Beltway media outlets have settled on “conservative firebrand” to describe Alabama GOP nominee Roy Moore. I like Charlie Pierce’s formulation better: “theocratic crackpot.” “Lawless zealot” would also work, as would “Talibangelical” or “Bible-humping, dainty-pistol-waving crazypants.”
Longtime GOP operative and WaPo columnist Ed Rogers is dismayed this morning:
Roy Moore’s win is bad for Alabama, and even worse for the GOP
To liberals, having Moore in the Senate will be the gift that keeps on giving. He will be the mainstream media’s favorite Republican senator. They will count on Moore to embody every negative stereotype that a conservative from Alabama and an elected Republican can have… Finally, there is a truly anti-gay, anti-woman, anti-Muslim, anti-everything elected Republican for all the world to see… Alabama specifically and Republicans everywhere will suffer as a result of Moore’s presence in Washington.
Emphasis mine, and from your keyboard to the Flying Spaghetti Monster’s delicate al dente orrecchiette, Ed; Republicans everywhere deserve to suffer.
He goes on:
Trump’s support for appointed Sen. Luther Strange (whom I contributed to) was right in every way. Trump needs more poised, experienced allies in Congress. He should do all he can to populate the Republican caucus with serious leaders who have a good sense of reality and what is achievable.
How on earth is Trump, a permanent resident of a delusional narcissistic fantasy world, supposed to identify Republicans who are “serious leaders who have a good sense of reality and what is achievable,” Ed?
He meeps some more:
Political predictions are foolish. It is a mistake to take today’s headlines and extrapolate to the next election. But Republicans are doing nothing to discourage Democrats about their prospects for 2018 by electing the likes of Moore. The idea that Moore’s victory was some kind of Bannonite strategy to strengthen Trump by diluting rational Republicans in the Senate with incapable crackpots is demented.
You know who’s “demented,” Ed? The “incapable crackpot” your party put in the Oval Office. And while the walking canker sore Steve Bannon may have selected that particular piece of crackpottery as a vessel, the lunacy contained therein is an artisanal GOP product in production since at least the 1970s.
Ed sadly concludes:
The bottom line for Republicans is, in Congress, within the White House and among the electorate, things are perilously close to being out of control. Our leaders, while discouraged, certainly don’t need to capitulate. But real Republicans need to start winning.
The “real Republicans” have already won, Ed — last November and last night. You broke it, you bought it; Crackpottery Barn Rule.
rikyrah
That tiny gun. And, he’s supposed to be such a tough guy..
whatever.
Butch
Strange is “poised and experienced?” And I am the Queen of England.
Also, could we please agree that any member of the courtier press that actually uses the phrase “conservative firebrand” is banned from any communication method more current than quill and parchment?
rikyrah
Barbara
All you have to know about Ed Rogers is that he thinks Trump’s interactions with North Korea are the epitome of sound strategy and statesmanship.
schrodingers_cat
@rikyrah: The entire outfit is something else, like I said yesterday the man could star in his own episode of
What Not To Wear. Not that I think he will have the good sense and listen to coastal elites and make the necessary changes.
The world is laughing at us.
Tilda Swintons Bald Cap
Hey there hoss, when are you gonna to be drivin’ that there cattle to Abilene? Is there anything phonier than a overweight old white dude wearing a fucking cowboy hat?
schrodingers_cat
How many times has he been married. You are not a real Republican unless you are on wife # 3.
Ruckus
@Tilda Swintons Bald Cap:
Especially one who has been on the AL supreme court for how long? And is far crazier than a loon. He wasn’t dropped on his head as a child, he built this brand of crazy all on his own.
The Moar You Know
Christ, he looks just like my father-in-law. My father-in-law, of course, is a decent human being, so the resemblance is thankfully purely physical.
Adam Silverman, think it was you who speculated that tiny pistol was a NAA .22 mag. You’re correct (this is the first time I’ve seen the pic of him with the peashooter in cowboy drag). I’ve got the .22 LR version, even smaller. Also, WTF with the cowboy drag? The only acceptable Alabama costumes for white people are blackface, Klan robes and police uniforms.
Corner Stone
HAHAHAHAHA!!
And this is why the crackpottery will continue. Because people like Ed Rogers, who is a complete scumbag, and other asshole Never Trumpers keep trying to protest mightily that there are “good guy” Republican candidates. There are not any. They all fake it until they make it and then have to keep running right at top speed to stay ahead of the RWNJ tiger that’s chasing them.
Tom65
Trump has been busy this morning, deleting any record of his support for Strange. Nope, never happened.
rikyrah
From @bruce_arthur: Raptors players answer the absurd “these athletes are rich why are they complaining” argument: https://t.co/7365nbNvQQ pic.twitter.com/ejqX1uDmaS
— Daniel Dale (@ddale8) September 27, 2017
Corner Stone
@sylvania: Ed Rogers:
sylvania:
So true, so completely true.
The Moar You Know
@Tom65: Y’know, there’s not one damn thing I like about Trump – something I’ve never been able to say about any president before, ever – but one of the things I dislike most is what a gutless chickenshit he is.
Major Major Major Major
@rikyrah:
So stupid it’s ‘not even wrong’.
Wouldn’t Strange have been a so-called republican though?
delk
The girls, they love to see you shoot.
low-tech cyclist
I’d condense “theocratic crackpot” down to “theocrackpot.” More succinct, less redundancy of sounds.
And as Atrios (IIRC) said, when supposedly sane Republicans like Graham and Cassidy want to trash our access to health care, and support Trump in practically everything he does, the difference between the supposedly sane ones and theocrackpots like Moore is more one of attitude and presentation than anything else.
Citizen_X
Maybe it’s a gift gun for Trump, made for his tiny hands.
schrodingers_cat
@low-tech cyclist: Agreed, sane Rs == better manners, that’s all.
Corner Stone
@rikyrah: From that linked article:
This is who we are and how we’re represented around the world to our friends, allies and enemies.
Betty Cracker
The most recent defeat of Trumpcare, Strange’s defeat despite having the Trump brand on his ass and all that bad news about Trussia has Twitler in a narcissistic crouch this morning:
rikyrah
Bernie is not even a Democrat, so why is he ripping our party apart?
