#and he is! and he also has a Very ambitious list of policy goals

[birlwrites]

no thoughts head empty only minister of magic sirius black

[hardynwa]

FIRS targets N19.4trn revenue

The Federal Inland Revenue Service surpassed its 2023 revenue target by N816bn, a 107 per cent performance over the set goal and has set a target to collect N19.4 turn in tax this year. The Coordinating Director of Special Tax Operations Group, Amina Ado, disclosed this at the 2024 management retreat on Wednesday. The Federal Government expects N19.41trn revenue from the FIRS in 2024. This target represents a significant increase of 56.9 per cent from the previous year’s actual revenue and 67.91 per cent from the previous year’s target. FIRS had a target of N11.56trn however, it realised N12.37trn, an N816bn higher in 2023. While stating the strategy the agency will deploy to achieve the N19.4trn revenue, Ado noted that the agency engaged with other regulators in 2023 to achieve its success and will continue to engage them, other tax practitioners and intermediaries this year. “We engaged with other regulators in 2023 and we will continue to engage them, tax practitioners, intermediaries and the withholding concept to expand the tax base as much as possible under the law. “The law has given us a lot of opportunities to expand the withholding concept so that we can take the taxes and that way, the leakages downstream can be lowered. These are strategies we will deploy to ensure we deliver on this ambitious target”, she said. She added that the FIRS will ensure its service delivery to taxpayers is improved while it will reorganise ligation and prosecution to make sure those who are not compliant will be brought to book. “We will improve the management of large taxpayers and these sector contributors because they provide a lot of revenue we are seeing. We will improve service delivery and leverage technology to make sure we make it easy for taxpayers to pay. “For those who are not compliant, we will make it very difficult for them to do so. We will reorganise our litigation and prosecution and enforce our debt collection processes to ensure the defaulters are brought to book,” she said. The FIRS also recorded a 21.7 per cent increase in its 2022 revenue of N10.18trn. The trend of increase in projected revenue has been maintained between 2019 and 2023 where it recorded N5.262 trn, N4.952 trn, N6.403 trn, N10.179 trn, and N12.374 trn, respectively. According to the Coordinator, Company Income tax topped the list as the most collected tax for the year as it makes up 36.14 per cent of the total taxes collected in 2023, It is followed by Value Added Tax of N3.64 trn and Petroleum Profit Tax of N3.17 trn. The data shows that the Federal Government expects more taxes from the oil sector, about N9.96trn this year. This is about 214.2 per cent of what was generated from this form of tax last yeaAdo noted that the sustained growth in revenue collection is largely attributed to FIRS’s administrative reforms, such as the automation of tax collection processes, the introduction of TaxPro-Max, and the use of third-party data for enhanced tax intelligence. Policy reforms have also played a significant role, including the increase in VAT and Education Tax rates and improvements in tax laws through Finance Acts. “Despite these achievements, FIRS acknowledges the challenges ahead, particularly in the face of global economic uncertainties, fluctuating oil prices, and internal resistance to change. However, the agency remains resolute in its commitment to national duty, aiming to silence doubts and confidently declare its capability to meet and exceed its targets,” she assured. Speaking at the retreat, the Executive Chairman, Zacch Adedeji, said the target is achievable with the series of reforms being implemented by the Service. He said, “Our focus is to drive for long-term compliance. And in a few minutes now, by those rules, we have the new structure that we have. And what we’ve done in general is to move from the functional type of tax unit to customer-centred. “And we want to use that to drive compliance because the focus cannot be on investigation. The real strategy is to drive compliance and the way to do it is that there will always be consequences for noncompliance. “So, The focus should not be let’s go and tax informal. The focus should be to move the informal sector to the formal sector, improve their skill and then we can tax them.” Read the full article

[sciencespies]

Depleted Under Trump, a ‘Traumatized’ E.P.A. Struggles With Its Mission

https://sciencespies.com/environment/depleted-under-trump-a-traumatized-e-p-a-struggles-with-its-mission/

Depleted Under Trump, a ‘Traumatized’ E.P.A. Struggles With Its Mission

Despite an injection of funding, the agency still has not recovered from an exodus of scientists and policy experts, both insiders and critics say.

WASHINGTON — The nation’s top environmental agency is still reeling from the exodus of more than 1,200 scientists and policy experts during the Trump administration. The chemicals chief said her staff can’t keep up with a mounting workload. The enforcement unit is prosecuting fewer polluters than at any time in the past two decades.

And now this: the stressed-out, stretched-thin Environmental Protection Agency is scrambling to write about a half dozen highly complex rules and regulations that are central to President Biden’s climate goals.

The new rules have to be enacted within the next 18 months — lightning speed in the regulatory world — or they could be overturned by a new Congress or administration.

The regulations are already delayed months past E.P.A.’s own self-imposed deadlines, raising concerns from supporters in Congress and environmental groups. “It’s very fair to say we are not where we hoped we’d be,” said Miles Keogh, executive director of the National Association of Clean Air Agencies, which represents most state and local air regulators.

As staffing at the E.P.A. thinned out, the workload only increased, both the agency and its critics say.

Career employees are being “worked to death,” said Betsy Southerland, a former top E.P.A. scientist. “They’re under the greatest pressure they’ve ever been.”

Michael S. Regan, the E.P.A. administrator, at an event announcing new national clean air standards for heavy-duty trucks last month.Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images

Biden administration officials insist the agency has delivered more environmental protections than any previous presidency and listed dozens of new policies, including the creation of a high-level office focused for the first time on addressing racial disparities when it comes to environmental hazards.

The agency’s administrator, Michael S. Regan, has promised that new regulations being written by his staff now will be made public by spring. Agency officials said that the E.P.A. has stepped up its recruitment efforts and has purchased software that has helped it identify more potential job candidates, particularly from universities.

The Biden Administration’s Environmental Agenda

Limits on Soot: The Biden administration proposed to tighten limits on a deadly air pollutant also known as soot responsible for thousands of premature deaths every year. 

Hunting Tactics: The National Park Service is moving to prohibit hunters on some public lands in Alaska from baiting black bears with doughnuts and invading wolf dens to kill pups.

Wind Power: The United States will need thousands of wind farms to reach President Biden’s ambitious climate goals. Rural counties have the land, but will they go along?

Mail Trucks: In a win for the Biden administration, the United States Postal Service said it would spend nearly $10 billion to create one of the largest electric truck fleets in the nation.

“The agency is moving further and faster than ever before,” Dan Utech, Mr. Regan’s chief of staff, said in a statement. He added that accomplishments had come “despite depleted staffing levels, persistent funding challenges and a previous administration that left the agency neglected and scientifically compromised.”

The E.P.A. is at an unusual juncture. The 2021 bipartisan infrastructure law and the climate law enacted last year have begun to pump $90 billion into the agency over the next 10 years for climate projects like $1.5 billion for new technologies to monitor and reduce methane emissions from oil and gas wells, $5 billion for states to purchase low-emission school buses and $3 billion to cut pollution at ports. For the first time, the E.P.A. has “a little bit of walking-around money,” Mr. Regan joked to staff at a recent meeting.

But experts said they worry the E.P.A.’s regulatory and enforcement work is taking a back seat to issuing grants.

“E.P.A. is a regulatory agency, and I worry the huge piles of money they now have to administer and manage could end up obscuring the regulatory work the statutes say they have to do,” said Eric Schaeffer, executive director of the Environmental Integrity Project, a watchdog group.

And time is running out.

Mr. Biden wants to cut United States greenhouse gas emissions roughly in half this decade in order to avoid the most severe climate disruptions. Analysts say that even with the new climate law, the president can’t achieve his goal without new regulations designed to cut carbon dioxide and other pollutants from power plants, cars and trucks.

The process from proposing a regulation to enacting it can take months, and the current delays may mean that some rules are not completed until next year. Under the Congressional Review Act, lawmakers can repeal any regulation within 60 legislative days of being finalized with a simple majority vote. So any final rule issued in late 2024 could be repealed by Republicans if they maintain control of the House and pick up seats in the Senate in the November 2024 elections.

Climate advocates say the E.P.A. has yet to propose rules to limit greenhouse gas emissions from new gas-fired power plants and existing coal and gas plants.Kendrick Brinson for The New York Times

Moreover, Biden administration climate rules are also likely to face legal challenges. If a new administration is elected in 2024, it might opt not to defend the rules in court.

.css-1v2n82wmax-width:600px;width:calc(100% - 40px);margin-top:20px;margin-bottom:25px;height:auto;margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;font-family:nyt-franklin;color:var(--color-content-secondary,#363636);@media only screen and (max-width:480px).css-1v2n82wmargin-left:20px;margin-right:20px;@media only screen and (min-width:1024px).css-1v2n82wwidth:600px;.css-161d8zrwidth:40px;margin-bottom:18px;text-align:left;margin-left:0;color:var(--color-content-primary,#121212);border:1px solid var(--color-content-primary,#121212);@media only screen and (max-width:480px).css-161d8zrwidth:30px;margin-bottom:15px;.css-tjtq43line-height:25px;@media only screen and (max-width:480px).css-tjtq43line-height:24px;.css-x1k33hfont-family:nyt-cheltenham;font-size:19px;font-weight:700;line-height:25px;.css-1hvpcvefont-size:17px;font-weight:300;line-height:25px;.css-1hvpcve emfont-style:italic;.css-1hvpcve strongfont-weight:bold;.css-1hvpcve afont-weight:500;color:var(--color-content-secondary,#363636);.css-1c013uzmargin-top:18px;margin-bottom:22px;@media only screen and (max-width:480px).css-1c013uzfont-size:14px;margin-top:15px;margin-bottom:20px;.css-1c013uz acolor:var(--color-signal-editorial,#326891);-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;font-weight:500;font-size:16px;@media only screen and (max-width:480px).css-1c013uz afont-size:13px;.css-1c013uz a:hover-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;

How Times reporters cover politics. We rely on our journalists to be independent observers. So while Times staff members may vote, they are not allowed to endorse or campaign for candidates or political causes. This includes participating in marches or rallies in support of a movement or giving money to, or raising money for, any political candidate or election cause.

