President Trumps first 100 days;

Rixer · Jul 24, 2019

Let's go back and see what Truman did.... yeah, why not? Damn, this is fun.

Sanity_is_Relative · Jul 24, 2019

CS natureboy · Jul 24, 2019

Trump administration scores win over challenge to asylum restriction
By Ronn Blitzer | Fox News

Video

New rule attempts to address immigration loopholes; Ray Bogan reports from Washington, D.C.

A federal judge decided Wednesday to leave in place a Trump administration rule that imposes restrictions on individuals seeking asylum in the United States if they passed through a third country on their way to the border between the U.S. and Mexico, potentially leading to a sharp reduction in Central American migrants entering the country.

The rule, published in the Federal Register last week, requires people seeking asylum to first apply in one of the countries they pass through on their way to the U.S., with certain exceptions. The rule was quickly met with a legal challenge from advocacy groups, who moved for a temporary restraining order blocking the rule. After a hearing in Washington, D.C. federal court, District Judge Timothy J. Kelly denied the motion. The rule will remain in place for the duration of the case, unless the decision is successfully appealed.

"We are disappointed in the court's decision today," said Claudia Cubas, litigation direction for the Capital Area Immigrants' Rights Coalition.

Kelly, who was appointed to the bench by President Trump said the immigrant advocate groups who filed the lawsuit did not show that their work would be irreparably harmed if the policy moved forward.

With certain exceptions, the rule requires individuals to apply for and be denied asylum in another country in order to apply in the U.S. That means that migrants from Central American nations who travel through Mexico – who make up a significant portion of recent asylum seekers – will not be eligible for asylum in America unless they previously applied for asylum in Mexico or any other country they traversed and were turned down.

The new rule’s exceptions include certain cases of human trafficking.

The rule is meant to crack down on asylum seekers coming to the U.S. more for economic reasons than to escape persecution in their home countries. Administration officials say this could help close the gap between the initial asylum screening that most people pass and the final decision on asylum that most people do not win. The goal in part is to allow quicker determinations in these cases.

The policy follows the Trump administration's Migrant Protection Protocols, commonly referred to as the "remain in Mexico" policy. Under that policy, asylum seekers were often told to go back to Mexico to await hearings, rather than be allowed to remain in the U.S.

Democrats railed against that policy, with 2020 hopeful Beto O'Rourke calling it "inhumane."

A reduction in asylum seekers would ease the burden on federal agencies currently overwhelmed by the volume of individuals seeking entry into the U.S.

Detention facilities have been notoriously stretched for resources, resulting in outcries against the government. The criticism has particularly been strong when it comes to the conditions in which migrant children have been kept.

Sanity_is_Relative · Jul 25, 2019

shootersa · Jul 25, 2019

And who would "they" be?

Sanity_is_Relative · Jul 25, 2019

Not blowing smoke: Wind has overtaken 'risky' coal for energy use in Texas for the first time
Vandana Ravikumar,USA TODAY 7 hours ago

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For the first time since the Electric Reliability Council of Texas began collecting data in 2003, wind has surpassed coal as an energy source.
The coal industry's slump has hit Texas.

For the first time since the Electric Reliability Council of Texas began collecting data on the state's fuel mix in 2003, wind surpassed coal as an energy source during the first half of this year, according to data released this month. The ERCOT report shows that 22% of the state's energy was derived from wind, overtaking coal by 1%.

The slight shift doesn't mean that wind energy is dominant in Texas' fuel mix. The use of wind and coal are both dwarfed by natural gas, which accounts for about 40% of the state's energy.

The change does, however, illustrate the steady growth of an industry that has been on the rise for years, said Dr. Andrew Swift, a professor at Texas Tech University's National Wind Institute and its associate director of wind energy education.

'I know a lot about wind,' Trump says: A government FAQ proves he doesn't

Swift told USA TODAY that while building new coal plants requires a significant investment, wind farms are more of an "incremental investment."

"There's lots of new wind capacity going in as coal plants are getting older," Swift said. "It's hard to build new [coal plants]; it's risky, it's expensive. You don't know where public policy is going to be."

He added that wind energy has become a "significant contributor" to the fuel mix in part due to the decreasing cost of harvesting wind energy, the production of more efficient machinery, and the state's support for wind energy development.

