Trump Threatens To Cut Aid For Those Nations Who Vote Against U.S. Jerusalem Move

By William Teach December 21, 2017 – 7:19 am

If nations do not like the way we do things, maybe they should stop receiving the money taken from U.S. taxpayers

(Fox News) President Donald Trump’s threat to cut off U.S. funding to countries that oppose his decision to recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital has raised the stakes in Thursday’s U.N. vote and sparked criticism at his tactics, which one Muslim group called bullying or blackmail.

Trump went a step further than U.S. Ambassador Nikki Haley who hinted in a tweet and a letter to most of the 193 U.N. member states on Tuesday that the U.S. would retaliate against countries that vote in favor of a General Assembly resolution calling on the president to rescind his decision.

Haley said the president asked her to report back on countries “who voted against us” — and she stressed that the United States “will be taking names.”

At the start of a Cabinet meeting in Washington on Wednesday, with Haley sitting nearby, Trump told reporters that Americans are tired of being taken advantage of and praised the U.S. ambassador for sending the “right message” before the vote.

“For all these nations, they take our money and then vote against us. They take hundreds of millions of dollars, even billions of dollars and then they vote against us,” Trump told reporters at the Cabinet meeting. “We’re watching those votes. Let them vote against us.”

“We’ll save a lot. We don’t care,” he said, alluding to U.S. aid.

It’s long past time that America gets payback and respect for all the money we pump into the United Nations and countries around the world, many which would collapse without our help. And long past time that the Israel and Jew hatred in the United Nations is stomped on.

Read: Trump Threatens To Cut Aid For Those Nations Who Vote Against U.S. Jerusalem Move »

Posted in Donald Trump, UN | 9 Comments | Trackback URL

Washington Post Is Super Enthused That Everyone Gets A Tax Break

By William Teach December 21, 2017 – 6:44 am

Just kidding: the WP Editorial Board is unhinged in their typical way

A win for the wealthy, the entitled and the irresponsible

REPUBLICANS IN Congress passed a huge tax bill Wednesday, in what is being hailed as a major win for President Trump and his party. In time, however, it very likely will be remembered as an ignominious moment for Republicans.

To be sure, there will be some unmitigated winners. The bill is a victory for wealthy heirs, who will no longer have to pay estate taxes on inheritance worth up to $22 million. It helps tax dodgers and their lawyers, who will have some potentially huge new loopholes to exploit. Because the drafting process was so hasty and sloppy, no doubt there are many hidden in the text that even its authors do not realize are there.

Like the heirs of the rich people who own and run the WP, and those who sit on the Editorial Board.

The bill is a victory for corporations that look like the Trump Organization, the president’s privately held real estate business. “Pass-through” businesses like many of those within the Trump Organizationget a new tax break. Other provisions single out real estate for special consideration in the tax code. The public can only guess at how much the president will personally benefit from the tax bill he is about to sign, because he has defied decades of bipartisan tradition by refusing to release his tax returns. In that sense, the bill is also a win for nontransparent government.

While there are certainly big big companies that are pass throughs, a goodly chunk of small business run by middle class Americans are also pass throughs, and would see their taxes go way down.

The bill is a victory for the discredited theory of trickle-down economics. It embodies the notion that big tax cuts for the wealthy will benefit low- and middle-class workers rather than simply enrich the already well-off.

Two points: first, even if it doesn’t trickle down, the middle class is getting a tax cut. Period. How well did the middle class do under the policies of the Democrats and under Obama? Not well. Second, who really cares if people who make a lot of money get to keep the money they earned? Why is this a thing? How does this harm anyone? There are multiple companies who are already saying they will pump more money into the economy, such as AT&T and Boeing.

The bill is a victory for corrosive partisanship. Republicans could have hashed out a better, bipartisan plan, but they never seriously tried. Instead, they added to the bill a stealth repeal of a key piece of Obamacare and a provision allowing drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

Remember how the Democrats worked with Republicans on Obamacare, Dodd-Frank, and the Stimulus? Oh, right.

