Saturday, December 02, 2017

There is a side of Cuba most Americans aren't aware of; it's cultural side. Cuba hosts extraordinary festivals every year, including an international gathering of clowns. That is why, considering its commitment to the art of jazz, attacks on hearing is so very strange and at the same time insulting.
If Cuba (click here) was the only country in the world, earth would be known as the music planet.
That’s why global celebs and jazz aficionados flock to legendary Cuba like pilgrims to Mecca for the Havana International Jazz Festival.
Sensuous Cuba is a nation of intense rhythms, colors, emotions, aromas and flavors. What travelers remember most is its ubiquitous pulsating music – and the passionate friendly islanders who make and revel in it.
Cuba’s a music machine pumping out wall-to-wall sound that fuels the global music scene. Come visit Cuba with us. Jump into its audio inferno of Afrocuban beats, Latin jazz and swirling salsa, and dizzying son and rumba.
We’ve been helping music lovers experience the richness of Cuban life and culture since 1997. Our Jazz tours follow the official Jazz Plaza programs of the Cuban Institute of Music and the Cuban Ministry of Culture.

The unofficial gift guide by Goldman Sachs.

December 1, 2017

Once again, (click here) it's that time of year where children everywhere learn one of life's most valuable lessons: Santa loves rich kids more.

Since last year's list — with over 5.4 million views — was the most popular gift guide in media, we decided to keep the same theme going: an eclectic mix of the fantastical and the practical, albeit still skewing slightly toward the 1%. After all, that’s the American way.

Here are the things a man wants but feels guilty buying for himself, as well as the things he needs but probably doesn't even know of. Regardless of how deep your pockets are, this is the only holiday gift guide you'll need.

"For his inner child"

My son's newfound obsession with dinosaurs and fossils has resurrected a passion from my youth, one that undoubtedly, many men can relate to. Coming up for auction in the coming weeks is a complete Triceratops skull($150,000), a stunningly preserved fossilized alligator ($30,000), and a extinct American lion skull ($55,000) that would make the perfect office conversation piece. At the lower end of the price spectrum is this meteorite slice complete with extraterrestrial gemstones ($1,500) that doubles as a work of art....   

According to "Rolling Stone" it was midnight madness to come up with a bill to pass the US Senate.

December 2, 2017
By Tim Dickinson 

Long after midnight, (click here) following a chaotic scramble that saw tax legislation being re-written on the fly, with handwritten edits in the margins and full pages crossed out, Senate Republicans passed the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act – a bill that would ultimately hike taxes on millions of middle-class Americans, swell the ranks of the uninsured by 13 million and explode deficits by $1.4 trillion in the first decade alone.

The winners in this bill are the Republican donor class: Corporations that would see their tax bills slashed by more than 40 percent – and get to bring home trillions in offshored profits at shamefully discounted tax rates as low as 7.5 percent; executives at companies with "pass through" earnings, who would get to deduct nearly a quarter of that income; heirs who would get richer from a doubling of the estate tax exemption, to $22 million for couples; and even private jet owners, who would get to deduct aircraft maintenance from their taxes....

...The only GOP "no" vote on the bill was Tennessee's retiring Bob Corker, who gets little credit for his resistance – days earlier, Corker had provided the pivotal committee vote allowing the bill to reach the floor. "I wanted to get to yes, Corker wrote in a statement. "But at the end of the day, I am not able to cast aside my fiscal concerns and vote for legislation" that he expects to "deepen the debt burden on future generations."...

...Susan Collins of Maine appeared to get the most for her vote. Collins made the bill marginally less awful by insisting on an amendment to allow Americans to deduct up to $10,000 in state and local property taxes....

Pure unadulterated corruption. Why should Secretary DeVos make all those large donations for tax deductions when all she has to do is ask for a tax exemption for her favorite college?

...In the mad dash to revise the bill, it turned into a Christmas tree full of gifts for special interests, according to Victor Fleischer, a respected tax professor at the University of San Diego. "Earmarks have mostly disappeared from Congressional spending bills," Fleischer tweeted, "but they are out loud and proud in the tax bill." One sweetheart deal appears to exempt a religious college in Michigan – supported by billionaire Education Secretary Betsy DeVos – from a new tax on college endowments....

The Democrats were shut out of the proceedings, so more than half the country is not represented in this Senate bill.

...Sen. Majority Leader McConnell insisted Wyden would have "plenty of time" to read – afterwards....


December 1, 2017
By Andy Borowitz

Washington, DC — Vice-President Mike Pence (click here) has requested that Jesus Christ rapture him up before the special counsel Robert Mueller can indict him, a source close to Pence confirmed on Friday.
Shortly after the former national-security adviser Michael Flynn pleaded guilty to lying to the F.B.I., Pence contacted Jesus to discuss the early rapture proposal, the source said.

The source characterized Pence’s request to be raptured up as “urgent” but did not indicate whether the Vice-President asked Jesus to rapture up any other senior Administration officials.

“Some of these people will have to be left behind, for obvious reasons,” the source said. “Jared, for example.”

After the news of Pence’s conversation with Jesus leaked to the press, the Vice-President released an official statement, intended to tamp down speculation about his rapture request.

“I had a good conversation with Jesus Christ earlier in the day,” the statement read. “We touched on the timetable of my rapturing-up, along with a broad range of other issues. That is all I have to say at the present time.”... 

Throw the bumbs out. The US House bill taxes everything, even when there is no cash income. Graduate students across the country are under attack.

This is the Republican dreamscape, tax those that can't afford it.

December 1, 2017
By Austin Cannon

...As the president (click here) of the ISU Graduate and Professional Student Senate, he’s fielded questions from his fellow graduate students about how the tax bill the U.S. House of Representatives passed on Nov. 16 will affect them. He’s sent letters to members of Iowa’s congressional delegation and has talked with university administrators about the Republican-backed bill that would make graduate students have to pay more in taxes.

To Lawana, it would make the lives of strapped-for-cash graduate students even harder. While he hadn’t heard any of his classmates say they could no longer attend ISU if the bill is signed into law, he and university officials are worried it could discourage potential graduate students from attending.

“They would think twice now because of just how much money they would have to pay unnecessarily,” Lawana said.

Under one provision in the House bill, graduate students’ tuition waivers would be counted as income that could then be taxed. Students across the country rely on those waivers that essentially pay for part or all of their tuition. (Graduate students at ISU actually receive tuition scholarships in lieu of tuition waivers, but students and university officials said the GOP plan would make those scholarships taxable.)

But it’s unknown at this point whether that part of the bill will make it into law. The tax-reform bill the Senate was considering as of early Friday night doesn’t include a tuition-waiver provision, but if both bills are passed, that element could make it through the reconciliation process and onto President Donald Trump’s desk to be signed into law.

If that’s the case, ISU is preparing contingency plans to help graduate students who’d have to shoulder a higher tax burden....              

The Republicans are buying votes in 2018. It won't last. Brownbacks economy is a disaster.

...More than a million dollars in income a year....(click here) 80 percent of this income group is receiving a tax cut. By 2017, 61 percent are STILL receiving tax cuts.


...Less than $10,000 US in income a year; only 4 percent will receive a tax cut. That percentage dwindles to 1% by 2027.

The agenda Trump has for the country is egregious. This administration corrupt as the day is long. The Republicans in the US House and Senate are attempting to buy the 2018 vote.  That is what this is.