"Texas leads the nation in installed wind capacity by a significant amount," Swift said. "It's been growing since the turn of the century."

The growth of wind energy is only likely to continue — most of the new energy generation projects being considered for the ERCOT region are utility-scale solar and wind projects.

A recent report from Rice University concluded that the Lone Star State could easily survive without coal, the Houston Chronicle reported in January.

“There is no where else in the world better positioned to operate without coal than Texas is,” Dan Cohan, an associate professor of civil and environmental engineering at Rice who co-authored the report with a student, Joanna Slusarewicz, was quoted by the newspaper. “Wind and solar are easily capable of picking up the slack.”

Coal comeback? Trump plan breathes new life into aging power plants, but critics say climate will suffer

The shift comes as the coal industry continues to suffer losses in Texas, which, historically, has been among the country's leaders in electricity produced from coal, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.

A 470-megawatt plant near Bryan announced it would shut down by October, the Chronicle reported this month. That follows the closures last year of three Vistra Energy plants with the combined generation capacity to power at least 800,000 homes.

The news is equally depressing for coal elsewhere. The fourth major coal company since last October filed for bankruptcy earlier this month, jeopardizing some 2,000 jobs across four states.

The bankruptcy filing from Revelation Energy LLC and its affiliate Blackjewel LLC, the nation's sixth-top coal producing company in 2017, comes amid President Donald Trump's ongoing efforts to boost the struggling industry.

During his 2016 presidential campaign, Trump promised to revitalize coal and save miners' jobs, despite scientists linking the burning of the fossil fuels to global warming, but the industry has continued to suffer losses.

Coal’s share of the U.S. electricity mix fell from 48% in 2008 to 27% in 2018 and is projected to be 22% in 2020, according to the Department of Energy.

stumbler · Jul 26, 2019

BUT THE DEFICIT BUT THE DEBT BUT THE DEFICIT BUT THE DEBT!!!!! Oh wait Trump is president now. LIE AND SPEND LIE AND SPEND WE CONSERVATIVES LOVE IT WHEN TRUMP LIES AND SPENDS!!!!

House Passes $2.7 Trillion Spending Deal
The bill also suspends the debt limit and lays the groundwork to keep the government open.

WASHINGTON ― After months of negotiation and decades of asserted fiscal conservatism, the House passed a two-year, $2.7 trillion spending deal Thursday that includes what is likely the largest ever increase to the debt ceiling.

The House approved the bill 284-149, with 219 Democrats and 65 Republicans voting yes, and 16 Democrats, 132 Republicans and one independent voting no.

Despite President Donald Trump’s support for the deal, the majority of Republicans bucked the president and voted against the measure.

Rank-and-file Republicans voted no. GOP leaders who supported the bill still managed to criticize the legislation. And Freedom Caucus leaders wrote a USA Today op-ed calling the bill “deeply flawed.”

“This is a bad deal for the president,” Reps. Mark Meadows (R-N.C.), Jody Hice (R-Ga.) and Warren Davidson (R-Ohio) wrote. “It’s a bad deal for conservatives. Most importantly, it’s a bad deal for the forgotten men and women who voted to shake up Washington, D.C. when they sent President Trump to the White House.”

“This is not draining the swamp,” the lawmakers continued. “It’s feeding the swamp and entrenching the status quo.”

Republicans felt they had little reason to vote for the deal, which would raise spending caps by $320 billion and suspend the debt limit until July 31, 2021. They weren’t part of the negotiations ― this was a deal worked out between *House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin ― and they didn’t feel the need to vote yes while in the minority.

Instead, Democrats mostly supplied the votes.

While a few progressives voted against the legislation, the majority of the Democratic opposition came from vulnerable moderates, perhaps sensing how Republican opponents may try to use the spending deal against them.

Even with Trump’s support, Republicans maligned the legislation for failing to provide any meaningful spending cuts.

House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), who supported the deal, nonetheless lamented that congressional Republicans had so little input in the negotiations. He said the GOP had $500 billion in offset cuts they wanted in exchange for the massive spending deal and debt limit suspension.

Mnuchin had also first insisted on $150 billion in cuts, but Pelosi talked the administration down to about $77 billion in cuts ― most of which will never actually take place.

“It’s not the bill I’d write by myself,” McCarthy said Thursday. “It’s a compromise as we move forward, but it actually allows this process to work.”

