Tippy-Top Taxes For The Wealthy

In the following audio, Elizebeth Warren uses a term coined by Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez:

  • You look at our tax rates back in the ’60s and when you have a progressive tax rate system. Your tax rate, you know, let’s say, from zero to $75,000 may be ten percent or 15 percent, et cetera. But once you get to, like, THE TIPPY TOPS — on your 10 millionth dollar— sometimes you see tax rates as high as 60 or 70 percent. That doesn’t mean all $10 million are taxed at an extremely high rate, but it means that as you climb up this ladder you should be contributing more. — AOC

Here is Senator Warren Tweeting it as well as you hearing it below:

I presume they are trying to explain Marxism to Millennials? Senator Warren and Senator Harris are just trying to outdo the crazy chica from “the Bronx,” *She Guevara.

Now “TIPPY-TOP” and words like “fair” are dog-whistles for Communism. Here is audio of Kamala Harris and Elizebeth Warren trying to bankrupt the country:

Larry Elder a while back showed how this didn’t work… and it will be no different decades later:

 

* In one of the funniest posts in a while, TWITCHY want to shorten Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s name:

We need a nickname for Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. It’s too long to type it all out. Post your suggestions here….

  • “She Guevara”
  • “Bolshichick”
  • “Bolshevik Barbie”
  • “Alex from the East Bloc”
  • “Bronxhevik”
  • “MARXandria”
  • “MiLENINal”

Some Misconception About the Rich and Taxes

A caller challenged Michael Medved on the “system” backing the rich… to which Michael responded with some counter-points. The conversation turned to taxes, and I learned a bit about the flat-tax and the “graduated” aspect of even it.

Great call and great learning curve of a response.

Here is a related issue via the great Milton Friedman:

Rich and Greedy Republicans Influencing Politics

This should be read with this post: The Democratic Party Are Run By Old, Rich, White (Obstructionist) Men

Mind you, below is dated material… THAT BEING SAID, this information was current at the time the mantra was spoken to me and so shows the lack of depth in people relating truth in general conversation.

(A conversation from 2004 at a buddies wedding weekend)


I wanted to isolate a previous discussion and get some of your input on us “greedy conservatives.”  The only reason I bring this up is that while playing golf in Vegas I got into a discussion with one of the caddies about politics and faith.  The conversation started out very interestingly though.  Democrats/Liberals place a lot of emphasis on feelings in their anti-Bush diatribe.

This elderly caddy – maybe in his mid-fifties – said he wouldn’t vote for bush because his wife worked for the phone company making good money for fifteen-years.  She lost her job and is now a receptionist for a Veterinarian.  He said,

  • I won’t vote for that %@#&* because my wife isn’t making any money!!” 

I pointed out, politely, so as to not make him explode, that it is not Bush’s fault that his wife does not have a degree or a specialty that can get them by in these lean times.  He realized that his wife’s life choices put them in the spot their in, not Bush (with a little coaxing from me of course).  So I explained some of the following during our conversation, passerby’s stopping and patting me on the back for such a great example of conservatisms’ values at work.349px-ElectoralCollege2000.svg

If you can remember back to the 2000 election here in the U. S. and the blue state,” “red state” scenario of which state voted for Gore and which voted for Bush, I’m sure you do, even if another country. Once in awhile stats are done to see which part of the country (which states in fact) give more to charity per-capita than other states. Do you know which of the top twenty states gives the most to charity? You got it, Bush country!

Every single one of the red states in that top-twenty are the middle-income fly-over states. Guess how many red-states got the lower twenty of giving? Two. Eighteen States that were in the lowest “giving ratio” to charity were Gore states. This is even more interesting with a few recent poles. Just under 66% of republicans go to church regularly, and a third of them go every week. Just fewer than 66% of democrats do not even go to church at all. DRAT those nasty religious / conservatives!

New Stat that I am adding to my arguments by the way:

Only one of the top 25 donors to political 527 groups has given to a conservative organization, shedding further light on the huge disparity between Democrats and Republicans in this new fund-raising area.

The top three 527 donors so far in the 2004 election cycle – Hollywood producer Steven Bing, Progressive Corp. chairman Peter Lewis and financier George Soros – have combined to give nearly $24 million to prominent liberal groups. They include Joint Victory Campaign 2004, America Coming Together and MoveOn.org.

Dems the richest five senators? Financial statements revealed the five richest members of the United States Senate are Democrats. The annual disclosure allows senators to represent their net worth inside a broad range.

Presidential candidate Sen. John Kerry (D-MA) is far ahead of his colleagues with $163 million, most of it coming from his wife’s inheritance of the Heinz fortune. The actual estimate is over $400 million. Lagging behind is Sen. Herb Kohl (D-WI) at $111 million. The Wisconsin senator’s family owns a department store chain. Sen. John “Jay” Rockefeller (D-WV) comes in third with a personal fortune reported to be $81 million.

