The Messing Link

Israel's Prime Minister put on quite a show on Monday to prove that Iran lied about its nuclear weapons program and that the entire Iranian Nuclear Deal was built on a pack of lies. His speech focused on half a ton of secret Iranian nuclear archives that Israel had obtained.  There can be no question that the purpose of Netanyahu's speech was to persuade Donald Trump to kill the Iranian nuclear weapons deal.  Rather than describe the speech in detail, I'll let you watch it for yourself.

John Bolton, President Trump's National Security Advisor, is a threat to our national security. Those aren't just my words.  Those words, only slightly edited, are the title of the  best article you can read about the threat Bolton poses to the world.  Colin Kahl and Jon Wolfsthal write:

After reading this article about what Iranian hardliners are saying on social media, I was struck by how much the hardliners in Iran and the hardliners in the U.S. mirror each other and feed off each other. The hardliners in Iran (inadvertently) strengthen the hardliners in the U.S. by giving them something to point to and say, "See, we can't trust the Iranians--they are going to violate the JCPOA and build missiles that threaten us." Meanwhile, hardliners like John Bolton (inadvertently) give the Iranian hardliners something to point to and say, "See, we can't trust the Americans". The similarity between American and Iranian hardliners even extends to their alarm at our trade imbalances with China. Our hardliners and Iranian hardliners might actually get along if they took their collective heads out of their asses and tried--really tried-- to see things from each others' point of view. But if they were accustomed to trying to view the world from other countries' points of view they would probably not be hardliners in the first place. Here are some excerpts from the article, but I recommend reading the whole thing.

The Republican party has become thoroughly corrupt, possibly treasonous, and dangerous to our democracy and to the world. By this, I do not mean every Republican is corrupt. I do not mean that every Republican is treasonous or turns a blind eye towards treason. And I do not mean every Republican is a danger to democracy. There are some Republicans like Jeff Flake, Mitt Romney, and John McCain who have acted honorably. But the party as a whole has done little if anything to stop the corruption or to protect our democratic institutions. The Republicans must be crushed in the next few elections for our national security and for the continued existence of our democracy. I don't expect a single Republican to pay attention to me. After all, I am what many of them would call a "libtard". I have opposed Trump since May 2016, and in October 2016 I wrote a blog post predicting that Donald Trump would be an existential threat to our democracy. So I expect Republicans to react to this by holding their hands over their ears and saying, "LA LA LA  I CAN'T HEAR YOU!"  So if you are a Republican, I don't expect you to listen to me. But I do want you to consider two articles by your fellow Republicans and one article by two strictly nonparitsan authors. I will post excerpts from each of these articles, but reading these highlights is no substitute for reading these articles in their entirety. 

Democratic Senator Dick Durbin has said that President Trump definitely did scorn immigrants from Haiti and "shit hole countries" in Africa. Donald Trump just posted a tweet that mocked "Senator Dicky Durbin" and called him a liar.

 

Senator Dicky Durbin totally misrepresented what was said at the DACA meeting. Deals can’t get made when there is no trust! Durbin blew DACA and is hurting our Military.

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 15, 2018

This series of tweets by Steve Schmidt, a former spokesman for the National Republican Congressional Committee who led the day-to-day operations of John McCain's 2008 Presidential campaign, is so outstanding that it deserves its very own blog post

This tax bill demonstrates,once again, the total collapse of all and any rigor around the policy making process in the GOP congress. It is built on a foundation of lies. It adds more than a trillion to the debt. No real conservative should vote for this

Roy Moore's supporters will point with glee and shout that , Beverly Young Nelson lied about her claim that Roy Moore attempted to rape her in a car by a dumpster when she was only 16. During her November 13 press conference, Nelson and her lawyer, Gloria Allred, claimed that Moore's signed note in Nelson's Yearbook was proof that the two knew each other in 1977. (Note below that the note was signed "Love".)

(Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images)

No matter how you slice it, both the House and the Senate versions of the tax reform bill pose a grave danger to our economy for decades to come.  The Congressional Budget Office estimated the House bill would increase the deficit by $1.7 Trillion over the next 10 years.  House Republicans have objected to this estimate because it doesn't account for the job growth that will result from the tax cut.  The Republicans might not have liked that estimate, but they were in such a hurry to pass their bill that they refused to wait for the CBO to calculate a dynamic score. However, dynamic scoring from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania and the Tax Foundation both indicate that the deficit will increase by over $1 trillion.

Life is unfair. Some babies are born to billionaires and will never have to worry about working for food and shelter for the rest of their lives. Others are born into grinding poverty and may be homeless or unable to obtain enough food or medical care. The tax reform bill under consideration will increase the unfairness of the system by eliminating the estate tax. As you know, eliminating the estate tax benefits only those with estates worth over $5.49 million for a single person or $10.98 million for a couple.  Why would you want to make life more unfair than it already is?

On October 10, John Hertzler, a candidate running to unseat Congressman Tom Reed, announced that he was planning to drop out of the Democratic Party to run as an Independent.