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http://fortune.com/2018/10/16/trumps-approval-rating-military-troops-survey/

 

President Trump’s support among U.S. troops appears to be fading, with a new survey from Military Times showing that support for him has ebbed during the past two years while his disapproval rating has increased.

The survey of 829 respondents, conducted between Sept. 20 and Oct. 2, showed that the percentage approving of Trump has declined to 43.8% from 46.1% two years ago, while those disapproving rose to 43.1% from 37%.

Respondents who were neutral on Trump declined from 17% to 13%, “suggesting political polarization inside the military community has intensified in recent years,” the publication said. Military Times is owned Sightline Media, a private publisher with roots stretching back to 1940, when it was known as Army Times.

In comparison, President Trump’s Defense Secretary James Mattis received an 84% approval rating from respondents.

Female respondents, who made up 11% of the total, were more likely to disapprove of Trump, with 28% showing support and 69% disapproving. Among male respondents, 47% approved of Trump while 38% disapproved. Trump’s support was strongest in the Marine Corps and Navy, while those in the Air Force and Navy were more critical. Around 21% of respondents from the Army were neither favorable nor unfavorable, making it the most undecided branch of the armed forces.

Trump won praise in the survey for increasing spending on the military. Criticisms centered around his temperament. “To me, it seems like his presidency is a popularity contest for his ego,” a Navy petty officer told the Times.

“If he could tamp down on the Twitter a bit, that would be ideal,” a captain in the Marine Corps added.

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15 hours ago, FondrenRoad said:

He could probably sell out Kyle.  The correlation between aggy and Trumpist is almost 1 to 1.  Surprised he didnt have the rally there. 

Also, its the Astroarena. Naming rights are getting out of control. 

 

14 hours ago, ERhine said:

Is this the Cruz rally? You think they’d actually mention the candidate he is coming down here to support. I guess that assumes Trump actually gives a shit about that candidate.

 

In theory, he’s there to help Cruz.  

But playing to a small arena probably means he’s there to fundraise from the MAGAheads, and Cruz is just an excuse.  

If it was about Cruz, he’d be at Kyle Field or at least something bigger than the fucking Astroarena. 

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6 hours ago, Hugo Stiglitz said:

Hmm, 2001, Saudis, and skyscrapers in NY don’t mix. 

Trumps new narrative that it’s actually only bad if the king or prince knew about this in advance.  

  1. How will he know that?  If the king says they didnt know, I guess will believe him like trump has to believe Putin.  No one would lie to trump.
  2. whats trumps message to the cia?  Do what you want to anyone, it’s only bad if I know in advance.
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3 hours ago, Nice Guy Eddie said:

Trumps new narrative that it’s actually only bad if the king or prince knew about this in advance.  

  1. How will he know that?  If the king says they didnt know, I guess will believe him like trump has to believe Putin.  No one would lie to trump.
  2. whats trumps message to the cia?  Do what you want to anyone, it’s only bad if I know in advance.

Trump and Saudi Crown Prince are lying.  

 

Trump and Saudi Crown Prince know what happened and are covering for each other.  The actual bombshell is what US resident Khashoggi was reporting, or potentially about to report in American MSM to implicate Crown Prince, Trump, Kushner.

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2 minutes ago, triplehorn said:

Trump and Saudi Crown Prince are lying.  

 

Trump and Saudi Crown Prince know what happened and are covering for each other.  The actual bombshell is what US resident Khashoggi was reporting, or potentially about to report in American MSM to implicate Crown Prince, Trump, Kushner.

No way Khashoggi didn’t give that info to someone else he trusted prior to flying overseas.  He knew he was in danger. 

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Not sure where this one should be put... Loce him or hate him, this should be a no brainier for anyone to get behind.

Trump Opens New Front in His Battle With China: International Shipping

 

Quote

New York Times

WASHINGTON — President Trump plans to withdraw from a 144-year-old postal treaty that has allowed Chinese companies to ship small packages to the United States at a steeply discounted rate, undercutting American competitors and flooding the market with cheap consumer goods.

