The Joe Biden Presidency Thread

[swordfish]

https://nypost.com/2021/05/31/hunter-bidens-laptop-keeps-damning-joe-but-most-media-just-ignore-it/

Hunter Biden’s laptop continues to yield damning information that shows his dad, President Joe Biden, played a significant and knowing role in his son’s sleazy influence-peddling. And while the media efforts to pretend these revelations are nothing but “Russian disinformation” have ceased, The Post’s scoops still get ignored by outlets that would be all over them if they were about the Trump family.

The latest, of course, is the photographic evidence that then-Veep Joe attended an April 16, 2015, dinner with shady Ukrainian, Russian and Kazakh “businessmen” and even posed for photos with the unseemly guests.

To put some face-saving cover on the event in the private “Garden Room” at Café Milano, a posh Georgetown eatery (“Where the world’s most powerful people go,” run its promos), Hunter billed it as “ostensibly to discuss food security,” as he emailed one guest, and invited several officials from the World Food Program.

But the beards were outnumbered by the likes of corrupt former Moscow mayor Yury Luzhkov (hubby of Russian billionaire Yelena Baturina, who’d paid one of Hunter’s firms $3.5 million the year before), Kazakh oligarch Kenes Rakishev, Karim Massimov, a former prime minister of Kazakhstan, and Vadym Pozharskyi, an executive of the Ukrainian energy company Burisma.

The photo of the then-veep and Hunter smiling with the two Kazakhs, clearly shot at Café Milano, isn’t the only proof Joe actually attended the dinner: Pozharskyi emailed Hunter the next day, “Dear Hunter, thank you for inviting me to DC and giving an opportunity to meet your father and spent [sic] some time together. … It’s realty [sic] an honor and pleasure.” So much for any claim that Joe never met with Burisma officials even as he was Team Obama’s point man on Ukraine, a role he used to demand the ouster of a prosecutor who was looking into the firm.

Burisma was then paying Hunter (who had zero energy expertise) $83,333 a month to sit on its board. Another email from the laptop reveals that Burisma cut Hunter’s pay in half in March 2017 — right after Joe became a private citizen, another clear sign of what actually qualified the Biden scion for such vast payouts.

Face time with a vice president, and the ability to brag about what you talked about over dinner, is worth a lot to global sleazoids. So are smiling photos that imply a relationship and pull at the highest reaches of US government.

Another sign of Joe’s collusion in Hunter’s unseemly work: The then-veep hired an aide away from one of his son’s firms in 2014, and she then proceeded to keep her old bosses informed on visiting dignitaries and official events that might interest them.

Oh, and the Bidens have never themselves denied the laptop was Hunter’s before he abandoned it, nor denied the accuracy of its contents. The president and his camp have simply offered vague assurances that Joe Biden himself never did anything wrong.

Without doubt, if Donald Trump Jr., Jared Kushner or so on had been caught playing such games, it’d get nonstop coverage on MSNBC, and the Washington Post and the New York Times would have full investigative teams following up for months.

Hunter’s merchandizing of his last name wasn’t even anything new: The Biden family has been trading on Joe Biden’s high offices for decades, making millions off their presumed influence and access. Yet somehow news about it all is never “fit to print,” even though “democracy dies in darkness.”

 

Yeahbut - There's nothing wrong here.......They aren't the Trumps.....

[DanteEstonia]

2 hours ago, Muda69 said:

Where in the U.S. Constitution is a federally owned rail system an enumerated function of the federal government?

Where is the authorization for an Air Force?

[Bobref]

15 minutes ago, DanteEstonia said:

Where is the authorization for an Air Force?

Actually, the Air Force was originally part of the US Army. It was established as a separate service by Congress in the National Security Act of 1947.

[Muda69]

17 minutes ago, DanteEstonia said:

Where is the authorization for an Air Force?

Why are you trying to equate the defense of the nation with Amtrak?

 

[Muda69]

Biden Administration Sought to Use Race to Determine Federal Benefits. Courts Have Now Stepped In.: 

https://townhall.com/tipsheet/leahbarkoukis/2021/06/01/biden-administration-sought-to-use-race-to-determine-federal-benefits-two-courts-have-now-stepped-in-n2590270

Quote

The Biden administration is facing a legal challenge over the Small Business Association’s prioritization of women and racial minorities for COVID-19 relief. The SBA said only these applications for restaurant relief would be processed in the first three weeks, kicking white, male small business owners to the back of the line.

America First Legal, which represents restaurant owners Jason and Janice Smith and Eric Nyman, said despite qualifying for relief, their clients are “experiencing race and sex discrimination at the hand of government officials.”

The court agreed. 

"A federal judge in Texas ruled that the SBA’s Restaurant Revitalization Fund was wrong to distribute $28.6 billion in Covid-19 relief on the basis of an owner’s sex and race," reports The Wall Street Journal.

And that wasn't the only case against the SBA.

Meanwhile, in Vitolo v. Guzman the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals granted a preliminary injunction against the SBA on behalf of white plaintiff Antonio Vitolo, half-owner of Jake’s Bar and Grill in Tennessee. The other half is owned by his wife, a Latina. In a 2-1 decision joined by Judge Alan Norris, Judge Amul Thapar cites Supreme Court precedents such as Adarand and Richmond v. Croson to eviscerate the SBA’s discriminatory logic.

The SBA justifies its bias as necessary to remedy past societal discrimination. But Judge Thapar notes that the Supreme Court has said such a remedy is only justified under narrow circumstances. It must address a specific episode of past discrimination, the past discrimination must have been intentional, and the government must have played a role in that discrimination. Judge Thapar writes that the SBA fails all three tests. (The Wall Street Journal)

The WSJ goes on to describe Thapar's legal analysis as an "arrow to the heart of much of the Biden Administration’s racially divisive agenda," perhaps leading this and other similar cases to the Supreme Court.

