Category Archives: government fraud spending collusion

Proposed Tax Plan Called The Cut Cut Cut Bill?

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It has been officially introduced. Do we like it? Check it out here.

If Schumer and Pelosi dont like it then perhaps it has some good things in it, right? Anyone talking about the spending and then servicing the debt?

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House Republicans are attempting the biggest transformation of the U.S. tax code in more than 30 years. The new bill aims to chop the corporate tax rate from 35% to 20%, as well as trim income tax brackets from seven to four, with the top rate of 39.6% to remain intact.

Here’s a look at the four new proposed tax brackets.

Currently, there are seven tax brackets: 10%, 15%, 25%, 28%, 33%, and 39.6%. 12%: This new rate applies to single filers starting at $12,000 up to $45,000 and married joint filers after the $24,000 deduction up to $90,000. 25%: This rate starts at $45,000 for single filers and $90,000 for married joint filers. 35%: This rate starts at $200,000 for single filers and $260,000 for married joint filers. 39.6%: This rate starts at $500,000 for single filers and one million plus for married couples.

The Heritage Foundation tax experts summarized it this way:

Months ago, conservatives began pressuring their lawmakers to ensure that tax reform followed five conservative principles. Here’s how the bill stacks up to those principles:

Lowering and Simplifying the Individual Tax Rates: The GOP proposal provides long overdue relief to millions of Americans by simplifying and lowering the individual tax rates to 12 percent, 25 percent, 35 percent and 39.6 percent. For married couples, the 25 percent rate starts at $90,000, the 35 percent rate starts at $260,000 and the top rate starts at $1 million. The bill will also double the standard deduction to $12,000 for individuals and $24,000 for families.

Lowering the Corporate Tax Rate: This bill will immediately lower the corporate rate to 20 percent — the rate demanded by conservatives for months — making American businesses more competitive with the rest of the world and providing hard working Americans with a much needed raise. Rates for small business pass throughs were also reduced by 15 percentage points, down to 25 percent.

Tax Free Entrepreneurship (Full Expensing): The GOP proposal includes full expensing for some investments that phases out after 5 years. This is a necessary boost to investment in the short-term, though improvements could be made as the process advances.

Establishing a Territorial Tax System: This bill attempts to eliminate the double taxation that defines our current worldwide tax system, though there are some provisions that could undermine the full value of that reform. Stay tuned for a more in-depth analysis.

Ending Cronyism in the Tax Code: Conservatives have also been fighting back against big-government special interest groups. The plan eliminates many special interest provisions including the State and Local Tax Deduction (SALT), though it allows a write off for property taxes. If not for conservative pushback, the swamp creatures would have been far more successful in defending the broken, corrupt status quo.

Here are some other things included in the bill you should know:

  • Repeals the Alternative Minimum Tax
  • Child tax credit goes to $1600 from $1000 plus additional $300 credit for parents and non-child dependents.
  • State and local deduction converted to property tax deduction with $10K cap
  • 401k’s are untouched
  • The Death Tax exemption will be doubled and eventually phased out after five years.
  • Preserves the home mortgage interest deduction for current mortgages and limits the deduction to $500,000 for new mortgages.
  • Preserves the Charitable Tax Deduction.

At first glance, the preliminary text released today has the potential to unleash economic growth, create American jobs, increase wages for American workers, allow families to keep more of their hard-earned money, and make U.S. businesses competitive across the globe.

According to documents released by Republicans on the House Ways and Means Committee, a typical middle-income family of four, earning $59K (median household income), will receive a $1,182 tax cut under this bill.

 

Foreign Agents in DC, at the White House?

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Romanian leader seeks more Trump meetings

A Romanian politician sentenced to jail for rigging elections is trying to arrange meetings with Vice President Mike Pence and House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.), according to recent Justice Department filings.

Liviu Dragnea, who is speaker of Romanian Parliament’s lower chamber and party president, received a two-year suspended jail sentence last year for trying to rig a referendum election to impeach the country’s president.

