December 27, 2017
Dec 27 04:51 Tiring of Nolan's outright lies Dec 27 05:39 Nolan's bitterness problem Dec 27 07:53 ISIS prefers Obama over Trump Dec 27 09:23 Highlighting Mueller's fishing expedition Dec 27 11:00 As inattentive as Dayton? Dec 27 13:35 Another shot to the middle class
Prior Months: Jan Feb ~ May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov
Prior Years: 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016
Tiring of Nolan's outright lies
I'm tired of reading Rep. Rick Nolan's outright lies about the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. That's essentially the heart of this article . Rep. Nolan couldn't run a campaign if he didn't constantly play the class warfare card. That's what he's doing. That's the only way you could interpret a sentence that said "U.S. Rep. Rick Nolan, D-Minn., asserted the bill makes taxes worse for his constituents."
Unfortunately for us, Nolan didn't stop with that lie. Instead, he continued, saying "The median combined household income for the 8th District is $53,000 annually, but analysts agreed the bill would cause taxes to go up for most people with incomes under $70,000 , he said."
Rep. Nolan, have you no shame? Is the truth that insignificant to you? Perhaps you should read Guy Benson's article , especially this part of the article:
A Tax Policy Center analysis of the Senate bill reveals that three-quarters of all families would get a tax cut. Just 12 percent would see a tax increase - and they are concentrated among the rich. The average middle-income family would receive a tax cut of approximately $850 per year through 2025 . At that point, Congress would have to vote to extend most of the family tax cuts. This vote would probably be a formality, as a similar vote five years ago to extend the Bush tax cuts for middle-class families passed the Senate 89-8. There is no appetite in Congress to steeply raise middle-class taxes.
Let's make something totally clear. First, the marginal tax rate for each bracket was lowered by the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. Next, the per child tax credit and the standard deduction were doubled by the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. Third, the only people who will pay more in taxes are people making way more than $53,000 a year. In fact, the people that'll see their taxes go up make $150,000 a year and who itemize and then only if their deductions are certain types of deductions.
Any statement that says people making $53,000 a year will pay more in taxes next year than this is a lie. Period. Here's another Nolan/Pelosi talking points (lies):
In addition, the bill would hurt the more than 900,000 Minnesotans on Social Security and Medicare, Nolan said, because Republicans in Congress would reduce those programs to pay for the tax breaks.
It's disgusting that Rep. Nolan said this. There isn't anything in the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act that deals with Social Security or Medicare. This is part of Rep. Nolan's typical fearmongering campaign. It wouldn't be a Nolan campaign if he didn't attempt to scare seniors and lie to blue collar voters. This was expected, too:
Nolan said eliminating the individual mandate would drive up the health care costs of people who bought health insurance. About 13 million people nationwide would drop health insurance as a result of getting rid of the mandate, he said. "And then, who pays for their health care? You and me," Nolan said.
Actually, there's another option, which is that people wouldn't buy policies required by Obamacare. They'd be able to buy policies they prefer rather than the ones the government ordered them to buy. Forgive me if I don't see the downside to this.
Posted Wednesday, December 27, 2017 4:51 AM
Comment 1 by Chad Q at 27-Dec-17 04:58 PM
If you can't dazzle them with brilliance, baffle them with bullshit. Tell a lie long enough and it will become the truth. That's pretty much the whole Democrat platform.
Nolan's bitterness problem
One thing that I didn't include in this post about Rick Nolan's dishonesty about the Trump tax cuts is the pettiness Rep. Nolan shows. When he said "At best, you're going to get enough money to buy the hubcap on a Mercedes-Benz" but that the "super-millionaires and billionaires, they'll be buying whole cars, if not fleets of them, with their tax breaks", what's really happening is that Rep. Nolan is saying that the very substantial middle class tax cuts contained in the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act don't exist. For a married couple with 2 kids, the first $24,000 of income isn't taxed. That's a 100% increase from this year's income. Second, the per child tax credit was increased, too.
Rep. Nolan, I'd love hearing you explain how families in the Eighth District will pay more under the new tax rates than they're paying now. Further, I'd challenge you to cite specific provisions in the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act to prove your argument.
Readers, I'm not holding my breath waiting for Nolan's explanation. That's because I think he's too dishonest to 'prove' his claims by citing provisions in the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. Rep. Nolan won't try proving it with my stipulations because he's a liar.
Another thing that's noteworthy about Rep. Nolan's statement is the implication that I should be upset that I'm getting a substantial tax cut while someone who's taking much bigger risks with their money is getting a bigger tax cut. What type of sick person thinks like that? I don't. Pay me a solid wage and the complete set of benefits and I'm happy. If I get a significant tax cut that lets me keep a bigger portion of my salary, I'm a happy camper. If someone gets more than me, I'm happy for him and his family, too.