Learn more about our process.

A recent report card from Evergreen, an environmental group, found the E.P.A. was behind its own deadlines on nine key environmental regulations, including limits on power plant emissions of mercury and other toxic substances, ozone standards, and curtailing the storage of coal ash to avoid spills and contamination. Most worrisome, climate advocates said, is that the agency has yet to propose rules to limit greenhouse gas emissions from new gas-fired power plants and existing coal and gas plants — measures that energy analysts say will be necessary to eliminate fossil fuels from the electricity sector by 2035 as Mr. Biden has pledged to do.

In a recent interview, Mr. Regan said his agency has recently been reassessing its regulatory plans. The millions of dollars now available through the climate law to make it cheaper and easier for utilities and automobile manufacturers to move away from fossil fuels has led the agency to consider whether it could impose more stringent emissions goals than initially conceived, he said. That would move the power and transportation sectors of the economy even faster away from fossil fuels. He said developing the legal and economic justification for such regulations would take time but was nearing completion.

“This spring, you’re going to see a number of actions taken by E.P.A.” Mr. Regan said.

Despite the billions earmarked for climate programs, E.P.A. remains underfunded and understaffed when it comes to its other obligations, including enforcing environmental laws and evaluating chemicals to ensure they don’t pose an unreasonable risk to human health or the environment.

The nonpartisan Environmental Integrity Project recently found that federal environmental enforcement was slipping under Mr. Biden. E.P.A.’s civil cases against polluters hit a two-decade low in 2022, with 72 such enforcement cases closed in court. That’s fewer than during the Trump administration, which bristled against restrictions on industry yet closed an average of 94 enforcement cases per year. The Obama administration averaged 210 per year, the report found. E.P.A. officials said they were focused on protecting heavily polluted communities by increasing inspections and targeting the most serious violations.

Industries regulated by the E.P.A. are also frustrated, saying the agency is taking too long to determine whether new and existing chemicals pose an unreasonable risk to the environment or human health.

The American Chemistry Council, which represents companies like Dow, DuPont and ExxonMobil Chemical, is frustrated by “constant delays and lack of transparency in how resources are being deployed,” according to a statement from Kimberly Wise White, vice president of regulatory and scientific affairs at the trade group.

President Biden at the Brayton Point Power Station in Massachusetts, a former coal-fired plant that is being converted to connect offshore wind turbines to the electrical grid.Doug Mills/The New York Times

Michal Freedhoff, who leads the E.P.A.’s chemical unit, told Congress recently that the office of chemical safety would fall short of its obligations and miss many “significant statutory deadlines.” She blamed the fact that after a 2016 law significantly increased the agency’s duties, the E.P.A. under the Trump administration never sought the resources from Congress that were required to perform the work.

In fact, Mr. Trump tried each year to slash the E.P.A. budget by at least 30 percent. Highly skilled scientists and other experts left the agency as the Trump administration dismantled science advisory panels, disregarded scientific evidence and weakened protections against pollution.

“They beat down the E.P.A. work force, a lot of people left dispirited,” said Senator Tom Carper, Democrat of Delaware and chairman of the Committee on Environment and Public Works, which oversees the E.P.A.

The result is that the E.P.A.’s chemical safety office is way behind, Ms. Freedhoff told Congress. Attracting and retaining staff has been difficult because of the heavy workload, she said.

Mr. Carper said he was “impatient,” particularly with the regulatory delays, and had expressed that to Mr. Regan personally.

The E.P.A. is hiring and, in the past two years, has increased its payroll by 3 percent, up to 14,844 employees. But that has brought total staffing levels to slightly more than when Ronald Reagan was president.

Staffing at the E.P.A. peaked in 2004 during the George W. Bush administration, when there were 17,611 employees, according to the agency. Those levels ebbed and flowed slightly, but began to take a sharp dip during the Obama administration amid Republican control of the House and Senate.

When Mr. Trump entered the White House, the E.P.A. had 15,408 employees. The following year it dropped to 14,172 employees, a level that stood more or less steady until the Biden administration.

It was only last month that the agency received its first significant budget increase in years, an additional $576 million, for enforcement and compliance, as well as clean air, water and toxic chemical programs.

Max Stier, the head of the Partnership for Public Service, a nonpartisan organization that seeks to make government more effective, said the E.P.A. faced a “consequential hurdle” to both accomplishing the long list of rules that Mr. Biden has promised and to expanding further to make sure money from the new climate law gets spent effectively.

“You have an organization that was at some level traumatized to begin with, that was facing difficulties created over many, many years of divestment and now you have a new set of requirements that are going to call for new capabilities,” he said. “They’re going to have to build up their strength, and that does not happen overnight.”

#Environment

[96thdayofrage]

Gifted and talented programs have been the target of criticism ever since the concept took hold in the 1970s as huge demographic changes were transforming urban school districts. White, middle-class families were fleeing to the suburbs. Like magnet schools, accelerated programs for gifted students were attractive to many of these families and provided a way to counteract this flight and maintain diversity in city school systems. The problem was that gifted programs tended to foster racial separation inside schools, undermining the very goal they were supposed to support.

Today, gifted programs still tend to separate students by race. New York City is a case in point. There, the education department has been struggling for years to change the demographic makeup of its gifted program—which is disproportionately white and Asian—and spread access to a more representative group of students. There are a handful of open-enrollment gifted schools in the city, but the district’s efforts at increasing diversity in the bulk of gifted and talented classrooms have largely backfired.

Back in 2006, a quarter of students in New York City gifted classrooms were white, although white students made up only 15 percent of the student population. The district attempted to level the playing field by eliminating a subjective system in which teachers and preschools played a major role in deciding which students were identified as gifted. From then on, students across the city would have to take the same two tests. Decisions about who made it in would be centralized. The hope was that using more objective measures would expand access and prevent in-the-know parents from gaming the system.

But relying on tests produced the opposite effect. Middle-class parents frantically prepped their four-year-olds for testing. This year, 70 percent of students identified as gifted in the city are white or Asian, up from 68 percent last year, while just over a quarter are black or Hispanic.

In 2006, before it changed the admissions system, New York City opened 15 new gifted and talented programs to serve more minority children, bringing the number of schools with the programs to more than 200, according to officials at the time. By 2009, many of those programs had been shuttered. There were only about 140 schools with gifted classrooms that year. This year, there are just 88. The neighborhoods that lost gifted and talented programs tended to be those with high concentrations of blacks and Hispanics: Bedford-Stuyvesant, East New York, Flatbush, Washington Heights.

Asked about the changes, department officials said they have actually increased the number of gifted and talented seats in recent years to meet growing demand. Given the decrease in the number of schools offering the program and the declining percentage of minorities in the program, it follows that the new seats are probably concentrated in just a few schools, many of them in affluent areas. So the question is, should they keep expanding the program? As a recent New York Times article noted, “The accelerated classrooms serve as pipelines to the city’s highest-achievement middle schools and high schools, creating a cycle in which students who start out ahead get even further advantages from the city’s schools.” In places like the D.C. suburbs, gifted and talented programs have the same dynamic.

Proponents of gifted education argue vigorously against doing away with it entirely. “There’s nothing worse than having a bright, talented child just sitting,” says Joan Franklin Smutny, director of the Center for Gifted, a nonprofit based in a Chicago suburb. “They need to be challenged. They need to be inspired.”

Joseph Renzulli, director of the National Research Center on the Gifted and Talented at University of Connecticut, agrees with Smutny: “The biggest problem with bright kids in urban schools besides being picked on, is they are dying from boredom. The longer they stay in school, the lower their scores become.”

Supporting their argument is a 2011 study of high-achieving children by the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, a conservative think tank. It found that many such students lose ground over time, prompting the researchers to worry that “closing achievement gaps and ‘leaving no child behind’ [are] coming at the expense of our ‘talented tenth’—and America’s future international competitiveness.”

The racial disparities are “a great shame, of course,” wrote Chester Finn, the president of Fordham, in a recent blog post, “but it’s not exactly a surprise that more affluent kids are likelier to end up in gifted programs. Their families don’t face the stress of poverty, and they tend to have two parents who read to their children, send them to preschool, etc.”

Determining whether a child is actually more intelligent than her peers or whether she’s just the product of more affluent, ambitious parents is a difficult task for school systems interested in breaking the cycle of privilege that gifted education tends to fuel. Experts caution against relying heavily on tests, as New York does, but there are no national or even state standards defining giftedness, according to the National Society for the Gifted and Talented, an advocacy group.

