[Pete Svarrior]

wapo reports republicans paid fusion for oppo research on trump: i sleep.

wapo reports democrats paid fusion for oppo research on trump: REAL SHIT.

Literally me. After all, it's okay if Republicans do dodgy shit.

[Lord Dave]

http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2017/10/30/560816481/trumps-former-foreign-policy-advisor-pleads-guilty-to-lying-to-the-fbi

Whoops.
Lying to the FBI... why would such honest business folk do that?

Also, Trump's comments are just fun to read.

"This happened years ago..."
As though that suddenly makes it better.

Maybe we should use that for Hillary...

"That happened years ago..."

[garygreen]

Literally me. After all, it's okay if Republicans do dodgy shit.

fwiw i wasn't taking a shot at you

even though you're a freedom-hater who hates freedom.  i bet you're not even american.

[Pete Svarrior]

fwiw i wasn't taking a shot at you

even though you're a freedom-hater who hates freedom.  i bet you're not even american.

Oh, I know you weren't. I'm just poking fun at myself. On a serious note, I do find it funny that Hillary's campaign was in collusion with the Russians, given how a major part of her book is about how the Russians were 100% against her.

[Shifter]

http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2017/10/30/560816481/trumps-former-foreign-policy-advisor-pleads-guilty-to-lying-to-the-fbi

Whoops.
Lying to the FBI... why would such honest business folk do that?

Also, Trump's comments are just fun to read.

"This happened years ago..."
As though that suddenly makes it better.

Maybe we should use that for Hillary...

"That happened years ago..."

Way to take it out of context. I'm going to bet his 'years ago' reference was to do with the fact that it was before Trump had anything to do with being or running for President. So the insinuation that Trump did anything illegal in relation to these charges is nonsensical

Hillary has always been dirty, she should be locked up on any number of reasons.

I don't support Trump either by the way. He is an uncouth drongo undeserving of the highest office. I simply have no political bias to tell me what to think or which 'side' to support.

[Lord Dave]

http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2017/10/30/560816481/trumps-former-foreign-policy-advisor-pleads-guilty-to-lying-to-the-fbi

Whoops.
Lying to the FBI... why would such honest business folk do that?

Also, Trump's comments are just fun to read.

"This happened years ago..."
As though that suddenly makes it better.

Maybe we should use that for Hillary...

"That happened years ago..."

Way to take it out of context. I'm going to bet his 'years ago' reference was to do with the fact that it was before Trump had anything to do with being or running for President. So the insinuation that Trump did anything illegal in relation to these charges is nonsensical

Hillary has always been dirty, she should be locked up on any number of reasons.

I don't support Trump either by the way. He is an uncouth drongo undeserving of the highest office. I simply have no political bias to tell me what to think or which 'side' to support.

You mean how it went on during the campaign?  Which was the whole reason why he lied to the FBI: To prevent the FBI from thinking he was talking with Russian contacts while working on Trump's campaign.  It says so in his guilty plea.

Also: The context is that Trump is claiming that the charges and crimes are old and that we should be focusing on Hillary clinton and the Democrats.  BUT Hillary Clinton's charges (which have been investigated already) were from what... 2012?  Years ago.

I see no reason why the FBI should not charge someone for crimes if they have evidence of a crime.  Trump is literally saying "Don't waste your time investigating a crime that happened for someone I'm connected to, investigate the crime of someone I don't like and isn't president and has very little political power..."

He is trying to downplay the charges while also pointing the finger at his opposition.


Also:
Where, in any of this, am I insinuating Trump of doing anything illegal?  No where.  I have no idea how you even came to that very biased conclusion.
Far as I can tell, he had no idea what was going on and is likely an ignorant puppet who just said "Yeah, that's great" whenever someone said "Hey, I can help you win, just let me do what I want."

[honk]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/politics/wp/2017/10/31/historians-respond-to-john-kellys-civil-war-remarks-strange-sad-wrong/

lol

[Lord Dave]

https://www.cnbc.com/2017/11/01/trump-reportedly-demanding-tax-reform-bill-be-the-cut-cut-cut-act.html


I'm just shocked he didn't name it the
Tax Reform of Ultimate Major Prosperity.

[Lord Dave]

And the final bill name is...

The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act.
*The bill itself is linked in the opinion written by the Republicans below:
https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2017/11/02/rep-peter-roskam-helping-middle-income-americans-editorials-debates/827421001/

Long story short:
Lots of deductions get killed.
Some get bumped up.
Corporate tax gets cut big time.
Tax brackets are removed.

