US Erection 12 *AND* 16 *AND* 20 *AND* 22 *AND* 24 *AND* Beyond

[Chef Boi RD]

Trump - "Decades of abuse, by Canada!"

[Strangelove]

"What will happen if Trump slaps a 25 per cent tariff on Canadian-made cars?
It would be ‘pretty disastrous’ for this country, say experts. But Americans would pay a steep price, too."

https://www.macleans.ca/economy/what-wi ... 1535650902

Good post. (because it supports my fear-mongering propaganda campaign)

No, it's more like it's Basic Economics 101.

For what it's worth, I do hold a master's degree in business administration and economics.

(which allows me to ignore the argument Trump is merely negotiating and has no intention of a prolonged trade war)

(which of course allows me to continue my fear-mongering propaganda campaign)

[Strangelove]

Why would I believe your silly youtube video?

It's from the Washington Post.

Okay so.... "fake news".

[Chef Boi RD]

Doc, we've been abusing the U.S. for decades, according to Trump.

[Strangelove]

Doc, we've been abusing the U.S. for decades, according to Trump.

It's how he negotiates, you need to learn to love the Donald.

Don't allow Pink Per's propaganda to succeed good buddy!

[Chef Boi RD]

Bob Woodward just blew up Trumps White House, lol. His new book is a doozy

[Island Nucklehead]

Bob Woodward just blew up Trumps White House, lol. His new book is a doozy

I haven't bothered with the other books on the Trump WH, but this one should be the best of them. Can't wait to read it.

I wonder what Doc will think of it. My guess is he won't, because it's FAKE NEWS, SAD!

[2Fingers]

Wow - not much else to say.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics ... 375a268817

[Topper]

papyrus from the swamps of the Potomic

[Chef Boi RD]

Arie Fleischer - "I've been on the receiving end of a Bob Woodward book. There were quotes in it I didn't like. But never once - never - did I think Woodward made it up. Anonymous sources have looser lips and may take liberties. But Woodward always plays is straight. Someone told it to him"

Woodwards word is as good as gold. It's a Madhouse!!! The White House

[Strangelove]

.
Bob Woodward is said to be an investigative journalist and non-fiction author.

Yet the central character in his famous book “All the President's Men” actually did not exist!

“Deep Throat” was of course the name he gave his key “unnamed source” in that book.

But it turned out “Deep Throat” was a complete fabrication, an utter lie. Here:

http://www.lpatrickgrayiii.com/watergate02.html

It has now become clear that “Deep Throat” was fabricated. The most famous anonymous source of all time was a fictional character made up by (Woodward and Bernstein)

Then there's the fact there are notable discrepancies between Woodward's books “The Agenda” and “Maestro”.

Which one of these two books is the one that paints an accurate portrait of Clinton’s White House... or is it neither:

http://delong.typepad.com/sdj/2006/10/w ... _cant.html

It is certainly true that nothing Bob Woodward writes can be fully trusted without very, very careful, careful checking.... For the full Woodward treatment, read his The Agenda, then read his Maestro, contemplate how one and the same person could use the Third Person Omniscient to write both accounts of the making of Clinton economic policy, and collapse to the floor in helpless laughter...

I would like to hear Mr. Greenberg explain how Woodward's account of the making of Clinton economic policy in Maestro--where an intelligent but naive president is tutored in the realities of economic policy by wise Federal Reserve Chair Alan Greenspan, and chooses intelligent policies in the national interest--is consistent with the account that Greenberg worked on in Woodward's The Agenda, in which the process (a very good, a very thoughtful process, that I know, for I was there) is reported to have been, in Woodward's words, "chaos. Absolute chaos."

I don't think Greenberg can. I don't think Greenberg dares try. And if he dares not try, then he needs to stay quiet. Very quiet.

In one book, Clinton’s WH is portrayed as “chaos” (not unlike Trump’s WH in this new book)

… and in the other book everything is hunky dory in Clinton’s WH.

Does this mean Woodward’s next book will tell of an exemplary Trump WH?

And does this mean Woodward’s books should be placed in the Fiction rather than the Non-fiction section?


