Category Archives: taxes

No way…

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…that 90% of the Democrats endorse and support Hillary Clinton for president in 2016. (Of all the times to forget my earphones–so I can’t watch this, but I have heard parts of it.)

She actually thinks Henry Kissinger, Tony Blair and Benjamin Netanyahu are upstanding people that speak well of her integrity and leadership skills?

Kissinger quotes that are alarming:

“Power is the ultimate aphrodisiac.”

“Intelligence is not all that important in the exercise of power, and is often, in point of fact, useless.”

“Who controls the food supply controls the people; who controls the energy can control whole continents; who controls money can control the world.”

In other words, power turns him on–ego, ego, ego.  Intelligence is not needed when you’re trying to bomb the hell out of another country–you only need bigger bombs than they have.  And lastly, starving people will do wonders at gaining their compliance to do things they would not normally do.  And he who has the gold makes the rules….

Tony Blair and his compliance with invading Iraq.

And, of course, we know of Netanyahu’s connections to Romney and his exaggerating the Iran threat….for twenty years…

Clinton is a war hawk who would love to push that fabled “red button” at the slightest provocation….or none at all.

One of the employees bought a converter for our TV in the main room for the residents, so I get whatever our antenna picks up.  I watched ABC This Week on Sunday morning and was stunned at Carville’s statement that 90% of Dems have already decided that Clinton will be the nominee.

First of all, how dare you make such an assumption of what the voters are thinking??  I am so sick and tired of politicians and pundits using the phrase “the American people believe/want/need…” when they can only speak for themselves.

…and from where this writer sits, I’d vote for Romney before I’d vote for another Clinton in the White House.  I’m sick of Bushes and Clintons in the White House.  We can thank Clinton for NAFTA, and Bush II for No Child Left a Mind, and for getting us into two wars on false claims of weapons of mass destruction…between all of them, they’ve done a bang up job of ruining this country.  And let’s not leave out the Godfather of it all, Ronald Reagan.  I’m ashamed to say that I voted for him the first four years, but thankfully, not the second four…

CEO Trojan Horse

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…as is the way these days, the CEO’s of powerful corporate tax dodgers are twisting the meaning of words to mean something other than the public perception. Note that one of the founders was Erskine Bowles, former Chief of Staff for Bill Clinton, and Senator Alan Simpson, who was supposed to be non-biased in handing a decision on Social Security/Medicare–chosen by President Obama.

What a freaking dog and pony show…

Well that was fast…

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…apparently, the honeymoon is over–just a week after being elected….

…stand by while the 1% still pay nothing in taxes while the working poor continue to pay more than their fair share.  If someone makes $15,000, they are at the 10% tax rate.  Now, according to the tax table, they’re being taxed after the standard deduction of 7,000–so they’re rate is $803.  Now, those that can afford that money think nothing of it–but $15,000 is not enough to house and feed one person, so $800 is a big chunk out of what little they have left.  That’s the ability to keep heat on in the winter.  It’s food on the table.  It’s fixing the stupid car that keeps breaking down…and on.

…but apparently that doesn’ t matter even though if ever there were a strong support for President Obama, it was with this election–clearly voters are sick of the privileged ones like Mitt Romney who despise the poor.  And the republicans who despise women.

I just wish President Obama really heard what the voters were trying to say.

Big Bird breathes sigh of relief…

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Congratulations, President Obama. Big Bird lives on…:)

I know better, but I was listening to the rightwing radio last night and they were painting a dim picture of Obama’s win.  I turned it off and went to bed to read…thinking we were going to get Bush III…

Indiana voted in Mike do-nothing Pence for Governor,  and now has a super majority in the legislature…<sigh>

…well, at least I am spared Richard my-sperm-is-a-gift-from-God Mourdock…

The news on the reaction in the Middle East.  I hope this means a peaceful movement in Israel is underway….

DN! has this up on the elections.  Elizabeth Warren is animated after her win.  Thank God.

Unfortunately, the GMO lobby won and Californians defeated the measure requiring GMO labeling. Shit.

