It’s known for being the home of Mount Rushmore – and not much else. But thanks to its relish for deregulation, the state is fast becoming the most profitable place for the mega-wealthy to park their billions.
Late last year, as the Chinese government prepared to enact tough new tax rules, the billionaire Sun Hongbin quietly transferred $4.5bn worth of shares in his Chinese real estate firm to a company on a street corner in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, one of the least populated and least known states in the US. Sioux Falls is a pleasant city of 180,000 people, situated where the Big Sioux River tumbles off a red granite cliff. It has some decent bars downtown, and a charming array of sculptures dotting the streets, but there doesn’t seem to be much to attract a Chinese multi-billionaire. It’s a town that even few Americans have been to.
Read more ....
WNU Editor: Money always goes to a place where it feels that it is safe. You cannot get more safe than South Dakota.
27 comments:
...and they’ll turn it into California by 2026
(Just like Colorado)
not nice Russ and rather dumb...Delaware has done this for many years. Many. And the Congress with some 6 GOP votes just passed a bill (will Senate approvew) that would disallow fake corporation fronts.
Why not a good thing? because people from YOUR state could conceal money there to keep their taxes low and thus drive deficit and our taxes up
Worth noting: it is not an American paper but a far left British paper that offers this story on America
When you take into account all taxes paid at all levels of government—federal, state and local taxes—the U.S. tax system looks like a giant flat tax where each group of the population pays about 25 to 30 percent of their income in taxes except the very, very wealthy who pay 23 percent, a lower rate than the working class and the middle class. So the short characterization is that the U.S. tax system is a giant flat tax that becomes regressive at the very top.
[to see then how the wealthy keep getting wealthier read this]
As has been pointed out you could take all the money away form the top 1% and it would fund the American government but for a short while.
Yet liberals, hard left and left-wingers want to make the same stupid case.
Meanwhile liberals get sweetheart green energy deals like Solyndra, fail, write off their taxes and dispose of hazmat in regular garbage.
The Democrat investors given the sweet heart deal for renewable energy did not know the busioness and they got the big bucks.
So why not 'lil Hunter Biden knowing nothing about energy industry getting the Big Bucks in Ukraine?
Fair is Fair!
Anon:
theorange baboon has given the very wealthy a huge tax break and drove our deficit up to a place it has never been. stop blaming liberals. This is Trump!
The federal deficit reached $134 billion in October, the first month of fiscal 2020, according to data the Treasury Department released Wednesday.
That figure is about 34 percent higher than last October, a sign of a steadily increasing gap between federal spending and revenue.
As a candidate, President Trump had promised to wipe out the nation’s deficit during his time in office, but deficits have only grown since his inauguration.
The Treasury estimated that the deficit for the 2020 fiscal year would surpass $1 trillion for the first time since 2012. The figure came in just below that milestone in fiscal 2019, hitting $984 billion.
"drove our deficit up to a place it has never been. stop blaming liberals. This is Trump!"
Fred needs remedial Constitution 101.
1) The federal budget originates in the House of Representatives. This is Nancy Pelosi.
2) Taxes were cut and revenues went up.
3) You will never learn calculus ans so you will never learn how to maximize revenues/profits. Wallow in your ignorance like a hog.
4) 1st time since 2012. So Obama had 1 trillion deficits? You don't say. And after raising taxes and cutting the military.
I know you are but what am I?
who got the tax break for the wealthy and when?
WASHINGTON — Congress approved a sweeping $1.5 trillion tax bill on Wednesday that slashes rates for corporations, provides new breaks for private businesses and reorganizes the individual tax code.
The Senate passed the GOP bill early Wednesday morning and the House then voted on it for a second time to fix technical problems with the legislation, the final step before it's sent to President Donald Trump for his signature. No Democrats in either the House or Senate backed the measure.
"I know you are but what am I?" - Parrot
Did I insult you? I did not.
I posted: "Fred needs remedial Constitution 101."
That is a fact, because and I will state it again all spending bills originate in the House of Representatives and revenues went up.
America has a mixed economy. It is not pure capitalist. You can raise taxes to a punitive rate and move the economy over to that of the good ole USSR and make the same mistake all over. I know you are good for it. You are arrogant and you don't learn.
