Benjamin Franklin was right about death and taxes, but new taxes only become inevitable when a Democrat is elected president.

The House Ways and Means Committee released an outline of tax proposals to offset President Biden’s jaw-dropping spending plans, and it’s the expected assortment of tax increases on business and the affluent that Democrats like to pretend can fund a social welfare state of the sort that Bernie Sanders has long pined and advocated for.

The individual tax rate would increase from 37% to 39.6%, the capital gains rate from 20% to 25%, and the corporate tax rate from 21% to 26.5 %, among sundry other provisions befitting the hideously complex U.S. tax regime.

It’s a sign of the scope of Biden plans that the committee version represents a step back from his tax proposals, yet still clocks in at an enormous $2.2 trillion in estimated new revenue over ten years.

The corporate taxes are particularly noxious. Democrats love the politics of taxing corporations, based on the lazy and wrongheaded idea that the corporate tax is the way to stick it to executives and shareholders. To the contrary, if businesses are taxed at a higher rate, they have less resources available for the capital investments that improve worker productivity over time. This ultimately means lower wages for workers.

According to the Tax Foundation, a top corporate rate of 28% would once again give the U.S. the highest rate in the OECD at 32.3% once state level corporate taxes are factored in as well.

What’s the sense in instantly making the business environment in the United States less favorable and giving a competitive advantage to foreign countries?

While the Way and Means draft rejects Biden proposals such as taking the capital gains rate all the way up to 39%(!), it does everything it can to try to hold anyone making less than $400,000 harmless. As The Washington Post puts it, “The efforts are designed to avoid even the appearance of affecting middle- and lower-income households.”

This is where the Democrats are willing to talk the talk about a cradle-to-grave welfare state, but not walk the walk. There can be no European-style welfare state, at least not sustainably so, without European-style taxes.
The dirty secret about the Scandinavian countries that the left constantly holds up as a model is that they aren’t afraid to tax the middle class. These alleged models of social justice tax more than we do and tax much more broadly, realizing that taxing the rich and corporations isn’t enough to fund extensive and generous social programs.

The Tax Foundation calculates that if the U.S. had a tax system comparable to Denmark, we would be taxing all income over $70,000 at 55.9%, Denmark’s top rate.

The Ways and Means tax hikes would, sure enough, create Denmark-like rates. But the rates wouldn’t reach down into the middle class. In fact, Democrats from high tax states are determined to raise the cap on federal tax deductions for state and local taxes to reduce the tax bite on their relatively affluent constituents.

Maybe don’t increase taxes in the first place?

Indeed, rather than trying to spend historic amounts of money while their slender majorities last, it’d be better for the country if Democrats sought to fund their priorities by reallocating dollars within the already vast federal budget. But standing the aforementioned Benjamin Franklin on his head, they believe that a trillion saved is a trillion wasted.

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Rich Lowry is editor of the National Review.

ROCHESTER, Minn. — Mackenzie Fjerstad was at her home in Rochester, Minnesota, surrounded by family and friends, when she found out her 2-year-old daughter Maelahni was never going to be with her father again.

Fjerstad, 22, learned Monday afternoon, Sept. 13, that her ex-boyfriend and Maelahni’s father, Matthew Pettus, was one of four people found fatally shot Sunday, Sept. 12, in an abandoned SUV in a cornfield in Dunn County, Wis.

“I just broke,” Fjerstad said. “I just broke down bawling. I’ve never felt this type of pain before. Ever.”

Pettus, 26, and the three other victims — his sister Jasmine Christine Sturm, 30, of St. Paul; Nitosha Lee Flug-Presley, 30, of Stillwater, Minnesota, and Loyace Foreman III, 35, of St. Paul — were found in the SUV by a farmer Sunday afternoon. The night before, they had been 65 miles west at a bar in St. Paul, where Pettus was living, Dunn County Sheriff Kevin Bygd said during a news conference on Tuesday, Sept. 14.

Authorities believe the four “were randomly brought to” Dunn County.

