Flashy headlines don't tell the whole story on the tax plan.
Here comes the FLASH headline: The largest tax-code overhaul since the 1980’s passed through the House yesterday.
Doesn’t that sound flashy? The reality is there’s not much to get excited about. The REAL work on this plan goes down in the Senate, but probably the most interesting thing about this “tax plan” doesn’t even have anything to do with tax reform. Let’s get real here. This is still all about health care, we’re just calling it something else.
First, the tax numbers. After the Senate gets done revising this thing, individual tax cuts will be about 3.7 trillion and will raise revenue by 2.8 trillion. The Senate’s version is a marked improvement over the House’s. They improved it by increasing the child tax credit from 1,000 per child to 2,000, and they’re also - and this is the big one - repealing the Obamacare individual mandate.
The war on Obamacare never ended. It was just repackaged as “tax reform.” What was deemed “the largest tax-code overhaul in decades”, is - in reality - a tax plan that will be negated by inflation in 10 to 15 years. This is not an age-defining bill. The tax cuts make it better than what we have now, but it’s nothing earth-shattering. There’s only one age defining issue out there and that’s healthcare. This Bill could be the first salvo in scuttling Obamacare for good.
Notice that I said, “could be.” A couple days ago it was announced that the Alexander-Murray insurance company bailout would likely be included in the spending bill. This would basically negate the ultimate goal of repealing the individual mandate, and that ultimate goal is to cause Obamacare to fail. The Alexander-Murray bailout ensures that insurance companies and hospitals can continue operating like a cartel. Costs and premiums will remain high. Monthly premiums are now up to 2,100 dollars, and they’re rising. Those costs alone, completely wipe out the child tax credit.
To the Senate: if your goal really is to try and scuttle Obamacare, what good is repealing the individual mandate if you wind up bailing out the insurance companies? If you skimped on tax cuts to finally put a nail in the coffin of Obamacare, you better be prepared to go all the way. Stop the Alexander-Murray Obamacare payments, or this is all for nothing.
Franken-creep
If you always found Al Franken a little creepy, now you have confirmation.
Yesterday, Los Angeles radio news anchor Leeann Tweeden accused Al Franken of “forcibly kissing” her in 2006 when they were in Afghanistan as part of a U.S.O. tour. The kissing part of this story sounds pretty juvenile on Franken’s part, but it doesn’t appear to be the worst part of what Franken did. On the flight home, someone took a photo of Franken either groping, or looking like he is about to grope, Tweeden’s chest while she was sleeping.
The incident happened two years before the citizens of Minnesota elected Franken – the guy who played Stuart Smalley on Saturday Night Live – to represent them in the U.S. Senate.
Now, just like Roy Moore’s handwriting in the yearbook, we’re probably going to have days of photo-analysis trying to figure out whether either of Franken’s hands is actually making contact with Tweeden’s chest.
Either way, the photo is tasteless, disrespectful, and creepy.
Franken apologized, saying he realizes the photo’s not funny now, which actually just means he thought it was funny until he got caught.
As for the forced kiss, Tweeden says Franken wrote a skit for the two of them in which the characters kiss. She says he wanted to rehearse the kiss backstage. She did not want to. But he forced a, shall we say, “French” kiss on her anyway. She immediately shoved him away with both hands.
Franken said he doesn’t remember the rehearsal for the skit quite the same way as Tweeden does. No one could’ve seen that coming.
In Franken’s apology, he said he respects women, blah, blah, blah, and asked for a Senate ethics investigation on himself. That isn’t as noble as it might sound. A Senate ethics investigation is what you order up when you don’t want someone to get in actual trouble. Nothing ever results from those.
So, don’t even bother with the paperwork on that “ethics” investigation. We have photographic evidence of Al’s ethics and “respect for women.” Al Franken is a professional comedian. A guy like that doesn’t get elected Senator and suddenly become Ward Cleaver. The only surprise here is that it took nine years for something like this about Al Franken to come to light.
Fear the Reaper
Three letters were scrawled on the front door.
P. I. G.
Upon further inspection, crime scene investigations realized the ink was human blood.
It was the blood of actress Sharon Tate and her unborn child.
Tate had thrown a dinner party for her friends earlier that evening. She had no idea it would end in a bloody rampage.
Under Charles Manson’s instruction, members of his “family” invaded the Tate home and viciously killed everyone inside.
The next night, Manson rode with his followers to the home of Leno and Rosemary LaBianca. They were also murdered.
Manson initially was sentenced to death. But a 1972 ruling by the California Supreme Court found the state’s death penalty law at the time unconstitutional.
His sentence was changed to life in prison with the possibility of parole.
Manson has been denied parole 12 times.
But now Manson may finally get the punishment he deserves.
The 83-year-old has been hospitalized and sources are saying it’s only a matter of time until he passes on.
Charles Manson will die in his bed, content with living a long life—a luxury that Sharon Tate, her unborn son Paul Richard Polanski, and 8 other victims of Manson’s insanity will never know.
Let’s hope the grim reaper comes swiftly and Manson can start doing time on his next sentence.