Flynn

Rational people on the left realize that impeachment isn't a reasonable goal, but instead they are focused on the 2018 elections.

1) because impeachment isn't going anywhere unless the Democrats get 67 seats in the Senate and that isn't going to happen.

2) *anything* causing Trump to leave office early (short of a heart attack) would just cause right wing media to go apesh*t.

The correct way to defeat Trump (or not) is at the ballot box.  If Mueller's investigation roots out some corruption in the meantime, so be it.

Agree as well.  The only unfortunate thing is according to my FB feed the rational people on the left are becoming a minority. 
It's really hard to say anything even slightly in support of Trump without getting attacked from every corner.

Some of that is people being purely over the top and emotional.  But others are tactical - trying to leverage the emotional people into actually showing up at a midterm election.  Which is something the Democrats traditionally have problems with.

People need to get it through their brains that Congress is where changes can really occur.

To the original post about Flynn, I've almost felt sorry for my liberal friends because they had a serious whiplash moment the other day.  ABCNews won the award for fake news of the year when they misrepresented that Flynn would testify Trump told him to contact the Russians during the campaign.  After seeing their report crashed the stock market, they issued a correction that he was instructed to contact the Russians (and several other world leaders) after the election and then the White House confirmed that they sought and received permission from the Obama administration for these contacts.  #oops

Another interesting thing I read was that Flynns plea deal was conditional on them prosecuting somebody else and there's starting to be a lot of pressure on the things Hillary was doing with Russia during the Obama administration.  I'm not entirely convinced that his investigation isn't going to go places where the Democrats are not going to like what he finds. 

Mueller gets a lot of mud slung his way, but so far I don't really have anything bad to say about what he's doing.

Yeah, there's definitely a lot of emotion out there.  I truly try to educate people when they're obviously wrong, but they're so wrapped up in the emotions of everything I can't get through.

Originally posted by Oysterboy Tony, I think you have to separate the vocal minority on the left from the majority who just shrug and go about their daily lives. I think the same can be said on the right, many continue to support him but are subdued given much of what has happened since he took office. The one thing I can say, as a left leaning centrist, he never even tried to garner my support. Never even tried, and this is reflected in this approval ratings. I will take my tax break, tho. . Thanks grandkids.

I know that everyone likes to talk about his approval ratings being low, but according to rasmussen he's been bouncing around the low to mid 40's for quite a while and that's exactly where he was when he won the election.  My support has done nothing but grown for him since he's been in office and all the Trump supporters I know couldn't be more happy with what he's doing.  I even have several 'never Trumper" friends who thought he was a democrat in sheeps clothing that wouldn't vote for him.  They're now more in love with him than I am because of what he's doing.

It really seems like the left and the media is judging Trump on the goofy things he says and tweets.  (yes I agree he does goofy crap there).
However, the Republican base and his supporters are judging him by what he's actually doing and it's amazing.

My prediction is that if the tax cut gets over the goal line with the 20% corp rate in tact, then the economy will explode in a way we haven't seen since the 90's and he will breeze through reelection in 2020 no matter who runs against him.  Even without the tax cuts, the economy and stock market have been booming.  It's going to be insane with the tax cuts.

Originally posted by Oysterboy

Originally posted by tuwood

Originally posted by Oysterboy Tony, I think you have to separate the vocal minority on the left from the majority who just shrug and go about their daily lives. I think the same can be said on the right, many continue to support him but are subdued given much of what has happened since he took office. The one thing I can say, as a left leaning centrist, he never even tried to garner my support. Never even tried, and this is reflected in this approval ratings. I will take my tax break, tho. . Thanks grandkids.

I know that everyone likes to talk about his approval ratings being low, but according to rasmussen he's been bouncing around the low to mid 40's for quite a while and that's exactly where he was when he won the election.  My support has done nothing but grown for him since he's been in office and all the Trump supporters I know couldn't be more happy with what he's doing.  I even have several 'never Trumper" friends who thought he was a democrat in sheeps clothing that wouldn't vote for him.  They're now more in love with him than I am because of what he's doing.

It really seems like the left and the media is judging Trump on the goofy things he says and tweets.  (yes I agree he does goofy crap there).
However, the Republican base and his supporters are judging him by what he's actually doing and it's amazing.

My prediction is that if the tax cut gets over the goal line with the 20% corp rate in tact, then the economy will explode in a way we haven't seen since the 90's and he will breeze through reelection in 2020 no matter who runs against him.  Even without the tax cuts, the economy and stock market have been booming.  It's going to be insane with the tax cuts.

... if you believe in trickle down dogma. We'll see. As for the other comments, travel to the blue states, not much love there. Pretty tired of the BS tweeting and puffery. Rasmussen? Might as well ask Sean Hannity to run the poll. Real numbers are in the mid-to-high 30's. https://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/other/president_trump_job_a...

