Is it possible to neuter a dog twice? It certainly appears to have happened to the bitch in the lower right-hand corner.
Worth reading
The recent Rolling Stone article on Lindsey Graham has a great quote from former Republican strategist Steve Schmidt that perfectly summarizes Graham and lot of other people who’ve hitched their fortunes, identities, and hopes to Trump’s incredibly corrupt wagon:
“People try to analyze Lindsey through the prism of the manifest inconsistencies that exist between things that he used to believe and what he’s doing now,” Schmidt says. “The way to understand him is to look at what’s consistent. And essentially what he is in American politics is what, in the aquatic world, would be a pilot fish: a smaller fish that hovers about a larger predator, like a shark, living off of its detritus. That’s Lindsey. And when he swam around the McCain shark, broadly viewed as a virtuous and good shark, Lindsey took on the patina of virtue. But wherever the apex shark is, you find the Lindsey fish hovering about, and Trump’s the newest shark in the sea. Lindsey has a real draw to power — but he’s found it unattainable on his own merits.”
Not true. The idea of birthright citizenship is a big enough deal that there’s a highfalutin’ Latin term for it: jus soli (“right of the soil”), and many countries have it.
It’s easy to dismiss Trump’s statement, made a week before the mid-term elections, as a stunt — but it’s more than that. It’s an attempt to prime people to take an idea that was formerly out-of-bounds and move the Overton Window so that it’s now possible to discuss, and eventually make palatable. It’s all in the service of making overt bigotry acceptable again, and it’s more than just a stunt:
Hey, Democratic friends: YES, the attack on birthright citizenship is a political stunt. Yes, it’s unconstitutional and his reasoning is based in lies. But it’s also a terrifying attack on many people. PLEASE do not call it a distraction or argue we should ignore it.
Now what we need is for more media organization to stop simply and uncritically reporting Trump’s statements, but make factual corrections when needed:
We have deleted a tweet about President Trump’s claim that the U.S. is the only country that grants birthright citizenship because it failed to note that his statement was incorrect.
The reason why Tax Day falls on April 17th this year
Tomorrow is Tax Day in the United States: the deadline for U.S. taxpayers to file their tax returns for the previous tax year, or failing that, file for an extension. Normally, Tax Day falls on April 15th. However, since:
Last Week Tonight’s take on taxes — corporate taxes, that is
I can’t post a piece about tax day and taxes without pointing you to last night’s feature story on Last Week Tonight, which was on corporate taxes, and how corporations dodge them.
How much tax you’ve already paid through payroll withholding and estimated tax payments, and
How much tax you’re including as payment with the form.
What you don’t have to provide is any reason why you’re asking for an extension. Most requests for an extension requests are granted — I get the feeling that unless you’re Wesley Snipes, your request will probably go through.
Does the tax filing process have to be so painful?
The two gentlemen pictured below say “no”. In any other situation where you are invoiced, the person or organization doing the invoicing does all the work in calculating it, and all you have to do is say whether the invoice is correct or incorrect. But with taxes, you’re getting invoiced and you have to do all the calculating. The IRS already knows your income and finances, and could easily crunch the numbers and send you a bill. This practice is called return-free filing, and both Presidents Reagan and Obama have spoken in support of it.
Return-free filing is already done in some European countries, and it’s as simple as this:
You get a pre-filled filing from the government — basically, a tax invoice.
You review it.
If it’s accurate, you sign it, and pay any taxes you owe, or collect any refunds you’re owed.
If it’s not accurate, you fix it, or prepare your own return.
For many people, this could turn the process of filing taxes into a simple one that doesn’t require specialists or special software, and would take minutes.
But return-free filing would take away a lot of profits from Intuit (as in Turbotax) and H&R Block (the tax accountant shop), and their lobbyists have worked hard to ensure to block any motions to make it possible in the U.S.. Propublica have covered this over the years…
Bill Russell called me one time… He says, “Charles Barkley.” I said, “Yes, sir, Mr. Russell.”
“You grew up in Alabama. Right?” I said, “Yes, sir.”
He says, “Did you go to public school?” I said, “Yes, sir.”
He says, “Did the cops ever come to your neighborhood?” I said, “Yes sir.”
He said, “Any of the houses ever on fire and the firemen come?” I said, “Yes, sir.”
