The #QAnon Conciousness Phenomena


3:40:36

You have the power, with your vote, to defend your family, your community, your country, and everything we hold sacred, and righteous, and true. Loyal citizens like you helped build this country and together we are taking back our country returning power to every day great American patriots.

The state of Kansas was settled by tough pioneer men and strong women who defied danger and braved the wilderness to build a beautiful life on the plains. Beautiful. Beautiful. Beautiful. Strong women. Strong women. Strong. I'm sorry fellas, stronger than the men, I'm sorry fellas. Strong. They didn't have a lot of money, they didn't have a lot of luxury, but they all had one thing in common. They love their families, they love their country, and they loved their God.

These courageous patriots did not shed their blood, sweat, and tears so that we could sit at home while others try to erase their legacy and destroy our proud and great American heritage. For the sake of our freedom, and for the sake of our children, we are going to work, we are going to fight, and we are going to win, win, win.

We will not bend, we will not break, we will never give in, we will never give up, we will never back down, we will never surrender, and we will always fight on to victory. Because we are American, and our hearts bleed red, white, and blue. We are one people, one family, and one glorious nation under God.

And together, we will make America wealthy again. We will make America strong again. We will make America safe again. And we will make America great again. Thank you Kansas. Thank you. Thank you.​
 
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Congressman Devin Nunes spells out very clearly that the only evidence of "collusion" with Russians to influence the 2016 election is evidence of the FBI and the Hillary Clinton campaign colluding with Russians to use fake evidence to falsely implicate Trump. Is that what Mueller is investigating?


7:18

Devin Nunes:

When Rosenstein appointed the special counsel, the lead investigator knew that there was no evidence of the Trump campaign colluding with the Russians. So what has the Special Counsel been doing this whole time? It really looks like, it's pretty clear now, that it is an investigation in search of a crime. Because the very thing the Trump campaign was investigated for, colluding with Russians, we now know that it was the Democratic Party colluding with Russians and feeding it to the top levels of the FBI. The general counsel of the FBI.

Maria Bartiromo:

Wow. Wow. Have you spoken with with Robert Mueller in any way. I mean are you calling for Muller's investigation to be shut down as a result of what you just said?

Nunes:

Well I don't want the investigatorn to be shut down. What I want the investigation to do is is determine who leaked the Flynn conversation? Who leaked general Flynn's conversations? I want them to investigate that. I want them to investigate who was behind fusion GPS? Who was fusion GPS talking to? What Russians were they talking to? Who was Christopher Steele talking to? I want to know all the Russians that fusion GPS interviewed, got information from, funneled into the Democrat Party, and then the Democratic Party funneled it to the FBI to open an investigation. That's what the Mueller investigation should be looking at.

Bartiromo:

I understood because ...


Nunes:

I don't know what the hell they were looking at this whole time.​
 
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I was watching Trump's rally and I was wondering how he developed his speaking style. He doesn't speak like most politicians. When you listen to the local pols that speak at the rallies they often use a style many politicians use where they are obviously trying to get the crowd excited. Trump's style is a more subtle. Then I remembered I had heard that Trump's family attended the church where Norman Vincent Peale was a minister. I am wondering if Trump is influenced by Peale's speaking style. (I'm not referring to the prose style, but to aspects of the delivrey: pitch, tone of voice, dynamics, and tempo.)

Here is a recording of Peale

 
I was watching Trump's rally and I was wondering how he developed his speaking style. He doesn't speak like most politicians. When you listen to the local pols that speak at the rallies they often use a style many politicians use where they are obviously trying to get the crowd excited. Trump's style is a more subtle. Then I remembered I had heard that Trump's family attended the church where Norman Vincent Peale was a minister. I am wondering if Trump is influenced by Peale's speaking style. (I'm not referring to the prose style, but to aspects of the delivrey: pitch, tone of voice, dynamics, and tempo.)
I can hear the resemblance!

David
 
Allow unfettered capitalism in the hope that some trickle down crumbs fall off the top table before the next unsustainable bubble bursts?

Well really, it was unfettered capitalism that gave us 'free trade'(FT). They weren't fools - they knew damn well that FT would undercut workers in the West, and probably result in horrible conditions for those who did the jobs. The Democrats aren't going to dismantle capitalism, or make it work better, they are going to sign as many trade deals as possible, and increase the numbers of jobless at home. Hopefully, of course they won't get the chance!

