Strike Three and You're Out: Both National Associations, of Homebuilders and of Realtors, pull support from House tax plan

Trump looks set to be defeated on tax reform as 2017 winds down, just as he has failed to overturn Obamacare and build The Wall. And considering what the tax reform is looking like, it's just as well.

The tax plan as it stands this weekend eliminates the itemized deductions for mortgage interest and state income taxes, keeping only the deduction for property taxes.

Reported here:

[I]n a sign of the complex balancing act that [House Ways and Means Chairman Kevin] Brady must perform to produce a tax-overhaul bill this week, the property-tax announcement came on the same day that the National Association of Home Builders pulled its support for the legislation. The group’s chief cited concerns that the bill might undermine existing tax breaks that support the housing market. Likewise, a coalition that includes the National Association of Realtors said in an emailed statement that it “will vigorously oppose this plan.” ... It would appear that deductions for state and local income taxes and sales taxes would still be repealed under the planned House bill.

This is all the fault of our so-called conservatives in the US House. They aren't conservatives. They're doctrinaire libertarians who HATE people who want to get married, settle down and buy a house and have children. They view people as CAPITAL, whose value only decreases if it is too difficult to move them around at the whim of GLOBAL BUSINESS. That's why you'll never hear these people target the tax revenue lost to the lower capital gains and dividend tax rates, which are almost TWICE those lost to the mortgage interest deduction. These people are the enemies of localism and are instead the champions of the homogenization of society with its bland sameness everywhere. They are the ones who've shipped our jobs overseas and let in the tens of millions of immigrants who've further reduced our wages and opportunities.

One year from now you'll have another chance to send them packing.

I'll be voting for Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck before voting for a libertarian in 2018.

Good news for pension plans: Reduced life expectancy means obligations could fall by up to 1 percent!

Every cloud has its silver lining.

From the story here:

The U.S. age-adjusted mortality rate—a measure of the number of deaths per year—rose 1.2 percent from 2014 to 2015, according to the Society of Actuaries. That’s the first year-over-year increase since 2005, and only the second rise greater than 1 percent since 1980. ... Declining health and life expectancy are good news for one constituency: Pension plans, which must send a monthly check to retirees for as long as they live.

According to the latest figures from the Society of Actuaries, life expectancy for pension participants has dropped since its last calculation by 0.2 years. A 65-year-old man can expect to live to 85.6 years, and a woman can expect to make it to 87.6. As a result, the group calculates a typical pension plan’s obligations could fall by 0.7 percent to 1 percent.

If more debt doesn't really matter, then why bother collecting any more taxes?

From "Debt Keeps Rising and Nothing Bad Happens":

Like so many things in macroeconomics, there is no reliable, well-confirmed theory that tells us the effect of government deficits or debt.

John McCain, Liza Mercowskee, and Susan Collins vote against skinny repeal, leaving millions in bondage to healthcare mandates

Bloomberg reports here:

The GOP’s ‘skinny’ repeal bill was defeated 49-51, falling just short of the 50 votes needed to advance it. Republicans Susan Collins of Maine and Lisa Murkowski also voted against it. ... "I sadly feel a great many Americans will feel betrayed, that they were lied to, and that sentiment will not be unjustified. You cannot campaign against Obamacare and then vote for Obamacare," Republican Senator Ted Cruz said early Friday.

China per capita cigarette consumption is 114% higher than US

The Chicoms consume about 4.7 cigarettes per day per capita, about 7.1 packs a month, despite recent attempts to tax the habit out of existence (2350 billion cigs in 2016 divided by population of 1.379 billion).

Americans consume 2.2 cigarettes per day per capita, about 3.3 packs a month (258 billion cigs in 2016 divided by population of .3231 billion).

Life expectancy in the US is 79 years, in China 76 years.

Deaths per 100,000 from coronary heart disease in China are pushing 100, in the US 78.

Turncoats Shelley Moore Capito and Lisa Murkowski said Tuesday they’ll oppose a repeal of the Affordable Care Act

Capito and Murkowski should be run out of the party on a rail. They both voted for repeal last time.

Story here.

Big deal: Stories ADMIT Russian election hack attempts FAILED, systems too "disparate"

The latest one is from Bloomberg, here:

One of the mysteries about the 2016 presidential election is why Russian intelligence, after gaining access to state and local systems, didn’t try to disrupt the vote. One possibility is that the American warning was effective. Another former senior U.S. official, who asked for anonymity to discuss the classified U.S. probe into pre-election hacking, said a more likely explanation is that several months of hacking failed to give the attackers the access they needed to master America’s disparate voting systems spread across more than 7,000 local jurisdictions.

Putin didn't hypnotize over 5 million Democrats to stop them from voting for Hillary. She did that all by herself.

US House hasn't sent Obamacare repeal to Senate, waiting for budget score from CBO

It's been two weeks already. These people are soooooooooooooooo unserious.

Story here.

Flashback Trump August 2015: Ex-Im Bank is unnecessary, I don't like it, It's not free enterprise, I'd be against it

Quoted in Bloomberg, here:

"I don't like it because I don't think it's necessary," the real estate mogul said. "It's a one-way street also. It's sort of a featherbedding for politicians and others, and a few companies. And these are companies that can do very well without it. So I don't like it. I think it's a lot of excess baggage. I think it's unnecessary. And when you think about free enterprise it's really not free enterprise. I'd be against it."

Lyin' Susan Rice is in the middle of the unmasking scandal

Reported here and here.

University of Georgia historian minimizes the magnitude of foreclosures during the Great Depression, missing their significance for the value of homeownership today

Stephen Mihm, at Bloomberg here:

While home ownership became increasingly popular in the early twentieth century, the U.S. was still a majority-renter nation in 1930, though by this time homeowners numbered 48 percent of the total population. But the Great Depression knocked that figure back down to 43 percent, roughly on par with late nineteenth century levels.

