The rich get richer...

Raw Story has uncovered a secret IRS tax favor for the super-rich—authorized when Donald Trump was president—that will take effect on Thursday, July 1. President Biden can stop it with one phone call. Will he?

The Biden White House was unaware of this Trump tax favor—disguised as a crackdown on wealthy tax cheaters—when Raw Story asked about it on Friday.

That's not surprising because the IRS remains under the control of Charles Rettig, a holdover from the Trump era. Before Trump named him IRS commissioner, Rettig was a Beverly Hills tax lawyer who helped the super-wealthy escape taxes and—if they got caught cheating—negotiated secret settlements that avoided public humiliation while minimizing taxes and penalties.

[...]

What makes this Trumpian scheme diabolical is that on the surface, it appears to be a 50% increase in enforcement of gift and estate tax law, areas where cheating is rampant. Actually, it's the opposite.

[...]

Detecting these tax avoidance tricks and then figuring out how much tax is due requires sophisticated skills, especially in understanding legal doctrines and court decisions. The new hires need only minimal training, none of it in contract law.

So, while it appears the IRS is beefing up its auditing power, it is simultaneously moving to assign the work to employees less likely to detect cheating and when they do much easier to dupe. Imagine your local police department announcing it would no longer hire homicide detectives but instead assign future murder cases to patrol cops.

  Raw Story

Continue reading.

Tax cuts for the wealthy have long drawn support from conservative lawmakers and economists who argue that such measures will "trickle down" and eventually boost jobs and incomes for everyone else. But a new study from the London School of Economics says 50 years of such tax cuts have only helped one group — the rich.

  CBS

The whole idea was bullshit from the start. Surely nobody ever thought otherwise.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

2022 may not be a good year for the GOP in Arizona

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Is it hot enough for you?

No objections here

I don't hear anyone screaming, "How are we going to pay for that?"

For the second time in the five months since he was inaugurated, President Joe Biden on Sunday ordered a U.S. bombing raid on Syria, and for the first time, he also bombed Iraq. The rationale offered was the same as Biden's first air attack in February: the U.S., in the words of Pentagon spokesman John Kirby, “conducted defensive precision airstrikes against facilities used by Iran-backed militia groups in the Iraq-Syria border region.” He added that “the United States acted pursuant to its right of self-defense.”

  Glenn Greenwald

Bullshit.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Very interesting

Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) said on Tuesday that he's supportive of going forward with a larger, Democratic-only infrastructure bill but that it shouldn't be linked to a separate bipartisan framework.

Manchin, during an interview with MSNBC, said that he had been assuming since "day one" that Democrats would have to use reconciliation, a budget process that allows them to bypass a 60-vote legislative filibuster, to pass a larger infrastructure bill because Republicans don't want to make changes to the 2017 tax bill.

“We're going to have to work it through reconciliation, which I’ve agreed that that can be done. I just haven’t agreed on the amount, because I haven’t seen everything that everyone is wanting to put in the bill," Manchin said on MSNBC.

  The Hill

Is this a new tune for Manchin?

Democrats are still in the early stages of trying to figure out how big to go in a Democratic-only infrastructure bill. But they have no room for error in the Senate, where they need all 50 of their members and Vice President Harris to pass an infrastructure bill under reconciliation.

And Manchin has long been viewed as the biggest hold out on greenlighting a Democratic-only bill.

[...]

The bipartisan plan was thrown into limbo late last week after President Biden suggested he wouldn't sign the agreement if it didn't come to his desk with the larger Democratic-only bill. Biden walked back that statement over the weekend, but Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) has warned that the House won't take up the Senate bipartisan deal until they also pass the Democratic-only bill. Manchin, during the MSNBC interview on Tuesday, argued that the two bills shouldn't be linked, urging that Democrats should "take the win" on the bipartisan agreement.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

My fellow Missourians, NOW what have we done?

With shootings surging in many places across the country, at least 10 states this year have enacted so-called "Second Amendment sanctuary" laws. They vary state-by-state but most are meant to pre-empt tighter gun control measures that could come from the Biden Administration.

Missouri Gov. Mike Parson, a Republican, signed his state's version earlier this month at a gun shop outside of Kansas City, echoing a claim that made the rounds on conservative social media:

"You've had the vice president of the United States get up in an open forum — when she was running for president, if you remember this — and any particular weapon she decided she didn't like, she was going to come to your house, onto your front door, and take it away," he said. "Well not in Missouri, she's not."

Missouri's new law imposes a $50,000 fine on any state or local official who enforces a federal gun law that's not also a Missouri law. The rule also says that federal laws that infringe on the Second Amendment are invalid in the state. A version of the act was first introduced by state lawmakers in 2013.

"This is a stupid, dangerous and unconstitutional law," says Missouri state Sen. Lauren Arthur, a Democrat from Kansas City.

The problem she and others point out, constitutionally, is the Supremacy Clause — the part of the U.S. Constitution that says federal laws overrule conflicting state laws.

[...]

"If I'm a criminal looking to commit federal gun felonies, I'd say Missouri is a pretty great place to break the law now," Arthur says.

[...]

Because of a loophole in state law, some worry the Second Amendment Protection Act could keep local police from confiscating guns from Missourians convicted of misdemeanor domestic violence.

Sen. Arthur offered an amendment to the bill that would close that loophole, but the proposal failed to gain traction.

  NPR

Are Republicans setting the stage for the next coup attempt?

To no one's surprise, the law's fate will be decided in court.

A week after the bill was signed, St. Louis City and County filed a joint lawsuit over it. In Kansas City, on the other side of the state, the county legislature is considering a resolution to join the suit, and Kansas City Mayor Quinton Lucas has also expressed interest in joining.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

They will never get it

Dems operate out of fear.  Republicans would never give them the same consideration.  Dems get what they deserve, but the rest of us pay for it.

