Sundayโs Choice
Posted: February 2, 2020 Filed under: Happiness, Hillary Clinton, impeach trump, morning reads, open thread, Psychopaths in charge, SOTU 14 CommentsWell, I’ve gotten suspended again on the Twitbox, can’t even say a few fuck yous to a couple of dipshits these days:
I’m so sick of all this…so let’s just see a few tweets and call it a day.
Hell yes to that! So click that link and check out the good things people are saying about our Hillary.
In other news:
Please remember…
On a personal note, I have become an Initiate in The Temple of Mary.
The mysteries of the Temple of Mary focus on the spiritual transformation of body, mind and soul. Through the study and understanding of symbol, metaphor and myth, we discover that human consciousness has been evolving through the ages, but the message of Love has always been a part of our sacred stories and even more importantly, that all stories contain the same archetypes, the same challenges and are in many ways, the same story โ just with different names and cultures.
-Hettienne Grobler
I came across Hettienne Ma, during the Walking with Mary month of contemplation. After this time, I started to study with her about the Black Madonna…Divine Femine, Carl Jung, Hindu and Buddhist spiritual stories, tarot, teachings of Anandamayi Ma…and so many others. It is ongoing, and fascinating. Here is some more information about Hettienne and the Order of the Dove:
I have reached a point where Hettienne has given me a spiritual name…Niranjana Maria Devi…and yesterday was my Namadiksha.
If you are on Instagram and would like to follow this next 30 days of #walkingwithmary it starts on Monday:
https://instagram.com/walkingwithmary?igshid=8s0c0hco4ber
Have a wonderful day.
This is an open thread.
Wednesday Reads: โMulticultural Affinityโ
Posted: January 30, 2018 Filed under: Civil Rights, Human Rights, morning reads, open thread, Political and Editorial Cartoons, racism, SOTU, the GOP, Trump, U.S. Politics, Wednesday Hump Day Cartoons | Tags: "Ethnic Affinity", African-American, Asian-American, Congressional Black Caucus, discriminatory advertising, exclude by race, Facebook, Facebook advertisers, Facebook advertising, Fair Housing Act, Fair Housing Act of 1968, Hispanic, multicultural affinity, ProPublica, target marketing, The Civil Rights Act of 1964 34 CommentsWell, hello…
Anyone know exactly what “multicultural affinity” means?
In advertising terms it is:
used to descibe the quality of people who are interested in and likely to respond well to multicultural content. referring to their affinity to the cultures they are interested in. based on affinity, not ethnicity.
According to my Facebook categories, I have African-American multicultural affinities.
They also say I’m “very liberal” …I wonder what gives them that idea?
The reason I came about this discovery was an article about Facebook ads targeting your political affiliation:
How to Change Facebook Ads Privacy Settings Targeting Your Politics – Thrillist
Unless you’ve managed to avoid your Facebook feed for the last year and half, no doubt you’ve learned a whole lot more about your friends’ and family’s political views than you ever cared to. And even if you’ve personally made a conscious effort to stay neutral or discreet about your leanings in the midst of the madness, the reality is that Facebook hasย a pretty good idea of your political preferencesย anyway.
That’s because included amongst the hordes of data Zuckerberg and Co. are constantly collecting about you in orderย to better serve up adsย isย an inference about how liberal, moderate, or conservative you might be. Here’s how to find out what you’ve been categorized as, and how to change it.
What I find interesting…is that on that political front, facebook does not have any sample ads for my “very liberal” political leanings:
But what is really funny….is that they have samples of ads for my African-American “multicultural affinity”:
Hmmmm, credit problems and burner phones? Okay….
But what is interesting is that Facebook has me “categorized” as a US soccer kind of person…not one who has an American Football affinity:
Damn, no sample ads for that either….but keep that tidbit of info handy because we will come back to it shortly.
Why does all this shit matter you may say?
(Date on this link is from 12/2015)
Theย 2010 U.S. Censusย reported that Hispanics, African Americans and Asian Americans make up one-third of the U.S. population, and that number is growing rapidly. Reaching and personalizing to these audiences is an essential part of any brandโs marketing strategy. As such, Facebook recognized a need for more multicultural targeting across Facebook and Instagram.
