I can admire a tiger and it’s place in the ecosystem!
ETA: Besides, like most predators she is taking out the weak and the sick, which makes the overall herd healthier!
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Aw, it’s like she is talking to a kid who just told her they were going to raise money by selling lemonade in thimbles to the fairies.
“I see! And what are you going to do with the money?”
But then that’s said, because this is a White House press briefing and she shouldn’t have to be wasting her time with it.
I really love this tactic. I remember hearing people say “I’m against this Politically Correct culture” in the 00’s and assuming they meant “I still want to hear off-color jokes because they are funny”, but it turns out a number of people meant “I want to continue to discriminate with no consequences”. Specifics matter. I feel like I’m learning great techniques from these conferences.
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Not everyone gets indoctrinated… some wash out of grad school with a Masters.
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Honestly, she’s so good at this and the “gotcha” questions are so weak that it’s almost like they’re intentionally teeing them up for her.
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Even so, that past still had anti bigotry PSAs in the 1940s
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And it’s even worse, because once a questionable money source (lottery, casino, publicly constructed sports stadium, amazon warehouse promising huge tax revenues if they get huge tax breaks/publicly paid infrastructure) actually are brought into being, the supposed benefits never seem to materialize. The revenues either end up never panning out (the yearly city/state bill for the upkeep of the infrastructure far out-weighs any money the stadium returns in taxes or economic benefits), or whatever money that is raised from it ends up being siphoned off to be spent on corporate giveaways and wealthy person tax-cuts instead, leaving whatever programs the money was supposedly intended for high and dry.
On the other hand, when there’s an actual abuse of the tax law, such as these tax-free endowment slush funds, which are only tax free because it’s supposedly being used for charitable reasons (paying for scholarships, or regular university expenses so that the tuition and student fees can be kept low) who’s money is not being used for such purposes, and instead have turned into a slush fund for bankers, then there’s a good argument that the tax free status should be revoked and/or rules forcing the money to actually get used for the intended (reason for tax free status) purpose (funding actual education). In which case, forcing a diversion of the money into some related need (education funding) would be appropriate and in keeping with the original donor’s intents that the money be used for funding education. But that a case of seeing the problem (inappropriate use of funds from the endowment, in violation of the tax status) and fixing that problem by figuring out where the most appropriate place to redirect that money to is.
Tying the two together (“we can only have job training if we get the money from this one source that we will then of course fight in court to prevent the money from being pulled from there”) is at best a bad-faith attempt at preventing the job training form ever getting funding. At worst, it’s a way to take existing programs (public schools) and de-fund them by permanently making their funding dependent on the “special” funding source, which ends up not being reliable, as well as having it’s money quietly siphoned off, or reduced when the corporate owners cry about needing more tax breaks.
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If we’re gonna start taxing universities…
can we start taxing churches??
talk about “indoctrination.”
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Jen would be perfect as the comedy action movie hero. Her catchphrase “Oooh sounds very mysterious and dangerous” comes just before she smiles and shoots precisely focused death rays from her eyes to vaporize the weapon they thought they had in hand.
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I agree with you. But why not simply legislate away the Wall Street slush fund aspect? Why play games with it. Just tell Harvard and Duke, “Hey, stop doing that. If you keep doing that, we’ll tax the shit out of it.”
I’m a fan of the direct approach. If we want to stop private universities from turning their trillion-dollar endowments into hedge funds, then make it illegal for them to continue doing so.
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I think it’s already against the law for them to use these supposedly charitable endowments as wall-street slush funds. The issue seems to be a combination of weasily accounting practices and simple utter lack of enforcement (standard practice when dealing with super super wealthy people and organizations)
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Over here on the other side of the pond: “Can we stop taking taxes for the church?”
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I noticed it, too. I knew what she was doing, though. She was turning the tables and tasking the reporter (a psychological power move) while simultaneously prepping the answer she’s obliged to give as part of her job. Extraordinary to watch.
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Has anyone seen any mention of the name or agency of the reporter asking this question? I’ve looked through many versions of this article and they all mention Tom Cotton, but not the reporter or news agency.
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