O”Reilly had a nice take on why Obama won–because people want “stuff” and Obama was going to give it to them…

Well, now…Romney has the gov’t pay $77,000 for the care and housing of his horse…has money in offshore accounts and John McCain has so many houses he can’t even remember how many he has…all because they don’t pay their fair share of taxes…now who feels entitled?

Is it entitlement when one wants to eat? Have a roof over their head? Get medical care? I’m confused.

They went on to talk about the shift away from the standard–now women and minorities are getting their voices heard. The boys of the old school are threatened…and it will probably get uglier before it’s all done.

To my sisters who were the power behind getting President Obama re-elected:  Thank you.  We can move mountains when we focus on what’s important to us and fight for it.

I want to say, though, that women have been characterized as of “one mind”–that any woman who manages to get before a microphone speaks for all women.  They don’t.

This is one of the reasons that the middle-of-the-road women backed away from the Feminist Movement–they were treated as if they spoke for all women.  Women who wanted to stay home with their children were characterized as dull twits who lacked ambition.  Women who didn’t believe in abortion but believed in equality were marginalized, also.

And the 70s Feminists who fought against alimony because it…well, I’m not really sure why they were fighting against alimony…but as this quote by Barbara Seaman, amongst others, puts it quite well–this is something that I lost out on when I divorced.  I also got less than half of the assets (with a mortgage to pay off) and my ex got away with only paying one-fifth ($20,000) of his income to support his three children.  Although I had stayed home for eleven years, the judge did not allow for that, and had instead computed the amount of support as if I had a job!!  Yes, I had a lousy lawyer–whose partner still smirks at me to this day whenever I have to trudge back to the place I grew up in…I’ve always wondered what that smirk means….

Anyway, I hope that with the election that women and minorities will do their homework, and support thoughtful politicians who approach the legislative process with the “Do unto others…” mindset…it would make life so much easier and just might bring about Peace…

Social Security going up by 1.7 percent

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…your grocery bill, gas bill, etc. will go up by 25 percent…/snark

Link.

See, this is what I don’t get–they were just saying not two months ago that this was one of the worst droughts on record and our grocery bills were going to be severely affected–but this article states that food prices have pretty much stayed the same.

Ahem.

Like I’ve noted in my personal grocery bills, I’ve seen several items jump $1 or $2 per item in a month’s time, which really adds up if you’re on a restricted budget, as folks on S.S. are.  They know that every time there’s a S.S. increase, it isn’t enough, and the prices will go up accordingly.  (No, I’m not on S.S. or disability.)

I’ve done a quick search of several articles, and they all insist, via the Consumer Price Index that grocery prices have remained the same.

I looked up the table they publish:  http://www.bls.gov/cpi/cpid11av.pdf for the 2010-2011 price list…and somebody ain’t telling the truth, here…

You have to scroll down to get specifics, and looking at something that most poor folks purchase: ground beef went up 11%.  Eleven freaking percent in one year!  White bread 5%; Cereal 3%; Bacon 13%; Fresh Fish and Seafood 8%; Eggs 9% Milk 9%; Potatoes 12%; Coffee 14%;  Butter 14%; Peanut Butter 6%….and non-food:  fuel oil 30%; water and sewage 5%; motor fuel 26% and on…

(note that medical care only went up 3%…well, now, the oil companies aren’t getting nearly as much attention from the politicos as the medical community’s medical costs increases…hmmm…twenty-six percent should garner a little more attention, dontcha think?)

But they’ll give you a 1% increase…

…so you can try to make that can of dog food go a little further…after all, the top 1% need those tax breaks so they can…feed and house their horses…and  John McCain needs another house…

 

Birds of a Feather…

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I found  this on the long relationship of Benjamin Netanyahu and Romney.   So…Netanyahu appears to be part of the mindset of austerity measures, if what I’m reading between the lines is correct…

So, if we’re supposed to come running when they start bombing Iran…isn’t that asking government to interfere?

Doesn’t that go against the idea that gov’t should just get the hell out of our lives…?

Oh…I think I get it now…there’s a book out there on teenagers that goes something like “I hate you, Stay out of my life! But first, can you take me to the mall?”

