Tag: law

Who subsidizes whom?

California politicians are worried about their taxpayers’ new inability to offset against their Federal taxes:

The Republican-backed federal tax bill flipped the tables on a never-ending question for California politicians: Will high taxes lead the state’s wealthiest residents to flee the Golden State for the comparable tax havens of Florida, Nevada and Texas?

Republicans reliably raise that alarm when Democrats advocate for tax increases, like the 2012 and 2016 ballot initiatives that levied a new income tax on very high-earning residents.

But now, with the federal tax bill cutting off deductions that benefited well-off Californians, the state’s Democrats suddenly are singing the GOP song about a potential millionaire exodus.

“People with higher incomes pay a lot more money, and some of them may be tempted to leave,” Gov. Jerry Brown said when he unveiled his 2018-19 budget proposal last week. “This was an assault by the Republicans in Congress against California.”

That fear animates Senate President pro tem Kevin de León’s bill that would allow California residents to write off their state taxes on their federal returns as a charitable deduction, as well as other proposals that Assembly leaders have hinted they’re preparing to offer. De Leon’s bill cleared a second committee this week and is on its way to a vote on the Senate floor. Trump administration officials say it won’t pass muster with the IRS.

Democratic state lawmakers are worried because California relies so heavily on the income taxes it collects from high earners to fund government services. The state’s wealthiest 1 percent, for instance, pay 48 percent of its income tax, and the departure of just a few families could lead to a noticeable hit to state general fund revenue.

“It is a genuine concern and that’s why the legislatures in high-tax states are swinging into action immediately,” said Katie Pratt, a professor at Loyola Law School in Los Angeles who specializes in taxes.

The new federal tax law poses problems for high earners in the Golden State because it caps two deductions that Californians used to limit their federal income tax liability, restricting their ability to write off mortgage interest and their state and local taxes.

Come now. Every time the issue gets raised in Minnesota, the newspapers produce one argument after another to explain why people don’t move based on tax rates. Because great schools! And art! And people!

Of course, since liberals and progressives are totally incapable of keeping two thoughts in their head at the same time, the fact that moving a bunch of Mexicans and Somalis might degrade the value of those competing factors never occurs to them.

Winning: corporate tax edition

Say what you will about the God-Emperor, but his policies actually work as designed:

Apple just announced on Wednesday it will bring back hundreds of billions of dollars from overseas to fund investment in the U.S. and likely increase its capital returns.

“Apple, already the largest US taxpayer, anticipates repatriation tax payments of approximately $38 billion as required by recent changes to the tax law. A payment of that size would likely be the largest of its kind ever made,” the company said in the release.

Using the new 15.5 percent repatriation tax rate, the $38 billion tax payment disclosed by Apple means they are planning a $245 billion repatriation.

The tax overhaul, which President Donald Trump signed into law last month, also lowered the corporate tax rate to 21 percent from 35 percent.

After the repatriation tax payment, the company will have $207 billion left over from the move it can use for investments, acquisitions, stock buybacks or larger dividends. Apple said it plans more than $30 billion in capital expenditures in the U.S. during the next five years.

Apple had $252.3 billion in overseas cash as of the end of September quarter, according to SEC filings, so that means the company is paying tax on nearly all of that foreign cash.

$38 billion is a lot of money. And I note that it’s considerably more than the $21.6 billion the Department of Homeland Security said it would cost to build a big beautiful wall on the southern border.

Also, there are going to be some very sad European bankers and investment managers this morning. All those glorious fees gone in the blink of an eye. No wonder they hate the God-Emperor so much. It was very smart to make the repatriation fee even lower than the reduced corporate tax fee.

Berkeley riot pedos

Apparently By Any Means Necessary is connected to NAMBLA:

The left-wing activists behind the anti-conservative riots at Berkeley have ties to one of the nation’s most prominent pro-pedophilia organizations.

The Coalition to Defend Affirmative Action, Integration & Immigrant Rights, and Fight for Equality By Any Means Necessary — more commonly referred to as By Any Means Necessary or BAMN — is one of the militant leftist groups waging a campaign against conservatives and Trump supporters in Berkeley. The group’s planned aggressive demonstrations against conservative commentator Ann Coulter and the students coming to hear her talk led to the cancellation of Coulter’s speech this week due to safety concerns.