BY MICHAEL STARR HOPKINS, OPINION CONTRIBUTOR — 09/27/17 09:00 AM EDT
Jeffro
@sylvania: I was gonna say…”anti-gay, anti-woman, anti-Muslim, anti-everything elected Republican” is the rule, not the exception, in the GOP. The Tea Party done took over, Republicans, and if you don’t like it, there’s a pretty nice center-center party you could join up with…
Corner Stone
@Tilda Swintons Bald Cap: I’m surprised someone didn’t give him a string tie to wear.
rikyrah
Puerto Rico’s Governor just told me that officials can’t find/ reach many of the drivers that are needed to distribute food, fuel and water pic.twitter.com/rtyxc7UBxV
— David Begnaud (@DavidBegnaud) September 27, 2017
Corner Stone
@low-tech cyclist:
The only difference is the quality of soundbyte coming out of their mouth. Their actions are the same.
sharl
@Tom65: Given his long history of shitty, inhumane, and just generally awful tweets that he hasn’t deleted, it’s yet further confirmation that he feels compelled to be seen as a “winner” regardless of cost. For him there is no shame in deleting this evidence of his support for a loser, despite the ineffectiveness of those deletions – in addition to the hundreds of people who certainly screen-cap’d those tweets for posterity, there are websites designed to archive deleted tweets (e.g., here and here). His only shame is in looking like a loser.
What a twisted, messed-up dude, and what a goddamned tragedy for everyone else that he didn’t remain quarantined in NYC, TV studios, and rallies for maga chuds.
Kay
@Betty Cracker:
Ugh. The lying is bothering me again. Every time I start to get used it I’ll be brought up short by the fact that the President lies all the time and nothing happens.
True. He lies all the time and he pays no price. It rattles me- makes me feel unmoored- like we would and could be led by anyone, anywhere. This is the norm now. He decimated the value of telling the truth. Busted.
germy
the photo above, that gun reminds me of the old western movies where the lady saloonkeeper would pull a weapon out of her garter belt and fire into the air to warn all the roughhouse cowboys who were wreckin’ her joint smashing chairs over each others’ backs.
And then after a shocked silence, the piano player would start banging out “Waltzing Matilda” or something by Stephen Foster.
randy khan
If I didn’t already know for sure that Moore is a whackadoodle, that photo would have confirmed it.
MattF
@Betty Cracker: The ‘virtually’ in that sentence reverses the meaning of the sentence! Useful trick!
Lurking Canadian
@Corner Stone: half is pretty generous to them, actually.
Kay
@Betty Cracker:
I don’t even know what I thought would happen,but I thought there would be a price and he would pay it.
He won’t. He hugely benefits from the lies and that’s why he keeps telling them and no one knows what to do about it- I surely don’t. I guess I didn’t think it would be so easy for him, there would be some abstract “check” that would kick in but he still talks every day and X number of people still believe him.
Corner Stone
We’ve only been in Afghanistan for like 16 years or so. It’s probably still a little premature to expect we would have secured the Kabul airport by now, amirite?
Major Major Major Major
Shouldn’t we be happy that he has a dumb little stupid gun? We want to separate guns from toxic masculine culture and we want people to be less obsessed with their guns looking like you see in the movies. Maybe a senator with a tiny gun will be a positive force in the fight against militarizing the police.
j/k! What a dumb gun
#hottake #slatepitch
schrodingers_cat
@rikyrah: Because he is a Russian plant, working to assure Republican victories.
MattF
@Kay: I’m not reconciled to his lying.
trollhattan
Roy Moore costume fail: missing the fetus necklace.
Cheryl Rofer
MaryL
@rikyrah: Also, we have no way of knowing whether taking a knee stopped any shootings in Chicago. I mean, sure there’s no apparent connection between the two, but you can’t prove a negative. It may not have prevented a specific shooting, but there’s an infinite number of potential shootings that may not have happened. (Sorry – logical fallacies are a pet peeve.)
Just One More Canuck
@Ruckus: Some people are born crazy, others have craziness thrust upon them
magurakurin
the only reason Trump wanted Strange to win was because he is so tall. Trump just thought it’d be cool to have a senator that tall.
schrodingers_cat
@Corner Stone: What happened in Kabul?
Major Major Major Major
@Ruckus: to be fair he may have ALSO been dropped on his head as a child.
Sab
@rikyrah: It reminds me of Nancy Reagan’s tiny little gun for her nightstand.
Kay
Any other administration he would be gone. As a practical matter the first thing they should do is make him pay it back.
He took 400k that doesn’t belong to him. He needs to pay us back. We know he has the money thanks to the places he went on all those trips- he owns property or has business interests in all of them. I mean, come on. This is theft.
Corner Stone
@schrodingers_cat: SecDef Mattis made an unannounced landing/visit there and a short time after landing a few (they said small?) rockets hit the airport. No reported casualties as yet it seems.
Major Major Major Major
@magurakurin: I doubt trump wanted anybody taller than him to be anywhere. Maybe that’s even the real reason he fired comey.
@Corner Stone: that’s just how they greet liberators.
Jeffro
@rikyrah: Equally important, why was Russia still running pro-Bernie FB ads after Hillz had won the nomination?!? Inquiring minds want to know.
Corner Stone
@magurakurin: And he already had a handy nickname picked out for him, also too. “Big Luther” was the name Trump came up with for him. Did you know that? Because not a lot of people know that and it was something Trump came up with. He called him Big Luther and I think that was catching on. So it’s a shame and sad what happened to Big Luther.
Kay
Just remember: Donald Trump and the people who work for donald Trump lie constantly.
Don’t accept the “trump framework” for taxes any more than you accepted those empty file folders his family presented as “disclosure” in that embarrassing banana republic media event they held.
We need to see the language. Framework is bullshit. They lie.
Chris
@Betty Cracker:
To be fair, that’s kind of true.
schrodingers_cat
@Corner Stone:I have no idea what our presence in Afghanistan is supposed to achieve.
Jeffro
@Cheryl Rofer: They better just keep going with the deployments…apologies to the already-overstretched military, but you’re the only ones who can save 3.4M American citizens at this point.
A Ghost To Most
rawstory
schrodingers_cat
@Jeffro: Have all those $27 donors been accounted for?
Jeffro
@Kay: The lying is just the first part. “They lie about everything…AND…they’re out to loot our country/wreck whatever they can’t steal”
magurakurin
@Jeffro: the troubling thing to me is why were the wackjob Bernie cultists still linking and sharing them after he lost?
rikyrah
@MattF:
Neither am I.
Jeffro
@schrodingers_cat: You’ll have to ask Vlad. I have a feeling he knows exactly where all those ru…er…bucks are.
schrodingers_cat
@Kay: Did you see Maggie H raked on coals yesterday on Twitter. It was kinda sweet.
H.E.Wolf
@germy:
Indeed.
I give you the quintessential lady saloonkeeper with a gun: Marlene Dietrich in “Destry Rides Again”:
In this case, she has just finished wrecking her own saloon.
Her [off-camera] target, played by Jimmy Stewart, is Sheriff Destry — a man who refuses to carry a gun.
different-church-lady
Horse. Barn Door. Order of events. All that all that.
Kay
Remember when Donald Trump promised he would release his tax returns and then never did and was never asked about it again?
Donald Trump’s lies on the tax bill will be worse than that and you’ll all pay dearly for his lies this time. The money is the thing. It’s about the money.
