३० जुलै, २०१८

At the Colorado Sky Café...

IMG_1114

... you can talk all night.

Photo by Meade, from a week ago.

And here's the Althouse Portal to Amazon in case you've got some late-night shopping to do. Maybe a nice Bigfoot costume to fulfill your fantasies.

४२ टिप्पण्या:

steve uhr म्हणाले...

I wonder if it would scare away all the Japanese Beatles eating our tree leaves.

Original Mike म्हणाले...

BILL KRISTOL CONSIDERING RUN FOR PRESIDENT IN 2020

Chuck will have a hard time sleeping tonight!

Original Mike म्हणाले...

”I wonder if it would scare away all the Japanese Beatles eating our tree leaves.”

Twice a day I’m out crushing the ones on one of my shrubs.

Mr. Majestyk म्हणाले...

A discussion with my brother left me wondering: Why wasn't Trump Jr's meeting with the Russian lawyer to get dirt on Hillary a crime? Is it because it's a violation for a foreign source to give something of value to a campaign but it isn't illegal for a campaign to receive something of value from a foreign source?

Mr. Majestyk म्हणाले...

52 USC 30121 makes it illegal to receive a donation of a thing of value from a foreign national.

Mr. Majestyk म्हणाले...

It would seem odd to call truthful information about an opposing candidate a "thing of value" for purposes of 52 USC 30121. If that qualifies, then what about any useful, truthful information? What about good advice?

Dr Weevil म्हणाले...

I hope you're only crushing Japanese Beetles.
Japanese Beatles would (I assume) be a cover band with bowl haircuts, and killing them would be homicide, which is illegal, unlike coleoptericide.

Original Mike म्हणाले...

They might be weevils.

walter म्हणाले...

https://www.southbendtribune.com/news/politics/comey-holtz-among-speakers-at-this-fall-s-sinai-forum/article_6fe28b81-4e5f-5fa6-abb3-b8b4df99e9cd.html

Darrell म्हणाले...

It would seem odd to call truthful information about an opposing candidate a "thing of value" for purposes of 52 USC 30121. If that qualifies, then what about any useful, truthful information? What about good advice?

Didn't the Queen tell Hillary to stop wearing white pants when she had diarrhea? Especially when she is photographed walking up the stairs to board a plane? Advice like that is worth a fortune.

chickelit म्हणाले...

Evergreen sentinels whisked by whisps.

Freeman Hunt म्हणाले...

We once discussed the idea of ikigai here. Unexpectedly found that. Hm. Now what... Maybe nothing.

Bruce Hayden म्हणाले...

"I wonder if it would scare away all the Japanese Beatles eating our tree leaves."

The problem in CO, esp near the Continental Divide, are pine beetles. They have killed large swaths of Lodgepole just east of the CD. You can see this on the west side of the Eisenhower/Johnson tunnels on I-70. The Lodgepole on each side of Straight Creek running west from the tunnels are now brown and dead, when they were a nice green maybe 47 years ago when I first drove that valley. We have beetles up here in NW MT, that seem to prey on our Ponderosa Pine, but don't seem nearly as virulent as the ones attacking the Lodgepole Pines back in CO.

Francisco D म्हणाले...

Looking at old headlines, I noticed one from CNN that they called "stunning." It is from November 2016.

" Dow hits new high of 19,000 as Trump rally continues."

Chuckles must be upset that his favorite station (outside of PBS) didn't call it the Obama rally. Oh well. It will never last.

gadfly म्हणाले...

Meade chose an exceptional Airbnb, on par with Colorado offerings.

gadfly म्हणाले...

Up on Cripple Creek she sends me
If I spring a leak she mends me
I don't have to speak she defends me
A drunkard's dream if I ever did see one

gadfly म्हणाले...

With Trump Being Putin’s Puppet, And Most GOP Leaders Being Trump’s Puppets, Putin Now Owns The GOP
by Evert Cilliers, posted on 3QD

Come 2020, when the GOP loses totally, utterly and completely, ... [s]ane Americans will at long last feel like we’ve rid ourselves of everything that’s wrong with America (which is what the Republican Party mostly is).

Mark my words, America. It’s gonna happen. Or Trump is not a pussy-grabbing porn-star-banging supplier-stiffing majority-vote-losing Mexican-Muslim-hating Charlottesville-excusing family-separating Putin puppet Russian asset Siberian candidate racist Liar-in-Chief.

