another example...

[ProblemAgain]

it's not what they say, it's what they do that tells you who they are...

Republican Party to vote for repeal of U.S. anti-tax dodging law

By Patrick Temple-West 19 hours ago

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Republican Party is expected to approve a resolution this week, calling for repeal of an Obama administration law that is designed to crack down on offshore tax dodging.

In what would be the party's first appeal to scrap the law -

the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA) - a panel was slated to vote at the Republican National Committee's (RNC) winter meetings in Washington, likely approving the resolution on Friday, according to party members driving the repeal effort.

If adopted, the anti-FATCA resolution would reflect the party's political priorities for the time being but would not change its presidential campaign platform, according to the RNC.

Approved in 2010 after a tax-avoidance scandal involving a Swiss bank, FATCA requires most foreign banks and investment funds to report to the U.S. Internal Revenue Service information about U.S. customers' accounts worth $50,000 or more.

Criticized by banks, libertarians and some Americans living abroad as a costly and unneeded government overreach, FATCA is on the books, but its effective date has been delayed repeatedly, with enforcement now set to start on July 1.

Repeal seems unlikely, but more political heat from Republicans could further complicate and delay implementation, said financial industry lobbyists.

Moreover, Republicans are eager to use FATCA as a campaign and fundraising issue against Democrats ahead of the congressional mid-term elections in November, RNC members said.

"I see FATCA just like Obamacare," said Solomon Yue, an RNC official from Oregon who is leading the party's FATCA repeal effort. "It will attract American overseas donors."

Defending the law, Treasury Department spokeswoman Erin Donar said in a statement: "FATCA continues to gain momentum and international support as we work with partners around the world to fight offshore tax evasion."

Republican Senator Rand Paul last year introduced legislation to repeal parts of FATCA, citing privacy concerns.

Daniel Mitchell, a senior fellow at the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank, said: "It's hard to imagine an issue this obscure playing a visible role in elections ... It is making overseas Americans far more sympathetic to (Republicans) and could have an impact on fundraising."

(Reporting by Patrick Temple-West; Editing by Kevin Drawbaugh and Ken Wills)

[ProblemAgain]

and funny don't you think....seems the bankers and the republicans are sharing the same bathwater....

U.S. judge tosses bankers' suit over rules to fight tax-dodging

By Patrick Temple-West January 13, 2014 8:55 PM

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - In a win for the Obama administration's fight against offshore tax evasion, a U.S. federal judge on Monday dismissed a lawsuit challenging new rules forcing U.S. banks to tell the Internal Revenue Service about certain accounts held by foreigners.

Set to take effect in March, the rules are part of a fast-emerging global web of bank information-sharing agreements between the United States and many other countries meant to combat the hiding of assets abroad to avoid paying taxes.

Bank industry lobbying groups in Texas and Florida in April challenged the U.S. rules in a lawsuit against the Treasury Department and the IRS, saying the rules were burdensome and would discourage U.S. foreign investment.

Judge James Boasberg of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, in a 23-page opinion, dismissed the lawsuit, finding that the new rules "would cause minimal burden to banks and their customers."

Written in 2012, the rule would require disclosure by U.S. banks of information about accounts held by non-resident aliens that earn at least $10 of interest per year.

"The court's opinion today represents an important step in our commitment to work with our treaty partners to eliminate cross-border tax evasion," said Assistant Attorney General Kathryn Keneally, head of Justice's tax division, in a statement.

A lawyer representing the banking associations could not immediately be reached late on Monday.

The new reporting requirements help the United States implement the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FACTA), the Justice Department said.

Approved by Congress in 2010, FATCA is driving the rapid worldwide expansion of a network of bilateral tax information-sharing agreements, negotiated by the U.S. Treasury and its overseas counterparts amid heightened global concern about tax dodging. FATCA is set to take effect in July 2014.

The case is Florida Bankers Association v. U.S. Department of Treasury, U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, No. 13-529.

(Editing by Kevin Drawbaugh and Eric Walsh)

[LoveLife&Laughter]

I heard today that these frig'n idiots are claiming repeal of state voter suppression of black votes laws is racism --  against whites

[ProblemAgain]

if you take the long view, they will be superfluous within a generation as the demographics change. the problem right now is them trying to hold onto power and they have turned the tent into a circus and the clown is the ringmaster. i found it ironic that the controversy about the nsa surveillance comes down to the teaparty thinks there is govt overreach, the democrats want limits, and the republicans defend the surveillance....what the f....so i gotcher freedom rightcheer jeb..the banking shows that they are in favor of the wealthy being able to hide their assets from taxes but they are against crime....guess it depends on your definition of crime...just like using the word patriot should mean more than trying to cut your own taxes even at the expense of others or at the risk of other people's health and wellbeing

[LoveLife&Laughter]

The Tea Baggers never would have supported Christie for Pres; not Conservative enough, now his chances with Independents (and the left of course) is totally kaput.  In fact all the moderates have screwed up their chances with Independents except  Jeb; looks like a possibility to me....

[ProblemAgain]

not another bush...and the son of jeb has just tossed his hat in the ring in texas for real estate commissioner....i'm thinking we've had enough bushes for a long time....and the other rising gop stars seem to have hit the fan.....once people begin to examine their views the glaring contradictions are enough to make a thinking person ask how they can believe only what is convenient for them and ignore reality.

