President Trump: The NEW one and only politics thread

More unpopular than Obamacare, less popular than the President. This is some weird-ass "populism."

 

Mueller had a reason to cut a deal with Flynn. And the reason was not to bust some low level White House staffer. As John Dean said Mueller is shooting up, not down.

 

I know these were taking points awhile back, but did this stuff make it into the final bill? I wouldn't know because coverage of the tax issue was terrible.

 

You wouldn't know because Republican leadership obfuscated, hid, and withheld the text of the tax code from the American public and those voting on it.

 

I explained it yesterday.

Because they can. Because people in power, when given the choice to answer a threatening question 1) the way you want it to be answered or 2) the way you don't wan't it to be answered, INSTINCTIVELY will give you the answer you DON'T want. Almost every time.

--- "Nick, are you going to be the coach at Alabama."
--- "No."

--- "Do you recall meeting with the Russians?"
--- "No."

 

Then how do we know about the aforementioned terrible things in the bill? ESP?

 

So now you do know about it?

 

But you're in the industry, and most of the people on this board either are or were. We shouldn't be talking about "the media" or the "MSM" here like it's a single entity. Christ, this thread alone shows how different we all are.

 

The framework of the bill has been known for a while. Reporting on it was bad. As is reporting on most big issues these days.

 

That may be true, but the reporting was hindered by Republicans hiding -- and basically not even writing the bill -- until the last second.

 

The provisions discussed above were all reported on by journalists who cover Congress. There were some late ones added, like the tax break for parents of private school kids that goes up as their income level does, that didn't get much attention because it all happened last night. Here's the thing about taxes. You can't spin them once they're law. If a person finds that the new law either gives them a pittance ($100 a year if you make 40K, fer instance) or costs them money (many people in the upper middle income bracket), they'll notice and they'll get mad. This bill is starting off as very unpopular. It is polling worse than did the Clinton tax HIKES of 1993.
PS: Q, many reporters covering Congress see it in pure political win-loss terms. Those are your cable news folks for example. The best coverage of this bill was to be found in the business pages, where reporters have to have a basic level of numeracy.

 

LOL ... "talk about" the AMT.