Here is a good example of how Woodward tends to distort things and create caricatures:

http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/cult ... _tell.html

Two years after John Belushi died, Bob Woodward published Wired: The Short Life and Fast Times of John Belushi… (He wrote) a scathing, lurid account of Belushi’s drug use and death.

Wired is an infuriating piece of work…. Woodward doesn’t make Jonah Lehrer–level mistakes. There’s never a smoking gun like an outright falsehood or a brazen ethical breach. And yet, in the final product, a lot of what Woodward writes comes off as being not quite right—some of it to the point where it can feel quite wrong. There’s no question that he frequently ferrets out information that other reporters don’t. But getting the scoop is only part of the equation. Once you have the facts, you have to present those facts in context and in proportion to other facts in order to accurately reflect reality. It’s here that Woodward fails…

“The greatest crime of that book,” Landis says of Wired, “is that if you read it and you’d just assume that John was a pig and an asshole, and he was anything but. He could be abrupt and unpleasant, but most of the time he was totally charming and people adored him.”
The wrongness in Woodward’s reporting is always ever so subtle. SNL writer Michael O'Donoghue—who died before I started the book but who videotaped an interview with Judy years before—told this story about how Belushi loved to mess with him:

“I am very anal-retentive, and John used to come over and just move things around, just move things a couple of inches, drop a paper on the floor, miss an ashtray a little bit until finally he could see me just tensing up. That was his idea of a fine joke. Another joke he used to do was to sit on me.”

When put through the Woodward filter, this becomes:

“A compulsively neat person, O’Donoghue was always picking up and straightening his office. Frequently, John came in and destroyed the order in a minute, shifting papers, furniture or pencils or dropping cigarette ashes.”

Again, Woodward’s account is not wrong. It’s just … wrong. In his version, Belushi is not a prankster but a jerk.

Twenty years later, when Blair Brown told me about a love scene, she was still upset at how Woodward had portrayed it in Wired. “It was my first experience of getting tricked by a journalist,” she said. “Woodward appeared as if he really wanted to know what went on, and I actually had marvelous times with Belushi. But the thing that was depressing when I read the book was that he had taken the facts that I told him, and put an attitude to them that was not remotely right.”

Wired is like that throughout. Like a funhouse mirror, Woodward’s prose distorts what it purports to reflect. Moments of tearful drama are rendered as tersely as an accounting of Belushi’s car-service receipts. Friendly jokes are stripped of their humor and turned into boorish annoyances.

Whenever people ask me about John Belushi and the subject of Wired comes up, I say it’s like someone wrote a biography of Michael Jordan in which all the stats and scores are correct, but you come away with the impression that Michael Jordan wasn’t very good at playing basketball.

The simple truth of Wired is that Bob Woodward, deploying all of the talent and resources for which he is famous, produced something that is a failure as journalism. And when you imagine Woodward using the same approach to cover secret meetings about drone strikes and the budget sequester and other issues of vital national importance, well, you have to stop and shudder.

And consider this:

https://www.nationalreview.com/2011/04/ ... d-black/2/

This was of a piece with Watergate celebrity journalist Bob Woodward’s invention of a conversation in his book Veil, about the Iran-Contra affair, with former CIA director William Casey. PROVEN LIE: Woodward claimed to have entered, in disguise, into Casey’s hospital room, shortly before he died and to have extracted a confession of wrongdoing from him. It was proved absolutely that Casey was not compos mentis at the time, and that his room was heavily secured from such intrusions. Clearly, Woodward’s proprietary instincts toward Washington scandals were mortally offended by being left out on this occasion, and he simply turned what purported to be a history of Iran-Contra into a novel to maintain his standing as the capital’s reigning scandal-monger.

A "novel" indeed… this is a guy who writes fiction and passes it off as non-fiction.

What really hurts is his lies do real damage to people, institutions, governments and the world at large.

If lunatics like Kim Jong-un and Bashar al-Assad believe some of the crap in this book, who knows what the extent of the damage might be.

But Woodward doesn't care, he gets his fame + fortune.

