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December 01, 2017 11:02 PM UTC

Weekend Open Thread

  • 51 Comments
  • by: Colorado Pols

“Magic trick: to make people disappear, ask them to fulfill their promises.”

–Mason Cooley

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51 thoughts on “Weekend Open Thread”

  1. 11:52 pm MST: 51-49 Cory Gardner just voted for the Republican tax bill which would increase the deficit by 1.4 trillion over 10 years, increase middle class taxes by 5.8 billion to decrease top millionaire's taxes by 5.3 billion.

    This could also trigger automatic across-the-board cuts in Medicaid (25 billion) and in farm subsidies. It is in fact a betrayal of Trump voters, along with every other middle-income taxpayer.

    Here are individual impacts over time, as scored by CBO:

    Somehow, Arctic wildlife refuge drilling, personhood, having taxpayers pay for private conservative schools, and throwing 13 billion off of their health insurance made it through the Byrd “single subject” obstacle, and are included in the tax bill. Per NYT. Per Washington Post.
    Applause in Senate. Here’s a screenshot of Gardner with other Senators congratulating themselves after the vote (from the NBC live feed linked above)

    So now, even as the Trump presidency goes down in flames, even as Republicans are wrecking their electoral chances in 2020, the corporations and private-jet owners got what they wanted.

    The Senate bill goes to conference in the House next. USA today enumerates issues still to be reconciled. But one House Rep says that he thinks they’ll get a bill to Trump to sign before Christmas.

    Senators Susan Collins and Jeff Flake sold their votes for “commitments” by the Senate to pass legislation limiting health insurance premium rises and DACA protections. Right, because Mitch McConnell, Cory Gardner, & Co. are such honorable guys, they’ll definitely keep their commitments. And they thought Democrats were naive.

    1. Well knock me over with a feather! I never would have expected it of our Cory!

      On the other hand, fellating the donors, metaphorically-speaking, will be a lot more rewarding now for the NRSC.

    2. I happened upon NPR's live stream of the "debate" on Facebook, just as Senator Spokesmodel (R-Koch Industries) was extolling the purported benefits of restructuring our tax base to the benefit of the owner class at the expense of workers. He was manic, and I mean that in a medical way. His speech was rushed, and he was physically bouncing around the podium like a monkey on crack. The picture of gravitas he was not. He did hit all his scripted lies lines just right, so I guess Chuck and Dave will give him an extra biscuit with his kibble.

      1. "He was manic … His speech was rushed."

        I am picturing his painful performance in Durango a couple of months back.

        I’m guessing Chuck and Dave have a nice, cushy job lined up for him beginning in January 2021.

          1. I watched Cory try hard to sell this clunker. The deader it is, the harder he had to spin it to make it look alive.  So yeah, he looked kind of manic there.

            So he's like "Millions of jobs!" "Thousands in wage growth!" It'll help the Drive in in Commerce City expand! Never mind that Colorado already has the lowest unemployment in the country (Thanks renewables and cannabis industries). It can be so much better! Trust me!!!

            And then he fricking lied about what they told him in Pueblo. They hated the GOP  tax bill. He was booed and jeered. They were not telling him, Go with it, Cory.

    1. Don’t know about their “food” menu, . . .

      . . . but with the direction we’re headed I expect by then they’ll have brought back plenty of those $1 McWorkers!

  3. Chris Cillizza is gonna’ have a field day with this

    It’s an especially sad day today in The People’s Socialist Republic of Zapatopia — the flags have been ordered to half-mast . . . 

    See How Every Senator Voted on the Republican Tax Bill

    https://nyti.ms/2BBdHNM

    . . . someone’s “dear Senator for life” voted 100% on each of the four votes with RWNJs Bernie Sanders, Cory Booker, Sherrod Brown, Elizabeth Warren, Diane Feinstein, Chuck Schumer, and Al Franken???!???

     

    1. Let me do Zappy:

      Senator-For-Life should have been the leader and not simply the follower in voting with Bernie and Liz and Sherrod. But he keeps a low profile because he does not want to alienate any of the Republicans.

       

  4. From the Editorial Board of the New York Times:

    Republicans offered one fantasy after another to make the case for their budget-busting tax cuts. For example, the White House has said that cutting the corporate tax to 20 percent from 35 percent will lead to a boom in investment and wages — an argument disputed by most credible economists. Almost all of those extra profits will enrich senior executives and shareholders, experts say. This week, The Times reported that despite the repeated claims of the Treasury secretary, Steven Mnuchin, his department never produced an analysis that backs up the administration’s assertion that the tax cuts would pay for themselves. It is not hard to see why. The Joint Committee on Taxation, the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center and other experts say that the bill would not come close to paying for itself.

    For his part, Mr. Trump has repeatedly asserted with a straight face that the tax bill would hurt him. In fact, it will give him and his family a windfall. That’s because the Senate bill will provide a generous tax break for income that people earn through limited liability corporations, partnerships and other so-called pass-through businesses that do not pay taxes before passing on profits to owners. Under the Senate bill, the president will be able to claim a 23 percent deduction on profits he earns through his more than 500 pass-through businesses.

