turbinetree
turbinetree's JournalLockheed to offload $1.8 billion in pension risks to Prudential
Source: Reuters
BUSINESS NEWS JANUARY 29, 2019 / 12:50 PM / UPDATED 7 MINUTES AGO
(Reuters) - Lockheed Martin Corp, the Pentagon’s top weapons supplier, said on Tuesday it would transfer $1.8 billion in pension obligations to U.S. life insurer Prudential Financial Inc to reduce the risk and costs of pensions.
Prudential will assume responsibility for pension benefits of around 32,000 former Lockheed employees as part of the agreement.
U.S. companies such as Accenture, General Motors, Verizon and Kimberly-Clark have been offloading their pension obligations to insurance companies to cut down on costs and reduce the liabilities of their pensions.
The move benefits insurers, which have been buying corporate pension plans at a record clip since they can make more money from selling companies an annuity to cover the cost of the pension plans and then invest the proceeds in bonds and other securities.
Read more: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-lockheed-pensions-prudential-finl/lockheed-to-offload-1-8-billion-in-pension-risks-to-prudential-idUSKCN1PN2D2?il=0
U.S. judge rejects Yahoo data breach settlement
Source: Reuters
BUSINESS NEWS JANUARY 29, 2019 / 10:34 AM / UPDATED 2 HOURS AGO
Jonathan Stempel
(Reuters) - A U.S. judge rejected Yahoo’s proposed settlement with millions of people whose email addresses and other personal information were stolen in the largest data breach in history, faulting the Internet services provider for a lack of transparency.
In a Monday night decision, U.S. District Judge Lucy Koh in San Jose, California, said she could not declare the settlement “fundamentally fair, adequate and reasonable” because it did not say how much victims could expect to recover.
Yahoo, now part of New York-based Verizon Communications Inc, was accused of being too slow to disclose three breaches from 2013 to 2016 that affected an estimated 3 billion accounts.
The settlement called for a $50 million payout, plus two years of free credit monitoring for about 200 million people in the United States and Israel with nearly 1 billion accounts.
Read more: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-verizon-yahoo/u-s-judge-rejects-yahoo-data-breach-settlement-idUSKCN1PN20F
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“Yahoo’s history of nondisclosure and lack of transparency related to the data breaches are egregious,” Koh wrote.
“Unfortunately, the settlement agreement, proposed notice, motion for preliminary approval, and public and sealed supplemental filings continue this pattern of lack of transparency,” she added.
The case is In re: Yahoo Inc Customer Data Security Breach Litigation, U.S. District Court, Northern District of California, No. 16-md-02752.
'We know how to survive,' but U.S. shutdown cut deep for Native Americans
U.S.JANUARY 29, 2019 / 6:13 AM / UPDATED 6 HOURS AGO
Stephanie Keith, Andrew Hay
EAGLE BUTTE, S.D./TAOS, N.M. (Reuters) - The Pawnee Nation of Oklahoma used a GoFundMe page and its own money to feed its many members who were furloughed or worked without pay during the U.S. government shutdown.
On their reservation in Eagle Butte, South Dakota, the Cheyenne used third-party funds and dipped into tribal funds to provide food assistance.
The 35-day partial government shutdown affected 800,000 federal workers, but Native Americans were especially vulnerable because they rely mostly on federal contracts for services and jobs in the Bureau of Indian affairs for incomes.
Ivan Looking Horse, a spiritual leader at the Cheyenne Sioux reservation in Eagle Butte, South Dakota, said they had prepared for an even longer shutdown in the midst of a harsh South Dakota winter along the Cheyenne River by stockpiling food and fuel.
“We are the First Nations’ people. We know how to survive,” he said after President Donald Trump announced an end to the 35-day partial government shutdown.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-shutdown-nativeamericans/we-know-how-to-survive-but-u-s-shutdown-cut-deep-for-native-americans-idUSKCN1PN18G
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The latest stoppage, the 10th with furloughs since 1976, has further eroded Native American confidence in the federal government, tribal leaders say.
At the Pawnee Nation in Oklahoma, the GoFundMe drive was launched to provide baskets of groceries to federal workers, even those who were not tribe members, struggling to put food on the table, said Jim Gray, executive director of the nation. In 16 days - the drive is no longer accepting donations - it raised $6,343, out of a goal of $10,000.
“We had to give up 99 percent of our land to hang onto this 1 percent and then in turn they were supposed to provide these kinds of services as part of that treaty agreement,” Gray said.
