Masquerade

I've heard- we all have- far worse things from Tim Scott. However, this is simply not accurate:

Tim Scott: Remember Romans 13:1-4 simply says that there are ministers in government called law enforcement officers given the sword so they can exact the wrath of god pic.twitter.com/kxy9Vxugpy

— Acyn (@Acyn) August 6, 2025

In the New International Version translation of Romans 13:1-4, Paul writes

Let everyone be subject to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except that which God has established. The authorities that exist have been established by God. 2 Consequently, whoever rebels against the authority is rebelling against what God has instituted, and those who do so will bring judgment on themselves. 3 For rulers hold no terror for those who do right, but for those who do wrong. Do you want to be free from fear of the one in authority? Then do what is right and you will be commended. 4 For the one in authority is God’s servant for your good. But if you do wrong, be afraid, for rulers do not bear the sword for no reason. They are God’s servants, agents of wrath to bring punishment on the wrongdoer.

There simply is nothing in there about law enforcement officers. Verses 5-7, with which 1-4 often is grouped, reads

Therefore, it is necessary to submit to the authorities, not only because of possible punishment but also as a matter of conscience.

This is also why you pay taxes, for the authorities are God’s servants, who give their full time to governing. Give to everyone what you owe them: If you owe taxes, pay taxes; if revenue, then revenue; if respect, then respect; if honor, then honor.

Paul said "This is also why you pay taxes....." By contrast, in a presidential debate in 2016

When Hillary Clinton said that her Republican rival Donald Trump had paid no federal tax in some years, (Donald) Trump didn't deny it.  In fact, he said "That makes me smart.

        

And yet, Senator Scott appeared with Trump and Vivek "the fake" Ramaswamy at Trump's victory rally following the New Hampshire primary in 2024. There, he gushed "I just love you" to the 45th President. Donald Trump, and Senator Scott his acolyte, should remember the warning when the man believed to be Jesus' half-brother warned in chapter 5

Now listen, you rich people, weep and wail because of the misery that is coming on you. Your wealth has rotted, and moths have eaten your clothes. Your gold and silver are corroded. Their corrosion will testify against you and eat your flesh like fire. You have hoarded wealth in the last days. 

When there are politicians such as Tim Scott intentionally misinterpreting Scripture in order to pave the way for the police state Donald Trump plans, it shouldn't be ignored. President Trump's servants cover themselves in the garment of piety for Trump's sake. But the South Carolina senator should heed the words of Paul to the Corinthians when he asserted "and no wonder, for Satan himself masquerades as an angel of light. it is not surprising, then, if his servants also masquerade as servants of righteousness."

Share |

True Love

Don't kid yourself. Ken Langone very much wanted to vote for Donald Trump, and probably did.

🚨BREAKING: Home Depot Co-Founder, who DIDN'T WANT TO VOTE TRUMP, just said Americans are "walking with more bounce" thanks to Trump SAVING the U.S. economy.

"I am sold on Trump."

Trump was right about everything.
pic.twitter.com/jevkDfmEYc

— Bo Loudon (@BoLoudon) July 15, 2025

A long-time GOP donor who supported Nikki Haley for the presidency, Langone once stated that he wouldn't vote for Trump if he won the nomination, evidently because the latter is rude and crude. However, when Trump was ostensibly shot in Butler, Pa. in July, Langone instantly- as he wanted us to believe- became a supporter of the ex-actor. He told Fox News' Neil Cavuto on July 15, 2024

Saturday night is the beginning of an opportunity for him to carve a very significant place in history. I'll tell you why. One guy that ought to be really impacted by Trump's performance Saturday night, if I was Putin across the table from him, I'd say, ‘Hey, I better not bluff or I better not think this guy won't pull the trigger. This guy will pull the trigger.’ He proved that Saturday night.

The Fox Business host claimed "that's a real turnaround because you didn't want to vote for him." But Langone is not some guy at the other end of the bar from you. He is the billionaire founder of Home Depot, and the idea that he was inclined to vote for the Democratic nominee for President until Trump became the victim of an assassination attempt defies credulity.

Not when one knows which side of his bread is buttered. During the general election campaign, the GOP nominee promised to "renew the Trump tax cuts, which were the largest in history, but we will make it even better. There will be no tax on tips. It will all be made up with tariffs."  Trump vowed

a large-scale demolition of government regulations starting on Day One if he returns to the White House.

Trump spent his last administration rolling back Obama-era regulations, including climate, air pollution and water rules, some of which have since been overhauled by President Joe Biden’s team. As he eyes a return to the White House, Trump is signaling an even bigger strike against federal rules if he reclaims the presidency.

On the campaign trail in recent weeks, Trump has promised the “most aggressive regulatory reduction” in the country’s history if he’s reelected....

Trump said last week, “On Day One, I will sign an executive order directing every federal agency to immediately remove every single burdensome regulation driving up the cost of goods"....

(Elon) Musk has embraced the idea of joining Trump as a government efficiency czar. The Tesla CEO and Trump ally said in October that “a bonfire of nonsense regulations would be epic.”

Trump has also said he would order the government to eliminate at least 10 regulations for every new one — an expansion of his first-term policy that promised to slash two regulations for every new one.

And now, of course, the tax cuts, because of course a Republican president slashes the taxes of the wealthy. If there is a higher god for Republicans than slashing regulations protecting consumers and workers, it's reducing the taxes of the rich, both the core of shoving wealth upward. No doubt the ultra-rich Langone pals around with are "walking around with more bounce in their step." The "they" who have more bounce in their step have much reason to be doing cartwheels. the impact upon federal incomes of the megabill recently signed by the President will find

some 60% of the benefits would go to those making $217,000 or more (the top 20%). These folks would receive an average tax cut of $12,500, or 3.4% of their after-tax income, in 2026, the analysis found.

But the lowest-income households, who earn about $35,000 or less, would receive an average tax cut of only $150, less than 1% of their after-tax income. Middle-income households would see their taxes reduced by about $1,800, or 2.3% of their after-tax income, on average.

