Monday was officially Tax Day for American taxpayers. Millions of us had to make sure we got our returns into the IRS before the midnight deadline.
As you might expect, the tax deadline also applies to the president of the United States, but during the Trump administration there was a running joke that even if the Donald did actually file a return, he probably did so under protest and may have even taken Internal Revenue to court in order to avoid having to fork over the money.
That’s what makes the statement from the Biden administration regarding the current president’s tax returns even more brilliant in the way it’s clearly meant to throw some epic shade at the previous head of state. Just take a look at this:
Now THAT’S what you call professional trolling, and it was an enormous hit on social media, where you could almost hear people standing and applauding:
Ever since Donald Trump appointed Amy Coney Barrett to the U.S. Supreme Court in the closing days of his presidency before losing the 2020 election to Joe Biden, many have wondered whether or not the high court is now tilted to the right for decades.
But based on a report from Politico, Biden may be appointing his first justice very soon, provided that one of the court’s most senior members decides to retire later this year:
“Justice Stephen Breyer is 82 and Democrats are a single Senate seat away from ceding control back to Republicans. It’s a familiar and uncomfortable bind for a party that barely nudged former Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg to retire the last time they controlled both the Senate and the White House — then watched the Supreme Court veer to the right.”
No one is actively urging Breyer to step down from the court, but there are some in Congress who wonder if he wants his replacement to be appointed by a Democratic or Republican president, with Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) remarking:
“He is well familiar with the way judicial appointments work, and I believe strongly he has in mind the best interests of the country and will make the right decision. There are political realities that I hope judges will perceive.”
Another Democratic senator said it would be ideal if Breyer does decide to leave the court now while the Senate has a 50-50 split and Vice President Kamala Harris can make sure a replacement is confirmed:
“It’s self-evident that if you care at all about the balance of power on the Supreme Court then you have to not hang on until the very last moment. He should enjoy his retirement and allow us to put in a talented younger jurist that can serve for decades.”
While debate over whether or not Breyer would be wise to leave the court now continues, President Biden has made it clear that he’s open to the idea of expanding its membership from nine justices to several more, appointing a bipartisan commission to study what changes should be made to the highest court in the land. He has also made it clear that his first nominee will be a black woman, which would be a historic first.
Meanwhile, we’ll all just have to wait and see what Justice Breyer decides.
Now that he’s Senate Minority Leader and has absolutely no power whatsoever, McConnell is irrelevant and cannot make a single decision when it comes to Senate business.
Even worse for McConnell is the fact that President Joe Biden has good poll numbers and Americans say they agree with the vast majority of his policy proposals, including his infrastructure plan and wanting to raise taxes on corporations and the wealthiest taxpayers.
All of this has McConnell very nervous, according to presidential historian Tim Naftali, who made his remarks during an appearance on CNN “Newsroom”:
“Mitch McConnell is nervous. When Mitch McConnell, who doesn’t really care much about the writing of history, starts talking about the 1619 Project, when others in his caucus start talking about the fact that the federal government doesn’t want you to eat red meat, they’re trying to change the subject.”
Naftali then added that Biden is playing McConnell and the GOP like a fiddle because he knows exactly how to beat them at their own game:
“Because Biden has been in Washington so long, he knows how Democrats have failed,” continued Naftali. “Biden understands you’ve got to change the message. You’ve got to deliver for rural America. Mitch McConnell sees that as a threat. Will he be successful if the people of Kentucky start to see the benefits of a Biden-pushed stimulus and infrastructure program.”
Imagine it’s 2024 and Biden has indeed created millions of new jobs with his economic programs. The economy is humming along and the incumbent president has high approval ratings. Democrats have added to their majority in the House and Senate and the GOP looks like little more than a party of whiners.
Mitch McConnell should be nervous. He’s up against a man who wasn’t thought to have any chance of being president. Now he’s in the White House and he’s kicking McConnell’s ass on a daily basis.
You can tell that former New Jersey GOP Gov. Chris Christie is planning to run for president in 2020 because he’s already using the “socialism” scare word when discussing President Joe Biden’s planned capital gains tax cut to fund infrastructure programs.