This video verifies as fact that Rep. Nolan thinks only in terms of bitterness and class warfare:
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We don't need bitter people in politics. We need people in politics who celebrate everyone's successes. We don't need people in politics who think that one man's victory is another man's defeat. We need people in politics who see everyone's successes as -- well -- successes.
Rick Nolan's 'keeping up with the Joneses' style of politics is killing America. Aren't we all supposed to be in this together? Didn't we celebrate when rich people did well and the middle class won, too? In Nolan's world, he only celebrates one set of winners. It's sad that Rep. Nolan is too bitter and jealous to celebrate everyone's successes.
Posted Wednesday, December 27, 2017 5:39 AM
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ISIS prefers Obama over Trump
Rumor has it that ISIS preferred the Obama administration over the Trump administration. We don't know that for certain because ISIS hasn't issued a statement on the issue, mostly because ISIS is too decimated these days to do much of anything. ISIS is too busy dodging bombs to issue more than a monthly rah-rah statement. When the Obama administration was in office, ISIS had time to actually recruit terrorists and plan terrorist attacks. That isn't happening during the Trump administration.
Seriously, this article lays out what's happening. The article's opening paragraphs start by saying "ISIS has lost 98 percent of the territory it once held -- with half of that terror group's so-called 'caliphate' having been recaptured since President Trump took office less than a year ago, U.S. military officials said Tuesday. The massive gains come after years of "onerous" rules, when critics say the Obama administration 'micromanaged' the war and shunned a more intensive air strategy that could have ended the conflict much sooner."
Predictably, the Obama administration attempted to push back. Predictably, it was feeble:
"This was a top priority from the early days of ISIS gaining the type of territorial safe haven in particular, there was recognition that safe havens for terrorist groups can mean terrorist plots that extend - not just into the region - but to Europe and conceivably into the United States," said Joshua Geltzer, author of "US Counter-Terrorism Strategy and al-Qaeda: Signalling and the Terrorist World-View," now a visiting professor at Georgetown Law School.
I don't care if ISIS was a top priority for the Obama administration. It isn't whether it's a top priority. It's whether the strategy employed is effective. Clearly, the Obama administration didn't take things that seriously.
This report spells things out beautifully:
I'll leave you with this parting thought:
Deptula thinks the ISIS fight would have ended much sooner if then-President Obama had given his military commander in the field more authority. He compared President Obama's actions to President Lyndon B. Johnson during the Vietnam War. "Obama micromanaged the war," Deptula said. " We could have accomplished our objectives through the use of overwhelming air power in three months not in three years. "
Posted Wednesday, December 27, 2017 7:53 AM
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Highlighting Mueller's fishing expedition
Betsy Woodruff's article didn't take long to prove that Robert Mueller isn't interested in investigating Trump-Russian collusion. He's interested in a fishing expedition.
In the second paragraph, Ms. Woodruff wrote "It's been seven months since Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein ordered Bob Mueller to take over the FBI's counterintelligence probe into possible links between the Kremlin and people associated with the Trump campaign. Trump's lawyers have long said they expected the probe to stay focused and end quickly. Instead, Mueller has assembled a team of prosecutors with expertise in handling financial investigations and white-collar crime, and obtained guilty pleas for crimes that weren't committed during the election year ."
Here's the question that the MSM won't ask: If Mueller's objective was to prevent Russian interference in our elections, why has he focused so much attention on white collar crimes from years ago? Here's another question: Doesn't the DOJ have prosecutors who investigate white collar crime? Finally, if that's the case, why do we need a special counsel spending millions of dollars on a fishing expedition?
Then there's this:
And, most importantly, he's sent a thinly veiled warning to the White House: No one's finances are off limits. If 2017 had the president's inner circle sweating, 2018 could feel like a sauna.
Simply put, it's obvious that Mueller has stopped investigating Trump-Russia collusion. This paragraph indicates why Mueller should shut its investigation down:
A superseding indictment would essentially replace the current indictment of Manafort. And in that current indictment, Mueller's team hinted there was more to come. In particular, they hinted at potential tax charges for Manafort's foreign financial transactions. Federal prosecutors can bring charges against any American who has money in a foreign bank account and doesn't check a box on their tax forms disclosing it. The Manafort/Gates indictment describes financial behavior that may be liable for that kind of prosecution. And that's an indicator that Mueller's team may be preparing to formally charge both men with violating tax laws.
