Sanders: Trump Tax Plan 'Would Slash Taxes for Himself and His Billionaire Friends'

Sen. Bernie Sanders. (photo: Getty)

By Max Greenwood, The Hill

27 April 17

 

en. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) on Wednesday railed against President Trump's proposed tax plan, saying it would make the "rigged economy" even worse.

"At a time when we have a rigged economy designed to benefit the wealthiest Americans and largest corporations, President Trump’s new tax plan would only make that system worse," Sanders said in a statement.

"He would slash taxes for himself and his billionaire friends and significantly increase the deficit, while doing little to help rebuild the collapsing middle class," he added.

The White House unveiled a list of sweeping reforms to the tax code on Wednesday aimed at simplifying the system and doing away with most deductions. The plan would lower the number of tax brackets from its current seven to three and would wipe out all deductions for individuals, except for the mortgage interest and charitable donation deductions.

But the plan also calls for an end to the estate tax and alternative minimum tax and would dramatically slash the corporate tax rate from 35 percent to 15 percent.

"Rather than making large profitable corporations — many of which pay nothing in federal income tax — finally contribute their fair share, Trump wants to give them a huge tax break," Sanders said.

Obama's Barrage of Complete Sentences Seen as Brutal Attack on Trump

Barack Obama. (photo: Scott Olson/Getty Images)

By Andy Borowitz, The New Yorker

25 April 17

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n an appearance at the University of Chicago on Monday, former President Barack Obama unloaded a relentless barrage of complete sentences in what was widely seen as a brutal attack on his successor, Donald Trump.

Appearing at his first public event since leaving office, Obama fired off a punishing fusillade of grammatically correct sentences, the likes of which the American people have not heard from the White House since he departed.

“He totally restricted his speech to complete sentences,” Tracy Klugian, a student at the event, said. “It was the most vicious takedown of Trump I’d ever seen.”

“About five or six sentences in, I noticed that all of his sentences had both nouns and verbs in them,” Carol Foyler, another student, said. “I couldn’t believe he was going after Trump like that.”

Obama’s blistering deployment of complete sentences clearly got under the skin of their intended target, who, moments after the event, responded with an angry tweet: “Obama bad (or sick) guy. Failing. Sad!”

Former FOX NEWS Anchor Reveals That Roger Ailes Demanded Submission Sexually AND Politically

 

Ultra rightist slant at Fox News is readily visible on the air everyday

By News Corpse  

Sunday Apr 23, 2017 · 7:29 PM PDT

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The culture of sexual harassment at Fox News has been well documented in the past few months. The most notorious consequences have been the staggering dismissals of Fox's CEO Roger Ailes and its ratings leader Bill O'Reilly. However, the whole story has still not been told. More women are said to be coming forward with more allegations aimed at more of Fox News' abusive personnel. 

Sunday morning on CNN's Reliable Sources another victim of Fox's depraved work environment told her story. Alisyn Camerota, currently an anchor on CNN, worked for sixteen years at Fox News. She was interviewed about her experience by Brian Stelter. Her story was disturbing, but not unlike the stories of many other women who suffered harassment at Fox.

Stelter began the segment by noting that "The culture of harassment at Fox News came from the top down. It came from Roger Ailes." Then he pointedly asked Camerota if Ailes had ever sexually harassed her. She replied "Yes. Roger Ailes did sexually harass me." She continued:

"He was often grossly inappropriate with things that he would say. And I think that many of us experienced that. He would talk about body parts. He would say 'give me spin.' He'd want to be greeted with a hug."

Then Camerota unveiled a more salacious incident in detail. She said that Ailes told her that in order to advance her career she would have to "work with him." They would have to get to know each other better, and that would have to be done away from the office in a hotel. Then he asked suggestively, "Do you know what I'm saying?" Of course she did.

Camerota then goes on to describe what happened following her refusal to comply with Ailes' sexual demands. And while not as personally repulsive, his behavior illustrates something else that makes Fox News a wholly disreputable source of journalism. Camerota confirms that the network's "fair and balanced" pretense is a sham. "In Roger's world view," she says, "there was no other side. Liberals were always wrong, conservatives were generally right, and that’s what he felt that we should be reflecting on the air." Ailes aimed his insistence on political bias directly at Camerota:

"Roger Ailes ruled with an iron fist. He wanted us all to fall in line and have his world view and say the things that he wanted us to say on Fox News. And he targeted me because he sort of figured out early on that I didn’t share his world view. He said, 'You’re not saying the conservative things that I want you to say. You could be a real model and you could be a real star if only you could sound conservative.'"