According toย Facebook, Multicultural Affinity is โthe quality of people who are interested in and likely to respond well to multicultural content.โ This new targeting solution enables advertisers to more effectively reach and engage people of varying traditions, beliefs, aesthetics, languages and musical tastes. The targeting is based on affinity, not ethnicity. Affinity can be described as โa relationship, like a marriage, as a natural liking, and as a similarity of characteristics.โ This means that ads can be targeted to people with multicultural interests.
Three audiences have been broken out in Multicultural Affinity:ย Hispanic, African American and Asian American affinities:
You can go to the link to read about the three audiences, the point to this should be highlighted here, cough…cough:
This targeting is very concentrated and it may not be the best solution for every advertiser or every campaign. To drive the best results, this targeting should only be used with a specific goal to reach a specific audience. Conduct a test to see how Multicultural Affinity targeting performs against existing targeting to determine its effectiveness.
However when you look more into the real reason for the breakdown, you can see what the real target is used for:
Facebook Lets Advertisers Exclude Users by Race โ ProPublica
Oh, look at the date on this, Oct. 28th, 2016
Facebookโs system allows advertisers to exclude black, Hispanic, and other โethnic affinitiesโ from seeing ads.
Imagine if, during the Jim Crow era, a newspaper offered advertisers the option of placing ads only in copies that went to white readers.
Thatโs basically what Facebook is doing nowadays.
The ubiquitous social network not only allows advertisers to target users by their interests or background, it also gives advertisers the ability to exclude specific groups it calls โEthnic Affinities.โ Ads that exclude people based on race, gender and other sensitive factors are prohibited by federal law in housing and employment.
You can see the actual name of this feature was called “Ethnic Affinity”:
The ad we purchased was targeted to Facebook members who were house hunting and excluded anyone with an โaffinityโ for African-American, Asian-American or Hispanic people. (Hereโs the ad itself.)
When we showed Facebookโs racial exclusion options to a prominent civil rights lawyerย John Relman, he gasped and said, โThis is horrifying. This is massively illegal. This is about as blatant a violation of the federal Fair Housing Act as one can find.โ
The Fair Housing Act of 1968ย makes it illegalย “to make, print, or publish, or cause to be made, printed, or published any notice, statement, or advertisement, with respect to the sale or rental of a dwelling that indicates any preference, limitation, or discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, handicap, familial status, or national origin.โ Violators can face tens of thousands of dollars inย fines.
The Civil Rights Act of 1964ย also prohibits the โprinting or publication of notices or advertisements indicating prohibited preference, limitation, specification or discriminationโ in employment recruitment.
Facebookโs business model is based on allowing advertisers to target specific groups โ or, apparently to exclude specific groups โ using huge reams of personal data the company has collected about its users. Facebookโs microtargeting is particularly helpful for advertisers looking to reach niche audiences, such as swing-state voters concerned about climate change. ProPublica recently offered a tool allowing users toย see how Facebook is categorizing them. We found nearly 50,000 unique categories in which Facebook places its users.
Oh boy…go and read the whole thing, and then see the follow-up here:
Facebook (Still) Letting Housing Advertisers Excludeโฆ โ ProPublica
Yeah, the date here is Nov. 21st, 2017
After ProPublica revealed last year that Facebook advertisers could target housing ads to whites only, the company announced it had built a system to spot and reject discriminatory ads. We retested and found major omissions.
In February, Facebook said it wouldย step up enforcementof its prohibition against discrimination in advertising for housing, employment or credit.
But our tests showed a significant lapse in the companyโs monitoring of the rental market.
Last week, ProPublica bought dozens of rental housing ads on Facebook, but asked that they not be shown to certain categories of users, such asย African Americans,ย mothers of high school kids,people interested in wheelchair ramps,ย Jews,ย expats from Argentinaย andย Spanish speakers.
All of these groups are protected under the federal Fair Housing Act, which makes it illegal to publish any advertisement โwith respect to the sale or rental of a dwelling that indicates any preference, limitation, or discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, handicap, familial status, or national origin.โ Violators can face tens of thousands of dollars inย fines.
