As Thom wrote yesterday, “Republicans are attacking Biden, saying he has “opened” the southern border. That message is getting to people south of the border and they’re showing up. They’re showing up because the Republicans are creating a self-fulfilling prophecy in order to sabotage Biden.”
In other words, they are trolling Democrats and the public again (their only PR skill) over a seemingly intractable problem of their own making while feeding red meat to their base – gluttons for punishment – for crass political gain (their only political skill).
And now, the death cult in the House is following McConnell in the Senate by trying to kill any legislation that might actually have a chance to help the people who “walk through the [Republicans'] valley of the shadow of death.”
The Republicans are going to make a huge issue of the border crossings. A problem that the wall was not fixing. The Republicans are the abusers that hire illegal immigrants. My Congressman, Ken Buck (R-CO) preaches against immigrants and lives in Greely CO. Greeley is the center of meat packing in the state and hired illegal immigrants. Previous to Congress he was the prosecuting attorney for Greeley and did noting about illegal employment. 1. Make it illegal to hire illegals and enforce it. 2. Develop a work visa program. This way they can work here legally and have an organized program. I have talked to illegals (you cannot build a house in CO without having a few) and they just want to earn money and eventually go home.
There is “H.R.1712 - To amend the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 to repeal the estate and generation-skipping transfer taxes” pending in congress.
It is co-sponsored by 126 Republicans and the only Democraic Rep. Bishop, Sanford D., Jr. [D-GA-2]. The justification is that “the Estate Tax, more commonly referred to as the Death Tax, is a tax on your right to transfer property at the time of your death. This tax puts an unfair burden on family-owned farms and small businesses. Those who have just lost a loved one should not also be faced with this punitive tax.”
The irs.gov Estate Tax web page confirms that “The Estate Tax is a tax on your right to transfer property at your death.” This is problematic enough because the Estate Tax is in effect a capital gains tax substitute for asset transfers that would be subject to capital gains tax if the transfer took place during life. The "Taxable Estate." after deductions may include mortgages and other debts, estate administration expenses, property that passes to surviving spouses and qualified charities. The value of some operating business interests or farms may be reduced for estates that qualify.
Further, A filing is only required for "Taxable Estates" with combined gross assets and prior taxable gifts exceeding $11,700,000 in 2021. I also understand there is a “step up” to estate value at time of death. This gives the beneficiaries of the estate relief from potential capital gains from inception. The stepped up estate value is used by the beneficiaries instead of the from inception value to compute potential capital gains tax .
I’m not sure if any family-owned farms or small businesses are burdened by the 2021 $11,700,000 exclusion. I’m also not sure if H.R.1712 is limited to just family-owned farms and small businesses. Perhaps you can ask at least Democraic Rep. Bishop, Sanford D., Jr. [D-GA-2] if the 700 plus billionaires will also benefit from the elimination of the estate tax. Is H.R.1712 yet another Republican subterfuge to give their billionaire “handlers” an unwarranted tax break at the expense of the bottom 98 plus % of the economy?
I agree with you Thom, except about Afghanistan. After 9/11 the American people were so angry and hurt that no president could have avoided an invasion. If Bush had tried he would have been swept aside by public pressure on Congress. The fact that he and Cheney handled both the war and occupation with breathtaking incompetence is a different issue, though in retrospect not surprising.
Think of the estate tax as a deferred tax. The person who earned the money (assuming they did) does not have to pay it until they die. Otherwise they would have had to pay more tax during their lifetime to make up the difference. It never belonged to the heirs (if they worked to earn it, they should have been better compensated while the deceased was still alive). Obviously there is a problem if the threshold is low enough to trouble family farms and small businesses, but that is easily solved by raising the limit. Big firms should be broken up from time to time to shake up markets and give the next generation of would-be entrepreneurs the chance to break into markets which have approached being monopolies, just as huge trees falling in the forest provide opportunities and resources for saplings and many other parts of the biosphere.
