GOP tax plan punishes success in California and elsewhere

The GOP is jealous of the 

Natural Wonders of California

GOP cracks down on California's Middle Class

taking away mortgage interest deductions

By Gary;

Well it could have been worse. 

The GOP was looking hard at screwing over the Middle Class by gutting the 401k retirement program.  They only backed off at the last minute because of the mega-super shit storm that would have come down on them from their own voters.

So they grabbed for the brass ring consolation prize of limiting the Middle Class deduction of home mortgage interest to homes $500,000 and under.

That is great if you live in backwater America with little to no economic activity such as Little Rock, Arkansas (home price $133,000) or Wichita, Kansas (home price $121,800).

The reason those home prices are low is because the economy sucks and no one is able to pay more.

Real estate in California is expensive simply because we have a huge and powerful economy that pays big wages. With those higher wages people can afford to pay more for a home.

California's middle class is targeted for more taxes because we are successful.

We are NOT Millionaires
I pulled this Burbank home off the internet. 
3 bedrooms, 1 bath, 910 square feet, built in 1921 is selling for $699,000.
.
Yes our prices are insane, but the GOP is punishing middle class Californians with tax increases for the "crime" of putting a roof over the heads of their families.
.
Now there is a campaign slogan for you: "Vote for us and we will tax you more."

Median home price in California
Remember, 50% of homes are ABOVE the median price.

• $749,000 in City of Los Angeles
• $535,000 in San Diego County
• $1.02 million in Santa Barbara
• $710,000 in Orange County
• $950,000 in Santa Clara County (San Jose)
• $1.13 million in San Francisco
• $709,000 for the nine county San Francisco Bay Area

Median home price in other areas
California's middle class is not alone in being punished with more taxes.

• $695,600 in Seattle
• $690,000 in New York City
• $561,400 in Boston
• $538,700 in Washington D.C.

“Eliminating or nullifying the tax incentives for home ownership puts home values and middle-class homeowners at risk, and from a cursory examination, this legislation appears to do just that,” said William E. Brown, president of the National Assn. of Realtors.

The GOP plan also dramatically scales back the deduction for state and local taxes, limiting it in the future only to property taxes and capping the deduction at $10,000. Americans no longer would be able to deduct state and local income or sales taxes, which currently make up about two-thirds of the deduction.

I suspect there is a reason places like California, New York, Washington and Massachusetts are targeted by Republicans for more taxes.  Revenge.  Those states usually vote Democrat so there are fewer voters to lose.

But California has 14 GOP Congressmen.

What will Middle Class California voters think in next year's election as local Republicans try to explain away increasing taxes?

GOP tax plan funds more dangerous nuke plants

Retard Alert

GOP Idiots on Parade

• I have always been a Theodore Roosevelt-John Muir Environmentalist.  The number of total and complete idiots in the Republican Party staggers me.  An oil spill you can clean up.  Radiation . . . . if you think it is safe then you too could be a GOP Congressman.

(Washington Examiner)  -  The House tax reform bill introduced Thursday would cut a major tax credit for the wind industry by one-third, but keep many of the tax breaks for the oil and gas industry.

It would trim the wind industry’s 2.3-cent-per-kilowatt hour tax credit to 1.5 cents. The solar industry’s 30 percent tax credit would be unchanged.

Other energy-related measures in the House Republican tax plan include:

The bill extends a $6 billion nuclear production tax credit.

Nuclear supporters said the extension of the production credit will benefit Georgia Power, a subsidiary of Southern Co., that is building two new nuclear reactors at Plant Vogtle in eastern Georgia.

The project, which has faced delays, is the only nuclear reactor under construction in the U.S. There has been only one nuclear reactor completed in the U.S. since the early 1980s.

“It’s a huge deal for those two plants,” said Jeremy Harrell, policy director of Clear Path Action, in an interview with the Washington Examiner. “Those plants are going to immediately benefit from it. Georgia Power had said without the extension, they can’t move forward. This credit extension would also be big beyond those plants because it allows the credit to be used for advanced nuclear reactors, the next generation of nuclear power. That’s extremely important for America’s future energy mix.”

Read More . . . .

