Lock Him Up
Former Trump National Security Adviser Michael Flynn has turned himself in to the FBI and is expected to plead guilty to lying to them.
Just to remind you how we got where we are today:
They are having so much fun in this video, reveling in the idea that Hillary Clinton is an evil cartoon character. Note: Clinton has never been charged with a crime.
Flynn lied to the FBI about deals he made with the Russians as US National Security Adviser. If you think this Russian investigation is not going to go right through the heart of the Presidency, think again. There is a big plea deal in action here, and Flynn is obviously talking.
Note that President Trump has still not implemented the Russian sanctions, as Flynn promised them.
Just to remind you how we got where we are today:
They are having so much fun in this video, reveling in the idea that Hillary Clinton is an evil cartoon character. Note: Clinton has never been charged with a crime.
Flynn lied to the FBI about deals he made with the Russians as US National Security Adviser. If you think this Russian investigation is not going to go right through the heart of the Presidency, think again. There is a big plea deal in action here, and Flynn is obviously talking.
Note that President Trump has still not implemented the Russian sanctions, as Flynn promised them.
posted by JimK at 11:23 AM
289 Comments:
Yeah, this is pretty sweet alright!
Good anonymous said "Insanity = doing the same thing over and expecting a different outcome"
Wyatt/bad anonymous said "like when JFK cut taxes and caused an economic boom?
Its a a myth that Kennedy was a tax cutter. He advocated cutting taxes in a very specific circumstance - reducing the top tax rate from 91% to "a more sensible" 65%. If you loved Kennedy so much you shouldn't be wining about a 35% tax rate, you should be demanding a tax increase to 65%
Wyatt/bad anonymous said "or when Reagan cut the marginal rate and American growth dazzled the world and unemployment plummeted for twenty-five years?".
LOL, that lie's a whopper!
Reagan nearly tripled the federal budget deficit. During the Reagan years, the debt increased to nearly $3 trillion, “roughly three times as much as the first 80 years of the century had done altogether.” Reagan enacted a major tax cut his first year in office and government revenue dropped off precipitously. Despite the conservative myth that tax cuts somehow increase revenue, the government went deeper into debt and Reagan had to raise taxes just a year after he enacted his tax cut. Despite ten more tax hikes on everything from gasoline to corporate income, Reagan was never able to get the deficit under control.
Reagan nearly tripled the federal budget deficit. During the Reagan years, the debt increased to nearly $3 trillion, “roughly three times as much as the first 80 years of the century had done altogether.” Reagan enacted a major tax cut his first year in office and government revenue dropped off precipitously. Despite the conservative myth that tax cuts somehow increase revenue, the government went deeper into debt and Reagan had to raise taxes just a year after he enacted his tax cut. Despite ten more tax hikes on everything from gasoline to corporate income, Reagan was never able to get the deficit under control
Unemployment soared after Reagan’s 1981 tax cuts. Unemployment jumped to 10.8 percent after Reagan enacted his much-touted tax cut, and it took years for the rate to get back down to its previous level. Meanwhile, income inequality exploded. Despite the myth that Reagan presided over an era of unmatched economic boom for all Americans, Reagan disproportionately taxed the poor and middle class, but the economic growth of the 1980′s did little help them. “Since 1980, median household income has risen only 30 percent, adjusted for inflation, while average incomes at the top have tripled or quadrupled,” the New York Times’ David Leonhardt noted.
Wyatt/bad anonymous said "btw, cutting the marginal corporate rate so that it's not the highest on the world hasn't been tried".
Another tired Republican lie. There are two other countries with higher tax rates than the U.S. when you consider the marginal rate by itself. And of course when you take into account the loopholes and tax deductions the U.S. marginal rate is around 25% which is about middle of the pack in economically developed countries. - its simply a lie that the U.S. has the highest tax rate in the world. Republican policies greatly increase the income gap between the rich and the poor.
And of course we can't forget the massive tax cuts in Kansas that were supposed to unleash fantastic economic growth and turned out to be a disaster for that state. And the high tax rates under Clinton which was an economic boom time.
And all of this is based on the notion that cutting taxes will unleash so much economic growth that federal revenue will grow enough to offset the loss of revenue from lower taxes. But the Congressional Research Service went all the way back to WW II and found that there is no correlation at all between marginal tax rates and economic growth. There simply is no evidence that cutting taxes does anything but reduce federal revenue.
http://www.cbpp.org/cms/index.cfm?fa=view&id=3936
Policymakers in a number of states including Arkansas, Kansas, Missouri, North Carolina, Ohio, and Wisconsin are promoting deep cuts in personal income taxes as a prescription for economic growth — an approach that has not worked particularly well in the past and is not supported by the preponderance of the relevant academic literature.
States that enacted major personal income tax cuts in the 2000s, before the most recent recession hit, were as likely to lose economic ground as to gain it.
⦁ Of the six states that enacted large personal income tax cuts in the years before the recession, three states saw their economies grow more slowly than the nation’s in subsequent years, and the other three saw their economies grow more quickly.
⦁ The three that grew quickly are all major oil-producing states that benefitted from a sharp rise in oil prices in the years after they implemented their tax cuts. In other words, all of the lesser- and non-oil-producing states that enacted big personal income tax cuts in the 2000s grew more slowly than the national average.
Similarly, the biggest tax cutting states of the 1990s — all of which enacted substantial personal income tax cuts — also did not perform particularly well in later years.
⦁ States with the biggest 1990s tax cuts grew jobs during the next economic cycle at an average rate one-third the rate of states that were more cautious.
⦁ The biggest tax-cutting states also had slower income growth. In none of these states did personal income growth in the next economic cycle exceed inflation.
"Insanity = doing the same thing over and expecting a different outcome"
Stocks fall sharply on report that Michael Flynn was directed by Trump to talk to Russians
Stocks fell Friday on a report that Michael Flynn was directed by President Trump to talk to Russians.
ABC News reported that Flynn, the former national security adviser, would testify that he was directed to make contact with the Russians.
Joy Lin ✔
@joyindc
ABC News’ @BrianRoss reports that Flynn is prepared to testify President Trump directed him to make contact with Russians https://twitter.com/ThisWeekABC/status/936626221873487872 …
11:02 AM - Dec 1, 2017
In a statement, Flynn said he agreed to "cooperate with the Special Counsel's Office reflect a decision I made in the best interests of my family and of our country."
"If you believe the market has been rallying in the last 13 months [on Trump, this report] potentially unravels all of that," said Jeremy Klein, chief market strategist at FBN Securities. "Markets don't like uncertainty and this is the ultimate uncertainty."
The major averages hit their session lows on the report, with the Dow Jones industrial average briefly dropping more than 300 points before trading 160 points lower.
The S&P 500 shed 1.6 percent as industrials and financials fell 2.1 percent and 1.8 percent, respectively. The Nasdaq composite lagged, dropping 1.7 percent
Gold and Treasuries spiked higher following the ABC report as investors fled to market safe havens.
"It comes down to did trump obstruct justice in any way," said Peter Boockvar, chief market analyst at The Lindsey Group. "It's another potential political blindside. We've gotten a lot of those," he said....
https://www.cnbc.com/2017/12/01/us-stock-futures-data-opec-tax-on-the-agenda.html
actually, it was well-known that Flynn lied about this
probably the delay in charging him was because Mueller was trying to find more to charge him with and couldn't
notice that he is not being charged with assuring Russians that Trump didn't favor sanctions
that's because there was nothing wrong with that
Trump was President-elect and he needed to begin establishing relations with the Russians
Obama, as a lame duck in the period between election and inauguration, should have consulted with Trump and known that the new administration didn't support these sanctions
after all, sanctions with an expiration are pretty meaningless and, let's face it, Obama was making a political move more targeted at the GOP than Russia
it's actually inane to drop sanctions on Russia every time we find out, shockingly, that they try to influence elections in our country
lots of other parties, both foreign and domestic, are doing the same
the logical response is simply to expose it
btw, our nation has a long history of doing the same in other countries
the Mueller investigation is a farce
it was set up to investigate something that is not a crime
so far, it has indicted four people
two for actions they took long before becoming involved in the Trump campaign
two for lying to investigators
things that wouldn't have happened if the bogus investigations weren't going on
time for Mueller to report on what he's found, which is nothing, and fold this up
btw, I went to the National Tree Lighting at the White House last night
Trump was introduced by a National Park ranger as the man who brought "Merry Christmas" back to America
the crowd went wild!
Merry Christmas
wyatt/bad anonymous said "
Trump was introduced by a National Park ranger as the man who brought "Merry Christmas" back to America the crowd went wild!".
LOL, see the link above.
MSNBC Trolls Trump On “Merry Christmas” [VIDEO]
November 30, 2017 Idiocracy, Politics
The Hill reports:
MSNBC trolled President Trump’s claim that he is bringing back the “Merry Christmas” tradition on Wednesday by airing an edited compilation of clips that show former President Barack Obama and his wife Michelle Obama wishing the country “Merry Christmas” while he served in office.
“As we approach the end of the year we got to thinking, ‘Did Donald Trump really bring Christmas Back to the White House?’” said host Chris Hayes, on MSNBC’s “All In with Chris Hayes,” before rolling the clip.
"Donald Trump is claiming victory in the War on Christmas, saying he brought "Merry Christmas" back to the white house. We found plenty of evidence proving him wrong..."
Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha!
The Republican plan is to build a wall to keep out rapists while sending child molesters to Congress.
""Donald Trump is claiming victory in the War on Christmas, saying he brought "Merry Christmas" back to the white house. We found plenty of evidence proving him wrong..."
Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha!"
Priya is obviously someone that needs to get over themself
Priya the remarks you make here seem like something an imbecile would say
have you received any education?
any at all?
Roy Moore got all upset that Jimmy Kimmel challenged him on his child molestation so he challenged Kimmel to a fight.
Kimmel To Roy Moore: Not Only Will I Fight You, I’ll Wear A Girl Scout Uniform So You Can Get Excited
“I think you’re actually going to like this, Roy. I’m going to come to Gadsden, Ala., with a team of high school cheerleaders, okay? We’ll meet you at the mall. Don’t worry, I can get you in. And then when the girls and I show up, if you can control yourself and behave, if you can somehow manage to keep little Roy in your little cowboy pants when those nubile cheerleaders come bounding in, you and I, we’ll sit down at the food court, we’ll have a little Panda Express and we’ll talk about Christian values.
“So if you are challenging me to a fight, here’s what we’ll do. Let’s find a place to do it. I’ll wear a Girl Scout uniform so you can have something to get excited about. And the winner, whoever wins the fight, will give all the money we charge for the tickets to charity. My charity will be the women who came forward to say you molested them, okay? Alright, tough guy, with your little pistol?” – Jimmy Kimmel, on last night’s show.
Trump Invites Reporters To ‘Holiday Reception’ Despite Promise To Say Christmas If Elected
The invitation reads: "The President and Mrs. Trump request the pleasure of your company at a Holiday Reception to be held at the White House On Friday, December, 4, 2017 at two o'clock."
Melania Trump, announcing her decorating: "Like many families across the country, holiday traditions are very important to us. I hope when visiting the People's House this year, visitors will get a sense of being home for the holidays."
Mmm hmmm.
Listen -- nobody ever told you that you can't say "Merry Christmas." But even so, apparently believing the rightwing meme, the Trumps are afraid to say it.
Stupid Wyatt says the government should cut taxes but then defends the Republican move to raise his taxes.
Hahahahahahahahahahahahaha!
The strong consensus among economists is that the Republican tax cut bill will balloon the deficit because they won’t pay for the revenue decrease, but Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin has promised Congress that his agency will produce an analysis that shows that it does. That analysis, it turns out, does not exist and Sen. Elizabeth Warren has filed a complaint with the agency’s Inspector General over it.
On Thursday, the Treasury’s inspector general said it was opening an inquiry into the department’s analysis of the tax plan. The inquiry was in response to a request from Senator Elizabeth Warren, Democrat of Massachusetts, who called for the inspector general to investigate political meddling in the tax policy office after The New York Times reported on the lack of a Treasury analysis.
“Either the Treasury Department has used extensive taxpayer funds to conduct economic analyses that it refuses to release because those analyses would contradict the Treasury secretary’s claims, or Secretary Mnuchin has grossly misled the public about the extent of the Treasury Department’s analysis,” Ms. Warren wrote in a letter to the agency’s watchdog. “I am deeply concerned about either possibility.”
The Congressional Budget Office says it will increase the debt. The Senate Joint Taxation Committee says it will increase the debt. Virtually every economist says it will increase the debt. But they’re rushing to vote on it anyway, despite promises that it would not do so. And that analysis that Mnuchin promised would be produced apparently doesn’t exist at all:
Mr. Mnuchin has promised that Treasury will release its analysis in full. Yet, as the full Senate prepares to vote on a sweeping tax rewrite, the administration has yet to produce the type of economic analysis that it is citing as a reason to pass the tax cut.
Those inside Treasury’s Office of Tax Policy, which Mr. Mnuchin has credited with running the models, say they have been largely shut out of the process and are not working on the type of detailed analysis that he has mentioned.
When he promised that analysis, Mnuchin told a Senate committee, “We want complete visibility.” Like most promises from the Trump administration, it just magically faded away. This is very standard Trump behavior. How many times has he responded to something by saying “soon you’ll see” or “we have a big announcement coming on this” only to have nothing happen at all. He just waits for the media to move on to another subject, where he can make more false claims and promises.
BREAKING: Flynn Will Testify Against Trump, Says Trump Ordered Him To Collude With Russia [VIDEO]
HOLY CRAP.
ABC News reports that Michael Flynn promised “full cooperation to the Mueller team” and is prepared to testify that as a candidate, Donald Trump “directed him to make contact with the Russians.”
So much for Trump's repeated claims that there was no contact with the Russians by anyone on his team during the election.
"HOLY CRAP.
ABC News reports that Michael Flynn promised “full cooperation to the Mueller team” and is prepared to testify that as a candidate, Donald Trump “directed him to make contact with the Russians.”
So much for Trump's repeated claims that there was no contact with the Russians by anyone on his team during the election."
would someone get Priya an education?
"contact" and "collusion" aren't the same, not even close
it has long been established that people "on his team" had contacts with Russians
there's really nothing wrong with talking to Russians
then, the whole story today that Flynn told Russians Trump would cancel sanctions and Russia didn't retaliate based on that is portrayed by the media has some bombshell revelations
this was already well-known and reported on
Obama decided to impose sanctions a couple of weeks before the inauguration
during this transition period, he should have consulted with Trump to see if he concurred
Obama didn't, of course, because his concern was political, not what's best for the country
kinda like the uneducated foreigner from Canada that is the main contributor to this social media platform
if TTFers think Russians should be banned from posting on social media platforms to influence our politics, why do they let another foreigner do it?
sounds hypocritical, a key characteristic of the American liberal
you know, the ones with all that education
haha!!
Rick Wiles: Sex Scandals Are the Fault of People “Acting Like Godless Heathens”
Right-wing conspiracy theorist Rick Wiles said on his show last night that all the sexual harassment and assault charges we’re reading about in the news the result of our society turning more godless.
I guess he’s never heard of Roy Moore.
“The left has viciously waged a war against Christianity in America for over 50 years,” he said. “You, the left, you demanded that children not read the Bible in schools. You demanded that nobody in public schools pray to Jesus Christ. You, the left, you demanded the removal of the Christian cross and Ten Commandments from public buildings and town squares and city parks. You, the left, you demanded a godless secular society, void of biblical morality.”
“You arrogantly mocked on television God-fearing Christians, the Holy Bible and morality,” Wiles said. “You demanded a godless society. Well, you got it. All these allegations of sexual misconduct are the byproduct of your godless society. You ripped out of America’s heart her affections for God and His Holy Bible. Why are you now indignant that people are acting like godless heathens?”
When the premise is so wrong, it’s no surprise his conclusion is as well. Atheists never demanded children don’t read the Bible in school; they wanted forced Bible readings to end. They didn’t demand nobody pray; they wanted forced prayers to end. They’re not demanding the outright removal of Ten Commandment monuments as long as local governments allow all other non-Christian monuments, too.
And godless societies are often the happiest, most well-educated, low-crime, healthiest places on Earth. We’re doing just fine without the infestation of biblical morality like the kind exhibited by [insert scandal-plagued Christian here].
If sexual misconduct was the byproduct of a godless society, then churches and heavily religious communities ought to be the most scandal-free places in America. They’re not. They’re as bad as, if not worse than, everybody else.
The difference is that I see a hell of a lot of atheists (and liberals in general) condemning harassment and assault. Conservative Christians, on the other hand, continue supporting people like Moore despite credible allegations of pedophilia.
I guess that’s just the biblical morality talking.
Before you can establish there was collusion, you have to establish there was contact.
Flynn has promised full cooperation to the Mueller team, is prepared to testify that candidate Trump "directed him to make contact with the Russians, and "is prepared to testify...against Pres. Trump, against members of the Trump family, and others in the White House."
And now Trump has cancelled today's press event and all of a sudden his lawyer, Ty Cobb, is referring to Trump's National Security Advisor as some sort of Johnny-come-lately.
""Today, Michael Flynn, a former National Security Adviser at the White House for 25 days during the Trump administration, and a former Obama administration official, entered a guilty plea to a single count of making a false statement to the FBI," Cobb said in his statement."
"Trump was introduced by a National Park ranger as the man who brought "Merry Christmas" back to America"
http://www.msnbc.com/all-in/watch/debunked-trump-s-claim-obama-didn-t-say-merry-christmas-1106457667627
"Mele kalikimaka" as they say in Kenya.
James Comey✔
@Comey
“But justice roll down like waters and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream” Amos 5:24
https://www.instagram.com/p/BcKtEUUg4Qa/
12:01 PM - Dec 1, 2017
"Mueller was trying to find more to charge him with and couldn't"
Au contraire Mueller and Flynn made a deal, a plea deal.
Maybe even uneducated you has heard of them.
The plea bargain (also plea agreement, plea deal, copping a plea, or plea in mitigation) is any agreement in a criminal case between the prosecutor and defendant whereby the defendant agrees to plead guilty to a particular charge in return for some concession from the prosecutor. This may mean that the defendant will plead guilty to a less serious charge, or to one of the several charges, in return for the dismissal of other charges; or it may mean that the defendant will plead guilty to the original criminal charge in return for a more lenient sentence.
The fact that he is facing only one charge is an indication that Flynn is offering significant cooperation and information that could further Mueller’s investigation.
"That's the art of the deal.
When Obama said not to hire Flynn, Trump was hell-bent to give him the job.
Well played, Barack!
Ty Cobb - Flynn was “at the White House for 25 days during the Trump Administration, and a former Obama administration official.”
ROFL
Mike "Coffee Boy" Flynn
Yeah, too bad he was charged about what Trump ordered him to do and not what Obama did.
it's not that Flynn was lying. It's not that Flynn was caught lying. It's because Flynn became publicly KNOWN to be caught lying, that he was canned by Trump!
Lock them ALL up!!!!
Its now CONFIRMED that Flynn asked the Russian ambassador to delay Russia's response to Obama's sanctions, which is itself a crime. President elect Trump gave us good reason to believe he was witting of what Flynn was up to:
@realDonaldTrump
"Great move on delay(by V. Putin) - I always knew he was very smart!"
Is it any coincidence that Tillerson eliminated the key State Department sanctions office? The move came after President Trump’s administration missed an Oct. 1 deadline on implementing new sanctions against Russia passed in a bipartisan effort by Congress.
And all this fresh on the news that Trump pressured the Senate Intelligence Committe members to terminate their investigation into Russia collusion - that's obstruction of justice.
House Judiciary ranking member Jerry Nadler: "There is now more than enough evidence to form the basis of a congressional investigation into the President's obstruction of justice - and it is long past time that the House Committee on the Judiciary engage on this matter."
There aren't many people above Mike Flynn in the food chain and when you look at not just the charges he plead guilty to but all the stuff he was not charged with and could have been, that indicates that Flynn is of extreme value to Bob Mueller and his Russia investigation. You know Mueller had a very valuable proffer on what Flynn was offering or he wouldn't have made this very very generous agreement with Flynn.
Judge Napolitano on @FoxNews right now about the Flynn charges: "This is probably the tip of a prosecutorial iceberg. This is a nightmare for Donald Trump."
Fox News Special Report! Hillary Clinton doesn't like cranberry sauce! Why does Hillary hate Christmas and what does this mean for the country going forward!
Wyatt/bad anonymous said "Mueller was trying to find more to charge him with and couldn't".
LOL, he could have charged him with several more things from acting as an unregistered foreign agent for both Turkey and Russia, to money laundering, to conspiring to kidnap and illegally remove from the country an American citizen Turkey's president offered to pay him millions for. And Flynn's son could have been charged with similar crimes.
Obviously Mueller got a lot of information from Flynn that will be valuable in going after people above Flynn in the food chain and that's why Mueller let him off lightly given all the crimes he and his son had commmitted.
The United States is in a really dangerous period now that should raise concerns amongst Americans for the direction of their country. The United States appears to be in decline. They have a tough time just governing the country which begain with Republicans taking the postition that government is the enemy and they want to blow it up. They've made government very dysfunctional, there's a lot of divisions in terms of Americans hates and fears and prejudices and the mere fact that this president continues to tweet and lie and undermine the whole process of government all feeds into the concern that the United States is in a downward spiral. A lot will be determined in the next few months depending on what path Americans take.
The future of the United States is in the hands of the Republican Congress. If over the next several months they continue to look the other way on Trump's corruption and enable his ongoing attack on truth the American public's trust in the institutions necessary for democracy like a free press may be irrevocably damaged setting the country in a free for all of the rich against the poor (which the poor will lose) which will see a downward spiral that may last for decades.
I for one don't have high hopes that the Republican Congress is up to the challenge of saving the country from Trump's post truth attack on the American democracy.
It was on this day in 1955 when a simple act of defiance elevated a seamstress in Montgomery, Alabama, into a pivotal symbol in America's civil rights movement.
On December 1, 1955, Rosa Parks refused to move to the back of a city bus. Little did the 42-year-old know that her act would help end segregation laws in the South.
She was on her way home from work that evening and took a seat in the front of the black section of a city bus in Montgomery.
The bus filled up, and the bus driver demanded she move so a white male passenger could have her seat.
But Parks refused to give up her seat, and police arrested her. Four days later, Parks was convicted of disorderly conduct.
The events triggered a 381-day boycott of the bus system by blacks that was organized by a 26-year-old Baptist minister, the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.
The boycott led to a Supreme Court ruling that desegregated public transportation in Montgomery. But it wasn't until the 1964 Civil Rights Act that all public accommodations nationwide were desegregated.
Parks died at age 92 in October 2005.
if TTFers think Russians should be banned from posting on social media platforms to influence our politics
Where'd ya get that, anon?
Oh yeah, you made it up.
If the president wasn't immune from prosecution Trump would be going to jail.
latest polls show only 22% of Minnesotans want Fraanken to stay in office
yikes, Dems, yikes!!
Now that the Senate has passed the tax reform bill, let's look at some of the Priya-crap this week:
"Its a a myth that Kennedy was a tax cutter. He advocated cutting taxes in a very specific circumstance - reducing the top tax rate from 91% to "a more sensible" 65%."
only in TTFland would someone who drops the tax rate 26 points not be a tax cutter
of course, this is the same crowd that has swallowed the Russian hoax whole
now, in our currrent "very specific" circumstance (are circumstances ever general?), where we make ourselves non-competitive by overtaxing corporations, we will reduce our corporate rate 15 points
in Priya-crap TTFland, we must not be cutting taxes then
uh, Priya, in what institution of higher learning did you get the basics of economics?
well, Priya has been really loading up the crap this week so there's a lot to go through but that takes care of the first one
more to come later
oh, btw, you people are also deluded about the Flynn thing
other than things related to the investigation itself, no one will be indicted because no crimes were committed, and none have been alleged
the Mueller investigation is a pointless waste of our nation's time and energy
moreover, Mueller's tactics should preclude him from any further government work
breaking into Manafort's apartment while he and his wife slept and frisking her while she lay in bed
and why?
Manafort was indicted on some pretty dubious charges
this is not a police state
btw, this blog seem to go into a meltdown when I mentioned I went to the tree lighting Thursday evening and heard Trump introduced as the man who brought "Merry Christmas" back to America
I didn't mention something that will really freak out the lunatic fringe here:
Trump also gave a new little message about the significance of Jesus
he was respecting the establishment of religion
that's fine
he isn't a lawmaker and the Constitution only forbids laws from doing that, not the executive branch
I think the ceremony will be on TV Monday if you want to watch, and learn some facts
Anon, nobody cares if Trump said Merry Christmas or talked about Jesus. He can do that if he wants.
He seems to believe that somebody has said you can't say "Merry Christmas" any more, and that is just a lie. Half the time he is afraid to say it himself, apparently fearing some blowback about "political correctness," which is his own delusion.
He can say Merry Christmas, just like Obama always did -- there is no problem, and he is not making any point by saying the same thing every other President said at the Christmas tree lighting.
knock-knock
who's there?
orange
orange who?
orange ya glad the Senate overturned the Obamacare mandate?
haha!
Priya posted some fake news yesterday:
"HOLY CRAP.
ABC News reports that Michael Flynn promised “full cooperation to the Mueller team” and is prepared to testify that as a candidate, Donald Trump “directed him to make contact with the Russians.”
As usual, the mainstream backtracked later, a common pattern after causing damage with their reckless lack of simple QC on their reports:
"ABC News on Friday corrected a news report about Michael Flynn, the former White House official who pleaded guilty to giving a false statement to the FBI, which sparked a feeding frenzy and ricocheted across markets.
Earlier in the day, ABC cited an unnamed source saying Flynn was prepared to testify that he made overtures to the Russian ambassador at Trump's behest, while the heated presidential contest was underway.
Yet Friday evening, the network backtracked, saying Flynn would likely state that Trump's instructions occurred after the election. That distinction effectively altered the timeline and lessened the significance of the discussions."
The ABC news report caused the stock market to tumble. Will ABC reimburse investors like union pension funds and other retiree investments? Is Priya yet another foreigner disseminating fake news on our country's social media?
Actually, I wouldn't blame Priya too much. Lacking much education, Priya doesn't have a critical capacity to evaluate these things. Priya can't be held responsible for actual thinking.
Ya can't blame Priya.
Priya's just a liberal!
Warts and all, if I were a voting member of Congress, I would certainly cast a “yea” vote for the tax-cut plan passed by the Senate and House and headed for conference (to work out minor differences) in the weeks ahead.
These bills are not perfect, especially on the individual side. But the business tax cuts will generate an investment boom in the years ahead. And those cuts will bring economic growth back to its historical norm of 3 to 4 percent.
