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Post by the Scribe on Oct 23, 2020 10:10:30 GMT
Republican senator 'personally benefited from tax change he sought'www.yahoo.com/news/republican-senator-personally-benefited-tax-164558632.html
Stephanie Kirchgaessner in Washington
The Guardian Wed, October 21, 2020, 9:45 AM MST
Photograph: Rex/Shutterstock
Ron Johnson, the senator from Wisconsin who has led the Republican campaign in the Senate of making unfounded claims about Joe Biden’s son Hunter, is facing a host of questions about his own ethics, including whether he personally benefited from a change in tax law that he sought in 2017.
A letter sent by Johnson to the Senate ethics committee in May has revealed the senator began the process of selling a company he partly owned in February 2018, just months after he insisted the Trump administration change a portion of the tax law in a way that ultimately benefited the sale.
The issue has become a focus of the Congressional Integrity Project, a Democratic watchdog group that is seeking to expose allegations of corruption within the Republican ranks.
At the center of claims made by the watchdog group are allegations that Johnson may have sought out a change in the Trump administration’s 2017 tax bill to enrich himself personally.
Related: Republican senator urged to quit after report he sold stocks before Covid-19 market plunge
www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/mar/20/republican-senators-sold-stocks-before-markets-plunged-on-coronavirus-fears-reports
Questions began swirling around Johnson’s sale of stock in Pacur in March, when it was first disclosed. Press reports questioned whether the timing of the sale reflected insider information Johnson had gleaned about the Covid-19 pandemic in his role as head of the Senate homeland security committee. In response to those questions, Johnson sent a letter to the Senate select committee on ethics, saying that he signed an engagement letter with Wells Fargo on 26 February 2018 to act as an adviser and investment banker to find an investment partner or acquirer for Pacur. The statement seemed to rule out that the sale had any connection to Covid-19.
But the revelation raised a host of other questions. Four months earlier, Johnson became the first Republican senator to announce that he would vote against Trump’s tax bill if it did not give better treatment to so-called “pass-through” entities, or companies that are taxed at rates for individual taxpayers but whose profits are distributed to owners. Johnson’s threat paid off and a change to improve the tax rate for pass-throughs was added to the law, which Johnson supported.
The change was recognized at the time as increasing the value of pass-through entities. Johnson sold his stock in his own pass-through company, Pacur, a plastics company he previously ran with is brother-in-law, on 2 March 2020, generating profits of as much as $25m on the sale. In 2017, Johnson said his stake was worth between $1m and $5m.
In a new report, the Congressional Integrity Project – which does not release the names of its funders – also suggests that Johnson’s adult children have benefited from his public role. It said that Johnson’s three adult children purchased a building in Oshkosh, Wisconsin, in 2017 using a trust set up by their parents. The building later won historic designation from the Wisconsin Historical Society – making it eligible for tax credits from the Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation– even though the process bypassed Wisconsin’s own State Historic Preservation Office.
While the project ought to have been ineligible for tax credits because construction was being performed on the property before its application to the Wisconsin Register of Historic Places was completed, that policy appears to have been set aside in the case of the new event space, called The Howard.
Emails obtained by the Congressional Integrity Project show that an official from the preservation office said he did not want to make the situation difficult for the buyers because of a “technicality”, and because the buyers “forgot” the WEDC application.
“Also an FYI in case you do not recognize the owner Carey Sharpe is Senator Ron Johnson’s daughter,” said an email from Mark Buechel, a senior preservation architect for the State Historic Preservation Office, to a colleague.
The tax credits were approved, the Congressional Integrity Project claimed, shortly before the then governor, Scott Walker, lowered the tax credits available for projects like The Howard.
A spokesman for Johnson denied that Johnson was involved in his children’s business and shrugged off claims that the tax change he sought may have helped the senator personally.
“Are you aware that 96% of all businesses in America are pass-through businesses – the corner coffee shop, the auto shop, your hair salon, etc – and that Senator Johnson was seeking more equitable treatment for them in light of the tax cuts C-corp businesses (like Amazon, Apple, GM, etc.) were getting?” the spokesman said.
