US Politics: flaking out and coming uncorked

[all swedes are racist]

3 minutes ago, Manhole Eunuchsbane said:

No, what IamMe90 said.

ok, fair, that's why i asked. but glad to hear it

[Crazydog7]

Just another day at the Trump White house

[all swedes are racist]

in related, "i don't want to live on this earth anymore" news

http://thehill.com/homenews/news/357109-poll-dems-have-favorable-view-of-george-w-bush?amp

[Morpheus]

I have heard a lot of "Trump even makes me miss Bush" or some variation. Bush's mere stupidity is seen as quaint compared to Trump's unique combination of ignorance and hateful malice; Cheney is the one deserving of your ire according to this view. As if Bush bears no responsibilty for the war crimes or the unending propaganda and jingoism which turned "Support the troops!" into a slogan to stifle dissent.

[James Arryn]

7 hours ago, Manhole Eunuchsbane said:

 I don't know, it gives me hope. If Mueller can deliver the goods, MAYBE, just maybe these worms will have the sack to act on it.  

Or maybe they'll make popular sound bytes of criticism but not actually do anything that threatens their hold on power.

[James Arryn]

9 minutes ago, Morpheus said:

I have heard a lot of "Trump even makes me miss Bush" or some variation. Bush's mere stupidity is seen as quaint compared to Trump's unique combination of ignorance and hateful malice; Cheney is the one deserving of your ire according to this view. As if Bush bears no responsibilty for the war crimes or the unending propaganda and jingoism which turned "Support the troops!" into a slogan to stifle dissent.

Rove, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz et al. Trump probably will, but he has yet to do any single thing as harmful as 2 modern Crusades. I get that Dubya cones off a much nicer person and I think his criticisms of Trump are sincere and in point, but they don't give him a pass on what he did. This is part of the process whereby America always forgives itself for past wrongs by focusing on present rivalries. It's not as common as 'the other party' handwave, but it still happens all the time. 

[OldGimletEye]

On 10/26/2017 at 6:33 AM, Morpheus said:

 As if Bush bears no responsibilty for the war crimes or the unending propaganda and jingoism which turned "Support the troops!" into a slogan to stifle dissent.

This is something that sent me high and to the right, every time I saw it. I spent a good deal of my youth in the armed forces. I respected the people I served with. I also believe that Iraq was a mistake. And the way it was planned and executed was a real cluster. One can "support the troops" and still be very critical of a government's foreign policy and strategic choices.

Conflating the two is a load of horseshit. 

And I'm still pissed about it.

[LongRider]

Dubya?

Fuck that guy.

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

1 hour ago, Nasty LongRider said:

Dubya?

Fuck that guy.

Yeah, let’s not forget just how awful Bush was. But the one thing you can say to his credit is that he wasn’t intentionally cruel to people like Trump is. They’re both bumbling idiots though.

On an unrelated note, check out this short clip. It gives you a quick glimpse into the mind of generic Trump support:

http://www.wbur.org/onpoint/2017/10/25/after-senators-retirement-trumps-base-comes-into-focus

[Manhole Eunuchsbane]

4 hours ago, James Arryn said:

Or maybe they'll make popular sound bytes of criticism but not actually do anything that threatens their hold on power.

That's far more likely, sure.

[Manhole Eunuchsbane]

1 hour ago, Tywin et al. said:

On an unrelated note, check out this short clip. It gives you a quick glimpse into the mind of generic Trump support:

https://postimg.org/image/ezuhjnw3d/

[S John]

Yea, I think that favorable view of Bush probably only exists because in 2008 most liberals (and me too) thought that W. was probably the worst president we were going to see in our lifetime and we now know that, no... it can definitely get worse.

I would trade Trump for George W. Bush without one single second of hesitation.  Bush made a LOT of fuck ups, Iraq War Exhibit 1a., but he did not intentionally divide domestically as Trump does and I'm not worried about W having the launch codes the way I am with Trump.  

[Mexal]

House passed Senate budget, officially starting tax reform talks using reconciliation. Fun times ahead for rich people.

Lets also take a minute to laugh at the hypocrisy of 216 Republicans voting for a budget that adds 1.5 trillion to the deficit.

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

Quote

nother accuser has come forward alleging that former President George H.W. Bush had inappropriately touched her, Deadspin reported Wednesday.