Netanyahu is like a teenager…”Get out of my life, but can you bomb Iran first…?”

 

 

Birkenfeld vindicated

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This is good news! Another tiny bit of my faith in people is restored with this story.  (not ignoring the fact that he had good lawyers–poor people don’t have that luxury.)

If Mitt Romney is following U.S. tax laws by putting his money in foreign banks…then why the evasion?  Why put it there in the first place? Romney is  skilled banker himself.  He would not do something unless he stood to gain a huge benefit.

More reasons to be suspicious that he has something to hide and that is why is not releasing his tax returns.    It stills boggles the mind that folks who are so quick to tell other people that they must be hiding something if they want to protect their Constitutional right to privacy, will turn around and put millions and billions into foreign accounts and then say that they have a right to privacy.  Makes sense, doesn’t it?? Not.

Taibbi on Romney

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DN! has this up with Matt Taibbi giving the scoop on what Romney is all about–he’s not about creating jobs, and saving companies, but swooping in, making a boatload of money, and leaving the carcass behind…

Taibbi mentions Carlyle Group--red flags go up. (hat tip to this site)

From the article:

But what sets Carlyle apart is the way it has exploited its political contacts. When Carlucci arrived there in 1989, he brought with him a phalanx of former subordinates from the CIA and the Pentagon, and an awareness of the scale of business a company like Carlyle could do in the corridors and steak-houses of Washington. In a decade and a half, the firm has been able to realise a 34% rate of return on its investments, and now claims to be the largest private equity firm in the world. Success brought more investors, including the international financier George Soros and, in 1995, the wealthy Saudi Binladin family, who insist they long ago severed all links with their notorious relative. The first president Bush is understood to have visited the Binladins in Saudi Arabia twice on the firm’s behalf.

Another article here.

On the rest of the video–the guy going to the Romney campaign event and being told he was unpatriotic for wanting to save his job should be blasted on every radio station, every TV station, and printed on the front page of every newspaper (what ones are left…).  People are being lied to and are not getting that “fair and balanced” coverage.  I mean, the utter gall of them saying that unemployed people on food stamps are just lazy and unmotivated…while shipping their jobs to China…

…my mind flashed to Romney’s poor rendition of “America, the Beautiful…”  while Taibbi speaks of him and his cohorts’ non-allegiance to the States and the people trying to earn a living.

Taibbi makes a good point when he says the dispute over the actual time that Romney left Bain isn’t as important as to what profit he was reaping from Bain’s actions…that’s the key–what money did he make off the deals?

And Taibbi hints about how they don’t want to pay for anything–they make boatloads of money on these companies, after borrowing the money to do it.

 

 

Krugman deconstructs Christie and Ryan

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Paul Krugman has this up on Chris Christie…*fiscally conservative* towards the 99%…but a whole ‘nother view towards the one percenters…

….and this on Paul Ryan...

You just can’t make this stuff up:

In March, explaining his cuts in aid for the unfortunate, he declared, “We don’t want to turn the safety net into a hammock that lulls able-bodied people into lives of dependency and complacency, that drains them of their will and their incentive to make the most of their lives.”

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…while ignoring that most people who are dependent on not only food stamps but are dependent on disability/social security are there because of a health issue?

So if someone is on disability from a stroke, how is that person a moocher?  Or someone who is on oxygen and cannot work?  I see a building full of people with  health issues…so tell me again how we can get these damn moochers off of welfare/disability and working until they freaking drop?! /snark

I personally got a college degree so I would not be in the situation I’m in now…I got mercury poisoning and had undiagnosed Celiac that caused my health to deteriorate, which had a domino effect on the disaster that is my life.  I drove up and down a two lane highway for three and a half years, through wind and rain and dark of night so I could get my degree.  I studied every night for two to three hours after taking my kids to baseball, softball, ballet, etc., and fixing dinner and whatever else needed to be done…so don’t tell me that I’m lazy or unmotivated.

LG said it best:

  • LG  NYC

I always wondered why people always become “dependent and complacent” and lose “their will and their incentive to make the most of their lives” right after a financial crises…