Conservative Blogger
Friday, April 17, 2015
House passes bill to repeal death tax
WASHINGTON – The House voted Thursday to repeal the federal tax on estates, a politically volatile issue that affects few inheritances.
Republicans refer to it as the "death tax." They say it prevents small business owners and family farmers from passing businesses on to their heirs.
"Can you imagine working your whole life to build up a family-owned business and then upon your death Uncle Sam swoops in and takes nearly half of what you spent a lifetime building up for your children and grandchildren?" asked Rep. Kevin Brady, R-Texas, who sponsored the bill.
"It is at its heart an immoral tax," he said.
Democrats say repealing the tax is a giveaway to the rich, since the only families that pay it have many millions in assets. The bill now goes to the Senate where Democrats appear to have enough votes to block it.
The White House has threatened to veto the bill in part because it would add $269 billion to the budget deficit over the next decade.
"This proposed repeal of the estate tax is nothing more than a massive unfunded tax break for a small sliver of America's wealthiest families," said Rep. Jim McDermott, D-Wash. "What are they doing? Shoveling a quarter of a trillion dollars out the door to the richest."
The vote was 240-179.
The House also passed a bill to make permanent a deduction for state and local sales taxes that expired at the beginning of the year. The White House threatened to veto that bill in part because it would have added $42 billion to the budget deficit over the next decade.
The federal tax rate on estates is 40 percent, but big exemptions limit the share of estates that pay it to fewer than 1 percent.
This year, the exemption is $5.43 million for a single person. Married couples can exempt up to $10.9 million. Larger estates pay taxes only on the amounts above these thresholds.
A total of 5,400 estates are expected to pay the tax this year — out of about 2.6 million deaths, according to the nonpartisan Joint Committee on Taxation, which provides official estimates for Congress. That's 0.2 percent of all deaths in the U.S.
Republicans say that some business owners get hit with the tax because they have valuable assets that don't necessarily generate a lot of cash. They cite family farms, which may sit on valuable land but don't generate enough money to pay hefty estate taxes unless heirs sell some or all the land.
"The super rich? They don't pay this tax. They have a legion of lawyers and tax planners. They have charitable trusts and foundations," Brady said. "These are family-owned, hard-working, risk-taking, determined Americans who are building their business, their farm, their ranch. These are not, as we will hear today, the Paris Hiltons and robber barons of the Teddy Roosevelt days."
The deduction for state and local sales taxes helps people who live in the nine states without a state income tax on wages.
House Republicans say the measure is about fairness because people in states that have incomes taxes can deduct those taxes on their federal returns.
The vote was 272-152.
These seven states have no state income tax: Alaska, Florida, Nevada, South Dakota, Texas, Washington and Wyoming. Also, New Hampshire and Tennessee tax income from interest and dividends, but not wages.
The deduction is one of dozens of temporary tax breaks that are routinely extended every year or two. House Republicans are working to make selected ones permanent.
US Marine imprisoned in Iran a victim of torture, cruelty, family says
The family of a U.S. Marine imprisoned in Iran for nearly four years says the American has been drugged, whipped and told a heartbreaking lie that his mother died in a car accident while he awaits a retrial.
The sister and brother-in-law of Amir Hekmati appeared on Fox News Channel's "On the Record w/ Greta Van Susteren," where they described in chilling detail the torture that the veteran has endured since his arrest in August 2011. Hekmati, they said, has suffered stun-gun assaults, has been whipped, dosed with lithium and hung by his arms while held in the Islamic Republic.
But the worst abuse of all may have been the emotional torture of being told by cruel guards that his mother had died, according to his sister, Sarah Hekmati.
“He was put in stressful positions for long periods of time,” said Sarah Hekmati. “He had to endure the news that they had told him that his mother was killed in a car accident; just the emotional torture of being told that and not having a way to contact our family.
“He was drugged with lithium for a long period of time and then forcibly it was removed so that he would have to endure painful withdrawal symptoms and then he was whipped on his feet.”- Sarah Hekmati
Sarah’s husband, Dr. Rami Kurdi, also detailed some the other horrific torture that Hekmati has endured.
