More betrayal from Trump: Commutes sentence of the poster boy for employing illegal aliens

Trump on Wednesday commuted the sentence of kosher meat producer Sholom Rubashkin, serving 27 years on 86 counts of bank fraud and money laundering.

From the story here:

President Trump issued his first prison commutation Wednesday to a man whose business was caught employing 389 illegal immigrants in a single shift, dismaying anti-illegal immigration advocates and a former prosecutor on the case. ...

Prosecutors said at sentencing that Rubashkin was found to have "cheated a bank and others out of a staggering amount of money — more than $26 million." His conviction on 86 federal counts was upheld on appeal.

David Frum is not a conservative

Here:

Ideas are not artifacts, especially the kind of collective ideas we know as ideologies. Conservatives in 1964 opposed civil-rights laws. Conservatives in 1974 opposed tax cuts unless paid for by spending cuts. Conservatives in 1984 opposed same-sex marriage. Conservatives in 1994 opposed trade protectionism. Conservatives in 2004 opposed people who equated the FBI and Soviet Union’s KGB. All those statements of conservative ideology have gone by the boards, and one could easily write a similar list of amended views for liberals.

Conservatism is what conservatives think, say, and do. As conservatives change—as much through the harsh fact of death and birth as by the fluctuations of opinion—so does what it means to be a conservative.

On the contray, conservatives believe in a transcendent moral order populated by eternal truths to which they seek to conform human affairs. Jews, for example, recognize these in the Decalogue, Platonists in the Ideas and Hindus in dharma. Infractions committed against the eternal truths do not change the truths, the infractions change us, sometimes for the better but more often for the worse.

Like the sophists, David Frum has chosen the worse, peddling his opinions in a world composed of mere opinion, as changeable as a pair of pants.

That's not conservatism.

HaHaHa, HaHaHaHaHa: I got your "booming economy" right here, fella

The Reagan bull ended in August 2000 with final average nominal per annum return of 18.99%, real 15.28%

When terrorism gives you lemons, make lemonade

It's not exactly affection shown for the terrorists, but hey, what do you expect from thorough-going materialism?

GDP actually DROPPED in the report out today for 3Q2017

Today's GDP report was the third and final estimate for 3Q2017.

A month ago, current dollar GDP was estimated at $19.509 trillion.

Today, it's $8.4 billion less: $19.5006 trillion.

Yeah, I know, big whoop, but don't expect anyone in Conservatism Inc. to point it out, because, you know, "the economy is booming". 

Read it and weep: "The move to a territorial system opens the barn doors wide to corporate offshoring"

Read all about the new giant sucking sound, here.

Bubbles bubbles everywhere, including in politics

Senator Orin Hatch:

"We're Going To Make This The Greatest Presidency We've Seen, Not Only In Generations, But Maybe Ever"

Joe Curl at The Washington Times is a lonely voice on the right speaking out against the Republican tax "reform"

Here in "Middle class gets trickled on again in tax-cut bill".

Or, as Fletcher might have put it, don't piss down my back and tell me it's rainin'.

Once again in the dead of night Senate Republicans pass tax reform for multinational corporations

The New York Times, here:

The Senate approved the bill early Wednesday morning.

The Senate voted 51 to 48, with no Republican defections and no Democratic support.

Under the final tax bill, the corporate tax rate would fall to 21 percent, from the current 35 percent, a move that Republicans are betting will increase economic growth, create jobs and raise wages. Individuals would also see tax cuts, including a top rate of 37 percent, down from 39.6 percent. The size of inheritances shielded from estate taxation would double, to $22 million for married couples, and owners of pass-through businesses, whose profits are taxed through the individual code, would be able to deduct 20 percent of their business income.

But the individual tax cuts would expire after 2025, a step that Republicans took to comply with budget rules, which do not allow the package to add to the deficit after a decade.

Republican tax reform for multinational corporations passes US House 227-203-2

The New York Times has the roll call, here.

Just 12 Republicans voted "No", most from states hurt by the $10,000 cap for deductibility of state, local and property taxes:

CA-48

Dana Rohrabacher

N

CA-49

Darrell Issa

N

NC-3

Walter B. Jones

N

NJ-2

Frank A. LoBiondo

N

NJ-4

Christopher H. Smith

N

NJ-7

Leonard Lance

N

NJ-11

Rodney Frelinghuysen

N

NY-1

Lee Zeldin

N

NY-2

Peter T. King

N

NY-11

Dan Donovan

N

NY-19

John J. Faso

N

NY-21

Elise Stefanik

N

Taxes are about precise numbers, which means Rush Limbaugh will make you cringe

He just said Ronald Reagan lowered the top marginal rate from 90% in the 1981 tax reform.

