Yes that is interesting.  Can we at least agree that outside of work hours on our leisure time, interactive gaming might be more valuable than sitting on the couch watching TV?  But not as good as being outside playing a sport.

Of course.

Dear God,

I promise I will no longer complain and will begin to like the mind-numbingly long game of baseball if you would just, with Your grace, turn the heat back on.

Sincerely,
Your servant, Stan

An interesting twist here - the new tax bill included a repeal of the individual mandate from the ACA.  You can no longer be punished if you don't buy health insurance.

Starting January 1, 2019. So there’s one more year of taking it up the ass by FedGov.  Love those brave Republicans.  They sure know how to be spineless pussies.

Since he’s unpopular his votes on killing obamacare and other things, i wonder if his sudden illness is his way of voting NO without voting...

I was thinking the same thing.

The Republicans have already screwed the pooch. In an effort to just “get something done”, they have cobbled together a giant pile of shit. Just yesterday things leaked out about JCT agreements on things that weren’t in either the House or Senate Bills, such as a 37% individual rate.

I met with a client today and basically just told him they are making this shit up as they go along.

The ONLY thing that is happening is maneuvering as to how this can fall within the Byrd rule so they don’t have to use 60 votes to pass it.

If anyone says this is simplification, I’m going to kick them in the ass. This is anything from it. It is also NOT the panacea tax cut the republicans are frothing over. Yes, businesses will get the lions share of the benefits, and it will be paid for by tax increases on the people making $100k - $400k that don’t happen to own a business. No one is talking about that.

And my take is not lib talking points. It comes from reading the bills, and seeing notices come to my email every two hours.

Not sure how old you are, but 40 years ago phones had wires.  And if there wasn't a phone jack in the room then one needed a long extension to get a phone in the room.

 And many homes only had one phone and one phone jack.  Our phone was in the kitchen, just like everyone else phone back then.


 As far as these tales by these women being credible?  Not in a long shot.  This is a political sex smear from the word go.

Exactly. I was 17 years old then. Maybe that’s why dating was more common. You couldn’t just hang in the kitchen chatting with your girlfriend while your mom made meat loaf. So you went out, as often as possible.

Disagree on stopping it. If Trump didn't do anything impeachable, let them dig. We want to drain the swamp, well getting rid of an admitted liar, even if he's in the conservative side - he's part of the swamp. Manafort as well. I really don't care where the shit splatters, let them all be cleaned out - both sides.

I disagree. I’m for draining the swamp. But this is a partisan political witch hunt to overturn the results of an election.

To borrow a term, a ham sandwich can be impeached. Democrat members of the House are saying that a high crime and misdemeanor is whatever they say it is. Consequently, it is impossible in this political environment to say Trump didn’t do anything impeachable.  You can say, and I believe, that he has done nothing illegal, but that is not the standard for impeachment. 

In looking at the partisan team that Mueller has put together, including Clinton sycophants, I believe even more so in what I stated in the first paragraph.

The estate tax is the funny one.  The Founders put it in themselves, its old.  The reasoning was (at the time) that they didn't want landed aristocracies like the ones they left in England.  As it is the tax only hits a tiny minority of households.  But hey, bring on the Aristocracies!  After all, they all contribute to the Republican cause.

The Founders were around in 1916?  Damn, they aged well.

As for aristocracies, screw you. Who are you to say how much people should be able give to others? 

My widower father-in-law died 18 months after he retired in 1998. Back then the estate tax exemption was $625,000, with a top rate of 55%.

He was a professor in the college of education at an Illinois University.  His aristocratic estate included a debt-free ranch home on a quarter acre lot, two vehicles, modest life insurance, and a vested balance in the State University Retirement System.  The SURS amount was his defined contribution retirement plan. It was also income taxable to his heirs - my wife and her sister.

After massive income tax and estate tax on the sum of those assets, the girls received less than 50% of what he owned. Probably 45% after state income taxes. He made me executor. It was one of the most painful thing I’ve ever done.

I’ve had cash-poor clients have to sell their farm land or businesses just to pay the estate taxes. The estate tax is effectively a forced leveraged buyout of taxpayers assets.

The estate tax is immoral and is designed to enrich the government, not stop aristocracies.