Month: December 2017

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Major Companies to Invest in Workers, Charity After Tax Reform Passage

Several large companies announced that they will increase their philanthropic activity and invest more in their workers—in the form of bonuses, higher wages, or additional hiring—after Congress passed sweeping tax reform legislation on Wednesday.

Telecommunications giant AT&T said that it will give $1,000 special bonuses to more than 200,000 employees and invest an additional $1 billion in the U.S. shortly after both the House and Senate passed the Republican tax plan, which, among other measures, lowers the corporate tax rate permanently to 21 percent from 35 percent, as of Jan. 1, 2018.

"Congress, working closely with the president, took a monumental step to bring taxes paid by U.S. businesses in line with the rest of the industrialized world," said Randall Stephenson, chairman and CEO of AT&T. "This tax reform will drive economic growth and create good-paying jobs. In fact, we will increase our U.S. investment and pay a special bonus to our U.S. employees."

Aerospace company Boeing announced that, as a result of tax reform legislation passing, it will commit $300 million to "employee-related and charitable investment."

The courier delivery services company FedEx, which projects that the legislation will boost annual profits by $1.3 billion, may hire additional employees and make other capital investments because of the tax overhaul.

"U.S. GDP could increase materially next year as a result of U.S. tax reform," chief financial officer Alan Graf said, according to the Washington Post. "If this occurs, we would likely increase capital expenditures and hiring to accommodate the additional volumes triggered from this incremental GDP growth."

Graf added that FedEx anticipates at least $5.9 billion in capital spending in 2018.

Banks are also announcing plans to benefit their employees with the passage of tax reform.

Wells Fargo said that it will raise its minimum wage for American employees to $15 an hour and increase its philanthropic giving by 40 percent in 2018 to $400 million.

Fifth Third will also raise its minimum wage to $15 an hour for employees and give bonuses of $1,000 to more than 13,500 employees.

"We want to invest in our most important asset—our people," said Greg Carmichael, president and CEO of Fifth Third. "Our employees drive our reputation, our business, and our success."

Telecommunications company Comcast, which owns NBC, announced that it will give bonuses of $1,000 to more than 100,000 employees because of the passage of tax reform. The bonuses will all go to non-executive employees.

The post Major Companies to Invest in Workers, Charity After Tax Reform Passage appeared first on Washington Free Beacon.

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U.S. Sanctions Top Burmese General, 51 Others for Human Rights Abuses

Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin

Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin / Getty Images

BY:

The Trump administration has leveled sanctions on 52 individuals from Burma, Russia, Uzbekistan, Pakistan, Nicaragua, and elsewhere under a new law designed to punish serious human rights abusers and corruption.

Trump issued the executive order Thursday imposing the sanctions and declared “a national emergency with respect to serious human rights abuse and corruption around the world.”

The list includes a former Burmese Army commander who oversaw military operations in the Rakhine State responsible for widespread human rights abuses against the Rohingya, a Muslim minority ethnic group in the country.

The sanctions also target Gulnara Karimova, the eldest daughter of the late longtime Uzbek president Islam Karimov, who headed a powerful organized crime syndicate, and Artem Chayka, the son of Russian official Yury Chayka. Artem Chayka is accused of using his father’s position and power to unfairly award state-owned assets and contracts.

The list includes Sergei Kusiuk, commander of an elite Ukrainian special police force, who is accused of leading an attack on peaceful protesters in 2013 and then ordering the destruction of papers documenting the events.

The administration imposed the sanctions under the Global Magnitsky Human Rights Accountability Act, which Congress passed last year. The law expanded the power of the original Magnitsky act, which only targets Russian individuals for the same type of alleged abuses.

Treasury announced on Wednesday new sanctions on five Russian individuals under the Magnitsky act, including Ramzan Kadyrov, the leader of the Chechnya region. The U.S. government accused Kadyrov of torture and “extra-judicial” killings.

