Sunday, May 31, 2015


News Clips For The Day


https://gma.yahoo.com/man-discovers-cat-gave-birth-4-kittens-birds-190758545--abc-news-pets.html

Man Discovers Cat Gave Birth to 4 Kittens in Bird's Nest in Ireland
By AVIANNE TAN
May 29, 2015

Photograph -- Man Discovers Cat Gave Birth to 4 Kittens in Bird's Nest in Ireland (ABC News)

While most people would expect to find birds in nests, Irish pet store owner Henry McGauley says he recently discovered four newborn kittens in a pigeon's nest on a tree in the back garden of his home.

"Henry had heard squawking in the morning, and he didn't know what it was, so he went up the ladder to investigate," Henry's wife, Fiona McGauley, told ABC News today. "That's when he saw four baby newborn kittens."

The couple believes the kittens were born there and that they were only a few days old when they were found this past Monday, Fiona said.

"Their eyes aren't even open," Fiona added. "We left them there because there's not much you can do because they have to be at least six weeks old before they can be taken from their mother."

Momma cat wasn't at the nest when Henry initially discovered it, but the couple found her there a few hours later nursing the kittens, Fiona said.

"It turned out we knew the cat," she said. "We'd always used to see her by the alleyway. She was pregnant, and she disappeared a few times."

Fiona added that she and her husband also feed stray cats at the back of their house all the time.

"In a couple of weeks, the mom will probably bring the kittens to the back door for feeding," she said. "When they're older, we'll take them in, get them tamed and find permanent homes for them."

For now, the kittens are under the care of their mother outside the McGauleys' home.

"There was a heavy shower the other day, so it seems like she moved the kittens, and they're probably under the shed or somewhere inside there," Fiona said. "A lot of our customers are in love with the kittens and excited for when they're old enough to adopt."




"Henry had heard squawking in the morning, and he didn't know what it was, so he went up the ladder to investigate," Henry's wife, Fiona McGauley, told ABC News today. "That's when he saw four baby newborn kittens." The couple believes the kittens were born there and that they were only a few days old when they were found this past Monday, Fiona said. …. "In a couple of weeks, the mom will probably bring the kittens to the back door for feeding," she said. "When they're older, we'll take them in, get them tamed and find permanent homes for them."

Cats are really wonderful animals! This is the best story I’ve come across in the year and a half or so that I’ve been doing these blogs. Of course there’s also the house cat that jumped on the pit bull with all four feet and drove him away from her little four year old master, and the housecat whose flea collar had slipped down into his mouth and was choking him. He knocked his mistress’s cell phone off onto the floor and pushed the 911 button, meowing loudly into the receiver. The paramedics showed up several minutes later and took off the collar. That one has always amazed me, but I had a cat that would come and sit at my feet looking into my face whenever I got on the phone. I would put the phone up to her ear and have my friend talk to her. She looked a little surprised, so I know she heard the voice. I think this woman’s cat probably also was curious when her “mom” talked into the strange little box and had become aware that there was a real person there. Cats are not dumb, they just don’t do tricks! They have an image to uphold.





http://www.cbsnews.com/news/hastert-indictment-raises-questions-over-2006-capitol-hill-scandal/

Hastert indictment raises questions over 2006 Capitol Hill scandal
By JULIANNA GOLDMAN CBS NEWS
May 31, 2015

Photograph -- U.S. Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert (R-IL) leaves the House Republican Conference leadership elections alone on Capitol Hill November 17, 2006 in Washington, DC. GETTY IMAGES

WASHINGTON -- The indictment of former House Speaker Dennis Hastert, and revelations that he allegedly paid a former student to conceal past sexual abuse, could raise new questions about his actions during the 2006 scandal involving former Congressman Mark Foley over inappropriate messages Foley sent to House pages.

A House Ethics Committee investigation, completed in December of that year, said that Hastert had likely been told about Foley's behavior months before the communications were revealed.

Asked whether the report's conclusions should be viewed any differently in light of the revelations over the last 48 hours, one former lawmaker who was a member of the investigative subcommittee said they've been asking themselves that very question. The former House member, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said it never occurred to them that there might have been a personal reason for why Hastert didn't act swiftly at the time. They said there was no basis for knowing about Hastert's past and was completely surprised by the indictment.

Sexual misconduct allegations shock Capitol Hill
What Foley took from the page program

The 89-page report from a House ethics panel did not find that any current House members or employees violated the House Code of Official Conduct. But, the Investigative Subcommittee "was disturbed" by the conduct of some of those who dealt with allegations regarding Foley's behavior. It found instances where House leadership "failed to exercise appropriate diligence and oversight." And it says "a pattern of conduct was exhibited among many individuals to remain willfully ignorant of the potential consequences of former Representative Foley's conduct with respect to House pages."

Then-Majority Leader John Boehner testified to Congressional investigators that he had told Hastert on the House floor about Foley's communications in the spring of 2006, and that he believed Hastert told him the matter "has been taken care of." Representative Tom Reynolds also testified that he told Hastert about the issue, most likely in the Speaker's office. Hastert testified that he didn't recall either conversation.

There are two other living former lawmakers who were members of the Investigative subcommittee and they were also reached by CBS News on Saturday. They said the report shouldn't be viewed any differently and should only be seen in the context of the 2006 investigation. Both spoke on the condition of anonymity and said they were shocked about the details that have emerged from the indictment, one calling it a "personal tragedy" for Hastert and his family.

