Let me rephrase...

What he's saying is that he can guarantee that middle class taxes will go up.

If you look more closely this is an even greater screw job than the Reagan and Bush tax "reform".

Corporate tax rates will be slashed, but the corporate loopholes??? Hell, they won't even look at them. The top tax rate for individuals will go down, but all those sweet deductions that turn ordinary income into investment income--well those will most likely be expanded.

But the deduction for state and local taxes that will go bye bye.

They might even fuck with the brackets and force a bunch of people into a higher bracket than they're in now. (Since I wrote this I've seen that this bill will push those in the 10% bracket (the lowest) into a 12% bracket (the new lowest). Ain't math fun? When you're dealing with a mathematically impaired populace you can sneak all sorts of stuff by them.

The net net is that just like in 1986 a bunch of people will realize in the year following passage of this grotesque monstrosity that their taxes have gone up. Those in the top income brackets will, of course, make out like bandits.

The really really great thing from the Republican/Randian/libertarian standpoint is that when the deficit again soars it will make going after Medicare/Medicaid and Social Security much easier as people hyperventilate over the exploding deficit. Completely forgetting that there is lots and lots of money out there if Congress would just raise taxes and maybe institute a small tax on high frequency trading.

I have pointed out to many Republican voters that the largest chunk of that deficit they're bemoaning was accrued during first the Reagan administration and then during the 2nd Bush administration. They always start bleating about Obama and the stimulus. They just don't get it. And never will. Sigh.

He knows how to campaign--not how to govern

He is doing what feeds his voracious ego. He lives campaigning because people cheer and chant and go crazy over the stupid crap that dribbles from distended pie hole.

He knows only how to campaign--but has no idea how to govern.

He has never learned the finer points of persuasion. He is like all bad sales people--he over promises and under delivers. He betrays trusts and forgets commitments. He knows almost nothing in any detail and what he does know is often just what he wants to believe.

Don't look for any sort of rationality. He is as pure id as anyone that has ever been.

Everything is a present moment and he doesn't reflect or correct. That this toddler man has the nuclear codes and has so much power is terrifying.

Love the writing of Charles Pierce

Someone please educate me

When is it legal to take contributions from foreign sources?

Is it allowed if the contributions go to a SuperPAC?

This is major

I live in the Dallas area. That the Dallas Cowboys, self styled as "America's Team", just took a knee with the owner is a pretty big deal.

Jerry Jones is one of the oligarchs--a big,big deal in the NFL and in American business. Regardless of what you think of him he has always been a strong supporter of all that is status quo. He is one of "them".

That he has gone against Trump because of Trump's attack on black athletes in the NFL and the NBA is revealing. Trump's actions have provoked a surprising backlash.

Again, I live here. I couldn't have predicted this.

Things are getting weirder every day.

I'm so tired of this shit.

Trump would sign it if they could get it to his desk

The man has no identifiable ideology. He believes in money, sex, and power. He is also addicted to winning.

If somehow this could get through the legislative meat grinder I'm confident he'd sign it.

I think in that little lizard brain of his he has started to realize that the Republican agenda is a loser with the country. He hates losing.

Look at the deal he struck with Pelosi and Schumer. He knew the other path was a long drawn out slog through the mud and that, in the end, he'd have to force Ryan and McConnell to capitulate to the Democrats.

I think the timing on this is good.

She lived her life well

There is no way to make the pain go away. Indeed, it will surge into you later--unanticipated and uninvited--when some random thing triggers your memory.

But you describe a rich life and a parting from that life chosen rather than imposed.

I don't know you, but I've felt loss before and can sympathize and I offer my heartfelt condolences.

Bless you and bless her.

That comment reminds of Barbara Bush

No one seems to have brought this up yet...but this particular comment very much echoes Barbara Bush's comments during the Katrina evacuation about the mega center in Houston that in thousands.

There is a certain base cluelessness that only those born rich can have. They can look on these poor unfortunates and think that this is a great result.

As President Bush battled criticism over the response to Hurricane Katrina, his mother declared it a success for evacuees who "were underprivileged anyway," saying on Monday that many of the poor people she had seen while touring a Houston relocation site were faring better than before the storm hit.

"What I'm hearing, which is sort of scary, is they all want to stay in Texas," Barbara Bush said in an interview on Monday with the radio program "Marketplace." "Everyone is so overwhelmed by the hospitality."

"And so many of the people in the arena here, you know, were underprivileged anyway," she said, "so this is working very well for them." (This is clipped from the New York Times article from September 7, 2005)

It is not so much cruelty or heartlessness so much as the inability to relate because of a total lack of having experienced any sort of deprivation in their lives.

As Nick from The Great Gatsby said--the rich are not like you or me.

I'm sorry. What am I missing here?

He is a "3rd generation US citizen" and he can be subject to deportation?

So, because his grandparents came from Mexico and he has committed crimes he can be deported to Mexico?

Can someone with a background in law explain this one to us all?