“Today, the United States is taking a strong stand against human rights abuse and corruption globally by shutting these bad actors out of the U.S. financial system,” Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin said in a statement.

The Treasury Department froze the individuals’ assets and publicly denounced “the egregious acts they’ve committed, sending a message that there is a steep price to pay for their misdeeds,” Mnuchin added.

U.S. citizens and residents also are generally prohibited from engaging in transactions with the sanctioned individuals.

The list includes Roberto Jose Rivas Reyes, the president of Nicaragua’s electoral council, which is responsible for organizing elections in the country, for engaging in electoral fraud, and amassing a fortune—including multiple properties, jets, luxury vehicles, and a yacht—while receiving a modest government salary.

A bipartisan coalition of members of Congress, late last month, called on Trump to impose the sanctions on Reyes, as well as another Nicaraguan official, for a wide variety of “well-documented” human-rights abuses, corruption, and illicit activity in support of President Daniel Ortega’s regime.

The new sanctions also target Mukhtar Hamid Shah, a Pakistani surgeon specializing in kidney transplants who Pakistani police believe is involved in the trafficking of human organs.

Dan Gertler, an international businessman and billionaire accused of hundreds of millions of dollars in corrupt mining deals in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, also made the list, along with Yahya Jammeh, the former president of the Gambia who stepped down earlier this year, for a long history of engaging in human rights abuses and corruption, including creating and supporting the Junglers, a terror and assassination squad that answered directly to him.

Sergei Magnitsky was a Russian lawyer who was instrumental in exposing corruption at the Kremlin. Congress passed the original Magnitsky Act in 2012 to blacklist several officials linked to his murder.

Russian officials have decried the law and barred U.S. citizens from adopting Russian children in response.

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Rush Limbaugh Explains Why Democrats Are In PANIC Over GOP’s Huge Tax Win

Conservative talker Rush Limbaugh devoted a large portion of his radio show Wednesday to unpacking the “panic” the Democrats and the “Drive-Bys” are spiraling into as a result of the Republicans’ legislative triumph on tax reform, which saves taxpayers $1.5 trillion.

The top-rated talk show host started off by addressing the “fake news” spread by the left-leaning media about the re-vote triggered by “Senate nitpickers” over a few education-related provisions from the tax reform bill. “There were no screw ups,” said Limbaugh. “There were no mess-ups. There was nothing whatsoever fundamentally wrong with this requiring the House to vote again. It was simply a bunch of Senate nitpickers arguing over parliamentarian procedure.”

Limbaugh pointed out that the media was mysteriously not faulting the Democrats for complaining about the pro-education provisions. “Instead, they’re amused as the Democrats make the Republicans have to vote again and they seize this as an opportunity to report the Republicans don’t know what they’re doing. Or, the Republicans are providing another hidden loophole to the rich or other such lie,” said Limbaugh.

The real reason the media and their Democratic political counterparts are seizing on any possible point of criticism, no matter how absurd, is that they are internally “panicked” over the possible impact of the tax reform victory on 2018 and beyond. In the back of of their minds, Limbaugh suggested, is what happened after the Reagan tax cuts.

“[T]he Democrats think that they have won the House. It’s just a matter of the calendar playing out. They also think that this tax cut bill is gonna be a huge disaster. And it is. But for them,” said Limbaugh. “It’s gonna be every bit the disaster for them that the Reagan tax cuts were in 1981 and ’84. It’s gonna be a repeat.”

While Democrats are hoping that their “brethren in the media” can “muddy the waters” on the tax savings that a vast majority of Americans are about to enjoy, Limbaugh predicted that Americans will end up rewarding the Republicans — and the Democrats are now increasingly suspecting this, too.

“What happens when people see that the economy doesn’t stop, when people see that the economy keeps growing, when people see that businesses keep hiring, when people see that they have more disposable income, what will their reaction be based upon what they were prepared for from the Democrats and the media?” said Limbaugh.

