Author: John Hanno

Born and raised in Chicago, Illinois. Bogan High School. Worked in Alaska after the earthquake. Joined U.S. Army at 17. Sergeant, B Battery, 3rd Battalion, 84th Artillery, 7th Army. Member of 12 different unions, including 4 different locals of the I.B.E.W. Worked for fortune 50, 100 and 200 companies as an industrial electrician, electrical/electronic technician.

Oklahoma, America’s No. 2 wind producer, sours on the industry

Christian Science Monitor – Environment

Oklahoma, America’s No. 2 wind producer, sours on the industry

A massive state budget crisis, along with powerful oil and gas interests, has led the state to phase out key tax incentives for wind.

Christa Case Bryant/The Christian Science Monitor

Christa Case Bryant, Staff writer     January 30, 2018

Garber, Oklahoma. First the wind came sweeping down the plain, then the dollars, and now the controversy.

With ever more spiky wind turbines cropping up across its open lands, Oklahoma has just become the No. 2 state in the country for wind energy production, the American Wind Energy Association announced Tuesday. That has been a boon for local communities, but it has also come at a price for the state, which pays tens of millions of dollars a year in subsidies for wind companies. As the industry grows, so does the price tag for wind incentives.

Now a new project – Wind Catcher, which is slated to be one of the largest wind farms in America – is facing stiff resistance and could be scrapped altogether.

The Wind Catcher case comes amid a pushback on wind incentives, galvanized by a state budget crisis and influential oil and gas interests. In the past year, Oklahoma has ended two key incentives that even wind proponents admitted were in some ways “too generous.”

“I’m hopeful that the current balance that we’ve struck between local taxation and making sure that we’re not penalizing a new technology – I’m hopeful that that balance stays in place,” says state Sen. AJ Griffin (R) of Guthrie, who says she encourages investment in wind “without giving away the farm.”

But some are pushing not only to remove all subsidies, but to levy a new tax on wind.

 Think you know the odd effects of global climate change? Take our quiz.

One of America’s largest wind farms

Under the whirring of turbines in Oklahoma’s Garfield County, Craig Schlichting hauls rock, agricultural lime, and grain for a living.

He’s not particularly keen on wind, but with the agricultural economy flagging, he sees the industry’s positive effect on his community of Garber, Okla. There’s a new blacktop road being laid down, and a smart new school building a mile away. Then there’s the wind companies’ payments to those with turbines on their land.

“It’s scuttlebutt, but the guys who have them say [the wind companies] pay $10,000 per year,” says Mr. Schlichting, standing in well-worn striped overalls. “In a poor state, it’s good money.”

The money coming into the county through such landowner payments is equivalent of the paying 194 employees at the county average wage – which would put it among the top-10 companies in the area, says Brent Kisling, executive director of the Enid Regional Development Alliance in Garfield County.

Now Enid stands to benefit from the $4.5 billion Wind Catcher project, which includes plans to build a 350-mile transmission line that would pass through the area, bringing supply-chain jobs, says Mr. Kisling.

Public Service Company of Oklahoma (PSO), which is investing $1.3 billion in the project, says Wind Catcher will save Oklahoma electric customers an estimated $2 billion over 25 years. That would be a relief for many in a state where summer electric bills often run $400 or more a month.

But there’s a problem.

$2 billion in savings? AG doesn’t think so.

PSO skipped a required competitive bidding process for building the transmission line. That was intentional: It wanted to finish the project before a federal tax credit expires at the end of 2020, says spokesman Stan Whiteford. Now it needs an exemption from the Oklahoma Corporation Commission (OCC), which regulates public utilities.

PSO is asking the state to approve a rate hike to help finance its investment, and says that the added cost to consumers will be quickly canceled out by the savings of wind power. The OCC held hearings this month over whether to approve the exemption and the rate hike. A decision is expected in early spring.

One of the strongest opponents to the project is Attorney General Mike Hunter, whose job is to protect Oklahoma consumers.

However, Mr. Hunter disputes PSO’s savings estimate. He has experience with public utility cases, having previously worked for OCC, and says the Wind Catcher project is likely to cost consumers around $320 million.

He also underscores that PSO did not follow state rules, plain and simple, and must be opposed on that basis.

“My responsibility is to the ratepayers of the state of Oklahoma and that responsibility is a statutory responsibility, it’s consistent with my oath of office, and the case that we’re putting on is based on careful investigation, thoughtful review of evidence, and the law,” Hunter tells the Monitor. “And that is my sole motivation in this matter.”

What makes a level playing field?

Pro-wind critics argue that the opposition to Wind Catcher – and the wind industry in general – is being driven by influential oil and gas magnates like Harold Hamm, an ally of President Trump and former Oklahoma attorney general Scott Pruitt.

“Certainly everybody in Oklahoma knows there’s been a Harold Hamm vs. wind fight for several years,” says Jeff Clark, head of the Texas-based Wind Coalition. “He’s not intervening so Wind Catcher gets built more competitively. He’s intervening because he wants to kill Wind Catcher.”

Mr. Hamm’s office did not respond to multiple requests for comment. But he has argued that wind subsidies are no longer necessary in light of a federal tax credit extension for wind, and says the subsidies primarily benefit out-of-state companies whose power often goes to out-of-state customers.

Jonathan Small, president of the Oklahoma Council for Public Affairs in Oklahoma City and an early member of The Windfall Coalition spearheaded by Hamm, says it’s more about free-market economics than favoritism.

“I think the vast majority of lawmakers and citizens would say it has more to do with lack of a level playing field than not liking wind,” says Mr. Small, a former budget analyst for the Oklahoma Office of State Finance. He says the budget crunch focused scrutiny on wind incentives, and cites a statistic that each turbine costs taxpayers more than a teacher’s starting pay – a figure calculated by Wind Waste on an Apex wind installment in Oklahoma’s Kingfisher County. (Teachers are in such short supply that some Oklahoma school districts have gone to four-day weeks.)

