News Bits 'n Pieces

Tax relief for the oppressed wealthy

The NYT writes about a tax break for wealthy real estate developers and investors in the recently passed $2 trillion coronavirus economic stimulus package: “It also includes a potential bonanza for America’s richest real estate investors. Senate Republicans inserted an easy-to-overlook provision on page 203 of the 880-page bill that would permit wealthy investors to use losses generated by real estate to minimize their taxes on profits from things like investments in the stock market. The estimated cost of the change over 10 years is $170 billion. ..... Among the possible beneficiaries of the change are real estate investors in President Trump’s inner circle.”

That bill is here. I think, but am not sure, that this is the sentence on page 203 that's worth about $17 billion/year in tax breaks for oppressed people like the president: “(1) Section 461(l)(2) of the Internal Revenue 2 Code of 1986 is amended by striking ‘‘a net operating loss carryover to the following taxable year under section 172’’ and inserting ‘‘a net operating loss for the taxable year for purposes of determining any net operating loss carryover under section 172(b) for subsequent taxable years.”

'Nuff said.

Suppressing the vote Trump Party style

Wisconsin held its primary yesterday over objections of democrats who wanted to delay the vote. Both the Trump Party-dominated Wisconsin supreme court and the Trump Party-dominated US supreme court said that the vote must go on as scheduled. To deal with the coronavirus threat, the city of Milwaukee reduced the number of polling stations from 180 to five. Milwaukee is where about 70% of the state’s African American residents live.

The NYT writes this about the electoral travesty: “In Milwaukee — where the number of polling stations was reduced from 180 to only five — voters tried to exercise proper social distancing as they waited, in some cases, for more than two hours. But in other areas of the state, including Madison, suburbs like Brookfield, and more rural areas like Beloit, the voting process was altered but not totally disrupted, with options that included curbside ballot access and poll locations that were more fully staffed. ..... In Wisconsin, Gov. Tony Evers and his fellow Democrats pushed for a range of changes to the primary process, including rescheduling the election and switching to mail-in voting. But Democrats faced a wall of resistance from Republicans who saw political advantage in leaving existing procedures intact.” ..... To calm people's fears, republican legislative leader Robin Vos, dressed in full protective gear (gown, gloves and mask) told reporters that "you are incredibly safe" to go out and vote. Due to a state supreme court race, the Trump Party was desperate to win this election. They choose to suppress democratic votes as best they could. Vos was the key legislator for forcing the public to engage in at risk voting.

That outrage is another significant Trump Party step toward a corrupt tyranny-oligarchy, single party rule and the total collapse of the rule of law.

Bad campaigner

Shadowproof reports that Joe Biden and his campaign did not say anything about the Trump Party’s strongarm tactics to suppress democratic votes yesterday: “Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden and his campaign never called for the Wisconsin primary to be postponed. In fact, they were silent as Republican judges on the state’s supreme court and the United States Supreme Court issued decisions that forced officials to hold the primary during a deadly coronavirus pandemic. Yet, after voters risked their health on April 7, Biden appeared on CNN’s “Cuomo Prime Time,” and stated, “My gut is we shouldn’t have had the election in the first place, the in-person election,” as if that was his position all along. ..... Conservative judges on the U.S. Supreme Court followed their ruling with a 5-4 decision that overturned a federal court, which gave voters until April 13 to return their absentee ballots. Thousands, if not tens of thousands of residents, did not receive their ballots by election day and were disenfranchised.”

Another blundering, feckless old white male democrat has shown what he’s got. It ain’t much.

Meanwhile, Bernie has dropped out of the race. So, for the dems it is Joe.


Positive, optimistic mood music: VNV Nation, Perpetual (combines elements of trance, synthpop and electronic body music into futurepop)

Underestimating Coronavirus Deaths

The New York Times writes that America is still unable to test for the virus and because of that, some deaths from coronavirus are not being counted. Maybe that is why the president has been sabotaging efforts to get large scale testing capacity up and running. Or, maybe it is just normal Trump administration incompetence. The NYT writes:

“WASHINGTON — A coroner in Indiana wanted to know if the coronavirus had killed a man in early March, but said that her health department denied a test. Paramedics in New York City say that many patients who died at home were never tested for the coronavirus, even if they showed telltale signs of infection. 

