Thoughts on a Friday
Did Donald J. Trump actually use the words "...shithole countries..." in a meeting with members of the House and Senate from both parties? I believe it. Especially since Senator Dick Durbin confirmed his use of vile language.
Does it matter? It could lower the rest of the world's opinion about the #LiarInChief if that were possible. Not sure that it is. It could lower the adoration among the sycophants who put him into the Oval Office, but will it? Almost certainly not. He is a racist and a xenophobe and so are a large portion of those who voted for him. Not all. Some were voting against Hillary Clinton more than they were supporting Trump. They considered him the lesser of two evils.
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Kudos to Jeff Bezos for donating $33 million to an organization that helps "dreamers" pay for college. Given his net worth, some may consider that to be spare change, but I think it is awesome for him to do this. As to his net worth...
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Julian Assange has become a citizen of Ecuador. Last month was the 5th anniversary of his residence in the Ecuadoran embassy in London. He took refuge there to avoid being extradited to Sweden.
Will this lead to him finally being able to escape the confines of the embassy without being taken into custody? Stay tuned.
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Amy "Dolly" Everett was a 14 year old teen girl living in Australia. I say was because she took her own life in the wake of cyber-bullying. Her father posted a message on Facebook that contained the following:
The second is for the strong ones, lets stop the bullies no matter where, but especially in our kids, as the old saying goes. You will never know what have untill it's gone."
How many more children will die as the result of the epidemic of cyberbullying? Too many.
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Since 2010, funding for the IRS has been cut by 20%, adjusted for inflation. In 2015 Congress passed a new law requiring the agency to use outside collection agencies to try to collect some of the back tax debts owed to the federal government.
During his confirmation hearings, Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin called the use of outside collection agencies, "...a very obvious thing to do."
Now the program has been in place for one year and the numbers are in. The outside agencies were paid $20 million and they managed to collect all of $6.7 million in back taxes. Worse yet was something said by Nina Olson, the IRS' Taxpayer Advocate in her annual report to Congress:
"PRIVATE DEBT COLLECTION: The IRS’s Private Debt Collection
Program Is Not Generating Net Revenues, Appears to Have Been
Implemented Inconsistently with the Law, and Burdens Taxpayers
Experiencing Economic Hardship"
Worse yet, the IRS paid commissions of 25% to these debt collectors for collection of amounts where the collectors did nothing to earn the commissions.
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Tim Murphy was a member of the House from Pennsylvania until he resigned. He resigned after it was discovered that he had encouraged his mistress to terminate her pregnancy in spite of his strident anti-abortion stance.
The special election to replace him takes place on March 13th. It pits Rick Saccone (R) versus Conor Lamb (D) and Drew Gray Miller (Libertarian Party).
Mr. Saccone is a member of the Pennsylvania House and was running for the U.S. Senate in 2018 until he suspended that campaign to run in this race. He introduced a resolution into the PA House to have 2012 declared The Year of the Bible. He also introduced legislation to require every school in the state to display the motto "In God We Trust" on every building.
Mr. Lamb is a Marine (there's no such thing as a former Marine) and a former federal prosecutor.
Mr. Miller is an attorney who was once the legal counsel to the PA House Majority Whip.
My thoughts on this race? I'd love to see Mr. Lamb win and deny yet another victory for Trump to trumpet as his own. Enough that I donated to Mr. Lamb's campaign. You can do the same here.
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Nancy Kerrigan and her husband have no comment on the movie I, Tonya.
No surprise there.
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posted by me at 5:35 PM
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