Saturday Report 11/23/24 - Geeky Science! Denmark to tax farts!
The Best of the Rest of the News
— Elon Musk to buy MSNBC? Yesterday, I shared with you the story of Comcast planning to spin off MSNBC from their media collection and wondered out loud who may buy it. Now we may have an indication: Mediate is reporting that Elon Musk — at the urging of Donald Trump Jr. — is interested in adding the property to his media portfolio that today includes Xitter.
— Here’s a link to my 40-minute appearance on C-SPAN last weekend. There were some interesting fireworks: https://www.c-span.org/video/?539999-5/thom-hartmann-democratic-party
— The Morbidly Rich are $276 billion richer just in the two weeks since November 5th, so, of course, Republicans want to give them trillions more in tax cuts. A new report from Americans for Tax Fairness (ATF) details how the most obscenely rich among us have gotten massively richer in just the past few weeks. And the GOP’s pick of Senator John Thune to lead that body next year means trillions more, as he’s one of the Senate’s biggest advocates of ending or cutting Teddy Roosevelt’s proudest achievement, the estate tax. Elon Musk, all by himself, accounts for $57 billion in additional wealth so far this month; America’s 815 billionaires now control a massive $6.7 trillion in wealth. Noting that, “Total billionaire wealth has surged by $3.8 trillion — or 131% — just since the enactment of the Trump-GOP tax law seven years ago,” the tax fairness group added: “Instead of addressing the nation’s growing economic inequality and the growing shortfall in federal revenue, President Trump and congressional Republicans plan to make the situation even worse by enacting a new tax cut package that gives billionaires tax breaks on the backs of working people. This Republican tax plan will start with extending all the expiring provisions in the 2017 Trump law—which alone will balloon the federal debt by $5 trillion over the next decade—but will likely include new handouts to the very wealthy, such as elimination of the estate tax.” Senator Elizabeth Warren is having none of it, pointing out that Republicans have declared war on working class people and she, for one, intends to fight back. During a Senate hearing this past Wednesday, she said: “The tax fight is starting now, and every person in the United States, every person in the Senate, needs to show the American people what side we stand on. Will we sign our names to more giveaways to President-elect Trump’s billionaire buddies, or will we fight for tax fairness for the American people?” Get out the popcorn; this is going to get interesting.
— Pete Hegseth has called for the “categorical defeat of the Left,” with the “civil war” goal of “utter annihilation” of progressives. Say what?! Jason Wilson writes for The Guardian of Trump’s choice for Secretary of Defense: “In one of his five published books [Hegseth] wrote that in the event of a Democratic election victory in the US there would be a ‘national divorce’ in which ‘The military and police … will be forced to make a choice’ and ‘Yes, there will be some form of civil war.’ Hegseth’s 2020 book exhorts conservatives to undertake ‘an AMERICAN CRUSADE,’ to ‘mock, humiliate, intimidate, and crush our leftist opponents,’ to ‘attack first’ in response to a left he identifies with ‘sedition,’ and he writes that the book ‘lays out the strategy we must employ in order to defeat America’s internal enemies.’” This is the man Trump wants commanding our military, who Trump has already declared he will use against people on American soil in violation of the Posse Comitatus act. Such rhetoric isn’t worthy of a high school essay much less the man who would command the most powerful and lethal fighting force in the world. Trump apparently truly does want to spark a second civil war with Americans killing Americans over their loyalty to him. Will our military submit to such an un-American and unconstitutional abuse of their authority? Will Republican senators endorse this insane worldview? And if he does take this position and tries to have his “war” with “the left,” how will average Americans react? This may well be the bridge too far that we all keep waiting for Trump and his acolytes to reach…
— Remember when it was reported that Pam Bondi took a large donation from Trump and then chose not to prosecute him for his fraudulent “university”? That may be just the tip of the proverbial iceberg. Other concerns include how she let banksters skate during the housing foreclosure scandal at the end of the Bush administration, allegedly gave Jeffrey Epstein a pass, and was a registered agent of a foreign government. All of which will probably guarantee that Republican senators will install her as our nation’s top law enforcement official.
— The Washington Post reports that Chinese intelligence has hacked Donald Trump‘s phone. What do they know? And how will they use it? Senator Mark Warner, chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, tells WaPo that Chinese hackers have penetrated virtually all of America’s cell phone companies in a process that started with an effort to get into Trump’s phone. The former president famously refuses to use secure cell phones, so he was probably an easy target, but, Warner says, now they’re so deeply buried in our telecommunications systems that it will take years and a small fortune to replace outdated and hackable routers and other telco equipment across the nation to get them out. This is the sort of shocking story that would have the entire nation up in arms in bygone eras; today, it seems, it’s just Friday’s news.
— The Donald Trump of Brazil was just indicted. Apparently they didn’t hire Orrin Hatch’s pick for Attorney General. Former Brazilian strongman and Trump superfan Jair Bolsonaro was indicted this week by that nation’s legal system, charged with attempting to stay in power after he lost the 2022 election. Also indicted were multiple former legislators and security officials who allegedly helped with the plot. The Brazilian government will have a few weeks to act on the indictments; this could be a real turning point for democracy in the Americas.
