Daudt After Dark: #TBT Unread Bills
This guy wants to be your next Governor:
CEOs Are Making 335 Times More Than Their Workers: Report
The following article by Mary Thompson with CNBC appeared on the NBC News website on May 18, 2016:
The average pay for an S&P 500 CEO was $12.4 million in 2015, or 335 times the pay of a rank-and-file worker, according to a new report from the AFL-CIO.
That gap is actually narrower than the one posted in 2014, when CEOs earned $13.5 million, or 373 times the pay of the average worker.
The 2015 AFL-CIO Executive PayWatch compares average compensation of S&P 500 CEOs with the average pay of nonsupervisory workers as reported by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Nonsupervisory workers earned $36,875 in 2015.
The survey also compared CEO pay to that of union workers. Here the gap between CEO and average worker pay was less at just more than 242 times, while the typical CEO earned more than 819 times what a worker earning minimum wage would take home in a year. Continue reading “CEOs Are Making 335 Times More Than Their Workers: Report”
Rocks record Totten Glacier’s rapid retreat history
The following article by Jonathan Amos appears on the BBC.com website on May 19, 2016:
Unchecked climate change could put Antarctica’s huge Totten Glacier into an unstable configuration over the coming centuries, a study has warned.
If that happens, the ice loss could push up global oceans by 2m, or more.
The claim is based on an assessment of the rocks underlying the ice stream.
Scientists tell the journal Nature that should the front of the glacier retreat about 150km from its current position, it will then enter a runaway reversal that takes it 200-250km further inland. Continue reading “Rocks record Totten Glacier’s rapid retreat history”
Minnesota House Republicans Bringing “Trump Agenda” to Minnesota
House DFL representatives are calling out House Republicans for bringing Donald Trump’s extreme agenda to Minnesota. This session House Republicans have taken votes that put them squarely in line with the Republican Party’s presumptive Presidential nominee, including efforts to defund Planned Parenthood and restrict access to basic health care for women. And despite the economic challenges facing Minnesota families, they have blocked progress on things like paid family leave and efforts to reduce the cost of child care.
“House Democrats have been working for two years to increase access for basic health care for women and to support Minnesota families who are being squeezed, but this House Republican Majority has shut us down and instead pushed a divisive agenda that puts women and Minnesota families at risk,” said House Deputy DFL Leader Erin Murphy. “House Republicans may want to distance themselves from Donald Trump, but the reality is they can’t distance themselves from the Trump agenda they are trying to force on Minnesotans.”
Donald Trump has laid out an extreme agenda that would take health care access away from women and make children and families less safe. He said, “Planned Parenthood should absolutely be de-funded.” Trump has refused to support paid family leave. Trump opposes universal background checks, even saying he will ban gun free zones at schools on his first day in office. And Trump’s tax plan includes massive tax breaks for the ultra-rich. On each of these issues, House Republicans have closely aligned with Donald Trump’s extreme and divisive agenda. Continue reading “Minnesota House Republicans Bringing “Trump Agenda” to Minnesota”
There’s no evidence that ultrarich are fleeing Minnesota
The following article by Adam Belz and J. Patrick Coolican appeared in the May 7, 2016, StarTribune:
The ranks of the very rich are growing in Minnesota, despite a controversial tax increase that singles out the biggest earners to pay more.
Critics predicted that the ultra-affluent would flee after Gov. Mark Dayton secured 2013 passage of a new income tax tier of 9.85 percent on individuals who make more than $156,000 a year. But the latest data show that the number of people who filed tax returns with over $1 million in income grew by 15.3 percent in the year after the tax passed, while the new top tier of taxpayers grew by 6 percent.
No doubt wealthy Minnesotans have changed their residency since 2012, but either more have moved in or more who were already here gained enough income to reach the top bracket.
Dayton argues taxes are not the driving force behind migration into or out of Minnesota. A change in residency is a decision involving weather, jobs and family, he said. Even if taxes figure in, they were already high in Minnesota before 2013, when the rate on top incomes was 7.85 percent. Continue reading “There’s no evidence that ultrarich are fleeing Minnesota”
Darth Daudt: Starve the General Fund
The 5 Cruelest Actual GOP Policies
The following article by @LOLGOP appeared on the National Memo website on April 11, 2016:
You didn’t see Saturday Night Live‘s “Establishment Shuffle” sketch on national television because it didn’t make the actual show. But it’s probably the best summary of the the 2016 GOP primary that you’ll find.
In it, the dignified Paul Ryan — who almost had America intentionally default on its debt because President Obama wouldn’t agree to enough cuts to Social Security and Medicare — explains that Trump’s proud racism and erratic demagoguery don’t represent the establishment Republican Party, which prides itself on subtle, coded racism in service of a constant and unwavering effort to undo everything that built the middle class. Continue reading “The 5 Cruelest Actual GOP Policies”
New Religious Freedom Bills Legitimize Discrimination
The following article by Cynthia Tucker Haynes appeared on the National Memo website on April 9, 2016:
You’d think history might serve as a guide for the politicians and preachers — good Christians all, of course — who have chosen to use the Bible to bolster their bigotry against people they’ve placed outside the magic circle. We’ve seen this before, and it didn’t turn out well for those who claimed a mantle of righteousness. Yet onward they march.
Mississippi recently passed a “religious freedom” law designed to provide legal cover for those who wish to discriminate against gays and lesbians. The law is quite specific, allowing government clerks to refuse to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples and protecting businesses that refuse to serve them.
Does this ring any bells? Do any of these people remember Jim Crow, a system of legalized oppression that stunted Mississippi for generations and whose legacy the state is still struggling to overcome? Continue reading “New Religious Freedom Bills Legitimize Discrimination”
Seven Years Late, Media Elites Finally Acknowledge GOP’s Radical Ways
The following article by Eric Boehlert appeared on the Media Matters website March 29, 2016:
Now they tell us the Republican Party is to blame? That the Obama years haven’t been gummed up by Both Sides Are To Blame obstruction?
The truth is, anyone with clear vision recognized a long time ago that the GOP has transformed itself since 2009 into an increasingly radical political party, one built on complete and total obstruction. It’s a party designed to make governing difficult, if not impossible, and one that plotted seven years ago to shred decades of Beltway protocol and oppose every inch of Obama’s two terms. (“If he was for it, we had to be against it,” former Republican Ohio Sen. George Voinovich once explained.) Continue reading “Seven Years Late, Media Elites Finally Acknowledge GOP’s Radical Ways”