The society suggests that parents and teachers check a list of traits, including whether children are “perfectionist and idealistic,” “asynchronous,” meaning they develop unevenly, or “problem solvers.” Smutny says teachers should be trained to look for a different set of characteristics, such as creativity, well-developed imaginations, and curiosity, which she says are correlated with above-average intelligence. They must also be trained to “cut through” stereotypes, she says, so that talented children who are also poor or from a racial minority are not overlooked.

Is there a better way to provide education for gifted children without exacerbating racial inequities? Officials in the Washington, D.C. public schools believe they’ve found a possible answer. This year, for the first time in more than a decade, the D.C. schools have reintroduced gifted education. The decision comes as many city neighborhoods are experiencing a surge of new middle-class, white families, and one reason for the reintroduction of gifted classes is to entice more of them to choose public, not private, schools. The district opened one gifted program in a middle school near the affluent blocks around Georgetown University.

But it also opened one at Kelly Miller in Ward 7, a majority low-income, African-American middle school, and at West Education Campus, in the 16th Street Heights neighborhood, where there is a small but growing population of Hispanic immigrants mixing with the predominantly black population.

Unlike traditional gifted programs, which usually require a test to get in, the D.C. programs are open to any student who wants to enroll. D.C. is aiming the program both at students who are book smart and those who may struggle on traditional measures of achievement but have other extraordinary talents that are harder to measure with a test. The plan is to “build up the gifts they have rather than just focus on their weaknesses,” said Matthew Reif, the district’s director of advanced and enriched instruction.

The principal at Kelly Miller, Abdullah Zaki, explains that the idea is to expand the concept of giftedness. “If there’s a kid who is not reading at grade level but has the gift of gab and can argue you down in a heartbeat, they’re obviously interested in debate,” he says. “We can take their natural gift and talent and hone and polish it.” Working on the skill the student enjoys and is good at might improve other skills that don’t come as naturally—analysis, reading of complex texts, etc., adds Zaki.

Administrators want to reach students who have the potential to excel at school but who haven’t been given the chance to demonstrate their gifts. But there’s another goal, too. “One thing we have learned,” said Reif, is that relying exclusively on tests to identify gifted students “often disproportionately identifies white and Asian students, and that leads to equity issues.”

The open-door policy D.C. has embraced may offer a way around the dilemma of identifying gifted children. “The bias should be to let students who want to try these classes try them,” said Gary Orfield, a political scientist at UCLA who has advocated for more racial integration in schools. “There should be a very explicit commitment to race and class diversity and targeted recruitment to make it happen.”

But simply allowing all comers to participate in gifted education doesn’t erase its problems. When Kelly Miller Middle School in Ward 7 launched its gifted program last fall, principal Abdullah Zaki says he “thought it would be a big clamor throughout our community—parents rushing to get their kids into our building. That didn’t happen the way I wanted.”

Convincing the African-American families in Kelly Miller’s neighborhood to enroll their children has been a challenge, partly because for many the term “gifted and talented” was a foreign concept, Zaki says. He’s taken to using synonyms like “honors” to persuade parents to take an interest, even if it doesn’t quite capture what the school is trying to offer students.

In addition, placing students with a wide range of abilities together is a difficult undertaking for teachers. It takes tremendous skill to create lesson plans that will challenge high-achieving students while not leaving others behind—one reason gifted programs were created in the first place. D.C. has hired three specialized teachers to lead the gifted programs at each of the middle schools with the program. They spend time each week with small groups of students working on projects tailored to the group’s talents and interests. But the specialized teachers’ time is divided among all of the classrooms in the school. And Kelly Miller is also offering a more traditional version of gifted education, with a track of accelerated math and literacy courses for students who score well in those subjects.

The ”schoolwide enrichment model,” as it’s called, has had some success elsewhere, but there’s no data yet to show how the schools are doing. D.C. officials say they’re watching the experiment closely and will look at test scores and teacher, parent, and student responses, and other measures at the end of the year.

The D.C. model may end up being a watered-down version of gifted and talented education that can’t match the more exclusive programs found in New York and other places. But it’s also much fairer, and it may also be a more effective way to reach the students with true innate talent. The Fordham study’s other major finding was that a large number of children are “late bloomers,” whose abilities appear only later in their school careers. At Kelly Miller, Zaki says the whole point is to identify these students—the ones with potential and talent who have so far been overlooked, possibly because of their race or class. “That’s the excellent thing about it,” he said. “These kids exist.”

[clexa--warrior]

Hey, Have You Heard About This Coronavirus Thing? Crazy Shit, Right? (Ferret/Shower Cap)

History texts depicting this period will read like deranged Choose Your Adventure books written by sadists; no matter how frantically you flip backwards, you just can’t seem to find the page when you still had the option to vote for the really smart lady with the email server. Anyway, join me for a quick news round-up, it won’t take long, and when we’re done, I give you permission to run away to join a roving Thai monkey street gang.

(As always, find this post WITH nifty news links here: http://showercapblog.com/hey-have-you-heard-about-this-coronavirus-thing-crazy-shit-right/)

For those of you just waking up from a Rip Van Winkle nap, the United States is facing a massive, coast-to-coast, health crisis, whose tragic consequences have exploded exponentially because our Idiot Manchild President really believed, in that churning campground septic tank he calls a mind, that protecting his personal approval ratings by understating the problem was more important than the health and safety of the American public. I don’t know what you can call that but murder. On the one hand, it’s weird to say “wow, the President murdered a bunch Americans through boneheaded, unforgivably selfish, neglect,” but we already saw him get away with precisely that crime in Puerto Rico, so here we are.

Now, I have come to expect malice from the federal government under Hairplug Himmler, but sometimes their capacity for raw, senseless, evil still shocks me. This is my way of saying that, until they got fucking caught, the Department of, and Someone Should Slap the Word Out of Their Filthy Mouths, Justice attempted to remove CDC fliers offering potentially life-saving information regarding the coronavirus from...immigration courtrooms. My God. What a small but potent horror. Feels like the work of an ambitious intern in Stephen Miller’s office, doesn’t it? Trying to impress the boss? Just a sinister little trick, to spread a little more pain, a little more misery, a little more death in an already vulnerable, and whatta-coincidence-nonwhite, community? Fuck these awful, awful, people.

It seems President Liposuction Clinic Dumpster has been calling up leading Taliban terrorists on a secret U.S. kill-or-capture list, presumably to trade tips n’ tricks on how to undermine the USA at home and abroad. Now, negotiating with these murderous dirtbags is a big diplomacy no-no (and of course Donnie Dotard got rolled anyway) but in all honestly, if I had access to a secret kill list contact sheet, I’d probably give in to the temptation to make some prank calls. “Is your refrigerator running? Yeah? Are you sure it’s not a FLEET OF DRONES ABOVE YOU RIGHT NOW?”

For Jeff Sessions, the wages of sin turned out to be a faceful of Trump-branded fecal matter, as the Candycorn Skidmark, whose campaign Ol’ Beauregard embraced way back before fascism was cool in conservative circles, endorsed his opponent in the coming Alabama Senate runoff. How must it feel to have been the very fellow who flipped the switch on the Rube Goldberg/Mousetrap Board Game device that destroyed America, and to watch the machine work its destructive magic for years, only to realize it’s also got one special crotch punt in store for just you personally. I’d feel bad for Bilbo Bigot, if it he weren’t, y’know, one of the very worst people alive.

Alex Jones got arrested for drunk driving, and, upon his release, got right back to work selling...sigh...selling some bullshit toothpaste that he’s telling the rubes magically cures the coronavirus. Authorities are cracking down on Jones and fellow charlatan Jim Bakker over their odious snake oil peddling enterprises, but I don’t know what’s more shocking and disappointing to me, that there are such vile fuckwads in the world, who seek to profit off the fear of the misinformed during times of crisis, or that said fuckwads have so many blind, willing, disciples?

Speaking of fuckwads, Ron Johnson seems to have backed down, for now at any rate, from his quest to stage a show trial for Hunter Biden in the U.S Senate. And that’s awesome and all, but never forget how ready, how eager, RoJo has been, to corruptly manipulate the vast powers of the government for his democracy-stomping Turdlord’s political benefit. Ron is the kind of fellow you’d have found stamping documents outside trains bound for Dachau.

But yeah, I suppose the big story is still that coronavirus thing. Great choice on evolution’s part, the way symptoms don’t necessarily manifest right away, so we can spread that shit around without knowing we’re even infected. Anyway, I made sure to thoroughly disinfect tonight’s blog before posting, and medical professionals inform me that though the virus can linger on plastic and metal surfaces for as long as days, it cannot survive on a poo joke, so please rest easy, knowing you can safely consume this content in comfort. Unless you're reading it next to somebody with the coronavirus, but that's on you, kid.

The Shart Administration has actually slowed progress in this crucial fight, by classifying high-level coronavirus meetings, because they’re more worried about congressional oversight of their crimes n’ fuckups than they are about OUR LIVES, and y’know what, I do believe I’ll be voting Democrat this November.

