I’ll have more posts about the Republican Cut Cut Cut Bill as analysis rolls in but here’s a quick take from Bernie Sanders, the most trusted politician in the United States.

Trump tax cuts a barely disguised reward for billionaire donors
by Ed Pilkington, The Guardian
Saturday 16 December 2017

Bernie Sanders has accused Donald Trump and Republican party leaders of capitulating to the demands of the Koch brothers and other wealthy rightwing donors in railroading $1.5tn tax cuts through Congress.

In an interview with the Guardian, the independent US senator from Vermont denounced the tax bill as payback for the billions of dollars that donors have invested in conservative politicians over decades. “What this is all about is nothing more than the Republican party very generously rewarding their wealthy campaign contributors,” he said.

The former presidential challenger said the reform of the tax code, which could clear both the House and the Senate and be signed into law by the the US president as early as next week, was based on the “rightwing extremist ideology of the Koch brothers. You can read it in what they were saying 40 years ago. What they want is an oligarchic form of society in which government plays virtually no role in public education, healthcare or addressing the needs of middle-class and working families.”

The end game, Sanders said, was that “you are on your own. You are 80 years old and you have cancer – good luck to you. Government is not there for you.”
…
(W)hile the bonus to corporations is permanently set in stone, benefits to working families would expire after a number of years. That would leave millions of middle-class families – 83 million, Sanders said – eventually paying more in taxes under the changes, while the most wealthy Americans would continue to cash in.

“This is nothing more than an effort to make the very rich richer,” Sanders told the Guardian. “It is based on the fraudulent theory of trickle-down economics that never worked, never will work.”

Sanders warned of a double blow to working people in which the vast increase in the deficit caused by the tax cuts would subsequently be used by Republicans to justify an assault on welfare benefits. Paul Ryan, the GOP Speaker of the House, has announced that he intends to turn to healthcare and anti-poverty programs next year to reduce spending, and conservatives continue to harbor ambitions of destroying Barack Obama’s signature legislation, the Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare.

Sanders said that “after running up a $1.4tn deficit over 10 years they are going to offset that deficit by making massive cuts to social security, Medicare and Medicaid. That is clearly the intention.”
…
Sanders’ claim that the tax cuts are a thinly disguised reward to billionaire extreme rightwing donors is supported by the statements of some Republican politicians themselves. Chris Collins, a New York congressman, told reporters that pressure from donors made the reform essential.

“My donors are basically saying, ‘Get it done or don’t ever call me again,’” he said.

Last month the leader of the powerful conservative Super Pac the Congressional Leadership Fund, made it clear to the Washington Post that lawmakers who stood in the way of the tax cuts in the House should not expect to receive any of the $100m the body expected to spend on candidates in next year’s midterm elections.

David and Charles Koch have leveraged their own vast wealth – they own Koch Industries, the second largest private company in the US, and are valued by Forbes at $49bn each – by creating a network of other similarly minded wealthy conservatives that runs parallel to the Republican party. In the 2016 election cycle it spent about $250m on candidates who followed their anti-government creed, and the plan for next year is to increase that investment to $400m.

The Koch network has thrown its muscle behind the tax cuts this year. One of its periodic retreats for super-rich donors in New York in October was devoted to the subject of tax reform and attended by the vice-president, Mike Pence.
…
“Anyone who has looked at the Koch brothers and folks like them who have contributed over the years probably billions of dollars in right-wing efforts should not be surprised at the policies coming from Paul Ryan and Donald Trump,” Sanders said.

The senator lamented the unprecedented speed with which the tax plans have been rushed through Congress, and the consequent lack of public debate. As a result, he said, many details of the legislation were still so sketchy they were impossible to understand.

One area that Sanders is especially wary of in the unfolding bill are provisions that would benefit hedge fund managers based on tax havens such as the Virgin Islands. “We believe the provision will apply to probably fewer than 10, maybe even as few as three, hedge fund managers that will result in some $600m in tax breaks over 10 years.”