So why is the five pointed star or pentagram so spooky? 2,000 years ago, men were looking for answers that our modern knowledge has taken care of. They kept noticing coincidental numbers in their interpretation with their universe per Sophocles (495-405 B. C. E.) “Numbers are the world’s wonder.” Three of these numbers, 144, 666 and the Golden or Fibonacci ratio, are contained in the five pointed star or pentagram. Triangles’ three angles always total 180 degrees. The five points of the star are all 36 degrees. Take one of the point triangles and subtract 36 degrees from 180 degrees and, yup, you get 144 degrees for the sum of the other two angels. 144 is also a number in the Fibonacci sequence. Add 90 times 3 or 270 degrees to 36 degrees to get the equivalent 4th quadrant 306 degrees. Add one full 360 degree circle to 306 degrees and get 666 degrees. The ancients also noted that a straight line segment of one side of the internal pentagon plus one leg of an adjacent point gets intersected by one of the other comparable combined segments at exactly the Golden or Fibonacci ratio. The ancients kept hearing their contemporary version of the movie “Jaws” music theme so they assigned a supernatural and sometimes a satanic fear of the unknown reason for these common coincidences.
If asked, no Republican would say they signed up for a death cult, yet here they are. Iraq, Abu Ghraib, the sanction of torture and the murders of civilians told this story in the most graphic way. It sickens me that Bush has been brought back into the mainstream when he belongs in prison. Thank goodness America got a break between Bush and Trump.
Thom could give Professor Robert Langdon a run for his money. There is an answer about why the Republican stars were turned upside down, and someone knows who did it. Symbols often have a layered history, and it could be complicated. What has happened with the memes and symbols for the Alt Right is just bat-crap-crazy. A good example is shown in the PBS documentary that was on their program Independent Lens; it's about a frog-cartoon called PEPE. You can find it free on-line. The doc's title is "Feels Good Man". It is a story about graphic artist Matt Furie and the jerks that appropriated his character "Pepe". The film points out how a myth is created and corrupted. It is Q and the Capitol, but you might like the way the artist deals with them.
As Thom wrote yesterday, “Republicans are attacking Biden, saying he has “opened” the southern border. That message is getting to people south of the border and they’re showing up. They’re showing up because the Republicans are creating a self-fulfilling prophecy in order to sabotage Biden.”
In other words, they are trolling Democrats and the public again (their only PR skill) over a seemingly intractable problem of their own making while feeding red meat to their base – gluttons for punishment – for crass political gain (their only political skill).
And now, the death cult in the House is following McConnell in the Senate by trying to kill any legislation that might actually have a chance to help the people who “walk through the [Republicans'] valley of the shadow of death.”
https://www.alternet.org/2021/03/house-republicans/
The Republicans are going to make a huge issue of the border crossings. A problem that the wall was not fixing. The Republicans are the abusers that hire illegal immigrants. My Congressman, Ken Buck (R-CO) preaches against immigrants and lives in Greely CO. Greeley is the center of meat packing in the state and hired illegal immigrants. Previous to Congress he was the prosecuting attorney for Greeley and did noting about illegal employment. 1. Make it illegal to hire illegals and enforce it. 2. Develop a work visa program. This way they can work here legally and have an organized program. I have talked to illegals (you cannot build a house in CO without having a few) and they just want to earn money and eventually go home.
Thom
There is “H.R.1712 - To amend the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 to repeal the estate and generation-skipping transfer taxes” pending in congress.
It is co-sponsored by 126 Republicans and the only Democraic Rep. Bishop, Sanford D., Jr. [D-GA-2]. The justification is that “the Estate Tax, more commonly referred to as the Death Tax, is a tax on your right to transfer property at the time of your death. This tax puts an unfair burden on family-owned farms and small businesses. Those who have just lost a loved one should not also be faced with this punitive tax.”
The irs.gov Estate Tax web page confirms that “The Estate Tax is a tax on your right to transfer property at your death.” This is problematic enough because the Estate Tax is in effect a capital gains tax substitute for asset transfers that would be subject to capital gains tax if the transfer took place during life. The "Taxable Estate." after deductions may include mortgages and other debts, estate administration expenses, property that passes to surviving spouses and qualified charities. The value of some operating business interests or farms may be reduced for estates that qualify.
