Thursday, October 26, 2017

Democrats need to pay attention, understand the truth and uphold the Iran agreement that benefits allies such as Israel.

Democrats need to tout their solid support for Israel and it's future. The Congress needs to uphold the Iran Agreement and soon. 

October 12, 2017
By Josef Federman

Jerusalem — If President Donald Trump (click here) moves to scuttle the landmark 2015 nuclear deal with Iran, Israel’s nationalist government can be expected to be the loudest — and perhaps only — major player to applaud.

But the true picture is more complicated than what Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu might portray: There is a strong sense among his own security establishment that there are few good alternatives, that the deal has benefited Israel, and that U.S. credibility could be squandered in the turbulent Middle East in ways that could harm Israel itself.

That is not to say that Israel’s respected security chiefs are all pleased with every aspect of the Iran deal. But after Netanyahu declared at the United Nations last month that it was time to “fix it or nix it,” the prevailing attitude among security experts seems to be that fixing it is the best way to go....

The FBI was doing it's job. Questions?

Vladamir Putin hated and hates Hillary Clinton. He made that completely obvious when he backed Donald Trump in the USA election of 2016 and promised a nuclear exchange with the USA if Hillary Clinton was elected. If FOX News is trying to make something out of a successful FBI operation, then that speaks of the desperation of FOX News.

October 22, 2017
By John Solomon and Alison Spann

As Hillary Clinton (click here) was beginning her job as President Obama’s chief diplomat, federal agents observed as multiple arms of Vladimir Putin’s machine unleashed an influence campaign designed to win access to the new secretary of State, her husband Bill Clinton and members of their inner circle, according to interviews and once-sealed FBI records.

Some of the activities FBI agents gathered evidence about in 2009 and 2010 were covert and illegal....

...Other activities were perfectly legal and sitting in plain view, such as when a subsidiary of Russia’s state-controlled nuclear energy company hired a Washington firm to lobby the Obama administration. At the time it was hired, the firm was providing hundreds of thousands of dollars a year in pro bono support to Bill Clinton’s global charitable initiative, and it legally helped the Russian company secure federal decisions that led to billions in new U.S. commercial nuclear business, records show....

Democrats need to find treatment for their anxiety disorder. All this mess was before Russia destroyed a treaty and invaded Ukraine. Russia was still a member of the G-8. There was every reason to believe Russia was a trading partner interested in moving into a world class power other than just a nuclear power. Russia was one of the BR (Russia) IC countries. A burgeoning economy attracting investment.

...There is no evidence in any of the public records that the FBI believed that the Clintons or anyone close to them did anything illegal. But there’s definitive evidence the Russians were seeking their influence with a specific eye on the State Department....

Then in 2014, all that good stuff changed and the communists with significant political pressure in Russia entered Ukraine.

November 20, 2016
By Paul Roderick Gregory

...Russia (click here) thus finds itself in the questionable company of Burundi, Gabon, Iraq, Afghanistan, Columbia, and Niger as suspects in creating international armed conflicts. The ICC report demolishes Putin’s narrative of the Ukrainian conflict, which paints Russia as an innocent bystander. Following the ICC report and Russia’s angry withdrawal from the international tribunal, there should be no further reference to “civil war,” “separatists,” or “insurgents.” Instead the conflict that has claimed 9,578 lives is an “international armed conflict between Russia and Ukraine.” Another consequence is that Russia, as a party to the conflict, should no longer have a “peacemaker” seat in negotiations in Minsk.

The ICC report is particularly embarrassing for the Kremlin as it tries to peddle its parallel-reality version of the Ukraine conflict to the incoming Donald Trump administration....

One of the reasons President Obama and Chancellor Merkel moved quickly to end Russia's participation in the G8 and wrote sanctions against Russia is because Russia was so far along in 'the trust' that builds strong ties between the prosperity and freedom with The West.

