Tag Archives: business

American Carrier Still Not Headed For North Korea

by dylanmalloy8335 Posted on April 18, 2017

Mother Jones

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From the Washington Post:

As tensions mounted on the Korean Peninsula, Adm. Harry Harris made a dramatic announcement: An aircraft carrier had been ordered to sail north from Singapore on April 8 toward the Western Pacific. A spokesman for the Pacific Command linked the deployment directly to the “number one threat in the region,” North Korea, and its “reckless, irresponsible and destabilizing program of missile tests and pursuit of a nuclear weapons capability.”

Defense Secretary James Mattis told reporters on April 11 that the Carl Vinson was “on her way up there.” Asked about the deployment in an interview with Fox Business Network that aired April 12, President Trump said: “We are sending an armada, very powerful.” The U.S. media went into overdrive and Fox reported on April 14 that the armada was “steaming” toward North Korea.

Sending a carrier somewhere is a standard way of huffing and puffing without really doing anything of substance. Every president has done it. Trump, however, has brought it to new levels of irrelevant theater. Defense News tells us where the carrier and its strike group were really headed:

Rather, the ships were actually operating several hundred miles south of Singapore, taking part in scheduled exercises with Australian forces in the Indian Ocean. On Saturday — according to photographs released by the U.S. Navy — the carrier passed north through the Sunda Strait, the passage between the Indonesian islands of Sumatra and Java. It’s about 3,500 miles from Korea.

For the geographically challenged among us, here is the Sunda Strait:

As you can see, the Sunda Strait is south of Singapore. North Korea is north of Singapore. In fairness, neither Trump nor the Navy said when the Carl Vinson was going to head north, so technically no one lied here. Our “very powerful” armada will make its way to the Korean Peninsula eventually, but apparently no one’s in any rush.

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American Carrier Still Not Headed For North Korea

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Mar-a-Lago Is the Definition of Excess—Except When It Comes to Refrigerating Raw Meat

by BrianneAplin Posted on April 13, 2017

Mother Jones

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Back in January, the swank South Florida resort Mar-a-Lago got even swankier, doubling its initiation fee to $200,000. Weeks later, its owner, the Trump Organization, got some less appetizing news. In an unannounced inspection on Jan. 26, Florida’s Department of Business and Professional Regulation found 11 violations, including hotdogs, burgers, beef, shrimp, duck, and ham stored at temperatures above 41 degrees Fahrenheit, in two different coolers “not maintained in good repair.”

The “winner,” as the Miami Herald cheekily noted its report, was the ham, which clocked in at a cool—certainly not cold—57 degrees.

The inspection report also cited fish “offered raw or undercooked,” which “had not undergone proper parasite destruction.” Oops.

The inspectors deemed the above-temperature meat and under-processed fish “High Priority violations,” defined as “those which could contribute directly to a foodborne illness or injury and include items such as cooking, reheating, cooling and hand-washing.”

No doubt much to the comfort of Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, who visited and dined at Mar-a-Lago just days after the inspection, all of the serious violations were “Corrected On-Site” under the inspector’s gaze, the report states.

The Herald reports that in the past, Mar-a-Lago owner and US President Donald Trump was “often involved personally in the day-to-day operations,” and it “wasn’t rare to see him check out the kitchen and give directions to the club’s floor personnel.” The paper adds:

At the time, Mar-a-Lago passed inspections with flying colors, with one or two violations at most.

But as Trump jumped into presidential politics, so did the number of health violations.

There were 11 last year compared to just two in 2015.

If the White House gig doesn’t work out, sounds like Trump can make himself useful back at Mar-a-Lago.

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Mar-a-Lago Is the Definition of Excess—Except When It Comes to Refrigerating Raw Meat

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Trump Brags About Eating the "Most Beautiful" Chocolate Cake During Syrian Missile Strike Decision

by DallasMinner Posted on April 12, 2017

Mother Jones

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Recounting details about his decision to launch missile strikes on a Syrian air base last week, President Donald Trump took several moments during a Fox Business interview that aired Wednesday morning to enthuse about the “most beautiful” chocolate cake he enjoyed at his Palm Beach resort with Chinese President Xi Jinping. Trump was entertaining the Chinese leader at Mar-a-Lago when he ordered the military strike.

“I was sitting at the table, we had finished dinner,” Trump told Fox Business host Maria Bartiromo. “We’re now having dessert—and we had the most beautiful piece of chocolate cake that you’ve ever seen—and President Xi was enjoying it.”

Bartiromo then said it was “brilliant” that the missiles were “unmanned.”

“It’s so incredible. It’s brilliant,” Trump agreed.

Then Trump appeared to momentarily forget which country the United States had attacked last week, naming Iraq instead of Syria.

“So what happens is I said, ‘We’ve just launched 59 missiles heading to Iraq, and I wanted you to know this,'” Trump said in the interview. “And he was eating his cake. And he was silent.”

“Syria?” Bartiromo corrected.

