JaneAusten

I've felt all along the tax bill would pass. It doesn't matter that today a mass number of CEO's have come out and said it won't incentivize them to do what's being claimed, this is payback to the Koch Brothers. And Trump. He's renigged on all his promises, but he doesn't care nor does his base which is another affirmation that it was never about economic anxiety. The people who were poor and lower class didn't vote for him anyway despite the claims. Also there is no republican not even Susan Collins that can't be bought off apparently. For all her principled stance on healthcare, she's also going to vote for this. All I can say is if you have investments make certain you have them some place secure. The worst part of all of this is there is no need for a boost for corporations. They are already cash heavy, the economy already has been improving for the past few years, so where is the dying need to allegedly do this? They talked about simplifying the code for everyone but while consumers lose deductions while gaining a doubling of the std deduction, corporations get a reduced tax rate and all the loop holes that exist today still in place. And small businesses are also the losers here.

I think it's fair to initially post this here. While I am not shocked, there is almost a larger element here, in that so many men who are harassers and abusers, Halperin, Thrush, O'Reilly, Ailes, and now Lauer, are also those who have helped shaped that narratives out there including narratives around women. I know people will take issue with this but I can't forget how Halperin wrote not just about Elizabeth Edwards but also Sarah Palin. Now I can't stand her but her entire image was sexualized IMO and as soon as she became useless, they had no issue turning her into a joke. People like Edwards and Hilary Clinton have been shaped into hateful power hungry shrews by MEN. On a side note a bit of justice perhaps for Ann Curry also

@Khan thought you would appreciate this https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/11/the-red-state-revolt-spreads-to-oklahoma/546671/

From the beginning China was always going to be the big winner. They now have sole control over the Asian trade market and all they needed to do to get Trump flattering them was to flatter him with red carpets, ketchup on a steak, and releasing 3 kids and allowing him to take credit, a move they were likely to do anyway as shoplifting even in China is a minor crime. They have sweated nothing over North Korea either. Amidst all this the EU is standing by Ireland and is forcing the UK to have all of the border issues between Ireland, Northern Ireland, and the rest of the UK settled in the next 10 days when trade negotiations I believe were planned to be started and now there is talk of a snap election being called in Ireland due to the alleged scandal there. A new election would undermine the Brexit negotiations as it would likely take Ireland months to form a coalition governing body. Perhaps that is the motive behind the current scandal that surfaced with their current Tanaiste(similar out our VP) is more chaos to upset the entire process. All of this with lower consumer confidence numbers in the UK. With all this and the positive press Corbyn is now getting, I feel like the UK is topsy turvy.

It's hard to find which is the worst but this is the one that would likely resonate with those Bernie people who just couldn't make themselves vote for Hillary https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-switch/wp/2017/11/21/the-fcc-has-unveiled-its-plan-to-rollback-its-net-neutrality-rules/ Seriously are things really this tribal that we are going to now allow big corporations to control every aspect of our lives(not like they don't already). Now we are going to allow a former Verizon Lobbyist turn over how we access and are filtered from content on the internet. I realize this will be taken to court once voted on as likely a free speech issue, but seriously since when are big telecom companies like AY&T and Comcast a friend to the consumer. Both provide crappy customer service and now want to control what and how we view information on the internet. Although on the plus side it could provide a boom for startups who will agree to continue to follow the policies in place as a marketing ploy And this is pretty deplorable. Another article on the humanitarian crisis which completely ignores how the US and the Uk have both been complicit. WE now have our own naval vessels blocking the shores of Yemen preventing any humanitarian aide from getting to the people there. And this is not a Trump issue. This started under Obama and we have just continued and escalated our support of the Saudi's to help kill millions of people https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2017/11/19/yemen-is-on-the-brink-of-a-horrible-famine-heres-how-things-got-so-bad/

You know what was never reconciled IMO was Anita Hill and a subpar Justice put on the Supreme Court because a dais of bipartisan white males led by Joe Biden decided she was a liar. They also denied the request to have 3 other women testify. And Biden’s recent lame apology which was not an apology didn’t help.