Jonny Scrum-half
Religious fundamentalism is so toxic to society, in whatever form.
different-church-lady
@rikyrah: Taking a knee got Erickson talking about it. Which is something he wouldn’t do otherwise.
germy
@Kay:
And if a Democratic president tried that, the evening broadcast news and cable shows would all be “Day 94 – where are the taxes? Day 95 – where are the taxes?” etc.
Betty Cracker
@Kay: I blame people like Ed Rogers, Hugh Hewitt, Mitch McConnell, Paul Ryan, etc., more than Trump for normalizing the lies. Trump is a pathological liar. I have no sympathy for him; I daily wish he would stroke out on the crapper. But I suspect he can’t really comprehend the difference between fact and fiction anymore. He’s a fucking nut.
The media and political figures who enable him are another kettle of fish. THEY know the difference between truth and lies, but they’ve deemed it in the party’s interests to obscure that difference, regardless of how badly it damages the country. This extends to the network bosses who give bald-faced liars like Kellyanne Conway a platform. They’re all complicit.
rikyrah
@Kay:
Yep.
They also need to look into your friend Betsy DeVos…WHO is paying for her travel expenses?
Corner Stone
@Kay: This tax cut giveaway to the wealthy may never be voted on. Any remaining R Congresspeople in CA, CT, NJ, NY will be cut to shreds if they vote to take away state tax exemptions, aka “The Blue State Payback”.
rikyrah
@Kay:
You DO know that Price got the job, despite being caught dead to rights making money off an insider’s stock deal.
Kay
Remember the universal “Fix the Debt” propaganda campaign they used in 2010?
They’ll do it again as soon as they cut taxes and the magical bullshit revenue increases don’t appear because that is the plan.
These rich people all sold their country out and backed this clown for ONE reason- so they could stop paying taxes. They have to get it now. If they don’t they sold out for nothing. This is the POINT of hiring Donald Trump. All the rest is details.
It was an all or nothing bet and now it’s time to collect. They’ll so gut revenue you won’t recognize this country in a decade- I don’t care what you rely on- Medicare, Social Security, highways, courts- this is the Big Grab. They want all of it and they can get it all with a tax bill. Without funding it’s all bullshit and they know it. It’s Part Two to finish the job they started in 1980.
rikyrah
@Jeffro:
Still waiting for the explanation of the $10 million dollar donation that has NEVER been accounted for.
schrodingers_cat
@Corner Stone: Does MD have any R congress critters? We have none in MA.
Corner Stone
@Kay: I want to know what the hell is going on with Scott Pruitt at EPA? 24/7 three shifts of personal security? A SCIF phonebooth in his office? What the hell is going on over there?
schrodingers_cat
@Corner Stone: He has lost his marbles.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Stephanie Ruehle, who I usually think is even more ‘pro-business’ than her co-host Velshi, is shredding the GOP’s tax plan
Petorado
It’s a general rule of thumb that in any election Republican voters will always vote for the absolute biggest a**hole as the person who best represents their worldview.
Aardvark Cheeselog
Asking again in a fresher thread: Is Moore really farther out on the Theocratic Crackpot axis than Santorum was?
trollhattan
@Corner Stone:
Likewise, the uprising over the mortgage interest deduction (which I presume they’re taking a whack at).
Corner Stone
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Ruehle has really been ripping the shit outta people the last 4 or 5 months. I get a little leery of her on a few topics, and I hate her one on ones with Andrew Ross Sorkin, but she ain’t taking no shit when people try to snow her on topics.
trollhattan
@Corner Stone:
He’s trying to obfuscate being an industry representative masquerading as a gummint employee.
chris
@Corner Stone: He’s giving away the store. Presumably some of what he’s doing is at the least unethical if not illegal. But IOKIYAR
ETA http://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/a12464694/scott-pruitt-epa-pebble-mine/
rikyrah
@Kay:
You tell no lies, Kay.
This is it.
This is why they keep supporting his insanity.
The ZEGK’s dream of dismantling the American Social Safety Net.
What they want is hideous, which is why they wanted to hide their sociopathy in Trumpcare.
Trumpcare was all about the tax cuts. Now, they must do their sociopathy out in the open.
We gotta fight.
Patricia Kayden
@rikyrah: To White racists like Erick, Black people should just shut the hell up and take whatever they get. No protest will ever be acceptable to the likes of him.
rikyrah
@Kay:
Haven’t seen it anywhere else, Kay…certainly not in the papers..
Only Maddow…
Asking what happened to all the money that they raised for the Inauguration..
Where did it go?
If this were 44 or Hillary and they had over FIFTY MILLION UNACCOUNTED FOR?
PHUCK OUTTA HERE.
Patricia Kayden
@Petorado: True. That’s how we ended up with Trump in the White House. I suppose Republican voters can’t do worse than him no matter who they vote for in 2020 (I assume by then he’ll be out thanks to Mueller).
trollhattan
@Aardvark Cheeselog:
He seems to be a turbocharged Santorum, but I don’t know whether he’s as sanctimonious over things related to ess ee ex.
But her emails!!!
@Corner Stone:
This proposal has to be one of the most asinine ever. The party that whines endlessly about double taxation wants to tax the money people pay in taxes.
rikyrah
@Corner Stone:
I am hoping a Frontpager will take it on as a post.
sharl
@schrodingers_cat: Out of 8 Congresscritters in Maryland, only one is GOP – wingnut Andy Young (CD-01)
Corner Stone
@Aardvark Cheeselog: I would say yes for a couple of reasons. One, the limits to how far of a Theocrackpot one can be in AL as opposed to some factors of same in PA. And two, Moore got removed from the bench *twice* for nutty ass religiosity type disobeyment shit.
Mike in NC
We can count on the fact that halfway through his first term, the media will have declared Moore to be a “sober and moderate” Republican lawmaker. Maybe even a future Supreme Court prospect!
different-church-lady
@Petorado: Move over, Cleek’s Law — we now have Petorado’s Razor
rikyrah
@But her emails!!!:
THIS is the thing that will absolutely destroy GOPers in those states.
People might get confused about taxes..but, they’ll know who voted to take away their state exemption. There are enough GOPers in those states, and Illinois – if they vote for this…..
they need to be destroyed in 2018 for it.
chris
There it is.
JMG
Many voters don’t care about Trump’s tax returns. But ALL voters care about their own taxes. It’s gonna be much harder to lie and deny because tax law is subject to line by line scrutiny by at least a million lobbies and 10 million lawyers.
schrodingers_cat
@chris: They are anti sanity.
Betty Cracker
@rikyrah: DeVos put out a statement about that once the Mnuchin and Price abuse of taxpayer funds for private jet travel came to light. She claims she flies around destroying the education system in her own private jet on her own dime. Further, she insinuated that we should all be grateful because she doesn’t draw a salary. She’s a liar, so I hope investigative journalists are checking it out.
different-church-lady
@chris: A diet of blood always results in “FEED ME, SEYMORE!!”