And of course, many conservatives are more concerned with blaming the virus on the Chinese than preventing its spread; by gum, there’s no need to abandon yer principles, even when your ineptitude is getting countless folks sick and/or killed! “We may be a cabal of dangerously incompetent assclowns, but let none forget that we are also RACIST assclowns!”

With the stock market finally catching up to the rest of the world in noticing a pudding-brained twit had inexplicably been placed in charge of the most powerful nation in history, Pumpkin Spice Pol Pot oozed into the Oval Office for a prime time speech, and if his goal was “fuck up the entire world as much as humanly possible in ten short minutes,” then he succeeded beyond his wildest imaginings.

It was a speech that completely failed to reassure, instead reminding the world that this drooling manbaby, this bathtub drain hair clog in an ill-fitting suit, truly is President of the Entire United Fucking States, and not only is he light years out of his element but he’s probably spending most of his time practicing his “the world is ending, you have to go out with me now” phone call to Salma Hayek rather than pursuing desperately-needed solutions.

Despite being on teleprompter, with the text of the fucking speech right fucking in front of him, Dorito Mussolini somehow managed to catastrophically misrepresent his own administration’s policies, dropping one more cartoon anvil on the stock market’s already-throughly-bludgeoned ballsack. This is, of course, on top of nonsensical non-solutions like banning travel from Europe, when the virus had already had weeks to spread throughout the country thanks to presidential bungling and neglect.

For 73 years, this cretin has somehow never encountered a problem he couldn’t lie, buy, or bully his way out of, but COVID-19 doesn’t care how much money your daddy gave you, little man. And may I say, on behalf of the thousands who are about to become sick, fuck you. Fuck you eternally with a rusty shovel, for daring to take on such an important job without the skills, temperament, or character to execute its duties. Asshole.

In contrast, Smilin’ Joe Biden gave a speech of his own; calm, collected, solemn, and filled with concrete steps to address the problems facing the nation. And America collectively went, “Oh right, it’s actually highly abnormal to have a gibbering, rectum-mouthed, dolt for a President, and we can actually have a decent, competent, one again! Soon!” It was like leadership porn. I got aroused.

Meanwhile, our already-hopelessly-overmatched Golf Cheat in Chief is multitasking, lobbing missiles at Iran-backed militias in Iraq. I’m just hoping the buttons on his desk are clearly labeled, y’know? Or at least that there’s somebody hanging around who can tackle him before he bombs Seattle and launches 500 respirators at Tehran.

So, um, in the midst of this once-in-generation shitstorm, I guess Sarah Palin dressed up in a bear suit to perform “Baby Got Back” on a reality television program. I’m not a religious person, honestly, but I’m increasingly open to the idea that there is a God, and that s/he’s been on a meth bender since mid-2016.

Social distancing is the zany new anti-dance craze sweeping the nation as we all do our damndest to not get sick and die! As a result, public gatherings are getting called off left and right. March Madness, MLB, NBA, PGA, SXSW, Broadway...personally, I don’t think I fully appreciated the scope of this crisis until I saw the XFL shut down their season. Like, are we even America anymore without one billionaire’s sad attempt to reboot his once-failed vanity project?

As sensible organizations all over the world made painful but obviously necessary sacrifices to, y’know, slow the spread of a deadly disease and save lives, naturally the Velveeta Vulgarian was among the last holdouts, canceling his precious hate rallies only grudgingly, because the safety of even his own fervent base is secondary to the sugar rush of their rageful cheers, filling, if only for a moment, that empty space within him where most people have a soul.

Now more than ever, I am brimming over with gratitude that we took the House back in 2018. Thank god there’s a little leadership, a little accountability, a little common frickin’ sense in Washington now. And thank god for Katie Porter, one of the standouts in a freshman class packed with absolute ass-kickers, cornering the CDC chief into exercising his legal authority to make coronavirus testing free for every American. Imagine if Kevin McCarthy were running the House right now. He’d be fleeing from reporters, in mismatched loafers, trying to sell the public on a bill bailing out nothing but Trump University and Marm-a-Lago.

Well, the Emperor of Hemorrhoids finally buckled and declared (acknowledged) a state of emergency over the coronavirus, which is admittedly a pleasant change from his previous “do everything I possibly can to help the fucker spread” position. We’re still woefully behind, and god only knows how deeply the virus has penetrated while the doddering old bastard diddled and dawdled, but the good news is, the President of the United States finally moved his bloated ass out of the road so we can get to work cleaning up his mess, which is, I suppose, as close to an act of kindness as he’s come in his entire misspent, treacherous, life.

In the middle of today’s press conference, Vice President Mike Pants paused to give Boss Turdworm a rhetorical handjob seemingly designed to last through an entire 14-day quarantine. Jeeeeesus. Mikey Hairshirt was a man once. Not much of one, to be certain, but at least he didn’t have to worry about the possibility of bored schoolchildren pouring salt on him, which would of course prove swiftly fatal in his current state.

A reporter asked Government Cheese Goebbels, “Hey, if you’re not too busy fellating yourself over fucking up slightly less than you’ve been fucking up for weeks, why the fuck did you close down the pandemic office, you nation-wrecking clod?” and he whinged that the question was “nasty,” before reiterating his refusal to take responsibility for the things that are, objectively, his fault. I truly do not understand how this trembling coward’s approval rating isn’t 0%

So Nancy Pelosi spent the week trying to hammer out an emergency bill with Steve Mnuchin, but Republicans naturally balked at many necessary measures. It’s a tricky spot for the GOP; they can’t risk the mass-extermination of the underpaid labor/consumer force that keeps their donor class filthy rich, but doing anything to improve working folks’ lives is just instinctually anathematic to them. But at the time of posting, it does appear as though a deal has been reached, let’s hope no spray-tanned morons fuck it up, right?

In conclusion, I am sick of typing the word “coronavirus,” and you are sick of reading it, so let’s let’s all retreat to our quarantines for the weekend, okay? Enjoy the solitude! Read that novel you bought back in college! Watch that 425-minute Russian film set in a fish cannery! Hey, you can even peruse the archives at showercapblog.com if you feel like reliving just how the fuck it all came to this! Anyway, if you don’t hear from me for a bit, fear not, I’m turning production of this blog over to Jared Kushner, I’m sure he’ll figure it out.

[dabbourshamsiah]

The Complete History: All What You Need to Know in Information And Facts Sustained by Video Around World Health Organization (WHO).