He added that he had raised the issue on the floor of the US Senate, asking for an explanation from the Republican group, “but we have not been given one”.

Sanders said the tax cuts were particularly punishing for those working Americans who had voted for Trump last November partly on the expectation that his promised tax cuts would ease their financial burdens.

“The tax package is just another Trump lie. Many millions of middle-class Americans will pay more in taxes and if Republicans get their way – and we are going to fight them tooth and nail on this – there will be cuts to social programs that many of Trump’s supporters have depended on for years.”

I wish the News Media, including Ed Pilkington of The Guardian, would stop buying into the Republican “Tax Reform” label. It is nothing of the sort. It is flat out stealing from 80% of United States Citizens for the benefit of the .01% Plutocrats.

Welcome to The Breakfast Club! We’re a disorganized group of rebel lefties who hang out and chat if and when we’re not too hungover we’ve been bailed out we’re not too exhausted from last night’s (CENSORED) the caffeine kicks in. Join us every weekday morning at 9am (ET) and weekend morning at 10:00am (ET) (or whenever we get around to it) to talk about current news and our boring lives and to make fun of LaEscapee! If we are ever running late, it’s PhilJD’s fault.

The Boston Tea Party takes place; World War Two’s Battle of the Bulge begins; Ludwig van Beethoven is born.

It’s discouraging to think how many people are shocked by honesty and how few by deceit. Noel Coward

Continue reading

This is a view from the summit of Cadillac Mountain in Acadia National Park, Maine. I took it at sunset while I was visiting a few months ago. The town below is Bar Harbor. The large white floaty thing is a cruise ship. As you can see it’s just about as big as the town.

Now don’t get me wrong about Bar Harbor. There are some places in Maine that are quite upscale and expensive- Camden, Kennebunkport, Freeport- Bar Harbor is one of those. Were I to liken it to places in Connecticut it would be in the Greenwich/Westport class.

So, not poor, though there are places that are. Just the type of area you’d think the Republican Cut Cut Cut Bill should be getting some traction.

Or not.

Letter to Sen. Collins
By Bo Greene, Mount Desert Islander
December 8, 2017

Nine days ago, I sat so close to you that our chairs touched. For over an hour, I watched you listen, I watched you take notes and make eye contact with the designated storytellers in our Indivisible MDI group. You were a pro. I was proud to be there.

You said you agreed with almost every concern we shared with you. You smiled, you told us how impressive our efforts were, how much you appreciated our taking the time to meet with you the day before Thanksgiving. I listened carefully to you.

You said there were amendments that could mitigate some of the admittedly horrible stuff in the tax bill. You said the process wasn’t as bad as the one for health care, but it was far from regular order.

You said you shared our concerns — impacts on small business, education, health care. You said you care deeply about Mainers, who are certainly not, for the most part, part of “the 1 percent.” In hindsight, we should have pressured you about the morality of it all, but you seemed so reasonable and caring that we assumed your morals were the same as our morals. We were wrong. You lied. You can’t possibly care as you said you did and have voted as you did.

There are countless reasons the tax bill should have appalled you, yet you chose to focus on a few issues that you apparently thought would make the cruel and damaging bill palatable.

You previously stood tall against the repeal of the Affordable Care Act, for which we lavished you with praise. You know that the only way for the ACA to work is to have all three premises of the bill working together: premiums based on age, not health; an individual mandate so that healthy and sick people are all part of the pool; and subsidizing coverage for people who simply cannot afford it on their own. You cannot support the ACA and then tolerate the removal of one of the three legs that makes the whole thing work.

Rather than the mandate, you chose instead to focus on the Alexander-Murray and Collins-Nelson bills. No matter whether these bills pass, this is the sabotage of the ACA that Trump has wanted all along. But if it looked as if you got your way on health care, that you stood up to the big boys, then apparently you felt okay about supporting the entire tax bill, a bill whose other provisions are terrible for middle and lower-class Americans, for our democracy and for the planet.

