Newsweek

Roy Moore Is a ‘Liar’ And Here’s Proof, Says One of Alabama Senate Candidate’s Many Accusers

 Marie Solis, Newsweek     December 4, 2017

The paper trail continues.

One of Roy Moore’s accusers has uncovered a note the Alabama Senate candidate allegedly wrote to her when she was a senior in high school, the latest in possible written evidence of Moore’s alleged inappropriate relationships with minors.

“Happy graduation Debbie,” the message, written on a graduation card Debbie Wesson Gibson found in her senior year scrapbook, reads. “I wanted to give you this card myself. I know that you’ll be a success in anything you do. Roy.”

Wesson told The Washington Post she found the scrapbook when she was sorting through her attic last week, but she said she didn’t immediately come forward for fear of receiving more threats, which began when she first went public with her account of dating Moore when she was 17 and he was 34. But Wesson changed her mind when she saw Moore hold a rally in an Alabama church, where he vehemently denied the allegations against him.

“He called me a liar,” Gibson told the Post. “Roy Moore made an egregious mistake to attack that one thing—my integrity.”

Gibson, however, says she knows who the real liar is: The man nine women have accused of sexual misconduct.

Gibson said she remembers Moore handing the graduation card to her in person. She then wrote in her scrapbook: “Roy Moore inspires me because he is such a successful man himself. Also he is about the only person I know of who seriously believes in me. I appreciate that. He’s got to be one of the nicest people I know.”

In the scrapbook, Gibson also marked down that Moore had attended her commencement ceremony, along with her mom and dad, given her $10 as a gift.

In another entry, Gibson recalled her first date with Moore on a page titled “best times,” and writes that they went to eat at Catfish Cabin in Albertville and had a “great time,” underlining “great” twice. She told the Post she’s able to remember the age when she dated Moore because that’s when her “braces were off.”

Last month, Beverly Young Nelson, who accused Moore of attempting to rape her, became the first to uncover a written message suggesting his misdeeds.

In a press conference with attorney Gloria Allred, Nelson displayed the note, which she found in a high school yearbook. It read: “To a sweeter more beautiful girl I could not say Merry Christmas,” ending with the signature, “Christmas 1977. Love, Roy Moore… Roy Moore, DA.”

President Donald Trump threw his unequivocal support behind the Republican candidate Monday morning, tweeting that the Republican Party needs Moore to fight crime, illegal immigration and other right-wing causes. Later, he reportedly called Moore personally to give him a vote of confidence: “Go get ’em, Roy!”

MSNBC

The Rachel Maddow Show / The Maddow Blog

In this Jan. 29, 2015 file photo, Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa is seen on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC.  Photo by J. Scott Applewhite/File/AP

Grassley blasts working class for spending on booze, women, and movies

Steve Benen     December 4, 2017

When Republicans talk up their tax plans, they usually make an effort to mention the middle class. The evidence shows that the current GOP proposals, when fully implemented, would actually raise taxes on millions of middle-class households, but at least in their public talking points, Republican officials try to avoid sounding plutocratic.

GOP efforts to repeal the estate tax, however, make the political push tricky – because literally no one in the middle class pays the tax that applies only to estates worth more than $5.49 million. The standard Republican line is that the estate tax is bad for farmers, but the Des Moines Register published a good piece over the weekend, noting that a “review of federal tax data and nonpartisan research on the subject shows that family farmers and small business owners represent a tiny share of estate tax payers, and that the taxes they owe rarely force them to sell land or quit farming.”

The data apparently hasn’t swayed Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), an ardent opponent of the estate tax.

In a Nov. 29 interview, Grassley was adamant about the need for change, even if farmers and small business owners represent a tiny minority of estate tax payers. The reason, he said, is as much philosophical as practical.

An estate tax effectively and unfairly taxes a person’s earnings twice, he argued: first when they earn it and again when they die. And, he added, it penalizes savers without touching spenders.

“I think not having the estate tax recognizes the people that are investing,” Grassley said, “as opposed to those that are just spending every darn penny they have, whether it’s on booze or women or movies.”

It’s rare to see prominent politicians celebrate elitism with such candor. To hear Grassley tell it, multi-millionaires and billionaires – and their heirs – deserve an expensive tax break. If the rest of us spent our paychecks in ways Iowa’s millionaire senator approves of, perhaps we’d be millionaires, too.

In other words, if you’re not rich enough to qualify for the estate tax, it’s probably your fault – which is why congressional Republicans don’t see the need to “recognize” you.

