DirtEdonE
DirtEdonE's JournalDream of Owning a Plane? This Tax Break Can Help
As income tax day approaches, here's a little something to make you smile - if you're on the winning end of the current economic spectrum, that is.
Dream of Owning a Plane? This Tax Break Can Help
By Paul Sullivan
April 5, 2019
"Using the tax break, he deducted the entire cost of a new Cessna more quickly than he could have otherwise — five years versus 20 years or more. The plane was restricted to business use, but it fulfilled a childhood dream for virtually no money.
“My cost to fly, between 2001 and 2005, was free,” he said. After that, he sold the plane, and had to pay tax on the sale.
...
Mr. Siegel, now the chief executive of StoneCastle Partners, which invests in community banks, said he used the tax deduction to buy a used plane last year and was planning to use it again when he takes delivery of a 2019 Cirrus SR20, which cost $600,000. Better still, the tax break is structured so that most of his plane costs, like fuel and maintenance, will be deductible, too.
...
At the end of the plane’s life, though, the owner could get hit with something called depreciation recapture, a term used for belatedly paying taxes that were deferred, Mr. Rossomondo said. Of course many plane owners might simply buy another plane and start the depreciation cycle all over again."
Read more:
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/05/your-money/tax-break-private-plane.html
Think about this when you're paying your new higher trump/gop income taxes.
maga for the few. lol - not
Motel 6, Which Gave Guest Data to ICE Agents, Will Pay $12 Million
From this morning's NY Times Business section:
Motel 6, Which Gave Guest Data to ICE Agents, Will Pay $12 Million
By Tiffany Hsu
April 5, 2019
"Every day for over two and a half years, and sometimes twice a day, immigration agents arrived at several Motel 6 locations in Washington State and, without warrants, were able to obtain the names, birth dates, identification data, room assignments and license plate numbers of every guest.
The agents, with the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency, or ICE, would sometimes circle the names of guests that sounded Latino before targeting them for questioning, detainment and deportation, according to a settlement agreement announced this week by the state’s attorney general, Bob Ferguson.
Over the period in question, employees at seven motels gave information related to 80,000 guests to the agents, violating the company’s privacy policy, Mr. Ferguson’s office said on Thursday. To resolve a lawsuit the office filed against Motel 6 last year, the chain agreed to pay $12 million, much of it in damages to guests who were affected.
Motel 6, which is owned by the private equity firm Blackstone Group and has 1,400 locations in North America, also signed a legally binding commitment to stop volunteering guest information absent a warrant anywhere in the United States."
Blackstone Group
"Blackstone was founded in 1985 as a mergers and acquisitions boutique by Peter G. Peterson and Stephen A. Schwarzman, who had previously worked together at Lehman Brothers. Since then, Blackstone has become the world's largest private equity investment firm."
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trumps-china-whisperer-how-billionaire-stephen-schwarzman-has-sought-to-keep-the-president-close-to-beijing/2018/03/11/67e369a8-0c2f-11e8-95a5-c396801049ef_story.html?noredirect=on&utm_term=.0f728d444751
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-05-26/the-kushners-the-saudis-and-blackstone-behind-the-recent-deals
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/25/business/dealbook/blackstone-saudi-arabia-investments-infrastructure.html
During the McCarthy (R) era it was "Better dead than red!"
Now during the trump (R) era, it's better the reds than the feds???
How the fuck did this happen? How does it continue?
Where are the 1950s red-scare repubicans now when we need them?
Oh, it was all a lie then. It's all a lie now. It's always been and always will be a lie.
They're repubicans. Anything to win. Lie, cheat, steal.
They just want the money. Whatever it takes.
Yet another example of capitalism at its finest.
Reverend Al Sharpton on Morning Joe
Reverend Al was asked if he thought there would be a woman on the ticket or something to that effect. Reverend Al said,
"I think there must be a woman on the Democratic ticket and it's up to her if she chooses a man to run with her."
- or words to that effect.
!
2 students at a N.J. high school charged with jamming school's Wi-Fi to avoid exams
Not a big story but it brought up a fact of life regarding our current education system that I was aware of but not fully conscious of, at least not at this level.
While I firmly believe one of the best things that could happen to the human race at this point would be the total collapse of the internet, these two kids brought down their school's Wi-Fi network!
But what stands out more to me is, our kids are being taught on the internet with Chromebooks these days. They're glued to screens all day at school. No wonder they have their noses glued to screens all day after school too. It's a major factor in their education! Educational click-bait.
