Homeownership is the ticket to the middle class, and fewer and fewer tickets are being issued:
Saturday, July 22, 2017
Your mortgage interest deduction is only eighth in the latest list of top things on which government claims it loses revenue
But libertarians especially hate it. Expect more articles telling you it's got to go as tax reform talk heats up in Congress.
Here are the top 20 "tax loss expenditures" for 2016-2020:
1. Exclusion of employer contributions for health care and insurance: $863 billion
2. Lower tax rates on dividends and long term capital gains: $678 billion
3. Income made by controlled foreign corporations: $587 billion
4. Contributions made to IRAs and 401k plans: $584 billion
5. Pension plan contributions: $424 billion
6. Earned Income Tax Credit: $373 billion
7. Deductions taken for state and local income taxes, sales taxes, property taxes: $369 billion
8. Deductions taken for mortgage interest on owner occupied homes: $357 billion
9. Obamacare "subsidies": $327 billion (what a laugh: they raise the cost, give you a subsidy, and count the subsidy as a tax-free gift)
10. Child tax credit: $271 billion
11. Expensing depreciable business property: $248 billion
12. Deductions taken for charitable contributions: $231 billion
13. Social Security benefits: $214 billion
14. Municipal bond income: $195 billion
15. Deductions taken for taxes on real property: $180 billion
16. Capital gains taxes excluded at death: $179 billion
17. Medical expenses and over the counter medications under cafeteria plans: $169 billion
18. Capital gains taxes excluded on sale of principal residence: $166 billion
19. Life insurance proceeds: $128 billion
20. Deduction for income from domestic production activities: $102 billion.
Total revenue the government claims it's "losing" because of its "benevolent" tax policy on these items: $6.645 trillion over five years, or $1.329 trillion annually.
My, how nice of them.
Friday, July 21, 2017
Justin Raimondo is right, and Coulter and Nehlen are wrong: Afghanistan is the world's first narcostate, supplying over 75% of the world's heroin
Nuke Afghanistan's poppy fields, and you solve a lot of the world's problems. Raimondo is right, Coulter and Nehlen are wrong. Mexico isn't the "source". It's the conduit.
From the New York Times in 2013, here:
Afghanistan is already the world’s largest producer of opium, and last year accounted for 75 percent of the world’s heroin supply. “The assumption is it will reach again to 90 percent this year,” said Jean-Luc Lemahieu, the United Nations’ top counternarcotics official here.
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.
Thursday, July 20, 2017
Wednesday, July 19, 2017
Inquiring minds want to know: Is it cheaper to stop drugs by building a wall or nuking the opium fields of Afghanistan?
Each one can incinerate about 50 square miles.
Afghanistan has about 780 square miles devoted to opium production.
Number of B61 bombs needed: just 16.
Cost $320 million.
Hundreds of bombs left over to enlighten other ne'er-do-wells.
Three pleasant outcomes: 1) Drugs eliminated at the source; 2) Afghan War ends immediately; 3) Drug mules and gangs stop coming over the border.
I say we nuke 'em.
Supremes intervene again to uphold Trump right to ban 24,000 refugees awaiting entry
From the story here:
The high court on Wednesday blocked Watson’s order as it applies to refugees, but not the expanded list of relatives. The justices said the federal appeals court in San Francisco should now consider the appeal. It’s not clear how quickly that will happen.
In the meantime, though, up to 24,000 refugees who already have been assigned to a charity or religious organization in the U.S. will not be able to use that connection to get into the country.
The Reagan GDP miracle is a complete myth: It was all government spending (on defense)
And it set a horrible precedent for the dramatic overspending of George W. Bush and Barack Obama, which has sent us on a course to oblivion. You can argue it was necessary to defeat the USSR, but you can't argue that baseline spending (in black) has done anything but go up, up, up to dangerous new levels as a result (notice the baseline Jimmy Carter inherited from liberal Republicanism, for which he got the blame from Ronald Reagan, which wasn't very nice of the old man who went on to bequeath a similar giant new baseline to his successor, G.H.W. Bush).
No, the real miracle was the pathetic loser in Iran, Jimmy Carter, who spent the least in the post-war for his additional GDP, followed by Bill Clinton.
Of course, the spending is all the prerogative of the Congress. The president proposes but the Congress disposes, as the saying goes.
