John Hanno – Page 210 – The Tarbabys Blog

US official warns of risks posed by heavy electric vehicles

Associated Press

US official warns of risks posed by heavy electric vehicles

Tom Krisher – January 11, 2023

FILE – Jennifer Homendy of the National Transportation Safety Board speaks during a news conference, Oct. 3, 2019, in Windsor Locks, Conn. On Wednesday, Jan. 11, 2023, Homendy, the chairwoman of the National Transportation Safety Board, said she is concerned about the risk that heavy electric vehicles pose if they collide with lighter vehicles. (AP Photo/Chris Ehrmann, File) (ASSOCIATED PRESS)

DETROIT (AP) — The head of the National Transportation Safety Board expressed concern Wednesday about the safety risks that heavy electric vehicles pose if they collide with lighter vehicles.

The official, Jennifer Homendy, raised the issue in a speech in Washington to the Transportation Research Board. She noted, by way of example, that an electric GMC Hummer weighs about 9,000 pounds (4,000 kilograms), with a battery pack that alone is 2,900 pounds (1,300 kilograms) — roughly the entire weight of a typical Honda Civic.

“I’m concerned about the increased risk of severe injury and death for all road users from heavier curb weights and increasing size, power, and performance of vehicles on our roads, including electric vehicles,” Homendy said in remarks prepared for the group.

The extra weight that EVs typically carry stems from the outsize mass of their batteries. To achieve 300 or more miles (480 or more kilometers) of range per charge from an EV, batteries have to weigh thousands of pounds.

Some battery chemistries being developed have the potential to pack more energy into less mass. But for now, there’s a mismatch in weight between EVs and smaller internal combustion vehicles. EVs also deliver instant power to their wheels, making them accelerate faster in most cases than most gas-powered cars, trucks and SUVs.

Homendy said she was encouraged by the Biden administration’s plans to phase out carbon emissions from vehicles to deal with the climate crisis. But she said she still worries about safety risks resulting from a proliferation of EVs on roads ands highways.

“We have to be careful that we aren’t also creating unintended consequences: More death on our roads,” she said. “Safety, especially when it comes to new transportation policies and new technologies, cannot be overlooked.”

Homendy noted that Ford’s F-150 Lightning EV pickup is 2,000 to 3,000 pounds (900 to 1,350 kilograms) heavier than the same model’s combustion version. The Mustang Mach E electric SUV and the Volvo XC40 EV, she said, are roughly 33% heavier than their gasoline counterparts.

“That has a significant impact on safety for all road users,” Homendy added.

The NTSB investigates transportation crashes but has no authority to make regulations. For vehicles, such authority rests largely with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.

Even apart from EVs, the nation’s roads are crowded with heavy vehicles, thanks to a decadelong boom in sales of larger cars, trucks and SUVs that’s led to extreme mismatches in collisions with smaller vehicles. But electric vehicles are typically much heavier than even the largest trucks and SUVs that are powered by gasoline or diesel.

Michael Brooks, executive director of the nonprofit Center for Auto Safety, said he, too, is concerned about the weight of EVs because buyers seem to be demanding a range of 300 or more miles per charge, requiring heavy batteries.

Setting up a charging network to accommodate that may be a mistake from a safety perspective, Brooks said.

“These bigger, heavier batteries are going to cause more damage,” he said. “It’s a simple matter of mass and speed.”

Brooks said he knows of little research done on the safety risks of increasing vehicle weights. In 2011, the National Bureau of Economic Research published a paper that said being hit by a vehicle with an added 1,000 pounds increases by 47% the probability of being killed in a crash.

He points out that electric vehicles have very high horsepower ratings, allowing them to accelerate quickly even in crowded urban areas. “People are not trained to handle that type of acceleration. It’s just not something that drivers are used to doing,” Brooks said.

Also, many newer electric SUVs are tall with limited visibility that poses risks to pedestrians or drivers of smaller vehicles, he said.

Sales of new electric vehicles in the U.S. rose nearly 65% last year to 807,000 — about 5.8% of all new vehicle sales. The Biden administration has set a goal of having EVs reach 50% of new vehicle sales by 2030 and is offering tax credits of up to $7,500 to get there. The consulting firm LMC Automotive has made a more modest prediction: It expects EVs to make up one-third of the new-vehicle market by 2030.

Comet last seen during Ice Age will be visible over Idaho. Here’s when and how to watch

Idaho Statesman

Comet last seen during Ice Age will be visible over Idaho. Here’s when and how to watch

Shaun Goodwin, Patrick McCreless, Genevieve Belmaker – January 11, 2023

A comet last visible by the naked eye when Neanderthals roamed the Earth should be observable in Idaho skies again soon.

The comet C/2022 E3 (ZTF) is passing through the inner solar system and will get closest to the sun on Jan. 12, according to space.com. The comet will continue to travel near the Earth, making its closest passage between Feb. 1 and Feb. 2.