Most of all, the bill is a victory for fiscal irresponsibility. Some of its provisions, such as lowering the corporate tax rate, would have been worthwhile if they had been paid for by closing loopholes or raising other federal revenue. Instead, the bill will make the nation’s debt trajectory even worse, by a trillion-plus dollars, even after accounting for new economic growth. The bill’s mild potential effects on competitiveness and growth are not worth such a steep price tag.

Remember all the complaints from the WPEB during the Obama years, when the debt virtually doubled? Or how the Stimulus was simply small short term growth that wasn’t sustained even through Obama’s first term, while shoving a trillion in debt on America’s grandkids?

Anyhow, you know this bill must be great if outlets like the WP are freaking out in this manner. Do you know what should have been put in the tax bill? An exception for companies that are in the news business. Should have left their taxes at the current rate while doing away with any “loopholes”. If they love high taxes so much, let them pay them by law, because, for all their caterwauling, they won’t stroke a check to the IRS.

Crossed at Right Wing News.

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Posted in Taxation, Wonky Media | 35 Comments | Trackback URL

Big Changes To WordPress – Everything Look OK?

By William Teach December 20, 2017 – 3:30 pm

There was a big update to WordPress. I don’t see any issues in in Firefox, Chrome, or Internet Explorer (interestingly, I can see the Live Traffic widget on IE). Everything look fine on y’all end? My concern is about some code in core files that could have been automatically changed.

Read: Big Changes To WordPress – Everything Look OK? »

Posted in Pirates Cove | 9 Comments | Trackback URL

The GOP Tax Bill Shows Contempt For Democracy Or Something

By William Teach December 20, 2017 – 3:02 pm

Is there a Prozac shortage or something?

The Tax Bill Shows the G.O.P.’s Contempt for Democracy

The Republican Tax Cuts and Jobs Act is notably generous to corporations, high earners, inheritors of large estates and the owners of private jets. Taken as a whole, the bill will add about $1.4 trillion to the deficit in the next decade and trigger automatic cuts to Medicare and other safety net programs unless Congress steps in to stop them.

To most observers on the left, the Republican tax bill looks like sheer mercenary cupidity. “This is a brazen expression of money power,” Jesse Jackson wrote in The Chicago Tribune, “an example of American plutocracy — a government of the wealthy, by the wealthy, for the wealthy.”

Mr. Jackson is right to worry about the wealthy lording it over the rest of us, but the open contempt for democracy displayed in the Senate’s slapdash rush to pass the tax bill ought to trouble us as much as, if not more than, what’s in it.

In its great haste, the “world’s greatest deliberative body” held no hearings or debate on tax reform. The Senate’s Republicans made sloppy math mistakes, crossed out and rewrote whole sections of the bill by hand at the 11th hour and forced a vote on it before anyone could conceivably read it.

The link between the heedlessly negligent style and anti-redistributive substance of recent Republican lawmaking is easy to overlook. The key is the libertarian idea, woven into the right’s ideological DNA, that redistribution is the exploitation of the “makers” by the “takers.” It immediately follows that democracy, which enables and legitimizes this exploitation, is itself an engine of injustice. As the novelist Ayn Rand put it, under democracy “one’s work, one’s property, one’s mind, and one’s life are at the mercy of any gang that may muster the vote of a majority.”

In other words, refusing to take from the producers and give to the moochers is against Democracy. Funny how these same complainers refuse to stroke a check to the IRS to uphold their beliefs. They always want Someone Else to pony up by government force.

Regardless, this bill is going through. It will be signed into law. Everyone will be able to keep more of their own money, the money they worked hard for. And, if Democrats do not like it, tough. They jammed through the Stimulus and Obamacare, along with others like Dodd-Frank. When people start seeing themselves keep more of their own money, well, how’s that going to work for Democrats, who were 100% against citizens keeping more of their own money?