The two-year deal sets new limits for defense and non-defense spending. Those agreements will allow Senate appropriators to finally write their government funding bills to those new levels, laying the tracks for another spending deal in September. The Senate is expected to pass the legislation next week before they leave for their August break.

The government is only funded through September, so it was critical that lawmakers pass the legislation to give appropriators time to write a final spending deal to avert a shutdown.

Avoiding another shutdown is a key priority of both parties, and this deal sets the outlines for making sure the government is funded for the duration of Trump’s term. A key part of negotiations was the agreement that Democrats and Republicans would not include certain “poison pill” amendments ― policies that would garner a majority to get the provisions in the legislation, but would prevent other lawmakers from voting for the bill, or the president from signing it.

There are no limitations on the president’s ability to build a border wall using funds he redirects through his emergency declaration, and the so-called Hyde Amendment, which prevents federal dollars from going to abortions, is also preserved in the bill.

There was some concern from Democratic leaders that progressives would balk at those provisions. After all, using appropriations bills to limit the administration is one of the few ways Democrats can restrain Trump. And leaders also worried that liberals would have problems with the massive amount of defense spending approved in the bill.

Progressives prevented Democrats from approving a budget this year over concerns that the defense number was too high ― and as Budget Chairman John Yarmuth (D-Ky.) noted on Thursday, the defense number in this deal is even higher.

But the **Democratic opposition never really materialized.

Instead, Democrats touted how this spending deal would finally end the threat of sequestration ― the spending caps established for 10 years in 2011 ― and take care of raising the debt ceiling before the Treasury can no longer issue new debt in mid-September.

“This is about finally moving us past the threat of sequestration,” Yarmuth said Thursday. “It’s about upholding the full faith and credit of the United States. It’s about providing much-needed certainty to our communities and for our economy.”

Pelosi also praised the deal for “permanently ending the threat of sequestration.”

“That is a very important measure,” Pelosi said. “The administration has joined us to end the devastating sequestration cuts which threaten our investments to keep America No. 1 in the global economy, and again ensure our national security.”

There’s a certain poetic justice in ending sequestration with a two-year spending deal. Trump’s chief of staff, Mick Mulvaney, was a key proponent of the legislation when he was a freshman member of Congress in 2011. Now, he’s working to forever undo the effects of those spending caps.

When Trump called a media availability in the Oval Office last week to praise the deal, inside the room were Republicans like Mulvaney, Vice President Mike Pence and NASA administrator Jim Bridenstine, also a former Freedom Caucus member.

Trump said he couldn’t imagine “anybody using the debt ceiling as a negotiating wedge.”
Click to expand...

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/house-spending-deal-pass_n_5d3a1162e4b0c31569e890d5

shootersa · Jul 26, 2019

Yep.
Trump best get cracking on the debt.
He said he'd pay it off in 8 years, and he's already 2 years in.

Sanity_is_Relative · Jul 26, 2019

While I do not agree with impeachment there is an argument made for it.

ace's n 8's · Jul 26, 2019

stumbler said: ↑

BUT THE DEFICIT BUT THE DEBT BUT THE DEFICIT BUT THE DEBT!!!!! Oh wait Trump is president now. LIE AND SPEND LIE AND SPEND WE CONSERVATIVES LOVE IT WHEN TRUMP LIES AND SPENDS!!!!

House Passes $2.7 Trillion Spending Deal
The bill also suspends the debt limit and lays the groundwork to keep the government open.

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/house-spending-deal-pass_n_5d3a1162e4b0c31569e890d5
Click to expand...

Proving once again...the leftists that control the spending in the House have no problem spending federal fucking government tax dollars...unless of course it's a damn border wall on the U.S. southern border, or creating legislation for immigration reform measures.

stumbler · Jul 26, 2019

Hey guys where's that 4.5% to 5% economic growth Trump promised?

U.S. economic growth slows to 2.1% in the spring as businesses retrench, GDP shows

The numbers: The economy got a jolt of adrenaline in the spring from the biggest increase in household spending in a year and a half, but falling business investment kept a lid on second-quarter growth and signaled potential trouble ahead.

Gross domestic product, the official report card on the economy, grew at a 2.1% annual pace from the start of April to the end of June, the government said Friday. GDP slowed from a 3.1% gain in the first three months of the year.

Economists polled by MarketWatch had expected a 1.9% GDP reading.

