Current or modern politics in the United States

[tsunamiSD]

Suburbs Rebel Against Trump, Threatening Republicans in Congress

RICHMOND, Va. — The American suburbs appear to be in revolt against President Trump after a muscular coalition of college-educated voters and racial and ethnic minorities dealt the Republican Party a thumping rejection on Tuesday and propelled a diverse class of Democrats into office.

Chris Vance, a former chairman of the Washington State Republican Party, placed the blame squarely on Mr. Trump: “Among college-educated suburbanites, he is a pariah.”
Democrats still face formidable obstacles in the 2018 election, including some not at work in this week’s elections. If a suburban insurrection might help Democrats take the House, the Senate seats at stake next year are overwhelmingly in conservative, rural states, where feelings about Mr. Trump range from ambivalent to positive. So far, only two Republican Senate seats are clearly in play: the one in Arizona being vacated by Jeff Flake and Dean Heller’s in Nevada.

Congressional Republicans on Wednesday were bracing for a new wave of retirements just one day after another pair of veteran House members, Representative Frank A. LoBiondo of New Jersey and Representative Ted Poe of Texas, declared they would not seek re-election. Already, 29 House Republicans have said they will not run again, while just seven Democrats have announced plans to retire.
Mr. Dent, channeling the exasperation of his colleagues, suggested an exodus might be imminent. “Do they really want to go through another year of this?” said Mr. Dent, a leader of his caucus’s moderate wing, who has announced he will not run again.

[Devius]

Leigh Corfman says she was 14 years old when an older man approached her outside a courtroom in Etowah County, Ala. She was sitting on a wooden bench with her mother, they both recall, when the man introduced himself as Roy Moore.

It was early 1979 and Moore — now the Republican nominee in Alabama for a U.S. Senate seat — was a 32-year-old assistant district attorney. He struck up a conversation, Corfman and her mother say, and offered to watch the girl while her mother went inside for a child custody hearing.

“He said, ‘Oh, you don’t want her to go in there and hear all that. I’ll stay out here with her,’ ” says Corfman’s mother, Nancy Wells, 71. “I thought, how nice for him to want to take care of my little girl.”

Alone with Corfman, Moore chatted with her and asked for her phone number, she says. Days later, she says, he picked her up around the corner from her house in Gadsden, drove her about 30 minutes to his home in the woods, told her how pretty she was and kissed her. On a second visit, she says, he took off her shirt and pants and removed his clothes. He touched her over her bra and underpants, she says, and guided her hand to touch him over his underwear.

“I wanted it over with — I wanted out,” she remembers thinking. “Please just get this over with. Whatever this is, just get it over.” Corfman says she asked Moore to take her home, and he did.

Two of Corfman’s childhood friends say she told them at the time that she was seeing an older man, and one says Corfman identified the man as Moore. Wells says her daughter told her about the encounter more than a decade later, as Moore was becoming more prominent as a local judge.

Aside from Corfman, three other women interviewed by The Washington Post in recent weeks say Moore pursued them when they were between the ages of 16 and 18 and he was in his early 30s, episodes they say they found flattering at the time, but troubling as they got older. None of the women say that Moore forced them into any sort of relationship or sexual contact.

Full Details:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/inves...4a0_story.html

[tsunamiSD]

What makes them feel that anyone who knows anything about economics would not see through their lies about their bill?

Republicans Search for Proof Their Tax Plans Will Pay for Themselves

Republican leaders keep insisting that their plans to cut taxes by $1.5 trillion over the next decade will not add to the national debt — yet economic analyses of the Senate and House proposals keep predicting that the plans will do just that.The disconnect is prompting House and Senate Republican leaders and the Trump administration to hunt down — and promote — more optimistic forecasts, even if they exclude large parts of the tax bills from their analyses or assume growth-boosting features that are not, in fact, in the bills.

The House and Senate bills have been introduced and amended at a rapid clip, and economists are only now beginning to plug their details into sophisticated models that predict how much additional growth the cuts might produce. So far, every so-called dynamic analysis that scrutinizes the full details of the bills and factors in economic growth finds that those plans would add at least $500 billion and as much as $1.7 trillion to the deficit.

