I'll agree with the core of this piece but...

Mr. Dorgan is absolutely correct. This is not a middle class tax cut. What this is is what the donor class has paid for and is demanding from their helots.

But...

You can get all misty eyed about the bipartisan tax reform of 1986, but it was also a budget buster and resulted in a huge structural deficit when "defense" spending ballooned while taxes were cut.

What Reagan said was pure political theater and he didn't mean a word of it.

The 1986 bill was justified in the same way as this one--with ludicrous assumptions about economic growth that turned out to be totally made up. David Stockman knew they were made up and when the recession started by the 1986 tax reform was behind some of the tax increases that followed the bill.

The other thing that so many either didn't notice or have forgotten is that for many of us that were making $30-40K a year our taxes went up because when all those brackets got eliminated we were pushed up into a higher bracket while losing all of our deductions (back then your could deduct credit card interest, state sales tax etc.)

Those that made out were in the upper incomes. My upstairs neighbor was pulling in about $125-150K per year. His taxes plummeted. We had an argument about that came very close to violence.

This is just more of the same. It is just more shameless and even more extreme. This is an obvious two step process. Make the rich vastly richer while getting some of the funding from raising the taxes on the poor and lower middle classes. Then when the inevitable budget crisis comes go after Medicare/Medcaid and the great White Whale of the New Deal, Social Security.

What no one seems to be talking about is that if the Republicans can pull that trick off they'll set off a worldwide depression that will make the Great Depression and the Crash of 2008 look mild in comparison. Few people seem to realize how close we are to a deflationary spiral. Too many people are making too little money which makes it impossible to consume all that is being produced. Only the rising tide internationally in traditionally underdeveloped countries such as China and India are keeping that in check along with a lot work by central banks around the world.

This exercise in greedy cynicism could ignite an economic collapse like the world has never seen.

Does anyone notice that this is a completely insane statement?

This is so completely batshit. What happened to this man’s mind?

He could not get into med school now much less interact with patients and their parents. He is mentally disabled. No wonder he had to retire.

That a lunatic has been appointed to head a major department of the federal government shows that the Republicans are not even interested in governing.

I’d love to hear the real story of why he had to stop practicing as a pediatric neurosurgeon.

The guy is fucking nuts. He sounds like a patient who has escaped from the hospital.

What is PGIC?

He may never concede

He believes that he is above the law. He has refused to follow court orders. He will now make demands for a recount.

The problem is that all eyes are on Alabama. I don’t think the officials will feel free to cheat with everyone watching.

But this guy is what he is—the antithesis of a class act.

Beautiful

How cute is that?

What, no kiss 💋 on the nose for the 2nd one?

This is not new...

I remember the same numbers during the Dubya years. There is a hardcore Republican constituency that is somewhere in the low 30s.

I remember one of my coworkers, a very nice man indeed, bemoaning what had happened to his industry due to laissez faire capitalism. When I pointed out that we had come to where to the place where his industry was destroyed by rapacious private equity groups incentivized by perverse tax breaks and that he should consider voting Democratic a look of horror crosssd his face. He told me that he couldn’t imagine ever voting Democratic.

We’re seeing this play out in Alabama now. The voters of Alabama may not vote for Roy Moore but they’re not going to vote for Doug Jones. They may ride in Nick Sabin or some other name but they sure as hell won’t vote for a Democrat.

Yes, they got ratfucked

This followed the same pattern as the swiftboat campaign and the decades long campaign against Hillary.

The timing always gives it away. Where were these people hiding with their stories all those years?

But the press is all over it and aren’t asking any hard questions and the fear rises in those currently in power and they shy away from defending the accused.

In this case, the accusations were enough because what you don’t do in sexual harassment cases is question the accuser(s) because that’s what sexist male pigs always do.

Tweeden wasn’t even close to believable once you started looking at the real history and who she is buddies with but if you can’t contest the accusations you’re pretty well screwed from the get go.

That the Democratic leadership didn’t know to close ranks and just say that the investigation would have to be completed before any action was taken is just mind boggling.

Instead the women split off from the men and attacked Franken like he was a serial wife beater and a known pedophile. Then Schumer piled on for good measure.

What a bunch of clowns.

Ghost

I’ve rarely seen acting so bad or a script so bad. This was the cheesiest, most over the top movie I’d seen since “The Way We Were” or “Titanic” or “Avatar”...

I guess there’s a lot of movies I haven’t liked...

But “Ghost” remains at the top of the list.

Indeed

I’ve posted a number of times about “circular firing squads”...

This would seem a uniquely bad time to be fragging our
own. Especially when the “evidence” is so weak.

I can only hope that Schumer, Pelosi, Gillibrand and the rest are playing some form of advanced, multidimensional Go.

My fear is that they are instead an easily panicked herd of bovines and are playing nothing but, “Run away! Run away!” (Monty Python and the Holy Grail)

Donald Trump Jr. is not the only one laughing right now. I’m sure McConnell is wiping tears of laughter from his chinless face right now.