All_Pro_Bills

Millionaires and billionaires are going to report "tip" income? I'm dying to see that. Extending the tax cuts is not a cut. And given 50% of Americans don't pay any federal taxes how do you cut their taxes? Send them more free money? As for the IRS I have no insights into the working of the agency. Its hard to evaluate the impact of these staff cuts because for starters we don't know what they were doing? 38% of how many people? 100 or 1,000 or 10,000. What I also find preposterous is the idea Trump and Musk are in this for self-enrichment. I don't know about anyone else,but I'm not going to get shot at, charged with a bunch of bogus "crimes" just to make more money when I have enough money to live on forever. And Musk doesn't need more money and if he did there are other more direct ways to generate more income for the guy than getting involved in the headache of government. The idea Trump and Musk are pulling off some get richer caper is a narrative the opposition likes to peddle because they can't say, hey, we support fraud, waste, and abuse in government spending because we're the people committing fraud, waste, and abuse and a lot of that money is funding our causes and ending up in our pockets.

The tax cuts I'm hearing about are excluding tips and overtime pay from taxation along with eliminating the tax on social security benefits. Unless the "wealthy" are waiting on tables and catching some extra hours in the warehouse or depending on SS for their existence what exactly is the proposal on the table for cutting rich people's taxes?

Populists aren't attacking people and committing criminal acts here. When these socialist/leftists ass holes can't get their way through the ballot box they resort to violence and lawlessness all while claiming the other side is threatening democracy while they ignore democracy and resort to street violence and criminal behavior.

This tariff thing is a 2nd step in a reset of the global financial system. The first step was central banks allocating more of their reserves to gold. It would be wise for investors to follow the bankers actions. They're always properly positioning themselves to mitigate risks. Instead of moaning and groaning about the impact of tariffs adjust to a new set of arrangements. Or lose your ass going forward.

These NGO's need to be exterminated. Cutting off their access to free taxpayer money was the first step. Stripping them of tax-exempt status is another. They are partisan political organizations that don't qualify for tax-exempt status. Next, arrest their leadership and donors for inciting violence and criminal activity. Harass the crap out of them and their legal representatives. I say this knowing it might cross the line but its a line the opposition has crossed already. There can be no compromise with them here. Time to play hardball.

I might ask why are tree hugging California libs dumping raw sewage into the water in the first place? It sounds like something they should be dead-set against and assigning blame to the court ruling regulators over-stepped their authority in imposing limits seems misplaced. Shouldn't the ire in this case be focused on the city government of San Francisco?

I agree. So where does that leave us as a nation? We consume more than we produce incurring big trade deficits year after year. Our businesses are not cost competitive as other nations have cheaper labor and business costs aided by things such as weaker environmental and work safety rules. One conclusion is eventually there needs to be an adjustment in our overall standard of living. A downward adjustment to re-balance the economic and business realities of global trade..

I think raising taxes to cover the government's entire fiscal year budget and eliminating borrowing is a great idea. I also think the 50% that don't pay any federal income tax should start paying their fair share. Getting 100% of the benefit with 0 costs doesn't seem fair. Make rich people pay more too. And the middle class. Higher corporate and business taxes too. Because getting American's to pay for the entire federal budget instead of pushing the costs off onto younger workers and future generations through massive federal debts to the tune of 2 to 5 to 7 trillion dollars each year will wake everybody up to the obscene cost of government. Hitting them in the wallet for the entire annual tab might suddenly convince everyone of the idea we need to get control of out of control spending. And free health care, free housing, free food, free education, free everything, is not free.

Identity of Democrats 2028 Presidential candidate revealed!

I think a lot of players simply see no upside in expressing their political and social opinions. If I look at the Bills and Sabres, and other NFL and NHL teams I have no clue player views. Nor do I care to hear them. A Russian player criticizing Putin will most certainly be viewed by his countrymen as parroting American narratives. Kind of the opposite treatment of what anyone critical of the war gets here.

Liberal myth and folklore absent any tangible evidence but still repeated today because they continue believing Russian disinformation defeated Hillary in 2016.