Every single ad was approved within minutes.
The only ad that took longer than three minutes to be approved by Facebook sought to exclude potential renters โinterested in Islam, Sunni Islam and Shia Islam.โ Itย was approvedย after 22 minutes.
Under its own policies, Facebook should have flagged these ads, and prevented the posting of some of them. Its failure to do so revives questions about whether the company is in compliance with federal fair housing rules, as well as about its ability and commitment to police discriminatory advertising on the worldโs largest social network.
Damn…that is surprising…ain’t it? (Snark is heavily insinuated here.)
Based on Facebookโs announcement, the ads purchased by ProPublica that were aimed at racial categories should have been rejected. The others should have prompted a screen to pop up asking for self-certification. We never encountered a self-certification screen, and none of our ads were rejected by Facebook.
โThis was a failure in our enforcement and weโre disappointed that we fell short of our commitments,โ Ami Vora, vice president of product management at Facebook, said in anย emailed statement. โThe rental housing ads purchased by ProPublica should have but did not trigger the extra review and certifications we put in place due to a technical failure.โ
Vora added that Facebookโs anti-discrimination system had โsuccessfully flagged millions of adsโ in the credit, employment and housing categories and that Facebook will now begin requiring self-certification for ads in all categories that choose to exclude an audience segment. โOur systems continue to improve but we can do better,โ Vora said.
About 37 percent of U.S. households rented in 2016, representing a 50-year high, according toย the Joint Center for Housing Studies of Harvard University. On average, renters earn about half as much as homeowners, and the percentage of families with children that rent rather than buy has increased sharply in the past decade, the study said. Minority renters have long faced pervasive housing discrimination. A 2013 study by HUD found thatย real estate agents showย more units to whites than to African Americans, Asians and Latinos.
Gee…innit that the three categories of multicultural affinity?
Facebook has been under fire for other aspects of its automated ad buying system as well. Two months ago, the company disclosed that it had discovered $100,000 worth ofย divisive political ads placed by โinauthenticโ Russian accounts. And in September,ย ProPublica reportedย that Facebookโs ad targeting system allowed buyers to reach people who identified themselves as โJew hatersโ and other anti-Semitic categories. Facebook pledged to remove the offending categories and to hire thousands more employees to enforce its ad policies.
โWeโre adding additional layers of review where people use potentially sensitive categories for targeting,โ Facebook General Counsel Colin Stretch said during Senate testimony earlier this month.
After Stretchโs public statement, we wondered whether the ability to buy discriminatory housing ads had really been addressed. So we set out to buy an advertisement with the exact same targeting parameters as the ad we bought last year. The ad promoted a fictional apartment for rent and was targeted at people living in New York, ages 18โ65, who were house hunting and likely to move. We asked Facebook not to show the ad to people categorized under the โmulticultural affinityโ of Hispanic, African American or Asian American.
(ProPublica generally forbids impersonation in news gathering. We felt in this instance that the public interest in Facebookโs ad system justified the brief posting of a fake ad for non-existent housing. We deleted each ad as soon as it was approved.)
The only changes from last year that we could identify in Facebookโs ad buying system was that the category called โEthnic Affinityโ had been renamed โMulticultural Affinityโ and was no longer part of โDemographics.โ It is now designated as part of โBehaviors.โ
Go…yeah, go and see the actual screenshots of the ad placements. Remember that thing I mentioned up top about the soccer affinity?
Then we decided to test whether we could purchase housing ads that discriminated against other protected categories of people under the Fair Housing Act.
We placed ads that sought to exclude members of as many of the protected categories as we could find in Facebookโs self-service advertising portal. In addition to those mentioned above, we bought ads that were blocked from being shown to โsoccer moms,โ people interested inย American sign language,ย gay menandย Christians.
Just read the rest of the thread at the link, but wait there is more:
According to ProPublica,ย Facebook to Temporarily Block Advertisers From Excludingโฆ โ ProPublica
Uh…the date on this is Nov. 29th, 2017
The social networkโs actions come after a ProPublica investigation revealed that Facebook failed to keep its promise to reject discriminatory housing ads.