“And that is where the Democrats are gonna get kicked,” he continued. “So looking ahead to 2018, every single Democrat in Congress, all 238 of them voted ‘no; on this. And what precisely did they vote ‘no’ on? They voted ‘no’ on cutting taxes. They voted ‘no’ on allowing the American people to keep more of what they earn. They voted ‘no’ on reforming the tax code in ways it hasn’t been in 30 years. They voted ‘no’ on a piece of legislation that cuts taxes for 80% of Americans. They voted no, all 238 of them voted ‘no’ on a bill that will make U.S. corporate behavior much more competitive globally because of the reduction in the corporate income tax rate from 35 to 21%. They voted ‘no’ on making American corporations more competitive in the world. They voted ‘no’ on a piece of legislation that will contribute and will see gross domestic product grow at 4% per year.”

Despite the Democrats and their media allies’ best attempts to will it to happen, suggested Limbaugh, all that “doom and gloom” they’ve been predicting won’t develop. In fact, the opposite will take place: “All of the growth and all of the personal income gains, all of the economic growth and employment is going to continue, and it’s going to speed up,” he said.

The Democrats’ desperate attempts to to stop tax reform proves his point, said Limbaugh. “If this tax cut is going to ruin the Republican Party, why didn’t they just shut up, stand aside, not provide any opposition and let it happen? If this tax cut is going to doom the Republican Party and Donald Trump to lose elections for the next generation, why did they throw everything they had at it?” he said.

The answer is revealed in Americans’ response to Reagan’s tax cuts.

“If you actually look back to Ronald Reagan in the eighties when he passed tax reform, it had lower approval ratings than this package,” said Limbaugh. “But the truth is when people start to see more money in their paychecks because of tax reform and they see the economy grow they’re gonna love it. In the long run because more money goes to families and you’re gonna see better economic growth, this is gonna be a winner for America, but also those of us who voted for tax reform.”

Transcript via RushLimbaugh.com

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US Preparing ‘Bloody Nose’ Attack On North Korea

Via NY Post:

The US is preparing plans to deliver a “bloody nose” attack against North Korea to knock out its nuclear weapons program.

The White House has “dramatically” ramped up its military plans amid fears that diplomacy won’t thwart North Korean despot Kim Jong Un from making good on his threats, sources told the UK’s Telegraph.

One option is destroying a launch site before the rogue regime uses it for a new missile test, while another is targeting weapons stockpiles, according to the news outlet.

The Trump administration hopes that pre-emptive action would show the trigger-happy dictator that the United States is serious about stopping his bellicose pursuits and persuading him to negotiate.

Keep reading…

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College Democrats Determine Pictures Of Kate Steinle Are Racist

Kate Steinle was the young woman who was killed by an illegal alien in San Francisco, after the city’s liberal sanctuary policies let the multiple-felon go instead of turning him over to immigration officials. Her killer was recently found not guilty of shooting her to death by a liberal SF jury. Continuing the awful treatment of this poor victim by liberals, the College Democrats at San Diego State University are calling her picture “racist propaganda.”

The College Fix reports that Gregory Lu put up some flyers on the SDSU campus featuring a picture of Steinle and the words: “She Had Dreams Too.” Lu says that all of the flyers had almost instantly been ripped down by angry leftist students and that the university has called him in to discuss his “harassment and discrimination” of his fellow students.

The SDSU College Democrats posted on Facebook about the Steinle flyers and let’s just say it’s pretty bonkers, even for liberal snowflakes.

“Last Friday, many UC San Diego students discovered racist propaganda distributed throughout the campus, targeting undocumented students and the undocumented community. This is not the first incident intended to stoke racial hatred, create feelings of intimidation, and incite fear amongst marginalized communities on our campus. The College Democrats at UCSD condemn these acts and stand proudly with DACA recipients, people of color, and the undocumented community,” read the statement.