Corner Stone
@rikyrah:
It was all about tax cuts. The donors who were so pissed and threatened to stop funding the R’s want the taxes associated with the ACA gone. They want all the money in SS and Medicaid/Medicare. Breaking the ACA was the key that would make tax cuts “reform” to stay a little more hidden. Now they have to brandish this ugly beast of a tax cut “plan” out in the broad daylight and it’s going to get pummeled. Not saying that alone will stop it…the ACA was personal to people, it was real. Corporate tax cuts don’t mean much to very many people.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
the ultimate Wall Street courtier, a truly inexcusable person
they’re trotting out the line about the “death tax” and family farms. I was surprised to hear Velshi trot that one out, Jared Bernstein pointed out that the NYT years ago went looking for a family farm lost to the “death tax” and couldn’t find one. Trump during the campaign said that he knew “many, many people” in that situation. Seems to me that’s a great big slow-floating target for a reporter, but if he was ever asked about it, I missed it. I want trump to name one farmer he knows, even aside from the “death tax”. I know Christie Todd Wittman keeps a small and I’m sure very photogenic herd of cattle on the family estate to qualify for agricultural tax advantages (or used to, she may have sold the place to neighbor Steve Forbes). Maybe he meant her.
Dorothy A. Winsor (formerly Iowa Old Lady)
@Betty Cracker: When I watch Kelleyanne or Sarah Huckerbee Sanders or multiple members of congress or the cabinet, I imagine how great it would be if liars’ pants really did catch on fire.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Corner Stone: she was also hammering one of my pet peeves, the lazy and dishonest use of “small business” in political rhetoric
The Moar You Know
@Aardvark Cheeselog: Yeah, but only because his voters wouldn’t backstop him in the way that Moore’s will.
sherparick
@Corner Stone: I don’t think there are much differences between Roy Moore’s views and the views of Ted Cruz, Jim Imhofe, Cory Gardener, Tom Cotton, Thom Tillis, etc. Louis Gohmert and Steve King in the House, in fact the whole Freedom Caucus, House, are perfectly aligned with Mr. Moore. See also the Texas Republican Party’s platform in 2016, 2014, 2012, and 2010. Ed Rogers, Mike Murphy, and the rest feel all this distracts from the agenda of cutting taxes and dismantling the New Deal (repealing ACA, ending Medicaid, privatizing Medicare and Social Security), which they feel should be be the major goal of Republicans. The racism and religious bigotry should just be dog whistles sufficient to get the rubes out to vote and keep 60% of white people voting Republican.l
ThresherK
@Tilda Swintons Bald Cap: Yes. A black GOP-huckstering sheriff from the badlands of…Milwaukee? The rootin-tootinest lawman this side of the…Illinois River?
Timurid
Your daily reminder that for many white people the only problem with Trump is that he’s not radical enough.
Betty Cracker
I don’t want politicians who claim to work for “free,” including Trumps (Dampnut & Dilettante), DeVos, Rick Scott of FL, etc., for several reasons. Number one, though it might sound altruistic to the rubes, someone who isn’t drawing a salary doesn’t feel bound by the rules of the job. After all, they’re doing it for free — why should they pay attention to the rules? Reason the second: How can someone who can take on a four-year job that doesn’t pay have any clue what it’s like to live as an actual human being on this planet? And the third and most important reason: they forego their salaries because they make so much more off the corruption. Influence peddling is working out splendidly for the Trumps.
geg6
@trollhattan:
He’s a dominionist. He’s the Handmaid’s Tale on steroids.
catclub
Well, we still win when it motivates Betty Cracker to come up with phrases like crackpottery barn. Also, mango mussolini.
Mike in NC
Is there a photo of Judge Moore wearing cowboy chaps? That would be very Village People of him.
Corner Stone
@Betty Cracker:
She also carries along with her the very expensive security detail which we get to pay her to ferry them on her private plane.
sherparick
@Aardvark Cheeselog: No, but Santorum was not so open about it. Moore is at least an honest bigot who believes in unseen things.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
Moore is and his “Second Childhood cowboy (Bible Belt Addition)” character is but a herald of the things to come. Alex Jones of InfoWars is the future GOP candidate; some half naked, fat old white guy, drooling while babbling about conspiracy theories.
germy
ThresherK
@Corner Stone: No CT GOP congresscritters.
We did export the crackpot Matt Bevin to KY where he is now governor.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
no link because it’s media-ite, and the VF piece was too long to go spelunking through
Elizabelle
The crazypants of the GOP belong in another century. They’re just disgusting.
Alabama: shame on you.
Still a chance to do the right thing in the general; a Democratic win would be superlative.
Chyron HR
Maybe you elitist Dems should ask yourselves why your party’s failed policies have forced the glorious white working master race to elect people like Moore.
catclub
@Corner Stone:
I hope so, but the GOP economist on NPR today was brazen. “It loses $150B/yr which we don’t even care about, its so small.”
They should get pummeled but will they?
eclare
@rikyrah: Apparently that is the one thing we can’t criticize her for. Which just means we’ll have more time to focus on everything else.
O. Felix Culpa
@Chyron HR: HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
You are joking, right?
ThresherK
@Mike in NC: I wonder why there has not yet surfaced video of a Village People skit including a Klansman. Either a real one, or some idiot’s idea of satire. I just know someone is doing it somewhere.
JDM
“Finally…”? Congress, and the White House, is full of them.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@rikyrah: I was skeptical at first about Black Lives Matter and this kneeling thing, but the way the kneeling makes racists howl makes me positive now the blacks are on the right tract and their message is getting across.
Corner Stone
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: I muted it when the AEI guy started talking so I may have missed Ali saying that. Velshi is usually really good at not letting phony euphemisms pass by without a clear definition of what they are really saying. So that would surprise me if he actually let the BS Luntz inspired framework go by with no challenge.
Major Major Major Major
@Timurid:
And for the rest of his supporters he’s perfectly fine, they just wish he’d stop tweeting.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Corner Stone: this was last week or so, a segment with Bernstein, and he brought up the family farm thing out of the blue. It was a surprise because as you say, he’s pretty much a Republican on taxes/Wall St, but he usually doesn’t bullshit about it
Corner Stone
@Enhanced Voting Techniques: Man, I sometimes wonder if you are a spoof or bot account because sometimes you seriously get out of your lane.
catclub
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Only slow floater those reporters have seen is emails!emails!emails!… up until it is Kushner’s emails, then, … meh.
Ceci n est pas mon nym
In what sense are they not “out of control” already?
Major Major Major Major
Taxes aren’t up until 2018 reconciliation, right? You can tell they’re serious about this bill because they’re releasing the details more than a week before the vote.
Jeffro
@catclub:
Smart Dem candidate in 2018: “Oh, it’s so small and you don’t even care about it? Then why not leave it in – why cut it taxes by that amount at all – and help keep our national debt down?”
