center for public integrity: You paid taxes. These corporations didn’t. About twice as many of the largest U.S. companies reported they didn’t owe taxes in 2018 compared with previous years, a partial result of the 2017 Trump tax law, according to a report. This story was published in partnership with NBC News. Introduction Taxpayers are scrambling to make last-minute payments due to the Internal Revenue Service in just four days, but many of the country’s largest publicly-held corporations are doing better: They’ve reported they owe absolutely nothing on the billions of dollars in profits they earned last year. At least 60 companies reported that their 2018 federal tax rates amounted to effectively zero, or even less than zero, on income earned on U.S. operations, according to an analysis released today by the Washington, D.C.-based think tank, the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy. The number is more than twice as many as ITEP found roughly, per year, on average in an earlier, multi-year analysis before the new tax law went into effect. Among them are household names like technology giant Amazon.com Inc. and entertainment streaming service Netflix Inc., in addition to global oil giant Chevron Corp., pharmaceutical manufacturer Eli Lilly & Co., and farming and commercial equipment manufacturer Deere & Co. The identified companies were “able to zero out their federal income taxes on $79 billion in U.S. pretax income,” according to the ITEP report, which was released today. “Instead of paying $16.4 billion in taxes, as… Read more »
x-r, how goes it in MN speaking of this weekend’s weather forecasts?
with the melting snow, this will mean even more flooding down stream for southern parts of the Midwest. terrible news for the farmers already hard hit by tariffs as well as previous floods. these woes also have a cascade effect for the rest of the country at the grocery store.
NYTimes: The People Demand Answers: What Happened to Julian Assange’s Cat? The cat had a sizable social media following that let it transcend the complicated politics of its master. […] It is a concern of the tens of thousands of people who followed “Embassy Cat” on Twitter and Instagram, watching for more than a year as an indisputably adorable kitten crawled along Mr. Assange’s shoulder and sat in on meetings with his visitors. No matter one’s feelings about Mr. Assange, the cat, who had lived in the Ecuadorean Embassy with the WikiLeaks founder as he holed up to avoid capture, was a made-for-social-media star. […] Little is known about the cat’s whereabouts now, or if we can follow it on Instagram. The Ecuadorean Embassy in London did not return an email seeking information on what happened to the cat. But several published reports in recent months suggest the cat had left the embassy months ago. La Repubblica, an Italian newspaper, reported in November that Mr. Assange had given the cat up “to spare the cat an isolation which has become unbearable and allow it a healthier life.” Sputnik, a Russian state-run news source, wrote on Thursday that the cat was taken by an associate of Mr. Assange and had not been at the embassy since September. “It is not here,” the newspaper quoted a representative as saying. “We are not a pet store, so we do not keep pets here.” The Ecuadorean government, among a set of new rules delivered… Read more »
the hill: Thousands of Russian Twitter accounts turned their misinformation focus to supporters of Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) in 2016 after he lost the Democratic Primary to Hillary Clinton. A study by Clemson University researchers reported by The Washington Post found that thousands of tweets from Russian-owned accounts masquerading as conservative accounts supporting President Trump began targeting Sanders’s supporters shortly after the primary concluded. “#BlackMenForBernie Leader Switches to Trump! I will Never Vote for Hillary, Welcome aboard the Trump Train,” read one tweet sent by a Russian account pretending to be a “Southern., Conservative Pro God, Anti Racism” Twitter user from Texas. “Conscious Bernie Sanders supporters already moving towards the best candidate Trump! #Feel the Bern #Vote Trump 2016,” read another account known as “Red Louisiana News” that was actually operated by Russians. It’s not clear how successful or effective the efforts were. About 12 percent of Sanders voters said they ended up voting for Trump over Clinton in the general election, according to The Post. That was smaller than the 24 percent of Clinton supporters who said they voted for Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) in his 2008 bid for the White House against the eventual winner, President Obama. Still, the number of Sanders voters who supported Trump in key swing states (Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania) was higher than Trump’s margin of victory in those states. “I think there is no question that Sanders was central to their strategy,” Darren Linvill, one of the two Clemson researchers behind the study, told the Post. “He… Read more »
The moderator wondered whether Hillary Clinton might have thoughts on Julian Assange’s arrest — noting that Clinton has “some familiarity” with the WikiLeaks founder’s work.