Beware libertarian politicians preaching balanced budgets, as well as utopian infrastructure spending enthusiasts promising the moon and liberal Republicans selling government spending as security to senior citizens at the expense of younger Americans in a time of protracted war. They have delivered little beyond $20 trillion in debt.
Tuesday, July 18, 2017
These two women voted to repeal Obamacare in 2015, but now they refuse to
 |
| Shelley Moore Capito -- WV |
 |
| Lisa Murkowski -- AK |
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.
As high school grades inflate, SAT scores deflate
Reported here:
Recent findings show that the proportion of high school seniors graduating with an A average — that includes an A-minus or A-plus — has grown sharply over the past generation, even as average SAT scores have fallen.
In 1998, it was 38.9%. By last year, it had grown to 47%.
That’s right: Nearly half of America’s Class of 2016 are A students. Meanwhile, their average SAT score fell from 1,026 to 1,002 on a 1,600-point scale — suggesting that those A's on report cards might be fool's gold.
McConnell reportedly set to bring full repeal bill like HR 3762 to a vote in the Senate
There were 52 "Yeas" for the HR 3762 Obamacare repeal bill in the Senate on December 3, 2015 out of 54 Republicans, which Obama subsequently vetoed. It was the only repeal bill ever to reach Obama's desk:
Alexander of Tennessee
Barrasso of Wyoming
Blunt of Missouri
Boozman of Arkansas
Burr of North Carolina
Capito of West Virginia
Cassidy of Louisiana
Cochran of Mississippi
Corker of Tennessee
Cornyn of Texas
Cotton of Arkansas
Crapo of Idaho
Cruz of Texas
Daines of Montana
Enzi of Wyoming
Ernst of Iowa
Fischer of Nebraska
Flake of Arizona
Gardner of Colorado
Graham of South Carolina
Grassley of Iowa
Hatch of Utah
Heller of Nevada
Hoeven of North Dakota
Inhofe of Oklahoma
Isakson of Georgia
Johnson of Wisconsin
Lankford of Oklahoma
Lee of Utah
McCain of Arizona
McConnell of Kentucky
Moran of Kansas
Murkowski of Alaska
Paul of Kentucky
Perdue of Georgia
Portman of Ohio
Risch of Idaho
Roberts of Kansas
Rounds of South Dakota
Rubio of Florida
Sasse of Nebraska
Scott of South Carolina
Shelby of Alabama
Sullivan of Alaska
Thune of South Dakota
Tillis of North Carolina
Toomey of Pennsylvania
Wicker of Mississippi.
There were two Republican "Nays":
Collins of Maine, who is still there
Kirk of Illinois, who lost his seat to the Democrats.
Now out of 52 Republicans in the Senate we have 48 votes this time for repeal that we had last time, plus 3 Republican freshman in the Senate to pressure to vote for repeal, which would bring the total to 51, assuming Collins of Maine again votes "Nay".
We'll see if they have the guts.
Monday, July 17, 2017
Ted Cruz concluded Mitch McConnell is a liar in 2015, now Ron Johnson appears to be doing the same
The Ted Cruz incident with McConnell involved the Export-Import Bank (story here).
Now, Ron Johnson is reportedly concluding McConnell committed a breach of trust by privately telling moderate senators that the Medicaid cuts in the healthcare bill won't actually occur, as reported here.
The current Republican bill in the Senate appears dead as four senators in the Republican caucus have said they don't support it. With a 2-seat majority, only 3 defections are tolerable (the tie-breaker vote is cast by the Vice President, Mike Pence).
When all is said and done we might find out that the loss of support is all intentional and orchestrated in order to save the Senate from having to vote on the issue again at all. The nay-sayers may be handsomely rewarded at some future date while getting to please their constituencies.
Remember, Republicans generally don't believe in anything except for what is. In other words, maintaining the status quo is their objective. They are pragmatists who are willing to accept progressive creations once passed, like the income tax, Social Security, Medicare and now Obamacare, and will defend those programs no matter how they became law.
Lighting their hair on fire for anything is completely out of the question, including for the constitution.
The only thing that will save us now is a meteor strike on the Senate chamber while they are all in session.
The Senate ceased being a gentlemen's club when they started letting just anybody in in 1913
Spare me the blather about its august rules, traditions and decorum, especially when propounded by the gaggle of mediocrities, grifters, hacks, and perverts now occupying it, and aspiring to it.
