Roskam needs more appropriate family for tax cut ad

Surf the net and Congressman Peter Roskam's (IL-6) ad touting his advertised middle class tax cut might pop up. How he determined the person to thank the congressman for giving her back exactly $1,223 in tax relief is a mystery since many such middle class tax payers will get little or no relief; indeed, many will pay more. The falsity of the ad pitch is clear. But what would be accurate is if Roskam had one of the 5,500 taxpayers each year who pay an estate tax on their excess estate wealth over $11 million who will reap an average tax savings of $3.6 million. Those are the folks, along with the wealthyist corporate and individual income earners, who are Roskam's base and the real beneficiaries of the Roskam led tax giveaway. And the folks getting little or nothing? Their pain from this reverse Robin Hood tax bill will only increase when Roskam and his merry men in Congress come after their Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid to offset the gigantic hole this 1.5 trillion dollar wealth transfer opens up in the deficit. The short tile for this impending financial disaster should be 'No Entitlement Left Behind.' 

Sad Anniversary

December 7th is a sad day for many reasons, one of which gets virtually no mention from the media wing of the war party. It's the last event that triggered a congressional declaration of war as required by the Constitution. As WWII was ending, FDR struck a deal with Uncle Joe Stalin to promote peace in spite of their ideological differences. Stalin would control the nations bordering Russia to thwart a third invasion in the century. FDR would develop Western Europe as a bulwark against communism. Both kept their word till FDR died 3 weeks before VE Day. The grand bargain died with him as the neoconservatives of the time told successor Truman that without a permanent war economy we'd incur another Depression. The new enemy, Russia, had to be resisted everywhere and the Cold War was born. This spawned the Military-Industrial Complex that has ruled American foreign policy 72 years on now. Today our trillion dollar war machine is bombing innocents all over the Middle East, Africa and Asia without a whimper of protest from the cowards in Congress.

December 7th...a sad day indeed.

Mr. Subliminal deconstructs Chicago Tribune Editorial 'This tax deal will make America more prosperous.'

Trib Editorial Board (TEB):
"You know Republicans want to get the deal done, and you know Trump will sign what Congress delivers."
Mr. Subliminal: 
"The Republican billionaire donor class can't wait to get their mitts on that $1.5 trillion in free stuff courtesy of the middle class."

TEB:
"Some tax deals go heavy on benefiting individuals. This legislation does some of that."
Mr. Subliminal:
"This tax bill does all of that...and most of it goes to the upper 5% of wealthyist Americans."

TEB:
"We believe this tax reform bill will strengthen the American economy and create wealth, so we support passage.
Mr. Subliminal: 

"We know this tax reform bill will give massive permanent tax cuts to the wealthy while leaving meager middle class tax cuts to some which will expire over the first decade....so we support its passage."

TEB:
"These massive tax reform packages don't come around often. They re too difficult."
.Mr. Subliminal:
"We've got the White House. We've got the Congress. We're coming for your money. We simply don't have enough."

TEB:
"The country is weighing an epochal change to the economy, making this “an incredibly significant time in our public life,” U.S. Rep. Peter Roskam, one of the Republican tax reform leaders, tells us.
Mr. Subliminal:
"I'm Peter Roskam, and I'm proud to have led the rush to drown the critical needs of the country in the bathtub of endless greed."

TEB:
"Any vote against this bill is a vote to maintain America as it looks today."
Mr. Subliminal:
"The wealth disparity between the obscenely rich and the desperate wage slaves is simply not big enough."

TEB:
"Passing this tax reform should get the economy to steady 3 percent growth. At that rate, the country generates trillions of dollars of new economic activity, creates jobs and increases household income – money to be spent or saved."
Mr. Subliminal:

"Believe that Whopper and we've got a bridge to sell you in Brooklyn."

TEB:
"The country can't live on one side of the ledger. Eventually revenues and expenditures need to come into alignment."
Mr. Subliminal:
"Medicare, Medicaid and Obamacare cuts....here we come!"

Beware departure of Tillerson at State

As the evidence piles up implicating Trump officials and likely Trump himself with election collusion with Russia and its subsequent coverup, a more ominous development deserves scrutiny. That is the rumored departure of Rex Tillerson as Secretary of State to be replaced by CIA Director Mike Pompeo, and Pompeo to be replaced at CIA by Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR). Both are extreme neoconservatives advocating rescinding the 5 + 1 nuclear deal with Iran which would put the US on a slippery slope of war with Iran. Pompeo has been a strong advocate of torture and, as a Christian zealot, believes in the rapture, which might insulate him from fretting about catastrophic war. Cotton was so opposed to the Iran nuclear deal, the single greatest foreign policy accomplishment of Obama's eight years, he traitorously wrote the letter sent by him and 46 other Republican senators to Iran urging them to reject that war saving deal in 2015. These moves would elevate into the Iran fray Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner, a fervent supporter of both Israel and Saudi Arabia's goading the US to demolish their rival Iran. Tillerson is the only moderate on Trump's foreign policy team. Pompeo, Cotton and Kushner want him out so they can play their war games at the world's expense. That, and not Trump's treachery with Russia, is what should make us fear for the cause of peace.