Ironically, the models that so far have produced the least optimistic forecasts for the Republican plan are the ones that most closely track the assumptions conservatives have long espoused about the economy: that racking up deficits and debt will hold back growth.
That is the case with the Penn Wharton model, which finds that the House bill would lose between $1 trillion and $1.7 trillion over a decade in revenue, after accounting for growth, depending on various assumptions about the flow of investment dollars in the global economy and the growth-stoking power of tax cuts. The Tax Foundation’s more optimistic model projects the Senate bill would lose $500 billion in revenue after growth effects.

[Devius]

A fourth woman has accused Alabama senate candidate Roy Moore of sexual assault as Republicans have increased calls for him to "step aside".

Beverly Young Nelson said she was 16 years old when Mr Moore allegedly tried to force himself on her after offering a ride home from her job as a waitress.

"I tried fight him off while yelling at him to stop," she said, adding that he locked his car to prevent her escape.

Mr Moore, 70, denies the allegations, describing them as a "witch hunt".

However, US Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell said earlier on Monday that he believed the women accusing Mr Moore of inappropriate behaviour.

Details:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-41973952

Apparently Hardline conservatives are ralliying around Roy Moore, to the point that one of his defenders was quoted as saying he would vote for him over a Democrat even if the claim that he sexually abused a a 14-year-old girl was true:

Conservatives back firebrand after abuse report
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-41945199

So after President Pussy-Grabber, is it now time for Senator Sex-fiend?
At this rate, the GOP will be standing for "Grinning Old Perverts"...

[HugoHackenbush]

Originally Posted by tsunamiSD

What makes them feel that anyone who knows anything about economics would not see through their lies about their bill?

Republicans Search for Proof Their Tax Plans Will Pay for Themselves

That's just the tip of iceberg. The bill also gives away $172.2 billion in tax revenue over the next ten years back to people who are already multi-millionaires. This is in the form of the reduction and eventual elimination of the estate tax. Currently, just to have to file, not necessarily having to pay any tax, one would have to die owning $5 million in assets. The bill doubles this to $10 million, and in six years would eliminate the tax entirely. But the icing on the cake is despite paying no estate taxes at all after repeal, the bill still allows these multi-millionaire estates to take what is known as "stepped up basis" on their assets. Meaning for purposes of capital gains the value of any asset is its value on the date of death, not how much was paid for it when acquired.

The main beneficiaries of this appalling give away? People like Donald Trump.

Big surprise there.

[bowlinggreen]

I can't see this tax plan getting through. The estate tax "reform" in particular. We go along with that and soon we'll be back to the days of the British Empire in the 1800s, with the "nobles" (rich Republicans) owning vast estates, and the rest of us "in service" to them.

If this keeps on, how long before some Republican introduces a bill requiring us commoners to start addressing the "landed gentry" as "M'Lord"?

[Arturo2nd]

Originally Posted by tsunamiSD

What makes them feel that anyone who knows anything about economics would not see through their lies about their bill?

The United States Congress has convinced me by their actions over the years that its members know and understand little about economics. By continuing to elect these bozos, the voters have convinced that they are even less conversant with the subject. California voters in particular are wont to act like middle school girls turned loose in the mall with their daddies credit cards.

Therefore, your question appears to be a non sequiter

[bowlinggreen]

Al Franken is the latest to come under fire for molesting a woman. Leeann Tweeden alleges that he kissed her without permission and then took a picture of himself groping her breasts and grinning as she was dozing. Actually, the pic is real, not alleged:



Leeann has her own thread here at VEF.

http://vintage-erotica-forum.com/t84...n-tweeden.html

Given that she has in the past shown more than a good girl should, why the rage at poor old Al? It's one of the hazards of the job, I should think.

If her Playboy days were a fork in the road, I guess it's a good thing for her she didn't take the fork that led to pornstardom and went into other endeavors instead.

[LadyLuck]

Originally Posted by bowlinggreen

Given that she has in the past shown more than a good girl should, why the rage at poor old Al? It's one of the hazards of the job, I should think.

That's the same logic that holds rape victims accountable because of the way they were dressed.

[Rogerbh]

Groping thru a flak vest? A woman who has made a living by having a great set of tits?

I agree with Bowlinggreen, this is far from rape. It was for a funny pic not like he came on her face when she was asleep.