The withdrawal, announced by the White House on Wednesday, is part of a concerted push by Mr. Trump to counter China’s dominance and punish it for what the administration says is a pattern of unfair trade practices. The White House, in a statement, said “sufficient progress has not been made on reforming terms” of the postal treaty and that it would begin the withdrawal process while seeking to “negotiate bilateral and multilateral agreements that resolve the problems.”

The Universal Postal Union treaty, first drafted in 1874, sets fees that national postal services charge to deliver mail and small parcels to countries around the world. Since 1969, poor and developing countries — including China — have been assessed lower rates than wealthier countries in Europe and North America.

While the lower rates were intended to foster development in Asia and Africa, Chinese companies now make up about 60 percent of packages shipped into the country, taking advantage of the lower rates to ship clothing, household gadgets and consumer electronics. Many websites now offer free shipping from China, in part because of the cheap postal rates, administration officials say.

The decision to withdraw was made at the urging of Peter Navarro, Mr. Trump’s hard-line trade adviser, who sees the move as a way to thwart China and an opportunity to challenge the authority of international groups, like the World Trade Organization, that, in his view, fail to give the United States voting powers commensurate with the country’s economic stature.

Mr. Trump, who told “60 Minutes” last weekend that his biggest regret as president wasn’t quickly “terminating” the North American Free Trade Agreement after he took office, has also been eager to emphasize that he is tough on trade by pulling out of a treaty, even a relatively obscure one, according to people familiar with his thinking on the matter.

State Department officials were expected on Wednesday to inform officials at the Universal Postal Union in Bern, Switzerland, a branch of the United Nations that administers the treaty, of their intention to pull out of the system and "self-declare” new, higher rates on China, a United States official said.

According to the union’s rules, members will have a year to renegotiate new terms before the withdrawal becomes permanent. “If negotiations are successful, the administration is prepared to rescind the notice of withdrawal and remain” in the treaty, the White House statement said.

The move will most likely inflame tensions with China, which the administration has accused of unfair trade practices and punished with tariffs on $250 billion worth of Chinese goods, investment restrictions and other measures. Administration officials are still weighing whether Mr. Trump will meet with China’s president, Xi Jinping, in Argentina next month.

Mr. Trump does not need congressional approval to withdraw because the last version of the treaty was never put up to a vote, administration officials said.

The pact has been long been a source of frustration for presidents of both parties, and prompted complaints from small businesses, big retailers like Amazon and shipping giants like UPS. The treaty was last modified in 2016 to raise some shipping costs on Chinese exports. But Mr. Navarro and Mr. Trump dismissed those changes as insufficient to deal with the explosion of online free shipping offers of goods from China.

“These disparities have introduced a massive distortion in the eCommerce market,” Mr. Navarro wrote in a Financial Times op-ed last month. “It is often possible for a Chinese company to sell ‘knockoff’ products through online vendors, such as Amazon or Alibaba, to U.S. consumers for less than it costs for American mailers to ship authentic goods. Moreover, while USPS loses an estimated $1 on every small package that arrives from China, outbound mail of American exporters is charged at well above cost.”

A 2015 report from the Inspector General of the United States Postal Service found that the treaty, which was created to ease the flow of mail and small parcels between 192 countries, had not been overhauled to reflect the new realities of eCommerce and China’s aggressive undercutting of international competitors.

The price of shipping a 4.4 pound package, the largest parcel covered by the treaty, from China to the United States is about $5, according to United States estimates, according to post office estimates culled by Mr. Navarro’s staff. American companies can pay two to four times that amount to ship a similar package from Los Angeles to New York, and much more for packages sent to China.

The “system creates winners and losers,” the report’s author’s concluded, especially China’s national postal service and "Chinese online retailers in the lightweight, low-value package segment at the expense of the U.S. Postal Service and American retailers.”

