Clinton would have already had them all killed.

http://www.cnn.com/2017/10/30/politi...ban/index.html

The greatest mystery of all may be how Anthony Weiner is still alive.

It'll be interesting. I mean Manafort has probably said he won't flip but now he's staring at the rest of his life in prison. For a guy with the taste for million dollar rugs, a few nights in jail might change his opinion.

No honor among thieves.

Also how big of a moron do you have to be to join a high profile campaign if you're laundering that kind of money? Why would you not just keep to yourself?

....Also, there is NO COLLUSION!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 30, 2017

“The United States is investigating…potential collusion…by American citizens” -from newly unsealed Distrcit Court opinion. pic.twitter.com/RXCGy3FRST

— Jim Sciutto (@jimsciutto) October 30, 2017

Because he didn't want to be on the wrong end of a meeting with a friend of Putin?

It is a question that needs to be answered. Why offer to join the campaign, without payment, knowing that doing so would shine a light on all your questionable activities?

Or do you even realize what you're actually doing, when everyone you know is probably doing the same thing? That's just normal.

Reminder: It’s the 17 best prosecutors in America versus guys that tried to collude with Russia using Facebook Messenger.

Place your bets.��

— Eric Garland (@ericgarland) October 30, 2017

Enjoying seeing Trump getting all worked up and others on his team sweating.

But TBH, I still don't see any "collusion" re: Trump. I certainly believe lower levels getting involved but don't see any evidence that Trump was personally involved and if there is any connection.

Can someone explain what rises to a level of "collusion"? Is it "sure Manafort, go see what dirt they have" vs. "sure Manafort, ask them if they can hack the polls in our favor"?

Collusion isn't a crime. The question is whether the Trump campaign broke US Election laws, campaign finance laws, and/or conspired with a foreign government to interfere in the election.

There are very likely more indictments to come. I seriously doubt these indictments touch the most serious charges we'll see from this.

Re: Edward's post.

It's thinking like that, that kept bank heads from being arrested after the meltdown, even though they were clearly involved reaping the benefits, bonuses and profits form doing it.

Are we supposed to believe that Trump is that aloof in his candidacy that literally everyone around him might be in on it but him?

Personally, I'm not making any judgements about what had been revealed this far. I'm very pessimistic that it'll amount to anything and I need to see where all this leads before calling for action. So far there's not enough, but it's heading in the right direction and i believe the people in charge of the investigation might actually be willing to put the county and their objective morality ahead of any politics. I'm willing to accept the outcomes they determine at this point, one way or the other.

Trump knows his financial dealings are dirty as fuck. He's already been busted for fraud and money laundering, and I bet that isn't anywhere close to the worst of it.

Carter Page went on MSNBC to tell everyone how important he is and how busy he is to not worry about Russian collusion, and that no, he doesn't have a lawyer.

Hwat.

That interview was brutal. His strategy has to be that he is trying to convince Mueller he is too dumb to be involved in any criminal action.

I expect Trump will be taken down for something minor to do with his finances or such, much like a mob boss being done for dodging taxes ... it'll hardly be all he's done, but its what they can get to stick which counts ..

There's all those people he never paid for their services...not to mention the tax thing. I wonder how many madames he's stiffed (no pun intended) at the local brothel.

1. Donald J. Trump‏Verified account @realDonaldTrump 2h2 hours ago
   ....came to the campaign. Few people knew the young, low level volunteer named George, who has already proven to be a liar. Check the DEMS!
2. 
   Donald J. Trump‏Verified account @realDonaldTrump 2h2 hours ago
   
   
   
   The Fake News is working overtime. As Paul Manaforts lawyer said, there was "no collusion" and events mentioned took place long before he...

So no collusion yet young George, whom you named a foreign policy advisor to the Washington Post, and briefed your national security team (we even have the video of he at a meeting of that) is a person few people knew...


Keep on living the fantasy Donald...

Well, the other question is simply..."Remind me what he lied about, Mr. President."

