Read About The Tarbaby Story under the Category: About the Tarbaby Blog
May 24, 2018
Trump wants to prop up fossil fuels, but his own government agencies keep reporting on the climate change threat. A newly obtained memo reveals his solution: Just ignore them. #YEARSproject #WarOnOurFuture
President Donald J. Trump wants to prop up fossil fuels, but his own government agencies keep reporting on the climate change threat. A newly obtained memo reveals his solution: Just ignore them. #YEARSproject #WarOnOurFuture
Posted by War On Our Future on Thursday, May 24, 2018
April 28, 2018
Eternal Sunshine Of The Trumpless Mind
Joel (Jim Carrey) just can't handle the Donald Trump presidency, but lucky for him the good people Lacuna, Inc. are here to make his mind totally Trumpless.
Posted by Funny Or Die MASHUPS on Saturday, April 28, 2018
Chris D’Angelo, HuffPost June 1, 2018
The Washington Post on Friday reported that the EPA purchased a dozen silver fountain pens from a jewelry store in Washington, D.C., featuring the agency’s seal and Pruitt’s signatures. The cost to taxpayers: $130 apiece.
The pens were part of a $3,230 order in August from Tiny Jewel Box that also reportedly included personalized journals.
“The cost of the Qty. 12 Fountain Pens will be around $1,560.00,” an account manager at the jewelry store wrote in an email to Millan Hupp, Pruitt’s head of scheduling and advance. “All the other items total cost is around $1,670.00 which these items are in process. Please advise.”
“Yes, please order,” Hupp responded that same day. “Thank you.”
EPA spokesman Jahan Wilcox defended the pen purchase in a statement to the Washington Post, saying they “were made for the purpose of serving as gifts to the Administrator’s foreign counterparts and dignitaries upon his meeting with them.”
The expense comes as Pruitt faces a whirlwind of corruption accusations and ethical scandals. While pushing for sweeping budget cuts at the federal agency, Pruitt has been seemingly loose with the taxpayer’s dime.
In April, a government watchdog found that Pruitt broke the law when he spent $43,000 to install a soundproof phone booth in his office. Other questionable, high-end expenses include non-commercial and first-class airfare and an unprecedented security detail. Several high-ranking officials at the agency were reassigned, demoted or opted to leave after expressing concerns about pricey office furniture, as well as requests for a bulletproof SUV, a 20-person security detail and $100,000-a-month charter aircraft membership, as The New York Times reported in April.
Pruitt has largely pointed the finger at his own staff at the agency he runs.
“I’m having to answer questions about decisions that others made,” Pruitt said in an interview with the Washington Free Beacon this week. “And that’s not an excuse, it’s just reality.”
By Stephanie Nebehay, Reuters June 2, 2018
A tent is seen next to Echo Park Lake in Los Angeles, California, U.S. April 11, 2018. REUTERS/Lucy Nicholson
GENEVA (Reuters) – Poverty in the United States is extensive and is deepening under the Trump administration whose policies seem aimed at removing the safety net from millions of poor, while rewarding the rich, a U.N. human rights investigator has found.
Philip Alston, U.N. special reporter on extreme poverty, called on U.S. authorities to provide solid social protection and address underlying problems, rather than “punishing and imprisoning the poor”.
While welfare benefits and access to health insurance are being slashed, President Donald Trump’s tax reform has awarded “financial windfalls” to the mega-rich and large companies, further increasing inequality, he said in a report.
U.S. policies since President Lyndon Johnson’s war on poverty in the 1960s have been “neglectful at best”, he said.
“But the policies pursued over the past year seem deliberately designed to remove basic protections from the poorest, punish those who are not in employment and make even basic health care into a privilege to be earned rather than a right of citizenship,” Alston said.
Almost 41 million people live in poverty, 18.5 million of them in extreme poverty, and children account for one in three poor, he said. The United States has the highest youth poverty rate among industrialized countries, he added.
“Its citizens live shorter and sicker lives compared to those living in all other rich democracies, eradicable tropical diseases are increasingly prevalent and it has the world’s highest incarceration rate…and the highest obesity levels in the developed world,” Alston said.
However, the data from the U.S. Census Bureau he cited covers only the period through 2016, and he gave no comparative figures on the extent of poverty before and after Trump came into office in January 2017.
The Australian, a veteran U.N. rights expert and New York University law professor, will present his report to the United Nations Human Rights Council later this month.