BAMN’s parent organization worked directly with the North American Man/Boy Love Association (NAMBLA) in the years just before it founded BAMN, according to NAMBLA documents reviewed by The Daily Caller. In addition, a member of that parent organization said to have founded BAMN is an admitted member of NAMBLA, which she has described as the victim of a “witch-hunt.”

I suppose we should have known by the Star Trek uniforms. In other Berkeley riot-related news, two of the victims of the rioters filed suit in U.S. District Court last week against The Regents Of The University Of California, the President of the University of California, Janet Napolitano, the City of Berkeley and the City of Berkeley Police Department, as well as several named police officers and their two attackers.

This action seeks to protect and vindicate fundamental rights. It is a civil rights action brought under the Fourteenth Amendment against government actors responsible for creating dangerous conditions and exposing the Plaintiffs to physical harm caused by a violent mob of anarchists at a student-sponsored Milo Yiannopolous event (“Yiannopolous event”) scheduled to take place at the University of California, Berkeley (“UC Berkeley” and “University”) on February 1, 2017. Government actors took affirmative measures in preparation for and in response to the riotous mob that left the Plaintiffs in a situation more dangerous than the one in which they found the Plaintiffs.

Government actors are responsible for creating and exposing the Plaintiffs to the unlawful actions of an angry mob of violent anarchists by directing law enforcement officers to vacate locations in and around Sproul Plaza and the MLK Center at UC Berkeley, agitating the mob by issuing feckless disbursal orders and empty threats of arrest from a vantage point where they could ensure their own safety while leaving Plaintiffs exposed to violent assaults, erecting barricades in such a manner as to enable angry malefactors to surround Plaintiffs and assault them and to deprive Plaintiffs of an exit route, failing to enforce the law and by other affirmative actions. By their failure to intervene or employ reasonable tactical methods to ensure the safety of the Plaintiffs and the public, government actors conducted their official duties with deliberate indifference to the Plaintiffs’ safety, permitting hordes of violent rioters to swarm the university campus in a violent rage. By their failure, government actors are thus responsible for creating and exposing Plaintiffs to known and obvious danger.

This action additionally seeks relief from government actors who failed to exercise their duty of care to plan effectively for the foreseeable harms brought upon the Plaintiffs and from the perpetrators of unlawful assaults.

Photo-preening is wrong and illegal

You can’t say that I haven’t repeatedly warned you about the negative consequences of photo-preening online at your children’s expense:

An Italian woman has been banned from posting images of her teenage son on social media, and threatened with a 10,000 euro fine if she defies it.

The 16-year-old had made a court complaint about his mother’s social media habits, which included posting pictures of him on Facebook without his consent.

A Rome family court dealing with the mother’s divorce from the teen’s father, ruled in the 16-year-old’s favour. The court ruled that as per Italian copyright law, the subject of the photographs owns the copyright and the mother was therefore in breach.

It’s natural to be proud of your children. But they do not exist to serve your ego, and as a parent, you should be far more concerned about protecting their privacy and their futures than in trying to demonstrate to everyone what a wonderful father or mother you are, or how fabulous your genetic legacy happens to be, or showing the distant relatives they barely know what they look like. That’s what Christmas cards are for.

Posting your children’s pictures online without their consent is obnoxious, self-serving, and potentially dangerous. It is also illegal in an increasing number of jurisdictions. Just don’t do it.

The list grows

For those who wonder why “nothing is happening,” some perspective.

  • 1,077, normal number of annual sealed indictments
  • 4,188, sealed indictments as of 11/22
  • 9,274, sealed indictments as of 12/22
There are also an improbable number of elite individuals suddenly having fatal accidents, medical boots appearing on politicians – and switching from one foot to another – as well as various war drums beating. So, my best current guess is that the public announcements of the arrests is waiting for the start of the military conflict, which will somehow be connected to some of the individuals arrested.

And don’t forget, by the decree of the God-Emperor, January 2018 is National Slavery and Human Trafficking Prevention Month.

If all of this seems impossible to you, remember, Donald Trump was not supposed to win the presidential election. And the insurance the Deep State took out on the possibility that he might unexpectedly do so against the odds has proven worse than worthless.