But proponents of wind argue that oil and gas subsidies cost the state significantly more than wind subsidies, despite wind’s growth in recent years. A 2017 Oklahoma Policy Institute paper calculated that in fiscal year 2018 the state would forgo more than $500 million in revenue due to tax breaks for oil and gas.

“I think a lot of it is that [oil and gas entities] want to have their incentives, but they don’t think the wind should have the same incentives,” says Jan Kuehn of Kingfisher County, who has Apex wind turbines on her land as well as oil wells that still pay her royalties. “I think the wind people left the land and the roads in better shape than before they came – which is a great help because as most states, Oklahoma is strapped for money.”

In May 2016, Oklahoma’s secretary of finance announced that the state had needed to borrow $5 million from other funds that month to pay refunds due corporations, including $3.3 million in zero-emission credits to wind companies. The following year, the legislature ended that incentive for new wind farms, as well as a five-year property tax exemption.

Gov. Mary Fallin also proposed a production tax on wind to help close a nearly $1 billion budget gap for fiscal year 2018. Legislators are still pursuing that idea.

Kisling of the Enid Economic Development Alliance says what’s needed is a shift away from zero-sum thinking.

“We’ve spent too much time as a state [debating] who gets which slice of the pie,” he says. “We ought to spend more time figuring out how to increase the size of the pie.”

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Will Shell Turn From Big Oil Into Big Energy?

EcoWatch

From Oil Change International

Will Shell Turn From Big Oil Into Big Energy?

By Andy Rowell       January 30, 2018

Shutterstock

On the surface, the good times are back for Big Oil. Later this week, Shell is expected to unveil its biggest profits in a decade since the oil price crash.

As the oil price recovers to over $65 a barrel last year, so do Shell’s fortunes, with reported earnings of nearly $16 billion.

The days of Shell being on the rocks—pummeled by a low oil price—seem over. So much so that the company even has Big Oil’s number one, Exxon, in its sights. Exxon’s reported earnings are expected to be slightly lower than Shell’s at a still significant $15.7 billion.

As Shell’s CEO Ben van Beurden recently said, “At the moment we are number two and we are closing in on number one. We almost have the tiger by the tail.”

As the two Big Oil companies battle it out for the number one spot, it is worth taking a step back and worth asking who will win the energy war not just in the next year, but in the decades ahead, which will be dominated by the upcoming renewable revolution, stranded assets and climate change. Many would argue that short term profits hide Big Oil’s longer term problems.

In the medium term, Shell is betting big on gas, despite the fact that environmentalists argue is it no solution to climate change. For example, you can read OCI’s report on gas here.

There are signs that the company is also taking some small steps into carbon disinvestment: As Reuters reported this week, “Royal Dutch Shell has spent over $400 million on a range of acquisitions in recent weeks, from solar power to electric car charging points, cranking up its drive to expand beyond its oil and gas business and reduce its carbon footprint.”

Before we all get too excited by this, there are two fundamental problems. One is that the investments are small change, as Reuters pointed out: “The scale of the buying spree pales in comparison to the Anglo-Dutch company’s $25 billion annual spending budget. But its first forays into the solar and retail power sectors for many years shows a growing urgency to develop cleaner energy businesses.”

In total, according to analysts, Big Oil has invested just over $3 billion on renewables acquisitions over the past five years, predominantly on solar. Again it is peanuts compared to the tens of billions the companies spend looking for oil.

And the other problem is the one we have just mentioned, gas. As Reuters noted, “The investments are not limited to renewables such as biofuels, solar and wind. Shell, as well as rivals such as BP, Exxon Mobil and Chevron, are betting on rising demand for gas, the least polluting fossil fuel, to power the expected surge in electric vehicles in the coming decades.”

Indeed, Shell may be betting on gas just at a time when the future of gas is in trouble. “The end of natural gas is near” is the title of an article this month on GreenBiz by Danny Kennedy from the California Clean Energy Fund. It states:

“Natural gas is no longer a contender or pretender, just a relic of the past, likely to fall as far and as fast as Old King Coal, and maybe faster … But I think it’s important to reflect that in 2017, for all its other problems in the clean-energy industry and our nation more broadly, the gas industry became, if not dead, at least a dead man walking.”

It is questions like these—is the market for gas in trouble?—that are supposed to be predicted by Shell’s long term planning unit. A really interesting article by Fortune looks at how this Big Oil dinosaur is desperate not to die out in the coming decades.

All the oil majors have scenario planning and Shell has been doing some serious head scratching. As Jeremy Bentham, Shell’s scenarios leader, said, “I am tasked with making sure that Shell isn’t a dodo.” So will Shell become extinct in the upcoming energy transition or dominate the new energy landscape?

The article argues that when Shell disinvested from most of its stakes in the tar sands last year, it was over long term fears over the oil price, rather than climate, that was the real concern.

The Shell scenarios team, Fortune noted, concluded that “global demand for oil might peak in as little as a decade—essentially tomorrow in an industry that plans in quarter-century increments.”

Hastened by the quickening uptake of renewables, Shell executives were alarmed by the dropping oil price:

“When the oil-demand peak came, Shell believed, petroleum prices might begin a slow slide, dipping too low to cover the costs of oil-sands production. This wouldn’t be just another oil-price cycle, a familiar roller coaster in which every down is followed by an up. It would be the start of a decades-long decline of the Oil Age itself—an uncharted world in which, in a phrase gaining currency at Shell, oil prices might be ‘lower forever.'”

As Fortune noted, “If Shell failed to prepare for this new energy landscape, it could wind up saddled with massive stranded assets: buried oil and gas that its shareholders paid billions to find, but that, because of softening demand, the company found itself unable to profitably drill and sell.”

Ben van Beurden, Shell’s CEO, told Fortune, “We won’t be sitting ducks. We are going to adapt.”

But adapt to what? “What is a challenge at the moment,” Beurden said, “is that we don’t know anymore where the future will go.” Beurden, Fortune said, is making strategic bets to transform “Big Oil into Big Energy.”

Finally it seems Big Oil has got the message. In response, many will argue it it too little, too late. Environmental groups have been telling the oil companies for decades of the need to disinvest from fossil fuels due to climate change, not just deny the problem of climate change.

