Author: UncleScoopy

Les Actrices Françaises Nues à l’Ecran is updated with the new French nudity

UncleScoopy

Charlie’s site has produced another big update:

Mélanie Thierry in “le vent tourne”:

 

Adèle Haenel in “un peuple et son roi”:

Natacha Lindinger in “Sam”:

 

Nathalie Odzierejko in “am”:

Leslie Medina in “Mike”:

 

Valeria Nicov in “Mike”:

Athena Zelcovich in “Mike” & “Elle”:

 

Elsa Carmen Jarriau in “au delà des apparences”:

Alix Bénézech in “on ne parle plus beaucoup aujourd’hui”:

Lola Dubus in “on ne parle plus beaucoup aujourd’hui”:

Jodie Ruth in “on ne parle plus beaucoup aujourd’hui”:

 

The IRS hard at work

UncleScoopy

“A Tampa man reported an income of $18,497. The IRS sent him a refund check for $980,000.”

This was not a clerical error or a typo or a misplaced decimal point. He actually filed a tax return saying that a million had somehow been withheld from his paychecks, even though his gross income was less than $20,000, and the IRS system processed it unquestioningly.

Although the IRS eventually figured out that his claim could not be true, it’s amazing to me that there is nothing built into their computers that automatically raises a red flag and forces a human review if the withholding amount is greater than the amount of gross income.

The history of Trump’s border wall negotiations

UncleScoopy

June, 2015: Candidate Trump promises: “I’ll build a great, great wall on our southern border, and I’ll have Mexico pay for that wall.”

January 19, 2018: Having failed to get Mexico to pay, but with the GOP controlling both houses, President Trump gets Chuck Schumer to agree to hand over $25 billion to pay for the wall, in return for protection for the Dreamers , which Trump professes to agree with anyway. Trump backs off the deal for reasons still unclear. After a short government shutdown, Schumer says the deal can’t be restarted.

March, 2018: Talks resume. The Democrats are again willing to give Trump $25 billion for the wall in return for protection for the Dreamers, but Trump is unwilling to make a permanent Dreamers deal, insisting the deal can’t extend past 2020. Negotiations crumble.

December, 2018: Having lost the House in the mid-terms, Trump reduces his demand to just $5.7 billion to build a smaller portion of his wall.

December, 2018: Having failed to get his $5.7 billion, Trump turns down a Democratic offer of $1.6 billion and refuses to sign the annual budget.

February, 2019: Having rejected the previous offer of $1.6 billion so forcefully that he was willing to shut down the government, Trump now signs a bill authorizing only $1.4 billion.

===

On January 19, 2018, Trump had negotiated the perfect deal. He would get $25 billion for his wall, in return for which he only had to offer a DACA deal that he had already agreed with in multiple tweets. He had persuaded the other side to agree to everything he wanted without giving up anything he opposed. He needed neither a shutdown nor a national emergency, just outstanding negotiations.

Then he changed his mind.

About a year later, he agreed to accept $1.4 billion.

===

There you have it – The Art of the Deal.

When objective historians write about the Trump era, the puzzle they will have to decipher is the sentence above in red. Why did he renege on what, from his point of view, was the perfect deal? Was it just the usual reason (co-President Hannity disliked the deal), or was there something more complicated?