Between a 40 hour a week job, a busy news cycle, and some family obligations, I'm a little late to the party on the Tax Reform Debate. After having it brought to my attention by the wonderful people at the Daily Wire, I was aware of it the day after it happened and I actually took the time to watch it the day after that thanks to YouTube. Since I waited to write about it for two weeks, I do admit that just about everything that needs to be said about it has already been said and this should be a pretty short article. However, there are a couple of little points I haven't really heard brought up that I do think bear attention.
The first thing that I noticed with this debate, and the healthcare debate for that matter, is the personnel. On the right was Senator Ted Cruz, who would seem to be the most obvious choice. Senator Cruz is the Republican Party, in spite of who the country elected as President. He is a classic Christian Conservative who gained the majority of his national fame by running for President. His platform was End Obamacare, Flat Tax, Put God back in the Government, and Stimulate job creation by getting the government out of the way. While these ideas may be far to the right of the recent centrist Republican converts, they are definitely in line with the voters who have been Down-the-Line Conservative since Reagan was in Office. On the other hand, his opponent was Independent (Socialist) career senator Bernie Sanders. While the vast majority of Democrat Politicians follow a similar, if not the same, political ideal, the ones with a D next to their names at least make an attempt to hide it.
Bernie being the Democrat representative to the string of televised debates shows is highly representative of the leftward movement of our politics that put a lifelong Democrat in the Presidency as a Republican. I feel that the debate would have easily been better served had the Democrat in the room been Biden, or Harris. It could have possibly even been Warren or Feinstein. Even Hillary would have seemed to be a more appropriate debate opponent, in spite of the fact that she holds no office currently. Any of them would have been more representative of the Democrat Base that comprises the majority of the country outside of colleges across the Nation.
Bases bring us into the other point that may have been partially touched on. Louder With Crowder host Steven Crowder touched on a part of this, but it could be taken a step further. On his show the Following night, Crowder mentioned that people like Chenk Uygar was probably over on the Young Turks proclaiming that Senator Sanders was the be all, end all champion of the Debate. Personally, I think that Mr. Cruz won. Nearly all of Bernie's points were able to be handily refuted with facts and statistics, and he was not able to reciprocate with anything but anecdotes and emotions. However, this debate may still have been a huge gain for Sanders. While Cruz was busy rebutting him, Bernie was raising the same catchphrases and buzzwords that infuriated his base. Between Ted beating up on him, and mentions of basic universal income, the Kochs and the Waltons, and the upper 1/10 of 1%, the Vermont Senator was able to draw pity for the underdog, and simultaneously advertise his brand to another group of Democrats. He also has a new series of videos for college students to cut and past into social media and caption with demands for the rich people to pay for everything. Cruz may have won on content, but Sanders walked away with billions of dollars worth of free advertising.
If you have any further thoughts on the debates that haven't been beaten to death on either side, or if you want to take any of this further, feel free to comment here, or over on Twitter. It's @edsblogtw1tter. If you like what you've read, please like and share on social media, and get the word out. Remember: Don't take the words of bloggers, podcasters, and the media as gospel. Always find all the facts and draw your own conclusions.
Tuesday, October 31, 2017
Sunday, October 29, 2017
I joined Twitter
I've actually been on Twitter for a while, but I made a twitter account just for this blog. Follow me to get comments going and help get the word out
I am@edsblogtw1tter
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Some more thoughts on Tax Reform
Sometimes having people who are close to you can put another perspective on things. Other times, it spawns the discussions that strengthen your own viewpoints. I had a brief conversation like that last weekend.
I've mentioned before that my parents are Union Democrats. They hold ideals that are more conservative in today's world, but they've been told since the 60s that anyone who has an R next to his name wants nothing more than to put their jobs out of the country and take all the money away from anyone. After halfheartedly listening to Meet the Press, I commented against some progressive guest expressing the proposed tax cuts are only for the rich. I commented that we really need to get these tax cuts through so we can start getting people back to work and making jobs. My father turned and said that cutting the taxes on business leaders would never get people working. The only way to employ people would be to abolish welfare. After I was done reeling about how the modern Democrat socialists would take that, I pointed out that we need to have the jobs to put people into when the welfare goes away. Both of my parents then reminded me that all of the papers and the the internet were full of McJobs waiting for people to get off of welfare and take the jobs, and I didn't respond.