The comet could be visible to the naked eye if it continues to brighten. Such a sight can be difficult to predict for comets, space.com states. However, even if the comet does dim a bit, it should still be visible with binoculars or a telescope for several days around its approach.

Though ancient, C/2022 E3 (ZTF) was only discovered by astronomers at the Zwicky Transient Facility at CalTech in March 2022. The facility operates at the Palomar Observatory at California’s Palomar Mountain, about 90 minutes northeast of San Diego.

The comet has a period of about 50,000 years, NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory states. As such, the last time the comet came so close to the sun and Earth was during the last Ice Age, when humans and Neanderthals existed on the planet at the same time.

It was reported in the scientific journal Space in early January 2023.

How to watch

According to NASA, observers in Idaho and throughout the northern hemisphere should be able to find the comet in the morning sky as it travels northwest in late January.

Viewers should look for the comet when the moon is dim in the sky. The new moon on Jan. 21 will offer an excellent opportunity. Although the National Weather Service only provides accurate day-by-day forecasts five days out, the Climate Prediction Center predicts a 40-50% higher-than-normal chance for rain in the next eight to 14 days.

Although a higher chance of precipitation does not necessarily mean more cloud cover, clouds form when the atmosphere reaches its saturation point; more moisture in the atmosphere means a higher chance for clouds.

Brian Jackson, an associate professor at Boise State’s Physics Department, has previously told the Idaho Statesman that Camel’s Back Park in North Boise is an excellent spot to look toward the night sky. The park allows watchers to turn their backs on the light pollution from Boise and look out toward the Boise Mountains.

Jackson also recommended the Central Idaho Dark Sky Reserve in the Sun Valley, which offers one of the darkest night skies in the United States. The Light Pollution Map website also shows the best spots in Idaho to escape light pollution.

Weather Service meteorologist Josh Smith told the Statesman that Bogus Basin is an excellent place to stargaze and look for comets if there is cloud cover. Bogus Basin’s base sits at 5,800 feet, meaning it should be above any low cloud ceiling above the Treasure Valley.

What are comets?

Comets consist of ice and frozen gases, along with rocks and dust left after the solar system’s formation more than 4 billion years ago. They orbit the sun in highly elliptical orbits. When a comet approaches the sun, it heats up quickly, causing some ice to turn into gas. This heated gas and dust are what form a comet’s tail.

A green comet that takes about 50,000 years to complete its orbit around the sun will come closest to Earth for the first time since the Stone Age

Insider

A green comet that takes about 50,000 years to complete its orbit around the sun will come closest to Earth for the first time since the Stone Age

Kenneth Niemeyer and Morgan McFall-Johnsen – January 10, 2023

A comet in the sky. — A green comet named C/2022 E3 (ZTF) is expected to be about 26 million miles from Earth on February 2.Mike Hankey

A green comet named C/2022 E3 (ZTF) is approaching Earth, according to NASA.
The comet most recently passed our planet 50,000 years ago, during the last Ice Age, according to astronomers.
The comet is expected to be visible at night as it swings past Earth in early February.

A green comet is set to pass by Earth for the first time since the Stone Age, according to NASA‘s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, and it may be visible in the skies in late January and early February.

Astronomers discovered the comet, a ball of ice named C/2022 E3 (ZTF), in March 2022. They’d never seen it before, because it takes an incredibly long time to circle the sun, completing an orbit over tens of thousands of years. Modern astronomy didn’t exist last time this comet was in our neighborhood.

The comet is expected to be about 26 million miles from Earth on February 2. That would be the closest it has been to the Earth in 50,000 years, according to astronomers.

Back then, a period known as the Upper Paleolithic era, was when humans are believed to have left Africa and settled in Asia and Europe. Neanderthals still walked the Earth. The planet was in the middle of an Ice Age.

The icy cosmic visitor will pass our planet at nearly 109 times the average distance of the moon, but the comet is burning so bright that it could still be visible in the night sky.

“Comets are notoriously unpredictable, but if this one continues its current trend in brightness, it’ll be easy to spot with binoculars, and it’s just possible it could become visible to the unaided eye under dark skies,” NASA wrote in an update on December 29.

How, where, and when to spot comet C/2022 E3 (ZTF)

In the Northern Hemisphere, the green comet should be visible just before dawn in late January. At first, spotting it may require a telescope, but as it approaches Earth NASA expects viewers can see it with binoculars.

“The new long-period comet has brightened substantially and is now sweeping across the northern constellation Corona Borealis in predawn skies,” NASA said in a news release December 24. At that time, it was still too dim to see with a telescope.

A completely darkened new moon could provide ideal dark skies for spying the comet on January 21.

In the Southern Hemisphere, the green cosmic snowball will be visible in early February.

