There was some evidence, maybe no direct evidence. Like Diehard says, it would be good to see all of the evidence.Originally Posted by LA Ute
One thing we can conclude from this, one thing we anti-Trumpers should have always kept in the forefront, was that Russia didn't need to coordinate with the Trump campaign to accomplish its ends. It sowed discord with false information, and arguably helped to get its man elected.
I really think Brennan was wrong to do what he did.
"It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye."
--Antoine de Saint-Exupery
"Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold."
--Yeats
“True, we [lawyers] build no bridges. We raise no towers. We construct no engines. We paint no pictures - unless as amateurs for our own principal amusement. There is little of all that we do which the eye of man can see. But we smooth out difficulties; we relieve stress; we correct mistakes; we take up other men's burdens and by our efforts we make possible the peaceful life of men in a peaceful state.”
--John W. Davis, founder of Davis Polk & Wardwell
Maybe both did, but the article I read referred to them.
From that right-wing rag, the New York Times:
Face It: You (Probably) Got a Tax Cut
Studies consistently find that the 2017 law cut taxes for most Americans. Most of them don’t buy it....
"It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye."
--Antoine de Saint-Exupery
"Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold."
--Yeats
“True, we [lawyers] build no bridges. We raise no towers. We construct no engines. We paint no pictures - unless as amateurs for our own principal amusement. There is little of all that we do which the eye of man can see. But we smooth out difficulties; we relieve stress; we correct mistakes; we take up other men's burdens and by our efforts we make possible the peaceful life of men in a peaceful state.”
--John W. Davis, founder of Davis Polk & Wardwell
Bob Kerrey: How did Department of Justice get the Trump-Russia investigation so wrong?
https://www.omaha.com/opinion/midlan...dc5375bf4.htmlDelusions fascinate me in part because I have so many of my own. Most often delusions are harmless. Sometimes they are not.
At the moment my fellow Democrats are suffering from two that are harmful. The first is that Americans long for a president who will ask us to pay more for the pleasure of increasing the role of the federal government in our lives. That this is a delusion can be seen in the promises made by six successful Democratic candidates in Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Michigan: three governors and three senators. Not one of them supported the Green New Deal, a tax on wealth or “Medicare for all.”
The second Democratic delusion is that Americans were robbed of the truth when Special Prosecutor Robert Mueller and Attorney General William Barr concluded that President Trump did not collude with Russia in 2016. All evidence indicates that the full report will not change the conclusion that Donald J. Trump did not collude with Vladimir Putin to secure his victory in 2016.
Rather than investigating the president further, Congress needs to investigate how the Department of Justice got this one so wrong. If the president of the United States is vulnerable to prosecutorial abuse, then God help all the rest of us. Members of Congress cannot do this themselves. We do not trust them enough with such a vital mission.
Congress should create a nonpartisan commission to find out what went wrong and to tell us what needs to be done to make certain it never happens again.
"It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye."
--Antoine de Saint-Exupery
"Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold."
--Yeats
“True, we [lawyers] build no bridges. We raise no towers. We construct no engines. We paint no pictures - unless as amateurs for our own principal amusement. There is little of all that we do which the eye of man can see. But we smooth out difficulties; we relieve stress; we correct mistakes; we take up other men's burdens and by our efforts we make possible the peaceful life of men in a peaceful state.”
--John W. Davis, founder of Davis Polk & Wardwell
Kirstjen Nielson out of DHS.
Apparently she missed her "kids in cages" quota last quarter.
Lefty pundit makes an admission:
"It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye."
--Antoine de Saint-Exupery
"Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold."
--Yeats
“True, we [lawyers] build no bridges. We raise no towers. We construct no engines. We paint no pictures - unless as amateurs for our own principal amusement. There is little of all that we do which the eye of man can see. But we smooth out difficulties; we relieve stress; we correct mistakes; we take up other men's burdens and by our efforts we make possible the peaceful life of men in a peaceful state.”
--John W. Davis, founder of Davis Polk & Wardwell
To be fair, I think most people don't look at the +/- and only look as to whether or not they got a refund or had to pay less in April.Lefty pundit makes an admission:
They may have received a tax cut, but the reduced witholding probably changed their EOY tax bill. I know a lot of people got burned by this.
Lefty pundit makes an admission:
The final question is: did you pay less tax b/c of the cut? To make the tax cut more popular immediately, the administration changed withholding so that people would get a bigger bounce in their paychecks each pay period. They sold that as part of the cut, when it wasn't. I suspect that for most people, the tax cut is more or less a wash. We personally saw no benefit. I suspect you did not either esp. in California. So there was a huge tax cut that skyrocketed the deficit and benefited corporations and the very wealthy. Was it worth it? Personally I don't think so. It could have been structured to give greater relief to the middle class, who need it more.