Jaq म्हणाले...

gadfly, if you want to criticize Trump, why not go for something genuine? Here, try this:

https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-07-30/us-debt-sales-surge-treasury-raises-2018-borrowing-need-133-trillion

I thought the tax cuts were a stupid idea, even though they put more money in my pocket, They should have been targeted more at working people, I mean real working people, people who trot off to work every day to make a living, even if they do pretty well, not “working people” who are really just people on the dole or who make so little they don’t actually pay any income taxes.

Jaq म्हणाले...

Part of the problem is that the bill was going to come due for all of the short term borrowing that we have done since Clinton to manage the debt, which means that any rise in interest rates is going to hit like a ton of bricks, part of the problem is that “Quantitative Easing” is over, and so there is treasury induced borrowing for money that we spent during the Obama years, without any Congressional mandate, and which we now have to “pay back” by borrowing. Which will put further upward pressure on interest rates.

But part of it is from ill-advised tax cuts.

Jaq म्हणाले...

52 USC 30121 makes it illegal to receive a donation of a thing of value from a foreign national.

What about a prime venue for a speech in Berlin? Does that have any value? What about asking Putin to go easy during the campaign so that POTUS could be “more flexible after the election”? Is that a thing of value? Or is that just outright collusion?

Jaq म्हणाले...

Funny how everybody thought QE was 'free.'

Jaq म्हणाले...

A discussion with my brother left me wondering: Why wasn't Trump Jr's meeting with the Russian lawyer to get dirt on Hillary a crime?

A discussion I had with myself left me wondering: Wasn’t Hillary’s payment of millions of dollars to a firm who then hired a foreign spy to talk to spies for Putin to get dirt on Trump, and then noting the millions of campaign “disclosure” paperwork as “legal expenses” a crime? If not, why not? Was it the shell corporations that made it all perfectly legal? Or was it the party of the perp?

Mr. Majestyk म्हणाले...

Tim, you raise many good questions about Hillary. I have no doubt she and the Dems are sleazebags. Nor do I doubt she broke many, many laws and deserves to be in person. But I am trying to figure out the legality of actions by the Trump campaign.

Mr. Majestyk म्हणाले...

Person = prison

Jaq म्हणाले...

But I am trying to figure out the legality of actions by the Trump campaign.

If one is clearly acceptable even though it was far more flagrant, then I guess the precedent is that maybe tenuous theories of what constitutes a “thing of value” and far fetched notions of what constitutes, for example, “collusion” don’t amount to crimes. If they really were crimes, we would prosecute clearer examples of them, wouldn’t we?

Trump is guilty of “Governing while Republican.” Nothing more, unless there is a lot more than what we are seeing,

Jaq म्हणाले...

Maybe you approve of black drivers being held to the letter and even inferred intent of every traffic law, while white drivers are given a pass on all but the most egregious violations?

Clyde म्हणाले...

Bill Kristol would just be a more-genteel version of Low-Energy Jeb. Frankly, he and the rest of the folks that identify as Republican or conservative should just stay out of the way until Trump finishes Making America Great Again, around 2024. He's actually DOING most of the things that most of them would merely give lip-service to doing.

exhelodrvr1 म्हणाले...

tim in vermont,
"Wasn’t Hillary’s payment of millions of dollars to a firm who then hired a foreign spy to talk to spies for Putin to get dirt on Trump, and then noting the millions of campaign “disclosure” paperwork as “legal expenses” a crime?"

So Mueller's team can dig into/prosecute for items they uncover in re Trump's team, which aren't part of the initial reason for their appointment. I suppose that is defensible, although it is a very slippery slope. But if they are going to do that, shouldn't they be doing the same when they uncover something suspicious about the Obama administration's or the Clinton campaign's activities?

Michael K म्हणाले...

I thought the tax cuts were a stupid idea, even though they put more money in my pocket, They should have been targeted more at working people,

The theory of tax cuts is that they create more jobs and economic activity.Tax cuts for low income (very few of whom pay income taxes) would not have a multiplier effect. Corporate tax cuts, especially as they were very high, is intended to stimulate more hiring and does add to the multiplier effect. It worked for Reagan and the criticism of adding to the debt was more related to the fact that he had a D Congress that spent even faster as the economy recovered.

One big problem is that the R Congress after 1994 did NOT control spending and the fake "Balanced Budget" was achieved by borrowing the Social Security surplus when the Boomer generation was working and adding more than they (actually the Depression babies, a smaller cohort) were drawing out.

If Trump gets GDP growth to 4% for four years, it will delay the reckoning that is always coming.

Ann Althouse म्हणाले...

"Meade chose an exceptional Airbnb, on par with Colorado offerings."

Ha ha.

Jaq म्हणाले...

If Trump gets GDP growth to 4% for four years, it will delay the reckoning that is always coming.