I would agree with your points on voting. I do think we need to focus more on turnout. If we could get turnout regularly around 60 to 65 percent suppression would not matter. Once we were in power we could then get voting rights legislation back in place.virginia having that higher turnout in an off year election is one reason Dems are closer to having an ever split in the house of delegates even with the intense gerrymandering in VA. Now that Dems have the Governors mansion there, there should be a fair redistricting that happens in 2020. OT @Khan this is quite something from your home state. http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/361073-former-oklahoma-state-senator-pleads-guilty-to-child-sex

Archibald Cox and the Saturday nigh massacre didn’t save us from Nixon it was people. My friend Peter from Indiana who is a Trump and Pence hating republican has said it so many times to me when I complain about the dirty tactics. VOTE. Because even he acknowledges there are more liberal sided people in the US . He’s said for years if liberals show up in the same numbers republicans do, the GOP would never win an election again. That’s why 2008 had the GOP so nervous was turnout but like the lazy butts we are, we fooled ourselves and let our country and Obama down by not showing up after that. Even 2008 which was high numbers still had 63% turnout, that’s not really impressive but that it is for us should say more about American voters than anything. Virginia for example had had good turnout for an offterm election but it was still 49%.

No surprise the party of Christian values doesn’t espouse you know those values.

Unless your name is Eisenhower. We had a 75% corp tax rate then and weren't those the so called "MAGA" times? Well at least for the white male part of the country

This tax bill as we all know is another GOP supply side economics flop. How many times folks are people going to fall for this. Under St. Ronnie we did this and we started building the wage gap. We also had the savings and loan collapse and don’t forget Black Tuesday the second greatest drop in the stock market in a day since 1929. Bush Jr did this and what happened. Continued wage gap growth leading to its greatest levels since right before the 1929 stock market crash, slowest job growth since the Great Depression, and what did we have, a market collapse, and Wall Street bailouts, and we are doing it again. The joke here is this being sold as some sort of middle class miracle. seriously. - Corproate tax cuts are permanent, middle class cuts expire over the next 5 to 10 years. Middle class taxes actually go up. - Simplifying taxes by decreasing tax rates and removing deductions, oh well only middle class taxpayers lost valuable deductions. Guess who doesn’t corporations. So the loop holes are still there and they get a mass cut - Moving expenses are no longer deductible if you relocate for a job. But the corporate write off for companies moving their businesses overseas. Still in place. Im convinced with the removal of the student loan interest deduction, that’s going to be the next catalyst. I think a ton a young people just won’t be able to afford it and will just be walking away from many of them even with the hits to their credit history and burden they will continue to carry since bankruptcy doesn’t clear these. the fear should be for everyone as we take more loans out from China to pay for the increase in our deficit by trillions and our decreased influence and position in the world, will we recover? And we got nothing from Trumps Asia trip. No independent trade deals, just a lot of ego puffing by a bunch of leaders in China ie playing him with a red carpet and ceremonies but not one deal. They hold so much of our debt and they are the next super power.

So how did Roger Stone know these allegations against Franken were coming out 24 hours before they did? http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/360726-stone-appeared-to-know-franken-allegation-was-coming And please don’t take this in any way to think I’m defending Franken but this is all suspect.

Heck there is more than 2 people. A journalist I believe with WaPo posted a list on twitter of the number of sexual harassment claims by year with the total number of claims and total dollar amount spent for each year for just the House. I wish I could find it but the $$ amount was over 25 million dollars and the # cases were over double digits each year. Actually I was surprised it was that low so perhaps there were some that were taken care of personally. I frankly don't understand why the hell taxpayers are paying for sexual harassment settlements and why we don't have the right to know who the perpetrators are.