“The torture we heard of as described by Amir himself was cold water, dirty cold water poured on the ground whenever he’d fall asleep to kind of keep him awake,” he said. “Lights on day and night, just to interrupt his sleep pattern. And these were just the smaller things. He was hung by his arms, Tasered – hung by his arms for an indefinite amount of time.”
Related Image
This undated file photo released by his family via FreeAmir.org shows Amir Hekmati. (AP)
In January 2012, Hekmati was sentenced to death, but the ruling was overturned two months later, after the Iranian Supreme Court ordered a retrial. Two years later, Hekmati is still awaiting a new day in court. His family told FoxNews.com earlier this month that they believe the recent “framework” nuclear agreement between the West and Iran will help to free the Marine.
“Now that Iran has sat at the table next to the United States, working diligently to come to an agreement for a nuclear program, we ask Iran if they still consider the United States a hostile country and if they do not, perhaps it is time they open the prison gates and allow the Red Cross to visit Amir without guard and report on the status of his well-being,” the family said in a written statement to FoxNews.com. “We call on them to show the international community that they are serious about their intentions and as an act of good faith, return Amir to his dying father, his worried mother, and the family that badly needs him.”
Hillary hypocrisy? Why her fundraising reform pitch Is drawing flak
The hypocrisy police are jumping all over Hillary Clinton now that she is vowing to drive “unaccountable money” out of politics.
Her critics scoff at the notion that this wealthy one-percenter, who will probably obliterate the record for presidential fundraising in the 2016 cycle, is positioning herself as a champion of campaign finance reform.
But is that fair?
Well, it’s hard to argue against the dark shadow of unregulated money when your family’s foundation is taking in all kinds of cash from foreign governments and other outfits that want to cozy up to a potential president and first spouse.
The Clinton Foundation has now agreed to limit its contribution from foreign regimes in a compromise that satisfies no one. It’s now okay to take the big bucks from Britain, Germany, Canada, Australia, Norway and the Netherlands, but not from more “controversial” countries such as Saudi Arabia and Oman. This sort of backdoor financial channel clearly undercuts any financial reform message from Hillary, who has now resigned from the board. This issue is not going away.
But there’s another level on which I think Hillary is getting a bit of a bum rap. And that is the notion that she shouldn’t call for campaign finance reform while on track to raise well over than $2 billion—with hundreds of millions coming from super PACs.
No candidate can engage in unilateral disarmament. If you’re running under a system that amounts to a financial arms race, you have to play to win. You can talk about your ideas for reform, but you can’t allow the other candidates to bury you on the fundraising front.
The press gave President Obama an utter pass on this issue when he ran as an advocate of public financing, only to renege on the idea when he realized that he could raise massive amounts of money and not have to abide by any spending limits. It was this president who escalated the arms race, and the Supreme Court’s 2010 Citizens United decision—aimed at a film about Hillary—let corporations and anonymous donors in on the action.
But here’s why I’m skeptical about Clinton’s professed interest in the issue. She declared the other day that she wants to “fix our dysfunctional political system and get unaccountable money out of it once and for all, even if it takes a constitutional amendment.”
Whenever you hear a politician talking about a constitutional amendment, it’s a punt. They are extraordinarily difficult to pass, requiring two-thirds approval in Congress and then three-quarters of the state legislatures. The process takes years.
When Republican candidates talk about a constitutional amendment to balance the budget, it’s a punt. When George W. Bush campaigned on a constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage, he never pushed it after the election. And for Hillary Clinton to invoke that specter means it’s more of an issue to appeal to good-government liberals than a serious attempt to change the system.
So she’s better start raising truckloads full of dough, because the “dysfunctional” system isn’t changing any time soon.
Security expert pulled off flight by FBI after exposing airline tech vulnerabilities
One of the world’s foremost experts on counter-threat intelligence within the cybersecurity industry, who blew the whistle on vulnerabilities in airplane technology systems in a series of recent Fox News reports, has become the target of an FBI investigation himself.
Chris Roberts of the Colorado-based One World Labs, a security intelligence firm that identifies risks before they're exploited, said two FBI agents and two uniformed police officers pulled him off a United Airlines Boeing 737-800 commercial flight Wednesday night just after it landed in Syracuse, and spent the next four hours questioning him about cyberhacking of planes.
