Trump II

[Slobodan Blagojevic]

I might be going out on a limb here, but I seriously doubt Trump will be in favor of any tax plan that does not benefit him and his family

Even if true, it matters how? Congress votes, not Trump.

You might argue that Republican representatives in Congress are wealthy by themselves and would vote for it out of self-interest, but that has nothing to do with Trump.

[Chris Kern]

You might argue that Republican representatives in Congress are wealthy by themselves and would vote for it out of self-interest, but that has nothing to do with Trump.

Indeed: I've seen no evidence, based on his vague public comments about it, that Trump actually has any clue what is included in the tax "reform" framework that has been submitted to the Congress in his name.

And, frankly, I'm skeptical about whether the tax proposal was crafted to serve the personal financial interests of Republican members of the House of Representatives or the Senate, either.  While few of them are living from paycheck to paycheck, even fewer could be characterized as among the very rich who would benefit from the elimination of the Alternative Minimum Tax or the estate tax.  (By the way, it's worth noting that the Democratic members of Congress, on average, aren't exactly hovering at the poverty line, either.)

I suspect the Republican tax bill was crafted primarily to benefit major donors to Republican congressional re-election campaigns.  Trump and his heirs might save many millions if Congress were to implement these proposals, but probably that is just lagniappe.

[Bart_van_der_Wolf]

DOJ demands Facebook information from 'anti-administration activists'
http://edition.cnn.com/2017/09/28/politics/facebook-anti-administration-activists/index.html

QUOTE   "Washington (CNN)Trump administration lawyers are demanding the private account information of potentially thousands of Facebook users in three separate search warrants served on the social media giant, according to court documents obtained by CNN.
The warrants specifically target the accounts of three Facebook users who are described by their attorneys as "anti-administration activists who have spoken out at organized events, and who are generally very critical of this administration's policies." "

So what's up with the USA's first amendment?

Cheers,
Bart

[texshooter]

No, Carol Ann!  We cannot read Cat in the Hat today!  Dr. Seuss was a racist.  Are you a racist, Carol Ann?

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2017/09/29/librarian-rejects-melania-trump-s-dr-seuss-books-calls-them-racist-propaganda.html

[texshooter]

The Left --  "Taking the Knee is not about protesting the Flag.  It's a call to live up to the values the American Flag represents."

Really?  Then wouldn't it be even more reverent to stomp, burn and spit on the Flag?

https://www.bustle.com/p/is-taking-a-knee-protesting-the-flag-football-players-are-making-a-much-bigger-point-2440073

[Schewe]

Really?  Then wouldn't it be even more reverent to stomp, burn and spit on the Flag?

If you have to ask the question, you wouldn't understand the answer...

[Schewe]

The “middle class miracle”? Surely you jest...right?

Trump could save more than $1 billion under his new tax plan


President Trump has argued that he would not personally benefit from his tax plan.

President Donald Trump could cut his tax bills by more than $1.1 billion, including saving tens of millions of dollars in a single year, under his proposed tax changes, a New York Times analysis has found.

On Wednesday, the White House announced a sweeping plan to cut a variety of taxes that would overwhelmingly benefit the wealthy. The estimate of Trump’s savings is based in part on information from his 2005 federal tax return. The analysis compares what his tax burden would be under current law with what it would be under the proposal.

Trump’s 2005 return is the most recent available publicly and was released in March by David Cay Johnston, a former New York Times reporter. The Times’ figure also relies on an estimate of Trump’s net worth, calculated by the Bloomberg Billionaire’s Index to be $2.86 billion.

“I don’t benefit. I don’t benefit,” Trump said Wednesday. “In fact, very, very strongly, as you see, I think there’s very little benefit for people of wealth.”

In fact, high-income earners like Trump are likely to benefit disproportionately if the White House proposal becomes law. The estimates, calculated with the help of Robert Willens, an accounting expert, and Stephen Breitstone, a tax lawyer, provide a view into precisely how.

Savings of about $1.1 billion from repealing the estate tax

Though it would not be reflected on his income tax return, Trump’s proposal to eliminate the estate tax would generate the largest tax savings. If his assets — reportedly valued at $2.86 billion — were transferred after his death under today’s rules, his estate would be taxed at about 40 percent. Repealing the federal estate tax could save his family about $1.1 billion, though it could still be subject to New York estate taxes.

Savings of $31 million from repealing the alternative minimum tax

The decades-old alternative minimum tax is meant to prevent America’s wealthiest from using deductions to pay very low or no federal income tax. In 2005, it accounted for about 80 percent of Trump’s overall income tax payment. His plan to repeal the tax would save him $31.3 million.

