Either it's an act of a master manipulator, or he has the best luck there is. Donald Trump wanted the Fed to lower interest rates, knowing that that would provide a solid and multi-year boost to the economy. But when Trump came into office, rates were already low and the Fed was not inclined to help. Then he declared a trade war with China, which softened the economy, but also forced the Fed to lower interest rates. Having gotten his lower interest rates and a boosted economy, Trump is now, just in time for the election, negotiating an end to his trade war which will double goose the economy. If all this was a planned manipulation of chairman Jay Powell of the Federal Reserve, it was evil genius. Odds are greater, though, that it was just dumb luck.



-Thom

Thursday's Daily Stack

Hour One: What About All the Fake News on Facebook?

- Judd Legum, Founder - Popular.info (former founding Editor-in-Chief, Think Progress.org)

Article: "An explosion of fake news on Facebook" by Judd Legum.

Article: "The Trump campaign holds a lot of contests. Does anyone win?" by Judd Legum.

Article: "Are The Trump Campaign's Contests To Meet The President A 'Fraud?' These Winners Say 'Fake News'" by Amber Athey.

Article: "Contempt of Congress" (inherent contempt, criminal contempt, civil contempt) by Wikipedia.

Article: "Bush Pardons 6 in Iran Affair, Aborting a Weinberger Trial; Prosecutor Assails 'Cover-Up'" by David Johnston.

Article: "Essay; The Patsy Prosecutor" by William Safire.

Article: "Health Care as a Human Right - Medicare For All" by Bernie Sanders.

Article: "With Detailed Pay-For Plan, Warren Touts Medicare for All as 'Bigger Than the Biggest Tax Cut' in US History" by Jon Queally.

Article: "Public health insurance option" by Wikipedia.

Article: "Axios-NewsWhip 2020 attention tracker: Warren bets the White House on Medicare for All" by Neal Rothschild.

Video: MSNBC's Morning Joe Panel Rips Apart Elizabeth Warren's Government Takeover Of Health Care.

Article: "Trump's Twitter War Room Aims Its Punches at Decorated Colonel" by Mike McIntire and Nicholas Confessore.

Article: "Pence aide testifies in Trump impeachment inquiry, Bolton a no-show" by Patricia Zengerle.

Article: "Barr declined to hold news conference to say Trump broke no laws in Ukraine call" by Matt Zapotosky, Josh Dawsey and Carol D. Leonnig.

Tweet: "The Amazon Washington Post and three lowlife reporters, Matt Zapotosky, Josh Dawsey, and Carol Leonnig, wrote another Fake News story, without any sources (pure fiction), about Bill Barr & myself. We both deny this story, which they knew before they wrote it. A garbage newspaper!" by Donald J. Trump.

Article: "5 takeaways from Roger Stone's first major day in court" by Josh Gerstein and Darren Samuelsohn.

Article: "UAW blasts GM for using worker health insurance as 'leverage'" by Evie Fordham.

Article: "Christine Blasey Ford" by Wikipedia.

Article: "The Inaugural Parade, and the Presidents Who Walked It" by Christine Hauser.

Case: "Buckley v. Valeo", 1976

Case: "First National Bank Of Boston V. Bellotti", 1978

Site: Medicaid.

Article: "Medicare (United States)" by Wikipedia.

Bill: "H.R.1384 - Medicare for All Act of 2019" by Rep. Jayapal, Pramila [D-WA-7].

Hour Two: What's the Best Way to Pay for Medicare? Is it a Wealth Tax?

- Economist Dr. Richard Wolff, Democracy At Work/Capitalism's Crisis Deepens Essays on the Global Economic Meltdown / Understanding Marxism

Article: "U.S. life expectancy declines again, a dismal trend not seen since World War I" by Lenny Bernstein.

Article: "MAPS: America's $200 billion obesity problem by state and age group" by Nathan Giannini.

Article: "Decline of the North American avifauna" by Kenneth V. Rosenberg et al.

Article: "United States Fed Funds Rate" by Trading Economics.

Article: "U.S., China agree in principle to phase out tariffs, but difficult talks remain" by Doug Palmer.

