Showing posts with label WEALTHY WELFARE. Show all posts
Showing posts with label WEALTHY WELFARE. Show all posts
Monday, December 30, 2019
Saturday, December 28, 2019
IN AMERICA, THE ONLY THING EASIER TO BUY THAN A GUN...
There are two theories that suggest humans pretty much revert when there are things in their environment that cause high levels of stress. One (by Avi Tuschman) suggests the problem starts with a drive for "in-breeding as opposed to out-breeding". As awful as that sounds, there are drives throughout the animal kingdom to keep their DNA clean from other species so their better adaptations don't get lost. The other (mine) suggests that anti-predation drives go into overdrive with stress and fear. These automatically push people to want autocratic leadership, more rather than less hierarchy in society, as well as pushing them to close their minds and think like the group (so they don't stick out and get eaten by a predator). Closed mindedness correlates very strongly with conservative thought, and both of these are easily elicited by FEAR.
Basically, I'd say the fool in the photo is frightened, at a very deep level, and ancient drives of lower animals have taken over.
Thursday, December 26, 2019
FOCUS: Bernie Sanders and Rashida Tlaib | Trump's Holiday Menu: Handouts for Billionaires, Hunger for the Poor
26 December 19
We cannot provide service to 100% of our Readership on the donations we receive from 1% of our Readers. A few of you DO help support the project. The vast majority do not. That is not fair to those who are sustaining the project, nor is it fair to the project we all want RSN to be.
We love this project and this community, but we must ask you in the strongest terms to take the funding drives more seriously.
In earnest,
Marc Ash
Founder, Reader Supported News
Founder, Reader Supported News
If you would prefer to send a check:
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PO Box 2043
Citrus Hts, CA 95611
Reader Supported News
PO Box 2043
Citrus Hts, CA 95611
25 December 19
Bernie Sanders and Rashida Tlaib, Guardian UK
Excerpt: "When it comes to billionaires benefiting from the generosity of the American taxpayer, the holiday spirit is alive year-round."
Taxpayers paid out $115m to Donald Trump so he could play golf at his own resorts.
And Amazon didn’t just pay zero in federal taxes on $11bn in profits – taxpayers gifted the corporation $129,000,000 in rebates. That’s enough to pay for CEO Jeff Bezos’s three apartments in Manhattan, including a penthouse, that cost him $80m.
And what about government generosity for those who actually need help? Tax dollars are somehow much harder to come by when they’re not going to handouts for the rich. The average person in poverty, struggling to put food on the table, gets about $134 a month in nutrition assistance.
Now, just in time for the holidays, Trump has finalized the first of three policies that will make this disparity even more obscene. Two years after passing a $1.5tn tax giveaway to the wealthiest Americans and large corporations, the Trump administration plans to strip 3.7 million people of their nutrition benefits.
The administration’s first step is to kick 700,000 adults off of nutrition assistance as they struggle to find work. The second step: trying to punish families who have high childcare and housing costs. And third, they want to hurt families who already are making difficult choices between food or heat.
Together, the three proposals will cut billions of dollars from one of our nation’s leading anti-poverty programs. Meanwhile, the Republican tax scam is working exactly as planned. Today, the richest 400 billionaires pay lower taxes than any group in America – including the poor. Nearly 100 of the top Fortune 500 companies now pay nothing in taxes.
This is what oligarchy looks like: Trump’s appetite to shower the ultra-wealthy with corporate welfare is endless – and so is his administration’s willingness to assault our nation’s most vulnerable and hungriest families.
Republicans defend this by saying that keeping people hungry will make them work harder. But we know this is just about cruelty. We know that withholding food from needy people who are underemployed only deepens the crisis of poverty in America.
Some states will be hit harder than others. Vermont could see a 30% cut to benefits, and one in five low-income people who rely on nutrition assistance could no longer be eligible to participate. In Michigan, about one in seven would be kicked off food aid, with an estimated 15% cut in benefits. This is absolutely devastating.
It goes without saying that we must fight as hard as we can against the Trump administration’s savage attack on nutrition assistance. But we need to go beyond that. We must demand that the ultra-wealthy finally start paying their fair share so we can dramatically expand nutrition support. In the richest country in the history of the world, we have a moral obligation to eradicate the hunger that more than 37 million of our fellow Americans suffer every day.
We can start by increasing nutrition assistance by $47 per person per month – that is the shortfall between what low-income people need to prepare adequate meals and what they get in benefits. We should also significantly increase the income threshold for this program, so everyone who needs help gets it. We must also guarantee that all schoolchildren get free breakfast and lunch at every public school in America.
And we should also lift the onerous conditions on what people can buy with nutrition assistance. One Vermonter shared how, in the cold winter months, she wished she could buy her children a hot-roasted chicken from the store, because she had no access to an oven. Under the current program, she can only buy the day-old cold roasted chicken. Multiple Michigan families have similar stories to share. These are the kinds of requirements that force poor people to jump through humiliating hoops but they accomplish nothing in the fight to end hunger.
This holiday season, we should work in our communities to make sure our most vulnerable neighbors are taken care of and do not go hungry. But we must also be prepared to mobilize millions of people to defeat the Trump administration’s latest attack on the poor – the same way we came together to block Republicans’ attempt to repeal the Affordable Care Act and kick 32 million Americans off their health insurance.
Defending already inadequate benefits is not enough. Ultimately, we must make a choice as a society: will we tolerate the insatiable greed and cruelty of the billionaire class, whose control over our political system lets them take food out of the mouths of hungry school kids? Or do we build a humane, equitable society that ends poverty, hunger, and homelessness – and allows everyone to live with dignity?
As the new year approaches, let us commit to fighting for a government and an economy that works for the overwhelming majority of the people. That is how we will make food security a human right in America.