The evidence of the ultra rightist slant at Fox News is readily visible on the air everyday. But there aren't very many personal accounts of the pressure people were under to conform to its conservative orthodoxy. Camerota's first-hand account is a valuable contribution to the case against Fox News. And the fact that her experience transverses from the lurid to the professional makes it that much more compelling.

AP interview provides your handy reminder that Donald Trump is nucking futs

By Mark Sumner  

Monday Apr 24, 2017 · 5:56 AM PDT

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Since Donald Trump took office—before Donald Trump took office—there was a sudden burst of interest in the 25th Amendment, that little bit of text that describes how the president may be removed from office if unfit to serve. But of course, the application of that rule is just a fantasy. There’s no way that Donald Trump’s cabinet or the Republican Congress would actually pull the switch.

It’s just that with every interview which passes, Donald Trump shows why they really, really should.

There’s the unreasoning arrogance of a grade-school bully,

AP: Can you tell me a little bit about how that came about?
TRUMP: No, just — you know, I asked the government to let her out. … You know Obama worked on it for three years, got zippo, zero.

There’s the Greek chorus of imaginary praise that speaks to him from everywhere on everything.

TRUMP: Many people, human rights people, are talking about it. ...
TRUMP: People have given me credit for having great chemistry with all of the leaders, including el-Sissi.  …
TRUMP: People said they've never seen anything like what's going on right now. 

And the persecution he feels because that praise doesn’t end up on the front page of every paper.

TRUMP: I've developed great relationships with all of these leaders. Nobody's written that. ...
TRUMP: And the media, some of them get it, in all fairness. But you know some of them either don't get it, in which case they're very stupid people, or they just don't want to say it.

And there’s the just plain delusional.

TRUMP: A little before I took office there was a terrible article about the F-35 fighter jet. It was hundreds of billions of dollars over budget. It was seven years behind schedule. It was a disaster. So I called in Lockheed and I said, "I'm sorry, we're going to have to bid this out to another company, namely Boeing," or whoever else. But Boeing. And I called in Boeing and I started getting competing offers back and forth. ...
TRUMP: I saved $725 million on the 90 planes. Just 90. Now there are 3,000 planes that are going to be ordered. On 90 planes I saved $725 million. It's actually a little bit more than that, but it's $725 million. Gen. Mattis, who had to sign the deal when it came to his office, said, "I've never seen anything like this in my life." We went from a company that wanted more money for the planes to a company that cut. And the reason they cut — same planes, same everything — was because of me. I mean, because that's what I do.
TRUMP: Now if you multiply that times 3,000 planes, you know this is on 90 planes. In fact, when the Prime Minister (Shinzo) Abe of Japan came in because they bought a certain number of those ... The first thing he said to me, because it was right at the time I did it, he said, "Could I thank you?" I said, "What?" He said, "You saved us $100 million." Because they got a $100 million savings on the 10 or 12 planes that they (bought). Nobody wrote that story. Now you know that's a saving of billions and billions of dollars, many billions of dollars over the course of — it's between 2,500 and 3,000 planes will be the final order. But this was only 90 of those 2,500 planes.

None of which — none — makes sense. Here’s what really happened. Trump saw an article about the F-35. He made a noise about Boeing building a “super F-18” instead, a plane which doesn’t exist. Trump was then told that the price of the F-35 was dropping, because those initial prices included the high cost of developing the plane and setting up production. The end. That’s the whole story. The planes are going to cost exactly what they were going to cost. Trump saved not a penny.

But he now relates doing nothing as a great, unprecedented triumph—his example for one of the most important things to happen in his presidency.

This story is actually a great example of something. It’s a great example of how the media aids Trump’s delusions and fails to call him on a giant lie that happened in public, with full knowledge of everyone. But with rare exceptions, the press decided that nodding and reporting what Trump said was sufficient coverage.

Trump isn’t just convinced that he’s saved insane amounts of money, but he’s also fixed the world, just by being there.

