Where GOP tax bill stands:
• 37% top income tax rate
• 21% corporate tax
• Up to $10k of state or property taxes can be deducted
• Removes the tax on graduate student tuition waivers
• Maintains estate tax but raises threshold to qualify to about $11 million from $5.49 million
• Pass-throughs get a 20% deduction on their income
• Preserves the individual Alternative Minimum Tax
• Gets rid of the proposed corporate AMT
• Mortgage interest deduction cap would be lowered to $750,000 from the current $1 million
tax talks taxing tiny truisms
waxing wealthy welfare woefully
increasing indebtedness indenture
cnn via msn: John McCain to Trump: Lay off the ‘fake news’ claims
Senator John McCain again called out President Trump for his anti-media rhetoric.
In a tweet Wednesday afternoon, McCain shared a new report from the Committee to Protect Journalists that says the number of journalists imprisoned around the world has reached 262, a new record.
The total includes 21 reporters being held on “false news” charges.
The president “must understand his harmful rhetoric only empowers repressive regimes to jail reporters & silence the truth,” McCain wrote.
Trump is known for dismissing press coverage he doesn’t like as “fake news.”
CPJ’s report was highly critical of Trump’s tactics.
“President Donald Trump’s nationalistic rhetoric, fixation on Islamic extremism, and insistence on labeling critical media ‘fake news’ serves to reinforce the framework of accusations and legal charges that allow [some foreign] leaders to preside over the jailing of journalists,” it reads.
The most common reasons journalists are put behind bars around the world include “anti-state charges” and “broad and vague terror laws,” according to the CPJ
[…]
“If you want to preserve — I’m very serious now — if you want to preserve democracy as we know it, you have to have a free and many times adversarial press,” McCain said in a February interview with NBC News. “And without it, I am afraid that we would lose so much of our individual liberties over time. That’s how dictators get started.”
Arkansas 1957. Not far from Alabama 2017.
A glorious morning to the trail. The past two nights have been great viewing for the meteor showers. I have seen dozens and I enjoy looking-up, for a change.
prez putin scolds American citizens for allowing trump’s opponents to make-up stories about russian collusion. Meanwhile, 4 of trump’s gang are indicted or have pleaded guilty.
rupert gets richer as disney buys a big chunk of Fox. To putin’s pleasure?
Staying with 21st Century Fox is the Fox broadcast network and its 28 TV stations, the Fox News and Fox Business channels, and the national Fox Sports 1 and Fox Sports 2 networks.
LOL!
Well, the Republican Congress has now shown that they have gone back to being unapologetically the party of big business and rich people and ignores small business with their tax proposal. The AMT hits small businesses hard. It prevents them from deducting much of the expenses they use to support the growth and hiring in their business. Doubling the estate tax exemption to $11M? In the course of practicing divorce law for almost a decade now, I can recall maybe three cases whose estate would either reach or approach the threshold for the exemption of the estate tax. Frankly, it’s insane. Even under the rosiest of projections, middle income tax payers will see an additional $50 in the by weekly take-home after the tax tables are adjusted. Wow! That’s really taking care of the middle class isn’t it? And what’s hidden in the tax bill? What benefits and services are being curt tailed or take away the benefit, again, the middle class? I certainly hope that went 2018 midterms rollaround, people have started understanding how disastrous this idiotic tax bill is. But I don’t hold out a lot of hope.
Nothing in the tax redo for me…at least bush sent all of us some money. trump is leaving my stocking empty. So, my gift to him is a hip-hop name, P-Grab.
CNN has an interactive tax calculator to check the impact on your particulars.
However, neither the calculator nor GoOPerz take into account that any small reduction in tax is gonna be EATEN UP by the GD HEALTH INSURANCE costs. Not ACTUAL HEALTHCARE, but INSURANCE for them what still have jobs to get it.
Congress needs to get a handle on insurance costs.
I also wonder what happens to the doctor/clinic tax write-offs? You know how they bill $300 but the negotiated price paid by insurance is $75…leaving the difference to be written off as a loss. The corp tax rate is reduced, which would seem to help docs, but…?
And the $40 co-pay always seems to go into a black hole, but he not covers basic overhead, anyway.
The system is to convoluted for most in Congress to unravel and re-knit good HEALTHCARE coverage.
