caulfield12

The funny part was Trump pretending that having a rally in Pensacola, because it's technically in another state...doesn't constitute campaigning for Moore. In fact, that particular city is closer to Montgomery than Tallahassee, and comprises something like 10-15% of the total AL media market (South AL). Lara Trump -- Eric's wife -- even recorded a robocall that is making its way around Alabama. The President's daughter-in-law invites Alabamians to attend Trump's campaign rally in Pensacola, Florida. Lara does not mention her father-in-law's endorsement of Moore, but, make no mistake, Trump's rally has everything to do with the Alabama Senate race. Pensacola is 15 miles from the Alabama border and even Alabama's GOP Chairman Terry Lanthan has urged Alabamians to attend the rally. It's rather deflating that Laraa, who headed "Women for Trump" during the 2016 campaign, recorded that robocall. She has long insisted her father-in-law respects women. "This is a man who has always championed women," she told CNN. "I know that there is another narrative that people suggest out there," she said, adding that his support for women is why she decided "to come out to speak on behalf of this man." http://www.cnn.com/2017/12/04/opinions/iva...ello/index.html

One week to go, any predictions on Jones vs. Roy Moore? It's still hard to imagine a Republican losing that seat, and the VA/NJ election results were pretty overwhelming, but all bets are off in the Deep South.

The answer here is very simple. Michigan State and Ohio State got rolled the last two years in the CF Playoff, whereas there's considerable excitement about yet another match-up of Clemson and Alabama. Whether it was getting blown out at Iowa City, or letting Oklahoma shred them in Columbus, the argument wasn't really there for OSU unless they just completely spanked Wisconsin on Saturday. Granted, Bama had the weaker non-conference due to the FSU collapse this year, and they only had a couple of victories over ranked SEC teams because the SEC was also down (overall) this year due to programs like Florida, Tennessee, Texas A&M and Arkansas being in free-fall. At any rate, I hate Alabama and Saban, dislike Meyer almost as much...but Ohio State didn't belong in that game. You can argue perhaps more passionately for Auburn, UCF, USC, etc. Was it even a certainty their QB was/is going to be 100% healthy before the bowl game/s?

More embarrassment for the state of Iowa... https://www.yahoo.com/news/gop-senator-impl...-022808743.html In an astonishing defense of dropping “death taxes” for individual estates worth more than $5.5 million, GOP Iowa Sen. Chuck Grassley implied that people not currently affected by that tax are “spending every darn penny ... on booze or women.” “I think not having the estate tax recognizes the people that are investing — as opposed to those that are just spending every darn penny they have, whether it’s on booze or women or movies,” Grassley told the Des Moines Register in an interview published Saturday. Grassley, who serves on the Finance Committee, made the remark when asked about the Senate tax reform measure which would double the exemption for estates to $11 million for an individual and $22 million for a couple. Heirs would inherit the estates tax-free. Grassley’s comment triggered a wave of criticism on social media. Many complained that the working class is, in fact, spending “every darn penny” on raising their kids, caring for elderly parents, health care and putting food on the table. One Twitter user complained that the GOP was turning America into a version of “The Hunger Games.” Interestingly, we've moved from protecting "medium sized family farms/businesses" (which make up a TINY percentage of those touched by the current estate tax levels to protecting those hard-working investors. That's an extremely tough point to sell in the Heartland. Pretty tone deaf, but Grassley's ancient and has been out of touch for decades. https://twitter.com/roguecats7/status/93745...4858880/photo/1 According to IRS data from 2016, just 682 tax filers in the entire country who owed estate taxes owned any farm assets. That represents about 13 percent of the 5,219 estate tax returns in which taxes were owed. And even that figure likely overstates the number of primarily farm operations subject to the tax. A 2015 report from the Congressional Research Service projects that just 65 farm estates annually across the U.S. face an estate tax liability. Less than a quarter of these, the congressional report finds, have insufficient cash to pay their tax bills. A U.S. Department of Agriculture analysis published earlier this year found a somewhat higher number of farm estates owed the tax in 2016: 0.4 percent, or about 160 nationwide. Kristine Tidgren, the assistant director of the Center for Agricultural Law and Taxation at Iowa State University, said she’s not aware of any Iowa estates forced to sell land since the estate tax exemption was raised to its current level in 2012. desmoinesregister.com

Who is the fourth team in now? Alabama, Ohio State, UCF (unlikely)...? If I’m Oklahoma, no way I want anything to do with either team...and it’s almost impossible to beat an Urban Meyer team twice in one season.