Why the comet is green

green comet in space — Another green comet, called ISON, passed Earth in 2013.NASA

The comet has a “greenish coma, short broad dust tail, and long faint ion tail,” according to NASA.

Many comets glow green. Laboratory research has linked this aura to a reactive molecule called dicarbon, which emits green light as sunlight decays it.

Dicarbon is common in comets, but it’s not usually found in their tails. That’s why the coma — the haze surrounding the ball of frozen gas, dust, and rock at the center of a comet — is glowing green, while the tail remains white.

The comet likely came from the mysterious Oort Cloud

voyager 1 spacecraft location left solar system heliosheath nasa jpl pia17046red full — The Oort Cloud is the most distant part of the solar system.NASA/JPL-Caltech

Experts told USA Today that the comet most likely came from the Oort Cloud, the farthest region of the solar system, which NASA describes as a “big, thick-walled bubble made of icy pieces of space debris the sizes of mountains and sometimes larger.”

The Oort Cloud is the most distant part of our solar system, encircling everything like a “giant spherical shell,” according to NASA. It’s so far away that astronomers measures its distance in astronomical units (AU). One AU is the distance between Earth and the sun. The inner edge of the Oort Cloud is 2,000 to 5,000 AU away.

That distance means astronomers have never observed an object in the Oort Cloud, so it’s still a “theoretical concept,” according to NASA. But astronomers suspect many far-traveling comets like C/2022 E3 (ZTF) come from there.

The comet won’t return for another 50,000 years — if ever

This is your only chance to see comet C/2022 E3 (ZTF), and may be the last chance humanity ever gets.

“We don’t have an estimate for the furthest it will get from the Earth yet—estimates vary—but if it does return it won’t be for at least 50,000 years,” Jessica Lee, an astronomer at Royal Observatory Greenwich, told Newsweek.

“Some predictions suggest that the orbit of this comet is so eccentric it’s no longer in an orbit—so it’s not going to return at all and will just keep going,” she added.

Correction: January 9, 2023 — A photo caption in an earlier version of this story misstated when the comet C/2022 E3 (ZTF) is expected to get to 26 million miles from Earth. It is February 2, 2023, not 2022.

Editor’s Note: This story has been updated with additional information about the comet and how to see it.

Why Trump loyalist went to prison rather than blame the boss

BBC News

Why Trump loyalist went to prison rather than blame the boss

Nada Tawfik – BBC News, New York – January 10, 2023

Trump Organization former chief financial officer Allen Weisselberg looks on as then-U.S. Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump speaks — Allen Weisselberg worked for former President Donald Trump for decades (file image)

Former US President Donald Trump’s long-serving chief financial officer, Allen Weisselberg, has been sentenced to five months in jail for his role in a tax fraud scheme.

Weisselberg, 75, was given a shorter-than-expected jail term after agreeing to a plea deal in which he served as a prosecutor’s witness against the Trump Organization.

But Mr Trump had little reason to fear that Weisselberg’s testimony in the autumn trial would harm him or overshadow his announcement in mid-November that he was launching another run for president.

Indeed, as expected, his employee – who started with his father Fred Trump and who was one of the first to join his company in 1986 – remained loyal even under immense pressure.- ADVERTISEMENT -https://s.yimg.com/rq/darla/4-10-1/html/r-sf-flx.html

While Mr Trump sounded off on social media, pinning the fraud scheme on Weisselberg, he continued to offer him his support in arguably more meaningful ways. Jurors heard how the Trump Organization was still paying Weisselberg his same salary under the title senior adviser, covering his legal fees, and recently celebrated his birthday in the office.

“In a normal organisation, a corrupt CFO would be terminated and thrown out the door,” says Professor Maurice Schweitzer from the Wharton School of Business. “And you would want to separate and preserve the integrity of the institution. In this case, it’s the exact opposite.”

The trial provided a fascinating insight into the relationship between the loyal lieutenant and his boss – as well as prosecutors’ efforts to try to turn one against the other by threatening Weisselberg with a lengthy sentence at Rikers Island.

Weisselberg is expected to report to the notorious New York prison to begin serving his sentence immediately.

His attorney, Nicholas Gravante, said after Tuesday’s hearing: “He deeply regrets the lapse in judgment that resulted in his conviction, and he regrets it most because of the pain it has caused his loving wife, his sons and wonderful grandchildren.”

Under the plea deal, Weisselberg admitted to 15 felonies including tax evasion, and must pay nearly $2m (£1.65m) in fines in addition to the five-month prison term.

But without the deal, he could have faced as much as 15 years in prison.

But despite prosecutors’ focus on Mr Trump, Weisselberg refused to co-operate with the wider investigation into the former president and his business practices.

The question of what Mr Trump potentially knew about executives deceiving the tax authorities and not properly reporting benefits became a persistent and tricky one throughout the trial given he was not personally charged with wrongdoing.