The person added: “Far from the scandal you seem to imply, pass-through income is taxed on a business owner’s personal return. Before the 2017 reform, it was taxed at the same rate as other earned income – in Senator Johnson’s case, that would be the highest tax bracket, one that even now is 37%. What he won for that 96% of all businesses that are pass-through is that their business earnings now face a top tax rate of 30% – still far above the 21% top rate levied on C-corps, but less of a disadvantage.”
The spokesman also referred to the Congressional Integrity Project as a “partisan dark money group”.
Johnson has led a campaign in the Senate to launch unfounded allegations against Joe Biden’s son, Hunter. On Fox News, Johnson recently accused Biden’s son of using his family name to make “millions” in shady overseas deals. Johnson’s committee has investigated Hunter Biden and found no evidence that Joe Biden, the former vice-president, committed any wrongdoing.
www.nytimes.com/2020/09/23/us/politics/biden-inquiry-republicans-johnson.htmlHidden Coronavirus Tax Cut Benefits Sen. Johnson and Trump
BY JOEL MCNALLY MAY 04, 2020 9:26 A.M.
shepherdexpress.com/news/taking-liberties/hidden-coronavirus-tax-cut-benefits-sen-johnson-and-trump/#/questions
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Post by the Scribe on Mar 13, 2021 5:55:13 GMT
HuffPostRon Johnson Says He Would Have Been 'Concerned' About Black Capitol Rioterswww.yahoo.com/huffpost/ron-johnson-capitol-riot-black-lives-matter-014913702.html
Mary Papenfuss·Trends Reporter, HuffPost
Fri, March 12, 2021, 6:49 PM
In an absolutely stunning statement, Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) admitted in a radio interview that he wasn’t frightened by white insurrectionists’ attack on the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6 — but said he would have been “concerned” had they been Black.
www.huffpost.com/news/topic/ron-johnson
Johnson accurately predicted that his racist statement to conservative radio host Joe Pags on Thursday would get him “into trouble.”
woai.iheart.com/featured/the-joe-pags-show/content/2021-03-12-pags-talks-with-sen-ron-johnson-and-campus-reform/
The senator noted that he has been criticized for previous remarks that he “never felt threatened” by the attack.
www.huffpost.com/entry/ron-johnson-capitol-riot_n_60354700c5b66dfc1021e8c9
He added: “Now, had the tables been turned, Joe, and this’ll get me in trouble — had the tables been turned, and President Trump won the election, and those were tens of thousands of Black Lives Matter and antifa protesters, I might have been a little concerned.”
www.iheart.com/podcast/22959056/?keyid%5B0%5D=The%20Joe%20Pags%20Show&pname=podcast_profile&sc=widget_share
“Let’s face it, people didn’t board up their storefronts in metropolitan areas in case Joe Biden won,” Johnson said.
As for the white insurrectionists, he claimed: “I knew those were people that love this country, that truly respect law enforcement [and] would never do anything to break a law, and so I wasn’t concerned.”
Investigators are currently seeking one of those supposed patriots for killing a police officer. Four others lost their lives in the attack. More than 300 (and counting) of them have been charged with breaking the law.
www.huffpost.com/entry/capitol-suspect-brian-sicknick-homicide_n_6039e710c5b617a7e40dca47
www.justice.gov/opa/speech/acting-deputy-attorney-general-john-carlin-delivers-remarks-domestic-terrorism
www.justice.gov/opa/speech/acting-deputy-attorney-general-john-carlin-delivers-remarks-domestic-terrorism
(Check out the interview above. The appalling part begins at 1:06.)
Twitter critics were reeling.
Also on HuffPost
This article originally appeared on HuffPost and has been updated.
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Post by the Scribe on Apr 19, 2022 23:12:48 GMT
These ugly Americans keep rising to the top of idiocy.
www.yahoo.com/news/ron-johnson-pursues-scorched-earth-083000728.html
Ron Johnson pursues a scorched-earth path to reelection
Holly Otterbein
Tue, April 19, 2022, 1:30 AM
Ron Johnson’s approval ratings are underwater in a swing state that President Joe Biden won.
Instead of moving to the center, though, as he faces reelection this fall, the Wisconsin senator has become the face of conspiracy theories about Covid-19 and the 2020 election in the Senate. He has said that gargling mouthwash can kill the coronavirus, Jan. 6 was a mostly “peaceful protest,” and unvaccinated people around the world are being sent “basically into internment camps.”