— Geeky Science! Denmark plans to tax farts! It’s such a great headline, although the story itself is more nuanced. As part of their plan to reduce carbon emissions, the Nordic nation plans to impose a tax on farms whose method of raising cattle causes them to produce large quantities of methane, otherwise known as cow farts. It’s actually a serious proposal and will probably be emulated by other European countries. Denmark’s Minister for Climate, Energy and Utilities, Lars Aagaard, told the BBC: “It also shows the Danish model: broad political majority in the Danish parliament [and] involvement of the sectors that will be affected by the tax and involvement of environmental stakeholders,” adding that these are “things that we could all benefit from if the rest of the world could foster such cooperation in the climate fight.” Here in America, of course, we have corrupt fossil fuel billionaires who own the GOP so such practical efforts won’t even be seriously considered.
— Crazy Alert! Rightwing host says Matt Gaetz’ ability to buy sex with underage girls means he’s “quite a stud.” Yeah, that’s what Alex Jones said, noting that, “Women love me. And so, I mean, I know what’s happening to Gaetz.” He added, without shame or irony, “People are like, damn, Matt Gaetz is quite the stud.” Sorry to have shared that with you without providing an airline barf bag, but, hey, it’s the news…
— Hunters in a Farmer’s World:
— Wisdom School:
1. Saw C-Span. Good job. However we primarily have a national security issue. Putin won. You explained how advertising works. Psy ops includes threats, intimidation -- burning ballots. Propaganda that there would be violence. Bomb threats on election day in Dem precincts. All crimes under both state and federal law.
2. Three card monte....Nothing up his sleeve? Dems are easily distracted.
Trump named hedge fund manager Scott Bessent as his Treasury Secretary. Bessent is a former protege of George Soros and is openly gay.
IMHO Trump's main goal is to become as rich as Putin and the treasury is his pot of gold.
I've been asking about arbitrage of the national debt. Borrow at low rates.... Switzerland, Scandanavia, Japan, etc. DOGE will come up with plans to privatize virtually everything. Give "naming rights" to public insitutions. When I was a kid, might have called the Pa. Supreme Court, The "Pennsy Railroaad Supreme Court." Word was that they has bought it, lock, stock, barrel and rail. The White House should forever be known as "Trump House." Color it red.
3. Pete Hegseth. His tatoos would get him courtmarshaled.
4. Heritage 2025 is old wine in new bottles. SCOTUS has empowered the dark side. As soon as Trump was elected, in 2017, he toyed with unitary executive (he lost on DACA but SCOTUS would apporove now) and started to install the spoils system, eliminating "merit selection" for my colleagues.
As to our current tactics, we need chess players. I'll take Gaetz, who is a dud, over Bondi, who is dangerous. Nikki Fried on Pam Bondi: “She was the ringleader in the attempt to sue the ACA out of existence and overturn the pre-existing conditions rule. She filed the original suit and was the lead plaintiff on the case. When Trump says he’s going to end the ACA, believe him now that he’s nominated Pam Bondi to finish the job.”
She will have to file a financial stagtement. Her law firm represented Qattar, a country that supported faimilies of suicide bombers in Israel. Does she have any Rule 11 liability for the time she filed frivolus Jan 6 cases?
Also (from Marlo and the Lever): “President-elect Donald Trump’s new choice to head the Justice Department is reportedly the sister of the lawyer who represented Elon Musk and Tesla against federal charges that Musk committed securities fraud. If confirmed, Trump’s Attorney General nominee Pamela Bondi would be in a position to shut down federal prosecutors’ ongoing investigation of Musk’s company.
Trump is also reportedly considering nominating Bondi’s brother to head the federal agency that brought fraud charges against Musk.
Bradley Bondi was listed in federal documents as Musk and Tesla’s attorney in the company’s 2018 battle with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) over a series of Musk’s tweets that the agency said misled shareholders about the financial status of the company, boosting Tesla’s stock price and leading to “significant market disruption.”
Bondi negotiated a settlement with the SEC and continued to represent Musk and Tesla when the SEC alleged that he violated the terms of the agreement a year later. “
I'm hardly an expert on the two things I'm about to mention here, but:
1) the methane that cows (and other ruminants) produce are the product of "belching," from how their two portion stomach (one part the rumen) ferments grasses, etc. May seem trivial, but precision in the words we use and the concepts generated do truly matter.
2) RE: "The Morbidly Rich are $276 billion richer just in the two weeks since November 5th, so, of course, Republicans want to give them trillions more in tax cuts." It's vital I think to emphasize that this increase in "wealth" is based on "paper," grossly inflated value of stocks. A pyramid or bubble, if you like. It's not the wealth in productive capital that a health, fair economy should be based on. Not that this "paper" wealth doesn't have obscene power, but it matters as to solutions and to the assessment of risks this inflation of wealth has.