Again, Mueller is intent on finding white collar crimes. We don't need to spend millions of extra dollars to investigate white collar crimes. This video might best be considered the Democrats' best spin for why the Mueller fishing expedition must continue:
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First, Republicans don't have their "hair on fire." They're just upset that Mueller isn't interested in investigating the things he was originally hired to investigate. Next, Democrats insisting that Mueller be allowed to finish his investigation is spin. As I've highlighted earlier in this article, there's no disputing the fact that Mueller is investigating things far afield from his original mission. For all intents and purposes, Mueller's investigation is finished. Third, isn't it apparent that Mueller doesn't have anything on any of Trump's inner circle? Paul Manafort had a title but his influence was limited, at best. Gen. Flynn was NSA director for a couple weeks but he certainly wasn't integral to the campaign.
Nothing has been found that hints that Trump's campaign colluded with Putin's Russia to defeat Hillary. That's because they didn't need Putin's help. All they needed was for Hillary to be Hillary. You don't need Sherlock Holmes to figure it out that Hillary was the worst candidate in recent history. Larry Holmes could've figured that out.
Posted Wednesday, December 27, 2017 9:23 AM
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As inattentive as Dayton?
Gov. Dayton is well-known as not paying much attention to what's happening around him. The latest proof of his inattention to important details is the nursing home abuse scandal. Unfortunately for Minnesotans, there's another DFL politician who insists on not paying attention to details warming up in the bullpen. According to this article , Rep. Walz joined other House Democrats at a news conference Thursday in support of Mueller. While there, Rep. Walz said "This investigation is integral to fully understanding the Russian attack on our 2016 election, to learning how to better safeguard our electoral process, and to helping restore the American people's faith in our democracy. It should continue unimpeded and follow the facts wherever they lead."
Apparently, Rep. Walz hasn't paid much attention to the Mueller 'investigation'. If he had, he'd know that most of the indictments and plea deals don't have anything to do with safeguarding "our electoral process." It has virtually nothing to do with "helping restore the American people's faith in our democracy" because the investigation is mostly about white collar crime that happened years before the 2016 election.
It's clear that Walz isn't the only DFL politician who isn't paying attention to Mueller's fishing expedition:
"It's clear Special Prosecutor Mueller is doing his job and following the facts, and we should continue to allow him to do that without any interference by Congress or the Administration. We owe it to our democracy to ensure Mueller has the independence to fully carry out his work without the threat of being fired," Democratic Sen. Amy Klobuchar, who sits on the Senate Judiciary Committee, said in a statement.
Sen. Klobuchar, why should we spend millions of dollars on a special counsel to investigate white collar crime? I'm not saying white collar crime isn't important. I'm simply suggesting that there are tons of people in the DOJ and FBI that investigate white collar crime.
This tweet speaks volumes:
I'm proud to join @RepMaxineWaters and 170 other @HouseDemocrats in urging US Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein to ensure the independence of Special Counsel Robert Mueller and his investigation into Russia's attack on our 2016 election.
Joining Maxine Waters on anything is like admitting you're joining forces with the biggest nutjob in DC.
Posted Wednesday, December 27, 2017 11:00 AM
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Another shot to the middle class
Yessirree Bob, the middle class is taking it in the shorts once again, thanks to evil corporations getting yuuge profits, then spreading it between the rich fat-cat shareholders. Those Democrats were right. The Republicans' Tax Cuts and Jobs Act is making the rich richer while the middle class and working poor get shafted. This article verifies as Gospel fact that those evil corporations only look out for themselves.
The article starts by saying "Federal tax reform benefits big corporations. Allete, the parent company of Minnesota Power, is among Duluth's biggest corporations. So will those tax reform benefits be passed on to Minnesota Power customers? It looks like it . [Ed. note: How can that be?] 'The new lower tax rate will be built into our rates, and the savings will be passed through to our customers based on methodology determined by the (Minnesota Public Utilities Commission),' Minnesota Power spokeswoman Amy Rutledge wrote in an email Wednesday."
That can't be. Just watch the opening of this video:
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"Treats for the rich. Tricks on the middle class", exclaimed a visibly frustrated Chuck Schumer. Nancy Pelosi chimed in "Devastating and, in my view, immoral budget to fast track their immoral tax plan to hand trillions to the wealthy while raising taxes on the middle class."
If I was in the middle class, I'd be worried based on those statements. Unfortunately for Democrats, those evil corporations apparently didn't get the Democrats' talking points. Either that or they've pitched them into the nearest circular file.
In its investor presentation released before tax reform was finalized this month, Allete wrote: "We expect that our nonregulated businesses would benefit from lower corporate tax rates," and that "items could have offsetting impacts to both customer rates and earnings."
If people needed proof that Democrats aren't Nostradamus with their predictions, they just need to read this article. The Democrats' predictions aren't that accurate. They should stay out of the predictions business.
Posted Wednesday, December 27, 2017 1:35 PM
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