It is not clear how much the disparity costs American taxpayers and retailers, in part because the Postal Service does not release detailed country-by-country shipping breakdowns. A 2014 study, cited in a Postal Service analysis of the issue, estimated that discounted shipping cost industrialized nations as much as $2.1 billion a year in aggregate.

The losses to retailers and manufacturers could be much more, as online commerce expands further.

Industry groups, even ones that have questioned the president’s tariffs on Chinese imports, applauded the move as proportional and targeted.

“This outdated arrangement contributes significantly to the flood of counterfeit goods and dangerous drugs that enter the country from China,” said Jay Timmons, chief executive of the National Association of Manufacturers, a trade group. “Manufacturers and manufacturing workers in the United States will greatly benefit from a modernized and far more fair arrangement with China.”

But the changes could have an even bigger impact on small retailers who have found themselves outgunned and undercut by Chinese competitors.

Jayme Smaldone, who runs a 12-employee housewares company in Rahway, N.J., first became aware of the problem when he noticed websites selling Chinese knockoffs of his “Mighty Mug,” a desktop coffee cup he designed with an anti-topple base

“Something has to be done,” he said. “How can my government be subsidizing China and driving me out of business?"

 

I am really shocked in the eCommerce world we live in that no one has thought about fixing this issues a while ago..

People wonder why there is a trade imbalance and yet we cut our own throats with things like this. If it is cheaper to make the good in China and then we subsidize the shipping, why should anyone expect the consumer to not buy the Chinese knockoff? The price would be at that point significantly cheaper than the competing good.

We lose $1 per every package shipped in from China and therefore American shipping is charge more than the market rate, which further hurts the "true" price difference.

This makes me wonder how many other legacy trade treaties are there floating around.

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Not sure where this one should be put... Loce him or hate him, this should be a no brainier for anyone to get behind.

