Ben Yelin

108.7K posts

Ben Yelin

Ben Yelin

@byelin

By day: Attorney/Consultant/Adjunct Law Professor, Co-Host of Caveat Podcast By night: Politics junkie and SF Bay Area sports nut. (Views here are my own)

Baltimore, MD Katılım Şubat 2009
2.3K Takip Edilen4.7K Takipçiler
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Ben Yelin
Ben Yelin@byelin·
Tuesday marks the beginning of midterm election season (we have primaries in Texas, Arkansas and North Carolina). And I want to make a public service announcement: 99.9999% of people On Here have absolultely no idea what they're talking about when it comes to elections, no matter how confident they sound.
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Ben Yelin
Ben Yelin@byelin·
The Libs would be SO owned if Kasnas couldn't even put a lame Demon-crat on the ballot.
Politics & Poll Tracker 📡@PollTracker2024

Tavern Research poll | 1/26-1/28 US Senate Kansas 2026 ⬜️Adam Hamilton 51% 🟥Roger Marshall 49% (incumbent) —— (If Hamilton ran as a Democrat) 🟥Roger Marshall 54% (incumbent) 🟦Adam Hamilton 46% —— Recalled 2024 vote 🟥Trump 57% 🟦Harris 41% (Possible Hamilton internal) Link to poll: mailchi.mp/noahforkansas/…

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Drew Savicki
Drew Savicki@DrewSav·
"Kill the sea lions" does seem harsh but humans have always had an active role in maintaining the balance of our planet's natural ecosystems.
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Drew Savicki
Drew Savicki@DrewSav·
She's actually right about the sea lions. It all stems from the 1972 Marine Mammal Protection Act. It was a good law that had unintended consequences. Human intervention altered the ecosystem of the Columbia River and now the populations are way out of balance. chinookobserver.com/2025/12/14/con…
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js@jstani5

@DrewSav wish mgp would at least tone down the sea lion genocide thing

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Ben Yelin
Ben Yelin@byelin·
@Ami61495883 I would favor broadening the base with lower marginal income tax rates across the board, but a crackdown on deductions and larger taxes on estate transfers (above a certain threshold), and figure out a way to better tax capital gains.
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Vestigaliberal aka Joe Davis
Vestigaliberal aka Joe Davis@Ami61495883·
If your objective is to raise tax revenues you would advocate a flat tax. If your objective is to virtue signal while reducing revenues and innovation while feeding resentment then do wealth and luxury taxes. (Dems learned this lesson when they destroyed the FL boat building industry but need to learn again)
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Ben Yelin
Ben Yelin@byelin·
This is what I find so frustrating. A lot of people of all ideological stripes can agree that the super rich should pay more in taxes, but every actual policy proposal doesn't work because the rich will just not comply/move to Florida/move to the Cayman's etc. And I grant that they WILL do that. But we still need to figure out a way to tax the super-rich more! Exhibit A: Read this: nytimes.com/2026/04/17/opi…
Sean T at RCP@SeanTrende

@JillFilipovic As a theoretical matter I think it's relatively unobjectionable. As a practical matter I think the idea is that people will choose to buy second homes elsewhere and the promised revenue won't materialize.