To be fair, in this instance, the Dems do have Joe Manchin to consider.  But this is probably the last time they'll have any option to be in power.  If they don't get things done now, the GOP will have cheated and gerrymandered its way into permanent minority rule.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Sneaky Pete

Biden attempts to have his cake and eat it too.

Biden had said on Thursday that he would not sign a bipartisan deal on infrastructure unless a larger reconciliation deal was passed through the Senate, but on Saturday he attempted to walk back some of those remarks.

"At a press conference after announcing the bipartisan agreement, I indicated that I would refuse to sign the infrastructure bill if it was sent to me without my Families Plan and other priorities, including clean energy," Biden said in a statement released by the White House Saturday afternoon.

"That statement understandably upset some Republicans, who do not see the two plans as linked; they are hoping to defeat my Families Plan—and do not want their support for the infrastructure plan to be seen as aiding passage of the Families Plan.

“My comments also created the impression that I was issuing a veto threat on the very plan I had just agreed to, which was certainly not my intent,” he added.

[...]

The president announced the deal in front of the White House surrounded by the lawmakers including Sens. Susan Collins (R-Maine) Mitt Romney (R-Utah), Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) and Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.), among others.

However, during a press conference later in the day, the president indicated that he would not sign the bipartisan deal unless a reconciliation bill came "in tandem."

[...]

Some progressives threatened not to support the bill unless Biden passed a separate reconciliation bill through the Senate, which would only need the support of 50 Democratic senators.

[...]

Several Republicans have already signaled that they were against a reconciliation bill fast-tracked by Senate Democrats, especially after some had signaled openness to the bipartisan proposal.

[...]

“No deal by extortion! It was never suggested to me during these negotiations that President Biden was holding hostage the bipartisan infrastructure proposal unless a liberal reconciliation package was also passed,” [Lindsey] Graham tweeted on Friday.

[...]

Biden signaled that he planned to pursue both plans.

“I will ask Leader Schumer to schedule both the infrastructure plan and the reconciliation bill for action in the Senate. I expect both to go to the House, where I will work with Speaker Pelosi on the path forward after Senate action. Ultimately, I am confident that Congress will get both to my desk, so I can sign each bill promptly,” Biden said, referring to Democratic congressional leadership.

  The Hill

Good luck with that.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

It's too much to hope for

The top executive in question is Allen Weisselberg.  Are they thinking this will put pressure on him to flip on Trump?  Or...what?  Why announce a possible consideration?

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

More Trump admin corruption revealed

Two high-ranking Trump political appointees at the Environmental Protection Agency arranged for a pair of agency employees to reap tens of thousands of dollars in salaries even after they were fired, according to a report from EPA’s Office of Inspector General.

The improper payments were directed by former chief of staff Ryan Jackson and carried out by former White House liaison Charles Munoz, and totaled almost $38,000, according to the March report obtained by POLITICO via a Freedom of Information Act request.

In addition, Munoz also received an improper raise and submitted “fraudulent timesheets” that cost EPA almost $96,000, the OIG calculated.

Federal prosecutors declined to press charges over any of the OIG’s findings.

  Politico

Sure. Why not?

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

This won't help the cause

At end of the second week of June, more than 1,200 cases of myocarditis or pericarditis have been reported to the US Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System.

The cases reportedly appear to be notably higher in males and in the week after the second vaccine dose.

  alJazeera

Matters of the courts

Attorney General Merrick Garland announced Friday that the U.S. Justice Department is suing the state of Georgia over its new voting law, saying that the controversial measure is intended to restrict ballot access to Black voters.

"Our complaint alleges that recent changes to Georgia's election laws were enacted with the purpose of denying or abridging the right of Black Georgians to vote on account of their race or color, in violation of Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act," Garland said at a news conference.

  NPR

Good, but what will happen when it gets to the Supreme Court?

The U.S. Supreme Court on Friday sided with the TransUnion credit reporting company, ruling that thousands of consumers whose names were improperly flagged as potential terrorists cannot sue the company for damages.

By a 5-to-4 vote, the court ruled that Congress does not have the power under the Constitution to establish statutory rights and the power to enforce those rights with private lawsuits.

[...]

The court said that much of the alleged harm was "too speculative" and that only a fraction of the individuals whose names had been matched and flagged could sue--only those who could prove an actual, concrete injury. In this case, that amounted to only about one-fifth of the class that sued. The court threw out the claims of the rest of the class, those who claimed a risk of injury. The court said that Congress had no right to grant that group standing to sue.

[...]

In dissent was the court's most conservative justice, Clarence Thomas, and the court's three liberals. Thomas said that the court had rendered unto itself and itself alone the power to define which claims have merit.

[...]

Lawyers on both sides of the case see Friday's decision as a big victory for the large corporations.

  NPR

I'm truly surprised that Thomas didn't vote with the other conservatives.

Because we needed one more threat

I'm not even going to read that article.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Waaaaaaaay over the line

Rwanda, if you're too young (or too senile) to remember, is a reference to an uprising by blacks.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Infrastructure deal

President Biden’s deal with a bipartisan group of 10 senators is throwing a lifeline to one of Washington’s most endangered species: The political center.

[...]

The breakthrough came after a cycle of closed-door meetings.

[...]

Thursday’s breakthrough will only be the start of a weeks— if not months-long—slog to get an infrastructure package to Biden’s desk.

The bipartisan agreement is already facing pushback from both sides of the aisle.