Now, I would love to see welfare go away, as would most people in the conservative camp, but there is a trade-off. I want welfare to be gone because nobody needs it anymore. I'm fighting and working every day to make our economy strong enough that it's more profitable to go to work than it is to be on welfare. I understand that you can't just end welfare without having something to take its place, and McDonald's jobs are not going to cut it. I know from experience that low paying jobs don't do anything for you. I spent a year working $12 an hour, 25 hours a week, and I was refused a raise for the 2 years that followed no matter how I worked, even though I was allowed to go back to 40 hours a week. While it's much higher on the horse than fast food and restaurant jobs, I was a mechanic, and had a massive tool payment to go along with it. I can tell you from personal experience that having a low paying job and no options to further yourself over an extended period of time can actually make the situation worse for people. I agree that people on welfare taking the low paying jobs would be a good start to getting the economy moving, but it's a short term gain. At best, having welfare recipients take all of these McDonald's and other minimum wage jobs will serve as resume builders, but we, as a country, need to make the moves to create middle level jobs for these people to move into. Realistically, getting these people into $7 an hour jobs won't do anything to add to the federal budget. The only thing it will do will take away some of the deficit.
That brings up the other point. Every mainstream journalist loves to proclaim that the tax cuts are for "the Rich", and frankly...they are. But the reality of it is that this is nothing more than a play on numbers and words. Of course a series of tax cuts are only going to benefit the top 50% of earners in the country. The bottom 50% don't pay any income taxes currently. The only way at all that you can benefit the bottom 50% would be to use the tax money paid by the other half of the country to give a refund bigger than what they paid in across the year. With a $20 trillion debt, that would be a level beyond stupidity. Bernie Sanders has even gone so far as to say that the "Trump" tax plan will hurt the poor. After looking through the little bit of the tax plan that has been leaked, the only thing I can find to corroborate this is that a series of mid level jobs will be created, bringing many people out of the tax bracket that doesn't pay taxes and putting them into the bracket that does. Now, I spent most of my life in the bracket that didn't pay any taxes, and in the 2015 tax year, I entered the bracket that does for the first time in my life. I can say, again from experience, that getting a bill from the Federal Government for the last couple years has been a nuisance (I follow the W4 to the letter, so 2 exemptions: 1 for single, 1 for no one else can claim me as a dependent.), and I hated having to scramble around for that $300 this year. But it sure was nice bringing home a weekly check that lets me have a roof over my head in a good neighborhood, and finally buy a nice truck. Having Auto Insurance is kind of nice, too. My yearly income for 2016 compared to 2012 is over twofold, so giving a rather paltry number to the government to keep their lights on and the military funded seems like a fair trade-off to me.
The bottom line is that this economy is beginning to roll in the right direction, and I feel like there are going to be a lot of people this year that are going to be paying taxes for the first time ever, or at the very least, for the first time in a few years. As I mentioned before, I know quite well what it's like on that first year when your $1500 refund turns into a $38 liability. I know that we can't move the bar so that they continue to not pay taxes, but the decent thing would be to not completely punish these new taxpayers for their newfound success by beating them with a huge tax bill. Bring the rate for the lower middle class, and frankly, everyone down. Free up money to get invested into businesses small and large, and free up even more money to get spent on the products that come out of these investments.
If you want to discuss the point further, be sure to comment, and subscribe. I will be opening up a comment section through twitter and I hope to get more discussion going there. As always, find a lot of sources of information, look at all the facts, and draw your own conclusions. Never take a journalist or a blogger's word as gospel. That's the concept that brought you this blog
I've mentioned before that my parents are Union Democrats. They hold ideals that are more conservative in today's world, but they've been told since the 60s that anyone who has an R next to his name wants nothing more than to put their jobs out of the country and take all the money away from anyone. After halfheartedly listening to Meet the Press, I commented against some progressive guest expressing the proposed tax cuts are only for the rich. I commented that we really need to get these tax cuts through so we can start getting people back to work and making jobs. My father turned and said that cutting the taxes on business leaders would never get people working. The only way to employ people would be to abolish welfare. After I was done reeling about how the modern Democrat socialists would take that, I pointed out that we need to have the jobs to put people into when the welfare goes away. Both of my parents then reminded me that all of the papers and the the internet were full of McJobs waiting for people to get off of welfare and take the jobs, and I didn't respond.
