US politics: Alabama Jones and the Temple of Moore

[Manhole Eunuchsbane]

 Democrats Working With Republicans to Further Weaken Dodd-Frank Rules

 http://thehill.com/policy/finance/360145-senate-banking-chairman-announces-bipartisan-deal-to-curb-dodd-frank-rules?utm_source=fark&utm_medium=website&utm_content=link&ICID=ref_fark

 

/With friends like these...

[Zorral]

In the meantime the orange ignoramus is back to jailing Hillary.  He's determined . . .  he's got three more years at least to get it executed.

 

[LongRider]

1 hour ago, Trebla said:

The RNC just ended their support for Judge Roy Moore. https://www.politico.com/story/2017/11/14/rnc-cuts-off-moore-244904

Popcorn time!

Didn't Bannon want to tear the R's to the ground and start over, or something?   Be careful what you wish for, I guess.  Oh and this happened:
 

Quote

 

Las Vegas casino mogul Sheldon Adelson, the GOP’s most prominent megadonor, is publicly breaking with former White House chief strategist Steve Bannon over his efforts to oust Republican incumbents in 2018.

“The Adelsons will not be supporting Steve Bannon’s efforts,” said Andy Abboud, an Adelson spokesman. “They are supporting Mitch McConnell 100 percent. For anyone to infer anything otherwise is wrong.”

 

Doggone it! 

[Guest]

1 hour ago, Mlle. Zabzie said:

 

I think they end up with something relatively more generous on SALT that phases out when you hit certain income levels.  

At this point, is there realistically any way actual tax reform gets done, rather than a tax cut with a 10 year sunset a la Bush?

[LongRider]

19 minutes ago, The Great Unwashed said:

At this point, is there realistically any way actual tax reform gets done, rather than a tax cut with a 10 year sunset a la Bush?

Tax reform?  No, just tax cuts which is all they really want, no reform there.

[Altherion]

17 hours ago, Wethers said:

To make sure I understand your position correctly, you are saying Moore is a plucky underdog, a victim of heavy propaganda warfare from elite liberals and "mainstream" republicans tilted drastically and unfairly against him?

Unless you believe that unprovable allegations regarding events that happened 40 years ago somehow coincidentally turned up in a national newspaper weeks before the election, there can be little doubt that there is a propaganda campaign against Moore. However, I guess what you're really asking is whether I believe that the allegations are true -- after all, propaganda can be perfectly truthful -- and the answer to that is more nuanced. On the one hand, whoever is running these attacks did a very good job: this is a far cry from, for example, the half-baked, anonymous accusations against Trump in the fall of 2016. Of course, they can't prove anything, but they've done about as well as possible in the given situation and their case is fairly persuasive.

On the other hand, however... there are two strong factors against them. The first is simply the timing and I've already mentioned it above. The second is the sheer number of scumbags lined up on the side of this propaganda. They usually take opposite sides on an issue so one has to choose between them, but in this case, the Democrats and mainstream Republicans are on the same sides and if that coalition claimed that the sky is blue, I would be tempted to go outside and double check just to make sure that it hasn't mysteriously changed color. I do not have the resources to determine whether the allegations are true or false, but, on the balance between all of these things, I would guess there is about a 25% chance that Moore did something truly objectionable.

17 hours ago, Wethers said:

If you lived in Alabama, would you vote for Moore?

No, I would not. However, this is because I disagree with several of his positions rather than because of the propaganda.

[Kalbear]

Well, that's definitely a hot take

[Martell Spy]

Quote

Tax reform?  No, just tax cuts which is all they really want, no reform there.

But they are going to make it so simple that you can do your taxes on a post card. It will have to be a paper post card only though, no online filing, in order to make it more regressive.

[Week]

13 minutes ago, Altherion said:

On the one hand, whoever is running these attacks did a very good job: this is a far cry from, for example, the half-baked, anonymous accusations against Trump in the fall of 2016.

https://www.vox.com/2016/10/13/13269448/trump-sexual-assault-allegations

These 17 women are all anonymous? Looks like 17 different accounts by named women to me.

13 minutes ago, Altherion said:

I do not have the resources to determine whether the allegations are true or false, but, on the balance between all of these things, I would guess there is about a 25% chance that Moore did something truly objectionable.

As for Moore -- 

https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/11/13/16643422/roy-moore-republican-party

Quote

Moore has denied ever dating a 14-year-old and generally called the Post story “false,” but in an appearance on Sean Hannity radio’s show Friday, he “didn’t dispute” that he used to date girls as young as 16, admitting that he “dated a lot of young ladies.”