Oh, and

https://twitter.com/SteveKopack/status/943559547578470400

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Posted in Barking Moonbats, Democrats, Taxation | 9 Comments | Trackback URL

If All You See…

By William Teach December 20, 2017 – 1:00 pm

…is a world turning to desert from carbon pollution, you might just be a Warmist

The blog of the day is Bizzy Blog, with a post on the NY Times mounting a sexist attack against Susan Collins.

Read: If All You See… »

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Good Grief: CNN Pimps Children’s Book About Santa And His Husband

By William Teach December 20, 2017 – 10:43 am

If you thought that is was just Warmists, Progressive nutbags (who still demand their paid day off), and hardcore-athiests who try and ruin Christmas, well, nope. (via Twitchy)

From Newsbusters

On CNN’s New Day Sunday, the show devoted a four-minute segment to the new children’s book, Santa’s Husband, which portrays Santa Claus as a gay man who gets married to another man. The segment included as guests the author, Daniel Kibblesmith, and illustrator Ashley Quach, with Kibblesmith recalling that he was partially inspired to write the book because of the complaints that are made each year about a “war on Christmas.”

At 6:12 a.m. ET, CNN co-anchor Christi Paul plugged the interview: “There’s a new children’s book out this Christmas — takes us inside Santa’s wedding. We meet Santa’s husband David. We’re going to talk to the author and illustrator ahead.”

And it included this segment, where co-host Victor Blackwell makes a point

You know this is a lot for some parents — some people may not agree with it. Let me read one of the criticisms here.

“I’m a gay man, and honestly the book is pretty patronizing and obviously meant to take two sweet things, the image of Santa Claus and love between two adults, and use them as a tool to express a political opinion in a polarizing way — especially the news anchor scene — in the guise of a children’s book. I find it overall patronizing, and I’m a little disgusted that the authors obviously used homosexuality as a political weapon to make a political statement under the cover of children.”

Listen, the elves have health care coverage, they settle labor disputes, you address climate change, Rudolph and Frosty attend Santa and David’s wedding. I mean, are you using a children’s book to push a political ideology, Daniel?

It is patronizing, and does use kids.

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Posted in Unhinged Tools | 1 Comment | Trackback URL

Surprise: Warmists Blame Heavy Heat Snow On Global Warming

By William Teach December 20, 2017 – 8:10 am

And people wonder why I refer to it as Hotcoldwetdry? No matter what happens, the Cult of Climastrology will claim some sort of link to global warming/climate change

From the Washington Times

Climate change has been blamed for causing higher temperatures, drought, wildfires and hurricanes — and now it’s being credited with generating record snow.

A study released Tuesday in the journal Scientific Reports found that snowfall on the highest peak in the Alaska Range has more than doubled since the start of the Industrial Revolution in the mid-19th century, which researchers attribute to climate change.

How? The study linked the heavy snow accumulation to “warmer waters thousands of miles away in the tropical Pacific and Indian oceans,” driven by rising greenhouse gas emissions, according to the Dartmouth College press release.

“We were shocked when we first saw how much snowfall has increased,” said Erich Osterberg, an assistant professor of earth sciences who led the investigation with researchers from Dartmouth, the University of Maine and the University of New Hampshire.

Of course! It’s so simple. You, dear reader, got up with your alarm clock on your evil electricity sucking smartphone, took more than a 2 minute shower and used more than 2 pieces of toilet paper, made coffee in your evil coffee maker, may have used an evil hair dryer, drove to work in your evil fossil fueled vehicle to your office which uses evil air conditioning and evil natural gas for heat, got ice from the evil ice maker in the breakroom, had an evil fast food meal for lunch, then drove home in your evil fossil fueled vehicle. It’s all your fault for all this heat snow.

Quipped Climate Depot’s Marc Morano, “Why not? Less snow used to ‘prove’ global warming. Snow used to be ‘a thing of the past’ according to climate activists. Now more snow ‘proves’ global warming. No matter the weather, they can claim it is consistent with global warming theory.”