Former Goldman Sachs chairman Sen. John Corzine (D-NJ) weighs in at $71 million, with Sen. Diane Feinstein (D-CA) rounding out the top five at $26.3 million.  Sen. Peter Fitzgerald (R-IL) breaks the string of Democrat multimillionaires in sixth place at $26.1 million. Sens. Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ), Bill Frist (R-TN), John Edwards (D-NC), and Edward Kennedy (D-MA) complete the top ten.

Democrats are 10 of the top 15 richest senators.

(Free Republic)


(More Recently We Have This)

BAM Campaign Finance

(Link in Pic)

UPDATED via Politico:

Democrats love to cast Republicans as the party of big money, beholden to the out-of-touch billionaires bankrolling their campaigns.

But new numbers tell a very different story — one in which Democrats are actually raising more big money than their adversaries.

Among the groups reporting the biggest political ad spending, the 15 top Democrat-aligned committees have outraised the 15 top Republican ones $453 million to $289 million in the 2014 cycle, according to a POLITICO analysis of the most recent Federal Election Commission reports, including those filed over the weekend — which cover through the end of last month.

The analysis shows the fundraising edge widening in August, when the Democratic groups pulled in more than twice as much as their GOP counterparts — $51 million to $21 million. That’s thanks to a spike in massive checks from increasingly energized labor unions and liberal billionaires like Tom Steyer and Fred Eychaner.

So, even as Democrats like Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid are working methodically to turn conservative megadonors like the big-giving conservative billionaire brothers Charles and David Koch into the boogeymen of 2014, the party itself is increasingly relying on its deepest pockets as the best chance of staving off a midterm wipeout forecast by oddsmakers.

For example, Steyer, a retired San Francisco hedge fund billionaire, on Aug. 15 stroked a $15 million check to his own NextGen Climate Action super PAC that single-handedly exceeded the combined monthly total raised by the two GOP congressional campaign committees. And his political lieutenant, Chris Lehane, hinted that Steyer, one of the biggest individual donors of 2014, may give more to his super PAC than his $50 million pledge, which Lehane said “should not be seen as a ceiling.” Steyer’s spending — and that of other Democratic billionaires — has helped fuel an advertising gap favoring the party’s candidates in key races across the country….

More info at FEC linked in graph at top. See — Democrats Outpacing Republicans in Spending on Political Ads

  • PBS notes that the “wealthiest Americans have spent more money than ever before on these midterms, but there are actually fewer big donors. The top five donors to unrestricted super PACs reads like a billionaire boys club.”

The top-five out of the ten are donating to Democrat “causes.” What is the lesson here? Money doesn’t matter! Here is the NYT’S ASSESSMENT of outside groups:

…Outside groups working on behalf of Democratic candidates have extended the advantage. Super PACs, environmental organizations and abortion rights groups have spent more than $4.8 million on ground activity in Senate races in Alaska, Colorado, Iowa, Michigan and North Carolina. Republican-leaning groups have kicked in only $369,000…

Donate Colors

And if you look at the total donations given in all cycles, you see dark and light blue dominating politics in the TOP-50 money-shakers (see below). Unions are the biggest giver to politics, and almost all of them give to Democrats — they even take due from their Republican members and line Democratic pockets with this cash!

Donate Top 50

To Live Like a King ~ Fidel Castro’s Extravagant [Capitalist] Lifestyle

See as well my previous post,

Here is part of the Wall Street Journal article Dennis is reading from:

…The legend of Castro as a great revolutionary who sacrifices for his people is preserved by keeping the details about his life a state secret. Sánchez’s account shows the real Castro: vengeful, self-absorbed and given to childish temper tantrums—aka “tropical storms.” “The best way of living with him,” Sánchez wrote, “was to accept all he said and did.”

The book is timely. The Obama administration has just removed Cuba from the U.S. list of state sponsors of terrorism amid sharp criticism from exiles. Their concerns are sensible: Though Castro is now rumored to be feebleminded, the intelligence apparatus he built—which specializes in violence to destabilize democracy and trafficks in drugs and weapons—remains as it has been for a half century.

Sánchez witnessed firsthand Castro’s indifference to Cuban poverty. The comandante gave interminable speeches calling for revolutionary sacrifice. But he lived large, with a private island, a yacht, some 20 homes across the island, a personal chef, a full-time doctor, and a carefully selected and prepared diet.

When a Canadian company offered to build a modern sports-facility for the nation, Castro used the donation for a private basketball court. Wherever he traveled in the world, his bed was dismantled and shipped ahead to ensure the comfort he demanded.

Castro was obsessed with spreading his revolution. Outside of Havana was a secret camp called Punto Cero de Guanabo where, Sánchez wrote, Cuba “trained, shaped and advised guerrilla movements [and organizations] from all over the world.” Recruits from places like Venezuela, Colombia, Chile and Nicaragua practiced hijacking airplanes and learned to use explosives.

“The Chile of Salvador Allende at the start of the 1970s,” Sánchez wrote, “was without doubt the country in which Cuban influence had penetrated most deeply. Fidel devoted enormous energies and resources to it” and he infiltrated it heavily with Cuban intelligence operatives.