But wait, it gets even more unhinged:

“The gross distortion of tragedy, ignoring the facts and reality, targets the undocumented community and criminalizes its members in an attempt to tear apart communities. It inflicts violence upon individuals whose safety, security, and wellbeing are already delegitimized by state policy and hateful rhetoric,” continued the statement.

Okay, let’s review the facts and reality of Kate Steinle’s murder. Illegal alien Jose Ines Garcia Zarate had been deported 5 times and convicted of 7 felonies. He was arrested in San Francisco, but because the city doesn’t cooperate with federal immigration officials, he was released instead of detained for a 6th deportation. Fresh off that sanctuary city reprieve, this piece of shit got his hands on a federal agent’s stolen gun and fired it on a crowded SF pier. The bullet struck Steinle and she died.

These are irrefutable facts and yet the College Democrats’ “reality” is that illegal aliens are the real victims here. Un-flippin’-believable.

Finally, there’s this:

“It is unacceptable to allow racism, bigotry, and hate to dominate the campus conversation, shifting the rhetoric of our university,” wrote the CD.

Followed immediately by a recommendation that students visit the “Raza Resource Centro.” In Spanish “raza” means race and refers to the racial purity of Hispanic people. So in order to get rid of racism and exclusion, students should visit a racist and exclusionary resource center? How does that work?

This is how twisted liberal thinking is, and I’m being kind calling it “thinking.” A woman is killed by an illegal alien and yet it is he they view as the true victim. Even worse, these liberal nutcases now consider Kate Steinle’s picture to be a symbol of hate and white supremacy.

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Pro-Life Win: CA Nursing Board Tells Pro-Abortion Advocates To Stuff It

On Tuesday, the pro-life movement got a lift and the pro-choice movement’s surreptitious attempt to blunt abortion reversal was defeated when the California Board of Registered Nursing said the pro-life group Heartbeat International could grant continuing education units (CEUs) to nurses who study Abortion Pill Reversal.

Abortion Pill Reversal is the procedure in which mothers who ingest mifepristone (RU-486) or “the abortion pill” regret the decision and use an emergency progesterone treatment to save their babies.

As Jay Hobbs of Heartbeat International notes at pregnancyhelpnews.com:

In the past five years, more than 400 mothers have successfully rescued their babies through an emergency progesterone treatment that has been used for more than 50 years to prevent miscarriages. Backed by a network of more than 350 medical providers, the Abortion Pill Reversal hotline (1-877-558-0333)—staffed with licensed medical professionals—answers over 50 calls per month from women who want to keep their baby after having started the chemical abortion pill process.

Here’s the timeline of what happened: in 2012, the California Board of Registered Nursing gave approval for Heartbeat as a CEU provider. Heartbeat then began offering credit for education on Abortion Pill Reversal online and at its annual conference.

So far, so good.

But in late 2015, an activist with Rewire.com, Nicole Knight, joined California State Sen. Jerry Hill (D-San Mateo) to pressure the Board into auditing Heartbeat. As Hobbs reports:

According to emails obtained through Heartbeat’s public records request, Knight and representatives from both NARAL and avowedly pro-abortion UC San Francisco insisted that Board officials take action against Heartbeat and its fellow pro-life pregnancy help groups, Care Net and National Institute of Family and Life Advocates (NIFLA).

Hill concurrently created legislation to try and disqualify all courses on Abortion Pill Reversal from receiving course credit. Although the law went into effect in 2016, it ultimately failed to disqualify the training.

Then, on July 28, 2017, the Board confirmed Heartbeat’s ability to offer CEU credit for the coursework.

On August 14, Knight contacted the Board to verify that it indeed had given the July confirmation. That prompted one high-ranking official to warn fellow administrators, “This issue has the potential to go viral.”

Spencer Walker, an attorney with the state’s Department of Consumer Affairs, sent a memo to Dr. Joseph Morris, executive officer of the nursing board, on August 14, warning the Board not to target Heartbeat. He denied the pro-abortion argument that abortion pill reversal was not science-based, writing:

The concept of abortion pill reversal is clearly science-based, and a registered nurse would likely be involved in the indirect care of a patient seeking abortion pill reversal assistance through education or other means. Therefore, the board could be exposed to litigation if it prohibits continuing education providers from offering courses in abortion pill reversal.

