Lurker > WastelandCowboy

Updated at 12:58 p.m. ET

Congressional Republicans delivered on their first major legislative accomplishment of the Trump era on Wednesday, when the House voted 224-201 to pass a $1.5 trillion tax package. The bill cuts individual rates for eight years and slashes the top corporate tax rate to 21 percent permanently.

The bill now goes to Trump for his signature, though it's not clear when he will sign it.

Republican lawmakers hoped to put the bill over the goal line a day earlier, after the House claimed victory on a 227-203 vote Tuesday afternoon, but hit a procedural hurdle. The Senate passed the bill with some slight tweaks in the early hours of Wednesday morning on a party-line vote, 51-48.

"This is a historic night," Senate Finance Committee Chairman Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, said after the vote.

The bill has been in the works for months. Republican leaders put a marker down at the beginning of the year to pass a tax bill by the end of the summer, though that had depended on passing a repeal and replacement of the Affordable Care Act in the spring, an effort that dragged out but ultimately did not materialize. The tax bill accomplishes part of that goal by eliminating the penalty for individuals who don't get health insurance.

Republicans say that public opinion of the bill, which has been very low, will turn around as people start to feel the effect of tax cuts.

"When people see their withholding improving, when they see the jobs occurring, when they see bigger paychecks, a fairer tax system, a simpler tax code, that's what's going to produce the results," House Speaker Paul Ryan said Tuesday. "Results are going to make this popular."

People across income levels will see a tax cut of some sort under the bill, though most of the benefits go to top earners. By February, federal income tax withholding is expected to be adjusted in paychecks, but for most people, the changes may not be apparent until April 2019 when 2018 taxes will be due for annual filers.

The GOP has long sought a big overhaul of the tax code to simplify it by eliminating complex tax breaks and lowering rates, but in the end, the tax bill did not do much to actually simplify the code.

Individual tax rates are cut for eight years, though a future Congress could choose to extend them instead of allowing an effective tax increase to take place at the end of 2025. "We have no intention of allowing that to happen," Ryan, R-Wis., said to CBS This Morning on Wednesday.

The projection that the bill would add $1.5 trillion to the deficit over 10 years grows to $2 trillion if those individual tax cuts are made permanent, according to the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center.

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., referred in a floor speech to "the ludicrous Republican insistence their claim that these giveaways to the wealthiest will pay for themselves." GOP leaders have insisted that reducing taxes on the corporate side of the ledger will result in higher wages and more money being brought back to the U.S. from overseas business operations, but many economists doubt that the bill will spur significant economic growth or avoid adding to the national debt.

Republican leaders have spoken of reducing entitlement spending as a priority for next year. "We need to keep focused on the spending side of the ledger, as well, " Ryan told ABC's Good Morning America, when he mentioned revisiting health care spending and welfare reform, which President Trump has also focused on.

Democrats have been unable to break GOP unity to stop the tax bill as they were able to over health care, though they have said they look forward to how it will play in the 2018 midterm elections as they argue it's a boon for the wealthy.

A tour bus destined for Mayan ruins in eastern Mexico flipped over on a two-lane highway early Tuesday, leaving a dozen people dead and many more injured. Among them are some Americans.

In a statement from government officials in the Mexican state of Quintana Roo, where the accident occurred, report there were 12 passengers killed including one girl under 18, and 18 were injured. There were 31 passengers traveling on the bus.

The statement offered no information about what caused the crash.

A U.S. Embassy spokesman in Mexico City said officials were en route to the scene of the accident, about 100 miles from Tulum. But he could not confirm the number of Americans involved in the deadly incident. The official added that those in need of medical attention had been transferred to several nearby hospitals.

The embassy expected to "have eyes on the ground before the end of the day," according to the spokesman.

Embassy officials issued a statement expressing condolences "to all those affected by this tragedy."

It said, "We are in contact with local authorities and are working with them to determine if there were U.S. citizens on board. We will continue to monitor the situation."

Nearly all the passengers aboard the bus were also passengers on two Royal Caribbean cruises the Celebrity Equinox and Serenade of the Seas which set off from Miami. The cruise ship company contracted the local tour bus that was headed out on a day-long adventure to ancient Mayan ruins in Chacchoben.

Royal Caribbean's corporate offices expressed their sadness over Twitter calling the loss of life "heartbreaking" and assured readers the company was assisting with medical care and transportation.