This analysis does not take into account the historic cuts to the nation’s safety-net program, which would hurt lower-income Americans. They would see their income reduced after factoring in the changes to Medicaid and food stamps, according to a report from the Budget Lab at Yale.

In December, 2017 Ken Langone claimed that he would "feel better when we address the debt, when we address the deficit, in a way where we're doing this over a period of time." Now he says "I am sold on" the architect of a bill which is likely to add $3.4 trillion to the deficit over the next decade.

It's not accurate that Ken Langone "didn't want  to vote for Trump." He merely wanted traditional GOP exploitation of middle, working, and lower class people, as well as significant tax breaks for the wealthy and the very wealthy, to be administered by Nikki Haley or someone less personally offensive than Donald J. Trump. And when it comes down to a choice, Langone and his fellow travelers always remember that the bottom line is wealth and power, and it comes with an (R) after the last name.

Share |

Trans Today, Something Else Tomorrow

Poor Jen Psaki. She was a very effective press secretary for President Biden, and is now a sub-par host on a weekly show on MSNBC and frequent guests at other times on the network. However, it may pay fairly well- or will when she gets more face time- and must be far less stressful.

In the video, a segment from her most recent Sunday show, attached to the tweet below, Psaki makes a couple of strong points, then fails, though in a way which probably pleases her new bosses. She remarks

Just to summarize, the right-wingers, the conspiracy theorists, the birthers, they now want us to forget the years they spent fear-mongering about Muslims and Islam. Ten years ago, standing against Sharia law was the key G.O.P. litmus test.

Now that litmus test seems to be how fervently you oppose transgender people?

As long as she's asking the question- however rhetorically- the answer is an unqualified "no."

The Britannica Dictionary defines litmus test as "something (such as an opinion about a political or moral issue) that is used to make a judgment about whether someone or something is acceptable." In no Republican presidential nominating contest has every Republican been required to say something nasty or crude about transgender people. Moreover, views about the LGBTQIA++ community vary from Republican to Republican, both privately and publicly.

The only transgender issue, and an extremely narrow one, on which no Republican will take a dissenting view is whether biological males should be able to play womans' sports. Even on this, some Republicans will choose to remain mum.  Nonetheless, Psaki states "just look into what Trump himself has to say about that. Even he doesn't exactly know why he's attacking them," then plays a video of Donald Trump stating

It's amazing how strongly people feel about that. You see, I talk about cutting taxes, people go like (pretends to applaud politely. When I talk about transgender, everyone goes crazy. Who would have thought- five years ago- you didn't know what the hell it was?

That doesn't qualify it as a litmus test. It means only that the very small minority of conservatives which will take time out of their busy day, travel to a venue, stand in line, then wait until Trump appears to talk get excited when the issue is raised.

Psaki is assuming that in the excerpt she played, Trump was telling the truth, an odd assumption coming from a Democrat. Even if he were, the response among his followers is in part because they believe he is telling them what other politicians are too fearful to do. These persons need not applaud hysterically when Trump- or any GOP official- calls for lower taxes. Major Republicans all do.

They all do because lowering taxes- i.e., income taxes- for everyone is one point in the Republican three-legged gospel. (They differ from Democrats in wanting income taxes cut for the wealthy and corporations, but they advocate reductions for all.)

The other two parts are cutting regulations and size of the government. While they often fail to do the latter when they are in power, no Republican anywhere or at any time will question the necessity of curbing taxes, regulations, or the size of government. The Republican may be  a culture warrior such as Trump, Ron DeSantis, or Tim Scott or a media- proclaimed "moderate" such as Larry Hogan, Chris Sununu, Chris Christie, or Will Hurd,. None will concede that reducing taxes for the wealthy increases the deficit, government regulations help prevent such disasters as recently occurred in East Palestine, Ohio, or that small government typically means a government which protects individuals against extremes of the market.

Nonetheless, Psaki continues

So what you just heard in that video sounds an awful like, and reminiscent of, what George Wallace, a staunch segregationist, once told a newspaper editor: "You know, I tried to talk about good roads and good schools and all these things that have been a part of my career, and nobody listened And then, I began talking about n _ _ _ _ _ _ and they stomped the floor.

George Wallace was a Democrat. His last meaningful involvement in politics was a half-century ago when his bid for a presidential nomination was failed in the aftermath of being shot.  He died years later, and were he today still alive, around, and active, would almost certainly be a Republican. Nonetheless, he could not have been part of a GOP playbook which Psaki believed she was describing and which she made explicit upon adding

So let's be clear. This sit he same old GOP playbook and their cynical ploy to tear up the fabric of our society and damage the idea that out of many, we are one. All because they so desperately want to regain the White House.

Those are the Republican candidates for President who want most of all to regain the White House. GOP senators, being senators, want most of all to be re-elected, secondarily that their party regains control of its chamber. GOP Representatives, being United States Representatives, want most of all to be re-elected, secondarily that their party regains control of its chamber.

We're noticing the reemergence of an old ploy straight from the GOP playbook, only this time the party has a new target...@jrpsaki breaks it down. pic.twitter.com/wZ55u20476

— Inside with Jen Psaki (@InsideWithPsaki) July 2, 2023

Psaki is correct that the Republican Party wants to rend the fabric of society and damage the idea that out of many, we are one. However, that is most critically played out in uniform GOP support for "school reform," including charter schools, vouchers, and aid to religious schools.  There have been common principles in American society because the default choice of parents has been to send children to the traditional, local public school where those children are taught to honor traditional American values. Send most of them off to private, charter, or religious schools, and what binds our society together disintegrates.

It's understandable that the public school system would not be uppermost in Psaki's mind. At her liberal network, non-progressive network hosts, contributors, and guests come through daily to promote contemporary liberal values, advocating the rights of racial minorities, sexual/gender minorities, women, and immigrants. One of the primary issues on which that unanimity is missing is support for pubic secondary schools.

With those priorities inviolate, it is unsurprising that Jen Psaki would yield to the temptation of arguing that transsexualism, the issue du jour of all proper-thinking liberals, is the same for Republicans and the hill they'd want to die on. It is transsexuals today, just as it has been fetanyl, immigrants massomg at the border, CRT (typically not spelled out), urban crime, and other issues, each for a brief spell over the past few years.

