Okay heres one of the things I have been wondering about: The wall is to keep out foreigners, especially terrorists. Well what about the 4000 mile border between US and Canada? You think terrorists cant get into Canada? Whats to stop them from just coming in that way? Don't we need a wall there too? There is no way CBP cant adequately secure that border as things are now. I never hear anybody talking about a northern wall. Just the southern wall, which a year later and very little if any progress on that. I thought Trump was going to secure our borders? That was one of the big promises. Somebody please explain.

AntiE, once again you have shed light for the deniers. I'm curious how many Trump h**ers will continue vomiting the left media spin, without even casting an eye upon the memo.
I can't help but wonder if the FISA court judge was on the side of the many l*****t Trump hating Federal Court judges that were more concerned with stomping out President Trumps executive orders than upholding the constitution and to the extent knowingly did not ask questions that in other non Trump spy requests would be certain to dot every i, cross every t. Then one must ask, how involved was Obama? How many l*****t congressman or senators knew the details? I'm not settled in believing after Hillary fixed the primaries, was exonerated by the same FBI that orders didn't come from the oval office.

EXCELLANT AND WELL SAID!!!! Even with thte differences the conservatives have with the left, it doesnt mean we cant be on the same side. The corruption affects all of us. If we could at least agree that all of this BS is effecting all of us then perhaps at least in the interim call a cease fire and work togethter and completely sterilize this govermnet of or from all of the crap thats being pulled on ALL OF US! After that, who knows, maybe the left will not want to be so left and instead be more open minded. Just sayin.
Semper Fi

My "employees" were subcontractors.. they made a deal with me. I offered them work, them decided if they wanted to accept of not.. it was up to them..

I make no demands on people.. I do get PO when they do not pay their taxes.. do you pay yours?? If you have the smallest aamount of love for country, you sure as heck should do so..

So, you agree with me.. GE a huge company paid no corporate tax before the tax gift from trump.. what will they do now?? get a refund of the amount they did not pay??

Now I will ask one more time.. the middle class lost all the exemptions (loopholes) they had in the old tax program. now they have none..

did the loopholes for corporations also get removed? Or with the lower tax they also still have the loopholes???

I should point out that the proposed spending by Exxon is not an increase but a match for the same time period of past years.

Only change is the gift of 6 billion dollars...

http://money.cnn.com/2018/02/02/investing/exxon-earnings-tax-law-oil/index.html

ExxonMobil scored a massive gain from the Republican tax overhaul.
The tax windfall helped Exxon's (XOM) net profits surge fivefold, the world's largest publicly traded oil company said on Friday.

Excluding the tax bonanza, Exxon's results left Wall Street wanting more. Adjusted earnings unexpectedly declined and revenue missed the mark by a wide margin. Exxon shares slumped about 5%.

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SMARTASSET.COM
One problem: Exxon isn't pumping as much oil as it used to following years of budget cuts forced by the crash in crude prices. The company's overall production dropped 3% in 2017.

Exxon said the federal tax law enacted by President Trump in December gave the company a non-cash earnings gain of $5.9 billion. That's because the corporate tax rate has been lowered from 35% to 21%. Like other companies, the reduced rate allowed Exxon to write down the amount of money it owed Uncle Sam in the future, known as deferred income taxes.

Exxon was not hurt by the part of the tax law that forced companies to bring foreign profits back to the United States. The company said it generally paid taxes on these overseas profits at around 35% anyway, allowing it to avoid a repatriation tax hit.

Related: America does export energy. It imports a lot more

CEO Darren Woods said the tax overhaul "strengthens our commitment to further grow our business" in the United States.

Exxon promised this week to invest more than $50 billion in the U.S. over the next five years, a move that the company said will create "thousands of jobs" and boost the economy.

Specifically, Exxon said it plans to invest "billions of dollars to increase oil production in the Permian Basin" of West Texas and New Mexico, expand existing operations, enhance infrastructure and build new manufacturing sites.

Woods said the investment is "supported by the improved business climate created by tax reform."

However, Exxon did not indicate whether its $50 billion U.S. investment target represents an increase from its previous plan.

Consider that the five-year goal mirrors the roughly $50 billion Exxon spent in the United States between 2012 and 2016, according to filings.

That's because pumping oil and natural gas can be extremely expensive, forcing major companies to spend heavily just to keep their output steady.

