President Donald Trump: The Thread

[LittleHurt05]

Rabbit, 55% of the eligible population voted in 2016.

 

http://www.cnn.com/2016/11/11/politics/pop...e-turnout-2016/

 

Of that amount, 45.2M voted for a Democratic Senate candidate, while 39.3 for a Republican Senate candidate. Despite that fact, the Rs control the Senate.

 

In the House, it was 56.3M Republican votes vs. 53.2M Democratic votes.

 

For the Presidency, well, we all know that HRC got more votes in the popular vote.

 

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politic...e-too/93598998/

 

So, if 55% of eligible voters cared enough to vote, then we can assume the other 45% don't share any particular party affiliation. Based on the split of votes, and the number of votes to each side from people who don't identify as D or R, it looks like 25% of the population as Rs is a fairly accurate number. Now, that doesn't mean 75% of the population is D, obviously.

 

The Republicans are "wiping the floor" with the Democrats because they control the rural vote. But, a mere 8 years ago, the Ds had majorities in both Houses and controlled the Presidency. Control is cyclical, and parties who think that control represents a "mandate" find themselves quickly losing control.

 

I don't find that to be a very valid assumption. I imagine a good portion of eligible voters who didn't vote would almost always vote for one party or the other. Just because they are lazy or indifferent doesn't mean that they don't strongly lean one way or another.

 

If there was a study out there that showed how these non-voters leaned politically, that be interesting to see and to estimate how a 100% turnout election would look.

 

 

 

[StrangeSox]

Inside Alabama’s Auto Jobs Boom: Cheap Wages, Little Training, Crushed Limbs

The South’s manufacturing renaissance comes with a heavy price.

The pressure inside parts plants is wreaking a different American carnage than the one Trump conjured up at his inauguration. OSHA records obtained by Bloomberg document burning flesh, crushed limbs, dismembered body parts, and a flailing fall into a vat of acid. The files read like Upton Sinclair, or even Dickens.

 

In 2015, a 33-year-old maintenance worker was engulfed in flames at Nakanishi Manufacturing Corp.’s bearing plant in Winterville, Ga.—after four previous fires in the factory’s dust-collection system. The plant’s maintenance chief told the OSHA investigator that he’d been too busy to write up proper lockout procedures for working on the system. The technician suffered third-degree burns all over his upper body. Last year, OSHA levied a $145,000 fine (later negotiated down to $105,000) on the Japanese company, which supplies parts to Toyota Motor Co., for, among other infractions, a willful violation for knowingly exposing workers to unguarded radial presses.

 

Phyllis Taylor, 53, scorched her hand inside an industrial oven last year at the HP Pelzer Automotive Systems Inc. insulation plant in Thomson, Ga., while baking foam rubber linings for BMW hoods. The oven had been down for repairs earlier that day, and “there was always pressure to catch up,” Taylor says. She slipped on a puddle of oil at her feet, and as she instinctively grabbed the oven in front of her, the door slammed down on her hand. She’d been telling her supervisor for weeks about the oil leak. “They don’t pay you no mind; they just want you to work,” says Taylor, who had skin graft surgery but still can’t close her dominant hand. The plant’s maintenance manager told OSHA, “The focus of this plant is production at all costs.” OSHA fined HP Pelzer $705,000 for 12 “repeat” safety violations.

Matsu, it turned out, had known for years that Press 10, where Allen was dragooned into working, was dangerous. Three years earlier a press operator on the plant’s safety committee reported a near miss on an identical machine after the light curtain failed to pick up a worker. The safety committee recommended fixes to the vertical beam, but nothing was done, according to testimony in the court case. In 2012 a worker on that same press had his hand crushed. In response, Todd, the general manager, recommended installing horizontal beams to eliminate the blind spot in the vertical light curtains of both machines. It would have cost $6,000 to $7,000, Todd testified. John Carney, the company’s vice president for operations at the time, rejected the proposal. Instead, he told Todd to install a safety bar, for $150, Todd testified. It failed to protect Allen.

 

After Allen’s injury, Surge Staffing gathered its 80 or so Matsu workers for a meeting, says Wolfsberger, the former Surge manager. That’s when the agency learned the plant had provided no hands-on training, routinely ordered untrained temps to operate machines, sped up presses beyond manufacturers’ specifications, and allowed oil to leak onto the floor. “Upper management knew all that. They just looked the other way,” says Wolfsberger, who left Surge in 2014 and now manages a billiards parlor. “They treated people like interchangeable parts.”

 

An administrative law judge with the Occupational Safety and Health Review Commission approved a $103,000 fine against Matsu, ruling that Allen’s injuries resulted from its “conscious disregard or plain indifference” to his safety. Matcor-Matsu did not respond to phone messages and emailed questions, nor did its attorney, John Coleman. After the commission’s 2015 decision, Coleman told the Birmingham News the judge was mistaken and that Allen was trained but didn’t follow the rules. Allen sued the company and reached a multimillion-dollar settlement out of court. He and his wife purchased 15 acres and a big house with a fish pond near the Tennessee River, prepaid their kids’ college tuition, and bought a bright-green Buick Roadmaster. “I’d rather have my arm back any day,” Allen says.

 

 

[bmags]

I don't find that to be a very valid assumption. I imagine a good portion of eligible voters who didn't vote would almost always vote for one party or the other. Just because they are lazy or indifferent doesn't mean that they don't strongly lean one way or another.

 

If there was a study out there that showed how these non-voters leaned politically, that be interesting to see and to estimate how a 100% turnout election would look.

 

I imagine there's not much money backing these polls but is there anything on preferences for very unlikely voters? That would be interesting to see.

