David Brooks is getting far too much credit for saying "the only plausible choice" in a race between our President and Elizabeth Warren "is to support Warren." No one gets to talk about a "wave of insular intolerance coursing through parts of the American left" without noting that there are Nazi wannabes out there right now cracking heads, and I'm long past tired of all his cherry-picking of the data (he says Ms. Warren is "one of the few Democrats who could actually lose" based on one poll showing her losing six points with independent voters after a very narrow set of polling questions). You know what's worse, though? His dreaming about everyone-getting-together-and-getting-things-done when the 2016 election instructed us that voters are beyond tired of that scam. David Brooks: even when he's right, he's wrong.
Steve Wamhoff at ITEP says that "Depreciation Tax Breaks Are a Problem that Deserves More Attention." "Accelerated" depreciation, for example, lets corporations take a larger part of the deduction of a piece of equipment at the beginning, which means less tax revenue to pay for the services you've come to expect from your government. Services like, you know, police, libraries, and firefighters. And a lot of corporate tax breaks are about "reward(ing) companies in return for making investments they would have made anyway," which is, you know, stupid. I mean, they already get to expense these investments; how much is enough?
Gregory Shupak describes how our "liberal" media got "Alarmed" by an "Imaginary U.S. Pullout from Syria." This means that what he did was actually worse than reported: it not only leaves the Kurds to die, but doesn't get us out of the Middle East! Why, this guy's almost as good at getting important stuff completely wrong as Bush the Lesser was! It's clear our President framed his withdrawal the way he did to get some more anti-war votes in 2020, which might work, but at least he won't get them from anyone who's actually paying attention, like us. Sadly, when our "liberal" media gets it wrong, they divert our attention.
I think it's actually a big deal that former Ohio Governor/Presidential aspirant John Kasich thinks our House should impeach our President, regardless of the fact that he's not in office at present, and regardless of the fact that Mr. Mulvaney's press conference was so off the rails. But I feel compelled to note that we would be wrong to describe Mr. Kasich as a "moderate" merely because he demonstrates the presence of a soul with some consistency; we would more accurately describe him as a conservative -- which, of course, means you would better describe the folks who call themselves "conservative" on the TV as "reactionary" (if you value civility above all) or "bat-guano insane" (if you don't).
Finally, Hillary Clinton insinuates that Russia is "grooming" Rep. Gabbard to run as a third-party candidate in 2020 so our President wins re-election. Jesus Mary and Joseph does she really think she lost in 2016 because of Jill Stein? Mrs. Clinton lost that race because she didn't miss an opportunity to tell you she would ignore the people's will in favor of Our Glorious Elites' will -- which didn't stack up well against her opponent's railings against immigration and "free" trade, even -- and if Democratic party poobahs get their way, they'll make the same mistake in 2020 with a Biden or a Buttigieg, and a Tulsi Gabbard 2% showing won't be the reason they lose. Once our current President proved that an unqualified and unhinged asshole could win an election, the palette of the possible widened in America, so in 2020 we certainly don't need to hold ourselves hostage to another center-right can-win let's-work-with-arsonists candidate to win. Besides, you don't win big unless you bet big.
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