Disney Joins Corporate America Pulling a Con Job on Employees

Here's How It Works

When a corporation gets a permanent tax cut, like just happened that tax cut goes on for year after year after year after year. Well you get the idea. So to try and build support for the tax cut corporations are giving some of that savings to their employees. For one year.

Walt Disney Co. (DIS) announced it will give more than 125,000 eligible employees a one-time bonus and invest $50 million in an education funding program. 

The bonuses will be distributed to all full- and part-time non-executive employees, either hourly or salaried, who have been with the company since the beginning of the year. 

The education fund will be eligible for up to 88,000 hourly employees and will cover tuition costs. 

So what is happening here is that Disney and others are taking a part, just a small part of the first year savings and giving it to employees. Next year, the employees get nothing. Standard operating practice in Donnie's America.

Another Day, Another Airline Horror Story

United Airlines, Surprised, No Not Really

Because the government has effectively granted airlines monopoly power their attitudes towards fliers is one of 'we just don't give a damn'. Physically dragging a person off a plane, no problem.

So the story of a woman trying to fly to visit her dying mother only to be taken off a plane for which she had a legitimate ticket and boarding pass is disappointing but not surprising. And equally not surprising is that the airline was United.

But soon after, Ms. Amrich learned that her mother was in heart failure and was not expected to survive the night. It was around 2:30 p.m., and Ms. Prelas immediately called United and had Ms. Amrich switched onto Flight UA5712, leaving Colorado Springs at 5:15 p.m. That flight would go to Denver, where Ms. Amrich would make a connection to Minneapolis. Ms. Prelas showed The New York Times confirmation emails and a photo of Ms. Amrich’s boarding pass.

She rushed Ms. Amrich to the airport, about an hour’s drive from Pueblo. Ms. Amrich checked in: no problem. Her boarding pass was scanned at the gate: no problem. She took her seat. She buckled her seatbelt.

Of course all of this was not good enough for United.

Minutes later, the gate agent came on board to remove her.

When Ms. Amrich pleaded, saying her mother was dying, the agent responded that her ticket had been refunded and that “nobody flies for free.”

Back in the airport, Ms. Amrich called Ms. Prelas, sobbing. Ms. Prelas got on the phone with the gate agent and offered to pay for another ticket.

“I said: ‘Take my credit card. We’ll straighten this out later, but get her on that plane,’” Ms. Prelas said. The agent, she said, responded that Ms. Amrich could not get back on the plane.

There is of course a special place in Hell for United, and one hopes that its executives are soon taken there. And the real hero is the passenger's landlord, Ms. Prelas, who bought the ticket and tried to help the passenger. She deserves our highest commendation.



As for United, well they have a near monopoly on most of the airports they serve, so in the words of Clark Gable, “Frankly Ms. Amrich we don't give a damn”.

An Anti-Trump in Boston Gives $100 million to Health Care

What Decent and Caring and Compassionate Wealthy People Do

During the 2016 campaign it became apparent that Donnie had a foundation that existed solely to benefit Donnie. By twisting and turning the charitable giving rules he was able to use a supposedly charitable foundation to enrich himself. But not all wealthy folks are like Donnie, case in point being the Hales' of Boston.

Brigham and Children’s hospitals each get $50m gift

Robert Hale Jr. still remembers the impossibly tiny baby girl he saw more than a decade ago, hooked to tubes and monitors at Boston Children’s Hospital, where Hale, a hospital donor, was taking his first tour.

The moment stayed with Hale, the chief executive of Quincy-based Granite Telecommunications, and his wife, Karen, sparking a desire to do more to help the sick.

Now they’re committing $100 million to two Boston health care institutions: $50 million for Children’s and $50 million for Brigham and Women’s Hospital.

These are hospitals where you go when you really need the best medical care in the world. And while the U. S. health care system has much to answer for, at the extreme end it is excellent and available in many (but not all) cases to people without regard to their ability to afford it.

Academic medical centers like Children’s and Brigham, two Harvard-affiliated teaching hospitals in Boston’s Longwood Medical Area, are among the biggest and most complicated businesses in the state. They treat complex cases and also conduct biomedical research and train young doctors. They are structured as nonprofits, courting and relying on generous donors, in addition to what they collect in insurance payments and research grants.

As for the giving philosophy, imagine the following being said about Trump or the Koch Brothers or Sheldon Adelson or any of the others who see their great wealth as a means to impose their ugly viewpoints on America. You can't, can you.

Douglas A. Berthiaume, vice chairman of the Children’s Hospital board, said Hale is a believer that “we all should be giving till it hurts.”