Sunday, July 16, 2017
Hm, hundreds withdraw their voter registrations in Colorado as Secretary of State gets ready to turn over records to Trump
Imagine that.
270 in Boulder County, 180 in Denver, 365 in Arapahoe County, according to the story here.
Saturday, July 15, 2017
Michigan Doctor Men with funny names charged in $1.3 billion healthcare fraud conspiracy: Mashiyat Rashid, Yasser Mozeb, Abdul Haq, Tariz Omar, Mohammed Zahoor
From the story here:
More than 400 people across the country were charged Thursday for taking part in health care fraud and opioid scams including six Michigan doctors in connection with a raid Wednesday at the Fisher Building in Detroit. ... Rashid and Mozeb are charged with conspiracy to defraud the United States and pay and receive health care kickbacks.
Laugh of the Day: Leave it to Rod Dreher to crank out 2,000 to 3,000 words about so much bologna
Here, in the comments section.
Friday, July 14, 2017
J. P. Morgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon complains "stupid shit" is distracting America from implementing better tax and spending policies
Blame the Democrats and NeverTrumpers, Jamie.
Here:
It's almost an embarrassment being an American citizen traveling around the world and listening to the stupid s--- we have to deal with in this country, and at one point we all have to get our act together or we won't do what we're supposed to [do] for the average Americans and unfortunately people write about this saying like it's for corporations. It's not for corporations. Competitive taxes are important for business and business growth, which is important for jobs and wage growth. And honestly we should be ringing that alarm bell, every single one of you, every time we talk to a client.
Thursday, July 13, 2017
Trump Jr. saga: Loretta Lynch personally signed off on Moscow lawyer entry to US in October 2015, but it appears the lawyer overstayed and no one followed up
The Hill reports here:
The Moscow lawyer had been turned down for a visa to enter the U.S. lawfully but then was granted special immigration parole by then-Attorney General Loretta Lynch for the limited purpose of helping a company owned by Russian businessman Denis Katsyv, her client, defend itself against a Justice Department asset forfeiture case in federal court in New York City.
During a court hearing in early January 2016 as Veselnitskaya’s permission to stay in the country was about to expire, federal prosecutors described how rare the grant of parole immigration was as Veselnitskaya pleaded for more time to remain in the United States. ...
The U.S. Attorney’s office in New York confirmed Wednesday to The Hill that it let Veselnitskaya into the country on a grant of immigration parole from October 2015 to early January 2016.
Justice Department and State Department officials could not immediately explain how the Russian lawyer was still in the country in June for the meeting with Donald Trump Jr. and the events in Washington D.C.
Wednesday, July 12, 2017
David Brooks, who thinks he's so much smarter than a high school graduate, mistakenly calls stirato bread striata bread
Here.
All the recipes by the people who actually know Italian bread call it stirato. Here, here, here, here, here, here and here.
When gathering up your cultural signifiers with which to preen and beat the illegitimi over the head, David, maybe you should first make sure that they are intelligible. Looks like all those layoffs of the striata eaters at the Times are starting to expose the columnists for the ignoramuses they are.
Ralph Peters becomes irrational about Putin like Bush, under questioning by Tucker Carlson
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| "I looked the man in the eye. I found him very straightforward and trustworthy – I was able to get a sense of his soul." |
[Vladimir Putin] is malevolent and he is as close to pure evil as I can find. ... [H]e is as bad as Hitler. ... Vladimir Putin hates America, he wants to hurt us. ... Russia is evil, Russia is our enemy.
Laugh of the Day: Baloney sandwich Joe Scarborough says he's not going to be a filet mignon anymore
Seen in the comments section, here.
Politico's real story from January was that the DNC, the Hillary campaign, Alexandra Chalupa, Rep. Marcy Kaptur, journalists, government officials and intelligence operatives all colluded with Ukraine to take out Manafort and disrupt Trump's campaign
You should read it to appreciate the four fingers pointing back at the Democrats every time they point at Republicans yelling "collusion".
The whole article was designed to run interference for Chalupa and the Democrats, putting the best spin on it they could after uncovering the dirty details. The heart of the story begins seventeen paragraphs in, after trying in the first sixteen to make what follows not say what it says, here:
The Ukrainian efforts had an impact in the race, helping to force Manafort’s resignation and advancing the narrative that Trump’s campaign was deeply connected to Ukraine’s foe to the east, Russia. ...