“I do, I do,” she replied, laughing, three years after WikiLeaks published leaked emails from her campaign chairman, along with a trove of emails sent to and from her private server.
Following Assange’s arrest in London on an unrelated U.S. hacking charge, Clinton said that he should be held responsible.
“The bottom line is he has to answer for what he has done, at least as it’s been charged,” she said on a stage in New York.
Then she joked: “I do think it’s a little ironic that he may be the only foreigner that this administration would welcome to the United States.”
Oh, and it’s supposed to rain here this weekend. The sky is filling…
April 15th here is supposed to be raining like hell. But if you live in Massachusetts, it’s a holiday… Patriots Day… the Boston Marathon. So their taxes aren’t due until Tuesday the 16th.
Thanks for asking, Ms Pat. It snowed here. After weeks without it, a few hundred of us forgot how to drive in the stuff and had car accidents. However, this wasn’t a monster. Yet.
Sturg, some things don’t improve with time – not sure about Revolution #9 – but I’m in your camp – still strange. I didn’t quite get it back then and still don’t. Must be art.
The most calming thing I’m doing today is my taxes.
lol
I have the soul of a CPA. Just put me over in the corner and let me crunch the numbers. Why do you have to be old before you realize what you were destined to be
love you all
Jack
I just read yesterdays thread, even the parrot who usually wants to bite a chunk out of my hand wants to comfort me.
yes I am tearing up. and thankyou seems so limited.
Sherry’s passion was her neighborhood and we set up a 501c3 several years ago to collect donations and grants. McCoy friends Y amigos. It is tax deductible check it out. Be sure to leave me your contact information so I can verify your contribution
The website http://mccoyfriendsyamigos.blogspot.com/
scroll down until you find the paypal donate button
Jack
Everyone of them knew that as time went by they’d Get a little bit older and a little bit slower but It’s all the same thing, in this case manufactured by Someone who’s always umpteen
wapo: An American political consultant whose guilty plea marked the first confirmation that illegal foreign money was used to help fund Donald Trump’s inaugural committee was sentenced to probation Friday by a federal judge who cited his cooperation with U.S. prosecutors. W. Samuel Patten, 47, in August admitted steering $50,000 from a pro-Russian Ukrainian politician to Trump’s committee in an investigation spun off from special counsel Robert S. Mueller III’s probe of Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. election. Patten acknowledged he was helped by a Russian national who is a longtime associate of former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort, and the case was referred to prosecutors with the U.S. attorney’s office in Washington and the Justice Department’s national security division. Before he was sentenced, Patten, accompanied in court by his wife, sister and friends and neighbors, thanked the judge for her handling of his case and asked for a sentence that would permit him to “continue in whatever way I can to serve my country.” In sparing Patten from prison, U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson accepted prosecutors’ request for leniency and noted no federal sentencing guideline directly applies to his offense of failing to register as a foreign lobbyist, which is punishable by up to five years in prison. Patten’s defense sought probation citing the substantial assistance he provided in several ongoing, undisclosed investigations. He was sentenced to three years of probation, 500 hours of community service and fined $5,000. Patten’s offenses were “not… Read more »
Rev 9 is really interesting–it never made it onto Armed Forces Radio so this is the first time I’ve heard it. I’ll see if I can get it to do its thing in surround sound in the media room.