David
 
Well really, it was unfettered capitalism that gave us 'free trade'(FT). They weren't fools - they knew damn well that FT would undercut workers in the West, and probably result in horrible conditions for those who did the jobs. The Democrats aren't going to dismantle capitalism, or make it work better, they are going to sign as many trade deals as possible, and increase the numbers of jobless at home. Hopefully, of course they won't get the chance!

David

Free trade is when nations have no restrictions on imports and exports.

The international trading system in place when Trump took office was not free trade. The system consisted of treaties unfavorable to the US entered upon by governments intended to benefit special interests, multinational corporations, and foreign nations. The US government was a willing participant out of incompetence, compassion for developing nations, and failure to change obsolete policies intended to help Europe rebuild after WWII.

When corporations and foreign countries use corrupt measures to influence the government for their own benefit, that is not unfettered capitalism. It is crony capitalism. It is not fair to criticize capitalism for the flaws in crony capitalism. The role of government ought to be to protect free trade not restrict it for chosen beneficiaries. And you if you think there is something intrinsic in capitalism leads to crony capitalism I would say that "intrinsic" factor is human nature which also comes into play in every other economic system because all economic systems are subject to corruption by powerful entities for their own benefit. That is not something unique to capitalism.

When Trump took office he objected to trade agreements signed by previous administrations that were disadvantageous to the US. Other countries restricted products imported from the US or subsidized products exported to the US. And Trump's renegotiation of NAFTA was to fix a loophole where the US granted favorable trade terms to Mexico and Canada which China and Europe took advantage of by shipping parts to those countries and assembling products there. That way they could get easy access to the US markets which they were not granted as nations. A trade agreement with China is complicated by additional factors such as intellectual property theft, technology theft, forced technology transfer, and other issues that constitute economic warfare by China against the US and not just unfair tariffs and subsidizing exports.
https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/FINAL-China-Technology-Report-6.18.18-PDF.pdf

Trump's China policy is not just tariffs, it is a global policy that involves Venezuela, Iran, North Korea, Mexico, Canada and the EU. Trump is responding to economic warfare by China against the US with a geopolitical strategy not a trade policy.
https://theconservativetreehouse.co...rk-panda-mask-to-expose-red-dragon-influence/
 
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Free market capitalism is when individuals are allowed the freedom to decide what to produce, how much to produce, and how much to charge for it. It is how our society decides how many i-phones and pencils to manufacture and how much to charge for them. The law of supply and demand work much better than having the government make those decisions. Centralized planning like that doesn't work.

I think people don't like capitalism because it results in inequality. Some people get rich off the labor of people who are poor. But without the capitalists, everyone is poor - living from subsistence agriculture. So even though the capitalists get very rich, the poor are still better off. In developing countries we see that people even prefer working in the city in sweat shops to subsistence agriculture - just as people did in western countries during our industrial revolution. In my opinion most poverty is caused by bad government that restricts free trade and inhibits economic growth. When the economy is growing corporations have to compete for workers which raises wages and improves working conditions. I support some government regulation for safe working conditions, child labor, environmental protection, assistance to people who are disabled, etc (these issues have to be dealt with under any economic system, not just capitalism - capitalism is not anarchy) but overall I think if you try to enforce fairness by redistributing money from capitalists to the poor, it will not have the desired effect because it will act as a disincentive to the capitalists and they will produce less so there will be less to redistribute - if you keep raising taxes to compensate, you will get a negative feedback loop that destroys the economy. I know some people have a strong opinion about fairness and care more about fairness than the overall standard of living. I don't object to people having that opinion, what I object to is when people mischaracterize capitalism unfairly. Capitalism is not an inherently evil system that necessarily leads to oppression of the workers. Capitalism is the system that has raised standards of living from the middle ages to the 21st century.

I'm retired. My annual expenses are close to the poverty level, it's my choice, I could spend more if I wanted to. I'm not materialistic and I don't have fancy tastes. But there is no way I would want to go back to living the way they did during the middle ages, or even the way they lived 100 years ago. Most of the people who are considered poor in western countries are much better off because of capitalism than they would be without capitalism - even though some people think it is "unfair". And as I wrote above, I think the crushing poverty that exists in some countries is caused by bad government that restricts free trade and inhibits economic growth.
 