In 1977, the very first list of vital medications was created, and a year later on the ambitious goal of "health and wellness for all " was proclaimed. In 1986, the THAT started its global program on HIV/AIDS. 2 years later avoiding discrimination against sufferers was taken care of and in 1996 UNAIDS was formed. In 1988, the Worldwide Polio Elimination Effort was developed. In 1998, WHO's Director-General highlighted gains in child survival, minimized baby death, increased life span and decreased prices of "scourges " such as smallpox as well as polio on the fiftieth wedding anniversary of THAT's beginning. He, did, nevertheless, accept that more needed to be done to help mother's health and wellness and that progression in this area had been slow-moving. In 2001 the measles campaign was formed, as well as attributed with reducing worldwide fatalities from the condition by 68% by 2007. In 2006, the company recommended the world's initial main HIV/AIDS Toolkit for Zimbabwe, which formed the basis for a global prevention, treatment as well as support plan to fight the AIDS pandemic. The THAT satisfies this objective through its features as defined in its Constitution: (a) To act as the directing and also working with authority on global health and wellness job; (b) To establish as well as keep efficient collaboration with the United Nations, specialized agencies, governmental health and wellness administrations, expert groups and also such various other organizations as might be deemed proper; (c) To assist Federal governments, upon request, in strengthening health services; (d) To equip suitable technical assistance as well as, in emergencies, needed help upon the demand or approval of Governments; (e) To supply or help in offering, upon the request of the United Nations, health services and also facilities to special groups, such as the peoples of count on territories; (f) To develop and also preserve such management as well as technological services as may be required, consisting of epidemiological and analytical solutions; (g) to boost as well as progress job to remove epidemic, native to the island and other conditions; (h) To advertise, in co-operation with other specific firms where required, the avoidance of accidental injuries; (i) To promote, in co-operation with other customized firms where necessary, the renovation of nutrition, real estate, cleanliness, recreation, economic or operating conditions and other elements of environmental hygiene; (j) To advertise co-operation among scientific as well as professional groups which contribute to the development of wellness; (k) To suggest policies, agreements and conventions, as well as make recommendations with respect to international health issues as well as to carry out. Since 2012, the THAT has defined its role in public health as complies with: providing leadership on issues critical to wellness as well as engaging in collaborations where joint action is needed; shaping the research study program as well as promoting the generation, translation, and dissemination of valuable understanding; setting standards as well as standards and also promoting as well as checking their implementation; verbalizing ethical and also evidence-based plan options; supplying technical assistance, catalyzing change, as well as building lasting institutional ability; and also keeping an eye on the wellness situation and also evaluating wellness trends. The World Health Company (WHO) is a specialized firm of the United Nations that is worried with international public health. The WHO is liable for the World Health And Wellness Report, the globally Globe Wellness Study, as well as Globe Health And Wellness Day. A globally identified jungle fever researcher, as Minister of Health and wellness, Tedros obtained appreciation for a number of ingenious and system-wide health reforms that substantially improved accessibility to health and wellness services as well as key results. Among them were employing and also educating approximately 40,000 women health and wellness extension workers, cutting infant mortality from 123 deaths per 1,000 live births in 2006 to 88 in 2011, and also boosting the hiring of health staffs including medical doctors and also midwives. In 1958, Viktor Zhdanov, Replacement Priest of Wellness for the USSR, called on the World Wellness Setting up to embark on a worldwide effort to eliminate smallpox, resulting in Resolution WHA11.54. In reaction to cholera epidemics in 1830 and 1847, which killed tens of thousands in Europe, the initial International Sanitary Seminar was assembled in Paris in 1851. At the time, the reason for cholera was unknown as well as due to political distinctions little was achieved at this or the following a number of meetings. However, the conferences were the first effort at establishing a mechanism for worldwide collaboration for disease prevention and also control. The Globe Health Organization (THAT) is a customized agency of the United Nations that is interested in global public health. It was developed on 7 April 1948, and also is headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland. The WHO belongs to the United Nations Advancement Group. Its precursor, the Health Organization, was a firm of the Organization of Nations. The constitution of the THAT was authorized by 61 nations on 22 July 1946, with the initial conference of the Globe Wellness Setting Up. It integrated the Workplace International d'Hygiene Publique as well as the Organization of Nations Wellness Organization. The THAT played a leading role in the eradication of smallpox. Its existing concerns include infectious illness, particularly HIV/AIDS, Ebola, jungle fever and also consumption; along with the mitigation of the effects of non-communicable conditions such as sexual and also reproductive aging, growth, and also wellness; nutrition, food safety and security and healthy and balanced consuming; work-related health and wellness; chemical abuse; as well as driving the development of coverage, magazines, and also networking. The WHO is accountable for the World Health And Wellness Record, the worldwide World Health Survey, and also Globe Health And Wellness Day. An internationally recognized malaria researcher, as Minister of Health and wellness, Tedros got praise for a number of system-wide and ingenious health reforms that significantly improved accessibility to health solutions and also crucial outcomes. Among them were working with as well as training about 40,000 women wellness expansion workers, reducing baby mortality from 123 deaths per 1,000 online births in 2006 to 88 in 2011, and raising the hiring of wellness cadres consisting of medical doctors and also midwives. The International Sanitary Conferences, initially held on 23 June 1851, were the first precursors of the WHO. When the League of Nations was developed in 1920, they established the Health and wellness Organization of the League of Nations. After Globe Battle II, the United Nations absorbed all the other health organizations, to develop the WHO. Throughout the 1945 United Nations Seminar on International Organization, Szeming Sze, a delegate from China, conferred with Norwegian and Brazilian delegates on creating an international health and wellness organization under the auspices of the brand-new United Nations. Sze and other delegates lobbied and an affirmation passed calling for a global conference on health. The very first conference of the Globe Health Setting up completed on 24 July 1948, having actually protected a spending plan of US$ 5 million for the 1949 year. In 1958, Viktor Zhdanov, Replacement Minister of Wellness for the USSR, called on the World Wellness Assembly to embark on a worldwide campaign to remove smallpox, resulting in Resolution WHA11.54. In 1967, the THAT intensified the international smallpox removal by contributing $2.4 million annually to the initiative and embraced a new illness monitoring method. After over two years of fighting smallpox, the THAT declared in 1979 that the disease had actually been eliminated - the first illness in history to be gotten rid of by human initiative. he complying with is a chronology of the THAT starting in 1967: In 1967, the THAT introduced the Unique Program for Research and also Training in Tropical Conditions and the Globe Health and wellness Assembly elected to enact a resolution on Impairment Avoidance as well as Recovery, with a concentrate on community-driven treatment. In 1974, the Expanded Program on Booster shot as well as the control program of onchocerciasis was begun, an essential collaboration in between the Food as well as Agriculture Company (FAO), the United Nations Growth Program (UNDP), as well as the Globe Financial institution.

[braindamageforbeginners]

Bane Capital

Cycle 6, Day 9

So, this whole writing project - in addition to trying to bridge that gap between medicine, patients, and healthy people (which is ambitious, I know), is also to provide everyone out there with good, useable information, which means I do have to scrap the planned presentation from time time because of a “teachable” moment. As most of you know, Tuesday is usually my day to get injected with strychnine in the bizarre life experiment to see who dies first: Me or brain cancer. And there will be more than a few days where you have write out a pro/con list to figure out if survival is a good thing.  And if someone in your family is going through chemo, treat their (probably bad) decision to get out of bed and join polite society the same way you would a roommate getting in from the Walk of Shame. Namely, just kind of quietly let them collect themselves (again, I describe them as a chemo hangover because that’s pretty much what they are). Dad’s usually pretty good about this, but this morning, we had the following exchange: DAD: I thought I heard someone creeping down the stairs. SELF: It’s not creeping, I’m just moving at the speed of a 90 year old man. DAD: You say those kinds but we both know -  SELF: Yeah, right now my biggest, most burning life goal is just to make it 90, I’d rather put off the frailty and associated problems for a few more years. I then skulked off to the sofa to compose myself and double-check which species I am. I was doing this when I heard the sound of the coffee pot clinking against a mug, and one of my favorite beverages being poured, and the effect was electric. I now know a cat feels when they hear the tin opener. Which brings up an important cancer survival tip, you’ll need some sort of “happy” or “hangover-relieving” ritual to get up and out of bed (i know hat’s a little cheerful for me, my fingers burned just typing it). And you’ll be tired a lot, so don’t be afraid to abuse caffeine.

We also had a family discussion on potential wildlife issues Stepmom and Dad might face while hiking to visit my brother on Rattlesnake Ridge. Again, that’s only slightly exaggerating it, he’s stationed near an area nick-named the Rattlesnake Mountains (the word “near” is important; wild animals are not known for obeying zoning ordinances), so the following conversation took place (yes, it did): DAD (reading from field medicine guide): If bitten by a rattlesnake, do not try to suck out venom or apply tourniquet. Instead, if there are two hikers, the bitten person should stay in place, and the other person should seek help. Increased heart rate increases the exposure to venom, so stay calm and breathe slowly. SELF: They say that, but if you’re bitten by a painful, venomous creature in the middle of nowhere in harsh terrain, remaining calm is gonna be challenging. STEP-MOM: isn’t there some sort of deterrent, like those deer whistles you put on your car? SELF: I don’t think so; snakes don’t have ears, they can sense vibrations along the ground, though. Just stomp and make some noise, and they’re nocturnal, so don’t go out at night. And  watch your feet. DAD: I think they used to make bite-proof boots using thick leather and steel inserts. Which wouldn’t be comfortable, and the fangs might go in at an odd angle and get stuck. STEP-MOM: I think that’s worse than if they just bit you. SELF: We’ve all had that embarrassing moment when we’ve walked out of a public restroom with some toilet paper stuck to our shoe; imagine that, but with a large, angry venomous creature.

And, since Marizomib’s going on to phase 3 trials in several different brain cancer/spinal cord treatments/cancers, I also thought I’d write about it in a little greater detail. In all the ways that I care about (IQ, memory, personality, “chemo brain”), it has far, far fewer side-effects/detriments than Temodar (I’m still a little mentally “fuzzy” the next day, but that might just be fatigue). And it is three infusions/treatments a month (so far)(you spend 5 days of every four weeks on Temodar, too, which sucks, but I’ve written elsewhere about that), but this has horrific, old school, physical side effects. I’ve written about the hallucinations and/or disturbingly vivid dreams, but there’s also severe nausea (I haven’t puked because I double-fist Zofran those days, but, even with that, you’re aware that something’s not right in your tummy) and pain. The good news is, if you take a large aspirin/Tylenol dose immediately after the infusion, and, like zofran, just take a standard/lower dose every four hours, you’ll do okay. The bad news is, if you’d rather sleep through the night, those chemical crutches won’t be in your system to help you crawl out of bed. Good news though, I did manage to get to the gym with enough energy (thank you, coffee) to seriously injure myself (or it felt that way, anyway) at the gym. It’s oddly cathartic to mangle oneself on the treadmill when you’re in a lot of other pain - both psychologial and physical - that you didn’t sign up for (that’s what I was trying to describe the other day).

Since the drug’s going on to stage III testing, that makes my odds of survival somewhat better (the life-span-limiting factor in GBM cases seems to be how long chemo remains effective, and, prior to this, there’ve only been a handful of them). However, I would think that if some patient got superpowers or something from it, it would have been noted, and quickly. So, my dream of becoming Captain America is dead, at the moment. However, the last year has proven that I am nothing if not adaptable, so I went looking for another role model (I realize I’ve posted versions of this elsewhere, but I’ve done a little research, and there are current events to be discussed).

No superpowers? Check.

Still beefy despite that? Check

Pharmaceutically dependent? Check.

Not fond of the light (that’s just me in a chemo hangover)? Check.

Bent on the destruction of the current political/economic apparatus? Check.

