.
It resembles what I might receive from a federal agency:
Alas, like all things associated with Donald Trump, Trumpcare is mostly BS, a non-existent “program” designed and named solely to stroke the endlessly needy ego of Donald J. Trump and his fact-blind followers.
There is no Trumpcare. There only isa group of proposed modifications to Obamacare (ACA) that provide less care, and cost more than the original.
One of the most important features of Obamacare is the ban on discrimination against pre-existing conditions.
TrumpCare weakens (not eliminates) key protections for women, seniors, low-income Americans, and those with pre-existing conditions, which could result in tens of millions (including those with pre-existing conditions) being excluded to from the market or placed in a high-risk pool due to cost.
If one wants to speak truthfully without diving into the whole explainer above, they can simply say, “TrumpCare/ The American Healthcare Act weakens pre-existing conditions protections.”
Or more generally, “TrumpCare/ The American Healthcare Act weakens protectionsfor women, seniors, low-income Americans, and those with pre-existing conditions.”
If one wants to add more detail they can say, “The state waivers, paired with reduced cost assistance, a fee for re-entering the market, less employers offering health plans, and the freezing of Medicaid expansion could lead to many being effectively excluded from insurance due to having a pre-existing condition (the effect is indirect, not direct).”
FACT: As many as 1 in 2 Americans have a condition that could count as a pre-existing condition and, although not every possible pre-existing condition would be excluded, a portion of those 50% with pre-existing conditions could see new hurdles under TrumpCare.
FACT: The plan (before the Amendments) had a price tag that came in under the ACA according to the Congressional Budget Office, saving $337 billion (for the federal government) over the decade (according to their first report).
However, it did this by leaving 52 million without coverage by 2026 (it increases the uninsured by 24 million by 2026 for a total of 52 million).
The cost and uninsured rate are subject to change based on changes to the bill.
Much like Trump University and Trump Foundation, Trumpcare is a bit of sleight-of-hand that seems to promise much, but in reality, it is a figment of Trump’s imagination.
The changes from Obamacare mostly involve turning over to the states, decisions about benefits.
Those of you who live in “red” states know what that means: If you’re middle- or lower-income, you’re about to be cheated by right-wing, “states rights” bologna.
Continuing with the article:
Very simply, TrumpCare/ The American Healthcare Act weakens pre-existing conditions protections.”
Or more generally, “TrumpCare/ The American Healthcare Act weakens protections for women, seniors, low-income Americans, and those with pre-existing conditions.”
If one wants to add more detail they can say, “The state waivers, paired with reduced cost assistance, a fee for re-entering the market, fewer employers offering health plans, and the freezing of Medicaid expansion could lead to many being effectively excluded from insurance due to having a pre-existing condition (the effect is indirect, not direct).”
FACT: The plan (before the Amendments) had a price tag that came in under the ACA according to the Congressional Budget Office,saving (the federal government) $337 billion over the decade (according to their first report).
However, it did this by leaving 52 million without coverage by 2026 (it increases the uninsured by 24 million by 2026 for a total of 52 million).
The cost and uninsured rate are subject to change based on changes to the bill.
In summary, so-called “Trumpcare,” if it ever existed, would save money for the Monetarily Sovereign U.S. government (which can afford anything and never run short of dollars), while shifting a massive health burden to the middle- and lower-income people.
By the way, as a lark, I went through that website advertising the non-existent “Trumpcare,” and came to this page ———————->
“Here’s Trumpcare.”
Apparently, “Trumpcare is Obamacare. Surprised?
If you liked Trump University, Trump Foundation, Trump Steaks, Trump Airlines, Trump Vodka, the Trump Casinos, Trump Mortgage, Trump Magazine, Trump Tower Panama, GoTrump.com, Trump: the game, and my very favorite, Donald Trump, the fragrance (for those of you who wish to smell like Trump), all of which were failures (and some illegal), perhaps you also will enjoy Trumpcare — if it ever passes.
But as with all things Trump, hang on to your wallet.
And by the way, none of the business failures was Trump’s fault. Ask him.
Gap Psychology describes the common desire to distance oneself from those “below” in any socio-economic ranking, and to come nearer those “above.” The socio-economic distance is referred to as “The Gap.”
Wide Gaps negatively affect poverty, health and longevity, education, housing, law and crime, war, leadership, ownership, bigotry, supply and demand, taxation, GDP, international relations, scientific advancement, the environment, human motivation and well-being, and virtually every other issue in economics.
Implementation of Monetary Sovereignty and The Ten Steps To Prosperity can grow the economy and narrow the Gaps:
“My only question is, who is our bigger enemy, Jay Powell or Chairman Xi?” Mr. Trump wrote.
Kevin Cramer, Republican of North Dakota criticized Mr. Trump’s attacks on Mr. Powell: “This is an area where I frankly disagree with the president. He’s forever attacking the Federal Reserve and particularly Jay Powell.
They are independent of politics, and they ought to remain independent of politics.”
To Trump, nothing is independent of politics. Trump has but one criterion in evaluating people: Do they express eternal fealty for him?
As for other criteria: Talent? No.
Knowledge” No.
Honesty? Are you kidding? In a Trump administration?
Intelligence? Only if it’s low.
Lawmakers from both parties routinely give the Fed chair high marks.
Their view of the chair matters, because while the president nominates members to the Fed’s Board of Governors, the White House has no other significant power over the central bank.
Monetary policymakers answer to Congress.
Sadly, the President does have the power to fire the Fed Chairman “for cause,” which with a slavish, timid, immoral GOP, “cause” would be any nonsense Trump could dream up.