Even smarter Dem candidate in 2018: “That $150B/year tax cut y’all want? Where’s most of it going? By that, I mean, who’s going to receive most of that money back in their already-fat wallets?”
MattF
@Aardvark Cheeselog: Or, David Barton, for that matter. The crackpots are everywhere.
Personally, I like to think of a ‘whackadoodle’ as the product of the extremely unholy union of a whacko, a labrador, and a poodle.
Spanky
@Corner Stone:
My theory is that someone has a contract out on him and he knows it.
Is there a better explanation with this crowd of crooks?
Captain C
@schrodingers_cat: I want some local, in full Alabama accent to ask him: “Say, Roy, why are you dressed like you’re from Texas? You think us Southerners are all the same?”
sherparick
@trollhattan: No, not likely, although from a pure equity basis, if honest tax reform was being undertaken as it was in 1986, it would be considered. But it gores to many upper middle class tax payers who vote, as well as the entire real estate industry. Most of us could adjust, particularly if it also meant an increased standard deduction, but would likely mean I would be $5,000 more in taxes annually if it went away all at once. Multiply that by about 5 million households and you would have a lot of unemployed congressmen. The Republicans in the Senate are hot to go after the state income tax deduction, since that predominately affects blue states. But House Republicans in New York, California, Illinois, Virginia, etc. would also face being unemployed on that issue. I think the Republicans will just pass a big tax cut and keep all the exemptions.
sherparick
@chris: Yep, in all its glory.
The Moar You Know
@Corner Stone: But it’s not. It’s a homebrew version of one cooked up to Pruitt’s specs by a company that specializes in vocal isolation booths for recording studios. No EMF protection or signal isolation like you’d have in a real SCIF install.
I’m finding his whole security schtick weird beyond belief. Lotta show there. Not much actual effective security.
ET
I will agree with
Moore won because is a known name/quantity in Alabama and because all the stuff related to the 10 Commandments dust up worked well for him in Alabama. I spent 4 years in Tuscaloosa and while I am no expert on the state, I assumed he was going to win regardless of who lined up for Strange. Moore appeals to their id.
Too many of the party apparatchik and their enabler talking heads and press types that front and center in the 80’s-90’s will not admit that this what they wrought. They will not admit that what is going on now is not only just what they wrought, but was an outgrowth of the type of person that they were grooming and the party they were creating. They thought that because the successfully controlled the rubes and the talibangicals for 20 years with stroking, dog whistles, and other subtle/not-so-subtle symbols that they could continue to do so. Now they realize they can’t but because they utterly lack self reflection and have spent so many years lying to themselves and everyone else, you get dreck like this.
What is going on now can be laid at the feet of those right now like Trump and Moore, but it can also be laid at the feet of the enables who can’t/won’t do anything now because they are clueless, scared, stupid, or some combination of the three.
Frankensteinbeck
For everyone who talks about Trump’s lies: GOP figures have been lying through their teeth about everything important at least through Obama’s presidency, and lying about a whole lot of stuff at least back to Reagan. The national press wants what they say to be true, and reports accordingly. Trump is just so clumsy about it, even the disinterested can tell.
Ed Rogers is a fine example of all that, in fact.
@Kay:
You wildly and continually underestimate the rich’s ability to be insane, racist zealots. We don’t live in a meritocracy. They are MORE shielded from their idiocies than regular people. Yes, they’re greedy SOBs, but people like the Kochs and the Mercers are also true believers in the same evil shit as the base. I put Trump to you as an example. You would think that the only thing he cares about is his wallet, but he has demonstrated clearly that he cares almost as much about white supremacy. And the wealth he was born into has shielded and encouraged him.
@Enhanced Voting Techniques:
Left-leaning, previously disinterested people have been getting angry and involved, thank goodness. Trump and the attempt to take away their healthcare lit that fire, but now that it’s burning they’re noticing racial injustice as well. Here’s hoping it lasts.
Frankensteinbeck
@The Moar You Know:
That’s the delusional paranoid’s MO, and I don’t just mean the medically certifiable ones.
Chyron HR
@O. Felix Culpa:
That sounds like neoliberal talk. You don’t have any “identity politics” blood in you, do you son?
The Moar You Know
@Frankensteinbeck: Agreed. It’s that, or he’s some sort of serious blackmail risk (closeted something or other). But I’m tending to lean more towards your theory.
WaterGirl
@rikyrah: Dear Black People: We are still killing you, so you should just give up now. Signed, Big White Racist Pig
MattF
@schrodingers_cat: He’s… feeling some anxiety. About something that he really wants to just go away and shut up. Not dealing well with the problem, whatever it may be.
nonynony
@The Moar You Know:
He has all of the classic signs of being an asshole who thinks he knows more about everything than everyone else and is willing to spend the money on whatever delusion pops into his head about it.
sherparick
@rikyrah: Um, listen, there a few purity trolls and media types out on the internet, and I do worry about how the voices of Tabbai, Sirota, Goodman, TYT, and a few others may get megaphoned on Twitter, Facebook, and other social media by usual suspects (RWT, Russian Intelligence, etc.) to depress the Democratic vote. But having lived through real episodes of the Democratic Party coming apart at the seems (1968-1972, and to some extent 1980-84) this is a nice polite discussion. Bernie by the way gave a real good foreign policy speech, something that was a big weakness for him in 2016, which would help all Democrats to read over and listen to again.
sherparick
@ET: Yep. Tell it Brother/Sister. Also, see David Brooks blaming Donald Trump on Abbie Hoffman and Hillary Clinton in yesterday’s NYT. The Republican Party and the Conservative Movement are never at fault for anything.
jonas
I think probably the only crazier person Republicans in any state could have elected would be Alan Keyes, whom John Rogers described in his now canonical formulation of the 27% crazification factor as “Plainly, obviously, completely crazy. Batshit crazy. Head-trauma crazy.” Moore is certainly a close second. Plus, he also *looks* like a grizzled, old fundamentalist loon (like Joad Cressbeckler). Keyes could still play a professor on TV.
Frankensteinbeck
@The Moar You Know:
DeVos’s security makes a lot more sense. She went out in public shortly after getting the job, and the common folk yelled at her for trying to destroy their kids’ schools. She whined publicly that she’s never been so scared in her life.
different-church-lady
@The Moar You Know: Heck, they should have just gone for the Cone of Silence.
Brachiator
So, Roy Moore is there to make Ted Cruz look human?
Fair Economist
@schrodingers_cat:
None have. Small donations don’t legally have to be accounted for, and so they aren’t.
Fair Economist
@Major Major Major Major:
This is a trial balloon. They can’t vote on it until 2018 reconciliation is up because it would be filibusterable.
Major Major Major Major
@nonynony: probably has a big stash of iodine pills.
schrodingers_cat
@MattF: He has sued the EPA innumerable times, the career professionals at the EPA are not his biggest fans.
