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During recent meetings with Chinese officials, Secretary of State John Kerry agreed to establish a "U.S.-China Civil Space Cooperation Dialogue." A State Department spokesman says the first meeting will be held before the end of October, but could not provide any other details. The lengthy list of "outcomes" from the seventh round of the U.S.-China Strategic and Economic Dialogue (S&ED) held in Washington, DC June 22-24, 2015, includes a section on cooperation in science, technology and agriculture. Under that heading, the two countries agreed as follows: "101. Space: The United States and China decided to establish regular bilateral government-to-government consultations...

I'm sure this will go over like a fart in church, but what the heck, video at link: No to Fast Track, No to Trade Treachery,

Democratic congressman Alan Grayson reportedly unleashed a profanity-laced tirade against a reporter who questioned his offshore investments during a recent interview, angrily asking the journalist if he’s “some kind of s**tting robot” who goes around “s**tting on people.” The fiery moment reportedly came after Tampa Bay Times political editor Adam Smith inquired about some accounts in the Cayman Islands which he said Grayson “incorporated … so investors could avoid taxes”; the politician railed against this accusation.

Earlier today, the New York Times clucked its tongue over Marco Rubio’s “penchant for luxury,” embodied primarily in the purchase of an $80,000 “speedboat.” One man’s luxury is another man’s … fishing boat. The Rubio team sent Dylan Byers a link to the model of the boat Rubio bought, which ain’t exactly a yacht: But while Rubio did indeed spend $80,000 on a boat, the vessel in question is not the glamorous “luxury speedboat” the Times article portrayed. It is, in fact, an offshore fishing boat.On Tuesday, Rubio spokesperson Alex Conant sent POLITICO a link to a website showing...

**SNIP** Much like Clinton’s speech to Salesforce, the former secretary of state’s speech isn’t available online nor would ISRI give video upon request. The speech of ISRI’s 2015 convention speaker, former Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, appears on the company’s YouTube page, but Bill Clinton’s 2009 speech to the same group does not. But such is the case for almost all of Hillary Clinton’s paid speeches from 2014 — though most were given to massive audiences, almost none are available in their entirety online. What’s clear is that most, if not all, of the companies and organizations that hired Hillary...

There have been few progressives as angry about off-shore investment accounts as Rep. Alan Grayson (D-FL). In 2011, not coincidentally while Mitt Romney readied his presidential campaign, Grayson wrote at the Huffington Post that Barack Obama should order “the IRS to audit every one of the Fortune 500″ corporations. Grayson wanted to stop them from “evading taxes through transfer pricing and offshore tax havens.”Grayson may have known more about that than first thought. Adam Smith of the Tampa Bay Times found out that Grayson himself had incorporated two funds in the Caymans later that same year, the same kind...

Since Politics Nation debuted on MSNBC on August 29, 2011, Al Sharpton’s nonprofit National Action Network has collected more than $2.38 million in contributions from unions, according to Department of Labor records. Meanwhile, Sharpton has often used his show to promote pro-labor viewpoints, also inviting union leadership on as guests. National Action Network ... has apparently remained in financial trouble. A 2013 filing with the Internal Revenue Service showed the nonprofit had ended the year with negative assets of $1.33 million. Nonprofit experts have told National Review that the Sharpton’s six-figure salary from National Action Network, as well as the...

While Obama Inc. targets conservative groups, it isn’t going to annoy the guy who bought its boss his spot in the White House. Soros’ wealth increased tremendously during Obama’s time in office. And much of it came from dodging taxes. You know, the taxes he insists that middle class peons and small business owners need to be socked with. George Soros likes to say the rich should pay more taxes. A substantial part of his wealth, though, comes from delaying them. While building a record as one of the world’s greatest investors, the 84-year-old billionaire used a loophole that allowed...

link only: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-04-30/george-soros-s-tax-bill

“You support President Obama’s proposal to increase taxes on the wealthy?” That was the question put to George Soros on CNN some three years ago. Here was his answer: “Yes, very much… the super bubble really resulted in creating a great increase in inequality, and now we have the after effect where you have slow growth, but if you could have better distribution of income, then the average American would actually be better off.” There’s no question that “everyday Americans” (as a reminder, those are the people Hillary Clinton wants to help by running for president… well, those people...