Which brings me to today’s essay topic, “Why Bane is Actually the Hero of the Third Nolan Batman Movie.” Stick with me closely. This was sort-of inspired by another crazed lunatic pointing out that being a billionaire in a time of insane, disproportionate wealth distribution in which poverty literally kills people (that’s not hyperbole, I’ve very, very cunningly gamed the system to get access to treatment, but, again, people get thrown out on the street, and if the state poor-person-insurance program dries up, gets privatized, or defunded, I will die) is indefensibly immoral. I realize I’m a special case, so let’s talk food. one-in-six Americans faces “food uncertainty,”  which is the inability to consistently provide enough food for all members of the family.  Before we get even more political, to bring that home, here’s a fun experiment you can do: take out a standard die out, and roll it. If it lands on a six, someone in the family goes without dinner and breakfast. Not to say that people who work hard and successful don’t deserve the benefits of that, but by the time you accumulate billions, that’s not “successful,” that’s “money hoarding.”

In the Nolan Batman films, they go to great lengths to establish a similar wealth concentration as the very cause of Batman. His parents are killed in a mugging gone wrong. I realize it doesn’t make a good movie if Bruce Wayne gets a PhD in economics and successfully pushes/lobbies for reforms that eliminate the need for people to turn to crime, and, instead, decides to become a billionaire so he can beat criminals to death (I know the big Batman thing is that he doesn’t kill at all, which is why leaves them tied up to lamp-posts)(Wait, that’s Spider-Man, concussions are actually quite dangerous).

You could make an argument that Batman is a good guy in the first film, because Ra’s al Ghul wants to kill everyone in Gotham, which is much worse than letting a lot of them slowly starve to death. You could make the exact same argument about Harvey Dent and the Joker, who function as apolitical agents of complete chaos and destruction. Stopping them is as necessary - and moral - as stopping a hurricane (BTW, Puerto Rico’s power grid is still offline, more than a year after the fact).

All this time, Batman prefers stopping criminals one-on-one instead of judicial reform or a basic universal income. And, as the Joker points out, the entire appeal of destroying Gotham is as a personal challenge. At this point Batman/the security apparatus of Gotham is no longer a part of the problem, he is the problem because he’s attracting homicidal maniacs. And whatever happened to that big pile of money the Joker just lit on fire? That could fund a children’s hospital (just another subtle display from C. Nolan that wealth concentration is dangerous)(BTW, unlike the comics or other portrayals, we never actually see Bruce Wayne’s renowned charity) . But I digress.

The point is, this sort of continues (both the economic degradation of Gotham and the odd petty criminal being beaten to death, I’d assume) into the third film, by which point conditions have become so unstable that Peter Kropotkin - er Bane - is easily able to colonize the sewer system, and bribe assorted CEO’s, politicians into giving him (Bane) access to all kinds of things. Side-note here, Bane is enlightened as to what real wealth is: the ability to affect and/or remake the world as you see fit. That’s in direct contrast with the usual idea of capital, defined by Hernando de Soto as “anything with the ability to generate more capital” (in that same book, de Soto describes how that modern economic and monetary policy do a great deal of harm by sticking to that policy that “only US dollars or things readily converted to them” are wealth, which keep a great deal of poor people - globally - from being able to invest/participate in the economy. 

Yet, with an unconventional view of money and power, Bane proceeds to dismantle Gotham’s elite and the police/security apparatus protecting them. He’s actually almost ethical about it, in that he doesn’t seem to directly target anyone not connected with Bruce Wayne or his (Bane’s) odd vendetta against the man (again, at this point in the metaphor, Batman is the traditional security apparatus that keeps the status quo within Gotham, supplemented by the police). Bane traps the police - the alternate defenders of the status quo - in a cave (but with enough food and/or water or something to survive). This isn’t as bad as it sounds (that’s an opinion, but, screw it, this is an essay on why Batman is secretly a bad guy), as American police aren’t really necessary for law and order. I’ve lived in several other countries where there wasn’t any visible police presence, and I had absolutely no problem or crime, apart from possibly being overcharged for cabs (which I figure might be danger pay, since they also drive on the wrong side of the road at 850 mph). In Miami, FL, I was burgled, and the cops were actually worse than useless, because I had to fill out a crime report, and I didn’t get anything back, at any point. Same goes when someone later broke into my car. The car was still there and working, so I figured I wouldn’t bother with the cops that time, In fact, a third of all murders go unsolved, nationally, and, according to an NPR news report in 2013; national police policies had shifted from “solving crimes” to “crime prevention.”  Care to guess how that works? It usually involves hyper policing of minorities and/or non-violent crime. There have been excellent, effective attempts to reform police and policing in places like Las Vegas and Richmond CA (both of those focused on extensively training officers to act more as community mediators (see Peel’s Principles) than as armed guards - the point is, people are self-organizing, and self-policing for the most part, despite what Darryl Gates might have you think. So far, Bane’s bankrupted Bruce Wayne, backstabbed (literally) the corrupt executives who hired him, and removed an ineffective - potentially dangerous if you’re an ethnic minority - element from the city. If he was in elected office, that would all be considered a win. He also frees the inmates of not-Arkham Asylum. Assuming this prison has similar statistics to federal institutions, 50% will be drug convictions, usually possession or intent to sell (I’m not going to argue that such people are harmless, but, having met a mid-level cocaine distributor - my family is very weird and varied and has many bad relationship decisions - it’s actually more of a lucrative white-collar industry than “Breaking Bad.” However, because it’s fiction and this is all an alternate literary/film analysis let’s assume that it’s thousands of Batman villains unleashed. There’s probably some rioting and chaos, but wide-shots suggest no worse than post-Katrina New Orleans. It’s telling that, in order to make the public frightened of this, Nolan evokes the Reign of Terror, presumably because otherwise there’s very little morally questionable acts here (yes, Bane has killed a few people by this point, but, if the word “hematoma” means anything to you, so has Batman). It’s nice to see that mega-white-person paranoia - “if the minorities/poor people gain equality, they might treat you like you treated them.” on film (I may be reading way too much into this, it is, after all, a series of films in which an untreated, mental patient with a bat fetish beats up petty criminals). The criminal court does a really weird and inefficient sentencing/murder gimmick involving drowning judges, attorneys, and detectives who put them in prison. Which is morally indefensible, but, since that’s happening at rate of one victim every twenty minutes, I’d imagine most of the intended victims would die of old age long before the Scarecrow gets them.

During all of this, Bruce Wayne/Batman gets bankrupted (but not really), and meets a nice girl whom he immediately accepts with almost no question (i’d really like to be more charitable here, since “white, crippled, and broke” is now not a totally-inaccurate description of me, but he’s still involved in stuff that’s illegal). The end-play of Bane and Bruce’s Nice Girl (who turns out to be Rha’s al Ghul’s daughter) is to steal a nuclear device from Wayne Industries. Pause for a moment. Wayne Enterprises developed a new energy source that doubles as a nuclear weapon. Moving past that interesting and disturbing idea that a completely unregulated free market eventually ends with nuclear devices in the hands of billionaires (actually, that was disturbingly predictive), this is the moment when Batman actually becomes an international war criminal. Bet you never thought Batman might be an intelligence asset for the ISI.

That’s not some sort hyperbolic statement, the UN very carefully and highly regulates all nuclear developement - even for civilian use (to give you an idea, the genetics lab I interned at had some slightly-radioactive pixie dust that they occasionally used in labeling or sequencing strands, and the door that lab had either be closed and locked, or someone had to be in it -Like, I wasn’t supposed to go for a five minute bathroom break without securing that room) - and the private ownership thereof is, shall we say, frowned upon. So, the starting Good Deed for Batman - the one that apparently costs him a lot - is that he didn’t directly authorize , the development and sale of private nuclear arms. Which seems moral, until you realize that not making nukes and selling them for private use (to be fair, any major fireworks display would be much more interesting) is normal. Call me a snob, but I’d like my superheroes to be better than me, especially when the Hague might be watching.

Also, this turns the whole moral situation on its head. This is now a weird revenge story in which the daughter of the villain Batman sort-of murdered is back with her big, best friend. It’s either “Make-a-Wish” from Hell, or that old idea - again - that those in power will be held accountable (or punished) for all the times they refused to rend aid when it was needed. The only morally pure character in this scenario is Bane, whose ultimate motives are just to protect and aid his friends (You could argue that Catwoman’s more moral than Batman in this film, but that’s another essay, and this film fails the Bechdel Test so badly that I’m not sure how I’d tackle that). Bane and Talia al Ghul activate the bomb (okay, that’s a bad guy move, to be sure, again, though, developing and/or possessing weapons of mass destruction IS NOT MORAL, let alone legal), and Batman fakes his death in the resulting fiery explosion. That’s not a display of morality, that’s just manning up, owning your own mistakes, and correcting them. Again, that’s acting with a modicum of maturity, not some supreme moral courage.

The happy ending is when Batman - defender of the sociopolitical status quo - actually leaves Gotham to figure out its own problems, after learning that he has become part of Gotham’s problems, which, again, strike me as economic and political, not crime-and-justice.

[patriotsnet]

How Popular Is Trump Among Republicans

New Post has been published on https://www.patriotsnet.com/how-popular-is-trump-among-republicans/

How Popular Is Trump Among Republicans

Republicans Take Steps To Hide Discouraging Polls About Trump

Donald Trump Jr takes the lead in a GOP popularity poll

Throughout his presidency, Donald Trump made up polling data that purportedly showed his widespread popularity. Independent surveys pointed in very different directions, but the Republican dismissed those polls by insisting they were part of an elaborate conspiracy against him.