It’s important that you realize you have not pulled the wool over any of your constituents’ eyes. You’ve sold us out, bargained with the souls which we poured out to you, not just my group last week, but thousands of us, calling, texting, emailing, faxing, showing up at all your offices. We’re sharing our stories and the fears that keep us awake at night.

Don’t try and tell us you’ve gotten the same amount pressure from other Mainers to support the bill. We talk to your staffers more than you do. We know where the pressure has come from, and you have chosen party over people, donors over doers.

You are supporting your party’s desire for a segregated society where education and opportunity, even health care, are available only to the wealthy.

Do you think any American should have confidence in the process by which a 5,000-page bill was handed to senators an hour before it was to be voted on? We would object to this order at a Girl Scout meeting, let alone a massive piece of legislation that will affect every single American for decades.

That black cashmere sweater of mine that was literally touching your baby blue wool jacket at our meeting last week? That was my mom’s. She was a lifelong Republican.

I don’t need her to be with us now to know how she would feel about your choice to hurt millions of people so that your party could have its way. She would not support you on this one. She would welcome paying her taxes to support the social structures we need. She would fume with anger at the struggle her grandchildren will face trying to earn advanced degrees, like the one she was so proud to get while carrying her 11th child.

The “trickle down” from cutting the corporate tax rate will not stimulate our economy. It never has. Even CEOs admit they will not expand and create jobs. It’s a sham.

You do not need money from the party. If you did the right thing, you could run a re-election campaign on my teacher’s salary because we want to like you, to support you, to brag about our moderate, sensible senator.

You could be our hero, just like you acted last week when you told us how much you cared. But for reasons that are impossible for hardworking, independent Mainers to understand, you have decided to abandon us and stand with greedy, out-of-touch politicians and millionaires whose only agenda is creating an ever-widening gap between themselves and the rest of us.

The view over here, on this side of the gap, in the beautiful, proud, state of Maine, is a hell of a lot nicer. Too bad you’ve turned your back and can’t see it.

Bo Greene lives in Bar Harbor. She’s a teacher but at a guess she’s a 20%er, maybe even a 1%er, houses range from 6 figures to 8 figures there ($225,000 to $10,000,000+, you can get a 924 square foot trailer for $150,000). Those little white specks at the left of the harbor? The small ones are 32′ Sailboats, the big ones are… well, bigger.

Canadian Wi-Fi

Steve’s Sleeves

& Omerosa

Trickle Down

Welcome to The Breakfast Club! We’re a disorganized group of rebel lefties who hang out and chat if and when we’re not too hungover we’ve been bailed out we’re not too exhausted from last night’s (CENSORED) the caffeine kicks in. Join us every weekday morning at 9am (ET) and weekend morning at 10:00am (ET) (or whenever we get around to it) to talk about current news and our boring lives and to make fun of LaEscapee! If we are ever running late, it’s PhilJD’s fault.

Former Nazi official Adolf Eichmann sentenced to death; Bandleader Glenn Miller disappears over the English Channel; The Bill of Rights takes effect; Sioux Indian Chief Sitting Bull killed; Walt Disney dies at age 65.

When people keep telling you that you can’t do a thing, you kind of like to try it.

Margaret Chase Smith

Continue reading

Ok. Now I’m done. Maybe.

Perhaps you’re not familiar with the concept.

From around 1600 to 1643 tulips, imported originally from Turkey, became highly desirable commodities in the Netherlands which, at the same time, was awash in Gold and Silver from it’s extremely successful trading empire (at the time they had a larger fleet than either England or Spain). It’s easy to understand why, they’re pretty and fragrant and they seemed a good store of value since, though the flowers may wilt and perish, the bulbs will produce for many years (about the same as a cow actually, but you can’t milk or eat them). Moreover through breeding and genetic tricks the Dutch were able to produce never before seen unique varieties.

They were more valuable (at the peak of the market) than their weight in Gold and circulated, as currency might, as a medium of exchange.

