Was Marilyn a Scottish male?
And
The eclipse and sex seem quite similar in that there is so much talk and curiosity about something that lasts such a short time.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Caught all of Trump's address this evening. Excellent delivery, agree with the decision and anything that moves us away from Carter/Obama's weak approach toward foreign policy is long overdue.
Maybe we cannot win a war against the Taliban in Afghanistan but we can bloody their nose and perhaps, bring them to the negotiating table on our terms while helping Afghanistan develop into their kind of freer nation.
Thought John Bolton's linkage of Pakistan with China, after the speech, demonstrated what a broad mind and clear view he has and I am now doubly anxious that he will be here in February speaking to us.
If you have not given thought to coming to hear him Monday Evening, February 19, 2018, I urge you do so.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Becoming a citizen for those already a citizen is a financial coup/bonanza. (See 1 below.)
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
You can hate Steve Bannon all you want, you can accuse him of being everything evil under the sun. If you do you miss the point that he is raising issues that need to be examined.
The old ways no longer serve America's interests and need to be rethought. That is the essence of his argument and he is on sound ground bringing the matter to the fore.
The manner in which he does , arguably, may not serve his cause. (See 2 below.)
+++++++++++++++++++++
The Obama Administration corrupted may of our agencies. Perhaps this judge will bring the IRS to toe. (See 3 below.)
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
I just attended a luncheon, here at The Landings, where Sen. David Perdue spoke. He is a successful, no nonsense business man/non-politician, a strong supporter of fiscal responsibility and our president. He, like myself, believes the crushing deficits and debt are our greatest threats because it restricts our ability to do what is needed in rebuilding our military, our infrastructure and getting our economy off dead center. He also believes we need tax simplification and relief and gave several clear examples how our tax structure was killing jobs and allowing foreign entities to use arbitrage to buy up our companies which has a direct impact on employment.
He gave a host of other examples why government is not functioning as it should and can and laid blame on both sides of the aisle. He believes we are overdue for a limited term amendment./legislation.
Good man, need more of his kind in government.
++++++++++++++++++++++++
Dick
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
1) Becoming Illegal (Actual letter from an Oregon resident sent to his senator, The Honorable Mr. Wyden, 731 Hart Senate Office Building, Phone (202) 224 3254, Washington DC 20510
Dear Senator Wyden,
As a native Oregonian and excellent customer of the Internal Revenue Service, I am writing to ask for your assistance. I have contacted the Department of Homeland Security in an effort to determine the process for becoming an illegal alien and they referred me to you.
My primary reason for wishing to change my status from U.S. Citizen to illegal alien stems from the bill which was recently passed by the Senate and for which you voted. If my understanding of this bill is accurate, as an illegal alien who has been in the United States for five years, all I need to do to become a citizen is to pay a $2,000 fine and income taxes for only three of the last five years. I know a good deal when I see one and I am anxious to get the process started before everyone figures it out. Simply put, those of us who have been here legally have had to pay taxes every year so I'm excited about the prospect of avoiding two years of taxes in return for paying a $2,000 fine.
Is there any way that I can apply to be illegal retroactively? This would yield an excellent result for me and my family because we paid heavy taxes in 2004 and 2005.
Additionally, as an illegal alien I could begin using the local emergency room as my primary health care provider. Once I have stopped paying premiums for medical insurance, my accountant figures I could save almost $10,000 a year.
Another benefit in gaining illegal status would be that my daughter would receive preferential treatment relative to her law school applications, as well as 'in-state' tuition rates for many colleges throughout the United States for my son.
Lastly, I understand that illegal status would relieve me of the burden of renewing my driver's license and making those burdensome car insurance premiums. This is very important to me, given that I still have college age children driving my car. If you would provide me with an outline of the process to become illegal (retroactively if possible) and copies of the necessary forms, I would be most appreciative.
Thank you for your assistance.
Your Loyal Constituent,(hoping to reach 'illegal alien' status rather than just a bonafide citizen of the USA )
Dale B. RilyeuLebanon, OR
He aims to defeat the ‘globalist’ crew by pushing China into the 2018 campaign.
By Walter Russell Mead
The defenestration of Steve Bannon will bring some badly needed calm to the White House, at least in the short term. But the deepest crisis of confidence in American foreign policy since the 1940s isn’t going away. Neither is Mr. Bannon, as he told me in a late-night telephone conversation over the weekend.
President Trump’s highest officials remain committed, one way or another, to defending the global order the U.S. has been building since the Truman era. That includes Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, Defense Secretary Jim Mattis, Chief of Staff John Kelly and national security adviser Gen. H.R. McMaster.
These men share a disdain for the Obama administration’s retrenchment and retreat, though they are less hopeful than former President George W. Bush’s neoconservative advisers about the prospects for promoting democracy abroad. They want to check the ambitions of America’s rivals while restoring the foundations, both military and economic, of U.S. world power. For Team Trump, defending Pax Americana, costly as it may be, remains the best and even the only realistic foreign-policy option.
