Reddit Politics Summary Tuesday Jan 2nd 18

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This is a digest of the top posts on reddit/r/politics over the last 24 hours.
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John Dean: Nixon ‘Might Have Survived If There’d Been a Fox News’

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• I knew much more than they thought I did," Dean told me in an interview for the latest episode of POLITICO’s Off Message podcast, pointing in particular to Trump’s disgraced former national security adviser.
• He finds equally ridiculous, in terms of how it would hold up legally, that the defense of Trump and other aides has at times suggested that the president was ignorantly blundering through what then-FBI director James Comey took as attempts to influence the investigation, but was really just the bluster of a personality who thinks about the world in terms of loyalty and doesn’t know the technicalities of the law well enough to violate it.
• After being part of the conversations about break-ins and payments—and feeling like he was being set up as a scapegoat by Nixon’s top aides—Dean cut his own plea deal in exchange for a reduced sentence, got out of prison, moved to Beverly Hills and became an investment banker and author who has churned out 11 books and hundreds of columns, most rooted in the experiences and lessons of Watergate.

The American Public Reportedly Spent $43 Million Last Year So Trump Could Play Golf

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• In fact, it’s not even close: After the first year of each man’s presidency, Obama had only played golf 28 times; Trump definitely played at least 43 times in that same timespan–and likely played around 76 games of golf–at a cost of roughly $1 million per game–all on the dime of the American people.

Donald Trump takes credit for zero passenger flight deaths in 2017

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• The two crashes that occurred on New Year’s Eve – a seaplane in Sydney which killed six, and a Cessna Caravan which crashed in Costa Rica, killing all 12 on board – were not included in the tally, since both aircraft weighed under 5,700kg — the threshold for the report.
• In March, the US Department of Homeland Security suddenly announced a ban on laptops and other electronic devices bigger than a mobile phone on flights from 10 Middle Eastern and North African airports to the US.
• If in the aircraft hold, the fire-suppression systems are unlikely to be able to contain it and there is a lot of material to exacerbate such fires including other baggage, the aircraft structure, fuel and systems in an area which is inaccessible in flight.

Rupert Murdoch’s son privately expressed embarrassment over elements of Fox News

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Interior gets caught charging Zinke’s $39,295 helicopter trip to wildfire preparedness fund

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• In a rare acknowledgement of error, the Trump administration’s Department of the Interior admitted it made a mistake by trying to use wildfire preparedness funds to pay for helicopter rides taken by Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke that had nothing to do with wildfires.
• Zinke’s office initially told Newsweek that the costs of the Interior secretary’s July 30, 2017, helicopter ride in Nevada could be legally covered by the Bureau of Land Management and the National Interagency Fire Center, even though Zinke did not visit fire zones that day.
• "Ryan Zinke’s caused a lot of controversy with his private flights, but none have been as egregious as using wildfire preparedness funding to pay for a trip that had nothing to do with wildfires, while a wildfire ravaged California," CREW wrote in a tweet Monday.

Trump Didn't Take Phone Calls While Golfing Because He Wanted To Focus On Game, Golf Buddy Says

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• We played with two other guys, and he was great with them too," Funk, a professional golfer, told CNN’s New Day on Tuesday. He was responding to a question about whether the president received phone calls while they were on the fairway.
• "I feel like whatever he’s doing, he’s going to be doing it 100 percent at that time, and he wanted to play good golf and we wanted to watch him play good golf.
• However, according to PolitiFact, as of November Trump had played golf 35 times, while Obama played 24 times by the same point in his presidency.

Fox News’ favorite sheriff locked out of Twitter for posting violent tweets

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Intel Dem: Minority may publish report on ways panel Republicans hindered Russia probe

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• "It’s in both the Democrats’ and the Republicans’ interests to ... write a report based on a common set of facts," Himes said.

2018 Calendar of Primaries

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• Finnally I saw the campaign being ran durring the primary for the gop, and I saw the hate, vitriol, and Trump and knew that the Republican party would not be the party to help me educate this countrys youth, I no longer wanted to educate Students from their stupor of liberalism but wanted to encourage free thinkers, with strong critical thinking skills, and an even stronger feeling of Civic responsibility to our democracy. Finally I took my education courses and experienced inner city schools, and saw the ways they, the teachers, were struggling with virtually every aspect of a profession that, not only do I wish to pursue as a profession, but a profession that is absolutely critical to everything good in this country, and every bit of progress since the enlightenment and the beginning of the individual empowerment allowed by public education. These courses did something else for me though, they showed me that the demon of socialism didn't have to be a bad thing that it could and had worked around the world and that much of my preconceptions about universal HC in Canada and the UK were simply propaganda, this was later affirmed by communication with people on Reddit talking about their own healthcare. At every turn I would see the effects of conservative policy within the school system, not to mention it's no secret that conservatives are the ones that clamp down on the govt coin purse whenever anyone suggested compensating the facilitators of the countries future minds, whom in any place worth a grain of salt are required to have a master's degree. I suppose I should also mention I actually read Karl Marx at this point, where as previously I had avoided it with relative distaste, I read it and found that while repetitive, and inflamitory/hyperbolic/extreme he made some decent points about the flaws of capitalism, where previously I had refused to see them. I believe it is also around this point where I found my heart filled with a love and passion for what I was doing, actually being in the thick of it, helping Students learn in inner city schools that I myself was a product of. I knew the Republican party was no longer the party for this, if it ever was, So I said let's give socialism a shot dankandspank, and I did the best I could to rouse people to vote for Bernie and donated my broke butt off.
• The two parties, when it is convenient to them, insist that they are private organizations unrelated to government...when the facts clearly show that the two parties have completely dominated American government, at all levels, since the civil war.

The "What happened in your state last week?" Megathread, Week 1

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• The tax bill, approved by Republicans in Congress and signed into law by President Trump last week, slashes corporate income taxes, cuts income-tax rates for individuals and creates a new deduction for business income that is reported as personal income tax. 'The Bullock administration has revised downward its estimate on how the Republicans’ federal tax-cut bill impacts Montana’s state budget – but says it’s still a negative, because of changes in taxing business income. Montana’s Department of Revenue estimated that Montanans will pay $750 million less in federal individual income taxes next year because of the bill – and that doesn’t include the reductions in corporate taxes. But he also said it’s possible the impact could be higher, if more taxpayers than expected take advantage of a new deduction for business income, thus reducing their taxable Montana income.
• There's varying narratives from him doing nothing wrong, to he and his fiance stealing a car and leading police on a chase through a couple of towns and wrecking the car and possibly pulling a gun on the cops.