Take Note: of that picture. of that young human being standing outside a home that has plastic around it to keep the wind from entering the home, (can you picture yourself living in that kind of condition) and also take note that the Native people on these reservations made a GoFundME page to help out with the furloughed people so that they could eat, while at the same time the government of this country is abusing the Natives and abusing the treaties that this country signed with the Natives.
This says exactly what it is suppose to mean........................if you cannot honor your treaties for the land we gave up so that we could be recognized....... then you have no business with our land .....................give it back ...................
James Clapper literally laughs at Sarah Sanders saying Trump allies' indictments have 'nothing to do
House Democrats unveil top 2020 targets
By David Wright, CNN
Updated 10:19 AM ET, Mon January 28, 2019
(CNN)House Democrats on Monday unveiled an initial 2020 battlefield map, targeting 33 Republican-held or open congressional seats with an emphasis on suburban districts -- and Texas in particular.
The target list was released in a strategy memo from Illinois Rep. Cheri Bustos, chair of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, and DCCC executive director Allison Jaslow, who announced that the committee "is gearing up for an aggressive effort to fortify and expand" the majority won by House Democrats in 2018.
"As the saying goes, the best defense is a good offense, and we couldn't agree more," they wrote.
"2018 was just the tip of the iceberg for Democrats," said Bustos. "Today we are announcing our plan to go on offense and grow our New Democratic Majority. We have a clear path to expanding our Democratic Majority, and by putting our plans in motion earlier in the cycle than ever before, we are demonstrating to Democrats across the country that the political arm of House Democrats is operating in high gear from the start.
Looking to build on their success targeting such seats in the recent midterms, the Democrats said that "many of the districts on our list have big suburban populations; many have also experienced rapid population growth in recent years -- particularly in diverse communities" and described the districts as "ripe pick-up opportunities."
https://www.cnn.com/2019/01/28/politics/dccc-2020-battlefield-map-memo-texas-suburbs/index.html
Phase Two is now into operation, we are coming right wing republicans we are coming, you thought Phase One was bad, you haven't seen anything yet, and for the republican controlled senate.......................say.............. Bye, bye
Pelosi Permits Trump State Of The Union Speech -- On Her Terms
Matthew Chapman
January 29, 2019 3:19 am / 0 Comments / Congress, Headlines, White House
Reprinted with permission from AlterNet.
President Donald Trump’s disastrous government shutdown is finally over, and his demand that Congress pass a border wall is moribund.
But there is one more loose end to be tied up: the State of the Union address. Will House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) allow the event to take place now that the shutdown is over? The answer, apparently, is yes — but only on her terms.
On Monday, Pelosi delivered a letter to Trump notifying him that he is free to deliver the address on February 5, a week after he had wanted to do it:
http://www.nationalmemo.com/pelosi-permits-trump-state-of-the-union-speech-on-her-terms/
The Supreme Court may kill Roe v. Wade as soon as this week
The final days of the right to choose are nigh.
IAN MILLHISER
JAN 28, 2019, 4:38 PM
Lawyers representing a Louisiana abortion clinic and at least two physicians filed an application in the Supreme Court on Monday asking the court to halt a Louisiana law that is identical to a Texas law the justices struck down in 2016.
The court is almost certain to deny this application in a 5-4 vote — possibly as soon as tonight. When it does so, it will effectively mark the end of Roe v. Wade.
Yes, the court is very unlikely to hand down an opinion this week which uses the words “Roe v. Wade is overruled.” But these abortion providers filed this application because a federal appeals court openly defied the Supreme Court’s most recent abortion decision. When the court refuses to enforce its own decision, that will send a clear signal to lower court judges throughout the country that they are free to uphold restrictions on abortion.
The case is June Medical Services v. Gee.
Gee involves a Louisiana law requiring “a physician performing or inducing an abortion” to “have active admitting privileges at a hospital that is located not further than thirty miles from the location at which the abortion is performed or induced and that provides obstetrical or gynecological health care services.” If that law sounds familiar, that’s because it is identical, almost word-for-word, to a Texas law that the Supreme Court struck down in Whole Woman’s Health v. Hellerstedt.
https://thinkprogress.org/supreme-court-may-kill-roe-v-this-week-a014778b1db9/
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The smart money, however, will bet that the court will vote along party lines to deny a stay of the Fifth Circuit’s decision. Just last May, while Kennedy was still on the court, the Supreme Court allowed an Arkansas anti-abortion law to take effect despite the fact that a lower court decision upholding that law was also at odds with Whole Woman’s Health. And the court has only grown more anti-abortion since May.
