monitoring Trump and relevant contemporary events

people are lazy, so it's easy to convince them that neoliberalism must mean 'fancy kind of liberal'

Because "neoliberalism" contains the word "liberal", it can be a fairly simple thing to then imply that neoliberalism (where it means radical right wing economic and social ideas) is a leftist phenomenon.

And the popular misuse of the term in the USA, applied to Bill Clinton's centrist triangulation, developed in response to the term "neoconservative" which emerged in the early '70s.

A 1919 document titled “Final Report on Negro Subversion,” which came to the desk of a twenty-four-year-old Justice Department staffer named J. Edgar Hoover, portrayed the civil-rights movement as potentially Bolshevik-inspired, and suggested that black discontent might easily turn into support for Communism. At the same time, the Ku Klux Klan, which had been all but crushed by a series of anti-terrorism laws passed during Reconstruction, surged back to life after the release, in 1915, of the film “Birth of a Nation.” Yet its transformation from a Southern phenomenon into a national one elicited little concern from law-enforcement officials, some of whom were members.

Like Moore, Trump has been accused of sexual assault by several women, and like Moore, he has refused to budge an inch on the question of his innocence. As the Times reveals, though, Trump has gone way beyond mere denials. He has taken to contesting objective reality itself:

But something deeper has been consuming Mr. Trump. He sees the calls for Mr. Moore to step aside as a version of the response to the now-famous “Access Hollywood” tape, in which he boasted about grabbing women’s genitalia, and the flood of groping accusations against him that followed soon after. He suggested to a senator earlier this year that it was not authentic, and repeated that claim to an adviser more recently. (In the hours after it was revealed in October 2016, Mr. Trump acknowledged that the voice was his, and he apologized.)

[Trump] has used “toughness on crime” as an argument to endorse Roy Moore, who is credibly accused with a wide array of sex crimes, over Doug Jones, who made his name prosecuting criminals. (When Trump says “crime,” it does not mean crime. It means race.) For all his laziness and wandering attention span, he has displayed impressive discipline in calling attention over and over again to black athletes and their supposed lack of gratitude.

New dynamic score shows the Senate tax bill raises debt by more than advertised

Kent Smetters was in the trenches in the Newt Gingrich-era Congressional Budget Office, and he’s a veteran of George W. Bush’s Treasury Department. A new analysis using his well-regarded budget model has concluded the Republican tax plan won’t raise nearly as much revenue as its proponents say, or provide a meaningful boost to economic growth.

The problem, according to a pair of new reports by the Penn-Wharton Budget Model, is that the Senate Republicans’ tax bill would increase federal debt by more than advertised, and increased debt accumulation would counteract much — or potentially all — of the positive growth impact of tax cuts. The result will likely be lower incomes for the bottom half of the income distribution even before considering the negative impact of inevitable spending cuts to offset the surprisingly low federal tax intake.

Has anyone ever seen Lash write a post based on Monbiot's criticisms of right wing broad, organized and so very well funded operations to discount global warming and to cripple governments' ability to regulate those operations? Anyone? Ever?

Do you remember when both Clintons used the same anti-black dog whistles to attract racists?

I think many Democrats and independent political observers are puzzled by the intensity with which Republicans are pursuing their tax cut. It’s not politically popular and may well lead to the party’s defeat in next year’s congressional elections. So why do it?

The answer is that Republicans are pushing the tax cut at breakneck speed precisely because they know they are probably going to lose next year and in 2020 as well. The tax cut, once enacted, however, will bind the hands of Democrats for years to come, forcing them to essentially follow a Republican agenda of deficit reduction and prevent any action on a positive Democratic program. The result will be a steady erosion of support for Democrats that will put Republicans back in power within a few election cycles.

Norman Ornstein‏Verified account
@NormOrnstein
Nice that Meet the Press is focusing entire hour on politicians and sexual harrassment. You almost would not know that Senate will vote this week on a tax bill that will have a profound effect on every American and our future

The tax cut, once enacted, however, will bind the hands of Democrats for years to come, forcing them to essentially follow a Republican agenda of deficit reduction and prevent any action on a positive Democratic program.

Gerrymandering, Republican loyalty, and the lack of any attractive politician or a well-thought-out political philosophy would seem to work against the Democrats.