    You can expect the lies to become even more brazen as Republicans seek to defend this terrible bill. But no amount of prevarication can change the fact that Congress and Mr. Trump are giving a giant gift to their donors and sticking the rest of the country with the tab.

    Since Con Man Cory (that's him on the right in the picture) is extremely comfortable with lies and prevarications, expect him to be among the Carnival Barkers shamelessly hawking this payoff to his donors as a "Middle-Class" tax cut with a shit-eating grin on his face.

      1. For future travel plans once Leader Yurtle has slipped this mortal coil.

        Posterity will ne’er survey
        a Nobler grave than this:
        Here lie the bones of Castlereagh  Mitch McConnell:
        Stop, traveller, and piss!

        Lord Byron, Epigram, 1822

  5. News Flash — Republicans are delusional.  Apparently, Fox News has been telling its viewers that this year's stock market gains have never occurred before.  My recent conversations with Trumpers always include how excited they are about this year's gains in the stock market and seem to believe that no such gains happened under Obama.  Well, here are the facts.  These are the annual gains in the S&P 500 index from 2009 to 2016:

    2016  11.96%

    2015   1.38%

    2014  13.69%

    2013  32.39%

    2012  16.00%

    2011   2.11%

    2010  15.06%

    2009  26.46%

    That's an average of 14.88% between 2009 – 2016 (Thanks, Obama).  To date (an important caveat because much can change before 12/31/17), the S&P has gained 18.02%, or 3.14% higher than the prior 8 year average.  (Note that in 2008 it fell (37.0%)!!  Thanks, Bush.)  In other words, this year's stock gains are not significantly higher than the gains from the prior 8 years.

    Republicans are so delusional that they cannot comprehend basic financial facts.  I understand that this is not new news.  But, it adds to my concern that no facts can penetrate Republicans.  Consequently, we end up with a tax bill that gives 22% of the tax cuts to the top 1% while the GOP claims it benefits the middle class.  Moreover, I feel that no matter what Mueller uncovers about Trump misdeeds, the Repugnicants will simply call it "Fake News" and move on. 

    We are so screwed.

     

    1. My recent conversations with Trumpers always include how excited they are about this year's gains in the stock market

      Yes, Motor Anus was here yesterday shilling that party line.

    3. You are correct, itlduso, facts don't matter to most Republicans.  In fact, they are ubiquitous inconveniences to be ignored whenever possible to keep their fantasies from being quashed in the harsh light of reality.

      1. "we are so screwed….."  Yes, indeed, especially if the Dems are complacent again next year, like last year, and think the US House will simply fall into their hands.

        1. I can't argue with that.  Republicans are tone-deaf and dangerous; Democrats have been tone-deaf and ineffective — probably due to overreliance on fat cat donors (because small dollar donors are so much harder to come by)

        2. So, the question is: What is the Democrats' tax plan?  I have mentioned how a family of four making $60,000 a year currently pays about $1,800 in federal income taxes.  Michael Bennet and Morgan Carroll did nothing when I suggested lowering that tax burden.  Of course, Hillary Clinton also had no middle class tax relief plan.  Now, Jason Crow has to be dragged to reluctantly agree with lowering middle class taxes. 

          Per Mama's earlier post the GOP tax plan gives this family about an $800 decrease.  Those crumbs will be promoted by the GOP  as "massive middle class tax relief" while the Dems are left offering……what, exactly?

          1. What is the Democrats' tax plan?

            There is none. This is the flip side of the GOP's response to Obamacare between 2011 and 2017. Oppose what the other side is doing but offer no alternative.

             

  6. For those fools who still think Susan Collins is a moderate, note that she voted the Koch bros line again. In Scott Nearing's memorable phrase, she is always a pacifist between wars and a vegetarian between meals.

      1. Murkowski got oil which is better than candy. I seem to recall that Collins was excited the other day when they told her she could introduce an amendment to the bill. I think it was about property tax deduction.

        Did Cory get any cash or prizes to take back to the Centennial State?

          1. All Cory got was his photo op standing at the podium near an almost life-like looking Mitch McConnell to paste in his scrapbook. And probably a job offer from Chuck and Dave effective Jan. '21.

      2. MTP today, Susan Collins:  "I got iron clad guarantees that Medicare and Medicaid will not be cut."

        by which they mean – they will save both by privatization 

  8. The backtracking on the "promises" made to buy the votes of the reluctant GOP Senators has already begun:

    Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine), for example, demanded that year-end spending legislation include funding for Obamacare subsidies that the Trump administration has targeted. Sen. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.) said he got assurances on a contentious immigration program, Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, though Trump administration officials said Flake only got assurances on being part of the conversation.

    As if there was any doubt this was a sham deal.  I can only imagine the buyout Flake has lined up in his post-Senate career.  Some sweet deals as a lobbyist for the Kochs, perhaps.

    1. I didn't scroll down far enough to see this remark, Davie. So I was right; they did give Collins goodies to vote for it. And her voters won't hold it against her since the goodies are for them.

      1. The subsides are gone and not coming back with this Senate.  Collins is not so foolish to believe 50 of her Republican colleagues will suddenly take pity on the ones they already tried, but failed earlier, to throw to the wolves.