Grassley’s quote may be provocative, but it’s not necessarily unique. There’s a deep strain of thought in contemporary GOP politics that says the wealthy are entitled to special benefits because they’re wealthy, while those on the lower end of the economic spectrum deserve less because they have less.

Earlier this year, for example one Republican congressman justified a vote on ACA repeal by saying Americans would be able to afford health security, without assistance, by giving up “getting that new iPhone.”

One of my favorite moments from 2012 campaign came when Mitt Romney praised “the entrepreneurial spirit” by pointing to Jim Liautaud, who struggled in school, but who borrowed some money from his father, created a sandwich business, and ended up with 1,200 Jimmy John restaurants across this country.

For Romney, this was clear proof that Americans “don’t need the government” to get ahead. Individuals, the Republican said, simply need to “look to themselves and say, ‘What can I do to make myself better?’”

The part of the story that Romney conveniently overlooked is the fact that the hero of the tale succeeded because he had a father with thousands of dollars he could lend to his son. Much of the country, meanwhile, doesn’t have enough money in the bank to cover a $400 emergency expense. What can you do to make yourself better? Romney’s suggestion was you can choose wealthier parents, though I’m afraid that’s impractical advice.

Faced with this reality, Grassley and other Republicans are convinced the best use of their efforts is to pass, among other things, an estate tax repeal that exclusively benefits the wealthy.

For many years, Democrats have struggled with rural voters, in part because of cultural considerations: these communities often say they feel looked down upon by urban “elites” who dismiss working families in “fly-over country.”

Which is precisely what makes Grassley’s quote so important. Iowa’s senior senator isn’t just championing tax breaks for the rich; he’s also expressing disdain for those who live paycheck to paycheck. The veteran Republican lawmaker is looking down on them, marveling at what he sees as working families’ fiscal irresponsibility.

A few weeks after Election Day 2016, Stephen Moore, a conservative economist who advised Donald Trump during the campaign, told a group of Republicans that the party’s economic vision had taken an important turn. “Just as Reagan converted the GOP into a conservative party, Trump has converted the GOP into a populist working-class party,” Moore said at the time.

In hindsight, the comments read like a cruel joke.

The Nation

Republicans Are Looting the Treasury While They Still Can

They know a backlash is coming, and they’re making the most of their power while they have it.

By Joshua Holland    December 2, 2017

Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell with Senate majority whip John Cornyn, and Senator John Barrasso, talk to reporters, July 25, 2017. (AP Photo / Jacquelyn Martin)

The tax bill Senate Republicans rushed to pass in the dark of night, unread by most senators, was a Hail Mary pass by a party that expects to lose seats in the coming midterms, and knows that its historically unpopular president has a good chance of serving only one term. It was an act of legislative looting by a party that’s behind by an average of eight points in generic congressional ballot polls, doesn’t think it will enjoy unified control of government again in the immediate future, and is grabbing whatever benefits it can for its donors while teeing up deep, damaging cuts to the safety net in the future.

The conventional wisdom holds that Republicans pursued a maximalist approach to the bill because they faced a donors’ revolt if they didn’t deliver something big after Obamacare repeal turned into a debacle, and because they’re insulated to a degree from the wrath of the voters.

This is true. As a result of a combination of gerrymandering and the inefficient distribution of Democratic voters, the GOP might be able to hold on to control of the House despite losing the popular vote by as much as seven or eight points. Next year, Republicans will defend only nine Senate seats, many of them in solidly red states, while their opponents try to hold 25. And conservative donors have threatened to close their wallets if they don’t get big cuts.

But those factors alone don’t explain congressional leaders’ apparent contempt for public opinion. Looking at the bigger picture suggests that they’ve internalized the “emerging Democratic majority” thesis: They know that the electorate is becoming more diverse, more urban, and better educated. They understand that their core demographic—married whites who identify as Christians—is in rapid decline. This is what animates their relentless efforts to suppress the vote of typically Democratic constituencies, and it explains their rush to pass a massive rewrite of the tax code that’s historically unpopular.

As The Atlantic’s Ronald Brownstein noted on Twitter, the Senate bill will come down especially hard on the Dems’ rising coalition: “urban residents, blue states, college and graduate students.… It’s an enemies list as much as a revenue bill.”

Republicans understand that their last two presidents entered office despite losing the popular vote, as they’ve now done in six of the past seven presidential contests dating back to 1988. They get that Donald Trump’s approval ratings are historically low for this stage in a presidency, and that today’s intense partisanship makes it unlikely that he’ll ever enjoy anything even approaching majority support. They know that he’s going to lead them into a 2020 contest in which the Senate map favors the Democrats. And of course they know that Robert Mueller’s investigation is looming over all of this.

