Townhall Cartoons

Ben Carson explains benefits of investing in 'Opportunity Zones' for areas facing economic challenges

Housing and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson spoke on “The Next Revolution with Steve Hilton” in an interview that aired Sunday about proposed new regulations aimed at making it easier for investors to take advantage of tax breaks for investing in “Opportunity Zones” in low-income areas.
“Policies have been pretty much aimed at putting people into programs,” Carson said, and now the Trump administration is trying to get poor Americans “out of the programs and self-sufficient.”
President Trump said last week that 8,700 neighborhoods across all 50 states and U.S. territories have received the Opportunity Zone designation and would be eligible for the federal tax incentives he's proposed.
“The entire island of Puerto Rico is an opportunity zone,” Carson said.
“We are very concerned about the rural areas, too,” he added.
Trump’s proposed regulations were issued by the Treasury Department. They sought to clear up questions that were keeping some investors from using the incentives.
The program was included in the $1.5 trillion tax cut legislation that Trump pushed through Congress in 2017.
The new Opportunity Zones were set up to enable private investors to re-invest profits into designated areas.
“They are going to invest that money somewhere,” Carson said.
He noted private investors would do what they do because they “want to be successful.”
As White House officials have explained, investors in Opportunity Zones could get tax benefits by deferring their capital gains taxes invested in the zones until 2026. They also could receive discounts of up to 15 percent on capital-gains profits invested in the zones and would pay no capital-gains taxes on investments in the zones held for at least 10 years.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Trump administration set to end sanction exemptions for nations importing Iranian oil: report

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo speaks at a news conference to announce the Trump administration's plan to designate Iran's Revolutionary Guard a "foreign terrorist organization." (AP Photo/Patrick Semansky, File)

The Trump administration is set to inform five nations that they will no longer be exempt from U.S. sanctions if they continue to import oil from Iran, reports said Sunday.
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo plans to announce the policy move on Monday, which would no longer renew sanctions waivers for allies Japan, South Korea, and Turkey. The other countries no longer exempt are China and India.
The waivers for sanctions will expire on May 2. The Washington Post first reported on the move, and three sources confirmed the report to the Associated Press.
President Trump finalized the measure on Friday, according to the Post, in an effort to apply “maximum economic pressure” by cutting off its oil exports and reducing its main revenue source to zero.
In reaction to the administration’s move and expectations of tightening supply, early trading on Monday indicated Benchmark Brent crude oil futures rose by as much as 3.2 percent to $74.31 a barrel, the highest since Nov. 1, Reuters reports.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Mark Levin blasts Mueller report as ‘impeachment’ manual for House Dems and media

The Mueller report is a 400-page, $35 million op-ed that amounts to an “impeachment report” for the liberal media and House Democrats, argued Mark Levin on his Sunday program, “Life, Liberty & Levin." '
The Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s nearly two-year investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election found “no collusion” between President Trump and Russia. The Department of Justice released a redacted version of the report in two volumes on Thursday.
Levin called the result a "pathetic joke of a report" that established nothing the general public didn't already know and its findings didn't warrant a "special investigation."
“There’s no collusion, says the Special Counsel. That takes one sentence. It doesn’t take 200 damn pages. It doesn’t take $35 million dollars,” Levin said, referring to Vol. 2 of the report.
Despite the Democrats warning of a "Saturday Night Massacre" like President Nixon during Watergate, President Trump never asserted executive privilege to prevent documents or people around him from talking to Mueller. He was an open book," Levin argued.
But after the report found no evidence of collusion, the Democrats, who had been discussing impeachment since the day after Trump was elected, pivoted to pinning obstruction of justice charges on the president, Levin said.
"This is an abuse of power by a prosecutor. This is the only prosecutor in the entire country who writes a report under justice department regulations, a report that is only supposed to go to the Attorney General, who then makes decisions about whether to release any of it. Or all of it, because there’s no requirement for this to be released at all," Levin said.
The Mueller report is, essentially, Levin argued, "an impeachment report" that was written for the "media and the "Democrats in the House of Representatives."
“They wrote it for CNN, they wrote it for MSNBC. They wrote it for Nadler and Schiff and all the other reprobates. They wrote the report for them,” Levin said.
Levin said the investigation "runs completely contrary to a civilized society" and a "constitutional system," yet there is not a single Democrat member of the House of Representatives or "so-called news person" at any major outlet that appears to be concerned.