Should the Supreme Court deny a stay in the Gee case, moreover, anti-abortion judges will know exactly what that means. It will be a clear signal that they can emulate the Fifth Circuit and openly defy Supreme Court decisions protecting a right to abortion.
Roe v. Wade will die a quiet death, the Supreme Court won’t even have to kill it.
IN my opinion, the last two right wing Federalist Society Justices on this court should be impeached and or annulled, and "all" of the judges coming through the corrupt Mitch McConnell system should also be removed...........
GOP-Led Iowa House Hands Seat To GOPer After Rejecting 29 Mail Ballots
Source: Talking Points Memo
By DAVID PITT
January 29, 2019 9:46 am
DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — The Republican-led House voted Monday to reject 29 absentee mail ballots cast in a northeast Iowa House district, handing the seat to a Republican who won by nine votes in the first contested election to go before the Legislature in 27 years.
The mailed absentee ballots were confirmed by a U.S. Postal Service scan of a barcode on the envelopes as having been sent to election officials on time, but House Republicans insist those barcodes are not allowed under state law to be used to validate ballots.
Iowa law says mailed absentee ballots must be postmarked to confirm they were mailed by the deadline one day before an election. The 29 ballots had no postmark.
Legislators, realizing mail ballots often are no longer postmarked, updated the law in 2016 to allow a specific code called an intelligent mail barcode to be used to authenticate ballot timeliness if a postmark is missing. The Postal Service has acknowledged absentee ballots are not always postmarked.
Read more: https://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/iowa-house-reject-absentee-mail-ballots-michael-bergan-win
-snip-
The House voted 53-44 along party lines to reject the ballots and dismiss Koether’s challenge. Democrat Bruce Hunter said democracy suffers when legitimate votes are denied.
“It seems nobody will ever deprive the people of Iowa the right to vote except the Iowa Legislature. For 29 people in Winneshiek County, democracy is dead,” Hunter said.
Koether said she and some of the voters may file a lawsuit.
Her attorney has said the inconsistent way of affirming votes in Iowa may present a constitutional equal protection challenge. Another county in the same House district, Fayette County, counted 12 ballots with no postmark or barcode. The county election official has acknowledged that was a mistake.
Brexit: Speaker selects Brady and Cooper amendments to be voted on by MPs - Politics live
Source: The Guardian
Theresa May says she will reopen Brexit withdrawal agreement with EU ahead of votes on anti-backstop and Article 50 amendments
Full list of amendments to May’s statement
EU dismisses Tory compromise Brexit plan as unworkable
The ‘Malthouse compromise’: everything you need to know
Labour backs Cooper plan to rule out no-deal Brexit
Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/politics/live/2019/jan/29/brexit-vote-commons-latest-news-developments-liam-fox-says-may-now-saying-withdrawal-deal-text-must-be-rewritten-politics-live
Just as a side note if one where to open this site:
British retirees in EU will lose free healthcare under no-deal Brexit
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/jan/29/british-pensioners-in-eu-will-lose-nhs-covered-health-care-under-no-deal-brexit
If what the Tories are trying there damnedest to do is to hurt people, well, they will have completed the Margaret Thatcher plan, and they will hurt people, as the above article indicates , and it just like here in this country with the republicans, these Tories are from the same cloth as the republicans ...............it is absolutely amazing
That brand new Tory plan for Brexit? Here's why it's dead in the water
David Henig
As a trade expert I can immediately see several fatal flaws in the so-called ‘Malthouse compromise’
There is considerable excitement in the Conservative party on Tuesday morning. It looks like a deal has been reached on Brexit. There’s just one problem, that, from what we can gather of the so-called “Malthouse compromise”, it stands no chance of being acceptable to the EU.
There seem to be three fundamentals to the plan: the extension of the implementation period to 2021, technological solutions to ensure no border infrastructure requirements on the island of Ireland, and an interim free trade agreement to be tabled immediately. This has been termed a “triple-lock”.
The first element is uncontroversial and indeed already part of the draft withdrawal agreement between the EU and UK. It means a standstill period during which trade carries on as before, and the UK continues to follow EU rules and trade policy, including a common external tariff.
It is the second and third parts that are almost certain to be unacceptable to the EU. Technological solutions for the Irish border have been endlessly debated, but there is no border in the world outside of the EU where there are no physical checks, including the often cited Norway-Sweden and Switzerland-EU borders. Only where both countries are in a customs union and have more or less the same product regulations backed by a common court have checks been eliminated.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/jan/29/tory-brexit-malthouse-compromise-backstop-ireland-border
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