That's how it works. But a Republican becomes unacceptable if he or she does not mention, and remain true to (at least rhetorically), low taxes, little government regulation, and shrinking government. Jen Psaki and all Democrats must keep their eye on the ball.

                                            HAPPY INDEPENDENCE DAY

Share |

Race, Race, And More Race

Mention to northeasterners of an advanced age Freddy's Fashion Mart, Crown Heights, and Steve Pagones, and they may know to whom you're referring. Swap out Steve Pagones for Tawana Brawley, and they almost surely will.  Allow Glen Loury to remind us of that day in November, 1987 when

.... a 15-year-old black girl was found lying in a garbage bag, smeared with feces, with various racial slurs and epithets written in charcoal on her body. She said that she’d been raped by six white men and that two were law-enforcement officials. Mr. Sharpton relentlessly championed her cause. And yet, after seven months of examining police and medical records, a grand jury found “overwhelming evidence” that Ms. Brawley had fabricated her entire story.

Yet Mr. Sharpton proceeded to accuse the prosecutor, Steven Pagones, of being one of the perpetrators of the alleged abduction and rape. Mr. Sharpton was successfully sued (along with Ms. Brawley’s lawyers, Anthony H. Maddox Jr. and C. Vernon Mason Sr.) for defamation. The jury in this civil action found Mr. Sharpton liable for making seven defamatory statements about Mr. Pagones, whose life fell apart as a result of the entire episode. Mr. Sharpton refused to pay his share of damages, which was later paid by a number of his supporters, and he has refused to apologize.

To this day, as reported in a fawning profile in March, 2018 unfortunately appearing in The New York Times, Sharpton defiantly defends his actions in this matter, stating "If I had to choose between a 15-year-old black girl and a white legal system that has always done us wrong, I’m going with her."

As a New Jerseyan of a certain age, I recall  being confident that the matter was a hoax, only because it was obviously so. . And now anyone who has a clue would recognize the same Al Sharpton defending racial bias and discrimination. Politico reports

The Rev. Al Sharpton has made calls to at least one member of Congress to convey his concerns that the full axing of the so-called carried interest loophole that’s being discussed for inclusion in the reconciliation bill would hurt Black businesspeople trying to build wealth, four sources tell Daniel.

 — Rep. Joyce Beatty (D-Ohio), a member of the House Financial Services Committee and chair of the powerful Congressional Black Caucus, told POLITICO that Sharpton called her twice in mid-September to ask her whether a carve-out for those businesspeople could be created. Such a carve-out would be unprecedented and of questionable legality. Two sources said Rep. Steven Horsford (D-Nev.) has also called Sharpton to hear his views on this issue, and a spokesperson for the congressman said the two spoke “about ways to help Black-owned businesses. Reverend Sharpton’s National Action Network has a chapter in Las Vegas, and he and Congressman Horsford speak often about priorities for the Black community"....

Asked about his stance on this issue, Sharpton said in a brief interview that he “raised a question about whether there could be a carve-out about Black first-generation people who say that it affects their money. … I’m concerned about the unintended consequences.” He said he was not being paid to bring the issue up with lawmakers, calling it a position of his National Action Network, which has worked on advancing civil rights for decades. Sharpton said later that he wanted the businesspeople's concerns to be considered as Congress deliberates the provision. “I’m concerned that Black businesses that I fought for be heard and that their concerns be heard,” he said.

Al Sharpton is lobbying against closing the carried interest loophole in the Biden budget - a rule that allows billionaire investors to pay as low as 20% on taxes, lower than their janitors -- and he's saying he's doing it to protect Black businesspeople trying to build wealth. pic.twitter.com/SK26TNwo1u

— Lee Fang (@lhfang) October 21, 2021

Sharpton evidently is not concerned about small businesses. He's not concerned about even black small businesses.  He's concerned about wealthy black business owners.

Al Sharpton is lobbying against closing the carried interest loophole in the Biden budget - a rule that allows billionaire investors to pay as low as 20% on taxes, lower than their janitors -- and he's saying he's doing it to protect Black businesspeople trying to build wealth.

That's because Al Sharpton has little interest in social justice even less in economic justice.  His passion is race, and he is little more than a race hustler.  Yet he retains credibility among some Democratic politicians as well as a show on MSNBC, which should be disturbing among people who actually do care about social and economic justice.

 

Share |

Tweet Of The Day- IRS Enforcement

Remember when the US made fun of what a failed state Greece was bc they couldn't collect taxes? https://t.co/OJJgnhgcdU

— emptywheel (@emptywheel) July 18, 2021

The Administration hopes the $80 billion for the Internal Revenue Service in the Democrats' bill would raise $700 billion over the next decades because it is intended 

to toughen IRS enforcement efforts as part of its "American Families Plan" proposal earlier this spring, as well as specific policy changes such as hiring agents to tackle complex returns, forcing firms to disclose more information and overhauling outdated technology. 

But the ghost of Johnny Paycheck hangs over the body politic. If the bill passes, it will be with very few if any GOP votes. Republicans would try to hang Democrats with the charge that the latter have imposed a massive middle class tax increase.

When Republicans cut IRS allocations during the Obama Administration, the agency responded as expected, going after the middle and working classes because their returns were low-hanging fruit. If the Internal Revenue Service gets more money from legislation supported exclusively (or almost so) by Democrats, the latter can't attack Republicans for merely protecting the rich (or even more impotently, for refusing to pay for spending).

They would have to name names. Attack the GOP for being the servile statements of this industry and that, this company and that. It would strike corporations which contribute to both parties as mean, and Democrats might recoil from their responsibility to call Republicans out. But unless they can convince voters that the GOP is representing their donors, those voters will believe Democrats are coming after them.

Share |

The Real Deal

Commenting on a remark about the new tax proposal from Senator Elizabeth Warren, Australian economist Cameron Murray tweets "Enforcing our existing tax law is the best bang for your buck investment available for government- >10x return on investment per year."