Berthiaume, the former chief executive of Milford-based Waters Corp., is another major donor for Children’s. His family provided the hospital’s previous $50 million gift, the largest of several donations they made over many years, he said.

John Fish, the chief executive of Suffolk Construction and chairman of Brigham’s board, said Hale is known not just for writing checks but for committing time to causes that are important to him.

“Sometimes it’s more difficult to provide the time,” said Fish, who calls Hale a close friend. “Rob does both. Rob Hale is one of the . . . most respected individuals in the New England business community.”

The Moral Majority is Morally Bankrupt

Not Exactly News

Headline from the Washington Post.

‘He’s not God’: In the wake of porn-star allegations, most evangelicals stand by Trump

Ok, no problem on the first part, in fact in the future dictionaries will probably reference the entry 'anti-Christ' with the words “see Trump, Donnie'.

But on the second part everyone should remember that these are the people who claim to judge the rest of us according to their holier than thou standards. Except of course it turns out that they have no standards, other than wanting tax cuts for the wealthy.

The evidence is very credible that Trumper cheated on his wife with a porn star soon after his son was born and then paid her $130,000 to keep quiet and used an elaborate scheme to keep the payment from being known. Now as far as we are concerned this is between Donnie and his family, but the moralists, the Falwells, the Tony Perkins and their ilk have spend decades lecturing the rest of us on the importance or character in public life. So yes, those folks have lost all right to say anything. Don't listen to them. Ignore them and hope they will go away.

The Reviews Are In - Fake News on the State of the Union

Here's What Prominent People Said

"I crossed the Delaware just to hear it"  - G. Washington (quoted by P. Ryan)

"I can't believe I fought to get women the right to vote for this idiot" - S. B. Anthony

"Makes my Gettysburg Address sound like the Oscar Meyer weiner jingle" - A Lincoln (quoted by D. Trump)

"I have a nightmare" - M. L. King, Jr.

"I would have put the entire speech in Hamlet" - W. Shakespeare (quoted by M. Pence)

"And they call me the King of Lies, I have to move over, there's a new King" - Satan

"That's not the way it is" - W. Conkite

"Donnie, make an appointment for a session on my counch" - S. Freud

"I would sexually harass this man after hearing this, and I am not even gay" - H. Weinstein

"Ich bein nein eine Trumper" - J. Kennedy

"# @ % & # + =" - R. Pryor

Not Able to Impose Literacy Testing for Voting – Kentucky to Impose Literacy Tests for Health Care

Going After Low Income Folks One Barrier at a Time

Kentucky wants to keep low income people off of health care. Well not Kentucky per se, it's the ultra conservative Governor and the Republicans who will stop at no cruelty in order to punish low income people. See in their minds poverty is the result of poor character, and the low income people, particularly the ones that need health care and cannot afford it are the lowest of them all.

So Kentucky is getting permission to impose work requirements on receiving Medicaid, never mind that many able bodied recipients are already working and those that are not are typically unable to physically do so. Now they want to add a health literacy test to the equation.

Kentucky says the courses, along with the bigger elements of the recently approved waiver it received from federal Medicaid rules, will help to “empower individuals to improve their health.”

A leading health experts says it better than we can.

“If these topics are taught at all in primary education, they certainly aren’t addressed consistently or in an evidence-based way,” said Harold Pollack, a professor at the University of Chicago who was a co-author of a book on basic financial education. “But singling out the Medicaid population for classes as a condition for access to insurance suggests that shrinking and stigmatizing the program, not literacy, is the goal.”

Conservatives probably agree, after all that is their intent. Kentucky conservatives, setting the standard for cruelty for the 21^st century.

Here's a Typical Republican Candidate – Running For Senate from West Va. On His Record

Criminal Record That Is

A man whose management of a coal company resulted in death of miners is running as a Republican for the Senate. Here is the scoop from the beautiful Mountain State.

Convicted ex-coal CEO woos working class, opening Senate bid

• By JOHN RABY Associated Press

LOGAN, W.Va. (AP) — A former coal company CEO who went to prison for charges stemming from the deadliest U.S. mine disaster in decades kicked off his U.S. Senate campaigning Thursday, seeking to persuade a largely working class audience that he identified with them. But one father present whose son died in the 2010 tragedy called the GOP businessman's jump into politics "more of a slap in our face."

Normal people, not Republican coal mine operators would be appalled that their mismanagement resulted in the death of miners. For conservatives, that appears to be a badge of honor, a voucher that is redeemed by a seat in the Senate.

