The best boot-on-Trump's-ass rant I've seen yet

There are a lot of progressives who write with high excellence. Three of my favorites (though they're stylistically quite different from one another), at national websites, are David Dayen at The American Prospect, William Rivers Pitt at Truthout, and Hunter at Daily Kos.

Most importantly, we must look forward, not back. Instead of dwelling on the past, we should instead dwell on the clusterf--k that will be the future if Trump's unending list of white nationalists, professional liars, and eager criminals does not receive our public revulsion, our contempt, and the fullest possible prosecutions. Our nation depends on coming together, here and now, to wipe every last incompetent Republican sycophant from our politics and our televisions.

This means all those that stood by Trump, as he careened through our "norms" and revealed us to be an autocracy in waiting. The pundits. The Republican lawmakers. The "conservative" think tankers. The appointees. Every last one of them has betrayed this nation, has shown themselves to be supporters of even this, and the damage done has been incalculable. It is unforgivable. There is no possible repentance. They must be purged—or the next Republican autocrat may be successful where this incompetent, addled fart of a man was not. - Daily Kos

So now, underpaid, disrespected teachers are supposed to save the economy for Trump

Potentially risking their lives in the process. It would be good if corporate media would more frequently note that Betsy DeVos and Donald Trump are remarkably ignorant, foolish people.

What’s sadly ironic about all this sudden newfound appreciation for teachers as essential to the economy is that government leaders and policy makers, from both major political parties, have spent years attacking the economic well-being of public schools and teachers.

School districts have never recovered from budget cuts states imposed during the Great Recession that started at the end of 2007. In an article for the Progressive, Nicholas Johnson from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities noted, “School districts have never recovered from the layoffs… [states] imposed back then. When COVID-19 hit, K-12 schools were employing 77,000 fewer teachers and other workers—even though they were teaching two million more children, and overall funding in many states was still below pre-2008 levels.”

Teachers now make 4.5 percent on average less than they did more than 10 years ago, according to the National Education Association, and public school teachers earn 17 percent less than what comparable workers earn, according to the Economic Policy Institute. - Jeff Bryant/Citizen Truth

Farm bankruptcies jump, thanks to Trump

I say, that title rhymes, did you notice? But this is in fact nothing to be lighthearted and clever about.

A tit-for-tat tariff dispute between the Trump administration and China has piled on pressure in an already strained Farm Belt, leaving an increasing number of growers unable to stay afloat. 

Farmers filed 580 Chapter 12 bankruptcy filings between January and September, according to the American Farm Bureau Federation, the largest farm advocacy group in the country. That was a 24% increase from the previous year and the highest level since 2011, when there were 676 filings. 

China placed steep tariffs on US farm products last year to retaliate against punitive moves by the Trump administration, adding to challenges for farmers already faced with harsh weather conditions and low commodity prices. Those have sent exports sharply lower and made it difficult for growers to plan the next harvest. - Business Insider

Farmers seething over Trump betrayal

Seething enough to change their voting habits, in numbers big enough to make a substantial difference in 2020 and beyond? That remains to be seen. But at this time it certainly seems to be a viable hypothesis.

As the Trump administration fights political fires raging in Washington, another one is smoldering on the prairie. Farmers in the corn belt, the cluster of states centered on Iowa that produce the great bulk of corn and soybeans, supported Trump overwhelmingly in 2016, helping swing battleground states like Iowa and Wisconsin. But now many of them are furious, because the administration has been messing with one of the pillars of the region’s economy: the government-created market for corn-based ethanol. And that’s on top of a long-running trade war with China that has cut demand for the region’s two other main farm products, soybeans and pork. - Mother Jones 

Trump’s Ag Secretary, Sonny Perdue, told traditional, small dairy farmers, in so many words, that they’re obsolete and have no future.

Ongoing Trump vs. the VA stuff

A congressional investigation into the Mar-a-Lago trio is continuing, but it doesn’t seem to be a big priority at this time. Which I suppose in context is understandable. For now.

The more than 300 pages of emails, obtained by Freedom of Information Act request, show the outsized influence of Ike Perlmutter, Marc Sherman and Bruce Moskowitz. None of the men have ever worked for the government, nor do they have any specific expertise on the policies they were allowed to shape at one of the largest agencies in the U.S. government. Their main qualification for the unprecedented arrangement was that they were the president’s paying customers as members of Mar-a-Lago, which he continues to own and profit from in office. 