Everybody knows what the Republicans are doing with their Massive Tax Theft.
its no secret, Everybody Knows.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=mEQldSi-heE
December 14, 2012
9:30am
Charlotte Bacon, 6
Daniel Barden, 7
Olivia Engel, 6
Josephine Gay, 7
Dylan Hockley, 6
Madeleine Hsu, 6
Catherine Hubbard, 6
Chase Kowalski, 7
Jesse Lewis, 6
Ana Marquez-Greene, 6
James Mattioli, 6
Grace McDonnell, 7
Emilie Parker, 6
Jack Pinto, 6
Noah Pozner, 6
Caroline Previdi, 6
Jessica Rekos, 6
Avielle Richman, 6
Benjamin Wheeler, 6
Allyson Wyatt, 6
Rachel D’Avino, 29
Dawn Hochsprung, 47
Anne Marie Murphy, 52
Lauren Rousseau, 30
Mary Sherlach, 56
Victoria Leigh Soto, 27
I am starting to wonder at why the Greedy Old Perverts are working so hard to stop the Mueller investigation. I cannot imagine them wanting to protect SFB. So what other reasons are possible?
They are crazy in love with SFB
They are concerned they will lose seats in 2018
They could have ties to Russian money
They could be Russian idiots
They like Putin and do not want to see him disgraced
They really are working for Russia intelligence community
Someone is going to break the news that if Mueller is tossed out there will be a nasty happening in the House and Senate.
According to John Schindler there are a few of the critters who are under Russian influence, both parties.
Life.
Politics.
some specifics from wapo:
Disney will pay $52.4 billion for Fox, which will spin off Fox broadcast networks and the Fox News Channel and Fox Business Channel, leaving them in the hands of Rupert Murdoch, chairman of 21st Century Fox. Robert Iger, the chairman and chief executive of Disney who had been rumored to be considering a run for president, will continue with the combined firm through 2021.
[….]
Disney will also acquire Fox’s 30 percent stake in Hulu, a group of U.S. cable stations including FX and National Geographic, several powerhouse international satellite channels such as Star India and Sky Italia, and a host of U.S. regional sports outlets. Disney hopes the beefed-up company will be better equipped to tackle a slew of Silicon Valley giants.
Equally important, the deal will take Murdoch out of much of the scripted television game and all of the film business, …. […continues]
Numbers that really matter.
Priorities.
Moore defeat post-mortem from WaPo:
The Daily 202: The suburban revolt against Trump continued in Alabama
This underscores what Poobah espoused and that I argued against. I admit my folly.
abc news: Omarosa Manigault speaks out about WH exit: ‘I have seen things that have made me uncomfortable’
Former reality-TV star turned White House staffer Omarosa Manigault today tried to set the record straight on her reportedly dramatic exit from the White House Tuesday, and alluded to situations in the White House “that have made me uncomfortable.”
“[Chief of Staff] John Kelly and I had a very straightforward discussion about concerns that I had, issues that I raised and, as a result, I resigned,” Manigault said on ABC News’ “Good Morning America.”
There “were a lot of things that I observed during the last year that I was very unhappy with,” she said.
“But when I have my story to tell as the only African-American woman in this White House; as a senior staff and assistant to the president, I have seen things that have made me uncomfortable, that have upset me, that have affected me deeply and emotionally, that has affected my community and my people. And when I can tell my story, it is a profound story that I know the world will want to hear,” Manigault added.
She and Kelly had a “candid conversation” in the White House Situation Room, Manigault said.
[…]
Manigault’s departure was a long time coming and Kelly’s decision to limit access to the president was a source of tension for her, according to multiple sources.
She said, however, Kelly brought “much needed order to the West Wing,” denying that he restricted her access to Trump.
But she added, “Certainly I had more access than most and people had problems with that. People had problems with my 14-year relationship with this president.”
A White House official said in a statement Wednesday that Manigault resigned “to pursue other opportunities.”
[….]
In her role in the Trump administration, Manigault was among the White House advisers earning the highest salary ($179,700 a year), according to a White House list of staff salaries.
She was in charge of outreach to the leaders of HBCUs (historically black colleges and universities) and also oversaw the president’s visit to the Smithsonian’s African American museum in Washington, D.C. But Manigault’s day-to-day duties could not be pinpointed and, according to Politico, she used the White House as a backdrop for her 39-person bridal party to take wedding photos.
poor, poor elephant…
Cost me 1500 smacks the other day to get one of those cut off me old cat……damn……..wonder what it’ll cost for a Elephant…….
Well, it’ll be interesting to see what happens to internet access fees in the wake of the repeal of the net neutrality regulations, and I bet it won’t be interesting in a good way.
Mozilla, the confederation of net users who will be massively affected if the ******s win, is offering this effort which I have enthusiastically joined: Mozilla petition effort
Pogo
I don’t think anybody in DC cares, this would have been so easy to stop in it’s tracks.
Simple slogans.
If you like your cable company you will love the end of net neutrality
Net neutrality, the idea that built the internet.
And there are more,
simple soundbites that get the message across to even the simplest idiot.
