Free Republic

Support for impeachment has slipped in Wisconsin, according to Wednesday's Marquette University Law School Poll. And for the first time, President Donald Trump has surged ahead of all four top Democratic rivals in potential head-to-head matchups. Just 40% of Wisconsin registered voters believe Trump should be impeached and removed from office, while 53% disagreed, according to the survey The poll of 801 registered Wisconsin voters was conducted Nov. 13 through Sunday, during the opening week of public hearings in the House impeachment inquiry. In October, before public testimony began, the Marquette poll showed that 44% said the president should be...

No excerpt from Bloomberg allowed, story here. He makes the point that if the tax code becomes a tool to punish people, it loses its legitimacy.

On the eve of Wednesday’s Democratic debate on MSNBC, four presidential contenders called for an independent investigation into sister network NBC in the wake of allegations of sexual abuse. The candidates, Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J., and Sen. Kamala Harris, D-Calif., demanded the inquiry in a letter to Democratic National Committee Chairman Tom Perez dated Monday. “We, the undersigned candidates, are very concerned about the message it would send to sexual assault survivors if our next debate is sponsored by MSNBC without clear commitments from Comcast, the parent company of NBC and MSNBC,...

Pete Buttigieg might as well wear a bull’s-eye to Wednesday night’s Democratic presidential debate in Georgia, given how the past four clashes have featured attacks on the front-runner. The mayor of South Bend, Ind., has overtaken Sen. Elizabeth Warren this month in polls focused on the key early state of Iowa, while former Vice President Joe Biden still leads the crowded 2020 Democratic field in national surveys. So “Mayor Pete” appears set to draw the kind of fire that the Massachusetts lawmaker faced at last month’s debate - and that Biden attracted during the summer. “As a new front-runner, we...

Time for another episode of Strange Thoughts with Elizabeth Warren. “Traffic violence kills thousands and injures even more Americans every year,” Senator Warren said on Twitter. “On World Day of Remembrance for Traffic Crash Victims, I’m sending my love to the families and friends of those who have lost loved ones. It’s time to #EndTrafficViolence. “Traffic violence” is quite a phrase. In the end, it may be all that anyone remembers of Warren’s decreasingly persuasive but increasingly eccentric campaign. In this bold new framing, cars are not the principal way Americans get around, with fatalities being an unfortunate but blessedly...

Justice for Taylor Swift! Yeah, now that's a cause that your average working American can get behind. And it is also a cause taken up by presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren which has resulted in widespread mockery. Okay, the mockery hasn't quite reached the levels inspired by the reaction to her hyping of a DNA test last year that revealed that Warren is maybe 1/1024 Native American but it is up there. Warren tweeted her support for Swift in the multi-millionaire's contractual dispute with other millionaires that we should somehow care about as reported by Variety on Saturday in, "Elizabeth Warren Backs...

The Stop Warren Primary Democrats reap the radical disaster they sowed. Tue Nov 19, 2019 Daniel Greenfield 37 Daniel Greenfield, a Shillman Journalism Fellow at the Freedom Center, is an investigative journalist and writer focusing on the radical Left and Islamic terrorism. The Democrat 2020 primaries started around stopping Trump, now they’re about stopping Warren. Senator Elizabeth Warren has the worst poll performance of any of the front runners. She’s radical, abrasive, and she’s alienating the money people whom the Democrats need to win national elections. Too bad that Warren is exactly what they deserve. Radical parties get radical nominees....

... This year, American workers and their employers owe a combined 12.4 percent on Social Security payroll taxes for income up to $132,900 (rising to $137,700 in 2020). They owe nothing on earnings above that level. Some Democrats in the thick of the presidential race and on Capitol Hill now seek to change or eliminate that cap — potentially placing a new double-digit tax on high earners, with several plans focusing on earnings above $250,000. ... The result would be a large tax increase on high earners, even before other changes a Democratic administration might contemplate, such as increasing income...

Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) signaled that she is open to a universal basic income – an idea that has been championed by fellow presidential contender Andrew Yang (D). Warren expressed her willingness to consider a UBI, which quite literally amounts to the government handing individuals and families a “basic” income per month regardless of employment or income status, in a Washington Post survey that asked, “Should the federal government pay a universal basic income to every American adult?

The clear loser of the Democratic primary is Medicare for All. First, the policy demonstrated the unreliability of Kamala Harris out of the gate, when she endorsed it before quickly backing off. Now, it has blunted the momentum of Elizabeth Warren, made a mockery of her claim to be an uber-wonk and shredded her implicit appeal to Bernie Sanders supporters as an equally committed left-winger without the baggage. Under pressure for weeks for details related to her version of the proposal, Warren has now backed all the way down to promising to pass Medicare for All by the end of...