Facebook said it would temporarily stop advertisers from being able to exclude viewers by race while it studies the use of its ad targeting system.
โUntil we can better ensure that our tools will not be used inappropriately, we are disabling the option that permits advertisers to exclude multicultural affinity segments from the audience for their ads,โ Facebook Sheryl Sandberg wrote in aย letter to the Congressional Black Caucus.
ProPublica disclosed last weekย that Facebook was still allowing advertisers to buy housing ads that excluded audiences by race, despiteย its promises earlier this yearย to reject such ads. ProPublica also found that Facebook was not asking housing advertisers that blocked other sensitive audience categories โ by religion, gender, or disability โ to โself-certifyโ that their ads were compliant with anti-discrimination laws.
[…]
In her letter, Sandberg said the company will examine how advertisers are using its exclusion tool โ โfocusing particularly on potentially sensitive segmentsโ such as ads that exclude LGBTQ communities or people with disabilities. โDuring this review, no advertisers will be able to create ads that exclude multicultural affinity groups,โ Facebook Vice President Rob Goldman said in anย emailed statement.
Goldman said the results of the audit would be shared with โgroups focused on discrimination in ads,โ and that Facebook would work with them to identify further improvements and publish the steps it will take.
Here are a few other articles on the matter:
Facebook disabling “multicultural affinity” group advertising tool –ย Axios
Facebook COO Sheryl Sandbergย said in a letterย today to Congressional Black Caucus chairman Cedric Richmond that it is disabling a tool that allows advertisers to exclude โmulticultural affinity” segments from their audiences. She also declared that Facebook is “determined to do better” on multicultural marketing.
Why it matters:ย Rep. Robin Kelly said inย a press releaseย earlier this month that Facebook’s “Ethnic Affinity” advertising option makes Facebook “complicit in promoting restrictive housing practices.” Sandberg said in her letter that Facebook would strengthen policies to prohibit discriminatory advertising, and that until Facebook can “better ensure that our tools will not be used inappropriately,” the tool is being disabled.
Show less
Facebook suspends ability to target ads by excluding racial groups | Article [AMP] | Reuters
Sandberg said in the letter that advertisers who use Facebook’s targeting options to include certain races for ads about housing, employment or credit will have to certify to Facebook that they are complying with Facebook’s anti-discrimination policy and with applicable law.
Sandberg defended race- and culture-based marketing in general, saying it was a common and legitimate practice in the ad industry to try to reach specific communities.
I take it, those ads for burner phones and credit problems are legitimate practices…reaching a specific community…the multicultural African-American affinity community.
Alright…now for the fucking funnies!
By the way…if Mueller is fired…protest marches are already planned. To find the closest one in your area, text Mueller to Resistbot at 50409…the location of the nearest immediate protest march will appear with all pertinent information.
And now the cartoons:
And that’s all folks!
This is an open thread…
State of the Union Live Blog
Posted: January 20, 2015 Filed under: Live, Live Blog, SOTU | Tags: 2015 State of the Union Live Blog 105 CommentsTonight we’re watching the State of the Union address to see exactly what the last two years of the Obama presidency may bring. ย It will be a tough few years given the group that was sent to Congress last fall. ย We’re about to see a bunch of whackadoodle dandies go wild. ย There are several rumors up on the internet concerning possible executive orders that will be announced to tonight. ย Here is one of the more interesting ones.
It is being reported that one of President Obamaโs surprises at the State Of The Union will be an announcement of an executive order that will take on the Koch Brothers and Citizens United.
Eleanor Clift of The Daily Beast reported:
Wednesday is the fifth anniversary of Citizens United, and reformers have been told that the president may announce executive action in his SOTU speech that would require businesses contracting with the government to disclose political contributions after contracts have been awarded. This would ensure that the contracting process is blind, but also give the public (and the media) the information needed to connect the dots to look for backroom deals or conflicts of interest.
Guess who happens to have multi-million dollar contracts with the Department of Defense? The federal government hatingKoch Brothers have tens of millions of dollars in defense contracts with the federal government. Rush Limbaugh also has a federal government contract that allows his showto be broadcast on the American Forces Network.
