Bruce Bartlett, Reagan’s domestic policy advisor wrote a great piece in the Washington Post yesterday which ripped away the veil from Republican tax mythology.  That mythology has been peddled to Americans since Reagan and is dependent on successfully peddling the lie that taking in less money results in revenue going up.  The tax cutting myth is a myth because it’s a lie and has always been a lie.

Low taxes became an article of faith among Republicans started by Ronald Reagan who preached tax cuts as the cure-all for the nation’s ills.  Repubs have never seen a tax cut they didn’t like and live in a world where 2-1=3.  Reagan’s tax cuts probably dampened the recovery after the years of stagflation, the recovery from which was more affected by interest rate reductions made by the Fed.

GWB was also propelled to the WH in 2000 on a tax cutting platform, and his two tax cuts accelerated the downturn of 2007 into the Great Recession that brought our economy to it’s knees.

Once again, the Repubs, now in control of Congress and the WH, have come back to the tax cut trough, peddling their same BS of how cutting taxes makes revenue to up.  They’re also patently dishonest about taxes themselves, continuously lying that the US has the highest taxes in the developed world.  They always point to statutory tax rates which bear no actual resemblance tor effective tax rates actually paid.

Bartlett makes the point that taxes don’t drive business investment.  Tax cuts don’t make revenue go up; they drive revenues down.  It’s simple.  It’s math.  Which Republicans don’t understand.

After Cheeto Jesus’ inauguration, he announced with great fanfare two councils of CEOs all designed to Make America Great Again, whatever that means.  The two councils, the Manufacturing Council and the Strategy & Policy Forum, were supposedly organized to help shape policy to increase business and generate jobs for American workers.  In reality, though, they were simply figurehead in nature, designed to reward CEOs for supporting Trump.  In fact, to my knowledge the councils never actually met outside of the initial photo ops, and were just used to raise the profiles of its members.

All that puffery came crashing down the last few days after Trump’s catastrophic response to the violence in Charlottesville, defending neo-Nazis and racist white supremacists and attacking the media for simply asking questions.  In the face of this disaster, CEOs began bailing from the Manufacturing Council. Today, the Strategy & Policy Forum met in a conference call, and in the face of a crowd of CEOs ready to resign, they disbanded.  Later, through Twitler, Trump also disbanded the Manufacturing Council.  I guess he decided that the defections were simply too glaring to gloss over.

This development is not insignificant.  Think about it – Trump rode to the WH on the backs of bigots and the ignorant; but worse, he also rode on the shoulders of business executives who were so self interested in stuffing their wallets even more full that they allowed themselves to be used to elect a depraved carnival barker.  These very same executives are now fleeing like rats off a sinking ship.

Have a look at these marchers from their Unite the Right protest last night in Charlottesville, Virginia:

Am I the only one who finds it mildly amusing that hundreds of White Nationalists are marching carrying Tiki torches made in Asia and sold by gigantic big box stores that destroy American middle class jobs?

#tikituffguys

“To find a man’s true character, play golf with him.”

–P.G. Wodehouse, English writer

This saying is more true than almost any other.  A guy who cheats at golf or is an ass on the golf course is and cheater and an ass at life.  I’ve seen it a dozen times.  Well, here’s another example of just what an ass Trump is.  He was recently videoed DRIVING A GOLF CART ON THE GREEN at his club in Bedminster.  If you are a non-golfer, the ONE THING you NEVER do is drive even close to the green, much less on it.  Doing so shows huge disrespect for the course, the game, and your fellow golfers, not to mention the poor greenskeepers who have to repair the damage. It’s a good way to get ejected from a golf course, but I guess not your own.

Here you go, you can watch with own eyes:

https://youtu.be/KK6LfSw5mKc

Props to News & Guts

File under Sumbitches:

Yesterday, Newt Gingrich, career philanderer and prolific liar, made the head-snapping pronouncement that a US president “cannot obstruct justice“, and can fire anyone he wants to fire, regardless of legality.  His comments were made at the National Press Club where he was peddling his new collection of fairytales, Understanding Trump, which is his usual pile of manure delivered with the gravity of a college professor.  Apparently to Gingrich, there is a completely different set of rules for a Democrat in the WH than for a Republican.

Never burdened by the truth or a sense common decency, Gingrich is famous for delivering these kinds of proclamations that swing from one wild lie to another, changing his “sincere” belief to match whatever argument he’s positing at the time.  This proclamation, though, is especially egregious; when he was speaker of the house, he lead the impeachment of Bill Clinton for lying about having a sexual affair and obstruction of justice.   To make matters worse, at the time of the impeachment, he was having an affair himself with his current wife, Calista, while going after Clinton for his affair.  He was forced out of the Speaker job in 1999 under a storm cloud of ethics violations and election losses.

Gingrich is a shameless liar and his books are useful as two things: Kindling and toilet paper.

It’s been all over the news this weekend.  Shakespeare in the Park is presenting a new version of Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar, with the Roman ruler looking almost identical to Trump, complete with idiotic combover and 3 foot long red tie.  As in the original script, his is violently dispatched in the middle of the play.  Cue the outrage in 3-2-1…it came spewing out of every pore of the right wing noise machine, and DJT Jr. even chimed in on The Twitter, asking if taxpayer money was used to fund the production.  The furor was so fervent that sponsors, Delta Airlines and Bank of America caved and pulled funding, afraid to offend Trumpists.

But, THAT, of course, is not the only modern version of Julius Caesar performed in

Guthrie Theater, Dowling Studios

recent years.  In 2012, director Rob Melrose produced a version with an Obama lookalike as the famed Caesar.  It was also performed in New York by the Acting Company.  And yes, that Caesar was also violently dispatched in mid play.
The difference between 2012 and 2017?  The noise machine is now going nuts when in the previous production we heard nothing but crickets.  “Thine hypocrisy will be thy downfall.”

Or something like that.