Incredibly, the Joint Tax Committee (JTC) scored growth for the Senate plan at less than 1 percent. So much for their “dynamic” model. The Tax Foundation estimates 3 to 5 percent growth over the next ten years. That’s more like it, but it’s still too low.
Look, the central cause of the 2 percent real-GDP growth slump over the past 17 years has been a lack of capital formation, with virtually no real business investment, flattened productivity, and barely any increase in real workforce wages.
Yet the tax plans under discussion -- which go back to the work of Steve Moore, Steven Mnuchin, Stephen Miller, Art Laffer, Steve Forbes, and myself -- are remarkably similar to the Trump campaign draft on the business side.
So I can say with confidence that the current tax package is directly aimed at reducing the current high tax cost of capital and increasing after-tax returns from investment.
Incentives matter. If it pays more after tax to build new capital stock and generate more business-equipment investment, people will do so. This is standard economics.
There may be disagreements on the numerical effects, but the principle has worked in the past (JFK and Reagan) and will work in the future.
A 20 percent corporate tax rate, immediate full expensing, repatriation of U.S. corporate cash overseas, and a 23 percent discount for sub-chapter S pass-throughs (much credit to Senator Ron Johnson for this) will generate way more growth and investment than mainstream forecasters suggest.
At various times, President Trump has talked about 3 percent, 4 percent, and even 5 percent growth. Despite the dreary mainstream models, I believe the president will turn out to be correct.
What’s more, faster economic growth will generate much higher tax revenues. From businesses to investors to entrepreneurial startups, less tax avoidance and sheltering will raise revenues far beyond the standard consensus estimate.
Supply-siders like myself always buck the trend on pricing out lower tax rates. But again, we were right in the ’60s, ’80s, and ’90s, running against the tide. So I suggest history will repeat itself.
By the way, in terms of the revenue hunt going on in Congress, I wish somebody would look at the lowball estimates compiled by the JTC with respect to repatriation. The JTC estimates $25 billion in 2018, $21 billion in 2019, and $6 billion to $7 billion in the three years following. This is nuts.
Assuming about $3 trillion coming back home at an average tax rate of 10 percent, that’s $300 billion in new revenues -- way beyond the JTC estimate. And that’s conservative. It could be $350 billion in the first year or two -- substantially more revenue and a way bigger pay-for than the JTC predicts.
And there’s more on the dynamic side. Booming stock market gains of roughly $6 trillion of late could generate another $600 billion or $700 billion in revenues from capital gains, and hundreds of billions of dollars more in dividends, which generate massive revenue increases.
None of this is scored. The government forecasters don’t understand international flows and the interactions of stocks, capital gains, and dividends. Their estimates are probably several trillion revenue dollars short.
Sure, there are things on the individual side that should be changed. Personal tax rates should be much lower. A backdoor capital-gains tax hike on individual investors must be erased. And the proliferation of tax credits is inefficient and complex, with no marginal incentives to promote growth.
Yes, everybody likes kids. But not everyone has them. And a lot of people like dogs and cats. Shouldn’t they get tax credits, too? No. If you’re looking for more money in your pocket -- more take-home pay -- the best prescription is to slash personal tax rates for everyone.
(By the way, why didn’t Congress end the carried-interest loophole for private-equity firms?)
But here’s the crux of the matter: An investment boom generating much faster growth will benefit everyone. Small businesses, new businesses, investors, and wage earners will all prosper from a tax-cut-led investment boom.
Yes, a rising tide will lift all boats. The great news is that President Trump, the Senate, and the House are absolutely moving in the right direction, and gathering momentum on the way.
I’d vote for it. You should, too.
There will be no investment boom. Corporations have had record profits and are flush with cash, interest rates are low and if corporations wanted money to invest it would be readily available.
Surveys of CEO's show virtually none of them intend to invest any tax cut savings in new equipment, plants, or employees, almost all of them plan to take the tax cuts in terms of profits to the upper management and plan to use the extra money to buy back stock which will increase the value of the stock still held by upper management in the corporation.
Non-partisan bodies like the Congressional Budget Office have shown the Republican tax cuts will raise the national debt by at least 1 trillion and almost certainly 1.5 trillion dollars.
Republicans like Wyatt/bad anonymous have been falsely claiming the just passed tax cut won't increase the national debt. The plan is to force it through under that lie and then later all the "fiscal responsibility" Republicans will be saying we're all shocked to discover the national debt is rising rapidly, and we must do something about it in the form of cuts to Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid.
The cut is working exactly as planned as a multi-billion dollar per year wealth transfer from the poor and middle class to the richest Americans.
Republicans are evil.
"There will be no investment boom."
of course there will be
we are a capitalist society
"Surveys of CEO's show virtually none of them intend to invest any tax cut savings in new equipment, plants, or employees, almost all of them plan to take the tax cuts in terms of profits to the upper management and plan to use the extra money to buy back stock which will increase the value of the stock still held by upper management in the corporation."
you should check with an educated person before you draw conclusions from these type of surveys
you have a tendency toward gullibility
"Non-partisan bodies like the Congressional Budget Office have shown the Republican tax cuts will raise the national debt by at least 1 trillion and almost certainly 1.5 trillion dollars."
the CBO has to make certain assumptions in their analyses, which is why they're often wrong
ask an educated person about it
"Republicans like anonymous have been falsely claiming the just passed tax cut won't increase the national debt."
I'm not a Republican and I don't claim that
the projections are a fraction of Obama's contribution to the debt (which was more than all Presidents combined)
but we can make cut backs next year
first, we have to settle what revenue stream we'll have
"The cut is working exactly as planned as a multi-billion dollar per year wealth transfer from the poor and middle class to the richest Americans."
there you go again
massive amounts are transferred from the richest Americans to the poor now
calling a reversal of a small part of that a transfer is an extreme version of Orwellianism
maybe you should try getting a little education
btw, why is a foreigner so concerned about our internal tax structure?
I really don't care about Canada's
Wyatt/bad anonymous has wallowed in his lies so long he's starting to believe them.
Reagan nearly tripled the federal budget deficit. During the Reagan years, the debt increased to nearly $3 trillion, “roughly three times as much as the first 80 years of the century had done altogether.” Reagan enacted a major tax cut his first year in office and government revenue dropped off precipitously. Despite the conservative myth that tax cuts somehow increase revenue, the government went deeper into debt and Reagan had to raise taxes just a year after he enacted his tax cut. Despite ten more tax hikes on everything from gasoline to corporate income, Reagan was never able to get the deficit under control.
Unemployment soared after Reagan’s 1981 tax cuts. Unemployment jumped to 10.8 percent after Reagan enacted his much-touted tax cut, and it took years for the rate to get back down to its previous level. Meanwhile, income inequality exploded. Despite the myth that Reagan presided over an era of unmatched economic boom for all Americans, Reagan disproportionately taxed the poor and middle class, but the economic growth of the 1980′s did little help them. “Since 1980, median household income has risen only 30 percent, adjusted for inflation, while average incomes at the top have tripled or quadrupled,” the New York Times’ David Leonhardt noted.
Republican policies greatly increase the income gap between the rich and the poor and that's exactly what this tax cut is going to do again - transfer wealth from the poor and middle class to the rich who will put it into savings and essentially remove it from the economy. Less wealthy people spend all their money so if Republicans wanted to stimulate the economy they needed to raise taxes on the rich and cut taxes for lower income earners
And of course we can't forget the massive tax cuts in Kansas that were supposed to unleash fantastic economic growth and turned out to be a disaster for that state. And the high tax rates under Clinton which was an economic boom time.
And all of this is based on the notion that cutting taxes will unleash so much economic growth that federal revenue will grow enough to offset the loss of revenue from lower taxes. But the Congressional Research Service went all the way back to WW II and found that there is no correlation at all between marginal tax rates and economic growth. There simply is no evidence that cutting taxes does anything but reduce federal revenue.
Wyatt/bad anonymous said "btw, why is a foreigner so concerned about our internal tax structure? I really don't care about Canada's".
Unlike you I care about everyone on the planet and want them all to do well.
Republicans like you place loyalty to your tribe above all else so you try to benefit your tribe at everyone else's expense - you're evil and its my duty as a citizen of the world to oppose your hateful agenda.
History shows that when the gap between the rich and poor gets too large it leads to revolution and the destruction of the country.
Since 1980, median household income in the States has risen only 30 percent, adjusted for inflation, while average incomes at the top have tripled or quadrupled.
The United States is in a really dangerous period now that should raise concerns amongst Americans for the direction of their country. The United States appears to be in decline. They have a tough time just governing the country which begain with Republicans taking the postition that government is the enemy and they want to blow it up. They've made government very dysfunctional, there's a lot of divisions in terms of Americans hates and fears and prejudices and the mere fact that this president continues to tweet and lie and undermine the whole process of government all feeds into the concern that the United States is in a downward spiral.
Republican's continuing to widen the gap between the rich and the poor decade after decade will not end well for the U.S.
Stupid Wyatt/bad anonymous pretends to value lowering taxes but blindly defends Republicans' move to raise his own taxes.
Keep shooting yourself in the foot Wyatt and vote Republican.
Wyatt, you should donate all your disposable income to Trump given that you think the rich pay too much tax and the poor don't pay enough.
Psychological research shows Liberals value fairness above all else. Conservatives value tribal loyalty and purity above all else. That's why Wyatt/bad anonymous can't understand why Liberals are concerned about how everyone is doing. He can't understand how anyone could not see things the way he does. That's why he erroneously thinks "Most people lie all the time".
"Yes, a rising tide will lift all boats."
A rising tide can also cover dry land and leave destruction in its wake.
Been there, done that.
We all remember the Bush tax cuts and Bush's Great Recession.
Senate Republican meeting this morning:
"Before we discuss raising taxes on the poor and middle class, adding 1.5 trillion to the deficit, taking healh insurance away from 13 million, raising premiums by 10%, defending treason and swearing in a pedophile, let's begin with a prayer."
Treason's Greetings Trump!
We know the wealthy are the chief beneficiaries of this tax cut. According to the Tax Policy Center, the top 1 percent receive 34 percent of the corporate tax cut benefit, and the top 20 percent receive 70 percent of the benefit. Eliminating the estate tax only benefits those individuals with wealth exceeding $5 million ($10 million for married couples). Eliminating the alternative minimum tax gets rid of the very tax created to prevent the wealthy from getting away with paying no taxes at all. If it were removed in 2015, for example, Donald Trump would have been $31 million richer and taxed at 3.5 percent. By contrast, according to the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities, those with incomes below $75,000 will be paying higher taxes by 2027.
The only possible legitimation for such a blatantly inequitable tax is the claim that cutting taxes on corporations and the wealthy will produce investment and job growth; not surprisingly Trump claims the tax cut will produce 10.5 percent growth in GDP over 10 years. By contrast, the Urban/Brookings Tax Policy Center predicts 0.3 percent growth over 10 years. When the non-partisan Congressional Research Services tracked tax rates from 1945 to 2010, they found that cutting the top tax rates had no positive effect on economic growth or the growth of savings, investment or productivity. Corporate CEOs themselves have acknowledged that they would use new revenue to buy back shares, retire debt, and issue shareholder dividends – i.e., benefiting Wall Street and its clients, not Main Street where we live and work.
Only one of 38 economists polled by the University of Chicago believed economic growth would be “substantially higher” in 10 years because of the tax cut; all 38 believed the national debt would be substantially higher. According to the bipartisan Joint Committee on Taxation, the tax cut will produce roughly $1.4 trillion in new debt over the next 10 years.
We’ve been here before. Reagan-era tax cuts tripled the national debt over the 1980s, and G.W. Bush-era tax cuts added $1.5 trillion to the national debt. Each of these administrations also dramatically increased a bloated military budget while reducing programs that aid vulnerable Americans.
Therein lies the covert “benefit” of these soaring budget deficits. With military spending increasing, and popular entitlement programs like Social Security and Medicare typically impervious to budget cuts (though every indication is the Republicans will go after these in the coming months), and required interest payments on the national debt piling up, deficits have been used to justify cuts to a wide range of domestic programs, thereby depriving the nation of the ability to address such accelerating crises as disintegrating infrastructure, overburdened schools, costly and non-universal health care, and climate change.
So, when a Nov. 15 Quinnipiac poll shows two-thirds of the American public in opposition, why are these people pushing a tax cut that enriches the wealthy while debilitating the country as a whole? When asked, Rep. Chris Collins of New York declared, “My donors are basically saying. ‘Get it done or don’t ever call me again.’” Such is the rot eroding our democracy.
"I care about everyone on the planet and want them all to do well."
oh, yes
we have all witnessed your benevolent and kindly nature here on a daily basis
let me help you to rephrase your statement accurately:
"I care about everyone on the planet that I care about and, those I want to do well, I want them all to do well."
"Republicans like you place loyalty to your tribe above all else"
this is a new little bullshit phrase bouncing around the liberal agenda echo room, where Priya the Half-educated spends a lot of time, splashing in the crap
then, they decry Republicans who can't get legislation through Congress because their members have minds of their own and the Dems vote uniformly as a "tribe"
when was the last time you heard of a pro-life Dem?
there used to be many
they've had to change or be forced out of the "tribe"
"so you try to benefit your tribe at everyone else's expense - you're evil and its my duty as a citizen of the world to oppose your hateful agenda."
that's what Vladimir Putin says too
all the foreigners have an excuse for trying to interfere in our internal politics
I've always thought it's all part of the fun but what kind of f'ed Priya the Half-educated is to attack Putin
it's only a way to attack Trump who is not part of the "tribe" Priya the Half-educated believes to be part of
hahahahaha!!!!!
"History shows that when the gap between the rich and poor gets too large it leads to revolution and the destruction of the country."
in America, we believe the poor should be taken care of
we don't believe that the government is supposed to ensure that all outcomes are equivalent, regardless of effort or talent or contribution
that's called egalitarianism
it is evil, by definition, and has brought much suffering to the world
the American revolution was distinctly different than the French and Russian revolutions
Priya the Half-educated may not realize, but they have a mentality that led to the guillotine and the gulag
perhaps someday Priya will go to a school and take a lesson in world history
"The United States appears to be in decline."
It may appear that way to the uneducated but that was the mistake of our most poorly educated President, Obama, who did everything he could to diminish America
his era is over now
"anonymous pretends to value lowering taxes but blindly defends Republicans' move to raise his own taxes."
this is this is more bullshit bouncing around the liberal agenda echo room, where Priya the Half-educated spends a lot of time, splashing in the crap
so, Trump is horrible because his tax cuts will save him money
and others are horrible because it won't save them money
truth is, few people will see their taxes go up
none of the poor will, even though Priya the Half-educated keeps saying that
some upper middle class will but they live in New York and Caifornia
if they don't like it, they can lower their preposterously high state taxes
OK, one more and we'll call it a day:
"widen the gap between the rich and the poor"
the richest men in America are all liberal Dems
the tech billionaires like Gates and Bezos, who have milked Americans by overcharging for software and soared to ridiculous welath
and Warren Buffet, who made a fortune doing nothing
take way the liberal Dems and the gap between rich and poor narrows significantly
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The Extraordinary Chutzpah of Roy Moore and Donald Trump
The beams of hypocrisy radiating from Roy Moore are starting to shine brighter than the sun. The man who says we must protect the children against homosexuality but who tries to have sex with 14 year old girls also dares to invoke the memory of Rosa Parks on the anniversary of her famous protest, along with Donald Trump.
That either Trump or Moore would have the incredible chutzpah to invoke the memory of Rosa Parks is appalling but not the least bit surprising. Conservatives with serious racism issues just love to talk about liberal civil rights heroes like Parks and Martin Luther King and they continually try to coopt them to their side. This despite the fact that there can be no reasonable doubt whatsoever that had Moore been politically active in 1964, he would have been fighting against the civil rights movement.
How do I know this? First, because the arguments he has used to justify ignoring a federal court order to remove the Ten Commandments monument from the Alabama state courthouse were the exact same arguments used by George Wallace to justify ignoring a federal court order on desegregation. Second, because the political groups he is associated with were all on the other side of that issue at the time. And third, because they still are today. This is the same Roy Moore whose primary benefactor is Michael Peroutka, a longtime board member of the neo-Confederate, pro-slavery, white supremacist group the League of the South. And the same Roy Moore who allowed that same group to use his foundation’s building for their annual Secession Day celebration.
As for Trump, his own racism is very well documented. He dares to point to Rosa Parks as an example of someone fighting against discrimination after he was sued by, of all people, the Nixon administration for discriminating against black people in his own apartment complexes. And after being almost universally supported by white supremacists because much of his agenda is identical to theirs.
No. You don’t get to be racist douchebags and pretend to applaud the actions of a brave civil rights hero who stood for everything you stand against even 60 years later.
http://www.cbpp.org/cms/index.cfm?fa=view&id=3936
Policymakers in a number of states including Arkansas, Kansas, Missouri, North Carolina, Ohio, and Wisconsin are promoting deep cuts in personal income taxes as a prescription for economic growth — an approach that has not worked particularly well in the past and is not supported by the preponderance of the relevant academic literature.
States that enacted major personal income tax cuts in the 2000s, before the most recent recession hit, were as likely to lose economic ground as to gain it.
⦁ Of the six states that enacted large personal income tax cuts in the years before the recession, three states saw their economies grow more slowly than the nation’s in subsequent years, and the other three saw their economies grow more quickly.
⦁ The three that grew quickly are all major oil-producing states that benefitted from a sharp rise in oil prices in the years after they implemented their tax cuts. In other words, all of the lesser- and non-oil-producing states that enacted big personal income tax cuts in the 2000s grew more slowly than the national average.
Similarly, the biggest tax cutting states of the 1990s — all of which enacted substantial personal income tax cuts — also did not perform particularly well in later years.
⦁ States with the biggest 1990s tax cuts grew jobs during the next economic cycle at an average rate one-third the rate of states that were more cautious.
⦁ The biggest tax-cutting states also had slower income growth. In none of these states did personal income growth in the next economic cycle exceed inflation.
"Comment deleted
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December 03, 2017 5:09 PM"
Looks like Wyatt was getting "dispassionate" again.
Wyatt's a sore loser.
Hahahahahahahahahahahahaha!
oh, how sad the uneducated are when they try to speculate
Jim and I have a little joke going
every once in a while, I emphasize one of my brilliant posts by selecting a random word and posting it unadorned under "ha-ha"
Jim long ago told me that was moronic and he would delete it automatically
oh, but it was very passionate!
what an f'ing idiot you are
really, no joke
25 years of Democrats: 3 indictments, 1 conviction, 1 prison sentence.
28 years of Republicans: 120 indictments, 89 convictions, 34 prison sentences...so far.
"We know the wealthy are the chief beneficiaries of this tax cut."
obviously, it couldn't be the poor
the lower half of all Americans pay no income tax at all
just ask Billy Preston: nothing from nothing leaves nothing
"According to the Tax Policy Center, the top 1 percent receive 34 percent of the corporate tax cut benefit, and the top 20 percent receive 70 percent of the benefit. Eliminating the estate tax only benefits those individuals with wealth exceeding $5 million ($10 million for married couples). Eliminating the alternative minimum tax gets rid of the very tax created to prevent the wealthy from getting away with paying no taxes at all. If it were removed in 2015, for example, Donald Trump would have been $31 million richer and taxed at 3.5 percent. By contrast, according to the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities, those with incomes below $75,000 will be paying higher taxes by 2027."
by 2027?
the bill simply sunsets after ten years so it can qualify for reconciliation
it will be up to people in 2027 to tell their Congressmen to extend the tax cut
"The only possible legitimation for such a blatantly inequitable tax is the claim that cutting taxes on corporations"
the reason for the corporate rate reduction is that our tax rate is the highest in the industrial world
we are doing it to become competitive
everyone will benefit when corporations choose the US
"and the wealthy"
the estate tax is unjust
removing an injustice will "benefit" the victims
"We’ve been here before. Reagan-era tax cuts tripled the national debt over the 1980s, and G.W. Bush-era tax cuts added $1.5 trillion to the national debt."
the deficits of both of these Presidents combined are dwarfed by the debt created by Barack Obama's tax hikes
the tax bill is not perfect, but it improves our tax structure
1. makes our marginal corporate tax rate competitive
2. reduces the unfair estate tax
3. raises taxes only on upper middle class in Dem states like NY and California
4. does not tax the lower 49% of Americans
next year, we can focus on cutting spending to bring the deficits down
Australian lawmaker proposes to same-sex partner on floor of parliament
MELBOURNE (Reuters) - An Australian conservative politician on Monday proposed to his long-term partner on the floor of parliament, ahead of the expected passage of a measure for same sex couples to marry.
Australians overwhelmingly voted for same-sex marriage in a postal vote in September and a marriage equality bill that passed the senate last week is being debated in the lower house, where it is expected to pass this week.
Liberal member of parliament Tim Wilson proposed to his partner Ryan Bolger in the capital of Canberra, the two having already exchanged rings but having pledged to wait for the country to pass the legislation before they wed.
"This debate has been the soundtrack to our relationship," an emotional Wilson said to his partner, seated in parliament's public viewing area above.
"In our first speech I defined our bond by the ring that sits on both of our left hands, that they are the answer to the question we cannot ask. So there’s only one thing left to do - Ryan Patrick Bolger, will you marry me?" asked Wilson, who was formerly Australia's human rights commissioner.
Bolger nodded yes, to applause.
Both Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull's Liberal-National coalition government and the main opposition Labor Party have said they aim to pass the law by Dec. 7, but any proposed amendments could stretch out that timeline.
Passage of the bill will make Australia the 26th nation to legalize same-sex marriage, a watershed for a country in which some states considered homosexual activity illegal until 1997.
"This is an issue of fundamental fairness," Turnbull said to parliament later on Monday. "A society that promotes freedom and equality under the law should accord gay men and women the right to marriage."
"next year, we can focus on cutting spending to bring the deficits down"
Fuck the deficit.
The GOP plan is to give rich people their tax cuts this year and to eliminate social programs that help the aged, infirm and poor next year.
GOP Tax Plan "Laying The Groundwork For Cuts To Social Security"
Poll: Most Americans Don't Like the Republican Tax Reform Plan
More Americans Think Tax Reform Will Benefit the Wealthy Rather Than the Middle Class: Poll
POLL: VOTERS SAY THAT TAX REFORM SHOULDN’T GROW THE DEBT
CBO: Senate tax plan would increase deficit by $1.4T over 10 years
"An Australian conservative politician on Monday proposed to his long-term partner on the floor of parliament, ahead of the expected passage of a measure for same sex couples to marry."
a sad little outpost of the Commmonwealth
"Fuck the deficit."
is that nice?
Priya, the uneducated foreigner that posts here out concern for all global citizens, thinks that, after Obama borrowed more money than all other Presidents combined, it's very important for Trump to balance the budget
I know Priya is pretty ignorant, but let's be polite
"Fuck the deficit."
hey, that's what massive government programs have done to our economy
"The GOP plan is to give rich people their tax cuts this year and to eliminate social programs that help the aged, infirm and poor next year."
oh, the cutbacks will leave plenty of help for the aged, infirm and poor
but, alot of exxcessive regulatory programs will eliminated and a lot of lazy and lousy government workers in the DC area will be looking for employment elsewhere
WASHINGTON, Dec 4 (Roto-Rooters) - President Donald Trump endorsed U.S. Senate candidate Roy Moore on Monday, throwing his weight behind the Alabama Republican ahead of next week's special election.
Trump, in a post on Twitter, said Republicans needed Moore to win in order to secure votes on key issues.
"Democrats refusal to give even one vote for massive Tax Cuts is why we need Republican Roy Moore to win in Alabama. We need his vote on stopping crime, illegal immigration, Border Wall, Military, Pro Life, V.A., Judges 2nd Amendment and more. No to Jones, a Pelosi/Schumer Puppet!," Trump wrote.
remember back in the early days of the 21st century
a new GOP administration was proposing a tax cut
the proposal reduce marginal tax rates and eliminated the estate tax
a lot like today
except for one thing:
12 Democratic senators and scores of Democratic COngressmans voted for the tax cut!!!
now, the Democratic party has devolved into a tribe where no deviation from the tribe's agenda is allowed
meanwhile, Al Franken in the Senate and John Conyers in the House sit there and smirk at the women of America!!
"I know Priya is pretty ignorant, but let's be polite"
I concur!
Priya may apppear to be an uneducated imbecile with a mental disturbance but let's have some courtesy
Priya is a people too
that type pf language has no place on a family blog like this!!
On Friday, President Trump’s former national security adviser, Michael Flynn, pleaded guilty to lying to federal investigators about a perfectly legal conversation he had during the presidential transition with then-Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak.
Flynn should not have lied, and why he chose to remains a mystery, but the substance of the single-count indictment against Flynn shows that special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation has strayed far from its original purpose.
We have come down quite a way from the hyperventilation about Russia “hacking the election” a year ago. What happened to Democratic Sen. Mark Warner’s claim, later promoted by Hillary Clinton, that there were 1,000 Russian agents planting anti-Hillary fake news stories in key swing states? Or that Russians had delivered Wisconsin to Trump? All the conspiracy theorists have so far are a few Facebook ads that can’t credibly be shown to have changed even one vote.
Flynn was fully in his rights making the call to Kislyak. Despite the best efforts of the anti-Trumpers, it is still not illegal to talk to Russians. Even Democratic former CIA director and Defense secretary Leon Panetta said it was a “stretch” to say these contacts broke the law.
The dust-up seems mainly to be about the decorum of presidential transitions. Days after the 2016 election, the Trump team cautioned the Obama administration against pursuing new and damaging foreign policy initiatives that did not align with Trump’s priorities.
“I don’t think it’s in keeping with the spirit of the transition,” one of president-elect Trump’s national security advisers told Politico on Nov. 10, 2016, “to try to push through agenda items that are contrary to the president-elect’s positions.”
The Trump transition team feared, for good reason, that the lame-duck Obama administration was poisoning the well with Russia, and pursuing spiteful anti-Israel policies on the way out the door. Trump asked Flynn, his soon-to-be national security adviser, to open a semi-official channel to Russia through its ambassador to discuss future cooperative efforts against the Islamic State and the United Nations vote on an anti-Israel resolution. As lawyer Alan Dershowitz argued, “Not only was that request not criminal, it was the right thing to do.”
The phone call to Kislyak, and any other such contacts with foreign officials, should be viewed in that context. This was not, for example, on the level of colluding with shadowy Russian intelligence contacts to create disinformation to try to swing the election, as the authors of the Clinton-connected Trump smear dossier did.
There was ample precedent for the president-elect to put out feelers to foreign leaders.
