Yeah, literally any text change is “significant” enough to warrant a re-vote. The actual changes weren’t huge – they killed a provision that would have let parents use (tax-deductible) 529 savings plans to pay for private and home schooling, and one that would have exempted precisely one college from taxes on its endowment.
I view my current state as New York’s little brother.
Good on ya little guy.
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My state (Massachusetts) hasn’t gone as far as NY and CT with regards to net neutrality, but it is one of the states suing the FCC over their decision to end net neutrality.
Classic case of “he got off on a technicality” here. Unfortunately, if it’s up to Congress, it’s probably not going to get done unless there is a major shift in 2018.
Considering that the entirety of the case was trying to get him on a constitutional technicality it makes sense to get dismissed on one.
This long, detailed investigative report about Kentucky proto-Trump Danny Johnson was so good it made him suck down a bullet! Let’s hope more are like it to come in 2018.
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Also…
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I went the entirety of 2017 without intentionally hearing the voice of Donald Trump or watching video of him. As soon his face would show up on a video I’d switch it off or skip forward. Blocking him on Twitter stopped a lot of the retweets showing up, but some slip through as screen shots and things like that.
I hope to continue this Trump-Stress-Reduction measure in 2018. It certainly feels like it helped in 2017!
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If you ever wanted to know what the dumb English sounds like, here’s a sample.
So believe it or not I know jack shit about Stalinist Russia outside of the War and a little bit about chasing out Trotsky. Is this an accurate comparison to make?
My motto is: Britain for the Britons. We should kick out all those Anglo-Saxons, Normans, and Franks, and change the official language to Cornish.
Actually, why stop there? The notion of a unified England is itself a form of globalism. Why should the good people of Mercia be ruled by a government in Essex?
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Nope. Lazy nonsense
That’s no more helpful a comment.
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Yes and no. Obviously, Trump isn’t reaching Stalin’s level, since Stalin was head of a violent, borderline dictatorial regime, and people obeyed as much through fear as ideological agreement. And obviously, Trump obviously doesn’t follow Marxism-Leninism, or even Stalinism, nor is he dissapearing people in the middle of the night, airbrushing them out of photos, and pretending they never existed.
However, it’s useful and reasonably accurate as an evocative comparison, since some of Trump’s actions - like, for example, trying to ban government organizations from saying particular words, declaring groups or individuals to be an “Enemy of the people”, the clear hatred of the free press, the turning on allies as if they were long hated enemies and denigrating them as wreckers when they fall out of ideological line, trying to erase their contributions to the situation. It’s not a 1:1, but there’s certainly plenty of places you can draw similarities.
It’s definitely a very hyperbolic comparison, but not an inaccurate one. And definitely useful in the sense that Flake is looking for, which is to drive a wedge into the republicans, to try and lever them away from Trump. Because there’s two things that are pretty absolutely true about the republicans of today - their conception of socialism is stuck in the Stalin-era borderline dictatorial USSR(usually through willful ignorance), and the only thing they hate more than everything Trump is is that conception of socialism. Flake is probably caring more about that, than any real factual accuracy, but it’s still not the worst comparison you could make.
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That was what I was thinking but then I tried to source those thoughts and came up blank. That’s my problem with Flake’s statement, I want to agree with it, but Flake has no more credibility in Soviet operations than I do.
What my dad observed was that within the confines of Trump’s war with the Press, Flake’s comparison is true in spirit but wouldn’t be taken seriously by any academic due to the differences between the state of the Press that was in Stalin’s (and Lenin’s) Russia versus Trump’s America. There exists a major force of opposition in the newspapers in America, which was not the case even at the advent of Soviet rule. Stalin’s actions did not and would not have demolished an existing free press, but rather prevented one from being established… Trump is starting in a completely different premise.
I agree. The comparison was more accidentally apt, than a thoughtful examination of similarities. The fact that he actually made a semi-accurate comparison is more coincidence than clear thought.
Of course not. Any half-decent academic would note the comparisons, and then note the many, many points of difference, and laugh it out of the building as an academic comment. But we both know he’s not trying to talk to academics, or making any play at authority, he’s trying to wield the cold-war era red menace as a blunt instrument to scare his party away from someone he sees as a harmful influence. He doesn’t care what academics think - he just cares what republicans think, and is trying to use one of the things that they’re filling-their-trousers terrified of to do it.
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If there is no substance then whatever. It is lazy cold war sloganeering that the Republican party has been using for decades. Even as far as comparisons to it is a fairly bland one. Not every bit of bile that comes out of an American politician’s mouth needs to be engaged with. 99% of the time you miss nothing.