Some Republicans warn that Biden’s threat to not sign the bill unless a larger package is passed through special budgetary rules sidestepping the filibuster is a “dealbreaker.”

Progressives want an “iron-clad” commitment that the bipartisan package won’t become law unless the sweeping Democratic-only bill has a clear path to Biden’s desk.

[...]

“This reminds me of the days that we used to get an awful lot done in the United States Congress. ...We get bipartisan deals. Bipartisan deals mean compromise,” Biden said, at one point gripping Portman on the shoulder.

“A lot of us go back a long way,” he added. “They have my word, I'll stick with what they propose. And they’ve given me their word as well. Where I come from that’s good enough for me.”

  The Hill

Gullible.

Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) said on Thursday that it was "inevitable" that Democrats would move forward with a separate, Democrat-only infrastructure package — it was just a question of what the size and scope will be.

"Reconciliation is inevitable because basically Republicans I understand on the tax they don't want to undo anything on the 2017 [bill]."

[...]

Progressives are sending warning shots that they want concrete details on what will be in the Democrat-only bill before they agree to help pass the bipartisan package. And Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), amid progressive pressure, vowed on Thursday that her chamber will not pass the bipartisan package until it is ready to pass the Democrat-only bill.

Manchin endorsed the two-track system on Thursday.

"The only strategy we have is two tracks. I think we're going to do, hopefully ... the bipartisan agreement see if we can get that done and then move to the other one," Manchin said.

  The Hill

They look very pleased with themselves.

Meanwhile in America

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) on Tuesday signed legislation mandating public colleges and universities survey students and faculty about their beliefs in an effort to promote intellectual diversity on campuses.

“We obviously want our universities to be focused on critical thinking, academic rigor,” DeSantis said during a news conference Tuesday, according to the Naples Daily News.

“We do not want them as basically hotbeds for stale ideology,” he said.

[...]

Under House Bill 233, surveys would be conducted annually on campuses to assess viewpoint diversity and intellectual freedom, and determine “the extent to which competing ideas and perspectives are presented,” and whether students and faculty “feel free to express beliefs and viewpoints on campus and in the classroom.”

The bill does not specifically say what will be done with survey results, but DeSantis suggested budget cuts could be imminent if universities and colleges are found to be “indoctrinating” students.

[...]

The legislation, which goes into effect July 1, also aims to ensure students are being shown ideas that they “may disagree with or find uncomfortable.”

  The Hill

Which is what was happening that triggered this bullshit. I presume it will be challenged in court.

Other measures included an expansion of civics education for K-12 schools, including instruction about the perils of communist and totalitarian governments.

Well that's rich.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

There'll be renewed calls to "hang Mike Pence"

“I will always be proud that we did our part on that tragic day to reconvene the Congress and fulfilled our duty under the constitution and the laws of the United States,” Pence said in a speech in California.

He noted that the vice-president has no constitutional power to throw out a presidential result submitted to the US Congress by the states, or send the votes back to the states in rejection.

[...]

He called the insurrection a “dark day in the history of the United States Capitol”...

[...]

In his speech, Pence acknowledged his “disappointment” at November’s defeat, with Democrats Biden and Kamala Harris winning decisively.

“Now, I understand the disappointment many feel about the last election,” he said. “I can relate. I was on the ballot. But you know, there’s more at stake than our party and our political fortunes in this moment. If we lose faith in the constitution, we won’t just lose elections – we’ll lose our country,” he said.

[...]

He praised the “Trump-Pence administration’s” accomplishments in office and urged his party to take advantage of “traditional conservative priorities” as well as the “new pillars” of Trump’s populist politics.

  Guardian

MAGAts won't hear that. They'll just hear the election part.

A Department of Homeland Security (DHS) official told members of Congress on Wednesday that there is concern in the department regarding conspiracy theories that former President Trump will be reinstated in August, Politico reports.

  The Hill

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Trump corruption leaks

Titled "Frankly, We Did Win This Election: The Inside Story of How Trump Lost," the book reveals new details about how Trump's language became increasingly violent during Oval Office meetings as protests in Seattle and Portland began to receive attention from cable new outlets.

[...]

"That's how you're supposed to handle these people," Trump told his top law enforcement and military officials, according to Bender. "Crack their skulls!" Trump also told his team that he wanted the military to go in and "beat the f--k out" of the civil rights protesters, Bender writes. "Just shoot them," Trump said on multiple occasions inside the Oval Office, according to the excerpts.

[...]

"Well, shoot them in the leg—or maybe the foot," Trump said. "But be hard on them!"

[...]

CNN previously reported that concerns within the Pentagon about Trump's potential to make unpredictable decisions during the campaign and beyond reached a boiling point last September.

[...]

During one Oval Office debate, senior Trump adviser Stephen Miller chimed in, equating the scenes unfolding on his television to those in a third-world country and claiming major American cities had been turned into war zones. "These cities are burning," Miller warned, according to the excerpts. The comment infuriated Milley, who viewed Miller as not only wrong but out of his lane, Bender writes, noting the Army general who had commanded troops in Iraq and Afghanistan spun around in his seat and pointed a finger directly at Miller. "Shut the f--k up, Stephen," Milley snapped, according to the excerpts.

  CNN

That must have been at least a little satisfying.

Milley made a concerted effort to stay in Washington as much as possible during those final months. A significant concern for Milley at the time was how to advise Trump if he decided to invoke the Insurrection Act in the wake of civil unrest -- a move that would have military force on the streets against civilians.

And I'm actually surprised he didn't do that.

Both Milley and Esper were deeply opposed to the idea when Trump first suggested it last June following protests against police brutality and racial injustice in the wake of George Floyd's death.

According to Bender, Milley viewed the unrest around Floyd's death as a political problem, not a military one.