Thank heavens Trump feels reluctant to take that step, or by now we would have had half a dozen Scott Pruits and Paul Manaforts as Fed Chairmen.
And yet::
Trump has recently nominated a Fed critic, Judy Shelton, to sit among the Fed’s leadership in Washington.
Her confirmation hearing could come as soon as Feb. 13, 2020.
True to form, Trump has nominated a useless sycophant:
After describing low interest rates as an assault on democratic capitalism during the Obama years, Shelton now embraces lower rates and suggests that the next Bretton Woods conference to reshape international monetary arrangements should be held at Mar-a-Lago.
Many have already written about her flip-flops, including the Wall Street Journal’s Greg Ip and Bloomberg’s Ramesh Ponnuru.
As Ip writes, “Having accused the Fed, under Mr. Obama, ‘of catering to the political class,’ she now says it should support Mr. Trump’s agenda by cutting interest rates to ‘ensure maximum access to capital.’”
If the above doesn’t send shivers up your spine, you have become far too inured to Trump’s own lies and incompetence.
Not only does Shelton have no consistent or coherent policy regarding interest rates, and not only is she an obvious fawner to a compulsive “fawnee,” but she wants to return us to a (fools) gold standard.
And not just an ordinary gold standard but . . .
A “Universal Gold Reserve Bank that would have the potential to become a sort of global monetary authority.”
Thus, does Shelton want the U.S. to surrender the single most valuable asset any government can have — its Monetary Sovereignty — but she also wants the entire worldto give up Monetary Sovereignty to an unelected group of what? Honest bankers?
And she fleshes out this truly dumb idea, by making it even worse, if that’s possible:
Circa 2000 Shelton toyed with the idea of a common currency for North America.
“The common currency for this union could be an ‘amero,’” — and she even favored a global common currency.
She asked, “how can we ignore the parallel need for a common unit of account, a global form of money?”
Ah yes, a a global common currency, a cousin of the truly awful euro, which essentially has destroyed the economies of those nations that have adopted it.
The euro nations, having surrendered control over their own money, and given control to the new Masters, the European Union bankers and their billionaire patrons, have “had” to foist austerity on the masses.
For a monetarily non-sovereign government, austerity is necessary, because unlike a Monetarily Sovereign government, such a government needs some form of income. This income must be derived from taxes, which eventually requires net exports.
But because exports must equal imports, if some nations have net exports, other nations must have net imports, and net imports send money out of the country.
That’s fine for a Monetarily Sovereign government like the U.S., which has the unlimited ability to create its sovereign currency, so it never can run short of money. But it’s not so fine for the euro governments, which gave away that power, and who now live at the mercy of rapacious EU bankers.
And that is what Shelton wants for America.
And she is what Trump wants for the Federal Reserve, An obsequious “yes” woman to run an institution he feels is unnecessary, even harmful.
See the plan? When the economy and/or the stock market do well, it’s because of Trump. But if they do poorly, it’s because of the Fed. Perfect
The self-anointed “stable genius” has all bases covered. He can’t lose.
Judging by her record, a Shelton Federal Reserve would like nothing better than to end the Fed and hand the powers to a new global monetary authority, the Universal Gold Reserve Bank.
She believes that setting monetary policy to address domestic conditions is “selfish.” (Really.)
In the absence of a proper gold standard, she says she favors fixing the dollar to rival currencies or gold. (Never mind that this would put American monetary policy at the whim of gold speculators and European central bankers.)
For Shelton, limiting the Fed’s power is the point.
Of course, this all assumes she would show up for the job. The last time the Senate confirmed her for a position — U.S. envoy to the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development — she missed about half the meetings, as the Wall Street Journal reported in August.
If the lousy attendance record, the ceding of Monetary Sovereignty and the flip-flopping for Trump don’t disturb the Senate, perhaps Milton Friedman’s assessment of Shelton will.
In 1994, he wrote of then-colleague Judy Shelton’s op-ed, “It would be hard to pack more error into so few words.”
A few years ago Shelton supported a Virginia effort to study an alternative Virginia currency should the dollar collapse. Since then that effort has faltered.
Perhaps America would be better served if she focused on helping her home state of Virginia prepare for a catastrophe rather than causing one as a Federal Reserve official.
Because of Trump’s brilliance, his administration, indeed his entire life, has been famous for its revolving door of fools, toadies, liars, and/or miscreants. Consider this cast of characters:
HHS Secretary Tom Price
EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt
HUD Secretary Ben Carson
Campaign manager Paul Manafort
Deputy campaign manager Rick Gates
National security adviser Michael Flynn
Personal Lawyer Michael Cohen
Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross
Mobster Salvatore Testa
Mobster Fat Tony Salerno
Roger Stone
Jeffrey Epstein
Secretary of Labor Alexander Acosta
Foreign Policy Adviser George Papadopoulos
Kellyanne Conway
Konstantin Kilimnik
and now, Judy Shelton
What President ever has surrounded himself with such people?
Gap Psychology describes the common desire to distance oneself from those “below” in any socio-economic ranking, and to come nearer those “above.” The socio-economic distance is referred to as “The Gap.”
Wide Gaps negatively affect poverty, health and longevity, education, housing, law and crime, war, leadership, ownership, bigotry, supply and demand, taxation, GDP, international relations, scientific advancement, the environment, human motivation and well-being, and virtually every other issue in economics.
Implementation of Monetary Sovereignty and The Ten Steps To Prosperity can grow the economy and narrow the Gaps:
#Monetary Sovereignty - Mitchell 