OK, no tech, so no phone. At least it’s quiet this way. I have a new repair ticket but no date. they will contact me the day before How, I asked? Well, email, if that’s all that’s available. (At least no one has tried to text to my landline yet tht I know of.)
Cartoon – Something I didn’t know … and not exactly as one would expect.
Short Takes –
Eight Takeaways From ProPublica’s Investigation of How Sports Owners Use Their Teams to Avoid Taxes
1. Billionaire team owners often pay lower federal income tax rates than their millionaire players — and sometimes even lower rates than low-paid stadium workers.
2. The tax rates for team owners are so low, in part, because the tax code allows them to write off almost the entire purchase price of their teams, a system experts say is detached from economic reality. This is called “amortization.”
3. Owners across the NFL, NBA, NHL and MLB reported incomes for their teams that are millions below their real-world earnings, according to ProPublica’s review of tax information, previously leaked team financial records and interviews with experts.
4. These amortization benefits allow team owners to transform real-world profits into losses for tax purposes, allowing them to avoid taxes not just on their team profits, but also on income from other ventures.
5. The losses team owners get to report because of their stakes in pro sports teams allow them to dramatically reduce their personal tax bills.
6. Even the team owner who pioneered the depreciation of player contracts in the mid-20th century called the maneuver a “gimmick.”
7. The tax code has evolved to allow team owners to write off a wide variety of assets beyond just player contracts.
8. Advocates for team owners point out that when owners sell their teams, they have to pay back the taxes they avoided by using amortization. The reality is more complicated.
Click through for explanations if you’re up to it. I love the expression in #7 “The tax code has evolved.” That, I think, is on Congress.
The Hill – Trump-allied GOP [state] chairs turn on fellow Republicans
Quote – For most of modern political history, a state party chair’s role has been confined to raising money and building an organization that can contact voters and elect candidates. Their job is much more often to promote those who win primaries than to wade in on behalf of a specific contender during those primaries. But in the age of Trump, some party leaders are as eager to talk about the perceived turncoats within their own ranks as they are to go after the opposition party.
Click through for detailed examples. It’s hard to say where this is going to go. My prayer would be that it takes us to a point where there is not enough gerrymandering in the world for Republicans tt take the House and Senate in 2022. But that’s just a hope. We have work in front of us.
Political Discrimination as Civil-Rights Struggle
Quote – This reveals the predilection among many young elite Americans for progressive authoritarianism, a belief system that justifies infringing rights to equal treatment or free speech in the name of the emotional “safety” of historically marginalized race, gender, and sexuality groups. In this left-modernist worldview, conservatives’ resistance to racial, gender, and sexual progressivism mark them as moral deviants. As Millennials take power, this generational earthquake is set to shake the foundations of the cultural elite to its core, leading to pervasive discrimination against, and censorship of, conservative views.
Click through for the rest if your stomach is strong, or, I would personally suggest, here for Wonkette’s take
Food for Thought
9 Responses to “Open Thread for July 9, 2021”
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Phone issue: Hang in there.
‘Toon: That’s a lot of beans even today, it must have been huge back then.
Takeaways: The super rich get the legislation they pay for.
TH: The system has transformed them into mere clones of the darkness within TOT.
Nat’l Review Article: I would not date anyone who is a fan of the Review, how’s about them apples? Going back to Carrie’s e-mail signature J.K. Galbraith quote: “The modern conservative is engaged in one of man’s oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness,” from a different world, in effect, the conservatives of today make the folks about whom Galbraith was talking look like choir boys. The old guard “cultural elite” very much needs to go the way Pelosi referred to TOT, recently: “Retired, in Florida.”
FFT: Forgetting that would be like, sorry, forgetting the Holocaust.
I had never heard of James Swan, so I had to dig a bit further. Turns out he was not quite as magnanimous as it would first appear:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Swan_(financier)
How Sports Owners Use Their Teams to Avoid Taxes
While distasteful, I can’t blame the owners if they’re staying within the law. Just another reason to vote all Rethuglicans out of office.
Trump-allied GOP chairs turn on fellow Republicans
Always fun when republicans turn on their own … just as long as the GQP Party is not the winner!
Food for Thought
AMEN! That’s the message we need to keep pounding home at least thru the 2022 mid-terms!