I find Bill Clintons actions with Lewinsky an abuse of power but not assault or rape. Carl's synopsis of how things went down then is pretty accurate. The vitriol displayed by the right completely over shadowed all else. I'm more interested as to why folks want to re-litigate Clinton and ignore Anita Hill. And for the record there was another accuser of Thomas who was not allowed to testify but I cannot recall why now. But anyone who watched those hearings on live TV, the optics were awful. A panel of white men sitting up on their pedestals by the way, looking down, judging and questioning Hill got women angry enough to elect a record number of female senators the next election. If all of this can lead to massive change including newly elected decent officials I say more power to it. And Anita Hill is why I do not nor ever will have any interest in Joe Biden. he helped lead that charge.

Child molestation is acceptable, so are 17 women accusing Trump but Al Franken should be executed. Franken should be censored or worse after they investigate. But I'll wait for McConnell's ethics investigation into Roy Moore and Trump before the executioner is called.

Stmt from Al Franken https://www.politico.com/story/2017/11/16/full-text-al-franken-apologizes-for-allegedly-groping-woman-244978 I'm not here to credit him. Women should be believed but this was a decent stmt. It doesn't excuse it or discredit the victims but accepts responsibility I'm glad to see Kirsten Gillibrand jump on this to initiate an ethics investigation. The response so far has not been "if true" it's been we believe you and we need to further investigate to determine what action needs to be taken I don't think anyone should expect that this is the only one. There is sexual harassment going on on capital hill as we speak. 15 million dollars worth of settlements has been published over sexual harassment allegations, taxpayer money by the way, which taxpayers are not allowed to see where this money has been spent. Their own rules protect them from consequences other than our money being used to settle claims they should themselves be financially libel for and legally responsible. And seriously people are asking Trump to comment on Roy Moore. Uhm exactly what do people expect one sexual predator to say about another.

This current lunacy was started by Chris Hayes. I can't really say I have been that interested in him, but it seems like a reason to propagate the democrats are in chaos after a good election because with that election St. Bernie and his followers attempts to derail some of those elections failed. Those of us who lived through that time, don't have any interest in regurgitating this. I remember watching the Anita Hill hearings, initially believing the allegations against Clinton, only for lunacy to take over. And both Broaddrick and Wiley changed their stories under oath. Now that may mean nothing, witness intimidation is not unheard of, and Broaddrick in particular IMO sounded credible at the time. Monica Lewinsky was not assault or rape. Abuse of power I would agree yes. And for Broaddrick to put herself up on a stage with Trump an admitted sexual predator, just shows very bad judgement. I'm done with people passing judgement on those of us who were split and conflicted lived through these things. It's funny how no one mentions Anita Hill and how we have a lifetime appointment on the Supreme Court because a panel of men led by Joe Biden by the way lambasted her on live TV and sided with the perpetrator. Oh and no shock Peter Baker wrote this.

@Khan I was watching the Maddow rebroadcast last night and Anna Langton was featured, the new 25 yr old head of Oklahoma Democratic Party. If the party is looking for a star she’s it. Smart, poised, energetic, and pragmatic. She also talked about getting people in your state to vote. She said voter turnout in a state that is crumbling is low and that one of her objectives is to get more people engaged, involved, and voting.

So the American president , the great "dealmaker" is begging foreign countries to buy military equipment https://www.rawstory.com/2017/11/trump-begged-vietnam-to-buy-us-military-equipment-because-he-needed-quick-wins-report/

Even the CEO's know this is a taxscam and can't make themselves say otherwise http://www.businessinsider.com/trump-gop-tax-plan-gary-cohn-bill-2017-11

Judicial Apartheid

There was a new accuser announced this AM who is having a press conf at 2:30 ET. Suddenly McConnell and all the GOP-senate robots stand along Most disappointed in Collins. I thought she was an independent thinker

3 reasons - Male - White - Heterosexual oh and one more reason "A republican" So apparently Roy Moore having "women issues" was known for years. https://theintercept.com/2017/11/10/roy-moores-republican-opponents-chased-rumors-about-women-issues-for-years-but-could-never-nail-them-down/