Because that's the greatest voice of truth, the lawyer of the accused.

(Didn't believe the lawyer(s) of the Central Park Five now, did he.)

The GOP obsession with Hilary is almost as fascinating as the Trump presidency. I don't recall the loser of a presidential election still being attacked on a daily basis by the winner nearly a year after the fact ever.

Fox News referring to the "Hilary Administration" sums up the GOP approach at the moment. Keep the boogeyman real.

I still don't understand why Trump and so many of his supporters think an investigation into the Trump administration's ties with Russia, and Russia's influence in the election, would randomly result in a Hillary Clinton indictment. Of course, Trump also has stated in the past that he thinks the Supreme Court somehow has jurisdiction to investigate and charge Clinton, so I guess the answer to this question, and many others, is just that he's a mentally diminished individual.

It's easier to be the opposition when you have someone in power to take down. Continuing to treat HRC as some kind of shadow president or influencer is the only way to continue that role.

Must get bored with golfing all the time, he needs other things to keep him busy. Toddlers cant just do one thing for very long without getting bored.

It's pretty clear the current administration had no plan once they won. They don't know how to do anything other than continue to campaign against Hilary.

They didn’t expect to win

That's exactly what they were planning to do after the election. Why change now?

Trump is about as charismatic as Roger Goodell. How he was able to get anything across to millions of Americans and get elected is beyond me.

Now Papadopplous was just a "coffee boy" good lord

http://www.cnn.com/2017/10/31/politi...ntv/index.html

Nah, he has like the most charisma. Of like all time. All time charisma.

'Kill them all' -- Russian-linked Facebook accounts called for violence - Oct. 31, 2017

And Russia isn't our primary threat.

Doesn't really matter what his role is or who knew him, it's what he knows, if anything. We still have a long way to go with this investigation.

Trumps supporters and Fox News seem to be taking these indictments more seriously than Dems are. Everyone knew this was coming, pretty much ever since Trump distanced himself from Manafort months ago. In the larger scheme of things, doesn't mean much unless this is indeed the first domino to fall. Which remains to be seen.

Now might be a good time to remember that Trump fired Comey, told a reporter on camera he did it because of the Russia investigation, and told the Russian Ambassador and Foreign Secretary that he did it so as to have more freedom to work with Russia.

man this hard to wrap my head around. if there is not a smoking gun (email) then trump seems to be in the clear?

I guess it may come down to each sides ability to spin it (good luck dems).

The biggest takeaway, most historical one, may be: when presented with the possibility of known illegally obtained information from the evil empire many members of presidential election campaign choose to pursue it rather than putting America first and reporting the legitimate threat on American democracy...?

This is REALLY early days - in all honesty I'm amazed that there has been visible progress this early on, Watergate took years to come to the fore ... I'm expecting much more to come out in due course, whether it involves Trump or not, no idea .... frankly I'm expecting him to go down due to financial irregularities which are nothing to do with Russia.

He also asked the Russians to hack Hilary's e-mail and post the e-mail. Even said they'd be rewarded. All this at a live campaign rally.

The collusion will be hard to prove. His defense will be that he was just an idiot who didn't know what all his people were doing under his nose. Not the best look but it can work.

I think his biggest concern will be with the firing of Comey. Lot easier to show he obstructed justice. None of it likely matters with Republicans in power but that would be the way he goes down in my opinion if we had a Congress who cared about rule of law.

Tax reform seems off to a bumpy start. Corker doesn't want to raise the debt with it. Collins won't vote for anything that cuts taxes on millionaires and eliminates the estate tax. And Rand won't vote for a bill that raises taxes on the middle class like this one.

This seems much easier than health care though so I imagine a deal could be made.

I'm amazed anyone actually thought a billionaire that made his money off of the system was going to come in help the middle class. He was going to fix health care for the middle class despite not having a clue what people actually pay. He was going to come in a help the middle class with tax reform despite having a direct interest in making sure the top 0.5% are taken care of.

