RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.wsj.com/articles/prof-biden-and-his-ambassadors-appointments-confirmation-payment-11635349354?mod=opinion_lead_pos8

Presidents often reward big political donors with plum ambassadorships, but Joe Biden and the University of Pennsylvania appear to have come up with an innovation on the practice. Amy Gutmann, Penn’s president, awaits Senate confirmation as U.S. envoy to Germany, and David L. Cohen, until July chairman of the university’s Board of Trustees, as ambassador to Canada.

Ms. Gutmann isn’t a donor. Mr. Cohen and his wife, Rhonda, gave more than half a million dollars to Democratic campaigns and political organizations between 2017 and 2020, according to OpenSecrets.org. That includes the maximum $11,200 to the Biden campaign and $50,000 to the Biden Victory Fund, according to the Federal Election Commission database. (Mr. Cohen also donated a smaller amount to Republican candidates and organizations.)

Here’s the innovation: After Mr. Biden left the vice presidency in 2017, Penn created the Biden Center for Diplomacy and Global Engagement and appointed Mr. Biden to the bespoke position of Benjamin Franklin Presidential Practice Professor. Mr. Biden was paid personally for this job—$371,159 in 2017 and $540,484 in 2018 and early 2019 before launching his campaign.

The Philadelphia Inquirer reported on the arrangement in July 2019. The paper noted that the average salary for a Penn professor was $217,411 in 2017-18 and described Mr. Biden’s position as “a vaguely defined role that involved no regular classes and around a dozen public appearances on campus, mostly in big, ticketed events.”

https://www.wsj.com/articles/fly-by-night-taxation-democrats-congress-tax-hikes-ron-wyden-joe-biden-11635371820?mod=opinion_lead_pos1

There’s never been anything like this, and we’ve been around a long time. Democrats are writing tax policy for a $22 trillion economy on the fly, floating new tax increases willy-nilly, with little thought to the consequences and no time for public debate.

One day it’s an increase in tax rates on corporations and the affluent. But wait, that doesn’t have the votes. How about a carbon tax? That won’t fly either. Hey, there goes Jeff Bezos. Let’s tax him and 699 other billionaires. It polls well. Everyone hates billionaires!

Oh, but that may be unconstitutional. We still need money, so let’s try a 15% corporate minimum tax—though be sure to exempt investments in green energy and other pet progressive ideas. So it will have to be a minimum tax on some companies but not others. Bring on the Gucci Gulch lobbyists, campaign checkbooks at the ready.

And don’t forget to cut taxes for some of the rich by restoring the state and local tax deduction, though only for two years. Need those New York and New Jersey House votes.

Then let’s rush to get all of this “framework” agreed to by Thursday so President Biden can have something to boast about at the global climate gabfest that will do nothing that matters about the climate.

***

What a spectacle. For a century Democrats have been the party of higher taxes, but at least they paid some attention to the policy merits. Tax writers Dan Rostenkowski and Lloyd Bentsen were serious people. This crowd has no clue what the consequences of their proposals will be, and they don’t much care.

https://issuesinsights.com/2021/10/28/kill-the-biden-reconciliation-disaster/

The Biden reconciliation bill is full of mandatory spending which will act as a financial time bombs set to go off over the next decade. 

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has set an artificial must-pass date of October 30th for what was a $3.5 trillion budget reconciliation bill which is nothing more than a far-left wish list of expanded government.  The reason for this date is that the Virginia state elections will be held on November 2nd and she rightfully fears that the results of that election will make it politically impossible to pass this dramatic expansion of the size and scope of government.

As most people are undoubtedly aware, Senators Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) and Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.) are standing in the way of Senate Democrats getting the 50 votes necessary to pass the bill with the majority provided by the Vice President.

Recently, Americans for Limited Government provided a synopsis of 10 egregious big government expansions within the proposal which is a must-read to understand the breadth of the expansion this bill would impose.

One proposal that appears to be in deep trouble is the IRS reporting requirement for bank accounts of $600 or above.  It is being reported that Senator Manchin is throwing a monkey wrench into this intrusive Biden idea that would give the IRS access to virtually every bank transaction made across the country.