Australia in 2015 inaugurated a Tax Avoidance Taskforce, which reportedly increases its "focus on the top 1,000 multinational and public companies as well as the top 320 private groups and the high wealth individuals who control them." The federal government claims the taskforce in its first two years raised a little more than $5.6 billion and over $10 billion in tax liabilities at a cost of $679.9 billion.

The Senator's plan would feature a two percent wealth tax on individuals with assets greater than $50 million and a three percent wealth tax on persons with more than $1 billion. Additionally, as luck- or design- would have it

Warren’s proposal includes at least three new mechanisms to combat tax evasion, according to a person familiar with the plan. Those are a significant increase in funding for the Internal Revenue Service; a mandatory audit rate requiring a certain number of people who pay the wealth tax to be subject to an audit every year; and a one-time tax penalty for those who have more than $50 million and try to renounce their U.S. citizenship.

the Massachusetts Democrat is being advised by economists Emmanuel Saez and Gabriel Zucman, who earlier this week penned (typed?) an op-ed in The New York Times defending and supporting a proposal by Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez advocating a marginal tax rate of 70% on incomes above $10 million. Saez and Zucman sent to Warren a letter on January 14 and

The wealthiest 1 percent of families currently face a total tax burden, including state and local taxes, of about 3.2 percent relative to wealth, Saez and Zucman write in their letter.

The bottom 99 percent of families currently has a tax burden of 7.2 percent relative to their wealth, the economists say.

“One of the key motivations for introducing a progressive wealth tax is to curb the growing concentration of wealth,” Saez and Zucman wrote to Warren in their Jan. 14 letter. “The top 1 percent wealth share has increased dramatically from about 22 percent in the late 1970s to around 40 percent in recent years. Conversely, the wealth share of the bottom 95 percent of families has declined from about 50 percent in the late 1970s to about 40 percent today.”

Thus far, seven Democrats- Julian Castro, Kirsten Gillibrand, Kamala Harris, Tulsi Gabbard, John Delaney, Richard Ojeda, and Andrew Yang- have either formally or informally entered the race.  The Democratic electorate deserves to hear from each of them, as well as from all others who become candidates, on Warren's idea.

Raising a vast sum of additional, necessary revenue and reducing wealth disparity among individuals and families are the two most important reasons to adopt Senator Warren's proposal, or something very similar to it. However, there is an additional though more subtle factor, as Jared Bernstein, former economic adviser to Vice President Biden, explains

The “miracle of compounding” is a tremendous force for those sitting on a large pile of large assets. It’s also terribly skewed away from minorities. As Valerie Wilson has shown, the black/white median income ratio is about 60 percent. For net worth, it’s 10 percent.

In addressing both income and wealth disparity, the plan has potential to improve substantially the financial outlook of black and Latino families and strike a blow for racial, as well as economic, opportunity. This is not the low-hanging fruit of criminal justice reform, which counts no one among its powerful opponents.

Tax reform of this magnitude goes to the heart of economic justice and powerful opponents lie in wait. The response of high-profile Democrats may be critical, and will be telling.

Share |

Betraying Trump's Nobodies

President Trump called to speak on air to one of his most loyal fans yesterday and told Rush Limbaugh "outside of Washington you have the greatest people in the world."

This is a rare instance of Trump being accurate, given that he and the other swill in his Administration now reside in the Washington area.  However, Limbaugh stated

You know, I do understand it. I understand the bond that those people attending your rallies have with you and you with them. I’ve seen it. I know why it exists. And you are consistent. Things you said during the campaign are things you still say today. You haven’t given anybody reason to doubt you. You haven’t betrayed anybody or made them think that you’re going to.

During the campaign, Trump often was vague and gavecontradictory indications about his tax plans. On n May 8, 2016 he explained his tax proposal on Meet the Press and stated "business might have to pay a little bit more. But we're giving a massive business tax cut." However, (slightly) more clearly said "the middle class has to be protected. The rich is probably going to end up paying more."

He never intended that to be the case:

The Corporate Tax Scam of 2017 conferred the vast majority of its benefits upon the wealthy. Evidently, that was not enough for the scoundrels of the swamp because now

The Trump administration is considering a change to tax deduction rules that analysts say would amount to a $100 billion capital gains tax cut for the wealthy.

Aides said Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin has not decided whether to pursue a change that would allow Americans to take inflation into account when determining capital gains taxes – and whether the administration could do it unilaterally, bypassing Congress.

"There's been a great deal of interest in this provision for a long time. The treasury is currently evaluating the economic impact to see whether or not it requires any legislation," said White House spokesman Hogan Gidley.

Officials are also looking at how such a change might take effect.

"If it can’t get done through a legislation process, we will look at what tools at Treasury we have to do it on our own and we’ll consider that,” Mnuchin told The New York Times. “We are studying that internally, and we are also studying the economic costs and the impact on growth.”

While the White House continues its assault on both the safety net and workers, the wealthy are well taken care of.  And so when Rush Limbaugh tells President Trump "you haven't betrayed anybody," it's accurate- as long as "anybody" is defined as "the top 1%."

Share |

No Red Line There

Mark Warner, ranking Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, means well.  He has tweeted "any attempt to remove the Special Counsel, pardon key witnesses, or otherwise interfere in the investigation, would be a gross abuse of power" and "all members of Congress, from both parties, have a responsibility to our Constitution and to our country to make that clear immediately."

Nonetheless, the Virginia senator also tweeted "I've said it before, and I am saying it again: firing the Special Counsel is a red line that the President cannot cross." 

Saying it repeatedly, unfortunately, won't make it magically happen, though perhaps Warner meant that this President cannot cross a red line with Mueller any more than the previous one did with Syria, which meant nothing, notwithstanding helping defeat Hillary Clinton.

As Natasha Bertrand has noted, "Trump asked Comey for loyalty; asked him to drop the Flynn probe; fired Comey; pressured Sessions not to recuse; pressured Sessions to fire McCabe; pressured Coats, Rogers, Pompeo & multiple congresmen to say he wasn't under FBI investigation; and tried to fire Mueller."(He also fired Sally Yates.)