Manafort’s work for Yanukovych caught the attention of a veteran Democratic operative named Alexandra Chalupa, who had worked in the White House Office of Public Liaison during the Clinton administration. Chalupa went on to work as a staffer, then as a consultant, for Democratic National Committee. The DNC paid her $412,000 from 2004 to June 2016, according to Federal Election Commission records, though she also was paid by other clients during that time, including Democratic campaigns and the DNC’s arm for engaging expatriate Democrats around the world.
In an interview this month, Chalupa told Politico she had developed a network of sources in Kiev and Washington, including investigative journalists, government officials and private intelligence operatives. While her consulting work at the DNC this past election cycle centered on mobilizing ethnic communities — including Ukrainian-Americans — she said that, when Trump’s unlikely presidential campaign began surging in late 2015, she began focusing more on the research, and expanded it to include Trump’s ties to Russia, as well.
She occasionally shared her findings with officials from the DNC and Clinton’s campaign, Chalupa said. In January 2016 — months before Manafort had taken any role in Trump’s campaign — Chalupa told a senior DNC official that, when it came to Trump’s campaign, “I felt there was a Russia connection,” Chalupa recalled. “And that, if there was, that we can expect Paul Manafort to be involved in this election,” said Chalupa, who at the time also was warning leaders in the Ukrainian-American community that Manafort was “Putin’s political brain for manipulating U.S. foreign policy and elections.”
She said she shared her concern with Ukraine’s ambassador to the U.S., Valeriy Chaly, and one of his top aides, Oksana Shulyar, during a March 2016 meeting at the Ukrainian Embassy. According to someone briefed on the meeting, Chaly said that Manafort was very much on his radar, but that he wasn’t particularly concerned about the operative’s ties to Trump since he didn’t believe Trump stood much of a chance of winning the GOP nomination, let alone the presidency.
That all started to change just four days after Chalupa’s meeting at the embassy, when it was reported that Trump had in fact hired Manafort, suggesting that Chalupa may have been on to something. She quickly found herself in high demand. The day after Manafort’s hiring was revealed, she briefed the DNC’s communications staff on Manafort, Trump and their ties to Russia, according to an operative familiar with the situation. ...
Chalupa asked embassy staff to try to arrange an interview in which Poroshenko might discuss Manafort’s ties to Yanukovych. While the embassy declined that request, officials there became “helpful” in Chalupa’s efforts, she said, explaining that she traded information and leads with them. “If I asked a question, they would provide guidance, or if there was someone I needed to follow up with.” But she stressed, “There were no documents given, nothing like that.”
Chalupa said the embassy also worked directly with reporters researching Trump, Manafort and Russia to point them in the right directions. ...
Andrii Telizhenko, who worked as a political officer in the Ukrainian Embassy under Shulyar, said [Shulyar] instructed him to help Chalupa research connections between Trump, Manafort and Russia. “Oksana said that if I had any information, or knew other people who did, then I should contact Chalupa,” recalled Telizhenko, who is now a political consultant in Kiev. “They were coordinating an investigation with the Hillary team on Paul Manafort with Alexandra Chalupa,” he said, adding “Oksana was keeping it all quiet,” but “the embassy worked very closely with” Chalupa.
In fact, sources familiar with the effort say that Shulyar specifically called Telizhenko into a meeting with Chalupa to provide an update on an American media outlet’s ongoing investigation into Manafort.
Telizhenko recalled that Chalupa told him and Shulyar that, “If we can get enough information on Paul [Manafort] or Trump’s involvement with Russia, she can get a hearing in Congress by September.”
Chalupa confirmed that, a week after Manafort’s hiring was announced, she discussed the possibility of a congressional investigation with a foreign policy legislative assistant in the office of Rep. Marcy Kaptur (D-Ohio), who co-chairs the Congressional Ukrainian Caucus. But, Chalupa said, “It didn’t go anywhere.”
Asked about the effort, the Kaptur legislative assistant called it a “touchy subject” in an internal email to colleagues that was accidentally forwarded to Politico.
Kaptur’s office later emailed an official statement explaining that the lawmaker is backing a bill to create an independent commission to investigate “possible outside interference in our elections.” The office added “at this time, the evidence related to this matter points to Russia, but Congresswoman Kaptur is concerned with any evidence of foreign entities interfering in our elections.” ...