Huckabee Sanders reading a forward from grandma to explain why they're helping top earners was embarrassing even for this administration.

Food for thought, and stolen from someone on Deadspin:

What are the odds that Trump would be able to recite the entire “Star-Spangled Banner” on the spot? Basic parameters: the challenge is given live on TV, and must follow promptly. He has no advance knowledge of this, so he has no time for prep.

It's easier because tax "reform" can be muddled into passage that people are pretty meh on while health care was a simple "gut my health care to give rich folks money".

Plus everyone usually votes in favor of getting their taxes cut even if it fucks over the next few generations.

https://www.wsj.com/amp/articles/pro...ase-1509618203

I'm not sure how this benefits me right now but assume my taxes will be reduced. Have to talk to the accountant.

https://www.marketwatch.com/story/he...xes-2017-11-02

Whoo boy...Donna Brazille spills the dirt on HRC

https://www.politico.com/magazine/st...ks-2016-215774

Nominate Bernie...

Wow. I am going off just the bullet points but as a middle of the road middle class family (that ends up with the standard deduction) we would see substantial savings on that.

Maybe a dumb question but when does a tax plan take effect? It would have to be for the next tax year right because of deductions/spending already accrued for 2017? Or would it just be here you go next April 15?

I guess if I save in the long run it's fine, but repealing the ability to deduct state income taxes is flat-out bullshit

It probably depends upon the wording but I'm guessing it would be for the 2017 tax year.

Like all things, it depends...

"Eliminates personal exemptions: Today you're allowed to claim a $4,050 personal exemption for yourself, your spouse and each of your dependents. The House bill eliminates that option.

For families with three or more kids, that could mute if not negate any tax relief they might enjoy as a result of other provisions in the bill."

I would think that it wouldn't apply until the 2018 tax year. This is far from settled and re-working the IRS tax software (much less the preparation industries tax software) by April 15th would never work.

That mortgage change is a pretty big one. We bought a house in LA largely because that was the only way for us to stop getting stiffed on taxes - if the tax benefits are capped at 500k not sure if we had made the same decision.

Probably not an issue in most places around the country, but there are some cities where 500k barely gets you on the ladder, and I’m not sure what impact that might have in those places. Almost certainly not a good thing for my home value.

Maybe wait until there's a law instead of a proposal? A lot of stuff will likely change as several constituencies are voicing opposition.

And that tacks on to not being able to deduct your state taxes, which tend to be higher in those same areas as well.

Seeing the deduction I'm assuming that it gets rid of most if not all itemization. If that's the case I'm thinking that my taxes will go up. Also, I figure that the bracket that I will fall into will hit me harder than the current brackets do. Our taxes are almost certain to go up.

Yeah I admit to quickly misreading that. I saw the child tax credit changed but didn't catch that I would lose the 3(4) deductions. Probably outset for the most part by the standard deduction change. Like you and others have said by the time this ever became law I'm sure it won't look a thing like this anyways so no reason to get too worked up now.

Looks like a win for us. Same tax bracket, grandfathered for the mortgage, exemptions on the return will be more than offset by the standard deduction, which we have used 9 or the last 10 years, and our kids are all grown, and never deducted state taxes because of the wrap in AZ and how we can manipulate the percentages here to our advantage anyway. So appears we will get a small to fair benefit. For folks with large families though not as promising as the standard could fall short of the personal exemptions for many :(

Most of this was known or at least speculated without the details. It really shows how bad the Dems screwed up this past election though. Bernie's supporters weren't wrong on most of their complaints about the DNC, but not being obnoxious goes a long way in helping get your message across and gaining support.

Being a Democrat would also help.

None of this stuff sounds too bad. I think the state income tax deduction will make it hard to pass and wouldn't be surprised if it gets pulled. You're going to lose a bunch of Republican reps in states like NY, NJ, California. And people like Ernst and Grassley on the Senate side have to think twice since they have a high tax state.