For a vulnerable senator staring down a tough campaign, the string of head-turning remarks seem to defy political logic. But it turns out that Johnson’s shoot-from-the-lip style is a feature, not a bug, of his campaign for a third term. GOP strategists and officials say his unfiltered remarks are generating enthusiasm among a party base conditioned by Donald Trump, and appealing to independents who loathe Washington.
“He’s still perceived as an outsider. He’s not part of the GOP establishment in D.C., he never has been, and Wisconsinites like that,” said Bill McCoshen, a Wisconsin-based Republican strategist, who is not working on the race. “They may not agree with what he says every time, but they like the fact that he’s willing to speak his mind, and he’s not politically correct.”
Even Democrats largely aren’t campaigning this year against the controversial comments Johnson has made, instead focusing on the senator’s alleged self-dealing in Washington in an attempt to strip him of the non-politician veneer that helped him win past elections.
“Kellyanne Conway was right when she said voters vote on what affects them, not what offends them,” said Ben Wikler, chair of the Wisconsin Democratic Party. “But nobody likes being ripped off by someone who's out to serve themselves. And that's the core of our message.”
Despite Johnson’s hard turn to the right, this closely watched contest that could determine party control of the Senate is a coin flip, according to both Democratic and GOP consultants — a reflection of the fact that Republicans across the country face an extremely favorable political environment.
Yet at the same time that he has served up red meat for the base, he’s also hedged his bets by presenting a softer side in TV ads in past elections. Johnson is replicating that playbook in this year’s midterm election.
He has run spots this campaign that highlight the Joseph Project, a program Johnson co-founded with the late African American Pastor Jerome Smith Sr., to help people in Milwaukee find jobs. One features Smith’s widow, Markeitha Smith, who attests, “I never would have thought that Ron Johnson would have ever been somebody who I can say is family. I remember thinking, ‘Wow, he actually came here.’”
In his successful bid in 2016, Johnson aired similar commercials on the initiative. His other positive spots this year are emotional testimonials from people who said his “Right to Try” legislation — which allows those with life-threatening diseases or conditions to try experimental drugs — saved their or their loved ones’ lives.
“It shows a more sensitive side to somebody who’s been working out in Washington, D.C. for the last 12 years,” said Brandon Scholz, former executive director of the Wisconsin Republican Party. “Instead, somebody’s on the local news talking about helping people and jobs in a place you wouldn’t expect to see Ron Johnson, in center city Milwaukee.”
A Wisconsin-based Democratic strategist who worked on the 2016 Senate race, in which Johnson defeated former Democratic Sen. Russ Feingold, said Johnson has won in the past because he excited GOP diehards on right-wing radio while also appealing to white suburban women with his TV ads.
“Ron Johnson has been consistently underestimated as a candidate,” the person said, requesting anonymity to speak frankly. “He has figured out how to be different people to different audiences.”
In regards to his comments about Covid-19, Johnson has said previously that he did not mean that mouthwash should be an alternative to the vaccine, and his office pointed to an Australian quarantine site when asked about his internment camp remarks. Speaking about the Capitol riot, while he downplayed the events of Jan. 6, he condemned the violence that day.
The case that Johnson can win reelection this year rests in part on a standout number — he outperformed Trump in 2016 by 74,000 votes, including in Milwaukee and Dane counties, where Madison is located, as well as in suburban Waukesha, Ozaukee and Washington, or “WOW,” counties, reliably GOP areas where Trump experienced some slippage in 2020.
Republicans are also counting on Johnson to benefit from voters turning against Democrats nationally. In Wisconsin, 52 percent of voters disapprove of Biden's performance, while 43 percent approve, according to a Marquette Law School poll in February.
GOP strategists said Johnson has shown the ability to unify the MAGA base and more old-school Republicans in the suburbs, while also picking up anti-establishment independents. In Wisconsin, they said, many swing voters are not traditional moderates, but instead are more defined by their loathing of Washington and the state capitol.
In commercials in his previous campaigns, Johnson leaned into being the only manufacturer in a sea of lawyers in the Senate.