more on that “from Russia with love” bernie story. this time from wapo: Inside the Russian effort to target Sanders supporters — and help elect Trump […] One reason that Sanders was on Russia’s radar has been little noted: he, like Trump, opposed trade deals such as the Trans-Pacific Partnership. Russian President Vladimir Putin had been critical of the TPP, saying it was secretive and “hardly facilitates sustainable development of Asia Pacific.” During the primaries, Sanders gave at least three interviews to a Russia-controlled television network, RT, in which his trade stance was highlighted. The network in February 2016 criticized MSNBC for breaking away from Sanders after he said he was “helping to lead the opposition to the Trans-Pacific Partnership.” The network posted a story headlined, “Bernie Sanders ‘censored’ by MSNBC while criticizing trade deal.” Around the same time that Sanders was featured on RT, Russian employees at the Internet Research Agency were given a document explaining how to influence the U.S. election. The workers were told to “use any opportunity to criticize Hillary and the rest (except Sanders and Trump — we support them),” according to Mueller’s indictment of the Russians. The Twitter database shows the impact. The tweets sent from Russia, cloaked to look as though they came from Americans, included: “Bernie Sanders looks to black voters to boost his underdog campaign”; “Hillary Clinton’s summer of drama creates openings for Bernie Sanders and Joe Biden”; and “I’m for Bernie all the way!” Then, in July 2016, WikiLeaks released… Read more »
Jack, that’s a decision only you can make. I suspect as you go through the cuts on the albums you’ll come across ones that will break your heart, and others that will bring forth incredibly joyful memories. For a memorial service, I think one of the goals is allowing the participants to be uplifted in the Celebration of Life. I would let that guide my selection. And, that would give me something to talk about mingling after the service. Flatus
Because we make oodles of phone calls to Canada, and a few to Mexico, it was a surprise to discover that our phone service does not stretch to Europe.
I want to make a dozen or two phone calls, up to 15 mins in length each, to Britain and W. Europe. Does anyone have any suggestions for a 1. cheap, 2. easy for an old not-so-techie guy to access, 3. cancel anytime service ?
XR, when can you plant things outside? All of our flowers are set and I have our tomatoes ready to go outside tomorrow. Down here, the normal guideline is to wait until Easter which, in a normal year, would already have been celebrated.
A friend of ours who has multiple special needs is going to be traveling around in Europe for a week or so. Sweetie and I want to make sure that he can get to planes, trains, cabs, hotels, conferences, eateries and bathrooms, safely and on time. It’ll mean calling airports and hotels in particular. Any suggestions will be gratefully accepted.
XR, I have a carrier, viatalk.com, that runs over my excellent hi-speed internet connection and goes everywhere. It’s what Ma Bell could and should have been. I have full-featured old-fashioned phones all over the house.
Mr Flatus, here in St Paul we can safely plant on May 15th. In the Mississippi Valley south from Lake Pepin, one can safely plant a week or two earlier. Outside of the Metro high pressure cell, the safe date is probably May 20th. There are places in the northern part of the state that aren’t safe until the first week of June.
Sweetie has been to Charleston, but my experiences of SC have only been in the far north, around the ill-named Clemson University.
X-R
Do a google search independent travel for the special needs traveler and add the issues and what you want to do there are a few travel agencies that specialize in this type of thing and they may already have the framework in place.
We talked to the dottir in Europa just the other day, but since the other part of “we” isn’t in the Aries right now, I haven’t a clue about how it was done.
Jack, there’s not much I could add to Sturg’s suggestions.
Although, the Golden Slumbers/Carry That Weight/ The End medley is a good one – depending upon the tone you are trying to set for the memorial.
XR, if you get a good answer to your cheap euro telephone conundrum, share it please. AT&T looks like it’s trying to raise money to put its kid through college with its rates – $10/day per device. I’m betting you can get a prepaid phone there for less. Try browsing this.