Further, A filing is only required for "Taxable Estates" with combined gross assets and prior taxable gifts exceeding $11,700,000 in 2021. I also understand there is a “step up” to estate value at time of death. This gives the beneficiaries of the estate relief from potential capital gains from inception. The stepped up estate value is used by the beneficiaries instead of the from inception value to compute potential capital gains tax .
I’m not sure if any family-owned farms or small businesses are burdened by the 2021 $11,700,000 exclusion. I’m also not sure if H.R.1712 is limited to just family-owned farms and small businesses. Perhaps you can ask at least Democraic Rep. Bishop, Sanford D., Jr. [D-GA-2] if the 700 plus billionaires will also benefit from the elimination of the estate tax. Is H.R.1712 yet another Republican subterfuge to give their billionaire “handlers” an unwarranted tax break at the expense of the bottom 98 plus % of the economy?
Thanks for your progressive spotlight
I agree with you Thom, except about Afghanistan. After 9/11 the American people were so angry and hurt that no president could have avoided an invasion. If Bush had tried he would have been swept aside by public pressure on Congress. The fact that he and Cheney handled both the war and occupation with breathtaking incompetence is a different issue, though in retrospect not surprising.
Think of the estate tax as a deferred tax. The person who earned the money (assuming they did) does not have to pay it until they die. Otherwise they would have had to pay more tax during their lifetime to make up the difference. It never belonged to the heirs (if they worked to earn it, they should have been better compensated while the deceased was still alive). Obviously there is a problem if the threshold is low enough to trouble family farms and small businesses, but that is easily solved by raising the limit. Big firms should be broken up from time to time to shake up markets and give the next generation of would-be entrepreneurs the chance to break into markets which have approached being monopolies, just as huge trees falling in the forest provide opportunities and resources for saplings and many other parts of the biosphere.
Thom
So why is the five pointed star or pentagram so spooky? 2,000 years ago, men were looking for answers that our modern knowledge has taken care of. They kept noticing coincidental numbers in their interpretation with their universe per Sophocles (495-405 B. C. E.) “Numbers are the world’s wonder.” Three of these numbers, 144, 666 and the Golden or Fibonacci ratio, are contained in the five pointed star or pentagram. Triangles’ three angles always total 180 degrees. The five points of the star are all 36 degrees. Take one of the point triangles and subtract 36 degrees from 180 degrees and, yup, you get 144 degrees for the sum of the other two angels. 144 is also a number in the Fibonacci sequence. Add 90 times 3 or 270 degrees to 36 degrees to get the equivalent 4th quadrant 306 degrees. Add one full 360 degree circle to 306 degrees and get 666 degrees. The ancients also noted that a straight line segment of one side of the internal pentagon plus one leg of an adjacent point gets intersected by one of the other comparable combined segments at exactly the Golden or Fibonacci ratio. The ancients kept hearing their contemporary version of the movie “Jaws” music theme so they assigned a supernatural and sometimes a satanic fear of the unknown reason for these common coincidences.
Thanks again for your progressive spotlight.
If asked, no Republican would say they signed up for a death cult, yet here they are. Iraq, Abu Ghraib, the sanction of torture and the murders of civilians told this story in the most graphic way. It sickens me that Bush has been brought back into the mainstream when he belongs in prison. Thank goodness America got a break between Bush and Trump.
Thom could give Professor Robert Langdon a run for his money. There is an answer about why the Republican stars were turned upside down, and someone knows who did it. Symbols often have a layered history, and it could be complicated. What has happened with the memes and symbols for the Alt Right is just bat-crap-crazy. A good example is shown in the PBS documentary that was on their program Independent Lens; it's about a frog-cartoon called PEPE. You can find it free on-line. The doc's title is "Feels Good Man". It is a story about graphic artist Matt Furie and the jerks that appropriated his character "Pepe". The film points out how a myth is created and corrupted. It is Q and the Capitol, but you might like the way the artist deals with them.