A memo from the Podesta files released by WikiLeaks shows that the Obama team had planned for the “president-elect and senior officials to begin confidential policy consultations with key actors in U.S. and abroad” between Thanksgiving and Inauguration Day.
Obama also openly used emissaries and go-betweens to meet with foreign leaders during his transition.
And for overwrought members of “the resistance” who think the unenforceable Logan Act is suddenly in play, recall that in 2008 then-candidate Obama arranged substantive foreign policy discussions with numerous foreign dignitaries and leaders during an overseas campaign trip before the election.
An erroneous ABC News report that Trump had dispatched Flynn to make contact with Russia before the election appears to have caused a massive stock market selloff. The report was corrected, and reporter Brian Ross was suspended. The important takeaway of ABC’s fake news outbreak is that since the Trump team’s outreach to Russia took place after the election, it implies there were no channels to Moscow before the fact. This puts a stake in the heart of the collusion theory.
A CNN analyst speculated that instead of outright coordination, there was an implicit quid pro quo for Russia getting Trump elected. This might be called the “grasping at straws” gambit.
On Sunday, Sen. Diane Feinstein, D-Calif., resurrected the notion that Trump obstructed justice by firing then-FBI Director and Bible scholar James Comey. But again, this is a weak and constitutionally suspect narrative.
The real obstruction might be found in the Mueller investigation itself. The legitimacy of the FBI witch hunt against Trump was further damaged by reports that leading FBI investigator Peter Strzok, who had spearheaded the investigation into Hillary Clinton’s sketchy home-brew email server, was demoted because of anti-Trump texts he exchanged with co-worker Lisa Page, with whom he was having an extramarital affair.
This is hardly an unbiased investigation. If the type of process crime that Flynn was nailed for is all the Mueller team can come up with, it is time to move on.
Behold another banner week for the heroes of our intrepid mainstream media, that motley collection of pompous and obnoxious incompetents, perverts and – at the risk of repeating myself – liberals.
In just the last few days we’ve seen how a major media personality got his network to build him a creepy sex lair in his office and watched as a flat-out lie tanked the stock market – well, not really “tanked,” since the Trump Boom is still booming, though the media is loath to report that fact since prosperity wrecks the official Trumpocalypse narrative.
And next week, when the guy the liberal media tried to paint as Judge Jailbait beats the guy the liberal media tried to cover for by not reporting how he thinks abortions are cool up until a kid gets his learner’s permit, the liberal media will take yet another well-deserved failure lap.
The mainstream liberal media is primarily composed of stumblebum leftist jerks who want all the glory and respect due a caste of objective, moral truth-seekers, yet who don’t want to do the hard work of actually being objective or moral or seeking the truth. “I can’t pass, and I can’t tackle, and practice is really a hassle, but I’m wearing a sportsball jersey so I want your adulation and a Super Bowl ring!”
Nah. They think we owe them respect and trust when all they’ve earned is our contempt.
You have Matt Lauer, probably America’s most highly-paid journalist, who “everyone” knew was a skeevy weirdo who’d probably creep out Woody Allen.
Well, everyone did know, except us, the media’s audience.
Our media overlords didn’t think we needed to know that little bit of information.
Some obscure Texas congressmen sends texts of his ancient junk to a girlfriend and, after he dumps her, she gets mad and puts them up on the web?
Oh, that’s news – America must know that vital info.
But when the flagship anchor of the flagship show on the flagship broadcast network uses his powers to basically build a sex dungeon in 30 Rock – nope, not news.
Shhhhh.
Matt’s just bein’ Matt.
Move along. Nothing to see here.
For gosh sakes, look at how much he hates the NRA!
Remember, to our intrepid media, news is only news if it helps the liberal narrative. If it doesn’t, it’s not news. It’s not anything. It’s un-news. Like the stock market boom. Like wiping out the ISIS caliphate. Like Mueller’s manifest conflicts of interest. Un-news. Remember, half the job of the mainstream media is generating metaphorical tumbleweeds.
And then there’s Brian Ross, the ABC News goof whose 100% false claim about candidate Donald Trump cavorting with Russia gave millions of mouth-foaming anti-Trump weirdos like Bette Midler doppelgänger Joy Behar a collective Muellergasm at the thought that the Flynn plea might not turn into yet another disappointment. And of course it did. Talk about un-news – they were giddy and, as a real journalist demonstrates, the plea means nothing. They were looking for Mueller to convict Donald J. Manson of mass murder and all Mueller’s managed to do was write one of his girls a ticket for double parking outside Sharon Tate’s house.
ABC’s reporting was totally wrong, but they left the lie out there, knowing it was false, for hours. In the meantime, the thought that Trump might be in trouble trashed the market for a while – funny how investors are terrified that Trump might not remain president. Eventually, ABC issued a “correction.” A “correction?” When you are real journalists, you issue a correction when you misreport that Lena Dunham ate fifteen muffins for second breakfast instead of twelve. When you are real journalists, you issue an apology and fire a bunch of people when one of your meat puppets outright lies.
But, of course, the mainstream liberal media hacks are not real journalists. They are transcriptionists for their progressive masters when they aren’t molesting the interns.
And then there’s the Roy Moore thing.
The people of Alabama are told by their urban betters that the media’s claims about him were “scrupulously reported” by the Washington Post, as if that conclusory assurance somehow makes its reporting unimpeachable.
Gosh, if the people in the Beltway are impressed, then you rural rubes better abandon the West Point graduate you’ve known as kooky but upstanding for decades and elect the socialist.
Because, you know, it’s scrupulously reported.
What kind of nut might think a mainstream media outfit would lie about a conservative who is about the take a critical Senate seat?
That’s crazy talk.
Sure, Fusion GPS (the group of ex-journalists that manufactured and promulgated the fake Trump dossier) had unnamed journalists on its payroll – gosh, the WaPo and the rest of the media sure aren’t curious about who they are – and yes, WikiLeaks revealed journalists working for Democrat campaigns, but it’s super paranoid nutso crazy to think this Moore thing smells fishy.
Heck, no one covers the backcountry of Alabama beat better than the Washington Post, certainly not the local Alabama media that has covered Moore for 30 years and never gotten wind of this bombshell through Moore’s multiple elections!
How dare you hicks not immediately accept at face value everything the liberal media says!
When Roy Moore gets elected he ought to send the liberal media a dozen roses to thank it for his victory; their coverage is an in-kind campaign contribution.
No one but Moore and his accuser knows whether Moore cavorted with an underage girl or not, but the voters of Alabama have a perfectly legitimate basis to disbelieve the media’s claims
– the sordid track record of the media itself.
Would the liberal media lie to hurt a conservative?
Are you kidding?
It does that every day, and the difference is that now we’re woke.
You mainstream media hacks want trust and respect?
Maybe you shouldn’t Tweet out instructions to contact Senators to defeat the tax bill like the New York Times just did.
Maybe you should stop covering for the off-camera leering and grabbing and pinching of the talking heads who excoriate Trump for misogyny.
Maybe you should stop hiring journalists who are ex-Obama flunkies.
Maybe you shouldn’t email offers of assistance to Democrat campaigns.
Maybe you should stop lying to us.
Then maybe voters might trust you.
Maybe people might respect you.
And maybe you wouldn’t deserve the contempt we normals hold you in.
The political commentariat has jumped the shark in declaring the emerging tax legislation as a political disaster for Republicans. By focusing on the long-term phase-out of the income-tax cuts and the elimination of state and local deductions, many have ignored the obvious political upside for the party.
The clear majority of Americans will be receiving income-tax cuts of varying degrees, and offering goodies to voters is usually a winner.
The clearest argument against the legislation—that it would blow up the deficit—is one that’s tough for Democrats to make, given their reputation as a free-spending party.
It’s why opponents of the legislation have been dwelling on the finding that income taxes would rise for many Americans in 2025 when a phase-out of many individual tax reductions begins. Of course, this assumes that a future president would risk the wrath of voters by allowing a tax hike to happen by inaction.
Even President Obama, under pressure from the public, agreed to extend President Bush’s tax cuts for most Americans after they expired.
All over the country, trolls like anon are flooding the airwaves with this kind of bullshit. The idea is that volume overwhelms reason -- if you say a thing enough times it becomes a fact, even if it is false. "Crooked Hillary" is the ultimate example of that, it is a concept with no reality behind it but it was repeated so much that even Democrats suspected there was something to it. It worked so well that Republicans still can't give it up, even though their own are going to jail and Hillary has never been charged with anything.
The question, to me, is this: what do you want? What do you want, anon? Do you just want people to stop complaining as they are taxed into poverty and the health-care system is plowed under? Do you want separate bathrooms for LGBT people, and an all-pedophile Congress? What is it you want? The sarcasm is cute and everything, we were all eight-years-old once and we get that, but at the end of the day, what do you want for the country?
As I step back and look at it I see two things. One, more for the rich. This new tax plan accomplishes that, the Trump cabinet is dedicated to this goal, the swamp is being stocked with extra alligators. And two, insecure losers like anon get to make fun of people who are smarter than them.
I don't see any other goals for this so-called movement. What does Trump stand for? Nothing, except he's against the ideas of people who are smarter than him. Whatever Obama and Clinton want, he wants the opposite. He doesn't even read the bills that are proposed, he doesn't care what's in them, he just wants a "win."
Here's your chance, anon, tell us what you want. List some policy priorities that you believe in.
Hatch Puts Republican Budget Hypocrisy on Stark Display
Sen. Orrin Hatch is one of the two senators (the other was Ted Kennedy) who created the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP), which provides healthcare for about 9 million children. Congress let that program expire in September and Hatch put Republican budget hypocrisy front and center with some recent comments about it.
On Thursday evening, as the Senate debated the Republican tax plan, Democratic Senator Sherrod Brown (D-OH) asked whether there’s “something we can do to get the children’s health insurance program done.”
Hatch’s response, in a nutshell: Yes, we’ll fund the program, but we’re really short on money.
“We’re going to do CHIP, there’s no question about it in my mind. And it’s got to be done the right way,” Hatch said. “But the reason CHIP’s having trouble is because we don’t have money anymore, and to just add more and more spending and more and more spending, and you can look at the rest of the bill for the more and more spending.”
This came as he advocated for a tax bill that, according to the Joint Committee on Taxation’s latest estimate, will add approximately $1 trillion to the deficit even when adjusted for economic growth, and which disproportionately benefits corporations and the wealthy.
I love how Republicans pretend that not having enough money only counts when you want to cut spending, not when you want to cut revenue. Not having the money can be because you’re spending too much or because you’re not bringing enough in. And if you’re going to reduce revenue by a trillion dollars or more over the next ten years, you can’t then credibly claim that we don’t have the money to fund CHIP. You would have the money if you hadn’t cut revenue by reducing the taxes of rich people. Pure hypocrisy.
"All over the country, trolls like anon are flooding the airwaves with this kind of bullshit. The idea is that volume overwhelms reason -- if you say a thing enough times it becomes a fact, even if it is false."
none of the above postings by anon is false
indeed, it is the mainstream media and blogs like TTF that are flooding the airwaves with "this kind of bullshit" with the "idea is that volume overwhelms reason"
we have regularly been treated to crap like the new tax bill is going to "tax the poor" or "transfers funds to the wealthy" or Trump committed treason by establishing a relationship with the Russians during the transition or Hillary won the "popular election" or yada, yada, yada
all false
""Crooked Hillary" is the ultimate example of that, it is a concept with no reality behind it"
you must be kidding
the Clintons have been continually involved in conflicts of interest and dubiously appearing activities from the first time they came into public light
Hillary, who worked on the Senate investigation of Watergate as a young lawyer learned much from Nixon
the 17 minute gap in the Nixon White House tapes was a scandal at the time
stuff like that happens all the time with the Clintons
from the time subpoenaed Rose law firms records were found in the White House living quarters by a maid after they were missing for months to the deletion of 35,000 emails that the FBI was looking for last year, the Clintons are masters of destroying evidence
ever heard about avoiding the very appearance of evil?
the idea that the country's chief diplomat, the Secretary of State, would have a foundation collecting millions of dollars from foreign countries is preposterous
taking over the Party's national committee before the primaries without disclosing the arrangement is unprecedented and deceived the public
hiring a foreign spy to make up false allegations about Trump which have dominated the national conversation since the election is bad, but worse is she let this charade go on for months
of course, evidence was lacking because she funneled the payments through intermediaries
but it was repeated so much that even Democrats suspected there was something to it. It worked so well that Republicans still can't give it up, even though their own are going to jail and Hillary has never been charged with anything.
"The question, to me, is this: what do you want? What do you want, anon? Do you just want people to stop complaining as they are taxed into poverty"
what are you talking about?
the economic lower half in America pay no income tax at all
"and the health-care system is plowed under?"
Obamacare is a sham
most people can't afford the premiums or the deductibles and they get penalized if they don't buy it
further, it was claimed that it would save money and it hasn't
"Do you want separate bathrooms for LGBT people,"
I couldn't care less what businesses decide to do but I think they should be able to make what ever policy they want
"and an all-pedophile Congress?"
sounds like sarcasm
sarcasm is cute and everything, we were all eight-years-old once and we get that, but this is quite a stretch based on one guy running for Senate that has been accused by one middle-aged lady about an alleged incident forty yeas ago
but, no, if you're asking, I would prefer that all of Congress not be pedophiles
I'd also prefer no sexual predators of any kind but last I heard a Dem Congressman with fifty years in office still sits there
"As I step back and look at it I see two things. One, more for the rich."
well, I don't think the government should confiscate anyone's earnings
just common sense right and wrong
and I don't think resentment of success should guide public policy
I think both the estate tax and the corporate tax are double taxation and should be eliminated
estate tax: a person works hard all his life and pays taxes on what he earns
and then, if he saves the earnings, the government taxes the earnings again when he dies
corporate tax: a company runs a successful enterprise and pays taxes on the profits
and then, when they distribute the earnings as dividends, the owners are taxed on the earnings again
both situations are a bias against productivity
"And two, insecure losers like anon get to make fun of people who are smarter than them."
yes, insecure losers get to make fun of people who are smarter than them
talk to James Madison
he threw freedom of speech in to the Bill of Rights
leftists have been ticked off ever since
"Here's your chance, anon, tell us what you want. List some policy priorities that you believe in."
I state my policy positions on a regular and consistent basis all the time here.
The only response is that I'm a liar and actually think something else.
Let me know if you have a specific question
I'd be happy to tell you my position
Trump: Why Worry About Cleaning Up Toxic Mines?
Mining is one of the most environmentally destructive activities there is, so true to form Donald Trump wants to make sure companies that get rich from it don’t have to bother with pesky little things like cleaning up their mess when they’re done. They’ve eliminated rules requiring companies to show they have the financing to complete even the minimal cleanup the law requires.
President Donald Trump’s administration announced Friday that it won’t require mining companies to prove they have the financial wherewithal to clean up their pollution, despite an industry legacy of abandoned mines that have fouled waterways across the U.S.
The move came after mining groups and Western-state Republicans pushed back against a proposal under former President Barack Obama to make companies set aside money for future cleanup costs.
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt said modern mining practices and state and federal rules already in place adequately address the risks from mines that are still operating.
Requiring more from mining companies was unnecessary, Pruitt said, and “would impose an undue burden on this important sector of the American economy and rural America, where most of these jobs are based.”
The U.S. mining industry has a long history of abandoning contaminated sites and leaving taxpayers to foot the bill for cleanups. Thousands of shuttered mines leak contaminated water into rivers, streams and other waterways, including hundreds of cases in which the EPA has intervened, sometimes at huge expense.
There are currently 139 abandoned mines on the list of Superfund sites and that’s not all of them (some have already been cleaned up, at taxpayer expense, while others didn’t get that designation but are still highly polluting). Rivers, streams and lakes, not to mention groundwater, gets the leached toxic substances in them and we all suffer for it. But hey, let’s just let companies get rich and leave taxpayers footing the bill for the cleanup - socialism for big business.
"All over the country, trolls like anon are flooding the airwaves with this kind of bullshit. The idea is that volume overwhelms reason -- if you say a thing enough times it becomes a fact, even if it is false."
none of the above postings by anon is false"
none of the above postings by anon is false
none of the above postings by anon is false
none of the above postings by anon is false
none of the above postings by anon is false
none of the above postings by anon is false
none of the above postings by anon is false
none of the above postings by anon is false
none of the above postings by anon is false
none of the above postings by anon is false
none of the above postings by anon is false
none of the above postings by anon is false
none of the above postings by anon is false
none of the above postings by anon is false
none of the above postings by anon is false
none of the above postings by anon is false
none of the above postings by anon is false
none of the above postings by anon is false
none of the above postings by anon is false
none of the above postings by anon is false
none of the above postings by anon is false
none of the above postings by anon is false
none of the above postings by anon is false
none of the above postings by anon is false
"All over the country, trolls like anon are flooding the airwaves with this kind of bullshit. The idea is that volume overwhelms reason -- if you say a thing enough times it becomes a fact, even if it is false."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s2FCswTm-q4
Good anonymous said "Here's your chance, anon, tell us what you want. List some policy priorities that you believe in.".
Conservatives once had values and policies they believed in. But now they are so tribalized that they would rather bedevil and frustrate liberals than see their own policies enacted. They oppose doing anything about global warming because Al Gore the liberal wants to do something about it. They would rather piss off liberals than leave a livable world for their children and grandchildren. Its ironic because conservation was once a conservative value (it was Nixon that started the Environmental Protection Agency).
There's no reasoning with people like Wyatt/bad anonymous, they're motivated by getting a rise out of liberals, they want to set fire to the house we all live in to spite liberals. When Trump turns the planet into a smoking pile of ruin they'll say "HA! Trump really showed those liberals!".
As the arctic tundra melts it allows mega tons of vegetative matter to rot producing methane gas. Methane is 20 times as potent as carbon dioxide in creating a green house effect. Its estimated that there is as much methane locked into the permafrost as all of the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.
The present global warming is creating a feedback loop where as it warms it causes methane gas to be released which causes more warming which causes even more methane gas to be released causing even more rapid warming.
Although global warming is now killing tens of thousands of people a year, it won't affect me in my lifetime so I suppose it shouldn't bother me. But I'm sure that in less than 1000 years the human race will be extinct as will most life on the planet and I would rather that didn't happen even though I won't be around to see it.
My only real regret though, is the people like Wyatt/bad anonymous who opposed doing anything about global warming while we could still stop it won't be around to see the world destroyed either. If there was any justice in the world those that set the planet on the path to destruction would have to witness first hand the end they've caused. Conservatives have decided what they want most is a forced global murder/suicide pact and they're probably going to get it and that makes them happy.
Oddly, I do feel a certain sense of relief now that I've accepted that the extinction of almost all life on the planet is inevitable. As I've said I won't be here to see it, global warming won't affect me personally much and I can't help but think the human race is going to get what it deserves.
So, there really is no reasoning with conservatives like Wyatt/bad anonymous. The best we can do is enjoy the lives we have and forget about what happens after we die.
Wyatt/bad anonymous doesn't want to have a rational discussion about making the world a better place.
He is here solely to troll liberals.
"I'm sure that in less than 1000 years the human race will be extinct as will most life on the planet and I would rather that didn't happen even though I won't be around to see it."
what a relief!
the alarmists are now giving us almost a millenium
what are the chances we'll still have any oil left in, say, a hundred years?
haha!!
here's some good news:
"WASHINGTON (Associated Plumbing) - The Supreme Court is allowing the Trump administration to fully enforce a ban on travel to the United States by residents of six mostly Muslim countries.
The justices, with two dissenting votes, said Monday that the policy can take full effect.
The action suggests the high court could uphold the latest version of the ban that Trump announced in September.
The ban applies to travelers from Chad, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Syria and Yemen. Lower courts had said people from those nations with a claim of a “bona fide” relationship with someone in the United States could not be kept out of the country. Grandparents, cousins and other relatives were among those courts said could not be excluded.
Seven of nine justices said that was crap!"
"WASHINGTON, Dec 4 (Roto-rooters) - The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday handed a victory to President Donald Trump by allowing his latest travel ban targeting people from six Muslim-majority countries to go into full effect.
The court, with two of the nine justices dissenting, granted his administration's request to lift two injunctions imposed by amateur judges in lower courts that had partially blocked the ban, which is the third version of a prudent policy that Trump first sought to implement a week after taking office in January.
Liberals were alarmed and panicked!"
Breaking news: Woman shares new evidence of relationship with Roy Moore when she was 17
Delray Beach, Fla. — Debbie Wesson Gibson was in her attic hauling out boxes of Christmas decorations last week when she noticed a storage bin she said she had forgotten about. Inside was a scrapbook from her senior year of high school, and taped to a page titled “Those Who Inspire” was a graduation card.
“Happy graduation Debbie,” it read in slanted cursive handwriting. “I wanted to give you this card myself. I know that you’ll be a success in anything you do. Roy.”
The inscription, Gibson said, was written by Roy Moore, the Alabama Republican nominee for U.S. Senate who in recent days has repeatedly denied the accounts of five women who told The Washington Post that he pursued them when they were teenagers and he was an assistant district attorney in his 30s. Since those allegations were published last month, four more women have come forward to allege that Moore made unwanted sexual advances. The accounts in The Post included those of Leigh Corfman, who said she was 14 when Moore touched her sexually, and Gibson, who said that she publicly dated Moore when she was 17 and he was 34, a relationship she said she “wore like a badge of honor” until she began reevaluating it in light of the accounts of other women, and now, Moore’s own denials....
...Shortly after the allegations first surfaced, Moore said in a radio interview with Sean Hannity that he did not know Corfman, but that he remembered Gibson as well as Gloria Thacker Deason, who had told The Post that she dated Moore when she was 18. He called each one “a good girl,” and said that he did not remember dating them.
But at two campaign events in recent days, Moore has backtracked.
At a Nov. 27 campaign event in the north Alabama town of Henagar, Moore said, “The allegations are completely false. They are malicious. Specifically, I do not know any of these women.”
At a Nov. 29 rally at a church in the south Alabama town of Theodore, Moore said, “Let me state once again: I do not know any of these women, did not date any of these women and have not engaged in any sexual misconduct with anyone.”
Gibson said that after finding the scrapbook, she was not sure whether to make it public given the threats she received after publication of the original story. Then she heard what Moore said last week, she said, and contacted The Post.
“He called me a liar,” said Gibson, who says she not only openly dated Moore when she was 17 but later joined him in passing out fliers during his campaign for circuit court judge in 1982 and exchanged Christmas cards with him over the years. “Roy Moore made an egregious mistake to attack that one thing — my integrity.”
The Moore campaign did not respond to numerous requests for comment for this story...
CONSULTING WITH THE CHIEF PUSSY GRABBER FIRST
Sen. Chuck Grassley: If The Poor Got Tax Cuts, They’d Just Waste The Money On Booze, Women, Or Movies
Over the weekend Sen. Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa) hashed over the plan with his home state’s Des Moines Register. Turning to the party’s idea to do away with the estate tax, Grassley framed the current law as a hindrance to responsible saving.
“I think not having the estate tax recognizes the people that are investing,” Grassley told the Register. “As opposed to those that are just spending every darn penny they have, whether it’s on booze or women or movies.”
Canada's Conservatives said something similar about giving tax cuts to the poor, saying they'd "Just waste it on popcorn and beer".
It shows Republican's contempt for the poor and faulty reasoning. They think If you're poor, there's something wrong with you and you deserve your poverty because of it. No wonder conservatives are creating an ever increasing income gap between the rich and the poor - this won't end well.
Every dollar that a poor person gets over the year creates approximately $33.00 tax revenue over the year by being spent over and over. Multiply that by how many poor and middle class people there are and that adds up to quite a large amount of tax revenue. Now take that same dollar and give it to a rich man and he puts it into a tax shelter and it produces 0.00% tax revenue. So who is helping the country and who is helping themselves?
This idea that you can give tax cuts to the rich and it will somehow boost the economy is absurd. Corporations are flush with cash and interests rates are low so borrowing money is cheap. Corporations have had record profits for years. If they thought investing in new plants, equipment, and employees would increase their income they would have already done so. The people who really sustain the economy are the lower income earners who spend everything they have on goods and services. Corporations producing more product isn't going to make any real consumer buy more, only increasing the income of lower income earners is going to make consumers buy more. If you increase the profits of the corporations they certainly aren't going to raise the wages of their workers, they're just going to stuff the profits in upper managment's own pockets who will then invest it in offshore tax havens and essentially remove that money from the economy.
You can't boost the economy by transferring wealth from the poor and middle class to the rich. A rich person's life isn't enhanced by a third yacht or gold plating on their bathroom fixtures. A poor person's life is greatly enhanced by having the money to spend on life saving health insurance or a modest but quality house.
So, if it was okay back in the day in some parts of the States (as Wyatt says) for a 32 year old man to date a 14 year old girl, why was Roy Moore banned from the local mall for chasing teenage girls?
"So, if it was okay back in the day in some parts of the States (as anon says) for a 32 year old man to date a 14 year old girl, why was Roy Moore banned from the local mall for chasing teenage girls?"
no one here ever said that, you lying asshole
it's amazing the hypocrisy that an uneducated foreigner can sustain
every time Priya posts something here, it has some aspects of a lie
sometimes it can be dismissed as being possible ignorance
not this time
Priya is a liar, and has been shown many times before, a troll
btw, Moore will win next week
the Senate will immediately begin an ethics probe and. if any evidence exists for these allegations of sexual advances forty years ago, we will found out and another Senator appointed
but a liberal will never represent Alabama in the Senate
on another topic, you realize what happened last week?
Flynn told prosecutors that the Trump campaign told him, in December 2016, a couple of weeks before the inauguration, to set up a connection with the Russian ambassador
you know what that means, right?
it indicates that one didn't already exist at that time and there was no collusion with Russian to coordinate a campign against Hillary
end of hoax
I said "So, if it was okay back in the day in some parts of the States (as Wyatt says) for a 32 year old man to date a 14 year old girl, why was Roy Moore banned from the local mall for chasing teenage girls?"
Wyatt/bad anonymous said "no one here ever said that, you lying asshole".
Sorry, my mistake, my memory was a little off, you said that about a 16 year old girl and the 34 year old Roy Moore.
In this thread at November 10, 2017 10:36 PM you said specifically "the other two were over the age of consent and he did "court" them with the permission of their families it was a different time and culture in a time, not in the too distant past, girls got married at a younger age".
So, yeah...the point remains basically unchanged. If it was okay back in the day in some parts of the States for a 34 year old man to date a 16 year old girl, why was Roy Moore banned from the local mall for chasing teenage girls?
Answer that one WYATT.
