Ethiack

Only the Truth Matters!

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SHE’S RIGHT: Modern LGBTQ+ Activism Fails Its Community

Maeve Halligan drops the mic on modern LGBTQ activism in an amazing speech at the Cambridge Union. The modern movement has abandoned gay and lesbian people, harmed children, and silenced dissidents. Let’s talk about it.

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Disclosure Day Pitch Meeting

Steven Spielberg who brought us alien classics like E.T. and Close Encounters of the Third Kind (and also Indiana Jones and the Crystal Skull) is back in alien territory with Disclosure Day!

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GREEK MAN ANNIHILATES NOLAN!!

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The Odyssey - Oh, Dear...

Christopher Nolan's Odyssey hasn't had the best week, with the latest trailer getting ratioed into oblivion. And I think I know why. Let's find out...

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Nick Freitas STUNS Leftist Student Into SILENCE With a Single Question

This is one of those rare examples when someone is literally speechless. When a student claims colleges are not liberal enough, Nick Freitas asks her one simple question that causes her to go silent. Learn how to use silence to your advantage.

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Odyssey Star Lupita Nyong'o Lectures Homer for Not Featuring Enough Women

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Knocking on Doors for Mamdani’s Rent-Freeze Brigade

A volunteer’s ‘SOCIALISM’ bracelet was a hint that New York City’s public turnout campaign for rent-control hearings might not live up to it

Knocking on Doors for Mamdani’s Rent-Freeze Brigade

Against my better judgment and the advice of Oscar Wilde, I let socialism in New York City take up another one of my evenings. This time, I was curious to see a new, taxpayer-funded canvassing machine in action before this month’s crucial decision on Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s campaign promise to freeze the rent on the apartments where about 2.4 million New Yorkers live.

Six weeks ago, Mamdani announced the launch of Organize NYC, which he said “will mobilize New Yorkers to make sure they know they have a voice in that decision—and how to use it—because government only works when it answers to the people it serves.” The city agency in charge of Organize NYC is led by Tascha Van Auken, who built Mamdani’s campaign organizing operation.

It wasn’t the first time I responded to the mayor’s call to participate in civic life. After a major snowstorm in February, I enlisted in the city’s emergency snow shoveling corps for a day. I earned $70—but still haven’t been paid. (On Thursday, a city official told me that my paycheck exists, is sitting in a downtown office, and will be promptly mailed to me.) In March, I attended a “Rental Rip-off” hearing, sitting under a banner that said “New Yorkers vs. Bad Landlords.” Most of the complaints I heard were about the same landlord: the city.

For the canvassing effort, the mayor said volunteers would fan out across the city to encourage tenants and landlords to testify at hearings, including one on Thursday night in Brooklyn, by the Rent Guidelines Board (RGB), which proposed raising rents by 0 to 2 percent on one-year leases. The announcement also said canvassers “will not advocate for any specific outcome in the RGB vote or guide what participants say if they choose to testify.”

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Disclosure Day is Embarressing Boomer Propaganda! (Spielberg's WORST Film)

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Mamdani Gets an Important Tax Fact Wrong - Empire Center for Public Policy

At a hearing in Albany last week, New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani lobbied state lawmakers to help him balance....

Mamdani Gets an Important Tax Fact Wrong

At a hearing in Albany last week, New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani lobbied state lawmakers to help him balance the city’s finances with a two-percentage-point hike in the city’s income tax on people making over $1 million.

His pitch included a striking but inaccurate claim – that the targeted taxpayers had recently received a windfall from Washington.

“Someone earning a million dollars a year can afford to contribute $20,000 more,” Mamdani said in his prepared testimony. “Especially when we know that, according to a report by the Fiscal Policy Institute, President Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act delivers a collective $12 billion A YEAR in federal tax cuts to New Yorkers earning over $1 million—an annual savings of $129,600 per millionaire.” (Emphasis added.)

This statistic is not just exaggerated, but directionally wrong. The Trump-supported tax changes originally enacted in 2017, which were extended last year, have resulted in a higher average tax hit for New York’s millionaires, not a lower one.

That’s because the 2017 bill, known as the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act or TCJA, coupled lower tax rates with other changes, including – crucially for New York – a limit on the deductibility of state and local taxes, known as the SALT cap.

Previously, most federal taxpayers could fully deduct what they paid in taxes at the state and local level. For residents of New York and other high-tax states, this had amounted to a substantial discount on what they owed to Washington. After 2017, however, that deduction was capped at $5,000 for individuals and $10,000 for married couples filing jointly – wiping out most of the discount for those with larger incomes.

The net impact of the TCJA’s various changes can be seen in IRS data showing the aggregate incomes and tax liabilities of various income groups, including those with adjusted gross incomes of $1 million or more (see chart).

For millionaires nationwide, the average share of income paid in federal taxes dropped after the TCJA took effect, from 27.9 percent in 2017 to 26.8 percent in 2018.