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Free market capitalism is when individuals are allowed the freedom to decide what to produce, how much to produce, and how much to charge for it. It is how our society decides how many i-phones and pencils to manufacture and how much to charge for them. The law of supply and demand work much better than having the government make those decisions. Centralized planning like that doesn't work.

I think people don't like capitalism because it results in inequality. Some people get rich off the labor of people who are poor. But without the capitalists, everyone is poor - living from subsistence agriculture. So even though the capitalists get very rich, the poor are still better off. In developing countries we see that people even prefer working in the city in sweat shops to subsistence agriculture - just as people did in western countries during our industrial revolution. In my opinion most poverty is caused by bad government that restricts free trade and inhibits economic growth. When the economy is growing corporations have to compete for workers which raises wages and improves working conditions. I support some government regulation for safe working conditions, child labor, environmental protection, assistance to people who are disabled, etc (these issues have to be dealt with under any economic system, not just capitalism - capitalism is not anarchy) but overall I think if you try to enforce fairness by redistributing money from capitalists to the poor, it will not have the desired effect because it will act as a disincentive to the capitalists and they will produce less so there will be less to redistribute - if you keep raising taxes to compensate, you will get a negative feedback loop that destroys the economy. I know some people have a strong opinion about fairness and care more about fairness than the overall standard of living. I don't object to people having that opinion, what I object to is when people mischaracterize capitalism unfairly. Capitalism is not an inherently evil system that necessarily leads to oppression of the workers. Capitalism is the system that has raised standards of living from the middle ages to the 21st century.

I'm retired. My annual expenses are close to the poverty level, it's my choice, I could spend more if I wanted to. I'm not materialistic and I don't have fancy tastes. But there is no way I would want to go back to living the way they did during the middle ages, or even the way they lived 100 years ago. Most of the people who are considered poor in western countries are much better off because of capitalism than they would be without capitalism - even though some people think it is "unfair". And as I wrote above, I think the crushing poverty that exists in some countries is caused by bad government that restricts free trade and inhibits economic growth.
I think Western countries owe their success to many other things apart from capitalism, and anyway, 'ism's don't always stay the same - they just morph over time. The modern concept that you send production - and even some services - abroad is just a mistake. I mean there simply is no way that an American or a Western European can 'compete' with someone from the Third World, and the bulk of the workers in the West displaced in that way, can't re-train as software developers or whatever.

The fact that there is a theoretical equilibrium, where everyone gets paid what they are worth, doesn't work in the real world - basically because the equilibrium isn't stable. So the very rich become obscenely rich.

Sure, the answer isn't to give a lot more money to the governments to fix the problems, but I think blocking trade deals might be a good start. If the US once again makes most of the electronics it needs (say), is that unreasonable? Is it really safe to have to import electronics goods and lose the know how to do this work?

David
 
I think Western countries owe their success to many other things apart from capitalism, and anyway, 'ism's don't always stay the same - they just morph over time. The modern concept that you send production - and even some services - abroad is just a mistake. I mean there simply is no way that an American or a Western European can 'compete' with someone from the Third World, and the bulk of the workers in the West displaced in that way, can't re-train as software developers or whatever.

I'm not sure what you mean by "mistake". Who is making the mistake? What exactly should they do differently?

I don't think you can generalize because commodity prices and technology also change. Automation reduces labor costs. Fracking is making energy prices in the US so low that it compensates to some extent for the higher labor costs here. That in large part is why manufacturing jobs are coming back into the US. It is a trend that pre-dates Trump.

The fact that there is a theoretical equilibrium, where everyone gets paid what they are worth, doesn't work in the real world - basically because the equilibrium isn't stable. So the very rich become obscenely rich.

What is wrong with someone becoming "obscenely rich" as long as every one else is also becoming better off at the same time? It isn't a zero sum game. Wealth is created by labor, production, invention etc etc. There isn't a fixed amount of wealth in the world like there is land area. Obscenely rich people, unless they hoard cash or gold are investing their wealth in ways that are economically productive. Bank deposits are loaned to people who want to buy cars or houses. Stocks represent ownership in companies that hire workers, buy from suppliers and sell goods to consumers. Corporate Bonds represent loans that allow companies to invest in new plants hire workers and expand in other ways. That obscenely rich person has provided jobs to many workers who don't have the desire or ability to start their own companies, he lends money to people so they can buy cars and homes, etc etc. The richer he gets the richer everyone else gets too. If the government decides to tax his wealth and give it to the poor, he will change what he does with his money and the rest of society will be the worse for it. (Another problem is that the government will use the distribution of tax dollars to control the population.)

