Trump et al are so dumb that the real story here could be the clumsy way this was leaked. Still, no one will care.

I'm feeling like emoluments in general might be a better tack than Russia.

Sadly I'm feeling like cheeseburgers and KFC are the best hope for the republic at this point.

It's just bizarre reading people itt wonder why Trump is attacking the free press

Why would he pull off this stunt to undermine media legitimacy... NOW?! Must be desperate, something big must be coming!

They are clearly sparring with the press, but this is likely trumps biggest secret since the primaries. They wouldn't leak it for no reason. They are 50 days in and no political capital to pull off anything. I think the ban 2.0 court ruling might be coming up soon.

They have a lot of political capital. They aren't even spending any on things like Obamacare. It's all going towards attacking the legitimacy of the press, the judicial system, the legislature, and "reorganizing"/consolidating the executive

Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmm

I saw a Washington Post article refer to "RyanCare." Granted it was in quotes, but that's just one step away from becoming the unofficial name. We can't let this happen. Use "Trumpcare" every time. He owns this. If your Facebook friends try to pull "RyanCare," correct them and post that Trump tweet where he calls it "our wonderful new healthcare bill."

What political capital do they have? That's the one thing that make me somewhat calm. The administration makes enemies with everyone whose title isn't CEO and even then favoritism is so obvious it leaves other ceos salty. Especially congress critters. Good luck getting anything done that way. Lol.

You're describing ways de facto power might be limited (but so far it's continued to prove less limited than people say)

But de jure power of the office is at an all time high, and that's not even getting into the power weilded by his sycophants in agencies like ice and cbp. And the citizenry aching for autocracy

Most of Republicans are terrified of Trump's Twitter and Bannon stirring up trouble among the deplorables they depend on for electoral reasons. They may not have the political capital to bend the totality of federal government to its will yet but they likely are already influence law enforcement like CBP, and simply being able to bully everyone is definitely an extent, quantifiable form of political capital.

Yeah, 1/3 of the population hanging on every tweet, and incapable of turning against Trump or thinking "maybe this time he's not 100% right" is huge de facto capital/power.

Countless times during the election and after the inauguration, GOP Congresscritters are like "that's it, done carrying his water" and then 24 hours later, they pretend that never happened, because a Trump tweet or statement just wrecked half their base

They are ignoring the protests, which is going to tie up institutions and legislatures. So they are going to have rule by executive order, which will be a narrow and extremely lonely path. Get used to getting everything questioned and challenged.

The WH simply think they can just undo the whole government without experience, but what they don't realize is that government is actually only as powerful as the enforcement agencies, which are there to empower the executive branch. Destroying them only makes the administration weaker.

Theres only one agency not on trump's bad side yet, and that's CBP, and somehow I think the chances of a Supreme Court case against are pretty decent in the next four years.

Of course it's TrumpCare. The GOP had no problems changing the ACA to ObamaCare for political purposes, and Trump put himself out there with this by making yuge promises and actually endorsing this bill. It's TrumpCare.

So he can continue to endorse this ****ty TrumpCare bill that will either fail or piss a lot of voters off, or slink away from it and get called out for it.

TrumpCare

One of the ultimately minor but telling symptoms of how ****ed we are is that the Republicans, deplorables, et al are in full-throated pride over how great American Donald Trump charitably paid a 25% effective rate out of the goodness of his heart and this just proves how over taxed we are, 38 million, I mean the Trump children probably barely ate in 2005, we really have to do something about this.

Now that in and of itself is problematic that the reflexive reaction to a 25% effective rate is a revulsion that taxes exist, but there's even a deeper problem. Yet again this gets to my point a few days ago about meta messaging. Today Democrats are tripping over themselves to explain the meaning of this, if there is any: it's a distraction from Russia! Or healthcare! Or it puts taxes back into the spotlight. Or it shows Trump's duplicitous 12D chess game where he leaked these on purpose! Or something or other, will some journalist go get the rest of his taxes so we can explain this to people, America is waiting, DO YOUR JOBS MEDIA, kthx, bye. One alternate would again be to tell Americans you tax the rich like twice as much as Trump is actually taxed at the level rich bozos whine about but never actually pay and they would probably be just fine, because right now they still have skyscrapers in Manhattan and private jets despite claims taxes impoverish them. But I guess that's socialism or something, I dunno. I'm not saying my way is the best and I get that 12 hours after a rather tepid reveal, you can't expect much organization on message.

