TRUMP is seriously dangerous

[stefano]

This Shirtless Mountain Dew Motherfucker Is the Living Embodiment of Trump-Inspired White Supremacy



Ha, on edit - this is the Daily Maverick's quote of the day for today:

"As democracy is perfected, the office of president represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart's desire at last and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron.”

― H.L. Mencken

[82_28]

I watched a few more linked to that clip, Stefano and boy oh boy. I wish it was more of an embarrassment than outright scary but it's both. These people will not go silently into the night. I don't know what to do other than wish for a stronger police state because these assholes are going to need to be stopped. We're fucked either way. We really are. As paradoxical as it may sound, hopefully once the NFL regular season starts it cools down and people focus on their fantasy teams and whatnot. That's all I can think of as a quick antidote.

White NFL coaches and owners need to come out and denounce this whole fucking thing at games and shit. But it will be a paradox to say the least.

[divideandconquer]

This Shirtless Mountain Dew Motherfucker Is the Living Embodiment of Trump-Inspired White Supremacy



Ha, on edit - this is the Daily Maverick's quote of the day for today:

"As democracy is perfected, the office of president represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart's desire at last and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron.”

― H.L. Mencken

Eh...I think that's a little unfair to lump the masses in with cretins like him who probably go out of their way to attract the limelight . Again, by focusing in on the worst of the lot, they divide and conquer, turning us against ourselves so we do not see our real enemy. I deal with the public (mostly lower socioeconomic) everyday and almost all loathe Trump and are voting for Hilary but only because they see her as the lesser evil, but still pretty evil...

[Luther Blissett]

I also want that guy to move to my neighborhood. As unpleasant as it would be for us in the meantime, I'm sure it would calm him down.

At least dose him with psilocybin for some short term relief?

[American Dream]

Trump Campaign Is Still Playing Russian Roulette With Foreign Policy

Post-Manafort, questions about the presidential candidate's Kremlin ties remain

Paul Manafort recently stepped down as campaign chairman for Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump. His departure came amid a swirl of media attention on his lobbying activities in support of former Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych — a Kremlin-backed strongman who was run out of office and fled to Russia in 2014 following civil protests.

The Trump campaign, now headed by Stephen Bannon of Breitbart News fame, is likely betting that Manafort’s departure will lessen the media focus on the Republican presidential candidate’s own connections to the Kremlin, and Russian money — which, according to Trump’s son, Donald Jr., “made up a pretty disproportionate section of a lot of our [the Trump Organization’s] assets,” at least as of 2008. Candidate Trump’s media spokesperson, Hope Hicks, however, has claimed in prior media statements that “Mr. Trump does not have any business dealings in/with Russia.”

Still, the Trump campaign continues to advocate a very pro-Russian foreign policy, which so far has not been modified in the wake of Manafort’s departure. Among the pro-Russian policy proposals advanced by the Republican presidential candidate included advocating measures that would weaken the NATO alliance; pursuing a strategy of US acquiescence to Russian aggressions in Ukraine and its Crimean Peninsula; and even seeking Russia’s help in meddling in the US presidential election — at one point calling on Russian intelligence agencies to find and release more Clinton emails.

In addition, it remains a fact that over the past 30 years, Trump has pursued various ill-fated plans to develop office towers or hotels in Russia. He did succeed, however, in staging his multimillion-dollar Miss Universe pageant in Moscow in 2013. That fete was organized with the help of billionaire Aras Agalarov, who is among the Russian aristocrats favored by President Vladimir Putin.

So all on his own, without the help of Manafort, Trump over the years and to this day has worked to advance his personal business interests by cozying up to Russian tycoons and President Putin – who has raised eyebrows by endorsing Trump’s presidential bid.

And Trump continues to refuse to make public his tax returns – as presidential candidates have done for decades – which only fuels the speculation that he has something to hide on the Russian front.

The resignation of Manafort, whom Trump has known since the 1980s, then, does nothing to address the nagging questions about Trump’s own connections and business interests in Russia, and whether those entangling alliances might compromise his ability to represent U.S. interests if elected president.

Continues at http://narcosphere.narconews.com/notebo ... ign-policy

[JackRiddler]

On the question of "foreign" connections, I really do fail to see a distinction. How is Clinton less beholden to money from the Gulf, for example, and how is either (given Adelson's backing of Trump) less entangled with the pro-Israeli lobby? In both cases, it's about money money money.

[stefano]

Eh...I think that's a little unfair to lump the masses in with cretins like him who probably go out of their way to attract the limelight . Again, by focusing in on the worst of the lot, they divide and conquer, turning us against ourselves so we do not see our real enemy. I deal with the public (mostly lower socioeconomic) everyday and almost all loathe Trump and are voting for Hilary but only because they see her as the lesser evil, but still pretty evil...

Sure, it's unfair, and I don't do that. It's just worth noting how the prominence of someone like Trump emboldens these freaks. I brought in the Mencken quote because I enjoy a bit of Mencken in the morning, and I saw it literally minutes after I'd posted here, so I thought to share.