Now, his Social Democratic Party is paying Washington public-affairs group Madison & Co. $100,000 to introduce Dragnea to Pence and Ryan “as soon as possible” and to arrange “political, media and academic meetings” for Dragnea. Operatives working on the case include Madison & Co. president Al Madison; Democratic lobbyist and “rainmaker” William Oldaker; Drew Willison, Senate Democratic Minority Leader Harry Reid’s (Nev.) final chief of staff; and William Harris, a Republican operative who “has worked for the Trump Organization on a variety of political and business matters,” according to a disclosure filing. The Justice Department has not yet released disclosures forms for Oldaker or Willison.

This wouldn’t be Dragnea’s first brush with members of the current administration. In the days before President Donald Trump’s inauguration, Dragnea met with the president-elect, now-former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn and Ed Royce (R-Calif), who chairs the House Foreign Affairs Committee.

*** Remember Guccifer is Romanian.

The Foreign Agents Registration Act is in fact a joke, but quite a lucrative one if you are part of a Washington DC law firm. As noted on the website, under the guidance and management of the Department of Justice:

The Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) was enacted in 1938. FARA is a disclosure statute that requires persons acting as agents of foreign principals in a political or quasi-political capacity to make periodic public disclosure of their relationship with the foreign principal, as well as activities, receipts and disbursements in support of those activities. Disclosure of the required information facilitates evaluation by the government and the American people of the statements and activities of such persons in light of their function as foreign agents. The FARA Registration Unit of the Counterintelligence and Export Control Section (CES) in the National Security Division (NSD) is responsible for the administration and enforcement of the Act.

The person at the Justice Department who is in charge of this division was Dana Boente. He suddenly resigned last week…..hummmm. Boente assumed the position of Deputy Attorney General, when Trump fired Sally Yates when she refused to defend Trump’s travel suspension executive order. Boente declared he would defend in court that executive order, but was that really true since he suddenly resigned?

Seems Boente was selected to oversee the department’s division handling the probe into alleged Russian election interference, overseeing efforts on cybersecurity and counterintelligence.

Another hummm

So back to foreign lobby and continued foreign interference in DC…

*** In part from Politico:

The last time I can remember a stir about a lobby firm evading disclosure law was in 2004, when Qorvis Communications’ offices were raided by the FBI in a probe about its work for the royal family of Saudi Arabia. However, nothing much came of it, and business carried on as usual among Washington lobbyists. Two years ago, reportedly, a number of Qorvis lobbyists quit because they were uncomfortable with the firm’s work. According to this 2015 story in the New York Observer, more than a third of Qorvis partners had left the firm—to start their own lobby shops—“partly because of the firm’s work on behalf of such clients as Yemen, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia and the Central African nation of Equatorial Guinea,” reported the Huffington Post. “‘I just have trouble working with despotic dictators killing their own people,’ said one Qorvis insider.”

The last time I can remember a stir about a lobby firm evading disclosure law was in 2004, when Qorvis Communications’ offices were raided by the FBI in a probe about its work for the royal family of Saudi Arabia. However, nothing much came of it, and business carried on as usual among Washington lobbyists. Two years ago, reportedly, a number of Qorvis lobbyists quit because they were uncomfortable with the firm’s work. According to this 2015 story in the New York Observer, more than a third of Qorvis partners had left the firm—to start their own lobby shops—“partly because of the firm’s work on behalf of such clients as Yemen, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia and the Central African nation of Equatorial Guinea,” reported the Huffington Post. “‘I just have trouble working with despotic dictators killing their own people,’ said one Qorvis insider.”

 

Oh Hillary, David and Congress, Gotta a Few Questions for You

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Bring your Podesta boys along for the ride to explain all this please. Did a handful of people sign waivers for this these transactions? Any lawyers out there than can explain this?