Pete Buttigieg draws parallels between Trump fans and Bernie Sanders supporters: report

Democratic presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg on Friday said that President Trump’s supporters were similar to Bernie Sanders’ supporters because they both feel marginalized and want to tear down the system.
The comments came during a campaign stop in downtown Nashua, N.H. before a crowd of mostly high school students, according to The Washington Examiner.
The 37-year-old mayor of South Bend, Ind. said that a sense of “anger and disaffection” grows from neighborhoods and families who are struggling to get by despite reports of a healthy economy.
“It just kind of turns you against the system in general and then you’re more likely to want to vote to blow up the system, which could lead you to somebody like Bernie and it could lead you to somebody like Trump. That’s how we got where we are,” Buttigieg said.
Buttigieg drew a distinction between himself and the 77-year-old Vermont Senator, saying that although he greatly admires Sanders, “I don’t have the same views on everything that he does.”

Easter 2019

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez faces questions after her boyfriend gets congressional email account

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is facing ethics questions after revelations the freshman lawmaker's office gave her boyfriend a congressional email account.
The democratic socialist waded into the issue in response to a tweet alleging boyfriend Riley Roberts had been put on staff. The tweet included a screenshot of an official House email address. Ocasio-Cortez insisted that he was only given the email account so he could access her calendar.
“Actually this calendar designation is a permission so he can have access to my Google Calendar. Congressional spouses get Gcal access all the time,” Ocasio-Cortez wrote, after political consultant Luke Thompson tweeted the picture showing Roberts having an official account like other staffers on the Hill. "Next time check your facts before you tweet nonsense."
Asked about the arrangement, David O'Boyle, the spokesperson for the Office of the Chief Administrative Officer, told Fox News: "From time to time, at the request of members, spouses and partners are provided House email accounts for the purposes of viewing the member’s calendar."
But Jason Chaffetz, former chairman of the House Oversight Committee, said Ocasio-Cortez' claims don’t stack up.
"It’s totally naïve and inappropriate – you wouldn’t allow it in most companies, let alone the House of Representatives. There should be real consequences,” Chaffetz told Fox News.

"It’s totally naïve and inappropriate – you wouldn’t allow it in most companies, let alone the House of Representatives."
— Jason Chaffetz

“When I was in the House, my scheduler would forward my wife my schedule once a week. But you’re not allowed unfettered access. And he isn’t even her spouse,” he added. “... It should be referred to the ethics committee for further investigation.”
Meanwhile, Thompson's tweet touched off a Twitter battle with the congresswoman's staff.
Saikat Chakrabarti, the congresswoman’s chief of staff, insisted that the boyfriend isn’t on the payroll and that he’s not doing any work related to the government.
“He's not paid. We have no volunteers in the office. He's not doing any government work. He can see her calendar just like spouses/partners/family members in other congressional office,” he wrote, adding in another tweet, “Spouses and partners normally get http://mail.house.gov e-mail addresses for the purpose of getting calendar access.”
House IT rules generally prohibit the use of “the House’s electronic mail systems and resources” by unauthorized members, and only “U.S. House of Representative Members, Officers, Employees, Fellows, Interns and Contractors” with appropriate permission can use the system. Still, O'Boyle cited the practice of sometimes allowing spouses access.
Chaffetz said that Roberts having email access could also create other security issues and the matter should be referred to the Capitol Police for further investigation.
“Being given a password to get into the House computer system has other potentially problematic issues,” he said.
Ocasio-Cortez’s office did not respond to Fox News’ requests for comment.

Angry Young White Guy Riley Roberts :-)

AOC Will Join Impeachment Resolution

Freshman Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., says she will add her name to an impeachment resolution aimed at President Donald Trump following the release of special counsel Robert Mueller's report.
The proposal, put forward by lawmaker Rep. Rashida Tlaib, D-Mich., calls on the House Judiciary Committee to probe whether or not the president committed any offenses that rise to the level of impeachment.

"Mueller's report is clear in pointing to Congress' responsibility in investigating obstruction of justice by the president," she tweeted Thursday night.  

"It is our job as outlined in Article 1, Sec 2, Clause 5 of the U.S. Constitution," Rep. Ocasio-Cortez added. "As such, I'll be signing onto @RashidaTlaib's impeachment resolution."
Mueller did not charge Trump for obstruction, but detailed numerous examples in his 448-page report released Thursday in which Trump asked his aides to take actions that would have obstructed the Russia probe.

"With respect to whether the president can be found to have obstructed justice by exercising his powers under Article II of the Constitution, we concluded that Congress has the authority to prohibit a president's corrupt use of his authority in order to protect the integrity of the administration of justice," Mueller wrote.

"The president's efforts to influence the investigation were mostly unsuccessful, but that is largely because the persons who surrounded the President declined to carry out orders or accede to his requests," the special counsel added.