applegrove
applegrove's JournalHe gave a million to Democrats a few cycles back. Really why the attempt to alienate Bill Maher from Democrats.
He is a comedian. No problem if you don't like him. I find satisfaction in how Maher calls out the bullshit on the right. You don't find that anywhere else as the MSM anchors give equal time to Republican panelists and don't make fun of them for their lies. Maher and Michael Moore begged Ralph Nader not to run. Was he lying then? Do you think Michael Moore is stupid? Do you think Killer Mike is? What i don't find satisfaction is in how the right tries to make Maher isolated from the left online. For like 8 years. I've always said Republicans will steal our totems. Even Bill Maher admits the right wing keeps trying to enlist him in their American Carnage. He keeps saying they are too cray cray. Doesn't stop Republicans from getting online and hating on him hoping to convince lefties that they can't handle a centrist view and to cancel him. Just don't watch if you don't like him.
Trump is the person who is tearing apart American and trying to bully empathy
out of the people. Especially people who have empathy for other people they do not know. He's dangerous. Doesn't matter if he can clean up for a dinner. Trump is still the person who he is day in, day out. As they say with Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, the is no Dr. Jekyll. (Mr Hyde murdered multiple people in person, Trump not in person but millions will die). Trump is the person who repeatedly and intentionally goes after others to his own glee to carve out a win where someone else has to lose (he doesn't understand win win). Millions of AIDs patients in Africa will die and children will be orphaned. It costs 8 cents a day to stop that. He lies. He exploits. Doesn't matter if Trump is nice to Trump's own family or to Bill Maher. How is he to the young women who find themselves knocked up when they are no way ready to start a family? How about taking voting rights away from people? Trying to shake down Zelenskyy? This whole dinner was just an attempt to dial down the anger and fear in the center and the center left so Trump can keep breaking things. The Trump admin seem to break things and backtrack (Harriet Tubbman censored and then not, Medicaid pull apart, then not in February) if its cruelty overwhelmes the public and the public starts lashing out at Trump and his administration. It gets too hot. Dinner with Maher was just an attempt to normalize Trump and dial down the opposition's emotions in another way, particularly those in the who watch bill maher, so Trump can break things the next week (the world economy almost, many people's 401Ks). Again all so he can do stuff, like get rid of income tax and replace it with tariffs like Trump is already hinting at, so his rich friends will be richer and poor people poorer. That he is kind to people who he needs doesn't matter. Millions will die. Hundred's of millions lives will be bleaker.
Risky Business
Risky Business
April 10, 2025 at 3:01 pm EDT By Taegan Goddard 5 Comments
https://politicalwire.com/2025/04/10/risky-business/
"SNIP........
Jonathan Last: “The United States economy has been the center of global finance for 80 years for one simple reason: Year in and year out, we have been the safest place to do business. The ground rules remained constant and when they changed around the margins, they did so slowly and transparently.”
“Investing money is always risky—but America had the lowest level of risk on the planet. Our government, legal system, and business community worked hard to make that happen and the rewards we reaped for it were tremendous.”
“Donald Trump destroyed 80 years of that work over the last week. America is now a risky place to do business. A place where the rules change from day to day. Where no business can trust in the sturdiness of its long-term plans or count on its revenue projections even for the next quarter.”
“This abstract problem is going to create real-world economic hardship.”
..........SNIP"
Applegrove:
Trump's art of the deal seems to me be all about shaking down small vendors as only a big company could do to much smaller ones. But there was no interconnectedness between Trump Inc. and the small vendors beyond the one contract. Not sure world economies work that way.
Yes. Oil money, and US oil money, has been agitating
Alberta for generations. When the Chicago School of economics was born, years later a Calgary School, espousing the same stuff, was started in Oil rich Calgary. There has been an attempt to have Alberta politicians mirror 'cultural trends' in the Republican Party since. No surprise Danielle Smith, premier of Alberta, went to Mar A Lago and asked Trump to hold off on tariffs until after the Canadian election because Pierre Poilievre, Conservative leader, was more in sync with Trump. Then it got out.
Mark Carney, Liberal leader, is ahead in the election partially because he is doing well in Quebec even though he doesn't speak french well. Quebecers know Trump would savage them for their electricity if US annexed Canada, with or without quebec. They are nobody's fools. Plus they get net transfer payments from Canada. They don't seem to mind Carney's french language skills which are anything but flawless. I guess Danielle thinks by doing this she can get Quebecers to vote for independence as there is an Quebec independance party in the federal election. Bad form: you are correct on that.