Power-of-the-Purse
“All Bills for raising Revenue shall originate in the House of Representatives; but the Senate may propose or concur with amendments as on other Bills.”
— U.S. Constitution, Article I, section 7, clause 1
https://history.house.gov/Institution/Origins-Development/Power-of-the-Purse/
the gop controlled the House and the Senate...how much needs to be posted for you to understand how and why Trump passed that bill!
that, perhaps, also helped the Dems winning the House later in the next election. The House and the Senate went along with what Trump wanted. Do you understand that? It really is not that complex
Dec. 19, 2017
The Latest: The Senate approved the Republican the tax bill, 51-48. See how each Senator voted with our live vote tracker.
• The House approved the most sweeping tax rewrite in decades along party lines, with lawmakers voting 227-203 in support.
who controlled the House? the Senate? the White House?
Took you long enough to go there.
The 115th congress had a Republican majority in the Senate of 50.5%.
1) It is not hard for Democrats to pick off a Republican like Susan Collins and make her go wobbly.
2) Everything the Dims want is codified into law (not the constitution) as a right. Therefore you cannot cut it. About the only thing you can cut is the military and a few other things.
If inflation is 3% and the rate of growth of a program is slated for 10% (just because), if it is suggested that the rate of growth for the next budget year be 4%, the dishonest and despicable Democrats call that a cut.
4% is great than 3% ? Is it not
Or do you know some high falut'n math that says otherwise.
3) It is not hard to cow Republicans in the House either. Rubio was good until the Dims went after him. He bought a boat. About 16 foot or something with Evinrude motors
Part of the liberal stink was that Rubio had student debt when he bought the boat. And?
The Obamas had student debt and they went on vacation and had an entertainment budget. Obama did not pay his off until he was 44 in 2005 and he lived in a mansion of a home in Chicago.
www.ewboats.com/boat-models/center-console/245cc/
www.vox.com/2015/6/10/8757625/marco-rubio-luxury-speedboat
And after that episode Rubio joined the Gang of 8 or more appropriately the 8 Gangsters and tried an Amnesty Bill.
I believe Trump can get an Amnesty Bill. But that will be because he is good on the wall, which is being built and rebuilt as we speak. There are new sections of the wall.
,,,
last anon: boring
Details are usually boring.
It is why your Dims don't take STEM courses, but flock more often to humanities, where you can make stuff up.
Russia Loves the Impeachment Hearings Because GOP Is Parroting Kremlin Propaganda — Vladimir Putin could not possibly envision a sweeter gift than Ukraine falling away from the West into the welcoming—albeit bloodied—hands of the Kremlin. — As Russia's state media watch impeachment proceedings …
Discussion: Raw Story and Washington Post
Aaron Blake / Washington Post:
A Friday night surprise: David Holmes throws a wrench in Trump's impeachment defense — Former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch's testimony was the big public spectacle on Friday. The bigger news in the Ukraine scandal appears to have come later in the day in a private deposition.
Discussion: Slate, Associated Press, Mediaite and CNN
CBS News:
Read David Holmes' full opening statement in impeachment inquiry — Washington — The embassy staffer in Kiev who overheard a top diplomat's conversation with President Trump testified that the president inquired about the status of investigations into his rivals one day after his call with the president of Ukraine.
Discussion: Mother Jones and The Guardian
Aaron Blake / Washington Post:
Trump's core impeachment defense suffers a double blow — including a self-inflicted one — The idea that President Trump truly cared about corruption in Ukraine was always far-fetched. The only two investigations he has pushed for were ones in which he had a clear personal interest …
Discussion: CNN and The Daily Beast
CNN:
READ: State Department aide David Holmes' opening statement
Discussion: War Room, Fox News, Washington Post, Mediaite, New York Post, Politico, The Hill, The Daily Beast, Axios, Talking Points Memo, Lawyers, Guns & Money and Balloon Juice
Politico:
POLITICO Playbook: Why Gordon Sondland's testimony matters
Discussion: The Week, New York Times and Bangor Daily News
Andrew Desiderio / Politico:
White House budget official appears for testimony on Ukraine aid hold amid impeachment inquiry
Discussion: POLITICUSUSA and New York Times
Charles P. Pierce / Esquire:
If There's a Gun Left That Isn't Smoking, I Can't Find It
Discussion: CNN, Contemptor, Hot Air and NBC News
Benjamin Parker / The Bulwark:
On Fox News' The Five, Kennedy said that Yovanovich, who served as ambassador from 2016 until she was ousted in May, was a career diplomat and did not seem to be part of the deep state.