New York actress Jordana Grolnick told Deadspin that Bush touched her during a photo-op at a theater in Maine last year.

"We all circled around him and Barbara for a photo, and I was right next to him," Grolnick said. "He reached his right hand around to my behind, and as we smiled for the photo he asked the group, 'Do you want to know who my favorite magician is?'"

"As I felt his hand dig into my flesh, he said, 'David Cop-a-Feel!'"

Grolnick said that people in the room "laughed politely and out of discomfort," and that former first lady Barbara Bush "said something along the lines of, 'He's going to get himself put into jail!'"

"I just thought, 'Whatever. He's a dirty old man,'" Grolnick said.

https://www.aol.com/article/news/2017/10/26/david-cop-a-feel-new-actress-claims-president-george-hw-bush-touched-her-and-told-a-lewd-joke/23256634/

[IamMe90]

5 hours ago, James Arryn said:

Rove, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz et al. Trump probably will, but he has yet to do any single thing as harmful as 2 modern Crusades.

Yet. The potential is certainly there for far, far worse.

[OldGimletEye]

On 10/26/2017 at 10:58 AM, S John said:

Yea, I think that favorable view of Bush probably only exists because in 2008 most liberals (and me too) thought that W. was probably the worst president we were going to see in our lifetime and we now know that, no... it can definitely get worse.

I would trade Trump for George W. Bush without one single second of hesitation.  Bush made a LOT of fuck ups, Iraq War Exhibit 1a., but he did not intentionally divide domestically as Trump does and I'm not worried about W having the launch codes the way I am with Trump.  

I think in 100 years or so, posterity will look back in amazement that these two clowns got elected so close to each other. And I think posterity will look back in amazement that generally the same people gave us Dubya and the Orange Monster.

And interestingly enough, the same people, who gave us those two clowns, think they can just casually sit back and make the worst sort of comments about Barack Obama?  Just how does one do that? I have no clue. How exactly do you vote for Dubya and then Trump and not expect to be horse laughed right out of a room? I have no clue about that either. How do you even expect to be taken seriously? No clue.

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

13 minutes ago, OldGimletEye said:

I think in 100 years or so, posterity will look back in amazement that these two clowns got elected so close to each other. And I think posterity will look back in amazement that generally the same people gave us Dubya and the Orange Monster.

And interestingly enough, the same people, who gave us those two clowns, think they can just casually sit back and make the worst sort of comments about Barack Obama?  Just how does one do that? I have no clue. How exactly do you vote for Dubya and then Trump and not expect to be horse laughed right out of a room? I have no clue about that either. How do you even expect to be taken seriously? No clue.

Wait a minute, are you questioning a man who’s like a smart person with a very good brain and has the best words, just like these?:

18 minutes ago, Manhole Eunuchsbane said:

/Jesus Fucking Christ.

And I obviously agree about Obama. I’m biased because I worked on his campaigns, but I have no idea how anyone can honestly say he’s the worst president ever without it being due to sheer racism. He’s not perfect, but he was a good president overall. History will remember him kindly, especially since he’s wedged between those two idiots.

[Mlle. Zabzie]

17 hours ago, The Great Unwashed said:

Yeah, I know that deductions for qualified defined benefit plans especially can get rather wonky.

Leaving aside policy considerations however, this proposal seems extremely boneheaded from a political viewpoint as I can't imagine how they'd sell it as anything but an attack on retirement savings, which is a point of concern for many middle class families.

The SALT deduction repeal doesn't seem like great politics, but I imagine that they can dangle the proposed AMT repeal as an offset for high earners being hit by the SALT repeal in order to keep the backing of blue state Republican donors and Congress critters, but I cannot fathom how they will try and sell the 401k cap.

 

16 hours ago, The Great Unwashed said:

I haven't really considered this aspect of the tax plan proposal before, but it seems like the crunching of tax brackets from 7 to 3 (or 4), also has the potential to hit retirees receiving distributions from their retirement plans. IIRC, in a traditional (non-Roth) retirement portfolio, your distributions after retirement tend to be taxed at a higher rate than your contributions would have been had you paid tax on them at the time you contributed since your income after retirement (and thus your effective tax rate) is typically higher than your income was when you started contributing to your plan 4 decades ago. It depends on the new standard deduction and how the new tax brackets will be implemented, but this could potentially affect middle-class retirees as well.