Despite misgivings, career VA employees were obligated to waste taxpayer time and resources to respond to the trio of Mar-a-Lago members—purely because of their connections to Trump. “They are coming from POTUS friend/doctor,” reads one response to a frustrated official, saying that the career official would need to “handle sensitively and with facts.” Many of the VA employees’ frustrations had to do with the trio’s intervention into a VA information technology project; the emails provide hard evidence of what was previously only reported as anonymous sources within the department in a Politico story. - CREW

Also:

Top officials of the Department of Veterans Affairs declined to step in to try to exempt veterans and their families from a new immigration rule that would make it far easier to deny green cards to low-income immigrants, according to documents obtained by ProPublica under a Freedom of Information Act request.

The Department of Defense, on the other hand, worked throughout 2018 to minimize the new policy’s impact on military families. - ProPublica

Trump never had a coherent tariff/farm plan

When Trump was just a failed "businessman," what he did didn't matter so much.

That giant cliff in Thursday’s stock market report comes down to one thing—one big thing. Donald Trump has admitted that his negotiations with China have gone nowhere, his promised deal in which China was going to buy more U.S. farm products never existed, and in a month he plans to increase the tariffs on China to cover another $300 billion worth of goods...

Meanwhile, former Trump economic adviser Gary Cohn admits that the tariffs are doing more harm to the U.S. than to China. Speaking to The Independent, Cohn stated that he didn’t really think the tariffs are impacting the Chinese economy. But they are having a “dramatic impact” on American manufacturing. - Daily Kos

There has been news and discussion, though little of it in corporate "news" media, about Trump's pathological narcissistic and delusional disorders. But what gets far less attention anywhere is that the guy is just so god-damned pathetically just fucking unbelievably stupid.

The latest U.S.-China trade talks broke down after half a day.

Getting more concerned about Trump/Iran

I am more worried about Trump starting a war with Iran than I was, especially given the pretty much daily evidence of his deteriorating mental health. Not sleepless nights-worried, yet. But maybe getting there.

Rightwing hawks in the US criticized Trump for calling off the attack. Liberal Democrats pointed out that he started the whole mess by withdrawing from the 2015 Iran nuclear deal. Trump supporters tried to pass off the flip flop as a brilliant tactical move that threw the Iranians off balance.

In fact, the Iranian government saw Trump’s vacillation as a sign of weakness, according to a Tehran journalist with close government ties, who is not authorized to speak to the media.

“Iran was ready to retaliate on an unbelievable scale,” the journalist tells me in a phone interview. “After the first US missile launch, Trump wouldn’t be able to control the consequences, not only in the Persian Gulf but from Saudi Arabia to Israel.” - Informed Comment

How much are farmers supposed to put up with, from this pitiful idiot?

The latest.

President Trump is bragging about a new deal with Mexico that provides for "large" sales of U.S. farm goods, but it doesn't appear to exist.

In weekend tweets, he announced in all capital letters that he had won the agreement to benefit America's "great patriot farmers," and that U.S. sales would begin "immediately." There isn't any sign of that happening, however. Mexican officials denied that anything on agriculture was included in the deal on border security reached Friday to avert Trump's threatened tariffs. - MPR/Associated Press

Incidentally, Trump is in conniptions over media coverage of his latest “triumph.” Yet corporate media for the most part keeps coddling him. We’ll see if that keeps up into next year, when most people will actually start paying some attention to the 2020 election.

One more related item:  “As foreign investment in U.S. farmland grows, efforts to ban and limit the increase mount” - The New Food Economy

U.S.-China trade deal hype

New talks are scheduled for next week. Even some on the left - the center-left, anyway - seem to be already thinking this will be a big huge massive win for Traitor Trump.

I for one am choosing to be maybe just a little more skeptical, if you know what I’m saying. I mean, a big win like peace and love on the Korean peninsula? The new NAFTA? An end to "illegal" immigration?

I’ll believe it when I see it, and I doubt that’s very likely. I get that somehow Trump fluked into mostly having solid, experienced negotiators handle this. But how is anything really going to be “enforced?” Are lost markets somehow going to be magically brought back better than ever? Good luck.

Farmers are being crushed, screwed over, and plenty of other things by Trump

You probably saw that last year Minnesota’s median farm income was the lowest it's been in the 23 years that the U. of Minn. has been tracking it. A couple more items:

Among those who’re learning about the “truthy-ness” of The Donald are farmers who voted for him, having bought his campaign promise to restore farm prosperity.

Once in office, though, he quickly sold them out, throwing a hissy-fit of a trade war with China that ended up slapping U.S. farmers by lowering the already low prices they get for their crops...

