Headlines

Manafort to cooperate with Mueller as part of plea deal

Homeowners sitting on $6 trillion in available cash, but they're not tapping it

Jane Fonda says Moonves ouster 'only the beginning' ...

Jeff Bezos rips Trump for 'dangerous" attacks on the Washington Post

GOP defend Kavanaugh against sexual harassment allegations

Nobel Prize winner Schiller sees 'bad times for [stock] market' ahead

[Alexandria] Cortez wears $3,500 outfit for photo-op with construction worker?

Report: Michael Bloomberg plotting  a 2020 presidential run as a Democrat

Averaging in NYT op-ed makes case for indicting Trump

The real reason that Amazon's HQ2 will be near Washington, D.C..

Feds collect record income taxes ...

Ruth Bader Ginsberg tips 'highly partisan' Kavanaugh hearings

Headlines

Space war is coming -- and the U.S. is not ready

Michelle tries to put Trump down, ends up calling him the 'fun parent'

Man who lived with wolves for 12 years "disappointed with human life"

Soros preparing to trade cryptocurrencies

Trump to skip White House Correspondents Dinner again

Fed. Chair Powell says growth has picked up enough to justify [interest] rate increase

Guggenheim investment chief sees recession, 40% drop in stocks ...

Iraq demands Cuba repay its Saddam-era debt

Mexican president to Trump: 'Nothing and no one stands above the dignity of Mexico'

Facebook sent doctor on secret mission to get hospitals to share patient data

Top 20% of Americans pay 87% of income taxes ...

Obama supporters rush to save his 'dangerous' school leniency policy

Red Herring

A friend recently sent me an e-mail about immigration reform in which he said: "making the desirable [illegal immigrants] citizens after exacting a measure of penalties is the way to go".  This to me is unrealistic and a Democrat-inspired red herring … which now is unfortunately echoed by many naive Republicans … such as Marco Rubio and Lindsey Graham.  Let me expand on the points I have made in a previous blog post (see: Carrying Water in Sieve).

Imagine that you are an illegal immigrant ... you work under the table, you don't pay income taxes, you get many social services: Medicaid, EBT card, Section 8 housing, an Obamaphone, etc. ... maybe even SSI.  You have a driver’s license but don't have auto insurance.  You even can vote and sometimes do.  Now would you step forward and let the government know who and where you are, lose some or all of your social benefits, pay your back taxes and penalties, commit to paying income and Social Security taxes into the forever future, buy auto insurance, learn English, and stand in line for citizenship?

I don't think so.  One can be sure that most illegal immigrants understand economic self-interest and the sorry state of our immigration-law enforcement.

I predict that the only result of the currently-proposed immigration-reform legislation would be that less than 25% of those to whom this reform is directed will actually come forward under its terms.  And I also think that most of its more restrictive provisions will be ignored by the Obama administration (i.e., border security expansion will not be implemented) … and the number of illegal immigrants will dramatically increase from the admitted 11 million today.

A piece of advice … don’t try to feast on a red herring.

Why I Won’t Vote for Romney

- He didn’t pay any income taxes for ten years

- He drove hundreds of miles with his dog on the roof of his car

- He thinks the trees in Michigan are just the right size

- He has some offshore bank accounts/investments

- His great grandfather was a polygamist

- His wife rides an expensive horse

- He wears magic underwear

- He likes to fire people

- His church does not permit non-members to enter their temple

- He was worried about the preparations for the London Olympics

- He thinks that Jerusalem is the capital of Israel

- His garage in Santa Barbara has a car elevator

- His sons didn’t serve in the military

- He is a member of the 1%

Representation without Taxation

47% of Americans pay no federal income taxes and I would speculate a great many, who work off the books, also pay no FICA taxes either. Yet everyone, including I suspect, many non-citizens get to vote for national representatives who turn around and vote for laws that perpetuate these inequities. (Motor-voter laws, lax voter registration processes … taken advantage by “community organizers” such as ACORN, and the rapid growth of absentee ballot usage are making a mockery of traditional voter-fraud checks.) Thus, we have turned the slogan of the original tea-partiers on its head … now a growing number of people in this country are enjoying “representation without taxation.”

Even in local elections, many who pay absolutely no property taxes get to vote. All colleges and other non-profits nevertheless get to elect their community officials. (In Wellesley, MA, Wellesley College professors and administrators who live in rent-free and property-tax-free housing … and who send their children to local schools … still get to vote for their local candidates. And the colleges and other non-profits themselves enjoy fire/police protection and other community services without having to pay the taxes or, too often, the “fees-in-lieu-of-taxes” needed to pay for these services.) And even more egregiously, students at these institutions of higher learning now get to vote for town administrators where they go to school as opposed to where they (or their parents) actually pay taxes – even though many might also absentee-vote back at “home” too. Such up-side-down logic seems to me to be gross miscarriage of the tenants of our democracy.

“Don’t tread on me,” has unfortunately become “Everyone, who wants to, tread on me.”