But it is more important to force Al Franken to resign, lol, so for the last month it is policy be damned just feed red meat to crazies and keep them donations rolling in. Mean while the internet is going to start looking like our healthcare system, a screwed system open to plunder by the highest bidder and the rest of us are screwed.
Jack
“But it is more important to force Al Franken to resign”
jack, especially so for the foes of net neutrality. here’s what al was saying in 2014 and has continued to fight hard for:
Making sure all surfers on the Web enjoy the same speed no matter which website they visit is a fundamental free speech issue, Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn.) said on Tuesday.
“It is absolutely the First Amendment issue of our time,” Franken said at a Capitol Hill forum sponsored by the advocacy group Free Press.
“Do we want deep-pocketed corporations controlling what information you get at what speed?” he added.
Franken, who has been a critical supporter of the concept of net neutrality, said that other members of Congress simply don’t understand the way the Internet works.
“This has been the architecture of the Internet from the beginning, and everyone should understand that,” he said.
“Some of my colleagues in the Congress don’t understand that. … You just want to go ‘Oh, come on,’ ” Franken said. “ ‘Really, don’t get up and talk unless you know something.’ ”
Many Republicans in Congress have opposed new net neutrality regulations, which they warn amount to government intervention in an open marketplace.
But Franken, up for reelection this year, said they have it all backwards.
“All this innovation hasn’t happened just while we’ve had net neutrality,” he said. “It’s happened because we have net neutrality.”
[…old story from the hill continues….]
and here’s c-net a few days ago:
The open internet is losing one of its strongest supporters in Congress as Sen. Al Franken, a Democrat from Minnesota, plans to resign amid allegations of sexual misconduct.
[….]
Franken’s contributions to the net neutrality fight will remain one of the legacies of his Senate career. He was one of the first leaders in Congress to push for stronger net neutrality regulation, publicly advocating for it in 2009 when he questioned then-nominee for the US Supreme Court Sonia Sotomayor. Franken has described net neutrality as the most important free speech issue of our time.
He criticized the FCC’s first attempt at writing net neutrality regulation in 2010, calling the rules weak because they didn’t ban paid prioritization, which he believed would allow broadband companies to charge companies like Netflix a fee to access their customers faster than other competitors. In 2011, he and Sen. Maria Cantwell, a Democrat from Washington, introduced legislation that would have put strong net neutrality protections into law.
[….]
The current FCC under Republican control will vote next week to roll back these rules and will strip the FCC of its authority to regulate the internet. Franken has said this is a mistake.
“The internet is really basic to the First Amendment,” he said in an interview in July with CNET. “And it doesn’t matter if it’s the FCC or Congress that provides those protections. It just needs to be protected.”
More recently, Franken pushed the idea that companies like Facebook and Google should also follow similar nondiscrimination rules as internet service providers. Currently, the FCC’s regulatory authority only includes network operators, but Franken has argued these internet companies also act as monopolies and shouldn’t be allowed to block or slow access to content.
“As tech giants become a new kind of Internet gatekeeper, I believe the same basic principles of net neutrality should apply here: No one company should have the power to pick and choose which content reaches consumers and which doesn’t,” Franken wrote last month in an op-ed for The Guardian. “Facebook, Google, and Amazon—like ISPs—should be ‘neutral’ in their treatment of the flow of lawful information and commerce on their platforms.”
[….continues…]
“Do we want deep-pocketed corporations controlling what information you get at what speed?”
Add to that …and at what price?” and the nail is squarely hit on the head.
jack, yep, there were others in backrooms with reasons other than zero tolerance to drive him out of the senate as fast as they could….couldn’t take chances of investigations and due process slowing things down.
Elections have consequences and for all the people who said no difference ..hope you are happy.
PG just canceled a program that forgave student loans for people who had been defrauded by the school (perhaps too close to home)
The rich get richer…
I used to laugh when PG talked about how much he is doing and by that he means destroying the US
The Greedy Ole Pervs must be so proud — they cultivated contempt of government and this is the result
Wither the Internet. Hail the Internet.
There will be a lot of law suits hitting the courts tomorrow. What is most interesting is the Congress is mostly in favor of the internet as we knew it this morning (this afternoon the biggies can do whatever the hell they want). Congress may even toss in a bill returning the ‘net to neutrality.
Blake Farenthold has to go NOW ..not to retire at the end of his term. He shouldn’t get to vest some perk
Little Marco Happy at Last
not looking so good for the tax bill
they may have to carry McCain in on a stretcher
McCain’s going to do it again if it comes to it……just like he did with O-care vote…….no way he’ll vote for the bill…..it’ll be the ultimate finger in the air to Tromp.