2025 Political Thread

[UpperLevelLOL]

I don't need an archive link. I'm a long time subscriber to the Washington Post. I read the article two days ago when it came out.

I'm not downplaying anything. I'm saying your conclusion isn't supported by sufficient evidence. The onus is NOT on me to prove the IRS' analysis is wrong or right. I am pointing out that your statement (which was an absolute declaration) is not in alignment with the evidence presented. Even the WaPo headline was significantly less conclusive -- and, the article itself quoted several independent experts who were dubious of such a sharp drop in tax revenue collection.

I worked in the tax industry for years and was the responsible official for dozens of EFINs that filed thousands of tax returns a year. Yes, I think the IRS is regularly wrong in their projections.

The IRS' own numbers showed returns filed are only down 1.7%. Filed returns is a number I'm very familiar with. There is often fairly significant variability year to year with tax returns filed by a given date. It is something we monitored very closely to compare our return numbers locally, regionally, and nationally to the IRS numbers.

Holidays, weather, natural disasters, the economy, and when April 15th actually falls all have measurable impact on tax returns filed by a given date. Projecting tax receipts is an even more opaque process. If the IRS numbers still show a sharp drop in revenue a few days after quarterly payments are due then I'd be more inclined to trust their dire prediction.

As far as IRS methodologies and inconsistencies are concerned -- have you spent years working with the IRS? Because if you had -- you'd be echoing exactly what I'm saying. There are some excellent people at the IRS, and it is an incredibly difficult agency to operate, but they frequently get things badly wrong. I am completely opposed to the DOGE cuts at the IRS -- in fact, I think the IRS should be adding significant headcount instead of seeing any RIF (outside of those let go for true performance issues), but, again, that has nothing to do with the fact that your absolute statement is unsupported by the evidence presented.

That is as thorough and well-backed takedown as I've seen in a while. Thank you for your input and perspective, I will definitely be changing my opinion on this based on your feedback.

 

[Evan]

Gift link to the Atlantic article on Trump's cabinet accidentally leaking classified war plans to a journalist in realtime:

The Trump Administration Accidentally Texted Me Its War Plans

U.S. national-security leaders included me in a group chat about upcoming military strikes in Yemen. I didn’t think it could be real. Then the bombs started falling.

www.theatlantic.com

 

[Evan]

That is as thorough and well-backed takedown as I've seen in a while. Thank you for your input and perspective, I will definitely be changing my opinion on this based on your feedback.

Please understand that I'm not saying the IRS analysis can't be true or that there aren't serious issues at the agency due to the DOGE cuts. My point is very narrow: an internal tax collection projection is being presented as absolute, and, consequently, used to say that staffing cuts are the primary reason for collection revenue being projected much lower than anticipated.

My argument is that the analysis is quite premature and there's a plethora of things that impact the collection of tax revenue. I think the DOGE cuts to the IRS are illogical and will have an impact on tax collection, however, we need concrete proof of that before making claims that the administration can easily bat away (as they did in the WaPo article).

 

[UpperLevelLOL]

Gift link to the Atlantic article on Trump's cabinet accidentally leaking classified war plans to a journalist in realtime:

The Trump Administration Accidentally Texted Me Its War Plans

U.S. national-security leaders included me in a group chat about upcoming military strikes in Yemen. I didn’t think it could be real. Then the bombs started falling.

www.theatlantic.com

This really is one of the dumbest things an administration has done in a while. In normal times this would lead to the resignation of the SecDef and an immediate investigation. Of course these aren’t normal times so who knows what’ll happen.

 

[TVILLE96]

This really is one of the dumbest things an administration has done in a while. In normal times this would lead to the resignation of the SecDef and an immediate investigation. Of course these aren’t normal times so who knows what’ll happen.

supposedly from the same reporter who spread all the other false stories. Its being mocked on conservative news.

 

[UpperLevelLOL]

supposedly from the same reporter who spread all the other false stories. Its being mocked on conservative news.

I don’t know what you think is fake here. The leak was confirmed by the National Security Council, numerous lawmakers on both sides of the aisle, and numerous media outlets, including Fox News. I’m not surprised that conservative news outlets are trying to downplay the absolute buffoonery that went on here. If your partisanship is so severe that you can’t admit when the party you support made a rather large mistake, it might be time to step back and think about who is controlling whom.

 

[TH2002]

This really is one of the dumbest things an administration has done in a while. In normal times this would lead to the resignation of the SecDef and an immediate investigation. Of course these aren’t normal times so who knows what’ll happen.

