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{ pjmedia.com } ~ Observing palace intrigue in Saudi Arabia is something of a sport for the international press and today they have plenty to write about. Sources close to the throne in Saudi Arabia have confirmed that a potential palace coup was thwarted... when King Salman's brother and nephew were arrested for the plot. The brother, Prince Ahmed bin Abdulaziz, has kept a low profile since returning from abroad in 2018 following the king naming his son, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman as a virtual regent. The 84-year-old king was said to have approved the arrests. Prince Mohammed, or "MbS" as he is known, has tried some modest social reforms in the ultra-conservative country and also attempted to diversify the economy, making it less dependent on oil revenues. But he has also made many enemies within the 10,000-member royal family, not least of which were those that King Salman has apparently passed over for succession. Five sources told Reuters that Prince Ahmed and Mohammed bin Nayef were detained in the latest operation. Three of the sources, including a regional source, said Mohammed bin Nayef and his half-brother, Nawaf, were picked up at a private desert camp on Friday. Two sources said Ahmed was taken from his home. Crown Prince Mohammed, also referred to as MbS, “accused them of conducting contacts with foreign powers, including the Americans and others, to carry out a coup d’etat,” the regional source said. “With these arrests, MbS consolidated his full grip on power. It’s over with this purge,” the source added, indicating that no rivals remain to challenge his succession to the throne. MbS is popular among younger Saudis, but he's no democrat. He has purged the palace of opposition while carrying out a crackdown on human rights. Crown Prince Mohammed, 34, has fueled resentment among some prominent branches of the ruling family by tightening his grip on power. Some critics have questioned his ability to lead after the 2018 murder of a prominent journalist by Saudi agents and the largest-ever attack on Saudi oil infrastructure last year, sources have said...

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by washingtonexaminer.com ~ Last week, the IRS released its annual Statistics of Income. This much-anticipated document is exactly what it sounds like: a thorough analysis of taxpayers’ incomes and payments to the IRS, this time for 2018... Each year, these numbers are illuminating for a number of reasons. For one thing, they show the progression of tax payments over time. For example, revenues have continued to rise since the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act lowered income tax rates for everyone. And the number of filers taking the mortgage interest deduction plummeted from 33 million in 2017 to just 13 million in 2018, as more taxpayers took advantage of the new and far more generous standard deduction. There are also important lessons about income classes. Out of 147 million IRS tax filers in 2018, just 0.3% about 500,000 had incomes above $1 million. These earners and families made 17% of all taxable income in 2018 just shy of $1.5 trillion and paid 28.6% of all income taxes. That is significantly more than they would pay in a strictly proportional system, and of course, it doesn’t count state or local income taxes or the business taxes that high earners often pay. Meanwhile, the 85 million filers at the bottom of the pay scale faced a justly and reasonably lower tax bill. Those reporting incomes of $50,000 or less more than half of all filers shouldered just 5.5% of the nation’s total income tax bill. This goes to show that the United States has a tax system that favors those with lower incomes and demands a fair share, by any reasonable definition, from millionaires and billionaires. But it demonstrates much more than that. It also shows, once again, that there is no way, through merely raising taxes on the richest of the rich, that anyone could ever hope to fund a massive government medical system or an environmental transformation of the economy. This remains true even if you extend punitive taxation to mere quarter-million-dollar earners — the top 3.64% of filers, who reported making more than $250,000 in income in 2018. This group also paid an outsized amount in taxes — 54.71% of all income, capital gains, dividends, and self-employment taxes collected by Uncle Sam. But even this larger group made only $3.24 trillion in taxable income...   https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/editorials/irs-data-show-progressive-plans-require-huge-middle-class-tax-hikes?utm_source=WEX_News%20Brief_03/08/2020&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=WEX_News%20Brief&rid=5261   

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{ jpost.com } ~ As 39 Israelis were diagnosed with coronavirus Sunday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that the country is considering requiring a mandatory14-day quarantine for all travelers entering the country... “We have come to the conclusion that if we take further steps, they will actually need to apply to all states,” Netanyahu said during a briefing Sunday at the Prime Minister’s Office. “It is pointless to do this in a small way.”  The prime minister said that while he had no new policy to announce on Sunday, such a decision is expected to be announced on Monday afternoon and could include putting into isolation travelers from additional Western nations, including certain American states, such as Washington, California and New York. “We take action as we understand it to be necessary,” the prime minister confirmed, “and everyone accepts it, obviously the United States, too… On the other hand, this decision is a very difficult decision, the same was true last night and today and will be true the next day.” During the briefing, Health Ministry director-general Moshe Bar Siman Tov clarified the quarantine requirements for Israelis who attended the American-Israel Public Affairs Committee Policy Conference in Washington, DC, last week. Anyone who attended the event and returned before Thursday, March 5 does not require isolation, he said. However, anyone who returned after that date must enter home-quarantine effective immediately.  Three Americans who attended the AIPAC conference have been diagnosed with coronavirus.  Netanyahu said that he spoke to US Vice President Mike Pence and White House coronavirus response coordinator Deborah Birx on Sunday – “very impressive people” – and stressed the importance of continued “maximum cooperation in dealing with the virus” with the United States...  https://www.jpost.com/Breaking-News/Breaking-28-Israelis-diagnosed-with-coronavirus-Health-Ministry-620244   