"The committee report stands as is," one of the former members said. "There's no way anybody can draw any conclusions."

The 2006 report stated: "The Investigative Subcommittee cannot determine conclusively the motivation for those who failed to fulfill their responsibilities" but identified several factors including that "raising the issue too aggressively might have risked exposing Rep. Foley's homesexuality, which could have adversely affected him both personally and politically." It also says that months before the midterm elections, "political considerations played a role" and that "the wishes of the page's family for privacy could have provided a convenient justification for failing to pursue the matter more aggressively for those who were already so inclined."

A spokesman for House Speaker John Boehner would not comment.




“A House Ethics Committee investigation, completed in December of that year, said that Hastert had likely been told about Foley's behavior months before the communi-cations were revealed. Asked whether the report's conclusions should be viewed any differently in light of the revelations over the last 48 hours, one former lawmaker who was a member of the investigative subcommittee said they've been asking them-selves that very question. The former House member, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said it never occurred to them that there might have been a personal rea-son for why Hastert didn't act swiftly at the time. They said there was no basis for knowing about Hastert's past and was completely surprised by the indictment. …. But, the Investigative Subcommittee "was disturbed" by the conduct of some of those who dealt with allegations regarding Foley's behavior. It found instances where House leadership "failed to exercise appropriate diligence and oversight." …. Then-Majority Leader John Boehner testified to Congressional investigators that he had told Hastert on the House floor about Foley's communications in the spring of 2006, and that he believed Hastert told him the matter "has been taken care of." Repre-sentative Tom Reynolds also testified that he told Hastert about the issue, most likely in the Speaker's office. Hastert testified that he didn't recall either conversation. …. Both spoke on the condition of anonymity and said they were shocked about the de-tails that have emerged from the indictment, one calling it a "personal tragedy" for Hastert and his family. …. : "The Investigative Subcommittee cannot determine con-clusively the motivation for those who failed to fulfill their responsibilities" but iden-tified several factors including that "raising the issue too aggressively might have risked exposing Rep. Foley's homesexuality, which could have adversely affected him both personally and politically." …. and that "the wishes of the page's family for privacy could have provided a convenient justification for failing to pursue the mat-ter more aggressively for those who were already so inclined."

Homosexual attractions in both men and women are built into the species. Societal religious standards tend to stifle it, and some people do “swing both ways,” but I remember a very popular television evangelist named Ted Haggart, who, after years of ranting about religion and garnering several million dollars for his group, was suddenly found to have been involved with men repeatedly. See the excerpt from Wikipedia’s biography on Haggart. It shows the blindness of many Christians on the matter. The disappointment in him was rampant. He repented loudly and publically, but all that religious faith didn’t stop him from seeking sex with beautiful young men. We need to accept homosexuality as one of the several forms of sexuality – some more bizarre than others -- that occur as a preference over “straight” sex. Freud made a name for himself on looking into the variety of sexual activity that existed in the 1890 to 1920 period. One of my favorite writers, Oscar Wilde, wrote a great long poem about the time he spent in prison after a high profile court case about it. He was convicted, despite his tremendous popularity, because when asked by the prosecutor about whether or not he had kissed a certain young man, said of course not, giving as the reason that he was “particularly plain.” Wealth, societal position, education or even intellectual brilliance don’t give relief from the temptation. Some US religious people nowadays are trying to force people with gay tendencies into psychotherapy and even a heterosexual marriage, but it doesn’t do any good. I personally wish that men with homosexual tendencies wouldn’t involve themselves with women at all, because it only causes bitter, heart rending divorces, especially if the woman happens to be in love with the man.



Ted Haggard
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

After the scandal was publicized, Haggard entered three weeks of intensive counseling, overseen by four ministers. In February 2007, one of those ministers, Tim Ralph, said that Haggard "is completely heterosexual."[3] Ralph later said he meant that therapy "gave Ted the tools to help to embrace his heterosexual side." On June 1, 2010 Haggard an-nounced that he intended to start a new church in Colorado Springs.[4] In a July 2010 interview with CNN, he confirmed that he has "completely shunned away any homosex-ual feelings he has had in the past."[5] In the February 2011 issue of GQ, however, Hag-gard said that, "probably, if I were 21 in this society, I would identify myself as a bisexu-al."[6]



Oscar Wilde
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Carson then moved to the factual evidence and questioned Wilde about his acquaintances with younger, lower-class men. Wilde admitted being on a first-name basis and lavishing gifts upon them, but insisted that nothing untoward had occurred and that the men were merely good friends of his. Carson repeatedly pointed out the unusual nature of these relationships and insinuated that the men were prostitutes. Wilde replied that he did not believe in social barriers, and simply enjoyed the society of young men. Then Carson asked Wilde directly whether he had ever kissed a certain servant boy, Wilde responded, "Oh, dear no. He was a particularly plain boy – unfortunately ugly – I pitied him for it."[129] Carson pressed him on the answer, repeatedly asking why the boy's ugliness was relevant. Wilde hesitated, then for the first time became flustered: "You sting me and insult me and try to unnerve me; and at times one says things flippantly when one ought to speak more seriously."[129]





http://thefreethoughtproject.com/woman-calls-non-emergency-hotline-suicidal-boyfriend-cops-show-ar-15s-kill/

Woman Calls Non-Emergency Hotline for Suicidal Boyfriend, Cops Show Up with AR-15s, Kill Him
By Matt Agorist on May 28, 2015

St. Augustine, FL — Justin Way had been alcohol-free for five weeks. He was doing well, but then slipped off the wagon on May 11, leading to an intoxicated evening with suicidal thoughts.