What would have been even funnier is if the administration’s officials had added some completely random dude to the text chain instead of a well-established reporter. That would have been hilarious lol

 

[bjdeming]

Gift link to the Atlantic article on Trump's cabinet accidentally leaking classified war plans to a journalist in realtime:

The Trump Administration Accidentally Texted Me Its War Plans

U.S. national-security leaders included me in a group chat about upcoming military strikes in Yemen. I didn’t think it could be real. Then the bombs started falling.

www.theatlantic.com

That's Pulitzer-level and textbook-worthy reporting -- they mistakenly included one of the best journalists around. Which makes me wonder happily whether it was a mistake -- happily because such an intentional (though secret and, hopefully for the person involved, deniable) inclusion, if that's what it was, would mean that at least some folks with heft in the Trumpeteer stronghold still have their head screwed on straight.

 

[bjdeming]

<Full on tinfoil mode> An unhappier thought: Can't exclude Mr. Trump himself among the possible game-players. He's notoriously harsh on subordinates and plays abusive tricks on them; he certainly has the needed heft; and I wasn't kidding when I said I think he's demented and Elon's off his meds.

It's not the same Trump now that I saw from 2016 to, say, late 2019. It is more like the 2020 Trump that got me so frustrated about the COVID checks by telling Minchkin (and therefore the public) one thing and doing another, dragging it out as long as possible before the payout and making Minchkin look like a fool.

And his legal travails out of office since then would have been tough on someone half his age, quite apart from getting winged by a bullet at a pre-election rally.

This flood of executive orders after inauguration, while fairly rational if not reasonable in execution, could conceivably be described as expressions of some sort of oppositional defiance simply because of their number and shock value.

But then, once you get into that field, it's possible to make all sorts of hay.

Still, I suggest that there's a small chance that our current president -- may he be the last of the Boomers with such power! -- might be crazy as well as demented and that nobody who just rode him to the top of the DC feeding chain dares to say it.

This Signal mess is much more serious, of course, not to mention a Trump-self-defeating thing if that hypothesis is even close, and I do prefer the "invisible helper" notion. However, consider Trump's muted response to this and what heck he would be expected to raise, if some subordinate had played such a trick on his top people.

And I can't rule out the Murphy law to never attribute to malice what can adequately be explained by stupidity.

It's just a theory, and one from the Oort cloud, too. Laugh away, but it explains the otherwise inexplicable silence around the whole question of who invited the journalist and made him invisible to the group -- all of them power groupies who would have asked who JG was if they could see that group member. </full on tinfoil mode>

 

[andyhb]

This whole scandal is just absolutely insane. The mental gymnastics Trump's minions are going through to justify it are pathetic.

 

[UpperLevelLOL]

That's Pulitzer-level and textbook-worthy reporting -- they mistakenly included one of the best journalists around. Which makes me wonder happily whether it was a mistake -- happily because such an intentional (though secret and, hopefully for the person involved, deniable) inclusion, if that's what it was, would mean that at least some folks with heft in the Trumpeteer stronghold still have their head screwed on straight.

It was definitely a mistake. They meant to add a member of the National Security Council with the same JG initials (Jamieson Greer) but added the reporter instead. Just straight up incompetence and reckless endangering of our soldiers, sailors, and aviators.

 

[Evan]

This whole scandal is just absolutely insane. The mental gymnastics Trump's minions are going through to justify it are pathetic.

The particularly galling part is they spent the last few weeks making threats about prosecuting people for leaking classified information. They even claimed the existence of Elon's meeting at the Pentagon was classified and that they were going to find the leaker and prosecute them.

At the same time, Rubio and Gabbard were invoking the state secrets privilege in Federal Court vis-a-vis immigration removals, they were participating in Signal group discussing sensitive and classified military information.

Just now it came out that the most transparent administration in history is removing the ability for the public to see a lot of OMB spending data:

White House scraps public spending database - Roll Call

The White House budget office has taken down a website where approvals of funding provided in appropriations laws are required to be posted.

rollcall.com

As a voter, I simply want competence and good governance. The Biden administration had a number of major flaws as well, including missteps like Austin going incommunicado due to surgery complications, and as a voter I'm fed up with all of it. I truly think one of the issues is that bipartisan cooperation is now just completely gone.