Sure, the answer isn't to give a lot more money to the governments to fix the problems, but I think blocking trade deals might be a good start. If the US once again makes most of the electronics it needs (say), is that unreasonable? Is it really safe to have to import electronics goods and lose the know how to do this work?

David
I agree with this to some extent, but there is another side to the issue. Competition leads to technological advances. If the US restricted imported electronics from Asia, US companies would not have had to work as hard to keep up. We would make more electronics domestically than we do now, but they would be vastly inferior. What Trump is saying about the steel and aluminium industires is not that we have to keep out imports to maintain domestic production for secuity purposes, but that we have to keep out imports that are priced artificially low due to subsidies by foreign governments. Domestic companies should be protected from unfair foreign competition but they also should be exposed to competition so they don't stagnate.
 
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I'm not sure what you mean by "mistake". Who is making the mistake? What exactly should they do differently?

I don't think you can generalize because commodity prices and technology also change. Automation reduces labor costs. Fracking is making energy prices in the US so low that it compensates to some extent for the higher labor costs here. That in large part is why manufacturing jobs are coming back into the US. It is a trend that pre-dates Trump.
I am right behind fracking, as you know :) However, the free trade rules allowed manufacturers and others to move their work abroad. Not only has this impoverished Western workers, but it has led to other problems. For example, there have been instances of bank frauds performed by workers in India that process bank accounts. The problem is the vast difference between the money they earn and the money they see in the bank accounts the process.

Ideally it would be nice to see a lot less trade, with companies serving the countries in which they are situated. I think the global scale of many operations may just be too large and unstable.
What is wrong with someone becoming "obscenely rich" as long as every one else is also becoming better off at the same time? It isn't a zero sum game.
The problem is that while average wealth may be rising, some people are doing terribly out of the present system, and that needs fixing. For example, there are people doing two or even three cleaning jobs.
Wealth is created by labor, production, invention etc etc. There isn't a fixed amount of wealth in the world like there is land area. Obscenely rich people, unless they hoard cash or gold are investing their wealth in ways that are economically productive. Bank deposits are loaned to people who want to buy cars or houses. Stocks represent ownership in companies that hire workers, buy from suppliers and sell goods to consumers. Corporate Bonds represent loans that allow companies to invest in new plants hire workers and expand in other ways. That obscenely rich person has provided jobs to many workers who don't have the desire or ability to start their own companies, he lends money to people so they can buy cars and homes, etc etc. The richer he gets the richer everyone else gets too. If the government decides to tax his wealth and give it to the poor, he will change what he does with his money and the rest of society will be the worse for it. (Another problem is that the government will use the distribution of tax dollars to control the population.)
Well that sounds fine until you think about loans being made to people to buy things with the near certaintity that the loans would default. I don't know exactly how it is that people can do that and make money, but obviously it fuels bank crashes that hurt a lot of people.
I agree with this to some extent, but there is another side to the issue. Competition leads to technological advances. If the US restricted imported electronics from Asia, US companies would not have had to work as hard to keep up. We would make more electronics domestically than we do now, but they would be vastly inferior.
Well some Asian goods would still come in, but with a tariff, This would exert pressure on domestic suppliers, so the urge to compete could be maintained. As we lose control of sectors like electronics, the West becomes the new Third World!
What Trump is saying about the steel and aluminium industires is not that we have to keep out imports to maintain domestic production for security purposes, but that we have to keep out imports that are priced artificially low due to subsidies by foreign governments. Domestic companies should be protected from unfair foreign competition but they also should be exposed to competition so they don't stagnate.

Well to some extent I guess I would out Trump Trump if I were in power!

David
 
I am right behind fracking, as you know :) However, the free trade rules allowed manufacturers and others to move their work abroad. Not only has this impoverished Western workers, but it has led to other problems. For example, there have been instances of bank frauds performed by workers in India that process bank accounts. The problem is the vast difference between the money they earn and the money they see in the bank accounts the process.

Ideally it would be nice to see a lot less trade, with companies serving the countries in which they are situated. I think the global scale of many operations may just be too large and unstable.

Do you think this would improve things European countries ie Italy, France, Spain, Germany, Portugal, Greece etc.? What about agricultural products (fruits and vegetables)? Automobiles? You can admit exceptions but I think if you went through everything you will have a much shorter list of non-imports than allowed imports.

