SPEAKER CORNER `(Republican tax effects are taking place)

I kid you not, I swear some of my threads I write on here, seem to be picked up by other News sources and reprinted. (or so it seems) I was reading a Yahoo article yesterday about what corporate America is doing with all the money they saved with the New tax laws. The Democrats and myself predicted what Corporate America would do with all the money their were going to save. While Republicans claimed it would increase wages and trickle down to the middle class. Now the results are coming in on how the money is being spent and it's rather spooky!!! The words and description they used like being clairvoyant, having a time machine and using their crystal ball seemed a little close to home. Even talking about how much the Republicans lie and their base just swallows it like a hungry trout eating power bait. (I put that in here "to see if they would pick it up and use it") lol

Here are the numbers (in the first 2 months of the year) on how corporate America is spending that big wind fall of money they just saved. 5.2 Billion dollars were giving out as bonuses to their employees. Now if you received an $1,000 bonus from your company, good for you and the company you work for. If that was how most of the money was being spent, "Trump would have been correct." (It would have been a huge boost to the working man) But that's ''not" how most of the money was spent. Corporate America did this instead, they took that 171 Billion dollars in savings and spent it on things, "like stock buy backs to increase the price of their stock." (which the company now owns) In effect it made some people in the company much richer and very little for most of their employees. That 5.2 Billion given to employees as bonus is nothing more then a PR stunt!!!!

Back to reality!!!! In 7 years the middle class tax cut will be gone, yet this Corporate tax rate stays on the books forever!!! (unless the Democrats change it) I feel the Democrats should use the same lines the Republicans used against Obama Care. It's a disaster and it needs to be Repealed and Replaced!!!! Remember we are now getting these huge Federal deficits again of a Trillion dollars a year or more. Obama did it to keep us out of a Depression. (which he kept reducing as the economy got better) The Republicans are doing this in a good economy, just to make the "Rich Richer!!" In the long run you can't keep deficit spending forever, so what are they going to eventually have to do about it??? Raise Income and Corporate tax's??? (we just reduced those) No their solution will be after consulting my crystal ball is a VAT Tax. (Value added tax's to goods) In other words a Federal Sales Tax. You working class people and your descendants are going to one day start having to pay forever, (unless something changes) A Federal Sales Tax's on goods to make sure the rich and Corporations keep getting Richer!!!! GOOD CHOICE IN VOTING REPUBLICAN!!!!!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Y63B-5CWRU

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Originally Posted by DarkShadow

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Y63B-5CWRU

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I'll be writing another fish report tomorrow too!! We can add that to the collection too!!! That section is getting mighty crowded wouldn't you say??? Maybe I can borrow some room from other's, since they don't seem to be using their's up at all!!!!!! lol lol lol

Those of us who are in touch with reality and actually take the time to do a bit of studying what's happening in government, can put the pieces of the puzzle together as you so aptly have done, Eric. There are some people, on the other hand, who will strike at any shiny object like a hungry trout and gulp it down, who are then easily reeled in by the person who casts forth shiny objects.

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Originally Posted by Natural Lefty

Those of us who are in touch with reality and actually take the time to do a bit of studying what's happening in government, can put the pieces of the puzzle together as you so aptly have done, Eric. There are some people, on the other hand, who will strike at any shiny object like a hungry trout and gulp it down, who are then easily reeled in by the person who casts forth shiny objects.

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Thanks Lefty, I do like to break things down into small bites. Trump's presidency is rocked with scandal on a weekly basis, so if you tried to cover it all, "it's too overwhelming." I do see a trend which is very scary. Sportsman seem to be going down the road politically with the Hard right in California. Since CA is a true blue state, that means our interest are not being taken seriously because who we are aligned with politically. Trump boasted when he was an candidate, we would get tired with all the winning that would be going on. In California as a sportsmen, "it's just the opposite." We lose on just about everything and I'm getting pretty tired of that!!!!

A lot of the opposition to gun control is from "sportsmen." That bothers me because I think we desperately need gun control. The need is evident not just in the mass shootings, but the overall gun violence rate. Aside from that, I have noticed that "sportsmen" have trended conservative, until wutzizname came along at least, and with the R-Team holding the majority in all 3 branches of "gubmint," their inability to do anything for anyone other than suck up money from the 99% to give to the wealthiest 1%, and to promote racist, sexist and xenophobic policies has become evident even to people who haven't been particularly politically involved. That has toned down the conservative rhetoric, but attitudes don't change that easily.

Overall, I actually feel that we (progressives) are now winning, especially here in California, but I too am very tired of having an ideology that I know is counterproductive foisted upon us (with relatively unregulated gun sales and gun culture as an example that results in many deaths). That needs to end.

I have known several people who have died of gunfire, and it's no joke. The latest one was one of my students a few years ago, who was only going to the ATM to make a withdrawal.

Your last statement takes the cake, like gun control will stop people from commiting crimes, your student would have probably been stabbed to death by the crook that robbed him instead of shot him. The problem is guns in the hands of criminals and crazies. There are hundreds of millions of guns in the hands of hundreds of millions of people now. Controlling new sales of guns is not going to stop crazies and criminals from using existing guns to commit crimes. These people are already amongst the general public, identifying them and getting them help or incarceration is what we need.