Sánchez learned about what had happened in Chile from Castro’s notorious revolutionary spymaster Manuel Piñeiro, who “was always hanging around the presidential palace” talking about it.

The Cuban regime “penetrated and infiltrated [Allende’s] entourage” with the objective of creating “an unconditional ally in Santiago de Chile.” Marxists “ Miguel Enríquez, the leader of [Chile’s] Movement of the Revolutionary Left, and Andrés Pascal Allende, co-founder of that radical movement and also nephew of President Allende” were Castro protégés who trained in Cuba…

(WSJ)

(Click to Enlarge)

...BBC Interviews Sánchez

The public image of Cuba’s former leader Fidel Castro is that of the exemplary and frugal leader, but his bodyguard of 17 years claims it was a sham….

John Simpson interviewed Mr Sanchez for BBC’s Newsnight programme.

In May the New York Post did a larger article on this topic. In it we find more details bout this extravagant lifestyle and the “equality” Castro achieved was built on the murders of engineers, journalists, priests, gays, and other free-market believers that threatened Castro in dumbing down his population for the express purpose of easily controlling:

Few, meanwhile, know that Fidel has had at least three children out of wedlock, including one with his personal interpreter and longtime mistress, Juanita.

Castro may not be as ostentatious as Khadafy or Saddam Hussein, but he’s rich beyond most people’s dreams. His simple appearance is due more to laziness than austerity. Castro, who rarely wakes before 10 a.m. or 11 a.m., is happy not to wear a suit and confessed that the main reason he has a beard is so he did not have to shave every day.

But there were plenty of perks to being the depository of Cuba’s wealth. He has his own private basketball court where he never lost a game. And his own private hospital housing two people full-time simply because they shared his blood type.

At Punto Cero, each member of his family possessed his or her own cow, so as to satisfy each one’s individual tastes, since the acidity and creaminess of fresh milk varies from one cow to another. And so the milk would arrive on the table, each bottle bearing a number, a little piece of paper scotch-taped onto the bottle, corresponding to each person’s cow.

Antonio’s was No. 8, Angelito’s No. 3, and Fidel’s No. 5, which was also the number he wore on his basketball shirt.

There was no question of deceiving him: Fidel possessed an excellent palate that could immediately detect if the taste of milk did not correspond to that of the previous bottle.

Perhaps most extravagantly, Fidel Castro has his own secret island.

Ironically, he has John F. Kennedy to thank for it. In April 1961, a group of CIA-trained exiles landed at the Bay of Pigs and tried to overthrow the Cuban government. It was a complete fiasco.

In the days following the failed attack, Fidel came to explore the region when he encountered a local fisherman with a wrinkled face whom everyone called El Viejo Finalé. He asked Old Finalé to give him a tour of the area, and the fisherman immediately took him on board his fishing boat to Cayo Piedra, a little “jewel” situated 10 miles from the coast and known only to the local inhabitants.

Fidel instantly fell in love with this place of wild beauty worthy of Robinson Crusoe and decided to have it for his own. The lighthouse keeper was asked to leave the premises and the lighthouse was put out of action and later taken down.

To be precise, Cayo Piedra consists of not one island but two, a passing cyclone having split it in half. Fidel had, however, rectified this by building a 700-foot-long bridge between the two parts.

The southern island was slightly larger than its northern counterpart, and it was here, on the site of the former lighthouse, that Castro and his wife, Dalia, had built their house: a cement-built, L-shaped bungalow arranged around a terrace that looked out to the east, onto the open sea.

While ordinary Cubans suffered, this is where Castro would relax.

On the west side of the island, facing the setting sun, the Castros had built a 200-foot-long landing stage for his personal yacht. The Aquarama II, decorated entirely in exotic wood imported from Angola, had four engines from Soviet navy patrollers, a gift from Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev. At full throttle, they propelled Aquarama II at the phenomenal, unbeatable speed of 42 knots, or about 48 miles an hour.

To allow Aquarama II to dock, Fidel and Dalia had also had a half-mile-long channel dug; without this, their flotilla would not have been able to reach the island, surrounded by sand shoals.

The jetty formed the epicenter of social life on Cayo Piedra.

A floating pontoon, 23 feet long, had been annexed to it, and on the pontoon stood a straw hut with a bar and barbecue grill.

From this floating bar and restaurant, everyone could admire the sea enclosure in which, to the delight of adults and children alike, turtles (some 3 feet long) were kept. On the other side of the landing stage was a dolphinarium containing two tame dolphins that livened up our daily routines with their pranks and jumps.

Fidel Castro also let it be understood, and sometimes directly stated, that the revolution left him no possibility for respite or leisure and that he knew nothing about, and even despised, the bourgeois concept of vacation. Nothing could have been further from the truth…

[….]

The Cuban economy, which derived almost 80% of its external trade from the eastern bloc, was collapsing like a house of cards and households were surviving on the breadline while the GNP had decreased by 35% and electricity supplies were seriously inadequate.

Meanwhile, Fidel Castro sipped his whiskey on the rocks and ate fresh fish in the shade of his secret island.

(NYPost)