A teacher paid $135,901 last year who had student debt forgiven was the “honored” guest of U.S. Rep. Ayanna Pressley at the State of the Union address.

That teacher, who also owns a home in Dedham with her husband assessed in Zillow online records at about $1 million, was given $117,000 in student debt relief, Pressley says in a press release.

“Priscilla is a first generation American, a proud union educator with Boston Public Schools and the Boston Teachers Union, and the daughter of a Colombian immigrant, who has received over $117,000 in student debt relief under the Biden-Harris Administration’s improved Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF) Program,” Pressley writes.

City payroll records posted by the Herald show that teacher, Priscilla Higuera Valentine, earned $135,901 in 2023; $116,595 in 2022; and $114,112 in 2021.

She is listed as a school teacher at the Conley Elementary School in Roslindale.

Now, I'm not here to argue about global warming or any of that.

I just want to point out that when you get to redefine terms to not mean what the reasonable reader might think, you can always be right:

The study defines "ice-free" as when the Arctic Ocean has less than 1 million square kilometers, or 386,000 square miles, of ice.

I mean, I could sell ice cream and advertise it as "turd free", but define "turd free" as contains less than one dog turd per 5 gallons of ice cream. But defining it that way sure doesn't seem like I'd be truthful or accurate.

I'm sure that there is some agreement among the arctic researchers that 1Msqkm is a critical level, but here's a good time for scientists to use a more accurate term or to make up a term. "Critically low" or "Below the 1Msqkm threshold" or "Lowest ever recorded." Even "below one gargleflop, where a gargleflop is the level of ice scientists believe is a critical threshold for [reasons]". Maybe even "Oh God Oh God we're all gonna die!"

But not "ice-free"! That means something already, something which is not 1Msqkm of ice!

If nothing else, using this term with an asterisk for the redefinition sets up the now almost certain-to-occur scenario where in 2035 someone with an axe to grind will visit the Arctic and say "Hey, remember when the scientists said the Artic would be ice-free by 2035? Well, I'm standing here on part of a huge ice pack, which I'm told is almost one million square kilometers of ice! Looks like they were wrong again!"

"why bother with all the AI, bots, drones and cameras?"

It's not about criminals, it's about the surveillance state. They want to see what everyone is doing all the time. Makes it easier to control people.

'This Is Hell': These Eight Men Who Brutally Assaulted a Minor Won't Get Any Jail Time

The attack occurred in 2020. The victim, then just 15-years-old, was assaulted, dragged into the bushes by the perpetrators, and raped. The reason is that they had a rough go of it as immigrants. I’m not kidding.

The German outlet noted that the 11 indicted suspects represented a range of nationalities. Four were German, while others hailed from Kuwait, Poland, Egypt, Libya and Iran.

A female psychiatrist testifying on behalf of the defendants argued that their alleged gang rape was a “means of releasing frustration and anger” stemming from their “migration experiences and socio-cultural homelessness,” according to the Hamburger Morgenpost.

Of course not. And good for him and everyone else who legally minimizes their taxes.

However, it's disingenuous of him to say "tax me more" at the same time he is working very hard taking every possible route to minimizing his taxes, even to the point where he is skirting FICA taxes.

Yeah, it was a sarcastic rhetorical question. But thanks for making the point.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/p...

Four years on, however, there is evidence that New Jersey’s bag prohibition not only failed to curb plastic usage, it backfired. According to a new study released on January 9 by the Freedonia Group, 53 million pounds worth of plastic shopping bags were used in New Jersey prior to implementation of the state’s bag ban, a figure that has risen to 151 million pounds since the prohibition was instituted.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news...

Plastic consumption in New Jersey tripled despite the state's 2022 plastic ban meant to and address the "problem of plastic pollution," according to a study from a business-research firm.

The study found that the state's law banning single-use plastic bags led to a 60% decrease in the total bag volume, according to analysis from the Freedonia Report, MarketResearch.com's business research division.

However, as consumers started searching for alternatives and purchasing plastic reusable bags, the state saw plastic consumption triple, largely because of the material used in the alternative bags, the report shows.

False dichotomy. There's plenty of middle ground between treating the whole world as a garbage dump and banning plastic bags for any and all reasons.