Wyatt/bad anonymous said "Flynn told prosecutors that the Trump campaign told him, in December 2016, a couple of weeks before the inauguration, to set up a connection with the Russian ambassador you know what that means, right? it indicates that one didn't already exist at that time and there was no collusion with Russian to coordinate a campign against Hillary.".
Nonsense. Flynn called the ambassador on his regular phone, he didn't have to set that up in advance. Kushner tried to set up a seperate back channel in the Russian embassy using russian equipment specifically to evade the surveillance of the American intelligence agencies that he knew normally listen in on all such calls - that was extremely bizarre and raised red flags all over the intelligence agencies.
And of course there somewhere between 20 and 50 contacts between the Trump campaign and Russians BEFORE Flynn called the Russian ambassador in December. So obviously the repeated Flynn calls to the Russian ambassador in no way proves that collusion didn't take place.
If the Trump campaign didn't collude with Russia why one lie after another after another claiming there were "absolutely no contacts with Russians"?
If there was no collusion why did Trump fire Comey by his own admission to stop the Russia investigation? Surely if he truly believed he was innocent of collusion he wouldn't have been concerned about the investigation and would have been happy to let it go along.
The constant lies and denials and obstruction of justice by Trump and his people is damning.
Let's not forget that when Roy Moore was in his thirties and chasing these teenage girls, he wasn't "courting" them and looking for a marriage partner, he was trying to have sex with them and then move on to the next conquest.
And some Republicans didn't just excuse Moore for pursuing teenagers over the age of consent like Wyatt did, they claimed it was also okay at the time for the 32 year old Moore to try to have sex with a 14 year old.
The fact is it wasn't okay at the time for a man in his thirties to pursue teenage girls over the age of consent or not - that's why he was banned from the mall.
If that was a gay man in his thirties pursuing teenage boys these hypocrites would be screaming bloody murder.
Wyatt/bad anonymous said "Moore will win next week".
I wouldn't be bragging about that if I were you - it just shows how rare moral and decent Republicans are.
Wyatt/bad anonymous said "the Senate will immediately begin an ethics probe and. if any evidence exists for these allegations of sexual advances forty years ago, we will found out and another Senator appointed".
LOL, that won't happen. There will be no ethics probe, Mcconnel and company backed off from that as soon as they felt Moore could win.
There was never going to be any better evidence that Moore is a sexual predator than there is now and any honest person can look at it and see he's almost certainly guilty, especially given the two women with notes from Moore addressed to them at the time. The women are credible, have no reason to lie, and plenty of reason not to come forward (they've received death threats). Moore has every reason to lie and a long and documented history of credibility problems including his story changing from admitting he knew some of the women to now claiming he's never met any of them.
Republicans have no problem with a sexual predator as long as he's on their side - look at Trump!
Austria's Constitutional Court has ruled that same-sex couples will be allowed to marry by the beginning of 2019, bringing the country in line with more than a dozen other western European nations.
In a ruling announced Tuesday, the court said that the words "two people of different sex" will be removed from the law on marriage at the end of 2018 on the grounds that the distinction is discriminatory. Same-sex couples will be able to marry after that, unless the government decides to change the laws earlier.
Same-sex couples in Austria, a predominantly Roman Catholic nation of some 8.7 million people, have been allowed to enter civil partnerships since 2010. Until now, however, they haven't been able to marry.
The Constitutional Court took up the issue following a complaint from two women who were already in a partnership but were refused permission to enter a formal marriage by authorities in Vienna.
The court said that civil partnerships will remain an option after the law is changed, and will then also be open to straight couples. It noted in its ruling that marriage and civil partnerships have become increasingly similar in a legal sense in recent years, with same-sex couples allowed to adopt children.
In a statement, it said "the distinction between marriage and civil partnership can no longer be maintained today without discriminating against same-sex couples," adding that keeping the two institutions separate suggests that "people with same-sex sexual orientation are not equal to people with heterosexual orientation."
Gay marriage has already been legalized in 15 countries in western Europe, including in Germany, which until this year was the biggest holdout. A similar number of other European countries have some sort of same-sex unions or civil partnerships.
Helmut Graupner, a lawyer for the two women who brought the case, wrote in a Facebook post that "today is a truly historic day." He said the Austrian court was the first in Europe to reject a marriage ban for same-sex couples, while other countries legalized gay marriage through political means.
The two parties negotiating to form a new government after Austria's October election, the conservative Austrian People's Party and the right-wing Freedom Party, have so far opposed gay marriage. The center-left Social Democrats, who lead the outgoing government, are in favor.
Roy Moore has called his accusers liars, but they refuse to be silenced.
Several women have said the U.S. Senate candidate pursued relationships with them when they were underage girls, and some have accused him of sexual assault. Debbie Wesson Gibson, one of the women who appeared in The Washington Post’s original story on the allegations, provided the newspaper with a high school scrapbook chronicling her time dating Moore.
Gibson said that as a teenage girl, she had written down dates she’d had with Moore in the scrapbook and listed him as her guest for her Etowah High School graduation. She says her relationship with Moore at the time was consensual, and prior to the allegations, she said she held Moore in “high esteem.” The pair stayed in touch over the years, and Gibson even worked on his circuit judge campaign in 1982, she said.
Moore has broadly denied knowing women in the Post article, and has accused them of lying to smear his campaign. “These allegations are completely false, they’re malicious; specifically, I do not know any of these women nor have I ever engaged in sexual misconduct with anyone,” Moore said at a rally in Alabama.
After Moore claimed not to know his accusers, Gibson said she realized he was a liar. She’d planned to keep her scrapbook to herself until she saw another accuser, Beverly Young Nelson, share that Moore had signed her high school yearbook. Nelson has accused Moore of driving her to a deserted area and physically assaulting her.
“I just couldn’t imagine him doing something like that,” Gibson told the Post. “And then when I saw the interview from Beverly, and I saw his handwriting in her yearbook, my heart just sank. And when I saw what I knew to be Roy Moore’s handwriting, I just began to sob openly.”
Gibson said that Moore’s attack on her “integrity” was another reason she decided to come forward with her scrapbook, despite receiving numerous death threats. The Post had a former FBI forensics expert authenticate that a graduation card in the scrapbook had not been altered.
“Happy graduation Debbie,” the card read. “I wanted to give you this card myself. I know that you’ll be a success in anything you do. Roy.”
“It takes what I thought was a very lovely part of my past, and it colors it, and it changes it irrevocably,” Gibson told the Post. “It changes it permanently.”...
https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/moore-accuser-evidence-washington-post_us_5a25d012e4b086e4e503df06
"Sorry, my mistake, my memory was a little off, you said that about a 16 year old girl and the 34 year old Roy Moore."
Apology accepted and thanks for clarifying. What you're stating now is correct.
Sorry, I'm pressed for time today so may not get to respond to other remarks by you and other TTFers until tonight.
Psychiatrists warn Trump becoming more mentally unstable,...
A Yale psychiatrist says President Donald Trump has become increasingly mentally unstable in the past week.
Americans cherish the First Amendment principle of “religious freedom” even as they question its meaning and test its limits, scholars say.
They expect the arguments in the Masterpiece Cakeshop case going before the U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday (Dec. 5) will be a window to these tensions.
Technically, the case is being contended on “free speech” grounds:
Is a Colorado Christian baker’s custom cake an “artistic expression,” a protected type of speech entitling him to refuse to produce a custom wedding cake for a same-sex couple?
Or is his religion-based refusal to sell goods to any paying customer a violation of Colorado’s law banning discrimination in public accommodations, one that harms a buyer’s dignity?
“Religious freedom has always been a malleable term,” says Tisa Wenger, an associate professor of American religious history at Yale.
“We can’t take for granted what ‘religious freedom’ is and what it protects,” says Wenger. “White American Christians (have) used religious freedom talk as a way to mark their own superiority” and control the legal, political and social culture.
Her book centers on the experiences of religious, racial and ethnic minorities, indigenous people and waves of immigrants who had to mold their faith or practices to fit a Protestant vision of what a religion is and does in order to claim the privileges of “religious freedom.” Now, LGBT Americans face the same social and political forces.
“It’s about power,” says Wenger. Now that conservative evangelicals see themselves losing cultural hegemony, they have “seized the religious freedom category” to assert authority while presenting themselves as the beleaguered ones.
Wenger says the “religious freedom” executive order signed by President Trump in May is designed solely to protect that base “and not at all concerned with the freedoms of minority populations.”
In his new book, “Undomesticated Dissent,” a history of Western Christian religious dissidents, Curtis W. FreemanFreeman writes that the early evangelicals, once a threatened minority, were great fans of the First Amendment. To them, it enshrined the value that “everyone was entitled to an opinion about religion and to follow the dictates of conscience.”
The rise of the religious right, however, has “flipped the script,” in insisting that they enforce their religious views in the public square, Freeman says. “They turn liberty on its head, and it becomes a new form of tyranny that masquerades as liberty.”
The argument that baking a wedding cake for a gay couple violates the "free speech" of Masterpiece Cakeshop is undermined by the fact that the gay couple, (contrary to what many claim), did not ask for a custom cake that was "gay" with penises on it or some such thing, they asked for a generic wedding cake and once the owner realized they were gay he refused to serve them. It was only after the case was underway the owner offered to make them a bland undecorated cake. Obviously there was no "artistic expression" involved that "expressed support for gay marriage".
But even if there had been a special gay cake asked for the whole seperate is equal was settled a few decades ago. As to forced speech, that simply is not the case for businesses. This is a business, a bakery, specifically, its a place of public accomodation. We force businesses to say things all the time. Warning labels on alcohol and tobacco, ingredient labels, calorie counts on labels, posting of job regulations in the place of business, hand washing signs posted in the business, equal opportunity notices, the list is endless. This is not an artist creating, its a business selling a product.
Even if the case were about an artist, remember that he didn't know what decorations the couple wanted on their cake. For all he knew the wanted a plain white cake with the word "CONGRATULATIONS". There is nothing inherently different about designing a gay wedding cake from a regular wedding cake. He just didn't want to design it for a gay couple.
And don't try to bring up that canard about "participating in a wedding". Only the couple being married and the clergy/official performing the marriage can honestly be said to be participating in it.
An exceptional post on how extremism develops in Islam and other religions.
AUSTRIA: Constitutional Court Legalizes Same-Sex Marriage, Ruling Goes Into Effect In 2019 At The Latest
Deutsche Welle reports:
Same-sex couples will be allowed to marry in Austria from 2019, according to a ruling by the country’s Constitutional Court announced on Tuesday.
Same-sex couples in Austria have been able to enter only into “registered partnerships” since 2010, with nearly the same rights of married couples. But the court ruled that “the distinction between marriage and registered partnership … cannot be upheld at this day and age without discriminating against same-sex couples.”
“The resulting discriminatory effect is seen in the fact that through the different title of the family status, people living in same-sex partnerships have to disclose their sexual orientation even in situations in which it is not, and must not be, relevant and … are highly likely to be discriminated against,” the court said in its ruling.
The Mueller investigation has issued subpoenas to Deutsche Bank over Trump loans.
This has just crossed the "red line" Trump said would be going too far in the investigation - he is officially investigating Trump's finances. Will Trump start his own "Saturday night massacre" and try to fire Mueller?
Deutsche Bank is known as the Laundromat for Russian money and has an unusual lending relationship with Trump and Kushner. This is big!
This comment has been removed by the author.
Trump Attorney: The President Can’t Obstruct Justice
Trump’s attorneys are clearly getting desperate over Mueller’s investigation in the wake of the Flynn guilty plea. John Down is now floating the absurd legal theory that the president can’t obstruct justice because he’s the president. Seriously.
A sitting president cannot obstruct justice, Trump lawyer John Dowd told ABC News in a statement today, citing Article II of the Constitution.
The “president cannot obstruct justice because he is the chief law enforcement officer under Art II and has every right to express his view of any case,” Dowd added.
Article II does not say that, of course. Indeed, the men who wrote the Constitution would have laughed at the notion that the president was the nation’s chief law enforcement officer because, at the time, law enforcement was almost entirely a state authority. But even if his statement was true, it would not logically follow that therefore he could not commit such a crime. Just like a local police chief can still violate state and local law and be held accountable for it.
Now, it might be true that he could not actually be criminally charged with obstruction while still in office; that’s a fuzzy and still-open legal question upon which there is much disagreement. But he certainly could be impeached for it. The impeachment charges for both Nixon and Clinton both included obstruction of justice.
They've been forced to go from "There was no collusion" to "Collusion is not a crime" (Jay Sekulow) which is nonsense. It is in fact a crime for a presidential campaign to form a political alliance with a foreign government to try to take power. They really are getting desperate. They know that the walls are closing in and they are just firing blindly in every direction.
Yet Again, OKLAHOMA: Cops Release Body-Cam Footage Of "Family Values" Republican In Hotel Room With Teenage Male Hooker
The boy does not appear in the clip, presumably because he was a juvenile.
Oklahoma City’s ABC affiliate reports:
Police have released body-camera footage of the March night when officers found former state Sen. Ralph Shortey in a motel room with an underage boy.
Before police entered Shortey’s room at the Super 8 along Interstate 35 near Northeast 12th Street, they announced that they were there after receiving a report that the now-disgraced former lawmaker had a juvenile in his room.
Officer: “Come out before you get me worried. Show me your hands. Shortey: “I’m sorry guys. You’re kinda freaking me out a little bit.” Officer: “Yeah. That’s what we do. He’s 17.” Shortey told the officers that he was just helping the teenager as a mentor.
Last week Shortey struck a plea deal in which three child pornography charges were dropped in return for his guilty plea on child sex trafficking. He faces a minimum sentence of ten years. His request for pre-sentencing bail to care for his three homeschooled children was rejected by a federal judge.
Shortey served as the Oklahoma state campaign chair for the Trump campaign and heralded himself as an anti-LGBT Christian "family values" (but I repeat myself) lawmaker.
The Supreme Court cake case has an easy answer
Piece of cake: If you can’t do it to racial and religious minorities, women and the disabled, you shouldn’t be able to do it to gay people.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/lets-not-get-into-the-butcher-or-the-candlestick-maker/2017/12/05/0632b3cc-da01-11e7-b1a8-62589434a581_story.html
"Alabama Republican Senate candidate Roy Moore's account of when he began dating his wife Kayla would place the start of their courtship before her divorce from her first husband, according to court documents.
This comes as the Moore campaign's defense of the retired judge against multiple allegations of sexual misconduct hinges on disputing minute details of the accusers' versions of events.
On Tuesday afternoon, the Washington Examiner asked Moore's campaign to explain apparent contradictions between his account of his relationship with Kayla Kisor and information contained in public records.
“Regardless of when they met, Judge and Kayla did not date while she was still with her ex-husband or legally married,” campaign spokesman Brett Doster responded by email.
Moore claims in his 2005 book “So Help Me God” to have met Kayla at a church gathering the week before Christmas in 1984.
“I was determined to get to know her, but Kayla, divorced and with a beautiful little girl, Heather, who was nearly a year old, was not interested in a relationship with anyone,” he later wrote of the encounter.
Divorce records obtained by the Washington Examiner show that Kayla, however, had not yet even filed for divorce from her first husband, John Charles Heald, by the time she caught Moore’s attention at the Christmas gathering. In fact, Kayla and Heald had only just separated on Dec. 1, 1984, two weeks before her and Moore’s serendipitous introduction.
The same records show Kayla filed for divorce at a courthouse in Floyd County, Ga., on Dec. 28, 1984. The divorce was finalized nearly four months later on April 19, and a permanent custody judgment was issued on Jan. 9, 1989.
By Moore’s account, he and Kayla began dating “soon after” she visited the law office of his colleague “early in the new year” of 1985. They dated for “about a year,” he claimed, before becoming engaged and then married on Dec. 14, 1985.
That would lead readers to believe the pair began dating in late 1984 or early 1985, a period during which court records show his bride-to-be was still legally married to Heald and would be until the spring.
"That was always an assumption," a source with knowledge of Kayla's first marriage said when asked whether she dated Moore before finalizing her divorce. The same source said Moore gave Kayla's daughter a puppy for Valentine's Day in 1985, further suggesting that he and Kayla were seeing each other at that time..."
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/court-records-suggest-roy-moore-dated-wife-while-she-was-still-married/article/2642679
December 5, 2017 - GOP Tax Plan Benefits Rich, U.S. Voters Say Almost 3-1, Quinnipiac University National Poll Finds; Trump Job Approval Stuck At 35 Percent
The Republican tax plan pending in the U.S. Congress benefits the wealthy the most, 64 percent of American voters say, while 24 percent say the tax plan benefits the middle class and 5 percent say it benefits low-income people, according to a Quinnipiac University national poll released today.
American voters disapprove of the tax plan 53 - 29 percent, the independent Quinnipiac (KWIN-uh-pe-ack) University Poll finds. Republicans approve of the plan 67 - 10 percent, the only party, gender, education, age or racial group listed to approve. White men are divided as 40 percent approve and 42 percent disapprove.
In a separate question, voters say 61 - 34 percent that the tax plan favors the rich at the expense of the middle class.
The plan will increase their taxes, 41 percent of voters say, while 20 percent say the plan will reduce their taxes and 32 percent say the plan will not have much impact on their taxes.
In the wake of the Republican tax plan, American voters say 47 - 39 percent that the Democratic Party can do a better job handling taxes. Voters have been divided on this question in the past.
American voters give President Donald Trump a negative 35 - 58 percent job approval rating, compared to 38 - 55 percent in a November 21 Quinnipiac University poll.
Voters say 56 - 40 percent that Trump is not fit to be president, tying his all-time low score.
"Deeply unpopular and manifestly unfit for the job. That's the harsh assessment of President Donald Trump, whose tax plan is considered built for the rich at the expense of the rest," said Tim Malloy, assistant director of the Quinnipiac University Poll.
Health care is the most important problem facing the country today, 18 percent of voters say, as 17 percent list the economy. Another 13 percent of voters list foreign policy, while 11 percent cite terrorism and 10 percent list race relations.
Voters say 55 - 32 percent that the Democratic Party can do a better job on health care. Voters are closely divided on who does a better job on the economy, as 45 percent say the Democratic Party and 43 percent say the Republican Party. Democrats are ahead on other issues:
* 56 - 34 percent that Democrats can do a better job "fighting for the working class;"
* 51 - 37 percent that Democrats can do a better job "representing your values." ...
you may remember that during most of his Presidency, Brackish Obama blamed the poor to tepid economy on George Bush
now, a year after a new President was elected, he's going around giving speeches about how he's the one responsible:
Former President Barack Obama is taking credit for the robust economic growth that is taking place under President Trump.
At a conference of mayors in Chicago, Mr. Obama congratulated himself Tuesday for strong employment numbers in the U.S. this year, saying his climate-change policies have contributed to growth.
“As we took these actions, we saw the U.S. economy grow consistently,” Mr. Obama said. “We saw the longest streak of job creation in American history by far, a streak that still continues by the way.”
He added wryly, “Thanks, Obama.”
The stock market has gained about 30 percent in value since Mr. Trump’s election in November 2016, and gross domestic product has increased more than 3 percent in each of the past two quarters. The jobless rate, meanwhile, has dropped to a 17-year low of 4.1 percent.
The economy was growing slowly during Mr. Obama’s presidency, but many business leaders and economists credit Mr. Trump’s regulatory rollback and his push for tax cuts as reasons for the economy picking up steam this year."
FBI investigator Peter Strzok not only let Hillary Clinton off the hook, he may have used Democratic Party opposition research as an excuse to spy on Trump campaign advisers.
Strzok became such a political liability that special counsel Robert Mueller had to boot him off the Russia case, where he worked for nearly three months. Mueller made the move after the Justice Department’s inspector general pointed out text messages Strzok sent to a mistress, who also worked for Mueller, exhibiting a strong anti-Trump, pro-Clinton bias.
His misconduct has sent shock waves through Washington because in July 2016, just days after closing the Clinton email case he led, Strzok signed the document that opened the investigation into possible collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia. His fingerprints are all over both cases, one widely criticized as a whitewash and the other condemned by the president and many in his party as a witch hunt.
Potentially more disturbing is Strzok’s possible role in what many see as an even bigger scandal: the weaponizing of US intelligence against political opponents. Did he also sign documents asking a federal court to allow the FBI to spy on Trump advisers? It’s a critical question, because a so-called FISA document authorizing agents to monitor the communications of Trump adviser Carter Page, for one, reportedly was based at least in part on anti-Trump Russia propaganda promulgated in a dossier underwritten by the Clinton campaign — a partisan smear sheet that the FBI and Mueller have nonetheless used as a road map in their Russia probe.
In a Post interview, Page said he suspects Strzok, as the FBI’s No. 2 counterintelligence official, was also involved in applying for and obtaining the secret surveillance warrant on Page from the FISA court in September 2016. He adds that it’s “really interesting” that the dirty dossier found its way into Strzok’s orbit around the same time.
Indeed, according to an in-depth New York Times retrospective published earlier this year detailing the FBI’s two campaign investigations, Clinton subcontractor Christopher Steele briefed the FBI leadership about the findings in his now-discredited dossier in August 2016. Weeks later, the information landed “with Mr. Strzok and his team.”
“In late September, Mr. Steele heard back from his contact at the FBI,” the article continued. “The agency wanted to see the material he had collected ‘right away,’ ” while offering to pay him $50,000.
That month, a monitor was placed on Page.
Both the Senate and House are seeking the bureau’s FISA affidavits to determine to what extent they relied on the dirty Clinton dossier. But the FBI is stonewalling their requests. It’s also blocking FOIA requests by Page, who last month denied the dossier’s charges under oath, calling them politically motivated.
The FBI didn’t just target Page. It also targeted other Trump advisers. In fact, Strzok personally grilled Trump national security adviser Michael Flynn about his Russian ties at the White House just days after Flynn took office.
Last week, Mueller filed charges against Flynn for lying to Strzok about his contacts with the Russian ambassador during the presidential transition.
Strzok monitored intercepts of the Russian Embassy and already knew what Flynn and the Russian ambassador had discussed. So why did he need to ask him about what he already knew? Was he trying to trap him in a lie? Also, who leaked the intercepts to the press?
Strzok led the sham investigation of Clinton’s emails from start to finish, and helped draft her exoneration months in advance of her July 2, 2016, interview, which he personally supervised. He was the agent responsible for softening language then-FBI Director James Comey used in his July 5, 2016, statement clearing Clinton just ahead of the Democratic convention. He changed the rough draft of Comey’s announcement describing Clinton’s behavior as “grossly negligent” (a possible crime) to “extremely careless.” Strzok also was involved in the review of State Department emails discovered on Anthony Weiner’s laptop and gave Clinton her second pass just before the election.
The fix was in, and the fixer appears to have been a top G-man who, behind the scenes, sang the praises of the Democratic subject of his investigation and mocked the Republican subject of his other investigation.
Regardless of what you think about Trump, the Deep State — that is, the federal police and intelligence — shouldn’t get to pick and choose the leadership of this country. We are better than Thailand. If they are not held accountable, they will do it again.
A woman is accusing Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn.) of trying to forcibly kiss her in 2006.
The woman - who was a former Democratic congressional aide - said the Minnesota Democrat attempted to forcibly kiss her in 2006 following the taping of his radio show.
"He was between me and the door and he was coming at me to kiss me. It was very quick and I think my brain had to work really hard to be like 'Wait, what is happening?' But I knew whatever was happening was not right and I ducked," the aide said in an interview with Politico.
I was really startled by it and I just sort of booked it towards the door and he said, 'It's my right as an entertainer.'"
The allegation is from 2006, before Franken became a senator.
Franken said in a statement "I look forward to fully cooperating with the ongoing ethics committee investigation."
Franken is facing multiple allegations of sexual misconduct. A woman last month accused Franken of kissing and groping her without her consent in 2003. Other women have alleged Franken touched them inappropriately during photo ops.
Franken has apologized for his behavior and said he is prepared to cooperate with an ethics investigation. He has also said he is "ashamed" by the allegations.
"December 5, 2017 - GOP Tax Plan Benefits Rich, U.S. Voters Say Almost 3-1, Quinnipiac University National Poll Finds; Trump Job Approval Stuck At 35 Percent".
Remember several months ago with Trump's aproval rating around 38% Wyatt/bad anonymous said his approval rating had bottomed out and he had nowhere to go but up?
Hahahahahahahahahahahahaha!
Trump has praised this unhinged right wing media personality and appeared on his show
In a rant that was bizarre even by his own ludicrous standards, Alex Jones tells us all about the fiendish plans of liberal lesbian cannibals and the femme lesbians who are attracted to them because they really wish men would beat them and abuse them.
“Most of these butch lesbians, they want to be the guy smacking the hot chick around. They think that’s manly. And a lot of the chicks, they like it, see, because no man will do that to them, and I’m not saying it’s good if a man does that, but some women like it. And if they can’t find a man to smack them around, well they found them a girl gonna do it real good—knock them upside their head and have ‘50 Shades of Grey’ about the sexy rich guy that’s going to chain you up,” Jones said.
Gee Alex, are you saying this out of your vast experiences with lesbian BDSM? Or is it, like virtually everything else you say, rectally-derived? But he was just getting started.
“Of course, you’re gonna go get chained up one time. They’re gonna put that devil mask or that piggy mask on. They’re gonna say, ‘Now I’m gonna torture you for about six weeks, so start begging for your mommy and your daddy.’ That’s the liberals. They want to get you in a dungeon. They want to strap you down and take a buzz saw and cut the top of your head off like a pumpkin and pull it off and get a little spoon and go, when you’re looking in the mirror—this is one thing I know they like to do—they go ‘I’m going to eat your brain now.’”…
“I’ve got power. I love Satan,” Jones yelled, growing louder and louder. “And I’m gonna suck you dry and I’m going to torture you to death. And you’re going to follow my liberal orders, and you’re going to talk like I talk, and you’re going to be guilty when I say you’re guilty. And you’re gonna bow to me.”
And yes, he was actually impersonating this imagined liberal lesbian cannibal by the end. The brain-eating liberal lesbian can now join all those human-animal chimeras, the lizard people and the gay frogs in Jones’ menagerie of things that make him very angry without actually, you know, existing and stuff.
More than a half-dozen Democratic women senators on Wednesday called on their predatory colleague, Democratic Sen. Al Franken, to resign after multiple women have come forward alleging that the Minnesota lawmaker harassed them or engaged in sexual misconduct.
Sens. Kirsten Gillibrand of New York, Claire McCaskill of Missouri, Maggie Hassan of New Hampshire, Mazie Hirono of Hawaii, Kamala Harris of California, Patty Murray of Washington and Tammy Baldwin of Wisconsin, all put out statements within minutes of each other saying it was time for Franken to go.
