***Official Political Discussion Thread***

[IATT]

 

[Belgium]

The WSJ has a great piece on the Trump administration's welfare package for farmers hurt by Trump's unilateral decision to invoke a trade war with China and a number of other countries all at the same time. Below you'll also find a bunch of graphs detailing the payment calculation system.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/farmers-say-aid-wont-cover-tariff-damage-1537974178
(Very lengthy article)
Farmers Say Aid Won’t Cover Tariff Damage
USDA has begun making payments to farmers affected by trade conflicts
The Trump administration has started compensating U.S. farmers for damage tariffs are doing to their business.
Many farmers say the payments won’t make up for lost sales to China and other foreign markets they were counting on to buy the huge amounts of crops and meat being produced across the Farm Belt.

Bumper corn and soybean harvests and record pork production have pushed down prices for agricultural commodities. U.S. farm income is expected to drop 13% this year to $66 billion, according to the Department of Agriculture, extending a yearslong slump in the agricultural economy.

The USDA in August said it would pay farmers nearly $5 billion to offset losses from global trade disputes. Major U.S. trade partners including China, Canada and Mexico have applied tariffs to billions of dollars’ worth of U.S. agricultural exports in retaliation for tariffs imposed by Washington. The U.S. and China vowed last week to put more tariffs on each other’s goods.

The USDA said it has paid $35 million to farmers so far, especially in Iowa, Kansas, Illinois, Indiana and Wisconsin. Nearly 49,000 farmers have applied for the aid.

Mike Paustian, an Iowa pork producer who sells some 30,000 pigs annually, expects to receive about $40,000. Depending on the size of his crops, Mr. Paustian said he could receive another $20,000 for his 1,400 acres of corn and soybeans. In recent years, a farm of that size could make some $4 million in annual sales on the livestock alone.

Mr. Paustian said he appreciates what he sees as a goodwill gesture from the Trump administration. But he said he worries the trade fights will close doors to American pork and other farm goods while the world’s appetite for meat is growing.

“This payment isn’t going to save anybody’s life,” Mr. Paustian said. “It’ll soften the blow a little bit.”

Prices for lean hogs have fallen 19% since the end of May.

Mike Haag, an Illinois hog farmer who raises roughly 17,000 pigs each year, estimates he is eligible for roughly $32,000 in aid, enough to pay for a few weeks of animal feed, he says. An additional $20,000 he expects to get for his corn and soybeans will cover a tractor payment.

“I think most farmers are trying to support the president and what he’s doing but it is painful,” said Mr. Haag. “There’s a lot of extra pork out there.”

Trade-related losses to the U.S. pork industry are expected to total more than $2 billion this year, said Iowa State University economist Dermot Hayes.

The USDA has pledged direct payments of $290 million to pork producers to offset those losses. The agency has also promised to purchase $559 million worth of pork under a related program that farmers and economists say could boost prices in the pork market. USDA officials have said a second wave of payments to farmers could be announced in December if trade disruptions persist.

During a Senate hearing on trade earlier this month, U.S. lawmakers criticized the aid package and pushed the Trump administration to make progress on trade agreements.
“It’s nothing more than a Band-Aid,” said Sen. John Thune (R., S.D.). “We need to open up markets.”

Gregg Doud, chief agricultural negotiator for the Office of the United States Trade Representative, said during the hearing the administration is working hard to renegotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement, seeking to improve bilateral trade with Japan and exploring potential partnerships in Southeast Asia and Africa.

The White House referred a request for comment to USDA, which has said the aid isn’t intended to make farmers whole, but rather to provide short-term relief while the Trump administration works to secure long-term trade deals that benefit the entire economy, including agriculture.

Adding to concerns is the likelihood that Congress will miss a Sunday deadline to pass a new five-year farm bill, which funds agriculture and nutrition programs. Without new legislation, major programs governing food stamps and crop insurance remain intact, but funding will lapse for dozens of smaller programs, including those that promote U.S. farm goods overseas.

Farmers applying for federal relief payments must certify the size of the crops they raised this season, their hog herds this summer, or annual milk production for a recent year. Local USDA offices will audit some of those claims, USDA Under Secretary Bill Northey said in an interview.

“We tried to make this easy and straightforward,” said Mr. Northey, adding that many farmers won’t be able to apply for the aid until the fall harvest is finished.

Trouble is particularly acute in the dairy industry. U.S. dairy farmers will see their incomes slide $1.5 billion this year due to tariffs from China and Mexico, according to a forecast by agribusiness-consulting firm Informa Economics.

Milk prices are lower than production costs for many farmers, said Jim Briggs, who milks 60 Jersey cows in Wisconsin. Mr. Briggs said the $700 check he is expecting from the USDA will pay one month’s electricity bill for his dairy barn. He is struggling to keep up with bills for feed and veterinary services.

Tom Giessel, a Kansas wheat farmer, said he fears the downturn will push older farmers to retire, continuing a trend toward consolidation in U.S. agriculture that has left fewer, bigger farms.

Mr. Giessel, 65, who farms 3,000 acres of wheat, corn and sorghum, said he should receive about $5,000 for his wheat—10% of the cost to fertilize the next crop he is planting this fall. He will get just $10 for his 41 acres of corn—less than a tank of gas.
“I could put that in my pickup and go a little ways, but it won’t get me very far,” he said.

 

[RustyShackleford]

Live shot of the crowd....

