turbinetree
turbinetree's JournalMunger Asks, 'Who Wouldn't Want Rich People?' in Tax Pushback
By Katherine Chiglinsky
February 14, 2019, 6:49 PM EST Updated on February 15, 2019, 8:32 AM EST
Charles Munger, the longtime business partner of Warren Buffett, is skeptical of recent Democratic proposals to tax the wealthiest Americans.
“A lot of civilizations work very well with low taxes on the rich,” Munger, 95, said in an interview Thursday after the annual shareholder meeting in Los Angeles of the Daily Journal Corp., where he serves as chairman. “So it’s a very complicated subject” and there’s a lack of evidence that one system is better than another.
Democratic policy makers including Senator Elizabeth Warren and Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez have advocated raising taxes on the rich. Munger, a Berkshire Hathaway Inc. vice chairman who owned more than $1.4 billion in company stock as of September, argued there’s a “lot of ignorance” around the tax issue. He said politicians oversimplify the problem, and their infighting doesn’t help the country overall.
“Hatred blinds reason and both sides are blinding reason,” Munger said. “How can it possibly be good?”
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-02-14/munger-pushes-back-on-wealth-taxes-says-issue-is-oversimplified?srnd=premium
Hey Munger, your last bit of fucking wisdom:
-snip-
Health Care
Berkshire teamed up with JPMorgan Chase & Co. and Amazon.com Inc. for a health-care venture, a task that Munger says is probably the hardest one on the agenda.
“I don’t know how it’ll work out,” he said. “There’s a lot of vested interests in that field who are probably from the status quo and it’s not going to be easy fixing anything.”
Your libertarian BS is just that, libertarian BS, in your quote, when looked at, makes it seem that health care should be privatized, with the help of your money and others, to make a fucking profit off sickness...............that are in the current the status quo.....................
I can't even afford to buy your B Stock. JP Morgan Chase is a blood sucking octopus, and Amazon, made 11 billion last year and paid ZERO in taxes, and got back over 123 million back because of loopholes, while I am and millions of others are going to get shit................please tell us what is wrong with this picture, I really want to know how much you and others get paid on those dividends of that so called " earned income " off those stocks..................and how much you are TAXED..................
I am not a fan of Berkshire Hathaway...................David Cay Johnson in his book ( “Perfectly Legal,” “Free Lunch” ) nailed your organization for what it is.............and in my opinion he is right................your nothing more than the newer version of the Rockefeller's and such........................
You should be taxed in my opinion at 90%...........................
May Warns Tories Not to Undermine Her Mission: Brexit Update
Source: Bloomberg
By Alex Morales , Thomas Penny , and Tim Ross
February 14, 2019, 4:15 AM EST Updated on February 14, 2019, 11:29 AM EST
Theresa May is warning pro-Brexit Conservatives not to undermine her efforts to re-negotiate her deal by rebelling against her in a vote in Parliament on Thursday. May is asking the Commons to endorse her strategy of seeking legally binding changes to the Irish border backstop during talks with the European Union.
May Faces Revolt From Euroskeptic Conservatives in Brexit Vote
Key Developments:
May’s team warn euroskeptics not to scupper her re-negotiation (10:55 a.m.)
Labour will oppose May’s motion and back Soubry rebel amendment (3:21 p.m.)
Speaker Bercow selects three amendments for debate (12:30 p.m.)
Vlieghe says Brexit vote has cost U.K. about 800 million pounds a week since the referendum (10 a.m.)
Read more: https://www.bloomberg.com/
How do you spell clusterfuck..........................
Kentucky Coal-Fired Power Plant Will Close Despite Trump's Objection
Source: Talking Points Memo
By Associated Press
February 14, 2019 11:31 am
FRANKFORT, Ky. (AP) — A federal utility board has voted to close a coal-fired power plant in Kentucky over the objections of President Donald Trump and some state GOP leaders.
The Tennessee Valley Authority voted Thursday to retire the remaining coal-fired unit at its Paradise Fossil Plant in Muhlenberg County, Kentucky, by December 2020.
The decision could put 131 people out of work. Also, the coal the TVA buys from nearby mines supports 135 jobs.
Trump tweeted his support for the plant on Monday after state GOP leaders, including Republican Gov. Matt Bevin, urged the board to delay its vote. TVA CEO Bill Johnson said the decision about finances. TVA officials says costs to its more than 10 million customers will be $320 million less if they close the plant.
Read more: https://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/paradise-fossil-plant-kentucky-closure-vote
Hey Bevin's can I call you Bevin's. Why don't you in your "executive time" to work just like the orange hair traitor and go out and get a company that makes "NEW GREEN DEAL" technology to put those workers back to work for the "long term", have you tried that lately?.............I really don't think so.......................
