turbinetree
turbinetree's JournalTrump's tax cuts for Betsy DeVos and the very rich are being paid for by education cuts
The education secretary will testify before Congress Wednesday about the 'tough choices' in her proposed $6.7 billion education spending cut.
Josh Israel
Apr 10, 2019, 8:00 am
Education Secretary Betsy DeVos will testify before Congress on Wednesday about her priorities for the department, weeks after she proposed billions of dollars in cuts for education spending in fiscal year 2020.
DeVos has labeled the cuts “tough choices,” but new analysis from the Center for American Progress Action Fund (CAPAF) shows DeVos’ personal savings from the 2017 GOP tax bill alone could have covered a significant chunk of them.
According to her 2018 personal financial disclosures, DeVos’ income was somewhere between $46.8 million and $109 million, mostly stemming from LLCs, limited partnerships, and distributive shares. CAPAF’s analysis estimates the Trump tax cuts likely saved her $10 million or more in the last year alone.
Seth Hanlon, a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress who focuses on federal tax and budget policy, said DeVos was “illustrative of the windfall that extremely wealthy business owners were handed in 2017.”
https://thinkprogress.org/betsy-devos-benefits-from-trump-tax-bill-pay-for-education-cuts-260654117eb2/
Repeal that 1.5 trillion tax scam.....................
In Vancouver, a new anti-money laundering law will impact Trump's company
New legislation puts British Columbia at the forefront of combating money-laundering practices in real estate—including the kinds of purchases made at the president's property.
Casey Michel
Apr 10, 2019, 8:00 am
Thanks to new legislation coming out of the Canadian province of British Columbia, set to become law next year, we might soon learn the identities of people using shell companies to buy units in one of President Donald Trump’s most lucrative — and controversial — foreign real estate projects. The legislation would create a registry of real names behind anonymous shell companies and trusts — both of which are commonly used in money-laundering, and both of which have turned Vancouver into a global haven for dirty money.
Since its inception in 2017, the $360 million, 616-foot-tall Trump International Hotel and Tower in Vancouver has been dogged by controversy, especially as it pertains to worries about foreigners investing in the building in order to try to influence presidential decision-making. In 2018 U.S. counterintelligence officials began investigating the building, according to CNN, looking into the financing of the building’s construction and sales.
These concerns mirror similar questions surrounding Trump’s buildings in places like Panama and Azerbaijan. Those projects featured red-flag signs that indicate money laundering — specifically buyers using anonymous shell companies to hide their identities. The Trump Organization has since cut ties to the Panama and Azerbaijan holdings, but not so in Canada, where a licensing deal at the Vancouver property has netted the Trump Organization at least $5 million in the past two years alone.
The legislation, known as the Land Owner Transparency Act, is designed to curb the use of shell companies by making public a database of beneficial owners behind anonymous companies purchasing real estate across the province. The registry, which will be available to the public, is planned to come online in 2020.
https://thinkprogress.org/identity-shell-companies-trumps-vancouver-hotel-65a0fdf5f5f6/
Barr Dances Around Question When Asked If WH Has Seen Mueller Report
Source: Talking Points Memo
By Kate Riga
April 9, 2019 10:22 am
Attorney General William Barr performed some verbal contortions Tuesday when asked if the White House has seen Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s report.
“I said what I am going to say about the report today. I have issued three letters about it,” Barr said when asked at a House hearing whether the White House had been briefed on the report beyond Barr’s letters. “And I was willing to discuss the historic information of how the report came to me and my decision on Sunday. But, I have already laid out the process that is going forward to release these reports.”
“I’m not going to say anything more about it until the report is out and everyone has a chance to look at it,” he added during his testimony in front of a House Appropriations subcommittee.
Read more: https://talkingpointsmemo.com/muckraker/barr-will-not-answer-question-white-house-seen-mueller-report
Fucking Federalist Society asshole..............bring in Mueller and investigation team...............
Congress Is About to Ban the Government From Offering Free Online Tax Filing. Thank TurboTax.
A bill supported by Democrats and Republicans would make permanent a program that bars the IRS from ever developing its own online tax filing service.
by Justin Elliott April 9, 5 a.m. EDT
ProPublica is a nonprofit newsroom based in New York. Sign up for ProPublica’s Big Story newsletter to receive stories like this one in your inbox as soon as they are published.
Just in time for Tax Day, the for-profit tax preparation industry is about to realize one of its long-sought goals. Congressional Democrats and Republicans are moving to permanently bar the IRS from creating a free electronic tax filing system.