Trump Opens New Front in His Battle With China: International Shipping

 
New York Times
WASHINGTON — President Trump plans to withdraw from a 144-year-old postal treaty that has allowed Chinese companies to ship small packages to the United States at a steeply discounted rate, undercutting American competitors and flooding the market with cheap consumer goods.
The withdrawal, announced by the White House on Wednesday, is part of a concerted push by Mr. Trump to counter China’s dominance and punish it for what the administration says is a pattern of unfair trade practices. The White House, in a statement, said “sufficient progress has not been made on reforming terms” of the postal treaty and that it would begin the withdrawal process while seeking to “negotiate bilateral and multilateral agreements that resolve the problems.”
The Universal Postal Union treaty, first drafted in 1874, sets fees that national postal services charge to deliver mail and small parcels to countries around the world. Since 1969, poor and developing countries — including China — have been assessed lower rates than wealthier countries in Europe and North America.
While the lower rates were intended to foster development in Asia and Africa, Chinese companies now make up about 60 percent of packages shipped into the country, taking advantage of the lower rates to ship clothing, household gadgets and consumer electronics. Many websites now offer free shipping from China, in part because of the cheap postal rates, administration officials say.
The decision to withdraw was made at the urging of Peter Navarro, Mr. Trump’s hard-line trade adviser, who sees the move as a way to thwart China and an opportunity to challenge the authority of international groups, like the World Trade Organization, that, in his view, fail to give the United States voting powers commensurate with the country’s economic stature.
Mr. Trump, who told “60 Minutes” last weekend that his biggest regret as president wasn’t quickly “terminating” the North American Free Trade Agreement after he took office, has also been eager to emphasize that he is tough on trade by pulling out of a treaty, even a relatively obscure one, according to people familiar with his thinking on the matter.
State Department officials were expected on Wednesday to inform officials at the Universal Postal Union in Bern, Switzerland, a branch of the United Nations that administers the treaty, of their intention to pull out of the system and "self-declare” new, higher rates on China, a United States official said.
According to the union’s rules, members will have a year to renegotiate new terms before the withdrawal becomes permanent. “If negotiations are successful, the administration is prepared to rescind the notice of withdrawal and remain” in the treaty, the White House statement said.
The move will most likely inflame tensions with China, which the administration has accused of unfair trade practices and punished with tariffs on $250 billion worth of Chinese goods, investment restrictions and other measures. Administration officials are still weighing whether Mr. Trump will meet with China’s president, Xi Jinping, in Argentina next month.
Mr. Trump does not need congressional approval to withdraw because the last version of the treaty was never put up to a vote, administration officials said.
The pact has been long been a source of frustration for presidents of both parties, and prompted complaints from small businesses, big retailers like Amazon and shipping giants like UPS. The treaty was last modified in 2016 to raise some shipping costs on Chinese exports. But Mr. Navarro and Mr. Trump dismissed those changes as insufficient to deal with the explosion of online free shipping offers of goods from China.
“These disparities have introduced a massive distortion in the eCommerce market,” Mr. Navarro wrote in a Financial Times op-ed last month. “It is often possible for a Chinese company to sell ‘knockoff’ products through online vendors, such as Amazon or Alibaba, to U.S. consumers for less than it costs for American mailers to ship authentic goods. Moreover, while USPS loses an estimated $1 on every small package that arrives from China, outbound mail of American exporters is charged at well above cost.”
A 2015 report from the Inspector General of the United States Postal Service found that the treaty, which was created to ease the flow of mail and small parcels between 192 countries, had not been overhauled to reflect the new realities of eCommerce and China’s aggressive undercutting of international competitors.
The price of shipping a 4.4 pound package, the largest parcel covered by the treaty, from China to the United States is about $5, according to United States estimates, according to post office estimates culled by Mr. Navarro’s staff. American companies can pay two to four times that amount to ship a similar package from Los Angeles to New York, and much more for packages sent to China.
The “system creates winners and losers,” the report’s author’s concluded, especially China’s national postal service and "Chinese online retailers in the lightweight, low-value package segment at the expense of the U.S. Postal Service and American retailers.”
It is not clear how much the disparity costs American taxpayers and retailers, in part because the Postal Service does not release detailed country-by-country shipping breakdowns. A 2014 study, cited in a Postal Service analysis of the issue, estimated that discounted shipping cost industrialized nations as much as $2.1 billion a year in aggregate.
The losses to retailers and manufacturers could be much more, as online commerce expands further.
Industry groups, even ones that have questioned the president’s tariffs on Chinese imports, applauded the move as proportional and targeted.
“This outdated arrangement contributes significantly to the flood of counterfeit goods and dangerous drugs that enter the country from China,” said Jay Timmons, chief executive of the National Association of Manufacturers, a trade group. “Manufacturers and manufacturing workers in the United States will greatly benefit from a modernized and far more fair arrangement with China.”
But the changes could have an even bigger impact on small retailers who have found themselves outgunned and undercut by Chinese competitors.
Jayme Smaldone, who runs a 12-employee housewares company in Rahway, N.J., first became aware of the problem when he noticed websites selling Chinese knockoffs of his “Mighty Mug,” a desktop coffee cup he designed with an anti-topple base
“Something has to be done,” he said. “How can my government be subsidizing China and driving me out of business?"
 
I am really shocked in the eCommerce world we live in that no one has thought about fixing this issues a while ago..
People wonder why there is a trade imbalance and yet we cut our own throats with things like this. If it is cheaper to make the good in China and then we subsidize the shipping, why should anyone expect the consumer to not buy the Chinese knockoff? The price would be at that point significantly cheaper than the competing good.
We lose $1 per every package shipped in from China and therefore American shipping is charge more than the market rate, which further hurts the "true" price difference.
This makes me wonder how many other legacy trade treaties are there floating around.

I support this move - have actually followed this issue for a while (several sources have written on it).

There, you have me on the record agreeing with this admin’s approach on a specific issue.

It’s still a shitshow of an admin and is killing the republic. One issue doesn’t change that.
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1 minute ago, Brisketexan said:

I support this move - have actually followed this issue for a while (several sources have written on it).

