All purpose news and politics thread part VI: This Is Not The Time For Posing

[Tendrin]

Kushner's interviews with Woodward is hilarious. It's like that scene where the villain explains his evil plan and then laughs aloud at his genius.

Guys like Kusher don't have a mirror neuron left in their head if they ever had one to begin with.

[Tami]

U.S. Investigating Veterans Nursing Homes in New Jersey for Possibly Understating Covid Deaths

The U.S. Department of Justice has opened a civil-rights investigation into New Jersey veterans homes’ handling of deadly coronavirus outbreaks earlier this year, according to a letter from the department to the state’s governor, Phil Murphy.

In an investigation published Oct. 5, The Wall Street Journal showed one of the veterans homes, the Menlo Park Veterans Memorial Home, in Edison, N.J., botched its response to an April outbreak, waiting more than a week to alert families once the virus was in the building, discouraging the use of masks and ultimately counting deaths by a method that appears to have understated them.

Menlo has officially reported just 62 deaths, but the Journal showed more than 100 people died in April alone, 10 times what is typical. The state’s own health department, which isn’t involved in running the veterans homes, said an additional 39 people at the facility probably died of Covid. The health department found that a second state veterans home in Paramus, N.J., also undercounted probable deaths, a development first reported by the Journal.

[Spidey5640]

Last quarters GDP numbers just released. Economy grew 33% last quarter. Can't wait to see how Biden and the media sees this as bad news for Trump.

[Kirby101]

Last quarters GDP numbers just released. Economy grew 33% last quarter. Can't wait to see how Biden and the media sees this as bad news for Trump.

Because people like you don't understand Economics.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/27/b...p-economy.html

https://www.brookings.edu/blog/up-fr...in-a-big-hole/

One reason 30 percent growth doesn’t mean the economy is healed stems from how percentage changes work when going down and then up. If you own a stock priced at $100 and it drops 30 percent, it is now worth $70. If it gains back 30 percent, it is then worth $91 (the gain is just $21 because 30 percent of 70 is 21). In the same manner, the large drop in output in the second quarter followed by similar sized increases in the third quarter will still leave a large hole. Even if GDP growth is 30 percent at an annual rate in the third quarter, output will still be more than 4 percent below its level at the end of 2019, which is more than the farthest the economy ever was from its prior peak in the Great Recession.

[Tendrin]

Last quarters GDP numbers just released. Economy grew 33% last quarter. Can't wait to see how Biden and the media sees this as bad news for Trump.

I'm sure that's a balm to all the people unable to pay their rent and looking at homelessness because of your feckless president and senate.

[Spidey5640]

Because people like you don't understand Economics.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/27/b...p-economy.html

https://www.brookings.edu/blog/up-fr...in-a-big-hole/

You never disappoint with your infantile need to insult Kirby! Class act!

[Steel Inquisitor]

I'm sure that's a balm to all the people unable to pay their rent and looking at homelessness because of your feckless president and senate.

As well as everything else, from the unparalleled corruption, and anything to with covid. George W Bush's administration was hilariously corrupt and evil but they're amateurs compare to Trump's.

[Spidey5640]

I'm sure that's a balm to all the people unable to pay their rent and looking at homelessness because of your feckless president and senate.

No doubt that would be better under Biden when he shuts down the country, raises corporate taxes, and raises the minimum wage to spur hiring. Brilliant plan.

[Tami]

‘Tsunamis of Misinformation’ Overwhelm Local Election Officials

The morning after last month’s presidential debate, the phones inside the Philadelphia election offices that Al Schmidt helps oversee rang off the hook.

One caller asked whether President Trump’s comments hinting at rampant voter fraud in Philadelphia were true. Another yelled about the inaccurate rumor that poll watchers were being barred from polling places. Still another demanded to know what the city was trying to hide.

It was just another day at the office for Mr. Schmidt, one of Philadelphia’s three city commissioners, a job that includes supervising voter registration and elections. Hundreds of people have called in every day for months, many parroting conspiracy theories about the election and lies about how partisan megadonors own the voting machines. Staff members spend hours shooting down the rumors, he said.

“It’s not like we have tens of millions of dollars to spend on communications to battle tsunamis of misinformation that come our way,” said Mr. Schmidt, 49, whose team has been working up to 17-hour days ahead of Election Day on Tuesday. “It wears on all of us.”