 

16 hours ago, S John said:

And you know damn well that the conservative politicians of the future, when there's an uptick in the need for social services for the elderly, will be fighting tooth and nail against it on the basis of a lack of personal accountability while having neutered one of the best mechanisms to prevent that that necessity in the first place.  

I don't understand how any congress, let alone a conservative one, would think it is a good idea to break a program that allows regular people the freedom and personal responsibility to plan for their own retirement using the market.  And it's not like you don't get taxed on the back-end when you withdraw, or that that money won't ultimately be spent on taxable goods anyway.  It's painfully obvious that the only purpose of this is to use the additional taxes from 401k contributions to pay for other cuts that they want to make.  I don't know how this doesn't blow up in their faces, conservatives rely on 401k too.

My concern is that if this makes it into the final bill Trump will sign it, regardless of his recent tweets saying the 401k rules will not be changing.    

Well, I think it might blow up in their faces for sure.  Not sure what will actually happen.  The lobbying going on right now for various things is intense.  And it may just be further rothification - which is a time value of money play at heart.  But I wonder if they are just betting that the vast majority don't take advantage of 401(k)s at anywhere near the rate that they should, and the $18K of deferral is out of reach for most people anyhow.

15 hours ago, The Great Unwashed said:

I'm going to have to remember where I read the article on this, and I certainly could be misremembering, but it was a comparison of the advantages of a Roth plan as compared to a traditional plan. I concede your point if you're comparing retirement income to the income of the years immediately preceeding retirement, but if I'm remembering correctly, the comparison was of retirement income to your average income over the course of your entire career.

I think that's right.  At the end of the day, the question is whether you pay tax now and invest after tax dollars, or if you pay no tax now, and invest pre tax dollars and then pay tax later.  How it comes out for you will depend on your bracket, rates at the different times (both because of income levels and law changes) and the time value of the deferral.  The discount rate on the deferral is a really interesting question - and a mismatch between the government's discount rate versus an investor's is even more interesting.  

11 hours ago, Manhole Eunuchsbane said:

You know what? I'm willing to separate these two things here and give Corker and Flake some credit regardless. I don't expect them to not support the GOP party line bullshit. That doesn't diminish their speaking out in the manner that they have. It's really two different things. I think we should be lauding these guys for calling the President out on his bullshit in a manner that the rest of their party is not. 

I tend to agree.  I can say "I agree with these x, y, z speeches and think they add to the national discourse" without saying "OMG these people are amazing and I now agree with everything they say and do.

[Week]

3 hours ago, Tywin et al. said:

Yeah, let’s not forget just how awful Bush was. But the one thing you can say to his credit is that he wasn’t intentionally cruel to people like Trump is. They’re both bumbling idiots though.

On an unrelated note, check out this short clip. It gives you a quick glimpse into the mind of generic Trump support:

http://www.wbur.org/onpoint/2017/10/25/after-senators-retirement-trumps-base-comes-into-focus

• Katrina
• Fabrication of evidence to push the Iraq War (see also: Bush the Butcher)
• AUMF - one of, if not the most, damaging ongoing policies to our democracy over the last 15 years
• Torture Memos
• Gitmo
• Tax cuts which ballooned the deficit (cruel insofar as the goal was to necessitate cutting the safety-net / anti-poverty measures)
• etc.

I know agree with the above -- it's just simply not true to say that he was not "intentionally cruel" when there is substantial evidence that he was. Or, at best, was indifferent to enormous cruelty - which is not something to credit someone.

[Maithanet]

13 minutes ago, Week said:

I know agree with the above -- it's just simply not true to say that he was not "intentionally cruel" when there is substantial evidence that he was. Or, at best, was indifferent to enormous cruelty - which is not something to credit someone.

And yet, I would still take indifference to enormous cruelty (and I do think that's a fair description of Bush 43) over what we currently have.  It is the difference between tolerating cruelty and actively fostering it for political gain. 

Bush was a weak president with few ideas and terrible instincts in terms of which advisors to listen to.  If he had instead had to deal with a split or Democratic congress and been surrounded by more Powell/Gates/Rice types and fewer Cheney/Rumsfelds, he could have put in a forgettable, mediocre presidency.  I cannot say the same about Trump, he would be a disaster regardless of advisors or circumstances.  He is a disaster right now even though the economy is going strong, the country isn't in any major wars, and his party controls all three branches of government ie, a President's dream job.