It is possible that the president will announce this executive order tonight, but he may also decide to wait and make a separate announcement. When/if the president does decide to make this announcement it will be a huge boost to transparency. The Koch brothers have a web of secret organizations that they route their money through, so most of their campaign spending will remain a secret, but it will become a bit easier to connect the dots and figure how much direct influence campaign donations are having on public policy decisions.
Ron Fournier of the National Journal ย suggests we just the President’s agenda with this set of criteria. ย Progress or Politics?
Republicans just seized control of Congress. President Obama’s job-approval ratings just jumped. Gas prices and the unemployment rate are down. The gross domestic product is up. Now what? Democratic and Republican leaders face a choice: Begin governing together, or treat this moment like just another stop on a perpetual campaign.
Unfortunately, both the White House and the GOP-led Congress seem focused prematurely on 2016. Republicans are sending to the White House legislation they know Obama will veto. The president is pushing an agenda he knows Congress won’t pass. It’s a recipe for more gridlock, more fighting, more courting of donors and ignoring the needs of a country in transition.
In other words: The state of the union is the status quo.
If you’re OK with that, stop reading. If you’d rather see progress than partisan gains, consider this: The State of the Union address is an opportunity for the president to chart a path toward consensus on issues like jobs, social mobility, education, infrastructure, energy, the debt, the environment, and terrorism.
Is Obama more interested in politics or progress? Here are five ways to tell from his address tonight.
Isnโt Obama a lame duck? After all, this speech comes after Republicans won control of both chambers for the first time this presidency. Hereโs a trivia question: When was the last time a President gave his seventh year State of the Union to a Congress that wasnโt controlled by the other party? Answer: Franklin Roosevelt in 1939. Every other two termer had lost control of Congress by the last lap of his presidency. They all faced a steeper political terrain than Obama does. Dwight Eisenhower faced Cold War setbacks. Ronald Reagan spoke in 1987 right after the Iran-Contra scandal broke, and he had to lead the speech with a discussion and apology. Bill Clinton was in the middle of his Senate impeachment trial in 1999. And George W. Bush spoke at a time when we were losing in Iraq. He faced withering controversy over the โsurgeโ of troops, which proved a good policy, but made for a challenging speech environment. Some of them had productive last two years; some didnโt. But there is much room for a creative president and Congress to achieve things, even by fighting.
For President Obama, the new party balance offers some unexpected benefits. In recent years, Congress has been paralyzed, polarized, and entirely dysfunctional. Now conservatives control it, but at least it might actually pass legislation. Obama suddenly will be more central, more relevant than he has been in domestic politics over the past year. His veto pen will be all that stands between the Republican agenda and enactment. He can draw lines, pick fights, or choose cooperation. In so doing, too, he will have the ability to make broad public arguments in the context of a real debateโon the economy, on the role of government, on contentious long-term issues such as climate change.
How can the President use this diminished but still potent platform?
So, grab the popcorn and let’s see if this year’s hostile audience pulls any big tricks.
President Obama is courting controversy with his decision to address a group that has become dominated in recent years by extremists.
Some have questioned the appropriateness of the President speaking to such an extremist group, especially because in the past it hasย issued threats against the United States government.
The SOTU will be streaming at CSPAN and on the White House Website if you want to avoid the District Puppetry errrrr Punditry.
MLK Holiday Reads
Posted: January 19, 2015 Filed under: morning reads, SOTU | Tags: 2016 presidential race, Martin Luther King's Birthday 22 Comments
Good Morning!
It’s our holiday to celebrate the contributions of Reverend Doctor Martin Luther King! ย No holiday celebration is complete without drawings by grade school children!!
President Obama will give his SOTU address tomorrow and will call for raising taxes on the wealthy to provide tax cuts for the middle class.ย ย This is an interesting strategy and I’m sure the Republicans are planning on screaming “class war” for the next few days.
President Obama will use his State of the Union address to call on Congress to raise taxes and fees on the wealthiest taxpayers and the largest financial firms to finance an array of tax cuts for the middle class, pressing to reshape the tax code to help working families, administration officials said on Saturday.