Where do you draw the lines? Would things be better in the US if each state didn't trade with other states in the US? European countries formed an economic union for a reason. Is it harmful to grow economic regions beyond a certain size? How big is too big?

My view is that if you limited exports and lost the economies of scale that, for example, make it much cheaper per car to produce 1,000,000 cars than 10,000 cars everything would be more expensive and that would hurt the poor hardest. And a company that makes 10,000 cars has fewer employees than one that makes 1,000,000 cars.

The problem is that while average wealth may be rising, some people are doing terribly out of the present system, and that needs fixing. For example, there are people doing two or even three cleaning jobs.
True, but this is in countries with low economic growth due to government policy. Trump has cut business taxes and regulations a well known and simple recipe for increasing economic growth and unemployment is at historic lows and wages are up here. If government would get out of the way, human ingenuity and energy would raise everyone's standard of living.

If the public wants big government and the resulting slow economic growth, and then they want to compensate by restricting imports, that is their choice. I think people should live under the systems they prefer. But I think their standard of living would be much lower and the poor would be worse off.
Well that sounds fine until you think about loans being made to people to buy things with the near certaintity that the loans would default. I don't know exactly how it is that people can do that and make money, but obviously it fuels bank crashes that hurt a lot of people.
I don't agree this is an inevitable consequence of what I wrote. I am okay with regulating banking if it is done properly. The banking crisis was caused because US banks were forced by law to make bad loans to poor people. Those loans got packaged and sold around the world hiding the fact that they were risky. In the US, Republicans wanted to remedy this before it blew up but Democrats said they were racists who wanted to keep minorities from getting loans (home mortgages).

My view is that most economic problems are caused by bad government. I'm not saying no government would be better, just that good government would avoid problems caused by bad government for which capitalism and free trade are unfairly blamed. Politicians can be just as stupid and evil as executives of multinatioinal corporations, and they will cause problems no matter what type of economic system is operating.

Well some Asian goods would still come in, but with a tariff, This would exert pressure on domestic suppliers, so the urge to compete could be maintained. As we lose control of sectors like electronics, the West becomes the new Third World!


Well to some extent I guess I would out Trump Trump if I were in power!

David
 
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Where do you draw the lines? Would things be better in the US if each state didn't trade with other states in the US? European countries formed and economic union for a reason. Is it harmful to grow economic regions beyond a certain size? How big is too big?
I think the point is, that large corporations like lax regulation - or at least if they find lax regulation they are ready to exploit it. It is almost impossible to regulate the whole world to a decent standard, so free trade means that large corporations exploit countries with low standards of worker protection and low wages.

I suspect that Trump is partly aware of this, and bringing jobs back to the US isn't just about hammering countries that break the rules (to the extent that these can be defined) but also about getting production back home. I mean if the entire US market isn't big enough to provide economies of scale, what is!

If he can get industries re-started in the US, there may be less willingness to continue making trade deals, or they will be deals with first world countries. Once you start to challenge the idea that trade deals are automatically a good thing, I think the idea of local production will spread.

David
 
Most candidates run for president in the US because they want to be the president, like it is some kind of career move that will look good on their resume, so they will go down in history.

Trump ran because he wanted to do certain things that he had to be president to do (secure the borders, rebuild the military, cut taxes and regulations to stimulate economic growth in order to increase employment and reduce poverty, evict the criminals from the federal government, fix international trade agreements that are unfair to the US, etc). That is a huge difference. It explains why Trump is campaigning so hard for the midterm candidates - something no other president has done like Trump is doing. He knows that he needs congress to accomplish what he ran for. He is campaigning for the midterm candidates for the same reason he ran for president - it is something he has to do in order to get done what he wants to get done.

 
Trump ran because he wanted to do certain things that he had to be president to do
We are blessed.

Imagine the NeoCon American hellscape of Global War and Insane Marxism we would live in if President Trump had decided to simply live out his few remaining years in comfort, ease, and diversion like most Multi-Billionairres do.

President Trump: "I always used to say 'the toughest people are Manhattan real estate guys' and blah blah - now I say they're babies."

Leslie Stahl: "Who's the toughest?"

President Trump: "The political people. This is the most deceptive, vicious world. It's full of lies, deceit, and deception."

 
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