[DanteEstonia]

5 hours ago, Muda69 said:

Why are you trying to equate the defense of the nation with Amtrak?

Why are you dodging my question?

[Muda69]

16 hours ago, DanteEstonia said:

Why are you dodging my question?

I'm not.  IMHO Bobref answered it quite succinctly.  After all he is much smarter than both your or I.

 

[DanteEstonia]

22 hours ago, Bobref said:

It was established as a separate service by Congress in the National Security Act of 1947.

So the National Security Act of 1947 is unconstitutional then?

[Bobref]

44 minutes ago, DanteEstonia said:

So the National Security Act of 1947 is unconstitutional then?

Not in the slightest. 

[Muda69]

10 minutes ago, Bobref said:

Not in the slightest. 

Was there a SCOTUS ruling?

 

[Bobref]

16 minutes ago, Muda69 said:

Was there a SCOTUS ruling?

Not of which I am aware. I suspect that no one is dumb enough to raise such a challenge.

[Muda69]

1 minute ago, Bobref said:

Not of which I am aware. I suspect that no one is dumb enough to raise such a challenge.

True.  One of the tragedies of the 1947 act was that it created the modern CIA.  We all know it is now the spooks, along with the M-I-C, that really fun the federal government.

 

[DanteEstonia]

32 minutes ago, Bobref said:

Not in the slightest. 

Again, I don't see an authorization for an "Air Force" in the US Constitution. 

[Muda69]

Lumber Is Crazy Expensive Right Now. Biden Is About To Make It Worse.

https://reason.com/2021/06/02/lumber-is-crazy-expensive-right-now-biden-is-about-to-make-it-worse/

Quote

Amid surging lumber prices that are already adding an average of $36,000 to the construction cost of new homes, the Biden administration is moving forward with plans to double tariffs on lumber imported from Canada.

The Commerce Department announced on Friday that it was taking the first step toward hiking so-called "anti-dumping tariffs" on Canadian lumber from an average rate of 8.99 percent in 2018 to 18.32 percent for 2019. Yes, 2019. If approved through what is likely to be a lengthy review process, the tariffs would apply retroactively to purchases made for the past two years. That means American importers could be on the hook for millions of dollars in taxes they didn't even know they would owe—taxes that will likely be passed down the supply chain in the form of higher prices.

That's only the first bit of insanity here. Anti-dumping tariffs, in theory, are meant to cancel out what's seen as unfair subsidies for foreign competitors to American companies. They are supposed to be deployed in order to prevent import prices from becoming so low that they threaten domestic producers—even though there's really nothing terrible about low prices for imports.

But lumber prices are anything but low right now. In fact, they are up over 250 percent in the past year, and the price per thousand feet of board lumber just hit an all-time high.

How bad are things? So bad that lumber has become a meme.

I'm behind on lumber pricing: do these pallets make me a millionaire or pic.twitter.com/WvI88yqNzZ

— Myles Udland (@MylesUdland) April 24, 2021

If the Biden administration goes ahead with the plan to hike tariffs, it will be the latest bit of industrial protectionism emanating from Washington that will be paid for by Americans. While the domestic timber and lumber industries are thrilled at the prospect of artificially inflated prices for imports from Canada—the largest foreign supplier, by far, of wood into the United States—the higher tariffs will almost certainly translate into higher prices for consumers and wood-using industries.

"If the administration's decision to double tariffs is allowed to go into effect, it will further exacerbate the nation's housing affordability crisis, put even more upward pressure on the price of lumber, and force millions of U.S. home buyers and lumber consumers to foot the bill for this ill-conceived protectionist action," said Chuck Fowke, chairman of the National Association of Home Builders, in a statement.

The current price surge for lumber—like similar increases for many other goods—has been triggered by a shortage of supply as pandemic-closed sawmills have been slow to reopen even while demand for lumber has steadily climbed, driven by robust demand for new housing. Import taxes aren't to blame for this mess, but they certainly aren't helping.

Even the Trump administration, which counter-productively hiked tariffs on everything from steel and aluminum to washing machines and other consumer goods, realized that much. Trump approved a lumber tariff hike in 2017, but his administration cut those duties in late 2020 amid concerns about the rising price of lumber.

High and rising lumber prices aren't just a problem for home-builders and others who need to buy large supplies of wood. Some manufacturers are concerned that tariffs are helping to drive inflation across the entire economy by artificially jacking up prices for many commodities, The Wall Street Journal reported last week.

With prices skyrocketing, the best thing the federal government could do is sweep aside impediments to supply chains. Instead, the administration is erecting new barriers which will protect domestic industries.

Unfortunately, as Scott Lincicome, a Cato Institute senior fellow for trade issues, points out, the law guiding the U.S. anti-dumping tariff process explicitly forbids consideration of how new duties might impact consumers.

That, in a nutshell, is the problem with just about all tariffs. If you ignore how higher taxes on goods might harm individuals and businesses, you're not really seriously considering the consequences—you're just doing what the beneficiaries of that policy want. Policy making cannot be disconnected from economic reality, no matter how much politicians might want it to be.

Denying the reality of how tariffs work doesn't always look as buffoonish as the Trump administration often made it. Sometimes it just appears to be rote bureaucratic activity. But the result is the same, and Americans are going to keep paying the price until the Biden administration learns that.

 

[swordfish]

Lumber in the RV industry is at least 30% of the bill of materials in an average RV.  By far, the biggest expense in the BOM.  Wholesale pricing on RVs this year is a whopping 15 - 25% higher to dealers for new product and the dealers are holding ransoms on selling retail units from inventory because of the time it is taking to get any more inventory and knowing what they will have to pay for a replacement.  Retail demand is not affected by the increase in price as yet, but give it time, and it will be. 