It is based on his mission in December to several U.S. states, including rural Alabama, a slum in downtown Los Angeles, California, and the U.S. territory of Puerto Rico.
U.S. officials in Geneva were not immediately available for comment.
“SHAMEFUL STATISTICS”
Citing “shameful statistics” linked to entrenched racial discrimination, Alston said that African Americans are 2.5 times more likely than whites to live in poverty and their unemployment rate is more than double. Women, Hispanics, immigrants, and indigenous people also suffer high rates.
At least 550,000 people are homeless in America, he said.
“The tax reform will worsen this situation and ensure that the United States remains the most unequal society in the developed world,” Alston said. “The planned dramatic cuts in welfare will essentially shred crucial dimensions of a safety net that is already full of holes.”
The tax overhaul, which sailed through the Republican-controlled U.S. Congress in December, permanently cut the top corporate rate to 21 percent from 35 percent. Tax cuts for individuals, however, are temporary and expire after 2025.
Trump has said they will lead to more take-home pay for workers and have touted bonuses some workers received from their employers as evidence the law is working.
Alston dismissed allegations of widespread fraud in the welfare system and criticized the U.S. criminal justice system. It sets large bail bonds for a defendant seeking to go free pending trial, meaning wealthy suspects can afford bail while the poor remain in custody, often losing their jobs, he said.
“There is no magic recipe for eliminating extreme poverty and each level of government must make its own good-faith decisions. At the end of the day, however, particularly in a rich country like the United States, the persistence of extreme poverty is a political choice made by those in power,” he said.
(Reporting by Stephanie Nebehay; editing by David Stamp)
Read more stories about Costa Rica: ecowatch.com/tag/costa-rica
This is what Costa Rica can teach the world about democracy and green energy
If you learn these lessons, you may become more content. Read more stories about Costa Rica: ecowatch.com/tag/costa-rica
Posted by EcoWatch on Friday, June 1, 2018
“I think about younger generations who will say, ‘What have you done, when you knew all this was happening?'” Explore why Greenland’s glaciers are melting faster than expected in our 360° video.
360°: Why Is Greenland Melting?
"I think about younger generations who will say, 'What have you done, when you knew all this was happening?'" Explore why Greenland's glaciers are melting faster than expected in our 360° video.
Posted by FRONTLINE on Friday, June 1, 2018
CEO Pay: Rewarding or Hoarding?
We are dealing with a crisis of inequality and that is why we must start making the wealthy pay their fair share in taxes, not give breaks to those at the top.via U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders
Posted by act.tv on Thursday, May 31, 2018
The raise is a windfall from Costco’s savings due to U.S. federal corporate tax cuts that took effect this year. Costco also reported that its profit jumped about 7 percent in its fiscal third quarter to $750 million or $1.70 a share, matching Wall Street analyst expectations.
By Benjamin Romano, Seattle Times Business Reporter May 31, 2018
Employees stock the bakery department at Costco in Issaquah in this March 14, 2016, file photo. (Bettina Hansen / The Seattle Times)
Costco’s hourly employees are the latest U.S. retail workers to get a boost from the Trump tax cuts.
On June 11, Costco will increase the starting wage for its U.S. employees by $1 to as much as $14.50 an hour, while other hourly wage rates will increase 25 to 50 cents an hour.
The raise, to be paid for with part of Costco’s savings from U.S. federal corporate tax cuts that took effect this year, will go to upwards of 130,000 U.S. employees, costing the company about $110 million to $120 million a year before taxes, Costco chief financial officer Richard Galanti said during the company’s fiscal third quarter earnings report Thursday.
The warehouse club retailer hauled in $32.36 billion in sales and membership revenue in the 12-weeks ended May 13, a 12.1 percent increase over the same period in 2017. It was the company’s fourth consecutive quarter of double-digit sales growth.
Costco profit jumped about 7 percent in its fiscal third quarter to $750 million or $1.70 a share, matching analyst expectations. But investors bid down Costco shares 2 percent in after-hours trading, where they finished at $194.23. The company’s profit margins were slightly slimmer than expected as rising freight costs took a toll.
The wage increases will help Costco keep to its strategy of offering employees total compensation that executive say leads the retail industry. Costco competitors including Target and Walmart announced wage increases and bonuses for their employees tied to the tax cuts earlier this year.