[LoveLife&Laughter]

 In the latter half of the 20th century the GOP's goal became maximizing the income of corporations and wealthy individuals. To accomplish this goal it has co-opted religious fundamentalists, and has become expert in framing issues to play to constituents' prejudices, thereby inducing them to vote against their own economic interests.

Dominionism, or Christian Reconstructionism, among Protestant Christian evangelicals and fundamentalists encourages them to not only be active political participants in civic society, but also seek to dominate the political process as part of a mandate from God.

[grammyk]

You've described today's GOP perfectly!  They use the religion part to keep people from seeing what their policies really are doing.  And yet so many of those policies are the complete opposite of the Christianity and family values that they profess so loudly.  Why, why, why don't more people really look at the behavior instead just listening to the words?!

[exedir]

Better recognize the shift in the political content and context of what parties mean.  We have residual organisms that contain the structure and power of a two party system...but both are empty of strategy and seek only tactical advantage.

Much of this is enshrined by tradition and practicality, as long as there is opposition these is a way to provide support and usually with donated funds and then use it for self-interest and economic advantage. 

The other problem is, are, the people most of whom are not motivated, inspired or seeing any advantage in politics and politicians, no matter what label.  People are tired, worried and scared by all that has happen and most just want to be left alone with some hope of getting help, from somewhere and the somewhere is just as possibly the lottery as it is from a tax cut or new spending program.

These are difficult times and we live a a difficult society without much to lead or guide it to anything, better.... 

[LoveLife&Laughter]

"The people most of whom are not motivated, inspired or seeing any advantage in politics and politicians, no matter what label.  People are tired, worried and scared by all that has happen and most just want to be left alone with some hope of getting help, from somewhere and the somewhere is just as possibly the lottery as it is from a tax cut or new spending program."  That would be the fault of Repubublicans and all their Bu__Sh__.

And (almost) everybody knows that Republicans are empty of strategy and seek only tactical advantage.

We are all familiar with yesterday's first 2014 Congressional work/effort by a dozen white male Republicans to deny women their Constitutional Rights to legal abortion purely for "Christian" reasons.

Aren't we tired of 2nd Amendment Gun Nuts trying to deprive us of our Constitutional right to abortion? After all, they don't seem to care that guns and gun-nuts kill children. They don't give a shnitzit.

[exedir]

It isn't strategy as a bereft of policy that energizes and engages the electorate, and that is part of the problem, the lack of emotion and motivation to make something happen, or the willingness and desire to do and create something different, and no, this is not issue of the true believers of the right or the left, this a problem of the middle.

We have now had the emotion and demonstration of the teaparty and OWS to stir things up and seemingly only the teaparty has had legs.  As of now, even the new hope of the left, De Blasio has to face the work of being a mayor, plowing the streets, much less dealing with the rich.

We are in new times with old problems and old ways of doing things, and that is the challenge of politics and politicians...no matter what side they skew....

 

[LoveLife&Laughter]

Why do you always seem to try to blame both right and left. of extremism?

Trying to convince Jesus Freaks who are devoid of common sense, slave to a make believe unrealistic world, incapable of an open mind or analytic thinking, systematically defying public opinion, and trying to dominate the political process of a secular republic as part of their schizophrenic minds mandate from God are the tea party true believers.  The left has nothing like that as far as I can determine.

This latest episode in the endless Republican reality show is not chiefly about the incompetence and incessant squabbling of ideologues and petty politicians, although it's that, too. Nor is it the outcome of the intense partisan polarization that has thrown Washington into gridlock, as if the problem is abstract partisanship itself, with Democrats and Republicans equally at fault. Least of all is it about rescuing the economy from the Democrats' profligate deficit spending, as Republicans claim – not with the deficit shrinking to its lowest level since the financial disaster of 2008 and with the outlook improving. This crisis is about nothing other than the Republican Party – its radicalization, its stunning lack of leadership and its disregard for the Constitution.

The Republicans have now joined a relatively small number of major American political parties that became the captive of a narrow ideology and either jettisoned or silenced their more moderate elements. The Democratic Party suffered this fate in the 1840s and 1850s, when Southern slaveholders took command of the party's levers of power. So, temporarily, did the Republicans in 1964, when Barry Goldwater's presidential campaign claimed the party for extremists on the right, an augury of things to come. But today's Republicans, whatever their pretensions about channeling the Founding Fathers, are so contemptuous of American history and institutions that they cannot learn from even their own recent past.

[ProblemAgain]

but don't forget the right wing in goldwater's time were more political zealots and less the religious extremists.

“On religious issues there can be little or no compromise. There is no position on which people are so immovable as their religious beliefs. There is no more powerful ally one can claim in a debate than Jesus Christ, or God, or Allah, or whatever one calls this supreme being. But like any powerful weapon, the use of God’s name on one’s behalf should be used sparingly. The religious factions that are growing throughout our land are not using their religious clout with wisdom. They are trying to force government leaders into following their position 100 percent. If you disagree with these religious groups on a particular moral issue, they complain, they threaten you with a loss of money or votes or both.

I’m frankly sick and tired of the political preachers across this country telling me as a citizen that if I want to be a moral person, I must believe in “A,” “B,” “C” and “D.” Just who do they think they are? And from where do they presume to claim the right to dictate their moral beliefs to me?

And I am even more angry as a legislator who must endure the threats of every religious group who thinks it has some God-granted right to control my vote on every roll call in the Senate. I am warning them today: I will fight them every step of the way if they try to dictate their moral convictions to all Americans in the name of “conservatism.”
~Barry Goldwater