Now, I would love to see welfare go away, as would most people in the conservative camp, but there is a trade-off. I want welfare to be gone because nobody needs it anymore. I'm fighting and working every day to make our economy strong enough that it's more profitable to go to work than it is to be on welfare. I understand that you can't just end welfare without having something to take its place, and McDonald's jobs are not going to cut it. I know from experience that low paying jobs don't do anything for you. I spent a year working $12 an hour, 25 hours a week, and I was refused a raise for the 2 years that followed no matter how I worked, even though I was allowed to go back to 40 hours a week. While it's much higher on the horse than fast food and restaurant jobs, I was a mechanic, and had a massive tool payment to go along with it. I can tell you from personal experience that having a low paying job and no options to further yourself over an extended period of time can actually make the situation worse for people. I agree that people on welfare taking the low paying jobs would be a good start to getting the economy moving, but it's a short term gain. At best, having welfare recipients take all of these McDonald's and other minimum wage jobs will serve as resume builders, but we, as a country, need to make the moves to create middle level jobs for these people to move into. Realistically, getting these people into $7 an hour jobs won't do anything to add to the federal budget. The only thing it will do will take away some of the deficit.
That brings up the other point. Every mainstream journalist loves to proclaim that the tax cuts are for "the Rich", and frankly...they are. But the reality of it is that this is nothing more than a play on numbers and words. Of course a series of tax cuts are only going to benefit the top 50% of earners in the country. The bottom 50% don't pay any income taxes currently. The only way at all that you can benefit the bottom 50% would be to use the tax money paid by the other half of the country to give a refund bigger than what they paid in across the year. With a $20 trillion debt, that would be a level beyond stupidity. Bernie Sanders has even gone so far as to say that the "Trump" tax plan will hurt the poor. After looking through the little bit of the tax plan that has been leaked, the only thing I can find to corroborate this is that a series of mid level jobs will be created, bringing many people out of the tax bracket that doesn't pay taxes and putting them into the bracket that does. Now, I spent most of my life in the bracket that didn't pay any taxes, and in the 2015 tax year, I entered the bracket that does for the first time in my life. I can say, again from experience, that getting a bill from the Federal Government for the last couple years has been a nuisance (I follow the W4 to the letter, so 2 exemptions: 1 for single, 1 for no one else can claim me as a dependent.), and I hated having to scramble around for that $300 this year. But it sure was nice bringing home a weekly check that lets me have a roof over my head in a good neighborhood, and finally buy a nice truck. Having Auto Insurance is kind of nice, too. My yearly income for 2016 compared to 2012 is over twofold, so giving a rather paltry number to the government to keep their lights on and the military funded seems like a fair trade-off to me.
The bottom line is that this economy is beginning to roll in the right direction, and I feel like there are going to be a lot of people this year that are going to be paying taxes for the first time ever, or at the very least, for the first time in a few years. As I mentioned before, I know quite well what it's like on that first year when your $1500 refund turns into a $38 liability. I know that we can't move the bar so that they continue to not pay taxes, but the decent thing would be to not completely punish these new taxpayers for their newfound success by beating them with a huge tax bill. Bring the rate for the lower middle class, and frankly, everyone down. Free up money to get invested into businesses small and large, and free up even more money to get spent on the products that come out of these investments.
If you want to discuss the point further, be sure to comment, and subscribe. I will be opening up a comment section through twitter and I hope to get more discussion going there. As always, find a lot of sources of information, look at all the facts, and draw your own conclusions. Never take a journalist or a blogger's word as gospel. That's the concept that brought you this blog
Saturday, October 28, 2017
Russian Collusion
It's been a little over a year now since Russia and it's interference in the 2016 election. I don't think there is anyone left in the US that doesn't have an opinion on whether or not Russia stole the election. While the evidence is starting to come out to point that the Obama administration was the colluding party, we are on the edge of forgetting what actually happened and what ghost we have been chasing for the past year, when the story gets drowned by the next made up scandal that the opposing party has on their list.