The proposal faces long odds in the Republican-controlled Congress, led by lawmakers who have long opposed raising taxes and who argue that doing so would hamper economic growth at a time the country cannot afford it. And it was quickly dismissed by leading Republicans as a nonstarter.
But the decision to present the plan during Tuesdayโs speech marks the start of a debate over taxes and the economy that will shape both Mr. Obamaโs legacy and the 2016 presidential campaign.
It is also the latest indication that the president, untethered from political constraints after Democratic losses in the midterm elections, is moving aggressively to set the terms of that discussion, even as he pushes audacious moves in other areas, like immigration and relations with Cuba.
The presidentโs plan would raise $320 billion over the next decade, while adding new provisions cutting taxes by $175 billion over the same period. The revenue generated would also cover an initiative Mr. Obama announced this month, offering some students two years of tuition-free community college, which the White House has said would cost $60 billion over 10 years.
The centerpiece of the plan, described by administration officials on the condition of anonymity ahead of the presidentโs speech, would eliminate what Mr. Obamaโs advisers call the โtrust-fund loophole,โ a provision governing inherited assets that shields hundreds of billions of dollars from taxation each year. The plan would also increase the top capital-gains tax rate, to 28 percent from 23.8 percent, for couples with incomes above $500,000 annually.
Those changes and a new fee on banks with assets over $50 billion would be used to finance a set of tax breaks for middle-income earners, including a $500 credit for families in which both spouses work; increased child care and education credits; and incentives to save for retirement.
The initiative signals a turnabout for Mr. Obama, who has spoken repeatedly about the potential for a deal with Republicans on business tax reform but little about individual taxation, an area fraught with disagreements.
โSlapping American small businesses, savers and investors with more tax hikes only negates the benefits of the tax policies that have been successful in helping to expand the economy, promote savings and create jobs,โ said Senator Orrin G. Hatch, Republican of Utah and chairman of the Finance Committee. โThe president needs to stop listening to his liberal allies who want to raise taxes at all costs and start working with Congress to fix our broken tax code.โ
Republicans have already referred to it as “trolling” given that they run both houses of the US Congress and will pass neither one. ย This does, however, have very bad optics for them. ย It puts them squarely in league with the uberwealthy.
“It’s not surprising to see the president call for tax hikes, but now he’s asking Congress to reverse bipartisan tax relief that he signed into law,” said Don Stewart, deputy chief of staff to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.).
Stewart said that “Republicans believe we should simplify Americaโs outdated tax code; that tax filing should be easier for you, not just those with fancy accountants; and that tax reform should create jobs for families, not the [Internal Revenue Service].”
Meanwhile, a spokeswoman for Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.), who chairs the House Ways and Means Committee, also criticized the proposal.
“This is not a serious proposal,” said Ryan spokesman Brendan Buck in a public statement. “We lift families up and grow the economy with a simpler, flatter tax code, not big tax increases to pay for more Washington spending.”
Plan details include hitting big banks and inheritance taxes. ย These suggestions really go at the types of tax cuts that incent gambling and increase financial wealth rather than industrial and business wealth that create jobs and economic growth.
During his State of the Union address on Tuesday, President Barack Obama will lay out a plan to extend tax credits to the middle class by hiking taxes on wealthier Americans and big banks, according to senior administration officials.
Under the plan, the capital gains tax for couples with income over $500,000 per year would be raised from its current level of 23.8 percent up to 28. The plan would also strip a tax break, known as a “step-up,” that allows heirs to avoid capital gains taxes on large inheritances.
In addition, the plan would institute a new tax on the biggest financial institutions, basing the fee on liabilities in order to discourage risky borrowing. The administration says the fee would hit the roughly 100 banks that have assets of $50 billion or more.
The president’s plan would use revenues from those tax code changes to finance credits aimed at the middle class, officials said. That includes extending the earned income tax credits to families without children, which would benefit an estimated 13 million low-income workers, while also tripling the maximum tax credits for child care in low- and middle-income homes.
“This proposal is probably the most impactful way we can address the manifest unfairness in our tax system,” an administration official said.