Savings of about $16 million from taxing certain types of business income at 25 percent

Trump’s proposed changes could allow individuals to qualify for a significantly reduced tax rate of 25 percent on certain types of income they receive through business partnerships and similar entities. That is up from the original proposal in April of 15 percent, but far lower than the top tax rates currently faced by high-income earners of 39.6 percent.

Trump could save as much as $6.2 million on business income and $9.8 million on income from real estate and other kinds of partnerships under this plan, compared with his tax burden under current law. (In 2005, much of this taxable income was offset by a $103.2 million write-down in business losses.)

The proposal released Wednesday “contemplates” that Congress will adopt measures to prevent the wealthy from recharacterizing their income to take advantage of the new, lower rate and avoid the top personal rate. If that happens, it could have a big effect on Trump’s tax bill.

Savings of about $500,000 from cutting the highest tax rate

The proposal to reduce the highest tax rate to 35 percent from 39.6 percent would save high-income earners similar to Trump a relatively small amount compared with the repeal of the alternative minimum tax. The $500,000 in savings is a rough estimate because Trump has not specified income levels for his proposed tax brackets.

Increase of $3 million to $5 million in taxes from repealing most deductions

Trump would probably lose most of the deductions he reported in 2005. Depending on his effective tax rate under the proposal, Trump could pay roughly $3 million to $5 million more in taxes.

As a resident of New York City, the largest portion of Trump’s deductions probably came from his local and state income taxes. Under his proposal, mortgage interest and charitable giving would still be deductible.

Yeah, ok...so he looses some deductions but his charitable giving would still be deductible...wait, has he ever given any real money to charity? I mean, I know his foundation bought a big portrait of himself at a charity auction...did that count as a charitable deduction?

[Schewe]

Tom Price broke Trump's cardinal rule: Never get bad headlines for the boss

(CNN)Less than an hour before Donald Trump fired accepted the resignation of Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price, the President made very clear why his Cabinet secretary was being let go.

"I don't like the optics," Trump said, adding: "We're renegotiating NAFTA, we renegotiating so many things and making much better deals. You'll be seeing other things come up. So I don't like to see somebody that perhaps there's the perception that it wasn't right."

Just in case you missed the point, Trump also noted: "I was disappointed because I didn't like it, cosmetically or otherwise."

"Optics." "Perception." "Cosmetically."

You get the idea.

Price was fired not because of the more than two dozen private flights he took at taxpayer expense. He was fired because he violated Trump's first principle: Never, ever make the boss look bad -- especially in the press.

So, Tom paid the Price...get it?

 

[Schewe]

So what's up with the USA's first amendment?

This is a follow up of the story that the DOJ got a search warrant to get the IP numbers of people who visited the disruptj20.org web site leading up to the Trump Inauguration.

The Department of Justice Demands Records on Every Visit to Anti-Trump Protest Site DisruptJ20


Protesters shout at President Donald Trump and first lady Melania as they drive past in the
inaugural parade in Washington on Jan. 20.

If you’ve visited the website DisruptJ20, which helped organize protests during the inauguration of Donald Trump, the Department of Justice is interested in learning more about you.

On Saturday, a judge in the Superior Court of the District of Columbia approved a search warrant that would require DreamHost, DisruptJ20’s provider, to turn over a wide range of information about the site and its visitors. In addition to information about the site’s creators, the DOJ demands “logs showing connections related to the website, and any other transactional information, including records of session times and duration.” In short, the government is looking for records of everyone who even visited the site, which is to say it's effectively compiling info on those who showed even a modicum of interest in protesting the administration.

It seems that the DOJ (Trump) didn't appreciate "the resistance"...

[Valdo]

Trump played the game to win according to the rules and won, so suck it up.

Sorry guys but something is wrong in American election system. Trump got 2 millions votes less...but every country deserves the winner!

[Slobodan Blagojevic]

Hilarious!

[Bart_van_der_Wolf]

Hilarious!

Hilarious for some, not so much for others:
Post on Logan County Sheriff's Facebook page causes controversy
http://www.omaha.com/news/nebraska/post-on-logan-county-sheriff-s-facebook-page-causes-controversy/article_b8d71e22-a55a-11e7-b5ea-4799c9e58655.html

Frankly, in a less divided nation it might be seen as a good joke, but not in a nation that has a government that sows division.

Sow division, reap division or worse.

Cheers,
Bart

[Slobodan Blagojevic]

...a nation that has a government that sows division...

Yes, the division started with Trump.

It was all peachy under Obama and his predecessors. What a wonderful unity we had in Ferguson, BLM, etc. Not to mention McCarthyism, hippies, Chicago Democratic Convention, etc.

[Bart_van_der_Wolf]

Yes, the division started with Trump.

That's your opinion. But he surely didn't bring people together but widened existing gaps instead.