During the primary season, there was a series of emails released through a web-based organization Wikileaks that mostly involved Former Secretary of State Clinton. In the beginning, the emails were mostly missing documents surrounding events from her tenure as Secretary of State, and the Benghazi incident. As the primaries and the general election went on, the emails that were being leaked moved away from the events of 4 years prior to more current events surrounding the primary cycle and her competition with Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders. Most, if not all of the emails that had been leaked were run through a private email server that the Clintons kept in their home, and were initially thought to have been deleted. While the actual content of the emails was condemning evidence in the events in question, the mainstream media turned its focus to how Wikileaks got their hands on the emails instead of what was in them.
Wikileaks founder Julian Assange has been well known for quite some time as being a truth seeker and his reputation also points to him being very good at finding it. While he has been reluctant to reveal his exact sources for the emails that he leaked surrounding the Democrat National Committee, he has vehemently denied Russian involvement in the matter. To be completely honest about the whole situation, I don't remember ever hearing about the Russians until the final Presidential Lincoln Douglass Debate before Election Day. During this debate, Secretary Clinton was asked directly about the leaked emails, and she referred it away to Russian Hacking for the first time since the emails were leaked. Suddenly, the entirety of the media was rushing around to find out whether or not Russia had indeed hacked the email server and leaked the information out to the public, and the whole world conveniently forgot that only a few minutes prior, Mrs. Clinton had leaked the nuclear time frame to the world on that same stage.
It's interesting that the first notable accusation of Russian hacking was a very late game statement by the candidate who wound up losing in quite a landslide. The thing that interests me the most about it actually came around a half a year later when evidence mysteriously and suddenly surfaced saying that Donald Trump Jr. and Jared Kushner were invited to a meeting with a Russian Lawyer who had damning evidence on Mrs. Clinton. What's odd about this is that my understanding of the information exchanged during this meeting turned out to actually be a complete bust, but it did publicly put men that were the closest to President Trump in a compromised position, and no one has yet to find who hired the Russian Lawyer, or where the money train originated to get her into this meeting. In fact, most of the questions seem to stop at the son and son-in-law of the President.
I had an idea when the Russian Lawyer situation first came to light. It seemed a little farfetched at the time, so I didn't really post it or discuss it anywhere. But now that the evidence is starting to come to light about Uranium one and the Clinton Foundation, along with Mr. Mueller suddenly having a list of people to bring charges upon after a year of searching, I feel more and more confident every day that my idea could hold water. I'll never say that my theory is true until I see the hard evidence, but the plausibility of it seemed to have risen over the last week in light of the newly released facts to the public.
The only way I can wrap my head around a meeting about condemning evidence with prominent members of the Trump family and a Russian lawyer; along with the quickness in which Hillary was able to accuse the Trump Campaign of Russian hacking when we all thought it was some American guy; would be if Clinton herself, or someone in the campaign, hired the lawyer. As I mentioned earlier in the article, there was no real new information that came along with the meeting, and it did put both men in compromising position that they later had to be investigated for. Short of the President confessing to allying with the Russians to steal the election, it's the only thing that really makes sense to me.
I'm not a journalist, I'm just a writer and commentator, so do not take my word as gospel on this situation. Look over the evidence, as I have, and draw your own conclusions. Mrs. Clinton lied and cheated to get the Vermont Socialist out of her way to the top of the ticket, so such a ploy would not be at all out of character. Just keep the thought in the back of your head as this story gets buried in the news cycle like Ferguson when it is no longer convenient. We've had a lot of years that the news story of the century suddenly fades away and gets forgotten about before a logical closure can be obtained. Thanks as always for reading and I hope you will subscribe.
I will be making a Twitter account for my blog, so look for a new handle in the articles to come. I'm also going to be trying to hold myself to a minimum of an article a week as I move forward. I'm also considering turning my blog into a vlog, and hopefully a regular webshow in the months to come. I will keep you posted on that. As I get my new Twitter account finalized, I look forward to reading people's comments and getting some thoughtful discussion going. I'm excited to see what the future brings.