The company also said it had little information about the details of the accident. "Our 27 guests were on a bus tour to the Chacchoben Ruins. We are working with the local authorities to learn more about the accident. We are doing all we can to help our guests."

Photos and video taken in the aftermath of the accident show the bus on its side, pushed up against a thick brush of trees. Beach towels and bottles of water are strewn across the road.

Costa Maya Mahahual, the bus company involved, told the AP in a statement that in addition to the tourists, a guide and driver were also aboard the bus.

WastelandCowboy posted...

You're like in your fifties and work at the Pentagon, right?

If I worked at the Pentagon, wouldn't I be *attacking* Trump?

WastelandCowboy posted...

I took you and your alts (Broken_Zeus) and (Donald_J_Zeus) off ignore, by the way. Trying this out. Trying to be civil with you, for once.

Merry Christmas to you, too, buddy. Granted, I haven't used DJZ on this board at all other than the accidental post that one day when karma'ing it so that block was a wasted spot anyway.

Some Russian disinformation agents are funny. They'll make countless topics undermining the legitimacy of our elections, the presidency, trying to agitate social issues, etc, and when you call them on it they'll accuse you of being a Republican. Granted, it's not as funny as ignoring a person then constantly trying to interact with them.

Analysts say that leaves the U.S. military stretched thin.

"For years we've had a strategy that says we'll do A, B and C, but only the funding available to do A. And we never made the strategy and the resources line up together," said Jacob Cohn of the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments.

The administration says Trump has successfully pressed European allies to spend more money on their own defense a longtime U.S. goal. During his trip to Asia last month, Trump also celebrated increased defense spending by American allies Japan and South Korea.

The national security strategy highlights the link between a strong domestic economy and national defense. Administration officials quoted Defense Secretary James Mattis, who has said a strong economy is one of his most powerful weapons.

Trump's concerns with U.S. trade policy are woven throughout the security strategy. One of his first acts as president was to withdraw the U.S. from an Asia-Pacific trade pact, which Trump labeled a bad deal. The president has also called for renegotiating trade agreements with Mexico, Canada and South Korea.

Administration officials insist that cooperation with allies is a cornerstone of the national security strategy, adding that Trump's campaign slogan of "America First" does not mean "America alone."

But Trump on Monday again reiterated his view that the U.S. needs to tighten its immigration policies, and the strategy document lists the "construction of a border wall" as a "priority action."

Critics say the president has diminished America's international standing, by announcing his withdrawal from the Paris climate accord, criticizing the Iran nuclear deal, and recognizing Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, in defiance of United Nations policy.

"It's hard to see how American influence in the world has really increased" since Trump took office, "and in most areas it's probably decreased," said Dan Drezner of the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy. "If you look at polling evidence, there is greater hostility across the rest of the world to positions of U.S. foreign policy."

Drezner notes that other countries continue to move forward with the climate accord, the Iran nuclear deal, and the Asia-Pacific trade pact, despite U.S. opposition.

He sees little foundation for Trump's boast of greater "respect" on the international stage, other than personal flattery.

"What other countries have figured out, and this has been remarkably successful, is that Donald Trump views foreign policy through an entirely personal lens," Drezner said. "If he is treated well, he interprets that as America and American interests being treated well, even if that's not necessarily the case."

Updated at 3:43 p.m. ET

President Trump outlined his goals for military modernization and economic advancement Monday, as he unveiled his national security strategy in a speech in Washington.

The strategy document which every president is required by law to produce offers a blueprint for Trump's military and foreign policy. It could help to guide future decisions on defense spending, trade negotiations and international cooperation.

"What we have built here in America is precious and unique," Trump said. "We must love and defend it, we must guard it with vigilance and spirit, and if necessary, like so many before us, with our very lives."

The security strategy is built around four pillars: protecting the homeland; promoting prosperity; peace through strength; and advancing American influence.

The document, as well as Trump's speech on Monday, has clear echoes of things Trump said on the campaign trail in 2016.

"Unfair trade practices had weakened our economy and exported our jobs overseas. Unfair burden-sharing with our allies and inadequate investment in our own defense had invited danger from those who wish us harm," Trump wrote in the document's introduction. "Nearly one year later, although serious challenges remain, we are charting a new and very different course."