“He just lost his job, and he had a setback,” said his father, George Way.

Way’s live-in girlfriend, Kaitlyn Christine Lyons, said she’d caught Justin drinking a bottle of vodka, which she took away from him to pour out. She said he was drunk, lying in their bed with a large knife, saying he would hurt himself with it. She called a non-emergency number in an attempt to get her boyfriend to a local St. Augustine, Florida, hospital for help—and told them she did not feel threatened.

Lyons explained to the Beast that her brother had been “Baker Acted” three times for threatening to hurt himself, so she assumed that is what would happen with Way. Florida’s Baker Act allows for the involuntary institutionalization of people who may present a threat to themselves or others. Police officers in Florida can be the ones to carry it out.

However, just minutes after Lyons would end her call with the non-emergency hotline, two officers from the St. Johns County Sheriff’s department would show up. They were apparently not interested in Baker Acting anyone.

Deputies Jonas Carballosa and Kyle Braig showed up with assault rifles in hand and told Lyons to wait outside while they attended to the man in crisis.

“I thought they were going into war,” Lyons told the Daily Beast. Seconds later Way was dead.

According to the Daily Beast:

George Way said the initial report he received from Det. Mike Smith detailed an incident wherein his officers said they were attacked by Justin with a knife. Way said Smith told him Justin had threatened Kaitlyn. Kaitlyn denies this.

Denise Way, Justin’s mom, said that the detective relayed to her that “they told Justin to drop the knife and he didn’t—so they shot him because that’s what we do.”

Denise said Smith then told her about “this new trend in law-enforcement now—it’s called suicide by cop.” She said Smith explained “suicide by cop” is when suicidal people provoke the police in an effort to end their own lives.

The department implying that Way chose to end his life through “suicide by cop” is asinine. He never called the cops, and his girlfriend called a non-emergency number.

According to the family, there was no blood on the walls nor on the floor, only in the bed. Police would not tell them where or how many times Justin Way was shot.

After finding a bullet in the mattress, Way’s family is convinced he was killed while still in the bed.

“If Justin was coming after them with a knife, at 6-foot-4, wouldn’t there be blood splattered all over the room?” George Way said.

The Beast asked the department if it was “standard procedure to bring assault rifles, but not mental-health professionals, to a scene where someone is suicidal.”

Commander Chuck Mulligan responded by saying, “If the deputies feel that that is the appropriate weapon system to use, then yes.”

This is the second time in under six months that deputy Braig was involved in the killing of a man holding a knife.

According to the Beast, Way’s parents said they do not ever want to call the police again—for anything.

“I think they should come in using other things,” said Lyons. “And I think they definitely need to figure out how to handle suicidal people.”

Unfortunately for Lyons and the rest of the American population, police officers seem completely unwilling to learn how to deal with individuals who are experiencing a mental crisis.


Read more at http://thefreethoughtproject.com/woman-calls-non-emergency-hotline-suicidal-boyfriend-cops-show-ar-15s-kill/#eloSFf2MAi5Fk0vZ.99



“However, just minutes after Lyons would end her call with the non-emergency hotline, two officers from the St. Johns County Sheriff’s department would show up. They were apparently not interested in Baker Acting anyone. Deputies Jonas Carballosa and Kyle Braig showed up with assault rifles in hand and told Lyons to wait outside while they attended to the man in crisis. …. The Beast asked the department if it was “standard procedure to bring assault rifles, but not mental-health professionals, to a scene where someone is suicidal.” Commander Chuck Mulligan responded by saying, “If the deputies feel that that is the appropriate weapon system to use, then yes.” This is the second time in under six months that deputy Braig was involved in the killing of a man holding a knife. …. “I think they should come in using other things,” said Lyons. “And I think they definitely need to figure out how to handle suicidal people.” Unfortunately for Lyons and the rest of the American population, police officers seem completely unwilling to learn how to deal with individuals who are experiencing a mental crisis.”

If you are a police officer, you must choose a “weapons system,” right? An officer’s duty is to carry out executions, apparently. This is a particularly ugly story about officers who, first, had not been trained correctly for encountering a mental health issue. Police shouldn’t have been sent anyway, but rather an ambulance and medics, along with a mental health worker. If cops come too, that would make sense, if the emergency staff were endangered, but they shouldn’t have come alone. And second, the supervisor Commander Mulligan saw nothing wrong with what happened, saying their use of deadly force was essentially their option to choose. In other words, cops are not specifically trained in what they should do and how they do it or required to carry those things out. Finally, this officer lied about what happened in order to save his own neck. Specious excuses for why they killed a suspect when lesser measures would have been as good or better have shown up in almost all the post-Ferguson cases which have made the news, and courts have exonerated them on those stories and “evidence.” I imagine what happened was the cops came in while the victim was lying on the bed, saw him holding the knife, ordered him to drop it, and then when he failed to do so simply shot him. The bullet was found in the mattress along with all the blood – none on the walls or floor.