Cheers,
Bart

[Bart_van_der_Wolf]

Trump attacks San Juan mayor over hurricane response
http://edition.cnn.com/2017/09/30/politics/trump-tweets-puerto-rico-mayor/index.html

QUOTE  "Washington (CNN)President Donald Trump launched an attack on San Juan Mayor Carmen Yulín Cruz on Saturday for criticizing the White House's hurricane relief efforts in Puerto Rico, accusing her of "poor leadership" and suggesting that the island's residents are not doing enough to help themselves.

"The Mayor of San Juan, who was very complimentary only a few days ago, has now been told by the Democrats that you must be nasty to Trump," the President tweeted from his golf club in Bedminster, New Jersey, where he is spending the weekend. "... Such poor leadership ability by the Mayor of San Juan, and others in Puerto Rico, who are not able to get their workers to help. They want everything to be done for them when it should be a community effort." "

It's hard to imagine that the FEMA personnel on the ground in Puerto Rico, have not been able to do more. So what's going on there? Obviously not an easy task with a totally destructed infrastructure, but doesn't the FEMA have airdrop capabilities to deliver food and water? Also, the only recently lifted ban on foreign ships for bringing supplies, was a waste of valuable time.

Of course, it's not hard to understand Trump's reaction.

Cheers,
Bart


P.S. Apparently the FEMA is more involved with paperwork than with actual assistance?
https://www.reuters.com/video/2017/09/30/we-are-dying-here-san-juan-mayor?videoId=372641035&videoChannel=1003

[texshooter]

Obama, a uniter?

[Schewe]

This kinda explains a lot...

Letters: lack of sleep could be bad for the character too. Look at Donald Trump


‘Don’t sleep any more than you have to,’ Donald Trump advised in Think Like a Billionaire,
where he claimed to sleep only four hours a night.

Too little sleep, like alcohol, tobacco, red meat, burnt toast and everything else, can kill us (Rachel Cooke, “‘‘Sleep should be prescribed’’”, New Review). But beyond sleep and death, there is sleep and life. The sleep expert Prof Matthew Walker implies that lack of sleep can cause mental illness; he also says: “I get on a flight at 10am when people should be at peak alert, and I look around, and half of the plane has immediately fallen asleep.”

The less people sleep, the less they remember, the less they learn, the less they understand and the less they empathise. In the moralist’s terms, the less people sleep, the less capable they will be of having a conscience, feeling solidarity or possessing a decent character. At the same time, sacrificing sleep presumably correlates to advancement in business and politics and being an important person flying somewhere.

Successful people are, through the Faustian bargain they have made with the night, more likely than most to be bad people, evil people, people who make the world a worse place for living in it. Donald Trump addressed the point in Think Like a Billionaire (2004): “Don’t sleep any more than you have to. I usually sleep about four hours per night.”
Benjamin Letzler
Oberursel
Germany

[Schewe]

Trump keeps Tweeting his true colors...

Donald Trump sparks outrage after lashing out at Puerto Rico mayor over Hurricane Maria relief efforts


Mayor Carmen Yulin Cruz hugs a woman during her visit to an elderly home.

irst came the desperate appeal for more help. Carmen Yulin Cruz, mayor of Puerto Rico’s main city San Juan, made it clear with a T-shirt slogan that read: " Help Us, We Are Dying."

In interviews she pleaded for more federal aid for an island battered by Hurricane Maria, where she said people had no choice but to drink from creeks.

And then she addressed her message directly to the President.

“I keep saying it: SOS. If anyone can hear us; if Mr. Trump can hear us, let's just get it over with and get the ball rolling," she told CNN.

Donald Trump heard her but was not impressed. As he has done so many times before he used Twitter to hit back at what he took to be personal criticism, accusing Ms Cruz of poor leadership.


Donald J. Trump  ✔ @realDonaldTrump
The Mayor of San Juan, who was very complimentary only a few days ago, has now been told by the Democrats that you must be nasty to Trump.
6:19 AM - Sep 30, 2017


Donald J. Trump  ✔ @realDonaldTrump
...Such poor leadership ability by the Mayor of San Juan, and others in Puerto Rico, who are not able to get their workers to help. They....
6:26 AM - Sep 30, 2017


Donald J. Trump  ✔ @realDonaldTrump
...want everything to be done for them when it should be a community effort. 10,000 Federal workers now on Island doing a fantastic job.
6:29 AM - Sep 30, 2017


Donald J. Trump  ✔ @realDonaldTrump
The military and first responders, despite no electric, roads, phones etc., have done an amazing job. Puerto Rico was totally destroyed.
6:33 AM - Sep 30, 2017

Really, at 6:30am Trump is up fuming because a lady major who happens to be Hispanic needs to be slapped down and put in her place like an upstart servant? So, in the middle of a humanitarian tragedy, Trump reaches out and uses the office of President of the United States of America to do what? Make matters worse...which is about all Trump knows how to do, make a bad situation worse...