Bygd said there is no connection between the victims and Dunn County, and at this time there are no indications the motive behind the killings involved drugs or organized crime activity.

Fjerstad met Pettus in Rochester in 2017 while in line at a Taco Bell drive-thru. Pettus was working there and the two were flirting while she was waiting for her food, she said.

“I did a Facebook status like, ‘Oh, whoever the Taco Bell drive-thru guy is is pretty cute,’” she said. “And then he found me on Facebook a week later.”

That started a three-year relationship that led to the birth of their daughter in 2019. They separated in 2020 and Pettus moved to St. Paul, but that didn’t stop him from being an active part of Maelahni’s life.

“He was great. He was always supportive. He was always making sure she had more than she needed. He would take her unnecessarily shopping,” Fjerstad said. “He always wanted to do something with her … He just always made sure she had everything she needed and she loves him so much.

“It definitely made me feel lucky that I was blessed with my child’s father actually wanting to be there.”

Fjerstad also described Pettus as a “stubborn” person, but also welcoming to others. Pettus did have a criminal record in Olmsted County.

“He struggled with a lot of things, but no matter what, he tried. And he was there,” Fjerstad said.

Pettus’ sister, Jasmine Sturm, also played an involved role when it came to her niece.

“(Maelahni) loved her auntie,” Fjerstad said. “Every time she saw her, she would get excited. Jasmine did everything she could to help me, too. She would take Maelahni sometimes on weekends and just take her out.”

Even after they separated, Fjerstad said she was comfortable reaching out to Pettus and always wanted him to be a part of her and Maelahni’s lives.

“No matter what happened, I knew that I could call him and cry to him about something that didn’t even involve him or my child,” she said. “He was there … He was my first love. I’ve always cared about him and I told him ‘No matter what, I’m always going to care about you and always have a love for you. You’re the father of my child. I don’t want anything to happen to you.’”

WATKINS GLEN, N.Y. (WETM) – The NASCAR Cup Series will return to Watkins Glen International and New York State on Sunday, August 21, two weeks later than the race’s typical weekend.

The race was announced as part of the 2022 NASCAR Cup Series schedule and will be the second-to-last NASCAR Cup Series regular season race of the season.

“The on-track intensity is going ramp up even more for next year’s race,” WGI President Michael Printup said. “Moving our race to later in August means the drivers will be in desperation mode to secure one of the few remaining chances at the championship. Dreams will be made, and title hopes dashed, on the twists and turns at The Glen.”

The race at Watkins Glen will lead up to the regular season finale at Daytona International Speedway to set up the Playoff field of 16 drivers.

Schedules for the NASCAR Xfinity Series, NASCAR Camping World Truck Series and ARCA Menards Series 2022 seasons will be announced in the near future. In addition, start times and television network information for Cup Series races will be also announced at a later date.

By AMY FORLITI

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — The former Minneapolis police officer convicted of murder in the death of George Floyd pleaded not guilty Thursday to violating the civil rights of a teenager in a separate case that involved a restraint similar to the one used on Floyd.

Derek Chauvin was convicted earlier this year on state charges of second-degree unintentional murder, third-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter in Floyd’s 2020 death. He was sentenced to 22 1/2 years. He’s also charged in federal court with violating Floyd’s civil rights when he knelt on the Black man’s neck for about 9 1/2 minutes as Floyd was facedown on the pavement, not resisting and pleading for air.

But another indictment against Chauvin alleges he carried out a similar act against a then-14-year-old boy in 2017. This indictment alleges Chauvin deprived the teenager, who is Black, of his right to be free of unreasonable force when he held the teen by the throat, hit him in the head with a flashlight and held his knee on the boy’s neck and upper back while he was prone, handcuffed and not resisting.

When U.S. Magistrate Judge Hildy Bowbeer asked how he would plead to the charge, Chauvin replied, “Not guilty, your honor.”

