How Democrats Display their Intelligence !

Sheriff Joe said:
Which One Of Hawaii’s Idiots In Congress Just Claimed That Using Tear Gas Was A War Crime?

Posted at 9:02 pm on November 25, 2018 by streiff


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Earlier today, US riot police in San Ysidro, CA, responded to the mainly male and largely criminal caravan of illegals now camped in Tijuana…and I have to tell you, when the mayor of Tijuana is complaining about something destroying the ambiance of that metropolis, things are really interesting…attempted to storm the border wall and then threw rocks at US police, they were answered by the use of riot control agents being referred to as “tear gas.” Naturally, Trump being the president, it didn’t take long until some Democrat decided to accuse the Border Patrol and Customs and Border Protection officers at San Ysidro with some sort of crime. Somehow Hawaii beat out California, New York, Oregon, Massachusetts, and other Democrat strongholds for the honor of being first.



Yeah, the headline didn’t narrow the waterfront very much, did it. Reasonably it could have been any of them. Thought the irony of Tulsi Gabbard, who claimed that Syria was framed for using chemical weapons, might have been too much to bear. The actual winner is the aptly named Brian Schatz:
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Born in Michigan, Pomona College graduate. What do you expect?
 
Socialism’s Record Has Been Pain, Not Gain (Especially for the Poor)
Capitalism, not socialism, has lifted over a billion people out of poverty worldwide since 1990.
Monday, November 26, 2018

https://fee.org/articles/socialism-...rss_pushcrew&notification_source=pushcrew_rss
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The overarching message of “The Opportunity Cost of Socialism”—a study recently released by the president’s Council of Economic Advisers (CEA)—is that the advocacy of socialism cannot reasonably be based on policy preferences; its attraction has always been grounded in a combination of wishful thinking and ignorance. For example, the new CEA study shows that the socialist approach to “single payer” health care advocated by many on the left would cost much more and deliver much less, resulting in the significant worsening of mortality and morbidity, not just higher taxes and reduced economic growth.
 
My Prozac Economics Lecture: Showing Students What They’d Earn if Their FICA Taxes Were Put in the S&P

The lecture addresses the effect the federal government’s social security program will have on students’ future financial well-being.
Monday, November 26, 2018

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The Question

The discussion is organized around the following question: What if students, instead of being legally obligated to pay Social Security taxes, had the option of putting and holding those funds in the stock market?

To this end, it should be noted that the average annual return in the stock market since 1928, as measured by the S&P 500 index, is 9.8 percent (not that the return every year is 9.8 percent, mind you—just that over the last 90 years, annual returns average out to 9.8 percent). Then pick an annual starting salary students might earn. Say it’s $35,000, and assume it rises by 3 percent a year. Under this latter assumption, the salary never rises above the current $127,400 maximum taxable annual income.

The Alternative to Social Security

Assume the person intends to work 41 years. Then at the end of the first year of employment, his/her $4,340 Social Security tax for the year ($35,000 x 12.4 percent) is invested in an S&P 500 index fund and held for the following 40 years at the 9.8 percent average return. What will it equal at the end of 40 years? Believe it or not, $182,634. That’s right; just the first year’s tax will grow to $182,634. The second year’s tax ($4,470), held for 39 years, will grow to $171,316, and so on.

Making these calculations by hand is tedious, to say the least. For example, the growth in the first year’s tax is the answer to $4,340 x (1.098)40. The second year’s tax follows from $4,470 x (1.098)39 and so on. Don’t despair. Websites like this enable you to make the calculations quite easily by plugging in the numbers.

Thus, if the student never saved another penny in his/her whole life, just the first two years of Social Security taxes invested under the above conditions would grow to $353,950, more than one-third of a million dollars, when they retired 41 years after graduation.