But only now, when their very own corporate future is threatened by companies such as Tesla, have the oil companies finally decided to act. Will it be too late for them and us? Will Shell become a Dodo? Only time will tell.

100%

100% Renewable Energy Worldwide Isn’t Just Possible—It’s Also More Cost-Effective http://100isnow.com/2BRerim  via @EcoWatch

Thriving Communities and Thriving Ecosystems through the Bee

Resilience

Building a world of resilient communities

Thriving Communities and Thriving Ecosystems through the Bee

 By Wangui Kamonji, orig. pub. in Transition Network – January 26, 2018

 

Wanjiku Mwangi pours out the golden liquid onto her finger checking the flow and the colour. She puts some on her tongue, tastes and smacks her lips. “Yes, this is good honey,” she says.

Wanjiku is a co-founder and director of Porini Association. She has been integrating her spiritual path with reviving traditional nature wisdom in Kenya ever since she was introduced to the spirituality of nature through an immersion program in Botswana in 2004. Over the years Porini has hosted dialogues on indigenous environmental knowledge and laws with communities in Kenya, mapped cultural landscapes, and is now connecting bee custodians along a honey trail that runs from central Kenya to southern Ethiopia.

I sat down with Wanjiku to talk about her path and how this latest project both ensures thriving communities and a thriving environment through bees and honey.

How did you come to this work?

I had worked for government, private sector, and consultancies in Kenya, Tanzania and the UK when I was invited to the Botswana Process. That’s where the story of trying to connect with nature and questing for what African spirituality and what the spirituality in nature is really started. That brought me back to looking at my ancestral lineage and connecting with that. After the process, I and other Kenyans co-founded Porini Association and began to look for communities in Kenya that were still steeped in their indigenous knowledge and connected to nature to continue the dialogues we had begun in Botswana.

How did these dialogues go?

We had numerous dialogues with communities. But we faced a lot of resistance because what communities wanted was money in their pockets. They said “You people are always coming to talk, talk, talk but we want to see where we can do something and get money.” So that niggled me for a long time. And I could see that yes, money is important. That’s how we live today. But how is it that we could get the money and still respect nature?

How did you deal with this challenge?

My answer came rather fortuitously as I held a ritual to bless a piece of land I had bought and one of the elders present gifted me hives.

When we had our first harvest I was really touched to see how much honey the bees had been making while I was just mucking about. That really hit me. So I started the quest to understand bees. And it’s at that point that I saw the question that the communities had been asking about money or prosperity come into play. Honey can give you money. But what I really wanted to stress is that the bees actually point towards nature more than we imagine. Once you start watching the bees and you connect with your bees, you see and learn the different plants they’re going to and which water they’re drinking. So I started connecting with the bees and with time designed the current flag-bearing project for Porini which is An African Honey Trail.

Tell me about An African Honey Trail

I wanted to connect as many ‘honey peoples’ as possible because I felt that they had been forgotten. The ‘bee custodians’, as I like to call them as opposed to beekeepers, had held the space for bees throughout our previous generations. And yet the hunter-gatherer is pitched at the bottom of the strata of livelihoods. Actually they need to be at the top, because without bees the farmer will not have any pollination, the pastoralists will not have wild herbs growing, and even for the fisher-folk, the trees next to the river give flowers that the fish use to rear their young. It dawned on me that there was much need to bring them out of the woodwork and at the same time invite more people to become keepers of the bee.

At the same time I knew that the bees would drive people to be more careful about their ecosystems and their immediate environments because they have to think about what the bees are eating, so they would start to safeguard their environments. So hopefully the project will bring the two together. If somebody raises the question of money it’s there. If you raise the question of the ecosystem it’s there.

You distinguish between bee custodians and beekeepers. Could you tell me about the difference?

An elder, Ole Sikoi, told me, “Don’t go bragging that you have bees, because you don’t own the bees. The bees own you, they choose you. So if they’ve chosen you, you’re very fortunate. And the bees will make you prosperous because they will guide you and show you, and they will make your environment much richer.”

I realised that in all the material I was reading the emphasis tended to be really skewed: have beehives so you can get money, so you can pay your kids’ school-fees, buy a cow, or pay your medical bills. I relegate the word beekeeper to people who only think about the bee for commercial purposes.

You can’t just look at it as the bees making the honey for you to make money because we’re actually robbing the bee of its honey. You’ve got to respect that so that when you harvest, you don’t harvest all the honey. Or in the drought you help the bees with some clean water.

I use bee custodians to distinguish that it’s not all about the money. And the reward from the bee is to allow you to take some of the honey and cash it so that hopefully you can grow the bee some more flowers. So bee custodians is what I’m for. I champion that very much.

African Honey Trail sketch map. Map by Hanna Söderström.

How does the trail function?

We go into communities and find the bee custodians, engage with them, build trust and begin dialogues.

We’ve devised a system to track the ecological calendar. Most of the custodians actually have the calendars in their minds. They know at this time, this acacia is going to bloom. If there’s an impending drought they know so they store their honey. We thought we should start to record these ecological calendars so that new people wanting to get into bee custodianship would begin to see it. To be able to relate to your bees, you need to be in touch with the cycles of nature. You must follow the ecological calendar.

We’ve given out digital cameras for people to photograph flowers so that we can align the naming. We can figure out the botanical names and get to understand names cross-culturally.

We also encourage the custodians to keep diaries. And we say it’s for them really to get back into the pattern of reading the ecology, it’s not to report back.

Then we have quarterly gatherings and people trade their stories. And as we do this, we are collecting indigenous knowledge stories that have been around for years. We want to uplift this because indigenous knowledge has a deeper connection to the bee and to the ecosystem yet the modern bee keeper thinks that modern science is more important and traditional knowledge is not important.

I am also planning to have a beehive stop at the beginning of the trail where we can have an exhibition running, a museum, and then a shop that will sell the honey and other bee products. Honey is such a sacred thing that you don’t want to imagine that it’s going to be adulterated as some middlemen do.