Quote

• Debbie Wesson Gibson was 17, she says, when Moore spoke to a high school class of hers and asked her out, leading to several dates on which they kissed.
• Gloria Thacker Deason was 18 when, she says, she began dating Moore on and off for several months. On the dates, she says they kissed and Moore sometimes provided her alcohol even though she was under Alabama’s drinking age of 19.
• Wendy Miller says she was 16 when Moore approached her at the mall and asked her to date him, but her mother prohibited it.

The latest:

Quote

Then on Monday afternoon, a new accuser, Beverly Young Nelson, came forward. She said that when she was 16 years old, Moore sexually assaulted her after offering her a ride home from the restaurant where she worked as a waitress. She read out an emotional prepared statement describing the alleged attack:

He stopped the car and he parked his car in between the dumpster and the back of the restaurant where there were no lights. The area was dark and it was deserted. I was immediately alarmed and I asked him what he was doing.

Instead of answering my question, Mr. Moore reached over and began groping me, putting his hands on my breasts. I tried to open my car door to leave, but he reached over and locked it so I could not get out. I tried fighting him off, while yelling at him to stop, but instead of stopping he began squeezing my neck attempting to force my head onto his crotch. I continued to struggle. I was determined that I was not going to allow him to force me to have sex with him. I was terrified. He was also trying to pull my shirt off. I thought that he was going to rape me. I was twisting and struggling and begging him to stop. I had tears running down my face.

At some point he gave up. He then looked at me and said, “You are a child. I am the District Attorney of Etowah County. If you tell anyone about this, no one will believe you.” He finally allowed me to open the car door and I either fell out or he pushed me out. I was on the ground as he pulled out of the parking area behind the restaurant. The passenger door was still open as he burned rubber pulling away leaving me laying there on the cold concrete in the dark.

He claims to not know this woman despite signing her yearbook with a romantic note (I don't remember many >30 men leaving love notes in highschool yearbooks when I graduated...)

http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2017/11/moore-denies-knowing-fifth-accuser-despite-signed-yearbook.html

 

As I'm sure you'll cry foul on sources linked above (vox / nymag) --

http://www.al.com/news/index.ssf/2017/11/gadsden_residents_say_moores_b.html#incart_m-rpt-2

Quote

Moore and other Republican leaders have questioned why it took so long for his accusers, now in their 50s, to come forward publicly.

And yet people who lived in Etowah County during that time have said Moore's flirting with and dating much younger women and girls was no secret.

"These stories have been going around this town for 30 years," said Blake Usry, who grew up in the area and lives in Gadsden. "Nobody could believe they hadn't come out yet."

Usry, a traveling nurse, said he knew some girls that Moore tried to flirt with.

"It's not a big secret in this town about Roy Moore," he said. "That's why it's sort of frustrating to watch" the public disbelieve the women who have come forward, he said.

 

[LongRider]

6 minutes ago, Martell Spy said:

But they are going to make it so simple that you can do your taxes on a post card. It will have to be a paper post card only though, no online filing, in order to make it more regressive.

And no, one would not be able to deduct the cost of the stamp for your postcard return, unless of course, one is a multi-billionaire. 

[Yukle]

2 minutes ago, Nasty LongRider said:

And no, one would not be able to deduct the cost of the stamp for your postcard return, unless of course, one is a multi-billionaire. 

In which case, you could probably also split your return over sixty different postcards and deduct the cost of all of them, as well as claim a tax credit for using each letter of the alphabet at some stage.

[Guest]

22 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

Well, that's definitely a hot take

Not so much hot. Steaming maybe?

[LongRider]

13 minutes ago, Yukle said:

In which case, you could probably also split your return over sixty different postcards and deduct the cost of all of them, as well as claim a tax credit for using each letter of the alphabet at some stage.

Those aren't loopholes tho'; no, no, no, they're legitimate business deductions!   Yeah, that's the ticket.

Future chant at political rallies 'Show us your postcards!'

[Altherion]

5 hours ago, Rippounet said:

Which is the crux of the problem, frankly speaking. Seeing immigrants and refugees as "invaders" means badly misunderstanding the world we live in, and therefore, the world of tomorrow.

The world of tomorrow is extremely difficult to predict so I'm not all that confident about who is misunderstanding.

6 hours ago, Rippounet said:

You're off by several orders of magnitude.

"Unrecognizable" might be exaggerating a wee bit. Technological changes aside, most developed societies have been rather stable on the contrary in the past century or two.

I disagree. Look at the world, in, say, 1917. You are right that technology is drastically different, but so are are demographic trends, laws, mores, social roles, etc. in practically every society. Sure, a few fundamental cultural traits such as traditional foods still persist (if you can find and are willing to pay for the versions which are not affected by mass production), but even the rare country that hasn't been touched by either a revolution or a major war (e.g. Switzerland) would be practically unrecognizable.