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Ben Yelin
Ben Yelin@byelin·
@Quirk22 The people who own 2nd or 3rd homes in New York City that they keep vacant are not the top 1% portrayed here. They are generally off this chart entirely because their income is probably minimal. Their wealth is in unrealized capital gains, which are untaxed.
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Q@Quirk22·
@byelin The left lives on illusions.
Q tweet media
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Ben Yelin
Ben Yelin@byelin·
@dkalamaro @charlescwcooke That's fair! I think the federal and state governments do need to be more efficient stewards of taxpayer money. If I were king for a day, I'd restore Medicaid funding cut in the OBBBA, and otherwise would put any additional tax revenue toward deficit reduction.
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Ben Yelin
Ben Yelin@byelin·
@sbegsc @HafeedAleppo @charlescwcooke Sure, rich people invest. But they are also incentivized by our tax structure to park unrealized capital gains as passive income that could otherwise be taxed for some worthy public services or invested elsewhere. So, yeah, hoarding.
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Susan Ellis
Susan Ellis@sbegsc·
@byelin @HafeedAleppo @charlescwcooke He’s talking about the verb “ hoard” dum-dum. That’s not what wealthy people do with their money. Do you know any rich people? They invest it which provides funds for innovation and wealth creation for others. They spend it which boosts the economy and provides jobs.
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Ben Yelin
Ben Yelin@byelin·
I think we need to broaden the tax base and increase taxes on almost everyone, while also focusing on actual government efficiency (not the DOGE kind) and supply side reforms (including going after liberal sacred cows like public sector unions). But until that is politically plausible, I have an ideoligical belief that a bunch of super billionaires shouldn't be able to hoard obscene amounts of wealth while so many of society's problems go unaddressed. I think we disagree on that point.
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Charles C. W. Cooke
Charles C. W. Cooke@charlescwcooke·
@byelin We don’t, though. It’s one of the last things we need to do. It’s extremely unimportant, and the obsession with it is a sign of unseriousness.
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Varad Mehta
Varad Mehta@varadmehta·
🚨🚨🚨 SCOTUS ANNOUNCES LOUISIANA DECISION But it's not the VRA case. It's the one about whether a WWII-era statute prevents suits against Chevron over oil storage and refining. Let's face it, Callais isn't hitting until the end of the term in late June/early July.
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Ben Yelin
Ben Yelin@byelin·
8-0 with a Jackson concurrence. Alito recused.
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Ben Yelin
Ben Yelin@byelin·
No Calais decision today. Only decision is the Chevron case (not that one). Justice Thomas has the opinion.
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jeremysenderowicz
jeremysenderowicz@senderowiczj·
@byelin I might also have been primed to get more annoyed than usual at Klein after his sanewashing of Hasan Piker & very selective "confronting realities" on Israel. He's had a week.
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Ben Yelin
Ben Yelin@byelin·
@senderowiczj I get that, but there should way to tax taking out loans with your stock as collateral to support your lavish lifestyle. That's really low hanging fruit and we could set the thresshold high enough that it woudl only impact the super-duper rich.
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jeremysenderowicz
jeremysenderowicz@senderowiczj·
@byelin Plus the tax return leaker should have gotten a much longer sentence.
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Ben Yelin
Ben Yelin@byelin·
@SenMikeLee Once upon a time you cared about real issues like FISA, which is up for renewal and there’s a need for prominent voices speaking against it. But you’re just an online troll now.
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Mike Lee
Mike Lee@SenMikeLee·
I have seen enough, and heard enough excuses. We cannot let Democrats sabotage this country. If nuking the filibuster is the only way to deliver on wildly popular legislation like the SAVE America Act, then we need to nuke the filibuster and start passing bills.
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Ben Yelin
Ben Yelin@byelin·
This language does not address the controversial aspect of 702, to my eye. It says nothing about a warrant for querying incidentally collected data. I think they are trying to trick dumber members into thinking this is a warrant requirement.
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Ben Yelin
Ben Yelin@byelin·
Yeah, so after reading the manager's amendment, I think this is a pretty blatant bait and switch. It's basically a restatement of current law. It says that no officer of the gov't shall TARGET a U.S. person intentionally, and it's under a section called "warrant requirement." BUT
John Bresnahan@bresreports

New on FISA warrants - The GOP amendment worked out by Johnson & conservatives includes the section “Warrant Requirement” for targeting info on a US person. But the provision actually doesn’t require that. It says “may seek.” Democrats say this amendment doesn’t really change current law

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Keşfet

@DrewSav @Ami61495883 @Quirk22 @dkalamaro @charlescwcooke @sbegsc @HafeedAleppo @varadmehta