Category: Veterans – Patriotism

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.

Joe Kennedy III carries the Kennedy legacy into the fight against Trump

Yahoo News

Joe Kennedy III carries the Kennedy legacy into the fight against Trump

Jon Ward           January 30, 2018

Rep. Joseph P. Kennedy IIIRep. Joseph P. Kennedy III, D-Mass. (Photo: Michael Dwyer/AP)

When Republicans called Joe Kennedy III “rich” and “boring” the day before he was to deliver the Democratic response to President Trump’s first State of the Union address, they were really saying something else.

“There’s no there there,” they were saying. “He’s an empty suit. He is coasting on his family name and money.”

If you’re a Kennedy, it’s a familiar charge. Joe’s great-uncle Ted Kennedy, the former U.S. senator who died in 2009, was treated as “a joke” when he first ran for the Senate as a 30-year old assistant district attorney.

Sure enough, when Joe III first ran for Congress in 2012 — also on the basis of a résumé that mostly amounted to three years as an assistant DA — someone at a debate leveled the same epithet at him. “If your name were Joseph Patrick … and not Joseph Patrick Kennedy, based on your life experiences, would not your campaign be a joke?” a debate audience member asked.

As late as 1980, after 18 years in the Senate, Ted Kennedy had to confront the accusation that he was presuming to inherit the presidency from his late brother John, and his quest for the Democratic nomination fell short.

Joe III’s own father, Joe Kennedy II, abandoned a 1997 gubernatorial bid in Massachusetts because of a personal scandal, another recurring theme in Ted’s life and in the Kennedy family as a whole. But Joe II was also bedeviled by an over-reliance on his last name and the lack of a compelling vision for his candidacy.

In August 1997, Joe Kennedy II, joined by his wife Beth, announced he would not be running for governor. (Photo: Brooks Kraft LLC/Sygma via Getty Images)

That background, and the Kennedy penchant for bad behavior, may explain why Joe III was such a straight arrow in college — Stanford, not Harvard, although he went to Harvard Law School — abstaining from alcohol and gaining a reputation as a highly conscientious student. It sheds some light on why he spent two years with the Peace Corps in the Dominican Republic.

On his office wall, there is a quote from his grandfather Robert F. Kennedy, the former attorney general who was assassinated in 1968 while running for president. “You can use your enormous privilege and opportunity to seek purely private pleasure and gain, but history will judge you,” the RFK quote reads.

Unlike his great-uncle Ted, Joe III seems to wear the weight of expectations well. He understands the power of the Kennedy name, springing from John F. Kennedy’s charismatic presidency and his martyrdom in 1963.

But he has been in no rush to become a political star. Kennedy, 37, has been a member of Congress for five years now and has remained relatively unknown beyond his district. He missed the December House vote on the Republican tax bill to be with his wife — whom he met at Harvard Law in Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s class — for the birth of the couple’s second child.

“I don’t think he gets out ahead of himself,” said Paul Watanabe, a professor of political science at the University of Massachusetts Boston. “He has been somebody who focuses on being what young congress-people do, which is focus on their district, focus on constituent services.”

Joe Kennedy III officially launches his campaign for Congress on Thursday in Newton, Mass. (Photo: Suzanne Kreiter/Boston Globe via Getty Images)

Chosen by House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi to speak Tuesday night after Trump, Kennedy will now have much more visibility — and scrutiny. Already he has faced questions about his wealth, which was estimated at around $18 million in 2015. The Boston Globe reported in 2016 that Kennedy owned as much as half a million dollars’ worth of stock in a drug company called Gilead Sciences, which makes a hepatitis C drug that costs patients $1,000 a pill.

Even if many younger voters don’t know much about the Kennedy history, this new phase for Kennedy will bring more intense pressures on him.

“For people who may have loathed the Kennedys and saw them as representative of all that’s bad in the country — and there’s many of them — they may shift that to Joe,” Watanabe said. “On the other hand, many loved the Kennedys and thought everything they did was gold. On both sides it’s a little unfair and too much responsibility to bear.”

“The important thing is whether he comes out of this as his own person, and as a politician of the future and not of the past,” Watanabe said.

Kennedy family allies like Robert Shrum, a former adviser to Ted Kennedy, seem most anxious for Joe III to create some separation from the family heritage conveyed by his last name.

“I think he should be judged on his own, not as part of the family, or not as some kind of heir to Kennedy politics,” Shrum said.

Kennedy has gained some attention this past year. His remarks in a committee hearing challenging House Speaker Paul Ryan’s characterization of efforts to repeal Obamacare as an “act of mercy” went viral. A few other speeches have also drawn attention on social media.

But one of Kennedy’s more notable speeches came a year before he ran for Congress, when he addressed the Massachusetts legislature during a 2011 ceremony to commemorate the 50th anniversary of JFK’s inauguration.