The calls came the day after Rep. John Conyers, a Michigan Democrat, also accused of sexual misconduct, announced he was resigning after calls from his own party to quit.
"While Senator Franken is entitled to have the Ethics Committee conclude its review, I believe it would be better for our country if he sent a clear message that any kind of mistreatment of women in our society isn't acceptable by stepping aside to let someone else serve," Gillibrand, a New York Democrat, wrote in a lengthy Facebook post.
"Enough is enough," she wrote. "The women who have come forward are brave and I believe them."
Moments later, McCaskill tweeted, "Al Franken should resign," while Hassan said, "It is clear that Al Franken has engaged in a pattern of egregious and unacceptable behavior toward women."
Harris tweeted that "Sexual harassment and misconduct should not be allowed by anyone and should not occur anywhere," adding, "I believe the best thing for Senator Franken to do is step down."
Hirono referred to the choice by Time magazine to name "The Silence Breakers" of the #MeToo movement as its 2017 Person of the Year on Wednesday, in calling for Franken to quit.
By noon, Sens. Bob Casey, D-Pa., and Joe Donnelly, D-Ind., joined their female colleagues, in saying Franken should step aside.
Multiple women have come forward in recent weeks alleging that Franken had harassed them.
On Nov. 27, after some of the allegations but before others, Franken said he was "embarrassed" and "ashamed," and apologized to supporters and the women who say he groped them — but said he "cannot speculate" if more harassment claims would surface.
If Franken abides by the calls, he would become the latest politician to step down amid a wave of high-profile sexual misconduct scandals that have toppled powerful figures in Washington, Hollywood and the media industry.
Roy Moore, the Republican candidate for U.S. Senate from Alabama, fired off a tweet on Tuesday evening bragging about his “Alabama values.”
"I think they're afraid I'm going to take Alabama values to Washington and I can't wait. #ALsen"
— Judge Roy Moore (@MooreSenate) December 6, 2017
His critics had plenty to say about those values given that Moore has been accused of sexual misconduct by multiple women, including some who say their encounters took place when they were teenagers.
"they're afraid your gonna rape some teens - u sick idiot"
— ROSIE (@Rosie) December 6, 2017
"What Alabama values are you referring? Voters keep electing politicians who are corrupt, won't follow the laws and have to be removed from office. Example: you. Twice."
— Melissa (@Mel_RTR_) December 6, 2017
"Actually, I AM kinda afraid you will take Alabama values to Washington."
— Book Spin (@Book_Dude) December 6, 2017
"Besides the whole “you’re a pedophile” thing - there’s also Alabama ranks…
#47 in Healthcare
#47 in Education
#45 in Economy
#42 in Crime/Corrections
#42 in Government
#50 in Infant Mortality
#49 in Obesity
Which of these are you wanting to bring? Plus you can’t keep a job."
— Nettie Rhodes (@TheNettieRhodes) December 6, 2017
"There's so much wrong with this tweet I don't even know where to start."
— Jo Maree (@minnesotajo) December 6, 2017
"You mean stalking young girls at the mall type of values?? Yes everyone is afraid of that....."
— Nick (@FlyersFan1718) December 6, 2017
"Is dating high school girls an Alabama value? Or just a Roy Moore value?"
— Ken Fitzgerald (@loudlong) December 6, 2017
"You mean these values? Court records suggest Moore dated his wife while she was married to another man"
— Mark McMillen (@EthicsGradient) December 6, 2017
"Actually we're afraid you're going to molest more kids, you repugnant creep."
-- Rob Sheridan (@rob_sheridan) December 5, 2017
"Even Ivanka doesn't want your "values"...Theres a special place in hell for people who prey on children. I've yet to see a valid explanation and I have
no reason to doubt the victim's accounts"
--momma (@mommamia6512) December 5, 2017
"I think they're afraid you're going to treat the National Mall
just like the mall back home #ALsen"
--Ed Robinson (@eviledrobinson) December 5, 2017
"Thanksgiving with HIS family must have been super creepy - Why's Roy Moore sitting at the kids' table?..."
--Harry Callahan (@Harry_Callahan) December 5, 2017
"Somehow I don't think those values include creeping around the
mall to try and date teenage girls. I mean, I could be wrong, but Ifeel like that's not really an Alabama thing."
-- Ethan Kocak (@Blackmudpuppy) December 5, 2017
Embattled Sen. Al Franken will make an announcement Thursday, his office told reporters, as calls for the Minnesota Democrat's resignation rapidly gained momentum Wednesday in dramatic fashion.
Twenty-three Democratic senators -- twelve female and eleven male including the second-ranking Democrat in chamber -- called on Franken to resign as allegations of sexual harassment against him continue to mount. Republican Sen. Susan Collins also called on Franken to quit.
In a statement on Facebook, New York Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand wrote: "I believe it would be better for our country if he sent a clear message that any kind of mistreatment of women in our society isn't acceptable by stepping aside to let someone else serve."
Sens. Claire McCaskill of Missouri, Patty Murray of Washington, Maggie Hassan of New Hampshire, Kamala Harris of California, Tammy Baldwin of Wisconsin, Debbie Stabenow of Michigan, Sen. Heidi Heitkamp of North Dakota, Maria Cantwell of Washington, Dianne Feinstein of California, Tammy Duckworth of Illinois and Mazie Hirono of Hawaii also joined in the call for Franken to resign.
Sen. Bob Casey of Pennsylvania was the first male Democratic senator to call on Franken to resign just after noon Wednesday. Sens. Joe Donnelly of Indiana, Michael Bennet of Colorado, Ed Markey of Massachusetts, Patrick Leahy of Vermont, Ron Wyden of Oregon, Martin Heinrich of New Mexico, Tom Carper of Delaware, Jeff Merkley of Oregon and Sherrod Brown also called for Franken to step down. Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois -- the Democratic whip -- also called on Franken to resign just before 1 p.m. ET.
Notably absent was Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer of New York. "No comment at this point," Schumer said entering a lunch Wednesday.
that's one less vote against cutting taxes!!
Imagine the outcry if Congress compelled all individuals to purchase a new automobile.
Moreover, let’s say Congress didn’t just command Americans to buy cars, but in Henry Ford-like fashion told us everybody must buy one of a very small number of identical cars, the features of which would be dictated by the government.
What if Congress told us exactly what food, clothing, housing, legal or dental services we were required to procure?
That is exactly what Congressional Democrats did for health insurance when they enacted the Affordable Care Act (ACA) and its mandate that all individuals purchase one of but a few health plans these legislators deemed permissible.
The individual mandate imposes a financial sanction on American citizens who do not purchase government-sanctioned health insurance.
Note the use of the term “government-sanctioned.”
The ACA’s punishment is not only imposed on those who fail to obtain any health insurance, which would be odious in its own right, but also on Americans who choose to buy insurance that isn’t to the liking of the Democrats who enacted the mandate into law.
In National Federation of Independent Business v. Sebelius, the United States Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of the individual mandate as within Congress’s power to tax.
Despite Democrats’ insistence that the mandate’s financial sanctions were intended as a “penalty” and not a tax, Chief Justice John Roberts on behalf of the court wrote, “The Federal Government does have the power to impose a tax on those without health insurance. Section 5000A is therefore constitutional, because it can reasonably be read as a tax.”
Whether the fine for not buying government blessed health insurance is called a penalty or a tax, the individual mandate inflicts a far more pernicious indirect tax on those who acquire health insurance in the individual market. Yes, the mandate is an affront to the freedom to make our own health care decisions. That is likely the primary reason it is so despised.
However, the most monetarily venomous effect of the individual mandate tax is to coerce millions of Americans into buying overpriced health plans that cover services they neither need nor want. It is these individuals on whom the costs of care for the chronically and seriously ill have been disproportionately saddled.
The individual mandate unjustly targets its financial pain on those who can least afford it, the self-employed or workers between jobs. These Americans are already penalized relative to those with employer-sponsored insurance by having to pay for their health care with after-tax, rather than pre-tax, dollars. It is the height of unfairness to slam them with another overwhelming liability that they themselves have not incurred and cannot afford.
Rather than pawning off a societal obligation on these unfortunate souls, the honest, transparent and ethical course is for everybody to pay for the increased utilization and health costs of those suffering from chronic diseases. If we believe that each citizen is entitled to such a broad set of benefits, all should bear the expense, not just buyers of insurance in the individual market.
As usual, the Chicken Littles claim the skies will fall on the individual health insurance market if the mandate is abolished. This belies reality. According to the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO), individual insurance markets “would continue to be stable in almost all areas of the country throughout the coming decade.”
Although the CBO predicts some premium increases, for many purchasers these increases would be offset by federal subsidies. Most important, millions could avoid them entirely by choosing more reasonably priced policies that better meet their needs.
Senators Lamar Alexander and Patty Murray have proposed reinstating insurer subsidies known as “cost sharing reduction payments” (CSRs) that are intended to compensate for ACA required discounts for some beneficiaries. President Trump last month correctly stopped payment of the CSRs, which had not been appropriated by Congress and were therefore illegal. Coupling the Alexander-Murray bill to repeal of the individual mandate should allay concerns about possible destabilization from the mandate’s abrogation, while substantially increasing the odds the Alexander-Murray bill will become law.
Another oddity engendered by the convolutions of ObamaCare is that repeal of the mandate is predicted to return $300 billion to $400 billion to the U.S. Treasury over the next decade. This itself supports the case for repeal. However, a much more compelling argument for removing the individual mandate is its fundamental unfairness, a problem inherent to this dictate that cannot be repaired.
A freshman Congressman who has come under fire after sexual assault allegations is saying party leadership knew of the complaints a year ago, and still supported his candidacy.
Nevada Congressman Ruben Kihuen told ABC News that the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee and its Chairman Rep. Ben Ray Lujan, along with House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, knew about the allegations against him, and continued to support him.
“they continued investing millions of dollars in my campaign. They went out there and campaigned for me,” Kihuen told ABC News Tuesday of Pelosi and Lujan.
ABC reported December 1 that a 25-year-old woman, only identified as “Samantha” had left her job as the finance director on Kihuen’s campaign because he repeatedly propositioned her for dates and sex, and twice touched her thighs without her consent.
In a statement to Buzzfeed, Kihuen said, “The staff member in question was a valued member of my team. I sincerely apologize for anything that I may have said or done that made her feel uncomfortable. I take this matter seriously as it is not indicative of who I am. I was raised in a strong family. I have spent my fifteen years in public service, and I will continue to do so.”
Both Lujan and Pelosi called on Kihuen to resign after the publication of the article. But Kihuen told ABC he was not resigning. “I plan on continuing the job that I was elected to do by the people of the 4th congressional district,” he said.
The Senate Judiciary Committee chairman has demanded the FBI turn over documents related to an agent who was removed from Robert Mueller’s special counsel team after an internal probe found he sent messages that showed possible bias for Hillary Clinton and against President Trump.
Sen. Charles Grassley wrote to FBI Director Chris Wray on Wednesday to ask that the bureau address a series of questions about counterintelligence investigator Peter Strzok. The deputy assistant director in the FBI’s counterterrorism division was removed both from that position and the Mueller team over the summer, and reassigned to the human resources division, after it was reported that he “engaged in communications demonstrating political bias while handling matters in two sensitive, high-profile investigations,” Mr. Grassley said.
Mr. Strzok led the investigation of Mrs. Clinton’s email server in 2016. He sent the text messages to Lisa Page, an FBI lawyer who also left the Mueller investigation this past summer.
He was also one of two agents who would eventually interview former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn.
The Justice Department’s Office of the Inspector General has been reviewing both the FBI’s and the DOJ’s handling of the Clinton probe, which cleared the Mrs. Clinton of criminal wrongdoing. The messages from Mr. Strzok were discovered in the course of that internal review.
Mr. Grassley, Iowa Republican, previously requested to interview Mr. Strzok to discuss a number of the allegations, but has not been able to do so.
Now, ahead of a planned interview, the committee is seeking a number of documents and communications sent to or from Mr. Strzok by Dec. 11.
Mr. Grassley requested requested the text messages at issue, communications containing “favorable or unfavorable statements about Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton,” and any communications that include decisions about closing the Clinton investigation or opening an investigation into potential collusion between associates of President Trump and the Russian government.
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The House on Wednesday rejected an effort to impeach President Trump.
Lawmakers tabled an impeachment resolution from Rep. Al Green (D-Texas). A majority of Democrats to turn away the resolution.
Green’s articles of impeachment did not allege Trump has committed a crime. Instead, Green argued that Trump has “brought disrepute, contempt, ridicule and disgrace on the presidency” and “sown discord among the people of the United States.”
Nancy Pelosi said that those who voted to impeach the President are "morons."
To back up Green’s assertion, the articles of impeachment cited Trump’s criticisms of NFL players kneeling during the national anthem to protest police brutality; disparate treatment of hurricane victims in Puerto Rico compared to Texas and Florida; and personal attacks against Rep. Frederica Wilson (D-Fla.), who, like Green, is a member of the Congressional Black Caucus.
Green acknowledged that his effort to force an impeachment vote was facing opposition from Democrats. But after pushing for Trump’s impeachment for months, he said he believes Congress needs to discuss the president’s fitness for office.
“May everyone vote their conscience knowing that history will judge us all,” Green wrote in a letter to fellow lawmakers on Tuesday.
The Highest Paying Card Has Hit The Market
What Happens When Gay People Are Told That Gayness Is A Sin?
The following is a condensed version of this article. I haven't included all of the links in that uncondensed article.
In the immediate aftermath of the shooting at Orlando’s Pulse nightclub, some Christian conservatives known to be anti-LGBT expressed sympathy for the victims and their families, suggesting that radical Islam was wholesale to blame for the attack. Many avoided mentioning that LGBT people were the victims — at least until a few days later, when they began reminding everybody what they truly think about gay people.
“Yes, Christians do believe gay actions are sinful. But we also believe that mass shootings are sinful, and lying is sinful, and gossip is sinful, and so are laziness, torture, theft, rape, dishonesty, abuse. We all sin.”
“It is true that many Christians hold to the Bible’s teaching on the sinfulness of gayness and that upsets some gays,” wrote Rick McDaniel at the ChristianPost. “But here is an opportunity to simply receive love and support and it is rebuffed.”
There’s a reason it is rebuffed.
Conservative Christians have long argued that their condemnations of gayness are couched in love, complete with the catchy slogan, “love the sinner, hate the sin.” But that message — that gayness is a sin — is harmful in and of itself.
Countless studies have assessed the impact of various forms of stigma and discrimination against LGBT people. The negative consequences of discrimination, bullying, and family rejection are well documented, but fewer studies have actually looked at the direct effect of religious condemnations of gayness.
In 2009, the American Psychological Association (APA) issued a comprehensive report rejecting the effectiveness of "ex-gay therapy" (Sexual Orientation Change Efforts) based on all available research. That report laid out numerous kinds of conflict that can arise when people are trying to reconcile their faith with their sexuality:
Some report difficulty coping with intense guilt over the failure to live a virtuous life and inability to stop committing unforgivable sins, as defined by their religion. Some struggled with their belief in God, perceiving that God was punishing or abandoning them — or would if they acted on their attractions; some expressed feelings of anger at the situation in which their God had placed them.
The report then explained how the research had found that all of these struggles came with mental health consequences. Individuals felt culpable, unacceptable, unforgiven, disillusioned, and great emotional distress — feelings that were associated with anxiety, panic disorders, depression, and suicidality. And notably, these consequences occurred “regardless of the level of religiosity or the perception of religion as a source of comfort and coping.”
Survivors of "ex-gay therapy" have confirmed these consequences with their own stories. In an informal survey conducted by the organization Beyond Ex-Gay in 2013, 92 percent of people who had undergone SOCE reported experiencing harm as a result. Besides the fact that the treatments didn’t actually work to change their orientation, the respondents said that trying to “pray away the gay” caused them to experience shame, depression, fear, anger, lowered self-esteem, feelings of failure, and even suicidal thinking.
"Ex-gay therapy" may have contributed to some of those consequences, but there was a particular kind of thinking that motivated those individuals to subject themselves to SOCE in the first place. “To be a better Christian” was the most prominent response, followed by “I believed it was what God wanted me to do” and “I feared I would be condemned by God.” In other words, these gay and lesbian people already felt rejected by and excluded from their faith communities, and then they pursued therapy that made them feel worse.
Dr. Doug Haldeman, who now chairs the clinical psychology doctoral program at John F. Kennedy University, saw similar complications in the hundreds of ex-gay survivors he treated during his 30 years of private practice. He told ThinkProgress that patients who underwent more invasive SOCE treatments (such as electroshock therapy) were unsurprisingly more traumatized than those who pursued more conventional forms of talk or behavioral therapy, but that didn’t mean that those in the latter group were okay.
According to Haldeman’s observations, “The messages — ‘You are of less value,’ ‘You are disordered,’ ‘You are somehow an inferior person’ — either directly or implied by these anti-gay statements — have a negative effect on everybody who experiences them. You don’t even have to go through conversion therapy to have some of the sequelae of having internalized these effects.”
Like Tillotson wrote, many religious conservatives try to justify condemning gayness as a sin with equivocating statements about how “we’re all sinners,” but this does little to soften the blow.
First, the comparison to other actions treats a person’s sexual orientation like it’s a choice, a hypothesis that science has roundly rejected. The attempt to compare gayness to more common sins like lying, laziness, and gossip may be an attempt to downplay the severity of gayness, but it actually disproves its own point. LGB people are singled out for condemnation and ostracization from society, while liars, sloths, and gossips — i.e. just about everybody — are not. Likewise, comparing gayness to sins that actually hurt people, like theft and murder, communicates that LGB people deserve as much scorn as criminals — and in many countries, they are treated as such.
Dr. Ilan Meyer, who has long studied the impact of minority stress on the LGBT community at the Williams Institute at UCLA’s School of Law, told ThinkProgress that “the message that gayness is a sin is at the core of homophobia.” Because it’s an explicit tenet instead of just a prejudice, it creates the sense that nobody is really to blame for the harm that belief causes. The church community sees the LGB person as a sinner, and thus feels it has permission to disdain the person and ostracize them, including excommunicating them in some traditions.
Haldeman saw the culmination of this rejection in his clients. Because the church is seen as an authority that consistently repeats the same message, “the internalization of those messages creates a thought loop inside that plays over and over again. It affects, really, every waking hour in one way or the other.” Every single time a gay person caught in that thought loop sees a person who they might find attractive — or even just thinks about such a person — they are reminded of that condemnation and the notion that there is something wrong with them. As the therapist whose job it was to try to help end that thought loop, Haldeman confirmed that the internal effects are “devastating.”
Another reason recovering from these experiences can be so challenging is because of the way religious beliefs are often ingrained at an early age. “If you grow up in a religious environment, you are likely to hear the message that gayness is a sin well before you even begin to identify yourself as LGB,” Meyer explained. “You are likely to hear it from your religious leader and hear it reverberated in every aspect of your world (family, friends, teachers at school). It is in the water you drink and the air you breathe.”
Because exposure to anti-gay beliefs often comes first, those beliefs establish the context for how a person undergoes the process of making sense of their sexual identity. “As a religious person begins to question his or her sexuality, maybe realizing that they are lesbian, gay, or bisexual, all these teachings become personally relevant in ways that lead the person to devalue him- or herself. That message, especially for a young person coming out, is very scary. It can be depressing, can lead to substance use and to suicide ideation and attempts.”
Dr. Caitlin Ryan's research has unequivocally found is that family rejection — even if it doesn’t lead to kids being kicked out or sent to "ex-gay therapy" — has incredibly negative consequences for the kids’ mental health nevertheless. Conversely, family acceptance not only ameliorates those consequences, but helps create a buffer that protects them from being rejected by others, “like a vaccine that protects their LGBT children with love.”
The term “same-sex attracted,” was first devised by Mormon religious leaders in the 1970s to reject the notion that people could objectively be gay. “It taught generations of lesbian, gay, and bisexual people that they didn’t exist and that there was no such thing as being lesbian, gay, and bisexual,”.
Thus, the idea that gayness is a sin isn’t an isolated idea, and what Ryan’s seen in her research confirms this. “These are messages that are condemning. They’re social rejection. Young people who heard these messages — which are also that ‘God doesn’t love you’ and ‘God will punish you’ — it affected their sense of self-worth and self-esteem. It contributed to depression and an underlying perception that there was something wrong with them — that perhaps, if there wasn’t a such thing as a gay person, then they were crazy. And this led to homelessness and suicidality, especially in a conservative social world.”
These kids, who are generally discovering their sexuality by the time they’re 10 years old, are being threatened with the loss of their families at the same time that a core aspect of their identity is being rejected. But rejecting families often perceive what they’re doing as “trying to help their children, help them fit in, have a good life, be accepted by others, live a morally correct life. So they didn’t perceive what they were doing as being harmful, they saw it as being helpful.
Perhaps the most important — if unsurprising — finding from Ryan’s research is that the least accepting families tend to be the most religious.
As the child then tries to cope with the mental health challenges that result from that rejection, they may be more likely to turn to their faith community for support, which only compounds the problem. Meyer pointed out that research has confirmed this downward spiral effect. “I think more commonly the person who is in a religious environment will tend to seek support within that environment,” he explained. “That can be damaging in its own — we have found in recently published research that people who sought help from a religious (pastoral) counselor were more likely to later attempt suicide than people who sought no help at all.”
"They’re often being told that who they are, or that acting on their particular sexual orientation, is sinful.” Women, Muslims, or other groups for whom there are negative attitudes are less likely to be told that who they are is objectively wrong. Even those who have achieved a confident sense of synthesis with their identity can still struggle in the face of a daily barrage of negative messages.
Bufka described it as a process that never really ends for LGB people. “Being told that a fundamental aspect of who you are is sinful? That’s pretty hard! You really have to work at saying, ‘That’s not me, that’s not my belief, that’s not who I am, I know that not to be the case.’ But that requires effort. If you’re not getting that message as a straight person, you don’t even have to expend the time of day to be thinking about, ‘Oh I’m straight and it’s sinful.’ That’s just not even a part of your reality.”
Gays also have daily possible mistreatment.” This creates a heightened level of self-protective arousal and anticipation, as LGB people constantly worry about how to conduct themselves to avoid that mistreatment. “Your stress hormones are active more regularly, and we know that long-term, that can lead to higher blood pressure, gastrointestinal distress, chronic headaches, and other health conditions that are more likely to occur if you’re experiencing chronic stress.”
Indeed, a 2014 study found that LGB people who lived in anti-gay communities had a life expectancy that was 12 years shorter than those who lived in more welcoming communities. Incidentally, those with anti-gay attitudes also had shorter life expectancy. The same researchers had found a few years prior that LGB teens experienced a significantly higher risk of suicide simply for living in a more conservative community.
The call to celibacy is the latest interpretation of “love the sinner, hate the sin.” Meyer described that slogan as one that “seems to allow the person conveying it to deny that their message is a message of hate and derision while, in fact, giving exactly such a message. This message, if taken as a prescription for gaining the love of the messenger, requires the LGB person to forever struggle to keep him or herself celibate, and deny their need for affection and intimacy. This seems like an incredibly high price to pay and, regardless, as we’ve learned from research on so-called ‘conversion therapies,’ an impossible goal to accomplish.”
What’s underlying this belief in many faith traditions is an ultimatum; many conservatives openly espouse, for example, that there is no such thing as a gay Christian. With his clients, Haldeman has had to help them unpack the reality that they can’t change their sexuality, but they can change their understanding of their faith.
In order to recover, you cannot maintain an anti-gay version of the self.
“I have never persuaded anyone to abandon their religious beliefs,” he explained. “However, I have persuaded that cleaving to certain religious beliefs is toxic to the self. You may maintain however you conceptualize a faith in God, or Jesus, or Buddha, or Muhammad, or whoever it is, but in order to recover, you cannot maintain an anti-gay version of the self.” What he largely saw in his clients was not an abandonment of their faith, but “revising, remodeling, refashioning” so that their religious beliefs “are just more compatible with who they are.”
The intersection of faith and counseling has become increasingly contentious. Proponents of keeping "ex-gay therapy" legal insist that people of faith should be allowed to pursue therapy that matches their beliefs, and likewise, counselors of faith argue that they should not have to give up their anti-LGBT beliefs to be licensed therapists.
But Haldeman prioritizes wellness. He shrugged off concerns about upholding the religious beliefs across various faiths designed to oppress various groups, including the LGBT community, women, and people of color. “If that’s your vision of what God expects — to be able to oppress other people — then I would freely admit: Yeah, I would encourage people to abandon that. That’s just toxic thinking however you couch it and whatever scriptures you use to support it.”
So long as people espouse the idea that LGBT identities are sinful, LGBT people will be harmed. Unlike other marginalized groups, LGBT people can be born anywhere to any family. That means that so long as anybody is promoting beliefs that reject LGBT people, there will be children who are vulnerable to the mental health consequences of that rejection, including the risky behaviors and suicidal thinking that can result. No matter how much love any religious individual espouses for the lesbian, gay, or bi “sinner,” they are still propagating that harm.
Two influential women in media said they warned Hillary Clinton’s aides about Harvey Weinstein — but their words of caution appeared to go unheeded.
Actress and director Lena Dunham told The New York Times that she reached out to two members of Clinton’s presidential campaign team last year to alert them to troubling rumors she’d heard about the Hollywood mogul. She recalled telling Kristina Schake, the campaign’s deputy communications director, last March that “Harvey’s a rapist and this is going to come out at some point.”
“I think it’s a really bad idea for him to host fundraisers and be involved because it’s an open secret in Hollywood that he has a problem with sexual assault,” Dunham remembered adding, referencing Weinstein’s support for Clinton’s campaign. Weinstein was a major Democratic Party donor. He also donated $250,000 to the Clinton Foundation through June 2017, according to the nonprofit’s website.
Dunham said Schake promised to relay her message about Weinstein to campaign manager Robby Mook. Dunham said she later also reached out to Adrienne Elrod, a Clinton spokeswoman, after her initial warnings had no apparent effect.
Magazine editor and author Tina Brown told the Times that she’d also warned Clinton’s aides years before about Weinstein.
During the 2008 presidential race, Brown said she told “a member of Clinton’s inner circle” in an email that the former first lady was “unwise to be so closely associated with him.”
Elrod and Schake did not deny that Dunham had reached out to them.
Clinton, who was criticized for initially remaining silent about the Weinstein accusations, has suggested she knew nothing of the producer’s predatory behavior prior to the first bombshell article in the Times describing the sexual harassment allegations against him.
“I was appalled. It was something that was just intolerable in every way,” she told CNN’s Fareed Zakaria in October. “And, you know, like so many people who’ve come forward and spoken out, this was a different side of a person who I and many others had known in the past.”