Has anyone seen The Disaster Artist or The Shape Of Water yet? Btw, you absolutely have to see the loving ineptitude of The Room to fully appreciate that first film...from all the reviews, seems like it might be up to the standard of Tim Burton’s Ed Wood.

QUOTE (Reddy @ Dec 2, 2017 -> 07:55 PM) Can you give an example of what he's done over the last year to "lead" this movement? http://www.whio.com/news/bernie-sanders-ca...mtDw5J/amp.html Traveling to Ohio, Kentucky and Pennsylvania this weekend...four total stops. Where is the centrist/moderate wing?

If either political party was thinking rationally, all three would be gone (Conyers, Franken, Moore). The problem is the GOP is too concerned with their margin being trimmed down to just one vote in the Senate in the short term, but that’s a seat they should win 95% of the time. (And once tax giveaways are done, it really doesn’t matter as far as 2018 goes...Pence might even be president, or Ryan.) Same with the other two, although one could argue Minnesota is actually becoming more competitive now for Republicans. Ideologically, the Dems need to stand for something...such as the rights of women, and fighting for the working class. Letting both those guys stick around sends a terrible message. And Conyers should have retired due to age alone, he has been in Congress nearly 50 years now. Very few Supreme Court justices have made it to 88.

QUOTE (Middle Buffalo @ Dec 2, 2017 -> 07:33 AM) I'm not sure if he also has a blindness problem, but I do recall that he was losing his hearing due to his addiction to painkillers. That was back when one his big show topics was drug addicts. No, I think you’re right.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Dec 2, 2017 -> 02:29 PM) Huh? It’s too late to protect Ted Cruz’ reputation from his being “deliberately misquoted” in this thread...everyone who follows politics knows what StrangeSox was doing. It’s called satire/comedy. You almost don’t have to try, anymore. The same thing happens everyday on the Right and we have to become aggrieved and fight back to address the mischaracterization and the whole cycle just goes around and around.

The economy was already growing at a 3+% rate. What the GOP doesn’t seem to understand is that they’re wiping out a large segment of their corporate customer base by continuing to let all of the benefits accrue to the top 10-20% in society. Maybe US corporations can offset losses in the domestic market by selling to China and India eventually, but we’re heading for recession. The Federal Reserve will raise rates again in December, which, ironically, will create more pain in China because debt to GDP rates are even higher here (otoh, China is sitting on a large surplus of capital reserves, roughly $2 trillion, vs. $20 trillion in debt.). Who are US corporations going to sell all their products to, again? The fact of the matter is that eventually these additional cuts (estate taxes were especially unnecessary, that and capital gains from stock sales helped Clinton to actually balance 2-3 budgets in the late 90’s)...will be used as added justification to further cut Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security. Not to mention that the GOP and even some Dems want to invest more into rebuilding defense/military. It all doesn’t add up. We thought hearing anecdotal stories about ObamaCare rates on individual markets going up was disheartening...we haven’t seen anything yet compared to the pain the middle class and poor are going to feel in the next 3-4 years. This fantasy that labor rates are suddenly going to explode (trickle down) when it hasn’t happened with roughly 4% unemployment and the average factory laborer being twice as productive while actually being paid less today in inflation adjusted dollars than back in 1980 is just a complete fallacy. And that was a time when fathers worked and most mothers were able to stay home with their children. That’s no longer a reality for the vast majority of American families, and we’re seeing the consequences with the last two generations being either more spoiled or having completely absent parents. If anything, AI, virtual reality and AR are going to carve out even more of the middle class, not less. Then the conversation will be about universal basic income.