This is also thinking about sustainability because grants are not sustainable. Once you don’t have the grant there’s nothing going on so one has to think about how to get money in a decent way that ploughs back in to the work and especially into the ecosystems which is where it begins.

At this beehive stop we hope to also have a place where we can start to engage children because children are very open and they will always remember. They keep the knowledge and it influences the way they think in the future.

You’ve mentioned as challenges funding coming into Porini; money for communities; people not seeing indigenous knowledge as important; ignorance about the bee and prejudice of people preferring modern technology over indigenous hives. What are some of the ways you confront these challenges?

Well, ultimately I think we are on the path regardless. Because when you look at the indigenous people they never received any funding but they keep at it because that’s their livelihood, that’s their path. So we continue.

What are some triumphs along the way?

Along the honey trail we’ve had rituals in each one of the stops, and the bees have come and occupied the hives so that’s been really good.

The enthusiasm of the younger generation has been overwhelming because I didn’t think they would find it cool enough to get into bees. Hopefully in that coolness and in that engagement they will start to safeguard the environment.

The hives we’ve installed have been well received and appreciated and some communities have gone ahead and installed more of their own. The realization that they had forgotten about the bee for me was quite a bit of an achievement. For example, when a chief in Mount Forole at the end of our dialogues said that they would now start including the bee in their traditional prayers in which they pray about the rain, the children, the livestock, etc.

smoking hives for installation. Image thanks to Porini Association

How do you take care of yourself while doing this work?

There’s always turmoil because I’m trying to hold my path on deepening my spirituality, running an organisation, being the family member that I am, and trying to balance my friendships and other relationships.

The sanctuary I built on this land is where I come and reflect, heal and recharge.

It’s amazing how quick we are to charge our phones, we carry power banks and the minute you walk into a restaurant you’re looking for Wi-Fi and battery outlets but we’re not as quick to recharge our own batteries. It’s a really important thing, and sometimes I have to stop and say – just like the phone goes off and you have to stop and charge it so you also have to stop and recharge your batteries, otherwise you could just fizzle out.

For me nature is where I go for the battery outlet, it’s where I go for the Wi-Fi. It’s where I connect and recharge and then I can pick up another day and start.

What’s your vision for the future of this work, and for Africa’s environment?

In Kenya I want to see a million hives go up. And if each country would adopt a philosophy or a policy to have more hives, the better. Give the bees more homes because at the moment there’s not enough old trees for them to hive in in the forests and our forests are dwindling.

The more people who have hives the more people will say “Oh no, don’t cut that tree. We must plant these flowers for the bees.” So catalysing more hives catalyses more safeguarding of the ecosystem. If more people got on board I think the world would certainly become a better place.

To really get the respect of the bee back and people in the frame of mind where when they see a bee they say “oh wow, wonderful, the crops are going to be pollinated”, or “wonderful, there’s going to be more honey”, not “oh wow I’m going to get bitten”. That’s really my big dream.

                              Ethiopian hives in tree. Image thanks to Porini Association

Home Depot’s bonuses underscore what workers get out of the corporate tax cut: Peanuts

Los Angeles Times

Home Depot’s bonuses underscore what workers get out of the corporate tax cut: Peanuts

By Michael Hiltzik          January 30, 2018

Home Depot's bonuses underscore what workers get out of the corporate tax cut: PeanutsHome Depot touts its bonuses, but most workers probably won’t receive the maximum $1,000. (Steven Senne / Associated Press)

It’s a safe bet that President Trump will devote part of his State of the Union address Tuesday night to talking up the great virtues of the tax cut he signed into law just before Christmas. He’ll probably try, like other Republicans, to depict it as a “middle-class” tax cut, the better to obscure the truth that its benefits flow chiefly to corporations and the wealthy.

Forewarned is forearmed, so here’s an advance cheat sheet placing the tax cut in perspective. The bottom line is that almost no workers have seen any direct benefits from the tax cut thus far. Dozens of corporations have announced onetime bonuses for employees, mostly of up to $1,000 each. Almost every one has attributed its largesse to the tax cut bill, but that’s just PR.

The drumbeat of coverage of these self-congratulatory announcements obscures how they’ve left the vast majority of American workers unaffected. In a Reuters/Ipsos poll released this week, only 2% of U.S. adults said they had gotten a raise, bonus or other benefit due to the tax cut.

More to the point, the coverage obscures how cheeseparing these handouts are, even for those who receive them. Think of it this way: $1,000, spread over a year of full-time work (40 hours a week, 52 weeks), works out to 48 cents an hour.

Many workers no doubt will be gratified to see the bonus in their paychecks, though even if it’s paid out all at once, it won’t show up as $1,000, but as $880 or even less. That’s because bonuses are subject to withholding, like all other wage income. If the bonus is paid separately from your regular paycheck, it’s subject to a 22% bite; if it’s just added to your paycheck, it’s subject to your standard withholding rate.

Whatever the system, the bonuses that companies are beating the drums about are onetime payouts, with no guarantee that they’ll be repeated next year or the year after that. The bonuses, minimum-wage increases and other benefits being offered by employers don’t come close to passing a fair share of the tax cut to workers.

The corporate tax cut, however, is a gift that keeps on giving … to shareholders. These are the people who do none of the heavy lifting that makes a company thrive.

To see how this all works, let’s look at just one prominent company, Home Depot. Even if it were handing out $1,000 to each of its approximately 380,000 hourly workers, that would come to $380 million. In December, before Congress voted on the corporate tax cut but when it seemed to be on its way to enactment, Home Depot announced a share buyback program valued at $15 billion.

The company’s announcement was one of $70-billion worth of share buybacks announced by big companies in that period, a crystal-clear signal that the bulk of the expected tax cuts would be funneled to shareholders. A Home Depot spokesman says that the “reform is completely unrelated to our buyback decision, and the [$15-billion] is actually half of our normal buyback amount.”

Upon announcing the employee bonus, Home Depot CEO Craig Menear said: “This incremental investment in our associates was made possible by the new tax reform bill.”