Kimberly Clark to Use Tax Cut to Fire Thousands

Huh

Remember how the Trump tax cut was supposed to stimulate job growth.  Well the retail products company Kimberly Clark is going to use their tax cut to pay for severance and other costs of firing a large amount of their work force.

"Restructurings typically come with upfront costs for the companies, as they pay workers severance or renegotiate leases. In a conference call with analysts on Tuesday, Kimberly-Clark’s chief financial officer, Maria Henry, said “cash flow benefits” from the Republican tax cut would help fund “the restructuring program over the next few years.” She said the tax savings would also be used to make capital investments and to “allocate significant capital to shareholders.”

Gosh, expect the Republicans to really publicize this.  Oh, and that part about allocating capital to shareholders.  That means huge payments to shareholders at the same time regular employees get a nice pink slip. 

"In addition to announcing job cuts on Tuesday, Kimberly-Clark said it would raise its quarterly dividend by 3.1 percent this year. Last year, the company spent about $900 million repurchasing its own shares."

 Exactly what one might expect from Republican policies.

Atheists to America: Just Another Reason To Come Over to Our Side

Millions of Americans Believe God Made Trump President

A surprisingly fascinating book explains why.

A Headline We Can Believe

Nikki Haley Rips 'Offensive' And 'Disgusting' Rumor Of Affair With Trump That Stemmed From Michael Wolff's Book

Missouri Gov. Greitens Wins “Most Disgusting Person of the Month” Award

Strong Candidate to Win “Most Disgusting Person of the Year”

Missouri elected a Republican Governor last year, you know one of these 'holier than thou' and 'family values' person who thinks God has called upon him to cut taxes for the wealthy and harm low income families. Yep, just another Republican.

But it turns out the Governor is a rather disgusting person. He has admitted having a long affair with a woman who, conveniently, turned out not to be his wife. He is accused of but denies blackmailing her to keep things quiet. And he is unrepentant. He gave an interview in which, of course he didn't answer all the uncomfortable questions. Here is what is alleged.

After Greitens confirmed the affair in a statement that night, other media also reported the affair and allegations he had taken a nude photo of the woman.

The report included an audio recording of a conversation between a woman and her then-husband — recorded secretly by the husband — in which the woman said Greitens had bound her hands and blindfolded her, taken a photo of her partially nude and warned her to remain silent during an encounter in his St. Louis home.

But the Gov says everything is ok, nothing to see here and he will stay in office. Of course there is this indirect admission of some pretty ugly behavior.

Greitens did not directly say “yes” or “no” when asked Saturday if he had bound and blindfolded and taken a photo of the woman.

And true to form, Greitens says he has the support of his friends. Of course with friend like that . . .

 Finally, like all so-called religious scumbags he invokes God.

“I’m very confident that God has a way of bringing good from difficulty. God has a way of helping people in the midst of pain to emerge with wisdom,” Greitens said. “God has a way of helping you to move through suffering and actually become stronger.”

A spokesperson for God stated, and we quote “What a turd”. (Okay that's not true).

Pa. Congressman Blames Victim in His Sexual Harassment Case; Claims He is 'Wounded'

Course He Paid Huge Settlement with Taxpayer Money

The situation of Congressman Pat Meehan (R, Pa) is especially disturbing. The Congressman is, or was a member of the House Ethics Committee. He was accused of sexual harassment by a member of his staff and he settled the case by paying her with taxpayer money. He never disclosed this.

Now the jerk is whining about how hard this has been for him.

WASHINGTON — Under fire for using taxpayer money to settle a sexual misconduct complaint from a former aide, Representative Patrick Meehan, Republican of Pennsylvania, said Tuesday that the woman “specifically invited” his intimate communications, and that he was emotionally wounded when she filed a complaint against him.

And what else happened? Oh, this.

Mr. Meehan denied crossing the line into impropriety, but said in an interview that when the woman told him last year that she had started a relationship with someone outside the office, he “didn’t respond to it as well as I would like to have.”

Now people that have done nothing wrong don't do this.

The New York Times reported that Mr. Meehan, 62, a married father of three, had entered into a confidential agreement to settle the complaint brought by the aide, who is decades his junior. She left the office after filing a complaint alleging that Mr. Meehan became hostile after she rebuffed his romantic overtures, sources familiar with the situation told The Times.

And yes, that settlement was done with his government paid office funds. But maybe this is just a characteristic of Republicans, paying money when they did nothing wrong. After all Donnie paid over $100,000 to a woman not to disclose a relationship that he did not have. So why pay? Well these are just generous people.