center for public integrity: You paid taxes. These corporations didn’t. About twice as many of the largest U.S. companies reported they didn’t owe taxes in 2018 compared with previous years, a partial result of the 2017 Trump tax law, according to a report. This story was published in partnership with NBC News. Introduction Taxpayers are scrambling to make last-minute payments due to the Internal Revenue Service in just four days, but many of the country’s largest publicly-held corporations are doing better: They’ve reported they owe absolutely nothing on the billions of dollars in profits they earned last year. At least 60 companies reported that their 2018 federal tax rates amounted to effectively zero, or even less than zero, on income earned on U.S. operations, according to an analysis released today by the Washington, D.C.-based think tank, the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy. The number is more than twice as many as ITEP found roughly, per year, on average in an earlier, multi-year analysis before the new tax law went into effect. Among them are household names like technology giant Amazon.com Inc. and entertainment streaming service Netflix Inc., in addition to global oil giant Chevron Corp., pharmaceutical manufacturer Eli Lilly & Co., and farming and commercial equipment manufacturer Deere & Co. The identified companies were “able to zero out their federal income taxes on $79 billion in U.S. pretax income,” according to the ITEP report, which was released today. “Instead of paying $16.4 billion in taxes, as… Read more »
politico:
Pascrell suggests contempt of Congress for Mnuchin over Trump’s tax returns
LOL, slam dunk case considering merriam webster’s
Definition of contempt
x-r, how goes it in MN speaking of this weekend’s weather forecasts?
with the melting snow, this will mean even more flooding down stream for southern parts of the Midwest. terrible news for the farmers already hard hit by tariffs as well as previous floods. these woes also have a cascade effect for the rest of the country at the grocery store.
NYTimes: The People Demand Answers: What Happened to Julian Assange’s Cat? The cat had a sizable social media following that let it transcend the complicated politics of its master. […] It is a concern of the tens of thousands of people who followed “Embassy Cat” on Twitter and Instagram, watching for more than a year as an indisputably adorable kitten crawled along Mr. Assange’s shoulder and sat in on meetings with his visitors. No matter one’s feelings about Mr. Assange, the cat, who had lived in the Ecuadorean Embassy with the WikiLeaks founder as he holed up to avoid capture, was a made-for-social-media star. […] Little is known about the cat’s whereabouts now, or if we can follow it on Instagram. The Ecuadorean Embassy in London did not return an email seeking information on what happened to the cat. But several published reports in recent months suggest the cat had left the embassy months ago. La Repubblica, an Italian newspaper, reported in November that Mr. Assange had given the cat up “to spare the cat an isolation which has become unbearable and allow it a healthier life.” Sputnik, a Russian state-run news source, wrote on Thursday that the cat was taken by an associate of Mr. Assange and had not been at the embassy since September. “It is not here,” the newspaper quoted a representative as saying. “We are not a pet store, so we do not keep pets here.” The Ecuadorean government, among a set of new rules delivered… Read more »
great picture of said cat at 2:52 minutes in in video below with further info from trevor noah
the hill: Thousands of Russian Twitter accounts turned their misinformation focus to supporters of Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) in 2016 after he lost the Democratic Primary to Hillary Clinton. A study by Clemson University researchers reported by The Washington Post found that thousands of tweets from Russian-owned accounts masquerading as conservative accounts supporting President Trump began targeting Sanders’s supporters shortly after the primary concluded. “#BlackMenForBernie Leader Switches to Trump! I will Never Vote for Hillary, Welcome aboard the Trump Train,” read one tweet sent by a Russian account pretending to be a “Southern., Conservative Pro God, Anti Racism” Twitter user from Texas. “Conscious Bernie Sanders supporters already moving towards the best candidate Trump! #Feel the Bern #Vote Trump 2016,” read another account known as “Red Louisiana News” that was actually operated by Russians. It’s not clear how successful or effective the efforts were. About 12 percent of Sanders voters said they ended up voting for Trump over Clinton in the general election, according to The Post. That was smaller than the 24 percent of Clinton supporters who said they voted for Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) in his 2008 bid for the White House against the eventual winner, President Obama. Still, the number of Sanders voters who supported Trump in key swing states (Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania) was higher than Trump’s margin of victory in those states. “I think there is no question that Sanders was central to their strategy,” Darren Linvill, one of the two Clemson researchers behind the study, told the Post. “He… Read more »
LOL. Haillary has retained her sense of humor, making a pretty funny comment about Assange and SFB.