During the primary season, there was a series of emails released through a web-based organization Wikileaks that mostly involved Former Secretary of State Clinton. In the beginning, the emails were mostly missing documents surrounding events from her tenure as Secretary of State, and the Benghazi incident. As the primaries and the general election went on, the emails that were being leaked moved away from the events of 4 years prior to more current events surrounding the primary cycle and her competition with Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders. Most, if not all of the emails that had been leaked were run through a private email server that the Clintons kept in their home, and were initially thought to have been deleted. While the actual content of the emails was condemning evidence in the events in question, the mainstream media turned its focus to how Wikileaks got their hands on the emails instead of what was in them.
Wikileaks founder Julian Assange has been well known for quite some time as being a truth seeker and his reputation also points to him being very good at finding it. While he has been reluctant to reveal his exact sources for the emails that he leaked surrounding the Democrat National Committee, he has vehemently denied Russian involvement in the matter. To be completely honest about the whole situation, I don't remember ever hearing about the Russians until the final Presidential Lincoln Douglass Debate before Election Day. During this debate, Secretary Clinton was asked directly about the leaked emails, and she referred it away to Russian Hacking for the first time since the emails were leaked. Suddenly, the entirety of the media was rushing around to find out whether or not Russia had indeed hacked the email server and leaked the information out to the public, and the whole world conveniently forgot that only a few minutes prior, Mrs. Clinton had leaked the nuclear time frame to the world on that same stage.
It's interesting that the first notable accusation of Russian hacking was a very late game statement by the candidate who wound up losing in quite a landslide. The thing that interests me the most about it actually came around a half a year later when evidence mysteriously and suddenly surfaced saying that Donald Trump Jr. and Jared Kushner were invited to a meeting with a Russian Lawyer who had damning evidence on Mrs. Clinton. What's odd about this is that my understanding of the information exchanged during this meeting turned out to actually be a complete bust, but it did publicly put men that were the closest to President Trump in a compromised position, and no one has yet to find who hired the Russian Lawyer, or where the money train originated to get her into this meeting. In fact, most of the questions seem to stop at the son and son-in-law of the President.
I had an idea when the Russian Lawyer situation first came to light. It seemed a little farfetched at the time, so I didn't really post it or discuss it anywhere. But now that the evidence is starting to come to light about Uranium one and the Clinton Foundation, along with Mr. Mueller suddenly having a list of people to bring charges upon after a year of searching, I feel more and more confident every day that my idea could hold water. I'll never say that my theory is true until I see the hard evidence, but the plausibility of it seemed to have risen over the last week in light of the newly released facts to the public.
The only way I can wrap my head around a meeting about condemning evidence with prominent members of the Trump family and a Russian lawyer; along with the quickness in which Hillary was able to accuse the Trump Campaign of Russian hacking when we all thought it was some American guy; would be if Clinton herself, or someone in the campaign, hired the lawyer. As I mentioned earlier in the article, there was no real new information that came along with the meeting, and it did put both men in compromising position that they later had to be investigated for. Short of the President confessing to allying with the Russians to steal the election, it's the only thing that really makes sense to me.
I'm not a journalist, I'm just a writer and commentator, so do not take my word as gospel on this situation. Look over the evidence, as I have, and draw your own conclusions. Mrs. Clinton lied and cheated to get the Vermont Socialist out of her way to the top of the ticket, so such a ploy would not be at all out of character. Just keep the thought in the back of your head as this story gets buried in the news cycle like Ferguson when it is no longer convenient. We've had a lot of years that the news story of the century suddenly fades away and gets forgotten about before a logical closure can be obtained. Thanks as always for reading and I hope you will subscribe.
I will be making a Twitter account for my blog, so look for a new handle in the articles to come. I'm also going to be trying to hold myself to a minimum of an article a week as I move forward. I'm also considering turning my blog into a vlog, and hopefully a regular webshow in the months to come. I will keep you posted on that. As I get my new Twitter account finalized, I look forward to reading people's comments and getting some thoughtful discussion going. I'm excited to see what the future brings.
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