Wondering how the Republican tax "reform" plan started getting positive numbers? It may have been because the "liberal" media kept parroting right-wing talking points about thousand-dollar bonuses, which were a) not given to all workers by all corporations and b) pale next to the windfall those corporations are going to get. The bad news? When you refuse to pay workers what they're worth for so long, a thousand-dollar bonus will feel like manna from heaven, rather than a small pile of money that'll be gone in two weeks. The good news? Only around 25% of Americans seem to be noticing a tax cut in their paychecks, and that number maps too easily onto my old saw that 25% of the electorate is insane. Remember when President Obama got a tax cut designed not to be noticed into your paycheck? Remember how the 2010 midterms went for him?
On the other hand, Ronald Brownstein at The Atlantic suggests that Democrats will fumble away their chance to take back Congress by "fail(ing) to effectively challenge the GOP claim that its tax-cut plan is benefiting average families." We're seeing a little evidence Democrats understand this -- ads supporting Sens. McCaskill and Donnelly mention the probability that tax-cuts-for-the-rich will lead to Medicare cuts for seniors -- but, gosh, the reality we've described above (people not seeing bigger paychecks, small bonuses spent and forgotten) should be fairly compelling, too. I'd shoot an ad with a bunch of bloodhounds looking for tax cuts. Hey, it worked for Mitch McConnell against Dee Huddleston in 1984.
Democrats formally introduce the resolution of disapproval aiming to overturn the FCC's recent net neutrality repeal, and the corporate lobbyists have already begun their whining. Dig the "Broadband for America" group's asinine assertion that "such a significant policy issue should (not) be decided by an obscure legislative device that bypasses congressional debate and important input from the public." They sure didn't complain when Republicans used that very same "obscure legislative device" to repeal FCC consumer internet privacy protections, and they didn't defend "important input from the public" when the FCC came out and said it ignored most of the public comments it got, so Broadband for America, whoever they are, can drink a big glass of STFU.
The U.S. Geological Survey plans to eliminate its Biological Survey Unit, which costs a mere $1.6 million annually (out of a $4 trillion-plus budget!) and keeps over a million plant and animal specimens. Civilizations do not do this; sick, immoral, and decadent societies do this, and the more they say they're doing it for the coal miner in West Virginia or the single mother in Detroit -- who do both benefit from research on plants and animals in America -- the sicker, more immoral, and more decadent they become. And only truly sick individuals like Newt Gingrich say some billionaire could do it if it's that important, like only billionaires can do important things. We do it, as Americans, because we do important things.
In case you were wondering, no, we shouldn't deprive gun owners of due process rights just because the President gets frustrated with having to think hard about things that require hard thinking. We have preserved due process rights over the centuries precisely to prevent governments like this one from becoming too powerful, but sadly I bet a lot of the President's votaries agreed with him, even the biggest gun-lovers among them (who, after all, always think it's those other people who deserves to have their rights violated). Being civilized is hard work. It's supposed to be hard work. And folks who don't like doing the hard work should go live in a police state. It's that simple.
Finally, notorious right-wing gasbag Erick Erickson says Parkland high school student David Hogg is a "bully." Our Glorious Elites, feeling "bullied" by high school students! And dig how they suggest that anyone who proposes a boycott is a "bully" -- where's their love for the "free" market? And dig how Mr. Erickson says "(h)igh school kids are not people we should take seriously on any subject," as if that's not profoundly elitist, and thus also anti-American! Our Glorious Elites do nothing, ever, but bully the people, and then pretend they're the victims when the people finally push back. May God have mercy on their immortal souls.
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