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Topic:  Fifty Shades of Orange Writter:    Michelle Goldberg Publish Date:  22 December 2017 Published on :  The New york times Fifty Shades of Orange Michelle Goldberg At a televised cabinet meeting on Wednesday, Donald Trump, as is his custom, called on his appointees to publicly praise him. In a performance that would have embarrassed the most obsequious lackey of the North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, Vice President Mike Pence delivered an encomium to his boss, who sat across the table with arms folded over his chest, absorbing abasement as his due. “I want to thank you, Mr. President,” Pence said. “I want to thank you for speaking on behalf of and fighting every day for the forgotten men and women of America. Because of your determination, because of your leadership, the forgotten men and women of America are forgotten no more. And we are making America great again.” The president thanked him for his kind words, and Pence replie...

Topic:  If This Is America Writter:    Roger Cohen Publish Date:  22 December 2017 Published on :  The New york times If This Is America Roger Cohen If this is America, with a cabinet of terrorized toadies genuflecting to the Great Leader, a vice president offering a compliment every 12 seconds to Mussolini’s understudy, and a White House that believes in “alternative facts,” then it is time to “keep your head when all about you are losing theirs.” If this is America, where the Great Leader  threatens allies who do not fall in line ,  retweets the anti-Muslim racism of British fascists ,  insults the Muslim mayor of London ,  dreams up a terror attack in Sweden ,  invents a call from the Mexican president ,  claims the Russia story is a “total fabrication,”  then you will have to “bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools.” If this is America, less than a yea...

Topic:  How (Not) to Break an Election Tie Writter:    David Leonhardt Publish Date:  22 December 2017 Published on :  The New york times How (Not) to Break an Election Tie David Leonhardt Our country is bad at breaking ties. The overtime rules in both  hockey  and  football  are a mess. ( Here’s a better solution for football. ) Now comes word that the state of Virginia is going to decide an election — and, by extension, control of its Legislature, for goodness’ sake — by a random drawing. Election officials and judges have spent weeks scrutinizing ballots in the statehouse race, with the lead shifting between the Republican incumbent, David Yancey, and the Democratic challenger, Shelly Simonds. The Democrat seemed to have won on Tuesday, only to have a three-judge panel judge allow one disputed ballot ( a photo of which  was obtained by The Virginian Pilot on Wednesday) and create a tie. The two candidat...

Topic:  Tax Bill Hysteria Writter:    Bret Stephens Publish Date:  22 December 2017 Published on :  The New york times Tax Bill Hysteria Bret Stephens In case you haven’t heard, nearly all that’s good and pleasant in the world died this week. The tax bill passed. The bill has variously been described as “a disaster,” “one of the great robberies” of history, and a “massive attack” on the middle class — and that’s just Bernie Sanders.  Other critics say  it will explode the deficit, enrich the undeserving rich, immiserate the underserved poor, and ring a “death knell” for the sinking middle class. Nancy Pelosi calls it a “Frankenstein,” albeit one that will  return to kill its Republican creators . To which any G.O.P. political strategist would rejoin: Keep it up, folks. There are things genuinely to dislike in the tax bill. It raises taxes on too many people. It barely cuts the top income-tax rate. It doesn’t elimi...

Topic:  Republicans Despise the Working Class, Continued Writter:    Paul Krugman Publish Date:  20 December 2017 Published on :  The New york times Republicans Despise the Working Class, Continued Paul Krugman The GOP tax plan is remarkably unpopular. According to the  latest NBC poll , only 24% of the public thinks it’s a good idea; 63% believe that it’s mainly for the rich and corporations [editor: it is], while only 7% think it’s aimed at the middle class. Republicans think it will become more popular over time; that’s  not what happened  with previous tax cuts, and as  Drew Altman  of Kaiser Family Foundation notes, everyone – even Republicans – hates the idea of cutting major social programs to pay for tax cuts, which is exactly what the GOP plans to do. Photo How did they manage to produce this political lemon? Josh Barro argues that Republicans have forgotten  how to talk about tax cuts . B...

Topic:  When MeToo Goes Too Far Writter:    Bret Stephens Publish Date:  20 December 2017 Published on :  The New york times When MeToo Goes Too Far Bret Stephens Matt Damon  gave an interview to ABC News  last week in which he offered the following observation: “There’s a difference between, you know, patting someone on the butt and rape or child molestation, right? Both of those behaviors need to be confronted and eradicated without question, but they shouldn’t be conflated, right?” Crazy, right? Minnie Driver, Damon’s co-star in “Good Will Hunting,” thought so. “There is no hierarchy of abuse — that if a woman is raped [it] is much worse than if a woman has a penis exposed to her that she didn’t want or ask for,” she  told The Guardian . “You cannot tell those women that one is supposed to feel worse than the other.” Kirsten Gillibrand agrees: “I think when we start having to talk about the differences betwe...

Topic:  Trump’s National Security Strategy Is a Farce Writter:    Roger Cohen Publish Date:  19 December 2017 Published on :  The New york times Trump’s National Security Strategy Is a Farce The Trump Administration  has put out its new national security strategy . This is a farce. On any one issue, President Trump and his team have several contradictory positions. That’s what happens when your priority as president is to use foreign policy to throw red meat to your base while other cabinet members are scrambling to stop Armageddon. “It’s impossible to know what the United States position is on any number of subjects,” a European ambassador told me last week. “We could go sleepwalking into a war.” Let’s start with North Korea, whose small but growing nuclear arsenal is overseen by Kim Jong-un, a leader as volatile as Trump. Last week, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said the Trump Administration’s policy toward North Korea is “reall...

Topic:  The Corker Handout (not Kickback) Writter:    David Leonhardt Publish Date:  19 December 2017 Published on :  The New york times The Corker Handout (not Kickback) I tend to believe the more innocent explanation for Senator Bob Corker’s late vote switch on the tax bill. Yet I still find that explanation to be terribly damning. The less innocent explanation is that Corker changed his vote from no to yes last week because his colleagues inserted a real-estate provision that would personally benefit him. This notion led to the talk of a #CorkerKickback on social media. Corker insists that he hadn’t even been aware of the new provision when he announced his support, and a couple of his colleagues have backed him up, saying they asked for the new provision. So far, there is no evidence to the contrary. And there is another plausible explanation for the vote change: John McCain’s illness meant that Corker could become the decidin...