The rich swipe higher education while our kids have to swipe a basic education. lol
2 students at a N.J. high school charged with jamming school’s Wi-Fi to avoid exams
Updated 7:55 AM; Posted Apr 1, 6:27 PM
"Two freshmen at Secaucus High School, using an app or a computer program, successfully crashed the school’s Wi-Fi network on multiple occasions to get out of taking exams, authorities said Monday.
Two 14-year-old boys were charged with computer criminal activity and conspiracy to commit computer criminal activity after school officials notified police on Thursday. Because they are juveniles, their names are not being released.
...
Since much of the school’s curriculum is internet-based, the lack of Wi-Fi connection disrupted the students’ daily assignments. It is believed that the two boys took requests from other students to bring down the network.
...
“One day we were supposed to be doing work on our Chromebooks, but we had no activity whatsoever to do in class because the Wi-Fi shutdown,” said Diego, a 10th grader at the 634-student high school on Millridge Road. “It interrupted the whole class, unfortunately.”"
No activity whatsoever because the Wi-Fi shutdown???!
This isn't education. It sounds more like someone baby sitting a classroom of the kids while they surf the web.
https://www.nj.com/hudson/2019/04/2-students-at-a-nj-high-school-charged-with-jamming-schools-wi-fi-to-avoid-exams.html
Russia Ordered a Killing That Made No Sense. Then the Assassin Started Talking.
trump's handler pootin knows how to handle dissent. Can trump be far behind? Coming to a shithole country near you soon.
Russia Ordered a Killing That Made No Sense. Then the Assassin Started Talking.
By Michael Schwirtz
March 31, 2019
"RIVNE, Ukraine — The target lived on the sixth floor of a cheerless, salmon-colored building on Vidinska Street, across from a thicket of weeping willows. Oleg Smorodinov found him there, rented a small apartment on the ground floor, and waited.
He had gotten the name from his two handlers in Moscow. They met at the Vienna Cafe, a few blocks from the headquarters of Russia’s domestic intelligence agency, and handed him a list of six people in Ukraine. Find them, they told Mr. Smorodinov, and he set off. He was already boasting to friends that he was a spy.
...
Assassinations happen frequently enough in Ukraine that they are often just blips in the local news cycle. In 2006, Russian President Vladimir V. Putin signed a law legalizing targeted killings abroad, and Ukrainian officials say teams of Russian hit men operate freely inside the country.
“For the intelligence services, as bad as this sounds, murdering people is just part of the work flow,” said Oleksiy Arestovych, a retired officer in Ukraine’s military intelligence service. “They go to work, it’s their job. You have a work flow, you write articles. They have a workflow, they murder people.”"
Read the rest and get ready for similar stories closer to home.
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/31/world/europe/russian-assassinations-putin-ukraine.html?emc=edit_th_190331&nl=todaysheadlines&nlid=469281980331
CCRB to probe allegation Bronx cop blinded woman; cleared by NYPD, officer could now face charges
I found this very hard to read.
In the USA today, this is what happens if you dare to even touch a cop.
CCRB to probe allegation Bronx cop blinded woman; cleared by NYPD, officer could now face charges
"The Civilian Complaint Review Board is investigating a Bronx cop accused of beating a woman blind during an arrest, the Daily News has learned.
The move opens the door to possible administrative charges against Officer Theresa Lustica, whom the Internal Affairs Bureau previously said did not use excessive force during a June assault arrest of Johanna Pagan-Alomar after she asked Lustica why a friend was handcuffed.
Pagan-Alomar, 45, said Lustica cursed and disrespected her after she questioned the officer — and that she threw her onto the ground, using a handcuff key as a weapon while repeatedly punching the mother of two. Pagan-Alomar’s left eye was knocked out of its socket, she said, and had to be removed.
Lustica arrested Pagan-Alomar for allegedly shoving the officer, knocking her off her balance. But video of the beginning of the incident shows no such shove; what it does show appears to be a tap on the officer’s back. Pagan-Alomar denied making physical contact."
https://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/nyc-crime/ny-bronx-woman-blinded-ccrb-probe-20190328-lfa4oklwovewtnoqodfxwmfjxy-story.html
I mean, just WTF? Really? This is policing in the largest city in the nation in the 21st century?
Police unions need to be broken up and civilian review boards need to become the norm. No more bullshit "internal" investigations. It's like handing the mueller report to barr time and time again ad nauseum.
We have all been here before
Deja Vu all over again.