But for New York’s millionaires, the average federal tax bite increased, from 27.8 percent to 28.1 percent. Their average effective tax rate also went from being lower than average to higher than average. Both shifts likely reflect the fallout from the SALT cap.

In 2021, state lawmakers tried to mitigate the effects of the SALT cap by establishing a “pass-through entity tax,” or PTET. For eligible filers, the PTET redefined a portion of their state liability as a business tax, which was fully deductible at the federal level, rather than a state income tax, for which federal deductibility was capped. However, this workaround is not feasible for all filers and does not apply to most income from capital gains.

Despite the introduction of the PTET, IRS data for 2022 (the most recent year available) show that the aggregate effective tax rate for New York’s millionaires remained eight-tenths of a point higher than it was in 2017, while the nationwide rate was eight-tenths of a point lower than in 2017.

In aggregate nationally, millionaires paid $21 billion less in 2022 than they would have paid at the 2017 rate, an average savings of $26,000 per filer.

In New York, millionaires paid almost $2 billion more in federal taxes for 2022 than they would have paid at the effective rate in 2017 – an average of almost $30,000 per filer.

Last summer’s federal budget legislation temporarily raised the cap on SALT deductions to $20,000 for individuals and $40,000 for married couples, a provision due to expire after 2029. That change will result in savings for many New York filers, but likely not enough to produce a net aggregate savings for state’s millionaires compared to the pre-TCJA tax code.

Mamdani’s claim – that millionaires are reaping $12 billion annually due to the Trump tax cuts – came from an analysis by the Fiscal Policy Institute.

That analysis based its savings estimate on three factors: $6.5 billion due to lowered income tax rates, $1.6 billion due to federal authorization for the PTET deduction, and $3.8 billion attributed to the indirect benefits of corporate tax cuts. It should be noted that these were not new policies, but pre-existing laws that were kept in place by last summer’s legislation.

The analysis did not reference the impact of the SALT cap.

As discussed above, the IRS data show that New York’s millionaires are paying more in taxes, not less, despite the lower rates and PTET dedication cited by the Fiscal Policy Institute. How much benefit, if any, they realized from corporate tax cuts is not clear from the IRS data.

The practical effects of federal tax policy should be top of mind for Mayor Mamdani. As Empire Center founder E.J. McMahon said in testimony to state lawmakers in 2020:

The game-changing importance of the SALT cap cannot be over-emphasized. For the highest earners, deductibility effectively vanished with the enactment of the new federal tax law. Prior to 2018, every dollar in added state and local income taxes was effectively discounted by about 40 percent. Now, however, every added dollar in state income tax costs a full, non-deductible 100 cents. The net cost of state and local taxes has risen steeply for the highest earners, and so has their incentive to reconsider living, working and investing in New York.

Mamdani presides over a city that collects 40 percent of its income tax revenue from just 1 percent of its population. As a result of the SALT cap, those high-income residents are paying a sharply higher price for living and working in New York City, which has the highest combined state-and-local income tax rate in the U.S.

The number of millionaires has been growing nationwide, but – as McMahon has documented since 2014 – New York’s share of that population has been declining. It fell from 12.7 percent of the U.S. total in 2010 to 8.7 percent in 2022, by far the largest percentage-point drop of any state, and the SALT cap might well exacerbate that trend.

As Mamdani argues for increasing the tax burden on his city’s highest-income residents, he should keep his facts straight about how much they’re already paying.

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Exclusive | Socialist DC mayoral candidate who sought Mamdani endorsement bought $1M home after railing against single-family zoning

The DC Councilmember has claimed “exclusionary zoning preserves segregation.”

Socialist DC mayoral candidate who sought Mamdani endorsement bought $1M home after railing against single-family zoning

WASHINGTON — Far-left DC mayoral candidate Janeese Lewis George, who’s been begging for an endorsement from NYC Mayor Zohran Mamdani, bought a million-dollar home in April after suggesting single-family zoning was a tool of “segregation,” The Post has learned.

The District Councilmember and her husband, Kyle George, purchased the lavish single-family dwelling in the capital’s Manor Park neighborhood, about five miles north of the White House, for $1.19 million April 17, according to DC Office of Tax and Revenue records.

The residential enclave was described by the Washington Post in a 2021 feature as “an especially attractive area for families with children.”

The price tag for George’s pad was nearly double the average home value in the District of Columbia, according to the real estate online search platform Redfin, and almost $500,000 more than the average price for a home in that zip code.

Just 15 days before her home purchase, George had published an op-ed decrying “how exclusionary zoning preserves segregation and exacerbates displacement” and blaming “politically-connected wealthy residents” for being opposed to new housing construction.

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NOLAN GOT CAUGHT!!!

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Disclosure Day - Spielberg Should Stop Making Films

Its been billed as the most groundbreaking movie of the year. But its not. Its actually a boring, disappointing mess of a movie. Join me for my review of Disclosure Day.