In [an] email [released by Wikileaks], which was sent in early May to then-DNC communications director Luis Miranda, Chalupa noted that she had extended an invitation to the Library of Congress forum to veteran Washington investigative reporter Michael Isikoff. Two days before the event, he had published a story for Yahoo News revealing the unraveling of a $26 million deal between Manafort and a Russian oligarch related to a telecommunications venture in Ukraine. And Chalupa wrote in the email she’d been “working with for the past few weeks” with Isikoff “and connected him to the Ukrainians” at the event.
Isikoff, who accompanied Chalupa to a reception at the Ukrainian Embassy immediately after the Library of Congress event, declined to comment.
Chalupa further indicated in her hacked May email to the DNC that she had additional sensitive information about Manafort that she intended to share “offline” with Miranda and DNC research director Lauren Dillon, including “a big Trump component you and Lauren need to be aware of that will hit in next few weeks and something I’m working on you should be aware of.” Explaining that she didn’t feel comfortable sharing the intel over email, Chalupa attached a screenshot of a warning from Yahoo administrators about “state-sponsored” hacking on her account, explaining, “Since I started digging into Manafort these messages have been a daily occurrence on my yahoo account despite changing my password often.”
Dillon and Miranda declined to comment. ...
The [Financial Times] noted that Trump’s candidacy had spurred “Kiev’s wider political leadership to do something they would never have attempted before: intervene, however indirectly, in a U.S. election,” and the story quoted Leshchenko [Ukraine's parliamentarian] asserting that the majority of Ukraine’s politicians are “on Hillary Clinton’s side.” ...
[A]n operative who has worked extensively in Ukraine, including as an adviser to Poroshenko, said it was highly unlikely that either Leshchenko or the anti-corruption bureau would have pushed the issue without at least tacit approval from Poroshenko or his closest allies.
“It was something that Poroshenko was probably aware of and could have stopped if he wanted to,” said the operative. ...
Telizhenko, the former embassy staffer, said that, during the primaries, Chaly, the country’s ambassador in Washington, had actually instructed the embassy not to reach out to Trump’s campaign, even as it was engaging with those of Clinton and Trump’s leading GOP rival, Ted Cruz.
“We had an order not to talk to the Trump team, because he was critical of Ukraine and the government and his critical position on Crimea and the conflict,” said Telizhenko. “I was yelled at when I proposed to talk to Trump,” he said, adding, “The ambassador said not to get involved — Hillary is going to win.”
This account was confirmed by Nalyvaichenko, the former diplomat and security chief now affiliated with a Poroshenko opponent, who said, “The Ukrainian authorities closed all doors and windows — this is from the Ukrainian side.” He called the strategy “bad and short-sighted.”
Andriy Artemenko, a Ukrainian parliamentarian associated with a conservative opposition party, did meet with Trump’s team during the campaign and said he personally offered to set up similar meetings for Chaly but was rebuffed.
“It was clear that they were supporting Hillary Clinton’s candidacy,” Artemenko said. “They did everything from organizing meetings with the Clinton team, to publicly supporting her, to criticizing Trump. … I think that they simply didn’t meet because they thought that Hillary would win.”
Tuesday, July 11, 2017
The Denver Post defends the right of anyone to request and receive public voter records, including President Trump
Here:
Withholding public records simply because you don’t like the president or because he is investigating election fraud sets a terrible precedent and is perhaps illegal.
Monday, July 10, 2017
Comey's "private" memos were government property, contained classified information which he may have mishandled, improperly stored or shared
From the story here:
FBI policy forbids any agent from releasing classified information or any information from ongoing investigations or sensitive operations without prior written permission, and mandates that all records created during official duties are considered to be government property. ...
[T]he revelation that four of the seven memos included some sort of classified information opens a new door of inquiry into whether classified information was mishandled, improperly stored or improperly shared.
Ironically, that was the same issue the FBI investigated in 2015-16 under Comey about Clinton’s private email server, where as secretary of State she and top aides moved classified information through insecure channels.
Russia derangement syndrome, from the pen of David Frum . . .
Here:
Trump’s not wrong to perceive a threat to the Euro-Atlantic from the south and east. But the most recent and most dramatic manifestation of that threat was the Russian intervention in the U.S. election to install Donald Trump as president.