I expect a good deal of Zelensky's reluctance to accept any type of "peace deal" is the difference between the public nature of this conflict and the "secret" activities and drivers under the covers. In essence, Pentagon/CIA war planners were running the show and using Ukrainian forces to execute the plan. Given the war in such a scenario belongs just as much if not more to the US and its objectives (not the support for democracy theme many continue to fall for), why should his country that bore cost of casualties and lost territory agree to Trump's demands for mineral rights and other concessions for US support. In reality, the war was the child of America. Some excerpts from the NYT story (and interesting timing on this revelation too!). Americans overseeing "kill chain" One European intelligence chief recalled being taken aback to learn how deeply enmeshed his N.A.T.O. counterparts had become in Ukrainian operations. “They are part of the kill chain now,” he said. The partnership’s guiding idea was that this close cooperation might allow the Ukrainians to accomplish the unlikeliest of feats — to deliver the invading Russians a crushing blow. Biggest battlefield feats were actually the CIA/Pentagon An early proof of concept was a campaign against one of Russia’s most-feared battle groups, the 58th Combined Arms Army. In mid-2022, using American intelligence and targeting information, the Ukrainians unleashed a rocket barrage at the headquarters of the 58th in the Kherson region, killing generals and staff officers inside. Again and again, the group set up at another location; each time, the Americans found it and the Ukrainians destroyed it. Farther south, the partners set their sights on the Crimean port of Sevastopol, where the Russian Black Sea Fleet loaded missiles destined for Ukrainian targets onto warships and submarines. At the height of Ukraine’s 2022 counteroffensive, a predawn swarm of maritime drones, with support from the Central Intelligence Agency, attacked the port, damaging several warships and prompting the Russians to begin pulling them back. Overreach The Ukrainians sometimes saw the Americans as overbearing and controlling — the prototypical patronizing Americans. The Americans sometimes couldn’t understand why the Ukrainians didn’t simply accept good advice. Where the Americans focused on measured, achievable objectives, they saw the Ukrainians as constantly grasping for the big win, the bright, shining prize. Failed 2023 counteroffensive actually hatched at American HQ Yet at arguably the pivotal moment of the war — in mid-2023, as the Ukrainians mounted a counteroffensive to build victorious momentum after the first year’s successes — the strategy devised in Wiesbaden fell victim to the fractious internal politics of Ukraine: The president, Volodymyr Zelensky, versus his military chief (and potential electoral rival), and the military chief versus his headstrong subordinate commander. When Mr. Zelensky sided with the subordinate, the Ukrainians poured vast complements of men and resources into a finally futile campaign to recapture the devastated city of Bakhmut. Within months, the entire counteroffensive ended in stillborn failure. Biden banned clandestine operations in public, while crossing red lines in secret Time and again, the Biden administration authorized clandestine operations it had previously prohibited. American military advisers were dispatched to Kyiv and later allowed to travel closer to the fighting. Military and C.I.A. officers in Wiesbaden helped plan and support a campaign of Ukrainian strikes in Russian-annexed Crimea. Finally, the military and then the C.I.A. received the green light to enable pinpoint strikes deep inside Russia itself. In some ways, Ukraine was, on a wider canvas, a rematch in a long history of U.S.-Russia proxy wars — Vietnam in the 1960s, Afghanistan in the 1980s, Syria three decades later. Task Force Dragon The defense secretary, Lloyd J. Austin III, and General Milley had put the 18th Airborne in charge of delivering weapons and advising the Ukrainians on how to use them. When President Joseph R. Biden Jr. signed on to the M777s, the Tony Bass Auditorium became a full-fledged headquarters. A Polish general became General Donahue’s deputy. A British general would manage the logistics hub on the former basketball court. A Canadian would oversee training. The auditorium basement became what is known as a fusion center, producing intelligence about Russian battlefield positions, movements and intentions. There, according to intelligence officials, officers from the Central Intelligence Agency, the National Security Agency, the Defense Intelligence Agency and the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency were joined by coalition intelligence officers. The 18th Airborne is known as Dragon Corps; the new operation would be Task Force Dragon. All that was needed to bring the pieces together was the reluctant Ukrainian top command. Debate over plausible deniability Soon the Ukrainians, nearly 20 in all — intelligence officers, operational planners, communications and fire-control specialists — began arriving in Wiesbaden. Every morning, officers recalled, the Ukrainians and Americans gathered to survey Russian weapons systems and ground forces and determine the ripest, highest-value targets. The priority lists were then handed over to the intelligence fusion center, where officers analyzed streams of data to pinpoint the targets’ locations. Inside the U.S. European Command, this process gave rise to a fine but fraught linguistic debate: Given the delicacy of the mission, was it unduly provocative to call targets “targets”? Some officers thought “targets” was appropriate. Others called them “intel tippers,” because the Russians were often moving and the information would need verification on the ground. The debate was settled by Maj. Gen. Timothy D. Brown, European Command’s intelligence chief: The locations of Russian forces would be “points of interest.” Intelligence on airborne threats would be “tracks of interest.” “If you ever get asked the question, ‘Did you pass a target to the Ukrainians?’ you can legitimately not be lying when you say, ‘No, I did not,’” one U.S. official explained. CIA and assassinations of Russian top officers The White House also prohibited sharing intelligence on the locations of “strategic” Russian leaders, like the armed forces chief, Gen. Valery Gerasimov. “Imagine how that would be for us if we knew that the Russians helped some other country assassinate our chairman,” another senior U.S. official said. “Like, we’d go to war.” Similarly, Task Force Dragon couldn’t share intelligence that identified the locations of individual Russians. The way the system worked, Task Force Dragon would tell the Ukrainians where Russians were positioned. But to protect intelligence sources and methods from Russian spies, it would not say how it knew what it knew. US operations room directly oversaw HIMARS strikes Wiesbaden would oversee each HIMARS strike... HIMARS strikes that resulted in 100 or more Russian dead or wounded came almost weekly. Russian forces were left dazed and confused. Their morale plummeted, and with it their will to fight. And as the HIMARS arsenal grew from eight to 38 and the Ukrainian strikers became more proficient, an American official said, the toll rose as much as fivefold. “We became a small part, maybe not the best part, but a small part, of your system,” General Zabrodskyi explained, adding: “Most states did this over a period of 10 years, 20 years, 30 years. But we were forced to do it in a matter of weeks.”

Its like a Rugby scum and I wonder if some football guy watching a match got the idea for it there?

Truth about the "sides" is the only difference between Nazi's and far-left organizations like Antifa is the uniform. Neither are desirable.

Interesting in the Le Pen case the court stated per the misuse of EU funds. "It was found that all these people actually worked for the party, that their deputy did not commission them any tasks,” said the judge. Assistants then “passed from one deputy to another.” A violation that sounds awfully similar to what the US Democratic party has done with putting party workers and political activists on the Federal payroll. No arrests here though. Yet....