Trump's "Christmas Gift" To the Rich

President Trump wants to have a gift to the rich all packaged up nicely with a bow and delivered before Christmas.  Trump's long awaited tax slashing plan was finally rolled out yesterday November 2nd.  There really isn't much in it that wasn't widely circulated before but let's review anyhow.  The number of tax bracket is being cut from seven to four.  The richest 39.6 bracket is still intact but nobody will have to pay it.  This is because it's now easier for the rich to "incorporate" themselves and pay only twenty percent, which is the going rate for corporations now.  Trump says with all that extra money businesses get they'll raise wages to "share the wealth".  When have the rich "shared the wealth" without a gun to their heads.  And the other claim is that it will repatriate all of that foreign money overseas.  This is a pipe dream.  They have a good scheme going now and there is no reason for them to change it.  They claim they are eliminating deductions, but only for the poor and middle class- - not the rich.  You can't deduct state and local taxes, and there is a cap on property tax deductions.  You can't deduce medical expenses or interest on student loans.  (I thought someone was going to do something about that crisis)  Meanwhile the rich can deduct private jets and limozines and three martini lunches.  There will be no "postcard" returns for the rich.  They will still list a long series of deductions for them.  Yes the standard deduction is increased but I would remind you that it's the rich who have all those large families for deductions.  And also they are eliminating the estate tax.  This is a tax on estates over 5.5 million and allegedly affects only the top one fifth of one percent, but it still represents a lot of government income.  (I dispute that 0.2% statistic but that's what they say)  Also there is another change in the law that affects church.  As you know there was something called the Johnson doctrine by which Church were forbidden from being overtly political.  If they were they'd lose their religion exemption status.  Now I'm hearing a different story.  Back in the fifties there was something called the Johnson amendment.  This is the law that made it illegal for churches to be political and still keep their vast deductions.  Thom Hartman says that Thomas Jefferson and James Madison were both gung ho on keeping up that wall of separation between church or state.  President Madison vetoed a provision that would give government money to private churches.  And Jefferson wanted "Nature's God" in the Declaration of Independence rather than "The Christian God".  Apparently Washington refused to say whether he was a Believer or not.  As to the matter of business expenses- - if it's a real expense like getting a new drill press or some equipment that's worn out and needs to be replaced, then of course you want to deduct the expense.  But why do you have to get someone drunk at lunch in order to conclude a business deal?  I think some Court ought to come up with the "doctrine of necessity".  (You heard the term first here)  If the expense is absolutely necessary for the conduct of a business then it should be allowed.  But the Republicans won't even pass this bill till Thanksgiving and given their schedule there are only nine working days between yesterday and Thanksgiving.  Then it goes to the senate, and if the senate makes any changes at all it will greatly delay this bill.  Then there's the old question is why you don't have to have a sixty percent vote to pass the bill in the Senate like in the Obama days, like all of those bills that died because a Democratic Senate didn't have sixty percent to pass them back in the Obama Presidency.  To me this is a gigantic double standard.  But even then there are a lot of Republicans from blue states that may balk at this tax bill, and you know every single democrat is voting against it.   I'd give the bill less than even odds of passage before Christmas.

Thomas Jefferson regarded tyranny of the clergy as one of the three types of tyranny that "He had sworn on the altar of the Eternal God" to oppose.  Swearing to God to oppose religious tyranny may seem like an oxy-moronism but clearly Trump wouldn't mind a little tyranny of the "right kind of Christian".  This is the brand of Christian that is adulterated (watered down) enough for Trump to find acceptable.  But the other two types of tyranny Jefferson was against are the "War Lords", who would keep us in a state of perpetual war all the time, and also the tyranny of the big banks and the international corporations.  James Madison regarded it as impossible that a nation could be at War all the time and not have Democracy suffer.  It seems clear to me that Donald Trump is in favor of establishing all three forms of the thus described Tyranny.

There is a report from FOX news and I just saw the video - - that Donna Brazil complains that the deck was stacked in favor of Hillary Clinton as far back as August of 2015 one year before she was nominated.   Hillary forces had total control of the party.  There is also a rumor that Debby Wasserman Schultz fed the questions to debates in advance to Hillary and FOX thinks the government should look into that.  I heard from another source that they rigged the opinion polls to show Hillary with higher numbers than she really had and Donald Trump was able to take advantage of this.  If Bernie Sanders had been chosen he would have won the election.  I firmly believe this and right there I say is the “bottom line”.  And I think the democratic party organization has a duty to their members to pick the Best candidate who stands the best chance of winning in November.  This was clearly Bernie Sanders.  Most of what Stephanie Miller was saying about this this morning was bullshit.  Hillary put her own political desires ahead of the interests of her party.  And that is bad leadership.

We substituted "My Love Is Alive" by Gary Wright, which is way better than the song we got rid of.  Also I didn't want two similar sounding disco songs in a row on the album.  Actually we're getting rid of the disco entirely.  We're putting in "Spanish Boots" by Jeff Beck.  We have what you call essential disco songs such as “Play that Funky Music, White Boy” and “Do the Hustle”, “Do a Little Dance - - “,  “Fire”, "the SWAT Theme", and “Love Roller Coaster”.  We don’t have “Disco Duck” but we do have “Disco Toilet” on that beer mug album from August of 2014 in “Marcus in Exile”.   I don’t even remember how “Disco Duck” goes, but there is one reference to the song in Rocca Rolla in an exhaustive search.  This is Thursday November 2, 2017 and this was the day the Republicans had schedules for their roll out of the great tax cut bill that according to people on Shawn Hannity should have been rolled out 45 days ago.  The odds are growing ever slimmer that the thing will get passed and signed by the end of the year. 

The Houston Astros have won the World Series.  I didn’t stay for the trophy award because it seemed like it was either commercials or they were showing something out.  The Astros got off to a fast five to one jump in the second inning and then their number of runs froze.  For a long time the score was five to nothing Houston.  Finally the Dodgers scored a run but they should have gotten a lot more but the Dodgers were shot through with bad luck.  The Dodgers left ten men on base.  They said it was the only game seven ever to be played in Dodger Stadium, which is hard to believe.  They said their only world series in Brooklyn was in 1955 but someone else said they had four World Series victories while in Brooklyn.  I had “Riverdale” on for a while and then it was “Law and Order” at nine to ten.  I was more wide awake.