Donald Trump bragged in a speech to fundraisers about lying right to Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's face.

Courtesy of WaPo: 

President Trump boasted in a fundraising speech Wednesday that he made up information in a meeting with the leader of a top U.S. ally, saying he insisted to Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau that the United States runs a trade deficit with its neighbor to the north without knowing whether that was the case. 

“Trudeau came to see me. He’s a good guy, Justin. He said, ‘No, no, we have no trade deficit with you, we have none. Donald, please,’ ” Trump said, mimicking Trudeau, according to audio of the private event in Missouri obtained by The Washington Post. “Nice guy, good-looking guy, comes in — ‘Donald, we have no trade deficit.’ He’s very proud because everybody else, you know, we’re getting killed. 

“ ... So, he’s proud. I said, ‘Wrong, Justin, you do.’ I didn’t even know. ... I had no idea. I just said, ‘You’re wrong.’ You know why? Because we’re so stupid. … And I thought they were smart. I said, ‘You’re wrong, Justin.’ He said, ‘Nope, we have no trade deficit.’ I said, ‘Well, in that case, I feel differently,’ I said, ‘but I don’t believe it.’ I sent one of our guys out, his guy, my guy, they went out, I said, ‘Check, because I can’t believe it.’ 

‘Well, sir, you’re actually right. We have no deficit, but that doesn’t include energy and timber. … And when you do, we lose $17 billion a year.’ It’s incredible.” 

That last part is of course pure bullshit, we have a trade surplus with Canada, not a deficit.

First off Canada is an American ally, not enemy.

Secondly obviously Trudeau knew Trump was full of shit, so what was the point of lying?

And thirdly if this buttmunch cannot even handle diplomacy with our allies, how can we trust him to deal with North Korea?

Fourthly this idiot is still pushing this lie on Twitter.

We do have a Trade Deficit with Canada, as we do with almost all countries (some of them massive). P.M. Justin Trudeau of Canada, a very good guy, doesn’t like saying that Canada has a Surplus vs. the U.S.(negotiating), but they do...they almost all do...and that’s how I know!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 15, 2018

You know I have no idea how much more damage Donald Trump is going to be able to inflict on America's image, but I know that we have not seen the bottom yet.

He is not even the president yet and already Donald Trump has China making threats against the United States.

Courtesy of The Guardian: 

US president-elect Donald Trump would be a “naive” fool to launch an all-out trade war against China, a Communist party-controlled newspaper has claimed. 

During the acrimonious race for the White House Trump repeatedly lashed out at China, vowing to punish Beijing with “defensive” 45% tariffs on Chinese imports and to officially declare it a currency manipulator. 

On Monday the state-run Global Times warned that such measures would be a grave mistake. 

“If Trump wrecks Sino-US trade, a number of US industries will be impaired. Finally the new president will be condemned for his recklessness, ignorance and incompetence,” the newspaper said in an editorial. 

The Global Times claimed any new tariffs would trigger immediate “countermeasures” and “tit-for-tat approach” from Beijing. 

“A batch of Boeing orders will be replaced by Airbus. US auto and iPhone sales in China will suffer a setback, and US soybean and maize imports will be halted. China can also limit the number of Chinese students studying in the US.” 

“Making things difficult for China politically will do him no good,” the newspaper warned.

You know it's called diplomacy, and presidents who don't learn it end up starting wars and damaging our relations with other countries.

I predict that by the time Trump finishes his four years in the White House we will no longer be on speaking terms with any other nation on earth.

Except Russia of course. 

About those new hacked e-mails about Hillary Clinton's speeches released by Wikileaks. Ho and hum.

Courtesy of ABC News: 

The leaks were the result of another email hacking intended to influence the presidential election. 

Excerpts of the speeches given in the years before her 2016 presidential campaign included some blunt and unguarded remarks to her private audiences, which collectively had paid her at least $26.1 million in speaking fees. Clinton had refused to release transcripts of the speeches, despite repeated calls to do so by her primary opponent, Sen. Bernie Sanders. 

