Boy, was I wrong! I predicted Roy Moore, despite his many flaws, would handily defeat Doug Jones in Alabama, but Jones prevailed. I believe that had either of Moore's primary opponents, Luther Strange or Mo Brooks, won the nomination, one of them would have defeated Jones yesterday. But "if its & buts were candy & nuts...."
My first impression when I heard the news was a sense of dread that tax cuts and tax simplification were doomed. But it turns out, the vote certification process will take a couple weeks, and in all likelihood, Jones won't be sworn in until early January.
So the Republicans still have a reasonable chance to enact their tax bill. If the conference committee spokespeople are to be believed, House and Senate negotiators are making good progress, and a vote on the final compromise bill should come next week. I certainly hope so.
The tax bill is far from perfect, but I disagree strongly with harsh critics like talk show hosts Michael Savage and Mark Levin, who both are enraged that some higher income people will pay a little more in taxes, and that conservatives in high-tax states will get the shaft because they can no longer deduct property and income taxes. There is a lot more good than bad in this bill, and I am confident the business and corporate tax reductions will have a broad, positive impact.
Don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good. The type of tax bill Levin and Savage would prefer simply ain't gonna happen, the political realities being what they are. Levin is a smart guy, but I sometimes think he's detached from reality. He continuously whines about why today's conservatives are not as stalwart as Ronald Reagan, and Reagan did this, and Reagan did that...
News flash, Mark: The demographics, and several more decades of leftist indoctrination in our schools, have thoroughly changed the landscape. There will never be another Ronald Reagan, not because such a gifted and charismatic person doesn't exist, but because the voting public and culture today are far different from the way they were in 1980 and 1984. Hate to break it to you, but you're wasting your emotions and hope on yesterday.
We'll survive abortionist Doug Jones joining the Senate. But I hope the people of Alabama have learned a lesson. Roy Moore has the intelligence to have graduated from West Point and served as a Supreme Court Justice. But he's often a yahoo with zero common sense. He has a propensity to spout off with idiocy far too often, and his decision to ride to the polls on horseback simply fuels the fires of those whose scorn and contempt for Alabama knows no bounds. By perpetuating the hayseed image of Alabama, Moore obviously lost a lot of support from conservatives and moderates, some of whom probably didn't vote for Jones, but just decided not to vote at all.
Roy Rogers he ain't.
Nurg, I haven't read up on Rep. John Kennedy's grilling of Matthew Peterson, but I heard some sound bites played on a radio talk show. It sounded brutal, like Peterson is not qualified for the position and was unprepared. And keep in mind, Kennedy is a Republican; it's not as if a liberal was raking him over the coals.
This speaks to a failure of advance work and vetting by the Trump team. Trump sometimes is impulsive, and it comes back to bite him big-time.
Posted by: T-Mo | December 15, 2017 at 04:29 PM
Speaking of, I'd be interested in reading your thoughts on the following: http://m.huffingtonpost.ca/entry/trump-judicial-nominee-cant-answer_us_5a3357d2e4b01d429cc76802
Posted by: Nurglitch | December 15, 2017 at 01:38 PM
It was a pretty close race. At least you're admitting that you're wrong rather than claiming you were right all along.
Posted by: Nurglitch | December 13, 2017 at 08:25 AM