The tax hikes on capital gains would run into heavy opposition from Republicans in the GOP-controlled Congress. Other elements of the president’s plan, however, have enjoyed some degree of bipartisan support. House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Dave Camp (R-Mich.) has proposed a similar tax on big banks, and many Republicans favor the idea of broadening the earned income tax credit.
According to officials, the capital gains tax reforms would impact “almost exclusively” the top 1 percent of earners, carving out the majority of middle-income families from the hikes.
Here’s an essential ย outline for the items up for revision in the President’s plan. Is it his Piketty moment?ย This one is my personal favorite but they’re all good.
Raise the top capital gains tax rate from 23.8 to 28 percent. This is straightforward enough. Money you get from investments is taxed less than money you get from, you know, actually working, and while that might be good for the economy, it’s not good for a basicย sense of fairness. Not when the top 400 households are getting 16 percent of all capital gains, and the top 0.1 percent are getting half of them. That’s why, as theCongressional Budget Office (CBO) dryly puts it, “preferential tax rates on dividends and capital gains provide almost no benefit to households in the bottom four quintiles, but provide notable benefits to households in the top quintile”.
So Obama wants to push the top capital gains tax rate, which only applies to couples making more than $500,000, up from its current level of 23.8 percent to 28 percent, where it was when Ronald Reagan left office. In all, the White House calculates that increasingย the capital gains tax and getting rid of step-up basis would raise 99 percent of its money from the top 1 percent, with 80 percent of that coming from the top 0.1 percent.
This is one of the items that has really drawn money out of doing business and into stock market gambling. ย Why work when you can day trade your life into a lower tax bracket as a wealthy person?
Here’s a few political things sure to give you some fits and giggles. ย Lady Lindsey is said to be considering a run at the Presidency.ย
Sen. Lindsey Graham acknowledged on Sunday heโs seriously exploring a bid for the Republican presidential nomination.
Asked on NBCโs โMeet the Pressโ if he had started polling voters about his chances in 2016, Graham said he is not polling, โbut we set up a testing-the-waters committee under the IRS code that will allow me to look beyond South Carolina as to whether or not a guy like Lindsey Graham has a viable path.โ
โI donโt know where this will go, but Iโm definitely going to look at it,โ said Graham, the senior senator from South Carolina.
Another Tiger Beat on the Potomac exclusive says that Sarah Palin is the only Republican with less popularity than Chris Christie.
A new CBS poll showsย 29 percent of Republicans would like to see Christie run for the Republican nomination for president. But 44 percent say no. CBS points out โOnly former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palinโs numbers are more underwater: 30 percent of Republicans say theyโd like to see her run, but 59 percent disagree.โ
Fifty-nine percent of Republicans would like to see Mitt Romney jump into the 2016 race, while 26 percent believe he should stay out.
โFifty percent of Republicans would like to see former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush on the campaign trail as well, while 27 percent disagree,โ pollsters said. โIf both Romney and Bush run, analysts expect them to wage a competitive battle for the allegiance of the Republican establishment.โ
Numbers for some of the others often mentioned:
โ Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee: 40 percent of Republicans urge him to get in, and 29 percent say stay out.
โ โTwenty-seven percent of Republicans would like Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul to mount a bid, but 34 percent disagree. Twenty-six percent would like Florida Sen. Marco Rubio to run, while 19 percent would not. Twenty-one percent want Texas Sen. Ted Cruz to run, while 25 percent want him to not run.โ
โ Gov. Rick Perry of Texas: 21 percent yes, 29 percent no.
โ Gov. Bobby Jindal of Louisiana: 14 percent yes, 20 percent no.
โ Gov. Scott Walker of Wisconsin: ย 22 percent yes, 12 percent no.
Maybe winning isnโt everything after all. โRepublicans, by a 61 to 35 percent margin, believe itโs more important to have a nominee who agrees with them on the issues than a nominee who can win the general election,โ according to the poll.
Eeeshhh.
Well, that’s it for today! ย We’ll see you with a live blog for the SOTU tomorrow!!ย Have a great holiday!
What’s on your reading and blogging list today?
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