Oh, and it’s supposed to rain here this weekend. The sky is filling…
April 15th here is supposed to be raining like hell. But if you live in Massachusetts, it’s a holiday… Patriots Day… the Boston Marathon. So their taxes aren’t due until Tuesday the 16th.
Everyone loves running in the pouring rain, and dealing with the additional traffic in Boston the Marathon brings right?
Had nothing else to do so I listened again to “Revolution #9″……it’s still strange, after all these years.
Thanks for asking, Ms Pat. It snowed here. After weeks without it, a few hundred of us forgot how to drive in the stuff and had car accidents. However, this wasn’t a monster. Yet.
How much snow did you get XR, and was the “us” in your comment globally describing Minnesotans or personal?
Sturg, some things don’t improve with time – not sure about Revolution #9 – but I’m in your camp – still strange. I didn’t quite get it back then and still don’t. Must be art.
The most calming thing I’m doing today is my taxes.
lol
I have the soul of a CPA. Just put me over in the corner and let me crunch the numbers. Why do you have to be old before you realize what you were destined to be
love you all
Jack
Revolution # 9
ooooh let me get that on the list
It is appropriate for a memorial service right?
ok maybe if I make a trip to Colorado for brownies
Jack
I just read yesterdays thread, even the parrot who usually wants to bite a chunk out of my hand wants to comfort me.
yes I am tearing up. and thankyou seems so limited.
Sherry’s passion was her neighborhood and we set up a 501c3 several years ago to collect donations and grants. McCoy friends Y amigos. It is tax deductible check it out. Be sure to leave me your contact information so I can verify your contribution
The website
http://mccoyfriendsyamigos.blogspot.com/
scroll down until you find the paypal donate button
Jack
Everyone of them knew that as time went by they’d
Get a little bit older and a little bit slower but
It’s all the same thing, in this case manufactured by
Someone who’s always umpteen
fragment from revolution #9 to ponder
wapo: An American political consultant whose guilty plea marked the first confirmation that illegal foreign money was used to help fund Donald Trump’s inaugural committee was sentenced to probation Friday by a federal judge who cited his cooperation with U.S. prosecutors. W. Samuel Patten, 47, in August admitted steering $50,000 from a pro-Russian Ukrainian politician to Trump’s committee in an investigation spun off from special counsel Robert S. Mueller III’s probe of Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. election. Patten acknowledged he was helped by a Russian national who is a longtime associate of former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort, and the case was referred to prosecutors with the U.S. attorney’s office in Washington and the Justice Department’s national security division. Before he was sentenced, Patten, accompanied in court by his wife, sister and friends and neighbors, thanked the judge for her handling of his case and asked for a sentence that would permit him to “continue in whatever way I can to serve my country.” In sparing Patten from prison, U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson accepted prosecutors’ request for leniency and noted no federal sentencing guideline directly applies to his offense of failing to register as a foreign lobbyist, which is punishable by up to five years in prison. Patten’s defense sought probation citing the substantial assistance he provided in several ongoing, undisclosed investigations. He was sentenced to three years of probation, 500 hours of community service and fined $5,000. Patten’s offenses were “not… Read more »
was thinking about music for Mrs jacks memorial service. As she was a Beatles fan and she has the whole box set…..
Which album should I choose?
Jack
Rev 9 is really interesting–it never made it onto Armed Forces Radio so this is the first time I’ve heard it. I’ll see if I can get it to do its thing in surround sound in the media room.