"Democrats and Republicans did a good job, not only of showing that she had a very impressive decades-long record, but also that she wasn't fired, she was reassigned, and she's still employed, and she's teaching at Georgetown," Kennedy said.
Kennedy added that Trump possibly improperly pushing Yovanovich out should not be a foundation to impeach him but also criticized Trump for going after the former ambassador in real time.
"Should the president be tweeting at her mid-hearing? No, it makes him look like a big dumb baby," Kennedy said. "And he makes her look like a victim and if he'd just let it go, this entire, the last two days of hearings and testimony would've been a snoozefest."
Of all the 2020 candidates, Julian Castro went the furthest in condemning Miller – he called him a “neo-Nazi” – but all agreed that he should resign from the White House.
But would Miller’s resignation change anything? While Miller might be behind the concrete policies that harm immigrants, he is not the main white supremacist in the White House. And Trump can easily find someone else to do Miller’s work, particularly now that almost the whole Republican party has fallen in line with their president.
It also externalizes white supremacy, as if it lives in the margins. But it has been hiding in plain sight within the Republican Party for decades. Miller wrote the emails to Breitbart when he was still an aide to Senator Jeff Sessions, who has been a consistent voice of white supremacy in Congress since 1997. And the Alabama Senator was not alone in Congress either. Representative Steve King has been the most open and unapologetic voice for the cause since 2003. Others, like representatives Louie Gohmert, Paul Gosar, Tom Tancredo and Dana Rohrabacher, might not be as open in their support, but they all encourage white nationalism to varying degrees.
But white supremacy in the Republican party is not limited to just these individual congressmen and women. It runs much deeper than them. White supremacy was at the core of the “Southern Strategy”, dating back to the unsuccessful 1964 presidential campaign of Barry Goldwater, which was formative for the future conservative movement. Perfected by President Richard Nixon, with the help of speechwriter Pat Buchanan, dog whistles to white supremacy have been at the heart of virtually every Republican campaign since the 1970s.
Talking of Buchanan, more than 25 years ago he gave his now famous “culture war” speech at the 1992 Republican convention. While the term has become mainly linked to the religious right, Buchanan is at least as much a white supremacist as a Christian fundamentalist. In many ways, he is the intellectual father of the Trump administration, personifying Mike Pence and Donald Trump in one.
To help you fight Trump-induced dizziness, here are brief fact checks of 45 separate false claims Trump has made on the subject of Ukraine or impeachment.
The phone call with Zelensky
1. Trump released an "exact transcript" of his call with Zelensky. (The document says on its first page that it is "not a verbatim transcript.")
2. Trump did not ask Zelensky for anything on the call. (Trump asked Zelensky to look into former Vice President Joe Biden, look into a debunked conspiracy theory about Democratic computer servers, and speak with his personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani and Attorney General William Barr.)
3. Zelensky criticized former US ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch "out of the blue" on the call. (Trump brought up Yovanovitch first.)
4. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi was "angry" when she saw the rough transcript of the call, and she said, "This is not what the whistleblower said." (Pelosi has said no such thing in public, and there is no evidence she has said anything like that in private. Her public statement on the call was scathing.)
5. "Everybody" that looked at the text of the call agreed that it was "perfect." (Some of Trump's staunch defenders agreed with this characterization, but clearly not "everybody" did.)
6. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell spoke to Trump about the call and said, "That was the most innocent phone call that I've read." (McConnell said he doesn't recall speaking to Trump about the call. His public statement on the call was far less effusive than Trump's description.)
7. People are not talking about the call anymore. (People continue to talk about the call, a central focus of the impeachment inquiry.)
8. The Washington Post made up fictional sources for its article on how Trump had allegedly tried to get Barr to hold a news conference saying Trump had broken no laws in the call. (There is no evidence that the Post invented sources. Other major news outlets, including CNN, quickly reported the same thing the Post did.)