Hopefully there will be more about this in the coming days. Sadly, St. Augustine is a beautiful little historical town ten miles from Jacksonville. As much as I like the place, however, it was one of the sites of bloody fighting during the 1960s civil rights marches. This man, notably was not black, so police “procedure” of this kind is being carried out across the board. This is more than just a failure of bad apple police officers, but for their training, supervision and upper level philosophy of policing.





http://mic.com/articles/119630/bernie-sanders-wants-to-tax-the-rich-at-90-here-s-why-that-s-not-so-crazy

Bernie Sanders Wants to Tax the Rich at 90%. Here's Why That's Not So Crazy
By Zeeshan Aleem
May 29, 2015

CNBC released an interview Tuesday with presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) in which he discussed what it means to have a moral economy in the U.S.

As is so often the case with the self-avowed democratic socialist, the conversation turned toward how to ensure the wealthiest Americans pay their fair share of taxes. Sanders made the case by playfully explaining how high tax rates on the highest income brackets were once not only considered normal in America but were endorsed by Republicans.

"When radical socialist Dwight D. Eisenhower was president, I think the highest marginal tax rate was something like 90%," Sanders said in the interview.

When journalist John Harwood replied by asking whether Sanders considered this to be something that would be too severe today, Sanders dismissed the notion:

At first glance, even the most fervent of Sanders' supporters may feel a flicker of hesitation upon hearing "90%" and "taxes" mentioned in the same sentence. (The comment has certainly made conservatives queasy.) Would a 90% tax rate mean that if you happen to make a decent living, virtually all of it goes to the government?

It doesn't. The key word in the tax rate Sanders mentioned is "marginal," and both American history and recent economic research suggest that high marginal income tax rates can coexist with a flourishing economy.

What's a marginal tax rate? Income isn't taxed uniformly — different levels of their income are taxed at different rates. A marginal rate is the tax rate on the last dollar you earned.

"You can imagine a case where the first $200,000 people earn is taxed at a 30% rate, and then starting at above $200,000 that marginal rate increases, and then maybe for every dollar somebody earn over $5 million in a year, the marginal rate then becomes 90%," Josh Bivens, research and policy director at the Economic Policy Institute, told Mic.

Sanders didn't specify at what income threshold he would consider a marginal tax rate of 90%, but Bivens suspects Sanders would think it should kick in "somewhere well into the millions."

"It's not that radical, unless you're calling Eisenhower's America a radical place, and given that no one would propose a high rate like that on anything like an ordinary income, it would basically be irrelevant to the tax burden of the vast majority of Americans," Bivens said.

Until the Reagan revolution, both marginal tax rates and average tax rates (the total share of your income that went to the federal government) were almost unfathomably high compared to what policymakers consider in contemporary American politics. And they happened precisely at a time when the American economy was booming.

"In the 1950s, the highest marginal tax rate was about 90% in the United States — very, very few people paid a marginal rate of that much," Bivens said. "In 1960 the average tax rate for the richest .01% of households in the U.S. was actually more than 70%.

"So we've definitely had experience in the not-so-ancient past of tax rates much higher than we have today, and it's important to note that in the '50s and '60s when we had these much higher rates — both marginal and average — we had faster rates of economic growth than we're seeing today."

As Bryce Covert at ThinkProgress notes, in 2014 a pair of economists estimated that a top marginal tax rate of about 90% for the top 1% is optimal for maximizing government revenue without extinguishing the desire for the rich to earn more.

The ultimate objective isn't simply to tax high income for as much as conceivably possible, but to find ways to redistribute the upward trickle of wealth. It also achieves something that's become a cornerstone of what has emerged as a major 2016 theme — it reduces inequality.




“CNBC released an interview Tuesday with presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) in which he discussed what it means to have a moral economy in the U.S. As is so often the case with the self-avowed democratic socialist, the conversation turned toward how to ensure the wealthiest Americans pay their fair share of taxes. Sanders made the case by playfully explaining how high tax rates on the highest income brackets were once not only considered normal in America but were endorsed by Republicans. "When radical socialist Dwight D. Eisenhower was president, I think the highest marginal tax rate was something like 90%," Sanders said in the interview. …. Would a 90% tax rate mean that if you happen to make a decent living, virtually all of it goes to the government? It doesn't. The key word in the tax rate Sanders mentioned is "marginal," and both American history and recent economic research suggest that high marginal income tax rates can coexist with a flourishing economy. What's a marginal tax rate? Income isn't taxed uniformly — different levels of their income are taxed at different rates. A marginal rate is the tax rate on the last dollar you earned. …. "It's not that radical, unless you're calling Eisenhower's America a radical place, and given that no one would propose a high rate like that on anything like an ordinary income, it would basically be irrelevant to the tax burden of the vast majority of Americans," Bivens said. …. "In 1960 the average tax rate for the richest .01% of households in the U.S. was actually more than 70%. "So we've definitely had experience in the not-so-ancient past of tax rates much higher than we have today, and it's important to note that in the '50s and '60s when we had these much higher rates — both marginal and average — we had faster rates of economic growth than we're seeing today." …. The ultimate objective isn't simply to tax high income for as much as conceivably possible, but to find ways to redistribute the upward trickle of wealth. It also achieves something that's become a cornerstone of what has emerged as a major 2016 theme — it reduces inequality.”

