Death Tax or Dearth Tax?

Real Fox News fun fact; what percentage of estates actually pay estate tax? Is it 10%, 5%, or 3%? Actually it's less than that, in fact it's less than 1%, in fact it's one-eighth of 1%. So rather than call this the "death tax" a term endearingly used by so many very rich right-wingers, it should be called the dearth tax, because it's so darn rare. Death Tax or DearthTax?

Facts for 2012

The great Daniel Moynihan  said "This is America; everyone is entitled to their own set of opinions but not their own set of facts", and the facts are in for this year especially on Wall Street. And here they are; the Dow is up 7.26%, the NASDAQ is up 15.91%, the S&P 500 is up 13.4%, so as the "princess of quite a lot" would say, if you want to live like a Republican vote like a Democrat.

ASSAULT WEAPONS BAN

If I owned a major newspaper (or even a smaller one) my front page on Monday would be as follows: 28 pictures of 28 victims, with only their first names underneath so we might know them just a little bit, like those who will forever miss them did. And underneath I would write just this: Can we please talk seriously  about revisiting the assault weapons ban, please?

Friday Fauxlosophy

It is safe to say that avoidance is a much more dominant human trait then proactivity

THE GREAT MARVIN MILLER

In the summer of 1973, while in Majorca, Spain, due to my failure to
grasp his historical importance, I missed an opportunity to meet retired
baseball player Curt Flood. Mr. Flood died way too young in 1997 at
the age of 59 and I never got another chance. He was of course forever
linked with labor leader Marvin Miller in their fight for major league ball
players’ right to earn free agency, and while they lost their first battle,
they of course won the war. So when it was announced in January of
2011 that Mr. Miller would be doing a baseball meet and sign event,
maybe his only one ever, I did not miss that time. He was articulate,
introspective and genuinely kind, and I am forever glad for a personal
conversation where I had the joy and privilege of his company.
To those who debate if he did more harm than good for baseball,
and resent millionaire ball players, I would suggest they consider the
attitude of billionaire owners who would have kept these men in
contractual servitude indefinitely if they’d been allowed to. Mr. Miller
never lived to see himself inducted in the Baseball hall of Fame, but
ironically got to witness the admission of George Steinbrenner who
as much as any owner ever, employed Mr. Miller’s breakthroughs in
financing his championships. But as to the question as to whether he
helped make baseball better or worse, he without doubt made things
better for baseball players and the rights of people employed in other
sports and venues as well. His legacy is that he outlived the archaic
attitudes of most of his opponents, and the breakthroughs he achieved
will outlive us all.

Jesus's favorite Super PAC?

The religious right is so fond of referring to Jesus and his teachings and thoughts, and maybe they know more about it than we do. But when he said that the money lenders should be kicked out of the temple, we never got the sense that he then recommended that they be replaced by super PACs.

FRIDAY FAUXLOSOPHY

As said by the late Jack Bender; "In what would have been prescient advice to our president in his next debate, if a man like Gov. Romney misrepresents seven times, call him on it seven times. If he does it 17 times, call him on it 17 times. And on into the night...

50 SHADES OF VAGUE

According to the Tax Policy Center and virtually every other group of economic analysts that arent under the thumb of Rupert Murdoch and/or Fox News the tax cuts proposed by the Romney/Ryan team are roughly (and that's pretty rough) 5 trillion (5,000,000,000,000) dollars. They claim it is "revenue neutral" and will be made up by closing loopholes and deductions. But forgive the play on words, their solutions amount to "50 shades of vague". Because if you divide 5 trillion by 300 million (as in the number of Americans) it would amount to over $16,000 in "savings" from every man, woman, child and infant in America. Where to begin, well were they to cut the funding of PBS that would amount to $1.35/year for each of us, or to go from the ridiculous to the sublime, less that 0.3 cents/day. Sounds like we are not quite half way there.

Just the Facts, Thank you Ma’am

A sports talk show host advised people to do their civic duty and watch the debate with hopefully
the Yankees comfortably in front, which they were. He said turn on MSNBC and then FOX and you
would see two different universes. I would add to then turn on Brian Williams to find out what really
happened. On Brian Williams we had the best set of fact checkers. Particularly Andrea Mitchell, who
went forward with her “truth squad” and maybe the biggest single debate was the President’s claim and Mitt Romney’s strong denial that he did not promise a $5 trillion tax cut.
He would make the Bush tax cuts permanent.
He would cut all rates an additional 20%.
He would repeal the Alternative Minimum Tax.
And permanently repeal the Estate Tax.
The tax policy department currently headed by two former Bush addvisors said it would cost $4.8 trillion over 10 years. Not $5 trillion, but pretty darn close. And obviously all the deductions in the world, and Romney still won’t say what they are, won’t cover $4 trillion dollars. Unfortunately, Mr. Romney's level of truth came nowhere near his level of rhetoric.

AIR MITT

Air Mitt or should we say err Mitt (as in e-r-r) has surfaced in one of the more interesting press conferences held by Willard Mitt Romney. In fact, this past Saturday he was talking about the electrical fire on the plane which Mrs. Romney was flying and thank heaven everyone was okay, and he went on to say the problem with such a thing is that you have no place to go on a plane.  Well we knew that at Real Fox News.  But then he went on to say that “because you can’t open the windows for ouside oxygen and why haven’t they figured out how to do that.  And our answer would be because an open window or windows at 400-500 miles per hour would have some other logistical difficulties. Okay, we did say that Republican compassion is to compassion as Republican science is to science.  But really Mitt, power windows on a flying jet aircraft?  Seriously?

Honestly, It’s Good That Linda McMahon Is Running For Senate.

It’s good that Linda McMahon is running for senate.  It’s good for the people who were out almost a million dollars from the banks in 1975.  Of course, I’d be curious to know just what that computes in today’s dollars, in lost opportunity, etc.  But it’s good for them because she’s planning on paying it back.  It’s good for all the printers who get her business.  Many printers have benefited over the years from her in New Hampshire.  More recently it appears some in CT because they would not if she wasn’t running for senate.  And it’s good for the state of CT because she is now caught up in our taxes in the “luxury mansion.”  Good for her.  And to repeat, it is honestly good she is running for senate.  But of course if she were all that honest she wouldn’t have had to run for senate to pay back all those debts of those people who trusted her that she burnt; to pay the taxes she had due.  And maybe she’ll even get around retroactively to giving her former employees health care and benefits they never had.  In fact if we could keep Linda McMahon running for office and losing, we think she could do a lot of good.

SHANA TOVA!!!

 Real Fox News wishes all its readers and fans a Shana Tova, a happy and healthy sweet new year!

FRIDAY FAUXLOSOPHY

CONVENTIONAL FACT CHECKING

The fact checkers have spoken after both political conventions and there seems no doubt that the Democrats ideology has been framed by the facts and the Republican facts were framed by the ideology.

WORDS OF A FEATHER

We must apologize again for plagiarizing in advance, as we did yesterday to the great Stephen Colbert. In the USA Today published September 6, I had the following submission;

http://www.usatoday.com/news/opinion/letters/story/2012-09-05/are-you-better-off-4-years/57616604/1

 Clobert closed last night saying “Mitt, you just keep demanding that Americans answer the question are you better off than you were 4 years ago. But just don’t answer it yourself, because that would mean releasiung more than 2 years of ur tax returns.

Conservatives want to be John Wayne

Hey, because conservatives aren’t all that bad, when it comes to the defending in this country, they all want to be John Wayne. You know, play a soldier but never for a minute actually be one.