The whistleblower
9. The whistleblower was "sooo wrong." (The rough transcript and witness testimony have proven the whistleblower to have been highly accurate.)
10. The whistleblower, a second whistleblower and the first whistleblower's source have all "disappeared." (There is no evidence for this. Whistleblowers do not have an obligation to speak publicly after filing their complaints.)
11. The whistleblower had "all second hand" information. (While the whistleblower did get information about the call from other people, the whistleblower also had "direct knowledge of certain alleged conduct," noted Michael Atkinson, the Trump-appointed inspector general for the intelligence community.)
12. The whistleblower "said 'quid pro quo' eight times." (The whistleblower did not even use the words "quid pro quo" in the complaint, much less specify a number of times Trump allegedly said those words. Trump may have been referring to a Wall Street Journal article that had asserted that Trump urged Zelensky "about eight times to work with Rudy Giuliani" on a probe that could hurt Biden; the article did not say this claim came from the whistleblower.)
13. The whistleblower "works now for Biden." (There is no evidence for this. The whistleblower's lawyers said their client has never worked for or advised a candidate, campaign or party; the lawyers said the whistleblower has come into contact with presidential candidates for both parties while working as a civil servant in the executive branch.)
14. Someone "changed the long standing whistleblower rules" just before this whistleblower submitted their complaint. (Contrary to a report on a right-wing website, the whistleblower rules were not changed.)
I call Democrats a variant of Dems. That is Dims.
So Fred goes off and posts "name calling asshole!"
and goes on a posting jag.
Not exactly what I expected him to do, but not surprising given that it is Fred.
House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff
15. Schiff committed "a criminal act" by delivering an exaggerated interpretation of Trump's July 25 call at a committee hearing. (The Constitution gives members of Congress immunity for comments they make at committee.)
16. Schiff did have immunity for his comments at the committee, but not when he tweeted a video of those comments. (Experts say members of Congress also have immunity for videos of their comments at committee.)
17. Schiff might have committed "treason." (Treason has a specific constitutional definition that Schiff's actions do not come close to meeting.)
18. Schiff made his comments before Trump released the rough transcript of the call, not expecting Trump to release it. (Schiff spoke the day after Trump released the document.)
19. Schiff "didn't use one word that I said" in his rendition of the call. (Schiff did add words Trump had never said, but he didn't make up the whole thing; some of his remarks hewed closely to what Trump said.)
20. Schiff might have been the whistleblower's source. (This is nonsense. The whistleblower said in the complaint that information about the call came from "multiple White House officials with direct knowledge of the call.")
21. Schiff might have picked the whistleblower. (The whistleblower sought guidance from Schiff's committee before filing their complaint, but Schiff didn't "pick" the whistleblower.)
22. Schiff "will only release doctored transcripts." (Schiff has already released multiple transcripts of testimony from closed-door impeachment inquiry hearings, and there was no sign that any of them had been "doctored." Witnesses and their lawyers were given the opportunity to verify the accuracy of the transcripts prior to release, and Republicans who attended the testimony did not allege that any transcripts had been improperly altered.)
The impeachment process
23. Republicans were not allowed into the closed-door impeachment inquiry hearings. (Republican members of the three committees holding the hearings were allowed into the room and to ask questions of witnesses. Only Republicans who were not on the committees were barred from the room.)
24. Republicans were not allowed to ask questions in the closed-door hearings. (Republicans were allowed to ask questions. Democrats and Republicans alternated questioning.)
25. Nobody else has ever faced closed-door impeachment hearings. (Both the Richard Nixon and Bill Clinton impeachment processes involved some closed-door hearings.)
26. Trump's opponents have committed "illegal acts" related to impeachment. (Trump wasn't clear about who he was talking about, but there is no evidence of illegality by either the whistleblower or Democrats.)
27. The people who have testified in the impeachment inquiry have had "no firsthand knowledge." (Various witnesses have had firsthand knowledge of various components of the story.)
28. Gordon Sondland, ambassador to the European Union, still says there was "no quid pro quo." (Sondland revised his original testimony to effectively acknowledge his belief that there had been a quid pro quo.)