Republican Legislator Promotes Racist Views on Drugs

He Must Love Justice Thomas's Rant to Support Racist Juror

This Forum reported on how Justice Thomas seemed to not only tolerate but to excuse a racist juror who voted to sentence an African American defendant to death.  Now we have a Kansas legislator promoting a racist views on drug usage.

"Attempting to explain at a weekend legislative coffee session with constituents why “all drugs” were outlawed in the United States in the 1930s, Rep. Stephen Alford offered the following, according to The Garden City Telegram: “One of the reasons why, I hate to say it, it’s that the African Americans, they were basically users and they basically responded the worst off to those drugs just because their character makeup, their genetics and that.”

At the risk of stating the obvious, this is not true."

Gosh, why would any minority, why would anyone who is not a racist vote for these people?

Trump Could Kill Thousands of Jobs With Tariffs on Solar Panels

And He Will, Just for the Fun of It

The Trumpmaster has decidedt to put import restrictions on Chinese made solar panels to protect inefficient U. S. manufacturers. Here is what could happen.

The prospect of the tariff poses a significant threat to the growth of solar in Florida, Georgia, North Carolina and South Carolina, according to data compiled for the Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA) by GTM Research, a Rutgers University economist and the Hughes Hubbard & Reed law firm.

The analysis concluded the tariff would put $5.6 billion of capital investment between 2018 and 2021 at risk in the four states, along with nearly 15,000 jobs. Up to 9,000 megawatts of solar projects could be canceled, it said.

The report supports a claim made earlier this month by South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster, who told the U.S. Trade Representative that “any increase in solar panel prices will destroy billions of dollars’ worth of investment and result in thousands of job losses” in the state.

Trump has not said, “Hey, I screwed the middle class on tax cuts and now I can screw them on jobs, and nobody who voted for mewill care.” But everyone knows he is thinking it.

Hey smucks who put him in office, nice going. Sorry if you lose your job.

Sorry people, you voted for him, you gonna lose, big time.

Protesters Should Praise, Not Condemn Chuck Schumer and Other Comments on the Shutdown

Reality Bites

1. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer is being attacked for ending the government shutdown with only a promise of a vote on immigrant legislation. This is rediculous. What exactly did these people think? That after a few days the Republicans would cave and give the Dems everything they wanted? The Dems got CHIP funding and they got the issue great visibility. They have more chances, the first coming up on February 8 and later a chance coming up on debt ceiling legislation.

This was the first battle in a war to get bigoted Republicans to sign on to legislation protecting young adults who were brought to this nation as children. The war is not over, it is only beginning. The Dems did a good job.

2. Wasn't  everyone, including Republicans just overjoyed that Trumpie sat on the sidelines. A weekend without obnoxious tweets and comments from Trumper. Oh joy!

3. Paul Ryan is soon to be in the headlights. Ryan will either have to decline to bring an immigration bill to the floor of the House, thus angering the nation, or bring the bill up and face the wrath of his Caucus.

4. Dreamers' are a wedge issue. The issue can easily split the Republican party if the Dems play this right.

5. Trump looked like a fool in all of this. Okay, not hard from Trump to do.

6. The media is quick to judge and has a short term view. This is a long term issue.

Israeli Treatment of Women Journalist Embarrasses That Nation and the Jewish People

Ultra Orthodox No Different Than Militant Islamic Clerics

It is disgusting that while the Vice President is in Israel sucking up to the Israeli government the women journalists accompanying him are being treated like crap.

First of all there was this.

At Netanyahu’s office on Monday morning, a visiting female journalist from Finland’s state television was asked to remove her bra during an overly zealous and demeaning security check. When she refused, she was prevented from covering Pence's news conference with Netanyahu.

But the main insult was the segregation of women at the Wailing Wall.

Tal Schneider, a prominent Israeli journalist, tweeted: “Separation at the Western Wall. The women stuck in isolation and can not photograph, work. Women journalists are second-class citizens. The American women photographers are frantically yelling at the representatives of the White House.

That the White House had no problem with this says it all about the Trump folks and women. But this does tremendous damage to the Jewish people. Israeli once was a leader in equal rights. It had a female Prime Minister long before the United States had a woman as head of state (well actually the U. S. has never had a woman head of state). But the country is in the grip of the Ultra Orthodox who consider women second, or maybe third class citizens.

This has to stop, and the Presidency has to be the place that leads the opposition not that acts in complicity.