And the Trump-hating libs don't care, they get what they believe to be fresh mud to wallow in.

Woodward “reports” (HA!) on interviews that never happened (Deep Throat, William Casey).

Ronald Reagan: "Woodward is a liar and he lied about what Casey is supposed to have thought of me.”

Some people reportedly quoted in this new book are already saying they never said the things Woodward attributes to them.

He is a proven painter of false pictures and an outed liar.

He does writes about interesting topics

... but he does so in an agonizingly boring style, he has no sense of humour, takes things out of context, and laces it all with insidious lies.

Pass.

[Per]

Woodward this, Woodward that...

Shaken, rattled and rolled, perchance?

[Per]

Doc, we've been abusing the U.S. for decades, according to Trump.

It's how he negotiates, you need to learn to love the Donald.

Don't allow Pink Per's propaganda to succeed good buddy!

And don't allow Doc to shuffle the cards to confuse you.

He is the one supporting the traditional socialist prospect of protectionism and import substitution, whereas I am supporting the concept of free trade, which typically all sensible people who hold centrist or right wing views prefer (until you reach fascism and come full circle).

Who's the pinko now?


As for it being a negotiation tactic...

Yeahno. Sure, I know the Donald never negotiates in good faith.
It is common to threaten with tariffs before you negotiate, but he actually had them imposed before sitting down.
Taking someone's livelyhood away before you sit down at the table to negotiate is not the way it's usually done.
That's more mobster style than I care for, but I guess given his background, you shouldn't be surprised.

The drawback of this method though is that the damage caused to the USA by the trade war, both concerning the economy and international goodwill, will offset any gains he can achieve through negotiations. And sadly the countries he target will also get hurt.

And his talk about completely free trade is bullshit. He can't deliver on that.
The USA has a Buy American Clause, imposed by congress, which means government agencies have to buy American products whenever possible. The US president can't overturn that.

This means that SAAB will never be able to sell its fighter jets to the US Air Force. Same goes for the French Dassault aircraft or the Eurofighter.
Meanwhile lots of European countries are buying F35s, which I think are actualy recommended for NATO members.

If the USA really wants completely free trade, let's see them drop the Buy American Clause first.
Or else maybe we can copy it into an Buy European Clause for EU members? That would be a great boost for the Swedish defence industry!

If he is interested in free trade, why then pull out of pretty much any free trade agreement the USA has, or has been trying to negotiate?

[Strangelove]

It's just how Donny gets new deals done Per.

Deals that are more favourable to country he represents.

Watch and learn Per, watch and learn....

Meanwhile it was nice to hear Don echoing some of my points on Woodward today:

[Per]

Well, voices from inside the White House seem to confirm both what Woodward says and what I have been saying regarding trade issues:

The dilemma — which he does not fully grasp — is that many of the senior officials in his own administration are working diligently from within to frustrate parts of his agenda and his worst inclinations.

I would know. I am one of them.

To be clear, ours is not the popular “resistance” of the left. We want the administration to succeed and think that many of its policies have already made America safer and more prosperous.

But we believe our first duty is to this country, and the president continues to act in a manner that is detrimental to the health of our republic.

That is why many Trump appointees have vowed to do what we can to preserve our democratic institutions while thwarting Mr. Trump’s more misguided impulses until he is out of office.

The root of the problem is the president’s amorality. Anyone who works with him knows he is not moored to any discernible first principles that guide his decision making.
Although he was elected as a Republican, the president shows little affinity for ideals long espoused by conservatives: free minds, free markets and free people. At best, he has invoked these ideals in scripted settings. At worst, he has attacked them outright.

In addition to his mass-marketing of the notion that the press is the “enemy of the people,” President Trump’s impulses are generally anti-trade and anti-democratic.

Don’t get me wrong. There are bright spots that the near-ceaseless negative coverage of the administration fails to capture: effective deregulation, historic tax reform, a more robust military and more.

But these successes have come despite — not because of — the president’s leadership style, which is impetuous, adversarial, petty and ineffective.

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/05/opin ... ctionfront


Yeah, that's pretty much what I said.