So I'm not suggesting anyone failed recently. It's a long-term sort of failure. Because contrast the left with the right, who just declare taxes are too high, the end. And that just comes naturally to them. It's just a reflex. That's the marvelous thing about the right, and it's a credit to them much as we loathe it: they have these reflexive, neat frames for everything that are impervious to facts and context. I mean that slightly sardonically, but the left would be good to remember inculcating a reflexive way to interpret news and events and give people a coherent worldview is actually one of the core purposes of an ideology.

Why not call it TrumpRyanCare so both are beyond redemption when it fails?

Right. I think some people hear 'political capital' and they instinctively assume we mean the kind of capital you would use to achieve pluralistic outcomes to achieve some great bargain that gets something done which satisfies the greatest number of people. I understand that, it's an ideal. Trump obviously has very little of that kind of political capital.

Instead, he's got tons of power to control the whims of tens of millions of people with almost no effort beyond the calories he burns tweeting. Or to set the agenda by getting Bannon to talk to Brietbart to publish whatever that sets their army of mouthbreathers loose on everyone.

That is a different form of political capital but you can quantify it and Trump's stores of it are vast.

Also to square my two recent posts, in a bit of synchronicity: Trump's political power is on the back of right wing revanchist, grievance ideological prowess. It's a testament to their ideological success. That is, angry whites have been so primed by various triggers and dogwhistles and ideas laid out over a generation of Fox News and AM radio that they can all converse and collectively act with very, very little cost. One of the very underappreciated forms of Trump political capital then is what we're describing: his use of twitter and how it basically controls his legions of idiots. It's just a huge benefit and underappreciated. Well, I think we all recognize how he uses twitter, but then don't take the next step and give credit to the right-wing project for providing all of the underlying capital. In typical Trump fashion, his success rests on the hard work of generations of priming-the-pump of these morons by right-wingers and scamsters and whoever else.

When the left talks among themselves, there's a huge, drastic underlying cost to get all of us on the same page and saying the same things and reaching people in coherent and intuitive ways.

Trump can just trigger on things like "voter fraud" and "Obamacare" and have a frame for darkies on buses voting dozens of times all across America or black people getting free goodies. By ceding so much ideological ground to the right since the late 60s or whatever, the left really has no equivalent way to take a news event and get us all saying things coherently and simply.

Too complicated. Many Americans don't know who Ryan is, gives fans of one an out to say it sucks because of the other guy, etc. Voters in Ryan's district will certainly be aware of his role in this bill when they head to the ballot box, so not much can be gained by adding his name.

If you're gonna go this route, better to call it Republicare. I still prefer Trumpcare, max effectiveness imo.

Because Ryan is small potatoes compared to Trump. Ryan could email dick pics to his entire contact list today, and all you'll get for it are a bunch of new jokes on late night TV and a new Speaker, with Ryan faded away and largely forgotten by the next election. All things considered I like him right where he is - he's certainly experienced, a reasonable approximation of a Republican, and yet seems to be on the outs with both Trump and the fringier elements of the right.

The buck stops with POTUS on this, not some easily replaceable Rep.

That's what is going to happen anyway. Trump will blame any failure on Ryan or the GOP in general. Maybe going with a hyphenated name will make it a joined project of the two where neither can shed the blame.

He will, but that's a great reason to call it Trumpcare. "Trump tries to disown Trumpcare," that's just good messaging.

This was TERRIBLE reporting. Don't pretend you have a smoking gun, when you don't have one.

By running this story she ensures that the world will NOT get the information it wants. He will not release another tax return now and can easily fall back on "we all saw that I pay tens of millions in taxes every year. I pay my fair share of taxes, believe me."

By running this story she cemented that the official Trump Tax Return story becomes the most favorable story to Trump out of all imaginable outcomes.

She was not being a good journalist by breaking this story. It was a pathetic ratings grab and a complete misfire on what was intended to be BAD and misleading journalism.

Yesterday I get about 5 alerts on my phone including one from the WSJ about TRUMP and taxes. Today it is pretty much a non story with little follow up, kind of an embarrasment for people reporting on this. When DVaut1 mentions right wing dog whistles, clearly the left wing has some dog whistles that gets them spun up.

They have no obligation to run the story immediately. They can sit on it while building an actual story around it (i.e. pushing for more returns other than the one year 12 years ago that likely paints him in the most favorable light possible given the source.)

It would require her to actually be a reporter rather than just get something that will bring ratings and immediately tweet about it and air it.

What would you expect to find in TRUMP tax returns that is so damaging? Keep in mind that he has lawyers and accountants that help him stay on the right side of the law. Also keep in mind that he almost surely has been audited more than once by the IRS.

The fact that he is not releasing them, means there is a very good likelihood that something is there