Trump calls the investigation a "witch hunt" and has such members of Congress  as Senators Cornyn and Johnson criticizing the FBI and Representative Trey Gowdy undermining the FBI. Devin Nunes has beeen such a toady for Dear Leader that if he isn't being paid a salary as a member of the President's communications team, he should sue. (Meanwhile, Martin Luther King's birthday came and went without a hint of criticism from them over FBI surveillance of the Reverend Dr.; can't imagine why.)






But the best evidence that firing Mueller is no "red line" that cannot be crossed ironically comes from the Senator who at one time seemed exorcised by the possibility. The Daily Beast's Betsy Woodruff reports

Sen. Thom Tillis, a North Carolina Republican in his first term, made headlines over the summer when he signed on to legislation with Sen. Chris Coons (D-DE) that would have shielded Mueller from being fired. But Tillis has largely abandoned the push to move that legislation forward while conceding that the bill doesn’t have the support to get through Congress. His office says he still supports the bill, but that the matter isn’t urgent since Trump says he doesn’t plan to fire Mueller....

On Thursday night, The New York Times reported that Trump tried to fire the special counsel last summer. (Tillis spokesperson Daniel) Keylin told The Daily Beast that despite the revelation, Tillis continues to trust that the president isn’t planning to fire Mueller, who is leading an investigation into potential coordination between the Trump campaign and the Russian government during the 2016 election.

The Senator is blowing smoke up our posterior or, as the commercial puts it, our kiester (Wisconsin).  Woodruff further explains

the dialing back of the Senator's support is significant. Unlike Graham, who veers between bashing Trump and golfing with him, and Coons and Booker—both Democrats—Tillis could bring the legislation to shield Mueller serious bipartisan bona fides. When he introduced his bill, Tillis similarly didn’t believe that a firing of Mueller was near, but he pitched the legislation as a precautionary measure.

“I don’t have any evidence to suggest the White House had any intention of doing it [firing Mueller], but it’s a helpful way for us to take it off the table,” he explained.

Now the proposal has been all but taken off the table- not because firing Mueller is a longshot but because it would put congressional Republicans into a bind.  They would have to choose between giving to Trump a pass on an act which would instantly incite massive demonstrations nationally or angering the President's base, much of which is unyielding. Republicans who would vote in favor of Tillis-Coons also would be subject to Trump's angry and derisive tweets, and Republicans don't like to get their feelings hurt.

And then there is the matter of taxes for the wealthy, which Sarah Ellison described in August as it pertained to Paul Ryan, who had condemned Donald Trump for his 7/15 charge that Mexico was sending "their rapists" to the USA; allegation that Judge Curiel was biased because his descendants were from Mexico;  travel ban; and comments on the Access Hollywood tape. Nevertheless the House Speaker has made a

bargain (which) is clear—it’s the one spelled out by Grover Norquist back in 2012, when Norquist defended the choice of Mitt Romney by saying he’d also have endorsed a monkey, a plate of lasagna, or a potted plant. All Norquist wanted was “a Republican with enough working digits to handle a pen” to sign legislation. Ryan wants to gut the safety net for the poor and cut taxes for the wealthy, and believes that with Trump he can do that. He said recently that he had dreamed of cutting Medicaid since his keg-drinking days. Having Trump’s digits on the Resolute Desk—whatever the existential risk to the principles of the country as a whole—is a small price to pay.

Of legislation protecting Robert Mueller, Maine Republican senator Susan Collins in December remarked "I haven't seen the need for that because I really don't think the President is going to fire Mr. Mueller.  But certainly the introduction of the bill sends a strong signal." It certainly did. And its virtual withdrawal has sent an even stronger one.




Share |

Reasonably Well-Liked Crackpot

Even with expansion to 280 characters, Twitter has its limits. And so Matthew Yglesias tweets

Liberals need to come to terms with the fact that conservatives on Capitol Hill, in the executive branch, at interest groups, and around the country think this is a good president leading a well-run administration.

Et tu, Matt? He speaks of "liberals" as if he is not among them, which would be news to almost everyone.

O.K., though.: if his thesis is that many people believe Donald Trump is a good president and like him, polls do confirm that Trump remains popular among Republicans.

However, it's less likely these individuals believe their hero is administering a well-run organization than that they just don't care whether he is.  From the moment he came down the escalator and recognized their id with "when Mexico sends its people...  They're bringing drugs. They're bringing crime. They're rapists," they knew he was the same guy who on at least 12 occasions had suggested the black President wasn't one of them.

"The enemy of my enemy is my friend" may never have been so applicable as in describing the one candidate who seemed (and still seems) unafraid to say what they would like to say about the people they hate. Their spouse, their neighbor, and especially their employer may not want to hear it- but one guy is willing to say the things not "politically correct."

Yet that's far different than believing the President runs a well-oiled shop.  Not all of the President's supporters know chapter and verse of Michael Wolff's Fire and Fury. However, Trump himself does not know chapter and verse (or any chapter and verse, it seems) of the Bible but knows other people know it. And so it rings at least partially true to them, even more to members of the Executive Branch- that

The truth was, Ivanka and Jared were as much the chief of staff as Priebus or Bannon, all of them reporting directly to the president. The couple had opted for formal jobs in the West Wing, in part because they knew that influencing Trump required you to be all-in. From phone call to phone call — and his day, beyond organized meetings, was almost entirely phone calls — you could lose him. He could not really converse, not in the sense of sharing information, or of a balanced back-and-forth conversation. He neither particularly listened to what was said to him nor particularly considered what he said in response. He demanded you pay him attention, then decided you were weak for groveling. In a sense, he was like an instinctive, pampered, and hugely successful actor. Everybody was either a lackey who did his bidding or a high-ranking film functionary trying to coax out his performance — without making him angry or petulant.

They're not terribly ignorant, and not stupid at all, but simply unmoved by the chaos of the Administration.  Their political priorities are Trump's political priorities, or so GOP voters believe.  And the interest groups know where their bread is buttered: Trump is their only president, and his failure means the failure of their agenda and, ultimately, Democratic victory at the polls, which they would find rather uncomfortable.