• "You can imagine a case where the first $200,000 people earn is taxed at a 30% rate, and then starting at above $200,000 that marginal rate increases, and then maybe for every dollar somebody earn over $5 million in a year, the marginal rate then becomes 90%," Josh Bivens, research and policy director at the Eco-nomic Policy Institute, told Mic.” So a high marginal tax rate only causes trouble for the 1%, and the government has more money to run our needed social, ed-ucational and environmental programs. See these articles from Wikipedia and taxfoundation.org/blog about trickle down in general and the Laffer Curve.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trickle-down_economics

….

"Trickle-down economics", also referred to as "trickle-down theory", chiefly and originally in United States politics, is the idea that economic benefits provided to businesses and upper income levels will indirectly benefit poorer members of society when the resources inevitably "trickle down" to them.[1] The term has been attributed to humorist Will Rogers, who said during the Great Depression that "money was all appropriated for the top in hopes that it would trickle down to the needy."[2]

In more recent history, the theory is most closely identified with critics of the economic policies known as "Reaganomics" or laissez-faire. David Stockman, who as Reagan's budget director championed these cuts at first, but then became skeptical of them, told journalist William Greider that the "supply-side economics" is the trickle-down idea: "It's kind of hard to sell 'trickle down,' so the supply-side formula was the only way to get a tax policy that was really 'trickle down.' Supply-side is 'trickle-down' theory."[3][4] Political opponents of the Reagan administration soon seized on this language in an effort to brand the administration as caring only about the wealthy.[5] In the United Kingdom, the idea was also utilized by Margaret Thatcher's government and became a main plank of Thatcherism.[6]

Context[edit]

Economist Thomas Sowell has written that the actual path of money in a private enterprise economy is quite the opposite of that claimed by people who refer to the trickle-down theory. He noted that money invested in new business ventures is first paid out to employees, suppliers, and contractors. Only some time later, if the business is profitable, does money return to the business owners—but in the absence of a profit motive, which is reduced in the aggregate by a raise in marginal tax rates in the upper tiers, this activity does not occur. Sowell further has made the case[7] that no economist has ever advocated a "trickle-down" theory of economics, which is rather a misnomer attributed to certain economic ideas by political critics who either willfully distort or misunderstand the actual stated goals of their political opponents.[8]

Although the term "trickle down" is mainly political and does not denote a specific economic theory, some economic theories reflect the meaning of this pejorative. Some macro-economic models assume that a certain proportion of each dollar of income will be saved. This is called the marginal propensity to save. Many studies have found that the marginal propensity to save is considerably higher among wealthier people.[citation needed] Policies, including tax cuts, that seek to increase saving are often aimed at the wealthy for this reason.[9] Saving usually means some form of investment, as even money placed in savings accounts is ultimately invested by the banks.

In the early 1990s Congressional Records, non-pejorative uses of the term are rare but do appear.[10][11][12][13]

Criticisms[edit]

Critics often point to declining real wages (excluding health insurance) as a response to trickle-down economics.
The economist John Kenneth Galbraith noted that "trickle-down economics" had been tried before in the United States in the 1890s under the name "horse and sparrow theory." He wrote, "Mr. David Stockman has said that supply-side economics was merely a cover for the trickle-down approach to economic policy—what an older and less elegant generation called the horse-and-sparrow theory: 'If you feed the horse enough oats, some will pass through to the road for the sparrows.'" Galbraith claimed that the horse and sparrow theory was partly to blame for the Panic of 1896.[14]

Proponents of Keynesian economics and other related theories often claim the wealthy tax cuts are, in fact, not used for the benefit and productive asset of investing but rather for personal gain.[15][16]

While running against Reagan for the Presidential nomination in 1980, George H. W. Bush derided Reaganomics as "voodoo economics".[17] Similarly, In the 1992 presidential election, Independent candidate Ross Perot called trickle-down economics "political voodoo."[18]

In New Zealand, Labour Party MP Damien O'Connor has, in the Labour Party campaign launch video for the 2011 general election, called trickle-down economics "the rich pissing on the poor".

A 2012 study by the Tax Justice Network indicates that wealth of the super-rich does not trickle down to improve the economy, but tends to be amassed and sheltered in tax havens with a negative effect on the tax bases of the home economy.[19]

University of Cambridge professor Ha-Joon Chang criticised the policies of trickle down in several publications, citing examples of: "slowing job growth in the last few decades, rising income inequality in most rich nations, and the inability provision in raising living standards across all income brackets rather than at the top only".[20]

Theory explaining wealth concentration in the hands of the rich is called Matthew effect.

History and usage of the term[edit]

In 1896, Democratic Presidential candidate William Jennings Bryan made reference to trickle-down theory in his famous Cross of Gold speech:

There are two ideas of government. There are those who believe that if you just legislate to make the well-to-do prosperous, that their prosperity will leak through on those below. The Democratic idea has been that if you legislate to make the masses prosperous their prosperity will find its way up and through every class that rests upon it.[21]
The Merriam-Webster Dictionary notes that the first known use of trickle-down as an adjective meaning "relating to or working on the principle of trickle-down theory" was in 1944,[22] while the first known use of trickle-down theory was in 1954.[23]

After leaving the Presidency, Lyndon B. Johnson, a Democrat, alleged "Republicans [...] simply don't know how to manage the economy. They're so busy operating the trickle-down theory, giving the richest corporations the biggest break, that the whole thing goes to hell in a handbasket." [24]