They know a backlash is coming, and they’re making the most of the power they have while they still can. They don’t care about public perception if it’s an obstacle to enacting long-term cuts to taxes and spending that will be difficult for future Congresses to reverse.

It’s difficult to overstate how destructive this bill will be over the long term, and impossible to overstate the degree to which their shambolic, one-party legislative process was an affront to the most basic norms of democratic governance.

In order to finance a portion of the $1.4 trillion in tax cuts they’re showering on corporate America over the next 10 years, they eliminate the Affordable Care Act’s (ACA) individual mandate. According to the Congressional Budget Office, this would lead to 4 million Americans’ losing their coverage next year, and 13 million fewer insured in 2027. As healthy people leave the pool, premiums for everyone else in the ACA’s exchanges would spike by 10 percent.

That’s only the beginning. As Amy Goldstein reports for The Washington Post, the bill would have “potent ripple effects” throughout the health-care system. As a result of an existing “pay as you go” law, rising deficits will make automatic budget cuts kick in, unless Congress steps in to stop them, that would reduce funding for Medicare by $25 billion per year. And it’s not just health care—Margot Sanger-Katz reported for The New York Times that if this bill becomes law “the funding for dozens of federal spending programs could be cut—in many cases to nothing—beginning next year.”

Republican senators blithely dismiss this reality, insisting that the bill would unleash sufficient growth to pay for itself. “I’m totally confident this is a revenue-neutral bill,” said Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY). “I think it’s going to be a revenue producer.” This is something like confidently stating a belief in the tooth fairy or Santa Claus.

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Congress’s own Joint Committee on Taxation estimates that the bill will drive up deficits by $1 trillion over the next decade. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin promised that his staff would produce an analysis that would support Republican claims that the bill would pay for itself—he said that he had 100 people working on it—but it was never released. The agency’s inspector general is now investigating to determine whether he spiked the analysis because it contradicted his talking points. House majority leader Paul Ryan (R-WI) touted a letter signed by a number of economists who supposedly supported the House bill, but Lee Fang reported for The Intercept that it included signatures by people who don’t exist or who say they never signed anything of the sort, as well as “office assistants, ex-felons and a sprinkling of real economists.” Meanwhile, a survey of 38 academic economists conducted by the University of Chicago’s Initiative on Global Markets found that 37 of them expect the bill to blow up federal deficits, and the 38th “misread the question,” according to The Washington Post.

Given all of that, it should come as no surprise that Republicans didn’t want their sausage making to see the light of day until shortly before the vote. Open hearings, expert testimony, and public discussion of the bill’s provisions were the last thing Mitch McConnell and his colleagues wanted to see.

The process and product are inseparable: It isn’t a bad bill because it was crafted by a small group within the Republican leadership and passed without an opportunity for the public to digest its provisions. They jammed it through because they knew that if it went through anything resembling the Senate’s regular order, it would trigger significant public opposition.

And the truly maddening part is that when Democrats do regain power they typically try to revive the institutional norms that Republicans ignored. They don’t feel that they’re facing demographic headwinds and have to pursue a maximalist agenda. So they hold dozens of hearings and markups on their legislation, and their opponents still claim that it’s being shoved down their throats. See: The Affordable Care Act.

The game is transparent: Republicans claim, despite all evidence to the contrary, that tax cuts will pay for themselves, and when those cuts result in huge deficits, they use them as leverage to force Democrats to accept new spending cuts. That’s precisely what happened under Obama after George W. Bush’s tax cuts blew a giant hole in the federal budget. Lather, rinse, repeat.

But this fight is not over. The House and Senate still need to reconcile their respective bills, and resistance groups are focusing especially on the House, where everyone’s up for reelection in 2018 and the divide between the hardcore members of the “Freedom Caucus” and more pragmatic members may imperil final passage. It’s still worth contacting your representatives.

Joshua Holland is a contributor to The Nation and a fellow at the Nation Institute. He’s also the host of Politics and Reality Radio.

Bangor Daily News

Collins ‘let the people of Maine down’ with her vote to pass tax bill, protesters say

By Alex Acquisto, BDN Staff           December 3, 2017

Aaron Bernstein | REUTERS | BDN. Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine. speaks with reporters ahead of the party luncheons on Capitol Hill, Washington, Oct. 3, 2017.

After U.S. Sen. Susan Collins voted early Saturday morning in support of the Republican bill to overhaul the tax code, some Mainers broke out in protest over the weekend, calling Collins’ vote a betrayal.