At least Menear candidly called it “incremental,” which usually connotes something small. What Home Depot failed to specify was how the bonus would be distributed among its hourly workers. According to a breakdown published by CNBC and drawn reportedly from a company employee meeting, the only workers who will receive the full $1,000 are those with 20 years of experience at the company or longer.

It isn’t clear how many of those 380,000 hourly employees have 20 years of longevity at Home Depot, but it’s probably not a large percentage. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the median tenure of workers in the retail trade is a little over three years. According to CNBC’s breakdown of the Home Depot bonus, workers with two to four years’ longevity will receive $250; five to nine years’, $300; 10 to 14, $400; and 15 to 19 years’, $750. Newbies with less than two years on the shop floor will get $200.

Other parts of the company’s statement also were less than candid. It said Home Depot would incur a $150-millon tax hit on “unremitted offshore earnings,” for instance. This is the tax the company will pay on profits the company had stashed offshore, awaiting the tax rate amnesty on those earnings delivered by the Republican tax legislation.

What Home Depot doesn’t say is that those earnings will receive a preferential tax rate of 15.5% maximum. If the money had had to be brought back under the full corporate tax rate of 21% established by the legislation, the charge would have been $203 million. If it were subject to the 35% corporate rate in effect prior to the tax cut, the charge would have been $338 million. In other words, Home Depot scored a tax break of $188 million on those overseas earnings alone. To be fair, the company also said the tax legislation will produce a lower overall tax bill this year.

Trump and his fellow Republicans have been touting the notion that the tax cut will yield a wage increase of $4,000 for the average middle-class family, but the evidence for that is nonexistent. Even some companies that have been crowing about their bonuses have been simultaneously laying off workers by the thousands.

The very day that Wal-Mart announced its own bonuses of up to $1,000 (like Home Depot, the maximum will go to workers with 20 years or more with the company) it announced that 10,000 employees would lose their jobs, chiefly due to the shuttering of many of its Sam’s Club membership stores. Kimberly-Clark announced last week that it would pare employment by up to 5,500, or as much as 13% of its workforce. As an indication of how the tax cuts really may impact the ordinary worker, the company said it would pay for severance and other “restructuring” costs partially with its savings from the tax cut.

Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Michael Hiltzik writes a daily blog appearing on latimes.com. His business column appears in print every Sunday, and occasionally on other days. As a member of the Los Angeles Times staff, he has been a financial and technology writer and a foreign correspondent. He is the author of six books, including “Dealers of Lightning: Xerox PARC and the Dawn of the Computer Age” and “The New Deal: A Modern History.” Hiltzik and colleague Chuck Philips shared the 1999 Pulitzer Prize for articles exposing corruption in the entertainment industry.

BBC Study finds the Taliban threatens 70% of Afghanistan

The Week

BBC Study finds the Taliban threatens 70% of Afghanistan

                                 AFP / Getty Images

A BBC study has found that Taliban fighters are now openly active in 70 percent of Afghanistan and have full control of 14 districts.

Last year, from Aug. 23 to Nov. 21, BBC reporters spoke to more than 1,200 people from all 399 districts in the country, and asked them about the security situation in their area. They found that since 2014, when foreign combat troops left the country after spending billions of dollars on the war, the Taliban has taken control of places like Sangin, Musa Qala, and Nad-e Ali in Helmand province, where from 2001 to 2014 hundreds of U.S. and British troops died while trying to get it back under government control. In the first nine months of 2017, more than 8,500 civilians were killed in attacks across Afghanistan, the UN says, and this month alone more than 100 people have died following attacks in Kabul, and Jalalabad.

The BBC says that in addition to being in full control of 14 districts, the Taliban is open and active in 263 districts, meaning 15 million people, or half of Afghanistan’s population, live in areas where the Taliban has a regular presence. There are 122 districts under government control, but violence still occurs in those areas. The Afghan government says it has control of most of the country, with President Ashraf Ghani’s spokesman Shah Hussain Murtazavi telling the BBC the activities of the Taliban and Islamic State “have been considerably curtailed.” It doesn’t feel that way to people like Sardar, who told the BBC he’s worried about what’s going on in his town, Shindand. “When I leave home, I’m uncertain whether I’ll come back alive,” he said. “Explosions, terror, and the Taliban are part of our daily life.” Catherine Garcia

The Koch Effect

John Hanno    January 30, 2018     

                       The Koch Effect

Yes, our political system is broke, thanks to the U.S. Supreme Court decision in Citizens United, to Republi-cons who respect no ethical or legal boundaries (including congressional and legislative district borders) – who will do anything to “Win” and prop up their dying party, and to a cabal of obscenely rich autocratic and predatory old white men, who believe they alone should rule the world.

But all the benefits they’ve received from our erstwhile prosperous and expanding middle-class based economy is in serious jeopardy. Unfortunately they’re too stupid or obsessed with greed to realize, that if America’s middle-class crumbles, their gravy train will eventually derail.

These toxic crony capitalists somehow believe they’re solely responsible for their wealth and good fortune. They’re quick to criticize folks who just “need to pull themselves up by their boot-straps.” “If they can do it, anyone can.” Thankfully, everyone’s not so obsessed with greed, that they follow in their “mo money” footsteps.

If it were up to these greedy bastards, they would pay absolutely no taxes to support the commons, would refuse to fairly share their wealth with faithful employees or their communities and would engage in any scheme, legal or otherwise, that would make them even richer.

Fortunately these old farts will soon be spreading their toxic brand of capitalism and far right ideology in the Here-After. America and the world will be better for it.

I read a study where once you reach an annual income of $75,000, you’re no happier if you earn more. I think the authors were on to something because every time I see trump, the Koch brothers, Sheldon Adelson, the Mercers or any of the other GOP mega donors, they all look incredibly miserable. They must store up their regrets, the imagined slights and persecution and just can’t seem to appreciate their good fortune.

Charles and David Koch have a combined net worth of almost $100 billion, the second richest family in America. I’m sure they’ve always worked hard but they didn’t accumulate that enormous wealth on their own. They were left a fortune by their father and I’m sure their vast assortment of businesses have benefited greatly from taxpayers who support our government and the public commons and infrastructure.