If the student’s Social Security taxes for the first 10 years of working life were invested at the S&P 500’s 9.8 percent return, he/she would have a $1,391,844 portfolio at the end of 41 years; the first 20 years of taxes would grow to $2,126,777; the first 30 years of taxes grows to $2,514,569; and for the entire 40 years, it’s $2,718,713.


https://fee.org/articles/my-prozac-...-earn-if-their-fica-taxes-were-put-in-the-sp/
 
American Hero: MSNBC reporter Gadi Schwartz busted the media's narrative that the caravan migrants are mostly women and children on Monday while reporting from Tijuana, Mexico.

Schwartz appeared on MSNBC's "Live with Velshi & Ruhle" where he reported that one migrant woman that he spoke to "admitted that she had not actually expected to cross and was really participating to protest; she also later stated that her intention was to go to the United States to work, rather than to apply for asylum," NewsBusters reported.
 
Hüsker Dü said:
“I’ve wondered in these two years why corporate America and Wall Street have been kind of quiet about Trump, because he has never been one of them,” Moore said. “To corporate America, to Wall Street, Trump’s been the trailer trash of the millionaire class. They never let him into their club, their exclusive high-end club.”
“You’re such a fool, Trump. You’ve been played again by these people who’ve never liked you,” he added.
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Bruddah IZ said:
Maybe the millionaire club is jealou$ that Trump i$ a billionaire. Lol! You people crack me up in your lack of comprehen$ion
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Hüsker Dü said:
You really are a fucking idiot.
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Bruddah IZ said:
You mean because I comprehended the difference between 1000 millionaires and 1 billionaire? Don't get mad. Just read and understand what you post instead of being the typical Dumbocrat nutter.
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Chicago’s New PlayStation Tax Shows How Greedy Politicians Can Be
Chicago is proof that there is almost nothing that government entities won’t try to tax.

Friday, November 30, 2018

https://fee.org/articles/chicago-s-new-playstation-tax-shows-how-greedy-politicians-can-be/

Chicago’s Amusement Tax

Chicago is one of the most heavily taxed cities in the country. In addition to holding the title for the highest sales tax nationwide, the city also levies additional taxes on bottled water and cell phones.

The amusement tax was actually passed several years ago and included almost all forms of entertainment. Whether residents are looking to spend an evening at the theater, see a concert, cheer on their favorite sports team, go to a nightclub, or even catch a movie, they are on the hook for an additional 5 percent tax.

In 2015, the amusement tax was expanded as city officials realized they could bring in additional revenue with the creation of a “cloud tax.” Capitalizing on the popularity of streaming services, the city began instituting a 9 percent tax for using platforms like Netflix, Hulu, Spotify, and others. And thanks to the inclusion of the streaming services, the amusement tax now brings in about $12 million annually. It also applies to anyone whose billing address is within city limits.

The city of Chicago is currently operating on a $400 million deficit. It’s no wonder, then, that the city has had to get creative when it comes to extorting money from its residents. The amusement tax was created as a means of decreasing the deficit and aiding the city in paying for additional expenditures, which essentially means that Chicago dwellers are once again on the hook for the government’s poor decisions.

To make matters worse, Chicago is also a city with a horrible reputation for government corruption, and especially corruption within the local police force. When Democratic Mayor Rahm Emanuel approved the additional tax on streaming services, it was done so with the explicit purpose of helping to fund the $530 million increase given to Chicago’s police force. However, even with the increased funding, Chicago law enforcement has still been unable, or unwilling, to combat the city’s skyrocketing crime rates.

Sony may have just recently announced that it would be enforcing this tax, but Xbox and Nintendo users have already been dealing with it for years. In fact, Sony actually refused to enforce the tax and did not finally capitulate to the city’s wishes until mid-November, when unsuspecting users were greeted with a warning message as soon as they logged on to their PlayStation accounts.