The tax bill didn't help me at all. I think removing the state and local tax deduction was a punitive measure, taken against high-tax blue states. I also think the Democrats have lied brazenly and repeatedly about the tax bill, just as Matthew Iglesias admitted. Just for fun I Googled "2017 tax bill nonpartisan analysis," and found this as the first result, from the Tax Policy Center (a creature of The Urban Institute and Brookings, not reassuringly nonpartisan in my mind):
https://www.taxpolicycenter.org/feat...s-and-jobs-act
It does look like most people got a tax cut. So, FWIW.
Maybe I am becoming a grumpy old guy but these days I am viewing both parties with a jaundiced eye. Both of them spin and lie disingenuously and incessantly (my bias is that the Dems/left are more shameless at that), and we have a boor in the White House.
grumpy-old-man-2.jpg
"It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye."
--Antoine de Saint-Exupery
"Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold."
--Yeats
“True, we [lawyers] build no bridges. We raise no towers. We construct no engines. We paint no pictures - unless as amateurs for our own principal amusement. There is little of all that we do which the eye of man can see. But we smooth out difficulties; we relieve stress; we correct mistakes; we take up other men's burdens and by our efforts we make possible the peaceful life of men in a peaceful state.”
--John W. Davis, founder of Davis Polk & Wardwell
I would really love to know what is behind Trump's issues with immigration. Is it purely political? Did/does he simply view immigration as a means of securing the election/re-election by scapegoating Muslims and Mexicans. Is it racism? His rhetoric has the sound of racism. I just don't get it. He rails against immigrants and at the same time doubles the number of H1-B visas from 30,000 to about 60,000.
I don't doubt that the majority of taxpayers got some type of tax cut. The information you site seems to reflect what was promised. The top 5% got a reduction of about 4-5%. The lowest about 1-2%. My son, who grosses about $40k saw a reduction of about 1%. That $400 was a paltry sum compared to the $765,000 tax cut to the CEO of United Healthcare, who pocketed about $17 million this past year, will likely receive.
Both parties are motivated by one thing only. Power and control. They will say and do anything to gain and keep it. We are governed by tyrants and their moneymen here in the US and throughout the world. Seems like I have heard something about that somewhere.
Thanks you for saying it better than I did.
Without anything to support it, I suspect that a majority of people expected something more from the tax cuts. The big question will not be whether the 99% got a reduction, but whether Trump and Congressional Republicans oversold it, and if the 99% think the big winners are the 1%.Lefty pundit makes an admission:
You are a grumpy old man. However, your eye is not jaundiced.
The hugh lie was that the cuts would be revenue neutral. The cuts were ideological, and not targeted for the rich. They were premised upon the trickle down, supply side theory, which should be shelved with communism as pipe dream theories. (Sorry, this is not well said, but I'm sick.)
I was listening to a podcast about an experiment with an easy tax form in California. It was hugely successful, so they started asking around to see what it would take to push this form on the Federal level. They got lots of pushback from congressmen on making the tax for simpler. Mainly from places you wouldn't expect: Republican congressmen want to keep the tax form complicated so taxpayers stay angry about taxes.
Podcast:
Planet Money
April 3, 2019
The Tax Hero
The tax bill was not Congress’s most shining moment — the GOP for passing a weird, ideological, punitive bill that might have produced some positive effects, but we’ll never know; and the Dems for aggressively and consistently saying it was a tax increase for less well-off people. It weren’t and it ain’t.
"It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye."
--Antoine de Saint-Exupery
"Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold."
--Yeats
“True, we [lawyers] build no bridges. We raise no towers. We construct no engines. We paint no pictures - unless as amateurs for our own principal amusement. There is little of all that we do which the eye of man can see. But we smooth out difficulties; we relieve stress; we correct mistakes; we take up other men's burdens and by our efforts we make possible the peaceful life of men in a peaceful state.”
--John W. Davis, founder of Davis Polk & Wardwell
How will we never know? Economists predicted there would be a short term stimulus effect, which there was. With a deficit increase, which there has been.
Many economists are now saying that unless there's something that nudges this very long expansion into recession, we're tending back toward growth around 2% or just above. The stimulus has worn off.... but the elevated deficit levels are still with us.
Nothing from our resident expert on which party is the most cynical about Trump's push to send asylum seekers to sanctuary cities?
If you're talking about me I am flattered. I can't make up my mind on the cynicism meter question. Politically, I think the sanctuary cities look worse (hypocritical) but it's close. I'm actually quite tired of the entire Trump vs. the Left food fight.
Last edited by LA Ute; 04-12-2019 at 09:38 PM.
"It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye."
--Antoine de Saint-Exupery
"Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold."
--Yeats
“True, we [lawyers] build no bridges. We raise no towers. We construct no engines. We paint no pictures - unless as amateurs for our own principal amusement. There is little of all that we do which the eye of man can see. But we smooth out difficulties; we relieve stress; we correct mistakes; we take up other men's burdens and by our efforts we make possible the peaceful life of men in a peaceful state.”
