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Johnson Mocks Reports GOP Plan to Defund IRS Will Cost US Taxpayers Up to $90 Billion

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Speaker Mike Johnson is mocking and dismissing several reports finding House Republicans’ legislation allegedly “offsetting” $14.3 billion in emergency funding for Israel to fight Hamas terrorists by defunding the IRS will cost U.S. taxpayers up to $90 billion.

Republicans want to gut a portion of President Joe Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act, which increases funding for IRS to pursue taxpayers who make over $400,000 annually but are not paying the appropriate amount of taxes.

Republicans’ “plan to ‘offset’ Israel aid will cost $90 billion, IRS Commissioner Daniel Werfel tells me,” reports The Washington Post’s congressional economics correspondent Jacob Bogage.

“All of those funds go to increased scrutiny on tax evasion going on at the highest wealth levels,” Werfel also told him.

READ MORE: Mike Johnson Collaborated for Years With Discredited ‘Ex-Gay’ Group to Target Teens

“The nonpartisan budget office [CBO] estimated that the GOP bill would add $12.5 billion to the deficit through 2033 — far less than Werfel’s estimate of $90 billion — and projected it would result in $26.8 billion in lost tax revenue,” The Post reports separately, but that CBO estimate methodology was dictated by the direction House Republicans put in the bill on how the CBO was allowed to calculate the legislation’s impact.

Noted economist and professor Justin Wolfers blasted right-wing writer Stephen Moore, pointing out that “Funding the IRS pays for itself (plus some)…”

“Reminder,” commented civil rights and national security journalist Marcy Wheeler, Speaker Johnson “is attempting to use a terrorist attack to save tax cheats $90B EVEN WHILE the single solitary thing House GOP has done since January is pursue Hunter Biden for tax crimes.”

Responding to one report that says House Republicans’ bill would cost $27 billion, The White House’s Andrew Bates writes: “That’s a hell of a price the @HouseGOP wants to make Americans pay just so they can politicize defense support for Israel and give Russia a pass for killing Ukrainians with Iranian weapons.”

Meanwhile, on Capitol Hill, Fox News asked Speaker Johnson if he was “surprised” by the CBO’s projection.

RELATED: ‘There Are American Hostages’: House GOP Slammed for ‘Exploiting a War to Pass a Tax Cut’

“Only in Washington when you cut spending do they call it an increase in the deficit,” replied Johnson, mocking both the CBO and its score of the GOP legislation.

Watch Johnson below or at this link.

 

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Trump Wails His Judge Was Appointed by ‘Democrat Politicians’ – That’s False

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During one of several rants outside the courtroom Monday during his New York trial for alleged criminal business records falsification, election interference, and “hush money,” Donald Trump repeatedly complained falsely that the judge overseeing the case was appointed by “Democrat politicians.”

Trump is well-acquainted with New York Supreme Court Justice Juan Merchan.

Merchan was the judge who presided over the trial of Trump’s former Chief Financial Officer, Allan Weisselberg, who was convicted. He also presided over the fraud and money-laundering trial of former Trump 2016 campaign CEO and senior White House counselor Steve Bannon.

“We have a corrupt judge, and we have a judge who’s highly-conflicted,” Trump, nearly yelling, told reporters Monday afternoon. “And he’s keeping me from campaigning. He’s an appointed, New York judge, he’s appointed.”

READ MORE: ‘He Wasn’t Thinking About Melania’: Cohen Reveals Trump’s Fears in ‘Hush Money’ Testimony

“You know who appointed him? Democrat politicians. He’s appointed.”

Trump repeated his baseless claims Merchan is “corrupt” and “conflicted,” adding, “he ought to let us go out and campaign and get rid of this scam.”

Trump is incorrect about Judge Merchan’s background: he was not appointed by “Democrat politicians.”

In 2006, Republican New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg appointed Merchan to his first judicial post, to the New York City Family Court. In 2009, Chief Administrative Judge Ann Pfau appointed Merchan as Acting Justice to the Supreme Court of New York. Pfau was appointed to her first judicial post by Republican New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani.

READ MORE: Johnson Would Contest 2024 Election Results Under the Same ‘Circumstances’

Trump also appeared to suggest appointed judges are somehow suspect – despite frequently bragging that he himself appointed three justices to the U.S. Supreme Court, not to mention 234 judges in total he appointed to the federal bench.

Some legal experts believe a system where judges are appointed rather than elected serves justice better.

“The quality of justice suffers when politics invades the judicial sphere, casting doubt on the impartiality of case outcomes and eroding public confidence in our nation’s system of justice,” an article at the American Bar Association reads.

Watch Trump below or at this link.

