Donald Trump says he doesn’t benefit from his new tax cuts. But, of course, he does. Although there are many details of the plan yet to be written, the rich will clearly benefit greatly, the middle class will benefit modestly and the lower third will benefit hardly at all. Here’s the fact check on Trump’s claims. Via The New York Times.
Are the budget hawk Republicans ready to pass a tax cut that will blow up the deficit? It’s too soon to tell. There are so many details yet to be filled in. But one thing that seems clear is that the deficit doesn’t seem to matter so much to them any more. Via Vox.
From The National Review, Kevin D. Williamson disapproves of the fact that Trump’s tax plan allows for Congress to add a tax bracket for the ultra rich. Everyone, including Williamson, knows that would never happen. But someone has to worry that this plan isn’t friendly enough to rich people, and Williamson has volunteered for the job.
It may be a big ocean surrounding Puerto Rico, as Trump has said, but there’s more than a body of water separating the president from the 3.4 million American citizens who live there.
Puerto Rico wants the Jones Act — a previously obscure 1920 shipping law — suspended during the aftermath of Hurricane Maria. The shipping industry apparently doesn’t. This morning, the Trump administration gave Puerto Rico what it needs, a waiver of the act that goes into effect immediately. Via The New York Times
Matt Ford writes in The Atlantic that the consensus journalistic description of Alabama’s Roy Moore is “firebrand.” Of course, that hardly goes far enough to describe Moore, now the Republican nominee for an Alabama Senate seat. Extremist might be better, and even that might not go far enough.
E.J. Dionne: How Steve Bannon defeated Donald Trump in the Alabama Senate race and what it means to the Republican Party — and the nation. Via The Washington Post.
Neil Gorsuch, who famously testified there is no such thing as a Democratic judge or a Republican judge, just took a victory lap with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell. And now he’s giving a speech to a conservative group at Trump International Hotel. Unethical or just tone deaf? Via The Washington Post.
Hugh Hefner, who founded and embodied Playboy magazine, who fought for the sexual revolution and against the women’s revolution, whose stashed-under-the-mattress magazine centerfold was a rite of passage for generations of teenage males, whose Playboy bunnies were a sensation and then an anachronism, has died at age 91. Via The New York Times.