The excerpts were included in emails exchanged among her political staff, including Campaign Chairman John Podesta, whose email account was hacked. The WikiLeaks organization posted what it said were thousands of Podesta's emails. It wasn't immediately clear who had hacked Podesta's emails, though the breach appeared to cover years of messages, some sent as recently as last month.

Some of the e-mails it seems dealt with concerns about how portions of Hillary's speeches might be received by the public if they were made public.

Here are some of the portions that concerned the campaing:

One excerpt put Clinton squarely in the free-trade camp, a position she has retreated on significantly during the 2016 election. In a talk to a Brazilian bank in 2013, she said her "dream" is "a hemispheric common market, with open trade and open borders" and asked her audience to think of what doubling American trade with Latin America "would mean for everybody in this room."

I don't think that anybody would be too surprised by this.

After all though Hillary is now opposing TPP, she does NOT oppose trade deals in general.

Courtesy of Politico: 

Jeffrey Schott, a senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics, agreed that nothing in the excerpts “seems inconsistent with her positions on trade today.” 

“As I understand her position, she is against TPP in its current form but is open to moving forward with TPP if it is restructured in some way,” Schott added. “The No. 1 issue that is cited as part of the fix for TPP is provisions that prohibit currency manipulation.” 

Like I said, nothing burger.

Moving on:

"Running for office in our country takes a lot of money, and candidates have to go out and raise it," Clinton said. "New York is probably the leading site for contributions for fundraising for candidates on both sides of the aisle, and it's also our economic center. And there are a lot of people here who should ask some tough questions before handing over campaign contributions to people who were really playing chicken with our whole economy." 

In the same speech, Clinton was also deferential to the New York finance industry, exhorting wealthy donors to use their political clout for patriotic rather than personal benefit. She also spoke of the need to include Wall Street perspectives in financial reform. 

"The people that know the industry better than anybody are the people who work in the industry," Clinton said.

Now if this were coming from Bernie Sanders, who ran a fairly anti-Wall Street campaign, then I think people might be legitimately scandalized.

But Hillary Clinton was never anti-Wall Street, she was just in agreement that it needed serious reform, which thanks to President Obama and Elizabeth Warren is now being addressed aggressively.

Next?

In an April 2013 speech to the National Multifamily Housing Council, Clinton said politicians must balance "both a public and a private position" while making deals. Clinton gave an example from the movie "Lincoln," and the deal-making that went into passage of the 13th Amendment, a process she compared to sausage-making. 

"It is unsavory, and it always has been that way, but we usually end up where we need to be," Clinton said. "But if everybody's watching, you know, all of the back room discussions and the deals, you know, then people get a little nervous to say the least. So, you need both a public and a private position."

Okay if you are surprised, or upset by this admission then you REALLY don't understand how politics works in this country.

EVERY politician has a public persona they present when being interviewed by the press or interacting with their constituents.

In 2008 President Obama stated in interviews that he did not support same sex marriage, and yet has been one of the leading advocates for making it legal in America.

Was he really against is?

Probably not.

Could he have been elected if he had said he was for same sex marriage in 2008?

Absolutely not.

So yes we have to take things politicians say in public with a grain of salt.

No shit Sherlock.

In fact these revelations were so underwhelming that some folks decided to spice thing up a little with some creative editing.

WIKILEAKS BOMBSHELL: Hillary Clinton Smeared Poor Americans, Called Them "Bucket Of Losers" In Paid Goldman Sachs... https://t.co/KZwlS6FeUS

— Mark D. Ellis (@MarkDEllis1) October 8, 2016

Problem with that, as revealed by Snopes, is that nowhere on the actual documents does it say anything like that.

Which of course did not stop Fox News and other conservative outlets from running with it. 

In other words the hacked documents, which we believe came from Russia by the way, were so flaccid that disappointed Right Wing nutjobs decided to manufacture some real dirt in order to help their man Trump a little.