Clinton added at the time that she intended to donate the funds that Weinstein had given to her campaign to charity.
“What other people are saying, what my former colleagues are saying, is they’re going to donate it to charity, and of course I will do that,” she told Zakaria. “I give 10 percent of my income to charity every year, this will be part of that. There’s no ― there’s no doubt about it.”
So, she's giving the same 10 percent as always, effectively keeping the Weinstein donation.
As was recently discussed, Trump owes hundreds of millions to Germany's Deuthsche Bank because American banks wouldn't lend to him anymore after he repeatedly stiffed them. An official has said that Mueller has subpoenaed Deutsche bank to see if it may have sold some of Trump's mortgage or other loans to the Russian state development bank VEB which is controlled by Putin or other Russian banks that are under U.S. and European Union sanctions.
Its huge news if a Russian bank has bought Trump's debt as that gives a Russian bank direct leverage over Donald Trump. Whether or not that's the case has not been disclosed on any of Trump's financial disclosure forms (this is why him hiding his income tax returns is problematic, they would show that). In 2014 Eric Trump said "We don't rely on American banks. We have all the funding we need out of Russia". Trump Jr. said something similar to that as well. There is a reason that Donald Trump bends over backwards to be nice to Putin and Russia. He's meaner to the American people and the United States' allies than he is to the Russians - hard to imagine why that is if he's not under the thumb of Putin and Russia.
There's something very fishy going on with Deutsche Bank and Trump. Deutsche Bank lent Trump 600 million. Later Trump defaulted on a 40 million dollar interest payment and Deutsche bank sued Trump for it. Trump responded by counter suing Deutsche Bank for 3 billion, absurdly claiming it was responsible for the financial crash of 2008 and caused him to lose money. Deutsche bank had been convicted of money laundering 10 billion dollars of Russia money by New York State and was fined $400 million. In the mean time there was also a federal investigation by the Justice Department on the same money laundering by Deutsche Bank and a much bigger fine was expected.
Inexplicably some time after Trump stiffed Deutsche bank on the 40 million interest payment they dropped their law suit against Trump and lent him hundreds of millions more. After Trump was sworn in as president the Justice Department investigation into money laundering by Deutsche bank suddenly went dormant. Something very fishy is going on here.
"Something very fishy is going on here."
you know, I think Priya is right
something very fishy is going on
we have a Canadian leftist that seems more concerned with making up conspiracy American politics than anything going on in Canada
veeeryy fishy, indeed......
why is said leftist so obsessed with America?
perhaps Priya is being paid by Putin
maybe Priya is really not from Canada at all but a former intern for Bill Clinton
maybe Priya was fired on The Apprentice
perhaps Priya's brother broke Nancy Kerrigan's legs
or could Priya actually be an automatronic puppet that escaped from It's a Small World in Orlando?
whatever it is....
it's veeeryy fishy.......
John Conyers, who was a Democrat jerk in Congress for over fifty years, had to resign yesterday because the press found out he was a sexual predator and the Democratic caucus could no longer cover it up
but, no worries
he found a suitable substitute: wala! it's his son
that will save the seat for the Dems
ooops!!:
"WASHINGTON — John Conyers III, who was endorsed by his father on Tuesday to succeed him in the House, was arrested in February after his girlfriend suffered knife cuts during an argument."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xJFcIvZ_X50
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There, there Wyatt, I know you're feeling defeated but this will make you feel better: The new year is almost here and you can get your Justin Trudeau My Canadian Boyfriend 2018 Wall Calendar
The calendar is dedicated to Canada's attractive prime minister and consists of 12 sexy shots of the leader of the free world.
You can get yours online at Walmart and Amazon (click the link).
Priya, your attraction to this kid is sick
stick to your age
other than the fact that Canada is led by a juvenile, there must be something else of interest
I think it's fishy and funny how Canada has convinced themselves that this puerile guy is some major world leader
maybe there's some mold in the wheat up there causing hallucinations
we're laughing at you
Priya must be so tickled!!
Trump polls are gong through the roof!!
President Trump’s approval rating has hit its highest point since late September.
Politico/Morning Consult poll results published on Wednesday show that 45 percent of respondents give the leader approving marks, while 51 percent expressed disapproval.
The poll was conducted from December 1 to December 3, a period that saw the Senate’s passage of the Republican tax bill.
Conspiracy Nuts Worshiping Trump
There is no one perfect but Jesus, we are told by many wingnuts. But some of them have clearly elevated Donald Trump to that status, claiming that he has the anointing of God and two of them, Liz Crokin and Crystal Myers-Barber, say that Trump is never, ever wrong.
Discussing Trump’s recent tweet insinuating that MSNBC host Joe Scarborough had something to do with the death of an intern who worked in his office back when he was in Congress, Crokin declared that when Trump “tweets something, he is never wrong [because] President Trump is 15 steps ahead of everyone else.”
“Everything Trump says is eventually proven to be true,” she said. “Trump would not make an allegation suggesting that Joe Scarborough had something to do with an intern’s murder if it wasn’t true.”
Crokin said that Trump is an amazing person for having the patience to deal with a murderer like Scarborough attacking him on television every day without lashing out, which Myers-Baber attributed to Trump’s deep Christian faith.
“We can see the fruit of Jesus manifesting in his life,” Myers-Barber said. “He has a prophetic nature about him. It is like God is guiding him and he is very protected.”
At this point, Trump might as well declare himself to be speaking ex cathedra at all times and his loonier followers would fall to their knees in genuflection. Never mind that the accusation against Scarborough is absolute nonsense. The coroner and the police found no evidence of foul play and the autopsy found that heart problems had caused her to pass out and hit her head on a desk. But like Trump, his followers don’t let pesky little things like facts get in their way. Facts are fake news, only what the imagine in their heads is real.
"Trump’s recent tweet insinuating that MSNBC host Joe Scarborough had something to do with the death of an intern who worked in his office back when he was in Congress,"
I kinda keep up with the news and I missed this
please post a copy
"Crokin declared that when Trump “tweets something, he is never wrong [because] President Trump is 15 steps ahead of everyone else.”"
a rhetorical device of exaggeration, really don't think this constitutes "worship"
"Crokin said that Trump is an amazing person for having the patience to deal with a murderer like Scarborough attacking him on television every day without lashing out,"
oh yeah, that's one thing I've noticed about Trump
he never lashes out
you know, unless provoked
unfortunately, he's provoked by someone looking at him as if he's not the greatest thing since sliced bread
"which Myers-Baber attributed to Trump’s deep Christian faith."
deep Christian faith?
are you sure this article isn't from the Onion?
"“We can see the fruit of Jesus manifesting in his life,” Myers-Barber said. “He has a prophetic nature about him. It is like God is guiding him and he is very protected.”"
here's some spiritual fruit listed in scripture:
love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control
anyone see any of that tangling from the Trump tree?
let's think rationally for a minute
Dems have pressured Franken into resigning
why?
because he would be a risk to lose the seat in the next election
if he goes now, the liberal Minnesota governor will appoint another Dem who will become the incumbent and likely be elected next year in a special election, and who will reflect the views of Minnesota voters
a similar calculation is taking place in Alabama
Moore will be elected next week
when he gets to Congress, he'll face an ethics probe and may be expelled
if so, the governor of Alabama will select a replacement that represents the view of Alabamans
which is as it should be, clearly a better result than someone like Doug Jones, who doesn't represent Alabamans in any sense
in both cases, the system is working to produce the best result
the pervnado is calmed and the voters are protected
and America is great
then, and again
Somehow, the hysterical Democratic response to the GOP's tax-reform bill has managed to be worse than the fumbling Republican disunity that created this legislation. Rather than giving voters a sense that Democrats could govern effectively and realistically, liberals have just matched Republican incompetence with their own ridiculous hyperbole and panic.
On Monday, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) led her party's response with a measured assessment of the bill as "Armageddon." That was a reference to the inclusion of a repeal of ObamaCare's individual mandate in the Senate version, which would eliminate the most unpopular part of the Affordable Care Act. Pelosi then followed up that assessment with a claim on the House floor that the bill is "the worst bill in the history of the United States Congress." Pelosi claimed that Republicans had achieved this historic accomplishment because the bill "involves more money, hurts more people, increases the deficit by so much more." Pelosi's attacks mirrored others, such as Sen. Bernie Sanders' claim that Republicans were "looting the Treasury," and laments by liberal celebrities and media figures that "America died tonight," and that there was no going back after this collapse.
It doesn't take a historian to poke a few holes in the apocalyptic fantasies of Pelosi and Co. While assessment of acts of Congress are subjective in nature, it's safe to say that neither the House nor Senate tax bill comes close to the awful nature of, say, the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850, which required Northern states to return runaway slaves to their Southern masters. Then there's the Sedition Act of 1918, which made dissent a crime, or the Gulf of Tonkin resolution, which enabled a massive expansion of the Vietnam War in 1964. Economically, as every fan of Ferris Bueller's Day Off knows, the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act of 1930 magnified the Great Depression in both the U.S. and Europe, creating instability and chaos that allowed an opening for the Nazis to come to power in Germany two years later.
Even on the narrow merits of Pelosi's criteria, her claims are ludicrous. The CBO projected that the Senate version of the tax bill would add $1.5 trillion to the deficit over 10 years. The two budgets passed under full Democratic control by Pelosi, Harry Reid, and Barack Obama (FY2010 and FY2011) had combined deficit spending of close to $2.6 trillion in just those two years. That doesn't count the $1.4 trillion deficit in the FY2009 budget passed by Pelosi and Reid with signoffs by both George W. Bush and Obama, which was an increase in deficit spending of nearly $1 trillion over FY2008. Granted, these budgets were passed during and in the immediate aftermath of the Great Recession. But still, Pelosi's sudden interest in deficit control is at least as remarkable as the sudden disinterest evinced by her opponents across the aisle.
Far from raiding the Treasury, the Senate tax bill reduces revenue over 10 years by $1 trillion. That's not an insignificant number, of course, but it represents a drop from a projected $46 trillion to $45 trillion over that period, a reduction of about 2.17 percent overall, although much of the reduction comes in the first five years. The purpose of that is to provide an economic stimulus, which would make it just a little more expensive over 10 years than the impotent Pelosi-Reid-Obama stimulus package of early 2009, which cost $800 billion in a single year and proved only that shovel-ready jobs really didn't exist.
MORE PERSPECTIVES
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Republicans' rotten autumn
PAUL WALDMAN
The depressing lesson of political sex scandals
The real problem with the Republican tax reform effort is the opposite of Pelosi's claims. The flaw isn't that it goes too far — it doesn't go far enough. A few years ago, Republicans debated whether a tax-system overhaul should adopt a flat-tax model that would eliminate social engineering and crony capitalism, or the "fair tax" consumption-based model that would end the income tax altogether. Instead, Republicans have only offered tweaks to the existing system for individual taxes, and in the Senate version hardly even that much; it retains the same number of brackets and just distributes the deductions a little differently. It's only a mild adjustment to the status quo of individual taxes, not a groundbreaking effort to put America on the path of simplicity and fairness. (It does reduce the corporate tax rate much more significantly, but this is hardly some undemocratic travesty of justice.)
True national leaders in the Democratic Party would cast the bill for what it really is — an unimaginative tweak with little hope for real impact. Of course, that can also be said about the Republican leadership that produced this bill, only they probably will find the conference report so divisive that the final version may not pass in either chamber, let alone both. American voters will remain stuck between the hysterics and the incompetents, and wonder which party will get its act together first — or if either of them ever will.
good news!
the GOP has a plan to pay for the tax cuts
in 2018, Paul Ryan says,Speaking to Ross they're on it
Bernie Sanders is so tickled
Washington (CoNN)The House GOP caucus plans to work on entitlement reform next year as a way to "tackle the debt and the deficit," according to House Speaker Paul Ryan.
The Wisconsin Republican said Wednesday that the House would be working to reform health care entitlements in 2018, calling them "the big drivers of our debt."
"Tax reform grows the economy," Ryan said. "So we basically planned in this term three big budget bills: two entitlement reform bills, one economic growth tax reform bill. The first one passed the House, failed the Senate, this one, both tax bills have passed the House and the Senate, we're on track with that, and then next year we're going to have to get back at entitlement reform."
Ryan specifically mentioned Medicare as being the "biggest entitlement that's got to have reform."
"Really, what it is is we need to convert our health care system to a patient-centered system, so that people have more choices, we have more competition," Ryan later said.
close dialog
Ryan also noted that, in addition to health care, the GOP plans to work on reforming the US welfare system.
"We think it's important to get people from welfare to work," Ryan said. "We have a welfare system that's basically trapping people in poverty and effectively paying people not to work, and we've got to work on that."
Independent Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders responded to Ryan's comments critically on Twitter, arguing that the Republican Party planned to pay for its tax bill with cuts to entitlements.
"There it is. Paul Ryan just admitted that after providing $1 trillion in tax breaks to the top 1% and large corporations, Republicans will try to cut Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and help for the most vulnerable Americans," Sanders wrote.
Calm down, Bernie. You know the doctor said you should take it easy at your age.
Dementia.
It's not pretty.
Al Franken weathered six women’s sexual misconduct allegations without hearing a single resignation call from his fellow Democratic senators. No. 7 broke the dam.
The Democratic women of the Senate had been talking among themselves about the Franken allegations for weeks, one Democratic aide said. None, however, went further than to call for a Senate Ethics Committee probe of the Minnesota senator, whom many had considered a close friend.
That stance became increasingly untenable as the accusations against Franken piled up. In calls and texts, the female senators eventually came to an unstated agreement, according to another aide familiar with their discussions: The next credible story of misconduct in a credible news outlet would prompt them to call for Franken's resignation.
When POLITICO reported Wednesday that a former Democratic congressional aide said Franken tried to forcibly kiss her in 2006, the aide said, it “was the tipping point.”
The first public resignation nudge came from Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.), a champion for reform of Capitol Hill’s sexual harassment policy who one day earlier publicly declined to push Franken. Six more Senate Democratic women followed, with head-snapping speed.
Trump's doing very well with the economy, is he not?:
https://www.cnbc.com/2017/12/07/household-wealth-jumps-to-near-97-billion-72-percent-higher-than-crisis-level.html
The media echo chamber spent the week speculating about whether Special Counsel Robert Mueller can or will nab President Trump on obstruction-of-justice charges. All the while it continues to ignore Washington’s most obvious obstruction—the coordinated effort to thwart congressional probes of the role law enforcement played in the 2016 election.
The news that senior FBI agent Peter Strzok exchanged anti-Trump, pro-Hillary text messages with another FBI official matters—though we’ve yet to see the content. The bigger scandal is that the Justice Department, the Federal Bureau of Investigation and Mr. Mueller have known about those texts for months and deliberately kept their existence from Congress. The House Intelligence Committee sent document subpoenas and demanded an interview with Mr. Strzok. The Justice Department dodged, and then leaked.
The department also withheld from Congress that another top official, Associate Deputy Attorney General Bruce Ohr, was in contact with ex-spook Christopher Steele and the opposition-research firm Fusion GPS. It has refused to say what role the Steele dossier—Clinton-commissioned oppo research—played in its Trump investigation. It won’t turn over files about its wiretapping.
And Mr. Mueller—who is well aware the House is probing all this, and considered the Strzok texts relevant enough to earn the agent a demotion—nonetheless did not inform Congress about the matter. Why? Perhaps Mr. Mueller feels he’s above being bothered with any other investigation. Or perhaps his team is covering for the FBI and the Justice Department.
When Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein appointed Mr. Mueller, he stressed that he wanted a probe with “independence from the normal chain of command.” Yet the Mueller team is made up of the same commanders who were previously running the Trump show at the Justice Department and the FBI, and hardly distant from their old office.
Andrew Weissmann, Mr. Mueller’s deputy, is chief of the Justice Department’s criminal fraud section and was once FBI general counsel. Until Mr. Strzok’s demotion, he was a top FBI counterintelligence officer, lead on the Trump probe. Michael Dreeben is a deputy solicitor general. Elizabeth Prelogar, Brandon Van Grack, Kyle Freeny, Adam Jed, Andrew Goldstein —every one is a highly placed, influential lawyer on loan from the Justice Department. Lisa Page —Mr. Strzok’s mistress, with whom he exchanged those texts—was on loan from the FBI general counsel’s office.
Does anyone think this crowd intends to investigate Justice Department or FBI misdeeds? To put it another way, does anyone think they intend to investigate themselves? Or that they’d investigate their longtime colleagues— Andrew McCabe, or Mr. Ohr or Mr. Strzok? Or could we instead just acknowledge the Mueller team has enormous personal and institutional interests in justifying the actions their agencies took in 2016—and therefore in stonewalling Congress?
The Strzok texts raise the additional question of whether those interests extend to taking down the president. Mr. Strzok was ejected from Team Mueller for exhibiting anti-Trump, pro-Clinton behavior. By that standard, one has to wonder how Mr. Mueller has any attorneys left.
Judicial Watch this week released an email in which Mr. Weissmann gushed about how “proud and in awe” he was of former acting Attorney General Sally Yates for staging a mutiny against the Trump travel ban. Of 15 publicly identified Mueller lawyers, nine are Democratic donors—including several who gave money to Mrs. Clinton’s 2016 campaign. Jeannie Rhee defended the Clinton Foundation against racketeering charges, and represented Mrs. Clinton personally in the question of her emails. Aaron Zebley represented Justin Cooper, the Clinton aide who helped manage her server. Mr. Goldstein worked for Preet Bharara, whom Mr. Trump fired and who is now a vigorous Trump critic. The question isn’t whether these people are legally allowed (under the Hatch Act) to investigate Mr. Trump—as the left keeps insisting. The question is whether a team of declared Democrats is capable of impartially investigating a Republican president.
Some want Attorney General Jeff Sessions to clean house, although this would require firing a huge number of career Justice Department lawyers. Some want Mr. Trump to fire Mr. Mueller—which would be counterproductive. Some have called for a special counsel to investigate the special counsel, but that way lies infinite regress.
There is a better, more transparent way. Mr. Sessions (or maybe even Mr. Trump) is within rights to create a short-term position for an official whose only job is to ensure Justice Department and FBI compliance with congressional oversight. This person needs to be a straight shooter and versed in law enforcement, but with no history at or substantial ties to the Justice Department or FBI.
It would be a first, but we are in an era of firsts. Congress is the only body with an interest and ability to get the full story of 2016 to the public, thereby ending this drama quickly. But that requires putting an end to the obstruction.
Access to Contraception Helps Girls in Poor Countries Get More Education
Someone send this article to the Catholic Church and evangelical pastors everywhere: By demonizing contraception and trying to block its availability, religious groups are making it that much harder for women to get educated.
An article in the Economist focuses on a research paper that looked at the differences between girls in Malaysia who had access to birth control and those who didn’t.
The girls in places with contraceptives stayed in school six months longer, or about a year longer if they were born after the [family planning] programmes began. Similar effects have been seen in developing countries that have specifically aimed to increase school attendance. But no big changes in school policies accompanied the family-planning programmes. Nor was the extra schooling because these girls had fewer younger siblings. So the boost in school attendance seems linked to the availability of contraception — for some reason it may have made parents see the benefits of education.
In poor countries, more than anywhere else, making sure girls are able to control their own bodies and not get pregnant when they don’t want to be is a way to make sure they’re achieving their full potential. That’s important anywhere, of course, but in nations where quality education is hard enough to come by, giving students every opportunity to complete their schooling is a big deal.
It’s another reason Mother Teresa, with her opposition to contraception in the poverty-stricken city of Calcutta, was no saint.
The numbers: Some 228,000 new jobs were created in November, another healthy gain that highlights the strongest U.S. labor market since the turn of the century.
The increase surpassed Wall Street’s forecast. Economists polled by MarketWatch had forecast a 200,000 increase in nonfarm jobs.
Unemployment was unchanged at 4.1%, the government said Friday, but that’s still nearly a 17-year low.
Worker pay rose 5 cents, or 0.2%, to an average of $26.55 an hour. The yearly increase in hourly pay moved up to a mild 2.5% from 2.3%.
What happened: The number of new jobs created in the U.S. economy topped 200,000 for the second straight month, partly reflecting a rebound after a pair of major hurricanes depressed hiring in September.
Construction firms and manufacturers, for instance, both boosted hiring last month after home building and production recovered from storm-related disruptions. Builders added 23,000 new jobs and manufacturers created 31,000 new positions.
Professional-related work and health-care jobs also saw strong gains again. Most other industries saw little change.
Big picture: The latest gain in employment pretty much assures the Federal Reserve will raise interest rates in December as widely expected. The central bank worries that inflation might start to stir if the economy gets too hot.
Record job openings and uber-low unemployment underscore just how strong the U.S. labor market is. New college grads, moms looking to go back to work or even recently retired baby boomers who want to earn extra cash should find plenty of opportunities.
With sales growing, many companies are still eager to hire, but they are running out of potential applicants. Some are relying more on automation or increasing training to boost production.
What they are saying?: “The report all around is pretty hard to argue with,” said Dan North, chief economist at Euler Hermes North America.
Market reaction: The Dow Jones Industrial Average DJIA, +0.31% DJIA, +0.31% and Standard & Poor’s 500 SPX, +0.37% rose in Friday trades after the strong employment report. Treasury yields were little changed.
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The Republicans and Fox news are panicking over the corruption that's being exposed in the Trump campaign and adminstration. You can tell by their desperate attempts to try to smear the irreproachable Mueller investigation. They're pathetically trying to impeach the investigation by wailing about a low level investigator having sent anti-trump text messages. Of course there's no evidence that the investigator engaged in any wrongdoing or bias in his investigation and Mueller took him off the investigation so all that does is once again prove the exceptional integrity of Mueller and his team of investigators.
Republicans control the congressional investigations so of course they're just going through the motions of investigating and blocking every attempt by the Democrats to get to the bottom of it. They won't let the Democrats subpoena witnesses, instead allowing them to be interviewed voluntarily which allows them to walk away as soon as they don't like the questions being asked, for example, Jared Kushner who was asked innocuous questions by Republicans about things unrelated to the investigation and then left after just two hours once Democrats started asking probing questions relevant to the wrongdoing. If Republicans allowed witnessed to be subpoenaed they wouldn't be able to leave as soon as they got uncomfortable questions, they'd be required to stay and answer questions that get to the heart of Trump collusion with the Russians, illegally using stolen emails from Hillary, and the obstruction of justice. Clearly Republicans on the Congressional committes want to rush through the facade of an investigation and prevent any real evidence from coming out because they're sure a proper investigation would reveal the great depth of collusion, corruption, and obstruction of justice by Trump and his cronies.
That's why Fox news and Republicans are making these histrionic attacks on Mueller and his investigation. They're trying to convince the public that its a partisan and unfair investigation so the public won't revolt when Trump tries to fire Mueller to escape the investigation. Of course if Trump and his people hadn't done anything wrong none of these people would be afraid to let the investigation go forward. They all know Trump is corrupt and the evidence that's come out so far is so scary to them they are desperate to keep anyting else from coming out.
Trump's been told by his lawyers the Mueller investigation will be wrapping up by the end of the year which is laughable - they're just starting to get into the good stuff and more will be comming out in the Manafort trial which won't be completed for several months. Look for Trump to panic and try to fire Mueller around the end of January when he realizes his lawyers have been mollycoddling him.
Oooo, this is getting good! Its sooo delicious watching Republicans and Fox "News" squirm!
Yeah, Obama sure did a great job of getting the economy going for Trump, good thing he hasn't been able to do anything yet to screw it up!
Economists agree that it takes about a year for an incoming president's policies to start having an effect on the economy. It could take even longer for Trump seeing as he hasn't been able to pass any legislation yet. Let's hope that continues for the sake of the wellbeing of Americans.
The present economy is the Obama economy.
Too Bad Trump!
Hahahahahahahahahahahahahaha!
"they're just starting to get into the good stuff"
yes, "the good stuff"...that about sums up the Dem mentality
if their fantasy about Russia and Trump ever came true, they would consider that "good"
and what have they got into so far?
a couple of people lied when asked about discussions with Russians
when you work for the government, you get into the habit of that
most interactions with the Russians are supposed to be confidential so it gets confusing who you're supposed to lie to and who not
but, when you work for the government in foreign relations, lying is part of the job deescription
big deal
"and more will be comming out in the Manafort trial which won't be completed for several months."
and why would that bother Trump? the dubious charges against Manafort have nothing to do with the Trump campaign
Trump fired Manafort when this stuff came to light and the worst that could be said about Trump is that should have vetted Manafort better
big deal
"Look for Trump to panic and try to fire Mueller around the end of January"
Mueller was a bad choice and should go
he'll be fired if he subpoenas Trump's tax records
what people may not realize is that the old special prosecutor statute that created the Ken Starr investigation has expired
Mueller was appointed by the attorney general and was tasked with investigating a specific area, not a full-scope investigation of everything anyone ever employed by Trump has ever done
and, personally, I find his tactics, like breaking into Manfort's home in the middle of the night and waking his wife and holding her at gunpoint in bed while she was frisked in her negligee, or trying to manufacture charges against people's kids to bully them into giving desired testimony, objectionable
Mueller should never serve in a law enforcement capacity again
maybe North Korea would be interested in hiring him
they love that kind of stuff over there
"Yeah, Obama sure did a great job of getting the economy going for Trump,"
Obama, probably the worst President we ever had, is now going around saying this
Obama, like Hillary, is breaking with tradition and attacking his successor
he always was pathetic
"Economists agree that it takes about a year for an incoming president's policies to start having an effect on the economy"
Priya, do you think we have forgotten that when you were saying a few weeks back on your claim that the "consensus" of economists believe this, you were challenged and couldn't come up with anything other than one economist who said this to defend the horrible record of Obama's first term?
as any economist can tell you, economics are dependent on psychological factors and Trump completely changed the mindset of American business outlook 13 months ago
remember all the media and politicians coming out and solemnly declaring that the women accusing Moore were credible?
why would they lie?
yesterday, one of the women who accused Alabama Senate candidate Roy Moore of making advances on her when she was a teen admitted forging part of the yearbook inscription she'd offered as proof, a crack in her story and her credibility.
Beverly Young Nelson admitted to ABC News that she added “notes” beneath what she says is Roy Moore’s signature in her high school yearbook – an inscription that she and famed attorney Gloria Allred presented as proof the then younger Moore sought an inappropriate relationship with her in the late 1970s
During her original press conference with Allred in November, in which she made her original accusation, Nelson read aloud and attributed the entire inscription to Moore
"He wrote in my yearbook as follows: 'To a sweeter more beautiful girl, I could not say Merry Christmas, Christmas, 1977, Love, Roy Moore, Olde Hickory House. Roy Moore, DA,'" she said.
