Corporate Dems Are Furious With Kamala Harris
Corporate Dems Are Furious With Kamala Harris
The Majority Report w/ Sam Seder
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wducZhn8SGs
Month: September 2024
J.D. Vance Promoted Rumors of Pet-Eating Immigrants Even After Learning They Were ‘Baseless’
“To justify Vance’s continued promotion of what he himself had described as “rumors” that might not be true, the candidate’s staff on Tuesday gave the Journal “a police report in which a resident had claimed her pet might have been taken by Haitian neighbors.” But “when a reporter went to Anna Kilgore’s house Tuesday evening, she said her cat Miss Sassy, which went missing in late August, had actually returned a few days later—found safe in her own basement.” Kilgore, who was “wearing a Trump shirt and hat,” said “she apologized to her Haitian neighbors with the help of her daughter and a mobile-phone translation app.”
The “cat-eating rumors,” the Journal notes, “started with a post by a Springfield woman on a private Facebook page.” That account “turned out to be third-hand” and was “subsequently disavowed by the original poster, according to NewsGuard, a company that tracks online misinformation.”
This is the sort of evidence that Vance apparently had in mind when he told CNN’s Dana Bash that his information about pet-eating immigrants “comes from firsthand accounts from my constituents.””
https://reason.com/2024/09/18/j-d-vance-promoted-rumors-of-pet-eating-immigrants-even-after-learning-they-were-baseless/
J.D. Vance’s Revisionist History
“”Six years after then-President Donald Trump signed the first tariffs and began a costly U.S.-China trade war, it’s become clear that these tariffs are an abject policy and economic failure,” wrote Jay Derr of the Reason Foundation (the organization that publishes this website) earlier this year. “These tariffs have negatively impacted trade between the U.S. and China, leading importers to shift toward Mexico’s west coast instead of shipping directly to the United States. As a result, trade between Mexico and China has grown by 60% in one year.”
They also, on net, failed to protect American jobs: The U.S.-China Business Council found in 2021, that some 245,000 American jobs were lost as a result of the tariffs. And despite the Trump team’s hopes, U.S. Steel may in fact get sold to Japan’s Nippon Steel Corporation after all (though pulling the deal off is proving complicated).
“The entire purpose of a tariff is to shift consumer behavior away from politically disfavored goods—such as imports from China—toward domestic-made items that would otherwise lose out in a free market of price competition,” wrote Reason’s Eric Boehm last month. If reimposed and broadened, “Trump’s proposed 10 percent tariff would be equivalent to a $300 billion tax increase,” reports Boehm. “Assuming other countries would also raise trade barriers in retaliation, the final toll would be more than 825,000 jobs lost, according to Tax Foundation Senior Economist Erica York.” For the typical American household, Trump’s round two would impose costs of an additional $1,500 annually.”
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“If we get more tariffs, it’s American consumers who will have to bear the consequences—after suffering through several years of high inflation that have already taken a big chunk out of their budgets.”
https://reason.com/2024/08/26/j-d-vances-revisionist-history/
Kamala Harris’ Plan To Hike Corporate Income Taxes Would Fall on All Americans
“higher corporate taxes are passed along to consumers, employees, and investors in the form of high prices, lower wages, and lower investment returns. If you buy things, have a job, or save for retirement, higher corporate income taxes will fall on you”
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“Saying that tariffs penalize only importers is almost exactly like saying that a corporate income tax affects only corporations. Both are deliberately myopic attempts to ignore the consequences of these policies. And in both cases, the candidates are assuring voters that someone else will pay the cost of these tax hikes—wealthy corporations or China—despite a well-established track record showing that both forms of taxes are passed along to consumers and workers in various ways.
You can try to tax corporations and you can try to tax imports, but all taxes are paid by people in the end—including lots of people who make less than $400,000 annually.”
https://reason.com/2024/08/26/kamala-harris-plan-to-hike-corporate-income-taxes-would-fall-on-all-americans/
Plastics Are Better for the Climate Than Aluminum and Glass, Actually
“Producing plastics from fossil fuels emits a lot of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, which contributes to warming the planet. An April study by researchers at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory estimates that in 2019 “global production of primary plastics generated about 2.24 gigatonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent,” which represents 5.3 percent of total global greenhouse gas emissions. So switching to plastic alternatives would help slow man-made global warming, right?
Not so fast, says a new study in Environmental Science & Technology, which finds that “replacing plastics with alternatives is worse for greenhouse gas emissions in most cases.” The European researchers report that in “15 of the 16 applications a plastic product incurs fewer greenhouse gas emissions than their alternatives.”
The researchers considered emissions from production, transportation, use, and end-of-life disposal, including landfilling, incineration, recycling, and reuse. Calculating the product life cycles, plastic products release 10 percent to 90 percent fewer emissions than do plausible alternatives—often because it takes less energy to make and transport them.
Take the perennial plastic vs. paper conundrum about grocery bags. In the U.S., more than 500 cities and 12 states have banned plastic grocery bags. However, the researchers find that plastic grocery bags emit 80 percent fewer greenhouse gases than paper bags. Producing paper bags emits three times the greenhouse gases of plastic ones, and transportation emissions are higher because paper bags weigh six times more than plastic bags. Additionally, paper bags emit globe-warming methane as they rot in landfills.