In Virginia, a funeral director prepared the remains of three people after health workers cautioned her that they each had tested positive for the coronavirus. But only one of the three had the virus noted on the death certificate. 

Across the United States, even as coronavirus deaths are being recorded in terrifying numbers — many hundreds each day — the true death toll is likely much higher. 

More than 9,400 people with the coronavirus have been reported to have died in this country as of this weekend, but hospital officials, doctors, public health experts and medical examiners say that official counts have failed to capture the true number of Americans dying in this pandemic. The undercount is a result of inconsistent protocols, limited resources and a patchwork of decision making from one state or county to the next.”

The article goes on to describe how a salesman in California got sick, was taken to an urgent care clinic several days later. By then he was so weak he was in a wheelchair. In that sad incident, doctors prescribed antibiotics and a cough syrup and they gave him a chest X-ray. The doctors did not test for coronavirus. A day or two later, his wife found him dead in bed. His wife had repeatedly asked for him to be tested, and the answer was no, no, no. His wife pleaded with the CDC for a test and she hired a company to do an autopsy. Finally, the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health tested the body and, 19 days after he died, they reported that he rested positive for coronavirus.

If his wife had not kept pushing for a test, that death would not have been reported as due to coronavirus.

The US response to this has been incompetent right from the get go and now months later still is incompetent. We still cannot test in the US, despite repeated lies about if from our chronic pathological liar president. This is what Trump Party ideology wants and gets from government, corruption, smug arrogance, incompetence and failure.

Try to look competent: Hide the data

In a related episode of Trump Party arrogance and incompetence, the government is not releasing ethnicity data for coronavirus deaths. Since this data is routinely collected, it is not a matter that the data doesn't exist. The Washington Post writes: “A civil rights group and hundreds of doctors are calling on the federal government to release race and ethnicity data on coronavirus infections and deaths from covid-19, citing reports that the pandemic is affecting African Americans at a disproportionate rate.”

The most obvious reason that death data isn't being released is that someone in government, probably the president, thinks that the data might make the president look bad. Several sources are reporting that African Americans have Contracted and died of coronavirus at a higher rate than other groups. ProPublica writes: “As public health officials watched cases rise in March, too many in the community shrugged off warnings. Rumors and conspiracy theories proliferated on social media, pushing the bogus idea that black people are somehow immune to the disease. And much of the initial focus was on international travel, so those who knew no one returning from Asia or Europe were quick to dismiss the risk.”

Climate Change: A Review of the Evidence

Moonrise before sunrise

A 2 hour video that NOVA produced summarizes the data that shows humans are responsible for climate change. It first aired January 5, 2020. Before viewing this documentary, my analysis and belief about the situation was this:

Chance that climate change is real and mostly caused by humans: ~65%
Chance that the current estimate of the problem is not as bad as experts project: ~15%
Chance that the current estimate of the problem is worse than experts project: ~20%


After viewing this and being Bayesian, my analysis and belief is now this:

Chance that climate change is real and mostly caused by humans: ~77%
Chance that the current estimate of the problem is not as bad as experts project: ~3%
Chance that the current estimate of the problem is worse than experts project: ~20%

The data is presented for a lay audience. The data comes from decades of geology, study of fossils, the environmental record and other sources of information. The evidence this video lays out evidence that cannot be denied. What will be endlessly debated is the interpretation of the data.

Most climate science deniers (~99.9%) will continue to flatly deny expert consensus opinion. But maybe, just maybe one in a thousand will at least start to doubt their own certain knowledge.

Conclusion

Climate science deniers do not have any reasonable shield to defend their beliefs. Those that do cannot rationally defend their positions, unless and only unless they want to take the risk and play Russian Roulette with civilization and maybe human survival. In my opinion, they play the civilization and maybe human survival game with a 3% chance they are right.

As usual, that's just my facts- and logic-based opinion and I am not infallible.