Sept. 12, 2014: US Treasury/

WASHINGTON – Due to continued Russian efforts to destabilize eastern Ukraine, Treasury Secretary Jacob J. Lew today determined that persons operating within Russia’s defense and related materiel sector may now be subject to targeted sanctions under Executive Order 13662.  In addition, the U.S. Department of the Treasury today extended targeted financial sanctions to Russia’s largest bank, deepened existing sanctions on Russian financial institutions, expanded sanctions in Russia’s energy sector, and increased the number of sanctioned Russian entities in the energy and defense sectors.
•         Treasury Secretary Jacob J. Lew has made a determination that persons operating within Russia’s defense and related materiel sector may now be subject to targeted sanctions under Executive Order 13662.  Following Secretary Lew’s determination, Treasury has imposed sanctions that prohibit transactions by U.S. persons or within the United States involving new debt of greater than 30 days maturity issued by Rostec, a major Russian conglomerate that operates in the defense and related materiel sector.
•         Treasury has added Russia’s largest bank, Sberbank of Russia, to the existing prohibitions on U.S. persons providing equity or certain long-term debt financing.  In addition, we have tightened the debt financing restrictions by reducing from 90 days to 30 days the maturity period for new debt issued by the six Russian banks subject to this restriction.  These banks are Bank of Moscow, Gazprombank OAO, Russian Agricultural Bank, Sberbank, VEB, and VTB Bank.
•         Treasury has designated and blocked the assets of five Russian state-owned defense technology firms – OAO ‘Dolgoprudny Research Production Enterprise,’ Mytishchinski Mashinostroitelny Zavod OAO, Kalinin Machine Plant JSC, Almaz-Antey GSKB, and JSC NIIP – for operating in the arms or related materiel sector in Russia.
•         Treasury has also imposed sanctions that prohibit the exportation of goods, services (not including financial services), or technology in support of exploration or production for Russian deepwater, Arctic offshore, or shale projects that have the potential to produce oil, to five Russian energy companies – Gazprom, Gazprom Neft, Lukoil, Surgutneftegas, and Rosneft – involved in these types of projects.  This measure complements restrictions administered by the Commerce Department and is similar to new EU measures published today.  U.S. persons have until September 26, 2014 to wind down applicable transactions with these entities pursuant to a general license that Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control issued today.
Okay got that now? Great…now how about Hillary’s top friend, campaign chairman and money man, John Podesta and that funky Podesta Group?
Seems in March of 2016, those Podesta fellers signed a lobby agreement with Sberbank. But there is a set of US Treasury sanctions on that bank. Is that legal? Anyone? What is ironic here is that lobby agreement goes to both houses of congress. So anyone interested or has access knows this about those Podesta boys and about that Russian bank. (Notice the top of that document)
Okay…there are 3 names listed on the lobby document:
Anthony Podesta, Principal of The Podesta Group
Stephen Rademaker, Former National Security Deputy for the Senate Majority Leader, worked at Podesta Group and is now at Covington and Burling. Interestingly enough, his wife is Danielle Pletka who is a Vice President at the American Enterprise Institute.
David Adams, Former assistant secretary of state for legislative affairs and chief legislative adviser to then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton
Meanwhile, this Rademaker fella wrote this statement on Russia being a threat in May of this year, 2017:

Principal, The Podesta Group “The Growing Russian Military Threat in Europe:
Assessing and Addressing the Challenge”  Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe
May 17, 2017
What?
Hold on, there is more:

Also of interest is the fact that this is not first time the Podestas have been involved with Sberbank. Back in 2009, Sberbank was intimately involved in the Russian deal to purchase Uranium One. Uranium One, a company whose holdings included 20 percent of the U.S.’ uranium ore, was owned by Frank Giustra, one of Bill Clinton’s closest friends and an integral part of the Clinton Foundation. Uranium One’s sale to the Russian state atomic agency, besides having been facilitated by the Hillary Clinton-led State Department, was aided by the Podesta Group, who represented Giustra’s company and lobbied to advance the transaction.

In 2012, that same Podesta Group was paid $40,000 to represent the Uranium One deal to three agencies of which the Senate has committee oversight. There were: U.S. SENATE, Natl Park Service (NPS), Natl Security Council (NSC), State – Dept of (DOS). Again, this same form went to both houses of Congress.

Clinton flew with Giustra in September 2005 on a private jet to Kazakhstan. There, the mining tycoon negotiated with that nation’s mining agency, Kazataprom, for rights to three mines. After Clinton appeared publicly in support of Kazakhstan’s president, Nursultan Nazarbayev, who had just allegedly won an election with more than 90 percent of the vote, the mining deal was approved.

Months later, Giustra donated $31 million to the Clinton Foundation with a pledge of $100 million more.

In 2007, UrAsia Energy, with its access to Kazakhstan’s lucrative mines, merged with South Africa’s Uranium One in a $3.5 billion deal.

Just some additional facts to add to your notes….