[Kirby101]

You never disappoint with your infantile need to insult Kirby! Class act!

Trump is the first President since Hoover to have negative job growth.

[Gray Lensman]

No doubt that would be better under Biden when he shuts down the country, raises corporate taxes, and raises the minimum wage to spur hiring. Brilliant plan.

Cutting the corporate tax rate never seems to get any further than the guys with corner offices, but that hasn't stopped its proponents from claiming that if only they cut taxes on the wealthiest just a little bit more some of it will finally Trickle down. This time for sure....

[Kirby101]

No doubt that would be better under Biden when he shuts down the country, raises corporate taxes, and raises the minimum wage to spur hiring. Brilliant plan.

Research Shows Minimum Wage Increases Do Not Cause Job Loss

These 7 charts show Trump's tax cuts still haven't been the economic 'rocket fuel' he promised, 2 years after the fact

[SUPERECWFAN1]

How many times have they tried trickle down economics 2-3 times since the 1980's and each time it fails because the idea these mega rich corporations are gonna start throwing that extra money at employees etc seems to not happen. Each time its been done its failed. Its time to get off that dream of it and approach things in a new way. But hell say Biden does raise taxes on corporations back to a level and those earning $400,000 a year .

A stupid Republican in 10-12 years will come back and say , we need to cut them again and do trickle down economics and watch it fail again.

[Tami]

You never disappoint with your infantile need to insult Kirby! Class act!

In simpler terms, Trump's response to the Pandemic left the country in a deep economic hole. The 3Q news sounds good, but it's doesn't get us out of the hole. Plus winter weather is fast approaching, has already in some northern states. Which means no more outdoor dining for restaurants and other stores and businesses are also going to see drops in profit which might lead to more layoffs.

The holiday season isn't going to be quite so jolly this year.

So not only did Trump's response to COVID dig the US Economy into a deep hole, even though we managed to climb 3/4 of the way out, the weather is shifting and the hole is gradually filling with water. We either climb all the way out, or drown.

Also there has been, and still is an enormous cost to the economic upturn, 200,000+ deaths from COVID. Factor that into the equation.

[Tami]

Turkish Bank Case Showed Erdogan’s Influence With Trump

Geoffrey S. Berman was outraged.

The top federal prosecutor in Manhattan, Mr. Berman had traveled to Washington in June 2019 to discuss a particularly delicate case with Attorney General William P. Barr and some of his top aides: a criminal investigation into Halkbank, a state-owned Turkish bank suspected of violating U.S. sanctions law by funneling billions of dollars of gold and cash to Iran.

For months, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey had been pressing President Trump to quash the investigation, which threatened not only the bank but potentially members of Mr. Erdogan’s family and political party. When Mr. Berman sat down with Mr. Barr, he was stunned to be presented with a settlement proposal that would give Mr. Erdogan a key concession.

Mr. Barr pressed Mr. Berman to allow the bank to avoid an indictment by paying a fine and acknowledging some wrongdoing. In addition, the Justice Department would agree to end investigations and criminal cases involving Turkish and bank officials who were allied with Mr. Erdogan and suspected of participating in the sanctions-busting scheme.

Mr. Berman didn’t buy it.

“This is completely wrong,” Mr. Berman later told lawyers in the Justice Department, according to people who were briefed on the proposal and his response. “You don’t grant immunity to individuals unless you are getting something from them — and we wouldn’t be here.”

It was not the first time Mr. Berman, the United States attorney for the Southern District of New York, had fended off attempts by top Justice Department political appointees to disrupt the Halkbank investigation.

The president was discussing an active criminal case with the authoritarian leader of a nation in which Mr. Trump does business; he reported receiving at least $2.6 million in net income from operations in Turkey from 2015 through 2018, according to tax records obtained by The New York Times.

And Mr. Trump’s sympathetic response to Mr. Erdogan was especially jarring because it involved accusations that the bank had undercut Mr. Trump’s policy of economically isolating Iran, a centerpiece of his Middle East plan.

Former White House officials said they came to fear that the president was open to swaying the criminal justice system to advance a transactional and ill-defined agenda of his own.