It’s too late. Where was CWS when Trump started using the moniker Lyin’ Ted Cruz in the first place? The reality of the situation is that nobody likes Ted Cruz, even his own party. Smart guy, head of the Harvard Law Review, talented debater, he might be all of those things. Fair and balanced instead of blatantly partisan? Impossible. Can’t change the narrative now with this guy. Even Cruz knows he’s coming across as hypocritical...hence, his chuckle before arguing Franken should be grilled over the coals.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Dec 2, 2017 -> 12:30 AM) But a 20% statutory tax rate is higher than our competitors - even if only small businesses pay that. That's the scam. Large businesses pay 0%, high income taxpayers categorize themselves as businesses and pay 0%, small businesses pay 20%, the middle class pays 15-20% counting the payroll tax. That's the point. Small businesses can't grow larger even if they have good ideas because they are overtaxed. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/posteve...m=.0960d59b4a3b The GOP tax bill is straight out of 1929 This is how it should work under Trump campaign logic: The 20% tax rates should only be applied to companies who have a vast majority (let’s say 2/3rds or 75%) of American workers in their corporations. Companies who rely on foreign manufacturing, foreign customer service/outsourced call centers, and H1Bs should keep the current tax rates. The University of Chicago’s Booth School of Business runs an ongoing survey of top economists spanning a wide number of specialties and political outlooks. The panel includes multiple Nobel Prize winners, White House veterans, and former presidents of the American Economic Association. Recently, they were asked about the Republican tax reform bills. The results weren’t encouraging. The first question was straightforward. Would they agree that if the US passed a tax bill “similar to those currently moving through the House and Senate,” GDP would be “substantially higher a decade from now”? Of the 42 economists polled, only one thought the Republican bill would boost the economy. The plurality said it wouldn’t, and the remainder were uncertain or didn’t answer. The survey includes an optional space for respondents to add a comment, and a few of the comments are notable. “Of course not,” wrote the University of Chicago’s Austan Goolsbee, who served as chief economist for President Obama. “Does anyone care about actual evidence anymore?” A number of the economists argued that tax policy simply isn’t as powerful a lever as Republicans want to believe. “Tax policy appears to have little effect at the margin on GDP growth in OECD countries,” wrote MIT’s David Autor, an eminent trade economist. “Doubt it will substantially change things either way,” wrote the University of Chicago’s Anil Kashyap. “Aside from the redistribution of wealth, hard to see this changing much,” wrote Richard Thaler, who just won the Nobel Prize in economics. The only economist to say the bill would increase GDP was Stanford’s Darrell Duffie, and he added the concern: “Whether the overall tax plan is distributionally fair is another matter.” The second question asked whether passage of the Republican tax bills would mean “the US debt-to-GDP ratio will be substantially higher a decade from now than under the status quo.” Here, too, the news was grim from Republicans. In this case, all but one economist agreed that the bills would blow up the deficit, and the outlier, Stanford's Liran Einav, turned out to have misread the question — he later clarified that he also agrees the bill would add to the debt. https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/201...x-plan-igm-poll

Well, you don’t want to rush young kids that aren’t ready up to the big leagues...even in low-pressure bullpen situations. Besides, the odds are someone like Fulmer or Lopez ends up there eventually. Nothing to get upset about. It would be more upsetting if they kept investing resources into Putnam and Petricka with limited payout even if they performed above expectations.

QUOTE (greg775 @ Dec 1, 2017 -> 11:29 PM) Is that Rush? Uh oh. He shouldn't be doing that. I don't worship Rush, folks. Unlike some of you I listen to as many different viewpoints as I can in the short attention span I have regarding talk radio. I am a dial switcher; don't like commercials. Love Beatles channel. Love some other music channels and the 2 comedy channels. His defense is going to be his partial blindness/medical conditions. Just watch.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/us-tax-bill-demo...-035637905.html At least four GOP senators blocked the Hillsdale/DeVos tax exemption sponsored by Toomey Murkowski, Collins, Deb Fischer and Kennedy The Senate bill would drop the highest personal income tax rate from 39.6 percent to 38.5 percent. The estate tax levied on a few thousand of the nation's largest inheritances would be narrowed to affect even fewer. Deductions for state and local income taxes, moving expenses and other items would vanish, the standard deduction — used by most Americans — would nearly double to $12,000 for individuals and $24,000 for couples, and the per-child tax credit would grow. The bill would abolish the "Obamacare" requirement that most people buy health coverage or face tax penalties. Industry experts say that would weaken the law by easing pressure on healthier people to buy coverage, and the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office has said the move would push premiums higher and leave 13 million additional people uninsured. Drilling would be allowed in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. Another provision, knocked out because it violated Senate budget rules, would have explicitly let parents buy tax-advantaged 529 college savings accounts for fetuses, a step they can already take but which anti-abortion forces wanted to inscribe into law. There were also breaks for the wine, beer and spirits industries, Alaska Natives and aircraft management firms.

When Fox News’ Neil Cavuto asked Cruz Thursday if Moore should be thrown out of the Senate if elected, Cruz said “of course not,” adding, “We’ve got to respect the will of the voters.” “If the voters of Alabama choose to elect him, for some Washington politicians to say, ‘We don’t care what the voters say,’ I think that would be a mistake,” Cruz said. When Cavuto then asked Cruz about Franken, the Texas senator chuckled, calling the allegations “serious.” “There’s a rich irony watching all the Democrats backpeddling and trying to justify now their colleague who you’ve got, I think the count is five women who allege groping,” Cruz said. “That’s a serious, serious problem, and I think it’s something that we’re going to see debated quite a bit more.” https://www.yahoo.com/news/ted-cruz-defends...-162347932.html The difference is not THAT significant...unless Cruz also is willing to allow the voters of Minnesota to decide Franken’s fate

QUOTE (RockRaines @ Dec 1, 2017 -> 09:11 PM) No real conservative should be in favor of a bill like this. It’s pretty pathetic when Marco Rubio starts to sound reasonable wanting to reallocate less than 1% of that 15% business tax reduction to middle class families with three or more children....you would think ALL Americans would consider that preferable to big corporations being taxed a lower rate than our six biggest competitors internationally.