[Mudguard]

16 minutes ago, Altherion said:

Unless you believe that unprovable allegations regarding events that happened 40 years ago somehow coincidentally turned up in a national newspaper weeks before the election, there can be little doubt that there is a propaganda campaign against Moore. However, I guess what you're really asking is whether I believe that the allegations are true -- after all, propaganda can be perfectly truthful -- and the answer to that is more nuanced. On the one hand, whoever is running these attacks did a very good job: this is a far cry from, for example, the half-baked, anonymous accusations against Trump in the fall of 2016. Of course, they can't prove anything, but they've done about as well as possible in the given situation and their case is fairly persuasive.

On the other hand, however... there are two strong factors against them. The first is simply the timing and I've already mentioned it above. The second is the sheer number of scumbags lined up on the side of this propaganda. They usually take opposite sides on an issue so one has to choose between them, but in this case, the Democrats and mainstream Republicans are on the same sides and if that coalition claimed that the sky is blue, I would be tempted to go outside and double check just to make sure that it hasn't mysteriously changed color. I do not have the resources to determine whether the allegations are true or false, but, on the balance between all of these things, I would guess there is about a 25% chance that Moore did something truly objectionable.

No, I would not. However, this is because I disagree with several of his positions rather than because of the propaganda.

You may not have the resources to personally determine whether the allegations against Moore are true or false, but plenty of other organizations do, and I think it's safe to assume that many different people and organizations are fact checking the Washington Post story.  As I've said in an earlier post, I can understand some initial skepticism to the Post story, but as time passes without anyone debunking or convincingly casting doubt on the major elements of the Post story, it becomes harder and harder to justify doubting the allegations. 

Even Moore's own denials, have been pretty weak.  For example, he hasn't denied dating high school girls aged 16-18 while he was a 30 something year old district attorney.  While not necessarily illegal per se, I find it at a minimum to be hugely problematic that a 30 plus year old district attorney, a person of authority, would be constantly pursuing relationships with high school girls that are legally considered minors.  There's overwhelming evidence that he's done this.  Are you saying that you don't find this behavior truly objectionable?  Would you vote for a politician that admitted to this behavior if you agreed with his positions on policy issues?  Or are you saying that you think there's only about a 25% chance that this allegation is true?  If you think that this behavior is objection but it only has a 25% chance of being true, how did you come up with that number when there's tons of evidence that the allegations is true and no (that I'm aware of) evidence that it's false?

[Fragile Bird]

Uh, so the police told that shopping mall to keep Moore out. That means there were complaints, serious complaints, about his conduct.

I am hoping that more women will decide to speak up.

[Kalbear]

This goes into the 'what is more reasonable to believe' part.

Is it more reasonable to believe that a small time senator candidate was outed with his practice of dating and molesting young girls because a national newspaper started investigating and actually pursuing long-time rumors about him, and then used investigative practices to determine things? Which continues to have more and more sources and corroborating data come out after the story has run, and has the Senator fabricating things to exculpate himself?

OR

Is it more reasonable to believe that Roy Moore is entirely innocent, and that this is a smear campaign waged by the Democrats, the national media AND the establishment Republicans?

[Mlle. Zabzie]

1 hour ago, The Great Unwashed said:

At this point, is there realistically any way actual tax reform gets done, rather than a tax cut with a 10 year sunset a la Bush?

Well think the House bill goes through on Thursday. We shall see. 

[OldGimletEye]

23 hours ago, Mudguard said:

 Even Moore's own denials, have been pretty weak.  For example, he hasn't denied dating high school girls aged 16-18 while he was a 30 something year old district attorney.  While not necessarily illegal per se, I find it at a minimum to be hugely problematic that a 30 plus year old district attorney, a person of authority, would be constantly pursuing relationships with high school girls that are legally considered minors.

Uh yeah, even if Moore didn’t break the law, his sliming around the high schools and the local mall is like getting into major creepersterville territory.

Making it worse of course is allegedly he is supposed to be good old lord fearin' man. The hypocrisy here is off the chart.

[Week]

18 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

This goes into the 'what is more reasonable to believe' part.

Is it more reasonable to believe that a small time senator candidate was outed with his practice of dating and molesting young girls because a national newspaper started investigating and actually pursuing long-time rumors about him, and then used investigative practices to determine things? Which continues to have more and more sources and corroborating data come out after the story has run, and has the Senator fabricating things to exculpate himself?

OR

Is it more reasonable to believe that Roy Moore is entirely innocent, and that this is a smear campaign waged by the Democrats, the national media AND the establishment Republicans?

Doesn't the Right have some capable gumshoes that cut their teeth on the Comet Pizza investigation that could get to the bottom of this??