Weisselberg prepared for his testimony with both the prosecution and the defence, an unusual arrangement. The Trump Organization’s lawyers repeatedly argued during the trial that he was motivated by greed, and that “Weisselberg did it for Weisselberg”. The defence strategy, in a nutshell, was that the former CFO was not shown the door because he was regarded as a family member, “a prodigal son”.

Prosecutors throughout the trial carefully tried to extract concessions from Weisselberg to bolster their case, while also poking holes in his story that Mr Trump and the business knew nothing of his 15-year tax dodging scheme. They walked the jury through how Weisselberg joined Mr Trump from day one and rose from accountant to controller to CFO. He had deep knowledge of all of the financial workings of the business as it grew. His testimony was key to exposing corruption and fraud at the Trump Organization and gave insight into how the family operated.

On the stand, he teared up as he was asked: “Did you betray the trust that was placed in you?”

“I did,” he answered.

Defence lawyer Alan Futerfas continued: “Are you embarrassed by what you did?”

“More than you can imagine,” he replied.

The man who Mr Trump once described as tough to contestants on an episode of The Apprentice, his old reality show, appeared timid and nervous.

A source close to the case insists Weisselberg’s testimony under oath was truthful and that he chose not to make up stories about Mr Trump. “That’s just common moral decency. And it’s also consistent with the rule of law, you should not make up lies about someone and then offer to give that testimony, which is perjury, just to improve your own legal situation after you have messed up in order to try to get a reduced sentence,” the source told the BBC.

His determination to take blame, however, did not convince the jury, which unanimously decided to convict the Trump Organization. Nor did it convince former federal prosecutor Mitchell Epner, who got the impression that the 75-year-old was very scared. “He was hoping to be able to placate Donald Trump by his testimony. And I took those tears to be self-pity for fear that he is going to be frozen out of Trump World,” said Mr Epner.

Prof Schweitzer says the dynamics at play in this trial were in line with Mr Trump’s management style, what academics refer to as a “dominant” leader.

“There’s broadly two kinds of leaders, there are leaders who gain status because of their expertise and wisdom and capabilities, and there are leaders who maintain their positions of power because of dominance,” says Prof Schweitzer.

“Basically, they pull levers of rewards and punishments to coerce or compel people to do what they want.”

Mr Trump has been successful throughout his business and political career figuring out “loyalty levers to reward friends and hammer foes”, says Prof Schweitzer.

The former president has a history of rewarding those who stand by him and attacking those who don’t. Before he left office, he pardoned several of his former aides of their convictions, including his National Security Adviser Michael Flynn, his ex-adviser Roger Stone and his former campaign chairman Paul Manafort.

On social media, President Trump praised Manafort for not “breaking” like his former lawyer Michael Cohen. Cohen and Manafort’s deputy Rick Gates were convicted in the Mueller probe into Russian interference in the 2016 election, but both co-operated with prosecutors. They, to the surprise of no-one, did not get pardons from Mr Trump.

Weisselberg stands behind Mr Pence and Mr Trump at Trump Tower in New York in 2017 — Weisselberg stands behind Mr Pence and the former president at Trump Tower in New York in 2017

The former president’s treatment of Mike Pence is another example of how he places loyalty above other values. Mr Trump reportedly told the former vice-president not to “wimp out” and to not certify the results of the 2020 election, according to an excerpt from Mr Pence’s book. He recounts Mr Trump asking him: “If it gives you the power, why would you oppose it?”

Prof Schweitzer says both Mr Trump and Weisselberg were shaped by the era of ’80s New York and the mindset that greed is good. “Greed was celebrated and endorsed in a way that it is not today, we had different mindsets about this wild west of capitalism,” he says. “Things that we are saying are illegal were common practice. These men really enjoyed the privileges that came with being a very powerful, wealthy person in the 1980s who were not constrained by the rules that bound the rest of us.”

Mr Epner agrees. “The New York real estate business has been a dirty business for not decades, but centuries. And he [Mr Trump] was part and parcel of the dirty part of the NY real estate business and then he shone the biggest spotlight in the world on himself [with the presidency].”

On the final day of the trial, Assistant Manhattan District Attorney Joshua Steinglass said during closing statements that the evidence had shown that Mr Trump knew exactly what was going on. He reminded the jury of that evidence, including a memo the former president initialled authorising a pay cut for another executive for the exact amount of his perk, rent paid by the company.

“Mr Trump explicitly sanctioning tax fraud! That’s what this document shows,” Mr Steinglass said.

To many, it begged the question why the former president, who built his entire reputation and bravado off the back of his namesake company, wasn’t charged, too. The Manhattan District Attorney’s office says investigations into Mr Trump are ongoing.