Monday, December 2, 2019
REP. CHRIS COLLINS: The Republican congressman resigned Monday. He previously dismissed the charges as “meritless” and the result of a “witch hunt.”
Rep. Chris Collins (R-N.Y.) is expected to plead guilty Tuesday to felony charges related to insider trading, two years after dismissing the allegations as a “witch hunt.”
Collins resigned Monday amid reports of his guilty plea, the Associated Press reported.
All three face charges of securities fraud, wire fraud and making false statements. All three are expected to change their pleas, though it’s unclear which exact charges they will plead guilty to.
Collins served on the board of a small Australian biotech company called Innate Immunotherapeutics. He allegedly told his son and Zarsky about the unpublicized trial failure of a drug the company had developed, which would later cause stock prices to plummet 92 percent.
Cameron and Zarsky both unloaded their shares before the stock tanked, thereby avoiding $768,000 in losses, according to an indictment.
OOPS! This was from a MONTH AGO.
Today's "Witch Hunt" Rep is Duncan HUNTER.
Yep - it sure gets confusing!
See story above
Today's "Witch Hunt" Rep is Duncan HUNTER.
Yep - it sure gets confusing!
See story above
🎵Another one bites the dust!
After calling the charges a "witch hunt" - 🤔 - when he was first arrested two years ago, he is now pleading guilty and has resigned.
POLITICS
The Republican congressman resigned Monday. He previously dismissed the charges as “meritless” and the result of a “witch hunt.”
Rep. Chris Collins (R-N.Y.) is expected to plead guilty Tuesday to felony charges related to insider trading, two years after dismissing the allegations as a “witch hunt.”
Collins resigned Monday amid reports of his guilty plea, the Associated Press reported.
Collins, his son Cameron, and Stephen Zarsky, the father of Cameron’s fiancée, had all initially pleaded not guilty after the FBI arrested them in August 2018.
Federal court records show Collins is scheduled to appear for a “change of plea hearing” at 3:00 p.m. Eastern on Tuesday. Cameron and Zarsky are scheduled to appear for similar hearings Thursday.
All three face charges of securities fraud, wire fraud and making false statements. All three are expected to change their pleas, though it’s unclear which exact charges they will plead guilty to.
Collins served on the board of a small Australian biotech company called Innate Immunotherapeutics. He allegedly told his son and Zarsky about the unpublicized trial failure of a drug the company had developed, which would later cause stock prices to plummet 92 percent.
Cameron and Zarsky both unloaded their shares before the stock tanked, thereby avoiding $768,000 in losses, according to an indictment.
At the time of his arrest, Collins told reporters the charges were “meritless” and that he would “mount a vigorous defense in court to clear my name.”
The charges incensed President Donald Trump, who attacked then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions for allowing the indictments to move forward, brazenly suggesting the Justice Department should prioritize party affiliation over criminality.
Collins owned 37.9 million shares, worth just over $20 million, in the company before things went south.
The three-term congressman was narrowly reelected in 2018 by less than one percentage point. Lawmakers convicted of felonies aren’t barred from holding their seats, but they aren’t allowed to vote.
WE have work to do!
Let's work together to restore ETHICS, INTEGRITY, HONESTY and IMPARTIAL OVERSIGHT to our government.
Elected office is not an opportunity for WEALTH!
US senators have reportedly piled up to
$96 million into stocks, including companies
they regulate
Sep. 20, 2019
- 51 US senators and their spouses have up to $96 million invested in corporate stocks, according to an analysis by Sludge and the Guardian, raising conflict of interest concerns.
- Sen. Richard Shelby, Sen. Shelley Moore Capito, and Sen. Jacky Rosen own significant amounts of stock in companies they oversee.
- Together, 10 members of the Senate banking committee hold up to $8 million worth of stock in finance, securities, and real estate companies.
- View Markets Insider's homepage for more stories.
Fifty-one US senators and their spouses have up to $96 million invested in corporate stocks, raising conflict of interest concerns because many of them could pass laws that help those businesses and thus enrich themselves.
An analysis by Sludge and the Guardian — a deep dive you can check out here — looked at the senators' disclosed stakes totaling $28 million to $96 million across finance, defense, health, communications and electronics, and energy and natural resources companies.
Members of Congress aren't legally barred from owning stock in companies they oversee, but having a vested interest in their success could affect their impartiality and willingness to pass laws that hurt those businesses.
Legislators are under mounting pressure to crack down on predatory lending, abuse of user data, climate change, sweetheart military deals, prescription drug prices and the opioid crisis. Senators' stakes in banks, tech giants, fossil-fuel companies, defense contractors, and healthcare giants could temper their desire to tackle those issues.
The median investment range was between $100,000 and $365,000, Sludge and the Guardian said. The most popular stocks included Apple, Microsoft, Google-owner Alphabet, Amazon, Berkshire Hathaway, and Wells Fargo. The biggest single investment was Sen. John Hoeven's stake in Westbrand — a private holding company for banks — which is worth between $5 million and $25 million.
Several lawmakers hold shares in companies they oversee, the analysis found. Sen. Richard Shelby owns between $1 million and $5 million worth of stock in Tuscaloosa Title Company, a private real estate insurance firm, despite sitting on Senate housing and insurance subcommittees. Nine other members of the Senate banking committee hold financial stocks including Sen. Doug Jones, Sen. John Kennedy, and Sen. Robert Menendez.
The trend extends beyond banking. Sen. Shelley Moore Capito owns substantial stakes in Microsoft, Intel, AT&T, and Verizon, despite sitting on technology and consumer protection subcommittees. Sen. Jacky Rosen, who also sits on those subcommittees, owns up to $480,000 worth of Amazon, AT&T, and Adobe stock.
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