BUT about 50% of Americans pay no taxes anyway so this won't actually help them.  Bumping up the standard deduction sounds great until you realize that the standard deduction pretty much covered your whole tax bill anyway. 
This really only helps families making $100k a year and have little debt.

[Roundy]

I don't know. Apparently the upper middle class is hit by this hardest and the reasoning behind it makes sense to me.

https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2017-11-02/a-tax-plan-that-mostly-makes-sense

I myself fall more in the lower to middle middle class and I think based on what I have seen so far that I might benefit from this bill but I need to look more into the specifics of the thing to be sure.

I'm not going to weep because a lot of people who make a lot more money than me are going to have to pay a little bit more back to the government.

[Lord Dave]

http://www.npr.org/2017/11/03/561823285/trump-doesnt-remember-much-about-meeting-aide-who-pleaded-guilty
Reading that and found this little nugget:

On Thursday, Trump told an interviewer at WMAL radio in Washington that he was "very frustrated" by constraints on his ability to influence the federal law enforcement process.
"But you know, the saddest thing is that, because I'm the president of the United States, I am not supposed to be involved with the Justice Department," Trump said. "I'm not supposed to be involved with the FBI. I'm not supposed to be doing the kind of things that I would love to be doing."

The context is talking about politicizing the FBI and Justice Department.
Which shouldn't surprise anyone.  He didn't know his limitations as president and suddenly its "Why can't I have the FBI do what I say?  What do you mean I can't control the justice department like the security at my companies?"

[garygreen]

one thing i was super wrong about is how interesting this tax reform bill is gonna be.  less than a week ago i'd have said the odds of the gop passing any tax reform were literally 0.

and now democrats are running a slew of but mah national debt! ads.  this is weird.

[Lord Dave]

one thing i was super wrong about is how interesting this tax reform bill is gonna be.  less than a week ago i'd have said the odds of the gop passing any tax reform were literally 0.

and now democrats are running a slew of but mah national debt! ads.  this is weird.

Well, yeah.  I hope they run them in Red states cause that is literally what Republicans do when Dems have a budget and it works for them.  Not that I expect it'll matter.  The republicans could literally say "We've decided to make murder legal if it's a liberal" and they'd god damn cheer.

[garygreen]

on fox news sunday this morning paul ryan basically said the tax bill is net-neutral for most middle class families.  they'll get a higher standard deduction and lose a bunch of itemized deductions. 

but don't worry; paul ryan is "convinced" that we'll pay for the revenue loss with growth.  lol ask kansas how well that shit works.

The republicans could literally say "We've decided to make murder legal if it's a liberal" and they'd god damn cheer.

sure, there's a core group of folks on both sides who are like that, but if the party were a monolith, then obamacare would've been repealed.

this is just 2008 all over again, but it's republicans this time.  they win all the branches on a populist tide, and then suddenly they're faced with the reality that populism doesn't actually help you govern anything.

[Lord Dave]

on fox news sunday this morning paul ryan basically said the tax bill is net-neutral for most middle class families.  they'll get a higher standard deduction and lose a bunch of itemized deductions. 

but don't worry; paul ryan is "convinced" that we'll pay for the revenue loss with growth.  lol ask kansas how well that shit works.

The republicans could literally say "We've decided to make murder legal if it's a liberal" and they'd god damn cheer.

sure, there's a core group of folks on both sides who are like that, but if the party were a monolith, then obamacare would've been repealed.

this is just 2008 all over again, but it's republicans this time.  they win all the branches on a populist tide, and then suddenly they're faced with the reality that populism doesn't actually help you govern anything.

True but I'd still take the "I'll kill you to defend their right to go to the bathroom where they want" over "I'll kill you to prevent them from going to the bathroom except where I say."

[garygreen]

https://www.icij.org/investigations/paradise-papers/

well this is an interesting development

[Lord Dave]

As is this.


https://www.npr.org/2017/11/07/562348581/election-night-2017-close-virginia-governors-race-could-offer-midterm-clues


Apparently, if you lose, you aren't Trump enough.

[Roundy]

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/08/us/politics/suburbs-revolt-trump-republicans-congress.html

I have to say I'm more optimistic about Dems' chances next year than I was before these elections. Maybe there's hope after all. And if Hillary wises up and stays out of the next presidential election maybe there will be hope then too.

[Pete Svarrior]

Joe Biden 2024 we can do it merica

[Lord Dave]

Joe Biden 2024 we can do it merica

What about 2020?