“I got a headful of ideas, that are drivin’ me insane.” Bob Dylan.
Couldn’t sleep last night. Had a headful of ideas. Got up. Wrote a piece. Which may, or may not, ever see the light of day. But, if it does, it will be impactful.
Rest of the night was uneventful save for contorting my body so that two of my cats would be more comfortable. Life With Pets.
Enough stalling. What can I cobble together for today?
US President-elect Donald Trump made a flurry of job announcements on Wednesday, including the selection of Kimberly Guilfoyle as ambassador to Greece. However, the timing of this appointment was anything but ordinary, coming amid a storm of tabloid gossip surrounding his son Donald Trump Jr’s relationship status.
Guilfoyle, who had been dating Trump Jr since 2018 and got engaged to him in 2020, found herself in the spotlight for all the wrong reasons. The day earlier, British tabloid The Daily Mail published photos of Trump Jr with socialite Bettina Anderson, igniting rumors that he had moved on with a new love interest.
The outlet described the images as “incontrovertible proof” that Trump Jr had “moved on” with the “stunning ‘it girl.'”And so, as his son’s rumored new romance heated up, Donald Trump reportedly sent his son’s ‘ex-fiancée’ to Greece. The timing of Guilfoyle’s appointment as ambassador could hardly be more dramatic, adding layers to the gossip surrounding the love triangle.
OK. But, Greece? Please keep all speculation in your head, but please feel free to speculate.
Rep. Mike Turner (R-OH), chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, lashed out at President-elect Donald Trump’s former Department of Justice for obtaining records of lawmakers, staffers and journalists during an investigation of leaks.
“This report lays out outrageous behavior by the Department of Justice, where members of Congress and staff of the Intelligence Committee, the committee that I chair, had phone records and email records that were accessed by the Department of Justice without court review,” Turner told CNN on Tuesday.
Turner argued that new protections put in place by Attorney General Merrick Garland were “clearly insufficient.”
“We need to pass statutes that can require a court review and authorization,” he insisted. “The courts didn’t even know that the Department of Justice was accessing emails and phone records of members of Congress and their staff, merely because they had access to classified information.”
OK, pal. You’re a legislator. Legislate.
How Billionaires Avoid Paying Medicare Taxes (And Perhaps How Steve Cohen Was Able To Sign Juan Soto):
For most working Americans, paying their share of the taxes that fund Medicare is an unavoidable fact of life. It’s so automatic for many workers that they may not even realize it takes a bite out of every paycheck. In theory, everyone is required to contribute to the country’s health insurance program for seniors, no matter how poor or rich, from cashiers to CEOs.
Not on Wall Street. There, some of the most powerful people in finance found a way to opt out.
How do they do it? Business owners, like any self-employed person, whether they’re a freelance Uber driver or a hedge fund manager, have the responsibility to declare their self-employment earnings on their tax returns. Indeed, the vast majority of small-business owners have no choice but to do so and pay the same taxes that wage earners pay, including Medicare.
But high-priced tax advisers, wielding a once-obscure bit of the tax code, found a way to make that obligation vanish. By carefully channeling profits through a company in a way that invokes that obscure provision, even a Steve Cohen, with a tax return showing he received hundreds of millions in profits from his hedge fund, can exempt that income from Medicare tax.
That’s merely the prologue. Personal to Sarah McBride: See if you can maybe try to close that loophole (not bothering to ask the same of Coons and LBR, for obvious reasons). Oh, and read the article.
Congo Avoids Sheriff’s Sale. Barely:
Properties owned by the Congo Legacy Center narrowly escaped an auction, following a months-long feud between the city of Wilmington and Ernest “Sammy” Congo, that culminated in legal action by the city to recover more than $300,000 in back taxes.
Those bills accrued for years after the organization lost its tax-exempt status for not filing tax returns with the Internal Revenue Service.
But at the wire, Congo paid a portion of those taxes, set up a payment plan and showed the exemption had been reinstated. Congo, a local businessman and the father of Wilmington City Council President Ernest “Trippi” Congo, is now on the hook to pay the city more than $236,000 over two years.
Losing those properties also risked wasting a $475,000 grant he accepted from the Delaware Prescription Opioid Settlement Fund to open an addiction resources center. (Lydia York: Anybody in your office, you know, auditing those funds?)
Gee, wonder when they’ll have that ribbon-cutting ceremony. At least they’ll have Delaware’s Most Accomplished Ribbon Cutter and Delaware’s Worst (Former) Governor there to plaster on those insincere grins.
State Senate Announces Committee Assignments. Worth checking out.
What do you want to talk about?