Last week, the House Ways and Means Committee, led by Rep. Richard Neal, D-Mass., passed the Taxpayer First Act, a wide-ranging bill making several administrative changes to the IRS that is sponsored by Reps. John Lewis, D-Ga., and Mike Kelly, R-Pa.
In one of its provisions, the bill makes it illegal for the IRS to create its own online system of tax filing. Companies like Intuit, the maker of TurboTax, and H&R Block have lobbied for years to block the IRS from creating such a system. If the tax agency created its own program, which would be similar to programs other developed countries have, it would threaten the industry’s profits.
“This could be a disaster. It could be the final nail in the coffin of the idea of the IRS ever being able to create its own program,” said Mandi Matlock, a tax attorney who does work for the National Consumer Law Center.
https://www.propublica.org/article/congress-is-about-to-ban-the-government-from-offering-free-online-tax-filing-thank-turbotax
I quit using turbo tax years ago, since the software did not know how to give my wife credit while working in another state, and when it does it self check before you send it off we missed checking a box and had to pay........................fuck turbo tax and any of the other tax software platforms..................................
Attorney General Barr to appear before Congress for first time since Mueller report
Source: Reuters
Politics
April 9, 2019 / 6:08 AM / Updated an hour ago
Sarah N. Lynch
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Attorney General William Barr will appear before a U.S. congressional panel on Tuesday for the first time since Special Counsel Robert Mueller completed his report into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election.
The hearing before a House of Representatives appropriations subcommittee is meant to explore the Trump administration’s $29 billion fiscal 2020 budget request for the Justice Department, but Barr is likely to face questions about Mueller’s final report and when a redacted version will be delivered to Congress.
Mueller turned his confidential report over to Barr on March 22 following a 22-month-long probe into whether Donald Trump may have colluded with Russia during his 2016 presidential campaign and whether Trump later obstructed inquiries into the matter.
On March 24, Barr released a four-page letter to Congress laying out what he said were Mueller’s main findings. Barr is expected to submit a redacted copy of the full report to the public and Congress by mid-April, or even sooner.
Read more: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-russia-barr/attorney-general-barr-to-appear-before-congress-for-first-time-since-mueller-report-idUSKCN1RL12V
Hey Barr, out of the 29 billion that you are seeking I want to know along with millions of others not only how much the 22 month investigation cost, that you cut short with your Federalist Society bull shit, but I also want to know that WE the people get the full unredacted report and the grand jury testimony, because one or another we are going to get it, even if that asshole Rudy Giuliani is running around enabling a traitor ................................and Moscow Mitch also enabling this shit......................
Today at 9:30 the country is going to hear from an enabling asshole
by the name of William Barr, the Federalist Society asshole, that is protecting a traitor, when he goes in front of the House Appropriations Committee to find out if he should get any funding to continue his criminal enabling enterprise to just fuck the American taxpayers out of a investigation from Robert Mueller, that was basically forced to quit investigating on March 29, 2019, and his report concerning his boss the malignant psychopath that WE the TAXPAYERS paid for, and if he, Barr, is going to release the report without redactions............
My contention is that if he redacts anything, that just "his office" should be de-funded, so that he can go home and pound sand, and the committees go to court to get the information and the grand jury testimony, even if they are packing the Moscow Mitch courts with federalist society assholes.........................they can be impeached..................
Doanld Trump yesterday said in a headline from April 8, 2019 the following:
Why Trump’s decision to label Iran’s Revolutionary Guard a foreign terrorist group is so dangerous
The move could give Iran an excuse to "target American forces," one expert said.
Elham Khatami
Apr 8, 2019, 4:07 pm
https://thinkprogress.org/trump-designate-iran-revolutionary-guard-corps-irgc-foreign-terrorist-organization-could-lead-to-war-7934c1cfc2bd/
But let's lets go back to his time when most businesses where NOT allowed to do business dealing with the Revolutionary Guard of Iran in any manner, and how fucking dangerous this asshole is, and how dangerous Bolton and Pompeo are.
And the simple fact that all three of these war mongers, children are not in the military defending this country, fucking chickenshit chickenhawks, and now these three assholes are going against the military advice have now placed Americans in danger, just so that they can gin up there right wing base of psychopaths.......................