--John W. Davis, founder of Davis Polk & Wardwell
A function of the bad sell, and possibly less of a cut than expected. Why do Republicans (not the authors) push this so when they refused to pass a stimulus package in the early years of the Obama years for fear of an expanded deficit?
In addition to being the Gang that Couldn't Shoot Straight, they refused to work with Obama. Obama also refused to work with them. His inexperience in national politics and his Chicago take-no-prisoners, "we won, so shut up" attitude, along with his arrogance, kept him from being the president he could have been. For there to be compromise at the federal level, I think it has to start with the POTUS. Examples: LBJ, Reagan, GHW Bush, Clinton, GW Bush.
"It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye."
--Antoine de Saint-Exupery
"Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold."
--Yeats
“True, we [lawyers] build no bridges. We raise no towers. We construct no engines. We paint no pictures - unless as amateurs for our own principal amusement. There is little of all that we do which the eye of man can see. But we smooth out difficulties; we relieve stress; we correct mistakes; we take up other men's burdens and by our efforts we make possible the peaceful life of men in a peaceful state.”
--John W. Davis, founder of Davis Polk & Wardwell
Well, that's a new take:
https://www.cnn.com/2019/04/12/polit...ile/index.html
We're going to have to agree to disagree on who refused to work with who. When McConnell said he would do everything he could do to block anything Obama wanted to do, then he rises to the top of the list. You can't convince me that his attitude arose only after two years of Obama's administration. Obama made efforts to cross over on immigration and infrastructure, and was rebuked. The Republicans' indifference about deficits on the tax bill only magnifies their interest in frustrating Obama on the infrastructure issue.
In other words, same old argument.
No kidding. Obama had a deal with Boehner on the budget. Boehner couldn't sell it to the Freedom Caucus/Tea Party. Agreement was always impossible because Boehner couldn't deliver (and feared) the right wing, unless everyone capitulated to the right wing. (Since Boehner was never willing to abandon the Hastert rule.)
Last edited by concerned; 04-16-2019 at 09:07 AM.
Yes, we can agree to disagree. I did say the Republicans were (and are) the gang that couldn't shoot straight. They were idiots about cooperating with the Obama White House. The Freedom Caucus is a bunch of people more beholden to their donors -- or more charitably, to their base -- than to their constituents or to the country. (This malady is not confined to Republicans!) They regularly gum up the works of Congress.
But President Obama doesn't get a pass. When Republicans did try to reach out to him, he infamously reminded them that elections have consequences: "I won." Well, that's one way of looking at our system of checks and balances. It probably works better in Chicago than in Washington. He's also the guy who said "I have a phone and a pen" and often tried to rule by executive order. (Not the only president to do that. Doesn't make it right.) That he was slaughtered in both midterm congressional elections during his two terms suggests that the electorate was unhappy with his approach.
Look, when Medicare was enacted it was a huge change in the country's approach to how health care works. Over half the Republicans in the House voted for it. Almost half the Republicans in the Senate did too. Lyndon Johnson knew how to work compromises and bipartisan legislation. And...those laws have endured. I don't think Republicans were simply more reasonable in those days.
"It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye."
--Antoine de Saint-Exupery
"Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold."
--Yeats
“True, we [lawyers] build no bridges. We raise no towers. We construct no engines. We paint no pictures - unless as amateurs for our own principal amusement. There is little of all that we do which the eye of man can see. But we smooth out difficulties; we relieve stress; we correct mistakes; we take up other men's burdens and by our efforts we make possible the peaceful life of men in a peaceful state.”
--John W. Davis, founder of Davis Polk & Wardwell
Well, we have had this disagreement before. Obama did compromise on Obamacare, that is why he went with Romneycare instead of single payer--it was a Republican idea (Heritage Foundation). Health care was all or nothing; you were either going to enact it or you weren't. Republicans were not going to accept it in any form (because it was Obamacare and not Romneycare, IMHO). What was their rejected compromise? Obama also compromised on the size of the stimulus. Dems wanted a much larger stimulus. There was also potential compromise on immigration until your brave guy Rubio and others walked away from their own deal under fear of the Tea Party.
Obama went with executive order (not saying it was right or wrong) because there was no compromise to be had. Your idea of compromise is capitulation.
Was it capitulation when the Constitutional Convention agreed to a bicameral legislature, one elected by the states and the other by the people? Was it over when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor? No, wait....
"It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye."
--Antoine de Saint-Exupery
"Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold."
--Yeats
“True, we [lawyers] build no bridges. We raise no towers. We construct no engines. We paint no pictures - unless as amateurs for our own principal amusement. There is little of all that we do which the eye of man can see. But we smooth out difficulties; we relieve stress; we correct mistakes; we take up other men's burdens and by our efforts we make possible the peaceful life of men in a peaceful state.”
--John W. Davis, founder of Davis Polk & Wardwell
If only Obama has agreed to everything the Tea Party wanted, we would have had bipartisan working government . . . .
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