Some Guy wrote on Nov 22
nd, 2017 at 6:28am:
The revolution will be typewritten.
< -------------- Some Guy ..... ?! ...... !!!!! :
https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-republicans-donner-party-1508970431" The Republicans’ Donner Party "
" Advice for the tender: Do not let yourself be blown over by Donald Trump’s tweets. "
By Daniel Henninger
" We are in the foothills of the same tax mountains that Congress crossed on the way to tax reform in the 1960s and 1980s, and the Republicans are starting to sound like members of the Donner Party in 1846. Overwhelmed by snowstorms in the Sierra Nevadas, some in the feuding Donner Party’s wagon train ate the dead to survive. History regards them with ambivalence.
As of this hour, the distinguished senator from Tennessee, Bob Corker, was last seen on television saying he would never vote for Donald Trump again, and the nation’s president was counter-tweeted that Mr. Corker “couldn’t get elected dogcatcher,” an insult not only to Mr. Corker but to dogcatchers, who I’d guess are part of Mr. Trump’s base.
That morning spat under his belt, Mr. Trump traveled later to Capitol Hill for lunch with Senate Republicans. Thirty minutes later, Arizona GOP Sen. Jeff Flake stood on the Senate floor and delivered his cri de coeur about not wanting to be “complicit” in a long bill of particulars having to do with the “degradation of our politics.”
Welcome to the club, Mr. Flake, and further congratulations for rediscovering the wheel.
It’s no news that Mr. Trump’s goal in life is to be the whip-snapping lion tamer of his own circus, that the Beltway press is happy to perform their roles, or that CNN will give Mr. Corker a perch to snarl at the man with the whip. And one more thing: Hard as it is for some to absorb, it’s no longer news that in 2016 more than 60 million Americans voluntarily voted the lion tamer into the U.S. presidency after watching him perform his act in public for more than 16 months.
His opponent was Hillary Clinton, whose campaign, along with the Democratic National Committee, was revealed this week to have paid for the opposition research of Fusion GPS, which produced the salacious dossier filled with kompromat—compromising info—about Mr. Trump, such as allegedly hiring Russian hookers in Moscow to defile a bed. Somehow, the dossier leaked.
No less than the revered FBI was “complicit” in this fantastic dossier gambit by continuing its own relationship with Christopher Steele, the former spy who produced the document.
So who could disagree with Sen. Flake? Politics still ain’t beanbag.
The press is now writing that Republicans face a “dilemma”—whether to join the Corker-Flake ring or remain “silent” in the interests of “job security.”
Mitch McConnell has become Washington’s own Solomon, routinely expected to decide which half of the baby to sacrifice and which to save. On Tuesday he said: “We’re going to concentrate on what our agenda is and not any of these other distractions that you all may be interested in,” describing that as “a lot of noise.”
Mr. McConnell could write a book about maintaining policy focus under political pressure. Here’s an analogy: When the Spanish explorers were hacking their way across 16th-century America, they encountered swamps, arrows, biting bugs and poisonous snakes. That’s Trump’s Washington, and those who can’t handle swamp life really should turn back and write their memoirs.
Though the Trumpian gulfs may wash us down, as a poet once wrote, the rest of us unable to quit or carp have to press forward. And so it is with the real business of the moment—the tax-reform bill.
The press meticulously reports instances of Republican pants-wetting as they take on the tax rewrite. Rumors abound—that the GOP has already caved to blue-state colleagues on eliminating the egregious state and local tax deduction, or that the bill will add a fourth marginal tax bracket to punish “the wealthy.”
Then word leaked of a possible limit on annual 401(k) contributions, and responding to these vapors, the president tweeted “There will be NO change in your 401(k).”
Those who remain confused about how Washington works in reality should pay attention to what Ways and Means Chairman Kevin Brady, the House’s tax-writing chief, did Wednesday.
He said, matter-of-factly, that adjustments to the treatment of 401(k)s are still on the table. “We are continuing discussions with the president,” Mr. Brady said.
Translation for sensitive political types: Do not let yourself be blown over by Mr. Trump’s tweets. Do not make a mountain out of every Trumpian tweetful.
Opinions vary on whether Mr. Trump’s attacks on fellow Republicans are impolitic or unappreciated genius. I
t isn’t genius. Lyndon Johnson and Bill Clinton raged volcanically inside the White House at opponents while embracing the honorable gentlemen in public. They knew that subjecting a senator to public insults will produce payback later on a policy or bill the president dearly wants. Let us end on optimism, if not sweet reason. Permanently cutting the public’s taxes heals all wounds. Donald Trump and Bob Corker will discover that truth the day they make possible the president’s signature on the Tax Reform Act of 2018. "