He told the President there were more than enough reserves in the National Guard to support law enforcement responding to the protests. Milley told him that invoking the Insurrection Act would shift responsibility for the protests from local authorities directly to the President.

[...]

Milley spotted President Abraham Lincoln's portrait hanging just to the right of Trump and pointed directly at it, Bender writes.

"That guy had an insurrection," Milley said. "What we have, Mr. President, is a protest."

And then, on January 6, we got an insurrection.

While testifying publicly before the House Armed Services Committee on Wednesday, Milley, who remains in his post as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, offered a forceful rebuke of Republican members over their comments related to both issues.

[...]

Responding to a question from Rep. Mike Waltz of Florida about the appropriateness of a seminar at the United States Military Academy at West Point called "Understanding Whiteness and White Rage," Milley said: "I want to understand White rage. And I'm White. And I want to understand it."

Tying the question to the January 6 insurrection, Milley asked: "What is it that caused thousands of people to assault this building and try to overturn the Constitution of the United States of America? What caused that? I want to find that out. I want to maintain an open mind here."

As it should do

A New York court said Thursday that Rudy Giuliani is suspended from practicing law in the state after it found he spread false information about the 2020 presidential election while serving as a lawyer for former President Trump and the Trump campaign, which "immediately threatens the public interest."

[...]

"The seriousness of respondent's uncontroverted misconduct cannot be overstated," the court said in the 33-page decision. "This country is being torn apart by continued attacks on the legitimacy of the 2020 election and of our current president, Joseph R. Biden. The hallmark of our democracy is predicated on free and fair elections. False statements intended to foment a loss of confidence in our elections and resulting loss of confidence in government generally damage the proper functioning of a free society."

  CBS

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

The good part

The bad part, of course is the millions of people who have died or are suffering long covid.

Manchin and the For the People Act

ALL 50 SENATE Democrats voted to move forward to a debate Tuesday on S. 1, the “For the People Act,” in an unusual display of party loyalty that was met by equal party unity on the Republican side.

In technical terms, Democrats made a motion to invoke cloture to overcome a silent Republican filibuster of a motion to proceed to debate the legislation. In other words, without actually talking on the Senate floor, Republicans successfully blocked the bill from even moving toward a floor debate. Under Senate rules in place since 1975, 60 votes are needed for cloture. The motion fell 10 votes short of 60.

[...]

Manchin continues to tell colleagues that he hopes to find 10 Republican votes to move forward with his legislation, though so far he has only gotten Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska to express general support for a voting rights bill.

  The Intercept

Give it up, Joe.

Manchin’s legislation is still being negotiated and will include new provisions to counter Republican takeovers of election boards.

They will never go for that. They have to cheat to win.

In a statement Tuesday, Manchin said his compromise requires disclosure of any political spending above $10,000. It would also ban partisan gerrymandering, a key goal for Democrats ahead of the 2022 midterms.

They won't go for that, either. That's how they win with fewer votes than Democrats get.

With 50 Democrats on board for some significant voting rights reform, the question will be whether Manchin agrees to reforms to the filibuster once he concludes that there are nowhere near 10 Republicans willing to go along.

Beter hurry up. We're not that far from the 2022 elections cycle, and if you get too close to that, the Republicans will refuse on those grounds, and publicly castigate the Democrats for doing it then.

With 50 Democrats on board for some significant voting rights reform, the question will be whether Manchin agrees to reforms to the filibuster once he concludes that there are nowhere near 10 Republicans willing to go along.

[...]

Voting to move to debate would allow Republicans and Democrats to offer amendments, Manchin said — the type of legislating he often elevates as the goal of the Senate.

“Unfortunately, my Republican colleagues refused to allow debate of this legislation despite the reasonable changes made to focus the bill on the core issues facing our democracy,” Manchin said.

That's the point, Joe. They are not going to cooperate in any fashion. What have they got to lose by it? They'll force Democrats to change the rules for how many votes they need and then blast them in public for grabbing power. When will Joe learn that the Republicans do not act in good faith? That they are determined to hold power by any means necessary?

The final showdown over the filibuster is likely to come in late July, once it becomes clear that the new version of S. 1 has no serious Republican support. The argument will be helped along if bipartisan infrastructure talks, which have hit a logjam over the fundamental question of financing and taxes, have collapsed by then.

I'm not feeling optimistic. I've seen the Democrats in action - or rather inaction.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Manchin gets changes to For the People Act

Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) said Tuesday that he will vote in favor of advancing a sweeping election bill after striking a deal with Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) on a compromise proposal

Schumer, speaking to reporters after a closed-door caucus lunch, announced that he and Manchin had reached an agrSen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) said Tuesday that he will vote in favor of advancing a sweeping election bill after striking a deal with Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) on a compromise proposal. Schumer, speaking to reporters after a closed-door caucus lunch, announced that he and Manchin had reached an agreement that will allow Democrats to be unified in support of advancing the For the People Act as it faces a 60-vote procedural hurdle.

[...]

Manchin has said he can't support the bill as it was introduced. Instead, he circulated a list of what he can and cannot support. He said he supports making Election Day a public holiday, mandating at least 15 consecutive days for early voting in federal elections, banning gerrymandering and setting up voter registration through state motor vehicle departments.

Manchin is also ready to back tighter campaign finance requirements currently in the For the People Act, including requiring online and digital ads to disclose their sources, similar to TV and radio ads, imposing tighter ethics requirements for presidents and vice presidents, and requiring campaigns and committees to report foreign contacts.