The document identifies three types of challenges: revisionist powers such as Russia and China; rogue regimes like North Korea; and transnational actors such as ISIS.

The strategy acknowledges that some players may be both allies and competitors. The United States is counting on China, for example, to help contain North Korea's nuclear threat, even as the administration tries to counter what it sees as China's unfair trading practices.

Likewise, the U.S. remains wary of Russia's movements in Ukraine. But that didn't stop the CIA from sharing intelligence with Russia to help foil a potential terrorist plot in St. Petersburg actions that prompted a thank you call to Trump over the weekend from Russian President Vladimir Putin.

"President Trump stressed the importance of intelligence cooperation to defeat terrorists wherever they may be," the White House said in a statement detailing the call.

Trump has campaigned for a substantial buildup in U.S. military forces.

"We will stand up for ourselves and we will stand up for our country like we have never stood up before," Trump said Monday.

But it's not clear Congress will provide the necessary funding. Lawmakers are still operating under budget caps negotiated in 2011.

While congressional Republicans have pushed to lift the cap on defense spending, Democrats have demanded a corresponding increase in domestic programs. The likely passage of a GOP tax bill, which is expected to drain $1 trillion from the U.S. treasury over the next decade, won't make this political contest any easier.

"Unless the president is able to pull a rabbit out of his hat and get Congress to significantly raise or eliminate the budget caps, I don't think a significant increase in the size of the military is likely to happen," said Todd Harrison, a defense analyst at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

An alternate approach, Harrison says, would be to dial back the demands on the military. But while Trump talked during the campaign about reducing or ending America's security obligations overseas, he has since reaffirmed the U.S. commitment to defending allies in Europe and Asia.

Updated at 12:33 p.m. ET

An Amtrak train has derailed on an overpass in Washington state, falling partly onto an interstate freeway east of Olympia. The Pierce County sheriff's office has confirmed that "injuries and casualties" have been reported on site, where at least one train car is dangling onto the major roadway.

There were "multiple fatalities" in the crash, according to Pierce County Sheriff's office spokesman Ed Troyer. He added that the fatalities were confined to the train itself and that it does not appear that any motorists were killed.

Amtrak identified the derailed vehicle as Train 501, which offers high-speed service from Seattle to Portland.

"Emergency services are on the scene and Amtrak management is responding," the company said in a statement. "Some injuries are reported."

"This was the first day this Amtrak train was going to start taking a more inland route following the freeway," NPR's Martin Kaste reports. "Before this, it used to kind of snake along the edge of Puget Sound but that slowed things down. This was supposed to be a faster, more direct route, but something clearly went wrong."

"We're praying for everyone on board the train, and ask everyone to hold them in your thoughts," Washington Gov. Jay Inslee tweeted, adding his thanks to first responders on the scene and a warning to motorists to avoid the "ongoing and serious situation."

This is a developing story. Some things that get reported by the media will later turn out to be wrong. We will focus on reports from police officials and other authorities, credible news outlets and reporters who are at the scene. We will update as the situation develops.

When are Mueller and the Democrats going to drop this "Russian collusion" bullshit?

At least he's doing something, unlike that cardboard cutout of a president Obama.

A topic so profound it needed to be posted on two boards.

BlackScythe0 posted...

Zeus posted...

Doctor Foxx posted...

There must be some really good e-mails in there, as Fox news has since resorted to calling the FBI a "criminal cabal" and suggesting the FBI is staging a coup.

Considering how hard the intelligence community has pushed for a new Cold War over the past few years and the complete lack of substance in the Russia investigation which has been wholly political in nature (including the charges against Flynn when Obama's incoming representatives did also met with people before he officially took office), I wouldn't be terribly surprised if it was some sort of a power-grab.

What do you call that fantasy world you live in to believe this stuff?

The one with Fox News in the waiting room

Fml I hate myself so much

Fight me CE.

The only way to have peace on Earth is for everything to be dead.

This past September, after Maggie Mary Otto passed away, the village of Kongiganak, Alaska also known as Kong celebrated her life with a four-course feast. People filed into the old high school gym and piled their plates with seal stew and walrus meat, while children wrestled by the bleachers. It was crowded. Mrs. Otto was an elder and the de facto marriage counselor in town. She was beloved.