I don’t know if the Koch’s are as averse to paying taxes as trump or as reluctant to show their tax returns, but they spent $20 million supporting the just passed Republican tax legislation for the betterment of corporations, the rich and the politically connected, and a conservative group led by the brothers are now funding a $20 million public relations campaign to tout the benefits of that tax bill con. They also pledged almost $900 million from their political action committee to Republican candidates during the 2016 campaigns. And will spend $400 million more during the 2018 mid-term elections.

As rabid Libertarians, they’ve never been fans of America’s particular form of democratic socialism. Corporations hate social welfare, unless that socialism benefits their bottom line. So worried that America would sink to the depths of say, a socialist European country, or God forbid even worse, a Scandinavian country, that the Koch’s have spent their entire adult lives supporting libertarian causes and fighting against socialist tendencies of any sort.

They’re particularly fond of supporting ALEC anti-labor and right-to-work legislation across the country. And in Wisconsin, they’ve showed a particularly venomous bent by supporting an anti public employee, anti-teacher union,  anti-environmental and pro corporate  agenda. Wisconsin, a birthplace of the Progressive movement, now represents the worst of corporate controlled state government.

Some recent polls show Millennials and younger Americans harbor an increasing distaste for the predatory form of capitalism practiced by trump, the Koch’s and others. When these old buzzards have all died off, hopefully a more democratic form of social community will emerge and begin to reverse America’s enormous wealth and income disparity.

Image result for Koch Brothers Pictures

I don’t wish to leave the impression that all rich folks are like these turkey vultures. A large group of wealthy Americans signed petitions and supported efforts to defeat the Republi-con tax cut fraud. They actually believed their taxes should be raised instead of cut. And there are many thousands who obey the law, pay their fair share of taxes, or even more, aren’t afraid to show their tax returns, play by the rules, share their wealth and good fortune with their governments, their communities and their employees and partners. They support the commons, don’t cheat, tell the truth and from all appearances, are well respected happy human beings.

The Koch’s typically re-invest more that 90% of their profits back into their companies. They’re the number one supporter of conservative, Republican, libertarian, anti-labor and anti-social welfare and anti-socialist programs. I guess that doesn’t leave much for charitable donations.

Compare that to Warren Buffet and the Gate’s family (including Bill’s wife Melinda and his father). In July of 2017, Mr. Buffet donated another $3.17 billion of Berkshire Hathaway stock to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and four family charities. That brings his total contributions since 2006 to $30 billion or more. Buffet has pledged more than 99% of his wealth to charity during his lifetime or within 10 years of the settlement of his estate. The Gates have also donated more than $30 billion of their wealth to their foundation. In 2010, Buffet and Gates created the Giving Pledge program, which encourages billionaires throughout the world to donate at least half their fortunes to charity. As of 2017, there have been 173 pledgers. Mr. Buffet still owns 17 percent of Berkshire, despite donating more than 40 percent of his stock. I think one can be sure that trump, the Koch’s and others of their ilk are not Giving Pledgers.

I believe an overwhelming number of humans, if blessed with the Koch’s wealth and power, would be thankful to keep just a few hundred million or half a billion dollars for themselves and their families and then donate the rest to those in need; and would also spend their time making this world a better place. I’m sure most of us would not spend so much money and effort fighting attempts to increase the minimum wage and living wages for public employees, teachers and organized laborers.

Or  would not spend millions to defeat and overturn the lifesaving Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) and would not support efforts to stop the inevitable march to single payer health care for all Americans. We would not stay up nights scheming ways to cripple Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and other social welfare programs for the poor and middle-class. We would not be obsessed with turning a vibrant and prosperous middle-class into a horde of desperate workers willing to work for peanuts.

What drives these folks to deny others just a little bit of the good fortune they’ve been blessed with? I remember the July 2007 Senator Ted Kennedy speech in the U.S. Senate, advocating for an increase in the $5.15 minimum wage to $7.25 over a 2 year period, which hadn’t been increased in 10 years because Republicans filibustered any vote on the bills. After 5 whole days of debate, Kennedy asked: “$240 billion in tax cuts for corporations, $36 billion in tax breaks for small businesses, a 42% increase in productivity, but no increase in the minimum wage. What is the price you want from these working men and women? What cost? How much more do they have to give? and “When does the greed stop?”

And what drives people like the Koch’s to plunder the earth by destructive  mining and fossil fuel extraction, including the dirtiest of all toxic tar sand mining and pipelines, no matter the harm to our environment? Why do they risk destroying America’s air and precious water just so they can become even richer? “When does the greed stop?

These predatory capitalists will try their damnedest to accumulate as much money as they can – any way they can. Buying political fealty is their primary modus operandi. This current crop of elected Republi-con enablers have forsaken all integrity and sense of duty to the American people. No deviancy from the normal is too low to stoop for this corrupt white house and republi-con congress. Even conspiring with the Russians is not a bridge too. And attacking and tearing down the free press and our Democratic institutions, including the Justice Department, is part of their tyrannical grand plan.

Unless the corporate and toxic dark money is wrenched from our political system, nothing much will change; the enormous infusion of mega donor payoffs are too tempting for low character republi-con supplicants to pass up. Public financing of campaigns is the only real answer.

The Koch’s are worried that their paid political sycophants in the U.S. Congress and in state legislatures across the country, even in red states, are heading for a 2018 mid-term ass-whoopin. Its patriotic American’s job to make their premonition come true. Vote for folks who will stand up for women, for workers, for immigrants and dreamers, for our environment, for our National Parks and public lands, for common sense and science, for public education, for American Democracy, for a free and fair media and most importantly, for the truth.

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Koch Network Plans to Spend $400 Million in U.S. Midterm Cycle

Bloomberg

Koch Network Plans to Spend $400 Million in U.S. Midterm Cycle

John McCormick, Bloomberg            January 27, 2018

 Charles Koch and David Koch.

The conservative political network led by billionaires Charles and David Koch plans to spend close to $400 million on policy and politics during the two-year election cycle that culminates with November’s midterm elections, a roughly 60 percent increase over 2015-16.