Russia is letting prisoners soak up withering Ukrainian fire in a ‘savage’ battle, ‘trading’ them and others for bullets

Business Insider

Russia is letting prisoners soak up withering Ukrainian fire in a ‘savage’ battle, ‘trading’ them and others for bullets, US official says

Jake Epstein – January 10, 2023

Russian forces are sending prisoners to absorb heavy Ukrainian fire around the war-torn city of Bakhmut.
Moscow’s applying a classic tactic of “trading individuals for bullets,” a senior US military official said.
Eastern Ukraine’s Bakhmut has become the epicenter of hostilities between Moscow and Kyiv.

Russia is using prisoners and freshly mobilized troops to absorb heavy Ukrainian fire along the war’s front lines in order to clear the way for its better trained forces to take ground, a US official said, calling the move a classic Russian tactic.

Prisoners recruited by the Wagner Group — a notorious paramilitary organization with close ties to the Kremlin — and others have recently been deployed to the forefront of fighting around eastern Ukraine’s war-torn city of Bakhmut, which has become the epicenter of hostilities between Moscow and Kyiv.

These recruits have been forced to “take the brunt” of Ukrainian firepower in the area before they are replaced by “better trained forces” who move in behind them to try and claim territory, a senior US military official told reporters on Monday.

The official added that Moscow’s current tactic of “trading individuals for bullets” has been used on the battlefield throughout Russian history. Russia, for example, did this with conscripts who were sent into the Chechnya region during the First Chechen War of the mid-1990s.

The senior military official described fighting in the area around Bakhmut, which had a pre-war population of over 73,000 people, as “really severe and savage.” They said rolling exchanges of artillery fire are often followed up with maneuvers by “people that are not their best fighters.”

“You’re talking about thousands upon thousands of artillery rounds that have been delivered between both sides,” the official said. In many cases, they said, there may be “several thousand artillery rounds in a day that are being exchanged.”

Britain’s defense ministry shared in a Tuesday intelligence update that Russian and Wagner forces have been able to advance into the town of Soledar, just a few miles north of Bakhmut. It added that Moscow is likely to use this access to attempt to approach Bakhmut from the north, though it is unlikely to “imminently” do so because Ukraine has control of its supply routes and has held solid defensive lines.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in a nightly address on Monday that Russia has concentrated its “greatest efforts” on Soledar.

“And what did Russia want to gain there? Everything is completely destroyed, there is almost no life left. And thousands of their people were lost,” he said. “The whole land near Soledar is covered with the corpses of the occupiers and scars from the strikes. This is what madness looks like.”

The Institute for the Study of War, a Washington-based think tank, wrote in a recent analysis that Yevgeny Prigozhin, an ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin and the leader of Wagner, has used the mercenary group’s achievements in Soledar as a way to demonstrate that it’s the one force that is able of finding any success in Ukraine.

Laura Cooper, the Pentagon’s deputy assistant secretary of defense for Russia, Ukraine, and Eurasia, acknowledged at a Friday briefing that Wagner has been able to move at a “more rapid clip” than other units in the Russian military.

However, even Prigozhin has said that capturing Bakhmut will be a challenge. In a video published to social media earlier this month, the Wagner founder said that the city features layers of defense and that his fighters lack the necessary heavy armor and equipment.

2022 was the 5th warmest year on record, adding further evidence of climate change

Yahoo! News

2022 was the 5th warmest year on record, adding further evidence of climate change

The last 8 years have been the warmest 8 on record, the report from the European Union’s Copernicus Climate Change Service said.

David Knowles, Senior Editor – January 10, 2023

Motorists drive west toward the setting sun. — Motorists drive west toward the setting sun in Long Beach, Calif., during a September heat wave. (Luis Sinco/Los Angeles Times via Getty Images)

Planet Earth experienced its fifth warmest year in recorded history in 2022, adding to a streak in which the last eight years have been the hottest on record, thanks to climate change caused by the burning of fossil fuels.

The 2022 finding was released Tuesday by the European Union’s Copernicus Climate Change Service, an independent nongovernmental organization. The only years hotter than 2022 in recorded history have been 2016, 2020, 2019 and 2017, the group said.

The cause of rising temperatures has long been established. Hundreds of thousands of scientific studies over decades have concluded that the burning of fossil fuels releases greenhouse gases into the Earth’s atmosphere that trap the sun’s ultraviolet radiation and result in warming. While government action around the world has begun to try to limit the emissions causing climate change, the pace of that effort has so far failed to keep temperatures from continuing to rise.

Carbon dioxide concentrations rose by approximately 2.1 parts per million and methane rose by around 12 parts per billion, resulting in an average of approximately 417 ppm for carbon dioxide and 1,894 ppb for methane.

“For both gases these are the highest concentrations from the satellite record,” the Copernicus Climate Change Service wrote in its report. “By including other records, they are the highest levels for over 2 million years for carbon dioxide and over 800,000 years for methane.”