“Man-made global warming has become unfalsifiable,” said Mr. Morano, author of “The Politically Incorrect Guide to Climate Change,” slated for release Feb. 26 by Regnery.

That’s because it is a cult, not science.

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Posted in AGW Idiocy, Global Warming, New Climate Deniers | 6 Comments | Trackback URL

Blackburn To Introduce Freedom Loving Net Neutrality Bill

By William Teach December 20, 2017 – 7:54 am

Marsha Blackburn isn’t attempting to turn the Internet into a government run utility

(Engadget) Last week, the FCC repealed net neutrality protections put in place in 2015 and returned broadband to a Title I classification. There were many voices expressing concern over the proposal and frustration once the FCC voted to enact it and a few members of Congress on both sides of the aisle stated that legislation, which would be more permanent than an FCC ruling, would ultimately be the best way forward when it comes to net neutrality. Now, less than a week after the FCC’s vote, Republican Representative Marsha Blackburn has introduced a net neutrality bill.

Blackburn is saying this legislation will “settle the net neutrality debate” and that she’s hopeful about its prospects in Congress. “Let’s stop the ping-ponging from one FCC commission to another,” Blackburn told Variety. “This is something where the Congress should act.”

She’s right: this is the type of thing that belongs in the hands of Congress, rather than unelected, unaccountable bureaucrats. Realistically, though, the Internet really doesn’t need anymore regulation. Which is good, because

The bill, however, varies little from the FCC’s order. It would still classify broadband as a Title I service and it would still allow for internet service providers to practice paid prioritization. It would also keep in place the 2010 transparency rules reinstituted last week. Pretty much the only difference is that it would ban blocking and throttling. “A lot of our innovators are saying, ‘Let’s go with things we have agreement on, and other things can be addressed later,'” Blackburn told Variety.

The proposed bill, the Open Internet Preservation Act, not only stops blocking and throttling, but restricts the implementation of any rules in the future from bureaucrats, like the one instituted by Obama’s FCC. And it would allow providers to offer specialized services, such as making someone go to a more expensive plan because they’re streaming way more content than others.

Obviously, Democrats will object, because they want the government in charge of American’s use of the Internet.

Crossed at Right Wing News.

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Bummer: No Amnesty For Illegal Aliens This Christmas

By William Teach December 19, 2017 – 3:50 pm

Perhaps instead of Demanding that the United States give them legal status and that we enact absolutely no enforcement nor deterrent measures, do away with chain migration of people who don’t speak the language, have different values, and not only do not want to assimilate, they demand we change for them, the illegals should try saying “please” and “thank you”

(Breitbart) Senate GOP whip John Cornyn told reporters on Monday that an amnesty for younger illegals won’t be debated in the Senate this month, but will be considered in January.

According to Reuters:

The U.S. Senate will not consider an immigration bill as part of year-end legislation but will turn to a measure protecting immigrant youths known as “Dreamers” in January, No. 2 Senate Republican John Cornyn said on Monday …

“The president has given us enough time to deal with this before March and so I think that’s plenty of time and I expect us to meet it,” Cornyn told reporters, adding, “If we can’t, then the president could extend the deadline if he chose to do so. But this is something we’re going to turn to, I’m sure, in January.”

The statement comes after Democratic leaders tried to intimidate GOP leaders with an unpopular and unlikely threat to block a government budget bill if the GOP did not agree to a no-strings amnesty for 3.24 million illegals.

Oh, well. If the illegal alien Dreamers really love this country, then perhaps they can apply for the lawfully enacted pathway to citizenship like everyone else does.

Read: Bummer: No Amnesty For Illegal Aliens This Christmas »

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If All You See…

By William Teach December 19, 2017 – 1:00 pm

…is horrendous carbon pollution created heat snow, you might just be a Warmist

The blog of the day is Political Clown Parade, with a post on Obama’s Iran deal.

Read: If All You See… »

Posted in If All You See | 22 Comments | Trackback URL
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