But he’s also recommending jettisoning one of the more controversial parts of the bill — public financing of campaigns. While he supports absentee voting, he doesn’t endorse no-excuse absentee voting, and, in a move likely to upset some Democrats, Manchin is proposing voter ID requirements with the possibility of alternatives such as a utility bill to provide proof of identity in order to vote.

  The Hill

Sounds reasonable to me. But it doesn't matter, because they would still have to get 10 Republicans to vote yes in order to pass the bill without using some other measure.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Whinger whines while denying whinging

“It’s truly incredible that shows like Saturday Night Live, not funny/no talent, can spend all of their time knocking the same person (me), over & over, without so much of a mention of ‘the other side,’” Trump tweeted, long before he was banned from Twitter for inspiring a violent mob. “Like an advertisement without consequences. Same with Late Night Shows. Should Federal Election Commission and/or FCC look into this?”

It was, on its face, a ridiculous question and threat, as SNL is obviously satire, and therefore a form of protected speech in America that pissed-off commanders-in-chief have no authority to directly subvert. However, then-President Trump went further than simply tweeting his displeasure with the late-night comedians and SNL writers’ room. The internal discussions that followed, between the former leader of the free world and some of his political and legal advisers, once again underscored just how much Trump wanted to use the full weight and power of the U.S. government to punish his personal enemies.<

[...]

In early 2019, Trump had to be repeatedly advised that the “equal-time” rules to which he appeared to refer wouldn’t even apply in this situation, given that late-night shows and NBC sketch comedy are clearly staged satire, and thus not bound by the same requirements of other forms of broadcast TV and radio.

[...]

“Can something else be done about it?” Trump replied, according to this source, to which they responded with some version of “I’ll look into it.” (This person says that to this day, they have not, in fact, “looked into it.”)

[...]

In a statement released on Tuesday, Trump mischaracterized The Daily Beast’s story and called it “fabricated.” “The story that I asked the Department of Justice to go after ratings-challenged (without Trump!) Saturday Night Live and other late-night Losers, is total Fake News,” Trump wrote.br />
[...]

Trump asked advisers and lawyers in early 2019 about what the Federal Communications Commission, the court system, and—most confusingly to some Trump lieutenants—the Department of Justice could do to probe or mitigate SNL, Jimmy Kimmel, and other late-night comedy mischief-makers.

[...]

In early 2019, Trump had to be repeatedly advised that the “equal-time” rules to which he appeared to refer wouldn’t even apply in this situation, given that late-night shows and NBC sketch comedy are clearly staged satire, and thus not bound by the same requirements of other forms of broadcast TV and radio.

[...]

“Can something else be done about it?” Trump replied, according to this source, to which they responded with some version of “I’ll look into it.” (This person says that to this day, they have not, in fact, “looked into it.”)

[...]

In a statement released on Tuesday, Trump mischaracterized The Daily Beast’s story and called it “fabricated.”

“The story that I asked the Department of Justice to go after ratings-challenged (without Trump!) Saturday Night Live and other late-night Losers, is total Fake News,” Trump wrote.

[...]

“I do believe that the 100% one-sided shows should be considered an illegal campaign contribution from the Democrat Party,” Trump wrote.

  Daily Beast

What a whining tyrant he would have been in a second term.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Yet another case of Republican voter fraud

A Republican Ohio government official admitted to forging his deceased father's signature on an absentee ballot in the 2020 presidential election, calling his actions “an honest error."

  The Hill

How on earth could forging a signature be "an honest error"?

Edward Snodgrass, a Porter Township trustee, told NBC News that he had been signing documents on his father's behalf for several years due his father breaking his arm.

Go on....

The forged signature was discovered when a Delaware County election worker questioned the ballot, leading to an investigation that revealed it had been mailed one day after the trustee's father, H. Edward Snodgrass, had died.

Oh, that doesn't look good.

Snodgrass was initially charged with illegal voting, a fourth-degree felony. However, as part of plea deal, he is expected to plead guilty to a reduced charge of falsification, serve three days in jail and pay a $500 fine, NBC reports. He is expected to be in court on July 9.

[...]

“I was simply trying to execute a dying man’s wishes,” he added, saying that it would be wrong to characterize what he did as “just Trump voter fraud."

What the hell happened between a broken arm and death? 

 ...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Culture warriors have lost their damned minds

For the love of pete, people.  

First, white women were not supposed to wear afros; then any white person was not supposed to wear clothing that reflected black fashion; and now...you can't even name your product something that might be reflected of another culture?  I mean, come on.

Also...

"Kim Kardashian changed the name of her shapewear line from Kimono to Skims in 2019 after critics denounced her calling it after the traditional Japanese dress."

Tribalism can be too extreme.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Arkansas, heads up

Nice ad by the man running against Sarah Huckabee Sanders for Governor of Arkansas...

Light years ahead of Sanders.

Another Trump tell-all book

“Nightmare Scenario: Inside the Trump Administration’s Response to the Pandemic That Changed History,” [is] authored by Washington Post journalists Yasmeen Abutaleb and Damian Paletta. The authors interviewed more than 180 people, including a number of White House senior staff members and government health leaders.

The book is set to be published June 29.

[...]

The authors write that the COVID-19 response turned into "a toxic environment in which no matter where you turned, someone was ready to rip your head off or threatening to fire you,” according to the Post.

[...]

“Testing is killing me!” Trump reportedly told then-Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar during a phone call on March 18. Trump was yelling so loud that aides were said to have overheard every word of the conversation.

[...]

“This was gross incompetence to let CDC develop a test,” Trump reportedly said to Azar.

[...]

“I’m going to lose the election because of testing! What idiot had the federal government do testing?” Trump exclaimed.

“Uh, do you mean Jared?” Azar responded.

  The Hill

HAHAHAHAHA.