Galanti said that many companies, not just retailers, have “a desire to use some of this (tax windfall) to help employees, to share that wealth if you will, to drive their business.”
But not everyone at Costco is happy. Some salaried employees, including some in the company’s Issaquah corporate headquarters, say they’re being left out of the equation as Costco spreads around the tax benefit. One person, who asked not to be named for fear of retaliation, said after the wage increase announcement, “I would make a considerable amount more going back and gathering carts for the warehouse in the parking lot.”
Galanti did not respond to a request for comment on the benefits, if any, planned for salaried employees.
About 90 percent of Costco’s employees are paid hourly, and earn $22.50 an hour, on average, with access to health insurance benefits for which the company pays 90 percent of annual costs, Galanti said in March.
Costco reported 231,000 employees in its 2017 annual report – 133,000 full-time and 98,000 part-time – numbers that have surely increased as it continues opening new warehouses. It had 750 at the end of the last quarter and planned to open a net 15 new locations in the current quarter.
Some 54 percent of Costco employees in a recent PayScale survey thought their compensation was fair, compared to 21 percent of all employees in the survey. That level was enough to rank Costco 18th on PayScale’s list of fair payers.
PayScale notes that perception is reality when it comes to pay, particularly in a tight job market. “Investing in how you pay and how you communicate pay is more important than it’s ever been for your organization,” the company said as part of its pay fairness report.
Costco is indeed trying to communicate its pay practices, and relative compensation, more clearly to employees.
In an April internal Costco newsletter, Pat Callans, senior vice president of human resources and risk management, addressed the announcements from Target and Walmart – though he didn’t mention them by name.
“At Costco, we’re not in the habit of issuing press releases about our compensation, but we have always looked for ways to pay our hourly employees well, and we’ll continue to do so,” Callans wrote in the newsletter for store management teams. “Our annual increases to the top of our wage scales, and regular increases throughout the scale, are evidence of this.”
Callans said that in addition to a 60-cent-per-hour increase in March – part of the company’s regular cadence of increases – Costco gave long-term employees their biannual extra checks and “made discretionary company contributions to employees’ 401(k) accounts.”
Callans mentioned these and other benefits, including health care, and suggested that newer employees who don’t realize their value or are not yet eligible for them should be reminded by management teams.
“It is our total compensation, not just our starting wage, that sets us apart from our retail competition,” he wrote.
On Thursday, Galanti suggested that the tax-cut related wage increase would likely be an addition to, rather than a replacement of, the company’s regular wage increases. Despite having a small union-represented workforce of about 15,600 people, Costco regularly negotiates a new agreement with employees every three years with prescribed annual wage increases. The next such agreement is due in March 2019.
“We looked at it independent of that,” Galanti said of the June 11 increases.
Galanti said Costco’s third-quarter effective U.S. tax rate was 28.8 percent down from what would have been a rate of 35.3 percent a year earlier, but for an $82 million tax benefit the company realized as part of a $7 a share special dividend. Galanti said he expects Costco’s tax rate in its 2019 fiscal year to be about 28 percent.
The tax cut will save Costco in the low $300 million range a year, Galanti said.
“I don’t think it’s been life-changing for any company,” he said, noting that the cost of the company’s special dividends has been in the range of $2 billion to $3 billion.
Costco continues to return cash to shareholders through stock repurchases totaling $55 million in the third quarter and dividends. The company announced a quarterly dividend of 57 cents a share in April, up from the 50 cent per share dividends it had issued each of the previous four quarters.
Could the electric car save our climate?
What If All Cars Went Electric
Could the electric car save our climate?
Posted by What.If on Thursday, May 31, 2018
By Michael Hawthorne, Chicago Tribune May 30, 2018
Chicago: The first sign of trouble on Illinois’ only national scenic river is when thick stands of sycamore, red bud and oak suddenly give way to a barren, rocky bank stained metallic hues of orange and purple.
Pools of rust-colored water stagnate along the edge of the Middle Fork of the Vermilion River as the otherwise clear, fast-moving stream meanders past the source of the unnatural phenomena: three unlined pits of coal ash dug into the floodplain by owners of a now-defunct power plant that generated enough toxic waste during the past half century to fill the Empire State Building nearly 2 1/2 times.