He said, “I don’t want to see your black ass on TV complaining about your taxes anymore.” I says, “What do you mean?”
He says, “So now that you got money you don’t want to help other people out, but when you were poor, other people took care of you.” And I says, “You know what, Mr. Russell, you will never hear me complain about my taxes again.”
And it was a very interesting lesson for me, because I do think rich people should pay more taxes. I’m blessed to be one of them, and we should pay more in taxes. I learned my lesson. I never complain about taxes.
Photo by Tampa Bay Times. Click to see the source.
Someday, perhaps a decade from now, when we’re all looking back at how far the Tampa Bay area has come, we’ll look back and remark at the key role that Café con Tampa played. Every Friday from 8:00 a.m. to 9:00 a.m. in the Oxford Exchange’sCommerce Club, Tampa’s most active, engaged, involved, and well-dressed citizens gather to hear important topics given by interesting speakers while enjoying a delicious breakfast in beautiful surroundings.
Friday’s speaker at Café con Tampa was Tallahassee mayor Andrew Gillum, who’s campaigning in the Democratic primary and aiming to become Florida’s next governor.
Photo by Yours Truly. Click to see at full size.
It’s been a while since I’ve had a chance to attend Café con Tampa, as work and my speaking and conference schedule have kept me busy. This was the first one I’d been able to attend in weeks. It was good to be back.
Traffic and a shortage of parking spaces (there’s a lot of construction around Oxford Exchange) meant that I missed the first twenty minutes of Gillum’s appearance. As I entered and paid my admission — $12 well spent, in my opinion — I was told “You’re in time for Q&A…the best part!”
Photo by Yours Truly. Click to see at full size.
I walked in just in time to catch a rather aggrieved older gentleman asking where Gillum got the notion that the law preventing former felons from voting even though they have served their time in prison is a relic from the days of Jim Crow. Gillum, who’s probably no stranger to this sort of question, explained the true intent of this kind of voter disenfranchisement with great aplomb and considerable charm.
Photo by Yours Truly. Click to see at full size.
Among the other topics discussed were:
Transportation: Gillum’s stance is that the solution to Florida’s transportation isn’t “more asphalt” and individual cars, but a combination of public transit solutions, including rail, buses, and ridesharing.
The economy: As we move to a more contract-based economy, where employment becomes more short-term, he asked where people will find the benefits of the old employer/employee social contract, such as healthcare and post-retirement income.
Near the end of his session, Gillum talked about the traditional greeting of the Masai people of southern Kenya and northern Tanzania: Kasserian engeri?, which translates as “And how are the children?” He pointed out how that greeting underscores the high value that the Masai assigned to the well-being of children, and how much better we all could be if we adopted the same attitude.
Note: There’s a little more to the greeting “And how are the children?”.According to this 2012 Guardian article, the typical Masai greeting is sopa, which translates as “Hello”, and it’s the start of a long greeting process which can include “How is the homestead?”, “How is the weather?”, “How are the cows?”, and “How are the children?”. This isn’t all too different from conversations that any one of us may have had here in North America, where the question “And how’s your family” is likely to come up. Still, the fact that the use of “How are the children?” as a greeting is surprising enough to be a memorable rhetorical device while “How’s business?” isn’t illustrates where our priorities lie.
Photo by Yours Truly. Click to see at full size.
As with most Café con Tampa gatherings, there were more questions than time for them. The questions continued in the atrium, with Gillum surrounded by all manner of recording devices:
Photo by Yours Truly. Click to see at full size.
I went down to the atrium to hear the questions they were asking Gillum, and in the process met with two gentlemen from St. Petersburg’s ACT (Arts Conservatory for Teens): Herbert Murphy and Alex Harris, who spoke at Café con Tampa a couple of weeks ago. They saw the accordion — which I bring to events like this because it starts conversations — and we got into a great conversation about music, technology, and where the two intersect. Herbert and I even talked about having me do a presentation with their students, and I’d be more than happy to take them up on that offer. If you want to meet interesting people in Tampa Bay, and possibly collaborate with them and start something potentially great, you should check out Café con Tampa.