Danielle Smith's eyes light up and she smiles when doing the worst things to Canada. She's that type of person. She ran in an Alberta independence party for years. Then they merged with the Conservatives. 65+%% of Albertans want to stay in Canada. 33% are basically Republicans. The problem right now is that those 33% are loud and they vote. So Danielle Smith won the last election. She's tried to pull Alberta out of the Canada Pension Plan.
Her opposition is Naheed Nenshi. He is a gay, Muslim, man and he's amazing. If anyone can bring Alberta back into the fold it is him.
Here he is from Christmas. He won the leadership of the NDP, New Democratic Party, provincially in Alberta last year. You'll be a fan if you watch. He is a former Calgary mayor who was named best mayor in the world at one point (he was a Liberal, but Liberals have a hard time in Alberta so when he ran provincially he ran as an NDPer).
https://m.
'a brand new men's national club'
Liberal MP calls out right-wing group for photo at Dartmouth cenotaph
Author of the article:George Myrer
Published Mar 31, 2025 • Last updated 21 hours ago • 1 minute read
https://www.saltwire.com/nova-scotia/halifax/right-wing-group-dartmouth
"SNIP...........
Liberal MP Darren Fisher called out a staged photo op at the Dartmouth cenotaph by right-wing activist Jeremy MacKenzie as an insult to those who fought and sacrificed for Canada.
On Sunday, MacKenzie and over a dozen members of a group called Second Sons Canada posed in front of the cenotaph, the home of Dartmouth’s Remembrance Day celebrations, with a sign that read ‘Our People Our Home Our Future.’
In a Facebook post, Second Sons Canada calls itself ‘a brand new men’s national club’ for nationalists and disaffected conservatives.
MacKenzie is the founder of the far-right group Diagolon, a network with chapters throughout Canada. Diagolon was called a ‘violent extremist group’ by a House of Commons report.
........SNIP"
Applegrove:
someone needs to ask Poilievre where he stands on men only clubs.
Tariffs Only 'Work' If They Raise Prices
Tariffs Only ‘Work’ If They Raise Prices
April 1, 2025 at 8:36 am EDT By Taegan Goddard 25 Comments
https://politicalwire.com/2025/04/01/tariffs-only-work-if-they-raise-prices/
Matthew Yglesias: “There are lots of different ways that tariffs could play out. Some of those ways could lead to large increases in consumer prices and some have smaller or near-zero price effects. But to the extent that tariffs successfully protect high-wage American jobs or drive new investment in creating such jobs, the mechanism through which they succeed is higher prices.”
“If the prices don’t go up, then the things that Trump is touting as the benefits of tariffs also don’t happen.”
............SNIP"
Applegrove:
Trump wants to raise money for tax cuts for the rich with these tariffs. Everyday Americans will pay for the tariffs . So it is a tax on regular Americans to provide more $$$ for the oligarchs.
That way when Musk whines about Tim Walz making fun of Tesla stock,
or George Soros giving money to political causes, we will have a number to shout out as he gets nailed for being a chainsawing at USAID cuts, Wisconsin Supreme Court buying, hypocrite.
Someone should do a tracking counter to count
the deaths killing USAID has results in. Like a stock market ticker.
When people feel financial anxiety they stop voting with
reason and start voting with feelings. There is science on this. Then a populist leader comes along and promises to share in destroying an elite "that is keeping you down" and the voter shares in the charisma of the leader and gets self esteem and power that way.
Wall Street Worries About Stagflation
Wall Street Worries About Stagflation
March 30, 2025 at 11:26 am EDT By Taegan Goddard 41 Comments
https://politicalwire.com/2025/03/30/wall-street-worries-about-stagflation/
"SNIP..........
“Economic growth has flatlined so far this year. Inflation has picked up. And consumers expect both to get worse in the months ahead,” Axios reports.
“For the moment, it adds up to Wall Street’s least-favorite ‘s-word,’ stagflation — stagnant growth mixed with elevated inflation.”
“That pattern, most vividly seen in the 1970s, is particularly painful because it means people experience pain from both lack of job opportunities and higher prices.”
..........SNIP"
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