Tony Podesta Steps Down, Implicated in Indictment

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Podesta Group, implicated in Manafort indictment took $200k at least to lobby on behalf of Uranium One. Manafort has been booked by the U.S. Marshals before facing the media outside. He has a $10M unsecured bond, home arrest, and is to be back in court on Thursday.

 

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Tony Podesta stepping down from lobbying giant amid Mueller probe

Podesta announced his decision during a firm-wide meeting Monday morning and is alerting clients of his impending departure.

Democratic power lobbyist Tony Podesta, founder of the Podesta Group, is stepping down from the firm that bears his name after coming under investigation by special counsel Robert Mueller.

Podesta announced his decision during a firm-wide meeting Monday morning and is alerting clients of his impending departure.

Podesta’s decision to leave the firm came on the same day that former Donald Trump campaign aides Paul Manafort and Rick Gates were indicted on multiple charges, including money laundering, operating as federal agents of the Ukrainian government, failing to disclose overseas bank accounts and making false statements to federal authorities. Trump campaign foreign policy advisor George Papadopoulos pleaded guilty earlier this month for lying to the FBI about his contacts with Russian officials, according to court records.

The investigation into Podesta and his firm grew out of investigators’ examination of Manafort’s finances. Manafort organized a PR campaign on behalf of a nonprofit called the European Centre for a Modern Ukraine. Podesta Group was one of several firms that were paid to do work on the PR campaign to promote Ukraine in the U.S.

Podesta Group filed paperwork with the Justice Department in April stating that it had done work for the European Centre for a Modern Ukraine that also benefited the same Ukrainian political party that Manafort once advised. Podesta Group said at the time it believed its client was a European think tank untethered to a political party.

Podesta is handing over full operational and financial control of the firm to longtime firm CEO Kimberley Fritts, according to multiple sources with knowledge of Monday’s meeting. Fritts and a senior group of the Podesta team will be launching a new firm in the next one or two days. Sources said the transition has been in the works for the past several months.

“[Tony] was very magnanimous and said, “This is an amazing group of people,” a source said of Podesta’s remarks. Podesta also told staff he “doesn’t intend to go quietly, or learn how to play golf.” He said he “needs to fight this as an individual, but doesn’t want the firm to fight it.”

Fritts also addressed the gathering, telling staff that she is “thrilled at this opportunity” and that, “This is not about me, this is about y’all.” Several other senior staff spoke about their excitement about the future of the firm. The meeting ended with a resounding ovation for Podesta.

Podesta Group did not respond to a request for comment for this story.

Podesta has long been a larger than life figure on K Street, growing his business from a boutique firm into a massive lobbying and public relations operation. He is well known for his flashy dressing, vast art collection, generous campaign donations across all levels of Democratic politics and, of course, for his brother John Podesta, Hillary Clinton’s campaign chairman.

Podesta Group has struggled in the wake of the Mueller investigation. More than a dozen of its lobbying clients have cut ties with the firm this year, according to lobbying filings. Revenues have also declined: The firm brought in an estimated $4.8 million in the third quarter of 2017, down from $5.2 million in the second quarter of 2017 and from $6.1 million in the third quarter of 2016.

WH and State Dept Slowed Walked Russian Sanctions

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While many are questioning Robert Mueller’s role into the Russian investigation, be sure to understand Russian operatives had an open door for at least 8 years and earlier than that there were clandestine Russian spy rings functioning across the country.

Much less there are dead Russians in the UK as well as in the United States, the risks are extraordinary.

Thanks to the Democrats and the greed of money where Russia was happy to comply for agreements to all their requests, the Russian probe goes beyond that common term of collusion.

The Obama administration launched the back channels for nuclear talks with Iran in 2009 in Oman. Obama needed the Russian vote, so all things concocted by the Kremlin were given a wink and nod by the Obama White House as well as the Hillary and John Kerry State Department.

So, we now have the Trump White House which has been slow and measured to take additional actions regarding Russia. The ‘why’ has a convoluted answer. There is/was Russian hacking. There were/are Russian trolls and bots in social media. There is Russian involvement in Silicon Valley known as Skolkovo. There is conflicted military airspace in Syria. There is Russian support of the Taliban. There are Russian operations in Cuba, Latin America, Libya, Iraq, Ukraine (…)

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Medvedev and Putin have a master plan and they are calculating and effective. One action results in unknown global consequences.