Mrs. Otto's daughter, Betty Phillip, sat in a corner. They put her mother to rest on high ground, she said, but not all of her family in Kong is so lucky.

"Her dad and my grandpa," Phillip said. "He's one of them that's under the water."

In Alaska, most Native American villages in the western part of the state are built on permafrost a thick layer of frozen soil. But as the climate changes, that permafrost is starting to thaw. Kong's cemetery is melting and becoming a swampy lake. People are watching the graves of their loved ones sink out of sight.

If she wears the right rubber boots, Phillip says, she can wade close to her grandfather's grave, but can't quite touch his cross.

Others tell similar stories. Hanna Jimmie says her parents, aunts, uncles, sister and best friend are all in the cemetery, buried together in a single row. They're underwater now.

"We're so poor we can't even do anything about it," Jimmie says.

Roland Andrew, Kong's tribal administrator, walks through the cemetery. It's a smattering of white crosses on a rust-colored hill, about 10 minutes from town. Andrew points to a slanted cross that belongs to a friend.

"When I was planning on starting a band he was my keyboardist," he says with a chuckle. "That's what we were into when he was alive."

That friend passed away in 2005. By then, burials in the cemetery had already been a problem for about a decade.

"After we dug down 6 feet," Andrew says, "it created a lake around it."

The swamp that appeared slowly expanded. Now, crosses stick out of the sunken ground at odd angles some of them almost completely submerged in water. As the markers sank, some older wood coffins started to rot.

In at least one case, "there were some bones," Andrew says. "So they put it to higher ground from the lowland area."

He says they're trying to move all graves to higher ground but don't have the money yet.

Digging into melting permafrost can weaken it even more. And places where there's been a lot of digging like a cemetery can be the first to go.

So, about 10 years ago, Kong stopped burying its dead.

Cremation is not part of the culture here. So when it was time to bury Mrs. Otto, her family tried something else. Rather than lowering her body into the ground, her pallbearers placed her casket on a low wooden platform, raised about six inches above the ground on blocks.

Six men lifted a white, wooden box and placed it over Mrs. Otto's casket, covering it completely. This way of laying people to rest has slowed the swamp's expansion though it's not clear if it's stopped it.

The cemetery isn't the only part of Kong that's sinking. The entire hill the village stands on is slowly slipping to sea level, too. But Roland Andrew says he's not planning to move.

The cemetery in a nearby village is also sinking, and their homes are flooding more too. They're talking about moving here.

The where you play as girl named Ahab

Mead posted...

WastelandCowboy posted...

Horizon Zero Dawn?

No the PS4 game with the dinobots

WastelandCowboy posted...

Horizon Zero Dawn

Idk I think people are underestimating Kanga's motherly instincts plus that there are two of them. TC put Kanga and Roo as one option.

NPR and BBC usually.

WastelandCowboy posted...

animals with mental disorders

mind = blown

Either Tigger or Piglet. Though, to be more fair here, Piglet's kill tally would come only from finally cracking from so much duress of dealing with everyone else's shit. Tigger's trigger wouldn't be so predictable.

With lawmakers in the House and Senate announcing that they've reached a deal, affordable housing advocates are anxiously waiting to see which version of the bill wins out with regard to housing. They say the House bill has a poison pill in it.

"The effect would be devastating," says Diane Yentel, president of the National Low Income Housing Coalition. "It would mean a loss of around 800,000 affordable rental homes over the next 10 years."

Critics of the emerging tax bill say it gives huge benefits to the wealthy and corporations and doesn't do much for the working class. But advocates like Yentel say it could be much worse than that when it comes to affordable housing a lot of working families, people on lower incomes and the elderly would lose out on the chance to get a place they could afford to live.

Yentel says for decades there's been this bedrock funding mechanism that's helped millions of affordable housing units get built. It's called a "private activity bond." And it allows banks and other companies to get a tax break if they invest in affordable housing construction.

In the House version of the tax bill, these bonds lose their tax exempt status. So Yantel says this bedrock funding mechanism gets destroyed. "This essentially eliminates nearly half of the affordable homes that can be developed or preserved throughout the country with the low-income tax credit program."

The reason tax credits and subsidies have been so crucial is that they reduce the cost of construction. So the developers, which are often non-profits, can charge less money for the units and that makes them affordable.