The details of the report show that in some ways the economy was stronger in the second quarter than it was at the start of the year, especially on Main Street.

Yet a loss of momentum among business, especially exporters and manufacturers, suggest the economy could expand more slowly in the second half of the year. The Federal Reserve is prepared to cut already low interest rates as soon as next week to give the economy a mostly symbolic boost.

What happened: Americans spent considerably more in the spring compared to the start of the year, when they were recovering from the holiday shopping season, coping with a government shutdown and bearing the brunt of winter weather.

Consumer spending jumped 4.3% after a lackluster 1.1% gain in the first quarter. Households spent more on new cars and trucks, food and drinks and clothing.

The situation was reversed for business. Fixed investment fell 0.8% to mark the biggest drop in three and a half years.

Investment slumped almost 11% on in structures such as office buildings, manufacturing plants and drilling rigs. Spending on equipment rose less than 1%.

Executives have hesitated to make big spending plans amid a festering Trump administration trade dispute with China and a deteriorating global economy harmed in part by trade tensions.

Outlays also slipped 1.5% on residential housing, reflecting tougher times for home builders. High prices and difficulty obtaining inexpensive lots have dented sales.

The value of inventories, or goods waiting to be sold, also shrank by $44.3 billion. That’s the biggest drawdown in a year and it knocked almost a full percentage point off GDP.

Had inventories remained neutral, the economy would have expanded at a 3% annual pace.

A bigger U.S. trade deficit also exerted some drag instead of adding to GDP as it did in the first quarter. Imports rose slightly while exports sank 5.2%.

U.S. tariffs appear to have throttled demand for some Chinese imports while exports have suffered from retaliatory measures, a strong U.S. dollar and a fading global economy.

Government spending, meanwhile, climbed 5% in the spring. The increase partly reflected a rebound in federal outlays after the end of a partial shutdown in January.

Inflation as measured by the Fed’s preferred PCE index rose at a mild 1.4% clip year over year.

Big picture: Households are carrying the ball while businesses sit on the sidelines.

Consumers account for almost 70% of all spending in the economy. Buoyed by steadily rising incomes, more job security and the lowest unemployment rate in almost 50 years, they are spending more than enough to keep the U.S. growing around 2% a year.

t might not be enough, however. Businesses will eventually cut jobs or reduce worker hours if growth doesn’t pick up — a potential threat to the golden goose known as the American consumer.

To prevent that from happening, the Fed is prepared to cut interest rates soon even in the face of record stock prices and the best labor market in decades.

Market reaction: The Dow Jones Industrial Average DJIA, +0.09% and S&P 500 SPX, +0.46% were set to open higher in Friday trades. Stocks have been trading at or near record highs for the past week.
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https://www.marketwatch.com/story/t...g-as-businesses-retrench-gdp-shows-2019-07-26

CS natureboy · Jul 27, 2019

VICTORY: Supreme Court Rules Trump Can Use Military Funds to Build Border Wall

President Trump has been given the green light to use military funding to construct the border wall.

Jul 26, 2019
By

Tom Pappert

President Donald Trump has been given the green light by the Supreme Court to use military funding to build the United States-Mexico border wall along the southern border.

In what President Trump describes as a “win” for both border security and the rule of law in the United States, the Supreme Court has sided against a lower court and with the administration in their decision to allow military funding to be used to build the famous border wall.

The Hill reported:

The administration had asked the justices earlier this month to temporarily pause lower court rulings that blocked officials from tapping some of the diverted Pentagon dollars for border wall construction.

Solicitor General Noel Francisco argued that the needs of the administration outweighed those of groups like the American Civil Liberties Union and Sierra Club who are challenging the use of the Defense Department funds for the wall. And he said that if the funds remain frozen until the end of the fiscal year, authorities may not be able to use them at all.

U.S. District Judge Haywood Gilliam in California, an Obama appointee, issued a permanent injunction blocking officials from utilizing $2.5 billion of the roughly $6 billion in diverted military dollars, siding with the groups’ arguments that building the wall would cause “irreparable harm” to their interests at the border.

Still, four of the court’s liberal judges dissented against the majority’s decision, showing the importance of President Trump’s election. Without Supreme Court Justices Brett Kavanaugh and Neil Gorsuch, it is likely the border wall funding would remain locked behind congressional approval.