During his semi-retirement, very little has changed. Trump recently appeared on Dan Bongino’s show, and when asked about the possibility of a third presidential campaign in 2024, the Republican said, “I am giving it the most serious consideration as you can imagine and based on every poll that I’m seeing and everything else. It’s something that is, you know, very positive, nobody’s seen anything more positive.”

At face value, it stood to reason that some polls might actually show Trump’s standing improving now that he’s no longer in office. In fact, that would be consistent with recent history: former presidents routinely see their support climb after they leave they White House.

But with Trump, it’s a bit more complicated.

First, his boasts notwithstanding, the former president appears to have lost support in recent months. In NBC News polling, Trump’s national favorability rating stood at 43% shortly before Election Day. By January, as he prepared to exit the White House, that total had dipped to 40%, and as of two weeks ago, the Republican’s favorability rating had slipped further to just 32%.

As a rule, willful ignorance is an unwise strategy for a political party.

Trump’s Approval Rating Holding Steady At 43 Percent With 55 Percent Disapproving

The same poll found that 35 percent of voters including 74 percent of Republicans but just 30 percent of independents and 3 percent of Democrats believe President-elect Joe Biden did not win the election legitimately.

Sixty-one percent of all voters but just 21 percent of Republicans say Biden did win legitimately.

While a record 10 House Republicans broke ranks to vote for Trump’s impeachment last week, his approval rating among Republicans shows few signs that GOP voters are widely disillusioned with him.

Almost 9 in 10 Republicans 87 percent give Trump a thumbs-up, compared with 89 percent who said the same before the November election.

And even for the half of Republicans who say they prioritize the GOP in general over allegiance to Trump, his high approval remains unmoved by recent events.

Among Republicans who say their primary loyalty is to Trump over the party, 98 percent approve of his performance. For those who say they prioritize the party over the president, his approval still stands at 81 percent virtually unchanged from October.

In the NBC News survey, nearly a third of GOP voters surveyed 28 percent said Trump’s words and actions related to the violence at the Capitol reinforced their vote for Trump.

Just 5 percent said they now regretted their support for him, and two-thirds 66 percent said their feelings had not changed.

An additional 9 percent say Trump is “not as good as most.”

Trumps Popularity Among Republicans Is On The Rise

Just when you thought it was safe to read about politics without constant references to Donald Trump or to polls, Politico and Morning Consult have some news for you, per this headline: Trump Emerges From Impeachment Trial With Sturdy Backing From GOP Voters.

I am very aware that we dont know what the 45th president will do going forward or how well his legacy will wear on his party or the country. Its also crazy early and for many horse-race-weary people, painfully early to talk about what might happen in the 2024 presidential cycle. All in all, most people reading my words likely want nothing more than to hear nothing about Trump for the foreseeable future, or perhaps until the end of time.

Having said all that, its important to acknowledge that Trump is historically unique, and not just because he was impeached twice or because he left office having incited a physical attack on the Capitol to overturn an election defeat that only a liar of his quality could have doubted. Like it or not, he left office as the first defeated president since Herbert Hoover to have reason to believe he could make a comeback, with the goal of becoming the first defeated president since Grover Cleveland to pull it off. So his standing among the fellow partisans who may before very long determine whether a Trump comeback is even plausible should be of interest to anyone wanting to look ahead with clear eyes.

You May Like: How Many Registered Democrats And Republicans Are There

A Popular Theory For Trumps Popularity Among Republicans Appears To Be Wrong

It is not the case, despite President Trumps regular assertions, that his approval rating among Republicans is a consistent 95 percent. Although that figure appears regularly in the presidents Twitter feed, there appears to be no basis for it in public polling.

It is, however, the case that Trump is broadly popular among Republicans. In YouGovs most recent poll with the Economist, 88 percent of his party approves of the job hes doing somewhat offsetting the disapproval he garners among 89 percent of Democrats.

To Democrats, the level of support for Trump within his party seems occasionally baffling. How could someone they hate so much be viewed so positively by the other party? Over the course of Trumps presidency, a theory emerged: Hes so popular among Republicans because Trump-skeptical Republicans have simply given up on the party. Wring all the skeptics out of the party, and youre left with a more unanimous, if smaller, core.

Theres a public example of how this would work, after all: Had Rep. Justin Amash not left the party in July, the vote to impeach Trump in the House would not have been unanimously opposed by Republicans. Instead of Republicans voting 195-to-1 against impeachment, it was 195-to-0. This, perhaps, is how Trumps approval also works.

Unfortunately for that theory, though, the numbers dont really back it up.

The numbers havent changed much.

People From All Around The World Were Horrified By The Violent Scenes

Youve caused this, get on TV immediately and stop it – before people start being killed. https://t.co/59dqsiXEaK Piers Morgan 1609962613.0

And thousands began calling on Trump to intervene and to tell his followers to back down… which, of course, he refused to do along with refusing to take responsibility for the actions of the rioters.

Recommended Reading: Who Said We Are All Republicans We Are All Federalists

Most Popular Republican Politicians Today

A look at popular Republicans in America shows that they come in all sizes and shapes.

Stacker compiled a list of the 50 most popular Republicans, based on data collected by YouGov from interviews between May 2019 and May 2020, with at least 7,000 people interviewed for each figure. The list is ranked by Republicans that have the highest positive opinion among voters, with ties being broken by how famous the politician is today.

Some Republicans find avid support from religious communities for their evangelical Christian views, opposing social issues like same-sex marriage and abortion rights. Some win backing for their policy stands, taking hawkish positions on immigration or foreign policy. They might build a following with their fervent belief in the rights of gun owners, or have been judged worthy by their response to crises such as the Sept. 11 attacks.

Still others build staying power among the public as longtime Washington forces of power, exceptionally skilled at making deals or ambitious fundraising. Some build support with bipartisanship and effective networking across party lines, while others cement their fortunes by toeing a strict party line. Many are war veterans, striking a chord with voters with their military service, including those that return home with lifelong scars.

You may also like: 100 years of military history

Trump Approval Remains Stable In New Nbc Poll With Republicans Unmoved After Capitol Violence

WASHINGTON Donald Trump is the only president in history to be impeached twice this time for his role in encouraging a deadly assault on the Capitol by his supporters but he is poised to leave office with a job approval rating that is fairly typical of his entire time in office.

A new NBC News poll found that 43 percent of voters nationwide gave Trump a positive job approval rating, just barely down from 45 percent who said the same before the November election and the 44 percent who approved of his performance shortly after he took office in 2017.

Read Also: Are Republicans Or Democrats Better For Small Business

New 2020 Voter Data: How Biden Won How Trump Kept The Race Close And What It Tells Us About The Future

Reddit

As we saw in 2016 and again in 2020, traditional survey research is finding it harder than it once was to assess presidential elections accurately. Pre-election polls systemically misjudge who is likely to vote, and exit polls conducted as voters leave the voting booths get it wrong as well.

Now, using a massive sample of validated voters whose participation has been independently verified, the Pew Research Center has . It helps us understand how Joe Biden was able to accomplish what Hillary Clinton did notand why President Trump came closer to getting reelected than the pre-election surveys had predicted.

How Joe Biden won

Five main factors account for Bidens success.

The Biden campaign reunited the Democratic Party. Compared to 2016, he raised the share of moderate and conservative Democrats who voted for the Democratic nominee by 6 points, from 85 to 91%, while increasing the Democratic share of liberal Democrats from 94 to 98%. And he received the support of 85% of Democrats who had defected to 3rd party and independent candidates in 2016.

How Trump kept it close

Despite non-stop controversy about his policies and personal conduct, President Trump managed to raise his share of the popular vote from 46% in 2016 to 47% in 2020. His core coalition held together, and he made a few new friends.

Longer-term prospects

% Of Republicans View Trump As True Us President

Panel: Poll Finds Trump, Trump Jr As Top Choices For 2024 Republican Nominee

A combination picture shows U.S. President Donald Trump and Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden speaking during the first 2020 presidential campaign debate, held on the campus of the Cleveland Clinic at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio, U.S., September 29, 2020. Picture taken September 29, 2020. REUTERS/Brian Snyder

WASHINGTON, May 24 – A majority of Republicans still believe Donald Trump won the 2020 U.S. presidential election and blame his loss to Joe Biden on illegal voting, according to a new Reuters/Ipsos opinion poll.

The May 17-19 national poll found that 53% of Republicans believe Trump, their party’s nominee, is the true president now, compared to 3% of Democrats and 25% of all Americans.

About one-quarter of adults believe the Nov. 3 election was tainted by illegal voting, including 56% of Republicans, according to the poll. The figures were roughly the same in a poll that ran from Nov. 13-17 which found that 28% of all Americans and 59% of Republicans felt that way.

A Democrat, Biden won by more than seven million votes. Dozens of courts rejected Trumps challenges to the results, but Trump and his supporters have persisted in pushing baseless conspiracy theories on conservative news outlets.

The Reuters/Ipsos poll showed that 61% of Republicans believe the election was “stolen” from Trump. Only about 29% of Republicans believe he should share some of the blame for his supporters’ Jan. 6 deadly riot at the U.S. Capitol.