“Yes, heading toward Syria,” Trump said. He followed up by mentioning Xi finished his dessert.

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Trump Brags About Eating the "Most Beautiful" Chocolate Cake During Syrian Missile Strike Decision

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The White House Is Looking Pretty Swampy These Days

by OPMDottymr Posted on March 27, 2017

Mother Jones

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Here’s a quick tour through the Donald Trump swamp today:

Jared Kushner, who has no evident qualification aside from being married to the boss’s daughter, has been named to head up a new White House Office of American Innovation, which will have “sweeping authority to overhaul the federal bureaucracy and fulfill key campaign promises — such as reforming care for veterans and fighting opioid addiction — by harvesting ideas from the business world and, potentially, privatizing some government functions.” I guess that bringing peace to the Middle East wasn’t enough to keep Kushner busy.

Trump pal Carl Icahn is working on a plan to change the rule that governs the way corn-based ethanol is mixed into gasoline. Icahn is also the majority stakeholder in CVR Energy, which would have saved more than $200 million last year under Icahn’s proposed change.

Rep. Devin Nunes, one of Trump’s most loyal spear carriers, announced last week that there “might” have been “incidental” surveillance of some folks “close” to Donald Trump. But where did his bombshell come from? It turns out that Nunes met with his source at the White House grounds. So his “source” is most likely the White House itself. Maybe even Trump himself. It wouldn’t be the first time Trump has done something like this.

I guess that’s it for today. The day is young, though, so you never know.

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The White House Is Looking Pretty Swampy These Days

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Trump’s Tax Return Suggests He’s the Most Incompetent Billionaire in the Nation

by MelindaYali42 Posted on March 15, 2017

Mother Jones

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Tonight’s exciting news: David Cay Johnston somehow got hold of the first page of Donald Trump’s 2005 federal tax return. He released it on the Rachel Maddow show tonight:

Here are Trump’s major sources of income:

Interest income: $9 million
Business income: $42 million
Capital gains: $32 million
Rental income: $67 million
Miscellaneous: $2 million
Total: $152 million

After a writeoff of $103 million, his adjusted gross income clocked in at $49 million. His taxable income came in at $31 million and his tax bill for this was $5 million. That’s a tax rate of about 3 percent. Ka-ching!

Sadly for Trump, the Alternative Minimum Tax kicked in, which meant he had to pay $38 million in taxes. I guess it’s no wonder that Trump doesn’t think very highly of the Alternative Minimum Tax.

Without more pages from his tax return, there’s a limit to what we can learn from this. Trump’s income of $150 million fits fairly well with the estimates I’ve seen. But I will add one thing.

Trump’s total investment income was $108 million, and Trump claims to be worth $5 billion or so, depending on what day you ask him. That means he earned a return on his assets of about 2 percent. In 2005! During the housing bubble! I’m no tax expert, and maybe he had hundreds of millions in capital gains that he didn’t realize that year. Who needs more than $150 million in income, after all? It still seems pretty low, though, and if Trump really did earn a return of only 2 percent he is, by long odds, the most incompetent billionaire in the country.

Alternatively, of course, Trump is actually worth about $1-2 billion and he earned something like a 5-10 percent return. Take your pick.

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Trump’s Tax Return Suggests He’s the Most Incompetent Billionaire in the Nation

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Germany Gives the OK to Insult Donald Trump

by Scotty24Wtablvi Posted on January 25, 2017

Mother Jones

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Germany has finally come to its senses:

Germany’s government says it’s getting out of the business of defending the honor of foreign leaders. Justice Minister Heiko Maas on Wednesday said Germany was abolishing a law requiring the government’s permission to allow the prosecution of anyone deemed to have insulted a foreign head of state, saying it was “outdated and unnecessary.”

The central government will tell you that this is related to a tiff with Turkey, but that was a year ago. For months, nothing happened. Then, five days after Donald Trump is sworn in as president, they suddenly announce that they no longer wish to be the go-between for thin-skinned foreign heads of state who might try to harangue them into allowing prosecutions of folks who have insulted them.

You will never convince me this is a coincidence.

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Germany Gives the OK to Insult Donald Trump

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President Trump’s Tweets Are Not For You

by DollyWinstead96 Posted on January 25, 2017

Mother Jones

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Over the past 24 hours, Donald Trump has tweeted that (a) he plans to send the feds into Chicago if they don’t fix their crime problem, (b) he will be ordering a major investigation into voter fraud, and (c) he plans to start building the wall today. These all made the front page of the New York Times:

The guy is president, so I suppose this is the right thing to do. Still, I want to take yet another opportunity to remind everyone who these tweets are for. They are not for you. They are not for the press. They are not for Congress.

They are for his fans.

That’s it. Trump’s tweets often seem ridiculous or embarrassing or whatnot, but that’s only from our perspective. Instead, imagine you are Joe Sixpack. You’re at home, watching the Factor, and O’Reilly is going on about the crime problem in Chicago. It’s outrageous! The place is a war zone! Somebody should do something!