Thursday’s hearing was held via videoconference, and Chauvin appeared from the state’s maximum security prison, where he’s being held following his murder conviction. He was in a large room, and wearing a plain T-shirt as he sat at the head of a long table. No one was visible in the room with him, but a man was seen behind a window pane over Chauvin’s shoulder. He had some paper on the table in front of him and appeared to take notes.

Thursday’s hearing also addressed some pretrial motions, which were routine.

According to a police report from the 2017 encounter, Chauvin wrote that the teen resisted arrest and after the teen, whom he described as 6-foot-2 and about 240 pounds, was handcuffed, Chauvin “used body weight to pin” him to the floor. The boy was bleeding from the ear and needed two stitches.

That encounter was one of several mentioned in state court filings that prosecutors said showed Chauvin had used neck or head and upper body restraints seven times prior to Floyd’s death dating back to 2014, including four times state prosecutors said he went too far and held the restraints “beyond the point when such force was needed under the circumstances.”

Chauvin and three other former officers — Thomas Lane, J. Kueng and Tou Thao — were arraigned on civil rights violations in Floyd’s death on Tuesday. All four pleaded not guilty to those charges. The indictment in the 2017 case was filed the same day as the one for Floyd’s death.

According to the indictment in Floyd’s death, the officers allegedly deprived Floyd of his rights while acting under government authority. The federal indictment alleges Chauvin violated Floyd’s right to be free from unreasonable seizure and from unreasonable force by a police officer. Thao and Kueng are charged with violating Floyd’s right to be free from unreasonable seizure by not intervening to stop Chauvin as he knelt on Floyd’s neck. All four officers are charged with depriving Floyd of his rights when they failed to provide medical care.

Floyd repeatedly said he couldn’t breathe as Chauvin pinned him to the ground. Kueng and Lane helped restrain Floyd; Kueng knelt on Floyd’s back, and Lane held Floyd’s legs, according to evidence in state court. Thao held back bystanders and kept them from intervening.

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Find AP’s full coverage of the death of George Floyd at: https://apnews.com/hub/death-of-george-floyd

Every year, TIME magazine takes it upon itself to determine which public figures are the most influential, and in 2021, several prominent artists have made the roster. It stands to reason that this would be the case, given that 2021’s turbulence has begged for cultural interpretation, but even so, the names chosen for the list are appropriately diverse and wide-ranging in terms of the subject matter they deal with. The artists chosen for the final tally include Barbara Kruger, whose feminist art insists upon itself with blazing boldness, as well as Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara, a Cuban dissident artist who’s recently been involved in antigovernment protests.

Also included: Mark Bradford, a large-scale abstract painter whose artworks have tackled subject matter including AIDS and isolation. Bradford was one of many artists who used his talents to try to capture the mood of the coronavirus pandemic, and Anita Hill, who wrote the TIME blurb praising the painter, was careful to point this out. “While in quarantine, he created paintings that convey the isolation, violence, struggles and resilience that marked our time apart,” Hill writes. “Mark’s work gives me hope that the challenges we’ve faced will help to connect us. Though future disasters may seem inevitable, Mark’s art has shown us how we might avoid them, if only we are brave enough to see.”

Art critic and historian Hal Foster is similarly effusive on the subject of Kruger. “Last year she had copies of a 1991 version of this work pasted on the streets of Szczecin, Poland, in response to restrictive new abortion laws there,” Foster says. “Always alert to questions of audience and venue, Kruger forever seeks new ways to intervene in the public sphere, drawing political debate into artistic practice and vice versa.”

Finally, none other than Ai Weiwei was tasked with summing up Alcántara. “Although he has since been imprisoned, his life, behavior and expression as a whole are so powerful that they can resist the aesthetic and ethical degeneration of authoritarianism,” Weiwei writes. He should know, given how much trouble he continues to get himself in back in Hong Kong.

K-pop mega group BTS will accompany South Korean President Moon Jae-in as special presidential envoys at the 76th session of the United Nations General Assembly in New York next week.