Now a Modern Monetary Theorist could point out they lacked at least one essential quality, they weren’t legal tender and you couldn’t pay your Taxes in them, but all you had to do was take them down to the market and trade them for Gold right?

A bubble? We don’t even know how to value Bitcoin
Alicia Cameron and Kelly Trinh, The Guardian
Wednesday 13 December 2017

Bitcoin is a “speculative mania” according to the governor of the Reserve Bank of Australia. But it’s not so easy to say that Bitcoin is a bubble – we don’t know how to value it.

Recent price rises (close to $18,000 in the past three months) may be too great and can’t continue. But the Bitcoin market is only just maturing as an investment and as a currency, and so it may still have room to grow.

A bubble is when the price of an asset diverges from its “fundamentals” – the aspects of an asset that investors use to value it. These could be the income that can be earned from a stock over time, a company’s cash flow, the state of a country’s economy, or even the rent from property.

But Bitcoin does not pay out profits (like shares) or rent (like property) and is not attached a national economy (like fiat currencies). This is part of the reason why it is hard to tell what the underlying value of Bitcoin is or should be. With more and more sites allowing people to develop a bitcoin login, it would definitely be worth figuring out how much it is worth sooner than later.
…
If we take a close look, we can see how the price of Bitcoin may be diverging from these fundamentals. For instance, it is becoming less profitable to be a miner, especially as the energy required increases. At some stage the cost may exceed the price of Bitcoin, making the network less worthwhile to both mine and invest.

Bitcoin may be the best known cryptocurrency but it is also losing marketshare to other cryptocurrencies, such as Ethereum and Litecoin. Bitcoin currently accounts for 59.4% of the total global cryptocurrency market but at the beginning of 2016 it was 91.3%. Anyone who has searched Buy Ethereum Zipmex will be well aware of the profitability of other forms of crytocurrency. Nonetheless, the amount of money that could be made from Bitcoin is massive and extremely lucrative. Read this bitcoin profit review on cryptoevent.io to find out how you can benefit from this cryptocurrency. Many of these other cryptocurrencies have more functionality than Bitcoin (such as Ethereum’s ability to execute smart contracts), or are more efficient and use less energy (such as Litecoin). However, if you are interested in just sticking to bitcoin, then you can easily buy bitcoin here.

Government policy, such as taxation or the establishment of national digital currencies, may also make it riskier or less worthwhile to mine, transact or hold the cryptocurrency. China’s ban on initial coin offerings earlier this year reduced the value of Bitcoin by 20% in 24 hours.

Without these fundamentals the price of Bitcoin largely reflects speculation. And there is some evidence that people are simply buying and holding Bitcoin in the hope it will keep rising in value (also known as greater fool investing). Certainly, the cap on the total number (21 million) of Bitcoins that can exist makes the currency inherently deflationary – the value of the currency relative to goods and services will keep increasing even without speculation and so there is a disincentive to spend it.
…
In the end, this is uncharted territory. We don’t know how to value Bitcoin, or what will happen. Historical examples may or may not apply.

What we do know is that the technology behind most cryptocurrencies is enabling new models of value transfer through secure global consensus networks and that is causing excitement and nervousness. Investors should beware.

To be fair you can’t eat Gold either (well, you can, it doesn’t hurt you but it doesn’t help you either) and Bitcoin doesn’t rot like Bananas or stink like Oil.

However it is a Tulip, worth whatever you can get for it, only it isn’t as beautiful or smell as sweet.

It is an example of inflation in luxury items and raw speculation. A fake Leonardo. Too much money chasing too few goods.

So you remember that scene from the beginning of Age of Ultron where Captain America says “Language”?

Well, we have a certain degree of restriction here. Not that any contributor should feel bound by it but my cousin’s two boys know that I write online and where, and on occasion she’s been known to read aloud some of my funnier and shorter pieces for their amusement. TMC also feels that I should show some delicacy of expression for those who tune in at work.