I came across the 2018 NY Times article below while commenting in another thread. I searched DU and can't find it posted anywhere so I'm posting it now to clarify any misconceptions about the consistency of the repubican party in these matters - consistently criminal, that is.
The Myth of Watergate Bipartisanship
The Republicans stuck with their president, right up to the end.
By Michael Conway and Jon Marshall
Mr. Conway served as counsel for the House Judiciary Committee during its impeachment inquiry of President Richard Nixon. Mr. Marshall is an assistant professor at the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern.
Aug. 13, 2018
"Reporters and political commentators often express frustrated surprise at the steadfast support of President Trump from most Republicans in the House and Senate. But they shouldn’t — it has happened before.
In fact, when these critics refer back to the Watergate era as a time of bipartisan commitment to the rule of law over politics, they get it exactly wrong. Defending the president at all costs, blaming investigators and demonizing journalists was all part of the Republican playbook during the political crisis leading up to the resignation of President Richard Nixon.
...
Dispiriting, perhaps, but not shocking or unprecedented. In late 1972, when a Democratic congressman, Wright Patman of Texas, began to investigate connections between Mr. Nixon’s aides and the Watergate burglary, the House Republican leader, Gerald Ford of Michigan (who later succeeded Mr. Nixon as president), called it a “political witch hunt,” according to the historian Stanley I. Kutler in his book “The Wars of Watergate.”
Mr. Ford wasn’t alone, and the countercharges didn’t end even as the evidence piled up. After reporters revealed close ties between the Watergate burglars and Mr. Nixon’s administration and re-election campaign, Senator Robert Dole of Kansas jumped to the president’s defense. He labeled the media accounts “a barrage of unfounded and unsubstantiated allegations by George McGovern” — whom Mr. Nixon defeated in the 1972 election — “and his partner in mud-slinging, The Washington Post.”"
Take a few minutes to read the rest. It reads like current events. lol
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/13/opinion/watergate-republican-party.html
Here's a little musical accompaniment for your reading pleasure.
City will pay $700K to N.J. man who claims he was attacked by cops, police dogs
Source: Advance Media/NJ.com
Atlantic City will pay $700,000 to a man who alleged that a group of police officers released a K-9 dog on him and beat him unconsciousness in November 2012.
...
After getting kicked out of a club for his drunkenness and then getting denied entry from multiple Atlantic City establishments in 2012, Charlie Harrison was driving down Pacific Avenue and swerving when officer Michael Oldroyd spotted him and tried to pull him over.
...
A confused Harrison began walking to Oldroyd before the officer “gave him a nice punch in the face” followed by several more, Bonjean said at the openings.
Soon after a K-9 bit him from behind, Harrison when to the ground and officers began “raining punches” to the point of him blacking out, Bonjean said.
Read more: https://www.nj.com/news/2019/03/city-will-pay-700k-to-nj-man-who-claims-he-was-attacked-by-cops-police-dogs.html
This seems to be the standard operating procedure for ACPD.
A.C. cop indicted in K-9 attack on man outside Tropicana Casino
https://www.philly.com/philly/news/crime/atlantic-city-police-officer-sterling-wheaten-indictment-castellani-k9-tropicana-casino-20181011.html
Taxpayers must like paying for these sadists' pleasure. Read the rest of the story. Taxpayers have paid out $7 million for such behavior in AC alone over the past decade.
The walking dead: Never-Trumpers get a stake through the heart with Mueller report Mulshine
paul mulshine is a total asshole but read this to see what total assholes are making of the mueller/barr whitewash.
The walking dead: Never-Trumpers get a stake through the heart with Mueller report | Mulshine
Today 6:34 AM
By Paul Mulshine | Star-Ledger Columnist
(excerpts)
"The members of the Bush family are and always have been the textbook example of political moderates. Not that there’s anything wrong with that. But as of the release of the Mueller report, the moderate wing of the Republican Party has been routed.
Not a moment too soon, I say. Like Bush, the moderate Republicans have been so consumed by what’s known as “Trump derangement syndrome” that they can’t think straight."
...
"Instead the result energized Trump’s Republican base to the point that only an actual zombie would want to walk into that primary fight.
That means the 2020 GOP convention in Charlotte, N.C., is likely to be a lot more crowded and enthusiastic than the 2016 convention in Cleveland."
Read the rest:
https://www.nj.com/opinion/2019/03/the-walking-dead-never-trumpers-get-a-stake-through-the-heart-with-mueller-report-mulshine.html
You don't sell the steak, which in this case is pure USDA bullshit, you sell the sizzle - then no one realizes they're eating shit.
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