Awarding ceremony: The seven-man group was awarded the certificates on Tuesday appointing them as “Special Presidential Envoys for Future Generations and Culture” in a ceremony at the Blue House, according to Korea JoongAng Daily.

• At the ceremony, BTS member Kim Nam-joon, better known as “RM,” said it was a “great honor to be able to do something with the title of a special presidential envoy for future generations and culture.”
• “We always thought about whether we could repay all the love we have received and give back at the same time, and we are honored that the president has given us such a great opportunity and will work hard as special envoys,” the band’s leader added.
• The theme of next week’s U.N. General Assembly meeting is: “Building resilience through hope — to recover from Covid-19, rebuild sustainability, respond to the needs of the planet, respect the rights of people, and revitalize the United Nations.”
• BTS will reportedly accompany Moon during his U.S. trip from Sept. 19 to 23, ABC News reported. The group has accompanied the South Korean president to a U.N. General Assembly in the past, where RM delivered a speech as part of the ongoing UNICEF “Love Myself” campaign.

Their duties: Named as special envoys in July, BTS is expected to “deliver a message of comfort and hope to young people worldwide” and “facilitate diversity, environment and equality around the world.”

• BTS’ first duties as special envoys will begin when they accompany Moon to the U.N. General Assembly next week for the second meeting of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG Moment).
• The band’s attendance at the meeting will “serve as a meaningful opportunity to expand communication with future generations around the world and draw their sympathy on major international issues,” the Blue House said in a statement, referring to the band’s considerable reach with younger people.

Share your story: BTS announced a new project, titled “Youth Today, Your story,” following the special envoy announcement.

• “What were the past 2 yrs like for you, and what’s your world like today?” the group asked their followers on Twitter. “Express the precious things that make up your world or show who you are now with an image, an emoji or a word.”

Dear young people,
What were the past 2 yrs like for you, and what’s your world like today? Express the precious things that make up your world or show who you are now with an image, an emoji or a word

At the UN, your stories will begin.

Sincerely,#BTS#YouthToday #YourStories pic.twitter.com/kZOGEW1aj0

— BTS_official (@bts_bighit) September 13, 2021

• The group also has an online concert in October called “Permission to Dance on Stage.” The upcoming concert will be BTS’ first online concert for 2021, NME reported.

Featured Image via SBS

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Last week, New York Fashion Week didn’t just come back, it came roaring back. After being sent largely online for the last few seasons, a decent portion of its presentations were finally in person (while other contingents were either streamed online, offered as high-production videos or in-person but private visits).

We thought it was worth looking back at the full bounty of what was presented in all of the shows, and picking a few of the highlights. Here’s a snapshot of my five favorite, standout looks that I can’t wait to see worn once the weather starts getting warm next year.

Sandy Liang’s deconstructed creamy, dreamy dress
There’s something extra cool about a dress that’s romantic to begin with, but has been meticulously deconstructed. That’s what’s going on with this number. With its off-white hue and flowy layers, it’s artful enough to be worn on its own with some delicate jewelry and heels to a patio party, and original enough to counterbalance a moto jacket and black boots.

Rodarte’s acid yellow fringe dress

Rodarte has long been a creator of magical, almost surreal pieces in the fashion arena, bringing a trippy California vibe and dovetailing it with modern colors, strategically frayed fabrics and otherwise interesting spins on modern, handcrafted design. And that’s why the line’s all-fringe, all-bright yellow frock caught my eye. I can’t wait to see one light up a party.

Brandon Maxwell’s shimmer meets leather look

It was a match made in runway heaven: Flowy, feminine silks and satins in psychedelic swirls and endless shimmer were paired with casual T-shirts and structured leather and croc pieces. And it worked best in a look I could see wearing from a work meeting straight to dinner out: a blue pleated, holographic silk maxi skirt paired with a robin’s egg-blue leather jacket.

Tom Ford’s head-to-toe purple

Ford truly loves to put on a show. And this one was full of celebratory color, sequins and silk cargo pants. I especially loved his head-to-toe lilac look — a deluge (and yet a still-very-wearable deluge) of deep purple knickers, a satin button-down shirt tied seductively at the waist and velvet smoking jacket. Whatever is going on with COVID next spring, it’s a look with in-person presence and — dare I say it — true exuberance.