In a brief statement Friday, Moore campaign attorney Phillip Jauregi said, saying, "What Nelson and Allred said in November was either a lie or what they said today was a lie, and the voters are going to have to decide."
Moore has denied signing the yearbook and said he did not know Nelson at the time. Moore, who went on to become a judge and then the chief justice of the Alabama State Supreme Court, later ruled against Nelson in a 1999 divorce case.
The Moore campaign has questioned the authenticity of the inscription since the claim surfaced last month.
During a press conference in Atlanta on Friday, Allred acknowledged that part of the inscription, including the date and location, was written by Nelson.
“I want everyone to know that I stand by my previous statement that Roy Moore sexually assaulted me,” Nelson said.
Moore, 70, is running against Doug Jones in a bruising special election to fill the Senate seat vacated by Jeff Sessions, who President Trump named attorney general, and then held on an interim basis by Luther Strange. The election is Tuesday.
The Nelson accusation had bolstered claims by other women that Moore sought relationships with teenage girls in the late 1970s.
are you kids familiar with Andrew Sullivan?
a gay writer in New York, a couple of decades he wrote a column in the New Yorker suggesting that gays embrace gay marriage and seek to have it legalized for political purposes
he was attacked by gay advocates at the time for implying that gays should cater to and mimic heterosexual values
interesting history, huh?
here's some of his thoughts on whether a Christian baker should be forced to bake gay wedding cakes:
"If someone had asked me back in the day, if, in 2017, we’d be having a discussion about whether a fundamentalist baker should be forced by the law to create a wedding cake for a gay couple, I’d have been gobsmacked, as the Brits say. Smacked in the gob because only a decade ago such a question would have seemed so remotely hypothetical as to be absurd. And yet, here we are. A Christian baker has taken a stand on the grounds of religious conscience and artistic freedom not to provide a cake specifically designed for a legal, constitutional same-sex wedding. His case was just argued in the Supreme Court no less. The speed and finality of this social change has — understandably — frightened, disturbed, and alienated many on the other side.
Which is why I think it was a prudential mistake to sue the baker. Live and let live would have been a far better response. The baker’s religious convictions are not trivial or obviously in bad faith, which means to say he is not just suddenly citing them solely when it comes to catering to gays. His fundamentalism makes him refuse to make even Halloween cakes, for Pete’s sake. More to the point, he has said he would provide any form of custom-designed cakes for gay couples — a birthday cake, for example — except for one designed for a specific celebration that he has religious objections to. And those religious convictions cannot be dismissed as arbitrary (even if you find them absurd). Opposition to same-sex marriage has been an uncontested pillar of every major world religion for aeons.
And so, if there are alternative solutions, like finding another baker, why force the point? Why take up arms to coerce someone when you can easily let him be — and still celebrate your wedding? That is particularly the case when much of the argument for marriage equality was that it would not force anyone outside that marriage to approve or disapprove of it. One reason we won that debate is because many straight people simply said to themselves, “How does someone else’s marriage affect me?” and decided on those grounds to support or acquiesce to such a deep social change. It seems grotesquely disingenuous now for the marriage-equality movement to bait and switch on that core “live and let live” argument. And it seems deeply insensitive and intolerant to force the clear losers in a culture war into not just defeat but personal humiliation.
Nonetheless, here we are. And it is a hard case constitutionally. It pits religious and artistic freedom against civil equality and nondiscrimination. Anyone on either side who claims this is an easy call are fanatics of one kind or other. I’m deeply conflicted. I worry that a decision that endorses religious freedom could effectively nullify a large swathe of antidiscrimination legislation — and have a feeling that Scalia, for example, would have backed the gays in this case on those grounds alone. Equally, I worry that a ruling that backs the right of the state to coerce someone into doing something that violates their religious conscience will also have terrible consequences. A law that controls an individual’s conscience violates a core liberal idea. It smacks of authoritarianism and of a contempt for religious faith. It feels downright anti-American to me.
The smartest and most nuanced take I’ve read on the subject is that of philosopher John Corvino. He argues that there is indeed a core right not to be forced to create something against your conscience but that in this particular case, the act of creation is so deeply entwined with hostility to an entire class of people that antidiscrimination laws overrule it. It’s worth reading, but he still doesn’t quite convince me. The baker is clearly not discriminating against an entire class of people; he is refusing to endorse a particular activity that violates his faith. Kennedy was absolutely right in oral arguments to make a distinction between an identity and an activity. The conflation of the two is just too facile.
And there’s a way out of this that need not take such a strong stand in terms of religious freedom. It seems to me the baker deserves to be able to pick and choose what kind of work he wants to do as an artist. A commenter on Rod Dreher’s blog proffers a series of important questions in this respect:
“If the cake shop loses, does that mean that if I’m, say, a freelance designer or an artist or a writer or a photographer, I can no longer pick and choose my clients? If the Westboro Baptist Church comes to me, I can’t reject them on the grounds that they’re deeply un-Christian scumbags? If I’m Jewish, do I have to design a Hitler’s Birthday cake with swastikas on it? Would a Muslim cake-shop owner be forced to design a cake that shows an Islamic terrorist with crosshairs over his face, a common target design in most gun shops in America? Can a gay, atheist web designer choose not to do work for the Catholic Church, or would we have the government compel him to take on a client he loathes?”
It always worries me when gays advocate taking freedom away from other people. It worries me as a matter of principle. But it also unsettles me because some gay activists do not seem to realize that the position they’re taking is particularly dangerous for a tiny and historically despised minority. The blithe unconcern for the First Amendment in the war on “hate speech,” for example, ignores the fact that, for centuries, the First Amendment was the only defense the gay minority ever had — and now, with the first taste of power, we are restricting the rights of others in this respect? Ugh. Endorse the state’s right to coerce speech or conscience and you have ceded a principle that can so easily come back to haunt you. The freedom of any baker to express himself is, in this respect, indistinguishable from that of any gay person to do so — a truth that our current tribalism blinds so many to. I hope, in other words, that the baker prevails — but that the Supreme Court decision doesn’t turn on religious so much as artistic freedom."
this week, the Kemp Leadership Award went to Sen Tim Scott, probably the greatest African American leader in America today
I thought you guys might enjoy hearing VP Pence's comments at the award presentation
Pence will be President someday and I'm sure you're looking forward to that
happy watching! :
https://www.c-span.org/video/?438212-1/vice-president-addresses-kemp-leadership-award-dinner
yesterday, one of the women who accused Alabama Senate candidate Roy Moore of making advances on her when she was a teen admitted forging part of the yearbook inscription she'd offered as proof
You love "religious liberty" but hate Sharia law?
What's it like to be a hypocrite?
What anti-gay christians refer to as "religious liberty" is really a belief that they have the right to oppress LGBT people but not be discriminated against themselves.
Freedom of religion is necessarily restricted by the balancing of rights with others. Freedom of religion also means freedom from religion!
No special rights for anti-gay christians!
Roy Moore Thinks the U.S. was Great During Slavery
Newsweek reports on comments made by Roy Moore while campaigning a few months ago when he was asked when he thought the United States had last been a great nation. His response: During slavery. Because the family was “united.” Whatever the hell that means.
At a campaign event earlier this year, an audience member asked Moore for his opinion on when the last time America was “great.” Moore responded: “I think it was great at the time when families were united—even though we had slavery—they cared for one another…Our families were strong, our country had a direction.” The individual who asked the question was among the few African-Americans in attendance at the rally, according to the Los Angeles Times. In stating this, Moore seemingly implied he’d be able to overlook the enslavement of other human beings as long as families are “united,” an interesting perspective from a man accused of repeatedly preying on young girls.
It’s especially ironic given that slave owners routinely broke up the families of slaves, selling husbands, wives and children to other slave owners. I guess slavery didn’t help “unife” those families or “make them strong.” But those families don’t count anyway, amirite? Remember, this is a guy who lets the pro-slavery white supremacist group League of the South use his building for their annual Secession Day event.
The only thing I can think that he means is that the divorce rate was lower in the mid-1800s than it is now, so families were more often “united” rather than broken up. Of course, life expectancy was also far lower than it is now due to better diet and medical care. But no, that did not make America great. At that point, we were still a country led largely by white supremacists. We denied all rights to blacks and most rights, including the right to vote, to women. That is shameful, not great.
"You love "religious liberty" but hate Sharia law?"
Sharia law is the opposite of religious liberty
"What's it like to be a hypocrite?"
What's it like to be an inbecile?
"What anti-gay christians refer to as "religious liberty" is really a belief that they have the right to oppress LGBT people"
and by "oppression", Priya means the inability to force people to bake cakes to celebrate things they consider morally objectionable
it's called an Orwellianism
it was a tactic often used by Nazis
"but not be discriminated against themselves."
actually, gays would feel free to not bake a cake for a convention of reparative therapy practitioners
"Freedom of religion is necessarily restricted by the balancing of rights with others."
Actually, it isn't at all. Certainly not in this case, where a guy simply wants to not participate in a practice he considers wrong.
"Freedom of religion also means freedom from religion!"
No, freedom from religion would be infringement on speech and religion.
This is America, you're thinking of France.
Former CO Republican Party Chair Found Guilty of Voter Fraud
Voter fraud is almost entirely a myth in this country. Cases of it are very, very rare, a tiny fraction of a percent at the most. But in the rare instances in which it’s actually been caught and prosecuted, it’s usually done by Republicans, the very ones who think it’s real. Here’s another example.
Steve Curtis, a former chairman of the Colorado Republican Party, faces up to three years in prison after being convicted Thursday of voter fraud and forgery for signing his ex-wife’s ballot during the 2016 election, prosecutors say.
The 58-year-old, who also was a KLZ radio host, was charged in February after authorities say DNA evidence and handwriting analysis linked him to the ballot of his ex, Kelly Curtis.
The Weld County District Attorney’s Office says court testimony during Curtis’ trial revealed that Kelly Curtis had moved to Charleston, S.C., in December 2015. When she called the county’s clerk and recorder to get her mail-in ballot, she was told she had already voted.
Curtis claimed that he signed and mailed the ballot during a diabetic episode of high blood sugar and he doesn’t remember doing it. That was taken about as seriously as it should have been, which is not at all. And now, the punchline. This is what Curtis said almost simultaneously with his commission of voter fraud: “It seems to be, and correct me if I’m wrong here, but virtually every case of voter fraud I can remember in my lifetime was committed by Democrats.”
Okay, I’ll correct you. You’re wrong. And you’re a liar. And now you’re a felon. And you’re going to jail. Buh bye now.
Wyatt/bad anonymous said "of course they're credible, why would they lie? yesterday, one of the women who accused Alabama Senate candidate Roy Moore of making advances on her when she was a teen admitted forging part of the yearbook inscription she'd offered as proof."
LOL, she put the date on it, B.F.D. The year the yearbook came out is not in dispute, that puts his writing within a one year time frame.
It was obviously Moore's handwriting and signature. She offered to put it up to handwriting analysis at with independent third party. Moore obviously didn't want to do that because he knows its true.
The women are credible, there are over thirty other's corroborating the accusers' stories. Moores denials and changing stories are not credible - he did it, case closed.
Republicans would rather elect a pedophile than a KKK prosecuting hero.
‘Deep State’ Invented Russia Scandal to Cover Up Obama’s Fake Birth Certificate
Wingnut pastor Carl Gallups has a shiny new conspiracy theory. The “deep state,” he says, invented the fake Russia scandal to warn Trump to drop his birtherism. But it won’t do any good, you see, because Trump is “getting his ducks in a row” to expose Obama’s fake birth certificate.
Appearing on “The Hagmann Report” last night, Gallups said that Arpaio’s contempt conviction earlier this year was nothing more than an effort to discredit his birther investigation but Trump is “now in the White House, he now holds the power, he now holds the reins” and so he pardoned Arpaio because he is getting ready to blow the lid off the “earth shattering” scandal.
“I’m convinced that Donald Trump is probably getting his ducks in a row to bring this to the forefront,” Gallups said. “All of these sham investigations that they have going on on him—there is no evidence that he did anything with Russia to sway to sway our election, but I’m telling you, it’s all a big smokescreen and shots across his bow to say, ‘Don’t you touch this birth certificate.’”
It’s truly incredible to me that there are people in the world who can believe such nonsense. They truly do live in an alternate reality, one that bears no resemblance at all to the planet the rest of us live on.
Wyatt/bad anonymous is part of the tin-foil hat brigade who think Obama wasn't born in the U.S.
Further to Wyatt/bad anonymous's comment "of course they're credible, why would they lie? yesterday, one of the women who accused Alabama Senate candidate Roy Moore of making advances on her when she was a teen admitted forging part of the yearbook inscription she'd offered as proof."
Fox News Corrects Story Claiming Roy Moore Accuser ‘Forged’ Candidate’s Signature
Fox News updated a story that erroneously claimed one of Roy Moore’s accusers had “forged” evidence she’d presented to bolster her claim against him.
In a Friday press conference, Allred said Nelson had noted beneath the inscription when and where she recalled Moore writing it. Nelson also confirmed she had made the notes during an interview with ABC’s Tom Llamas.
“Beverly, he signed your yearbook,” Llamas stated.
“He did sign it,” Nelson affirmed.
“And you made some notes underneath,” he continued.
“Yes,” she said.
A handwriting expert has concluded that the signature in then-16-year-old Beverly Young Nelson’s yearbook was, in fact, Roy Moore’s
So, how about it Wyatt, do you want to do the honourable thing and retract your false claim that she lied and "forged part of the yearbook description"?
LOL - rhetorical question, of course you don't.
"do you want to do the honourable thing"
Priya, please remember that the blog you spend so much time on is not in the Commonwealth and you are. On this blog, the word is spelled "honorable"
Sounds like FOX clarified what she admitted to somewhat, still the credibility of the accuser has now been blown in a way that she would never be believed in court.
She now says she added the notes that she originally said were written by Moore. Sounds like she rationalizing now. Here's what she said at the original press conference in November:
"He wrote in my yearbook as follows: 'To a sweeter more beautiful girl, I could not say Merry Christmas, Christmas, 1977, Love, Roy Moore, Olde Hickory House. Roy Moore, DA,'" she said.
At the time, Nelson did not admit to writing the date and name of the restaurant herself. The implication was that it had been written by Moore.
But, of course she's credible.
Of course, she is....
I said "What anti-gay christians refer to as "religious liberty" is really a belief that they have the right to oppress LGBT people"
Wyatt/bad anonymous said "and by "oppression", Priya means the inability to force people to bake cakes to celebrate things they consider morally objectionable it's called an Orwellianism".
No, oppression means talking approvingly of gays being imprisoned and executed for being gay or advocating that they be assaulted, you know, like you have done. And let's not forget trying to deny gays the same rights you have - that's oppression, case closed.
I said "but not be discriminated against themselves."
Wyatt/bad anonymous said "actually, gays would feel free to not bake a cake for a convention of "reparative therapy" practitioners".
Wrong. I absolutely insist that a gay cake baker bake a cake for anyone who asks, just like an anti-gay cake baker.
I said "Freedom of religion is necessarily restricted by the balancing of rights with others."
Wyatt/bad anonymous said "Actually, it isn't at all.".
Nonsense. Freedom of religion is not absolute, no right is absolute. Without a balancing of the rights of different citizens you don't have a civilization. The U.S. constitution does not declare christians to be superior to all other citizens and exempt them from following laws that they don't like.
Wyatt/bad anonymous said "Certainly not in this case, where a guy simply wants to not participate in a practice he considers wrong.".
He's not participating in the practice he finds wrong. Only the couple being married and the clergy/official performing the marriage ceremony can be honestly said to be participating in the wedding. The cake baker no more participates in than the janitor does that cleans the toilets in the building the ceremony takes place in.
I said "Freedom of religion also means freedom from religion!"
Wyatt/bad anonymous said No, freedom from religion would be infringement on speech and religion.".
That's an absurd assertion. The united states is not a theocracy, the government can't establish a religion, so its right there in the first amendment that freedom of religion means freedom from religion - the government can't force any particular religion or any religion at all on citizens.
You're welcome to believe and talk about religion as you want, you're not allowed to try and force anyone to live according to your religious beliefs though, by for example, preventing them from marrying a same sex spouse.
Trump Scraps Airline Baggage Fees Disclosure Rule Because Every Single Thing Obama Did Must Be Undone
US airlines are no longer required to disclose hidden baggage fees as soon as people start the ticket-buying process, the Department of Transportation announced this week.
Trump obviously only wanted to be president because Obama made fun of him at one whitehouse correspondents dinner. His sole motivation is to try to "get back" at Obama by undoing everything he can that Obama did. Its so childishly petty its hard to believe Trump actually is an adult. Maybe dementia really has set in and he has the brain of an eight year old.
A handwriting expert has concluded that the signature in then-16-year-old Beverly Young Nelson’s yearbook was, in fact, Roy Moore’s
Roy Moore lied, Beverly Nelson told the truth - case closed.
That so many Republicans would vote for a child molester shows just how rare decent and moral Republicans are.
Hahahahahahahahahahahahahaha!
Companies That Pay High Tax Rates Create More Jobs Than Tax Evaders
Paying high tax rates doesn’t stifle job creation at the country’s biggest, most profitable companies and low tax rates seem to be more correlated with job losses, according to a new report from the Center for Effective Government.
The 30 Fortune 500 companies that paid the highest tax rates from 2008 to 2010 created about 200,000 jobs from 2008 to 2012, the researchers found. By contrast, the 30 companies with the lowest actual tax rates in that time frame shed a collective 51,289 jobs.
The report compared tax data compiled by Citizens for Tax Justice with employment data from corporate filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The tax data include only companies that turned a profit in each of the three years in question. The 30 high-tax companies each paid at least a 33 percent tax rate over the time frame in question, and only eight of them saw a net decrease in employees. In the low-tax grouping, just two of the 30 profitable companies paid any federal taxes, and a full 15 of them cut their payrolls. Many of the companies report their employment data on a global basis, so the jobs figures are not necessarily representative of solely American job creation.
Despite that fuzziness, the report’s findings align with previous research on the linkage between corporate tax rates and economic success. There is no association between lower rates and higher growth. Making corporations pay higher tax rates makes the overall tax code more progressive, which is good for the poor and working-class.
There is ample room to raise the rates corporations pay without necessarily raising the on-paper tax rate. That’s because companies have gotten very good at paying far less than the top-line corporate tax rate of 35 percent. The gulf between the statutory tax rate and the effective tax rate — what companies actually pay the government — is massive. About 11 percent of the S&P 500 paid a zero percent tax rate over the past year, in many cases due to flagging sales. But even among profitable corporate giants, effective tax rates are about a third of the statutory rate. At 12.6 percent, the effective tax rate paid by large, profitable companies in 2010 was lower than what the median American middle-class household paid to the tax man.
"No, oppression means talking approvingly of gays being imprisoned and executed for being gay or advocating that they be assaulted, you know, like you have done."
uh, we were discussing the current SCOTUS case
"And let's not forget trying to deny gays the same rights you have - that's oppression, case closed."
I don't claim the right to force others to violate their religious convictions to serve me
so, why should those who engage in homosexual acts think have that right?
like most people in the nuthouse, Priya has delusions of power
such as, the authority to "close" cases
"I absolutely insist that a gay cake baker bake a cake for anyone who asks, just like an anti-gay cake baker."
insist?
or what?
"Freedom of religion is not absolute, no right is absolute."
oh, I see what you mean
freedom of religion can't extend to something like a law forcing people to bake cakes
how's this?
FREEDOM MEANS CHOOSING WHO TO ASSOCIATE WITH IF IT MEANS ANYTHING AT ALL, which is doesn't to Priya
what's religion got to do with it?
if I don't want to bake you a cake because I don't like your attitude, why should I have to?
if we all follow the old maxim, "live and let live", we can all be free!!
"The U.S. constitution does not declare christians to be superior to all other citizens"
no, it levels the clearing field, which makes it obvious that Christianity is superior
that's why so many want special consideration, an attempt to have government compensate for your error
"and exempt them from following laws that they don't like."
he doesn't want to be exempted from the law
he wants everyone exempted from this unnecessary law
it's called freedom
"He's not participating in the practice he finds wrong. Only the couple being married and the clergy/official performing the marriage ceremony can be honestly said to be participating in the wedding. The cake baker no more participates in than the janitor does that cleans the toilets in the building the ceremony takes place in."
that's a good point
janitors shouldn't have to clean up after those doing evil things
"That's an absurd assertion. The united states is not a theocracy, the government can't establish a religion, so its right there in the first amendment that freedom of religion means freedom from religion - the government can't force any particular religion or any religion at all on citizens."
oh, the government doesn't force any religion on anyone
what you want is for the government to protect you from hearing about anyone's religious beliefs
people don't have to compartmentalize their religious beliefs
your problem is that freedom of speech will favor Christianity for the simple reason that Christianity is correct
"You're welcome to believe and talk about religion as you want, you're not allowed to try and force anyone to live according to your religious beliefs though, by for example, preventing them from marrying a same sex spouse."
if by "preventing" you mean declining to participate in, or enable, the immoral action, yes, you are "allowed" to do that
it's called freedom
"A handwriting expert has concluded that the signature in then-16-year-old Beverly Young Nelson’s yearbook was, in fact, Roy Moore’s
Roy Moore lied, Beverly Nelson told the truth - case closed."
Beverly Nelson added to the inscription and lied about it
by definition, that's not telling the truth
Moore not remembering everyone who's yearbook he signed 40 years ago is hardly a lie
"That so many Republicans would vote for a child molester shows just how rare decent and moral Republicans are."
there's little evidence that Moore is a child molester
and by little, I mean none
"There is ample room to raise the rates corporations pay without necessarily raising the on-paper tax rate."
save your breath
it ain't happenin'
the GOP is putting an end to the insane policy of double-taxing success
as the fake nature of the Trump-Russia hoax becomes clearer, media outlets that have pushed become more and more desperate:
Here they go again — the news media, that is, racing to run stories meant to discredit President Trump’s 2016 election victory, only to wind up with egg on their faces.
Friday, it was CNN’s turn to be caught spreading a false yarn — this one trying to link Team Trump with WikiLeaks and its supposed efforts, along with the Russians, to throw last year’s election to Trump.
On Sept. 4, 2016, CNN said, Donald Trump Jr. got an e-mail tipping him off to WikiLeaks material that wasn’t yet public. That sure sounds like an effort to collude.
Trouble is, the e-mail was actually dated Sept. 14 — a full 10 days later and after WikiLeaks had made the documents public. So the message might have been harmlessly intended to flag already-public info for Team Trump. CNN was forced to post a correction.
This wasn’t the first such mistake by a press obsessed with trying to prove Trump’s election was tainted. Just last week, ABC’s Brian Ross reported that former Trump National Security Adviser Michael Flynn revealed that he’d been ordered to contact Russian officials during the campaign.
Oops: Turns out Flynn’s instructions came during the transition period — when it was perfectly appropriate for incoming Trumpies to reach out to their counterparts abroad. ABC admitted the error and suspended Ross.
We certainly understand the rush to be first in this business. But the increasingly desperate attempts by an anti-Trump press to prove Russian collusion are leading to gaffes that make readers question even legitimate stories. They offer ammo to Trump and others who bash the press for its “fake news.” It all backfires spectacularly.
CNN...ABC...that's just sad...
Prejudiced, Conservative People Probably Stupid, Says Science
You've always had an inkling that this might be true, and now here comes Science to validate your gut: children with low IQs tend to grow up to be prejudiced adults who often adopt socially conservative ideologies. The "liberal elite" is not in your imagination, friends. Fox News viewers really are that dumb!
The study, conducted by Brock University in Ontario's Gordon Hodson and published in a recent issue of the Journal of Psychological Science, analyzed data assembled from two separate studies in order to examine the link between cognitive ability and prejudice.
The first study examined two groups of British adults, one born in 1958 and the other born in 1970. Both groups were assessed for intelligence at age 10 or 11. During the followup two decades later, researchers assessed the subjects' level of prejudice and degree of socially conservative views. In this study, children with low scores on the first set of tests tended to grow up to exhibit prejudiced and socially conservative viewpoints on the second set of tests.
The second study analyzed by the Canadian researchers examined Americans' attitude toward gayness. The study found that people with poorer abstract reasoning skills tended to be more homophobic, even when researchers controlled for education level.
The Canadian researchers hypothesize that people who "have trouble grasping the complexity of the world" may tend toward prejudice and conservatism because they crave structure and can't process chaos and nuance. Religion, authoritarianism, and isolationism appeal to a desire for order in a world that offers few absolutes.
Not that any of this hoity-toity "science" crap will matter to all the Real Americans posting about "illegals" on your Facebook news feed. But, for now, feel free to bask.
obviously, people who are prejudiced have a lower IQ
that's not the same as conservative, however
you have to be careful when you read priyacrap
Priya is an inveterate liar
here's some facts for Priya to bask in:
Donald Trump promised us we’d win and win and win so much, we’d get sick of winning. Santa Trump has delivered for Christmas.
First, the economy. As long as he delivers, he can’t be defeated.
Well don’t look now, but Trump has turned around the U.S. economy in record time. What’s happening can be described only as The Trump Miracle.
Gross domestic product for the third quarter was just adjusted upward to 3.3 percent. That’s almost triple the eight-year average under Obama. The Fed is predicting fourth quarter GDP of almost 4 percent. That means in his first year, Trump beat all eight years under Obama.
The Friday jobs number was fantastic — again. Under Trump, America has created 2.2 million new jobs. The 40,000 new manufacturing jobs in November was the highest number in history. Obama said manufacturing jobs were gone forever. For an anti-business socialist such as Obama, they were. For a smart conservative capitalist such as Trump, they came roaring back. In one year. Amazing.
Democrats will never defeat Trump. No matter how many “trumped-up charges” they invent. Because, as James Carville once said, “It’s the economy, stupid.”
By the way, didn’t liberals claim Trump was a racist? Didn’t they say he hated Hispanics? Well Hispanic unemployment is now 4.7 percent — the lowest in American history.
I can’t end this without thanking Trump for officially recognizing Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and starting the process of relocating the U.S. Embassy there. How refreshing to have a politician who actually does what he promised to do on the campaign trail. How remarkable for a politician to do what’s right without worrying whether it offends our enemies.
It’s amazing how world is changing under Trump. The economy is exploding; taxes are about to be cut dramatically, thereby rewarding taxpayers and job creators instead of punishing them; Obamacare is at death’s door; the wall will be built; the capital of Israel is officially recognized as Jerusalem; Roy Moore is about to join the U.S. Senate; and sports gambling will be legal nationwide.
We have to wonder: Have we died and gone to heaven?