But while Christie was spouting talking points, he quickly got his head handed to him by Democratic strategist Angela Rye, who told him and Republican operative Sarah Fagan:
“I think it’s so rich to hear folks talking about Joe Biden’s far-left agenda. If it is too far left to sign 60 executive orders overturning the hatred that was in Donald Trump’s executive orders — at least 23 of them — if it is far left to rejoin the Paris Climate Accord, if it’s far left to end the Muslim travel ban, if it is far left to restore the partnership with the World Health Organization then I think most of the country is far left.”
That led Christie to claim that Biden’s proposals aren’t popular with the American people. What he neglected to mention is that a recent poll showed 59% of those surveyed said they support the Biden infrastructure program:
“Look, we can set up strawmen and say he overturned this executive order but that’s not what we’re talking about. The capital gains issue is nothing more than income redistribution. It’s socialism.”
Rye could be heard laughing as Christie spoke, and she was more than ready for him, slapping him down with this retort:
“It’s so interesting to hear this allegation of socialism,” she said. “I know these are buzzwords that work very well with the Republican Party so congratulations for using them this morning.
“But we have people in a pandemic that you said wouldn’t matter by the time you get to the fall, and on the left there’s a conversation happening about student loan debt. How much should be forgiven? $50,000 vs. $10,000. And we’re talking about a capital gains increase when you all just had basically the reparations we’ve been asking for [in] your last tax proposal. So I don’t even understand what we’re talking about here.”
One other thing on capital gains taxes: The vast majority of Americans never have to pay them. The wealthiest taxpayers do. And taxing them won’t do any long-term damage to the economy, despite what conservatives try to claim.
Nice try, Chris, but Angela Rye made sure your lie was exposed and countered with facts.
Here’s a question for you: Who do you consider to be the stupidest person in the entire U.S. Senate? Ted Cruz? Josh Hawley?
Or might it be Rand Paul (R-KY)? That seems to be the general consensus after Paul suggested that President Joe Biden “burn his mask” as a way of encouraging Americans to get vaccinated for COVID-19.
HuffPost notes that Paul made his idiotic remarks during an appearance on Fox News:
“If you want more people to get vaccinated, Joe Biden should go on national TV, take his mask off and burn it.
“Light a torch to it and burn his mask and say, ‘I’ve had the vaccine, I am now safe from this plague. If you get the vaccine, you can be safe, too.'”
.@RandPaul: "If Dr. Fauci can prove that people who are vaccinated are spreading the disease, I'll listen to him … but there is no evidence of that.
If you want more people to be vaccinated, Joe Biden should go on national TV, take his mask off, and burn it." pic.twitter.com/9KlS730jQ7
Sen. Paul made his absurd suggestion in response to remarks from Dr. Anthony Fauci that vaccinated people can still infect others with coronavirus and therefore should continue to wear masks as a protective measure.
President Biden said the same thing Wednesday: Masks will be necessary “until the number of cases go down, until everyone has a chance to get their shot.”
Additionally, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says the only people who should go without a mask is very limited:
“Those who have been fully vaccinated can go maskless inside with other fully vaccinated people or ‘one household of unvaccinated people who are not at risk for severe illness.'”
For his stupidity, Rand Paul was pelted with derision on social media:
There is a strong case that Rand Paul is the stupidest senator in Congress, but when you've got people like Kennedy, Hawley, Cornyn, Cruz, Johnson how do you choose? An embarrassment of incompetence for the GOP makes it impossible to choose.
I know someone who was fully vaccinated with the Pfizer vaccine in January who tested positive last week and became symptomatic a couple of days later. And she infected someone else. @RandPaul is an irresponsible fool.
Poor Randy failed infectious disease class in medical school and had to settle for being an self-certified eye doctor. If only he knew that vaccines make you resistant but not impervious to the virus.
— 🇺🇦 Devin Nunes' Cattle Dog 🇺🇦 (@Kaos_Vs_Control) April 22, 2021
Did he sleep through the lecture on disease spread while he was in med school. Honestly, which med school did he graduate from?