So why do some Republicans want to throw a grenade in this system if it's been working? Scott Greenberg, an analyst with the conservative-leaning Tax Foundation, says, "Tax exempt bonds are probably a relatively inefficient way of subsidizing projects meant to benefit the public."

Greenberg says you could get more bang for your buck subsidizing affordable housing in other ways instead of using the tax code to do it. So he's in favor of scrapping this tax break even though he acknowledges that would likely result in less affordable housing.

This is of great concern to Chris Mayer, a housing economist at Columbia University, who agrees that this current approach to building affordable housing may not be the most efficient one. "My fear with this tax bill is that we're going to cut the affordable housing subsidies but we're not going to replace them with a more efficient program," Mayer says. "That means what we're doing on net is cutting subsidies for low-income people, making it more expensive for them to live we end up with more people homeless and more families struggling in this country."

Both Mayer and Yentel say with the bill adding more than a trillion dollars to the deficit, it's highly unlikely for years to come that lawmakers will find the funding for some big new program for affordable housing.

And Yentel says she's struck by something else. This affordable housing program has been popular for decades: Liberals get the housing that they want built and corporations get tax credits. It creates public-private partnerships. "And in just the past couple of years where there's been efforts by Republicans and Democrats to expand the program, there's been really strong bipartisan support for those bills." So Yentel says "It's very surprising" that the House tax bill targeted the program in this way.

The Senate bill does not take away this funding mechanism for affordable housing. So as the details are starting to emerge on the House and Senate tax deal, Yentel and other housing advocates are hoping to find out that the Senate version has won when it comes to affordable housing.

A school bus taking around 20 students home Thursday afternoon collided with a train in the south of France, resulting in "numerous victims," according to the local government.

Prime Minister Edouard Phillipe told Le Monde that four people died in the crash and 20 were injured, 11 critically.

French media reports that all of the people killed were school children.

Reports give the ages of the children on the bus as 11 to 15, or 13 to 17.

Le Monde says there were 25 people aboard the regional train and none was seriously injured.

The train and the bus collided in a village called Millas outside the city of Perpignan, close to the Spanish border. The circumstances around the crash remain unclear, but the local government described it as "a terrible accident."

Pictures from the scene showed rescue workers around the school bus sheered into two pieces.

French President Emmanuel Macron said France's full resources had been mobilized in the rescue of victims.

The Prfet of the Pyrnes-Orientales said it was a major operation, including the work of nearly 100 firefighters and 15 police units. Parents were asked to convene at the Millas school where they would be "kept informed."

France's national rail authority, SNCF, told The Associated Press that witnesses reported the crossing gates had been working properly. And a rail official said the barrier which includes flashing lights had been lowered at the time of the crash.

France's Interior Minister Grard Collomb was making his way to the scene of the accident Thursday, tweeting that he was "overwhelmed by the tragedy."

WastelandCowboy posted...

Next, can we please fix the loophole where ignored people are visible when quoted?

That's not really a loophole.

Updated at 3:20 p.m. ET

Omarosa Manigault Newman, the former Apprentice and Celebrity Apprentice contestant turned White House aide, is stepping down from her post. In a terse statement Wednesday, the White House said she "resigned yesterday to pursue other opportunities. Her departure will not be effective until January 20, 2018. We wish her the best in future endeavors and are grateful for her service."

Known as Omarosa from her reality TV days, Newman was White House director of communications for the Office of Public Liaison although what her job actually entailed was less than clear. She was the highest-ranking African-American in the White House and a staunch defender of the president, telling PBS' Frontline before the 2016 presidential election that "every critic, every detractor, will have to bow down to President Trump. It's everyone who's ever doubted Donald. Who ever disagreed, who ever challenged him. It is the ultimate revenge to become the most powerful man in the universe."

In an interview with the Hollywood Reporter a year ago, she said, "I am living the American dream because of Donald Trump. Look at my career, the wealth and exposure that I've had; it's very difficult to make the argument that Donald Trump doesn't like black people and black women."

Newman recently raised eyebrows in Washington for having a wedding photo shoot at the White House, reportedly to the surprise of other administration aides and security officials.

The circumstances of her departure are also unclear. According to American Urban Radio Network reporter April Ryan, Omarosa was escorted from the White House by the Secret Service, after trying to speak with President Trump at the White House residence Tuesday night.

Contacted by NPR, the Secret Service would not comment.