I don’t generally find it difficult and indeed I pride myself on my ability to insult you without your hardly even knowing unless you have a Thesaurus or Dictionary handy. Still, in casual conversation, I’ve been reliably informed by an online poll that I swear like a 20 year old. You bet your betcha. I consider it quite the accomplishment since I’m over a century beyond that.

Such pleasantries are not observed at all sites however and I draw your attention to 2 pieces from Wonkette that caught my eye in the Google News Editors’ Choices this morning.

How Did Trump Family Survive All This Time Without People Reminding Them To Breathe?

Amazingly enough (or not so much) Jared, Ivanka, Melania, and The Donald himself didn’t vote for The Donald last election. This is because none of them could figure out how to properly complete an absentee ballot.

I won’t even post the next piece’s title but it points out that your typical Republican’s intellectual capacity should make them Darwinian losers except that evolution, like global warming and a spherical Earth, is a mere myth foisted on us by pointy headed scientists.

The body discusses yesterday’s appearance by Rod Rosenstein in front of the House Judiciary Committee.

I find them a hoot and a half (“world champion brain-thinkers”, heh).

Welcome to The Breakfast Club! We’re a disorganized group of rebel lefties who hang out and chat if and when we’re not too hungover we’ve been bailed out we’re not too exhausted from last night’s (CENSORED) the caffeine kicks in. Join us every weekday morning at 9am (ET) and weekend morning at 10:00am (ET) (or whenever we get around to it) to talk about current news and our boring lives and to make fun of LaEscapee! If we are ever running late, it’s PhilJD’s fault.

George Washington dies at age 67; Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen and his group reach South Pole; Leaders of Bosnia, Serbia and Croatia sign an internationally-brokered peace treaty; Baseball’s Roger Maris dies at age 51.

When people conclude that all is futile, then the absurd becomes the norm.

Stanley Crouch

I Saw a Miracle in Alabama Last Night Charles Pierce, Esquire Politics

Short Posts, 12/13/17. On Doug Jones, Sexual Harassment As Labor Market Discrimination, And Other Topics Echidne, at her blog

Will Flake, Corker and McCain behave like patriots or sell-outs? digby aka Heather Digby Parton, Hullabaloo

A win for sanity Tom Sullivan, Hullabaloo

Is Becoming the Party That Tolerates Sexual Misconduct Excellent News For the Republican Party? (SPOILER: No) Scott Lemieux, Lawyers,Guns and Money

Matthew Dowd Remains a Fundamentally Ridiculous Person driftgalss, at his blog

MAYBE #WAR ISN’T THE MOST EFFECTIVE POLITICAL STRATEGY FOR REPUBLICANS Steve M., No More Mister Nice Blog

FCC Boss Claims Net Neutrality Hurts Small ISPs, But The FCC’s Own Data Proves Otherwise Karl Bode, Techdirt

Look, I’m convinced nobody reads what I write except my family, and them only sometimes. Even my Therapist (who should be monitoring as I’m clinically diagnosed with anxiety and depression) doesn’t tune in. TMC (when she’s being charitable) tries to convince me we have an awesome twitter audience full of movers and shakers.

Ok. I wouldn’t know. I don’t twit (my only tweet is “I have no thoughts that can be expressed in 140 characters or less.”, it’s not strictly true as attentive readers might recognize- I can be extremely pithy). I don’t monetize my art, I kind of operate under the old patronage system where you scam your family and friends for Chromium Yellow by threatening to cut off your ear (am I worried about my Therapist? I told you, she never reads).

Still, as insulated as I am from reality, I recognize that there are other sites, ones that you and I rely on, that are going to be adversely effected (a result, affected is a pose) by the demise of Net Neutrality.

What is net neutrality? It protects us from corporate power
by Matt Stoller, The Guardian
12/13/17

This Thursday (tomorrow), Ajit Pai, Donald Trump’s choice to chair the Federal Communications Commission, will force a vote to repeal net neutrality protections for broadband providers. This is an important step backwards for our democracy. It will affect what consumers pay for broadband and what we can buy. More importantly, it will affect what we as citizens can say and to whom we can say it.

