Once upon a time, comedians could try out an edgy joke in front of a small crowd, and if it was greeted by gasps instead of laughs, they would know not to tell it again. Not any more.
Host Jimmy Kimmel got the political ball rolling by asking the comedian if she’d been able to digest the results of the Republican stampede last week. “Jimmy, I’m a Black woman and a lesbian,” she replied. “How the hell you think I’m doing?”
Asked for her analysis, Sykes turned her attention to the most important meal of the day.
“I blamed those damned Cheerio commercials … showing all those interracial couples. You’re scaring the shit out of white people. What’re you all doing? It’s just cereal. Just sell the damn cereal. Why you bring us into this? They got gay couples selling shit. Like just frickin’ sell your stuff, don’t bring us into this!” she said.
Our high school memories are many fold. You were loved by all that came across you. You have left your footprints on the sand of time.
Klein Funeral Home – Tomball
Herbert B. Kitzman, Jr.
March 15, 1934 – October 21, 2024
Herbert Bernard Kitzman Jr., 90, of Jacksonville, Texas, left our world on October 21, 2024, to rest in peace until the second coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. He was a native of Baytown, Texas, but moved his family to East Texas in the early 1970s to start a cattle farm. He was preceded in death by his; mother, Ella Rudel Kitzmann, his father, Herbert Bernard Kitzman Sr. and step-mother Amanda M Kitzman, and his sisters, Helen M. Kicklighter and Carolyn L. Bracey.
He was an insulator by trade but a farmer by heart. He started his herd with a few head of cattle gifted to him by his father. The bloodline of those cattle still exists on the farm in East Texas today. He started two Lutheran churches in East Texas; one in Jacksonville, Texas, and another in Henderson, Texas.
He had a witty sense of humor and was known for pulling pranks. In the last few hours of his life, with an aid and family present, he mustered the strength to give us one last laugh. He asked for a shot of whiskey! He had a love for sports especially football. He was on the high school football team at Cedar Bayou High School in Baytown, Texas. He was also on the football team at Stephen F Austin University in Nacogdoches, Texas, prior to a knee injury that ended that dream.
He is survived by his daughter, Rebecca Kitzman of Tyler Texas; his only bride, Betty Kitzman of Tyler Texas; and his sister, DeAlva Lewis of Baytown, Texas; along with many nieces, nephews, cousins, and friends.
The family would like to express their gratitude to Hospice of East Texas for their care in his last hours.
In lieu of flowers, the family requests that donations be made to The Hospice of East Texas in Tyler, Texas, and Salem Lutheran Church in Tomball, Texas.
A private gravesite service will take place on October 28, 2024, at Salem Lutheran Cemetery.
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Your phone call a few months before you died was a nice surprise and we appreciated it.
Google stop interfering with my blog – you are not in charge here.
11/16/2024
Since January 2021, when Joe Biden came to office, there have been more than 10 million encounters – about 8 million came over the southwest land border with Mexico and were given Carte blanche in the U.S. and the American people were considered the outsiders and the immigrants were considered the citizens. All of you people who voted for the Democrats take note. We forgive you; but, you need to think about what the Democrats have done to the country which is not good. Vote with your pocket book not what some lying politician is saying.
Social security is considered the savings plan for retirement when money is taken from your paycheck to set up this account. In addition, you can contribute to a 40lK which is an additional plan. That is a nice amount. But, the Democrats seems to think that is their money to do as they wish and like our money in the bank – they think it belongs to the government. That thinking has to change.
In Mexico a noncitizens has NO BENEFITS. When you visit you have to change your dollars into pesos or use a credit card. You can’t vote in their elections and if you need medical attention you pay with a credit card.
But, we need to FIX social security – once and for all by having it for citizens only who are eligible. It should not be treated as a staple but the number one mandatory budgetary item and quit threatening the citizens.
My point is – forecasting and planning in our government is an important roll so that the future is better planned – especially for social security and other budgetary items. We know what our needs are so why can’t we do a better job of planning for the future.
Every year we fuss about social security – year after year. Some body is not doing their job for planning our budget.
The government seems to think we can allow all of this waste going to foreign countries, fighting wars, UN, immigrants; but, the people always come in last on a shoe string. Why is that?
We voted President Trump into office to solve these problems and expect that to happen. I don’t want to see any more articles about social security being cut. Set a budget and go from there. I am tired of being harassed about a program that I paid into for 42 plus years. If you can’t handle the money the public sends in – then you don’t need to be handling the money.