Alternatives to plastic bottles are aluminum cans and glass bottles. Even though aluminum cans are often recycled, the researchers find that over their life cycle, they emit twice as many greenhouse gases as plastic bottles. Glass bottles emit three times more.”
https://reason.com/2024/08/27/plastics-are-better-for-the-climate/
Tennessee School Expels 10-Year-Old for Making a Finger Gun
“one high school student who was “known as a class clown” made “an offhand joke about committing an act of violence” last school year, according to ProPublica’s report. “Rumors spread among the students about his comment, warping it in the process. He was called to the principal’s office, where a waiting police officer asked whether he had a gun in his backpack. He showed them that he didn’t and insisted that he had just been making a joke….School officials initiated a threat assessment and gathered statements from the students who heard the joke, which were then used as evidence against him. He was expelled for a year.””
https://reason.com/2024/08/27/tennessee-school-expels-10-year-old-for-making-a-finger-gun/
‘Please save me’: The Indians duped into fighting for Russia
“Mr Tamang is among the 91 Indians who were forced into fighting in the war. Most of them are from poor families and were lured by agents with the promise of money and jobs, sometimes as “helpers” in the Russian army.
Instead, they were sent to the war zone. Many of them said they were stationed in parts of Ukraine under Russian control, where they had to navigate landmines, drones, missiles and sniper attacks with little to no military training.
Nine Indians have died in the conflict so far and Indian authorities say they have arrested 19 people for human trafficking.
In July, Russia promised an early release of all Indians fighting in its army, following a visit by Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi to Moscow, during which he raised the issue with President Vladimir Putin. The two countries have traditionally shared a warm relationship.
Forty-five of them have been discharged since then. Some have safely returned home, while others like Mr Tamang are on their way.”
https://www.yahoo.com/news/please-save-indians-duped-fighting-085107503.html
Trump calls for undoing part of his own tax law, vowing to ‘get SALT back’
“Donald Trump called for rolling back part of his signature tax law Tuesday, suggesting he would seek to reinstate the state and local tax deduction, commonly known as SALT, that he controversially capped in the 2017 legislation.
In a Truth Social post ahead of his trip to New York’s Long Island, the former president wrote that he would “get SALT back” and “lower your Taxes” if he returns to the White House in January.
Trump didn’t elaborate or get specific. But the statement appears to be the first time that Trump has called for rolling back a piece of his biggest legislative achievement, a law that he has also called for extending next year when major portions of it are set to expire.
The 2017 law capped the previously unlimited federal deduction for state and local taxes at $10,000 per filer. The policy hit hardest for Americans in high-tax blue states — especially New York, New Jersey and California — who itemize their deductions. Democrats, who represent most of those areas, fiercely objected at the time, accusing the GOP of using tax policy to wage a culture war. Some Republicans in those states also say the $10,000 cap should be lifted.
Trump’s comment marked the latest in a series of seemingly impulsive policy comments that have turned heads within his party. Most Republicans oppose an expansion of the “SALT” deduction and have criticized Democrats for pushing to lift the $10,000 cap.”
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“Despite Trump’s comments, it’s far from clear a Republican-led Congress would lift the SALT cap. Earlier this year, a group of House Republicans blocked their party from allowing a vote pushed by New York GOP members to expand the SALT deduction.”
https://www.yahoo.com/news/trump-calls-undoing-part-own-235508256.html
TRUMP GETS LOOMER’D
TRUMP GETS LOOMER’D
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PgqTGAv121g
Former governors urge successors to certify election results
Trump tried to steal the last election, and may do so again, so former governors are trying to convince current state officials to not go along with such democracy-ending actions.
“A bipartisan group of former governors is launching a campaign to convince their successors to certify their states’ votes after the upcoming November election — and defy possible pressure from former President Donald Trump.
Nearly 20 ex-governors have signed onto the effort, which launches Tuesday on National Constitution Day, and more are expected in the weeks ahead. The push, organized by pro-democracy group Keep Our Republic, is sending a letter — shared first with POLITICO — to all 50 statehouses that urges sitting governors to certify election results by the December 11 deadline prescribed by federal law.
Four years ago, Trump failed in his push to have a pair of Republican chief executives in battleground states – Brian Kemp in Georgia and Doug Ducey in Arizona – overturn the voters’ will in their states. But the former executives fear he may do so again this winter and succeed this time, even though federal law has been strengthened to clarify that each governor’s role is simply to certify the winner of the popular vote.”
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“Trump’s plan four years ago centered on some battleground states submitting dueling sets of electors that would muddle the Electoral College certification process on Jan. 6 and have both sets voided. That would have allowed, according to the plan, then-Vice President Mike Pence to toss them out and give the election to Trump.
Former Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Corbett, a Republican, said he was “disappointed” that the nominee of his party refused to admit he lost in 2020 and appeared to be laying the groundwork for suggesting that this year’s election would be rigged.
“When you make allegations, you better have some evidence,” Corbett said. “And I have not seen any evidence.”
The group of former governors is hoping to provide political cover for those GOP executives who Trump may pressure.”
https://www.politico.com/news/2024/09/17/former-governors-urge-successors-certify-2024-election-results-00179445