Given that Manchin and Sinema have each also demanded significant cuts to the amount of spending within the bill, President Biden has conceded that the actual spending over ten years could be more than halved.  But if the mandatory programs remain in place, they will likely live forever with costs increasing annually dwarfing the original price tags.

What’s more,  the regulations coming out of the broad language included in the bill will overwhelm any local dissent as Congress will have authorized things such as the federal takeover of decisions about school locations and retrofitting, expansion of Medicaid in those states which resisted the Obamacare eligibility expansion, and the creation of a Climate Corps that will be a massive taxpayer-funded environmental advocacy group masquerading as grassroots.

At a time when parents are waking up to the hate-America curricula being shoved down our kids’ throats, the federal government would pour tens of billions of dollars into pre-K education under the guise of providing daycare to the most needy. The reality is that they will be jamming a socialist value system into the highly formative minds of toddlers.

https://issuesinsights.com/2021/10/28/dont-be-seduced-by-the-billionaires-tax/

The 19th Century German statesman Otto von Bismarck observed famously that “Politics is the art of the possible, the attainable – the art of the next best.” Sometimes, however, it’s not even the next best; it can be illogical, unworkable, and pie-in-the sky. Such is the nature of Oregon Democratic Sen. Ron Wyden’s tax proposal – which should be called the Wyden-Warren-Sanders’ Folly – to tax billionaires’ unrealized capital gains, such as stocks, valuable art works, or jewels, that appreciate in value with time. The gains are not “realized” until the item is sold.

This might be seductive to those who want “the rich to pay their fair share,” but it’s certainly not fair. It’s unwieldy and susceptible to manipulation, merely a wilted fig leaf to offer the illusion that President Joe Biden’s multi-trillion-dollar expenditures on social programs will be “paid for.” Ultimately, the expenditures will occur, but the revenues won’t materialize.

It’s one thing to tax income, which most Americans dislike but have gotten more or less used to, but taxing wealth in the form of unrealized capital gains is a horse of a different color – possibly literally.

What do I mean by that? Well, suppose you own a racehorse of not particularly distinguished lineage that you bought for, say, $50,000, and on a whim, you enter him in the Kentucky Derby and he wins it. Immediately, he could be worth $50 million, with stud fees in six figures. Under the Wyden-Warren-Sanders’ tax plan, you could have a huge tax bill for the horse (possibly, every year that you own him), because of his potential. But this could be finessed: You could reduce the tax due by (with a wink and a nod) selling the horse to a friend for a far lesser price, and have him sell the animal back to you, again on the cheap. In the face of actual sales transactions, who’s to say that the horse was undervalued?

https://www.revolver.news/2021/10/meet-ray-epps-the-fed-protected-provocateur-who-appears-to-have-led-the-very-first-1-6-attack-on-the-u-s-capitol/

In a House hearing on Thursday, Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY) questioned AG Merrick Garland about a mysterious man, Ray Epps, instructing protesters to enter the US Capitol building on January 5, and who later shepherded crowds towards the Capitol on January 6.

The story of the mystery man, Ray Epps, featured in Rep. Massie’s video above is in fact far more shocking than even the good Congressman implies in the hearing. It’s a story so strange, and so scandalous at every turn, that it threatens to shatter the entire official narrative of the “Capitol Breach” and expose yet another dimension of proactive federal involvement in the so-called “insurrection” of January 6th.

If Revolver News’s previous reporting points to a proactive role of the federal government in relation to the conspiracy cases against Oath Keepers and Proud Boys, the Ray Epps story that follows suggests a similar, yet more egregious, explicit, direct and immediate degree of federal involvement in the breach of the Capitol itself.

Here is a transcript of Thomas Massie’s exchange with the Attorney General, just in case you skipped past the video above.

Rep. Massie: As far as we can determine, the individual who was saying he’ll probably go to jail, he’ll probably be arrested, but they need to go into the Capitol the next day, is then directing people into the Capitol the next day, is then the next day directing people to the Capitol. And as far as we can find. You said this is one of the most sweeping in history. Have you seen that video, or those frames from that video?