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The Bricks & Minifigs Disaster: A Lawyer Explains The Reckless Ben Lawsuit

Is this the wildest legal battle on YouTube? Today, we are breaking down the massive $200,000 LEGO Star Wars consignment scandal involving YouTuber Reckless Ben and Bricks & Minifigs.

As a lawyer, I’m diving deep into the actual court documents to analyze the exact legal issues at play. Who actually owns the inventory when a franchise abruptly changes hands? We will examine the validity of the disputed consignment agreement, the corporate liability of BAM franchising, and the massive defamation, stalking, and cyber-harassment lawsuit filed against Ben in Utah.

We’ll also break down the high-stakes corporate drama, including a preliminary injunction gag order, small claims judgments, asset repossession laws, and the complex reality of serving court papers. From aggressive traffic stops to constitutional questions regarding local law enforcement involvement, this case is a masterclass in how a civil contract dispute can spiral into criminal charges.

What do you think? Did corporate cross the line into illegal asset conversion, or did Reckless Ben’s viral stunts cross the legal line into harassment?

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All the footage is released!

Reckless Ben compares redacted and unredacted footage from interactions with the American Fork Police Department regarding ongoing legal conflicts. By analyzing these official recordings, Reckless Ben explores how law enforcement handled process serving attempts and the subsequent investigations into various accusations made against them.

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Steven Crowder STUNS Leftist Students in His Most Viral Debate Ever

This debate set the record as Steven Crowder's most viewed debate of all time. He sits down with a students on a college campus to have an open discussion on gender. The result captured the attention of the world.

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Interview EXPOSES Oxford Student Famous for "Defeating" Charlie Kirk

Tilly Middlehurst became famous after debating Charlie Kirk. She is one the top debaters at Oxford and in the UK. This new interview exposes not only her ideology, but the strategy she uses to win.

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Three UK teens convicted of rape walked free. After a nationwide outcry their sentences will be reviewed | CNN

Three teenage boys who were convicted over the rape of two girls were last week allowed to walk out of a UK court without any custodial sent

Three UK teens convicted of rape walked free. After a nationwide outcry their sentences will be reviewed

London —  

Three teenage boys who were convicted over the rape of two girls were last week allowed to walk out of a UK court without any custodial sentence, triggering a nationwide outcry.

Now the sentences handed down in the case, described by British Prime Minister Keir Starmer as “distressing” and “appalling,” are to be reviewed after the country’s attorney general on Tuesday referred them to the Court of Appeal.

Asked about the sentencing, which saw the teenagers instead receive community rehabilitation orders, Starmer said: “I think it’s distressing for everybody to see, to hear about,” adding that he had found it “distressing as a politician” and “as a father.”

“I can announce that the case will now go to the Court of Appeal, and the Court of Appeal will now review the sentence in that case, and that is clearly the right outcome,” he said Tuesday.

The details of the two attacks, in the small town of Fordingbridge in southern England, horrified members of the public, leading to multiple complaints under the Unduly Lenient Sentence scheme, which allows anyone to ask the attorney general for a sentencing review.

One victim, then aged 15, was raped by two of the boys in an underpass next to a river, after arranging to meet one of them for a date. A video of her 90-minute ordeal was shared on social media, prosecutors told the court.

The other girl, aged 14 at the time, was threatened with a knife, and forced to leave her mobile phone and AirTag in a shop so her movements could not be tracked. She was made to walk to a remote field, where she was raped by two of the defendants as they again filmed the attack.

French rape survivor Gisèle Pelicot told the BBC she was appalled that the three boys had been spared custodial sentences. “(I am) deeply shocked that these individuals were in fact able to gain their freedom again when in fact the victims are suffering so hard they will never be able to heal,” she said. “Rape is a crime and justice has an essential role. It’s there to, in fact, name the crimes, to recognize the suffering of victims, and to remember that in fact they must not remain unpunished.”

Two of the boys, who were 14 at the time of the offenses and are now 15, were given three-year “youth rehabilitation orders” with 180 days of “intensive supervision and surveillance.” The third boy, who is now 14 but was 13 at the time, was given an 18-month YRO for two charges of rape by aiding and abetting the second attack. The two 15-year-olds were also convicted of taking indecent images of a child.

At the sentencing the judge said he wanted to “avoid criminalizing these children unnecessarily.”

The court had heard that one of the boys had an IQ of the “bottom 1% of his contemporaries” and had been diagnosed with ADHD. Another of the boys was also diagnosed with ADHD as well as “longstanding anxiety.” The third defendant was described as having a “mild cognitive impairment.”

One of the victims told the BBC that hearing the boys’ sentences “hit like a rock straight in my face.

“He (the judge) almost made it seem as if what the boys did was not OK, but it was OK in the eyes of the law, because they were still children,” she said speaking anonymously. “What was the point in putting me through that?”