From Justice Stephen Breyer:

The application for stay presented to JUSTICE KAGAN and by her referred to the Court is granted. Among the reasons is that the Government has made a sufficient showing at this stage that the plaintiffs have no cause of action to obtain review of the Acting Secretary’s compliance with Section 8005. The District Court’s June 28, 2019 order granting a permanent injunction is stayed pending disposition of the Government’s appeal in the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit and disposition of the Government’s petition for a writ of certiorari, if such writ is timely sought.Should the petition for a writ of certiorari be denied, this stay shall terminate automatically. In the event the petition for a writ of certiorari is granted, the stay shall terminate when the Court enters its judgment.

JUSTICE GINSBURG, JUSTICE SOTOMAYOR, and JUSTICE KAGAN would deny the application. JUSTICE BREYER, concurring in part and dissenting inpart from grant of stay.

President Trump is celebrating the victory on Twitter, writing that “The United States Supreme Court overturns lower court injunction, allows Southern Border Wall to proceed.” The president added, “Big WIN for Border Security and the Rule of Law!”

Donald J. Trump

✔@realDonaldTrump

Wow! Big VICTORY on the Wall. The United States Supreme Court overturns lower court injunction, allows Southern Border Wall to proceed. Big WIN for Border Security and the Rule of Law!

Even without congressional approval and with lower courts stymieing progress, President Trump has still managed to build hundreds of miles of border wall. The president said last month that over 400 miles of wall would be completed by 2021.

While being interviewed by phone on Fox News’ morning show “Fox & Friends”, President Trump revealed that his administration will have completed more than 400 miles of border wall by the end of 2020, despite tremendous opposition from Democrats and obstructionists.

“So the wall is going up, it’s going up rapidly, we’re going to have over 400 miles of wall built by the end of next year,” said President Trump. “Tbe wall is very important. It’s hard to breach it, it’s high, it’s strong, it’s powerful, and it’s going up at a much lower cost than the wall that was planned prior to me getting there.”

President Trump also remarked on the state of the previous border barrier the Obama and Bush administrations were building prior to his election.

At this point it seems as though the completion of the border wall is all but certain

stumbler · Jul 28, 2019

National security? What national security? We don't need no stinking national security.

Intel Director Dan Coats expected to step down this week after battling with Trump: NYT

According to a report from the New York Times, Director of National Intelligence, Dan Coats will step down this week after battling with President Donald Trump.

The Times reports Coats “is expected to step down in the coming days after spending his tenure at odds with President Trump over issues including Russia and Mr. Trump’s own attacks on the intelligence community, people familiar with the decision said on Sunday.”

The report goes on to state that Trump is reportedly considering Rep. John Ratcliffe, “a Texas Republican and staunch defender of Mr. Trump,” who recently made news with harsh criticism of special counsel Robert Mueller this past week during Congressional hearings.
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https://www.rawstory.com/2019/07/in...down-this-week-after-battling-with-trump-nyt/

submissively speaking · Jul 29, 2019

Sanity_is_Relative · Jul 29, 2019

ace's n 8's · Jul 29, 2019

Dan Coats to resign as director of national intelligence; Trump selects Rep. John Ratcliffe as replacement

President Trump on Sunday announced that Texas GOP Rep. John Ratcliffe, a staunch White House ally, will replace Dan Coats as director of national intelligence (DNI), following months of speculation and public spats between the president and the intelligence community.

The move prompted immediate outrage from many top Democrats who accused the president of seeking to appoint a blindly loyal yes-man to the key post.

A source close to the matter told Fox News that Coats never saw his 2017 appointment as a long-term proposition. Ratcliffe has been well-versed in the intelligence community after driving key sections of ongoing Republican-led probes into apparent Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) abuses by the FBI and Justice Department, Fox News is told.

Coats submitted his letter of resignation to President Trump on Sunday. Part of it read: "The Intelligence Community is stronger than ever, and increasingly well prepared to meet new challenges and opportunities. As we have previously discussed, I believe it is time for me to move on to the next chapter of my life."

Not to mention...who is the Chairman House Intelligence Committee?...Adam Schiff

stumbler · Jul 30, 2019

One of Trump’s biggest and best campaign promises has been exposed — as pure smoke and mirrors

Bad news about infrastructure is as ubiquitous as potholes. Failures in a 108-year-old railroad bridge and tunnel cost New York commuters thousands of hours in delays. Illinois doesn’t regularly inspect, let alone fix, decaying bridges. Flooding in Nebraska caused nearly half a billion dollars in road and bridge damage—just this year.