Exxon had been expected to shift its resources back to America after the energy company was late to the U.S. shale oil boom because it focused on overseas projects instead.

Exxon said it wants to triple production in the fast-growing Permian Basin shale oil field.

https://ricochet.com/492444/the-memo-for-dummies/

The Memo for Dummies

February 3, 2018

There is a lot of confusion out there about The Memo and its significance. There shouldn’t be because this really isn’t very complicated. I’m going to explain it simply so that even our more august yet occasionally mystified podcast hosts and hostesses can get it.

We have something called a FISA Court. This was created back in the 1970s, in response to Congressional allegations of abuse carried out by our intelligence agencies. The Court exists to assure that we have some control over the reach of our intelligence agencies, and to hold them accountable. Why do we need that? Because the government has to spy on people to keep us safe, but giving the government the authority to spy on people is inherently risky. So that authority has to be controlled, and that’s the function of the FISA Court.

What The Memo alleges, and what has yet to be refuted, is, most bluntly, that the Clinton campaign paid for a salacious document — the Steele Dossier — to be created attacking its political foe, Donald Trump; that this document, though its charges were unconfirmed, then became a critical element in a request, brought before the FISA Court by the FBI, to spy on people associated with the Trump campaign; and that the Court was informed neither of the fact that the Clinton campaign commissioned the document nor that there was no substantiation of the document’s t***hfulness — worse, the Court was misled, by the FBI, into believing that there was independent confirmation of the document, when in fact there was not.

As a consequence, US intelligence agencies were authorized by the incumbent administration to spy on the campaign of the opposition party candidate during a historically contentious and critical national e******n.
It gets worse, but you don’t need more. All you have to know is that there are credible allegations that, in spite of the protections supposedly provided by the FISA Court, one administration was able, under incomplete and false pretenses, to spy on the opposition’s political campaign during the p**********l e******n.

This isn’t about Mueller. This isn’t about Nunes. This isn’t about Schiff. This isn’t about Trump. This isn’t about Obama. This isn’t about Clinton. This isn’t about Russian collusion. This isn’t about how the press is going to spin it, or what it will do for our respect for institutions. This isn’t, as the smart people over at Need to Know like to say, about “a failure to follow ‘best practices.'”

This is about the FBI spying on a political campaign.

There’s nothing subtle or ambiguous here if the allegations in The Memo are true. When the Court having the ultimate duty to prevent abuse of our intelligence services is asked, during an e******n season, for permission to spy on the opposition candidate’s campaign, all sorts of alarms should sound. Of all the possible requests, this should be the most problematic, and the most troubling, and the one for which the highest standards should be upheld by the Court.

So when we’re told, by the New York Times, that the Court was informed that the Steele Dossier had “political” connections behind it, but that the Court was not told that it sprang from the Democratic National Committee and the Clinton campaign, that should prompt us to ask, immediately: What? Did the Court not ask what “political” connections meant, in this context? Or did the Court ask, and the FBI decline to provide a factual response? Just what happened here?

Democracy dies in darkness, as they say. It’s time to shine some light on the FISA Court and find out what happened during the campaign. There is nothing in this matter that shouldn’t be unclassified, if necessary, to answer that question.
Published in Politics

I'm sure AuntiE's felines will agree. Or will they?

(From the title I feel certain you all thought this post from me would be something else!)

WATCH: Devin Nunes Drops BOMBSHELL After Releasing The Memo: There's More Coming
"We are in the middle of what I call 'phase two' of our investigation, which involves other departments."
Screenshot: Fox News Video
ByRYAN SAAVEDRA February 2, 2018
House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes (R-CA) revealed on Friday that there would be more memos released as the committee concluded its investigation into abuse of FISA warrants by the Obama administration – and the State Department is next.

Appearing on Fox News' "Special Report" with host Bret Baier, Nunes said that today's release of the memo on FISA abuse was only the beginning of their investigation.

When asked by Baier if more memos would come out, Nunes responded, "Yes, this completes just the FISA abuse portion of our investigation," adding that the "investigation is ongoing."

"We are in the middle of what I call 'phase two' of our investigation, which involves other departments," Nunes continued. "Specifically, the State Department and some of the involvement they had in this."

WATCH:


READ MORE: BARACK OBAMA DEVIN NUNES DONALD TRUMP STATE DEPARTMENT TRUMP ADMINISTRATION