For me it'll come down to how this changes the deficit. I know the reason they want this is to lower the corporate tax rate a lot. If that's going to leave us trillions more in debt though, I wouldn't want it to pass.

Just noticed the bill also eliminates the student loan interest deduction which kind of sucks for college students. Especially when the banks lobbied so that they couldn't get rid of them in bankruptcy.

Bills looking a little more worse the more I look. Little things like that to hike the middle class rate up so Goldman can get a tax break.

It seems like everyone but the 1% will get at least a little fucked over in the new tax plan if it passes as currently devised. Not that it should surprise anyone.

The new tax plan is totally moronic for anyone divorces - removes the alimony tax break which most people took into account when they negotiated their settlements ... regardless of anything else that will totally screw me over if it goes through ..

The adoption tax credit elimination looks like a stealth white nationalist move to me.

dola

Apparently they're floating the idea of repealing the Johnson amendment which would allow tax exempt organizations to spend on political advertising. So you could donate a million to a church, which spends a million on political advertising and claim it as a tax deduction, all while the donation is anonymous to the public!

Overall you have to consider what the cost is when you cut things. You may get more in your pocket, but you're cutting out dozens of programs that benefit you in other ways.

I know Farrah, on first glance, mentioned that head of household filers looked like they were gonna get hosed on this one too.

I know we have some successful people here, but I'd put the odds at about 3% that anyone who has the time/inclination to post on a football sim message board would legitimately benefit from a GOP-proposed tax plan.

Are there actually that many place out there that pay > $10,000 in property taxes, for reasonably sized/located homes?

I know you can pull that off EASILY around me, but I also know I'm in one of the highest property tax regions out there.

NY and NJ for sure. I assume CA.

OR has high real estate value these days, to go with their hefty property taxes.

So I'm going to steal this from Farrah's wall. She's reading through the bill and this is her career so:


And she's a big Rand/Greenspan disciple.

I'm paying $7,500 a year and I think the value is at like $370k. So I imagine anyone with a home over $500k is paying over $10k around here.

It'd impact people with homes in the $500k-$1m range the most. I know that seems like rich people but many times it's not. Mostly middle class to upper middle class. People who perhaps bought a home in a neighborhood in the 70's and just held on to it. Plenty of areas in the city like that (Wicker Park for instance).

Listen, it's a tax cut for the rich. And when you're cutting that kind of tax revenue, you're going to have to make up for it somewhere else. The poor don't pay enough to make a dent so you're looking at middle to upper-middle class people.

429 pages? I thought tax reform was supposed to be easy?

It's a big tax cut for 1%ers who are not W2 employees or people who utilize SPVs or other vehicles to operate businesses. Like, you know, real estate developers.

There is one massive tax cut for the very wealthy through the elimination of the estate tax but keeping the step up in basis for capital gains - the wealthiest few may never have to pay any meaningful tax.

If you had capital gains of $100m in a marketable equity - why would you ever sell prior to your death. Your heirs can sell and then owe no taxes (because of the step up). In the meantime, for income, all you have to do is take loans against the balance which would be dirt cheap as the loans are secured by a a marketable security. These loans can have a near 0 interest rates because of the collateral and big banks desire to get other business from such rich individuals. Now there is quite a bit of risk in this strategy if your equity is concentrated in a single company.

It makes no sense to get rid of the estate tax and keep the step up in basis.

Capital Gains is the biggest scam perpetrated on Americans. The reason they don't mind leaving the top tax rate where it is is because if you're rich, you're making it through capital gains.

No reason that it shouldn't be 20%. Also no reason why they get to avoid paying into Medicare (I know Obamacare fixed some of this but not it fully).

Between this and the Papadopoulos admissions, it sure looks like Sessions perjured himself.

http://www.cnn.com/2017/11/02/politi...rip/index.html

No "lock him up" chants from the law and order right?

Trump can't seem to nominate anyone that doesn't have red flags all over him/her. This one was "Coffee Boy"'s boss.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/...ure/824996001/

Clovis was a weird nomination because he's not a scientist and has no background in agriculture outside of living in Iowa.