No problem, though. President Donald Trump promised to fix all this. The great dealmaker, the builder of eponymous buildings, the star of “The Apprentice,” Donald Trump, during his campaign, urged Americans to bet on him because he’d double what his opponent would spend on infrastructure. Double, he pledged!

So far, that wager has netted Americans nothing. No money. No deal. No bridges, roads or leadless water pipes. And there’s nothing on the horizon since Trump stormed out of the most recent meeting. That was a three-minute session in May with Democratic leaders at which Trump was supposed to discuss the $2 trillion he had proposed earlier to spend on infrastructure. In a press conference immediately afterward, Trump said if the Democrats continued to investigate him, he would refuse to keep his promises to the American people to repair the nation’s infrastructure.

The comedian Stephen Colbert described the situation best, saying Trump told the Democrats: “It’s my way or no highways.”

The situation, however, is no joke. Just ask the New York rail commuters held up for more than 2,000 hours over the past four years by bridge and tunnel breakdowns. Just ask the American Society of Civil Engineers, which gave the nation a D+ grade for infrastructure and estimated that if more than $1 trillion is not added to currently anticipated spending on infrastructure, “the economy is expected to lose almost $4 trillion in GDP, resulting in a loss of 2.5 million jobs in 2025.”

Candidate Donald Trump knew it was no joke. On the campaign trail, he said U.S. infrastructure was “a mess” and no better than that of a “third-world country.”When an Amtrak train derailed in Philadelphia in 2015, killing eight and injuring about 200, he tweeted, “Our roads, airports, tunnels, bridges, electric grid—all falling apart.” Later, he tweeted, “The only one to fix the infrastructure of our country is me.”

Donald Trump promised to make America great again. And that wouldn’t be possible if America’s rail system, locks, dams and pipelines—that is, its vital organs—were “a mess.” Trump signed what he described as a contract with American voters to deliver an infrastructure plan within the first 100 days of his administration.

He mocked his Democratic opponent Hillary Clinton’s proposal to spend $275 billion. “Her number is a fraction of what we’re talking about. We need much more money to rebuild our infrastructure,” he told Fox News in 2016. “I would say at least double her numbers, and you’re going to really need a lot more than that.”

In August of 2016, he promised, “We will build the next generation of roads, bridges, railways, tunnels, seaports and airports that our country deserves. American cars will travel the roads, American planes will connect our cities, and American ships will patrol the seas. American steel will send new skyscrapers soaring. We will put new American metal into the spine of this nation.”

In his victory speech and both of his State of the Union addresses, he pledged again to be the master of infrastructure. “We are going to fix our inner cities and rebuild our highways, bridges, tunnels, airports, school, hospitals. … And we will put millions of our people to work,” he said the night he won.

That sounds excellent. That’s exactly what 75 percent of respondents to a Gallup poll said they wanted. That would create millions of family-supporting jobs making the steel, aluminum, concrete, pipes and construction vehicles necessary to accomplish infrastructure repair. That would stimulate the economy in ways that benefit the middle class and those who are struggling.

That contract Trump signed with American voters to produce an infrastructure plan in the first 100 days: worthless. It never happened. He gave Americans an Infrastructure Week in June of 2017, though, and at just about the 100-day mark,predicted infrastructure spending would “take off like a rocket ship.” Two more Infrastructure Weeks followed in the next two years, but no money.

Trump finally announced a plan in February of 2018, at a little over the 365-day mark, to spend $1.5 trillion on infrastructure. It went nowhere because it managed to annoy both Democrats and Republicans.

It was to be funded by only $200 billion in federal dollars — less than what Hillary Clinton proposed. The rest was to come from state and local governments and from foreign money interests and the private sector. Basically, the idea was to hand over to hedge fund managers the roads and bridges and pipelines originally built, owned and maintained by Americans. The fat cats at the hedge funds would pay for repairs but then toll the assets in perpetuity. Nobody liked it.

That was last year. This year, by which time the words Infrastructure Week had become a synonym for promises not kept, Trump met on April 30 with top Democratic leaders and recommended a $2 trillion infrastructure investment. Democrats praised Trump afterward for taking the challenge seriously and for agreeing to find the money.

