Thursday, July 01, 2021

🌟Welcome July! 🌟


The eldest granddaughters are visiting!!!
 

27 comments:

  1. Replies
    1. Well, anyone can give another a gift of $10,000 a year without incurring a tax liability. However, while that amount exceeds my tenant's yearly rent, I doubt that is true of the rented digs in New York. The thing is that filing tax returns involves the honor system and only provable perjury in the attestment to accuracy is a crime. Three years' investigation and a grand jury suggests more than a perjured signature. I think it was Dodd/Frank and the creation of the Consumer Finance Protection Board which, for the first time, lifted the shield of privacy from financial records. Before that, the IRS could not requisition records from financial institutions unless they already had evidence of crime.
      Much of the effort to get rid of the ACA has actually been prompted by a desire to deep six Dodd/Frank. The two bill implementation was pure genius and, to a certain extent, the same bi-partite scenario is being tried again with the dual infrastructure bills with "reconciliation" carrying the financing burden.
      For health care, the ACA specified who and Dodd/Frank covered the how. Funny how those two words have the same letters and refer to such different things.

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  2. ExxonMobil lobbyists filmed saying oil giant’s support for carbon tax a PR ploy [Click] “Undercover reporter hears company worked to undermine Biden efforts and funded shadow groups to deny global heating.”

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  3. HEH--THAT'S WHAT i CAME TO POST. . . .

    Donald Rumsfeld, 1932-2021

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  4. Had a friend who taught English at the Naval Academy. She had a student who was a former aid of Rumsfeld's. He said when the fella went into blah-blah mode they all pretty much shut down. He never noticed. . . .

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  5. Miami condo rescue work halted over fears remaining structure will topple [Click] Site evacuated after workers reported sounds of shifting inside still-standing 12-storey section

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    1. To be honest, I was surprised and rather dismayed that President Biden said there could still be people alive in the rubble. He had been meeting with the families and I guess he felt a need to give them some hope. But false hope does no one any good, and what must it be like for the rescue workers needing to leave the site if they've just heard the President say there might be folks yet alive in there?

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  6. Have people been living in the other part? Or are they just evacuating the rescue guys?

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    1. People are living in the other tower, but it's not clear this is the "section" being referred to.

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    2. I think it must refer to the portion of the south tower that was damaged by the collapse, but did not itself collapse. Certainly the collapsed portion helped to support it.

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  7. As of yesterday, half of Cook County residents have had two vaccine shots. That's 50% of all residents, not just of those eligible for vaccination.

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  8. NYT headline:

    Breaking
    Trump Organization Is Charged in 15-Year Tax Scheme

    The Manhattan district attorney’s office also accused Allen Weisselberg, the chief financial officer, of avoiding taxes on $1.7 million in income.

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    1. The unutterable fools kept spreadsheets documenting the tax evasion! From behind a paywall:

      "Furthermore, the scheme was documented by internal spreadsheets that tracked the amounts which were paid to Weisselberg and then deducted from his compensation so that he could avoid taxes." They couldn't just drop off some lettuce from time to time? Maybe at a Cayman Islands bank? In amounts of less than ten thousand dollars?

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    2. This explains the criminal charges against the organization, which had puzzled me.

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    3. And remember that Trump is the one who signs the company tax returns, and in so doing explicitly takes responsibility for their accuracy. Does he have a nice dacha lined up?

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    4. He does? The only corporate tax return I know anything about is the Disability Pride Parade Association. As Treasurer (=Chief Financial Officer) I am the one responsible for the tax returns.

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    5. If my memory doesn't fail me, that has been brought out in the popular press more than once in recent years. If so, and if it can be shown that he knew about the hanky-panky, that should put him into a rather difficult position. If he claims that he didn't know anything about it, it was all Weisselberg's doing, that should motivate Weisselberg to sing like the proverbial bird. Things could become interesting!

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  9. David Frum: Trump Is Preparing for the Worst [Click] “. . .early indications that the legal process may end badly for the former president.”

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    1. Preparing? Meaning he has a one way plane ticket to Russia all ready to go?

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    2. Come to think of it, instead of a dacha, perhaps he could have a basement apartment in Trump Tower Moscow.

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  10. Replies
    1. You beat me to it. And it may be that we will have another heat wave next week.

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    2. It's utterly fearful and heartbreaking!

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