AG Garland: So as I said at the outset, one of the norms of the Justice Department is to not comment on pending investigations, and particularly not to comment on particular scenes or particular individuals.

Rep. Massie: I was hoping today to give you an opportunity to put to rest the concerns that people have that there were federal agents or assets of the federal government present on January 5 and January 6. Can you tell us, without talking about particular incidents or particular videos, how many agents or assets of the federal government were present on January 6, whether they agitated to go into the Capitol, and if any of them did?

AG Garland: So I’m not going to violate this norm of, uh, of, of, of, the rule of law.

[Looks down and away]

I’m not going to comment on an investigation that’s ongoing.

There is good reason why AG Garland ran from Massie’s question faster than he could find words — and why he couldn’t even keep eye contact as he was dodging Massie’s gaze.

https://thefederalist.com/2021/10/27/exclusive-biden-fbi-joins-pelosi-in-blocking-gop-from-investigating-january-

In the case of the House Committee on Jan. 6., Pelosi blocked minority party participation for the first time in House history to pursue a preferred political narrative.

The leading Republican tasked with his party’s investigation into the preparedness and response of the U.S. Capitol Police and other law enforcement agencies to the Capitol riot on January 6 is being blocked by President Joseph Biden’s FBI from gathering information, a new document reveals.

The FBI told Indiana Republican Rep. Jim Banks it would not provide Republicans the same information provided to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s hand-picked committee consisting only of Democrat-appointed members.

“We respectfully refer you to the Select Committee regarding issues of access to records and information,” the agency wrote in response to a Republican request for information, referring to the official House panel established by the speaker.

Pelosi took what she admitted was an “unprecedented” step of refusing the appointments made by Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy, barring Navy officer and Afghanistan veteran Banks and Judiciary Committee Ranking Member Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, from participation. In a fiery denunciation of Pelosi’s politicization of the committee, McCarthy, R-Calif., publicly announced Banks would lead Republicans’ investigation despite Pelosi blowing up the committee.

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2021/10/poor_bret_stephens_reveals_himself_by_sneering_at_trump.html

First, permit me to make this suggestion about the left’s aim on their mammoth spending bill: they always intended to pass a $1.5-trillion measure and started out at $3 trillion so as 1) to seem conciliatory by accepting reduction by half and 2) to appear as accommodating the wishes of stalking horse Joe (I don’t trust him to be a moderate) Manchin.

Now to comment on the weekly Bret (Stephens) and Gail (Collins) show on what used to be called the op-ed page of The New York Times — but, when they have their seemingly anodyne chats transcribed, becomes the paper’s weekly steno pad.

The Bret and Gail chat for October 26 began with expressions of sympathy for Republican turncoat Liz Cheney, from Republican turncoat Bret Stephens, who went over to the other side when he quit The Wall Street Journal for The New York Times at the time of Donald Trump’s first presidential campaign.

Stephens, in his opening remark, alluded to the “latest effort [of House Republican leader Kevin McCarthy] to make Liz Cheney’s life as unpleasant as possible.”  This is projection from Stephens, as it is Cheney who is intent on making the lives of true House Republicans “as unpleasant as possible” by her service as a Pelosi puppet on the January 6 “sham” (quoting Rep. Jim Banks, barred from the panel by Pelosi diktat) select committee.  I quickly add that Stephens did not elaborate on the alleged effort from Mr. McCarthy vis-à-vis turncoat Cheney.  Would that it were her ouster from the House Republican Conference.

Stephens went on, in response to a question from Collins, to shrug that Cheney’s quest for re-election is not likely to succeed, while at the same time he issued a statement despicable but expectable from the likes of leftist fanatics: “But I’m guessing that Cheney’s re-election chances aren’t great, either.  I think that, at best, she can lay down a marker for the future, proving that at least some Republicans refused to participate in the cult of Il Duce wannabes.”  It takes an apostate desperate for approval from his new masters to be so mendaciously malevolent.