Then, a few minutes later, you see Trump’s tweet. “If Chicago doesn’t fix the horrible “carnage” going on, 228 shootings in 2017 with 42 killings (up 24% from 2016), I will send in the Feds!” Damn straight, you think. They need the National Guard to set things straight there. Way to go, President Trump.

Joe doesn’t really care about Chicago. He doesn’t know or care that the feds can’t be sent there to fight crime. And he probably doesn’t really want the National Guard sent to Chicago anyway. He just vaguely thinks that those thugs on the South Side need to be on the business end of some muscular action, and he wants to know that someone out there in Washington DC feels the same way he does. So that’s what Trump gives him.

I’m not here to suggest that we should devote either more or less attention to Trump’s tweets. I guess I don’t really care. I just want everyone to understand who and what they’re for. It all makes a lot more sense once you know what he’s up to.

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President Trump’s Tweets Are Not For You

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Final Swamp Watch – 17 January 2017

by ScotHooten Posted on January 19, 2017

Mother Jones

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Despite weeks of effort, Donald Trump was apparently unable to find a Hispanic to serve as Secretary of Agriculture. Was this because no Hispanics were willing to join his administration? Or was it because Trump just couldn’t build any kind of personal rapport with any of the Hispanics who came to Trump Tower to visit with him? We’ll never know.

Instead, our new Agriculture Secretary will be Sonny Perdue, the man who won election as governor of Georgia in 2003 by promising to let residents vote on a flag referendum that would allow them to return the Confederate battle cross to a central position in the state flag. In the end, the Democratic legislature refused to allow this, and instead compromised on a flag that ditched the rebel cross but included the Confederate Stars and Bars—something that most people don’t really recognize, but which kinda sorta appeased the racist Southern heritage faction of the Peach State.

I’m sure this appealed to Trump, and Perdue does have some agricultural experience—that is, assuming you count the fact that he runs a “global trading company that facilitates U.S. commerce focusing on the export of U.S. goods and services…such as blueberries, grains, onions, peanuts, pecans, soybeans, and spinach.” He’s probably done pretty well for himself in this business, allowing him to join his brother, Sen. David Perdue, in the rich man’s club.

Anyway, that’s it. Until and unless someone pulls out or is rejected by the Senate, Trump has now named his nominees for every cabinet-level position. As you can see, he tangled with the swamp, and the swamp won.

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Final Swamp Watch – 17 January 2017

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Cancer Survivor and Former Republican Tells Paul Ryan Obamacare Saved His Life

by HYMLeolansf Posted on January 13, 2017

Mother Jones

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A former Republican who once worked for the Reagan and Bush campaigns confronted House Speaker Paul Ryan on Thursday, asking why the GOP is seeking to repeal the Affordable Care Act without a serious replacement plan. The moment came during a CNN town hall event, where Jeff Jeans revealed that like Ryan, he too once opposed the health care law.

“When it was passed, I told my wife we would close our business before I complied with this law,” Jeans said. “Then at 49, I was given six weeks to live with a very curable type of cancer. We offered three times the cost of my treatment, which was rejected. They required an insurance card.”

“Thanks to the Affordable Care Act, I’m standing here today.”

As Ryan attempted to respond, insisting Republicans are working to replace Obamacare with “something better,” Jeans interjected to publicly express his gratitude to the president.

“I want to thank President Obama from the bottom of my heart because I would be dead if it weren’t for him.”

Hours before the televised event, Republicans took a major step at dismantling Obamacare. On Friday morning, President-elect Donald Trump tweeted in support of repeal efforts:

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Cancer Survivor and Former Republican Tells Paul Ryan Obamacare Saved His Life

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We have good news for tropical forests and people who like to breathe.

by CindaPortus Posted on December 6, 2016

The well-known investor is reportedly one of the most influential advisers to President-elect Donald Trump as he considers candidates to run the Environmental Protection Agency.

Icahn has interviewed several candidates for the job in the last week, according to the Wall Street Journal. Icahn confirmed that one top contender is Jeff Holmstead, an assistant EPA administrator during the George W. Bush administration and who was, until a few weeks ago, a registered lobbyist for fossil-fuel companies. Other top candidates reportedly include Kathleen Hartnett White, former chair of the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality, and Scott Pruitt, Oklahoma’s attorney general.

Icahn has more than a passing interest in the EPA. He has a controlling interest in CVR Energy, whose CEO has said that EPA regulations could cost the company an estimated $200 million this year, according to the WSJ. CVR is in the business of refining petroleum and manufacturing nitrogen fertilizer.

Trump campaigned on promises to “drain the swamp” of special interests surrounding the White House. So far, he’s shown a knack for surrounding himself with Wall Street insiders, super-wealthy investors like Icahn, and other Masters of the Universe.

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We have good news for tropical forests and people who like to breathe.

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