The Lobbying Swamp Is Flourishing in Trump's Washington
At least 33 former officials — including ex-Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke — have found ways to sidestep the administration’s ethics pledge. Of those, at least 18 are now registered federal lobbyists and the rest work in jobs that closely resemble lobbying.
by Derek Kravitz Feb. 14, 5 a.m. EST
It’s been more than two years since President Donald Trump, who rallied campaign supporters with calls to “drain the swamp” of lobbyists and their ilk, took office. But despite that campaign promise, Washington influence peddlers continue to move into and out of jobs in the federal government.
In his first 10 days in office, Trump signed an executive order that required all his political hires to sign a pledge. On its face, it’s straightforward and ironclad: When Trump officials leave government employment, they agree not to lobby the agencies they worked in for five years. They also can’t lobby anyone in the White House or political appointees across federal agencies for the duration of the Trump administration. And they can’t perform “lobbying activities,” or things that would help other lobbyists, including setting up meetings or providing background research. Violating the pledge exposes former officials to fines and extended or even permanent bans on lobbying.
But loopholes, some of them sizable, abound. At least 33 former Trump officials have found ways around the pledge. The most prominent is former Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke, who resigned in December after a series of ethics investigations. He announced Wednesday that he is joining a lobbying firm, Turnberry Solutions, which was started in 2017 by several former Trump campaign aides. Asked whether Zinke will register as a lobbyist, Turnberry partner Jason Osborne said, “He will if he has a client that he wants to lobby for.”
Among the 33 former officials, at least 18 have recently registered as lobbyists. The rest work at firms in jobs that closely resemble federal lobbying. Almost all work on issues they oversaw or helped shape when they were in government. (Nearly 2,600 Trump officials signed the ethics pledge in 2017, according to the Office of Government Ethics. Twenty-five appointees did not sign the pledge. We used staffing lists compiled for ProPublica’s Trump Town, our exhaustive database of current political appointees, and found at least 350 people who have left the Trump administration. There are other former Trump officials who lobby at the state or local level.)
https://www.propublica.org/article/the-lobbying-swamp-is-flourishing-in-trumps-washington
William Barr to face Senate confirmation vote for attorney general
Source: CNN
By David Shortell, CNN
Updated 9:04 AM ET, Thu February 14, 2019
(CNN)The Senate will vote Thursday on whether to send President Donald Trump's nominee for attorney general, William Barr, back to the Department of Justice, marking his second tour atop an agency facing down a set of threats unimaginable in his first go-around.
More than 25 years after his unanimous confirmation as attorney general, then under President George H. W. Bush, Barr faces a more polarized Senate and a vote expected to affirm him along mostly party lines.
Barr's nomination last year by Trump marked an unusual return to politics for the 68-year-old, who left the Justice Department in 1993.
An old guard conservative, Barr has held many of Washington's most influential legal perches, including a stint as the head of the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel, where he helped shape legal opinions that influenced White House policy and action, before becoming Bush's deputy attorney general and attorney general.
Read more: https://www.cnn.com/2019/02/14/politics/william-barr-senate-confirmation-vote/index.html
His sense of patriotism....................really lets ask what he did about the convicted in the Iran-Contra Deal...........................he went and told the president at that time to "pardon" them....................it was just fine and dandy to break the law, and it was just fine and dandy to have those weapons murder innocent lives in the El Salvador..........................amazing, and then he waffles on the justice department report, the tax payer funded report into the criminal enterprise in the current white house...................
Lawmakers demand Nielsen punish top DHS official
Source: Politico
By ANDREW DESIDERIO 02/14/2019 10:00 AM EST
The Department of Homeland Security’s top watchdog is recommending that the agency’s chief Kirstjen Nielsen punish a top official who is refusing to cooperate with the department’s inspector general as part of a high-profile retaliation probe, according to a memo released Thursday by a trio of congressional Democrats.
The Democrats — House Foreign Affairs Chairman Eliot Engel, House Oversight Chairman Elijah Cummings, and Senate Foreign Relations Ranking Member Bob Menendez — are demanding that Nielsen follow the inspector general’s recommendation to discipline Christine Ciccone, the assistant secretary for legislative affairs.
“It is outrageous that a senior Department of Homeland Security official has not complied with requests of the Inspectors General of the Departments of State and Homeland Security,” the lawmakers said in a joint statement. “Targeting of career government employees at the State Department, US Agency for International Development or any federal agency is unacceptable, and it is imperative that this kind of behavior not be tolerated.”
They also demanded that Nielsen update their committees by Friday “on how the department is ensuring that Ms. Ciccone upholds her responsibility to cooperation with the inspector general’s review.”