That will include as much as $20 million in 2018 to sell to voters the Republican tax cuts signed in December by President Donald Trump, about the same amount Koch-affiliated groups spent on promoting the legislation in 2017, officials with the Koch network said Saturday.

More from Bloomberg.com: Casino Mogul Wynn Quits as GOP Finance Chief After Sex Allegations

The plans were outlined to reporters at a three-day summit for some 550 donors and potential donors at a desert resort near Palm Springs, California. Previously, the organization had pledged to spend $300 million to $400 million this election cycle, up from the roughly $250 million it shelled out during the 2015-2016 campaign season.

Tim Phillips, president of the Koch-affiliated advocacy group Americans for Prosperity, said the spending would be the “largest investment we’ve ever had in a midterm election.” The money will be spread across a network that has a presence in more than 30 states and a voter-turnout operation that rivals that of the Republican Party.

Left ‘Energized’

For Republicans, 2018 will be a “very challenging environment at the federal and state level,” Phillips said. The party that controls the White House typically loses seats in the midterm elections — an outcome made more likely by Trump’s historic unpopularity.

Democrats need a net gain of 24 seats to take the House and two to secure a majority in the Senate, an outcome well within the bounds of historical precedent in midterms.

“The left is energized,” Phillips said. “There is no question about that, and it’s prudent for folks to understand that.”

The Koch network is unlikely to get involved with Republican primaries, Phillips said.

That’s a different approach from another powerful force in conservative politics. Thomas Donohue, president of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, said earlier this month that his organization would challenge candidates in Republican primaries when it thinks an individual is too extreme to be successful in a general election.

Much of the Koch group’s messaging in 2018 will focus on the tax law, Phillips said, as he outlined plans for rallies, phone banks, and broadcast television and online ads. “You’ve got to go out there and sell the benefits,” he said.

Charles Koch, 82, expressed optimism for the conservative movement as he welcomed donors who were standing amid palm trees, sipping cocktails.

“I’m more excited about what we’re doing and about the opportunities than I’ve ever been,” he said. “We have made more progress in the last five years than I had in the previous 50.”

With more than 700 donors who give a minimum of $100,000 per year and more than 100,000 donors overall, the Koch network has convened similar gatherings twice annually since 2003.

Expected speakers — all Republican — include Governors Matt Bevin of Kentucky and Doug Ducey of Arizona, Representatives Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee and Mark Meadows of North Carolina, and Senators John Cornyn of Texas, Thom Tillis of North Carolina and Todd Young of Indiana.

More from Bloomberg.com

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The GOP has a major millennial issue, new poll shows

Mic

The GOP has a major millennial issue, new poll shows

By Stacey Leasca       January 30, 2018

The Republican Party could be in serious trouble when it comes to attracting younger voters, according to a new in-depth NBC News/GenForward survey.

The survey of “racially and ethnically diverse young adults” found that not only do 63% of millennials think the country under the Trump administration is on the wrong track, but they also believe Republicans don’t care about them or issues they see as relevant.

The majority of the those polled — 63% — said they disapprove of the job President Donald Trump is doing, and 61% disapprove of Congress.

Evan Siegfried tweet: Worrisome numbers for GOP in NBC News millennial poll:

•63% disapprove of Trump
•72% say GOP “doesn’t care about people like me”
•Only 17% identify as GOP & 57% of them as “not very strong” Republicans
•63% say country headed in wrong direction

These numbers indicate how young people feel about the Republican Party in general — according to the poll, 62% of the polled age demographic holds unfavorable views of the party. This is likely to affect the 2018 midterm elections, as nearly half of those surveyed said they were either planning to or leaning toward voting for whoever the Democratic congressional candidate is in their locality. Just 25% said they were leaning toward or planning to vote for the Republican candidate.

Perhaps even more concerning for the GOP and Democrats: a quarter of the millennials surveyed said they were neither planning to vote for, nor leaning toward voting for, either major party’s candidate. This could mean they plan to vote third party, or not at all. The GOP’s millennial problem, according to some insiders, could be a result of the over-the-top rhetoric displayed by Republicans in the media.

“The GOP brand is severely tarnished among this entire generation of Americans, as a paltry one in five millennials identify with the GOP or conservative values,” Evan Siegfried, a Republican strategist and commentator, wrote in an op-ed for NBC News. “We are perceived as waging a ‘War on Women’ because of our policies regarding the right to life and outlandish figures like former Rep. Todd Akin who make ridiculous statements that a woman’s body can’t get pregnant in a case of ‘legitimate rape.’”

Evan Siegfried tweet: The GOP’s millennial problem existed long before Trump. However, he has only cemented the divide, as Trump is the prism through which the GOP is viewed.

Siegfried argued that millennials have “bought into the idea” that Republicans only care about the super wealthy. The NBC News/GenForward poll showed to be true — 85% of respondents said they agree with the statement that the government is run by a few big interests “looking out for themselves and their friends.”

But Siegfried believes the GOP can fix its image by engaging with issues millennials care about, including fixing the student loan crisis, rethinking health care and criminal justice reform.

Evan Siegfried tweet: The notion that millennials don’t have jobs, are lazy, want free stuff, etc. is part of why the GOP has a millennial problem. Reality is they’re the largest part of the workforce, most fiscally conservative gen since Great Depression & don’t want to associate with us in the GOP

“The question is not if, but when the Republican Party’s leaders will remove their heads from the sand and finally address the problem the party has with millennial voters,” he wrote. “The longer they take, the bigger the electoral calamity, and the Republican Party will only have itself to blame.”

Siegfried does miss a few key points highlighted by the poll, including noting that Republicans may need to get on board with continuing the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, which grants roughly 800,000 undocumented immigrants who were brought to the U.S. as children the ability to live and work in the country legally. This is an issue millennials appear to care deeply about.

In a statement to Ebony, NBC News/Gen Forward explained, “millennials across race and ethnicity groups overwhelmingly agree that undocumented individuals who currently meet DACA eligibility should be granted citizenship. Over 75% of millennials share this view.”

