Calling 2020 for Entropy

[D.A. Ridgely]

Warren will be perceived as an intellectual which should suffice to ensure her losing if nominated.

[Warren]

Warren will be perceived as an intellectual which should suffice to ensure her losing if nominated.

I don't see that. Obama was perceived to be an intellectual and Bill Clinton actually was one.

[thoreau]

Warren will be perceived as an intellectual which should suffice to ensure her losing if nominated.

I was worried that my colleagues might vote for her because she is a very liberal woman, but I think you just talked them into voting against her.

[Aresen]

Mittens is turning 72 this year, so him planning on a 2024 run would be quite optimistic.

I'd say odds are good that Flake will make a primary challenge in 2020.

With Flake on the outs with both the GOP establishment and the Trumpistas, there is no downside for him.

He has no chance of winning and the publicity would boost his value on the rubber chicken circuit.

[Shem]

Mittens is turning 72 this year, so him planning on a 2024 run would be quite optimistic.

Having known megalomaniacs, that degree of optimism would surprise me not at all.

[D.A. Ridgely]

Warren will be perceived as an intellectual which should suffice to ensure her losing if nominated.

I don't see that. Obama was perceived to be an intellectual and Bill Clinton actually was one.

Ordinarily, lawyers get a sort of pass on that charge, but Warren was in academia for decades, albeit in law schools, before winning her Senate race, and American politics has always been perversely anti-intellectual as a cursory survey of our elected officials abundantly demostrates. Plus, there's the statistically poor odds of winning the presidency as a senator.

[Eric the .5b]

Mittens is turning 72 this year, so him planning on a 2024 run would be quite optimistic.

I'd say odds are good that Flake will make a primary challenge in 2020.

I'd be willing to bet a token amount of money that he will not darken the primaries in 2020.

Flake is a flake.

[lunchstealer]

Mittens is turning 72 this year, so him planning on a 2024 run would be quite optimistic.

I'd say odds are good that Flake will make a primary challenge in 2020.

I'd be willing to bet a token amount of money that he will not darken the primaries in 2020.

Flake is a flake.

Yeah, even if his outsness with the MAGAs and the establishment meant there was no real downside to him running in 2020, it'd take some real courage to primary Trump, and I am not sure Flake has it. He talks a good game sometimes, but his follow-through isn't stellar.

[thoreau]

Oh, good, more birtherism. This time for Kamala Harris.

https://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/jaco ... her-harris

[Hugh Akston]

It's a shame that partisans on both sides are so intellectually bankrupt that they are incapable of discussing policy, because Kamala deserves all the scorn that can be heaped upon her for her tenure as California AG alone.

[Aresen]

It's a shame that partisans on both sides are so intellectually bankrupt that they are incapable of discussing policy, because Kamala deserves all the scorn that can be heaped upon her for her tenure as California AG alone.

Should she become the Democratic Candidate, that record will be seen as a positive for most Blues and Reds.

For most Blues, the primary reasons for supporting her will be:

1) She's not Trump
2) She's not Trump
3) She's not Trump
4) She's not Trump
5) She's not Trump
6) She's not Trump
7) She's not Trump
8) She's not Trump
9) She's not Trump
10) Her gender

[thoreau]

You left off melanin, Aresen.

[Jennifer]

Oh, fuck, PLEASE let the Dem nominee for 2020 NOT be Kamala Harris. Ugh.

[Hugh Akston]

I'm starting to get the feeling that the 2020 primary race is going to be a (recumbent) pissing contest about who can make the craziest promise.

[nicole]

I can’t really process this level of horribleness



(“The average tax refund is down about $170 compared to last year. Let’s call the President’s tax cut what it is: a middle-class tax hike to line the pockets of already wealthy corporations and the 1%.”)

[Mo]

I'm starting to get the feeling that the 2020 primary race is going to be a (recumbent) pissing contest about who can make the craziest promise.

Thank Yahweh that we’ll finally have some normalcy back then.

[Aresen]

I can’t really process this level of horribleness



(“The average tax refund is down about $170 compared to last year. Let’s call the President’s tax cut what it is: a middle-class tax hike to line the pockets of already wealthy corporations and the 1%.”)

It's a little late for 'Opposite Day', isn't it?

[Jadagul]

I can’t really process this level of horribleness



(“The average tax refund is down about $170 compared to last year. Let’s call the President’s tax cut what it is: a middle-class tax hike to line the pockets of already wealthy corporations and the 1%.”)

It's a little late for 'Opposite Day', isn't it?

So which thing are y'all complaining about?

Harris is complaining that tax refunds are smaller than they were last year, and thus claiming that people are paying more taxes.