Major Major Major Major
@Fair Economist: right. They haven’t done that with any of their other supposed priorities. It’s how you know they mean it.
The Pale Scot
@Aardvark Cheeselog: Santorum is a RC wacko who’s all about fetuses and homos. But pretty much keeps to the Church’s creed.
Moore is a fundy wacko Christian Reconstructionist who beside fetuses and homos, wants to ban birth control, woman working outside the home, believes the Bible is literally true and that faith overshadows good works. That’s how the declaring “Jeebus is my savior” over and over clears up your previous sins, despite it being the sixth time declaring.
THE THEOLOGY BEHIND ALABAMA OFFICIAL’S DEMAND TO FLOUT SCOTUS
Sorry about the caps, too lazy to type it out
NR
@rikyrah: Great article.
Author asks “Why is Bernie Sanders ripping the Democratic party apart????”
Provides zero actual examples of Bernie Sanders “ripping the Democratic party apart.”
schrodingers_cat
Russians are awake and on the job.
NR
@schrodingers_cat: Russia didn’t write that shitty little article.
Boatboy_srq
@rikyrah: At least he can hide it in his garter. And you know he wears them.
chris
@The Pale Scot: Good one, I’ll just add this long read.
Frankensteinbeck
@Fair Economist:
I’m not even sure if ‘trial balloon’ is the right term. I think it’s a desperate cry of ‘We’re still relevant!’ meant to reassure themselves, their donors, and the media. The base isn’t really paying attention to anything but brown people suffering at the moment.
catclub
@Spanky:
Big Solar, Maybe Big Retrofit.
Corner Stone
Here’s another Ed Rogers type who seems to be reaching for the truth…but just can’t *quite* get to actually finding it.
Charile Sykes in Newsweek:
How the Right Lost Its Mind and Embraced Donald Trump
To be fair, i blanked out after getting to the point about sunny optimist Reagan and the uplifting speeches of “tear down that wall”. I just could not keep at it any longer.
germy
Brachiator
@Kay: RE: POLITICO has reported that Price has spent more than $400,000 on taxpayer-funded private jet travel since May.
I’ve been down with a bad cold, and haven’t watched much TV or scanned the blogs. Has this come up at any White House briefings? Has anyone asked him to pay back what he stole from taxpayers?
Boatboy_srq
@sylvania: This has been true since the Contract On America. But apparently nobody in the press can remember last year, let alone 1994, so it must be new.
rikyrah
Paul Ryan rankles some of his members with tax-reform pitch
09/27/17 10:40 AM
By Steve Benen
After months of closed-door talks, Republicans are reportedly going to unveil some of the details of their tax-reform package today, and in the wake of the health care fight, GOP leaders are feeling understandably anxious. If this initiative comes up short, too, Republicans are going to have a tough time justifying the scope of their failure.
With that in mind, the Huffington Post reported last night that House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) not only hosted a meeting with his Republican conference yesterday; he also invited a special guest: Corry Bliss, executive director of the American Action Network, a dark-money group allied with the House GOP leadership.
As the story goes, Republican lawmakers were shown a series of commercials AAN has put together on tax reform, which may air in members’ districts to pressure them to toe the party line. As one member told the Huffington Post, “Like a teacher showing the kids a paddle on the first day of class, the blatant implication was that those who misbehaved would be spanked.”
Another described the presentation as “kind of creepy,” which, I suspect, was part of the point.
But I was also glad to see some GOP members question what the American Action Network was doing at their conference meeting in the first place. From the article:
Frankensteinbeck
@chris:
It lost me in the first paragraph.
zhena gogolia
@germy:
I doubt that it would be “Waltzing Matilda”!
Boatboy_srq
@schrodingers_cat: That only works if Wife #3 was Mistress #4 when you wwre still on Wife #2.
catclub
@Frankensteinbeck:
I have a bookmark in my browser that is labeled “Sane Billionaires”. It is very small.
Actually it is sane billionaires trying to convince the insane ones that they will get (even) more money if they allow the lower classes to live (better).
Insane Billionaires are having none of it.
Corner Stone
@catclub:
Barack “The Islamic Shock” Hussein Obama and his insider cronies strike again! Solyndra was always just a slush fund for training covert ops.
Fair Economist
@Frankensteinbeck: I think it is an “honest” trial balloon, even though you’re right it’s basically a Hail Mary pass. Now that Obamacare repeal looks unlikely, they need to find another source of funds to give to rich people. The border tax and mortgage deduction are pretty much off the table now, and this is the last substantial source I’ve heard discussed. If they can get enough blue state Representatives to support this they can give the Kochs and the Mercers their big tax cuts. So they are trying it.
Boatboy_srq
@rikyrah: Reading that article, The Police’s “(Are You Safe,) Miss Gradenko” popped into my head.
catclub
@rikyrah: They complain about bringing in some outside group, but are totally owned by Grover Norquist and his threats to primary them if they misbehave. I do not see the difference here.
Corner Stone
@Brachiator: Surprisingly, Trump did not seem aware of the previous reporting when asked about it. And then didn’t seem to care too much.
Price has said they are aware of the concern. Then took five more private jet flights after the initial reporting came out, so you can tell Price is really bothered by being caught out.
They then said they would halt travel by private jet for now.
Boatboy_srq
@Cheryl Rofer: Eight.
Really.
How magnanimous of them.
The Pale Scot
@chris: Interesting site. I equate these people with Ian Paisley and his whole “might makes right” crowd
The Pale Scot
And OT; Jared Kushner is registered to vote in New York as a woman
So Jared is a trans man. And Ivanka’s children are Donald’s. Rolling like the Habsburgs. Would it really be surprising?
Corner Stone
If you’re Spicey, and no one will hire you because you destroyed your reputation and credibility by lying for Trump so ostentatiously, and now you have had to lawyer up – do you give a single fuck about trying to protect Trump or the GOP?
catclub
@Fair Economist:
I think Martin Longman will tell us that they have to pass a budget bill first, and the wacko right wing (Freedom Caucus) wants to see what is in that before they pass it.[This is actually completely reasonable -so much for transparency in government.] Last time there was nothing in the budget bill that was the vessel for killing ACA via Reconciliation. But the wacko’s are demanding their priorities in the next budget bill, not just a shell.
rikyrah
@Fair Economist:
I still think it’s INSANE.
People know what that deduction means on their tax form. And now, you want it taken away so that the Koch brothers can have a tax break?
they don’t think the people in those R districts don’t know how that line item is on their tax form?