Even before that, in July 2017, Yale School of Medicine’s Dr. Harvey Kliman, speaking with The New York Times, said the protocol “makes biological sense,” allowing he would recommend the treatment to his own daughter.

Nevertheless, on September 5, 2017, the board reversed its own decision. On September 8 Rewire.com published a report noting that the Board had reversed itself and now banned Heartbeat from offering CEUs for any coursework related to Abortion Pill Reversal.

Heartbeat then appealed the decision and placed a public records request showing the coordination and influence from abortion lobbyists, including NARAL Pro-Choice America and Rewire.com.

The new decision permits Heartbeat to immediately resume offering CEU credit for an online course and for a workshop at its 2018 conference entitled, “The Latest on Abortion Pill Reversal,” taught by Dr. George Delgado—one of two physicians who pioneered the treatment starting in 2007.

Heartbeat president Jor-El Godsey, who had referred to the Board’s decision in September as a “naked political attack,” was relieved that the Board resisted the pressure from pro-abortion forces. He stated, “Whatever a person’s stance on abortion, knowledge of this critical protocol is too important to withhold from nurses. We’re glad that the Board of Nursing acted in the best interest of their noble and caring profession today.”

Delgado asserted:

This decision allows us to continue to spread the word that it is possible to reverse the abortion pill. It also supports our endeavor to further equip the pro-life medical community to serve as agents of hope to our hotline callers desperately seeking a second chance at life for their unborn. The “second choice” we offer women who change their minds after taking mifepristone not only gives their unborn babies a fighting chance, it also provides an avenue for emotional and spiritual healing. We are grateful to Heartbeat International for their tireless efforts to make Abortion Pill Reversal accessible to pro-life advocates and to the women they serve who may benefit from this life-saving treatment.

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Salvation Army Bell Ringer Punched in Face After Saying ‘Merry Christmas’

A man who was working as a bell-ringer for the Salvation Army was given a rude shock when his exhortation to have a “Merry Christmas” was greeted by a blow to the head followed by an attack by someone who wasn’t in the mood for holiday cheer.

Reverend Jamie Wolfe, Sr. was working outside of a Sacramento area Walmart as he typically does this time of year when he was viciously assaulted by a man who cold-cocked him and then wrestled with him on the ground, causing Wolfe to fear for his life.

No money was taken from the kettle so it appears that he may be another victim of war on Christmas if police locate the perp and determine that the incident may have been motivated out of hatred for the season and symbolism of Christmas.

Via Sacramento CBS affiliate CBS-13 “Bell Ringer Beaten After Wishing Man ‘Merry Christmas’”:

A Salvation Army bell ringer was attacked in front of Walmart for simply spreading holiday cheer.

“I greet everybody, ‘Merry Christmas,’” said Rev. Jamie Wolfe, Sr.

Sadly, those two simple words got this bell ringer knocked out.

“He haymakered me, hit me, got me down on the ground and we started wrestling, at that point I’m fighting for my life,” Wolfe Sr. said.

The man wasn’t after the kettle money, but instead, his cheer.

“Definitely unexpected,” he claimed.

It was a savage attack — not even a Grinch could compare.

“Store says they love him and he’s been the best bell ringer they’ve ever had, so an attack that’s unprovoked is very surprising and very unfortunate. It’s not the call we’d expect to get at night,” or ever said Lt. Steve Pavlakis with the Salvation Army.

Pavlakis has been with the organization for 14 years, and this hasn’t happened.

Rev. Wolfe suffered minor injuries and won’t let the attack deter him from spreading the holiday cheer, he will be back ringing the bell again on Thursday.

It is hoped that store surveillance videos can help identify the attacker who should be spending the rest of the holiday season behind bars.

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