Read more: https://www.politico.com/story/2019/02/14/dhs-kirstjen-nielsen-oversight-1169849
I see a train a coming and it's rolling down the track.....................Nielsen....................they are going to hold you accountable....................and your not even prepared....................you really should look for another job and quickly outside of government ....................................even though that will not help..............
You can't even do your job now........................
EPA vows action on toxic drinking water but plans could take years
Source: The Guardian
Trump administration to spend at least another year considering whether to restrict toxic chemicals found in drinking water
The Trump administration plans to spend at least another year considering whether to restrict toxic chemicals increasingly found in drinking water across the country, the Environmental Protection Agency has announced.
The chemicals – known as PFOS and PFOA – are found in nonstick pots and pans, food packaging, and firefighting foam sprayed in drills on military bases. They seep into soil and groundwater in areas where they are manufactured and used.
In high levels, the chemicals are linked with kidney and testicular cancer, ulcerative colitis, thyroid disease, high cholesterol and problems in pregnancy. The chemicals are so prevalent that they are estimated to be in the bloodstreams of nearly all Americans.
EPA’s assistant administrator of water, David Ross, told reporters on Thursday that the agency plans to publish a proposal about setting a maximum level of the chemicals allowed in drinking water. Ross said EPA’s intent is to set a limit. But the full regulatory process could take years, and the agency could ultimately decide against establishing a requirement.
Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/feb/14/epa-toxic-chemicals-pfos-pfoa-delay
Maybe the asshole on "executive time, should go to Flint and try some of that water, or better yet go down into the bayou of Florida, right near is fucking crime enterprise golf resort, because now there is a developer down there that has gotten permission to drill near the Okeechobee lake......................for oil.................because his criminal enterprise resort gets there water from that lake , what could possibly go wrong.....................
Democrats go after political 'dark money' with anti-corruption measure
Source: The Guardian
HR1 is designed to combat the secret political funding illustrated in the John Doe Files, leaked to the Guardian in 2016
The influence of “dark money” in American politics that allows billionaires to fund political campaigns through third-party groups without disclosing their involvement will be put under the spotlight at a congressional hearing on Thursday as the Democrats crank up their sweeping new anti-corruption measure, HR1.
In the first hearing on the bill, the House Administration committee will explore how undisclosed donations from some of the country’s richest individuals is distorting they way politicians are elected. Under the title, Our American Democracy, the committee will hear from a range of election experts as well as from civil rights activists who will illuminate the impact of such “dark money” on the lives of ordinary people.
A key example of the corrosive influence of secret political funding that will be presented to the committee will be the John Doe Files, the vast tranche of documents leaked to the Guardian in 2016 and posted in their entirety on the Guardian website. The 1,500 pages of material exposed how big corporations and some of the wealthiest rightwing donors in the US used their fortunes to prop up prominent politicians, in some cases going on to extract political favors in return.
One of the panelists at the Our American Democracy hearing, Peter Earle, will describe to the committee the revelations of the John Doe Files. A civil rights trial lawyer in Milwaukee, Earle has been suing the historic manufacturers of lead paint in a long-standing case designed to secure compensation for poisoned children as well as to generate funds needed to remove still existing toxic paint from hundreds of thousands of homes across the US.
Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/feb/13/political-funding-dark-money-anti-corruption-trump
Exposure to weed killing products increases risk of cancer by 41% - study
Source: The Guardian
Evidence ‘supports link’ between exposures to glyphosate herbicides and increased risk for non-Hodgkin lymphoma
A broad new scientific analysis of the cancer-causing potential of glyphosate herbicides, the most widely used weed killing products in the world, has found that people with high exposures to the popular pesticides have a 41% increased risk of developing a type of cancer called non-Hodgkin lymphoma.
The evidence “supports a compelling link” between exposures to glyphosate-based herbicides and increased risk for non-Hodgkin lymphoma (NHL), the authors concluded, though they said the specific numerical risk estimates should be interpreted with caution.
The findings by five US scientists contradict the US Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) assurances of safety over the weed killer and come as regulators in several countries consider limiting the use of glyphosate-based products in farming.
Monsanto and its German owner Bayer AG face more than 9,000 lawsuits in the US brought by people suffering from NHL who blame Monsanto’s glyphosate-based herbicides for their diseases. The first plaintiff to go to trial won a unanimous jury verdict against Monsanto in August, a verdict the company is appealing. The next trial, involving a separate plaintiff, is set to begin on 25 February , and several more trials are set for this year and into 2020.
Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/business/2019/feb/14/weed-killing-products-increase-cancer-risk-of-cancer
And we are now witnessing the collapse of insect populations............because after all this stuff goes after dandelions and other flowers , that bees love in the spring and summer...........................
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