Internal reports prepared by Texas-based Dynegy Inc., the last owner of the former Vermilion Power Station, have shown the multicolored muck seeping into the river is concentrated with arsenic, chromium, lead, manganese and other heavy metals found in coal ash. State environmental regulators confirmed the findings more than a decade ago, yet pollution continues to ooze into the Middle Fork.
With the administrations of President Donald Trump and Illinois Gov. Bruce Rauner rolling back enforcement of national and state environmental laws, advocates are urging a federal court to step in and order Dynegy to take more aggressive action. Environmental groups fear that steady erosion of the riverbank could trigger a catastrophic spill, similar to disasters at coal plants in Tennessee and North Carolina where ash impoundments ruptured and caused millions of dollars in damage.
“Dynegy left a toxic mess on the banks of one of Illinois’ most beautiful rivers and has done nothing to stop the dangerous, illegal pollution from fouling waters enjoyed by countless families who kayak, tube, canoe and even swim in the river,” said Jenny Cassel, an attorney with Earthjustice, one of the nonprofit groups behind a lawsuit filed Wednesday that accuses Dynegy of violating the federal Clean Water Act.
The Middle Fork winds through east central Illinois amid corn and soybean fields and clusters of wind turbines rising above moraines that interrupt the flat farmland. About 17 miles of the river in Vermilion County are protected under the federal National Wild and Scenic Rivers Act, including the stretch that flows past the shuttered coal plant about a mile downstream from a popular canoe and kayak launch. The river and surrounding woods are home to dozens of endangered and threatened species, including bald eagles, bluebreast darters and several species of freshwater mussels.
Last month another nonprofit group, American Rivers, cited the ongoing threats to recreation and aquatic life when it named the Middle Fork one of the nation’s most endangered waterways.
Dynegy consultants have estimated it could cost up to $192 million to transfer 3.3 million cubic feet of coal ash from the Vermilion plant to a licensed landfill. The company once suggested it could cap the waste pits to prevent rain and snowmelt from washing coal ash into the water, but another Dynegy report estimated the normal flow of the Middle Fork is eroding the river banks by up to 3 feet a year, making it more likely the toxic slurry will be exposed if left in place.
As Dynegy struggled to keep the rest of its Illinois coal plants operating in the downstate power market, it was absorbed in April by another Texas-based company, Vistra Energy, which reported earnings of $1.4 billion in 2017. Neither company responded to requests for comment about the lawsuit.
The Vermilion plant is one of two dozen sites in Illinois where energy companies have dumped coal ash for years. Most waste is stored close to rivers and lakes used for cooling water, and the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency considers 10 of the other sites to pose serious threats to the drinking water supplies of nearby communities.
Illinois Power, which built the Vermilion plant in 1955 and sold it to Dynegy in 2000, tried to prevent its ash pits from leaking during the 1980s by stacking rock-filled wire cages along the river. But torrents of high water during and after storms have washed away many of the protective formations, exposing steady trickles of pollution through fractured sandstone and shale.
During a trip down the river in early May, three advocates who frequently paddle the Middle Fork said the problems appeared significantly worse than what they saw last fall. Andrew Rehn, water resources engineer for the Prairie Rivers Network, the chief plaintiff in the federal lawsuit against Dynegy, said he has seen waste seeping from the riverbank every time he has been on the river during the past eight years.
“Over the years the utilities have used the floodplain as essentially a dumping ground,” said Lan Richart, a former Illinois Natural History Survey ecologist who along with his wife, Pam, formed another group pushing to protect the Middle Fork. “Now it’s been shown to be polluting both the groundwater and the river.”
Smallies
Because the Vermilion plant closed years ago, the ash pits are exempt from federal regulations enacted by the Obama administration in 2015 in response to the Tennessee and North Carolina spills. Opposition from Dynegy and other energy companies led the Trump administration last year to reconsider the safeguards; a separate proposal in Illinois that would impose stricter regulations on coal ash pits also has been sidetracked.
At the same time, enforcement actions against the owners of coal ash pits have stalled. The Illinois EPA cited Dynegy in 2012 with violations of state water quality standards but has yet to resolve the case. Federal environmental regulators have not responded to requests for them to intervene.
The Chicago Tribune reported in February that since Rauner took office in 2015, penalties sought from Illinois polluters have dropped to $6.1 million – about two-thirds less than the inflation-adjusted amount demanded during the first three years under the Republican chief executive’s two predecessors, Democrats Pat Quinn and Rod Blagojevich.
