n2doc

n2doc's Journal

September 28, 2017

Thursday Toon Roundup 1 - Allowable Protest

September 27, 2017

A breakthrough on removing Confederate Monuments in Georgia?

LAST MONTH, A white Georgia Republican state representative — in the heat of a Facebook argument with a black former colleague — warned her that she may face a violent backlash if she continues her crusade to remove monuments to the Confederacy.

“Continue your quixotic journey into South Georgia and it will not be pleasant. The truth. Not a warning,” GOP state Rep. Jason Spencer told LaDawn Jones, a former state representative who chaired Bernie Sanders’s presidential campaign in the state. He then warned that advocates for removing the Confederate statues may “go missing in the Okefenokee,” a reference to a large swamp and wildlife refuge near the border with Florida.

On Wednesday, Spencer and Jones announced that they are now working together on legislation that would empower cities to remove Confederate monuments and also convert the largest Confederate memorial in the country — Georgia’s Stone Mountain — into a Civil War memorial instead. Spencer also offered a lengthy apology to his former colleague.

“I do regret using the words in the response to a provocative comment by Ms. Jones. I do regret using those words,” Spencer said in a Facebook Live video recorded alongside his former colleague.

more
https://theintercept.com/2017/09/27/a-facebook-flamewar-may-have-just-led-to-a-major-breakthrough-on-confederate-monuments-in-georgia/

September 27, 2017

Puerto Rican Debt holders respond to Maria devastation by offering....more debt!

PUERTO RICO, FACING absolute devastation after Hurricane Maria barreled through last week, desperately needs immediate funding to restore critical infrastructure, particularly its hobbled electric grid. The entire island — home to over 3.5 million American citizens, roughly equivalent to the state of Connecticut — lost power, and satellite imagery shows how little electricity has come back. This affects not only electricity and telecommunications service but access to clean water, as many pumping stations run on the same grid.

A group of bondholders, who own a portion of Puerto Rico’s massive $72 billion debt, has proposed what they are calling relief — but in the form of a loan. So they’re offering a territory mired in debt the chance to take on more debt.

The announcement came after The Intercept spent two days reaching out to 51 of Puerto Rico’s known creditors, asking them if they would support a moratorium or cancellation of debt payments for the island, given the humanitarian crisis. Prior to this announcement, only three of the 51 creditors had so much as donated relief funds to charity or offered sympathy for island residents, all of them banks who actually have to face consumers, and so are a bit more adept at handling public relations. No creditor had supported debt relief.

more

https://theintercept.com/2017/09/27/puerto-rican-debt-holders-respond-to-catastrophic-hurricane-by-offering-puerto-rico-more-debt/

Bloodsuckers only know one thing

September 27, 2017

So long, Nigel Farage. America deserves you

by Nesrine Malik

There aren’t many things that would make you feel sorry for Steve Bannon, but being introduced this week in Alabama by Nigel Farage as “the greatest political thinker in the western hemisphere” is one of them. If Farage, winner of no parliamentary election, player of no role in Brexit negotiations and head of no political parties thought I was a political genius, I’d keep that quiet. Steve, you were Darth Vader, the genius architect of the Trump victory and fawned over by the media, the brains behind the Muslim ban, the alt-right’s alt-knight. Now you are being introduced by a man who not only has never managed to win a seat in parliament, but also has failed to so many times he has become a sort of superlative metaphor for loss – victory’s anti-matter. There was something awfully David Brenty about it all – two has-beens still trying to stretch their relevance to the absolute limit by making cameo appearances at fringe events ranting at the establishment that has revoked their access.

Bannon, I get. To him, Trump has been defanged by the new Supernanny, babysitter in chief Gen John Kelly, so he’s getting his kicks by supporting as many agents of chaos as he can. But Farage? What the hell was he doing addressing an Alabama state rally to back some random senate campaign? Who do the Americans think they are getting with Farage? Do they see him as some Churchillian English gent who lives in Downton Abbey and has managed to single-handedly secure Brexit against the efforts of the entire political establishment by sheer force of personality and capital?

I can see why Farage is in the US. It makes perfect sense for a man raging against the dying of the light at home. For people like Farage, who occupy that precarious territory where they are ubiquitous but don’t actually do much apart from writing the odd semi-literate column in a tabloid or website, or a brief weekly radio phone-in show, the launch of a US career is the klaxon that things might not be going too well. And if you see them on Fox News then the suspicion is confirmed. Fox News is Britain’s dumping ground for those who would rather be relevant in a garbage can than irrelevant outside one. That’s all I hear when people like Farage talk about how many supporters or followers they have on social media. I am relevant! Who cares how I got there or what I have to keep doing, if I don’t get attention then what am I? Merely a husk who has abandoned all sense of self and moral responsibility in exchange for some limelight. I cannot go back now, the breadcrumb trail to redemption has been lost and so I must press on.

Nothing is too putrid for Farage, from backing a virulently rightwing homophobe running for senate to addressing far right rallies in Germany.

more
https://amp.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/sep/27/nigel-farage-america-ukip-steve-bannon

September 27, 2017

The 'doubled standard deduction' in the GOP tax plan is a lie

by Josh Barro

In selling their soon-to-be-released tax plan, Republicans have been leaning hard on what they say is a provision to cut and simplify taxes for the middle class: Doubling the standard deduction that income tax payers may take.

"You have to look at the plan in its entirety. It doubles the standard deduction, so in the end, even the lowest rates get a tax cut," Rep. Jim Renacci, a Republican who sits on the tax-writing Ways and Means Committee, told Reuters.

But a document published by Jonathan Swan of Axios shows this is badly misleading. The plan would increase the standardized deductions available to taxpayers by 15% or less.

Meanwhile, taxpayers who still wouldn't take the standard deduction under the Republican plan — those who would instead deduct things like mortgage interest — would pay tax on more of their income than they do now.

more
http://www.businessinsider.com/trump-tax-plan-doubled-standard-deduction-2017-9?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+businessinsider%2Fpolitics+%28Business+Insider+-+Politix%29

September 27, 2017