Our supplier is telling us the lumber producers in Canada are full of inventory, but the commodity pricing on lumber where suppliers have already paid higher prices for the current inventory hasn't adjusted yet since that expensive lumber is still on the shelves, and that could have a huge impact as the mills have to move the new cut lumber.  They are expecting the price to bottom out fast if the supply chain pricing doesn't begin adjusting at the wholesale/retail level. 

[swordfish]

https://nypost.com/2021/06/02/team-bidens-atrocious-advice-to-jews-to-hide-their-identity/

“It pains me to say this,” tweeted Team Biden staffer Aaron Keyak recently, “but if you fear for your life or physical safety, take off your kippah and hide your” Star of David. Keyak’s official White House title is “Jewish engagement director,” and his tweet revealed much about Team Biden’s views on anti-Semitism and cultural politics in 2021 — none of it good.

Keyak, an Orthodox Jew, is a longtime Beltway swamp creature and Democratic Party hack. During the 2020 campaign, it was his job to tell Jewish voters that then-President Donald Trump was their No. 1 enemy, that his supposed philo-Semitism was a ruse.

Trump was arguably the most pro-Israel and pro-Jewish president in US history. Fulfilling a promise made by several of his predecessors, and dismissing the objections of the foreign-policy establishment, Trump moved the US embassy to Jerusalem from Tel Aviv. To the amazement of the world, he also brokered historic peace deals between the Israelis and several Muslim states.

How to paint Trump as bad for Jews and Israel? Easy — by lying.

Repeatedly, Keyak echoed the “both sides” calumny, the false notion that Trump praised the neo-Nazis who marched in Charlottesville in 2017. Trump, Keyak said, had “inspired . . . anti-Semites to feel encouraged” and thus “made me feel unsafe in my own country.” Trump’s presidency, he wrote in the lefty Israeli newspaper Haaretz, “has helped embolden white supremacy throughout America. He has routinely refused to condemn their hatred.”

All lies. But all, apparently, in a day’s work for a Biden apparatchik.

Of course, it was precisely the wobbliness of President Joe Biden’s support for Israel that emboldened Hamas to attack the Jewish state. And it was the ensuing conflict that led to a wave of physical assaults against Jews across America — none of them, it is safe to say, perpetrated by people in MAGA hats.

And what, in this dire situation made possible by his boss’s fecklessness, is Keyak’s suggestion to his fellow Jews? To put away the outward signs of their faith and peoplehood.

It was heartening to read the replies to Keyak’s tweet: “Nobody should have to hide who they are to be safe in America.” “That type of submission never led to anything good.” “Interesting — I didn’t fear for my life or physical safety under Trump.”

 

Having lived in Europe for two decades, I’m not unfamiliar with the idea of Jews concealing their identity. As the Continent’s Muslim population has grown, so, too, has the amount of brutal public violence against Jews. The “genteel” anti-Semitism of European cultural elites, usually disguised as opposition to Israel, often abets the street-level Islamist thuggery.

The result: Even as European Muslims audaciously block traffic by praying in the streets, European Jews don’t dare hang a tiny Star of David from their necks.

In 2013, 49 percent of Jews in Sweden said they didn’t dare to wear such objects in public; the corresponding figures for France and Belgium were 40 and 36 percent, respectively. In the years since, those numbers have only risen.

Hiding one’s Jewish identity, alas, is always only one step in a grievous process of retreat. The first step is explicitly distancing oneself from Israel. The second step is removing the kippa and Star of David. And the third step is flight.

“Facing record levels of anti-Semitism,” reported National Geographic in 2019, “many French Jews are joining an exodus to Israel. A third of all the French Jews who’ve emigrated to Israel since its establishment in 1948 have done so in the last 10 years.” The trend is present across Western and Northern Europe.

Where are these Jews fleeing to? Many choose Israel, needless to say. But others settle in America.

Yet with our new president lavishing praise on anti-Semites like Reps. Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib (and sending mixed messages on the vile Linda Sarsour), and with his errand boy Aaron Keyak urging his fellow Jews to ditch their yarmulkes, what kind of refuge can America be?

You don’t have to be Jewish to be distressed by the thought that America, under Biden, may be the next Western country Jews flee.

 

Really?  Isn't this akin to instructing Muslim women to remove their Burkha or Hindus to not wear a head-wrap?  

[swordfish]

https://www.thedailybeast.com/nbcs-lester-holt-grills-kamala-harris-on-migrant-crisis-you-havent-been-to-the-border

 

NBC anchor Lester Holt pressed Vice President Kamala Harris on why she has yet to visit the U.S.-Mexico border despite being put in charge of the nation’s migrant crisis, prompting the veep to wave off the question with a laugh.

Amid her two-day visit to Guatemala and Mexico to address the root causes of the surge of migration at the United States’ southern border, Harris sat down with Holt for an interview set to air Tuesday night on NBC. And while expressing cautious optimism about the ongoing immigration issues, the vice president warned that there is no “quick fix” to the situation.

“We are not going to see an immediate return. But we’re going to see progress,” she declared. “The real work is going to take time to manifest itself. Will it be worth it? Yes. Will it take some time? Yes.”

At the same time, Holt noted that Harris has been criticized—largely by Republicans—over her refusal to visit the border ever since she’s been tasked by President Joe Biden to lead the administration’s response to the influx of migrants.

“The question that has come up and you heard it here and you’ll hear it again I’m sure, is, ‘Why not visit the border? Why not see what Americans are seeing in this crisis?’” Holt wondered aloud.

“Well, we are going to the border,” Harris responded. “We have to deal with what’s happening at the border, there’s no question about that. That’s not a debatable point. But we have to understand that there’s a reason people are arriving at our border and ask what is that reason and then identify the problem so we can fix it.”