Alex Jones

Fukushima Will Affect 700 Generations

Advance the video to the 2:30 mark

IDIOT GOP Senator defends Russia witchhunt

Republican Assholes

• The GOP majority in Congress are the ones who run the endless Russia hearings to overthrow President Trump. 
• The Establishment GOP sponsors the hearings and the Democrats act as their attack dogs against Trump.

(ABC News)  -  Responding to former White House chief strategist Steve Bannon, Sen. James Lankford, R-Okla., defended the Senate Intelligence Committee's investigation into foreign meddling in the 2016 election, saying that the Russians would welcome his committee dropping the ongoing probe.

"Clearly the Russians are still actively engaged," Lankford told ABC News' Jonathan Karl and Rick Klein on the "Powerhouse Politics" podcast. "They would love nothing more than for us to just move along and to say there’s nothing here."

Lankford, a member of the intelligence committee, also responded to a report from The Washington Post that Bannon wants Senate Republicans to end their probes into Russian influence, calling them "church mice."

Read More . . . .

'We Have Enough Screwballs in America Without Importing Them' says Home Depot Co-Founder

Screwballs to the Left

Screwballs to the Right

I need to dig my end of the world cave deeper

(CNS News)  -  “Nothing proves to me more than this experience that we need to know who’s here with us,” Home Depot Co-Founder Ken Langone said after an ISIS-inspired terrorist used one of the company’s vehicles to go on a murder spree in New York City Tuesday.

Appearing on Fox News Channel, Langone said the suspect, an immigrant from Uzekistan who legitimately rented the vehicle from Home Depot, is proof that the U.S. immigration system is endangering Americans:

“Nothing proves to me more than this experience that we need to know who’s here with us. How the hell can we just say, ‘Come on in and we don’t care how you got in here and we don’t care where you’re from or what you did or what your background was’?”

Langone said he has nothing against immigration – but, the U.S. needs to know who is immigrating to the country, and why they’re coming here:

“I’m not arguing pro or against immigration. My grandparents came here as immigrants. I think virtually everybody’s ancestors came here as immigrants. We’re a country of immigrants - but, they all came legitimately and we all knew where they came from and what they wanted to do.

…

“This underscores the need for us to be diligent and have a program and have an effort where people have to let us know who they are and that they came in here legitimately.

“Why have borders, otherwise? I don’t understand this.”

Presented with the argument that nothing can be done to stop deadly attacks, especially by “home-grown” terrorists, Langone said the U.S. shouldn’t exacerbate the problem by refusing to properly scrutinize immigrants:

“Look. there’s nuts in the world. You know, we have mass murders, remember Kaczynsk, the guy that was the Unabomber – we have enough screwballs in America without importing them.

“We ought to know who’s coming to America, we ought to know something about their background, like we do with all legitimate immigrants. And, this argument that we should look the other way with illegitimate immigrants is nuts.”

Read More . . . .

U.S. Illegally Arming, Paying Iranian Militants in Iraq

“WAR is a racket. It always has been.
It is possibly the oldest, easily the most profitable, surely the most vicious. It is the only one international in scope. It is the only one in which the profits are reckoned in dollars and the losses in lives.” 

General Smedley Butler

Twice awarded the Medal of Honor

EDITOR:  The Military-Industrial Complex has armed both the Islamists and ISIS. Then we arm those those fighting ISIS. Death and profits. But I am just a "crazy blogger".

(Washington Free Beacon)  -  The United States has been illegally training, arming, and funding Iranian-controlled militant forces in Iraq, according to a delegation of lawmakers who accused the Trump administration on Wednesday of violating a law barring such activity.

Information provided to lawmakers and viewed by the Free Beacon appears to show Iranian-controlled militants in Iraq using American-provided weaponry, including M1 Abrams tanks, which would require specific training from U.S. forces.

Lawmakers provided additional photographs of what they claim are Iranian-backed fighters cashing in on U.S. military training programs in Iraq during a press conference organized by Rep. Ron DeSantis (R., Fla.) outside of the Capitol.

The lawmakers cited this as a direct violation of the Leahy Law, which bars U.S. military assistance to foreign forces that violate human rights, and called on the Trump administration to immediately take steps to halt these programs.