Sunrise after the 2003 Cedar Fire

Another Republican Wakes Up and Smells the Stink Cabbage

“Ever since college I have been a libertarian—socially liberal and fiscally conservative. I believe in individual liberty and personal responsibility. I also believe in science as the greatest instrument ever devised for understanding the world. So what happens when these two principles are in conflict? My libertarian beliefs have not always served me well. Like most people who hold strong ideological convictions, I find that, too often, my beliefs trump the scientific facts. This is called motivated reasoning, in which our brain reasons our way to supporting what we want to be true.” 
-- prominent libertarian Michael Shermer writing in 2013 on his epiphany about how his rigid ideology blinded him to ideologically inconvenient facts and logic


This is a fascinating 17-minute interview with the influential republican strategist Stuart Stevens. Mr. Steven has awakened from the mental stranglehold his rigid partisanship and ideology had on him. He now regrets what has has done. Unfortunately, his awakening has come far too late.

In the video, Stevens comments that listening to Trump or Hannity about Coronavirus drugs is a short walk to Jim Jones. That is just a little part of the rage and hate-driven republican ideological-tribal fantasy that he no longer believes in.

In a Washington Post editorial, Stevens writes:

“Don’t just blame President Trump. Blame me — and all the other Republicans who aided and abetted and, yes, benefited from protecting a political party that has become dangerous to America. Some of us knew better. 

But we built this moment. And then we looked the other way. 

Many of us heard a warning sound we chose to ignore, like that rattle in your car you hear but figure will go away. Now we’re broken down, with plenty of time to think about what should have been done. 

The failures of the government’s response to the coronavirus crisis can be traced directly to some of the toxic fantasies now dear to the Republican Party. Here are a few: Government is bad. Establishment experts are overrated or just plain wrong. Science is suspect. And we can go it alone, the world be damned.  

All of these are wrong, of course. But we didn’t get here overnight. It took practice.

Long before Trump, the Republican Party adopted as a key article of faith that more government was bad. We worked overtime to squeeze it and shrink it, to drown it in the bathtub, as anti-tax activist Grover Norquist liked to say. But somewhere along the way, it became, ‘all government is bad.’ Now we are in a crisis that can be solved only by massive government intervention. That’s awkward.”

Yeah, it is awkward. And for some innocent people, it is lethal.

Thanks to 別對牛彈琴 (aka SIASD) for bringing Mr. Stevens and his epiphany to my attention.

"Déjà vu all over again?"

Donald Trump is pulling another fast one on the populace-at-large.  He’s getting the press to cover (on cable TV) his rambling White House briefings, regarding the Coronavirus.  My understanding is that yesterday, Sunday, he held an impromptu (unscheduled) presser, where he rambled on for an hour and a half.  I have stopped watching those ramblings myself, as I know how they work.  Trump takes a sentence and rephrases it three or more times to make it sound like an extended thought. His greatest hits of, “Never seen anything like this,” “No one saw this coming,” “We’re making tremendous progress…” etc., etc., and freakin' etc., are like ear worms that haunt us.  For crying out loud!  STOP IT!!

To me, these W.H. briefings are reminiscent of the 2016 election build-up, where, like the train “we can’t seem to turn away from it” wreck that he was and still is, Trump gets free press coverage. It’s like a “free rally,” and he doesn’t even have to go travel out into the nasty, possibly Coronavirus-laden crowds. Wow!  Talk about your “win-win!”

What do you think:

Should the press stop airing these W.H. briefings?  Maybe just let the press show up, with no national real-time coverage, and then just give us a succinct recap afterward, by a network of our choice? Has the press not learned any lessons from the 2016 election fiasco?

Thanks for posting and recommending.

QUESTION: SHOULD Joe Biden pick Andrew Cuomo as his running mate?

CONSIDER:

Andrew Cuomo supporters quietly angling him for 2020 vice president gig

For his part, the governor has strenuously denied any interest in the job. “I don’t want to be vice president,” he told Albany radio host Alan Chartock last week.

A former senior Cuomo staffer dismissed that, telling The Post the 62-year-old Cuomo “definitely” has national aspirations and would jump at being Biden’s running mate.

https://nypost.com/2020/04/04/andrew-cuomo-supporters-angling-for-2020-vice-president-gig/

HOWEVER:

Would picking Cuomo end up hurting Biden's credibility, as he has promised a female running mate?

OPINIONS?