TRUMP: You know because of a couple of them said, "He didn't call them a currency manipulator." Well, for two reasons. Number One, he's not, since my time. You know, very specific formula. You would think it's like generalities, it's not. They have — they've actually — their currency's gone up. So it's a very, very specific formula. And I said, "How badly have they been," ... they said, "Since you got to office they have not manipulated their currency." That's Number One, but much more important, they are working with us on North Korea. Now maybe that'll work out or maybe it won't. Can you imagine? ...

Stupid previous presidents didn’t fix this because … they weren’t Donald Trump. And the media might say that Donald Trump didn’t do anything, but he really did. He was Donald Trump. And that’s what all this really needed. It needed Donald Trump to just sit down and Donald Trump the hell out of it.
And, perhaps best of all …

AP: So in terms of the 100-day plan that you did put out during the campaign, do you feel, though, that people should hold you accountable to this in terms of judging success?
TRUMP: No, because much of the foundation's been laid. Things came up. I'll give you an example. I didn't put Supreme Court judge on the 100 (day) plan, and I got a Supreme Court judge.
AP: I think it's on there.
TRUMP: I don't know. …

Go read the whole thing. If you dare.

GOP Rape Advisory Chart

 

By Brainwrap

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UPDATE 8/30/15: THE GOP RAPE ADVISORY CHART NOW HAS IT'S OWN WEBSITE AT http://goprapeadvisorychart.com AND IS UP TO 10 VOLUMES.

A week or so ago, connecticutie posted her version of the GOP Rape Advisory Chart to help sort out all of the confusion about the wide variety of rape "flavors" that today's Republican Party seems so hell-bent on bringing to light.

I thought she did a fantastic job, but, given the latest entries into the "rainbow of rape flavors" yesterday and today by Richard Mourdock and John Cornyn, I decided to create a revised version that plays it straight--I'm just including the actual quotes themselves. Feel free to repost on FB, TW or wherever you wish.

So, without further ado, I present the updated Republican Party Rape Advisory Chart:

Wow. I'm beyond flattered (if "flattered" is the appropriate term...seems a bit inappropriate in this case).

Anyway, just to reiterate, since I've had at least one person contact me directly about it, please feel free to repost the graphic anywhere you wish, and don't worry about "credit" or "attribution"...the color-code chart was connecticuties, as noted above, and I certainly don't want "credit" for the disgusting statements by the GOP jackasses in the chart.

Also, if you want to attach a link to the chart, I'd recommend either a) ANY of the Democrats running against the scumbags who made the quotes (there's too many to list again) or, alternately, RAINN, which seems appropriate.

I should probably also note that the chart above is far from all-inclusive. Several additional quotes are listed in the comments, and there's many (far, far too many) more that haven't been yet.

Unfortunately, I don't think Photoshop could handle that large of an image file if I tried to include them all, and I'd quickly run out of background colors to use.

White House sends press release featuring White House praise for White House

I had to come up with a good quote or Trump wouldn't let me go to Mar-a-Lago anymore.

By Hunter  

Wednesday Apr 19, 2017 · 5:30 PM PDT

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Do you remember the last Republican National Convention, where private citizen after private citizen came up to praise Donald J. Trump and, uncannily, pretty much every one of them turned out to either be on Donald J. Trump's current payroll or was engaged in some financial venture with him? Team Trump has carried that grand tradition into the White House, with a press release praising their latest executive order filled out with quotes from da Team Trump people that wrote it.

“I am proud to stand with the President as he leads on prioritizing American workers and American products first. These ‘Buy American, Hire American’ initiatives will stimulate economic and wage growth, while ensuring that our government is using high quality products that are Made in the U.S.A.” – Steven Mnuchin, Secretary of the Treasury [...] “This historic act of leadership from President Trump makes unequivocally clear that this Administration will serve and protect the American worker – fighting for fair trade and immigration policies that promote rising wages and employment for our hardworking citizens.” – Stephen Miller, Senior Advisor to the President for Policy

The press release is in fact titled Senior Administration Officials Praise President Donald J. Trump’s Buy American, Hire American Executive Order, perhaps because Executive Order Praised By White House Staffers Who Would Be Fired If They Didn't was a bit too on-the-nose.