Later on in the interview, the NBC News anchor circled back to that topic, challenging Harris on her personal absence from the border thus far, prompting the vice president to seemingly get a bit annoyed by the question.

“Do you have any plans to visit the border?” Holt asked.

“At some point, you know, we are going to the border,” Harris replied. “We’ve been to the border. So this whole thing about the border. We’ve been to the border. We’ve been to the border.”

Holt shot back: “You haven’t been to the border.”

“And I haven’t been to Europe!” Harris exclaimed with an awkward laugh. “And I mean—I don’t understand the point that you’re making. I’m not discounting the importance of the border.”

Holt, meanwhile, pointed out that it wasn’t just Republicans urging Harris to personally make an appearance at the border, noting that Rep. Henry Cuellar (D-TX) has repeatedly called on the Biden administration to visit the region.

“I care about what’s happening at the border,” Harris contended. “I’m in Guatemala because my focus is dealing with the root causes of migration. There may be some who think that that is not important, but it is my firm belief that if we care about what’s happening at the border, we better care about the root causes and address them. And so that’s what I’m doing.”

 

LH:  Why not visit the border?

KH:  At some point, we are going to the border,  We've been to the border, We've been to the border.....

LH: You haven't been to the border

KH:  And I haven't been to Europe....HahahaHA HA....I don't understand your question - smirk......

 

[Muda69]

Biden Won't Close the 'Tax Gap,' but He Will Snoop on Your Bank Records

https://reason.com/2021/06/09/biden-wont-close-the-tax-gap-but-he-will-snoop-on-your-bank-records/

Quote

When the Group of Seven (G-7) wealthy democracies agreed in principle June 5 to establish a global minimum corporate tax of 15 percent and an "excess profit" surcharge on large corporations with annual margins above 10 percent, you could almost hear the sound of the world's political elites rubbing their hands together at visions of pillowy new billions.

"Huge sums of money are at stake," gushed The New York Times. "A report this month from the E.U. Tax Observatory estimated that a 15 percent minimum tax would yield an additional 48 billion euros, or $58 billion, a year. The Biden administration projected in its budget last month that the new global minimum tax system could help bring in $500 billion in tax revenue over a decade to the United States."

Those numbers, however plausible (or not), are all in the future, contingent on tricky G-20 negotiations, pesky tax competition abroad, and congressional skepticism back home. Surely there's some other massive pot of free money hiding just out of view?

Yes, claims President Joe Biden's Treasury Department, in a bluntly titled May 20 document called The American Families Plan Tax Compliance Agenda. A staggering $700 billion in currently undetected taxpayer IOUs is grabbable over the next decade, and $1.6 trillion the decade after, if only we give the IRS an extra $80 billion worth of rope with which to close the "tax gap."

"Even partly closing that gulf," noted the Washington Post, "could go a long way toward paying for President Biden's spending proposals, which include trillions of dollars for infrastructure, child care, manufacturing and other domestic spending priorities."

If such promises look naggingly familiar, that's because we were hearing similar vows, and reading equally credulous headlines, the last time a Democratic administration was enjoying its media honeymoon. "Obama cracks down on overseas tax loopholes," asserted NBC News in May 2009. Echoed NPR, "Obama: Tax Haven Curbs To Generate $210 Billion."

Back then, there was a common, vaguely sourced claim that, in the words of then–Sen. Carl Levin (D–Mich.), "Offshore tax evasion produces an estimated $100 billion in unpaid taxes each year." President Barack Obama name-checked the influential Levin while announcing his 2009 plan to end "indefensible tax breaks and loopholes" and "crack down on the abuse of tax havens by individuals," promising a resulting bounty of "savings we can use to reduce the deficit, cut taxes…and provide meaningful relief for hard-working families."

So before we assess Biden's new enforcement proposals, it's worth asking: What happened to that $210 billion?

The vast majority of Obama's projected haul, the multinational corporations portion, was scuttled before it got started, after successful pressure on centrist Democrats by Silicon Valley companies and Chamber of Commerce types. What remained, getting passed into law in 2010, was the individual taxpayer component, known as the Foreign Account Tax Compliant Act, or—because Washington is filled with grown-ups—FATCA.

FATCA, which unilaterally foisted upon foreign financial institutions (FFIs) the customer-unfriendly duty to rat out their U.S.-citizen clients to the IRS or face 30 percent account-garnishes, while also imposing proctology-level annual reporting requirements on Americans (I am one of them) who have at least five figures parked overseas, was projected by supporters to bring in a more modest but still measurable $8.7 billion in total new tax collections by 2020, or $870 million per year.

So how'd that work out?

"The actual amount of tax collected by FATCA is statistically insignificant," concluded Texas A&M University School of Law's William Byrnes and Robert Munro in an extensive March 2017 paper. "FATCA has probably generated $300 million extra tax revenue a year that otherwise would go unreported…[though] this figure will continue to decrease."

An Inspector General report from July 2018 was titled, "Despite Spending Nearly $380 Million, the Internal Revenue Service Is Still Not Prepared to Enforce Compliance With the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act." An April 2019 Government Accountability Office (GAO) assessment found that, "Data quality and management issues have limited the effectiveness" of FATCA, and that "overlapping requirements increase the compliance burden on U.S. persons," leading to expatriates increasingly being denied financial services and seeking to revoke their citizenship.

Yet this is the template that Biden, despite his late-campaign promise to the estimated nine million Americans living outside the country to "work in partnership with you on all the issues that impact your lives and well-being as Americans resident abroad, including reviewing the barriers to accessing banking and financial services," is seeking not just to maintain but expand into the lives and ledgers of every U.S. citizen.