“All will be well if, if, if, rang the green bells of Cardiff...”

Time will tell, and I hope the theory proves out, but meanwhile it’s “What will you give me, rang the sad bells of Rhimney.”

Jaq म्हणाले...

Bill Kristol. because don’t you miss the wars?

rehajm म्हणाले...

I thought the tax cuts were a stupid idea, even though they put more money in my pocket, They should have been targeted more at working people,

The economic burden of corporate taxes is borne not by the corporate entity but by workers, consumers and shareholders. As a total of all government revenue corporate taxes are a small portion compared to payroll and individual income taxes. When you lower corporate taxes you get the greatest bump in GDP as you reverse the economic burden above and companies increase capital spending to create new permanent jobs and demand.

Focused programs that exclusively target 'workers' while possibly good politically are weak economically.

Ralph L म्हणाले...

Congress will spend the additional tax revenue, and then some.

rehajm म्हणाले...

If Trump gets GDP growth to 4% for four years, it will delay the reckoning that is always coming.

The latest GDP numbers show increased capital and consumer spending which are a very positive sign for sustained longer term growth. Compare and contrast with Obama's Q3 '14 5.3% growth which was mostly make up for Q1 '14 -.9%.

rehajm म्हणाले...

Here is what the CBO has to say about it:
For the next few years, revenues hover near their 2018 level of 16.6 percent of GDP in CBO’s projections. Then they rise steadily, reaching 17.5 percent of GDP by 2025. At the end of that year, many provisions of the 2017 tax act expire, causing receipts to rise sharply—to 18.1 percent of GDP in 2026 and 18.5 percent in 2027 and 2028. They have averaged 17.4 percent of GDP over the past 50 years.
17, maybe 18. We're waddling around in the 1% range, when the problem is in the 10 percent range. The long run budget problem has essentially nothing to do with the Trump tax cut. It has been brewing under Bush, Obama, and Trump. It fundamentally comes from growth in entitlements an order of magnitude larger.


-Source

Original Mike म्हणाले...

Blogger tim in vermont said...”Funny how everybody thought QE was 'free.'”

Who the hell thought that?

Jaq म्हणाले...

Sorry, I should have said, “other than the corporate tax cuts” which were a good idea. It’s the personal income tax cuts at the high end I mostly object to.

Jaq म्हणाले...

Who the hell thought that?

Was the money appropriated by Congress?

Michael K म्हणाले...

Tim, there is no "low end" paying taxes, at least income taxes. That is a policy mistake.

sostander म्हणाले...

Look!!! There's Harv Presnell singing "Colorado My Home SWEET Home"

gadfly म्हणाले...

@tim in vermont said...
gadfly, if you want to criticize Trump, why not go for something genuine? Here, try this:

https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-07-30/us-debt-sales-surge-treasury-raises-2018-borrowing-need-133-trillion

---------------------------------------------
Thanks for the reference, tim. Below is my observations.

“This is going to cost me a fortune,” said Donald Trump, last November, referring to tax changes. “This is not good for me.” As usual, that was a lie, since few, if any loopholes available to real estate developers were eliminated and shorter depreciation write offs didn't hurt. Then there was the lowering of top tax rates from 39.6% to 37%. Meanwhile , back at the ranch, inside the Trump organization, corporate rates fell to 21% - from 35%.

So now comes Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin, accompanied by his $400 million net worth to propose a change in capital gains, whereby the gain would be lowered by calculated inflation. Don Trump is getting really pushy now.

But hang onto your hats! From the New York Times:

WASHINGTON — The Trump administration is considering bypassing Congress to grant a $100 billion tax cut mainly to the wealthy, a legally tenuous maneuver that would cut capital gains taxation and fulfill a long-held ambition of many investors and conservatives.
“If it can’t get done through a legislation process, we will look at what tools at Treasury we have to do it on our own and we’ll consider that,” Mr. Mnuchin said . . . . “We are studying that internally, and we are also studying the economic costs and the impact on growth.”


So, unlike past tax cuts, this proposal would be implemented by executive fiat, without a congressional vote - a highly unusual and highly undemocratic act of plunder that would legally redirect funds from the state to further enrich the needy American elite, never mind that the elite includes Mnuchin and Trump.

It is time for y'all to read up on the Russian economy, referred to as a Kleptocracy, wherein Vlad and his oligarchs control public money and Putin has personally moved $200 billion dollars offshore over 20 years. So now you know why Donald loves Putin. Trump's violation of the Constitution's emoluments clause is peanuts compared to this easier way to legally get your hands on Government cash.