Reddit Politics Summary Saturday Nov 4th 17

What is this?

This is a digest of the top posts on reddit/r/politics over the last 24 hours.
Once a day my bot wakes up and summarizes each post and puts this message into steem. If you like it please vote :)

George W. Bush: ‘I’m worried that I will be the last Republican president’

thumbnail
(33455) (comments)

Trump is a ‘Blowhard,’ ‘I don’t like him’ and I voted for Hillary, George Bush says in new book

thumbnail
(10738) (comments)

Updegrove for the book "The Last Republicans." It detailed the relationship between the father-and-son presidents and how they were fretful of what Trump had done to the Republican Party.
"I don’t like him," George Bush said in May 2016 according to a The New York Times on Saturday.
"If one Presidential candidate can disassemble a political party, it speaks volumes about how strong a legacy its past to presidents really had," the statement to CNN on Saturday read.

Trump’s tax cut is a big payday for his family: Heirs stand to save $600 million

thumbnail
(10385) (comments)

Proponents of repeal, like House Speaker Paul Ryan, claim that the estate tax hurts "family farms" and "small businesses." In fact, it affects only the wealthiest 0.2 percent of estates because it doesn’t even take effect until a couple has accumulated $11 million in net worth.
It is in some ways fitting, albeit sad, that a president who once remarked that the $1 million loan his father gave him to start his business was "a very small loan," and who borrowed tens of millions from his father after that, would want to repeal the estate tax.
We know this because at the same time the administration is proposing the repeal, it is alleging that the government can’t afford funding for Medicare, Medicaid, nutrition assistance for women, infants and children, grants for teacher training and affordable housing or medical research.

Good riddance to Rep. Lamar Smith, R-Texas, the most noxious climate change denier in Congress

thumbnail
(7513) (comments)

He dismissed the 2014 report by the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which stated that "human interference with the climate system is occurring" and causes negative "impacts on natural and human systems on all continents and across the oceans" as "nothing new" and "more political than scientific." Michael Hiltzik Big corporations are known for being two-faced — presenting a nurturing, maternal face to the outside world while ruthlessly pursuing profit on the inside. On the deadline day, Smith’s inbox was bare, except for messages from the attorneys general crisply advising him that his request was grossly out of line and, in fact, unconstitutional, since he was out to breach state sovereignty enshrined in the Bill of Rights.What really motivates Smith? As we’ve observed in the past, the attack on climate change research isn’t rooted so much in science but economics. During his subpoena campaign against Schneiderman and Healey, we asked, "How long does Lamar Smith intend to embarrass himself, his committee and Congress in this ridiculous quest to shut down investigations that could harm his patrons in the petroleum industry?" Finally, we have the answer: Until to the end of next year. Playing the role of Exxon Mobil’s marionette, Smith issued subpoenas to Eric Schneiderman and Maura Healey, the attorneys general of New York and Massachusetts, for documents of their contacts with climate activists, scientists and legal experts — among them former Vice President Al Gore and California billionaire Tom Steyer. From that perch, he’s harassed government officials, Earth scientists and other academics whose work refutes his position that the human role in climate change is a myth.On Thursday, Smith announced that he will be retiring when the congressional term, his 16th, ends in 2018. Lamar Smith to take a hike, November 2015 As chairman of the science committee, Smith waged a war on scientists, research administrators and even state officials whose offense was to establish the human role in climate change. Our generation and those that follow will be paying the price of obstructionism like his, into the limitless future.As we’ve observed, Smith’s credentials as a climate change denier long have been unassailable. That’s a problem, because he also has been serving as chairman of the House Committee on Science, Space and Technology, the last place where someone devoted to undermining scientific research belongs. He has used his congressional authority to try to shield big oil companies such as Exxon Mobil from accusations that they connived in undermining public understanding of the climate crisis. Surprise, surprise: If one adheres to the precept to "follow the money," one discovers that pantsfuls of it flow from the oil and gas industry into Smith’s campaign accounts.

Sally Yates on Trump calling for Justice Dept. to investigate Clinton: 'This must stop'

thumbnail
(5747) (comments)

I'm not supposed to be doing the kind of things that I would love to be doing and I'm very frustrated by it," he said. "The saddest thing is, because I'm the president of the United States, I am not supposed to be involved in the Justice Department.

Paul Manafort is finally facing justice — and we Ukrainians couldn’t be happier

thumbnail
(4133) (comments)

In February 2014, as Ukrainian protesters were massing in the streets against their government, a fire broke out in the headquarters of the Party of Regions, the ruling political movement of then-President Viktor Yanukovych. Among the thousands of names of Ukrainian officials, politicians and journalists that cropped up in the documents, there was one that none of us knew at the time: Paul Manafort.
A little over a year ago, long after the Yanukovych government had collapsed in disgrace, I published copies of pages from those ledgers showing that Manafort had received $12.7 million in cash.
To clean up his client’s reputation, Paul Manafort drew on his connections in Washington, hiring big names from the lobbying world, such as Tony Podesta, Vin Weber and Gregory Craig.

George Bush says Donald Trump 'doesn't know what it means to be President'

thumbnail
(3782) (comments)

And I’m not too excited about him being a leader" the senior Bush told historian Mark Updegrove, for his new book The Last Republicans. I don’t know much about him, but I know he’s a blowhard.

Trump attorney: We’ll challenge Mueller if he investigates old real estate deals

thumbnail
(3736) (comments)

So I think if he wants to go, my finances are extremely good, my company is an unbelievably successful company," Trump said. "No, I think that’s a violation. Look, this is about Russia.

November 2017 Metathread

(324) (comments)

Hello again to the /r/politics community, welcome to our monthly Metathread! As always, the purpose of this thread is to discuss the overall state of the subreddit, to make suggestions on what can be improved, and to ask questions about subreddit policy.
And there's a general agreement that we don't want to start 'rating' sources for users - blanket referring to X source as misleading or liberal, because then we'll be asked to do that for every domain and that's both tedious and asking for trouble.
r/news can condense stories down to one submission because it doesn't super matter who is writing an article on say, a natural disaster - Reuters, BBC or DW, the reporting and content should be largely the same.

Saturday Morning Political Cartoon Thread

(151) (comments)

Oh yeah I know what Cultural Appropriation is, but I didn't know the whole Pocahontas thing.
Elizabeth Warren's Senate opponent in 2012, Scott Brown, tried to say that she lied about her ancestry to gain an advantage in the job market. However, it did stick a bit as an attack, probably since it touches on an issue that fires up the Republican base .
Yeah don't look now Ben but ya boy is in the WH, and you're spewing talking points verbatim from Fox "News".