Uh, but did he let it go? No, not only does the mayor gets the slap, now Trump is blaming the media for making all this bad news up...

After winning praise for his response to Hurricanes Harvey and Irma, which stormed through Texas and Florida respectively, Mr Trump has been accused of neglecting Puerto Rico, home to 3.4 million Americans.

He spent last weekend addressing supporters in Alabama and igniting a row over American footballers and their attitude to the American flag and anthem, a dispute that appeared to preoccupy the President for days.

At least 16 people died on the island when the hurricane barrelled ashore. It took until Thursday, more than a week after Maria struck, for the administration to waive a law that banned foreign ships from delivering goods to Puerto Rico. Almost half the population remains without potable water and no-one knows when the island’s electricity grid will be back online.

He later resumed the defence of his handling of the crisis in a series of tweets


Donald J. Trump  ✔ @realDonaldTrump
To the people of Puerto Rico:
Do not believe the #FakeNews!#PRStrong🇵🇷
2:53 PM - Sep 30, 2017


Donald J. Trump  ✔ @realDonaldTrump
My Administration, Governor @RicardoRossello, and many others are working together to help the people of Puerto Rico in every way...
2:55 PM - Sep 30, 2017

So, rather than believe the mayor who has been walking the streets of San Juan in the heat, helping people and even wading in the flood waters, you are supposed to believe Trump–who is tweeting from the comfort of his golf resort in New Jersey.

For her part, Ms Cruz avoided engaging in a tit-for-tat battle, instead calling for a united focus on the people who need help as she posted a collage of images showing her aiding residents. In one photograph she is up to her waste in water.



Carmen Yulín Cruz  ✔ @CarmenYulinCruz
The goal is one: saving lives. This is the time to show our "true colors". We cannot be distracted by anything else.
7:25 AM - Sep 30, 2017

"I have only one goal, and it is saving lives," Ms Cruz, mayor of Puerto Rico's largest city, said in an interview with Bloomberg. "I will say whatever needs to be said or done to be able to do that. There should be no distractions. There's no time for anything else."

In an interview on MSNBC, she said: “I was asking for help. I wasn’t saying anything nasty about the president.”

What does it take Trump supporters to see him for what he is?

A con man, a fraud and a mean asshole.

[Schewe]

The past week showed Trump is struggling to be the president he promised


President Trump talks with reporters Friday as he leaves the White House
for his private golf club. (at tax payer expense)

On the campaign trail, Donald Trump pitched himself as a dealmaker who would look out for the country’s “forgotten people,” “drain the swamp,” unite the country, “immediately repeal and replace Obamacare,” surround himself with “only with the best and most serious people,” and, of course, “win so much.”

But this past week made clear that Trump is falling far short of fulfilling those promises.

He launched a divisive debate with racial undertones about whether professional athletes should stand for the national anthem, lashed out at Puerto Rico’s officials for begging his administration for more help after a devastating hurricane and backed a tax plan that analysts say would greatly benefit the wealthy.

Meanwhile, his chosen candidate in the Alabama Senate race lost big to an insurgent challenger, the latest attempt to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act failed, and his health and human services secretary resigned after using taxpayer dollars to pay for several expensive chartered flights, another major departure from the president’s top staff in the first eight months of his administration.

“He campaigned on the basis of large promises which were, in many cases, disconnected from any concrete program for achieving them,” said William A. Galston, a top policy adviser to President Bill Clinton and now a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution. “He entered office having issued a bunch of promissory notes but not having thought through how to redeem them, and that’s a very difficult way to begin an administration.”

Trump’s problems this week mirror those that have dogged his presidency since the first day, but they are becoming more troublesome for the president and his party as they come under increasing pressure to deliver on at least part their agenda.

Welcome to this weeks episode of The President Donald Trump White House Reality Show™.

Tune in next week when even more news will be released about Russia's interference in our election and Donny trades more barbs with North Korea and the GOP tries to tell the middle class that Trump's tax reform will save them money and isn't really all about tax breaks for the 1%....

[Schewe]

Normally, I couldn't care less what Kim Kardashian has to say about anything, but at least she gets it...Puerto Rico needs help, not a Twitter war that people without power and internet can enjoy.

Trump tweeted:

Donald J. Trump  ✔ @realDonaldTrump
To the people of Puerto Rico:
Do not believe the #FakeNews!#PRStrong🇵🇷
2:53 PM - Sep 30, 2017

And Kim landed a really nice punch with:

Kim Kardashian West  ✔ @KimKardashian
They don’t have power to watch the news!!! Please stop tweeting & golfing while people are dying! Please step up & help! https://twitter.com/realdonaldtrump/status/914216744385904640 …
4:07 PM - Sep 30, 2017

Booyah Donny, you just got bitchslapped on Twitter!