There, you have me on the record agreeing with this admin’s approach on a specific issue.

It’s still a shitshow of an admin and is killing the republic. One issue doesn’t change that.

This is one of those issues that should baffle the American public that it has not been addressed a long time ago.

Everyone bitches about the postal service being a money pit , then we find out part of the reason is that we screwed them in a such a way with public policy decisions that it would be real hard for them not to be a money pit.

Simply be removing parcel subsidies from the largest foreign shipper you can impact the total cost through the supply chain of small goods coming from China. Less come from China therefore more volume from domestic distributors at a higher rate. We may still take a hit through the idea of potential abuse of building the product in China and then transporting them for parcel delivery to areas like Vietnam or Mongolia, but it theory this should be a big boost for the USPS

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2 hours ago, Laxtonto said:

Not sure where this one should be put... Loce him or hate him, this should be a no brainier for anyone to get behind.

Trump Opens New Front in His Battle With China: International Shipping

 

I am really shocked in the eCommerce world we live in that no one has thought about fixing this issues a while ago..

People wonder why there is a trade imbalance and yet we cut our own throats with things like this. If it is cheaper to make the good in China and then we subsidize the shipping, why should anyone expect the consumer to not buy the Chinese knockoff? The price would be at that point significantly cheaper than the competing good.

We lose $1 per every package shipped in from China and therefore American shipping is charge more than the market rate, which further hurts the "true" price difference.

This makes me wonder how many other legacy trade treaties are there floating around.

If the homo meth stuff wasn't enough, his unquenchable thirst for authentic chinese knockoff jerseys will surely now get Icono booted from the GOP. 

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Donald Trump, Jamal Khashoggi, and a post-truth world:

 

Quote

In a Quinnipiac University survey that was carried out this summer, seventy-five per cent of Republican respondents said they trust Trump more than the news media to tell them the truth about important issues. Just sixteen per cent said they trust the news media more than Trump.



https://www.newyorker.com/news/our-columnists/donald-trump-jamal-khashoggi-and-the-post-truth-world
 

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^

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In his book “On Tyranny,” from February, 2017, the Yale historian Timothy Snyder sounded the alarm, warning that “Post-truth is pre-fascism” and “to abandon facts is to abandon freedom.” Now another Yale academic, the philosopher Jason Stanley, is reiterating the point. In his new book, “How Fascism Works,” Stanley writes, “Regular and repeated obvious lying is part of the process by which fascist politics destroys the information space. A fascist leader can replace truth with power, ultimately lying without consequence. By replacing the world with a person, fascist politics makes us unable to assess arguments by a common standard.”

 

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2 hours ago, Laxtonto said:

Not sure where this one should be put... Loce him or hate him, this should be a no brainier for anyone to get behind.

Trump Opens New Front in His Battle With China: International Shipping

 

I am really shocked in the eCommerce world we live in that no one has thought about fixing this issues a while ago..

People wonder why there is a trade imbalance and yet we cut our own throats with things like this. If it is cheaper to make the good in China and then we subsidize the shipping, why should anyone expect the consumer to not buy the Chinese knockoff? The price would be at that point significantly cheaper than the competing good.

We lose $1 per every package shipped in from China and therefore American shipping is charge more than the market rate, which further hurts the "true" price difference.

This makes me wonder how many other legacy trade treaties are there floating around.

Well there goes my cheap ass Christmas shopping off of Wish.

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2 hours ago, hayden_horn said:

haha, a transparent and timely investigation. 

but please don't finish it before the midterms, kthxbai

It's going to be a GOP FBI investigation. 2 days long. Not allowed to talk to the Saudis. Or the Turks. And not allowed to conclude the Saudis did it either. See there, done. Now doesn't everybody feel better. 