Actions speak louder than words, of course, so on March 11 Trump took actions to express his true love for farmers: He whacked $3.6 billion from the safety-net programs that offer a measure of relief to hard-hit producers when crop prices crash. Revealing his plutocratic core, his cuts specifically targeted programs that benefit small farmers — a deliberate manipulation meant to drive more families off the land and increase corporate monopolization of agriculture. - OurFuture.org

The reference is to the Trump budget proposal; cuts like that are highly unlikely to get through Congress. But the point is that that’s where Traitor Trump's head is at.

Some large equipment manufacturers, including John Deere and Caterpillar, announced almost immediately after the tariffs were implemented last summer that they would raise their prices to adjust for the higher price of steel and aluminum imports. It’s not just large manufacturers, though—small, locally based equipment manufacturers have also had to raise prices or look elsewhere for steel. In Montana, a horse-trailer manufacturer was forced to hike prices by about 20 percent last summer because of the tariffs. Bank of America Merrill Lynch downgraded John Deere’s stock in February, citing “a real risk to farm equipment demand” if the trade war continues.

Many farmers are precluded from buying new agricultural equipment because of a combination of higher prices and lower profits. But that puts them in a catch-22. Farmers replace their equipment only every five to seven years. Those who were going to replace it this year and now can’t afford to are forced to repair it instead. And because steel costs are up, so too are the costs of replacement parts. - The Atlantic

Does farcical "summit" mean Trump is giving up?

Some time ago I predicted that Donald Trump will likely quit the U.S. presidency by June 21. Two points:

- People whose intelligence and judgment I respect have responded to that with skepticism. Indeed, friendly derision.

- When it comes to my overall record of political prognostication, events have proved me wrong, more often than not.

Having said that, and getting back to the title of this:

But, as it turns out, while Kim claims to be sold on the concept of denuclearization, he’s not so keen on the actual process. He wants to retain elements of the nuclear program, including some covert parts, as well as his missiles and nuclear warheads, in exchange for which the U.S. will end all sanctions. Desperate as he is for good news to offset the searing testimony of the guy he calls a “rat” and who calls him a “racist” and a “con man,” even Trump knows he couldn’t sell Kim’s conditions to the most adoring of his base. “Sometimes you have to walk, and this was just one of those times,” he said. 

But why didn’t he and the rest of the delegation know this would be what was on offer from Kim? 

Usually, before a summit is announced and the big dogs are called in to sign an agreement, the diplomats have worked out most of the details, or at least have a good idea where any remaining sticking points are likely to be and have game plans for dealing with them. Shouldn’t they have known and conveyed to the White House that Kim wanted all the economic sanctions gone but without surrendering all the elements of Pyongyang’s nuclear capabilities? - Daily Kos

Trump is not smart, at all. But even the most primitive, single-celled life forms are able to sense when something is really, really wrong, and when it's time to desperately seek to "get out of Dodge," and so can he.

You may have seen recent suggestions that Trump’s personal wealth is hugely overestimated. I, personally, have long been of the opinion that there has never been a time when an honest, legitimate accounting of Trump assets minus Trump liabilities would have yielded a positive number, up to and including the present day. We’ll find out someday if I’m right or wrong about that one, too.

Farmers still taking it on the chin thanks to Trump incompetence and stupidity

These items speak for themselves. Especially the one about Rep. Pete Stauber (R-MN).

One economic expert after another said Donald Trump’s tariff war with China, Mexico, and other key trading partners would not benefit the United States, and now U.S. taxpayers are stuck with the bill. U.S. farm exports such as soybeans, pork, and even cheese have plummeted, while countries like Russia are enjoying some of their biggest orders in history, as giant markets like China turn to new suppliers. 

As Carl Quintanilla of CNBC reports (Feb. 22), the biggest losers in Trump’s trade war appear to be all of us taxpayers, who have had to disburse $7.7 billion to keep American’s farmers afloat. - Daily Kos 

- "After Trump Shutdown costs the United States economy $11 billion, MN08 Stauber wants to Empower the “Imperial President” with more Tariff Authority" - MN Political Roundtable

- "Why Minnesota legislators are so worried about the state's farmers" - MinnPost

Another step toward Trump VA privatization

Plans by despicable, asshole greedheads to privatize the Veterans Administration, and then strip it to the bone for profit, certainly predate the Traitor Trump “presidency.” But Trump is all for it, and tying those efforts to the most loathed and despised president at least since the invention of polling seems to me entirely justified political rhetoric.