As they seek to “normalize” Mr. Trump’s foreign policy post-Bannon, they will face two sets of challenges. One is external: Pax Americana is growing more difficult and costly to maintain in an increasingly disorderly world. From Venezuela’s implosion to North Korea’s drive for an intercontinental nuclear missile, from the standoff in the South China Sea to the madness of the Middle East, there are urgent problems that resist easy or elegant solutions.
The second challenge is skepticism—both among the wider public and in the Oval Office—about the continuing value of conventional international relations in an evolving world. Mr. Bannon aims to deepen that skepticism, which he sees as a force that can change the trajectory of American foreign policy and politics alike.
For Mr. Bannon, the assumptions and institutions of the Pax Americana brought victory over the Soviet Union, but they are already failing in a contest with China. Beijing, he claims, has learned to game the very system that most of Washington’s established analysts believe is the key to American strength.
The traditional view is that institutions like the World Trade Organization support U.S. power and security. Mr. Bannon sees them instead as facilitating a deliberate Chinese attack on the economic strength that underpins American social cohesion and military strength. To deal with a new kind of competitor in a new kind of contest, Mr. Bannon believes, the U.S. must move away from the international architecture of the past and embark on a radically new course.
In his view, voters already sense this, even if Washington’s power brokers don’t. “The country is ahead of the elites,” he told me. As China continues to export deflation as a means to stave off economic crisis at home—what Mr. Bannon calls Beijing’s mercantilist trade strategy—he expects growing effects on the incomes and jobs of Americans. At the same time, the geopolitical threat of rising Chinese power will be increasingly felt.
Mr. Bannon’s former White House colleagues are committed to defending free trade and the “globalist” diplomacy that he thinks will be increasingly unpopular. So he hopes to separate President Trump from the national-security team now in power by making foreign policy a key issue in the 2018 and 2020 campaigns.
Leveraging the Breitbart media empire and his own star power, Mr. Bannon seeks to play the role of a latter-day Paul Revere, riding through cyberspace to warn the American people that the Chinese are coming. The goal is to create conditions for a new domestic political alignment and a fundamental shift in American strategy abroad.
This is a goal of extraordinary ambition and, some would say, arrogance. But Mr. Bannon’s ability to connect with public opinion in ways most thought impossible in 2016 suggests he should not be dismissed out of hand.
Even if his campaign is only partly successful, the foreign-policy divide inside both parties will widen. To the extent that “globalist” foreign policy comes to be identified with tolerating Chinese mercantilism, the public’s skepticism about it will likely deepen. As allies and opponents around the world perceive that domestic political support for America’s current foreign policy is weakening, friends will begin to hedge, adversaries will test, and the international environment will grow ever more challenging.
The White House will probably be a calmer place now that Steve Bannon has gone. It remains to be seen whether that quiet can extend to the country and the world.
Mr. Mead is a fellow at the Hudson Institute and a professor of foreign affairs at Bard College.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
3) (Still) Seeking IRS Accountability
Judge Walton orders the IRS to give straight answers for a change.
By The Editorial Board
In a little noticed decision last week, federal Judge Reggie Walton ordered the IRS to answer a series of questions by Oct. 16. Notably, the tax agency must finally explain the specific reasons for the specific delays in approving each of dozens of conservative nonprofit applications—delays that stifled free speech during a midterm and presidential election. Judge Walton is also requiring the IRS to name the specific individuals that it holds responsible for the targeting.
These are basic questions of political accountability, even if the IRS has stonewalled since 2013. President Obama continued to spin that the targeting was the result of some “boneheaded” IRS line officers in Cincinnati who didn’t understand tax law. Yet Congressional investigations have uncovered clear evidence that the targeting was ordered and directed out of Washington.
Former director of Exempt Organizations Lois Lerner was at the center of that Washington effort, but the IRS allowed her to retire with benefits. She invoked the Fifth Amendment before Congress. One of her principal deputies, Holly Paz, has submitted to a deposition in separate litigation, but the judge has sealed her testimony after she claimed she faced threats. The Acting Commissioner of the IRS at the time, Stephen Miller, stepped down in the wake of the scandal, but as far as anyone outside the IRS knows, no other IRS employee has been held to account. Even if the culprits were “rogue employees,” as the IRS claims, the public deserves to know what happened.
Judge Walton’s ruling means that “the IRS must finally acknowledge its wrongdoing (and the reasons for it) in the context of a judicial proceeding in which the agency may be held legally accountable for its misconduct,” Carly Gammill told Powerlineblog.com. Ms. Gammill is an attorney at the American Center for Law & Justice who represents tea-party groups in the litigation.
The Trump Administration also has a duty to provide some answers. The Justice Department and IRS have continued to resist the lawsuits as doggedly as they did in the Obama era. Attorney General Jeff Sessions can change that by ordering government attorneys to quickly and fully comply with Judge Walton’s orders. Seven years is too long to wait for answers over abuses of the government’s taxing power
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
No comments:
Post a Comment