... One big chunk of her plan would reverse some Obamacare regulations established by the Trump administration. She would return funding to Planned Parenthood and other reproductive health groups that also offer abortion services, for example. She would restore funding to publicize insurance options. She would eliminate new requirements on Medicaid beneficiaries, such as work requirements and premiums. And she would change rules to restrict the sale of so-called short-term health plans, which don’t follow all the Affordable Care Act’s rules. She would restore an Obama-administration policy that provided civil rights protections to transgender patients and women with a history...

A billionaire stands to benefit financially from the sales of Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s new “Billionaire Tears” mug. The $25 mug, which Warren’s presidential campaign introduced Wednesday, is sold through Shopify, a Canadian e-commerce company whose founder and CEO, Tobias Lütke, is worth an estimated $2.8 billion. “Savor a warm, slightly salty beverage of your choice in this union-made mug as you contemplate all the good a wealth tax could do: universal healthcare, student debt cancellation, universal free college, and more,” the mug’s product page states. Warren’s presidential campaign began utilizing Shopify’s services shortly after the Massachusetts senator...

Senator Bernie Sanders lives in a $476,000 colonial in Burlington VT. The house in New North End is one of three homes that he and his wife own. Burlington VT is 85% white and less than 5% black. Unlike the Old North End, which is diverse, the New North End has an older and more conservative population. The average household income is $80,000, and a number of the elected officials have been Republicans. Despite Bernie’s socialist image, he chose to live in a white conservative suburban neighborhood where lefties are only slowly beginning to make inroads as younger couples start...

This week the the Trump Administration’s Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) announced new rules requiring insurers and hospitals to inform patients of the cost of 300 common procedures and tests before the patient agrees to undergo them. Insurance companies and hospitals complain that the push for full disclosure goes too far. Democratic presidential candidate Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren agreed. “Consumers aren’t competent to decide which procedures or tests they need,” she contended. “Forcing providers to quote prices to them asks these simple people to make judgments they aren’t qualified to make. This is the exact opposite direction from...

Elizabeth Warren, during the Democratic debate last month, said she was “really shocked at the notion that anyone thinks I’m punitive. Look, I don’t have a beef with billionaires.” This week Ms. Warren’s campaign began selling a $25 coffee mug emblazoned with the words: “Billionaire Tears.” The accompanying description mocks “former Goldman Sachs executive Leon Cooperman, ” who “was brought to tears on live television” by the prospect of President Warren. Mug buyers are jokingly directed to “savor a warm, slightly salty beverage” as they “contemplate all the good a wealth tax could do.” A new video ad from Ms....

WASHINGTON — Senator Elizabeth Warren vowed on Friday to pass major health care legislation in her first 100 days as president, unveiling a new, detailed plan to significantly expand public health insurance coverage as a first step, and promising to pass a “Medicare for all” system by the end of her third year in office that would cover all Americans. The initial bill she would seek to pass if elected would be a step short of the broader Medicare for all plan she has championed. But it would substantially expand the reach and generosity of public health insurance, creating a...

... Name a tax and there’s a way to reduce it, delay it or not ever really pay it, if you have the right adviser. Upset that the 2017 tax act took away your deduction for state and local taxes in New York? Change your residence to Florida, as President Trump recently did, and those taxes are gone. Don’t want to pay capital gains tax? Well, you can decide when to sell those investments. If you need the money, you could borrow against the account and leave the capital gains taxes for another day. And if you die still holding...

Americans who want a preview of coming attractions under Medicare for All should take a look at the annual “winter crisis” at Britain’s National Health Service that is starting early this year. Data released Thursday showed the worst waiting times in 15 years in English emergency rooms. Hang onto your warm winter hats. The NHS managed to treat only 83.6% of emergency-room patients within four hours in October, compared to 89.1% a year earlier and well short of the government’s target of 95%. The NHS winter crisis has become a national tradition like Guy Fawkes Day and the Grand National...

Democratic presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren has unveiled sweeping tax proposals that would push federal tax rates on some billionaires and multimillionaires above 100%. That prospect raises questions for taxpayers and the broader economy that experts are starting to ponder: Under which circumstances would taxpayers have to pay those rates? How might that change their behavior? And would investment and economic growth suffer? Potential tax rates over 100% could result from the combination of tax increases the Massachusetts senator proposes for the very top tier of investors. She wants to return the top income-tax rate to 39.6% from 37%, impose a...

Lloyd Blankfein hit back at Democratic presidential hopeful Elizabeth Warren on Thursday, after she singled him and other billionaires out for greed as she pressed for higher taxes on the wealthy. “Vilification of people as a member of a group may be good for her campaign, not the country,” Blankfein, the 65-year-old Goldman Sachs senior chairman, said in a tweet. ... Blankfein has contributed to and endorsed Democratic presidential candidates in the past, including Hillary Clinton, who lost to Trump in the 2016 election. But he also criticized another 2016 candidate, Sen. Bernie Sanders, saying his campaign “has the potential...