Author: Admin

The Hill

President Trump on Wednesday issued his first commuted sentence for a federal prisoner, freeing Sholom Rubashkin, the former owner of the country’s largest kosher meat-processing plant who in 2009 was sentenced to 27 years in prison for a litany of financial crimes.

The commutation had bipartisan support from lawmakers and had become a cause among many leading voices in the legal community, petitioning the Obama and Trump administrations to draw attention to a sentence they said was wildly disproportionate to the crime that had been committed.
Continue reading “Trump issues first commuted prison sentence”

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COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) — Citing the deadly mass shooting in Las Vegas, South Carolina’s capital city approved a ban on “bump stock” devices that allow semi-automatic weapons to mimic fully automatic guns.

The measure was approved by Columbia City Council on Tuesday night. Mayor Steve Benjamin has said he thinks the city of 134,000 people is the first to ban bump stocks.   Continue reading “South Carolina capital city bans bump stock rifle attachment”

Seeking Alpha – by John Engle

With every tax bill there are winners and losers. Given the complexity of any major tax overhaul, it can take months or even years to figure out who those winners and losers actually are. Yet there is one indisputable winner we can point to immediately: commercial real estate investment.

On a range of points, real estate makes out like a bandit under the new law. Let’s take a look at a few of the provisions that will likely fuel the ongoing boom in commercial real estate.   Continue reading “The Big Winner Of The Tax Bill: Commercial Real Estate”

Reuters

LINCOLN, Nebraska (Reuters) – Nebraska regulators on Tuesday denied TransCanada Corp’s request to amend its route application for the proposed Keystone XL pipeline through the U.S. state, a potential setback for the company as it seeks to head off legal challenges.

The Nebraska Public Service Commission (PSC) issued an approval for the line in late November, removing what appeared to be the last big regulatory obstacle for the long-delayed project, which has been backed by U.S. President Donald Trump.  Continue reading “Nebraska regulators deny TransCanada request on Keystone XL route”

The Hill

The House on Tuesday approved the final version of the GOP’s bill to overhaul the U.S. tax code, bringing Republicans closer to getting their first big legislative win with full control of government.

The Senate is expected to pass the bill later on Tuesday, sending it to President Trump’s desk and allowing the GOP to achieve its goal of rewriting the tax code in Trump’s first year in office.

Continue reading “House passes final tax bill, edging GOP closer to win”

Wall Street Journal

U.S. fuel makers are poised to reap billions under a sweeping Republican overhaul of the tax code. But don’t expect them to expand, go on a hiring binge, or lower prices at the pump.

Refiners haven’t built any major new plants in the U.S. since the 1970s. Instead, they have been returning profits to shareholders en masse in recent years, because the country has more gasoline and diesel than it can consume.   Continue reading “Why Refiners Are Expected to Give Their Tax Savings Right Back to Shareholders”

Activist Post – by Nicholas West

As we continue to chart our path down the slippery slope of biometric identification for human beings, we’ve had to speculate about how far we could slide. Well, it appears that China is providing an early example that we would all be wise to take notice of.

It is now a fact that nearly all areas of the modern world have adopted some form of surveillance camera apparatus. Meanwhile, biometric identification technology has advanced to a degree where it’s now possible to merge the two and create not only a pervasive surveillance network, but a nearly real-time identification system that police can use to act upon.   Continue reading “China Accused of Using Biometric Surveillance to Send Thousands to Political Detention Camps”

Washington Post – by Laurie McGinley

The Food and Drug Administration on Monday proposed a tougher enforcement policy toward homeopathic drugs, saying it would target products posing the greatest safety risks, including those containing potentially harmful ingredients or being marketed for cancer, heart disease and opioid and alcohol addictions.

Homeopathy is based on an 18th-century idea that substances that cause disease symptoms can, in very small doses, cure the same symptoms. Modern medicine, backed up by numerous studies, has disproved the central tenets of homeopathy and shown that the products are worthless at best and harmful at worst.   Continue reading “FDA takes more aggressive stance toward homeopathic drugs”

NPR

The National Transportation Safety Board says an Amtrak passenger train that derailed from an overpass south of Tacoma, Wash., leaving at least three people dead, was traveling at 80 mph in a 30 mph zone.

At a news conference late Monday Pacific Time, NTSB board member Bella Dinh-Zarr said that the speed of the train at the time of the accident had been determined by downloading the Event Data Recorder from the train’s rear locomotive.   Continue reading “NTSB: Amtrak Washington Train Doing 80 MPH In 30 MPH Zone”

Just two weeks ago, the mayor of Lakewood (just north of Dupont where the Amtrak train derailed) warned there would be accidents if this were to go through.

KOMO News, December 4, 2017

LAKEWOOD, Wash. – City leaders gave a chilly reception to a new high-speed rail plan for Amtrak trains that starts running later this month.

The idea is to use the Sound Transit tracks that cut through the city and open them up to Amtrak trains. However, huge safety concerns remain.   Continue reading “Two weeks ago: Lakewood, WA mayor predicts deadly accidents from high-speed train service”

Zero Hedge – by Tyler Durden

It’s not just the ultra rich, as well as a dazed and confused Bob Corker who is set to reap a $1+ million windfall from the passage of a tax bill which he opposed until just days ago, who will benefit from the passage of tax reform: according to Goldman Sachs among the biggest beneficiaries from the GOP tax cuts are, drumroll, the big banks. In an analysis from Goldman’s Richard Ramsden, the FDIC-insured hedge fund writes that based on its “preliminary analysis of the current tax bill under consideration by  Congress, our EPS estimates for our coverage would increase by 13% on average if the US statutory rate were to be reduced to the proposed 21%, all else being equal.”  Continue reading “Goldman Finds Tax Reform Will Greatly Benefit The Big Banks”

Breitbart – by AWR Hawkins

St. Louis Mayor Lyda Krewson (D) is reacting to the rising crime in her city by offering to give people groceries in exchange for their firearms.

She will do this via the kind of buyback program that Democrats in other cities have unsuccessfully implemented around the country.

On December 8, 2017, KSDK reported that St. Louis had witnessed more murders in 2017 than in any year since 1995. On December 11 the St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department listed the number of murders, year-to-date, at 197.  Continue reading “St. Louis Mayor: Give Us Your Guns, We’ll Give You Groceries”

Tech Crunch – by Devin Coldewey

Despite overwhelming opposition from Congress, technical experts, advocacy organizations, and of course the American people, the FCC has voted to eliminate 2015’s Open Internet Order and the net neutrality protections it established.

The order passed today, “Restoring Internet Freedom,” essentially removes the FCC as a regulator of the broadband industry and relegates rules that prevented blocking and throttling content to the honor system. The FTC now ostensibly has that role, but it is far from an expert agency on this topic and cannot make preemptive rules like those that have been in place for the last few years.   Continue reading “The FCC officially votes to kill net neutrality”