11 Comments

Thank you David for your opening remarks.

Have a good mental health weekend everyone. I am

planning on it.

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May 4Liked by David Kurtz

They reminded me, too of the bigger picture. I plan to plant my garden today in a bid for being outdoors, participating in a timeless ritual of growing food, and ignoring the (far too many) columns and essays I typically read.

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May 3Liked by David Kurtz

“So don’t get too caught up in the day-to-day news. There lies madness. Embrace the uncertainty, live with the dis-ease that comes with not knowing, and forswear the cheap and easy fixes offered by tawdry figures who prey on the victims of the chaos they create”

This is perfectly stated. Thank you.

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May 4Liked by David Kurtz

Your opening paragraphs were particularly helpful to me today. Like many of your readers, I've gotten too obsessive about the Trump trials. It's easy, in today's news cycle, to ignore the war in Ukraine, Israel and the climate crisis. Thanks for reminding us to widen the lens.

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May 4Liked by David Kurtz

YES! Another Pokey LaFarge fan.

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David, what you said about the bigger threat is exactly right, in my opinion. I wish Biden would run not just against Trump, but against our denial about climate change. Yes, prices will go up if we can’t grow food. Pumping oil will make the long term worse. Keeping out all immigrants will mean people will starve or be unable to afford what food there is.

I wish you could just buttonhole Biden and tell him to run BIG, run against this dual threat.

Thank you for your work and integrity.

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I wonder about the staying power of the Time Magazine tRump interview, and whether ITS implications for a second tRump term will suffer the fate of previous expositions - e.g., Agenda 2025 - that eventually leave the MSM for "speciality" niches on the Web. Hard to imagine the NYT going all "Hillary's emails!" on the Time revelations, as "horse-race" politics still dominate coverage of this year's elections, and so much that we read about tRump is treated as...well, another day in tRumpworld. SAD!!

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"Embrace the Uncertainty". Shame on us for not already being proficient at this. No time like now to learn. There is no time other than now anyway.

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One thing about Giuli's spending. One report said that the 43K was from his retirement funds. The creditors can't get that as long as they are in the retirement account. Once withdrawn, they become income. During the bankruptcy itself they can't be "got" by the creditors because of the stay; the question is what happens to the withdrawals at the close of bankruptcy--does he keep them or are they in the final distribution pot. Keep in mind the funds still IN the retirement accounts are not available to creditors even after closing of the bankruptcy.

What we don't know the size of those accounts nor what the Minimum Required Distribution is.

Whatever the bulk amount is, he has had to take MRDs and THOSE are not covered by the exemption once they are in his pocket. Possibly there is a different rule about Minimum Required Distributions, which one is FORCED to take. Perhaps the judge just figures that by taking the "budget" from his retirement account he is keeping more reachable assets from being sold or used. If he chose NOT to take that amount (except for the MRD) and asked for a much smaller budget to live on from current assets, he'd have a real unreachable pot at the close of the bankruptcy and the reachable pot would be diminished.

Perhaps, since he is turning 80 at the end of the month he doesn't think he's got to stretch out whatever is in the retirement account for that many more years.

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After David’s sermon at the top, I was very, very tempted to note that I was already having a usually bad morning.

And then I reconsidered; why throw oil on the flames. Instead, I’m just going to remind y’all of what needs to be done:

Vote the GOP out of power then same for DINOs. (DINO-controlled DNC got my Democratic Congressperson replaced by the Republican piece of shit (oops, just repeated myself there) who pushed that godawful anti-antisemitism law in the House. (Re that: none of the report does it justice. It’s insanely worse than reported.)

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So we CAN arrest thousands of people on the spot?!?

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