[Belligerent Savant]

.

I also want that guy to move to my neighborhood. As unpleasant as it would be for us in the meantime, I'm sure it would calm him down.

At least dose him with psilocybin for some short term relief?

Wait -- they offer psilocybin freely to visitors in your neighborhood? I know where I'll be going this weekend...

[seemslikeadream]

Top Trump Backer Bets Big on Overpriced EpiPens
Outraged about EpiPen prices going up 450 percent? Meet the Trump-loving billionaire who owns a major chunk of the company.
Betsy Woodruff

08.24.16 7:50 PM ET
The recent price hike for lifesaving EpiPens is a nightmare for the people who need them and now can’t afford them. But one of Donald Trump’s top backers is hoping those EpiPens can become a financial bonanza. He’s bet hundreds of millions of dollars on the company that makes them.
As a result, he’s connected to a headline-nabbing controversy that involves a storied hedge fund, a powerful pharmaceutical company, and—naturally—both presidential candidates. As if 2016 wasn’t interesting enough.
John Paulson is a billionaire, and he manages the Paulson & Co. hedge fund. He’s a generous supporter of Republican politicians—he gave a cool $500,000 to the Republican Governor’s Association in 2014, for instance—and he’s one of the most powerful hedge fund guys to jump on the Trump Train. In June, he joined Trump at a $50,000-per-seat fundraiser at New York’s tony Le Cirque restaurant.
And a sizable chunk of Paulson’s cash is tied up in EpiPens. His hedge fund is a major investor in Mylan, the pharmaceutical company that manufactures them and raised their price by about 450 percent over the last 8 years, according to financial news site TheStreet. Paulson’s hedge fund owns 4.33 percent of Mylan’s shares, as Morningstar.com shows; only four entities own a greater percentage of the company’s shares.
As far as Paulson’s portfolio goes, Mylan is a very big deal. Seeking Alpha notes that those Mylan shares are his single largest holding, comprising 10.14 percent of his fund’s investments.
Paulson’s fund has been feeling a bit of pain lately. The investor may have become a Wall Street legend when he shorted the housing market before the collapse and made $15 billion for his hedge fund. That move has been called the greatest trade in history. But more recently, Paulson’s fund has fallen on comparatively hard times. Bloomberg reported on May 6 that its five biggest holdings lost him more than $2.3 billion in 2016.
That brings us to Mylan, which is the fund’s biggest holding. Paulson bought 7 million shares in the company in April of 2015, according to filings that FirstWord Pharma highlighted. That took his investment in the firm from 15 million shares to the 22 million shares he currently holds.
So far, it’s been a lousy bet. Mylan shares are down more than 40 percent since their April 2015 highs. And the company’s decision to dramatically ratchet up prices for EpiPens—lifesaving medication that parents of children with severe allergies have to buy every year—has, in the short run, only driven the company’s valuation further down. But in the long term, it could help offset some of the struggles Paulson’s firm has faced.
Some activists pushing for stricter regulations on Wall Street believe Paulson may be more than a passenger on Mylan’s wild stock market ride. They say hedge funds like Paulson’s sometimes pressure the companies in which they invest to take drastic measures to rapidly increase profits—or else.
“The activist investor class is very well known on Wall Street and is very well known among corporate executives,” said Mike Kink, the executive director of the labor-backed Strong Economy for All Coalition. “When you’re CFO walks into your office and tells you John Paulson has just taken a billion dollar stake in your company, it’s like lighting a 400 degree fire under your desk chair. You know that there is someone looking over your shoulder.”
Sometimes, he said, this means pharmaceutical companies jack up drug prices to boost profits and please investors. Last year, his organization analyzed 25 recent and substantial drug-price hikes. Their conclusion: In 20 of those cases, hedge funds, private equity investors, or other wealthy speculators were involved.
“Out of the 25 drugs with the fastest-rising prices over the past two years, 20 are owned or have been acquired by firms with significant activity from hedge fund, private equity, or venture capital firms during the relevant time period,” they wrote.
Kink said investments from hedge funds like Paulson’s can make CEOs fear for their jobs —— they sense that if their profits aren’t high enough, the fund will try to get them fired. Sometimes, fund managers write lengthy public letters berating CEOs for not making their companies sufficiently profitable. Other times, though, just increasing their holdings makes CEOs jittery.
“Merely by making the investment, you send a signal to the CEO that should spike their heart rate and start them scurrying towards a path towards short-term profits,” Kink said. “It is no secret what these guys do.”
A public relations representative for Paulson & Co. didn’t provide on-the-record comment for this story, and Mylan didn’t return multiple requests for comment.