Millennials are the most racially diverse generation in U.S. history, with 44% of those within the age demographic identifying as a minority, according to the Brookings Institute. Just 33% of millennials identify as Republican or Republican-leading, according to Pew Research Center.

Stacey Leasca is a news writer with Mic. Her byline has appeared in Travel+Leisure, the Los Angeles Times, GOOD Magazine and more. When not writing you can find her surfing in Southern California.

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Koch network to spend $400 million during 2018 midterm election cycle

The Hill

Koch network to spend $400 million during 2018 midterm election cycle

By Jonathan Easley      January 27, 2018

© Getty Images

INDIAN WELLS, Calif. – The network of groups affiliated with billionaire brothers Charles and David Koch will spend more than $400 million on conservative causes and candidates in the 2018 midterm election cycle.

Americans for Prosperity President Tim Phillips said Saturday that the investment would be the network’s largest election-cycle investment ever – 60 percent greater than the 2016 presidential cycle – as Republicans seek to protect majorities in the House and Senate against stiff political winds.

The network notably stayed out of the 2016 presidential contest between President Trump and Democrat Hillary Clinton, although it spent heavily on Republican candidates and conservative causes.

Some of the $400 million for 2018 will be spent on electing GOP candidates. The network also plans to spend heavily promoting tax reform and other achievements of the GOP-controlled government, including Veterans Affairs reforms and Trump’s conservative judicial picks.

“We’re all in,” Phillips said, adding that the political landscape indicates that 2018 is “going to be a challenging year” for Republicans.

The party in power historically suffers losses in a midterm election.

Generic ballot polling for the House shows Democrats with a double-digit lead and Trump’s historically low approval rating for a first-term president could be a drag on the party.

The GOP’s effort to hold on to the House has been complicated by a raft of retirements and there are worries that an energized liberal base could send the GOP to substantial losses.

Still, fundraising has been a bright spot for the GOP, with Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) and outside groups aimed at electing Republicans raising enormous sums in 2017 to protect their majorities.

Hundreds of top conservative donors affiliated with Koch network have gathered this weekend at the exclusive Indian Wells resort in the California desert to strategize ahead of the 2018 midterms elections.

“We’re looking for candidates, policy-makers who can credibly commit to helping people improve their lives,” said Brian Hooks, the co-chairman of the Winter Seminar.

The Koch network spent $20 million in support of the GOP’s tax reform bill and plans to spend another $20 million to advertise its benefits, Hooks said.

“We’re hopeful,” Phillips said. “When you look at recent coverage of the public’s view of tax reform, it’s going up as they see pay raises.”

The Koch network has attracted its biggest crowd of members ever to the Winter Seminar, with 550 conservative activists from around the country, including 160 first-timers, who have descended on the California desert to strategize ahead of the 2018 midterm elections.

“Charles Koch has challenged us and the other leaders in the network to step things up by an order of magnitude, that means 10 fold,” said Hooks, the co-chair of the Winter Seminar. “That’s what we’re going to do.”

LPGA golfer on Trump’s golf game: ‘He cheats like hell’

Yahoo News

LPGA golfer on Trump’s golf game: ‘He cheats like hell’

Jay Busbee, Devil Ball Golf          January 29, 2018 

Suzann Pettersen and Donald Trump in 2007. (Getty)

President Donald Trump takes great pride in his golf game, and plenty of notable names have attested to the president’s astonishing, borderline-unbelievable skill on the golf course. But now comes a new perspective.

Suzann Pettersen, a 15-time winner on the LPGA Tour and a frequent playing partner of Trump’s, gave an interview to Norwegian newspaper Verdens Gang in which she talked about her friendship with the president … and she didn’t hold back in her assessment of his game.

“He cheats like hell,” Pettersen said, “so I don’t quite know how he is in business. They say that if you cheat at golf, you cheat at business. I’m pretty sure he pays his caddie well, since no matter how far into the woods he hits the ball, it’s in the middle of the fairway when we get there.” The newspaper notes that Pettersen was “laughing heartily” as she spoke, so spin that however you wish.

Pettersen also noted that Trump picked up the final putt of every round she’d played with him, avoiding that one extra stroke. “He always says he is the world’s best putter,” she said. “But in all the times I’ve played him, he’s never come close to breaking 80.”

That’s a pretty sharp contrast from what others have said about the president’s game, like Sen. Lindsey Graham:

Aspiring pro Taylor Funk said the president shot a front-line 36 when they played recently. Tiger Woods has offered some more measured praise, saying about a year ago that he was impressed with “how far [Trump] hits the ball at 70 years old. He takes a pretty good lash.”

Trump apparently saves his best games for the times when Pettersen isn’t on the course. “[W]hat’s strange is that every time I talk to him he says he just golfed a 69, or that he set a new course record or won a club championship some place,” she said. “I just laugh. I’m someone who likes being teased and I like teasing others, and Trump takes it well, and that must be why he likes me.”

Pettersen said she considers Trump a friend—she caught some heat on Twitter for congratulating him on his victory in November 2016—but adds that she is “not a supporter of what he says or stands for.” She added that she takes Trump’s words in what she considers a proper perspective: “I’m sure he has said things that can be hurtful to a lot of people, but I take everything he says with a pinch of salt. I know where it’s coming from.”

After the story was published, Pettersen tried to walk back the implication that Trump was a cheater by using the same tired “fake news” line that always seems to come up when facts don’t line up with feelings:

So either the reporter falsified an entire raft of detailed quotes about Trump’s corner-cutting on the golf course, or Pettersen saw how the words looked in print and tried to recant. You can decide for yourself which you believe, but it’s worth noting that half a dozen other people from Oscar de la Hoya to Samuel L. Jackson to Alice Cooper have either stated or strongly, strongly hinted that Trump cheats on the golf course.

Believe what you want to believe, friends. But if you ever get a chance to golf with the president, make sure to let us know how it goes.
____ Jay Busbee is a writer for Yahoo Sports. Contact him at jay.busbee@yahoo.com or find him on Twitter or on Facebook.