The European Union's Copernicus Climate Change Service shares its findings on the global climate for 2022. — Some of the findings on 2022 global changes in climate from a study by the European Union’s Copernicus Climate Change Service. (Reuters)

Average global temperatures have risen by 2.1 degrees Fahrenheit since the start of the Industrial Revolution. Climate scientists say that is enough to have set off a cascade of consequences, many of which were seen around the world last year.

Climate change has been linked to drought, increased wildfire activity, inundating rains that result in flash flooding, wetter hurricanes that ramp up more quickly, melting ice caps and glaciers that help result in rising sea levels, crop loss, deadly heat waves and the instability of the polar vortex.

Since carbon atoms released into the atmosphere through the burning of fossil fuels can remain there for hundreds of years, the so-called greenhouse effect causing temperatures to rise is expected to continue to worsen over the coming decades, absent a coordinated global effort to dramatically curb emissions.

In April, when the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change released its sixth assessment report on the state of the climate, U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres summed up the findings.

“We are on a fast track to climate disaster: Major cities under water. Unprecedented heat-waves. Terrifying storms. Widespread water shortages. The extinction of a million species of plants and animals,” Guterres said in a written statement.

Over 600 bodies transported in truckloads: Russia hides Makiivka losses, fearing rebellion

Ukrayinska Pravda

Over 600 bodies transported in truckloads: Russia hides Makiivka losses, fearing rebellion

Ukrainska Pravda – January 10, 2023

In a new intercepted call released by the Chief Intelligence Department of Ukraine’s Defence Ministry, a Russian occupier tells his wife that the Russian authorities are keeping quiet about the events in Makiivka to prevent a rebellion when in fact, over 600 Russian invaders died there.

Source: Defence Intelligence of Ukraine

Details: In the conversation, the Russian’s wife tells her husband that the Russians have been taking corpses out of Makiivka “in truckloads” and that 610 people were in fact killed. She was apparently told that by the relatives of another Russian occupier who was directly involved in transporting the bodies.

Quote: “He personally transported the bodies of these people from Makiivka and from another [settlement]… from the hospital. He says 610 people died in Makiivka. He says, ‘I drove 12 Kamaz trucks [filled with bodies – ed.]’.”

In response, the occupier agrees and claims he had already told his wife about it, but she believed what the Russian authorities said.

The Russian soldier’s wife also said Vladimir Putin’s New Year greeting for 2023 was the lamest she had ever seen.

Background:

The Defence Forces of Ukraine launched an attack on a Russian military base in occupied Makiivka in Donetsk Oblast on New Year’s Eve, killing 400 and wounding 300 occupiers to varying degrees of severity. The Russian soldiers were stationed in the building of local vocational school no. 19.
Igor Girkin (Strelkov), a Russian terrorist and a former so-called “Minister of Defence of the Donetsk People’s Republic”, confirmed the mass killing of Russian servicemen in occupied Makiivka.
The Ministry of Defence of the Russian Federation reported that the death toll following the strike on the Russian servicemen’s base in Makiivka had risen to 89.

President Biden slams ‘reckless bill’ from Republicans to reverse funding for the IRS and its 87,000 new hires — here’s how it could impact you

Money Wise

President Biden slams ‘reckless bill’ from Republicans to reverse funding for the IRS and its 87,000 new hires — here’s how it could impact you

Serah Louis – January 11, 2023

Washington’s lawmakers have come back from their holiday break swinging.

After a days-long speaker standoff, Republicans in the House have moved on to their next priority: clawing back funds from the IRS.

President Joe Biden had included increased funding for the IRS in the Inflation Reduction Act to help the agency catch sneaky tax evaders — especially those high-earners who love to find loopholes. Advocates believe the increased funding could raise as much as $1 trillion by forcing tax cheats to pay their dues, especially after years of budget cuts have gutted the system.

But on Jan. 9, Republicans introduced and passed a bill to rescind that $80 billion in funding.

While it’s likely to be struck down by the Democrat-controlled Senate, and Biden’s office has already voiced his intentions to veto “this reckless bill” if it makes it to his desk, it’s still a strong statement from Republican lawmakers.

Meanwhile, at the center of this political football is an overworked and understaffed tax agency. And whoever wins the power struggle in Washington, experts say taxpayers could be the ones left holding the bag.

The IRS desperately needs the support

The $80 billion in funding spread over the next 10 years would help the IRS modernize its infrastructure, increase enforcement and replace its aging workforce (50,000 of the IRS’s 80,000 workers are expected to leave in the next five years).

A Treasury Department report from May 2021 estimates the extra money would allow the agency to hire around 87,000 new employees — which could include revenue agents and customer service and IT staff — by 2031.

The agency has reportedly been underfunded by about 20% for a decade — leading it to cut back on both staff and technology updates.

Bogged down by a processing system that’s more than half a century old and a backlog that includes millions of unprocessed paper filings, the IRS has been in need of more resources and support for a while.

