Trump's 'Fortress America' Benefits From Famine Relief

♠ Posted by Emmanuel in , at 3/29/2017 05:33:00 PM
Actually, there is a selfish case for Trump providing food aid to us coloreds and/or Muslims. It is obvious that American President Donald Trump is not especially fond of foreigners, especially the colored and/or Muslim variety (If you're both, then so much worse for you. That you're unlikely to buy Ivanka-brand jewelry seals the deal.) Americans are famously incurious about the rest of the world, and Trump is probably the worst of the lot. An avowed hater of the United Nations--why should his "America First" United States contribute to an avowedly internationalist organization--he probably didn't hear the news that there...
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Self-Hatred: Would-Be Latino Builders of Trump's Wall

♠ Posted by Emmanuel in , at 3/26/2017 08:03:00 PM
As Eddie Money once sang, "Gimme Some Water." To me, it's the most distasteful thing imaginable: why would persons of Latin American heritage help build the infrastructural centerpiece of Donald Trump's bigotry? As it turns out, however, there is no shortage of such folks in the construction industry who are eager to commence work on the Great Wall of Trump. As you would imagine, their excuse is that it's just business--that's all. Nevermind the social consequences and all that jazz. As the bidding process commences on bits and bobs of this project, the evidence is there for all to see: Ten percent of the companies interested...
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America the Protectionist: Mnuchin at "G-19" (Without US)

♠ Posted by Emmanuel in at 3/22/2017 05:36:00 PM
He adds nothing: physically present, mentally absent Treasury Secretary Mnuchin. I almost forgot to post about this one: at the just-concluded meeting of G-20 finance ministers in Germany over the weekend, the new US Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin left a lot open to interpretation. With the Trump administration itself unsure what its trade policies will be going forward, Mnuchin was unable to offer boilerplate reassurances that the United States would disavow all forms of protectionism that previous meetings did: Finance chiefs of the world’s largest economies set aside a pledge to avoid protectionism and signed up...
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FIFA Non-Grata: Muslim Ban USA Can't Host World Cup

♠ Posted by Emmanuel in at 3/18/2017 03:52:00 PM
Iranians not welcome here (among others): On the USA's non-existent prospects for hosting the 2026 World Cup. It's pretty evident that you should not host one of the world's most international sporting events if your country is run by a Muslim-banning race-baiter. Yet, that the organization running the World Cup is FIFA--hardly the model of "global governance"--may have placed the possibility in some question as the United States is considering a bid to host the 2026 event. Despite FIFA's odiousness, it is nonetheless remarkable that it won't go near an even more disreputable entity, the United States of America, run by...
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TrumpCare: The Adios, Geezers "Health" Plan & IPE

♠ Posted by Emmanuel in , at 3/14/2017 06:58:00 PM
I try not to focus excessively on US-only topics, but this I cannot resist since it has the potential to delay or waylay the rest of Trump's racist-isolationist-protectionist agenda. (Which is a good thing, obviously.) The gist of TrumpCare goes like this: Republicans have been planning to repeal and replace ObamaCare--the existing US health care law formally knows as the Affordable Care Act. However, incredible promises that this replacement would (a) cost less to patients, (b) cost less to the US government and (c) extend coverage to more people was always a stretch. Just out is the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office...
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Pro-, Anti-Trade Voices Duke It Out at White House

♠ Posted by Emmanuel in , at 3/10/2017 07:41:00 PM
Death by economic insanity: Maybe the lunatic fringe will be sidelined on trade, at least, at the White House. It was always going to end up here, I think: American President Donald Trump has appointed a bunch of isolationist America-firsters who would like nothing better than to slow down the United States' engagement in international trade, or at least sign extremely lopsided deals with prospective trade partners. (Witness the call for "bilateral" deals that the US can easily extricate itself from if it views the other party as being "unfair.") On this side you have the wingnut Steve Bannon and the Jeff Sessions acolyte...
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PRC Hits S Korea Economically Over ABM System

♠ Posted by Emmanuel in ,, at 3/03/2017 02:19:00 PM
China's communists are getting back at South Korea economically over the deployment of a THAAD system. We are constantly reminded of the Chinese government having no reservations about using its considerable economic heft to punish other countries that defy its will. That's a perk of having the world's second largest economy. Now, this particular story isn't new, but the latest twists are regarding South Korea intending to deploy an American anti-ballistic missile system to protect against North Korea possibly launching an attack against it. Let's go back to the beginning: South Korea's government has been seeking land...
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How Much US Tourism Will Trump the Xenophobe Kill?

♠ Posted by Emmanuel in at 3/01/2017 05:38:00 PM
Pre-Trump America used to welcome other people (like us coloreds); not anymore I guess. My oh my, the price of Trumpism: Having indicated to the rest of the world that the United States of America is now only interested in the welfare of its citizens--the non-colored Trump-voting variety, at least--intentions to visit the Land of Bigotry have been dropping. The interesting part is that even countries not affected by Trump's Muslim ban have been greatly turned off. Various gauges of interest in visiting the USA such as Internet travel searches have shown considerable drops: The travel research site ForwardKeys found a...
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