“I want to believe the path you threw out for consideration in Andy’s office that there’s no way he gets elected – but I’m afraid we can’t take that risk. It’s like an insurance policy in the unlikely event you die before you’re 40.”
~FBI Agent Peter Strzok to FBI Lawyer Lisa Page

Let us be clear on what the “insurance policy” was.  The insurance policy was, in totality, the entire fraudulent Russian Conspiracy Narrative; and all of the accompanying –and subsequent– FBI and DOJ collaborative actions that were taken, under the auspices of an FBI counterintelligence operation, in order to generate an entirely false premise. The goal of using the “insurance policy” was to destroy, and possibly impeach, President Trump.

All of it.

Fake dossier used for FISA warrant

I very much doubt anyone will be surprised by this confirmation, but it is one more piece of the puzzle that will eventually lock up a number of the God-Emperor’s enemies:

Everyone suspected the sketchy Steele Dossier was what corrupt FBI and DOJ officials used to get the October 2016 FISA warrant against Trump. FBI and DOJ officials refuse to answer that question publicly.

Despite a hundred different ways congressional investigators have asked the question, and despite numerous on-camera questions to FBI and DOJ officials about the 2016 FISA process, no-one had definitively confirmed the Christopher Steele ‘Russian Dossier’ was the underlying evidence for the 2016 FISA application to gain wiretaps and electronic surveillance upon presidential candidate Donald Trump.   UNTIL NOW.

Senator Lindsey Graham just confirmed the sketchy Steele Dossier was used to get the wiretap and surveillance warrant from the FISA court.

Lethal Gamma rage

It is always a problem when a Gamma delusion bubble intersects with reality:

On Twitter, more than a dozen people who identified themselves as being in the gaming community told The Eagle that a feud between two Call of Duty players sparked one to initiate a “swatting.”

“I DIDNT GET ANYONE KILLED BECAUSE I DIDNT DISCHARGE A WEAPON AND BEING A SWAT MEMBER ISNT MY PROFESSION,” said one gamer on Twitter, who others said made the swatting call. His account was suspended overnight.

According to posts on Twitter, two gamers were arguing when one threatened to target the other with a “swatting.” The person who was the target of the swatting gave the other gamer a false address, which sent police to Finch’s home instead of his own, according to Twitter posts.

Andrew Finch leaves behind two children – ages 2 and 7. He is from Virginia and the family moved to Wichita in the mid-1990s.

I doubt the idiot gamma who swatted the false address given to him by the other gamer has any idea that his ever-so-erudite reliance upon wordplay isn’t going to get him off the hook for the man’s death, which was a direct consequence of his ridiculous action.

This is the problem with the run-to-mommy generation. They don’t even hesitate to appeal to authority over even the smallest, most easily resolved issues.

Of abuse and assets

This executive order by the God-Emperor must have taken more than few people by surprise. I wonder whatever could have provoked it?

Executive Order Blocking the Property of Persons Involved in Serious Human Rights Abuse or Corruption

I, DONALD J. TRUMP, President of the United States of America, find that the prevalence and severity of human rights abuse and corruption that have their source, in whole or in substantial part, outside the United States, such as those committed or directed by persons listed in the Annex to this order, have reached such scope and gravity that they threaten the stability of international political and economic systems. Human rights abuse and corruption undermine the values that form an essential foundation of stable, secure, and functioning societies; have devastating impacts on individuals; weaken democratic institutions; degrade the rule of law; perpetuate violent conflicts; facilitate the activities of dangerous persons; and undermine economic markets. The United States seeks to impose tangible and significant consequences on those who commit serious human rights abuse or engage in corruption, as well as to protect the financial system of the United States from abuse by these same persons.

I therefore determine that serious human rights abuse and corruption around the world constitute an unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security, foreign policy, and economy of the United States, and I hereby declare a national emergency to deal with that threat.

I wonder if Mr. George Soros happens to be one of “(i) the persons listed in the Annex to this order”? And who else is on that list, because the order is clearly casting a very wide net, including anyone giving any assistance to the persons targeted.

And this would appear to confirm some of my suspicions about an unexpected corporate resignation today.

ES (Goog) resigned today post EO.

Coincidence?

There are no coincidences. Schmidt is definitely Deep State. It may be pertinent because the executive order gives the executive branch agents the ability to immediately shut down any corporation with executives who are involved in this. And to do so without warning.