[StrangeSox]

The entire coal industry employs fewer people than Arby’s

 

Another largely overlooked point about coal jobs is that there just aren't that many of them relative to other industries. There are various estimates of coal-sector employment, but according to the Census Bureau's County Business Patterns program, which allows for detailed comparisons with many other industries, the coal industry employed 76,572 people in 2014, the latest year for which data is available.

 

That number includes not just miners but also office workers, sales staff and all of the other individuals who work at coal-mining companies.

 

Although 76,000 might seem like a large number, consider that similar numbers of people are employed by, say, the bowling (69,088) and skiing (75,036) industries. Other dwindling industries, such as travel agencies (99,888 people), employ considerably more. Used-car dealerships provide 138,000 jobs. Theme parks provide nearly 144,000. Carwash employment tops 150,000.

 

[StrangeSox]

Trump Leaves Science Jobs Vacant, Troubling Critics

Staff of the White House chief technology officer has gone from 24 before the election to, by Friday, only 1

 

Trump still has several hundred Senate-confirmed positions that he's yet to even nominate anyone for.

 

[RockRaines]

I know everything about the cyber

[Kyyle23]

Seems like the SCII isn't really interested in offering Flynn immunity. Which probably means they have some pretty damning info and don't need him to talk as much as he thinks

[Quin]

Seems like the SCII isn't really interested in offering Flynn immunity. Which probably means they have some pretty damning info and don't need him to talk as much as he thinks

 

Oh boy.

[StrangeSox]

He also might not really have much of anything worthwhile, or they don't want to give him the ability to Ollie North his way out of a later conviction.

[Jenksismyhero]

Or they're negotiating. I would imagine denying immunity is a common initial "offer."

[Kyyle23]

He also might not really have much of anything worthwhile, or they don't want to give him the ability to Ollie North his way out of a later conviction.

 

Flynns legal council tweeted this...

 

 

In November

 

[StrangeSox]

Or they're negotiating. I would imagine denying immunity is a common initial "offer."

 

House Dems (Schiff) said they're considering it, Senate flat-out rejected it. I don't think these discussions typically play out in public at all, though.

 

But yeah I'm not reading too much into any of it beyond "the former national security advisor to the President, who had to resign only a few weeks into his administration, is now trying to negotiate an immunity deal in exchange for testimony on Day 70 of this administration."

 

I'm glad at least the Senate appears to be taking their jobs seriously unlike the clowns running things in the House.

[RockRaines]

Or they're negotiating. I would imagine denying immunity is a common initial "offer."

Yeah, need to see what hand he's holding first.

[LittleHurt05]

He doesn't have anything on Putin. If he did, we probably wouldn't have heard from at all the last few days.

[StrangeSox]

Hey polonium can take a few weeks to kill ya

[RockRaines]

He doesn't have anything on Putin. If he did, we probably wouldn't have heard from at all the last few days.

I think some of those campaign aides are going to be fall guys

 

[bmags]

I think it's more likely flynn has nothing, but is fishing for immunity on illegal lobbying with a foreign power. To the extent that he has much it may be obstructing an investigation.

[G&T]

I think it's more likely flynn has nothing, but is fishing for immunity on illegal lobbying with a foreign power. To the extent that he has much it may be obstructing an investigation.

 

100% agree. If he had anything he would have immunity by now. Also, not that the National Enquirer stuff can ever be confirmed, but it seems like Trump is trying to throw him under the bus. Wouldn't do that if he had any valuable intel.

[bmags]

100% agree. If he had anything he would have immunity by now. Also, not that the National Enquirer stuff can ever be confirmed, but it seems like Trump is trying to throw him under the bus. Wouldn't do that if he had any valuable intel.

 

My honest impression of the Trump stuff : None of them have any idea if any of what they did was illegal or who did what, because that campaign was chaos, and if they knew or spoke about collusion they probably didn't think it was wrong to do. And it's because they don't know what was wrong they are just trying to hide all of it.

[StrangeSox]

100% agree. If he had anything he would have immunity by now. Also, not that the National Enquirer stuff can ever be confirmed, but it seems like Trump is trying to throw him under the bus. Wouldn't do that if he had any valuable intel.

 

I certainly don't have my hopes up or anything, but it's also possible that Flynn may have good information but that the FBI/Senate already has that information and more and doesn't need Flynn to corroborate it.

[StrangeSox]

Trump And Marijuana: Justice Department Contacts Colorado Officials About Cannabis Cases

President Donald Trump’s aides have publicly promised a crackdown on states that have legalized marijuana — and the new White House administration may already be taking steps to make good on that pledge, according to an email obtained by International Business Times.

 

The correspondence showed a Justice Department official requesting information about marijuana cases from the state Attorney General’s office in Colorado — one of five states where voters have passed ballot measures to legalize the recreational use of cannabis. The email came just after both a top White House official and U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions reiterated the Trump administration’s opposition to marijuana legalization at the state level.

 

I really do not understand who the "crack down on pot" constituency is.

 

edit: legalizing pot could also help ease the opiod epidemic

 

Edited March 31, 2017 by StrangeSox

[RockRaines]

Because lowering crime, arrests and increasing tax revenue is bad.

[CrimsonWeltall]

I really do not understand who the "crack down on pot" constituency is.

 

- "Reefer Madness was a good documentary about pot leading to downfall of society" crowd

- "People who smoke pot are all lazy bums and probably on welfare" crowd

- "Liberals support it therefore I oppose it" crowd

[RockRaines]

- "Reefer Madness was a good documentary about pot leading to downfall of society" crowd

- "People who smoke pot are all lazy bums and probably on welfare" crowd

- "Liberals support it therefore I oppose it" crowd

Tobacco, Pharma and Alcohol lobbyists

Edited March 31, 2017 by RockRaines

[Soxbadger]

Republican's are for big govt. They hate state rights and want to expand the fed.

Edited March 31, 2017 by Soxbadger