Biden's American Families Plan Tax Compliance Agenda seeks to build on the model of FATCA's intrusive third-party reporting requirements, constructing a "comprehensive financial account reporting regime" that would force a wider grouping of financial institutions and platforms (PayPal, settlement companies, "crypto asset exchanges," etc.) to "report gross inflows and outflows on all business and personal accounts…including bank, loan, and investment accounts."

But there's no need to worry if you've got nothing to hide.

"For already compliant taxpayers, the only effect of this regime is to provide easy access to summary information on financial accounts and to decrease the likelihood of costly 'no fault' examinations once the IRS is able to better target its enforcement efforts," Treasury reassures us. "For noncompliant taxpayers, this regime would encourage voluntary compliance as evaders realize that the risk of evasion being detected has risen noticeably."

For successive Democratic administrations (Donald Trump was rhetorically against FATCA, though neither he nor the GOP-led Congress did much of anything about it), increased financial surveillance is critical to ratcheting up "voluntary" tax compliance. Indeed, the bulk of revenue generated from FATCA has come not from the IRS discovering new taxable income, but from spooked expatriates voluntarily paying fines as part of various limited amnesties on filing post-dated IRS reports, many of which contain zero new tax liability in and of themselves. Turns out when you threaten law-abiding middle-class U.S. citizens with massive fines and even prison time while conscripting their banks into tax collectors, they will hastily throw smaller amounts of money at making Leviathan go away.

That is if they don't turn in their passports. As was repeatedly predicted in this space in 2011, 2012, and beyond, the burdens placed on non–fat cat expatriates are so life-rattlingly onerous that record numbers continue to de-Americanize themselves. This could change, if the United States joined literally every other country on earth besides Eritrea in taxing people based on residence and not citizenship, but it has long since become clear that Washington enjoys the ability not just to bully its own diaspora around, but to impose financial reporting rules on the rest of the world while brazenly refusing to reciprocate when it comes to the international tax havens of Florida, Delaware, and the U.S. Virgin Islands.

Now that Biden is turning his attention inward to the financial nethers of non-expatriate Americans, it's worth pondering the possible consequences on those of us not rich enough to afford the finest in creative, penalty-free tax compliance. For that, check out this June 2 letter to Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen from some canaries in the bank-surveillance coal mine, the group Democrats Abroad.

"We are deeply concerned that the need for additional investment in FATCA compliance frameworks will motivate even more [FFIs] to close the accounts of, or deny new accounts to, of customers deemed U.S. Persons," Democrats Abroad International Chair Candice Kerestan wrote. "[Since FATCA], the number of Americans locked out of banking services in the country where they live has grown from one in approximately fourteen to one in three." More:

Ordinary law-abiding Americans living abroad – the unintended objects of FATCA – have suffered an extraordinary amount of personal and financial disruption, anxiety, and distress, and yet, after ten years, the IRS has not been able to use FATCA reports to identify and apprehend genuine lawbreakers….There have been at least three Congressional hearings this year discussing the need to capture the tax that is lost due to "offshoring," and at no time have lawmakers noted the predicament of Americans abroad caught in the unintended adverse consequences of well-intentioned tax-enforcement measures.

At some point, the reality of Washington governance, and the coverage thereof, requires a reassessment of the idea that invasive new financial-snooping schemes sold with facially unattainable revenue promises are in fact "well-intentioned." The Biden administration, like the Obama administration under which he served, wants to scare Americans into "voluntary" compliance and penalty payments using a massive surveillance apparatus that turns all third-party financial players into narcs. To adapt a popular phrase about the previous administration, the obedience is the point.

Good little slaves, that is what the federal government wants.

 

[swordfish]

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9672779/Liberal-media-ignoring-Hunter-Bidens-n-word-texts.html

How the liberal media have completely IGNORED Hunter Biden's N-word scandal: Not ONE left-leaning outlet covered the president's son using racist language in texts first revealed by DailyMail.com

• The texts, which were exchanged in late 2018 and early 2019, were recovered from Hunter Biden's laptop and published by DailyMail.com on Monday 
• The messages showed Biden repeatedly used the n-word in conversations with his white Chicago lawyer George Messires 
• In the days since the texts surfaced, the majority of US media outlets have chosen not to cover Biden's use of the racial slur 
• Left-leaning networks, including CNN and ABC and MSNBC, haven't dedicated notable air time to the story 
• New York Times and Washington Post's frontpages have also not featured it
• The lack of coverage has prompted outrage among conservatives with many accusing the liberal media of double standards 

https://sandrarose.com/2021/06/barack-obama-responds-to-hunter-bidens-n-word-text-messages/

Barack Obama responds to Hunter Biden’s N-word text messages

Wednesday, June 9, 2021

Former president Barack Obama responded indirectly to leaked text messages that reveal Hunter Biden is comfortable using a racial slur among his friends.

In a new interview with Anderson Cooper, Obama praised his daughters, Sasha, left, and Malia, right, for their personal views on "cancel culture," saying his girls don't expect everyone to be perfect.

"[T]hey have a pretty good sense of 'Look, we don't expect everybody to be perfect. We don't expect everybody to be politically correct all the time, but we are going to call out institutions or individuals if they are being cruel.'"

Some social media users suggest Obama knew the texts would leak, and he was getting ahead of the scandal by rationalizing Hunter's behavior as imperfect.

"If @DonaldJTrumpJr had just ONE text like this, the media mob would be enraged!!! Where is the #cancelculture," wrote one Twitter user.

Another user wrote: "Imagine if this were Don Jr.

The overload of outrage would break Twitter."

Exclusive emails obtained by DailyMail.com reveal Hunter Biden used the N-word in multiple text messages to his white attorney, George Mesires.

The U.S. president's son dropped the N-word multiple times in text messages to his own lawyer -- who didn't object to the word.

In a December 2018 text exchange, Hunter, 51, wrote, "How much money do I owe you. Becaause [sic] ni**a you better not be charging me Hennessy rates."

