Cruise Lines Aren't Getting Bailed Out

... major cruise operators don’t locate their headquarters in the United States, so they will not have access to $500 billion in aid for large employers in the massive stimulus bill, the industry’s trade group said Thursday.

Language in the 883-page bill passed by the Senate says that to be eligible for aid from the $500 billion fund, companies must be certified as “created or organized in the United States or under the laws of the United States” as well as having “significant operations in” and a majority of employees based in the United States.

Major cruise companies have located their primary headquarters overseas, which for years has allowed them to pay almost no federal taxes and avoid some U.S. regulations. To staff their ships, the companies rely heavily on foreign workers from the Philippines, Indonesia and India.

They wanted the benefits of being bailed out without having assumed any of the burdens or responsibilities of operating as American companies. It's standard Republican corporate socialism: Don't pay any taxes but line up to get bailouts.

Carnival Corp., owner of the Princess cruise lines, is incorporated in Panama. Royal Caribbean is incorporated in Liberia, and Norwegian Cruise Lines in Bermuda.

As I said before, they can go ask those governments for loans. Fuck those guys.

Thank Trump for the Democratic House Majority

In reviewing polling and other data, [Republican political operatives] discovered that the president’s provocative immigration rhetoric was more damaging to the House GOP during the final seven to 10 days than they realized at the time.

Trump hammered on the migrant caravan as he barnstormed red states to stump for Republican Senate candidates in the homestretch while also raising the specter of eliminating birthright citizenship for the children of immigrants. The president’s near-singular focus on those issues repelled Hispanics, independents and soft Republicans, turning a race for House control that leaned Democratic into a late-breaking GOP bloodbath.
...
In late September, Republicans appeared resurgent, a product of the pitched battle to confirm Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh. By late October, their condition soured, the result of a toxic mixture of Trump’s immigration rhetoric, bomb threats against Democrats and media outlets allegedly perpetrated by a Trump supporter, and a mass shooting at a Pittsburgh synagogue that the president fumbled in response.

Mind you, the above story did not run in anything that can remotely be described s a liberal rag-- it ran in the Washington Examiner.

It wasn't just immigration and Trump's reflex to align with neo-Nazis; health insurance also played a part. Funny thing: Widening access to health insurance and covering pre-existing conditions turned out to be popular with everyone outside of the Batshit Wingnut GOP base.

Don't even bother to ask if any of this will sink in with the Stable Genius. It likely won't. His gut is telling him things.

Old Nazi Runs for Congress

As a Republican.

Like most candidates running for Congress, Arthur Jones has a campaign website.

It outlines the Republican candidate’s education background, his stance on issues and how to donate to his campaign to represent the Illinois’s Third Congressional District.

It also lays out Jones’s unapologetically racist and anti-Semitic views.

In a section called “Holocaust?” Jones describes the atrocities as a “racket” and “the biggest, blackest, lie in history.” Under another tab titled “Flags of Conflict,” he lists the Confederate flag first and describes it as “a symbol of White pride and White resistance” and “the flag of a White counter revolution.”

Apparently, the filing deadline for a primary candidate in Illinois was December 4, 2017.

So the GOP is stuck with having a Nazi running as one of their official candidates this year.

You can expect a lot of hay to be made of this.

The Idiots in the Race

Stephen Colbert has kicked off a segment he calls "Profiles in Discourgement", about the various idiots running for office.

I expect he's going to have a lot of material.

Manning for Senate?

Chelsea Manning is running for the Senate in Maryland.

I don't think she has a chance in hell of winning, but then again, I thought the same with regard to Trump. So maybe you shouldn't listen to me.

P.S.; Transphobic comments will receive an automatic Red Card.

48% of Alabamians were Fine With Having an Accused Child-Molester as Their Senator

But 50% were not.

In one of the reddest states in the nation, Steve Bannon managed to find a candidate so repugnant that Alabama's junior senator will now be a Democrat.

Bannon is starting to shape up like the latest iteration of the Tea Party. The GOP would have had a solid lock on the Senate a long time ago if not for Republican candidates supported by the Tea Party fringe.

The GOP itself lost a senate seat, but they dodged a bullet. Democrats would have hung Roy Moore around the necks of every Republican running in `18 to force them to justify being a candidate from the Party of Moore.

The Choices in 2018 Are Not "Chicken or Fish," Paul

That's what Paul Friedman says in his op-ed that calls for people to get off their fat asses and get involved.

It's more akin to having to choose between a baloney sandwich and a shit sandwich.