The interest groups have largely accepted the maxim (emphasis mine) of Grover Norquist, who in May of 2012 famously- and not in jest-  quipped

All we have to do is replace Obama. ...  We are not auditioning for fearless leader. We don't need a president to tell us in what direction to go. We know what direction to go. We want the Ryan budget. ... We just need a president to sign this stuff. We don't need someone to think it up or design it. The leadership now for the modern conservative movement for the next 20 years will be coming out of the House and the Senate. [...]

Pick a Republican with enough working digits to handle a pen to become president of the United States. This is a change for Republicans: the House and Senate doing the work with the president signing bills. His job is to be captain of the team, to sign the legislation that has already been prepared.





Donald Trump has the working digits and obviously will sign whatever Ryan-McConnell put on his desk.  Formally eliminating the Affordable Care Act would have been merely the cherry on the top of an agenda of privatization, deregulation, and tax cuts for corporations.  The popular base has its hateful rhetoric, members of  the Executive Branch have their jobs, and interest groups have what they paid for. As Matthew Yglesias should realize, all the rest, including a "well-run Administration," is quite beside the point.

Share |

Tax Scam Within The Tax Scam

What makes the Corporate Tax Scam of 2017, in the words of Ruth Marcus, "just to be really clear, worst piece of domestic policy in our lifetime?"

There are so many candidates, including the provision pertaining to real estate investment trusts, which USC professor of law, economics, and political science Edward McCaffrey explains

allows real estate investors to get a special 20% tax rate like other small businesses -- even without paying significant wages to anybody, unlike other businesses....

Take commercial real estate, to name a large and suspicious example. Real estate investors like Trump will see more generous depreciation schedules, continued deductibility for interest and lower tax rates on the business forms that hold their real estate, like real estate investment trusts -- all without having to actually hire workers.

Unsurprisingly, the private prison industry is anxious to take advantage of this loophole. Jamiles Lartey of The Guardian has found that Corevic, formerly Corrections Corporation of America, paid

an effective tax rate in the first quarter of 2015 of just 3%.

Lauren-Brooke Eisen, an attorney at the Brennan Center for Justice, said: “The way they are able to get away with that, is that they’re not allowed to keep a lot of cash on hand, they have to give it back to investors though dividends. But it allows them to have an incredibly low tax rate.”

According to Eisen, prison companies have essentially argued that renting out cells to the government is the equivalent of charging a tenant rent, thus making such business primarily a real estate venture. In her new book, Inside Private Prisons, Eisen examines the way this classification has boosted industry earnings.

When in February Attorney General Sessions rescinded the order issued by President Obama for the Federal Bureau of Prisons to phase out contracts with private prisons, it affected only the 18% of federal prisoners held in private facilities, not the 8% of state prisoners or 65% of immigration detainees held in private facilities (the latter controlled by the Department of Homeland Services).





Nevertheless, Sessions' move, the tax bill, and what Lartey characterizes as "the cosy (sic) relationship Trump has had with the industry overall" suggest increased use of private prisons, despite (or perhaps because), as the- Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates wrote (as reported in a separate Guardian article)

research had found private prisons “simply do not provide the same level of correctional services, programs, and resources” and “do not save substantially on costs” either. Essential government education and training programs for prisoners “have proved difficult to replicate and outsource” in the private sector, she said.







Well, that, and if there is a profit, there will be more and if there are empty beds, a way will be found to fill them. Beware, then, of (alleged) efforts at criminal justice reform- like this one from New Jersey Democratic senator Cory Booker- which are silent on the issue of private prisons, which encourage mass incarceration and discourage rehabilitation. The Corporate Tax Scam of 2017- which all Senate and House Democrats voted against, as did no Senate Republican- was a big Christmas present to the industry.

And then watch how some Republicans who voted for this horrendous piece of legislation will pose as criminal justice reformers in 2018, and recognize them for the poseurs they are.




Share |

Facilitating A Sham

We must stop fronting for these frauds.

In February, Politico's Tim Alberta interviewed South Carolina senator Mark Sanford and gushed

then he does the strangest thing of all: He lays waste to the president of his own party.

Most Republicans in Washington are biting their tongues when it comes to Donald Trump, fearful that any candid criticisms of the new president could invite a backlash from their constituents or, potentially worse, provoke retribution from the commander in chief himself.

Mark Sanford is not like most Republicans in Washington.

His policy résumé is beyond reproach to those on the right: He was D.C.’s dashing fiscal hawk during his first stint in the House...

In May, the Washington Post's Ed O'Keefe remarked that Senator Jeff

Flake (R-Ariz.) isn’t afraid to buck President Trump — or to defy the Republican orthodoxy in Washington that the agenda is proceeding apace. He did it last year, refusing to support Trump for president, and he’s doing it again now by publicly doubting that the GOP can revamp the nation’s health-care system.

Last month, New York Magazine's Eric Levitz referred to

the tune that GOP leaders have been singing to their party’s few sincere deficit hawks. And those lonely fiscal scolds know they’re being lied to.

“The savings, the score, it just isn’t valid because you know that they’re not going to follow through,” Arizona senator Jeff Flake said recently. “You can’t assume that we’ll grow a backbone later. If we can’t do it now, then it’s tough to do it later.”

Flake isn’t the only Senate Republican who isn’t crazy about drastically expanding the debt that his party spent the past eight years decrying. 

Levitz then cited Flake's Arizona colleague, John McCain, as well as senators Bob Corker (Tennessee), Todd Young (Indiana), and James Lankford (Oklahoma) as among the GOP's "deficit hawks."  For real.  (Video below is from October, 2017.)





These five Republican senators- as well as Representative Sanford- have something in common. They all supported the Corporate Tax Scam of 2017.

John McCain, at home recuperating from surgery for a brain tumor, did not vote but already had made it known that he would support the legislation. The others actually voted in favor of  a bill expected to increase the debt by $1,440,000,000,000.