No question his support is low in blue states, and I would honestly be shocked if it wasn't.  He's actually doing what he said he was going to. 

Rasmussen was the most accurate during the election while the majority of the rest were WAY off.  That's the only reason I use it.  Plus I figure he uses a consistent methodology and likely the same people each day.  In general though I take all polls with a BIG grain of salt.

It's not about trickle down or trickle up economics it's about putting more money back into the economy.  the personal tax cuts are basically going to put $2k+ back in the pockets of the majority of taxpaying Americans and the 15% corp tax cut will go directly to the bottom line of all profitable businesses.  All that money is going to go directly into the economy no matter where it enters at.
Remember, the government scrapes off a percentage of our money every time it changes hands.  Company earns money (government takes a cut) company pays employees (government takes a cut) employees earn money (government takes cut) employees spend money (government takes a cut) companies earn money ...
So by reducing taxes anywhere along that chain it keeps it in circulation for the economy versus taking it off the table.
There's no way the economy can't grow with the tax cut in place.  It's economically impossible.

I really believe if Mueller finds nothing on a particular individual, he'll flat out say "I found nothing, show's over, move on".  He seems very meticulous.  I like that he doesn't leak anything to the press.

I tend to agree, until I see anything otherwise.  I know there were a bunch of "leaks" early, but I don't think they were coming from his camp.

Uh oh, if the USA Today is wanting to move on then that means they don't like the direction things are going.  ;-)

I know that economists have said it won't, but I truly don't understand how they come to that conclusion.  Admittedly my economics experience comes from micro and macro economics in college and the real world so I'm not an academic by a long stretch.
However, for my business as an example we sell technology products to companies.  If these companies get an instantaneous bottom line increase of 15%, then they have 15% more money to invest in their business (or take for profit).  So for me, I see this as a massive boom for my business because companies will have more money to spend period.
Obviously if I sell more stuff, I make more money and would generally hire more people and with my own tax savings have more money to either invest in company growth or infrastructure, etc.  I know I'm describing trickle down economics, which many people for some inexplicable reason don't believe works but I truly don't understand how it cannot work.  The only way it wouldn't work is if every single person and company that got a tax break decided to stick the money in a mattress and not spend it on anything.

All that being said, I absolutely agree with you that we shall see how it works.  I'm in the camp that believes the Democrats know for certain this is going to work well because if it wasn't going to work well they'd be all for it.  If it hurts the working class as they're charging then Trump will have zero chance of reelection.  The majority of his base is working/middle class people with jobs that pay taxes.

I feel that even money being added only to the upper echelons helps people out because the money still has to go somewhere.  Stock buybacks takes money from the company and gives it to shareholders (they have to put it somewhere).  Big bonuses are typically spent on big ticket items like planes, yachts, vacations, etc. which all dump money into the economy and employ people.  I understand it's a bit of an academic discussion that's hard for either of us to prove so we both will find out.
I did do a little digging after a friend said that trickle down "never works" and I was curious myself to try and find examples of it working or not working.  What I concluded is that our economy is so convoluted with so many moving parts that it's next to impossible to tell unless the cuts are drastic.  The only example I could find then was during the Reagan tax cuts where he took the corporate tax rate from 46% to the current 35% and we all know what happened with the decade that followed them.  However, trying to be balanced it's still hard to say that the tax cuts led to the additional R&D that lead to the innovation that lead to the jobs and economic growth.  So even then it's hard to say definitively that it worked, but I can say that it's more likely than not that it didn't have a negative effect.

As for Trumps support, I can only really speak for myself and those in my friend circle who also like him.  The quirkiness that the left attacks him for is a something we actually like.  I LOVE that he attacks the media when they lie, I LOVE that he calls people out when they try to slander or libel him.  We've been sick and tired of Republicans taking the high road and just getting pummeled in the public square for decades and have dreamed of a fighter like Trump.  So, it's not at all that his quirkiness needs to be overridden.  It's a core aspect of his support, IMHO
If you go to sites that are pro trump such as reddit.com/r/The_Donald you'll see that he's a legend because of his "sh** posting".  Basically it's a subtle form of trolling ones adversaries that is monumentally effective on social media and among younger generations.  Everybody thinks he's an unhinged lunatic, but I feel it's quite deliberate and helps him grow his support among younger demographics.

Because they forgot about the spending cuts that are supposed to go along with their tax cuts, so now there's multiple reports that have concluded it will add over a trillion dollars to the national debt.  And that's assuming we don't end up in a war with Rocket Man. 

Wasn't that long ago when Obama was running up the deficit and debt that the GOP was preaching balanced budgets and fiscal responsibility. Weird how that went out the window when they came into power.