In a show of support, Iraqi Hezbollah scouts parade with a portrait of Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Iran's most violent proxy militia in Iraq has vowed to start killing Americans again once the Islamic State is expelled. (Associated Press/File)  More . . .

Each of the lawmakers, experts, and military veterans in attendance at the press conference urged the Trump administration to cease aiding these Iranian militias and take greater steps to arm and support Kurdish forces in Iraq, who have long served as an ally of the U.S. in the region.

Rep. Duncan Hunter (R., Calif.), a Marine veteran who served in Iraq, displayed pictures of what he claimed were Iranian-backed Hezbollah militants in Iraq driving an American-provided M1 Abrams tank.

"A picture is worth 1,000 words," Hunter said. "There is an M1 Abrams tank with a Hezbollah flag. I don't care what the State Department says, they can't argue with this."

Hunter and others criticized the State Department and senior officials who carried over from the former Obama administration for continuing to push policies that embolden the Iranians.

Lawmakers singled out Brett McGurk, the Special Presidential Envoy for the Global Coalition to Counter ISIS, as playing a key role in enabling policies that help arm Iranian backed forces.

McGurk, also a senior official in the Obama administration, has long been viewed as a controversial figure due to his 2008 affair with a Wall Street Journal reporter while the pair were stationed in Iraq.

"At the best the State Department has been derelict in their duties, and at the worst they've been complicit with helping the Iranians take back what I, and my brothers in arms, fought for," Hunter said.

The lawmakers also displayed pictures of what he claimed was Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps Commander Qasem Soleimani with top U.S.-backed Iraqi militia leaders.

"Here's the IRGC commander with the militias that we’re equipping and training and sending into combat," Hunter said, adding that these forces are moving on America's Kurdish allies.

"We're equipping and training the wrong people," Hunter said. "The State Department is going to lose us Iraq again, in one of the worst ways."

The current training policies are helping Iran gain control over the region and aiding its pursuit of a land bridge through Syria.

"They're going to be able to drive M1 tanks from Iran to the Israeli border south of Damascus if we don't do something to stop this," Hunter warned, adding that, in his view, President Donald Trump is not aware of how dire the situation currently is.

"This has to get above the State Department," he said. "I don't think President Trump knows what's going on here. I don't think he's seen this picture of his tank, as Commander in Chief, with the Hezbollah flag on it."

Hunter was more confident that State was aware of the situation, however.

"I guarantee you the State Department knows what's going on and its time for them to get their heads out of the sand," he said.

Read More . . . .

Full page NY Times ad to overthrow President Trump

Follow The Money

• Super expensive TV and newspaper ads do not appear by "magic".
• The open borders Oligarch Elites will not rest until every possible middle class job is exported to Asia and every possible American citizen worker is replaced by foreigners.

(Infowars)  -  The New York Times published a full-page ad calling for a “revolution” to overthrow President Trump on Nov. 4.

The ad, which appears near the front of the newspaper’s national edition, demands nationwide protests that won’t stop until the Trump administration is “driven from power.”

“Join with the thousands who will gather in cities and towns across the country,” reads the ad. “A movement of protests that continue every day and night, growing until we become millions… determined now to stop until this regime is driven from power.”

The ad was written by Refuse Fascism, a communist group funded by George Soros which took responsibility for shutting down a conservative event hosting journalist Milo Yiannopoulos at UC Berkeley in Feb.

It’s ironic how the Times, which operates under the press protections guaranteed by the First Amendment, sold ad space to a group which bragged about denying First Amendment rights to a journalist.

Read More . . . .

Islamic Terrorism Comes to New York - Again

"Allahu Akbar"

Remember, if you dare oppose Islamic terrorism you are a bigot and use "hate speech".

• I will believe Islam is the Religion of Peace the day a Buddhist Temple, Jewish Synagogue or Baptist Church is allowed to be build in Mecca, Tehran or in Islamabad.

A 29-year-old man driving a rental truck plowed down people on a Manhattan bike path Tuesday in what authorities described as a terrorist attack that killed eight and injured 11 before the suspect was shot and arrested by police.

