Open Thread Dec. 22: Only Losers Pay Taxes, and You’re a Loser

Filed in National, Open Thread by on December 22, 2017

Lots of analysis out there today, both financial and political, of the Republican tax heist. The political angle is covered nicely by Josh Marshall in his response to concern that the bill will help the GOP going into the midterms. If you prefer a more vitriolic take, the Daily Beast is your best bet.

A federal judge dismissed one of the lawsuits alleging that Trump’s blatant pocket-lining violates the emoluments clause of the Constitution. The judge said Congress, not the courts, has standing in the matter, so until Republicans stock up on Imodium, it’s all good.

Can I get a pizza to go, half pepperoni, half karma? “Papa” John Schnatter, whom last we heard from bitching about football players taking a knee, is stepping down as the company’s CEO. Apparently siding with racists on the national stage is not helping sales. Myself, I refuse to buy pizza from a guy named Schnatter no matter what his politics are. Schnattini, maybe. Schnatinos, perhaps. Schnatter, never.

Putting the word “evangelical” in front of the word “Christian” is a way to signal that the Christian in question doesn’t really believe any of that stuff said in the New Testament by, y’know, Christ himself. Today’s example: Roy Moore, yet again. Having lost his election but still refusing to concede defeat, his Facebook page carried an interview from The Advocate with election winner Doug Jones’ son, Carson, who is gay, apparently just to alert his supporters to this fact. Even they weren’t too impressed. “Hey Roy,” one person wrote, “instead of casting your stones at other people’s sons, maybe you should try to get help for your own, before he gets arrested for the TENTH time.”

This is interesting, in a conspiracy-theory sort of way: Why is Lindsay Graham, formerly one of Trump’s loudest GOP critics in the Senate, now sucking up to him? This expert on authoritarianism floats the possibility that Trump is blackmailing him. She notes that the Russians hacked both the RNC and Graham’s personal email, so they might have turned up evidence of Graham’s long-rumored (and long-assumed) gayitude and are using it to bring him to heel. If that sounds far-fetched, remember that even a politician as ham-fisted as Tom Gordon got away with the same thing with Chris Roberts. It also makes one wonder if kompromat has anything to do with Utah Sen. Orrin Hatch starting to waffle about his long-planned retirement. Trump wants him to stay because he doesn’t want the seat to go to Mitt Romeny, who has made noises about succeeding Hatch.

If you have time out from last-minute shopping, add anything else you find interesting.

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  1. puck says:

    Kompromat is possible, but more likely Graham and Hatch know their base and are sticking with Trump to head off primary challengers.

  2. Alby says:

    Agreed. I included it mainly because I had forgotten all about the RNC hack, and it does raise the question of what was found there and who got the information. I think the odds that the answers are “nothing” and “nobody” are rather slender.

  3. Jason330 says:

    Coons, Carper, and Lisa Blunt Rochester have been very quiet on the Tax Heist. Maybe Putin gave Trump some Dort on them? Or maybe they like the bill? The organizations that they think of as their constituents probably like it.

  4. puck says:

    Their donors understand. Coons, Carper, and LBR all got free “No” votes against the corporate tax cut in the full confidence it was going to pass. Which is exactly why they LOVE to be in the minority.

  5. mediawatch says:

    @puck: Agreed Indeed, if the Republicans had fallen to 49 votes in the Senate, no doubt Carper would have been the first D to get a call from Mitch.

  6. Rusty Dils says:

    You are correct about it being a tax heist! The new tax law will steal massive funds from the public sector (the rich) and give them to the private sector (the new poor)!

  7. alby says:

    @Rusty: The economy doesn’t care who spends the money, only that it gets spent. The public sector will spend it; the private sector won’t, so the economic benefit will be close to zero.

    What you don’t know fills a library’s worth of books.

  8. Dana Garrett says:

    “Putting the word “evangelical” in front of the word “Christian” is a way to signal that the Christian in question doesn’t really believe any of that stuff said in the New Testament by, y’know, Christ himself.”

    Bingo. Perfectly said. I wish the Christian canon had been confined only to the four gospels. The world would have turned out a lot differently.

  9. Rusty Dils says:

    Alby, what actually happens when money goes into the economy is that it gets multiplied. However, there is a huge difference between how many times it gets multiplied in the private sector versus the public sector. The money gets multiplied several times more in the private sector than in the public sector. (I can explain why in detail in a later much longer comment) Which means much, much more economic growth from money left in the private sector, than if it were infused into the public sector.

  10. RE Vanella says:

    I feel like Rusty Dils may be bot. The algorithm is deteriorating.

    The best bit is how he could explain teenage Milton Friedman to us later in a longer comment. That’s a nominee for best sentence on the blog for 2017.

    Rusty, you’re a fucking rube and troll. I know you want your writing read by somebody. I am sorry to say, you’re not a teacher, or a scholar, or a good writer. You’re a fucking clown and a joke.

    We’re just mocking you and taking a piss. Stop embarrassing yourself and your family. The idea that anyone takes you seriously is sad. Nobody does.

  11. Alby says:

    “Alby, what actually happens when money goes into the economy is that it gets multiplied. ”

    No, it doesn’t “get multiplied.” It gets spent. The government, you might have noticed, spends more than it takes in. The private sector spends less than it takes in. This isn’t multiplication, it’s simple arithmetic. Poor people spend. Rich people invest. There is no shortage of investment capital, therefore giving money to rich people who have no legitimate place to invest it will create a bubble, such as the one we now have in luxury goods like fine art.

    Seriously, chief, you’re a multiple-time loser and con man, as anyone who looks you up online can learn in a matter of minutes. To suggest you know anything about money except how to steal other people’s is a not-very-funny joke.

  12. RE Vanella says:

    “Dear Bathurst was a man to my very heart’s content; he hated a fool, and he hated a rogue, and he hated a whig—he was a very good hater!”
    –Dr Johnson

    Dils, I’ll explain why I hate you later in a longer comment.

  13. mouse says:

    I just want to retire and get out of this cold and not have to bag groceries at Walmart to keep the lights on