Corker and Flake, who already have announced their retirement, are probably merely cashing in, anxious to sell themselves to the highest-bidding conservative think tanks, which in turn may enjoy the honor of billing themselves "fiscal hawks" while being fiscally reckless.

Levitz at least acknowledged that only by voting against the tax scheme would GOP senators be putting "fiscal responsibility above upward redistribution."

Lankford, Young, Sanford, and other Republicans may be afraid of a primary challenge or of the tweets- or mere disapproval- of Donald J. Trump. Or they may be living the dream of Paul Davis Ryan, eager to run the deficit up so he may complain later that Medicaid, Medicare, Social Security, and other pillars of the social safety net must be sacrificed in the name of "fiscal responsibility."

Their motives are not fully known and may be varied. But we do know that they are not fiscally responsible, are not "fiscal conservatives" or "deficit hawks," and are carrying water for President Trump. They are getting are a major break from a media unwilling to acknowledge that GOP talk about debt and deficits was, is, and always shall be all talk and no action.


To Christians: Merry Christmas
     
                   To Jews: Belated Happy Chanukah
\                                 
                                     To Donald Trump:  Happy Holidays!

Share |

Hail The Incarnate Deity

".... because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever!" (Romans 1:25, ESV)

Politico's Matthew Nussbaum reports that after passage of the Loot the Joint Act of 2017

“This has been a year of extraordinary accomplishment for the Trump administration,” declared McConnell, who led off the speeches. “We’ve cemented the Supreme Court to the right of center for a generation. Mr. President, thanks to your nominees we put 12 circuit court judges in place — the most since the circuit court system was established in 1891. You hold the record.”

Ryan followed: “Something this big, something this generational, something this profound could not have been done without exquisite presidential leadership. Mr. President, thank you for getting us over the finish line, thank you for getting us where we are.”

And Pence continued: “Thank you, Mr. President. Thank you for your leadership, thank you for your boundless faith in the American people and thank you for keeping your promise to see this Congress deliver the largest tax cut in American history before Christmas of this year.”

“You,” Pence gushed to the president, “will make America great again.”

Trump appeared to soak it all in, smiling and nodding along, playing the role of emcee as he summoned each speaker to deliver his or her thanks.

Nussbaum calls it the "role of emcee;" Trump imagined assuming a much larger role as

“I want to say thank you to Mr. President,” said Rep. Diane Black of Tennessee. “Thank you, President Trump, for allowing us to have you as our president and to make America great again.”

“You’re living up to everything I thought you would,” said Sen. Orrin Hatch of Utah. “You’re one heck of a leader.”

“Look at all the things that he’s been able to get done, by sheer will in many ways,” he added. “I just hope that we all get behind him every way we can.” This presidency, he went on, could be “the greatest presidency we have seen not only in generations but maybe ever.”





Two theologians, examining the practice of idolatry recognized in Romans 1:25 (above), observed

Paul's indictment there is that by a wretched exchange human beings came to worship and serve "created things rather than the Creator." They have wholly rid themselves of God by substituting other objects in his place.

In this case, it's not an object but rather a man, of whom Republican members of Congress now have become the subjects.  And so Politico notices, it was a "love-fest, a scene unprecedented in any other presidency." Unprecedented in any presidency but not in history for

"They exchanged the truth of God for a lie." (lit. "the lie").  This is the lie above all others- the contention that something or someone is to be venerated in plac of the true God. According to Paul elsewhere, history will repeat itself in that when the man of lawlessness is revealed and demands to be worshiped, people will follow him and reap ruin ecause they have refused the truth and have believed the lie." There, too, God gives them over to strong delusion.

The GOP is now in the throes of an aggressive effort to undermine Robert Mueller, to lay the foundation upon which he can be fired or (more likely) upon which any truth he finds can be discredited. However, that's how it is when a lawless man demands to be worshiped.

“It is written," Jesus purportedly warned, “‘You shall worship the Lord your God, and him only shall you serve.’” Or as the leaders of today's Republican Party put it, "You shall worship the Lord your God and Donald Trump, and them only shall you serve."




Share |

Lurking Danger

In what seems like months but was barely more than two weeks ago

House Democrats overwhelmingly joined Republicans on Wednesday to defeat an attempt to impeach President Donald Trump. But 58 Democrats supported the bid to consider impeachment over the objections of House Democratic leaders, who viewed the measure as a distraction in a Republican-controlled Congress.

The motion to sideline the measure — killing the effort — was approved 364-58, with four Democrats voting present.

The vote was forced by Rep. Al Green (D-Texas), who introduced articles of impeachment describing Trump as a bigot who incites hate and has demeaned the presidency.

"Donald John Trump, by causing such harm to the society of the United States is unfit to be president and warrants impeachment, trial and removal from office," Green said on the House floor as he introduced the articles.

Of course he does. And that is beside the point, as we learned yet again yesterday.

At Lord God Trump's cabinet meeting following final passage of the Corporate Tax Scam of 2017, there was "a short speech from the person next in line to be the most powerful man in the world" (Pence at 13:45). It included

And I just — I’m deeply humbled, as your Vice President, to be able to be here. Because of your leadership, Mr. President, and because of the strong support of the leadership in the Congress of the United States, you’re delivering on that middle-class miracle…But mostly, Mr. President, I’ll end where I began and just tell you, I want to thank you, Mr. President. I want to thank you for speaking on behalf of and fighting every day for the forgotten men and women of America. Because of your determination, because of your leadership, the forgotten men and women of America are forgotten no more. And we are making America great again.





It included also 14 separate items of praise in less than three minutes for Lord God Trump.

Mike Pence cannot be removed by Donald Trump, who is in trouble politically now and will be far more so if and when the Mueller report is released or, alternatively, after he fires the Special Counsel.

Consider, however, that the Administration now includes a General or Lieutenant General in three critical positions: National Security Advisor, Defense Secretary, and Chief of Staff.  Pence is obsequious to Donald Trump; imagine the danger posed by a President Pence who chooses to surround himself with members of the military.