Article: "How Warren's 'Medicare for All' Plan Hurts the Cause" by Ilana Novick.

Article: "Medicare Advantage" (Medicare Part C) by Wikipedia.

Event: "Essence Fest 2019".

Article: "What Do Black Women Want This Election Season?" by Kirsten West Savali.

Quote: "Well, yes, the Medicare tax would have to go up but it still would be much lower than health insurance premiums are now. Look, I don't know about you, but if you give me a choice between paying for something called a premium and something called a tax, my only question's going to be 'Which one's cheaper?'" - Santos, on West Wing.

Article: "What Killed Single-Payer In California?" by Clio Chang.

Bill: "SB-562 The Healthy California Act" (California) by Senators Lara and Atkins.

Article: "Ricardo Lara" (Insurance Commissioner of California) by Wikipedia.

Article: "Tommy Douglas" (father of Canadian Healthcare) by Wikipedia.

Article: "Gavin Newsom" (California governor) by Wikipedia.

Article: "Gavin Newsom is already moving California toward single-payer" by LA Times.

Site: healthcare.gov (2020 Open Enrollment is here - and ends Dec 15).

Article: "'Short Term' Health Insurance? Up to 3 Years Under New Trump Policy" by Robert Pear.

Article: "China and US agree to lift some tariffs in sign of trade war thaw" by Tom Hancock.

Article: "Trade war drives up unemployment in key 2020 battleground states" by Laura Clawson.

Article: "Madison Inducted into Radio Hall of Fame Class of 2019" by Joe Madison.

Article: "In 'groundbreaking' court ruling, U.S. must provide mental health services to separated families" by Gabe Ortiz.

Article: "Oath of office of the President of the United States" by Wikipedia.

Article: "Ukraine crisis put on ice by Trump staff busy working out how to buy Greenland" by Julian Borger.

Transcript: "Deposition Of: William B. Taylor: Tuesday, 0ctober 22, 2019.

Article: "Kentucky Senate president thinks GOP-controlled state legislature could challenge Democrat's gubernatorial victory" by Alex Henderson.

Article: "New Details About Wilbur Ross' Business Point To Pattern Of Grifting" by Dan Alexander.

Documentary: Where to Invade Next - Michael Moore.

The Good: "Germany's Merkel Wants 1 Million Electric Car Charge Points by 2030" by Deutsche Welle.

The Bad: "EPA to Weaken Public Protections Against Toxic Coal Ash in Water" by Jordan Davidson.

Very, Very Ugly: "Trump EPA OKs 'Emergency' Use of Bee-Killing Pesticide on 13.9 Million Acres" by Jordan Simmons.

Article: "Worldwide decline of the entomofauna: A review of its drivers" by Francisco Sánchez-Bayo, Kris A. G. Wyckhuys.

Article: "Donald Trump Jr. recklessly tweets out name of 'alleged whistleblower'" by David Edwards.

Book: Reinventing American Health Care: How the Affordable Care Act Will Improve Our Terribly Complex, Blatantly Unjust, Outrageously Expensive, Grossly Inefficient, Error Prone System by Ezekiel J. Emanuel.

Article: "The Rising Cost of Health Care by Year and Its Causes" by Kimberly Amadeo.

Article: "U.S. national health expenditure as percent of GDP from 1960 to 2019" by Matej Mikulic.

Article: "CMS: US health care spending to reach nearly 20% of GDP by 2025" by Advisory Board.

Friday on The Thom Hartmann Program, 12-3pm ET

It's Anything Goes Friday!

Plus, I'll be talking with Pat Mitchell, Media executive, producer, curator of TEDWomen / Author, Becoming a Dangerous Woman: Embracing Risk to Change the World

And, the best of the rest of the news along with your calls right here on...

The Thom Hartmann Program, Occupying The Media 3 hours a day 5 days a week" for "we the people"

And don't forget...Democracy is NOT a spectator sport...it begins with you...

The Dehumanizing Doctrine of Discovery (Mark Charles and Soong-Chan Rah)

YOU Pay When Corporate Greed Puts Profit Over People (w/ Ben Ehrenreich)