The Democrats don’t know how to run the government and it ha been proven for the last four years.
For most retirees, Social Security provides more than just a check each month. America’s top retirement program represents a financial lifeline that many beneficiaries would struggle to live without.
(It is not a lifeline – it is a paid-in program during your working career. If each person’s account was invested instead of the government using it – they could certainly do better than what the government does. It is not a gift from the government.)
For the last 23 years, national pollster Gallup has been surveying retirees to gauge what role their Social Security income plays. In all 23 years, between 80% and 90% of respondents noted their Social Security check accounted for a “major” or “minor” source of income, including 88% in 2024. In other words, Social Security benefits are necessary for an overwhelming majority of retirees to make ends meet.
(And why shouldn’t it be a major part of your retirement. The account should be isolated instead of the government using it.)
The financial well-being of Social Security is paramount to the success of our nation’s aging workforce. Unfortunately, this financial foundation has been deteriorating for decades. Current and future beneficiaries will be looking to their elected officials to tackle what ails Social Security — and this includes President-elect Donald Trump.
However, not all Social Security proposals are necessarily winners, as you’re about to see.
Former President and President-elect Donald Trump giving remarks.
Social Security benefit cuts may be just nine years away.
Every year since the first retired-worker benefit check was mailed out in January 1940, the Social Security Board of Trustees has released a report detailing the financial health of this leading social program. Since 1985, the Trustees Report has warned of a long-term funding obligation shortfall.
Related video: 7 Reasons You Should Think Twice Before Claiming Social Security at 62 (Money Talks News)
Money Talks News 7 Reasons You Should Think Twice Before Claiming Social Security at 62 In simpler terms, the Trustees don’t see enough revenue being collected by Social Security in the 75 years following the release of a report to satisfy expected outlays, including cost-of-living adjustments (COLAs). The 2024 Social Security Board of Trustees Report pegged the program’s unfunded obligations at a staggering $23.2 trillion (and growing) through 2098.
To make matters worse, the Old-Age and Survivors Insurance Trust Fund (OASI), which is responsible for doling out monthly payments to retired workers and survivor beneficiaries, is forecast to exhaust its asset reserves by 2033. While this, thankfully, doesn’t mean Social Security will be insolvent or go bankrupt — Social Security can’t go bankrupt based on how it currently generates income — it does point to sweeping benefit cuts of up to 21% nine years from now if nothing is done.
Although some people on social media message boards are often quick to (incorrectly) blame “congressional theft” or “undocumented workers” for what ails Social Security, ongoing demographic shifts are what truly ails this vital program.
In no particular order, Social Security’s struggles can be traced to some combination of:
Baby boomers leaving the labor force in greater numbers, which is weighing down the worker-to-beneficiary ratio. Increased life span (Social Security was never designed to dole out payments to retirees for decades). A historically low birth rate, which will eventually be a drag on the worker-to-beneficiary ratio. A more-than-halving in net legal immigration into the U.S. since 1998 (Social Security relies on a steady inflow of legal immigrants to boost payroll tax collection). Rising income inequality, with a higher percentage of earned income escaping payroll taxation as time has passed. The grim reality: Donald Trump’s Social Security plan makes things worse Most lawmakers have avoided tackling Social Security’s visible problems because there’s no way to fix the program without making at least some beneficiaries worse off than they were before. But presidential candidates aren’t so lucky, and are typically expected to have a plan of action for America’s most important retirement program.
During President-elect Trump’s campaign, he made two proposals regarding Social Security. The grim reality is that neither would help the program nor its beneficiaries over the long run.
The first proposal offered by the incoming president is to effectively leave Social Security alone. Kicking the can down the road has been the status quo of multiple administrations, and Trump backed this idea up earlier this year by proclaiming that “you don’t have to touch Social Security.”
However, Trustees Reports have made it abundantly clear that doing nothing is a terrible plan. While kicking the can might save politicians from some finger-pointing from the public, it’s not going to stop the program’s funding obligation shortfall from growing, or do anything to positively impact the OASI’s asset reserves, which are on track to be exhausted in less than a decade.
Ending the taxation of benefits might expedite the need for sweeping benefit cuts. The other, more front-and-center proposal from President-elect Donald Trump is to eliminate the taxation of Social Security benefits. He proclaimed this position loudly on social media platform Truth Social in July by stating, “Seniors should not pay tax on Social Security.”