Speaking on the Senate floor in 1992, Sen. Hank Brown (R-Colorado) said, "Mr. President, the trickle-down theory attributed to the Republican Party has never been articulated by President Reagan and has never been articulated by President Bush and has never been advocated by either one of them. One might argue whether trickle down makes any sense or not. To attribute to people who have advocated the opposite in policies is not only inaccurate but poisons the debate on public issues."[25]



http://taxfoundation.org/blog/does-lowering-taxes-increase-government-revenue

Does Lowering Taxes Increase Government Revenue?
December 15, 2010
By Nick Kasprak

The idea that lowering taxes can raise revenue, or that the tax cuts “pay for themselves” as some say, is not new; it’s been around since at least the 1980s, and it’s a fundamental tenet of supply-side economics. The argument is that it’s possible for tax rates to be so high (and therefore such a burden on the economy) that lowering them allows the economy (and the tax base) to grow fast enough that the extra revenue from the larger base is more than the lost revenue from the lower tax rate. During the Nixon administration, the economist Arthur Laffer, who was later a member of Reagan’s Economic Policy Advisory Board, created an illustration now known as the “Laffer Curve”:

Laffer

Hardly anyone disputes the basic concept shown here. At a tax rate of 0%, the government gets no revenue. It can increase revenue by increasing tax rates, up to a certain point, called the "revenue maximizing point" (labeled t* here) beyond which increasing tax rates any further damages the economy enough to cause revenue to go down, all the way back to zero at a rate of 100% (where the government takes everything you make, eliminating your incentive to work at all.)

Note that this is a greatly simplified picture – we have a progressive income tax, and different groups of people pay taxes at different rates depending on their income, in addition to the existence of various credits, deductions, and the like (the instructions for the Form 1040 alone are 175 pages long). So there is obviously a problem inherent in attempting to boil down our entire federal income tax code into a single number. But the broader concept is applicable, regardless of these complications.

The big question is, what is t*? Is our current tax system below t* (at a point like t1) where decreasing tax rates decreases revenue, or is it above t* (at a point like t2) where decreasing tax rates increases revenue? It’s not an easy question to answer, because of the complications mentioned above. Additionally, if you want to look at historical tax cuts, there’s no control to compare revenues against – even if it appears that a tax cut raised government revenue, there’s no way of knowing for sure what revenues would have been without it.

Romney, for his part, seems to be saying that the Bush tax cuts raised revenue, implying that Clinton-era tax rates were at the point t2 on the Laffer curve. There are hardly any economists who would agree, and it’s hard to believe Romney if you look at the data. Here is a graph of government revenue and tax rates from 1980 to 2006:
taxRates

I've used per capita figures to adjust for population growth. Supply-side economists usually argue that the marginal rate is the most important, and I’ve included it here, as well as average effective rates for each income quintile , calculated by the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center here, to get as broad a picture as possible of the level of taxation for each year.

The Bush tax cuts were first enacted in 2001, and it’s easy to see the drop in tax rates beginning in that year on this chart. If Romney’s argument is correct, we should see a jump in federal revenues beginning that year as well, but we don’t – in fact, revenue falls rather sharply from 2001 to 2003, when the tax cuts were being phased in.

There is a huge caveat here: The United States experienced a recession in 2002 and 2003, which accounts for at least part of the drop in revenue. And many argue that the increase in revenue visible after 2003 is evidence that the Bush tax cuts grew the economy. Did they grow the economy so fast that revenue began to exceed what it otherwise would have been without the cuts? At least from a basic analysis like this one, it’s impossible to know for sure if revenue would have been higher had Clinton-era tax rates been kept, but a growing economy is the norm, and the general trend in the long term, clearly visible in the graph, is for revenues to rise as per capita GDP goes up. Furthermore, revenue did not start to rise until after the Bush tax cuts were fully phased-in; during the period when tax rates were falling (from 2001 to 2003), revenue went down. The correlation visible on the graph is striking.

It’s unfortunate, therefore, to see prominent public figures like Romney making such an argument – an argument that hardly any economists take seriously. Given current budget realities, it amounts to little more than wishful thinking, and makes life harder for reformers who are serious about the deficit. Proposing tough options like spending cuts or tax increases, necessary to solve our long-term budget problem, becomes harder when people believe there’s an easy fix. And it undermines his larger argument for permanently extending the Bush tax cuts, because there are many valid reasons to favor their extension that don’t rely on the fallacious idea that doing so will raise revenue. For example, there’s a clear argument to be made that the Bush tax cuts helped spur economic growth and were a factor in ending the early 2000s recession, even if they didn’t increase government revenue. The ultimate goal of any economic policy is not to maximize government revenue, it’s to maximize long-term economic growth. Getting back to the Laffer Curve concept, there’s no particular reason why a tax rate of t*, the rate that maximizes government revenue, is the socially optimal rate of taxation. That’s only true if you’re someone who believes that the size of government should necessarily be as large as possible, and that’s certainly not true for any conservative like Romney.

Correction: This post originally stated that the Laffer Curve concept was developed during the Reagan administration; it was actually during the Nixon administration.







http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/crime/silk-road-founder-ross-ulbricht-sentenced-to-life-in-prison/ar-BBkoZTp?ocid=iehp

Silk Road founder Ross Ulbricht sentenced to life in prison
The Daily Dot
Patrick Howell O'Neill
May 29, 2015

Graphics -- © Illustration by Max Fleishman Slik Road Logo

A federal judge sentenced Ross Ulbricht to life in prison today in New York City for his role as the mastermind of Silk Road, once the largest online black market for illegal drugs on the Internet.