Trump and the Republicans relinquished one way to pay for infrastructure when they passed a tax cut for the rich and corporations in December of 2017. As a result, the rich and corporations pocketed hundreds of billions — $1 trillion over 10 years — and Trump doesn’t have that money to invest in infrastructure. Corporations spent their tax break money on stock buybacks, further enriching the already rich. They didn’t invest in American manufacturing or worker training or wage increases.

Three weeks after the April 30 meeting, Trump snubbed Democrats who returned to the White House hoping the president had found a way to keep his promise to raise $2 trillion for infrastructure. Trump dismissed them like naughty schoolchildren. He told them he wouldn’t countenance Democrats simultaneously investigating him and bargaining with him — even though Democrats were investigating him at the time of the April meeting and one of the investigators — Neal — had attended.

Promise not kept again.

Trump’s reelection motto, Keep America Great, doesn’t work for infrastructure. It’s still a mess. It’s the third year of his presidency, and he has done nothing about it. Apparently, he’s saving this pledge for his next term.

“It couldn’t have gone any better,” Ways and Means Committee Chairman Richard E. Neal, D-Mass., told the Washington Post, even though Neal was investigating Trump for possible tax fraud.

Almost immediately, Trump began complaining that Democrats were trying to hoodwink him into raising taxes to pay for the $2 trillion he had offered to spend.

In May, he promised Louisianans a new bridge over Interstate 10 — only if he is reelected. He said the administration would have it ready to go on “day one, right after the election.” Just like he said he’d produce an infrastructure plan within the first 100 days of his first term.

He’s doubling down on the infrastructure promises. His win would mean Americans get nothing again.

Tom Conway is the international president of the United Steelworkers Union (USW).

This article was produced by the Independent Media Institute.
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https://www.rawstory.com/2019/07/on...s-has-been-exposed-as-pure-smoke-and-mirrors/

Sanity_is_Relative · Jul 30, 2019

Treasury projects $433 billion borrowing need this quarter
MARTIN CRUTSINGER,Associated Press Mon, Jul 29 2:47 PM CDT

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FILE - In this July 24, 2019, file photo Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin walks away from the microphones after speaking to members of the media at the White House in Washington. The Treasury Department says it expects to borrow $433 billion in the current July-September quarter. (AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais, File)
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Treasury Department said Monday it expects to borrow $433 billion in the current July-September quarter. That would be the largest quarterly borrowing total since early 2018, as the government replenishes its cash reserves following the expected resolution over raising the debt limit.

Treasury said the $433 billion in borrowing it expects this quarter, through selling Treasury bonds and bills to the public, would be the largest quarterly total since it borrowed $488 billion in the January-March quarter of 2018.

Market borrowing for this budget year is projected to total $1.27 trillion, a 6.5% increase from the $1.195 trillion borrowed in the 2018 budget year.

The rising borrowing needs reflect that the government's deficit is increasing. In its February budget submission, the Trump administration projected the deficit will top $1 trillion this year.

The Democratic-controlled House last week approved a bipartisan debt and budget deal that the Senate is expected to pass this week. That measure suspends the current $22 trillion debt ceiling for two years until July 31, 2021.

That will allow the government to borrow as much as it needs to pay its bills until the new deadline without facing the threat of a potentially devastating default on the nation's debt.

Treasury had initially estimated it would need to borrow $160 billion this July-September quarter but that was before House Democrats struck a budget and debt deal last week with the Trump administration, ahead of a fall deadline for action.

stumbler · Jul 31, 2019

Now this is what you get when we have a mentally ill president that cannot grasp the consequences of his own actions and suddenly lashes out in a racist and false attack on Rep Elijah Cummings and Baltimore because he saw something on Fox News and is pissed off by Congressional oversight.

Then when Trump doubles and triples down on his attacks all his people end up scrambling all over the place trying to help cover that up and end the up roar. But it actually only calls more attention to Trump's family corruption and his own incompetence. Because his people end up having to answer questions about their own responsibility. And it does not go well.

Trump housing official squirms when confronted with president’s attacks on Baltimore: ‘Isn’t that your responsibility?’