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{ thepatriothill.com } ~ The Democratic National Committee has changed the rules for the upcoming debate scheduled for March 15 in Arizona... Under the new rules, a candidate must get the backing of a minimum of 20% of the total pledged delegates of the party. The previous regulations only required that a candidate has at least one delegate to qualify. The changes in the rules mean that Tulsi Gabbard will not be in the debate stage and that it would just be a faceoff between commie-Bernie Sanders and loose lips liar-Joe Biden. Gabbard would have been able to qualify for the debate if the old rules were to be followed since she was able to get a delegate from American Samoa. After the February 29 primary in South Carolina, candidates have been suspending their campaign. The latest was Elizabeth dinky/liar-Warren, who was one of the leading candidates when the campaigning started but has seen her chances slowly erode until her dismal performance on Super Tuesday during which she lost even in her home state of Massachusetts. She has since suspended her campaign, blaming sexism for the fact that her campaign was largely a failure, and she has not endorsed any of the remaining candidates. Former candidates Klobuchar and socialist-Buttigieg have come out in support of loose lips liar-Biden, who is now on a race for the nomination against commie-Sanders. The former Vice President is leading with the number of delegates, but there is a chance that the old socialist from Vermont can win the nomination. Meanwhile, Gabbard has largely been ignored by the DNC and the mainstream media. It seems that there has been a steady attempt to exclude her from getting time in the spotlight. Plus, she has been accused of ridiculous things. scumbag/liar-Hillary Clinton even went so far to say that the Russians were pushing Gabbard as a candidate. In return, she filed a defamation lawsuit against scumbag/liar-Clinton because of that statement. The DNC has tried to exclude Gabbard from the debate stage in the past. Some say that it is an attempt to protect some of the establishment candidates against her attacks. The fear may have some foundation as Gabbard destroyed lowlife-Kamala Harris’ campaign on the debate stage back in July last year when she commented on lowlife-Harris’s criminal justice record. Perhaps the DNC is scrambling now to get her disqualified as she might make former Vice President loose lips liar-Joe Biden look more lost than usual while on the debate stage. While she may not be joining the debate, she has not quit the race, which some Democrats are overlooking.  https://thepatriothill.com/left-news/2020/03/08/dnc-changes-debate-rules-to-kick-out-gabbard/?utm_source=sprklst&utm_campaign=patriothill-dnc-03_08-mid   

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{ theconservativetreehouse.com } ~ If you want to know what those inside the DNC Club are thinking watch one of the club insiders, George Stephanopoulos... In this interview Stephanopoulos tries to blur the lines between loose lips liar-Biden and commie-Bernie by saying their policies are identical. Nice trick. Stephanopoulos asks commie-Bernie when will he drop out; and if the senator will keep campaigning even after it becomes mathematically impossible to get to the convention with most delegates.Michigan is a key state for the presidential primary contest between loosew lips liar-Joe Biden and commie-Bernie Sanders. Michigan (125 delegates), Idaho (20), Mississippi (36), Missouri (68), North Dakota (14), and Washington State (89) all vote this upcoming Tuesday, March 10th. Former Vice-President loose lips liar-Joe Biden, an advocate for outsourcing U.S. jobs via corrupt trade deals, is hoping to leverage his phony pro-union bona-fides & crush commie-Bernie Sanders in Michigan. However, commie-Bernie has a strong ground team in Michigan, understands the importance in delegate accumulation, and also knows it is critical to defeat the ‘unelectable‘ narrative the DNC Club has deployed against him...

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{ theconservativetreehouse.com } ~ In November of 2019 buried deep in the congressional budget Continuing Resolution (CR) was a short-term extension to reauthorize the FISA “business records provision”, the “roving wiretap” provision, the “lone wolf” provision... and the more controversial bulk metadata provisions Call Detail Records (CDR)], all parts of the Patriot Act.  As a result of the FISA CR inclusion the terminal deadline was pushed to March 15, 2020. The Senate is scheduled to recess March 13, 2020. Additionally, the DOJ/FBI response to the FISA court order due February 5th has still not been made public. If congress is going to reauthorize the controversial FISA provisions, they now have only *FIVE* days; and the good news today is Doug Collins confirming the House does not have enough votes to support a “clean reauthorization.” Hopefully, that means FISA is going to change.According to Senator Rand Paul, President Trump is committed to seeing that FISA is not reauthorized without “significant” reform. Senator Paul has proposed to significantly change the FISA process by forcing the DOJ, FBI and Intelligence Community to apply for search and surveillance warrants to Title-3 courts in order to access any NSA database containing private information of American citizens...

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