Links

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/oct/12/arizona-republicans-communists-democrats-donation-attempt
Oct. 12, 2018
Two young Arizona Republicans tried to make a donation to a congressman while posing as members of a university communist party, in an apparent attempt to tie the Democrat to the far left.


https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/oct/10/huge-reduction-in-meat-eating-essential-to-avoid-climate-breakdown
Oct. 10, 2018
Huge reductions in meat-eating are essential to avoid dangerous climate change, according to the most comprehensive analysis yet of the food system’s impact on the environment. In western countries, beef consumption needs to fall by 90% and be replaced by five times more beans and pulses.
The research also finds that enormous changes to farming are needed to avoid destroying the planet’s ability to feed the 10 billion people expected to be on the planet in a few decades.


https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2018/10/11/656503264/fact-check-whos-right-about-protections-for-pre-existing-conditions
Oct. 11, 2018
FACT CHECK: Who's Right About Protections For Pre-Existing Conditions?
The Trump administration, technically the defendant in that case, said in June that it disagreed that the entire law should fall. But it is arguing that the parts of the law addressing pre-existing conditions are so tightly connected to the tax penalty that they should be struck down.
Clearly, if the lawsuit prevails in either its original form or the form preferred by the Trump administration, pre-existing protections are not "safe," as the president claimed.
Even more complicated, the protections written into HIPAA were rewritten and incorporated into the ACA, so if the ACA in whole or part were to be struck down, HIPAA's pre-existing condition protections might go away, too.
Republicans in Congress have introduced a series of proposals they say would replicate the existing protections. But critics contend none of them cover as many situations as the ACA does. For example, a bill unveiled by several Republican senators in August would require insurers to offer coverage to people with pre-existing health conditions, but not require coverage of the conditions themselves.


https://www.usnews.com/news/best-states/washington/articles/2018-10-09/bill-gates-backs-carbon-fee-measure-in-washington-state
Oct. 9, 2018
Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates has endorsed a November ballot measure in Washington state that would charge a fee on carbon emissions from fossil fuels.
Gates wrote in a LinkedIn post Tuesday that he will contribute to the Yes on 1631 campaign and vote for it, saying "climate change may be the toughest problem humanity has ever faced."


https://earther.gizmodo.com/death-toll-from-hurricane-michael-is-now-at-least-18-a-1829732389
Oct. 13, 2018
The death toll from Hurricane Michael, an unprecedented storm which slammed into the Florida Panhandle near Mexico Beach at Category 4 strength last week, is expected to rise from the latest count of 18 across the states of Florida, Georgia, North Carolina and Virginia as search-and-rescue teams scour devastated coastal communities that were still “cutoff and in the dark,” Reuters reported on Saturday morning.
Hundreds are still unaccounted for, Reuters wrote. Searches through Panhandle towns and cities that are littered with rubble are ongoing, and federal officials acknowledged on Friday that some of the worst damage was in places rescuers haven’t been able to search yet:


https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/proud-boys-new-york-assault-gavin-mcinnes_us_5bc20d60e4b0bd9ed55a96ee
Oct. 13, 2018
Minutes after an event at a Manhattan Republican club meant to celebrate violence against leftists, attendees belonging to a proto-fascist, pro-Trump street gang reportedly pummeled three people on the sidewalk in Manhattan’s Upper East Side while shouting homophobic slurs.
Footage posted online by video journalist Sandi Bachom shows a group of men who appear to be Proud Boys — a misogynistic and anti-Muslim fraternity known for committing acts of political violence across the country — kicking and punching three apparent anti-fascist protesters as they lay prone on the sidewalk.
“Do you feel brave now, faggot?” one of the attackers yelled, according to Bachom and another journalist, photographer Shay Horse. Another video shows multiple attackers yelling “faggot.”
Both Bachom and Horse told HuffPost they believed the altercation began when three anti-fascist protesters knocked a red “Make America Great Again” hat off a Proud Boy member’s head.
But then, the two journalists recounted, the confrontation turned into a mob assault, with Proud Boys vastly outnumbering the anti-fascists.
“They turned it into a pummeling,” Horse said. “This was three people on the ground and people just kicking the shit out of them.”


On the topic of raising teenagers, Mark Twain advised, “When a boy turns 13, put him in a barrel and feed him through a knot hole. When he turns 16, plug up the hole.”


https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/13/business/jared-kushner-taxes.html?ad-keywords=SMARTNEWS12
Oct. 13, 2018
Over the past decade, Jared Kushner’s family company has spent billions of dollars buying real estate. His personal stock investments have soared. His net worth has quintupled to almost $324 million.
And yet, for several years running, Mr. Kushner — President Trump’s son-in-law and a senior White House adviser — appears to have paid almost no federal income taxes, according to confidential financial documents reviewed by The New York Times.
The White House last year championed a sweeping revision of the nation’s tax laws that expanded many of the benefits enjoyed by real estate investors, allowing them to reap even larger deductions.
“The Trump administration was in a position to clean up the tax code and promised to get rid of some of the complexity that certain taxpayers use to their advantage,” said Victor Fleischer, a tax law professor at the University of California, Irvine. “Instead, they doubled down on those provisions, particularly the ones they have familiarity with to benefit themselves.”