Joseph Kennedy IIIJoseph Kennedy III at the 50th anniversary of JFK’s inauguration at the State House in Boston. (Photo: David L Ryan/Boston Globe via Getty Images)

Kennedy stood at the lectern with Ted’s widow, Vickie, seated on the dais behind him and began his remarks with a joke about JFK and former House Speaker Tip O’Neill, who also was a Massachusetts Democrat and a close Kennedy family ally.

Near the end of his 10-minute speech, Kennedy turned emotional as he spoke about the death of his grandfather, and connected it to the most recent violence in American politics. Rep. Gabby Giffords, an Arizona Democrat, had been shot in the head just a few days before.

Kennedy traced the roots of political violence back to extreme language, and he blamed both Republicans and Democrats for creating “an atmosphere of hate.”

“For too long the rhetoric in Washington has been toxic: antiwar protesters holding up signs saying ‘Death to terrorist pig Bush’; tea party protesters shouting out racist and antigay slurs to members of Congress; protesters shouting out ‘Death to Cheney’; radio talk show hosts calling President Obama and Democrats communists and traitors; images of both political parties showing opponents in the crosshairs of a rifle scope,” Kennedy said.

“This isn’t what President Kennedy stood for. It isn’t what [Martin Luther] King or Robert Kennedy stood for. They took on the big problems of our world. They looked to those common threads that unite us rather than diving into the identity politics to find those that divide us,” he said.

Kennedy’s willingness to call out both political parties could position him to speak to the whole nation Tuesday night. His speeches, Shrum said, include “the kind of thing that Democrats need to be saying if we’re going to reconnect with some of the people we lost in 2016, while keeping the people we had.”

Rep. Joe Kennedy, D-Mass.Kennedy speaks in support of transgender members of the military, July 26, 2017. (Photo: Jacquelyn Martin/AP)

And Kennedy’s condemnation of “identity politics” presaged a debate among Democrats now in the wake of Hillary Clinton’s loss to Trump. Liberals like Mark Lilla and others have blamed Clinton’s loss on a “fixation on diversity” that “has produced a generation of liberals and progressives narcissistically unaware of conditions outside their self-defined groups, and indifferent to the task of reaching out to Americans in every walk of life.”

Kennedy is certainly no cultural conservative. His guest at the State of the Union speech will be a transgender member of the U.S. Army, Staff Sgt. Patricia King. And he has been an outspoken advocate for gay rights.

But as he speaks to the entire country following Trump, whose first year as president has been defined by divisiveness, Kennedy may sound notes like the ones he closed with in 2011, which called on themes made into mantras by JFK and generations of Democrats after him.

“In times such as these, our commitment to each other and to our country cannot dip but is more critical than ever, drawing once again to something greater than ourselves, to lives of service and sacrifice, courage and judgment, integrity and dedication,” Kennedy said. “These are the ideals that ought to endure, rather than partisan rancor, naked self-interest, and other corrosive effects of promoting social divisions, a kind of moral gerrymandering that saps our spirit and degrades our collective will.”

The bar has already been lowered too much for trump

MSNBC

The Rachael Maddow Show / The Maddow Blog

The bar has already been lowered too much for trump

Steve Benen         January 29, 2018

WASHINGTON, DC – FEBRUARY 27: (AFP OUT) U.S. President Donald Trump speaks at the National Governors Association meeting in the State Dining Room of the…

Donald Trump spoke on Friday at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, where he lied repeatedly about his record and was booed for attacking journalists. Some pundits nevertheless praised the president’s appearance, not because it was necessarily impressive, but because he managed to act “more like a normal president.”

It sets the stage for tomorrow night’s State of the Union address, and the reaction from many commentators that we already know is coming. Sen. Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii) published a prediction this morning:

“I predict that the President will read prepared remarks and pundits will swoon like it’s the Gettysburg Address.”

It’s hard to blame the senator for his pessimism. After all, we have seen some evidence along these lines.

A few weeks ago at the White House, Trump hosted a lengthy, televised discussion with lawmakers about immigration policy. During the conversation, the president briefly endorsed the opposite of his stated position, only to be pulled back by a House Republican leader who had to remind Trump what he was supposed to think.

And yet, because expectations for this president are so low, he drew some media praise. Trump managed to go an hour in public without insulting key constituencies or creating an international incident, and so, benefiting from an overly generous curve, some observers concluded that he seemed at least mildly impressive.

There was also Trump’s first address to a joint session of Congress, delivered about a year ago at this time, which was a substantive mess, but which was hailed as a political triumph by a few too many observers.

Politico ran a piece that asked, “Was this the Trump that could win in 2020?” CNN ran a splash headline in a big font, declaring, “Presidential Trump.” Fox News’ Chris Wallace went so far as to say, “I thought it was by far the best speech I ever heard Donald Trump give. It was one of the best speeches – in that setting – that I’ve heard any president give.”

