During his time in prison, he was electrocuted with car batteries, beaten badly and intentionally dehydrated. It was all in an effort to coerce a confession that he was part of the CIA, "so they could say the U.S. government was directly involved." read more
Local officials and advocates in California are divided over Gov. Gavin Newsom's recent executive order requiring state agencies to remove homeless encampments on public property, leaving the homeless community caught in the middle and uncertain where they will go.
Americans are overwhelmingly in favor of reforming the Supreme Court along lines proposed by President Joe Biden, even as approval for the high court is marked by a sharp political divide, according to a new USA TODAY-Ipsos election year poll. read more
Far from being a bellwether for the contentious and momentous November general election, experts say national politics has had a cooling effect locally on this year's primary elections, scheduled for Aug. 13.
Election tech is fine -- it's all those idiots buying into the propaganda that's worrying Jen Easterly read more
Let's take for example, the town of Greenwich, CT. A town in southwest Connecticut that has an easy commute to the financial district of NYC.
Demographics:
Greenwich, Connecticut
en.wikipedia.org
... Greenwich (/rnt/ GREH-nitch) is a town in southwestern Fairfield County, Connecticut, United States. At the 2020 census, it had a population of 63,518.[2] Greenwich is a principal community of the Bridgeport"Stamford"Norwalk"Danbury metropolitan statistical area, which comprises all of Fairfield County, and is part of the Western Connecticut Planning Region. The town is the southwesternmost municipality in both the State of Connecticut and the six-state region of New England. The town is named after Greenwich, a royal borough of London in the United Kingdom.[3]
It is the largest town on Connecticut's affluent Gold Coast. Greenwich is home to many hedge funds and financial services firms due to its residential setting and proximity to New York City.[4][5] ...
Greenwich is home to three of the wealthiest zip codes in Connecticut, 06878, 06830 and 06831, with average adjusted gross incomes of $754,990, $638,560 and $721,550, and median household incomes of $182,386, $109,250 and $155,417, respectively.[31]
In recent decades, the town has attracted wealthy expatriates from around the globe due to its extremely low tax rate,[32] desirable school system, and proximity to Manhattan, which is an hour by Metro North.[33] The median listing price for a home in the town was $2.3 million in 2021.[34]
The coastal neighborhood of Belle Haven, along with Backcountry, have some of the wealthiest single family real estate in the world.[citation needed] In 2014, the highest asking price for a residential property in town was the Copper Beech Estate at $190 million. It later sold for $120 million.[35] ...
Greenwich, Connecticut was a mostly Democrat jurisdiction up through 1892, voting for the Democrat in 13 of the 17 presidential elections from that party's founding in the mid-1820s up through 1892.
Then the GOP would win Greenwich in 27 of the 28 presidential elections from 1896 to 2004, and in three of the last four presidential elections, the Democrat has carried the town. ...
What was so wrong with the recent Republican presidential candidates that the wealthy Republicans of Greenwich decided not to vote for them?
@#32 ... The secular world doesn't fit neatly into your world view. ...
And the religious world does?
... But the left is more open about their hatred of Christians and Jews ...
I'd proffer, it is not a hatred of those two religious groups (if such hatred actually exists at all).
I've not seen any manner of hatred of the Christian and Jewish religion, but more a concern about, mainly, Christians mixing politics and religion for the purpose of creating a [white] Christian nation.
Most Republicans Support Declaring the United States a Christian Nation (2022)
www.politico.com
@#12 ... Trump's proposal will not have a cap and will be designed so that even upper 6- and 7- figure earners can reclassify some of their irregular compensation - read bonuses - as tipped income, thereby paying no income tax at all on those earnings. ...
Typical of fmr Pres Trump ...
Fmr Pres trump touting tax benefits for the low- and middle-class so that those tax benefits can be exploited by the wealthy.
The 2017 Trump Tax Law Was Skewed to the Rich, Expensive, and Failed to Deliver on Its Promises (June 2024)
www.cbpp.org
...As this debate unfolds, policymakers and the public should understand that the 2017 Trump tax law:
- - - Was skewed to the rich. Households with incomes in the top 1 percent will receive an average tax cut of more than $60,000 in 2025, compared to an average tax cut of less than $500 for households in the bottom 60 percent, according to the Tax Policy Center (TPC).[1] As a share of after-tax income, tax cuts at the top " for both households in the top 1 percent and the top 5 percent " are more than triple the total value of the tax cuts received for people with incomes in the bottom 60 percent.[2]
- - - Was expensive and eroded the U.S. revenue base. The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimated in 2018 that the 2017 law would cost $1.9 trillion over ten years,[3] and recent estimates show that making the law's temporary individual income and estate tax cuts permanent would cost another roughly $400 billion a year beginning in 2027.[4] Together with the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts enacted under President Bush (most of which were made permanent in 2012), the law has severely eroded our country's revenue base. Revenue as a share of GDP has fallen from about 19.5 percent in the years immediately preceding the Bush tax cuts to just 16.3 percent in the years immediately following the Trump tax cuts, with revenues expected to rise to an annual average of 16.9 percent of GDP in 2018-2026 (excluding pandemic years), according to CBO. This is simply not enough revenue given the nation's investment needs and our commitments to Social Security and health coverage.
- - - Failed to deliver promised economic benefits. Trump Administration officials claimed their centerpiece corporate tax rate cut would "very conservatively" lead to a $4,000 boost in household income.[5] New research shows that workers who earned less than about $114,000 on average in 2016 saw "no change in earnings" from the corporate tax rate cut, while top executive salaries increased sharply.[6] Similarly, rigorous research concluded that the tax law's 20 percent pass-through deduction, which was skewed in favor of wealthy business owners, has largely failed to trickle down to workers in those companies who aren't owners.[7]
Like the Bush tax cuts before it,[8] the 2017 Trump tax cut was a trickle-down failure. ...
@#11 ... My friends who have the surname Recamier are not amused by these recliner jokes ...
...
recamier - noun
...
: a sometimes backless couch with a high curved headrest and low footrest
...
Two questions:
1) this is the first time they might have heard jokes about their name? Did they attend high-school?
2) the word recamier is quite different than the word sofa or recliner. Are they also concerned when Walmart uses the word recomier ( www.walmart.com )?
@#5 ... Kamala Harris Campaign Taunts Trump With Rally Crowd Videos on Truth Social ...
Oh wow.
Kamala HQ
https://truthsocial.com/@KamalaHQ/posts/112944462530477301
... Warning: The content of this video may upset @realDonaldTrump. ...
Not just wow, but friggin' wow.
Going after the fmr Pres Trump campaign on his home field?
It is like the visiting team trouncing the home team in front of a stadium full of the home team fans.
If I may be blunt, what balls she has. ...
My guess is that we would not see something like this with a Pres Harris...
Trump aides face calls to resign after president's appearance with Putin (July 2018)
www.politico.eu
And then there is the photo...
@#13 ... But it might be a good idea for him and his contingent to be a bit less judgmental toward others. ...
Yup.
There's that whole "people who live in glass houses" thing going on.