Law enforcement officials, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss an open investigation, identified the suspect as Sayfullo Saipov, an Uzbek immigrant who had been living in Tampa.

The attack could intensify the political debate over immigration and security. President Trump has argued for much tougher screening of immigrants to prevent terrorism, and opponents of those policies have sought to block his efforts in the courts.

The suspect is reported to have screamed "Allahu Akbar" after the crash, and that is a key reason authorities are looking at terrorism as a possible motive, sources said.

Read More . . . .

Nothing to do with Islam

Today's words of wisdom from Pat Condell

US should probe ‘Ukrainian trail’ rather than blaming Russia – Lavrov

"Corruptus in Extremis"

Fuck the Republican Party

• The corruption is not with the Ukraine or Russia. The real corruption is with the open borders "Conservative" Republican Congress deliberately holding endless Russia hearings in an attempt to overthrow President Trump.
• We see a parade of "Conservatives" openly supporting Special Prosecutor Mueller and his team of Clinton and DNC lawyers.

Months-long efforts of US investigators to find alleged Russian collusion with President Donald Trump’s campaign have led to the discovery of a “Ukrainian trail,” Russia's FM Sergey Lavrov said, suggesting Washington should now investigate Kiev’s role.

“They have now found a Ukrainian trail in connection with Mr. Manafort and one of his employees. I suppose a Ukrainian trail should be investigated through Ukraine. [Kiev authorities] also have [things] to say about their standpoint during the US presidential campaign,” Lavrov told the media Tuesday.

Sergey Lavrov

The US investigators “have been working for many months... looking for a Russian trail.” Instead, their efforts “resulted” in the indictment of two former Trump campaign members in connection with their alleged dealings with a former president of Ukraine, Russia’s foreign minister pointed out.

Earlier this week, a federal grand jury indicted Paul Manafort, the former campaign manager for Donald Trump, and his former business associate Richard Gates on a number of counts regarding Ukrainian lobbying in the US. 

The two individuals, who are suspected of having received payments from the party of ex-Ukrainian leader Viktor Yanukovich, have no apparent direct connection to Russia.

However, “not a single fact” or shred of evidence supporting anti-Russia allegations regarding Moscow’s involvement in any election campaign have ever been presented, Lavrov stressed.

“Without any evidence, we have been blamed for interfering not only in elections in the US, but in European states too. Recently, Moscow has been accused of making decisions on which minister to appoint in the Republic of South Africa,” Russia’s senior diplomat said at the press-conference, adding: “Fantasy has no limits.”

Read More . . . .

Democrat Gas Tax Starts

Democrat Math

• The only math Socialist Democrats understand is to take from those who work and re-distribute that wealth to illegal aliens, government workers and businessmen who fund Democrat campaigns.

(Armand's Rancho del Cielo)  -  Thanks to Gov. Jerry Brown and the Democrat-controlled legislature, California's gasoline tax goes up twelve cents tomorrow.

The Daily News reported:

The day after Halloween, an unpopular force lurking in gas pumps will start siphoning more money from Californians’ wallets. 

It’s not the plot from a horror movie. It’s a 12-cents per gallon increase in the state’s base gasoline-excise tax that takes effect Wednesday, Nov. 1. The increase raises the tax to 30 cents a gallon, with adjustments for inflation starting in 2020 that could make it even more expensive. 

Taxes on California diesel fuel are going up as well. The excise tax on diesel will rise 20 cents, making the total tax 36 cents a gallon. And the diesel sales tax rate will go from 1.75 to 5.75 percent. 

But wait. There’s a sequel. 

Starting next year, a new fee ranging from $25 to $175 based on a vehicle’s worth will be added to the cost of vehicle registration, with zero-emission vehicles subject to a $100 annual fee starting in July 2020.

That's what happens when you have a one-party rule.

To read more, go here. 

Freedom of Speech

"From a comparative perspective, the United States is unusual if not unique in the lack of restraints on freedom of expression. 

It is also unusual in the range and effectiveness of methods employed to restrain freedom of thought ...Where the voice of the people is heard, elite groups must insure their voice says the right things."

-- Noam Chomsky(1928- ) 

American linguist and political writer