I realize that praise for Donald Trump has, throughout his entire life, been damn hard to come by. That's why Trump himself would pretend to be his own publicist and cold-call people to heap praise on himself; If he didn't, who would? But the White House releasing a press release consisting of nothing but people hired by Trump saying nice things about him seems a bit like making one of the core points in your doctoral thesis "and my mom agrees with me."

Not saying you can't do it. Just saying maybe you should try harder.

Top 5 Ways Bill O'Reilly Gave Us Trump and Cheapened America

Bill O'Reilly. (photo: Fox News)

By Juan Cole, Informed Comment

20 April 17

readersupportednews.com

 

ill O’Reilly is off the airwaves, but it doesn’t really matter. The despicable strategy of presslord Rupert Murdoch of orienting his Fox Cable “news” toward the nativist far right in the United States will continue. They’ll just find another O’Reilly. Worse, there is more or less an O’Reilly in the White House now, with the nuclear codes. Murdoch and O’Reilly in many ways gave us the Trump presidency, running the Republic into a brick wall.

1. Trump’s ridiculous and very expensive plan to build a wall between the United States and Mexico? That was an O’Reilly idea. I remember seeing O’Reilly trot it out in an interview with the late thriller writer Tom Clancy after 9/11:

O’REILLY: Now, I’ve been banging this drum for more than a year, and I did a “Talking Points” tonight on it, is that the borders are so chaotic and they’re not secured, and we’re very vulnerable from both Canada and Mexico for people who want to bring stuff in and come in here, and the INS can’t control it. Am I wrong there?
CLANCY: No, it’s one of the problems of, you know, one of the consequences of living in a free and open society. You know, the Statue of Liberty invites people in. She’s not holding a machine gun to keep people away.

Clancy wasn’t exactly left wing. But he tried to warn O’Reilly that crackpot plans like the Wall were a long step toward the US becoming a new Soviet Union. The latter, he said, had failed. Now we have a president with squirrels running around in his cranium, who saw O’Reilly push this nonsense and wants to charge us billions in taxes to build it.

It all comes out of a wounded white nationalism, buffeted by globalization, where African-Americans and immigrants are allegedly stealing jobs (they aren’t).

2. O’Reilly beat the drum nightly for George W. Bush’s invasion and occupation of Iraq. He repeatedly alleged that Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein was behind al-Qaeda, with the implication that Iraq blew up New York and Washington, D.C. He repeatedly alleged that Saddam Hussein had “weapons of mass destruction” and that he was training al-Qaeda operatives in chemical weapons use at Salman Pak. There is no evidence that that was the case. Iraq had nothing to do with al-Qaeda and was clearly afraid of it. There were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.

O’Reilly had said that if there turned out to be no WMD in Iraq, he would become more skeptical of the Bush white house. But despite the collapse of the case against Iraq, O’Reilly went on cheerleading for Bush/ Cheney.

3. O’Reilly said on “The View” that “Muslims hit us” on 9/11. Joy Behar and Whoopi Goldberg walked off the set when O’Reilly doubled down on his hate speech and gross generalization. When Trump said last fall “Islam hates us,” he was just echoing O’Reilly. 

David Pakman: “Bill O’Reilly Gets Whoopi Goldberg & Joy Behar to Walk Off The View” 

4. O’Reilly has repeatedly said racist things, and his current troubles began when he said of senior Congresswoman Maxine Waters that he could not get past her “James Brown wig.” In a famous incident on his now-defunct radio show, O’Reilly had professed himself shocked, on eating at a restaurant owned by African-Americans, that the patrons seemed perfectly respectable. He had recently said that Trump won’t be able to help African-Americans because “ill-educated and have tattoos on their foreheads.”

Then there was all the other bigotry, as when he compared gay marriage to Goat Marriage. 

5. O’Reilly’s denial that any practical measures need to be taken to limit CO2 emissions, because they would disadvantage American corporations. Climate denialism is the original fake news, and O’Reilly & Fox were one major source that Trump scans for news like this.

He’s a mean, mean man. And a bad historian, which yours truly holds against him, hard. He managed to cheapen my America and then he made millions writing “fake history.”

The O’Reilly Factor is dead. But Fox will just go on polluting the airwaves.