In another text exchange with his attorney, Hunter wrote: "And I only love you because you're black."

His attorney replied: "It's so annoying when you interject with frivolity."

Hunter responded: "True dat ni**a."

So far, Mesires has not commented on the brewing scandal publicly.

As of Wednesday, only Fox News, Yahoo News, the Washington Examiner and the NY Post had covered Hunter's text message scandal.

So it appears blacks can't be racist, and neither can a Biden that uses the N-word regularly.....

 

[Bobref]

On 2/11/2021 at 7:45 AM, Muda69 said:

If the Affordable Care Act Can’t Cover a Little Girl Battling Cancer, What the Hell Good Is It?: https://www.cato.org/blog/affordable-care-act-cant-cover-little-girl-battling-cancer-what-hell-good-it

 

The ACA just survived its third challenge in SCOTUS, by a 7-2 decision this time. Although the case did not reach the merits of the legislation (the decision was based on Texas’ lack of “standing” to bring the case), I found it interesting that with all the Trumpers’ crowing about his Court appointments and how they would “undo” this or that legislation, both Justices Kavanaugh and Barrett voted with the majority. Equally wrong is the notion from the other side of the aisle that in order to protect the country from the evils of the Trump appointed justices, the Court needs to expand to 13 (which is a done deal before the end of Biden’s term, according to @DanteEstonia). Once again I say, trying to predict how a Justice is going to vote on a particular case is a dicey business.

[DanteEstonia]

3 hours ago, Bobref said:

qually wrong is the notion from the other side of the aisle that in order to protect the country from the evils of the Trump appointed justices, the Court needs to expand to 13 (which is a done deal before the end of Biden’s term, according to @DanteEstonia).

We aren't 1/8th of the way through Biden's 1st term. There is plenty of time. 

TBH, I really don't think any President, or the Congress, should have as much leeway in picking federal judges. I am here by voicing support for a Missouri Plan for the Federal judiciary, but modeled after the one used in Alaska. 

[Bobref]

2 hours ago, DanteEstonia said:

We aren't 1/8th of the way through Biden's 1st term. There is plenty of time. 

There may be time, but the most recent case shows there is no need … if what you’re after is an objective and non-partisan interpretation of the law. Of course, if your goal is actually something else …

[DanteEstonia]

4 hours ago, Bobref said:

There may be time, but the most recent case shows there is no need

So you are then advocating changing Indiana's system of judicial selection to match the Federal system?

[Muda69]

Biden’s Plan Won’t Fix Our Infrastructure: https://www.cato.org/policy-report/may/june-2021/bidens-plan-wont-fix-our-infrastructure

Quote

President Biden has introduced a $2.3 trillion infrastructure spending plan. Biden, known as “Amtrak Joe” for his use and support of the federal passenger rail system, has long favored infrastructure spending, and the American Jobs Plan that he proposed in March has an expansive vision.

The president does not only want to fund Amtrak and build highways—he wants to remake the nation’s infrastructure on the basis of his beliefs about labor unions and the environment. His infrastructure plan includes large subsidies for transit, electric vehicles, broadband, manufacturing, housing, electric utilities, schools, water systems, care of the elderly, and much more.

The federal government already intervenes heavily in infrastructure through spending, regulations, and taxes, and all three levers distort investment. Biden would ratchet up the use of each lever and further reduce the role of markets in guiding infrastructure investment.

OWNERSHIP IS SMALL, BUT CONTROL IS LARGE

Federal politicians often champion infrastructure, but the federal government owns relatively little of it. Defined broadly as nonresidential fixed assets, the U.S. private sector in 2019 owned $26.2 trillion of infrastructure, such as power stations, freight railways, pipelines, factories, and cellphone networks. State and local governments owned $12.1 trillion of highways, schools, water systems, and other assets. The federal government owned only $1.8 trillion of nondefense infrastructure, including dams, postal facilities, Amtrak, and the air traffic control system.

Although the federal government owns less than 5 percent of U.S. infrastructure, it imposes extensive control over state, local, and private infrastructure through spending, regulations, and taxes. In 2019, the federal government spent $36 billion on its own nondefense infrastructure and $81 billion on state and local infrastructure. (It also spent $68 billion on nondefense research.) Biden wants to increase spending on government infrastructure and create new subsidies for private infrastructure, such as manufacturing, broadband, electricity, and electric vehicles.

Biden proposes to finance his infrastructure plan by raising corporate income taxes, but that would undermine private infrastructure by suppressing investment. Furthermore, Biden proposes to increase labor and environmental regulations, which would raise costs for state, local, and private infrastructure projects. The president’s first infrastructure move in office was to kill the Keystone XL oil pipeline by revoking its permit. Biden’s proposed infrastructure spending is inefficient, but the negative effects of his regulatory and tax proposals could be even larger.

HARMS OF FEDERAL SPENDING
Many policymakers assume that federal funding of state and local infrastructure is crucial and irreplaceable, but that is not the case. The states can fund their own infrastructure through taxes and user charges. Highways, for example, are funded by gas taxes, vehicle fees, and electronic tolling, which are forms of user charges. More than half of the states have raised these charges since 2015. The federal gas tax helps to fund state highways, but it should be converted to 50 state gas taxes, and the revenues should be routed directly to state treasuries rather than through Washington.

Airports, seaports, water systems, and other state and local facilities should be self funded by user charges when possible. Major U.S. airports are owned by the states and partly funded by federal subsidies, but many European airports have been privatized and are self‐funded through user charges, retail concessions, and other commercial revenues. Federal subsidies for state and local infrastructure are not needed. Indeed, they are harmful in at least eight ways.

First, when they receive “free” funding from Washington, states are induced to be spendthrift. Cost overruns are chronic on federally funded infrastructure projects, and Biden’s gusher of new subsidies would create more waste.