The FBI interrogation came just hours after Fox News published a report on Roberts’ research, in which he said: “We can still take planes out of the sky thanks to the flaws in the in-flight entertainment systems. Quite simply put, we can theorize on how to turn the engines off at 35,000 feet and not have any of those damn flashing lights go off in the cockpit.”
His findings, along with those of another security expert quoted in the Fox News reports, were backed up a GAO report released Tuesday.
“If you don’t have people like me researching and blowing the whistle on system vulnerabilities, we will find out the hard way what those vulnerabilities are when an attack happens,” Roberts said.
With increasingly sophisticated attacks on a number of targets, Roberts has consulted with numerous government and private clients to identify threats to financial and intellectual property, customer data and other protected information. He also has served as both an in-house security expert and consultant on IT security, engineering and architecture and design operations for scores of Fortune 500 companies across the finance, retail, energy and services sectors.
He regularly engages with various government agencies on critical security issues of national importance. Ironically, Roberts met with the FBI at the agency’s request three times after the agency asked for his guidance on protecting airplanes from cyberhackers.
Wednesday night, FBI agents confiscated Roberts’ numerous electronic devices and computer files including his laptop and thumb drives and demanded he give them access to his data. They wanted to forensically image his laptop, but it is a company-owned asset with client information, research and intellectual property, some of which is sensitive in nature and encrypted.
So after consulting with his CEO, Roberts told the agents they would need a warrant, something they still have not presented.
FBI agents disclosed to Roberts that they also had questioned fellow passengers and forensically examined the plane to determine if any areas had been tampered with.
“You have one element in the FBI reaching out to people like me for help, but another element doing a hell of a job burning those bridges,” Roberts said. “Those of us who do threat research are doing it for the right reasons, and we work to build relationships with the intelligence community because we want to help them identify weaknesses before they become a problem.”
Roberts flew from Denver to Chicago to Syracuse at the invitation of a defense contractor to speak an aerospace conference about vulnerabilities in airplane systems, a topic Roberts commented on for Fox News in late March, when he said commercial and even military planes have an Achilles heel that could leave them vulnerable to hackers or terrorists on the ground due to flaws in the entertainment and satellite communications systems.
Roberts’ findings were featured on FoxNews.com, on Fox News Radio and on the Fox News show "On the Record with Greta Van Susteren" on March 19, 2015, and again on April 15, 2015.
Ruben Santamarta, principal security consultant for IOActive, told Fox News he also discovered a backdoor that allowed him to gain privileged access to the Satellite Data Unit, the most important piece of SATCOM (Satellite communications) equipment on aircraft.
“These vulnerabilities allowed unauthenticated users to hack into the SATCOM equipment when it is accessible through WiFi or In-Flight entertainment networks,” Santamarta said.
There are “multiple high risk vulnerabilities” such as weak encryption algorithms or insecure protocols in SATCOM technologies manufactured by some of the world’s largest companies, Santamarta found.
“These vulnerabilities have the potential to allow a malicious actor to intercept, manipulate or block communications, and in some cases, to remotely take control of the physical device,” Santamarta reported.
The Government Accountability Office also presented a series of threatening scenarios for passengers, saying the same Internet access now available on most commercial flights makes it possible for hackers to bring down a plane in a report published Tuesday.
"According to cybersecurity experts we interviewed, Internet connectivity in the cabin should be considered a direct link between the aircraft and the outside world, which includes potential malicious actors," the GAO report states.
The worst-case scenario is a terrorist with a laptop sitting among passengers and taking control of the airplane using its passenger Wi-Fi, said Rep. Peter DeFazio, D-Ore., a member of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee who requested the investigation.
"That's a serious vulnerability, and FAA should work quickly" to fix the problem, DeFazio told the Associated Press.
Roberts isn’t sure what will happen next. He had to make his presentation to the defense industry Thursday in Syracuse without his electronics. Friday morning, he was scheduled to fly back to Denver, something he hopes he will be allowed to do. He already has been pre-checked through TSA, another irony he pointed out.
“The TSA has already dug into my background and cleared me for the pre-check program,” Roberts said, noting several other government agencies he’s worked with have done the same.