There were a lot of American businesses that could not believe Russia had betrayed their trust and now they faced fiscal losses to their stockholders because of the sanctions. President Obama had no desire to punish any business participating in investment in Russia. Some of these investors were newly involved in international markets, they weren't all Goldman Sachs. But, if Russia was able to continue to build wealth and influence it could compromise the safety of the people of the Ukraine. President Obama could not look the other way for the sake of Wall Street. There were lives at stake and it was the USA standing in the void facilitated by a treaty with Russia, Ukraine and Germany. Either treaties with the USA means something or not.

There was no choice to be made, Russia had violated a very valuable treaty. It was not long ago when the treaty was signed and Ukraine disarmed. There were nuclear weapons and materials in Ukraine that were removed from the country and made inert to cause injury or death ever again. The treaty was huge. It proved disarmament from nuclear weapons can bring peace and prosperity to people rather than investing national treasuries in hideous nuclear weapons.

After the treaty was signed and Ukraine was disarmed little did The West know Russia was involved deeply in Ukraine politics and had made the national Ukraine military helpless to defend the country even with conventional weapons. Yanukovych weaponized the oligarchs transferring military power from the national military to militias in control by oligarchs. Ukrainians were helpless.

Putin carried on about a coupe in Ukraine which continues even today. Who knows. There were sharp divisions in the country and if the truth be known the coupe occurred in 2004, silently, when the Ukraine Constitution was rewritten. But, that is not arguable according to the World Court when it heard the case regarding Ukraine. The treaty absolutely prohibited Russia from intervening with any Ukraine issue. Russia violated the treaty and today Russia does not even have the right to mitigate Minske.

But, as to the fact Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State was secretly stalked by Russia to gain influence and information is old news. The FBI did it's job. I am confident every Secretary of State of the USA was visited by an agent at some point in their tenure stating facts about potential contacts and agreements were ill-fated and had to be abandoned.

So all this mess FOX News is spewing as if it is new information is horse hockey. FOX News is horse hockey by nature. FOX News knows only sensational reporting because it's founder, Murdoch, is used to arguing with the Queen as if the people were powerless as an Australian. That is the issue with FOX News. They have a foreign methodology thGot at is bullying everyone in hear shot. That is the method of Australian media. FOX News is bizarre and never, ever are they mainstream news.

The Democrats have to simply say, "Oh, where did you hear that on FOX News?"

Practice it, "Oh, where did you hear that on FOX News?" AGAIN: "Oh, where did you hear that on FOX News?" Now, with spirit: "Oh, where did you hear that on FOX News?" As if the country's sovereignty counts on it, "Oh, where did you hear that on FOX News?"

FOX News, in reality, could be solely responsible for the danger the American people are facing today because of a Big Mouth President that finds solace with FOX News and pacifying him that he is still in control of his base. FOX News will carry out any scandal, be it a lie or not, in order to control their power with the electorate. If they control the electorate their power is unending and influence with the US Republicans that bow to their power. How many votes did FOX News own?

The Democrats need to find their backbone and stand up for the people of this country in the face of any FOX News tirade. The Democrats need to do their job!

ICC: Crimea is occupied by Russia, not a part of Russia 

This meeting in the White House was a travesty!

Got that, Mr. Trump. Crimea is occupied by Russia and it's people don't want war as is the case along the Russian border. I cannot believe Rand-McNally Atlas was intimidated by Vladimir Putin to change their own maps in the face of international law otherwise. It is sickening the cowardice that exists in all this.

Authorities are looking for missing digital clues.