Second, the aid that the federal government allocates to the states is based on political factors, not marketplace demands. A great portion of the federal investment in Amtrak goes to low‐density parts of the country where passenger rail makes little sense, and the federal subsidies for airports are tilted toward smaller rural airports and away from big city airports, where the funding would produce more benefits. Biden would impose new political criteria in allocating investment, thus making spending less likely to generate growth. For example, he proposes that an arbitrary 40 percent of infrastructure spending should go to disadvantaged communities, and he promises to “create a low‐carbon manufacturing sector in every state” with new subsidies for rural areas.

Third, federal aid distorts efficient state and local choices. Federal transit subsidies have induced dozens of cities to install costly light rail systems, even though bus systems are more efficient and flexible. Federal subsidies for high‐speed rail during the Obama administration helped induce California to spend billions of dollars on a boondoggle rail line to nowhere in the middle of the state. During the presidential campaign, Biden promised “construction of an endto‐end high speed rail system that will connect the coasts.” His March infrastructure plan includes $80 billion in new subsidies for rail; in contrast, the usual federal rail subsidies are typically less than $3 billion a year.

Fourth, state dependence on federal aid causes delays in crucial infrastructure projects, such as seaports, because state officials wait years for federal funding to come through. Then, after aid is received, federal rules and bureaucracy force states to stretch out project completion times.

Fifth, federal aid for infrastructure discourages the private provision of services. State‐owned facilities receive subsidies and do not pay taxes, which makes it hard for private facilities to compete. Such displacement of private investment occurs with airports, seaports, transit, bridges, and other facilities. Biden proposes to add new subsidies for private industries, such as broadband, electric vehicles, and the electricity grid, which may partly displace private funding of this infrastructure.

Sixth, federal aid is likely to displace user‐charge funding of state, local, and private infrastructure. User charges are efficient from both economic and environmental perspectives, because they impose the cost of services on consumers and limit demand. Biden’s proposed spending is to be financed by higher income taxes, not user charges. He proposes, for example, to subsidize 500,000 charging facilities for electric vehicles, but it would be better if drivers paid for the facilities. If the popularity of electric vehicles increases, gas‐tax funding of highways could be replaced by charges based on miles traveled and collected in a manner respecting motorist privacy.

Seventh, current federal aid funds some activities that harm the environment and undermine climate‐change resilience, such as aid for flood insurance, flood control structures, farming, ethanol, and water infrastructure in the western states. Biden wants provisions in his new spending plan to help the environment, but a better step would be to repeal existing anti‐green subsidies.

Eighth, federal aid undermines accountability. When responsibility for infrastructure is divided, politicians point fingers of blame at other governments when failures occur, which is what happened after levee failures in New Orleans in 2005, the I-35W bridge collapse in Minnesota in 2007, and the drinking water crisis in Flint, Michigan, in 2014. Biden’s plan would further complicate the lines of responsibility and undermine sound infrastructure management.

REGULATORY STRINGS ATTACHED

Federal spending on infrastructure comes tied to labor and environmental rules that raise costs and slow projects. Federal DavisBacon labor rules generally require that workers on federally funded projects be paid union‐level wages, which raises wage costs an average of about 20 percent. Federal environmental rules delay highway projects. The authors of a report prepared for the Obama administration found that the average review time for highway projects increased from 2.2 years in the 1970s to 6.6 years by the 2010s. Biden’s plans would likely raise costs and slow projects further.

Biden is obsessed with labor unions. His campaign statement on infrastructure mentions unions 32 times, and his March infrastructure plan mentions unions 24 times. Spending on infrastructure for highways, transit, energy, manufacturing, railroads, airports, broadband, water systems, and everything else will be tied to “good union jobs.” Biden wants union labor to build all his proposed projects, even though union labor accounts for just 13 percent of America’s construction workers.

The president wants all federally funded infrastructure projects to have project labor agreements, which require contractors to use collective bargaining, hire workers through unions, pay union wages and benefits, and use union work rules. Project labor agreements tend to raise costs on public projects and reduce competition by excluding contractors.

Biden also wants to impose labor unions broadly on the private sector. His infrastructure plan urges Congress to pass the Protecting the Right to Organize Act, which has already cleared the House. The act would essentially eliminate Right‐to‐Work laws across the nation and give labor unions more power. In turn, that would likely raise costs for many businesses, including those that own and invest in infrastructure.

Biden’s green regulations might have an even greater effect. He proposes that the country should move toward “net‐zero emissions,” and he promises that “every dollar spent toward rebuilding our roads, bridges, buildings, the electric grid, and our water infrastructure will be used to prevent, reduce, and withstand a changing climate.” In one of his first executive orders, Biden said he will ensure that “every federal infrastructure investment reduces climate pollution.” These goals suggest heavy regulations to squeeze out fossil fuel–powered generation and gas‐powered vehicles as well as highway aid that comes loaded with new federal restrictions.

The president’s infrastructure plan promises to improve the nation’s productivity and long‐term growth. But the outcome would likely be the opposite because the labor and environmental regulations would raise infrastructure costs, and the funds would be spent on low‐value political projects—such as light rail and high‐speed rail— rather than projects that consumers are demanding in the marketplace.

TAXES AND OTHER CONTRADICTIONS
The president’s rhetoric on infrastructure, manufacturing, and innovation masks large contradictions. His infrastructure plan worries that corporations are “shifting jobs and profits overseas,” and it promises that he will “position the United States to outcompete China.” In comments on March 4, Biden argued, “it makes us a helluva lot more competitive around the world if we have the best infrastructure.”