Former NJ Gov. Christie: Stand in LIne at Security Like Everyone Else

An Arrogant Pol Gets What He Deserves

The last major picture everyone has of former NJ Gov. Christie is his lying on the beach that was reserved for him, while the rest of the population was shut out of the beach because he shut down the government.  What an arrogant asshole.  Now it turns out Christie is just one of us, again.

Mortal Again: Christie Blocked at VIP Entrance to Newark Airport

As Bloomberg reports:

Meet Chris Christie, former New Jersey governor and current nobody at Newark Liberty International Airport.

The two-term Republican, who left office on Jan. 16, was blocked from a VIP entrance he had used for eight years, and directed to stand in Transportation Security Administration screening lines at Terminal B like anyone else, according to a person familiar with the incident.

Yeah, about as good as it gets.

Which is Worst? Trump's Racism or the Republicans Who Pander to Him

Like the World's Toughest Question

One benefit, maybe the only benefit of Trumper's racist rants is that they have exposed just how craven and racist many of his Republican supporters are. For example, House Speaker Paul Ryan said the comments by the shithole about nations that were not, well, white was that they were 'unfortunate' and 'not helpful'.

But the real prizes go to Republican Senators. For example Louisiana Senator Bill Cassidy, he who would lead the charge to take health care from low income people.

Cassidy indicated he agreed with Faulker’s suggestion about there being something problematic with Durbin’s move to inform the American public about racist remarks made by their president.

“I totally agree with you,” Cassidy said. “It undermines trust going forward. Whatever was or was not said, if you disagree with what the fellow or the gal said, then you disagree with them, publicly then. But to go out and kind of, ah, report it, is going to undermine trust — not just for this issue, but for further issues.”

Yeah, letting the voters know the President is highly bigoted, just not right. And there are Senators Cotton and Perdue.

Cassidy isn’t the only Republican senator suggesting Durbin somehow acted in bad faith. Friday afternoon, Sens. Tom Cotton (R-AK) and David Perdue (R-GA) released a statement saying “regrettably, it seems that not everyone is committed to negotiating in good faith.”

While Cotton and Perdue stop short of denying that Trump made racist comments, they add, “In regards to Senator Durbin’s accusation, we do not recall the President saying these comments specifically but what he did call out was the imbalance in our current immigration system.”

And of course the legion of commentators, Republican flunkies (read elected officials) have all joined forces to say, well, say nothing.   

Grading the Dems on the Short Shutdown ; A Nice B+

With Extra Credit For Keeping Trumpie in D. C.

The Democrats did about as well as they could have done in the recent shutdown of the federal government. They got the Republicans to play their only big chip, Children’s Health Insurance Program funding and they got the Republicans to publicly commit to at least considering protecting DACA young people. In the public's view, with its short attention span the GOP did agree to protect DACA folks.

As an extra benefit the Democrats kept Donnie from going to Florida, playing golf and hobnobbing with people who were paying $100,000 to $250,000 to be with him, (not the idle rich, the stupid rich) and kept him from crowing about his one year in office. They also showed him up to be the inept negotiator and problem solver that he is.

All in all, pretty good, and while Republicans are out of weapons the Democrats still have funding and the debt ceiling to use to get full protection for young adults and children brought to this nation.

Opioid Crisis in New Hampshire Illustrates Failure of Government

Tragedy From Conservatives' Policy

For a variety of reasons the deaths from drug abuse are very high in New Hampshire. The NYT has the reasons for this, and they revolve around state government not doing what other states do to help people live.

A big reason for the problem is that New Hampshire is close to the supply of illegal drugs in Massachusetts. But as the Times reports

The researchers noted other factors, too:

• A shortage of workers in addiction and recovery. Northeast states have an average of 15.5 doctors per 100,000 residents who can prescribe Suboxone and other medication-assisted treatments; New Hampshire has seven.

• No needle exchanges, which can reduce the transmission of diseases like hepatitis C and save health care costs. New Hampshire finally legalized needle exchanges in June, long after many other states had done so, but did not fund them. Dartmouth medical students, using donations and grants, opened the first needle exchange last summer in a Claremont, N.H., soup kitchen, but it was shut down in October because it was too close to a school.

• “Live Free or Die.” The researchers said the New Hampshire ethos of “self-sufficiency and individualism” could inhibit some residents from seeking help. And for some, they said, the state’s “Live Free or Die” motto might justify risky behaviors. The state does not require drivers to wear seatbelts. It allows motorcyclists to ride without helmets. And state liquor stores are right on the major highways.

So yes there is a cost to denying government the resources it needs to do what government is supposed to do. And those who do so are not the ones who suffer and die, are they?