Nice try Wikileaks. What do you have for us next? Is Hillary secretly dying her hair? Or does she sometimes eat dessert before she has had her dinner?

Talk about a "bucket of losers."

Yep Sarah Palin is in Wisconsin to help Donald Trump lose that primary.

Courtesy of the Trump Tramp's Facebook page:  

Just touched down in the great state of Wisconsin to ‪#‎Stump4Trump‬! Wisconsin's middle class has been hurt by DC politicians' out-of-touch policies worse than any other state - 100,000 jobs lost to Mexico and China thanks to trade deficits with countries that cheat on our "agreements." 

Donald J. Trump has fought for American workers and against trade deficits for decades in the private sector, unlike his competitors who actually support Obama's reckless TPP and TPA deals that are entirely unfair to the U.S. worker! As President he'll bring manufacturing jobs back home; his interests are OUR interests, and his trade policies will finally put America first. Watch this clip of Donald Trump 20 years ago standing up for American workers! 

Here is the Oprah clip that Palin is referring to which essentially demonstrates that Trump was just as much of an arrogant asshole twenty years ago as he is today.

Personally I think that Trump is sending Palin in there so that when he loses the primary, and polls now show him trailing Ted Cruz by about ten pints, he can simply chalk it off to the Palin curse.

After all, what else is she really good for these days?

Elizabeth Warren responds to accusations that she does not understand TPP trade deal. Spoiler alert: She does.

I am going to simply put the whole response here for you to read, without adding my thoughts, and link to her petition as well.

I'm pretty sure that Warren wants as many people to read it as possible.

Courtesy of Elizabeth Warren.com:  

Have you seen what’s in the new TPP trade deal? 

Most likely, you haven’t – and don’t bother trying to Google it. The government doesn’t want you to read this massive new trade agreement. It’s top secret. 

Why? Here’s the real answer people have given me: “We can’t make this deal public because if the American people saw what was in it, they would be opposed to it.” 

If the American people would be opposed to a trade agreement if they saw it, then that agreement should not become the law of the United States. 

Let’s send a loud message to our trade officials: No vote on a fast-track for trade agreements until the American people can see what’s in this TPP deal. Sign this petition right now to make the TPP agreement public. 

The Administration says I’m wrong – that there’s nothing to worry about. They say the deal is nearly done, and they are making a lot of promises about how the deal will affect workers, the environment, and human rights. Promises – but people like you can’t see the actual deal. 

For more than two years now, giant corporations have had an enormous amount of access to see the parts of the deal that might affect them and to give their views as negotiations progressed. But the doors stayed locked for the regular people whose jobs are on the line. 

If most of the trade deal is good for the American economy, but there’s a provision hidden in the fine print that could help multinational corporations ship American jobs overseas or allow for watering down of environmental or labor rules, fast track would mean that Congress couldn’t write an amendment to fix it. It’s all or nothing. 

Before we sign on to rush through a deal like that – no amendments, no delays, no ability to block a bad bill – the American people should get to see what’s in it. 

Sherrod Brown has been leading this fight, and he points out that TPP isn’t classified military intelligence – it’s a trade agreement among 12 countries that control 40% of the world’s economy. A trade agreement that affects jobs, environmental regulations, and whether workers around the globe are treated humanely. It might even affect the new financial rules we put in place after the 2008 crisis. This trade agreement doesn’t matter to just the biggest corporations – it matters to all of us. 

When giant corporations get to see the details and the American people don’t, we all lose. Let’s level the playing field: No vote on fast-tracking trade until the public can read the TPP deal. 

We’ve all seen the tricks and traps that corporations hide in the fine print of contracts. We’ve all seen the provisions they slip into legislation to rig the game in their favor. Now just imagine what they have done working behind closed doors with TPP. 

We can’t keep the American people in the dark.

Yeah, it's pretty impossible to argue with any of that.

Thoughts?