While it is unclear why Sony decided to begin enforcing the tax at this time, it is likely that statements from government representatives scared the company into submission. A spokesman for the city’s Law Department, Bill McCaffrey, recently said,"If a business is not collecting the tax where we believe it applies, the city takes the necessary steps and works with the company to ensure compliance with the law.”

But while some have bent to the whims of the city government, others have continued to challenge the city’s authority to tax anything and everything. Apple, for example, has held strong against the city of Chicago. The tech giant has even gone so far as to take the city to court rather than burden its users with additional fees. And thanks to a bill passed during the Clinton era, Apple has a legitimate case against the city.
 
Apple Strikes Back

Right after the “cloud tax” was instituted, the Liberty Justice Center came forward to challenge the city’s new policy on behalf of the taxpayers in the case known as Labell vs. The City of Chicago.

Unfortunately, the court ruled in favor of the city in May, upholding its authority to levy and collect the cloud tax. Since the amusement tax was passed prior to the inclusion of the cloud tax, the city argued that this was not a new tax and thus was merely a reinterpretation of the existing law.

Senior attorney for the Liberty Justice Center, Jeffrey Schwab, commented on the court’s decision, saying:

We plan to appeal this decision because it has far broader implications than this single attempt to tax online entertainment. Cloud-based entertainment isn’t unique to Chicago, and people take this entertainment in and out of city limits all the time. Therein lies one of the biggest problems with this tax: The city is taxing activity outside its borders because the tax applies regardless of whether a customer actually uses a service in Chicago. If today’s decision is allowed to stand, then local governments across Illinois could tax activity that occurs outside their borders. We will continue to fight for taxpayers against the city’s expansion of its taxing power.

While the Liberty Justice Center waits to appeal this decision, Apple has continued the fight against this unjust tax. Just a few months after the same court ruled in favor of the city, Apple filed a complaint in the Circuit Court of Cook County, Illinois.

The tech company’s complaint touches on four different violations it believes the city is guilty of committing. But the primary complaint rests on Chicago’s violation of the Internet Tax Freedom Act (ITFA).

In 1998, President Bill Clinton signed the ITFA into law, protecting Americans from illegal forms of taxation. Specifically, the bill prohibited “state and local governments from taxing Internet access, or imposing multiple or discriminatory taxes on electronic commerce.”

The bill was supposed to help protect consumers against the possibility of discriminatory taxation on electronic commerce. For example, if internet users are already being taxed for their internet service, they should not be forced to then pay further taxes for using the internet to access streaming sites. By doing so, the cloud tax also discriminates against those who choose to purchase digital movies instead of physical DVDs, which are not subject to the cloud tax.

In addition to violating federal law, Apple is also asserting that the new tax is a violation of the Illinois constitution. As explained by DigitalMusicNews.com’s Daniel Sanchez:

Under Illinois law, all home-rule ordinances must fall within the limits of the unit. So, a "home-rule unit" – in this case, Chicago – "may exercise any power and perform any function pertaining to its government and affairs.

There’s just one problem. Chicago city officials have imposed the Amusement Tax on citizens streaming music when outside the "home-rule unit."

Since the cloud tax is extended to everyone with a Chicago billing address, this means it is still being levied on those who enjoy streaming services outside city limits, making it a violation of state law.

Sanchez continues:

By creating an "extraterritorial effect," the company argues, the city has "subjected Apple to collection requirements even for activities that take place primarily outside" Chicago. In addition, the city has extraterritorially expanded its taxing and regulatory jurisdiction to transaction and business activities outside of Chicago.

Apple’s additional complaints involve violations of the federal commerce clause, as well as violations of the 14th Amendment right to due process. While the outcome of the case is unclear, Apple’s unwillingness to cooperate with the city’s ridiculous amusement tax is a testament to its integrity.

Chicago is proof that there is almost nothing that government entities won’t try to tax. And if you’re a Chicago resident, you might want to think twice before asking Santa for a PlayStation 4 this year, lest you have to deal with the city’s amusement tax.
 
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