Guess Mueller is draining the swamp.

Agriculture. There's no way that guy's ever eaten anything that wasn't processed four times over.

Definitely NJ... my property taxes are considerably higher than 10,000...was toughest part about moving back here from Louisiana.

Most of the states where there is no state income tax have high property tax rates.

I think you can make a case for not allowing a lot of these deductions. It just looks shitty when you're raising taxes on the middle class while cutting giant corporations so that a few people on top of those companies can cash in.

And adding 1.5 trillion to the debt.

And with the Pocahontas stuff again. Which is just so lame and sad.

I have to have a good laugh at this one. The Democrats are suddenly fiscally responsible?

Some like NJ have high tax rates for both... this would be brutal for residents of NJ if it passed as written.

Your laugh is based in your ignorance. I don't know whether it is willful blindness or that you simply haven't been paying attention for the last 15 years.

The Clinton years brought us a budget surplus.

Obamacare was paid for by increased taxes and spending cuts.

On the other side, Cheney bragged that Reagan taught us that deficits don't matter.

And now the GOP is adding literal trillions to the debt for tax cuts that they don't even pretend will reach the middle class.

Think what you want about how bad a large debt is as a substantive matter.

But fiscal responsibility stopped being a GOP value around 20 years ago.

Throwing out "debt!" as a scare tactic whenever the Dems are in charge does not count.

I know, lol!

Save the Democrats stuff, please. I've been pretty consistent on short term debt for the financial crisis and greatly reducing the structural debt in the budget. I've been calling for a return to Clinton tax rates for years because that's what we need to fund the government we have.

dola

A few days ago Trump said he has one of the greatest memories of all time. Now, he says he doesn't remember much about his meeting with Papadoupolus.

Everything's a con.

I don't know about that, but I had a good laugh at your stupid fucking comment.

This a yahoo message board? Nothing like an over the top reaction there.

Except I'm not a GOP supporter. I've been critical of their spending (especially George W Bush) as well. Just haven't seen the outrage from Democrats about debt for about 8 years, they have suddenly found Jesus again I guess?

I'll agree on Clinton. He is my favorite president in my lifetime. I disagree on the crisis nonsense. I'll give you 2008 up to even 2012 (though I would say it's a stretch) Please go find just one post from 2013-2016 where you talk about debt being an issue with Obama. Only one is needed and I will eat crow. Or did the "crisis" go all the way up until Trump's inauguration?

There's also the need for some parallelism between the amount of debt and what the debt is achieving. I think many Democrats are willing to accrue debt for programs they consider important for Americans. This is increasing debt for what purpose?

Donald upset he just can't order his peons to go after Hillary:

Trump Says He's 'Very Frustrated' He Can't Order DOJ, FBI To Go After Hillary Clinton | HuffPost

I'll agree on that. I'm pretty much against increasing the debt in most cases but I wouldn't argue that some debt is maybe better than others. I just find it amusing when the am at the gym and every news channel is running GOP congressmen praising the plan and Democrat congressman screaming "Debt! Debt!" It's an interesting world we live in where people are so blinded by ideology that debt is good for your team and bad for others. It's bad all the time!

I agree, politics has simply become team sports and people are willing to turn on a dime in order to cheer for their team and deride the other.

However, I also see this as an attempt by the Dems to speak to the Republican base and Congresspeople. The Dems have little power here, but I think they're hoping to find a talking point that speaks to the Republicans and know that there's a large contingent which is very fiscally conservative.

Clinton ended his presidency with an arguable surplus. Under Obama the deficit was cut in half.

The Democrats are miles ahead of the Republicans when it comes to this issue.

It's a poor attempt to call out the R's who shoved that down Obama's throat for over 6 years as a reason they wouldn't pass anything he wanted. It was the daily tagline on Fox. It was all Rick Santelli could talk about. Now suddenly that's all changed. I think they just expect everyone else to see that too, but they aren't hitting on the message at all.