Both this administration and the last are absolutely unwilling to acknowledge mistakes because the opposition party in Congress will simply use it to make political hay. Congress no longer has the bipartisan concensus to hold the Executive branch accountable irrespective of which party holds the Presidency. Now, things are purely a team sport, and Congress largely runs interference for whichever side they happen to be on.

I've said it repeatedly in the past, however, not having additional strong parties in Washington is one of the primary reasons why Congress has become so partisan and ineffective. Parliamentary style governments that have to cobble together coalitions are unable to play these kinds of games. There's no reason why our own Congress is limited to two sclerotic and uncompromising groups of sanctimonious cowards who only know how to campaign. They have completely abdicated broad chunks of their own power to other branches of the government, and their idea of "legislating" is passing a couple of massive catch-all bills every few months (if even).

Ultimately, we the voters are responsible for this mess -- until we decide we've had enough of it, this kind of absurd governance is going to continue.

 

[UpperLevelLOL]

Agreed with all the above. If we the people can’t call out mistakes that our leaders make, regardless of the letter next to their name, then we have pretty much lost control of the government. In my opinion, Austin should’ve been fired for going incommunicado for so long. Meanwhile, with this recent fiasco, I think Hegseth, waltz should be the ones to go at the least. When you read the actual texts (which you can find here) it’s very clear that American aviators and sailors were put at risk. Especially since one of the people in the chat room was in Russia, using an unsecure communication platform.

 

[Mike S]

Whenever Trump is making me feel blue, I go watch a Kamala video then remind myself that we truly did not have a viable candidate.

 

[andyhb]

Whenever Trump is making me feel blue, I go watch a Kamala video then remind myself that we truly did not have a viable candidate.

Would she have attempted to dismantle civil services and "remove waste" in all of the wrong places? No.

 

[Jacob]

Whenever Trump is making me feel blue, I go watch a Kamala video then remind myself that we truly did not have a viable candidate.

Makes me frustrated that the primaries played out like they did.

Arguing over who sucks less has gotten stale.

 

[Mike S]

Would she have attempted to dismantle civil services and "remove waste" in all of the wrong places? No.

Maybe not, but she would have tried to implement many of the policies she ran on. She wouldn't have done anything different than Biden (her words, more or less). She was dumber than a bag of hammers. She would have continued to try and tax and spend us into prosperity, which hasn't worked. I could go on, but it doesn't matter.

 

[maroonedinhsv]

Maybe not, but she would have tried to implement many of the policies she ran on. She wouldn't have done anything different than Biden (her words, more or less). She was dumber than a bag of hammers. She would have continued to try and tax and spend us into prosperity, which hasn't worked. I could go on, but it doesn't matter.

I’m gonna need blountwolf to chime in here, as I’m unsure how a bag of hammers compares to a sack full of hammers.

 

[bjdeming]

As for primaries, I don't know. Gov. DeSantis now sounds like a copycat with his calls for DOGE-like cuts in Florida and willingness to have Florida police do immigeation work, too.

And Haley's strong call for her supporters to back Trump doesn't sit very well these days.

As for one of Evan's excellent points, we voters can only make decisions based on the information we have, and that is becoming more available as the Fourth Estate FINALLY seems to be emerging from the coma it's been in since at least the 90s.

This might be as much due to frustration with Democrat spinelessness (the (D) branch of the Oligarch Party, basically) as it is with bias against Republicans and TDS -- we're way beyond all that now, after all, and truly, I think, facing a deniable coup attempt fronted by a man six years older than me whose psychological and cognitive states I really do wonder about, all tinfoil aside.

It's wonderful to see, this new journalism awakening in response to that concern.

For instance, the Trumpeteers don't seem to understand how bad they're painting themselves by smearing the Atlantic article -- a masterpiece of professional journalism -- and its writer with grade-school playground name-calling.

For another, there's Wired.com. As I understand it, they started with a simple idea of a series about the tech backgrounds of people working for Musk, were shocked by what they found, started digging more deeply, and now are doing work like this (the article linked in the last thread post is my favorite):

 

[Jacob]

As for primaries, I don't know. Gov. DeSantis now sounds like a copycat with his calls for DOGE-like cuts in Florida and willingness to have Florida police do immigeation work, too.

I already like DeSantis, you don’t have to keep convincing me! Heh

DOGE, the concept, is badly needed across every segment of government. Given how DeSantis has governed I’d be surprised if his cuts in Florida were as hap-hazard as the Trump administration’s have been. I admittedly haven’t looked into it though because I’m largely off social media as, despite my few posts here, I’ve made more of an effort the last few years to tune out politics as much as I can.