Gathered outside Collins’ Portland office Friday night before the vote, Mainers for Accountable Leadership co-founder Gordon Adams told Portland-based ABC affiliate WMTW that Collins, who came out in support of the Senate tax bill, “has really let the people of Maine down.”

With news that Collins had voted overnight in support of the bill, more gathered across the state, including at the Bangor International Airport, in case Collins flew home from Washington, D.C. Voters stood with their backs turned, claiming “ Her vote turned her back on ME,” according to a Mainers for Accountable Leadership Facebook post.

She did not return to Maine, instead appearing Sunday morning on NBC’s “Meet The Press” with Chuck Todd.

Collins tweeted on Friday that, “as revised, this bill will provide much-needed tax relief and simplification for lower- and middle-income families, while spurring the creation of good jobs and greater economic growth.”

Todd challenged Collins’ assertion Sunday morning.

“If the debt is unsustainable at $14 trillion,” Todd said, quoting Collins’ remarks on the federal debt accrued under President Barack Obama, “how do you make yourself comfortable voting for something that’s going to increase the deficit,” with the debt already at $20.6 trillion.

The Joint Committee on Taxation predicts the plan will increase the deficit by $1 trillion over the next decade.

“Economic growth produces more revenue and that will help to offset this tax cut and actually lower the debt,” Collins said.

“Where’s the evidence?” Todd asked. “Where, explain to me. … [F]ind a study that actually says what you’re claiming.”

Collins said “economists just don’t agree on this.”

Collins also said she cannot guarantee she will vote for the tax bill a second time, but wants to wait and see what it looks like once it comes out of a conference committee with the House, where differences between the two chambers’ bills will be worked out.

She said the amendments she added on “medical expense deductions, on property tax deductions, on helping retirement security for employees improve the bill.”

Collins also said she’s received “an ironclad commitment that we’re not going to see cuts in the Medicaid-Medicare program as a result of this bill.”

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Iowa Starting Line

GRASSLEY IMPLIES WORKING CLASS SPENDS TAX CUTS ON “BOOZE OR WOMEN OR MOVIES”

By Pat Rynard       December 3, 2017

After pretending for a brief moment in 2016 that the Republican Party stood for working people, the Republican-controlled Congress reverted back to trickle-down form on Friday when they passed a tax reform bill that overwhelmingly favored the rich. Not to be outdone, though, Senator Chuck Grassley made clear his disdain for those not benefiting under the new tax law.

“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 Register in a story posted yesterday.

It’s difficult to think of a more condescending, elitist worldview – that if you’re not ultra-wealthy, it’s clearly because you’re wasting all your money on alcohol, frivolous fun and prostitutes (I assume that’s what he meant when he said women). Certainly it couldn’t be because people are struggling to find decent-paying jobs, are straddled with debt from the college education they need to attain better jobs, or are paying outrageous sums for health insurance and medical bills. Nope, it must be because they’re all getting hand jobs from hookers in the back of a dark movie theater while downing a bottle of Jack Daniel’s.

That’s also an interesting assumption that perhaps only the men in a household make and spend money.

If Grassley wanted to make an ideological economic argument, he could have – that conservatives believe that money invested into businesses by the rich is what drives growth, not spending by consumers – without also needlessly maligning the working class. Because it takes a certain kind of arrogance to assume that every person who isn’t as rich as you are got that way because they’re lazy or dumb or wasteful in their spending habits.

In the same article, Jason Noble explained how the estate tax (which Republicans like to call the death tax) actually affects very few people in Iowa – only 120 people filed estate tax returns last year, just 44 of which owed any taxes. Data found that only 160 farm estates nationwide had to pay the tax in 2016. Still, Grassley for years has argued that the estate tax was destroying family farms even though the numbers simply do not back that assertion up.

The estate tax only applies to estates worth $5.45 million or more that is passed on to surviving family members. In reality, this mostly affects the wealthiest Americans and their fortunate heirs, many of which have plenty of tax advisers to figure out how to limit what gets taxed. But those are exactly the kinds of people who often end up as wealthy donors to Republicans, thus drawing the party’s focus to eliminate it for decades, despite the few well-off people it affects.

So, let this be yet another reminder to all those blue-collar workers in Iowa who voted for Republicans in droves last year: Republicans do not respect you, they only care about their rich friends and they turn their noses up at your small paycheck.

For a lot of working-class people, there is a sense that lazy people living down the street from them are mooching off the government (and hey, there are some bums out there), which draws them to Republicans’ policies. But here’s the thing: Republican elected officials see everyone in the working class as bums. They’re not making a distinction between you and some of the folks around you. They think all of you are worthless if you don’t have a multi-million dollar estate. That’s the Republican Party.