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Originally Posted by Natural Lefty

A lot of the opposition to gun control is from "sportsmen." That bothers me because I think we desperately need gun control. The need is evident not just in the mass shootings, but the overall gun violence rate. Aside from that, I have noticed that "sportsmen" have trended conservative, until wutzizname came along at least, and with the R-Team holding the majority in all 3 branches of "gubmint," their inability to do anything for anyone other than suck up money from the 99% to give to the wealthiest 1%, and to promote racist, sexist and xenophobic policies has become evident even to people who haven't been particularly politically involved. That has toned down the conservative rhetoric, but attitudes don't change that easily.

Overall, I actually feel that we (progressives) are now winning, especially here in California, but I too am very tired of having an ideology that I know is counterproductive foisted upon us (with relatively unregulated gun sales and gun culture as an example that results in many deaths). That needs to end.

I have known several people who have died of gunfire, and it's no joke. The latest one was one of my students a few years ago, who was only going to the ATM to make a withdrawal.

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Originally Posted by steelhead

Your last statement takes the cake, like gun control will stop people from commiting crimes, your student would have probably been stabbed to death by the crook that robbed him instead of shot him. The problem is guns in the hands of criminals and crazies. There are hundreds of millions of guns in the hands of hundreds of millions of people now. Controlling new sales of guns is not going to stop crazies and criminals from using existing guns to commit crimes. These people are already amongst the general public, identifying them and getting them help or incarceration is what we need.

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Nice to see you respond!! You're half right, there is a lot of guns out there that will find their way into the hands of criminals. But statistics have shown like the case of the 10 year Federal ban on Assault Weapons. When the Ban was lifted in 2004, mass shootings (6 deaths or more) went up by 300% from the previous 10 years. So yes, you can never stop all the killings. But you can reduce the number of killings by reasonable gun control!!!!

Well, Steelhead, some of us would go farther than others in taking steps to control gun violence, but most people agree that we should have gun regulation for public safety. Why do people need training to get drivers licenses, yet there are no gun licenses needed before purchasing a gun. I think not allowing criminals, mentally disturbed people or violence prone people purchase guns would be good and popular moves that would save lives. Also, I would say the same regarding banning assault rifles. These mass shootings almost always seem to be done with AR15s, but there is no legitimate reason that I can think of for owning such a gun, at least not any that outweigh the public safety issue.

I think there is plenty of evidence that gun regulation saves lives, as Eric mentioned. An Australian friend of mine on Facebook recently mentioned Australia's ban on private gun ownership and how the murder has been lower ever since. He gave this example. Adam Lanza, who was mentally disturbed and had Asperger's Syndrome, killed 26 people at an elementary school a few years ago. He had killed his mother earlier and finished his killing spress by killing himself. There was a similar case in China, of a crazed man who stabbed kids and teachers as they arrived at school. However, unlike people being shot, the stab wounds were non fatal and also, people were able to run away from this stabber. Yes, some people may die from stab wounds but not nearly as many as from bullet wounds. The article I saw mentioned that there were a series of knife attacks in Chinese schools in 2010 that left nearly 20 children dead and wounded more than 50 others. If these attackers had assault rifles, you can bet that hundreds of kids would have been killed. That's why death tolls are so much higher in the U.S. I think saying that if a killer is denied one way to kill his victims, he will find another way that kills ust as many is a false equivalence. Different weapons vary drastically in their lethality.

My student was a 23 year old gal, actually, who was about to move into a new apartment. Her killer has never been caught so we don't know how he got his gun, but my guess is that he had a criminal record, so gun control laws would have made it more difficult for him to buy a gun. (Police know that the attacker was a man from the ATM video.)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sandy_...chool_shooting

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/15/wo...-in-china.html

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Originally Posted by steelhead

Your last statement takes the cake, like gun control will stop people from commiting crimes, your student would have probably been stabbed to death by the crook that robbed him instead of shot him. The problem is guns in the hands of criminals and crazies. There are hundreds of millions of guns in the hands of hundreds of millions of people now. Controlling new sales of guns is not going to stop crazies and criminals from using existing guns to commit crimes. These people are already amongst the general public, identifying them and getting them help or incarceration is what we need.

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You are partially correct. You will never get rid of all the guns and we shouldn't, but to say 'do nothing' is about as stupid as it gets. Even a rat knows to not bite the electrified cheese more than once. Remember that doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results is the sign of insanity. Never truer!
We have to be smarter than this and more guns on teachers is about the most ridiculous idea yet. Kind of like "oh, we're drowning" OK, let me throw you a bucket of water and turn the faucet on for you. "Gee thanks, that's what we needed, more water"

The problem is NOT Trump. He is just one crazy, insecure, sociopathic liar who is emotionally stunted. Yeah I know he's the President and will likely spend 4 years appointing graduates of Christian law schools hand-picked by the Heritage Foundation to devastate the federal judiciary for a generation or more....

But the real problem is the 63 million mindless lemmings who voted for the Great Pumpkin as a choreographed act of ignorance, bigotry and delusion.
They live among us and often post on this site.

But do not mock them for that would be insensitive. Offer them your thoughts and prayers instead.

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Originally Posted by Old Hooker

The problem is NOT Trump. He is just one crazy, insecure, sociopathic liar who is emotionally stunted. Yeah I know he's the President and will likely spend 4 years appointing graduates of Christian law schools hand-picked by the Heritage Foundation to devastate the federal judiciary for a generation or more....

But the real problem is the 63 million mindless lemmings who voted for the Great Pumpkin as a choreographed act of ignorance, bigotry and delusion.
They live among us and often post on this site.

But do not mock them for that would be insensitive. Offer them your thoughts and prayers instead.

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Thank you for your thoughts!!