more on that “from Russia with love” bernie story. this time from wapo: Inside the Russian effort to target Sanders supporters — and help elect Trump […] One reason that Sanders was on Russia’s radar has been little noted: he, like Trump, opposed trade deals such as the Trans-Pacific Partnership. Russian President Vladimir Putin had been critical of the TPP, saying it was secretive and “hardly facilitates sustainable development of Asia Pacific.” During the primaries, Sanders gave at least three interviews to a Russia-controlled television network, RT, in which his trade stance was highlighted. The network in February 2016 criticized MSNBC for breaking away from Sanders after he said he was “helping to lead the opposition to the Trans-Pacific Partnership.” The network posted a story headlined, “Bernie Sanders ‘censored’ by MSNBC while criticizing trade deal.” Around the same time that Sanders was featured on RT, Russian employees at the Internet Research Agency were given a document explaining how to influence the U.S. election. The workers were told to “use any opportunity to criticize Hillary and the rest (except Sanders and Trump — we support them),” according to Mueller’s indictment of the Russians. The Twitter database shows the impact. The tweets sent from Russia, cloaked to look as though they came from Americans, included: “Bernie Sanders looks to black voters to boost his underdog campaign”; “Hillary Clinton’s summer of drama creates openings for Bernie Sanders and Joe Biden”; and “I’m for Bernie all the way!” Then, in July 2016, WikiLeaks released… Read more »
Jack, that’s a decision only you can make. I suspect as you go through the cuts on the albums you’ll come across ones that will break your heart, and others that will bring forth incredibly joyful memories. For a memorial service, I think one of the goals is allowing the participants to be uplifted in the Celebration of Life. I would let that guide my selection. And, that would give me something to talk about mingling after the service. Flatus
Mr Pogo,
We got about 4″ of snow yesterday, and another 2 or 3″ today. People are yakking about ‘dirty Texas snow’.
It looks like the sun is trying to peek through right now – 2pm CDT.
Because we make oodles of phone calls to Canada, and a few to Mexico, it was a surprise to discover that our phone service does not stretch to Europe.
I want to make a dozen or two phone calls, up to 15 mins in length each, to Britain and W. Europe. Does anyone have any suggestions for a 1. cheap, 2. easy for an old not-so-techie guy to access, 3. cancel anytime service ?
XR, when can you plant things outside? All of our flowers are set and I have our tomatoes ready to go outside tomorrow. Down here, the normal guideline is to wait until Easter which, in a normal year, would already have been celebrated.
A friend of ours who has multiple special needs is going to be traveling around in Europe for a week or so. Sweetie and I want to make sure that he can get to planes, trains, cabs, hotels, conferences, eateries and bathrooms, safely and on time. It’ll mean calling airports and hotels in particular. Any suggestions will be gratefully accepted.
XR, I have a carrier, viatalk.com, that runs over my excellent hi-speed internet connection and goes everywhere. It’s what Ma Bell could and should have been. I have full-featured old-fashioned phones all over the house.
Mr Flatus, here in St Paul we can safely plant on May 15th. In the Mississippi Valley south from Lake Pepin, one can safely plant a week or two earlier. Outside of the Metro high pressure cell, the safe date is probably May 20th. There are places in the northern part of the state that aren’t safe until the first week of June.
Sweetie has been to Charleston, but my experiences of SC have only been in the far north, around the ill-named Clemson University.
With the added detail you provided, if he has a premium credit card, he may be able to shift much of the burden to their travel service.
X-R
Do a google search independent travel for the special needs traveler and add the issues and what you want to do there are a few travel agencies that specialize in this type of thing and they may already have the framework in place.
Beatles
“Two of us”
“In my Life”
Come to mind right off
Here there and everywhere
All you need is love
Happy just to dance with you
Let it be
Because (the world is round)
We talked to the dottir in Europa just the other day, but since the other part of “we” isn’t in the Aries right now, I haven’t a clue about how it was done.
That helps, right?
The long and winding road
Jack, there’s not much I could add to Sturg’s suggestions.
Although, the Golden Slumbers/Carry That Weight/ The End medley is a good one – depending upon the tone you are trying to set for the memorial.
XR, if you get a good answer to your cheap euro telephone conundrum, share it please. AT&T looks like it’s trying to raise money to put its kid through college with its rates – $10/day per device. I’m betting you can get a prepaid phone there for less. Try browsing this.
..,. oh, and there’s this.
Thanks Everyone !
NEW THREAD
thanks to sturge