The customer service department has been woefully short-staffed as well. During the 2022 filing season, the IRS received around 73 million phone calls from taxpayers — but only 10% were actually answered.

“The combination of more than 21 million unprocessed paper tax returns, more than 14 million math error notices, eight-month backlogs in processing taxpayer correspondence, and extraordinary difficulty reaching the IRS by phone made this filing season particularly challenging,” national taxpayer advocate Erin M. Collins wrote in her 2022 midyear report to Congress.

On top of these issues, former IRS Commissioner Charles Rettig estimated in 2021 that the agency is losing $1 trillion in unpaid taxes each year — particularly due to evasion from the rich and big businesses. He also indicated they could be slipping through the cracks in part due to the lightly regulated cryptocurrency market, foreign source income and abuse of pass-through provisions.

Rettig has long pushed for increased funding “to bring on the fire-breathing dragons” to take cheaters to task.

Could bolstering enforcement do more harm than good?

Supporters argue the funding will help close the “tax gap” by helping catch more evaders.

From the total $80 billion, $45.6 billion has been allotted for increased enforcement — which would go toward hiring more enforcement agents, providing legal support and investing in “investigative technology” to determine who should or shouldn’t be audited.

But not everyone is thrilled with the news.

“They’re not going to get this ‘magic money,’” Brian Reardon told Bloomberg. Reardon is the president of the S Corporation Association, which represents small, privately-owned businesses that pass taxes onto their shareholders.

“If you dial up enforcement on people who are otherwise following the rules and paying what they owe, you create resentment and anger. You undermine people’s confidence in the tax system.”

However, the Biden administration maintains that the increased enforcement will be focused on the ultra wealthy and large corporations, and isn’t intended for small businesses or households who earn less than $400,000 a year.

Research from the Department of Treasury indicates that the top 1% of Americans could be dodging as much as $163 billion in taxes each year.

That being said, if the increased budget is approved, Eli Akhavan, a partner at Steptoe & Johnson in New York, says he expects audits will go up. But he’s been telling his wealthy clients they “have nothing to worry about other than some headaches,” provided they’re following good advice and have their “ducks in a row.”

“If there’s nothing to find, there’s nothing to find,” Akhavan says.

Here’s why the House GOP made defunding the IRS its first priority

Yahoo! Finance

Here’s why the House GOP made defunding the IRS its first priority

Ben Werschkul, Washington Correspondent – January 10, 2023

The House GOP’s first policy bill out of the gate didn’t address inflation or gas prices or immigration, but instead went after the Internal Revenue Service.

The bill was passed Monday evening on a straight party line vote of 221 to 210 to reverse much of the $80 billion in extra funding set aside for the agency by 2022’s Inflation Reduction Act.

While it has little chance of it being enacted anytime soon with Democrats in control of the Senate and President Biden promising a veto, the prominence of the issue shows just how much the IRS has become a heated target of Republicans. That’s despite experts saying the funds in question would go toward prosaic concerns like helping the agency chase down tax cheats and refresh its outdated technology.

The enhanced funding for the IRS is “part of the broad Biden administration strategy to tax and audit exponentially more Americans,” said Rep. Adrian Smith (R-NE) as debate got underway on Monday. He added that the bill would “stops autopilot funding for an out-of-control government agency that is perhaps most in need of reform.”

Speaker Kevin McCarthy then announced the final results of the vote once it had passed, noting that it had been a GOP promise.

Washington , D.C. - January 6: Newly-elected Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) points to a newly installed sign above his office after he was elected in 15 rounds of votes in a meeting of the 118th Congress, Friday, January 6, 2023, at the U.S. Capitol in Washington DC. The House reconvened Friday night after adjourning earlier for a fourth day of voting after Rep.-elect Kevin McCarthy failed to earn more than 218 votes on 11 ballots over three days. (Photo by Elizabeth Frantz/For The Washington Post via Getty Images) — Newly-elected Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy finally won the gavel early on Saturday morning after a protracted fight. (Elizabeth Frantz/For The Washington Post via Getty Images)

‘Absolutely false’ viral claims

The claim from countless Republicans, from Speaker McCarthy on down, is that the influx of money will lead to a flood of 87,000 new IRS agents who will then turn and harass everyday Americans. Some critics of the agency go even further and claim these new agents will be armed.

But fact-checkers have repeatedly debunked the claims, and the agency itself pushed back in a Yahoo Finance op-ed from then-IRS Commissioner Charles Rettig in August.

The viral claims are “absolutely false,” Rettig wrote at the time, adding his agency “is often perceived as an easy target for mischaracterizations,” but he promised the new money will not lead to increased audit scrutiny on households making under $400,000.

The plan is instead for much of the money to go toward wealthy tax cheats. IRS estimates of the so-called “tax gap” — the difference between what taxes are owed to the government and what is actually paid — is hundreds of billions of dollars a year.

