Tag: corporate barons

Milestone: July was the warmest month ever recorded — think any politicians on the payroll of Big Oil noticed?

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❝ July 2016 was the warmest month ever recorded, the latest in a slew of new temperature records set in the past several years, according to two new reports.

Scientists have recorded month after month of record-breaking temperatures this year, but July shattered all those records to become the hottest of any month in any year since record keeping began. The data was confirmed separately by NASA and the Japanese Meteorological Agency and provides near certainty that 2016 will be the hottest year in recorded history.

❝ July was 0.78°C (1.4°F) warmer than the 20th century average, according to the JMA. Locations across the globe experienced extreme heat in July, including a so-called heat dome that hit across the U.S. and record temperatures of 54°C (129.2°F) in Kuwait…

❝ Climate scientists attribute the spike in temperatures to man-made global warming along with a number of shorter-term climate patterns. In particular, El Niño — a phenomenon characterized by unusually high temperatures along the equatorial Pacific — drove up temperatures late last year and early this year…

Mail me a penny postcard if you heard anything from the Republican Party about this. Please include Blue Dog Democrats from coal, oil or natural gas-producing states.

TIME tried to include a cop-out at the end of the article, e.g., hopes that La Niña might make a difference. I’m on NOAA’s mailing list for weather events. La Niña is barely 50/50 at the moment to happen and the best description is for extra-normal. Whatever that might mean in your neck of the prairie.

No, the embargo on science, evidence-based reality, by conservative politicians has reached the same high as Earth’s greenhouse temperatures. The latter is a product of natural processes even when reacting to man-made causes. The former is a declaration of war on truth by lying politicians. That especially includes opportunists like Trump and his trumpkins – the usual scum who show up seeking fame and fortune from populist ignorance and stupidity.

A memo from the boss – Vote the way I say or lose your job!

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Imagine getting a letter from the boss, telling you how to vote.

Until 2010, federal law barred companies from using corporate money to endorse and campaign for political candidates — and that included urging employees to support specific politicians.

But the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision has freed companies from those restrictions, and now several major companies, including Georgia-Pacific and Cintas, have sent letters or information packets to their employees suggesting — and sometimes explicitly recommending — how they should vote this fall…

Dave Robertson, the president of Koch Industries, sent an information packet and letter this month to more than 30,000 employees of a subsidiary, Georgia-Pacific, a paper and pulp company. The letter attacked government subsidies for “a few favored cronies” as well as “unprecedented regulatory burdens on businesses.”

The letter added, “Many of our more than 50,000 U.S. employees and contractors may suffer the consequences, including higher gasoline prices, runaway inflation and other ills.”

The Georgia-Pacific letter, first reported by In These Times, included a flier listing several candidates endorsed by the Koch brothers, the conservative billionaires, beginning with Mitt Romney, as well as opinion articles that the brothers had written.

Travis McKinney, a forklift driver for Georgia-Pacific in Portland, Ore., said the company’s political packet had spurred widespread discussion. “It leaves a bad taste,” Mr. McKinney said. “I won’t even wear my Obama pin to work because of the mailer…”

Mr. Romney has himself urged business owners to appeal to their employees. In a conference call in June organized by the National Federation of Independent Business, he said, “I hope you make it very clear to your employees what you believe is in the best interest of your enterprise and therefore their job and their future in the upcoming elections.”

The scumbags who voted the Supreme Court majority decision for this case are as out of touch with the needs, feelings problems and life of working people as Romney, himself. To equate the political voice, the political power of an employee with their employer is not only absurd – it is criminal.

This past week, Chevron set a new record – donating $2½ million to the SuperPAC run by John Boehner. The dollars and dime donated by oilfield workers ain’t about to equal that sort of clout in decades. The thugs at the top just write a check from petty cash.

Top corporate bosses paid more than firms paid in taxes

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Jeff Immelt advising Obama on jobs that pay a lot less than he makes
Daylife/Reuters Pictures used by permission

The 25 highest paid US chief executives earned more last year than their companies paid in federal income tax, a study has said.

The average annual remuneration of the 25 bosses was $16.7 million, the left-leaning think tank Institute for Policy Studies (IPS) found. One chief executive on its list is General Electric’s Jeff Immelt, who the IPS said was paid $15.2 million in 2010 while his firm got a $3.3 billion tax refund…

Its spokesman said the study did not include significant federal income taxes paid in 2010 for previous years…

Other bosses on the IPS list are those of eBay and Boeing…

The IPS said two thirds of the 25 bosses were the heads of companies that utilised offshore subsidiaries in tax havens such as Bermuda, Singapore and Luxembourg.

IPS senior scholar and co-author of the report Chuck Collins said: “I think it’s an exposure of weakness in a company if their profitability is dependent on their accounting department and not on making better widgets.”

The think tank also found many of the firms spent more on lobbying politicians than they did on taxes.

The IPS said Boeing spent $20.8 million on lobbying, while paying only $13 million in federal income taxes.

Anyone surprised?

I know, I know. I mean surprised that there were only 25 in the study getting away with this?