A jury convicted Ulbricht, who pioneered the secure sale of illegal goods online, in February on seven felony counts, including drug trafficking, money laundering, computer hacking, and identity fraud.

Silk Road, which ran from January 2011 to October 2013 before the FBI seized the site and its assets, was an anonymous marketplace used to sell illegal goods, the vast majority of which were drugs, including heroine, methamphetamine, MDMA, LSD, and others. The website hid the location of itself and its users by utilizing the Tor anonymity network, privacy software developed and funded in part by the U.S. government that's used by police, criminals, journalists, soldiers, and activists worldwide.

Prior to sentencing, Ulbricht, clearly upset, apologized for any lives ruined by overdoses caused by drugs purchased off of Silk Road. "I never wanted that to happen," he said, adding, "I wish I could go back and convince myself to take a different path."

Sales on Silk Road were entirely conducted in Bitcoin. From February 2011 through July 2013, Ulbricht and other Silk Road staffers collected 614,305 bitcoins, or $145,516,568.40 at today's exchange rate, in commissions from sales on the site, according to the U.S. Department of Justice. At the time of Ulbricht's arrest, the total Silk Road commissions were worth just under $80 million.

In a memo to the court, U.S. prosecutors said Ulbricht owes the government $183,961,921 based on the total number of transactions on Silk Road.

Ulbricht's defense team has repeatedly promised an appeal, meaning this saga is far from over. Years after Ulbricht's 2013 arrest, many questions remain about the police investigation including how they found Silk Road's servers and whether police violated the law in doing so.

Federal prosecutors have continuously pushed for harsh sentencing beyond the minimum 20 years against Ulbricht in order to "send a message" to other Dark Net criminals.

“Ulbricht’s conviction is the first of its kind, and his sentencing is being closely watched,” the prosecution wrote in a letter to Judge Katherine Forrest. “The Court thus has an opportunity to send a clear message to anyone tempted to follow his example that the operation of these illegal enterprises comes with severe consequences.”

Ulbricht and his defense team have pushed in the other direction, arguing that Silk Road reduced the dangers of drug use.

“In contrast to the government’s portrayal of the Silk Road website as a more dangerous version of a traditional drug marketplace, in fact the Silk Road website was in many respects the most responsible such marketplace in history, and consciously and deliberately included recognized harm-reduction measures, including access to physician counseling,” Joshua Dratel, Ulbricht's lead defense attorney, wrote to the court. “In addition, transactions on the Silk Road website were significantly safer than traditional illegal drug purchases, and included quality-control and accountability features that made purchasers substantially safer than they were when purchasing drugs in a conventional manner.”

Ulbricht also wrote a personal letter to judge Katherine Forrest in which he pleaded with her to “leave a light at the end of the tunnel” with sentencing that does not take away the rest of his life.

“I know you must take away my middle years, but please leave me my old age," Ulbricht, now 31, wrote. "Please leave a small light at the end of the tunnel, an excuse to stay healthy, an excuse to dream of better days ahead, and a chance to redeem myself before I meet my maker.”

Despite Ulbricht's arrest and the turbulence experienced on the Dark Net ever since, similar black markets grew 37 percent in the last year.

Illustration by Max Fleishman




“The website hid the location of itself and its users by utilizing the Tor anonymity network, privacy software developed and funded in part by the U.S. government that's used by police, criminals, journalists, soldiers, and activists worldwide. Prior to sentencing, Ulbricht, clearly upset, apologized for any lives ruined by overdoses caused by drugs purchased off of Silk Road. "I never wanted that to happen," he said, adding, "I wish I could go back and convince myself to take a different path."…. Federal prosecutors have continuously pushed for harsh sentencing beyond the minimum 20 years against Ulbricht in order to "send a message" to other Dark Net criminals. “Ulbricht’s conviction is the first of its kind, and his sentencing is being closely watched,” the prosecution wrote in a letter to Judge Katherine Forrest. “The Court thus has an opportunity to send a clear message to anyone tempted to follow his example that the operation of these illegal enterprises comes with severe consequences.” …. Despite Ulbricht's arrest and the turbulence experienced on the Dark Net ever since, similar black markets grew 37 percent in the last year.”

Computer geeks tend to be young, and young people tend to have an underdeveloped sense of right and wrong, while overdeveloped on the matter of their own personal brilliance and importance. It’s easy to conclude that anything they want to do is okay. Some of them are greedy, overcome with their sense of power and intelligence, and unable to resist temptation. Making mega money without working is a temptation that, with some people, really is hard to resist.

This article said that questions have been raised about the legality of the police methods of finding the site. While I strongly resist police strong arm tactics as a violation of human rights and American citizenship, I think their employing modern day computer technology to root out Internet criminals should be okay, and if the laws need to be rewritten to make it okay, then rewrite them. From cyberbullying to the purveying of naked little boys being sexually molested to targeting people for rape on the Craigs List site, there is a need for finding who the guilty parties are and putting them in prison. I’m strongly for Net Neutrality and the freedom of self-expression in ordinary ways, and particularly to prevent the unfair suppression of equal access to the Net for purposes of advertising etc. by small businesses at the hands of large corporations, but crime should be punished.






http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/us-military-shipped-live-anthrax-australia-2008/story?id=31399907

Pentagon Orders Comprehensive Review of Anthrax Lab Work
By LUIS MARTINEZ
May 29, 2015

Photograph -- A Jan. 27, 2010 file photo shows the main gate at Dugway Proving Ground military base, about 85 miles southwest of Salt Lake City, Utah. A Pentagon spokesman said suspected live anthrax samples were shipped from Dugway Proving Ground using a commercial delivery service. Jim Urquhart/AP Photo

The Pentagon has ordered a comprehensive review of its laboratory facilities that handle anthrax after finding more labs in the United States that may have mistakenly received live anthrax, U.S. officials said.