Café con Tampa is a weekly gathering where people interested in the issues that affect Tampa Bay and the world beyond meet to learn and share ideas with interesting, entertaining (and sometimes infuriating) guest speakers. It takes place every Friday between 8:00 and 9:00 a.m. in the wonderful setting of Oxford Exchange, a combination of restaurant, book store, gift shop, co-working space, design studio, event venue, and one of the best “third places” I’ve ever set foot in. It’s attended by an interesting audience that’s often a mix of movers and shakers from the worlds of arts, business, academia, and government, and put together by local heroes Del Acosta and Bill Carlson, President of the communciations agency Tucker/Hall. Admission is $12.00, and it not only lets you into the event, but also gets you Oxford Exchange’s delicious breakfast spread. If you want to see interesting presentations and have great conversations with some of the area’s movers, shakers, and idea-makers — myself included — you should attend Café con Tampa!
Here are Café con Tampa presentations that I’ve written about:
If you’re a regular reader of this blog, chances are that you’ve seen a lot of arguments made by well-known, well-respected people in favor of net neutrality. I’m going to turn things around and show you who’s arguing against it.
Rush Limbaugh
Limbaugh — the kind of guy who believes so much in the sanctity of marriage that he’s done it himself four times— spends an hour and twelve minutes throwing in every wingnut conspiracy theory into the debate. I strongly recommend you skim through this broadcast instead of listening to the whole thing from start to finish, because it’ll only make you dumber.
Americans for Prosperity, a.k.a. the Koch Brothers
Three things you should know about Americans for Prosperity:
They’re an astroturfing organization funded by the Koch Brothers.
Despite being funded by two of the richest men in the world, they can’t make a video with better production values than one made by kids in their parents’ basement.
Part 8 of the I-485 is called General Eligibility and Inadmissibility Grounds, and is made up of 67 questions, one of which asks you if you somehow were involved with the Nazis:
Here’s the text of the question:
During the period from March 23, 1933 to May 8, 1945, did you ever order, incite, assist, or otherwise participate in the persecution of any person because of race, religion, national origin, or political opinion, in association with either the Nazi government of Germany or any organization or government associated or allied with the Nazi government of Germany?
That’s right: In the process that determined whether I was allowed to call this place home, I had to disavow any connection with the Nazis. And I did so easily, gladly and proudly.
So why can’t the President?
He was uncharacteristically silent for the first part of Saturday, when stories about the torch gathering the night before and neo-Nazis on the street that morning were already circulating:
The slow, faint response wasn’t lost on former Ku Klux Klan Imperial Wizard and high-profile white nationalist David Duke, who took it as implicit support…
Here’s the text from that screenshot (because there’s no way in Hell that I’m linking to the Daily Stormer):
3:46 p.m.: Trump comments were good. He didn’t attack us. He just said the nation should come together. Nothing specific against us.
He said that we need to study why people are so angry, and implied that there was hate…on both sides!
So he implied the antifa were haters.
There was virtually no counter-signaling of us at all.
He said he loves us all.
Also refused to answer a question about White Nationalists supporting him.
No condemnation at all.
When asked to condemn, he just walked out of the room.
Really, really good.
God bless him.
I’ll say it again:
I easily, gladly, and proudly disavowed the Nazis in front of witnesses, including my wife, my lawyer, and a U.S. government official.
Why can’t the President do the same in front of the American people?
Also…
It’s a shame that the I-485’s “Nazi question” is limited to the time period from March 1933 through May 1945. Even a kid who turned the minimum qualifying age — 10 — for the junior division of the Hitler Youth on V-E day would be 82 years old at the time of this writing. I think that it should be phrased more like question 56, the “Communist question”, which asks if you’ve ever, during any point in time, in any country, been part of or tied to the Communist Party or any other totalitarian party:
Not all of us (myself included) were schooled in the United States, so you may have heard Donald Trump’s reference to Andrew Jackson’s opinion on the U.S. Civil War and not considered it unusual (and hey, same goes for many people who were schooled in the U.S. and studied U.S. history). However, it is unusual for this simple reason:
Here’s a CNN report featuring the recording of Trump’s statements, which were made during an interview with the Washington Examiner:
It’s one thing to make stuff up, and it’s another thing to make stuff up about things in an age where facts can easily be looked up. But it’s a completely bizarro thing to try and spin this mistake, as Republican communications strategist Paris Dennard did:
That’s me on the right, on Thursday, January 26, 2017, celebrating 
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