My grocery store has a recycling bin specifically for bags. I've never littered a plastic bag in my life. I bring my own carryall bags when I shop, but sometimes I end up with more than the bags I brought can carry and I get a few plastic bags, too, or the store puts meat or frozen stuff in a plastic bag before putting it in my carryall. Sometimes I just forget the bags. But I retain all the plastic bags and return them to the store's recycling bin.

Oddly, no "tax me more" billionaire has elected to donate billions to the US government, maybe they don't know the treasury is ready and able to accept gifts?

Re: "tax-me-more" Warren Buffett.

He holds assets that represent unrealized capital gains in the several tens of billions (primarily shares of Berkshire-Hathaway). If BH were to go belly up tomorrow, his holdings become worthless. His company pays him a salary of $100,000 each year, and he "earns" a few million dollars every year in interest and dividends. This income, plus his salary, is what he pays taxes on, much of which is taxed at the lower capital gains rate rather than income tax rate. Quoting his tax rate, as Buffett loves to do, based on CG rates compared to his secretaries, based on income tax rates (and not at his or her *effective* income tax rate, at that) is apples and oranges.

Mr Buffet takes full advantage of the tax system to minimize his taxes. He has accountants and tax lawyers. He has clearly structured his affairs to minimize his taxes, as, for example, when he established trusts for his children.

It is further worth noting that when Mr. Buffet and his friends Bill & Melinda Gates set out to figure out how to improve the world, they created the tax-exempt foundation and donated billions of dollars to the foundation, rather than simply letting the government have that money (either through donation or taxation). We have to ask why? Didn't they trust to government to do the "right thing" with that money?

Finally, note that both Gates and Buffet, when they donated to the foundation, did so by giving away appreciated shares of their respective companies, thus garnering for themselves the largest tax break possible--not only did they not have to pay GC taxes on the gains (substantial they were, too), but they get to claim the *appreciated* value as a deductible charitable contribution. So, if WB had been granted one share of BH when it sold for $1000, he would owe income taxes on on the $1000. But if he held that share until BH sold for $200,000 per share, he would owe income taxes on the $1000, and CG taxes on the $199,000 difference. But by donating the share to the foundation, he still owes income taxes on the $1000, pays no CG taxes, and gets to claim $200,000 charitable donation (which can go a long way to offsetting any other income he has).

Notice that Warren Buffet, Jef Bezos, and other billionaires have their companies pay them comparatively tiny salaries, e.g., Buffett and Bezos had salaries of $100k...they're not even maxing out their FICA taxes! Lots of them also have "donated" a lot of their money to their personal foundations, taking huge write-offs avoiding both capital gains taxes and offsetting any income taxes that might be owed.

Forbes:

Buffett told [interviewer Charlie] Rose his 2010 adjusted gross income was $62 million. He implied that most income came from long-term capital gains and qualifying dividends currently taxed up to 15%. Only a small portion of his gross income – a few million dollars for Buffett – is ordinary income, like wages and interest income, taxed at higher ordinary income tax rates currently up to 35%.

Buffett [said] that he uses the maximum 30% charitable contribution deduction each year – for appreciated property – and he has a $10 billion carryover of charitable contributions for subsequent use too.

Buffett’s 30% charity tax deduction offsets his entire ordinary income, and next it offsets his lower long-term capital gains income. Hence, he pays approximately 15% long term capital gains tax rates only, and – as he likes to say – it’s a lower tax rate than others in his office pay.

Buffett also avoids nasty alternative minimum taxes (AMT) of 28%. Charity is a powerful tax savings tool to avoid income, AMT and estate taxes.

Please be specific, concrete, and across the board so that we can know what a fair share is for everyone anywhere on the income spectrum.

How much, exactly, is a fair share?

N/M

We can't have anything nice.

'You will own nothing, and you will be happy.'".

So says the World Economic Forum, or at least some of their officials have said so publicly.

Rather than paying drivers, what happens if drivers pay the company an auction fee for each winning bid? Uber & Lyft & Doordash would not be employing or paying drivers at all, but simply providing a platform where customers who need services are put in front of drivers that can perform them, who can then bid by offering their service at a rate the driver chooses. When the customer accepts a bid, the company does basically the same things it does now, but rather than collecting all the fees the paying the driver, they charge the driver the auction fee.