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16 minutes ago, Horn Under a Bad Sign said:

In a Quinnipiac University survey that was carried out this summer, seventy-five per cent of Republican respondents said they trust Trump more than the news media to tell them the truth about important issues. Just sixteen per cent said they trust the news media more than Trump.

This is madness.

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23 minutes ago, Horn Under a Bad Sign said:

Shit, my in-laws who if not 1%'ers are 2%'ers...who have more money than they know what to do with, their health, their grandchildren, literally everything going well for themselves....fit this category to a T.

 

Oh, there's one media outfit state propaganda outlet they fully believe in.  But we all know what's up with that.

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2 minutes ago, Brisketexan said:


And it’s why we’re done, toast.

The only weapons we have to fight with are facts and truth. But they are immune and actively resistant to facts and the truth.

It’s a cult. You don’t convert members of a cult.

So you fight them with lies.  Confuse and deflect.  Fuck 'em.  They're too stupid to see it coming.

I'm dead serious.  It is time for disinformation and downright dirty, dirty warfare.  They are not worth saving, they are only worth compromising.  The good news?  Every dumbshit's vote counts the same.

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43 minutes ago, jimmyjazz said:

So you fight them with lies.  Confuse and deflect.  Fuck 'em.  They're too stupid to see it coming.

I'm dead serious.  It is time for disinformation and downright dirty, dirty warfare.  They are not worth saving, they are only worth compromising.  The good news?  Every dumbshit's vote counts the same.

Only matters whether there's Democrat next to the name.  They're fine with supporting Republican liars, racists, rapists, pedophiles, oligarchs, foreign dictators, murderers, crime syndicates, money launders, etc. but they still aren't going to support a Democrat.  If you lie, you're just a liar.  Are you going to do all that other shit too because it won't matter.

Edited by Mdhorn
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Only matters whether there's Democrat next to the name.  They're fine with supporting Republican liars, racists, rapists, pedophiles, oligarchs, foreign dictators, murderers, crime syndicates, money launders, etc. but they still aren't going to support a Democrat.  If you lie, you're just a liar.  Are you going to do all that other shit too because it won't matter.

Nope, it won’t.

Time to do what the GOP is doing. Get to work on sophisticated election theft. Use offshore assets to hack into vulnerable voting systems and change votes/vote totals. The funny part will be watching some precincts flip back and forth as dueling groups of hackers work their magic.

There are no free or fair elections anymore. Might as well try to “win” them under the new rules.
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1 minute ago, Mdhorn said:

Only matters whether there's Democrat next to the name.  They're fine with supporting Republican liars, racists, rapists, oligarchs, foreign dictators, murderers, crime syndicates, money launders, etc. but they still aren't going to support a Democrat.  If you lie, you're just a liar.  Are you going to do all that other shit too because it won't matter.

So infiltrate.  There is no time like the present.  The city of Austin has been moaning about no good cross-town thoroughfares for decades.  You either start doing something about it or you accept what is surely the inevitable.

Time flies faster than people realize.  If you think you can't get something done in a few years, and a few years is all you have, then a few years down the road you end up realizing you have a few more years.  We're already wrapping up Year 2 of Trump's Presidency.  The Democrats either need to get to work in a unified fashion, fighting as dirty as the Republicans, or they need to accept the fact that things are exactly as dismal as Brisket says they are.  The only reason he is wrong is because he's cocksure the Dems won't accomplish enough in the near term, and then it will be too late.  I think he's naive as to the timescale on which these things can play out.  In either case, it behooves those who are right and smart to fight now as opposed to this silly "wait and see" mode.  That's bullshit.  That's the recipe for failure.

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2 minutes ago, Brisketexan said:


Nope, it won’t.

Time to do what the GOP is doing. Get to work on sophisticated election theft. Use offshore assets to hack into vulnerable voting systems and change votes/vote totals. The funny part will be watching some precincts flip back and forth as dueling groups of hackers work their magic.

There are no free or fair elections anymore. Might as well try to “win” them under the new rules.

I think some states will actually start to separate from the US when this happens. 

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