Any laboratories that may have received inactive anthrax samples from the Pentagon in the past have also been advised to stop working with those samples until they get more instruction from the Defense Department and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

"As of now, 24 laboratories in 11 states and two foreign countries are believed to have received suspect samples," the Pentagon said in statement this evening.

Previously the Pentagon had said 18 laboratories in 9 states and a military laboratory in South Korea may have mistakenly been sent live anthrax samples.

A review of operations at the U.S. Army's Dugway Proving Ground in Utah also found another batch of live anthrax that may have been shipped to Australia in 2008, U.S. officials said earlier today.

Officials are trying to determine what institutions in Australia received the possibly live anthrax and its whereabouts.

Mistaken Anthrax Shipments Still Being Located
Pentagon Inadvertently Shipped Live Anthrax to Labs in Nine States

In light of the new information Deputy Secretary of Defense Robert Work ordered “a comprehensive review of DoD laboratory procedures, processes, and protocols associated with inactivating spore-forming anthrax."

He also ordered all military laboratories that have anthrax materials “to test all previously inactivated spore-forming anthrax in the inventory.”

All laboratories that may have received inactive anthrax from the Pentagon in the past have been advised to stop working with those samples until they receive further instruction from the Defense Department and the Centers for Disease Control.”

Last Friday, a private laboratory in Maryland informed the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that it had received a live sample of anthrax. Further investigation determined that the batch of anthrax that had been the source of the shipment had not been fully irradiated in March 2014 and contained both live and inactivated anthrax spores, according to a Department of Defense official.

The laboratories have located their samples and sent them to the CDC for testing to determine if they too received live anthrax.

No workers who came into contact with the samples have exhibited any symptoms of anthrax infection, according to the Pentagon and the CDC.

However, as a protective measure, three lab workers in the United States and 22 military lab workers in South Korea are receiving antibiotic treatments, officials said.




“In light of the new information Deputy Secretary of Defense Robert Work ordered “a comprehensive review of DoD laboratory procedures, processes, and protocols associated with inactivating spore-forming anthrax." He also ordered all military la-boratories that have anthrax materials “to test all previously inactivated spore-forming anthrax in the inventory.” …. The Pentagon has ordered a comprehensive review of its laboratory facilities that handle anthrax after finding more labs in the United States that may have mistakenly received live anthrax, U.S. officials said. Any laboratories that may have received inactive anthrax samples from the Pentagon in the past have also been advised to stop working with those samples until they get more instruction from the Defense Department and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. …. . Further investigation determined that the batch of an-thrax that had been the source of the shipment had not been fully irradiated in March 2014 and contained both live and inactivated anthrax spores, according to a Department of Defense official.”

Go back to the blog several days ago on the subject of ongoing illegal military testing for the purpose of germ warfare. I took excerpts from a Wikipedia article on the US germ warfare programs to supplement the story. The news article is as follows:
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/was-pentagons-shipment-of-live-anthrax-human-error/, Was Pentagon's shipment of live anthrax "human error"?, By CHIP REID CBS NEWS, May 28, 2015. That article quotes military sources as saying that “The anthrax spores, which were being studied in an effort to find better ways to defend against anthrax, ….” The Wikipedia article, however, says “In 1969, President Rich-ard Nixon ended all offensive (i.e., non-defensive) aspects of the U.S. bio-weapons program. In 1975 the U.S. ratified both the 1925 Geneva Protocol and the 1972 Bio-logical Weapons Convention (BWC)—international treaties outlawing biological warfare. Recent U.S. biodefense programs, however, have raised concerns that the U.S. may be pursuing research that is outlawed by the BWC.”

One thing is clear – whether for offensive purposes or not, the US and other nations are actively studying anthrax still. They probably never stopped, despite the 1975 agreement. It makes me feel nervous and discouraged. It seems we have made no real progress as an advanced nation in too many ways. Some weapons are simply too in-tensely dangerous to consider using, and in this case even to hold. The lab workers probably didn’t purposely ship out live viruses, but they did somehow fail to use enough radiation on it to kill them. Moreover, I’m not convinced that the military labs were using live viruses simply to “study” them. That’s what happened in the wonderful book The Andromeda Strain. Sheer carelessness in a germ warfare set-ting caused a massive outbreak of disease because it “got out” of the lab.

I’m sorry to say that today’s news article on a comprehensive study of lab techniques doesn’t include the question of whether or not more advanced weapons are also be-ing tested, rather than how to resist them. I truly hope not, especially on President Obama’s watch. He’s too smart to willfully allow such a program, but of course if it was started during the Bush administration it may have powerful backers in Con-gress whom he has been unable to stop. I hope this doesn’t turn into a major scandal against him. I do think it’s probably simply a matter of carelessness in the lab that shipped the samples out. Human failure is an ever-present problem.