He didn't. John F. Kennedy lowered the top rate from 90% to 70%.

Reagan lowered the top rate from 70% to 50%.

Just about everything Rush says about taxes is imprecise, and wrong, including about what he has no excuse for not knowing, namely taxes under his hero Reagan.

But hey, he can't even get the old chestnut "whose ox is gored" correct. Today it's the goose getting gored, or something.

Take another pill, Rush. Just one more hour to go before you're off for two weeks.

Update: My bad. Rush will be back tomorrow, to celebrate the tax bill passing.

Alimony paid will no longer be deductible, and alimony received will no longer be taxable

War on Men!

Expect a big decrease in amicable divorces! Women will have a YUGE incentive to stick it to the man.

So expect even fewer men proposing marriage in the first place.

And you thought the Republicans were the pro-family party.

Not any more it isn't.

Reported here:

In the new bill, however, these payments are no longer deductible for the payor. Nor are the payments included in the recipient's gross income. Instead, the money used for alimony will be taxed at the payor's rates.

This provision is effective for divorce and separation agreements signed after December 31, 2018.

Republican tax "reform" will make it harder for you to move, eliminating the relocation deduction

Reported here:

Are you thinking of moving across the country for a new career opportunity? If so, the tax bill won't let you deduct the cost of your move.

HELOC interest deduction goes away under Republican tax "reform": Expect loan consolidation

You know the one, the one you take to help buy a car, fund tuition, or actually fix up the house.

When the credit card interest deduction went away under Ronald Reagan, consumers opened up Home Equity Lines of Credit in response, the interest on which was deductible. Now that HELOC interest deductibility is going away, expect those HELOCs to be refinanced under new first mortgages to recapture that.

Also expect this to impact consumer spending, negatively.

Reported here:

Individuals who take out home equity loans will no longer be able to deduct that interest under the new bill.

Tax bill includes an incentive for US companies to invest in foreign manufacturing

Tax bill includes an incentive for US companies to invest in foreign manufacturing

Justice: Muslim who beheaded Oklahoma woman sentenced to death by lethal injection

We would have preferred the rope, say two years ago.

From the story here:

Alton Nolen, 33, was convicted of first degree murder in late September for beheading his coworker Colleen Hufford inside Vaughan Foods in September 2014. Following a two-phase trial beginning in mid-September, jurors recommended Nolen be sentenced to death in October. ... In court Friday morning, Judge Lori Walkley accepted the recommendation of the jury, sentencing Nolen to death by lethal injection for beheading Hufford.

In unfree China, if you disrespect the mass murdering terrorist Genghis Khan you go to jail

Offenses against social stability will not be tolerated!

From the story here:

A Chinese man was sentenced to one year in jail after a video of him stamping on a portrait of Genghis Khan went viral, mainland media reported on Friday. He was charged with affecting social stability by prosecutors in Ordos, a city in Inner Mongolia, news website Thepaper.cn reported. ... Police in Inner Mongolia told the news site that they received complaints from residents in the province and deemed the video had caused disruption to society.

Sometimes Ann Coulter is an idiot, for instance when dissing federal encouragement of having children

You'd think someone who wants America for Americans would want to encourage anything which promotes Americans having more children instead of importing them, but you would be wrong.

Rubio's insistence on a larger child tax credit stops some of the damage being done by Republicans to people with families larger than four.

Abolishing the personal exemption meant parents lost those exemptions for all their children, and the increased standard deduction didn't go far enough to replace them, meaning they'd pay more in taxes just because they have more kids.

Coulter's indignation appears to be purely personal, an ugly intrusion of the irrational into her otherwise often rational positions.

She doesn't realize how libertarian she sounds (she hates them by the way). Americans who have children are making it possible that something like America survives into the future, which is a more sure and lasting contribution than any law which might be passed.

Some of the founders recognized that laws are a mere parchment barrier. When the pirates are attacking, you need a navy, which means sailors, not a bill of rights.

1986 was the last year domestic investment exceeded investment abroad, which is why everything REALLY SUCKS here now

NAFTA began with Canada in 1989, was expanded in 1994, China became a WTO member in 2001, but the 1986 tax reform really started the final leg down

There's been a definite slow down in the growth rate of full-time jobs since 2015, about 25%