Florence Fang’s colorful home is a landmark for many in California’s Bay Area. But the town of Hillsborough is suing her, declaring the property a ‘public nuisance’.
President Trump escalated the trade fight with China this week, saying he will steeply increase tariffs on Chinese products this Friday.
But while the White House projects a unified front in favor of wielding tariffs as a weapon against China, it wasn't always this way.
Early in Trump's presidency, close advisers fought bitterly over whether tariffs would help — or devastate — the U.S. economy, those advisers told NPR and the PBS show Frontline.
Back when I was in college, one of the reading assignments for a Political Philosophy class I took was to read Timothy McVeigh’s Essay on Hypocrisy. While many of his things were non-sensible or disagreeable, it’s interesting to learn about the ideas behind important people whose actions — rightly or wrongly have a significant consequence on our lives both for better or worse.
I was disappointed to find out that many websites have taken down Brenton Tarrant’s The Great Replacement manifesto, because some find it racist and offensive. It is, but it’s also important for people to understand the ideas behind people who have an impact on our community and lives, for good or for bad. Like it or not — terrorists are some of the most important people in our world today — they force governments and private entities to invest millions in security and deterrence and force private citizens to be inconvenienced by such security measures.
Information can help people make better ideas and choices. It’s worthwhile to consider even racist and arguably bad ideas, because they can help us make better ideas. Understanding where terrorists come from doesn’t recruit or validate their action, but it can make for a more thoughtful and inclusive society, that can work to bring people on the outside back in.
They should require all government programs to come with a disclaimer on how many human lives they are expected to take and by what methods.
For example, setting speed limits or regulations on consumer products. How many lives will be taken, how many will be saved? Or the impact of increased or decreased law enforcement. How many lives are increases to law enforcement expected to save, how many will take, justifiable or otherwise? How many lives will be taken by the repeal of the American Healthcare Act? How many lives will end because of the tax policy?
Every decision by government leads to the taking of a certain number of human lives, but it should be a good public policy to control the amount of life taken by government to force government to justify it’s killing.
Like usual, the ducking DECALS system is giving me a ducking hard time renewing my fishing license. 🎣 You would think New York State would make it ducking easier to give them your money.
Humphreys County, Mississippi, seems like an odd place for the IRS to go hunting for tax cheats. It’s a rural county in the Mississippi Delta known for its catfish farms, and more than a third of its mostly African American residents are below the poverty line. But according to a new study, it is the most heavily audited county in America. Where the IRS Audits More Income tax filings in these counties were audited at a higher rate than the nation as a whole.
As we reported last year, the IRS audits EITC recipients at higher rates than all but the richest Americans, a response to pressure from congressional Republicans to root out incorrect payments of the credit. The study estimates that Humphreys, with a median annual household income of just $26,000, is audited at a rate 51 percent higher than Loudoun County, Virginia, which boasts a median income of $130,000, the highest in the country. Kim M. Bloomquist, the author of the study, which was first published in the industry journal Tax Notes, served as a senior economist with the IRS’ research division for two decades. He decided to map the distribution of audits to illustrate the dramatic regional effects of the IRS’ emphasis on EITC audits. Because more than a third of all audits are of EITC recipients, the number of audits in each county is largely a reflection of how many taxpayers there claimed the credit, he found.