Six years ago, Paulson’s fund reported a significant increase in its Mylan holdings. GuruFocus.com reported that he increased his investment in the firm by 163.85 percent, hitting 30,000,000 shares on June 30, 2010. Since then, the cost of an EpiPen 2-pack has gone from about $100 to more than $600, as NBC News detailed. Prices vary depending on what kind of insurance purchasers have and where they get the EpiPens. Tracy Bush, whose son has severe allergies, told NBC that she paid $220.99 for an EpiPen in 2010, and that this year, the price before insurance for the device was $1,118.08. NBC noted that Mylan has also raised prices on a host of other medications.
The price hike has generated universally negative news coverage, along with scores of critical headlines. But TheStreet, a financial news site, concluded that the headlines won’t hurt Mylan’s stock prices in the long run. They cited CitiGroup analysis that found pharmaceutical companies like Mylan can be risky bets, given “higher risk inherent in some of these companies to drug pricing headlines.” But TheStreet said that shouldn’t necessarily deter potential investors; the site rates Mylan stock as a “BUY”—thanks in part to its growing profit margins.
Paulson isn’t the only Trump-loving billionaire whose hedge fund has invested in companies that jack up the prices of lifesaving drugs. Robert Mercer, who is co-CEO of the Renaissance Technologies hedge fund, is a major Trump booster who has growing clout within the campaign. Last March, his fund bet on a biopharmaceutical company called Gilead Sciences, shelling out about $88 million to make the company 0.21 percent of its overall portfolio, according to filings that Market Realist highlighted. The fund bet bigger in the final quarter of 2015, as hedge fund site Insider Monkey noted, increasing its holdings in the company by a whopping 727 percent.
In a write-up on the hedge fund, Motley Fool noted that the profitability of Gilead’s two Hepatitis C drugs make it appealing for investors. Those drugs are very expensive—so pricey, in fact, that Hillary Clinton singled them out on the campaign trail as evidence of corporate greed.
“It is so expensive that a lot of Americans are being left out,” she said last week, as The Hill reported. “And you know what really is upsetting about this is that drug company sells that same drug all over the world at a much lower price to everybody else.”
More recently, Clinton ripped Mylan for its EpiPen pricing. In a statement, she called the pricing “outrageous” and called for the company to lower it. That statement didn’t note that Mylan is also a Clinton Foundation donor. The Trump camp, however, pointed that out to the Wall Street Journal and called for the foundation to return the contributions it received from the company, “if Hillary Clinton is as outraged as she claims.”
So Republicans aren’t the only ones wrapped up in the drug-pricing controversy. Heather Bresch, the CEO of Mylan, is the daughter of West Virginia Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin. She gave herself a raise after hiking the EpiPen prices, and a host of her dad’s colleagues have now called on her to explain herself. Price gouging, it seems, can be a bipartisan affair.
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2 ... ipens.html

[seemslikeadream]

EpiPen maker’s stock value drops nearly $3 billion in 5 days as investors panic
http://usuncut.com/class-war/epipen-mak ... ors-panic/

[Luther Blissett]

.

I also want that guy to move to my neighborhood. As unpleasant as it would be for us in the meantime, I'm sure it would calm him down.

At least dose him with psilocybin for some short term relief?

Wait -- they offer psilocybin freely to visitors in your neighborhood? I know where I'll be going this weekend...

One of my friends grows and hands out psilocybin for free!

[Nordic]

It's too easy to find examples of horrible, mock-worthy supporters of any candidate. I'm gonna vote Green. But I'm sure I could find some dreadful Green Party supporters. In fact I know I could because I ran into them on their Facebook pages almost immediately. Thank goodness for the block feature.

The supporters aren't running for office.

[stillrobertpaulsen]

Two points to add:

1. It is possible to hate racism, hate the deep state, hate the bullshit macho mentality bereft of intelligence that is destroying my country - but fucking love Mountain Dew. Let's not throw a tasty beverage under the bus with these neo-Brownshirts.

2. That Mencken quote? Already happened 16 years ago when the empty suit moron with the perfect pedigree put Cheney in charge. The only quibble is that son of an asshole was never actually "elected."

[8bitagent]

Two points to add:

1. It is possible to hate racism, hate the deep state, hate the bullshit macho mentality bereft of intelligence that is destroying my country - but fucking love Mountain Dew. Let's not throw a tasty beverage under the bus with these neo-Brownshirts.

2. That Mencken quote? Already happened 16 years ago when the empty suit moron with the perfect pedigree put Cheney in charge. The only quibble is that son of an asshole was never actually "elected."

I'm wrestling with it. My long time opposition to war, neocon agendas, "globalist elites", and some of Israel's policy as well as anti liberal policies in the Middle East is exactly what
the modern far right/alt left/Trump crowd is espousing. So it's pretty odd and meta. On RI we've seen a lot of great posters start threads discussing the creeping neo fascism in America and especially Europe.
And now this new far right/alt right movement seems to now be front and center in this election year.

Part of me still thinks that if there was no Bernie Sanders, and research showed a far angry populist left turn would win him the White House, Trump would have come out in June 2016 as Bernie Sanders on steroids.

[kool maudit]

Yeah, this guy (steroid man) sucks. But so does making him into some sort of approved politico-cultural hate-figure and having that be the discussion.You guys know they do the same with WorldStar videos on far-right forums, right? We can cherry-pick supporters all day so as to find the one who is most different from us, who most opposes the tenets of our preferred worldview, who has the qualities we despise most.