And here's my impression of what I heard on Morning Joe, somewhere between 7 and 7:10 (Central Time). Trump must be criticized, so they have to pick a way to criticize him. What Joe has picked is that Trump failed to heed the advice of the experts until recently. We really were facing a pandemic with a million plus Americans dead, and the economy absolutely did need to be shut down, and Trump should have done it sooner. Now, he's finally absorbed the experts' message and he's acted.
Joe — and other Trump critics — have committed to the idea that we were faced with a calamity that required the lockdown and all the economic damage that ensued. I'm not saying they can't turn around and blame him for the damage to the economy, but it will be hard and hypocritical to look at what happens and say, See? Not that many people died, it wasn't so bad, and Trump overreacted and crashed the economy.
Are the critics boxed in? They can't really say, See? Not that many people died, because we won't know how many would have died if we hadn't taken the strong measures we did. Yesterday, the experts were saying they expect that the deaths in the United States will now be limited to 100,000 to 200,000, and that's still a lot, and maybe it will be less. Anything less than 100,000 will seem like an achievement, and we'll move on to restarting the economy.
Well, I'm sure, the Morning Joes of the world will be able to say the restarting of the economy happened too soon or too expansively. Joe was sneering this morning at the concern Trump showed for the economy as he worked out his response to the pandemic: It took Trump too long to shut things down because he cared too much about the economy. That makes it a lot harder for Joe, et al., to bash Trump for not caring enough about the economy.
Are the critics boxed in? Only if they have principles about being consistent. Or if they worry too much about seeing their inconsistency displayed in montages on social media.
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«Oldest ‹Older 401 – 406 of 406Reality is limited. Either Cheney was lying or there were WMDs.
Reality is limited.
In reality people are routinely wrong or misled. It's revealing though that you posit only Cheney as a liar in your effort to protect the "experts" whose advice you claim must be followed in order to prove oneself worthy of governance. Cheney did exactly what you claim good politicians should do but you can't accept the outcome. Rather than admit this you invent a narrative omitting these possibilities because the alternative is admitting your governance framework is false.
When Donald first ventured from Queens to the pizzazzier borough of Manhattan in the seventies, he entered into a joint business deal with “Big” Paul Castellano, head of the Gambino syndicate, and Anthony “Fat Tony” Salerno, of the Genovese family he knew well through his father and their mutual lawyer Roy Cohn. As part of this arrangement, Trump agreed to buy concrete from a company operated jointly by the two families—and pay a hefty premium for the privilege. Only then, with double mob approval, could he move forward with the Trump Tower and Trump Plaza projects. . . .
Atlantic City is in South Jersey, closer to Philadelphia than New York, so to build “his” casino, Trump needed to play ball with the Philly mob. That meant dealing with Nicodemo “Little Nicky” Scarfo, head of the most powerful mob family in Philadelphia. Land that Trump needed for his casino was owned by Salvie Testa and Frank Narducci, Jr.—hit men for Scarfo, collectively known around town as the Young Executioners (the nickname was not ironic). To help negotiate the deal, Trump hired Patrick McGahn, a Philly-based attorney known to have truck with the Scarfo family. . . .
Trump acquired the needed Atlantic City property at twice the market value: $1.1 million for a lot that sold for $195k five years before. But there were legal pratfalls, shady dealings, chicanery with the documents. The New Jersey Gaming Commission was investigating the matter, because casino owners could not, by law, associate with criminals. And most of Trump’s friends were crooks. It looked like Trump was in trouble—not only of losing his gaming license, but of criminal indictment.
And then, something miraculous happened. On 4 November 1986, Scarfo and eleven of his associates were indicted on charges that included loan sharking, extortion and conducting an illegal gambling business in a racketeering conspiracy. . . .
gadfly finds out there are mobsters...
Here's a clue, speaking as a 40 year Teamster's son...
America was formed by terrorists who overthrew the Government. These terrorists (one of them a filthy womanizer with a kite) created a Constitution to made sure the mob would always rule, by creating copyrights and trademarks.
If you've ever looked into the music industry, you'll know that copyrights are the backbone of la Cosa Nostra.
The first mobster run operations was surveyors and scalp hunters.
170 years later Trump was born.
Don't blame Trump, blame the Revolution.
"Any other althousian clusters out there?"
Puget Sound Country.
Drago @ 5:36pm,
My first "direct" experience with how "competent" our State Department is, was in July 4, 1984 in Juba. The 2nd Sudanese Civil War had been underway for 10 months, and the #2 guy from the embassy was on site and giving the assembled guests at the USAID July 4 party the official take on things. (USAID was the highest official US presence in southern Sudan at the time.) While I can't remember exactly what he said, it was the sort of trite "get them all around the same table and really understand each other" twaddle that would have been clueless if uttered about a UAW strike at a GM plant, much less the very existential struggle between the Muslim North and the very non-Muslim and tired-of-being-dominated South.
And I thought, either the US government is entirely clueless about what is going on here... OR someone has decided that it's in the US interest to appear clueless, and this guy is a consummate actor. To this day, I have no idea which it was.
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