At the federal level, Trump’s EPA administrator, Scott Pruitt, has slowed enforcement and restricted the agency’s staff from filing new cases. Several recently announced legal settlements with polluters were prompted by citizen lawsuits similar to the one filed Wednesday against Dynegy.
Over 3.3 million cubic yards of toxic coal ash have been dumped in the floodplain of this scenic river. Coal ash, a byproduct of burning coal, contains some of the most toxic substances known to humankind.
This pollution is associated with the operation of the coal-fired power plant on the west bank of the river. The plant, now owned by Dynegy-Midwest Generation, is closed. But the natural forces of the river threaten the river bank and abutting impoundments, raising concerns over a possible breach. Two of the three ponds are leaking, and the third sits over mine voids. Learn more about the threat to the river.
The Middle Fork of the Vermilion River is Illinois’ only National Scenic River.
It runs freely through a variety of habitats, including forest and steep bluffs.
The Middle Fork supports a variety of aquatic life, including over 57 species of fish.
The river is a great spot for sport fishing. Photo courtesy of IDNR.
Over 10,000 people canoe, kayak or tube the Middle Fork each year.
Hiking trails offer great views of the Middle Fork.
All three pits are in the floodplain and subject to natural forces of the river.
Riverbank armoring installed in the 1980’s to protect the banks is failing, and toxic metals are leaching into the river.
Dyengy wants to cap the pits, stabilize the riverbanks, and move on.
The only way to protect the river long-term is to move the ash out of the floodplain, away from the river.
Act to protect the Middle Fork today! Click ACT NOW in the menu bar and scroll to send letters to Illinois’ Governor and EPA Director; state officials; and local officials.
The Resource – Illinois’ Only National Scenic River
The Middle Fork of the Vermilion River is Illinois’ first designated State Scenic River. It also is the state’s only designated National Scenic River. These designations recognize the Middle Fork’s outstanding scenic, recreational, ecological and historical characteristics.
Ecological and Scenic Significance
The Middle Fork River has eroded through deep glacial deposits, exposing steep valley slopes, and high bluffs and hillsides with natural springs. Most of the area along the river is forested, but there are also several prairie sites. Three of these support plants and animals so rare that they are protected as State Nature Preserves.
The Middle Fork river valley supports a great diversity of plants and animals. They include 57 types of fish; 45 different species of mammals; and 190 kinds of birds. Twenty-four species are officially identified as State threatened or endangered.
And there are other qualities of the Middle Fork river valley that make it unique to Illinois. These include unusual geologic formations; several historic sites, and over 8,400 acres of public parks.
Illinois Law (Public Act 84-1257) and the National Wild and Scenic Rivers Act give permanent protection to a 17-mile segment along both sides of the Middle Fork. Conservation easements are held by the state on all land it does not own. The Illinois Department of Natural Resources manages this protected river valley. The state nature preserves and state threatened or endangered species in the valley are protected by other state laws and programs.
Recreation and Historic Importance
The river system also provides the benefits of a strong recreation economy to Vermilion County. Kickapoo State Park, Kennekuk County Park, and the Middle Fork State Fish and Wildlife Area stand as key destinations for local residents and visitors, enjoyed for canoeing, kayaking and tubing; wildlife viewing; photography; hunting; angling; hiking; and horseback riding. Kickapoo Adventures, located in Kickapoo State Park, puts over 10,000 people on the Middle Fork River in canoes, kayaks and tubes each year.
A Source of Food
In addition to the river’s scenic, historic, and recreation importance, this stretch of the Middle Fork of the Vermilion River provides a reliable source of food for some area residents. The loss of the manufacturing base in the nearby city of Danville has left many unemployed and living in a subsistence economy.
You Can Help Protect the Middle Fork!
Dynegy is seeking approval of their closure plan for these three coal ash pits from the Illinois EPA. Their plan is to cap them and leave them in the floodplain.
One easy way to take action now is to send an electronic letter to State Senator Scott Bennett and State Representative Chad Hays; Danville’s Mayor Scott Eisenhauer and County Board Chair Michael Marron; and Governor Rauner and the Alec Messina, Director of the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency (IEPA). Ask them to require Dynegy to move its coal ash from the floodplain to a properly-designed facility on its property, away from the river. Personalizing your letter will have the most impact.
Other states are requiring utility companies to relocate their ash, so why aren’t we?