Look, I appreciate the circumstances. In a 2016 primary debate, Donald Trump went so far as to brag about his genitals to a national television audience. When a politician demonstrates that level of crude classlessness, almost any public appearance in which he manages to stay clothed will look statesmanlike by comparison.

But there’s no reason to lower presidential standards to such an embarrassing level. It’s likely that Trump will manage to read from his trusted teleprompter tomorrow night. It’s unlikely to change the trajectory of his presidency.

An Article of Impeachment Against Donald J. Trump

New York Times | OP-ED COLUMNIST

An Article of Impeachment Against Donald J. Trump

David Leonhardt      January 28, 2018

President Trump arriving at the White House on Friday. Credit: Eric Thayer for The New York Times

There are good reasons to be wary of impeachment talk. Congressional Republicans show zero interest, and they’re the ones in charge. Democrats, for their part, need to focus on retaking Congress, and railing about impeachment probably won’t help them win votes.

But let’s set aside realpolitik for a few minutes and ask a different question: Is serious consideration of impeachment fair? I think the answer is yes. The evidence is now quite strong that Donald Trump committed obstruction of justice. Many legal scholars believe a sitting president cannot be charged with a crime. So the proper remedy for a president credibly accused of obstructing justice is impeachment.

The first article of impeachment against Richard Nixon argued that he had “prevented, obstructed and impeded the administration of justice.” One of the two impeachment articles that the House passed against Bill Clinton used that identical phrase. In both cases, the article then laid out the evidence with a numbered list. Nixon’s version had nine items. Clinton’s had seven. Each list was meant to show that the president had intentionally tried to subvert a federal investigation.

Given last week’s news — that Trump has already tried to fire Robert Mueller, the special counsel investigating the Trump campaign — it’s time to put together the same sort of list for Trump. Of course, this list is based only on publicly available information. Mueller, no doubt, knows more.

  1. During a dinner at the White House on Jan. 27, 2017, Trump asked for a pledge of “loyalty” from James Comey, then the F.B.I. director, who was overseeing the investigation of the Trump campaign.
  2. On Feb. 14, Trump directed several other officials to leave the Oval Office so he could speak privately with Comey. He then told Comey to “let this go,” referring to the investigation of Michael Flynn, who had resigned the previous day as Trump’s national security adviser.
  3. On March 22, Trump directed several other officials to leave a White House briefing so he could speak privately with Daniel Coats, the director of national intelligence, and Mike Pompeo, the C.I.A. director. Trump asked them to persuade Comey to back off investigating Flynn.
  4. In March and April, Trump told Comey in phone calls that he wanted Comey to lift the ”cloud” of the investigation.
  5. On May 9, Trump fired Comey as F.B.I. director. On May 10, Trump told Russian officials that the firing had “taken off” the “great pressure” of the Russia
  6. On May 17, shortly after hearing that the Justice Department had appointed Mueller to take over the Russia investigation, Trump berated Jeff Sessions, the attorney general. The appointment had caused the administration again to lose control over the investigation, and Trump accused Sessions of “disloyalty.”
  7. In June, Trump explored several options to retake control. At one point, he ordered the firing of Mueller, before the White House counsel resisted.
  8. On July 8, aboard Air Force One, Trump helped draft a false public statement for his son, Donald Trump Jr. The statement claimed that a 2016 meeting with a Russian lawyer was about adoption policy. Trump Jr. later acknowledged that the meeting was to discuss damaging information the Russian government had about Hillary Clinton.
  9. On July 26, in a tweet, Trump called for the firing of Andrew McCabe, the F.B.I.’s deputy director, a potential corroborating witness for Comey’s conversations with Trump. The tweet was part of Trump’s efforts, discussed with White House aides, to discredit F.B.I. officials.
  10. Throughout, Trump (and this quotation comes from the Nixon article of impeachment) “made false or misleading public statements for the purpose of deceiving the people of the United States.” Among other things, Trump repeatedly made untruthful statements about American intelligence agencies’ conclusions regarding Russia’s role in the 2016 election.

Obstruction of justice depends on a person’s intent — what legal experts often call “corrupt intent.” This list is so damning because it reveals Trump’s intent.

He has inserted himself into the details of a criminal investigation in ways that previous presidents rarely if ever did. (They left individual investigations to the attorney general.) And he has done so in ways that show he understands he’s doing something wrong. He has cleared the room before trying to influence the investigation. He directed his son to lie, and he himself has lied.

When the framers were debating impeachment at the Constitutional Convention, George Mason asked: “Shall any man be above justice?”

The same question faces us now: Can a president use the power of his office to hold himself above the law? Trump is unlikely to face impeachment anytime soon, or perhaps anytime at all. But it’s time for all of us — voters, members of Congress, Trump’s own staff — to be honest about what he’s done. He has obstructed justice.

He may not be finished doing so, either.

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