THIS can’t be hidden. THIS is a direct hit for their financial bottom line.
d58826
I guess this makes sense in Trump world but on this planet I fail to see the logic. After Harvey/Irma the Jones act was suspended so it didn’t matter where a ship was flagged if it was bring relief supplies. OK fine whatever works. Now after Maria Der Fuhrer will not suspend the Jones act because there are enough American ships to bring in relief supplies. Fla and TX could both be supplied by l;and routes, i.e. trucks. But as Der Fuhrer so brilliantly observed PR is an island in a BIG (since it’s Trump it has to be a big ocean) ocean. And the trucks of the sea are ships! So it would seem that they could use as many ships as they can get their hands on. And if there are enough US flagged ships then what is the harm in waiving the act? Unless of course Der Fuhrer has some buddies that own American shipping lines
rjm
Don’t know how to link, but the piece on the tax proposal by Josh Barro at Business Insider is illuminating:
So they’ve simplified the only simple part of the tax form by eliminating the the deduction for dependent children and the personal exemption. Oh yeah, and cutting hte number of brackets, which add ZERO complexity to the tax preparation process. Heckuv a job.
sheila in nc
@sharl: You mean Andy Harris. Another one of these right wing doctor types. He actually wanted to get the directorship of NIH.
Villago Delenda Est
Right on, Betty.
This is Ed’s party. The party of white supremacism, of outright bigotry, of fascism, of hate, of resentment. The party that has been built over the last 50 years for short term political gain at the expense of long term viability.
It will go the way of the NSDAP and the CPSU. Oblivion.
Villago Delenda Est
@rjm: Everything about the GOP is a lie.
Redshift
One lesson Republicans ought to learn from the Alabama mess is that they won’t get anything in return for supporting Trump. At best, they’ll just avoid having the howler monkeys sicced on them. Rogers mention of “Trump’s support for Strange” is either grasping at straws or delusional. Trump showed that he’ll always only campaign for himself, and if it looks like you’re going to lose a close race (the situation where having a president come in and campaign would do the most good), he’ll throw you overboard rather than risk catching your loser stink.
sharl
@The Pale Scot: This is being investigated by Reddit’s top men.
Top. Men.
Redshift
@Corner Stone:
If he has no job prospects other than lying for another GOPer, that might motivate him to keep omerta.
Ladyraxterinok
@schrodingers_cat: I’m coming to that point of view. There has to be SOME reason for a supposedly educated, politically knowledgable person to be so consistently, willfully blind.
Villago Delenda Est
@rikyrah: They’re innumerate.
MattF
@The Pale Scot: Some pictures of the ‘Habsburg jaw‘.
sharl
@sheila in nc: Oy, you’re right, Andy Harris (MD-01), not Young. I’d even gone to Wikipedia to confirm that, so don’t know how I managed to screw that up.
He is exactly as you described him, though I didn’t know about the NIH aspirations. He was a real dick about health care when he first came to office in 2009 (no surprise there). I haven’t kept track of him much in recent years, except whenever DC government wants to do something on their own and with their own city taxpayer money, at which point he tends to swoop in and happily remind them that Congress is in charge of what DC can and cannot do. I’m sure good ol’ southern Maryland white racism has nothing to do with that, though who can tell where racism ends and color-blind assholery begins? Some kinda toxic psychological blend, I suppose…
Thanks for the correction!
Corner Stone
For those who can’t watch, Trump is doing a live presser and is babbling absolutely incoherently about the Healthcare vote and how they have the votes but hospitals and votes for it and reconciliation and Jan or Feb or March but we have the votes and I will negotiate with Democrats on Healthcare.
Corner Stone
My God. Someone please tranq this fucking fool. He is incoherent on every single topic they ask about.
Betty Cracker
@The Pale Scot:
As Samantha Bee said, LOCK HER UP!
Frankensteinbeck
@Redshift:
It was never about Trump anyway. People talk about his cult of personality and stuff, but that’s him fooling himself. Trump is offering much harder white supremacy than any other national GOPer at the moment. That’s it*.
*It’s worth noting that GOP voters also love his incoherent, idiot whining and bluster, but that is directly tied to the racism. ‘The worst white man is better than the best black man’ and so on.
MattF
@Corner Stone: Coherence is not an option.
Redshift
@catclub:
I think the difference is that they can’t do anything about outside groups, but this is their own leadership, which is supposed to at least try to put together something they want to support, not give them a shit sandwich and tell them to eat it or else.
It shows what an incredibly weak Speaker Ryan is.
J R in WV
@The Moar You Know:
Seriously, what did you like about G. W. Bush as president? Because I can’t put my finger on a single thing about that ass that I regarded as a positive attribute.
sharl
TenguPhule
@Kay:
Its worse then that.
He lies all the time and it has real consequences, but he doesn’t give a shit because he’s not the one who suffers the fallout.
Meanwhile, the pillars that hold this country together are being smashed down willy nilly.
And sooner or later, Trump and the GOP are going to find a critical load bearing one and its all going to go tits up.
ruckus
Had a thought, remember when President Obama couldn’t use a secure Blackberry, but numbnuts gets to text whenever the fuck he wants, gets to delete whatever he wants, is a bigoted stupid shit and brings shame and horror every single day?
Yeah I thought you might.
Brachiator
@rjm:
Politicians love to talk about “tax reform,” “tax simplification” and “tax reduction.” They are not the same thing.
But the average guy hears it and if he or she loves the Republicans, always responds positively when the GOP talks about tax cuts. And even when a pundit points out that the wealthy will benefit most from any tax cuts, they will say to themselves, “well at least I’m getting something.”
But the GOP is hot to get something to pass. They need to cement a big win for Trump. Also, from what I see, they would make the tax changes retroactive to Jan 1, 2017. The tax cuts to the wealthy would be a hell of a gift.
TenguPhule
@Corner Stone:
Gonna need a bigger dart.
Spanky
@sharl:
My ears are burning. Not the racism, nor the assholery (though some opinions may differ) … oh yeah, Southern Maryland. Harris’ district is actually racist Eastern Shore. Racist Southern Maryland is in District 5, which is Steny Hoyer’s. It’s the DC suburbs that keep Hoyer’s district Hoyer’s.
Gotta keep your racist Maryland districts straight, ya know.
TenguPhule
@Corner Stone:
It depends on how worried he is about getting a bad cup of tea or a nasty poke by an umbrella.
Major Major Major Major
@J R in WV: AIDS funding in Africa.
TenguPhule
White House is restricting lawmakers from visiting Puerto Rico, U.S. Virgin Islands, aides say
Its come to the point I automatically do not believe any explanation made by these people no matter how reasonable it might be.
sharl
@Spanky: LOL, good points, though they’re all south of me, which is the only thing that matters.
efgoldman
@Redshift:
I have considered the Speaker’s office vacant since Weeping Cheetoh left.
TenguPhule
@Kay:
Being witness to a country attempting to commit suicide is not fun.
lgerard
@germy:
Take a closer look at the sponsor of this speech, Randy Barnett and his “Center”
He makes Ted Cruz look like Ted Kennedy
It is disgraceful the way major universities have sold out to wingnut money
Ladyraxterinok
@Aardvark Cheeselog: i think so. S is Catholic; pretty sure Moore is Evangelical and, since it’s AL, pretty sure he’s So Baptist. Born and grew up in OK, college in TX in 50s. At that time both states majority So Baptist.