“Ron Johnson is truly his own man. He could say anything tomorrow, and you could call me and I’d say, ‘I had no idea he was going to say that,’” said a person close to Johnson. “That’s full of risk and that’s full of hand-wringing by the establishment Republicans and it’s full of alarm-ringing by the media. And it’s also full of authenticity with voters, including swing voters, not just the base.”
At the same time that Trump lost his second bid in Wisconsin, Republican congressional candidates in total also outperformed the then-president by more than 50,000 votes — evidence of the willingness of some conservative and swing voters to cast their ballots for those in the GOP not named Trump.
Still, Democrats view the race as a top opportunity to pick up a Republican-held seat. After nearly a dozen years in the Senate, they think they can pierce Johnson’s image as an outsider businessman. In fact, they think it’s already been popped: Johnson is viewed unfavorably by 45 percent of voters, compared to 33 percent who see him favorably, according to the recent Marquette poll. Twenty-one percent said they hadn’t heard enough about Johnson or didn’t know.
“I think it is entirely possible that Democrats have a bad night nationally, and Ron Johnson still loses,” said Joe Zepecki, a Wisconsin-based Democratic strategist who is not working for any Senate candidate. “That's how much trouble I really genuinely believe that he's in here.”
Democrats have seized on a plan to paint Johnson as self-serving for pushing for a provision in Trump’s tax bill that benefited his own company and campaign donors. In 2017, Johnson held his vote for the legislation until he secured a bigger tax cut for “pass-through” entities, arguing that small businesses would be undercut at the expense of corporations otherwise.
Opportunity Wisconsin, an anti-Johnson group, has aired more than $3 million of negative ads hitting him for “passing tax laws that benefit himself.” And Democrats think he recently put his foot in his mouth in a way that makes their case for them. At a meeting with GOP activists this month, Johnson was asked how to fight back against attacks about the tax bill.
“Now, did my business benefit? Sure,” Johnson said. “Did some of my donor businesses? Sure. When you give tax relief to everybody, everybody benefits.”
Jake Wilkins, a spokesperson for Johnson, defended his advocacy for the tax legislation as “single-handedly keeping small businesses competitive with the big guys by insisting on tax cuts for everyone.”
Wilkins also touted the senator’s work on the Joseph Project and Right to Try: “Based on what he has accomplished, Senator Johnson believes he is in a strong position to win reelection. His strategy will be to do what he has consistently done: work hard and simply tell the truth.”
Charlie Sykes, a Wisconsin native and anti-Trump ex-Republican, previously supported Johnson but now compares him to Joseph McCarthy, the former Wisconsin senator who led a demagogic red-baiting campaign.
“Johnson should be the most vulnerable Republican in the country,” he said. But given the political mood, the race “leans Republican, even as unpopular as Johnson is, unless the Democrats can really get their act together.”
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Post by the Scribe on Jun 23, 2022 19:18:16 GMT
Stephen Colbert Names The 'Dumbest Person Ever To Sit In The United States Senate'
www.yahoo.com/news/stephen-colbert-names-dumbest-person-064204297.html
www.huffpost.com/news/topic/ron-johnson
Ed Mazza
Thu, June 23, 2022 at 2:42 AM
Stephen Colbert gave one U.S. lawmaker a scathing new distinction on Wednesday.
“Most historians agree: Ron Johnson is the dumbest person ever to sit in the United States Senate,” Colbert declared on “The Late Show.”
Newly revealed text messages showed the Wisconsin Republican’s chief of staff tried to arrange a meeting in which Johnson would hand-deliver a slate of fake electors to then-Vice President Mike Pence.
Pence’s office declined.
This week, Johnson claimed “some staff intern” wanted an envelope delivered to the vice president and his office tried to arrange it but he didn’t know who sent it or what it was, according to The Washington Post.
Colbert was incredulous:
“So, he has no idea where it came from, no idea who gave it to them, no idea what it is, but he can’t wait to hand-deliver it to the second-in-command. There could’ve been anything in that envelope, he doesn’t care: fake electors, angry bees, naked pictures of Mary Todd Lincoln. It don’t matter to Ron! He’s just a delivery boy.”
Colbert also said this situation answered a question he’d always had.
“You know those announcements in the airport when they say, ‘Do not carry onto the flight a package for someone you don’t know’? I’ve always wondered who those announcements are for,” he said. “Turns out it’s Ron Johnson.”
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