However, Biden plans to fund his plan by raising corporate taxes by $2 trillion over 15 years, which would be about a 38 percent increase in corporate taxes, according to Congressional Budget Office projections. That would create a strong incentive for businesses to move jobs and profits overseas and give countries such as China a leg up in attracting manufacturing and other mobile industries. Biden’s plan would spend $52 billion on manufacturing, including “the creation of a new financing program to support debt and equity investments for manufacturing.” But his tax hike would confiscate the profits of manufacturers and reduce their ability to fund their own investments. The Tax Foundation estimated that Biden’s overall proposed tax plan would reduce capital investment, including in manufacturing and infrastructure, by more than $1 trillion. Biden’s labor regulations, green regulations, and trade protection policies will further discourage domestic investment by raising business costs.

Biden proposes to spend $180 billion on research and innovation, including biotechnology, computing, and semiconductors. He calls, for example, for “$20 billion in regional innovation hubs and a Community Revitalization Fund. At least ten regional innovation hubs will leverage private investment to fuel technology development.” Yet during the campaign, he proposed doubling the top federal capital gains tax rate from 20 percent to 40 percent, which would reduce financing for technology development. Capital gains are the reward for risky technology investments that often take years to pay off. When the tax rate increases, investors move their funds to safer investments such as tax‐free municipal bonds.

The president’s infrastructure plan says “many entrepreneurs struggled to compete in a system that is so often tilted in favor of large corporations and wealthy individuals. President Biden is calling on Congress to invest $31 billion in programs that give small businesses access to credit, venture capital, and R&D dollars. The proposal includes funding for community‐based small business incubators and innovation hubs.” But where do America’s entrepreneurs usually get capital? Partly from wealthy individuals, who as angel investors recycle their business profits into scores of new business startups. Innovation hubs such as Silicon Valley are wealth recycling machines, and Biden’s capital gains tax increase would throw a giant wrench into the gears.

Another contradiction is Biden’s stance on corporate subsidies. During the campaign he said, “we are going to have to have a major, major, major bailout package that we do not reward corporations, we reward individuals.” And his campaign website charged that “[President Donald] Trump’s main manufacturing and innovation strategy is trickle‐down economics that works for corporate executives and Wall Street investors.” Yet Biden’s infrastructure plan contains $300 billion for manufacturing, $100 billion for broadband, $100 billion for electric utilities, $174 billion for electric vehicles, and much more. That will mean huge subsidies for big corporations.

WILL IT PASS?
Political analysts often say that infrastructure has bipartisan support in Congress. But Biden is pushing a package that includes large tax increases, costly labor and environmental regulations, and relatively little in highway funding. As such, it will turn off Republicans as well as the business lobby groups that usually support infrastructure spending.

Democrats will likely try to use the reconciliation process to pass an infrastructure package with 51 votes in the Senate, as they did for the March stimulus bill. However, both chambers are closely divided in party strength, and enough centrist Democrats might worry about the negative effects of raising taxes during a recovery to torpedo a deal.

Any package coming out of this administration and Congress will likely increase federal control, subsidies, regulations, and probably taxes. The real way to ensure that infrastructure policies boost growth is the opposite: decentralization, privatization, and market‐based funding with user charges.

 

[Muda69]

Florida Judge Blocks Biden’s Debt Relief Program for Non-White Farmers

https://www.theepochtimes.com/another-judge-blocks-bidens-debt-relief-program-for-non-white-farmers_3873144.html?utm_source=partner&utm_campaign=ZeroHedge

Quote

A federal judge in Florida temporarily halted the White House’s $4 billion debt relief program that targeted farmers on the basis of race, saying Wednesday that it was discriminatory.

U.S. District Judge Marcia Morales Howard ruled in favor of Florida-based farmer Scott Wynn, who is white, and who filed a lawsuit to block the program in May. The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) implemented the program as part of President Joe Biden’s $1.9 trillion COVID-19 relief package that sought to distribute funding to “socially disadvantaged farmers.”

The rule’s “rigid, categorical, race-based qualification for relief is the antithesis of flexibility,” Howard wrote (pdf) Wednesday. “The debt relief provision applies strictly on racial grounds irrespective of any other factor.”

The USDA program could continue to provide funds in the meantime as the court attempts to determine what provisions should be considered unconstitutional, the judge said. Howard also noted that some minority farmers have faced hurdles in the past but said that the current policy is discriminatory against white farmers.

“It is undeniable—and notably uncontested by the parties—that U.S.D.A. had a dark history of past discrimination against minority farmers,” the judge ruled. “It appears that in enacting Section 1005, Congress relies, albeit without any ill intention, on present discrimination to remedy past discrimination,” she wrote. Section 1005 refers to the provision that Wynn’s lawsuit had argued was discriminatory.

She added: “On the record before the Court, it appears that in adopting Section 1005’s strict race-based debt relief remedy Congress moved with great speed to address the history of discrimination, but did not move with great care.

Another judge in Wisconsin had issued a similar ruling earlier this month on the controversial provision and issued a temporary restraining order after a group of white farmers filed a lawsuit against the USDA insisting they be included in the program.

U.S. District Judge William Griesbach, in issuing a temporary restraining order, wrote that “plaintiffs are excluded from the program based on their race and are thus experiencing discrimination at the hands of their government,” noting the farmers who filed the lawsuit “have established a strong likelihood that Section 1005 of the ARPA is unconstitutional.”

Signed into law on March 11, ARPA (the American Rescue Plan Act) directs the federal government to hand out $1.9 trillion in federal funds. Section 1005 stipulates that the USDA “provide a payment in an amount up to 120 percent of the outstanding indebtedness of each socially disadvantaged farmer or rancher as of January 1, 2021,” according to the text of the law.

Farmers and ranchers who are black, Native American, Hispanic, Asian, Hawaiian, or Pacific Islanders are eligible for a loan regardless of whether they’ve suffered any discrimination in obtaining loans or elsewhere. The law also doesn’t take into account their present economic situation.