John O'Sullivan still refuses to accept the meaning of "ourselves and our Posterity"
Here:
Notice that Ronald Reagan did not say that the great civil ideas of the West were the property of those Notre Dame graduates who were descended from the Founding Fathers and their generation. Nor did he say that they were the property of white Anglophone Protestants who had fetched up on these shores in the meantime — since that would have excluded the son of an Irish Catholic father like himself. Nor that the children of black slaves or other non-white migrants were excluded from that same moral and intellectual Western inheritance which the black former slave and passionate reader, Frederick Douglass, so cherished and claimed as his own.
Sunday, July 9, 2017
Kevin Williamson of National Review, CNBC's kind of conservative, tries out for job with better liberals, calls Trump a coward and a fool
Here, saying Trump is no different than Obama for being all talk and no action.
Williamson is unhappy that Trump hasn't yet started a shooting war with North Korea, which makes Williamson actually little different from Trump, who gave China all of two months to get North Korea under control.
Williamson has a BA in English from UT-Austin. Travis County Texas, home of UT, went for Hillary over Trump by nearly 66% to 27% in 2016, and gave libertarian crank Gary Johnson over 4.5% of its vote.
Saturday, July 8, 2017
Full-time jobs still haven't recovered after 10 years: We are at least 4.6 million behind
Full-time jobs in June 2007 stood at 122.2 million.
40.58% of the population then had full-time jobs.
In June 2017 127.3 million had full-time jobs, but that is only 39.16% of the population.
At the 2007 rate, 131.9 million would have full-time jobs in June 2017.
One can say the level has recovered, but the percentage sure hasn't.
We are at least 4.6 million full-time jobs behind what could reasonably be called full recovery, after 10 long years which millions will never get back:
Like people with already long careers which were cut short in their peak earning years, to the stillborn careers of young people whose college preparations got them ready for nothing but debt payments, to the people who finally found full-time jobs again but at salaries 20% behind what they were paid for the same work a decade ago, to the many millions who struggled through income stagnation throughout the period.
That's just some of the true crime of what has just transpired, and it's all on Barack Obama, the enemy of the middle class.
Have you noticed that all the dumb ass conservatives in talk radio have stopped talking about this number?
And it's not because they have finally come to understand what this number means. No, it's because they have a different president now, and they're not going to beat him over the head with it.
That's all.
Hey Rush, 94.8 million people not working but still eating! Take the food away! Kids in high school and college and retired people on Social Security have no right to eat if they're not working!
Dumb ass.
Friday, July 7, 2017
Loretta Lynch may have testified falsely before the House in July 2016, may have spoken with Amanda Renteria
From the story here:
The Senate Judiciary Committee, which has launched a bipartisan investigation into Lynch for possible obstruction of justice, recently learned of the existence of a document indicating Lynch assured the political director of Clinton’s campaign she wouldn’t let FBI agents “go too far” in probing the former secretary of state.
Thursday, July 6, 2017
Steve Scalise back in intensive care after being shot by left-wing extremist supporter of Bernie Sanders
Reported here in WaPo, which never mentions Scalise was shot by a left-wing extremist supporter of Bernie Sanders.
Bet you didn't know this: Vladimir Putin gave John Podesta's company Joule Unlimited $35 million
Democrats colluding while accusing others of what they do themselves.
From the story here:
[W]hen he joined the Obama White House, Podesta transferred his Joule shares to an LLC controlled by his adult children. He also resumed communicating with Joule and Joule investors after leaving the White House and joining Hillary Clinton’s campaign. In fact, he received an invoice from his lawyers in April 2015 — a consent request for Dmitry Akhanov of Rusnano USA to join Joule’s board.
But nothing to see here, Podesta insisted. ...
In 2012 the company claimed it had raised $110 million to date.
That meant the Kremlin-backed $35 million investment given to Joule after Podesta’s board appointment represented over 30 percent of Joule’s outside financing.
Infections kill 380,000 in nursing homes annually, mostly Medicaid recipients
Forget dying in the streets, they already drop like flies on Medicaid and no one gives a rat's rear end.
From Betsy McCaughey, here:
The real threat to seniors isn’t Medicaid funding levels. It’s that Medicaid officials tolerate substandard nursing-home care, when they could use the program’s market clout to demand better conditions. About 66 percent of long-term patients are paid for by Medicaid.