Trump Had No Problem with Iran’s Revolutionary Guard When He Was Doing Business with Its Associates
According to an exhaustive report, the group the president just labeled a terrorist organization reportedly had financial ties to the Trump family business.
by Bess Levin
https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2019/04/trump-iran-revolutionary-guard-terrorist-organization
Chief of staff says Dems will 'never' see Trump tax returns
Source: Associated Press
By ZEKE MILLER 19 minutes ago
WASHINGTON (AP) — Democrats will “never” see President Donald Trump’s tax returns, said White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney on Sunday, as a new front opened in the confrontation between the administration and Congress.
Mulvaeny accused Democrats of engaging in a “political stunt” and wanting “attention” after the chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, Rep. Richard Neal, asked the IRS to provide six years of Trump’s personal tax returns and the returns for some of his businesses.
“That is not going to happen and they know it,” Mulvaney said in an interview with “Fox News Sunday.”
Last week, Massachusetts Democrat Neal, one of only three congressional officials authorized to request tax returns, requested Trump’s personal and business returns in a letter to IRS Commissioner Charles Rettig. He asked for returns covering 2013 through 2018. He also asked for the documents in seven days, setting an April 10 deadline.
Read more: https://apnews.com/94d053425cdd485f86fb4d65eb464911
Maybe Mulvaney, you should go back to civic class and read what the word oversight and ways and means committee's means
here better yet let Congressman Neal explain it again and see if you fully understand what he said.......................
-snip-
"Neal said the IRS has a policy of auditing the tax returns of all sitting presidents and vice presidents, “yet little is known about the effectiveness of this program.”
“On behalf of the American people, the Ways and Means Committee must determine if that policy is being followed, and if so, whether these audits are conducted fully and appropriately,” Neal said when unveiling his request for Trump’s returns.
UK opposition leader - I'm waiting for May to move Brexit 'red lines'
Source: Reuters
Brexit
April 6, 2019 / 1:00 PM / Updated 12 minutes ago
Costas Pitas, Francesco Guarascio
LONDON/BUCHAREST (Reuters) - Prime Minister Theresa May has yet to move the “red lines” that have blocked a deal for Britain to leave the EU, opposition leader Jeremy Corbyn said on Saturday, after May launched talks with him in a last-ditch bid to save Brexit.
With Britain due to leave the bloc on April 12 and no sign of her minority government being able to pass a deal through parliament on its own, May turned to Labour Party leader Corbyn in recent days in the hope of securing a bi-partisan agreement.
A deal with Corbyn could be May’s last chance to deliver Brexit without either a long delay or leaving with no deal at all. But Corbyn said the prime minister had yet to show the flexibility that Labour would need to say yes.
“I’m waiting to see the red lines move,” he told the BBC. “I hope we can reach a decision in parliament this week which will prevent a crashing out.”
No talks have been arranged yet between the two sides for this weekend, a Labour source told Reuters.
Read more: https://www.reuters.com/article/uk-britain-eu/uk-opposition-leader-im-waiting-for-may-to-move-brexit-red-lines-idUSKCN1RI0IK
-snip-
“Going to the EU elections for the Conservative Party, or indeed for the Labour Party, and telling our constituents why we haven’t been able to deliver Brexit I think would be an existential threat,” junior education minister Nadhim Zahawi told BBC radio on Saturday.
“I would go further and say...it would be the suicide note of the Conservative Party.” ...................
Many people forget why the EU was created, 1) it was created to be a state that would be able to compete against the United States when it came to various trade, and financial items...................and May and her tories, are whats called a "clusterfuck"
In astrophysics milestone, first photo of black hole expected
Science News
April 6, 2019 / 7:03 AM / Updated 6 hours ago
Will Dunham
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Scientists are expected to unveil on Wednesday the first-ever photograph of a black hole, a breakthrough in astrophysics providing insight into celestial monsters with gravitational fields so intense no matter or light can escape.
The U.S. National Science Foundation has scheduled a news conference in Washington to announce a “groundbreaking result from the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) project,” an international partnership formed in 2012 to try to directly observe the immediate environment of a black hole.
Simultaneous news conferences are scheduled in Brussels, Santiago, Shanghai, Taipei and Tokyo.
A black hole’s event horizon, one of the most violent places in the universe, is the point of no return beyond which anything - stars, planets, gas, dust, all forms of electromagnetic radiation including light - gets sucked in irretrievably.
While scientists involved in the research declined to disclose the findings ahead of the formal announcement, they are clear about their goals.
Profile Information
Member since: Fri May 30, 2014, 03:30 PMNumber of posts: 24,688