According to this article, Trump also wanted to fire whoever allowed 14 coronavirus-infected cruise vacationers to return to the US and wanted to send all such people to Guantanamo or "an island".

The book will no doubt be a best-seller.

LOL

You never know.

The Arizona fraudit is off the rails

An unsupervised driver transported copies of ballot data in a truck to a cabin in the community of Bigfork in northwest Montana, several media outlets reported.

[...]

The audit of 2.1 million votes in Maricopa County is hugely controversial. The audit was ordered by state Senate Republicans, and only involves races won by Democrats. The partisan review by the Cyber Ninjas company, which has no experience with elections, is headed by conspiracy theorist Doug Logan, a promoter of the “Big Lie” that the election was rigged. He posted messages months ago that “hundreds of thousands” of new votes would inevitably be found for Donald Trump.

[...]

In one off-the-rails operation, Cyber Ninjas operatives are seeking evidence of bamboo fibers in ballots as proof that China interfered with the election. One of the auditors actually appears on the same ballots he’s reviewing as both a failed GOP candidate and an elector for Trump.

Election officials have warned that large numbers of the unsecured ballots may already have been altered or trashed, and are now completely unreliable — and that manipulation of voting machines has rendered them unusable for future elections.

[...]

Arizona Republic journalist Jen Fifield discovered that the cabin now holding the records is the residence of Ben Cotton, founder of digital company CyFIR, which is a subcontractor of the company running the recount. CyFIR’s parent company, Cyber Technologies, also run by Cotton, appears to have the same address in the Montana woods, which was tracked down by CNN this week.

[...]

The Arizona vote was certified more than six months ago by Republican Gov. Doug Ducey after several recounts failed to find any irregularities.

  HuffPo

This is going to be a nightmare for months, if not years, to come.

Also...

In recent weeks, GOP lawmakers from at least 16 states have flocked to Phoenix for a first-hand look at a controversial, partisan "audit" of the 2020 vote in Arizona's largest county.

The visits look to be a harbinger for similar exercises yet-to-come in those other states -- and a potential revenue stream for, among others, the Arizona effort's main contractor: Cyber Ninjas.

[...]

Though the Florida-based cybersecurity firm has existed in some form since at least 2014, before last November's election, it hadn't done election auditing.

[...]

Go to the address for Cyber Ninjas' Legal Department, listed on its audit contract with the Arizona Senate, and you'll wind up at a rented mailbox in a UPS Store in Sarasota, Florida.

[...]

Cyber Ninjas exists mostly in virtual reality, with its chief executive, Doug Logan, also serving as, well, pretty much everything.

On recent calls to the company's automated answer line, pressing "3" for sales led to the answering message for Logan. So did pressing "4" for human resources. And pressing "5" for purchasing. And "6" for the general mailbox.

[...]

Logan himself has strenuously avoided speaking to reporters since taking part in an April 22 press conference just before the audit began. At that conference, he refused to answer questions about how he'd repeated and amplified various debunked election-fraud conspiracy theories on social media, such as this retweet unearthed by the Arizona Mirror, for example: "I'm tired of hearing people say there was no fraud. It happened, it's real, and people better get wise fast." He'd also provided, in a Michigan election lawsuit, an affidavit alleging vulnerabilities in one county's system for tallying votes; state and county officials disagreed, identified a slew of problems with the analysis. And Logan repeated disproven claims in a paper he wrote for Republican US senators objecting to Congress's Jan. 6 certification of President Joe Biden's election win.

But Logan, and the Arizona Senate's audit liaison, Ken Bennett, argued at that press conference that Logan's own opinions don't matter, and that people should trust in the integrity of the audit process he's overseeing.

[...]

"It's hard to say anything bad about the guy. He's a lovely person. He's just nuts now," said Tony Summerlin, who has been friends with Logan for 15 years, and said he helped him win a cybersecurity contract with the Federal Communications Commission five years ago.

[...]

Logan and his company have a trail of positive reviews posted on his LinkedIn page for cybersecurity consulting work in the private sector. He and Cyber Ninjas also received a three-year, $101,000 federal cybersecurity contract with the Federal Communications Commission in 2016, and subsequently, Summerlin said, worked for the Universal Services Administrative Company, a private-public partnership under the FCC that provides broadband services to underserved communities and schools, among other work. None of that previous consulting appears to have any ties to election-related matters.

In April 2020, Cyber Ninjas received a Covid assistance loan for $98,322, saying in its application it then had five employees.

Logan, in materials for a cybersecurity conference in Chicago last November, described himself as a father of 11 children and a "Follower of Jesus Christ."

[...]

[W]ithin days of Trump's election loss, Logan was messaging Ron Watkins. The recent HBO documentary "Q: Into the Storm," pointed to Watkins as either being "Q" or at least a key promulgator of the QAnon conspiracy theories that helped animate many of those who stormed the US Capitol on Jan. 6.

Watkins is the former administrator of the internet message-board website 8chan, now 8kun, effectively QAnon's home base.

In a series of archived tweets from a now-deleted account between Nov. 12 and December, first reported by The Daily Beast, Logan messaged Watkins, "I'd love to chat if you have a chance;" asked Watkins for links to "original source documents;" and tagged Watkins on his exchanges with attorneys Sidney Powell and Lin Wood, who filed numerous lawsuits challenging Biden's victory and baselessly claiming electoral fraud.

Wood also told a reporter for Talking Points Memo that Logan had visited his home in South Carolina to meet with others "working on the investigation into election fraud."

[...]

Summerlin said Logan recently contacted him to ask for his help, saying that the Universal Service Administrative Company had terminated Cyber Ninjas' contract. Neither Logan nor the USAC responded to questions from CNN about the alleged contract termination.