In the age of Trump, a move to concentrate the power of speech in the hands of telecommunications giants whose financial fate depends on Republican political control is terrifying.

Net neutrality is a rule against censorship and manipulation. It means that if you are a broadband provider, like AT&T, Verizon, or Google Fiber, you cannot discriminate in favor of or against any of your customers. You aren’t allowed to carry the content or data of one website or video provider at one price and the content or data of another website or video provider at a different price. You can’t censor, throttle, or slow the carrying of data for any but technical reasons.

With net neutrality in place, whether you are a newspaper, a blogger discussing sexual assault, a video provider, or someone filming a public official at a town hall, Verizon or AT&T can’t slow or block your ability to put your content online and speak. Without it, they effectively can.

Net neutrality is a type of “common carriage” rule, and it is a bedrock of American democracy. More than a century ago, we had network monopolies like telegraph networks and railroads. Eventually, we regulated them via non-discriminatory principles very similar to net neutrality. In the 20th century, the regulatory framework for trucking, phone networks, airplanes, and electric utilities were also built on the principle of non-discrimination.

When you allow a private operator who controls a network with monopoly-like characteristics to pick winners and losers, they tend to do just that. In the 19th century, Standard Oil colluded with the Pennsylvania Railroad and Cornelius Vanderbilt’s New York Central to acquire control over the oil industry. They did this with a scheme involving kickbacks designed to destroy competitors. Similarly, meatpackers used their power over the rail network to centralize control and power over farmers.

Then, as now, the threat was not just commercial, but political. During the 1876 presidential election, which formally ended Reconstruction, the militantly pro-Republican Western Union telegraph monopoly colluded with the Associated Press to throw a close contest to the Republican candidate, Rutherford Hayes, leading Democrats to begin calling the AP the “Hayessociated Press”.

In response, Americans put in place public rules to neutralize the power of these platforms. In the 1930s, for instance, Congress enacted federal legislation to stop AT&T from abusing its monopoly position in telecommunications. This legislative framework worked beautifully.

By the time the mass internet first emerged in the form of dial-up modems, AT&T could not block the use of its phone network to access it. It could not discriminate against you if you wanted to access, say, AOL or Compuserve. It could not choose to censor the websites you sought to visit or divert you to AT&T-approved content. We paid for the use of the network, not for AT&T to edit the public square.
…
The Trump FCC and the telecom barons think that once the rule has been changed, we will simply forget about it. But they are wrong. If they eliminate net neutrality, it will end up being the downfall of the telecom barons. Americans will soon conclude that the only possible way to address the damage Pai has wrought is to finally and fully break the power of the giants.

Americans have been here before. The power of Standard Oil once seemed unbreakable. But it wasn’t. Neither are today’s telecom barons.

I suspect that unless we are entirely shut down you’ll not notice a huge difference in site performance here, we’re not exactly bandwidth hogs. Politically I consider our views kinda mainstream even though I’m an Anarcho-Sydicalist and TMC is more radical than that (to hear her tell it), so I think attempts at censorship unlikely unless the atmosphere gets way more repressive than it is and in that case…

Well, I have a passport. I’ve made my whole family get passports and if you think it’s because I’m convinced I live in 1938 Germany…

You’d be exactly right.

Welcome to The Breakfast Club! We’re a disorganized group of rebel lefties who hang out and chat if and when we’re not too hungover we’ve been bailed out we’re not too exhausted from last night’s (CENSORED) the caffeine kicks in. Join us every weekday morning at 9am (ET) and weekend morning at 10:00am (ET) (or whenever we get around to it) to talk about current news and our boring lives and to make fun of LaEscapee! If we are ever running late, it’s PhilJD’s fault.

U.S. forces capture Iraq’s ousted dictator Saddam Hussein; Authorities in communist Poland impose martial law; Union forces suffer defeat at the Battle of Fredericksburg, Virginia; Actor Dick Van Dyke is born.

Some things are so unexpected that no one is prepared for them.

Leo Rosten

Continue reading