So, finally the Tillerson State Department provided approval of additional sanctions on Russia and Congress has the list. Is it enough or complete? Too early to know. However, the Magnitsky Act is gaining approval in countries allied to United States and Putin is seeking revenge by any means necessary including through Interpol.

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Read on:

WASHINGTON — The State Department gave Congress a list Thursday of 39 Russian individuals and entities it says support the Russian government’s intelligence and defense sectors. Early next year, anyone in the U.S. doing business with entities on that list will be hit with sanctions by the Trump administration.

“Secretary of State Rex Tillerson has authorized the department to issue guidance to the public specifying the persons or entities that are part of or operating on behalf of the defense or intelligence sectors of the government of the Russian Federation,” said State Department spokesperson Heather Nauert.

After President Trump signed sanctions legislation in August, the administration gave the State and Treasury Departments the authority to draw up a list of entities that enable Moscow’s intelligence and defense sectors. The State Department had a deadline of October 1 to send the list to Congress. Now, nearly a month late, State has done so.

There had been growing criticism that the administration was slow-walking the process. The State Department cited the complexity of the process when asked about the delay. Nauert also explained that Secretary of State Rex Tillerson is “very hands-on in these types of things.”

Experts on Russia who reviewed the list, which was obtained by CBS News, say it covers most of the Russian defense sector.

“This seems to be a comprehensive list that broadly covers a significant portion of the Russian defense industry,” said Mark Simakovsky, a former Defense Department official and Atlantic Council fellow. “The administration likely took very seriously the review, required of the legislation, and has sought to abide by the terms.”

Five of the six Russian defense contractors listed on the State and Treasury list are among the 100 biggest defense companies worldwide.

Rosoboronexport OJSC, which is on the list, is one of Russia’s largest exporters of defense products. Its partner company, Rostec, promotes technology products in both the civil and defense sectors and is also on the list. On the intelligence side, the Federal Security Service (FSB) and the Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) are included.

The State Department is making the entire list public in advance of actual sanctions implementation in order to alert U.S. stakeholders, primarily those who do business with these companies, early notice, so they can draw down those transactions. If they don’t, they, too, will face sanctions.

“These are the types of entities that they can no longer do business with,” State Department Spokeswoman Heather Nauert said. “So it helps them to at least make their business decisions and be able to decide on the best course of action going forward,” she said.”

Making the list public before sanctions go into effect is a departure from the usual State Department policy of waiting for the sanctions to be announced. Congressional aides acknowledged that this caveat, which essentially enables both U.S. companies and the Russian companies to prepare, was a concern as the legislation was nearing its final hours before passage. In the end, there was no major effort to change this.

Once the Senate passed its sanctions legislation with an overwhelming majority, it put pressure on the House to pass it as well. Democrats applied intense pressure not to change anything because they did not want to water down the bill.

Senator Bob Corker, R-Tennessee, the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, called the list a “good first step in responsibly implementing a very complex piece of legislation.” Senators Ben Cardin, D-Maryland, and John McCain, R-Arizona also welcomed the list as part of the effort to hold Russia accountable for interfering in the 2016 U.S. presidential election.

The two senators noted that questions remain about the implementation of the sanctions. Under the current plan, beginning Jan. 29, individuals involved in “significant” transactions with entities on the list will also be sanctioned. It’s still up to the State Department to determine how the sanctions are applied. McCain and Cardin are concerned about how the agency will come up with the staffing and resources to carry out the sanctions. In their statement they pointed out reports that say the sanctions office has been closed and “a number of its staff have resigned.” The policy planning staff, which doesn’t usually play a role in operations, is being tasked with implementing the sanctions.

Providing dedicated staffing and resources within the State Department will demonstrate the administration’s commitment to carrying out this vitally important law,” wrote McCain and Cardin.

The sanctions law signed by Mr. Trump in August targeted Iran and North Korea, in addition to Russia. It maintains and expands sanctions against the Russian government, Russian crude oil projects and also targets those who evade foreign sanctions and entities that abuse human rights. The legislation also prevents the president from unilaterally easing or lifting sanctions against Russia, a provision that came after Mr. Trump had consistently espoused the idea of a warming of relations with Russia, even in the face of the intelligence community’s conclusion that Russia had meddled in the 2016 elections.