On Wednesday, the Trump administration proposed new rules, known as access standards, to automatically make veterans eligible for private care. Instead of 30 days, it’s 20 days for primary care or 28 days for specialty care. Instead of 40 miles, it’s a 30-minute drive for primary care or a 60-minute drive for specialty care...

“Today’s announcement hastily rolling out new access standards places core VA services and vital research programs at risk by shifting money towards care outside VA,” House veterans committee chairman Mark Takano said in a statement on Wednesday, vowing to hold a hearing. “Today’s announcement places VA on a pathway to privatization and leads Congress to assume the worst.” - ProPublica

Trump policies are devastating for farmers, but will that change how they vote?

Despite the news about calling people back in to process loans - a wholly inadequate “fix” if there ever was one - it’s ugly, and it’s going to stay that way.

Donald Trump has literally ruined thousands of farms that have suffered tremendously with the large drop in commodity prices and falling income. Trump’s reckless trade war with our allies has cost billions so far. Through it all, however, the farmers have largely stuck with him. - Daily Kos

From a political perspective, the question is, how many farmers, and other people in farm country, will consistently change their voting habits? As in, away from continued support for corrupt, idiotic right-wingers, and toward intelligent progressives who aren’t just in it for themselves?

I expressed a fond, but admittedly faintly forlorn, hope that it would happen here in the south part of MN-08, in time for the election. Which it didn’t.

Plenty of farmers, especially old ones, bless their hearts, are not going to change their politics no matter what. Part of it is just lifelong habit that is sealed tight. And part of it is…well, I’m far from the only one who can attest personally that it ain’t fun to look in the mirror and face the fact that you got suckered and used, in whatever context. People in general will engage (without realizing it) their motivated reasoning to avoid that at all costs.

It won’t take many farm country voters to flip, to start consistently flipping elections as well. But I have yet to see any serious indication that it’s happening, even in the face of the vicious, demented reality of Traitor Trump and his minions. Hopefully, before too many more years, or better yet months, it will begin.

Pete Hegseth as Defense Secretary?

The title of this is supposed to be just a perverse joke - we hope.

The last member of an informal alliance of top Trump officials with enough swat or stature to stand up to President Trump — the Committee to Save America, as we called these officials 16 months ago — resigned in epic fashion.

The bottom line: Unlike most others, who pretended to leave on fine terms, Defense Secretary Jim Mattis bailed with a sharp, specific, stinging rebuke of Trump and his America-first worldview...

It was a historic letter and a historic moment capping a historic day, one you could easily see filling a full chapter of future books on the Trump presidency. The wheels felt like they were coming off the White House before Mattis quit. - Axios 

The thing is, Traitor Trump has already made a practice of appointing people just because he pretty much mindlessly likes what they’ve had to say on TV. Like Larry Kudlow and Heather Nauert. So there is precedent.

Hegseth's Minnesota connection is that he’s from here, and ran for the GOP Senate nomination here in 2012. He’s since become a major Fox idiot - Trump's kind of idiot. Birds of a feather.

(BTW: "Mattis was no Shining Knight," from Informed Comment, here.)

Trump should be gone by the summer solstice - Update

That is, I think there’s a considerably better than 50/50 chance that he will be.

Not by impeachment and removal; it won’t have to come to that. The forthcoming public investigations should bring more heat than the heart of a quasar. A while ago a list was published of what Democrats probably have in mind - according to House Republicans. This is just the first four; to quote more here would exceed fair use standards, so you’ll have to click over to Axios to see the remaining 14, and the author's own learned remarks on the matter.

President Trump’s tax returns

Trump family businesses — and whether they comply with the Constitution's emoluments clause, including the Chinese trademark grant to the Trump Organization

Trump's dealings with Russia, including the president's preparation for his meeting with Vladimir Putin

The payment to Stephanie Clifford — a.k.a. Stormy Daniels

Behind all the tough talk and bluster, there is not a more pitiful, cowardly, whimpering, sniveling half-a-man on the face of this planet than “President” Donald J. Trump. (There are unfortunately a good many just about as bad, and they make up a far higher percentage than they do in the general population of right-wing electeds, right-wing media ranters, and so forth. But none worse.) He’ll break.

He will, for want of a better term, abdicate. Flee on a private jet in the middle of the night (after he and his family have stashed much loot in what they hope are untraceable accounts) to who-knows-where. I used to think Russia, but since he still owes Russian banks many millions, perhaps even billions, I now doubt he'd go to where they could get their hands on him effortlessly.

North Korea? Nah. But we'll find out.

Update: More, much more, from Axios.