Adam Lippes’ minimalist separates

Sometimes you just can’t beat an impeccably made, solid color piece that moves just the way you want it to. That’s the practical-but-ethereal sense you get from Adam Lippes in this latest collection, thanks to flowy and well-tailored pants in dusty rose, and white lace, pouf-sleeved blouses that evoke special occasions but are incredibly easy to toss on and wear just about anywhere.

 

With their New York-bound plane sitting on the tarmac at Minneapolis-Saint Paul International Airport with mechanical difficulties on Sunday, Twins catcher Ryan Jeffers decided to use the opportunity to learn something.

“I was just talking to one of the flight guys who works out there, just talking about different airplanes and asking questions,” Jeffers said. “It’s just who I am.”

Jeffers uses this example to explain why, in an up-and-down season, he still feels confident he’ll be a consistently better major leaguer than he has been this season. A hunger for learning — Jeffers was a physics major in college — can only help him in that effort. And after a brief taste of the majors last season, the 2021 season has been all about learning for Jeffers.

“I’m always learning. I don’t like going into situations and not knowing or not understanding. I like to be informed, I like to learn, I  like to grow,” he said. “And that’s something I’ve always done. Whether it’s hitting, whether it’s defensive, whether it’s stuff completely unrelated.”

With Mitch Garver on and off the injured list twice this year — first with a groin injury, now with back tightness — Jeffers has seen more time behind the plate this year than Garver, even with an early-season demotion back to Triple-A.

In 76 games, Jeffers has hit .202 with a .275 on-base percentage and .408 slugging percentage with 13 home runs. He turned in one of his better games of the season on Tuesday, collecting three hits, including a home run, and driving in four in a Twins win against the Cleveland Indians.

There’s more of that coming, he believes.

“Just continuing to work and continuing to grow and get better every day really is possible by staying in the lineup,” Jeffers said. “Who knows what the next couple years entail? But I want to be that guy catching 120 games, 130 games.”

However the Twins split playing time with their catchers over the course of the next couple of weeks — Garver is getting closer to making his return — this season will have proven a valuable one for Jeffers, showing him the ins and outs of what it takes to be an everyday major league catcher.

Twins manager Rocco Baldelli said it was one “unlike any year he’s ever played.”

“He’s going to have seen the light in some ways as to what it entails to go out there and do this job on a consistent basis at the major league level, and he’s learning to embrace it,” Baldelli said. “ … I do think the experience factor, the innings that he’s logging, the consecutive games that he’s played, there’s going to be a collective benefit for him going forward and it’s going to make him a better player.”

His willingness and desire to learn and expand his horizons — the same curiosity that led to him peppering an airport worker with questions — he believes will make him a better player.

“I know I can be one of the best-hitting catchers in baseball,” Jeffers said. “I know I can be one of the best defensive catchers in baseball.”

TWINS LIKELY TO MISS BERRIOS

The Blue Jays have not named a starter for Sunday’s series finale against the Twins but it doesn’t appear it will be former Twins right-hander José Berríos, who last pitched on Tuesday.

With an off day on Thursday, Berríos, is more likely to start on Monday, as long as he’s healthy. He left Tuesday’s start after seven strong innings with what Blue Jays manager Charlie Montoyo called left abdominal tightness, but he is expected to make his next start.

Berríos should be in line to start against his former team next weekend in his return to Target Field. Since the July 30 trade that sent Berríos to Toronto for prospects Austin Martin and Simeon Woods Richardson, Berrios has posted a 3.31 earned-run average across nine starts.

BRIEFLY

The Twins will have Michael Pineda start the first game in Toronto, followed by Bailey Ober on Saturday. They have not yet listed a starter for Sunday. The Blue Jays will counter with Hyun Jin Ryu and Steven Matz in the first two games.