Earlier this week we took a look at the GOP efforts to repeal the death tax, including some of the political pitfalls involved as well as reasons why it’s still a hill worth fighting on. In a rare moment of taking a position on a policy issue, Hillary Clinton has chimed in on the so called estate tax several times over the years. She has referred to it as a “wealth tax”, which works out quite well for her this year if she’s trying to angle her way into a more Elizabeth Warren style position on the subject. So...

Apple's market capitalization of $730 billion may now be more than double that of Exxon Mobil, but when it comes to taxes paid to the US government, it's no contest: the company with record profitability that so many progressive hipsters adore and for whose products they line up with annual regularity is billions of dollars below its "fair" contribution to the US Treasury. Ironically, it is eclipsed by that other company that so many progressives love to hate: Exxon Mobil, which paid $4 billion more in tax than Apple, yet whose valuation has been cut by 15% over the past...

Apple’s most recent quarterly numbers broke all sorts of records and, as we shall see, a number of laws. Apple just released its numbers for the quarter ending last December, the first quarter of its 2015 Fiscal Year. The figures are astonishing: iPhones: Apple sold 74.5M, + 57% over last year’s same quarter. iPhone revenue was $51.2B, + 57%. That’s enough iPhones for 1% of the world population, 9.4 iPhones for every second of the past quarter. I hope to see some day a documentary movie on the supply chain heroics leading (parts manufacturing, assembly, transportation logistics) required to achieve...

This news was actually uncovered by National Review a few days ago, but things have been rather busy so we didn’t get around to it until now. The tax problems which Al Sharpton has run into with his National Action Network are well known and frequently documented. While the non-profit is more than a million dollars in debt to the tax man, Sharpton continues to tap it for a more than one quarter million dollar salary. But as Jillian Kay Melchior discovered with a bit more digging, Sharpton has also started up and abandoned a variety of for profit...

President Barack Obama will propose a "grand bargain for middle-class jobs" on Tuesday that would cut the U.S. corporate tax rate and use billions in revenues generated by a business tax overhaul to fund projects aimed at creating jobs. His goal, to be outlined in a speech at an Amazon.com Inc facility in Chattanooga, Tennessee, is to break through congressional gridlock by trying to find a formula that satisfies both Republicans and Democrats. Efforts to reach a bipartisan "grand bargain" on deficit reduction have been at an impasse for months. Senior administration officials say Obama is not giving up on...

On Tuesday, KY Sen. Rand Paul launched a spirited defense of Apple, whose tax strategies were subject to a hearing of the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations. "I frankly think the committee should apologize to Apple," Paul said. Paul went on to accuse the committee of "bullying" one of America's greatest companies, prompting Sen. John McCain to quickly defend the inquiry and say that Paul's remarks were "frankly, offensive."

At a time when America desperately needs to come together, we are becoming more divided than ever. The mainstream media and most of our politicians love to pit us against one another in dozens of different ways, and right now class warfare has become one of their favorite tools for getting us to hate one another. If you are struggling in this economy, you are being told that "the wealthy" are the cause of your problems. If you have money, you are being told that the poor hate you and want to tax you into oblivion. Class warfare has already...

The New York Times reported Apple “paid cash taxes of $3.3 billion around the world on its reported profits of $34.2 billion last year, a tax rate of 9.8%.” Further more, Apple’s federal tax bill likely would have been $2.4 billion higher last year without these moves, says the Times. The fact remains Apple paid less tax than it would have otherwise had it not moved operations to low- or no-tax jurisdictions. Good for Apple. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if we all had the same flexibility?

Milwaukee County Sheriff David Clarke (D) declared on Thursday,“I’m trying to figure out why Al Sharpton isn’t in federal prison for tax evasion.” Milwaukee County Sheriff David Clarke (D) declared on Thursday,“I’m trying to figure out why Al Sharpton isn’t in federal prison for tax evasion.”

n the opening segment of MSNBC’s “PoliticsNation,” host and notorious tax-evader Al Sharpton compared the newly-enacted Indiana Religious Freedom Restoration Act to Jim Crow and slavery. “This is a key moment for the country,” he said. “Too often in our history, we’ve seen religion used to justify attacks on other people’s rights, from slavery, to Jim Crow, to women’s right to vote.”