This is a proposal that has a ton of support from retirees, mainly because it’s possibly the most-hated tax in America. But getting rid of this tax with Social Security’s financial situation precarious at best would be a big mistake.
With Social Security’s asset reserves running dangerously low in 1983, Congress passed and then-President Ronald Reagan signed the Social Security Amendments of 1983 into law. This last bipartisan overhaul of America’s top retirement program gradually raised the full retirement age and payroll taxation on workers, as well as established the federal taxation of Social Security benefits.
Beginning in 1984, up to 50% of benefits could be taxed at the federal rate if provisional income (adjusted gross income + tax-free interest + one-half of benefits) topped $25,000 for a single filer or $32,000 for a couple filing jointly. In 1993, the Clinton administration added a second tier, allowing up to 85% of Social Security benefits to be exposed to federal taxation if the provisional income for a single filer or couple filing jointly topped $34,000 and $44,000, respectively.
The gripe with taxing Social Security benefits — aside from the misplaced belief that it’s a form of double taxation — is that these provisional income thresholds haven’t been adjusted since they were respectively introduced four and three decades ago. But with Social Security outlaying more in benefits than it’s generating in income each year, eliminating one of its three sources of income would be a grave mistake.
The taxation of benefits is expected to generate $943.9 billion in cumulative income for Social Security from 2024 through 2033. Eliminating this tax would put Social Security on considerably worse financial footing and potential expedite the timeline to sweeping benefit cuts.
The $22,924 Social Security bonus most retirees completely overlook.
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The government needs a hard look at the reality of the plan and then work the problem – instead of kicking the can down the road – once and for all. It is what it is.
The answer is the Democrats are like Reddi-Whip topping – when you spray it on anything and if it sits there very long – it evaporates. That is how much a politician’s words mean. A politician will say anything to get elected. Everyone has to know who to listen to, do your own research, and then make your decision.
(And, the Republicans had quality control – everyone knew from his prior term that he loved the U.S. and its people. All we got from Democrats that – the citizens were last, the large debt, the hate, and the open border.)
President Joe Biden meets with President-elect Donald Trump in the Oval Office of the White House, Wednesday, Nov. 13, 2024, in Washington. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci) AP Images
On Friday, Charlamagne had made similar comments after Biden congratulated Trump on his victory and assured that his entire administration would work “to ensure a peaceful and orderly transition.”
“Don’t y’all find it strange that now that he’s won, they’re not calling him a threat to democracy? They’re not calling him a fascist,” Charlamagne remarked at the time
“I would think that, you know, if you really believe that, then somebody’s speech would be about how America effed up and how things are about to be really bad. It just makes you wonder how much of it did they really believe, or how much of it was just politics. That’s all,” the radio host said.
I mean, Trump got one out of every three voters
Charlamagne surprised by exit polls showing Trump winning 33% of voters of color Original article source: After Trump’s White House visit, Charlamagne asks how Biden went from ‘threat to democracy’ to ‘welcome back!’
Now we now, know – we’re country.
FOX News
Charlamagne Tha God, Andrew Schulz allege Taylor Swift had little impact on 2024 election Radio host Charlamagne Tha God called out President Biden for his quick transition from condemning President-elect Trump as an “existential threat” to American democracy to warmly receiving him at the White House.
Biden repeatedly argued while he was still running that Trump was “a threat to democracy.” As he campaigned in the final weeks of the election for his vice president, Biden specifically called for Trump to be locked up “politically” and said “our democracy is at stake” if Trump wins. Since the election, however, Biden has become more conciliatory, even receiving Trump with a big smile at the White House.
Charlamagne spoke about this stark contrast with his co-hosts on “The Breakfast Club” on Thursday.
“I just don’t understand the White House visit. Now granted, you know, I’m glad it’s a peaceful transition of power, but what happened to the ‘threat of democracy’ talk? What happened to the ‘fascist’ talk?” Charlamagne asked. “By the way, I know I’ve said those things about Trump as well, but I’m not talking about me, I’m talking about his political opponents, like President Biden. When they say it, it holds way more weight than me.”
He added further, “I’m just trying to figure out, how do you go from ‘He’s an existential threat to democracy’ to ‘Welcome back!’”
A co-host remarked that Biden seemed “happy, too,” adding, “He was happy, he was smiling, he was grinning, he was cheesing, ‘Say cheese!’ he was cheesing, bro.”
“I’m just trying to figure out how,” Charlamagne said, bewildered. “I understand President Biden believes in political norms, but damn!”
kommonsentsjane 