Research shows gayness correlated with higher intelligence
Abstract
The origin of preferences and values is an unresolved theoretical problem in behavioural sciences. The Savanna-IQ Interaction Hypothesis, derived from the Savanna Principle and a theory of the evolution of general intelligence, suggests that more intelligent individuals are more likely to acquire and espouse evolutionarily novel preferences and values than less intelligent individuals, but general intelligence has no effect on the acquisition and espousal of evolutionarily familiar preferences and values. Ethnographies of traditional societies suggest that exclusively homosexual behaviour was probably rare in the ancestral environment, so the Hypothesis would predict that more intelligent individuals are more likely to identify themselves as homosexual and engage in homosexual behaviour. Analyses of three large, nationally representative samples (two of which are prospectively longitudinal) from two different nations confirm the prediction.
Democrats have asserted for years that the rich aren’t paying enough in taxes. In her Democratic National Convention speech in 2016, Hillary Clinton put it in the party's characteristically way, saying “Wall Street, corporations, and the super-rich are going to start paying their fair share of taxes.”
Never mind that, according to the most recent data, the “1 percent” pay more than 25 percent of all federal tax revenue, more than the bottom 60 percent of income earners combined. Democrats are usually loathe to give a specific number, but whatever the rich are paying, it isn't enough.
Or at least, that's how members of the party of the Left usually says things are. But they're not saying it so much right now. In their push for tax reform, Republicans are trying to eliminate tax breaks that primarily benefit those whom Democrats usually say aren't paying their fair share — upper-income earners who earn in the six figures.
What an ungrateful crowd those Democrats are. Instead of thanking the GOP for getting the well-off to pony up a bit more, they're acting as though the sky is falling. You think we're exaggerating? House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., actually said of the tax bill: “It is the end of the world. … This is Armageddon.”
What has happened? The answer is that Democrats are all for making the rich pay more as long as it's not their rich.
Republicans are trying to limit the deduction that can be taken against federal taxable income for state and local taxes paid. Pelosi and other Democrats representing high-tax states would prefer that low-income households claiming the standard deduction continue to subsidize wealthy households that claim the lion’s share of the value of the state and local tax deduction and the mortgage interest deduction.
Today, only about 30 percent of taxpayers itemize their deductions at all, and they're nearly all high-earning families. When the GOP tax reform bill doubles the standard deduction, even fewer Americans will bother to itemize. Those that do will skew even wealthier.
As of 2014, according to the nonpartisan Tax Foundation, 88 percent of the state and local tax deduction’s value was claimed by households earning more than $100,000 a year. Only 1 percent of the deduction’s value was claimed by those with annual incomes below $50,000.
Yet, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., says eliminating the deduction will hurt “firefighters, police officers, and teachers.” Never mind that the Joint Committee on Taxation found that the bill would cut overall taxes for all income levels.
Democrats are also decrying a cap on the mortgage interest deduction. Rep. Elizabeth Esty, D-Conn., said a $500,000 home “may be a mansion in Mississippi, but there are absolutely middle-class families in Connecticut.” But Tax Foundation analysis found that capping the mortgage interest deduction would have virtually no effect on the incomes of the bottom 80 percent of income earners. It’s the 1 percent who would see their incomes fall as a result of that measure. Democrats are falling all over themselves, rending their garments, to save tax breaks for that 1 percent.
When the chips are down, Democrats care more about their wealthiest constituents than their poorer constituents. The latter group will benefit from the Republican tax bill's larger standard deduction. The truth is that the Democrats' populist tax rhetoric has been a complete fraud, a deceptive and self-serving camouflage for Republican promises to cut taxes, which would be widely and wildly popular if not so traduced.
Especially on the state and local tax deduction, Democrats' rhetoric has been all about protecting their pals in Democrat-led state legislatures who favor high state and local taxes. Indeed, part of the case made for those high taxes is that are federally deductible, so other people will end up subsidizing the payment of the check. High taxes go to fund their pals in public sector labor unions, who in turn fund Democratic politicians, who in turn protect the state and local tax deduction, and so on in an unending and unvirtuous circle.
A single mother from Pelosi’s district who earns $30,000 a year, has one child, and doesn’t itemize deductions pays about $800 a year in federal taxes. Thanks to a doubling of the standard deduction and the larger child tax credit in the Senate bill, her tax bill would drop to zero.
Democrats in Congress would rather keep money flowing to themselves and their friends rather than give this single mother an $800-a-year tax cut. Who's supporting tax breaks for the wealthy?
If GOP tax reform passes, liberal states will finally have to pay the full burden of the high taxes that their Democratic politicians impose. Perhaps the loss of the deduction will at last do something to teach voters to elect fiscally responsible governments. In New Jersey, Democratic legislative leaders are already considering reforming their tax code to mitigate the damage. That sounds like good news. Just imagine the beneficial ripple effect if the tax bill passes and becomes law.
Of course Wyatt/bad anonymous is the exception to the rule that gays are smarter than average.
Wyatt/bad anonymous said "
It’s amazing how world is changing under Trump. The economy is exploding".
The economy isn't doing significantly better than it was under Obama when you claimed it was "terrible". Trump has done nothing to change the economy. The current economy is the Obama economy.
Wyatt/bad anonymous said "taxes are about to be cut dramatically,"
For the rich who don't need it and won't use the money to stimulate the economy. The poor and the middle class are having their taxes raised.
As usual, Wyatt/bad anonymous lies as easily as he breathes.
Trump is going to raise stupid Wyatt/bad anonymous's taxes and Wyatt is cheering him on.
Hahahahahahahahahahahaha!
Lower and middle income Republican voters - shooting themselves in the foot since 1900.
In August, Roy Moore told an interviewer that the United States was “the focus of evil in the modern world,” because “we promote a lot of very bad things,” such as same-sex marriage. Told by the interviewer that Vladimir Putin makes the same argument, Moore replied, “Maybe Putin is right". Let’s note the incredible irony of the same people who lose their damn minds over Obama’s mythical “apology tour” but then call the United States the focus of evil in the world.
Reminds me of this brilliant bit by David Cross.
"anonymous is the exception to the rule that gays are smarter than average"
sorry, Priya, but facts are facts
I'm not an exception
there are many other straights who are just as smart as I am
your study is flawed (by bias)
"The economy isn't doing significantly better than it was under Obama when you claimed it was "terrible"."
actually, it is
"Trump has done nothing to change the economy. The current economy is the Obama economy."
Trump has ended the mindless demonization of business. This has changed the whole mindset of the economic players, resulting in a million new initiatives, accumulating to stronger growth.
Priya wouldn't understand that.
Gays aren't very bright...
"The poor and the middle class are having their taxes raised."
The taxes of the poor aren't being raised at all. This is a lie that Priya has made repeatedly.
The only middle class affected are upper middle class in areas with high state and local taxes. It's mostly where Democrats live. For years, they have charged their citizens outrageous taxes, arguing that the rest of the country will subsidize their high taxes by letting them deduct it on their federal income tax return. Not any more. Trump is closing this scam down.
"anonymous lies as easily as he breathes."
as we see above, Priya is the one whoo can't seem to make a comment without lying
"Trump is going to raise anonymous's taxes and anonymous is cheering him on.
Hahahahahahahahahahahaha!"
it's interesting if you stand back and look at the arguments that socialists make
if Trump will save money under the tax bill, that's somehow scadalous
if I don't save money, that's somehow stupid
as I have stated before, my biggest concern is lowering corporate rates to make us competitive globally and eliminating the estate tax, which implies that government owns our property, just letting us use it during our lifetime
"Lower and middle income Republican voters - shooting themselves in the foot since 1900."
you mean like when George W's tax cuts eliminated all income tax for the lower 50% of earners?
"In August, Roy Moore told an interviewer that the United States was “the focus of evil in the modern world,” because “we promote a lot of very bad things,” such as same-sex marriage. Told by the interviewer that Vladimir Putin makes the same argument, Moore replied, “Maybe Putin is right"."
so amazing that Dems make Putin the yardstick by which to measure good and evil
bizarre, really
If Someone Makes a Mistake and Corrects It, You Should Trust Them Even More
On Saturday, Donald Trump called for the firing of Washington Post reporter David Weigel after he posted a picture of Trump’s Friday night rally with a sparse crowd. Trump said the Post was lying about his crowd size. The truth was that Weigel tweeted what he believed to be an accurate crowd picture (from his personal account, no less), realized a few minutes later the picture was taken before the rally began, deleted the tweet so as to not spread any misinformation, and sincerely apologized after Trump blasted him about it.
In effect, Trump called for the firing of a journalist who corrected his mistake before Trump called for a Twitter mob to come after him. Even though Trump routinely lies about far more important things all the time and never once apologizes.
We saw that same blatant hypocrisy on display last week when Sen. Al Franken resigned over sexual misconduct which he (somewhat) apologized for… Even though Rep. Blake Farenthold of Texas, accused of far worse, hasn’t done the same. Even though alleged child molester Roy Moore is on track to win a Senate seat. Even though Trump has been accused of all kinds of sexual misconduct from nearly 20 women without any fear that his party will ask him to resign.
When asked why he was supporting Moore despite all the accusations from women, Trump made it very clear: “He denies it. Look, he denies it.”
There’s a sad lesson in all this: If you do something wrong and correct it (even if it’s not a great apology), you are demonized in today’s political climate. If you do something truly awful and deny it, you’re promoted. (The lesson, of course, doesn’t apply to both political parties equally.)
During a conversation yesterday on CNN’s Reliable Sources, conservative writer David Frum pointed out to host Brian Stelter that people who make mistakes and work to correct them are the people who deserve your trust. Not the people who lie, stick to their lies, and criticize everyone who points out their lies. He put it just perfectly.
" … you asked the question Brian, why should given these mistakes, why should people trust the media? I would say, the mistakes are precisely the reason the people should trust the media.
Look, astronomers make mistakes all the time because science is a process of discovery of truth. Astrologers never make mistakes, or at least they never own up to them, because what they are offering is a closed system of ideology and propaganda.
Faced with wrongdoing circled by lies, the process of piercing the lies to uncover the truth about the wrongdoing is inherently not only difficult but adversarial, because the people are trying to find the truth are offered against bad faith actors engaged in concealment. So, they get partial pieces of the truth."
This is one of the main reasons so many atheists condemn religious thinking, too. Pastors frequently make the mistake of acting like the Bible has all the answers, that they know what God wants, that their interpretation of the Bible must never change. Fundamentalist Christians do the same thing with the Book of Genesis, arguing that it must be taken literally despite all the evidence to the contrary. They can never be wrong.
But we don’t know everything. We can’t know everything. One reason I enjoy being an atheist is because the words “I don’t know” aren’t as scary. It’s okay to admit that. “I’ll try to find out” is the best we can hope for in certain situations. Like scientists, we try and get to the bottom of an issue, and if we screw up, we can always try and correct ourselves, but we’re always (hopefully) progressing in the direction of truth.
You don’t get that when you just lash out against people who point out your mistakes and act as if you can do no wrong.
The phrase “I’m sorry, I was wrong” rarely comes out of the mouths of astrologers, and many religious leaders, and Trump because they’re not interested in the facts. They’re too busy trying to sell you lies.
(note my apology at December 05, 2017 1:50 to Wyatt/bad anonymous for making a mistake AM - you've never seen Wyatt apologize for saying something false because he wants to deceive people and lies prolifically )
Once again, the current economic indicators aren't significantly different from what they were when Obama was president.
Trump hasn't been able to do anything to affect the economy, the current economy is the Obama economy.
It shows you the lack of honesty in Wyatt/bad anonymous that he called the economy under Obama "a disaster" and now claims the same economy is "booming"
Hahahahahahahahahaahahaha!
The Republican Party is the party of the ego. Never admit a mistake no matter how obvious it is that you made one.
I wonder how much of Republicans' penchant for this sort of thing stems from Christianity, where you don't really have to take responsibility for your failings, you merely need ask Jeebus to forgive you.
Never trust anyone who can automatically clear their conscience of any wrongdoing by asking forgiveness from their imaginary friend.
the economy was growing at a much slower rate during the Obama era
this is the basis for the projected deficit under the new tax bill
the last two quarters, growth has averaged 3%, a significant enhancement
if you assume that growth will average 2.9%, reasonable over the next ten years with Trump and Pence, you will find the new tax cut produces more tax revenue and lowers the debt:
The Treasury Department said Monday that the Senate-approved tax reform plan would pay for itself and more, actually boosting revenue by $300 billion over 10 years.
The analysis by Treasury counters a congressional forecast that the tax cuts would add about $1 trillion in deficits over the next decade.
Treasury said the legislation, which cuts corporate and individual taxes, would result in $1.8 trillion in additional tax revenue over a decade by spurring stronger economic growth. Subtracting tax cuts of $1.5 trillion from the measure under current law, the administration said, adds up to a gain.
“The administration has been focused on tax reform and broader economic policies to stimulate growth, which will generate significant long-term revenue for the government,” said Treasury Secretary Steven T. Mnuchin.
Treasury’s analysis forecasts annual economic growth of at least 2.9 percent, higher than the 2.2 percent estimates used by the congressional Joint Committee on Taxation. The Congressional estimate extrapolates the tepid growth of the Obama era, Treasury uses the Trump record, a significant improvement.
“Treasury expects approximately half of this 0.7 percent increase in growth to come from changes to corporate taxation,” the report said. “We expect the other half to come from changes to pass-through taxation and individual tax reform, as well as from a combination of regulatory reform, infrastructure development, and welfare reform as proposed in the administration’s fiscal year 2018 budget.”
Before the Senate narrowly approved the tax-cut plan a week ago, Republican leaders criticized the JCT analysis for underestimating growth. Gross domestic product has topped 3 percent in each of the past two quarters.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, Kentucky Republican, said he was confident the Senate bill was “revenue neutral” or would actually become a “revenue producer.”
House and Senate negotiators are working to complete the package within the next two weeks.
The liberal Super PAC American Bridge scrambled to counter the Treasury’s analysis.
“It’s like saying, ‘I could fly if I could grow wings,’” said American Bridge Vice President Shripal Shah.
Ah, but Shirpal, the wings have already grown. We've had 3% growth for two quarters now.
Wyatt/bad anonymous said "the economy was growing at a much slower rate during the Obama era".
That's a lie. There is no significant difference between the rate the economy was growing under Obama vs now.
Trump's economy is doing (slightly) worse than Obama’s
It's still Obama’s economy by virtue of the fact that after nearly a year in office, Trump, as mentioned, still hasn’t signed one major economic bill.
The stock market surge that began in 2009 and the job growth that began a year later both remain impressive today. For all his complaining, Trump has latched onto the economic momentum provided by his predecessor and is milking it for all it’s worth. I don’t blame him; that’s politics. But for him to claim that we’ve gone from a mess just a few months ago to “happy days are here again”—without signing one major piece of economic legislation—doesn’t pass the smell test.
From the article in the second link above:
"In economic terms, my own view is that the first year or so of any administration is just a carryover from the previous one."
This is the consensus of economists, just as I've been saying.
Priya, your relentless lying has been exposed and no one is following you down the rabbit hole.
Tell us again how the poor will have their taxes raised under the new tax bill.
Good news, the Gorsuch SCOTUS continues to repair the damage done by Obama's lies
carbon dioxide is not a pollutant
discrimination based on sexual preferences is not sexist
we're just getting started
The Supreme Court refused Monday to hear a case challenging whether sex discrimination protections in employment extend to sexual preference
The justices denied an appeal from a Georgia woman who claims she was harassed and forced from her job as a security officer at Georgia Regional Hospital.
Jameka Evans argued the hospital violated Title VII of the Civil Rights Act when it discriminated against her because of her sexual preferences and her nonconformity to gender norms of appearance and demeanor, according to her attorneys at Lambda Legal.
The 11th Circuit Court of Appeals rejected Evans’s claim and dismissed her lawsuit. The court said it could not rule that discrimination based on sexual preference is prohibited under Title VII.
Lambda Legal was livid about the high court's move, saying that it will cause confusion across the country
"Rest assured that Lambda Legal will continue the fight, circuit by circuit as necessary, to establish that the Civil Rights Act prohibits sexual orientation discrimination,” Greg Nevins, the group’s employment fairness project director, said in a statement.
“it’s unfortunate that the Supreme Court has refused to join us today, but we will continue to invite them to do the right thing and end this hurtful balkanization of the right of LGBT people to be out at work.”
The LGBT civil rights group is now calling on LGBT Americans across the country to come forward if they’ve been discriminated against based on their sexual orientation at work.
#RaptureAnxiety: Evangelical Torture of the Mind
I’m not on Twitter as much as I used to be, but I did spot this trending hashtag: #RaptureAnxiety, started by evangelicals and “exvangelicals” testifying to the mental anguish and terror that an apocalyptic Christian upbringing inflicted on them.
One of the earliest threads that started the hashtag off was this one by Mandi Livingston:
"I was 5 years old in an IFB church. At a recommended xian bookstore, sitting by the register was a postcard of the rapture happening. This one if memory serves. Planes crashing, cars wrecking, destruction everywhere. Let me tell you about my #RaptureAnxiety"
--@mandilivinston December 9, 2017
The full thread (you can read it in one place here) recounts all the anxiety and suffering she endured on account of her religious beliefs, like the thought of her dog starving to death in the house alone if she and her whole family were raptured. (Her mother assured her that the dog would be OK, because looters would break into the house… and what, adopt and feed him? That seems like expecting a lot from left-behind Antichrist-worshipping criminals.)
For adults, belief in the imminent end of the world is bad enough. It leads to perpetual fretting and worrying, to believers spending so much time obsessing over the future that they forget to live life in the present. In worse cases, it spirals into full-blown paranoia and conspiracizing, seeing the Antichrist around every corner and the Mark of the Beast in every new technology.
But for impressionable children, the toll is far worse. Many ex-believers in the #RaptureAnxiety thread recount asking for forgiveness over and over, obsessively, out of the fear that they didn’t do it right or that they’d committed some sin since the last time. Another common element is perpetual terror that their family would be taken to heaven without them and they’d be left behind on the damned and doomed earth. Some of them describe anxiety or panic attacks whenever they were alone and weren’t certain about where their parents were.
"At 51, I am still working in therapy to overcome the sense instilled by Fundamentalism that I am inherently evil and unredeemable. Apologized to God constantly for so many years, fueled by #RaptureAnxiety and fear of Hell."
— SoManyHats (@ManyHatted) December 10, 2017
"When I was ten, my mother worked late one night (at our church) and I couldn't reach her by phone. I may have had my first panic attack at that time cause I thought the rapture came and I was left behind. #RaptureAnxiety
She found me in my room in a corner crying."
— King Goddess Hale (@Haley_Lujah) December 10, 2017
"#RaptureAnxiety My house was close to train tracks. If the whistle woke me up at night, I'd mistake it for Gabriel's horn and start to panic that I wasn't going anywhere."
— Ami Eat Everything (@amiaudible) December 10, 2017
"It still makes me sweat because #RaptureAnxiety was such a constant looming presence. I could barely sleep because of it. It could happen ANY time, and if you didn't make the cut, the only way to get a second chance was to be beheaded by The Beast. (3/?)"
— Chase Night (@TheChaseNight) December 9, 2017
"Raised Pentecostal. In 1976, 12 yr old me went into uncontrollable hysterics when my Mom was super late coming home from a bible study. I was convinced she had been raptured and my sins left me behind. My wife grew up in that shit too. #RaptureAnxiety #EmptyThePews"
— Rogue Pacer (@IAmPacer) December 10, 2017
"#RaptureAnxiety was a powerful evangelistic tool when targeted at children and teenagers. I wrote notes to the parents of the children I babysat in high school, begging them to accept Christ before was too late. If they went to hell because I didn’t witness, it would be my fault."
— Mandy Nicole, First of Her Name (@TenaciousMandy) December 9, 2017
"This is some real shit. Read the #RaptureAnxiety hashtag. I still have deep, possibly permanent damage from being taught as a child that the world could end at any second, and you better hope you aren't sinning when it happens, or you'll burn in hell forever. Suicidal anxiety."
— Jon Jones (@jonjones) December 9, 2017
"When my father in law passed away my mother in law became obsessed with thoughts of him being in hell. The last thing her religion did was give her any sense of comfort."
-- Oraxx December 11, 2017
As much heat as Richard Dawkins took for saying it (and as much as I disagree with him on other things), this is one area where he was right: Religious teachings like the Rapture are a form of child abuse. Their purpose is to inflict terror on young children and instill them with feelings of misery and worthlessness. By design, they make it almost impossible to experience feelings of true happiness or peace.
Even after a person has deconverted and no longer intellectually assents to these beliefs, the emotional harm can linger, like a dark cloud that can’t be fully shaken off. Ex-evangelical scholar Chris Stroop describes it in a post from earlier this year:
You see, when it comes to experiences like religious PTSD and deconstruction from indoctrination in toxic ideology, sometimes it takes your emotions a long time to catch up to your mind, to what you know to be true. For example, I was deathly afraid of hell for years after I stopped intellectually believing in it, and previous episodes of very public rapture speculation, such as that associated with Harold Camping in 2011, have also unnerved me. In recent years, I’ve learned that experiencing anxiety around rapture predictions and hell is very common among ex-Evangelicals, so if you’re still dealing with anxiety despite believing in neither of those things, you’re not alone.
While I’ve never suffered from this kind of anxiety and can’t know what it’s like, I wonder if it would help ex-evangelicals to recognize just how many times prominent Christians have predicted the rapture and fallen flat on their faces. While Harold Camping’s 2011 rapture prediction stirred up those old anxieties, what happened when he proved to be yet another false prophet? (Worth noting, Stroop’s post was written in response to yet another Christian numerologist who pinpointed September 23, 2017 as the end date. Oops.)
Granted, you can’t use rationality to overcome an irrational fear. But what I’m suggesting isn’t rationality, but laughter. Treating these beliefs as serious and threatening is what gives them their power. Pointing out how ridiculous it is that Christian preachers shriek about the end of the world in response to every news story, and mocking them for their record of perpetual failure, could be an effective way to deflate these beliefs. It’s using one emotional response to counter another.
Trump’s Treasury Dept embarrasses itself with one-page tax ‘analysis’
Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin assured lawmakers and the public that he had dozens of officials working on creating a detailed analysis of the Republican tax plan he helped craft. The report, Mnuchin added, would be available before Congress voted.
None of that was true. The New York Times reported two weeks ago that officials inside the Treasury’s Office of Tax Policy claim to have been “largely shut out of the process” and haven’t “worked on the type of detailed analysis” that Mnuchin described.
Two weeks later, the good news is that Donald Trump’s Treasury Department has prepared an analysis and made it available to the public. The bad news is, it’s so absurd, I almost feel sorry for the officials who work there. Politico reported:
The Treasury Department said Monday that the GOP tax plan currently before Congress would need an assist from other Trump administration priorities to pay for itself.
Tax cuts alone aren’t enough, Treasury said in a one-page analysis, citing welfare reform and infrastructure spending as additional boosts to the economy.
There are three key angles to this, and let’s start with the substance of the Treasury’s document. Congressional Republicans and the Trump administration have sworn up and down that the GOP’s tax package would pay for itself, ignoring the conclusions of every independent analysis, including data from Congress’ own Joint Committee on Taxation.
The Treasury Department argued this morning that the Republican promise will prove to be true if (a) we assume that the regressive tax breaks supercharge the economy(which has never happened in the past); and (b) policymakers also agree to pass Trump’s non-existent infrastructure plan, Trump’s non-existent welfare reform plan, and wait for Trump’s regulatory reform plan to work wonders.
In other words, the Trump administration is conceding that Republicans are wrong about one of the core promises of the party’s own tax plan. The Treasury effectively declared this morning, “The tax plan will pay for itself if everyone agrees to pass a bunch of other proposals, which haven’t been written, and which have nothing to do with the tax plan.”
Second, let’s not skip past that “welfare reform” tidbit too quickly. Trump’s Treasury Department is now saying, in writing, that Republicans can pay for tax breaks for the wealthy, not only by raising taxes on the middle class, but by cutting benefits to the nation’s most vulnerable. The document is describing class warfare at its most depraved – taking money from food-stamp beneficiaries, and giving it to millionaires.
And third, the entire Treasury Department analysis literally fits on one page. If we exclude the headline, the document isn’t quite 400 words (by comparison, the blog post you’re reading right now is 622 words).
What the Trump administration released this morning isn’t an analysis of tax legislation; it’s a joke. Treasury officials had plenty of time to do a thorough policy review, even massage the numbers in a favorable way, and produce something that wasn’t laughable, and all they ended up producing is a one-page document that further contradicts the Republican line about the GOP tax plan paying for itself.
Maybe Treasury did a real analysis and Mnuchin threw it away because it was a political disaster. Maybe qualified officials were told what to write, but they couldn’t defend the indefensible. Either way, today’s report is an embarrassment.
Postscript: I’m thinking about starting a new “one-page” franchise, counting the instances in which Trump World keeps important documents to a single page. The White House’s original tax “plan,” for example, was one page. Four months later, Republican officials released a revised tax blueprint, which was even shorter. Trump also reportedly likes to keep intelligence briefings to one page.
Policy depth isn’t exactly this gang’s top priority.
the left side of Priya's brain:
"I wonder how much of Republicans' penchant for this sort of thing stems from Christianity, where you don't really have to take responsibility for your failings, you merely need ask Jesus to forgive you.
Never trust anyone who can automatically clear their conscience of any wrongdoing by asking forgiveness"
the right side of Priya's brain:
"I was deathly afraid of hell for years after I stopped intellectually believing in it,"
so Priya can't decide if Christianity is objectionable because it offers forgiveness and its followers don't feel accountable for sin or because it promises judgment and its followers are worried they may be held accountable for sin
hatred of God can sure twist some people into a delusional pretzel
Reasearch showsnations with higher average intelligence are more liberal, monogamous, less religious, and have lower income inequality.
The origin of values and preferences is an unresolved theoretical question in behavioural and social sciences. The Savanna-IQ Interaction Hypothesis, derived from the Savanna Principle and a theory of the evolution of general intelligence, suggests that more intelligent individuals may be more likely to acquire and espouse evolutionarily novel values and preferences (such as liberalism and atheism and, for men, sexual exclusivity) than less intelligent individuals, but that general intelligence may have no effect on the acquisition and espousal of evolutionarily familiar values. Macro-level analyses show that nations with higher average intelligence are more liberal (have greater highest marginal individual tax rate and, as a result, lower income inequality), less religious (a smaller proportion of the population believes in God or considers themselves religious) and more monogamous. The average intelligence of a population appears to be the strongest predictor of its level of liberalism, atheism and monogamy.
Priya, do you realize that Christianity is not a religion?
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