WRT Swan, yes, that’s why I added the caveat. However, even though not magnanimous, it did help the young nations, if in no other way than reducing distractions.
Your Phone – Oh, my goodness! I sure hope that it gets resolved soon.
Thank you for your post, Joanne.
Cartoon: Such a nice gesture!
PP: And that….is how they do it, and how it’s done.
TH: Like reading the headline. Keep it up, R’s.
FFT: Some events one never forgets, and this is one of them. Last Panel – ‘Never Forget, VOTE!’
This just in: “The fact that Trump and his company made these payments is likely indisputable. What Trump is claiming is that they had no idea this was taxable income to Weisselberg, which is an attempt to argue that they didn’t “willfully” fail to pay taxes. It’s his attempt at a defense.” ~ Renato Mariotti ~
2. “You didn’t pay tax on the car or a company apartment…you didn’t pay tax, or education for your grandchildren — I, don’t even know what do you have to put? Does anybody know the answer to that stuff?” asked Donald Trump. “Prosecutors call this an admission…” ~ Andrew Feinburg ~
3. re: Senator Ed McBroom -“In the wake of the SCOTUS ruling further weakening the Voting Rights Act, take a look at how one Republican in Michigan was subjected to harsh attacks from within his own party for simply acknowledging the validity of the election results in his state.” ~ Barack Obama ~
4. “The NY DA having the 2nd set of books is the real story from yesterday. As GEORGE CONWAY points out, it’s hard to believe it is tied only to the Weisselberg payments.” ~ Al Strauss ~
5. “This makes Leona Helmsley’s case seem like small potatoes. ~ Helene W. ~
**Extra one – ““Donald Trump even failed at losing.” ~ George Conway ~
TJI #4: Can’t wait until the 2nd set of books – always a sign of illegality – are combed through top to bottom and left to right and more “taxable payments” are unearthed. To the former guy, family and friends, for example.
TJI#6: Amen.
TJI #1, 2, 4, 5 – I think I managed to get Glenn Kirschner’s video discussing this up before everything went out.
TJI #3 – Ah, yes.
I very much like the idea of having the GOP split along Trump**/QAnon lines provided the result is Democratic vicries at every level down to city dogcatcher. I’m not crazy about the thought of either side coming out of this stronger than before. I’m not trying to be greedy – I just want us in power long enough to be able to push through enough changes to the electorsal system (including the formation of districtsand addresing the problem of the Senate) that will assure that the norm is that the actual majority of the people actually win things.
TJI#1&2: Oh, so now, Mr. smarter than everybody, ever, anywhere, does not know? I have a bridge, you buying?
TJI#3: These GQP folks are not interested in anything but lying, as their hoped for end justifies their means. I hope they experience a different end.
TJI#4&5: At least Leona had the humanity to have, and love, a pet!
Extra: BIGLIEST LOOSER!!!! EVER!!!!!
Cartoon: Certainly something we’ll never see happen again.
PP: Amazes me the way they get away with even having to pay.
The Hill: Wish more R’s would wise up and get their minds away from tRump’s hold that he seems to have on them.
Food for Thought: No we shall never forget. Vote and get these rotten R’s out.
Sorry to hear that your phone is still out. I take it that they didn’t give you actual date? I have Spectrum Cable/Internet/Phone and they give you a specific day, with a 2-4 hour time span. I hope you get taken care of soon.
Hope you have a nice evening. Take care. Thanks Joanne
The lack of service and stupidity of the people in their call centres of telephone companies unfortunately is a global phenomenon. You could be without a working landline phone for weeks, they don’t care, they cash in your fee no matter what.
Cartoon: Send it on to Besoz and Musk and tell them they should put their money towards that instead of Mars. Without tax exemptions for their companies or any other strings attached, of course.
PP publication: This is the reason why I’ve given up on professional sports, including the Olympics when they dropped the ban on professionals. It’s all about money and greed.
TH: I think this has always been happening behind the scenes and in all parties but the Republicans have taken it to a whole new level and out in the open. They’re after a one-party dictatorship like Russia or China and the way they’re going about it, they may already have their wish in 2022.
PD: Excuse my acronym but WTF is “progressive authoritarianism”? This is just another wolf-in-sheep-clothing way of blaming the left for everything including conservative men not getting to date smart women. Pathetic.
FFT: Excellent political cartoon. A few images say it all.