Wednesday, July 5, 2017
John Batchelor: The professors are lying about the Medicaid "cuts"
Here, where we learn that the Obamacare Medicaid expansion actually was UNFAIR because it is far more generous, by 100%, to childless, non-disabled, non-elderly adults earning less than $16,000 a year than it is to poor children, the disabled and seniors who were already on Medicaid.
The Republican Senate plan cuts that back 50%, equal to the existing, traditional reimbursement for poor children, the disabled and seniors on Medicaid.
Equality. It's a bitch brought to you by Republicans, not Democrats.
Tuesday, July 4, 2017
AEI is full of crap: This country was formed for "ourselves and our posterity", not for the sake of ideas, or hordes of future immigrants
We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.
The American Revolution: Not an upheaval, but a return, a restoration
From the story here:
First, there were those who admired the English constitution that they had inherited and studied. Believing they had been deprived of their rights under the English constitution, their aim was to regain these rights. Identifying themselves with the tradition of Coke and Selden, they hoped to achieve a victory against royal absolutism comparable to what their English forefathers had achieved in the Petition of Right and Bill of Rights. To individuals of this type, the word revolution still had its older meaning, invoking something that “revolves” and would, through their efforts, return to its rightful place—in effect, a restoration. Alexander Hamilton was probably the best-known exponent of this kind of conservative politics, telling the assembled delegates to the constitutional convention of 1787, for example, that “I believe the British government forms the best model the world ever produced.” Or, as John Dickinson told the convention: “Experience must be our only guide. Reason may mislead us. It was not reason that discovered the singular and admirable mechanism of the English constitution…. Accidents probably produced these discoveries, and experience has given a sanction to them.” And it is evident that they were quietly supported behind the scenes by other adherents of this view, among them the president of the convention, General George Washington.
The revolving revolution of 1776
From an op-ed in The Washington Times here:
"This was the object of the Declaration of Independence," [Jefferson] wrote in a letter to Henry Lee in May 1825. "Not to find out new principles, or new arguments, never before thought of, not merely to say things which had never been said before; but to place before mankind the common sense of the subject, in terms so plain and firm as to command their assent, and to justify ourselves in the independent stand we are compelled to take."
In that vein, the "revolution" was conservative and indeed conforms to Edmund Burke's original use of the word with its common meaning of something revolving. A full revolution returns affairs to an original condition.
It wasn't about being original in the sense of being new; it was about telling the world who we are as Americans. "Neither aiming at originality of principle or sentiment, nor yet copied from any particular and previous writing, it was intended to be an expression of the American mind, and to give to that expression the proper tone and spirit called for by the occasion," Jefferson added.
Tens of thousands of refugees stuck in Italy
From the story here:
With France and Switzerland closing their borders to migrants since last year, the tens of thousands in Italy have nowhere to go. The EU came up with a plan to relocate around 160,000 asylum seekers stuck in Italy and Greece but so far only 12,000 have been resettled. Italy says it can no longer be expected to deal single-handedly with the vast number of asylum seekers, most of them economic migrants, streaming across the Mediterranean. ...
The Italian government has warned that after years of taking in hundreds of thousands of migrants, the country is now at breaking point.
Italy's jobs debacle continues while stupid leaders let in refugees by the millions
From the story here:
Italy's chronic unemployment problem has been thrown into sharp relief after 85,000 people applied for 30 jobs at a bank – nearly 3,000 candidates for each post. ... It is not the first time that huge numbers of young Italians have applied for a small number of posts. When the region of Umbria advertised 94 public administration jobs in 2015, more than 32,000 people applied. A hospital in Milan that needed to recruit 10 nurses was inundated with more than 7,000 candidates.
Employers immediately panicked after Obama was elected, shedding jobs by the millions
From November 2007 through October 2008, there were 19.6 million first time claims for unemployment.
Not good, but nothing like what followed.
Immediately after Obama was elected, the figure jumped by over 52% in November 2008 and never looked back. For the first twelve months after Obama's election, jobless claims jumped by 56% to 30.6 million.
The average per month jumped from 1.6 million per month to 2.6 million.
And in the first eight months since Trump was elected?
The average is 1.1 million per month.
Happy Independence Day!
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