"He said, 'it's wrong they're terminating me,'" Summerlin said. "I said, 'don't be an idiot, of course they're terminating your ass, you work at will.' I said, 'if you get a government contract any time after this, I'll be amazed."

  CNN

Or, on the other hand, he may get lots of red state government work. Republicans have lost their damned minds. We can stop pretending our elections are any less of a sham than any third world country.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

RIP James Gandolfini (9/18/61 - 6/19/13)

Gone way too soon.

Sopranos, of  course his most notable performance, but, he was excellent in so many movies in starring roles and as a character actor.

My favorites:

The Drop

12 Angry Men

Welcome to the Rileys

The Mexican

In the Loop

Enough Said

The Taking of Pelham 123

Fallen

And by all accounts, he was a really great guy.

“I’m an actor,” he once told a reporter. “I do a job and I go home. Why are you interested in me? You don’t ask a truck driver about his job.”

[...]

I got to know him a bit as a reporter, and I can testify that what you’ve heard is true. He was a good man.

Gandolfini’s goodness was, I believe, at the heart of the powerful connection he forged with viewers. You could sense the goodness in him, no matter how tortured and tormented his characters were. It was there in those sad eyes and that radiant smile.

  Vulture

Critical race theory

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Corruption in government is here to stay

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Happy Juneteenth

The Senate unanimously approved a bill Tuesday that would make Juneteenth, the date commemorating the end of chattel slavery in the United States, a legal public holiday.

[...]

The measure is expected to be approved by the Democratic-led House of Representatives as well, but the timing is unclear.

"Making Juneteenth a federal holiday is a major step forward to recognize the wrongs of the past," Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said in a statement, "but we must continue to work to ensure equal justice and fulfill the promise of the Emancipation Proclamation and our Constitution."

[...]

Academic calls to more critically examine the lens through which race has molded public life, including in economics and the justice system, have prompted backlash by some Republican lawmakers who say that viewpoint unfairly villainizes white people and overstates the extent to which racism is foundational to American society.

Republican legislation to limit teaching a historically accurate picture of U.S. history in public institutions has advanced in some half a dozen states.

  NPR

Will MAGAts insist on going to work that day?

I knew the Emancipation Proclamation was a military move, not a moral one, but I didn't know that not all slaves were freed by it.

Lincoln gets more glory than he deserves.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

UPDATE:  

We definitely SHOULD have one for Native Americans.  And it should replace Columbus Day.

Taxes are for peons

When it comes to bankrolling the federal government, the richest of America’s rich — many of them hailing from the private equity industry — play by an entirely different set of rules than everyone else.

[...]

One reason they rarely face [IRS] audits is that private equity firms have deployed vast webs of partnerships to collect their profits. Partnerships do not owe income taxes. Instead, they pass those obligations on to their partners, who can number in the thousands at a large private equity firm. That makes the structures notoriously complicated for auditors to untangle.

Increasingly, the agency doesn’t bother. People earning less than $25,000 are at least three times more likely to be audited than partnerships, whose income flows overwhelmingly to the richest 1 percent of Americans.

The consequences of that imbalance are enormous.

By one recent estimate, the United States loses $75 billion a year from investors in partnerships failing to report their income accurately.

[...]

Lawmakers have periodically tried to force private equity to pay more, and the Biden administration has proposed a series of reforms, including enlarging the I.R.S.’s enforcement budget and closing loopholes. The push for reform gained new momentum after ProPublica’s recent revelation that some of America’s richest men paid little or no federal taxes.

[...]

The private equity industry, which has a fleet of almost 200 lobbyists and has doled out nearly $600 million in campaign contributions over the last decade, has repeatedly derailed past efforts to increase its tax burden.

[...]

The I.R.S. has long allowed the industry to treat the money it makes from carried interests as capital gains, rather than as ordinary income.

For private equity, it is a lucrative distinction. The federal long-term capital gains tax rate is currently 20 percent. The top federal income tax rate is 37 percent.

The loophole is expensive. Victor Fleischer, a University of California, Irvine, law professor, expects it will cost the federal government $130 billion over the next decade.

[...]

Whenever legislation gathers momentum, the private equity industry — joined by real estate, venture capital and other sectors that rely on partnerships — has pumped up campaign contributions and dispatched top executives to Capitol Hill. One bill after another has died, generally without a vote.

  NYT

And then there's the fee waivers:

Say a private equity manager was set to receive a $1 million management fee, which would be taxed as ordinary income, now at a 37 percent rate. Under the fee waiver, the manager would instead agree to collect $1 million as a share of future profits, which he would claim was a capital gain subject to the 20 percent tax. He’d still receive the same amount of money, but he’d save $170,000 in taxes.

[Three] whistle-blowers, two of whom hired ][Gregg Polsky, now a professor of taxation law at the University of Georgia,] to advise them, argued that this was a flagrant tax dodge. The whole idea behind the managers’ compensation being taxed at the capital gains rate was that they involved significant risk; these involved almost none.

[...]

The agency did not audit most of the 32 private equity firms that were the subject of one whistle-blower’s claims, according to an I.R.S. document reviewed by The Times. So far, the agency appears to have recovered only small amounts in back taxes, including a total of less than $1 million from two firms, according to two people familiar with the audits. (A handful of audits are ongoing.)

[...]

Kat Gregor, a tax lawyer at the law firm Ropes & Gray, said the I.R.S. had challenged fee waivers used by four of her clients, whom she wouldn’t identify. The auditors struck her as untrained in the thicket of tax laws governing partnerships.