He wanted to kill people. I don't believe there is a motive other than that. He collected weapons and wondered why he did it in the first place and then realized he expected the government to turn on the people someday. That is what "Preppers" (click here) believe. It is a strange mindset and I can imagine a person simply deciding to start his own war in hopes others will join in. I think it is that simple.
26 October 2017
While investigators (click here) are no closer to establishing what drove Vegas sniper Stephen Paddock to carry out his sick massacre, they have uncovered his alarming search history.
Authorities investigating the shooting that killed 58 concertgoers and injured more than 500 others have found internet search techniques used by local police for breaching rooms in standoff situations, a law-enforcement official reportedly told the Wall Street Journal.
The official reportedly said Paddock searched for information about how Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department or SWAT teams force their way into rooms or buildings.
The internet query and the missing hard drive are two more pieces of the puzzle authorities are yet to solve. However, ABC News reported Paddock is believed to have removed the hard drive before fatally shooting himself.
Investigators suspect gunman Stephen Paddock removed the hard drive from the laptop after opened fire from his high-rise suite at the Mandalay Bay hotel casino into a crowd at a country music concert, killing 58 people and wounded hundreds of others, an official said.
Investigators have been combing through every aspect of Paddock's life - from family, friends and associates to his travel patterns, health and finances.
The hard drive hasn't been found, according to the official, and the absence of digital clues adds yet another puzzling aspect to the investigation as authorities try to figure out what might've led the 64-year-old high-stakes gambler to commit the mass killing....

There is no conclusion the corporate tax cut Trump wants would do anything for the average citizen.

October 23, 2017
By Brooks Jackson

Would American households (click here) really see an average income increase of $4,000 a year if President Donald Trump succeeds in cutting the corporate income tax? Don’t count on it. This claim is dubious at best.
Consider this simple arithmetic:
  • There were 125,819,000 households in the U.S. last year, according to the Census Bureau. An average increase of $4,000 for each household would amount to a total income gain of more than $503 billion annually.
  • But the U.S. collected just $297 billion in corporate income taxes in fiscal year 2017, which ended Sept. 30, according to the U.S. Treasury.
So let’s say that Trump’s proposal to drop the top corporate rate to 20 percent (from the current 35 percent) reduces the corporate tax accordingly by $127 billion. How can that spur an income gain of $500 billion?...

$297 billion - $127 billion = $170 billion in corporate tax to the federal government.

The president’s Council of Economic Advisers (CEA) doesn’t specify exactly how it arrived at the $4,000 per household estimate....
...In its report, the CEA adds, “When we use the more optimistic estimates from the literature, wage boosts are over $9,000 for the average U.S. household.” That would amount to a $1.1 trillion annual income gain from simply reducing a corporate tax burden that is currently only $297 billion.
That $9,000 estimate is wrong, however, according to the very economist whose work the CEA cites. Mihir A. Desai, a professor of finance at Harvard, says his work doesn’t support such a conclusion at all. He told the New York Times that the actual income gain would be $800.
“I’m a believer in corporate tax reform, and I’m a believer in corporate tax cuts, and I believe they would go to workers,” he told the Times. “But I don’t believe those numbers add up.”
It’s true that economists now generally agree that cutting the corporate rate would eventually produce some income gain for individuals, via increased business investment and worker productivity. But exactly how much remains one of the most debated subjects in economics....

Get this. The Individual Income Tax is the largest source of income to the federal treasury. 

April 15, 2015 (Under President Obama)
By KP Whaley


It's tax deadline day, (click here) and as many people around Wisconsin file their returns with the Internal Revenue Service, it's worth pointing out that those income taxes amount to a big slice of revenue for the U.S. government — the biggest, in fact.

Lindsay Koshgarian is the research director for the National Priorities Project, a nonpartisan nonprofit group that strives to make the federal budget accessible for members of the public. She said the overall revenues the federal government will bring in this year are likely to amount to about $3.2 trillion, with almost half of that coming from individual income taxes....

For the sake of argument, let's say the INDIVIDUAL income and others are the same as 2015 at $3.2 trillion for 2017. The corporate income tax that closed out the end of September is $297 billion. That would leave the rest of the country to pay $ 2,903,000,000. 

$297 billion is 9.3 percent of the income to the federal treasury with a continuing deficit and debt. 

The INDIVIDUAL pays through payroll taxes and direct pay to the treasury 79.1 percent of the income received by the US Treasury.

There is a very big IF not accounted for by the author above. He does not discuss the TREND by corporations to invest abroad. Mr. Trump knows corporations are investing abroad and/or simply offshoring funds because he talks about repatriating foreign monies all the time.