 

[appleheaddmv]

^ lol.... this dude is psycho...

 

[IATT]

 

[elpablo21]

I hope he does these more often between now and November, he seems to revel in them anyways

 

[plansb]

Trumps base.

 

[plansb]

 

[aepps20]

Trumps base.

#MAGA beautiful comments about Libs.

 

[gry60]

 

[sole vintage]

That press conference

 

[gry60]

 

[Quincy McCall]

Trumps base.

 

[Nike Jordan]

 

[whywesteppin]

Trump is a counterpuncher. WE ALL KNOW THIS. And now he is ABSOLUTELY DESTROYING Dr. Ford. Check this out:

 

[whywesteppin]

To be clear, this now represents a FOURTH accusation of sexual misconduct by the virgin Brett Kavanaugh:

 

[whywesteppin]

one more. this man gives zero ****s

 

[nomnom]

Cant wait until Avenatti and all Trumps are out of the news for good

CYA IN 100 YEARS

 

[Belgium]

“We were a country going to war,” Trump said. “He [Obama] said to me that he was very close to going into war…. Not thousands, millions of people would have been killed. That could have been a world war, very easily.”



Excerpt:
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/bob-wo...wake-up-to-whats-going-on-in-the-oval-office/
According to Woodward, the president is obsessed by the fact that the U.S. pays $3.5 billion a year to station troops in South Korea as a first line of defense against the North. "I don't know why they're there," he said at one meeting. "Let's bring them all home." At another meeting, Secretary of Defense James Mattis starkly why the U.S. has 28,000 troops in Korea: "We're doing this in order to prevent World War III."

Excerpt 2:
The most dangerous moment of the standoff, Woodward says, came when the president went to work on another tweet: "He drafts a tweet saying 'We are going to pull out dependents from South Korea ... Family members of the 28,000 people there.'"

That tweet was never sent, because of a back channel message from North Korea that it would regard a pullout of dependents as a sign the U.S. was preparing to attack. "At that moment there was a sense of profound alarm in the Pentagon leadership that, 'My God, one tweet and we have reliable information that the North Koreans are going to read this as an attack is imminent,'" Woodward said.


https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/jul/04/trump-suggested-invading-venezuela-report
Trump repeatedly suggested Venezuela invasion, stunning top aides – report
The administration officials are said to have taken turns in trying to talk the president out of the idea in August of last year

Donald Trump repeatedly raised the possibility of invading Venezuela in talks with his top aides at the White House, according to a new report.

Trump brought up the subject of an invasion in public in August last year, saying: “We have many options for Venezuela, including a possible military option, if necessary.” But the president’s musings about the possibility of a US invasion were more extensive and persistent than that public declaration, according to the Associated Press.

The previous day Trump reportedly took his top officials by surprise in an Oval Office meeting, asking why the US could not intervene to remove the government of Nicolás Maduro on the grounds that Venezuela’s political and economic unraveling represented a threat to the region.

Quoting an unnamed senior administration official, the AP report said the suggestion stunned those present at the meeting, which included the then national security adviser, HR McMaster, and secretary of state, Rex Tillerson. Both have since left the administration.

The administration officials are said to have taken turns in trying to talk him out of the idea, pointing out that any such military action would alienate Latin American allies who had supported the US policy of punitive sanctions on the Maduro regime.

Their arguments do not seem to have dissuaded the president.

A grim-faced Tillerson stood alongside Trump the next day at his New Jersey golf course at Bedminster as the president warmed to his theme.

“We have many options for Venezuela, this is our neighbour,” Trump said.

“We’re all over the world and we have troops all over the world in places that are very, very far away, Venezuela is not very far away and the people are suffering and dying. We have many options for Venezuela including a possible military option if necessary.”

The White House announced later it had refused to take a call from Maduro. The Venezuelan defence minister, Vladimir Padrino, described Trump’s threat as an “act of craziness” and “supreme extremism”.

In the weeks that followed, Trump remained preoccupied with the idea of an invasion, according to AP. Shortly after the Bedminister remarks, he raised the issue with the Colombian president, Juan Manuel Santos, and then brought it up again at that year’s UN general assembly in September, at a private dinner with allied Latin American states.

At that dinner, Trump made clear he was ignoring the advice of his aides.

“My staff told me not to say this,” Trump said and then asked the other leaders at the table in turn, if they were sure they didn’t want a military solution.

McMaster finally succeeding in persuading Trump of the dangers of an invasion, the report said, and the president’s interest in the notion subsided.

Trump’s approach to military intervention has been erratic. He has been insistent on bringing troops back from Syria, and his administration is pushing to draw down troops in Europe. But Venezuela is not the only country he has threatened directly. Last year, he warned North Korea of impending “fire and fury” and total destruction if the country threatened the US with its nuclear weapons and missiles. After his summit with Kim Jong-un last month in Singapore, however, Trump presented military conflict as unthinkable, pointing out it would cost millions of lives.

 

[whywesteppin]

btw Republicans are engaging in a disinformation campaign (not surprising given what they did with Ed Whelan):

 

[elpablo21]

one more. this man gives zero ****s

All. The. Smoke.

 

[appleheaddmv]

^ lmfao...

 

[tego calderon el abayarde]

Yikes, Avenatti sent his dambs in space.

 

[aepps20]

one more. this man gives zero ****s

 

[gry60]

one more. this man gives zero ****s

Mike "Minigun" Avenatti