Donald Trump believes he is the greatest.  A President Pence probably would not believe he himself to be a superior being but might surround himself with indviduals- perhaps adorned with a uniform and medals- whom he is even less willing to question than he is to question Donald Trump.

Donald Trump is sill unfit to be president and warrants impeachment, trial and removal from office.  But Mike Pence is a bootlicker, theocrat, lackey to the Kochs, and "inside man of the conservative money machine." So notwithstanding other substantive reasons, Nancy Pelosi and Steny Hoyer were right to caution "now is not the time to consider articles of impeachment."

Share |

Trump Pro-Murder?

In a telephone interview on "Face the Nation" in August, 2015

'The hedge fund guys didn't build this country. These are guys that shift paper around and they get lucky,' Trump said.

'They are energetic. They are very smart. But a lot of them - they are paper-pushers. They make a fortune. They pay no tax. It's ridiculous, ok?'

Trump's comments were referring to the so-called 'carried interest loophole' - a provision in the tax code which allows private equity and hedge fund managers pay taxes at the capital gains rate instead of the ordinary income rate.

Many fund managers are in the top income bracket, but the capital gains tax bracket is only 20 percent.

While these individuals are also required to pay an additional 3.8 percent surtax on their net investment income, this total rate is still far lower than the 39.6 percent rate that top wage earners must pay on their ordinary income.

'Some of them are friends of mine. Some of them, I couldn't care less about,' Trump said.

'It is the wrong thing. These guys are getting away with murder. I want to lower the rates for the middle class.'

A few days later, he would confirm his position, telling John Heileman and Mark Halperin "I would take carried interest out."





It appears Donald J. Trump is in favor of letting murders get away. "These guys are getting away with murder," he told Heileman and Halperin. Yet, in the Corporate Tax Scam of 2017 which the President has pledged to sign

Another missing item: President Trump’s promise to get rid of the carried interest loophole. “Carried interest was unfair, and it’s gone,” Trump said last spring.

But that odious tax break isn’t gone. It’s just been tweaked a little.

Under current law, when managers of private equity funds, venture capital funds and hedge funds reap a share of their investors’ profits, they pay taxes at the low rate that applies to capital gains, not the higher rate that applies to ordinary income.

Under the new law, the fund managers still get that break, as long as they hold the underlying investment for at least three years. Tax experts say most of the managers who claim the loophole won’t find that to be a problem.

Generously, Trump could be given a break. He actually said carried interest was unfair, and "it's gone" is spoken of in the present, rather than the future, tense.

On second thought, he's a flat-out lying weasel.




Share |

Sorry. The Money Is All Gone.

In floor debate in late November, Senate Finance Committee chairperson Orrin Hatch, who worked with the late Senator Edward Kennedy to create the Children's Health Insurance Program, assured Ohio Senator Sherrod Brown "We're going to get CHIP throught. There's no question about that. I'm going to see that it gets through."

Politico's Haberkorn reported Friday that the Utah Republican stated “We’re going to take good care of CHIP. I can’t tell you exactly when, but we’ll get it done.”

With Republicans in favor of the program and Democrats completely committeed to it, CHIP will sometime in the near future be reauthorized.

Still, Haberkorn added

House Republicans on Wednesday released a spending bill that would fund CHIP for five years but pay for it with cuts to Obamacare and other programs that Senate Democrats would not support. The bill would need Democrats' help to get through the Senate.

Nice little program you got there- it would be a shame if something happened to it.  The GOP is quite willing to fund children's health care- provided that it can chip away at the social safety net elsewhere.

The hostage may be released, but the GOP is bound and determined that a heavy price is paid. It is, after all, the secondary motive for a disastrous tax bill, the primary motive being to please the Party's donors.  Hatch himself gave it away when in the largely empty chamber with Brown, he contended

We're going to do CHIP. There's no question about it in my mind. And it's gotta be done the right way. But- the reason CHIP's having trouble is that we don't have any money anymore. We just add more and more spending and more and more spending and you can look at the  rest of the bill for more and more spending.





"It has to be done the right way... we don't have any money anymore," remarked the Senator who unreservedly voted for the GOP tax plan, targeted to increase the debt by something north of $1 trillion. Excited at the pospect of slashing Medicaid, Speaker Paul Ryan at a conservative event in March bragged to the editor of the National Review "Sending it back to the states, capping its growth rate. We have been dreaming of this since I have been around, since you and I were drinking at a keg.”

Shortly before triumphantly pushing through his chamber the Corporate Tax Cut Sham of 2017, Ryan maintained at a town hall meeting "You cannot get the national debt under control, you cannot get that deficit under control, if you don’t do both — grow the economy, cut spending."  Ryan had commented in a radio interview . "Frankly, it's the health care entitlements that are the big drivers of our debt, so we spend more time on the health care entitlements — because that's really where the problem lies, fiscally speaking."

Frankly, the Speaker dares not utter the words "Medicaid" or "Medicare," and while more detached than Hatch, he's a little more subtle, or at least wonkier. So carrying water for Ryan, Politico's Alberta and Bade characterize the Speaker's goal as "entitlement reform," in which he "tackles what he sees as the systemic problems with Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid." Charlie Pierce recognizes “'what he sees as being systemic problems' with Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid are that those programs exist at all."

Senator Marco Rubio echoes Ryan's call that Congress "structurally reform" earned benefits. More candid than the Speaker or Hatch, the Florida Republican stated

The only way you are going to deal with the debt is you have to do two things. ... You have got to generate economic growth because growth generates revenue. But you also have to bring spending under control. And not discretionary spending. That isn’t the driver of our debt... The driver of our debt is the structure of Social Security and Medicare for future beneficiaries.

The good news is that individuals currently elderly probably will be left somewhat, relatively, unharmed. Perhaps Hatch and his merry band of oligarchs with a daddy complex will "take care" of people now in retirement age or close to it because elderly people vote. Health care for children also- to whatever extent- will be provided. But all those people in between better hold onto their wallets. The Republican Senate and Republican Senate are coming for you- unless, of course, your parents leave their $11 million estate to you when they die.




Share |