So, while there is SPECULATION (otherwise known as gambling) a cut in corporate taxes MIGHT bring about some jobs hence an increase in household income for working harder; it won't make a significant difference in the USA where corporate investment is low.

When corporations invest in the USA where exactly are they investing? They are looking for the guaranteed rate of interest, no different than the average American.

March 28, 2017
By Daniel Kruger

...The Treasury's new rival: corporate America. (click here)

Companies including Ford Motor Co., Applied Materials and Rockwell Collins are joining the what has been a record $1.1 trillion rush to the bond market through March 24, according to Bloomberg data. The stampede comes as the European Central Bank's bond purchases are culling a large portion of company debt available in Europe. And, perhaps more importantly, as investors continue to seek opportunities to lock in the highest available yields consistent with relatively low credit risk. It also comes as President Trump is pushing an agenda that includes tax cuts, infrastructure spending and deregulation, which if enacted are expected to boost corporate profits...
It isn't as though corporations are abandoning the USA. That is not the case. There is a reason why unemployment has been low. There is definitely investment in the USA, including the construction sector.

"Facility Executive" (click here) 

The INDIVIDUAL also helps pay corporate taxes.

...The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office — which had previously assumed that stockholders bore the entire burden of the corporate income tax — revised its thinking in 2012 and began assuming workers bear 25 percent.

And the following year, the equally nonpartisan staff of the Joint Committee on Taxation — the in-house tax experts for Congress — also began assuming that workers bear 25 percent of the corporate tax burden.

The nonpartisan Tax Policy Center didn’t go quite as far, but even it began in 2012 to assume that 20 percent of the corporate tax ultimately falls on workers....

Corporations are people too, my friends. So why are they making their employees pay their taxes?

Who Pays Taxes? (click here)

In its analysis, CBO assumed that households bear the economic cost of the taxes they pay directly, such as individual income taxes and the employee’s share of payroll taxes. CBO further assumed—as do most economists—that employers pass on their share of payroll taxes to employees by paying lower wages than they would otherwise pay. Therefore, CBO included the employer’s share of payroll taxes in households’ before tax income and in households’ taxes.

CBO also assumed that the economic cost of excise taxes falls on households according to their consumption of taxed goods (such as tobacco and alcohol). Excise taxes on intermediate goods, which are paid by businesses, were attributed to households in proportion to their overall consumption. CBO assumed that each household spent the same amount on taxed goods as a similar household with comparable income is reported to spend in the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ Consumer Expenditure Survey....

There is no need to lower income tax rates to corporations. As a matter of fact the loopholes need to be closed and the law regarding payment of payroll withholding tax be paid directly from the company while upholding the wages already in place.

UNIONS, UNIONS AND MORE UNIONS. Is there any reason why they are hated?

Corporations in the USA enjoy a great deal of "Corporate Welfare." There are laws currently that, if enforced, would immediately improve the wages of workers. Corporations pass all their costs onto employees and/or consumers. It is "Corporate Welfare" and it should not be tolerated.

So, Trump's assuming if there was a tax cut, corporations would change their methods of taxing the individual to pay their corporate taxes. That is a lie. There are no guarantees corporations will finally pay their own taxes. None. The laws that exist should be enforced to return FULL wages to the employees. 

Now, this method of having the employees pay their taxes in lower wages DEFINITELY IS TAXATION WITHOUT REPRESENTATION!

...Finally, a word about the track record of the man behind the $4,000 claim, Kevin Hassett, chairman of Trump’s Council of Economic Advisers.

Hassett is co-author of “Dow 36,000,” which was published in September 1999 when the Dow Jones Industrial Average was hovering below 12,000 after a big run-up during what we now call the dot-com bubble. Rather than tripling in value, as Hassett and co-author James Glassman argued was possible and justified by stock values, the DJIA sank to just above 7,700 three years later, in September 2002. And it didn’t top 12,000 until October 2006, seven years after the book was published.

Now the Dow is over 23,000, but still a long way from 36,000 more than 18 years after Hassett’s book appeared....