QUOTE (LittleHurt05 @ Dec 1, 2017 -> 07:33 PM) It's very admirable that you are so willing to let Roy Moore let his case be heard. Oh wait, that's not who you are talking about, I wonDeR why. Has Moore ever asked for a public hearing and the opportunity to confront his accusers? He won’t even admit he has met more than a couple of them...so how would the case be proven without any standard of guilt?

Just what the DeVos family needs, more tax breaks http://qctimes.com/business/the-latest-dem...f56135743e.html Democrats have taken to the Senate floor to attack a planned amendment to the tax bill that would give a break to a conservative college in Michigan. Pennsylvania Republican Sen. Patrick Toomey acknowledged he'd sponsored the language and said Hillsdale College would benefit from it. Toomey defended Hillsdale as "a wonderful institution" and said other schools might qualify for the tax break, too. His provision would shield schools that receive no federal aid from language in the bill that taxes the investment income of some colleges and universities. Democrats say Toomey's provision was written in a way that only Hillsdale would qualify for the reduction. They complain that some well-known conservatives have connections to the school, including Trump administration Education Secretary Betsy DeVos. Of course, Sen. Toomey vociferously opposed earmarks two years ago...

QUOTE (Reddy @ Dec 1, 2017 -> 05:22 PM) So is every damn Dem in Congress at the moment. Follow Chris Murphy, Ted Lieu, Kamala, etc. Ain't just Mr. Opportunist He was there fighting that fight before it became politically expedient and popular. He almost forced the lot of them to join the Medicare for All bandwagon. It’s hardly leadership for those who follow to parrot the same attacks from districts they would be hard-pressed to lose. The big reason we’re in this mess in the first place is that Hillary had zero political conviction in any of her “tough call” positions and shifted with the winds...just like her husband. The difference is that his political instincts were second to none, with two rare exceptions (losing the governorship in 1980 and the 1994 Republican Revolution after leading with healthcare and gays in the military). In the end, she wasn’t likeable or trustworthy enough to deter enough from experimenting with a Trump presidency. And look where we are now. In a position where, at best, the next two years will be spent undoing 2017 while the Chinese are running circles around us.

QUOTE (KagakuOtoko @ Dec 1, 2017 -> 05:03 PM) How can you vote yes on a bill that's not written? Pelosi comments about ObamaCare will be used as the justification here...

QUOTE (ptatc @ Dec 1, 2017 -> 12:51 PM) I'm not sure about this. Remember the income tax would also go down in the process. Think about how much money you and I spend, then think about how much the wealthy spend. How much revenue would be generated at 20% from $2,000 suits, luxury automobiles, private aircraft and other things that only the wealthy purchase. See The Millionaire Next Door. You’re really going to end up taxing those who are living beyond their means...it wouldn’t have a punitive effect on the truly wealthy, because they don’t go out and lease the latest Audi or BMW. Maybe if it was yachts in the over $10 million class, private/corporate jets, golf club memberships, etc.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Dec 1, 2017 -> 12:16 PM) Flake moved to Yes based on a promise to "be included in future DACA talks" which seems like a really, really weak ask. After Corker was going to be gifted $300-400 billion being cut off...? And as far as “giveaways” go, Bush did exactly that with Medicare and the prescription drug benefit. That was for nothing other than politically calculating reasons. Let’s not play along with Romney Math and assume 47% of Americans will automatically vote for Dems because they receive some type of Federal government support like Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. If it was so cut and dried for the lower classes to vote strictly on socioeconomic and not social issues, Gore would have won in 2000 and Clinton in 2016...and nothing that Trump has done so far is going to benefit ANY of those voters who got duped by him in the Heartland and Rust Belt. None of them will be better off in the pocketbook, especially when the consequences to health care affordability become more and more tangible to voters over the next couple of years.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/donald-trump-mak...-170456232.html Trump checks the box by making fun of Asian leaders this week as well. But did you hear about the Dow breaking another record thanks to me?