29. Unlike Democrats, former House Speaker Paul Ryan "would never issue a subpoena." (Numerous Republican subpoenas were issued to the Obama administration during Ryan's tenure as speaker.)
30. "Many" of the people who had testified as of October 21 "were put there during Obama, during Clinton, during the Never Trump or Bush era." (FactCheck.org noted that just two of the nine people who had testified at that point had been appointed under Obama. The other seven were appointed by Trump or his appointees.)
The Bidens
31. Joe Biden, along with his son Hunter Biden, has "ripped off at least two countries for millions of dollars." (There is no evidence Joe Biden has profited from his son's business dealings abroad.)
32. A video of Joe Biden speaking in 2018 about his past dealings with Ukraine is evidence of "corruption." (The tape does not show corruption. It shows Biden talking about his effort, in accordance with the policy of the US and its allies, to pressure Ukraine into firing a prosecutor widely considered unwilling to fight corruption.)
33. There is a photo of Joe Biden playing golf with "the company boss" of Burisma, the Ukrainian company for which Hunter Biden sat on the board. (Neither Burisma's owner nor chief executive is in the photo. The person Trump had identified as a "Ukraine gas exec" was Devon Archer, another American board member at Burisma and a longtime business associate of Hunter Biden.)
34. That golf photo contradicts Joe Biden's claim to have "never met the gentleman." (Joe Biden had not claimed to have never met Devon Archer.)
35. Hunter Biden was under investigation by the Ukrainian prosecutor who Joe Biden pressured Ukraine to fire. (There is no public evidence that Hunter Biden was ever himself under investigation. The prosecutor's former deputy has said that the actual investigation, into the owner of Burisma, was dormant at the time of Joe Biden's pressure.)
36. Biden pressured Ukraine to take the prosecutor "off the case." (There is no evidence that Biden ever called on Ukraine to remove the prosecutor from the Burisma case. Rather, Biden, like the US government more broadly, tried to get the prosecutor, Viktor Shokin, fired.)
37. Before Joe Biden denied that he had spoken to Hunter Biden about Hunter's overseas business activities, Joe Biden had said he did speak to Hunter about those business activities. (Joe Biden had not said he did speak to Hunter Biden about those business activities. Hunter Biden said they had one brief conversation in which Joe Biden asked him if he knew what he was doing.)
38. Hunter Biden's acts were "illegal." (Hunter Biden has acknowledged using "poor judgment" in accepting the seat on the Burisma board, but there is no evidence of illegality.)
Dealings with Ukraine
39. Trump "didn't delay" the military aid to Ukraine. (His administration did delay the aid.)
40. Democratic senators sent a letter to Ukraine that threatened to deny US aid if the Ukrainians did not comply with their demands. (The letter did not make any threat to Ukraine. The senators expressed concern about a New York Times report that Ukraine had, to avoid Trump's wrath, stopped cooperating with the Mueller investigation and frozen investigations into former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort. The letter urged Ukraine to reverse course if the report was true.)
41. President Barack Obama sent mere "pillows and sheets" in aid to Ukraine. (Trump was correct that Obama refused to provide lethal military assistance, but Obama sent other military assistance: drones, armored Humvees, counter-mortar radars, night vision devices and medical supplies.)
42. The US is the "only" country providing assistance to Ukraine, and "nobody else is there." (European countries have provided billions in grants and loans to Ukraine since Russia's 2014 invasion.)
43. Cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike is primarily owned by someone from Ukraine. (CrowdStrike is a publicly traded, US-based company co-founded by Dmitri Alperovitch, an American citizen who was born in Russia.)
Polls
44. Impeachment has caused Trump's poll numbers to go "way up" to "higher than they've ever been, ever." (There has been no sign of a significant increase in Trump's poll numbers. His approval rating has fallen slightly since the Ukraine scandal began, according to FiveThirtyEight's poll aggregate.)
45. It was "announced" that a Fox News poll showing majority support for impeaching and removing Trump from office was "incorrect." (Fox News says it stands by the poll.)
The Left is basically a pedophile in a van rolling by a school with free candy.
But it's running out of free stuff to promise anyone stupid enough to vote for their own destruction.
Free health care? There's the NHS which will euthanize you for free. Free university? Don't even ask. Free housing? Better be named Mohammed. So what's left?
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