Paul Bresson, the Unit Chief for the FBI National Press Office at the FBI headquarters in Washington D.C., said in response to a Fox News inquiry about the Roberts’ detainment: “We have no comment on this matter.”
Bergdahl's platoon mates: Head of Joint Chiefs knew he walked off base in 2009
Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl walked away from his base in Afghanistan June 30, 2009, and by December of that same year, the president's principal military adviser, then-Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Admiral Mike Mullen, knew those details, according to three of Bergdahl's platoon mates who spoke to Fox News.
"I asked him (Mullen) if he knew about Bergdahl and that he deserted and he (Mullen) told me that he knew of the circumstances surrounding his walking off," former Sgt. Matt Vierkant told Fox,"(and) that they were developing leads and following leads, trying to do everything they could to get him back."
After pulling security duty for the chairman, who was doing a swing through Afghanistan in December 2009, Vierkant, along with Evan Buetow and Cody Full, said they met informally with Mullen and about eight other soldiers. After a pep talk about the mission, the three said Mullen asked the squad leaders and platoon leadership to take a break.
"He sat down with all the lower enlisted guys and the team leaders and basically he said, 'Hey, what do you want to know...You got any questions? He's like, I'm an open book. Let's just have a little question and answer session," Buetow explained.
"So Matt asked him, you know Bergdahl deserted, what's going on with that? And Admiral Mullen said, 'Yes, we know all the circumstances surrounding Bergdahl walking away from the OP (outpost,)and we're still working on getting him back, figuring out where he is and kind of figuring out that whole situation.’"
This account was backed up by a third platoon mate, former Specialist Cody Full. The men were split on whether Mullen singled them out because of the Bergdahl connection or whether it was a chance meeting, but they emphasized that at the time, they appreciated the fact that Mullen seemed to speak candidly and openly.
“I don't remember him being taken aback by it at all, you know, he knew what was going on, he answered not confidently but he didn't have to think about it, he didn't want to give us some political answer,” Buetow explained. “He just gave us an answer.
Asked if there was any ambiguity based on the conversation, Vierkant said no. "Without a doubt, he (Mullen) knew he (Bergdahl) deserted or, you know, was suspected of desertion. There was no doubt in my mind that he fully understood what Bergdahl did."
The three said they felt relieved, and grateful to Mullen for the conversation.
The men's account is significant because Mullen reported directly to President Obama and then Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, and the reported admission comes a full four and a half years before National Security Adviser Susan Rice said Bergdahl served honorably and his parents were called to the White House for a Rose Garden ceremony after he had been swapped for five Taliban commanders.
"If Mullen knew, and now it's alleged that he did know, it would be, it would be unthinkable that he didn't pump this up the chain of command, his chain of command, or, tell the president directly," Brad Blakeman who served in the Bush White House, explained. "At a minimum, this would have been included in the president's daily brief, and at a maximum, it would've been told directly to the President by Mullen."
In a statement to Fox News, Mullen said, "From the moment Sgt. Bergdahl went missing, the U.S. Military was focused on finding him--as it does with any serviceman or woman who goes missing. The exact circumstances were not known then, nor did they drive our decisions. We do not leave our people behind."
Fox has extended an open invitation to the Admiral to explain his recollection of events during the 2009 trip, what he knew in December 2009 about the circumstances surrounding Bergdahl’s capture, and whether he told anything to the president and defense secretary, or if the circumstances were already well understood at senior levels of the White House.
A military official who was travelling with Mullen during the 2009 Afghanistan trip confirmed Bergdahl's teammates did pull security during a leg of the trip,
While not commenting on the claims that they met informally with Mullen, the official said it was common practice for Mullen to ask leadership to take a break so that he could speak directly and candidly with soldiers.
"I want to ask him (Mullen) did they brief the White House? Who knew about it and why would you still do this trade knowing all the information that you knew?" Vierkant said. "We don't leave anyone behind. The thing is, we never left him (Bergdahl) behind. He left us behind. He chose to walk off and do whatever and get captured, that was his fault. Those were his choices."
Bergdahl has not been convicted of any charges, but faces a military court martial in the summer.
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