Things changed dramatically in the 1940s, when home ownership levels began moving toward unprecedented highs, hitting 66 percent by 1980. Economists are still arguing over why that happened, but the most compelling explanations are pretty banal and do little to support the sentimental blather associated with home ownership.

Does this guy even know that the nonfarm foreclosure rate nearly quadrupled between 1926 and 1933?

Through 1933 there were over 1 million completed foreclosures, about 1% of US population of the time. Compare that to the current crisis. We've had 8.5 million completed foreclosures since 2004, about 2.5% of population. 

Homeownership as a cultural value in the post-war was so high because so many people lost their homes before it.

And it still is today and will continue to be, despite what some people say with an axe to grind from the safety of their sinecures.

Like Michael Savage, Scott Adams has succeeded despite anti-white racism

From the story here:

At both the bank and the phone company, Adams has said, his professional advancement was thwarted by diversity hires. “There was no hope for another generic white male to get promoted any time soon,” he wrote in Dilbert 2.0: 20 Years of Dilbert. (Later in the book, he noted that his Dilbert TV show was canceled after “the network made a strategic decision to focus on shows with African-American actors.”)

Foreign influence flashback March 2016: Top donor to Hillary, Saudi Arabia, also bankrolled Trump critic Senator John McCain

This is real news. Jeff Sessions is fake news, which is why Jeff Sessions is being crucified, and John McCain rolls in the dough. The elites protect their own.

Reported here:

A nonprofit with ties to Senator John McCain received a $1 million donation from the government of Saudi Arabia in 2014, according to documents filed with the U.S. Internal Revenue Service. ...

Founded in 1998 to raise money for then-President Bill Clinton’s presidential library, the Clinton Foundation accepted millions of dollars from foreign governments over the years, including while Hillary Clinton, now running for president, served as secretary of State during President Barack Obama’s first term. The foundation says that Clinton was not involved in its work when she worked for the Obama administration.

The Saudi donation to the McCain Institute Foundation may be the first congressional instance of that trend coming to light.

“The extent of this practice is difficult to gauge, of course,” Holman said, “because we only know about it when a nonprofit or foreign government voluntarily reveals that information.”

DACA cases still being approved despite Trump promise to stop program immediately

From the story at Bloomberg two days ago here:

The program, created by former President Barack Obama in 2012, has allowed more than 700,000 people brought to the country as children to obtain renewable two-year work permits. It can be reversed at any time by the president. On his campaign website and at rallies, Trump said he’d cancel it, decrying it as “unconstitutional.”

U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services said Tuesday in an unsigned e-mail from its media office that it has continued to issue new work permits since Trump’s inauguration. The agency said it is still processing applications, as the Obama policy remains unchanged.

“We can confirm that DACA cases have been approved, and some denied, since 1/20/17,” the agency said, using an acronym for the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program.

Nasty sore loser Democrats march in Washington DC to protest Trump

From the story here:

Instead of red “Make America Great Again” popular at the inauguration the day before, many marchers wore pink knitted caps with ears evoking a cat and dubbed “pussy hats,” as a symbol of defiance to the new president.

NATO member Turkey on the brink of an elected dictatorship under Erdogan

Crazy. Ataturk set the country on a course of secularization. Erdogan is doing the reverse, in the style and guise of Ataturk.

From the story here:

Bulent Turan, a whip from the Islamist-rooted AK Party, which Erdogan co-founded, rejected opposition claims that the amendments would create an elected dictatorship, saying they sought to allow for greater government oversight and to speed up decision making. ... Turkey’s parliament was founded by Mustafa Kemal Ataturk in 1920 as part of a secular and Western-oriented revolution that replaced the theocratic Ottoman Empire. Should Erdogan succeed, Turkey is set to a have a president who will basically concentrate as much power as Ataturk.

Open borders Republicans join hands with Democrats to extend Obama's Orwellian DACA overreach

Coffman

Remember, they're not "illegal immigrants", they're "childhood arrivals".

The Republicans named in the story here, where it is claimed there are up to 60 supporters in the US House Republican Caucus, are:

Senator Lindsey Grahamnesty Graham of South Carolina

Rep. Mike Coffman of Colorado

Rep. Ileana Ros Lehtinen of Florida

Rep. Carlos Curbelo of Florida.

The House would need 290 votes to override a Trump veto of a bill exempting "Dreamers" from deportation for three years. In the Senate 67 votes would be required. A coalition of 194 House Democrats and 60 Republicans yields just 254 votes, not enough. In the Senate 19 Republicans would have to join 48 Democrats to override a Trump veto.

So Coffman wants to ram the bill through now, before Obama no longer has his pen and telephone.

Tin ear Republicans lead off 2017 with rule changes on ethics

Trump isn't happy. Bloomberg reported the story here.

The congressional job approval rating last measured 18% and hasn't been above 20% since 2012.

Just another day at the office: Mitch McConnell lets Donald Trump know what's what

Don't get into a pissing match with the Senate Majority Leader, if you know what's good for you.

Quoted here:

“I think this level of national debt is dangerous and unacceptable,” McConnell said, adding he hopes Congress doesn’t lose sight of that when it acts next year. “My preference on tax reform is that it be revenue neutral,” he said.

Clinton at gay fundraiser: Half of Trump's supporters are deplorable

Yeah, but ALL of Hillary's are.

Bloomberg reproduces the remarks here:

Clinton told an audience of gay-rights supporters at a fundraiser Friday night in New York City: “You know, to just be grossly generalistic, you could put half of Trump’s supporters into what I call the basket of deplorables. Right? The racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamaphobic -- you name it.”