Now, this isn't quite true. The IRS changed the way it does withholding, so on average taxpayers got more in their paychecks and are now getting smaller refunds. But people are bad at tracking that sort of thing, so people are incorrectly believing their taxes went up.

It's an easy mistake to make. Harris should know better, but it's plausible she doesn't. It's also plausible she does. But either way this isn't, like, an extreme level of horribleness in politics.

[Aresen]

Except she is calling a tax cut a tax hike and she should know better.

[Ellie]

Except she is calling a tax cut a tax hike and she should know better.

Well, she said a "middle-class tax hike" which I assume means the middle class (however you define THAT) are paying more taxes. Am I being very obtuse about something here? I hate her a lot, but I don't hate this tweet.

Edited to add: unless we're just hating this tweet because she said it, which as someone who will die on the hill of mocking AOC and her apartment woes, I can get behind

[Eric the .5b]

So, the tweet is misleading, but we shouldn't mind that?

I mean, I expect her to be shitty in the way Blues are shitty, but why give her a free pass on what's probably a straight lie?

[Shem]

Now, this isn't quite true. The IRS changed the way it does withholding, so on average taxpayers got more in their paychecks and are now getting smaller refunds.

On purpose, even though most people who get them see it as free money day, and interfering with it was bound to cause far more outrage than the extra $20-40 per month in the check generated in approval. I'm beginning to think the inability of the GOP to craft a policy agenda with broad appeal is less "we focus on our base" and more "we don't actually understand what people like anymore."

Except she is calling a tax cut a tax hike and she should know better.

It was neither a tax cut nor a tax hike. It was a shift in withholding tables designed to increase take-home pay at the expense of yearly tax refunds.

[Jadagul]

Now, this isn't quite true. The IRS changed the way it does withholding, so on average taxpayers got more in their paychecks and are now getting smaller refunds.

On purpose, even though most people who get them see it as free money day, and interfering with it was bound to cause far more outrage than the extra $20-40 per month in the check generated in approval. I'm beginning to think the inability of the GOP to craft a policy agenda with broad appeal is less "we focus on our base" and more "we don't actually understand what people like anymore."

I see this as their dislike of withholding biting them in the butt. Historically, the Norquistites have really disliked withholding because it keeps people from being viscerally aware of how much tax they're paying.

They forgot that then, cutting withholding makes people feel like they're paying more tax, and so got a tax hike, even though they didn't.

Except she is calling a tax cut a tax hike and she should know better.

It was neither a tax cut nor a tax hike. It was a shift in withholding tables designed to increase take-home pay at the expense of yearly tax refunds.

The numbers I saw were something like 80% paid less total tax and 5% paid more total tax. There was a tax cut, there was a reduction of deductions, and there was the withholding change.

Most people are paying less tax, but many of them feel like they're paying more because it got added to the monthly paycheck rather than the refund.

So, the tweet is misleading, but we shouldn't mind that?

I mean, I expect her to be shitty in the way Blues are shitty, but why give her a free pass on what's probably a straight lie?

Not so much we shouldn't mid that, but I wanted to make sure people understood what she was saying and what was going on---I thought someone was suggesting that she was complaining about a tax cut, which isn't quite accurate.

[Jennifer]

Semi-related: when I was teaching, I remember, when you started a school year you had two payment options: basically, get paychecks once every two weeks only for the nine months-and-change of the school year, or get smaller paychecks every two weeks for an entire 52-week year including the next summer break. I of course took the nine-month option so I could put the "summer advance" income in the bank and make a few dollars in interest, but I was shocked to discover a LOT of my colleagues -- including many who were much older than me, and thus presumably wiser -- said they took the 12-month option, and I even recall one guy who asked me what I did for money in summer, without a paycheck!

[nicole]

I can’t really process this level of horribleness



(“The average tax refund is down about $170 compared to last year. Let’s call the President’s tax cut what it is: a middle-class tax hike to line the pockets of already wealthy corporations and the 1%.”)

It's a little late for 'Opposite Day', isn't it?

So which thing are y'all complaining about?

Harris is complaining that tax refunds are smaller than they were last year, and thus claiming that people are paying more taxes.

Now, this isn't quite true. The IRS changed the way it does withholding, so on average taxpayers got more in their paychecks and are now getting smaller refunds. But people are bad at tracking that sort of thing, so people are incorrectly believing their taxes went up.

It's an easy mistake to make. Harris should know better, but it's plausible she doesn't. It's also plausible she does. But either way this isn't, like, an extreme level of horribleness in politics.

My assumption is that she’s cynically playing to the widespread idiocy about this subject currently on social media and thus indirectly into the general population’s insane misapprehension about the nature of tax refunds. That is to say, she’s campaigning on fake news.