Growing up , was taught Catholics are not Christian. Many in SBC still believe this. In college gained great admiration for RCC scholarly tradition.
Despite following bilgrimage.com’s discussions of US Catholic church embrace of religious right and GOP, still don’t see them as so extremely Talliban-like.
Bill Arnold
Some required (OK suggested) reading for those who like to understand republican/conservative propaganda plays:
Elizabeth Warren Is Getting Hillary-ed By Rebecca Traister
Sample, of the sort of political meta that I hope we see a lot more of:
Robert Mercer is involved big:
rikyrah
@Bill Arnold:
Hope that this gets FrontPaged.
Bago
https://twitter.com/ParkerMolloy/status/912865714662502400
Just Sayin.
PAM Dirac
@sharl: The rumor around the National Cancer Institute was that Harris was being considered for the NCI director (maybe after deciding to keep Collins as NIH director). Strangely enough the dumbfuck actually seems to have made a good choice for NCI director. I have only heard very positive things about Ned Sharpless and NCI world seems a little more optimistic these days.
Bago
@Bill Arnold: Isn’t getting paid to teach the job of a teacher?
Just One More Canuck
@Betty Cracker: just another example of voter fraud
sharl
@PAM Dirac: I’m grateful for any good news these days, especially where Federal research agencies are involved – those folks have been seeing so much awful stuff of late.
Tazj
@sharl: Wolf Blitzer said that Trump allowing insurance companies to sell across state lines would completely change the industry in the US. As most people here already know and Charles Gaba confirms the ACA already allows this, but most companies don’t want to. You need to do better CNN.
@TenguPhule: I remember when it was Obama’s fault for not fixing the oil leak in the gulf and not providing hospital workers in Texas with appropriate protective equipment and inservice education during the Ebola outbreak. It’s important to hold our leaders accountable, the media lets Trump off easy all the time and this time it could be deadly.
The Pale Scot
@sharl: Woeoo…
He looks better as a woman
J R in WV
@rikyrah:
“They also need to look into your friend Betsy DeVos…WHO is paying for her travel expenses?”
I think Ms DeVos is despicable, a word I used to be unable to spell correctly.
But I have to give her credit – she is so filthy rich she just uses the jet plane she owns for all her travel. Less hassle I guess, and the cost is, to her, a rounding error.
Ruviana
@Corner Stone: Too bad! Big Luther was getting known more and more.
Bill Arnold
@rikyrah:
Likewise. It is the sort of thinking that the left needs to internalize as a prereq for taking back the country.
Chyron HR
@Bill Arnold:
Having rejected the basic concept of “insurance”, the right now begins to chafe against “teaching”.
rjm
@Brachiator:
Yep, big GOP donors paid good money for those tax cuts… Given the rout on healthcare so far, and dissension amongst their own ranks this may not be a cakewalk. one can hope
sharl
@The Pale Scot: Haha, I haven’t seen the Face App in use much lately on twitter. Some of the scruffy dudes I follow there cleaned up real nice after application of that software. One lefty guy’s altered avi looked positively hawt, and for a while he was having fun trolling horny wingnuts.
As we all say on twitter at some point, how can this hell site possibly be free??
hueyplong
@Redshift: “It shows what an incredibly weak Speaker Ryan is.”
It also exposes Ryan as, in the words of Col Kurtz, merely “an errand boy, sent by grocery clerks, to collect a bill.”
J R in WV
@Corner Stone:
Pruitt is planning on destroying the EPA’s ability to protect us in order to make more money. He rightly suspects that people who will die from his actions may feel hostility towards him, and therefore, knowing that he is doing evil, plans to protect himself from anyone who may take action to stop his evil intentions.
SATSQ
catclub
and this is also a lie. They have included the personal exemptions in the standard deduction. So if you DO itemize, there is no longer a personal exemption.
correct phrasing is ‘they approximately doubled the standard deduction, but removed any personal exemptions’
mr_gravity
@Aardvark Cheeselog: I’ll do a Google search.
catclub
@rjm: You beat me to it. Thanks!
Sab
@catclub: This bill would clobber Trump’s base (white middle class and upper middle class suburbanites with big mortgages, high property taxes and kids.) But they wouldn’t have to worry about alternative minimum tax.
Bobby Thomson
@Chyron HR: now begins?
J R in WV
@chris:
Answer: “I’m a hateful religious bigot too!”
Interpreted speech there.
Probly hates Jews and Quakers and U-Us and Episcopalians too.
TenguPhule
@Corner Stone:
Corruption, corruption, corruption.
Shade of Dick Cheney’s meetings with oil companies.
With a sprinkling of knowing he’s literally trying to kill women and children.
catclub
@Sab:
Of course, if you define middle class as up to $150k/yr = 3 times median national income, then AMT already almost never applies. Also, AMT has now been indexed to inflation – it was only while it was NOT indexed that it risked hitting the [upper] middle class.
I have tried to find out if AMT applied to me, and found that I would need about $85k in itemized deductions to start worrying about it. I doubt there are many people with income at or below $150k/yr with that many.
The form writers have done their best to hide any simplicity in the AMT – i.e ability to estimate if it affects you based on an income and deductions table.
J R in WV
@Corner Stone:
Ooh, good one! You’re cooking on high today!!!
catclub
Kevin Drum seems to have missed big one; State and local income tax deduction:
if accurate, this outline does kill SALT deductions. a big deal.
Villago Delenda Est
@efgoldman: It’s been vacant since Nancy Smash left.
Matt McIrvin
@Corner Stone: I assume he’s afraid of the lower-level employees.
Matt McIrvin
@catclub: I knew some people who were hit badly by the AMT back in the old days, pre-indexing: what happened was that they exercised a bunch of employee incentive stock options and held onto the stock, which tanked. For purposes of regular income, the loss was a loss, but for purposes of the AMT, the option exercise was a taxable event. AMT ended up being higher than their regular income tax, and they got taxed on income they didn’t have (any more).
Bill Arnold
@catclub:
From Axios: What you need to know about the GOP tax plan
This is about messing with Democrats. They are willing to double tax, taxing taxes, just to stick hot pokers in the eyes of Democratic (higher tax, mostly) states and transfer money from them to low tax states until they conform. They’ll spin this double taxation as rewarding states for being low-tax and low-services, and point out that sales taxes are already generally double taxed. But this will not go over well.
Bill Arnold
[comment in moderation, no clue why]
J R in WV
@ruckus:
You know, I seem to recall the the White House announced some little time ago that Trump’s tweets are official statements, anyone else recall that?
In that case, isn’t deleting any of those tweets a direct violation of federal record-keeping law? Like a felony? Someone should point that our to Mr. Mueller III before we lose track of that felony. There are so many, we need a database to keep track!!