Much of the $80 billion will be focused on taking a bite out of the gap, focusing on wealthy tax payers. The investment is projected to pay for itself and then bring in over $100 billion in increased tax revenue over the coming decade.

By contrast, a new analysis from the Congressional Budget Office released Monday afternoon found that the net effect of the House GOP bill’s to defund the agency would increase the deficit by more than $114.3 billion over the coming decade if enacted.

https://flo.uri.sh/visualisation/10776702/embed?auto=1

With the new funding, the IRS could hire an estimated 86,852 new employees, according to a May 2021 report by the Department of Treasury, but many of those would not be agents. Many would work in other areas like information technology.

And nearly all new agents would be unarmed. Very few IRS agents carry weapons as part of their responsibilities. Some of the hires may also be used to replace thousands of existing IRS workers expected to retire in the coming years.

Nonetheless, claims of a flood of new agents have persisted, repeated by figures ranging from the GOP chairwoman to Elon Musk.

The chronically understaffed IRS has until recently been a bipartisan concern, but the increased funding became an issue during the 2022 campaign and played into conservative suspicions of the agency that have been growing for years.

Conservatives have long claimed the IRS targeted the tax-exempt status of political groups during the Obama administration, while a 2017 Treasury report on the controversy found that groups on both sides of the political spectrum had faced scrutiny.

‘The average American cares about defunding 87,000 IRS agents’

This week’s vote comes just as Danny Werfel is set to return this year as IRS Commissioner, leading the agency’s revamp.

The newly elected chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, Jason Smith (R-MO), said in a statement Monday that Werfel “should plan to spend a lot of time before our committee answering questions about the leaking of sensitive taxpayer information and an agency with a history of targeting conservative Americans.”

In a recent Fox News appearance, Rep. Dan Crenshaw (R-TX) additionally argued that “the average American cares about defunding 87,000 IRS agents.”

A sign outside the Internal Revenue Service is seen August 8, 2015 in Washington, DC. AFP PHOTO / KAREN BLEIER (Photo credit should read KAREN BLEIER/AFP via Getty Images) — An Internal Revenue Service building in Washington, DC. (KAREN BLEIER/AFP via Getty Images)

On the other side, Democrats repeatedly attacked Republicans for holding a vote on the bill and also for making it their first priority, implying they will use it against Republicans in the coming years.

In a statement calling the move a giveaway to rich tax cheats, Vice President Kamala Harris said House Republicans were trying to undo recent progress under Democrats and hoping to allow “millionaires, billionaires, and corporations to cheat the system.”

This post has been updated.

Ben Werschkul is a Washington correspondent for Yahoo Finance.

1st bill out of new GOP-majority House would cut $71 billion from IRS, cost $114 billion

The Week

1st bill out of new GOP-majority House would cut $71 billion from IRS, cost $114 billion

Peter Weber, Senior editor – January 9, 2023

Kevin McCarthy Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images

House Republicans passed their first bill of the 118th Congress on Monday night, voting along party lines to cut $71 billion from the IRS. The legislation will not be taken up by the Democratic-controlled Senate, and President Biden said Monday he would veto the cuts if they somehow arrived at his desk. Before the vote, the Congressional Budget Office said the legislation would increase the federal deficit by $114 billion over the next 10 years.

Democrats approved $80 million in IRS funding in the Inflation Reduction Act last year. The IRS says the money will be used to hire 87,000 new employees over the next 10 years, upgrade the agency’s antiquated technology, and beef up enforcement of tax laws on taxpayers earning more than $400,000 a year. Many of the 87,000 new IRS workers will be in customer service, to answer taxpayer questions, the Biden administration says, and others would replace the 50,0000 IRS agents expected to quit or retire in the coming years.

House Republicans promised to prioritize cutting those funds, arguing they will be used to harass middle class taxpayers and “create a ‘shadow army’ to shake down small businesses with assault rifles,” The New York Times reports. “Our very first bill will repeal the funding for 87,000 new IRS agents,” House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) said Saturday morning, shortly after being elected speaker on the 15th ballot. “You see, we believe government should be to help you, not go after you.”

Former IRS Commissioner Charles Rettig, a Republican appointed by former President Donald Trump, said last November that the new investments in his understaffed agency would make it “even less likely for honest taxpayers to hear from the IRS or receive an audit letter.” Treasury Department spokeswoman Ashley Schapitl said Monday that “the IRS audits nearly 80 percent fewer millionaires than a decade ago,” and the House bill “would deny the agency much-needed resources to hire top talent to go after the $163 billion in taxes avoided by the top 1 percent annually.”

“The only way that House Republicans could make it any more obvious that they’re doing a favor for wealthy tax cheats is by coming out and saying it in exactly those words,” said Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), chairman of the Senate Finance Committee. “This bill is going nowhere in the Senate.”