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‘He Wasn’t Thinking About Melania’: Cohen Reveals Trump’s Fears in ‘Hush Money’ Testimony

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Former Trump “fixer” Michael Cohen in damning testimony Monday told jurors about Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump’s fears in 2016 when the “Access Hollywood” tape dropped, and what his real concerns were about the bombshell audio that nearly ended his nascent political career.

Cohen revealed that in 2015 when the then-real estate magnate announced he was running for president, Trump told him, “Be prepared. There’s going to be a lot of women coming forward,” according to Courthouse News.

Cohen told jurors that in 2016 “he caught wind of the fact that adult film star Stormy Daniels was shopping her story that she had sex with Trump a decade prior. Cohen said that he was concerned about the impact it could have on Trump’s presidential campaign, particularly after the release of the infamous Access Hollywood tape.”

“At this time, Mr. Trump was polling very, very low with women,” Cohen testified, adding that Trump “said to me, ‘This is a disaster.’”

READ MORE: ‘Grave Danger’: Trump’s ‘Raw Display’ of Power at Court Alarms Conservative

“‘Women will hate me. Guys, they may think it’s cool. But this is going to be a disaster for the campaign.’”

Cohen also revealed from the witness stand that he had asked Trump how his wife, Melania Trump, was taking the news about Stormy Daniels, the adult film star who Trump allegedly paid hush money to then falsified his business records to hide the transactions in an effort to influence the election, according to prosecutors.

“How long do you think I’ll be on the market for? Not long,” Trump told Cohen, according to his former attorney.

“He wasn’t thinking about Melania,” Cohen said. “This was all about the campaign.”

CNN’s Kaitlan Collins called that a “Remarkable moment.”

The Daily Mail adds, “Asked if Trump was angry during this frantic period of damage control that could surface the Stormy Daniels story, Cohen said ‘Yes. Because there was a negative story that could impact the campaign as a result of women.’ ”

Watch MSNBC’s report below or at this link.

READ MORE: Johnson Would Contest 2024 Election Results Under the Same ‘Circumstances’

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‘On Day One’: Trump Vows to End Protections for LGBTQ Students

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Donald Trump says the day he enters the Oval Office for a second term he will end anti-discrimination protections for LGBTQ+ students implemented by the Biden administration.

Serving up a scattershot series of complaints with the hosts from the Philadelphia-based right-wing talk radio show “Kayal and Company” on Friday, Trump compared LGBTQ+ protections to a “cuckoo’s nest.”

“A lot of things don’t make sense, having to do with what they’re doing, from the border to all of the men playing in women’s sports. I mean, the world is like a cuckoo’s nest right now with what they do,” Trump declared.

One of the hosts alleged President Joe Biden has engaged in “manipulation” of Title IX, the federal civil rights law that prohibits sex-based discrimination in schools that receive federal funding. She claimed parents now have to “pinch some pennies” to be able to afford private Christian schools for their children, to remove them from the enhancements that go into effect this summer.

“Many schools are grappling with what they’re going to do,” she said, “because as of August 1, as you know, because of Biden’s manipulation of Title IX, these kids, the school boards, have no choice, they’re meeting right now they, many of them perplexed, and they don’t know what to do, Mr. President, because they’re so upset over this that at August 1 a biological boy can change in a locker room.”

READ MORE: ‘Rejection of Trump’: 1 in 5 Indiana GOP Voters Just Cast Their Ballot for Nikki Haley

Trump replied, “It’s crazy. Crazy.”

“We’re going to end it on day one,” Trump vowed. “We’re going to change it on day one. It’s going to be changed. We’re going to end it. That’s right.”

“The whole thing is crazy. Look, it’s like men playing in women’s sports. It’s like open borders for the world to come in. Send all their prisoners. We’ll take as many as you can give us. Send all their people from mental institutions.”

“We’ll get that changed. Tell your people not to worry about it. It’ll be signed on day one. It will be terminated,” Trump promised, vowing to end the LGBTQ+ protections which include protections for sexual orientation and gender identity.

On his first day in office, President Biden implemented “the most far-reaching of any federal protections yet” for LGBTQ+ people, according to NPR.

In an explainer on the new expanded rules, Ms. Magazine reports “The 2024 regulations prohibit discrimination not only on the basis of sex, but also on the basis of sex characteristics, pregnancy or related conditions, sexual orientation, and gender identity.”

According to GLAAD, which is tracking “the Biden administration’s executive orders, legislative support, speeches and nominations that affect LGBTQ people and rights,” President Biden has made 337 “moves” in 1206 days.

Listen to a short clip below or at this link.

READ MORE: Bannon Will Be ‘Going to Prison’ After Criminal Contempt Conviction Upheld, Experts Predict

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