On Tuesday, Huffington Post reporter Ja’han Jones caught up with Lynne Patton, a Housing and Urban Development official and one of the only high-ranking black women in the Trump administration, on a subway train, and demanded to know why she defended the president’s racist attacks on Baltimore and House Oversight Chairman Elijah Cummings’ district as a “disgusting, rodent and rat infested mess.”

“Ms. Patton, good evening to you,” said Jones. “Do you have any comments about the president’s references to the city of Baltimore as vermin-infested?”

“I’ve already spoken about that on Fox News last night,” said Patton, who had no significant experience in housing prior to being appointed by Trump and primarily worked as an event planner. Her boss, Ben Carson, will reportedly visit Baltimore in the coming days.

“I know you oversee HUD, but a lot of those people live in buildings that are in Baltimore,” said Jones. “Do you have any comments for them? Just in reference to the president calling their city vermin-infested?”

“Well, I just closed a children’s school in Harlem because rats were falling from the ceilings, so it is vermin-infested,” said Patton.

“What about Baltimore though, specifically?” Jones pressed her.

“The president gave Elijah Cummings’ district $16 billion last year,” said Patton.

“But I’m asking you specifically, as someone who oversees HUD, you have a lot of residences that are in Baltimore,” said Jones. “What do you say to the people who live in Baltimore that take offense to that?”

“I don’t know why they would take offense,” said Patton.

“He called the city vermin-infested, is it vermin-infested?” said Jones.

“It is vermin-infested,” replied Patton.

“A lot of those buildings are buildings that you oversee, though,” said Jones. “Isn’t that your responsibility? Is that your responsibility to oversee?”

“It’s not mine, actually,” said Patton. “I oversee New York and New Jersey.”

“Okay, but I’m asking, is that the Trump administration’s responsibility to make sure that these buildings are not vermin-infested?”

“No, it’s actually run by the mayor,” said Patton, implicitly contradicting Trump’s claim that Cummings was to blame for the state of Baltimore.

“But he’s the president,” said Jones.
Click to expand...

https://www.rawstory.com/2019/07/tr...s-on-baltimore-isnt-that-your-responsibility/

stumbler · Jul 31, 2019

I swear the sycophants Trump has surrounded himself with aren't just the most stupid and ignorant (two different things) I have ever seen in politics they are actually more stupid and ignorant than I could have imagined.

This is actually right out of the Bernie Sanders campaign when he actually took Americans to Canada this last week so they could buy life saving drugs at prices they could afford. And how about this you Trump supporters. Importing drugs from Canada is socialism. And proves the only reason drugs are cheaper in Canada is because they have universal healthcare.

So thank you and Trump very much for proving our points.

Trump administration outlines plan to import drugs from Canada

The Trump administration on Wednesday announced a plan to allow Americans legal access to lower-cost prescription drugs from Canada.

President Donald Trump has repeatedly spoken out against the soaring cost of prescription drugs and is backing a bipartisan bill in the Senate that would cap prices.

Americans pay on average $1,200 on prescription drugs per year, according to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, more than citizens in any other country.

“Americans deserve protection from high drug costs, and they deserve a healthcare system that provides affordable, patient-centric care,” said Alex Azar, Health and Human Services Secretary.

The plan proposed by the HHS and Food and Drug Administration (FDA) outlined two pathways.

The first involves using the agencies’ current authority to propose a rule that would authorize pilot projects developed by states, wholesalers and pharmacists to import certain drugs from Canada, though these would be limited to a narrow class of drugs.

Under the second pathway, the FDA would work with manufacturers seeking to import into the US versions of those drugs they sell in foreign countries, “potentially allowing them to offer a lower price than what their current distribution contracts require.”

These could include medications like insulin used to treat diabetes, as well as those used to treat rheumatoid arthritis, cardiovascular disorders, and cancer, a statement said.

The agencies did not provide a timeframe for the implementation of the plan, which will likely be met with legal challenges from the pharmaceutical industry.

Pharmaceutical companies argue that high prices are the cost of innovation, but a 2016 Harvard Medical School study blamed factors such as the US patent system, which grants makers “government-protected monopolies” through market exclusivity that lasts decades.

It also noted that unlike nearly every other advanced nation, the US health care system allows manufacturers to set their own prices rather than having to negotiate with a national health insurance systems.
Click to expand...

https://www.rawstory.com/2019/07/trump-administration-outlines-plan-to-import-drugs-from-canada/

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