Sec. 7. For those persons whose property and interests in property are blocked pursuant to this order who might have a constitutional presence in the United States, I find that because of the ability to transfer funds or other assets instantaneously, prior notice to such persons of measures to be taken pursuant to this order would render those measures ineffectual. I therefore determine that for these measures to be effective in addressing the national emergency declared in this order, there need be no prior notice of a listing or determination made pursuant to this order.

UPDATE: Make that two. Papa John’s CEO John Schnatter also stepped down today. Papa John’s Pizza….

Papa John’s says its founder John Schnatter will step down as CEO next month, about two months after he publicly criticized the NFL leadership over national anthem protests by football players. The company said Thursday that Schnatter remains chairman but be replaced as chief executive by Chief Operating Officer Steve Ritchie on Jan. 1. Ritchie would not say if Schnatter’s NFL comments played a role in the job change.

Panic in DC

The bizarre train derailment in Washington was reportedly in retaliation for the God-Emperor’s action in Atlanta. It appears that the bad actors are attempting to flee the USA, as we have been told that the end is near, there are now 19 operations in action, and 12 more proffered deals were rejected yesterday.

And above all, trust the Grand Inquisitor.

It is not insignificant that the God-Emperor recited these words yesterday. They were both a reminder and a warning: “With this strategy, we are calling for a great reawakening of America, a resurgence of confidence, and a rebirth of patriotism, prosperity, and pride. And we are returning to the wisdom of our founders.  In America, the people govern, the people rule, and the people are sovereign.”

Translation: The Deep State does not govern, the globalists do not rule, and Satan is not sovereign.

UPDATE: I’ve been told that George Soros has been arrested – there is some belief that he was the target of the Atlanta operation – and that Al-Waleed bin Talal is now in US custody as well, but be aware these reports have NOT been confirmed. This may explain the recent Twitter crackdown as well as the Washington Post leaks; it appears the media is desperately attempting to concoct some sort of anti-Trump narrative to defend the Deep State by provoking a Constitutional crisis if/when the Clintons are arrested. Given Speaker Ryan’s unexpected announcement that he’ll be stepping down from Congress next year, that attempt appears to be an abortive one.

(And really, no one finds anything suspicious about Ryan’s announced resignation in light of how long almost every previous Speaker has presided? Even John Boehner, who resigned after only four years, lasted longer.)

Again, we can’t know if any of this is true or if it is merely wishful thinking on the part of patriots. This can be easily rebutted by simply demonstrating that George Soros is out and about somewhere, although I note that he hasn’t tweeted since November 26th. Regardless, events do appear to be coming to a head of sorts, and if even one-quarter of what is being discussed happens, it’s going to be important to be able to put these things in context for the great majority of Americans who will be caught completely off-guard by them.

UPDATE: This would appear to be pertinent.

A MISSILE fired at Saudi Arabia’s capital Riyadh was shot down moments before it hit a royal palace today. Mohammed Abdussalam said on Twitter that a Volcano 2-H ballistic missile was fired towards al-Yamama royal palace.

I wonder who was in it.

The wind picks up

Is there a storm on the way? The Dailywire claims that “more than a dozen” Congressmen will be resigning before the end of the year.

An investigative reporter with The Daily Caller News Foundation (DCNF) announced on Friday that Congress’ human resources scandal is about to break wide-open and predicted that over a dozen members of the House of Representatives will resign.

DCNF reporter Luke Rosiak tweeted on Friday: “Congress’ human resources scandal is just getting started. I anticipate we will see the resignation of more than a dozen House members over harassment and secret settlements, and soon.”

Last week Rosiak broke the story that Rep. Gregory Meeks (D-NY) had made a settlement with a former congressional aide that he fired after she reported being sexually assaulted at the business of a major campaign donor. The first congressmen to go down in the post-Weinstein era of sexual misconduct was Michigan Democrat Rep. John Conyers, who eventually resigned after accusations against him snowballed.

Mike Cernovich says the number may be as high as 50. However, based on what the chans are saying, this Congressional scandal will only be part one of three, as both Hillary and Obama are now reportedly in the investigative crosshairs. For what, I don’t know exactly, but it appears to be considerably more serious than the usual “lying to the FBI” sort of thing.

You will note that we have heard virtually nothing from either of the Clinton or Obama in recent weeks. This may be why.