“It’s the equivalent of picking someone who was used to conducting an interview in English and tell them to go do it in Spanish,” Ms. Gregor said.

The audits of her clients wrapped up in late 2019. None owed any money.

[...]

The Biden administration is negotiating its tax overhaul agenda with Republicans, who have aired advertisements attacking the proposal to increase the I.R.S.’s budget. The White House is already backing down from some of its most ambitious proposals.

Even if the agency’s budget were significantly expanded, veterans of the I.R.S. doubt it would make much difference when it comes to scrutinizing complex partnerships.

“If the I.R.S. started staffing up now, it would take them at least a decade to catch up,” Mr. Jackel said. “They don’t have enough I.R.S. agents with enough knowledge to know what they are looking at. They are so grossly overmatched it’s not funny.”

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Consequences

Ronny Jackson working hard

Person, woman, man, camera, TV.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Bernie votes with the GOP on Beaudreau

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) joined several GOP senators to oppose President Biden’s nominee for the No. 2 role at the Interior Department in a procedural vote Wednesday.

Sanders joined with eight GOP senators against a vote to limit debate on Tommy Beaudreau's nomination for deputy Interior secretary, while 89 senators voted in Beaudreau's favor.

The move doesn’t guarantee that Sanders will ultimately oppose Beaudreau's confirmation, but cloture votes often preview how senators will ultimately vote.

[...]

Beaudreau has faced some scrutiny from progressive groups over his ties to oil giant Total and multinational mining company BHP. The nominee also has ties to the offshore wind industry.

Beaudreau is seen as a more moderate compromise for deputy Interior secretary after the White House pulled back its initial pick for the role, Elizabeth Klein.

Klein’s shot at the job was spiked amid reported concerns from Senate moderates that she was too progressive. She is now a senior counselor to Interior Secretary Deb Haaland.

  The Hill

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Smells fishy - Part 2

It's not just a couple of airlines.

Airlines, financial institutions and other companies around the world on Thursday reported that they were experiencing technical difficulties due to a brief series of internet outages.

The Associated Press reported that many of the outages were found in Australia as individuals attempted to make business transactions and book flights.

Among the impacted companies were U.S.-based United Airlines and Southwest Airlines, which has already been facing days-long technical issues resulting in flight delays and cancellations.

[...]

The Hong Kong Stock Exchange said in a tweet that it was “experiencing technical difficulties” and was “looking into the matter,” before adding in a follow-up post minutes later that its websites were “now functioning normally.”

[...]

Australia Post, the country’s postal service, said that an “external outage” was “impacting a number of our services,” adding in another tweet an hour later that while “most of our services are coming back online, we are continuing to monitor and investigate.”

[...]

The reported outages come just over a week after a global internet outage believed to have been triggered by a problem with software at web services company Fastly temporarily caused several websites to go offline, including The New York Times, Bloomberg News, the Financial Times and the Guardian.

Nearly 21,000 Reddit users also said they were experiencing issues with the platform at the time, and the British government's website was also experiencing loading problems.

  The Hill

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

They'll never quit trying

Dissenters were Alito and Gorsuch.  

The decision threw out the challenge to the law, on grounds that Texas and other objecting GOP-dominated states were not required to pay anything under the mandate provision and thus had no standing to bring the challenge to court.

The mandate, the most controversial provision of the law, required that people either buy health insurance or pay a penalty. In 2012, it was upheld by a 5-to-4 vote, with Chief Justice John Roberts casting the decisive fifth vote, on the grounds that penalty fell within the taxing power of Congress.

In 2017, however, Congress got rid of the penalty after the Congressional Budget Office concluded that the law would continue to function effectively even without it. That prompted the challengers to go back to court, contending that because the penalty had been zeroed out, it was no longer a tax or a mandate. What's more, they contended, because the mandate was so interwoven with the rest of the ACA, the whole law must be struck down in its entirety.

  NPR

Cleaning up Trump's mess

Survivors of domestic and gang violence have better odds of getting asylum in the U.S. as the Justice Department reverses several controversial rulings from the Trump administration.

In a pair of decisions announced Wednesday, Attorney General Merrick Garland is vacating several controversial legal rulings issued by his predecessors — in effect, restoring the possibility of asylum protections for women fleeing from domestic violence in other countries, and families targeted by violent gangs.

  NPR

Even deeper into Trump's corruption and attempted coup

Source article

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Are Democrats finally facing reality?

According to a Senate Democratic aide, Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) will convene a meeting with all the Democrats on the Budget Committee on Wednesday to start putting together the reconciliation vehicle for the infrastructure package.

Schumer will instruct those Democrats to craft a measure that includes requisite spending for policies that would “reduce carbon pollution at a scale commensurate with the climate crisis,” the aide emails, adding that he will also say that the family-oriented components of Biden’s package are “essential” and must be “robustly funded” in reconciliation.he idea all along has been that the groups of Republicans and Democrats in the Senate who are negotiating a bipartisan deal would try to reach one centered on bricks-and-mortar infrastructure, along the lines of what Republicans will accept. This plan would be paid for somehow or other without raising tax rates on corporations, which Republicans cannot accept under any circumstances.

[...]

[T]If that deal comes together, then Democrats would load all the other priorities in Biden’s package — the climate proposals, the supports for children and families, the investments in caregiving infrastructure, the corporate tax hikes to pay for it all — into a reconciliation bill and pass that later. If no bipartisan deal is reached, then Democrats would do the entire thing in one big reconciliation package.

As we all knew would happen, the bipartisan deal is failing to materialize.

  WaPo

Of course, Joe Manchin will have to cooperate either way. So...???

Democrats should probably be letting West Virginians know that if Manchin doesn't go along, they get nothing.