        How Republicans think that this deeply unpopular bill is their pathway to electoral victory is beyond me.  But they are just beginning to carve up the hopes and lives of their victims in the Senate Rendering Plant:

        As the tax cut legislation passed by the Senate early Saturday hurtles toward final approval, Republicans are preparing to use the swelling deficits made worse by the package as a rationale to pursue their long-held vision: undoing the entitlements of the New Deal and Great Society, leaving government leaner and the safety net skimpier for millions of Americans.

        Speaker Paul D. Ryan and other Republicans are beginning to express their big dreams publicly, vowing that next year they will move on to changes in Medicare and Social Security. President Trump told a Missouri rally last week, “We’re going to go into welfare reform.”

  9. Trump said he'd protect your town with a wall…for a price.

    No, not that Trump. "Dr. Walter Trump" in this 1950s TV show, "Trackdown".

    Snopes  verified that it was a real episode.

    So I want to know if the writer of the show modeled the slimy salesman after Donald's father, Fred Trump, or if Donnie, who could have seen the show as a child, modeled himself after what may be the martyred hero of the piece.

    Just something lighter in the bad news of the day.

    If you want to skip to the climax of the fraud, it's about 9:30.

    1. There is a physical resemblance to Fred . . . and a behavioral resemblance to Donald.

      Thanks for posting. I've watched it before, but found it useful to watch again, to see how the Mueller investigation comes out. Mueller, like the Texas Ranger, speaking truth to a con man.

      My favorite line? At 17:59 — "You're under arrest, Trump."

       

  10. Professional Courtesy My Ass:

    I don’t want to hear that forcing through Universal Health Care for all is bypassing “regular order” and “bipartisanship”. I don’t want to hear we have to “take the high road”.  I just don’t want to hear this coming from Democrats. Period.

    I don’t want to hear from Republicans how Democrats are “chicken scratching” their way through legislation to give every single American the health care they deserve.

    When these lying sack of shit Republicans vehemently complain, which they most certainly will, I expect Democrats to use reconciliation rules and push through legislation that actually helps Americans live better lives.

    I’m so sick of this shit. I’m sick of Republicans thinking they can bypass norms and their are ZERO consequences. Democrats have to teach them a hard lesson in the future.

    It's not just me.

    It should be every Elected Democrat from El Paso County Dog Catcher to US Senator and POTUS: Quit Enabling Republican Sabotage of Normal Government Functions and Basic Democratic Principles. As of now it is quite clear they do not share those principles.

    And when Democrats do take control of our national government again, I want Dear Senator-for-Life Bennet to push this shit FOR REAL and not as a PUBLICITY STUNT (like his oh-so-furious and meaningless floor speeches) that he knows WILL NEVER PASS while he sits IN THE MINORITY.

    1. Are you on crack?

      Bernie and Liz and Sherrod are going to drive through universal health care? Good luck with that. And Sherrod will be lucky if he is still in the Senate after next year's election.

      I have to laugh at you. The grand bargain of entitle reforms (yeah, tinkering with social security and medicare to make them sustainable) and increasing taxes on the wealthy to reduce the national debt which Obama considered doing with John Boehner and which drove LWNJ like you over the edge is no longer a problem.

      Now we have the worst of both worlds: tax increases on the poor, tax reductions for the rich and it looks like entitlement reform  is coming too next year!

      https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/02/us/politics/tax-cuts-republicans-entitlements-medicare-social-security.html?rref=collection%2Fsectioncollection%2Fpolitics&action=click&contentCollection=politics&region=stream&module=stream_unit&version=latest&contentPlacement=5&pgtype=sectionfront

       

      1. Bennet and Udall abandoned Obama and Colorado voters in tandem. They are and were cowards.

        You say I’m a political fool  

        I say you are a political coward. 

    2. Although your presentation is over the top (as usual), I have to agree with your basic argument.

      If/when Democrats ( and Independents who caucus with Democrats) take control of Congress and the Presidency again,  they must enshrine the "norms of civilized discourse" and "regular order" into rules that can't be broken.

      No more rushing a multiple subject bill through with no hearings or witnesses from the public.

      And Obama should have made a recess appointment to the Supreme Court when it became clear that McConnell's Senate was never going to even allow Garland to be come up for a vote.

      In order for the dream of "taking it back" to happen, Republican gerrymandering must be defeated. Holder and Obama are on it, but we all need to keep our eyes on it. It might be the one reason I contribute to the DNC again.

      As far as the incremental "Medicare X" plan that Bennet and Kaine are pushing,  I would prefer full-fledged public option, or Medicare for All.  We all know that would be the most efficient and lowest cost way of providing health care to the most people. But that would create a lot of turbulence in the insurance field; people would be laid off from insurance industry and have to find jobs in government. Medicare X, or incremental change, might work as a transition.

      It might be more palatable to rural voters, including Republican and Independent voters. As a rural medium-income person, my health insurance costs have gone up and are covering less every year. I'd love an opportunity to buy into a Medicare X type plan, and so would most of my neighbors.

       

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