Also Check: Why Is The Media Against Republicans

Nearly Six Months Later Partisan Gaps On Culpability Motivation And Severity Of Capitol Attack Have Widened

GOP voters are now more likely to blame President Joe Biden and Democrats in Congress for the events that led to the Capitol attack than they are Donald Trump and GOP lawmakers.

The overall electorate has become more likely to say the Capitol rioters represent the Republican Party.

68% of GOP voters say there has been too much focus on the January 6th events, while 50% of all voters disagree.

This article is part of a deep dive on the Jan. 6 riot in Washington and creeping authoritarianism in America. See all of our work here.

In the aftermath of the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol by a mob of then-President Donald Trumps supporters, a handful of Republican leaders were joined by a number of their voters in bestowing at least some culpability on Trump and the GOP in Washington.

Nearly six months later, Morning Consult polling has found that while the bulk of the overall electorate still shares that perspective, Republican voters appear to be following their leaders as they become increasingly likely to disassociate themselves, their party and Trump from the insurrection.

Republican voters are now more likely to blame President Joe Biden and congressional Democrats for the events that led to the Capitol attack than they are Trump and GOP lawmakers, many of whom supported his false claims of widespread election irregularities. That stance puts them at odds with the broader electorate, whose views on the matter have gone virtually unchanged.

Half Of Republican Respondents Said Former President Should Play Major Role In Partys Future

Find your bookmarks in your Independent Premium section, under my profile

Former president Donald Trumps popularity rating among Republicans has begun to bounce back since he left office, with half of respondents saying they think he should play a major role in the GOPs future.

According to tracking by Morning Consult, 81 per cent of Republican voters polled between 23 to 25 January hold positive views of Mr Trump, including 54 per cent who do so strongly.

The number marks an improvement on the 76 per cent low of Republican voters who favoured him in tracking between 10 and 12 of January ahead of his impeachment when those who strongly favoured Mr Trump sat at 49 per cent.

Fifty percent of Republican voters in a poll by the company between the 22 and 25 of January also think Mr Trump should maintain a significant role in the partys future, an increase of nine percentage points since the insurrection.

The former presidents popularity dropped following the 6 January when pro-Trump supporters attacked the Capitol as lawmakers gathered to certify Joe Bidens win, vandalising and looting the building.

You May Like: How Many Republicans Are Running For President

Opinion: Why Donald Trump May Lose Influence In The Republican Party

Common wisdom holds that former president Donald Trump remains the dominant force within the Republican Party. The truth is that his personal influence and standing are not as powerful as many imagine, and his power is as likely to decline as it is to increase.

Theres no denying that many Republicans still revere Trump. He remains highly popular with GOP voters, and candidates for office still vie for his endorsement. Two recent Politico/Morning Consult polls show how strong he remains. A mid-May poll found that half of Republicans surveyed would vote for Trump in a hypothetical 2024 presidential primary matchup, and another poll released this week shows that 59 percent want Trump to play a major role in the party going forward. Trump is clearly the single most influential figure in the party today.

Other signs point to the gradual erosion of Trumps influence. Candidates may seek his support, but those who fail to get it dont drop out of the race. Trumps endorsement of Alabama Rep. Mo Brooks for his states open Senate seat did not dissuade Katie Britt, a former chief of staff to retiring Sen. Richard C. Shelby, from entering the race on Tuesday. Her three-minute announcement video barely mentions Trump and strikes traditional conservative themes of faith, family and hard work.

Why Donald Trump’s Approval Rating Is So High Among Republicans

As the U.S. experienced mass unrest over police brutality and racial inequality, a huge spike in unemployment, and on the current count more than 116,000 coronavirus deaths, President Donald Trump’s approval rating took an unsurprising turn for the worse.

But there is one group of voters who have remained squarely in Trump’s corner in spite of the triple crises facing the nation: Republicans.

Over the past few months, the president has frequently gloated about his high party-approval figures. Tweeting about his approval rating among Republicans on Tuesday night, Trump wrote: “96% Approval Rating in the Republican Party. Thank you!”

As The Washington Post reported at the end of May, the president’s evidence-free claim to have a 96 percent approval rating among GOP voters is not grounded in actual polling data.

Donald Trump’s Economic Approval Rating Has Fallen Below 50 Percent: Poll

Nevertheless, his rating among the Republican base has been consistently high over the last three months.

A new Morning Consult/Politico poll of 653 Republicans found 83 percent approved of Trump’s record, a fall of only 5 percentage points from the pollster’s March survey. The latest poll, conducted between June 12 to 14, has a 2 percentage point margin of error.

So how has the president’s approval rating among Republicans stayed so high, even amid unrest over race relations, unemployment, and public health?

Also Check: Why Did Democrats And Republicans Switch

Poll: Without Trump In The Race Desantis Dominates 2024 Gop White House Hopefuls

Nationally, the Florida governors popularity among Republican voters has skyrocketed.

For months, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis stature has been expanding within the Republican Party. | Brynn Anderson/AP Photo

07/14/2021 05:05 PM EDT

Link Copied

Donald Trump remains the king of the GOP. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis is looking like the crown prince.

For months, DeSantis stature has been expanding within the party, marked by growing buzz among grassroots activists and GOP consultants who admire the pugilistic style of politics he wields against progressives and the media. Hes consistently won GOP straw polls of presidential hopefuls provided Trump doesnt run in 2024 and he even edged out the former president in favorability in one of the informal surveys.

Now a new nationwide poll of Republican voters points to him as the front-runner in the event Trump does not run in 2024.

Trump remains the clear leader of the party. If he decided to run again for president in a crowded 2024 primary field, he would get roughly half of the vote, with DeSantis in a distant second place at 19 percent, according to a new survey of GOP voters from veteran Republican pollster Tony Fabrizio. Everyone else including former Vice President Mike Pence would be in single digits.

Fabrizio has polled for both Trump and DeSantis in the past.

Biden and DeSantis attended a briefing together in Miami Beach, Fla. after the condo collapse. | Susan Walsh/AP Photo

[un-enfant-immature]

Automakers urge greater government investment to meet Biden’s EV sales target

President Joe Biden is expected to set an ambitious new target for half of all new auto sales in the U.S. to be low- or zero-emission by 2030, a plan that has received tentative support from the Big Three automakers pending what they say will require hefty government support.

General Motors, Ford and Stellantis (formerly Fiat Chrysler) issued a joint statement Thursday that they had “shared aspiration[s]” to achieve a 40% to 50% share of electric in new vehicle sales by the end of the decade, with the caveat that such a target “can be achieved only with the timely deployment of the full suite of electrification policies committed to by the Administration in the Build Back Better Plan.”

Some of the investments they list include consumer incentives, a national EV charging network “of sufficient density,” funding for R&D and manufacturing and supply chain incentives.

Biden’s target, which will come in the form of an executive order on Thursday, will be nonbinding and entirely voluntary. The target includes vehicles powered by batteries, hydrogen fuel cells or plug-in hybrids.

Executives from the three OEMs, as well as representatives from the United Automobile Workers union, are expected to attend an event on the new target at the White House Thursday. Tesla, it seems, was not invited, according to a tweet from CEO Elon Musk.

Yeah, seems odd that Tesla wasn’t invited

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) August 5, 2021

Biden will also be calling for new fuel economy standards for passenger and medium- and heavy-duty vehicles through model year 2026, which were rolled back under President Trump’s tenure, according to a White House factsheet released Thursday. The new standards, which will be crafted under the jurisdiction of the Department of Transportation and the Environmental Protection Agency, should come as no surprise to automakers: They were included in Biden’s so-called “Day One Agenda” and mark a cornerstone of his strategy to combat climate change.

The new standards will likely borrow from those passed by California last year, which were finalized in concert with a coalition of five automakers: BMW AG, Ford, Honda Motor Co., Volkswagen AG, and Volvo AB. Those automakers, in a separate statement Thursday, said they supported the White House’s plan to reduce emissions. However, like the Big Three, they said that “bold action” from the federal government will be needed to achieve emission reductions targets.

The road to 2030

While Biden’s nonbinding order is more of a symbolic one, the targets are likely achievable, Jessica Caldwell, Edmunds’ executive director of insights said in a statement. She added that automotive industry leaders “have seen the writing on the wall for some time now” regarding electrification, regardless of who has been in the White House.

Thanks to the relatively long product development lead time, many of the major automakers have already announced multibillion-dollar investments in EVs and AVs at least through the middle of the decade. That includes a $35 billion investment through 2025 from GM and $30 billion through the same year from Ford — not to mention similar announcements from Stellantis and many billions earmarked for battery R&D from Volkswagen, and even Volvo Cars’ shift to all-electric by 2030.

Auto giant Stellantis to invest €30B in electrification through 2025

These massive numbers follow the automakers’ own sales targets, which are for the most part in line with Biden’s goal.

Fuel economy rules, however, have historically garnered slightly more mixed reactions from automakers. GM, Fiat Chrysler (now Stellantis) and Toyota had previously supported a Trump-era lawsuit that sought to strip California’s authority to set its own emissions standards — but each company eventually made an about-face, leaving the road open for Biden to introduce his own standards this year.

In a very real sense, Biden’s announcement is as much about geopolitics as it is about climate change. He, too, has seen the writing on the wall regarding EVs. His administration notes in the factsheet that “China is increasingly cornering the global supply chain” for EVs and EV battery materials. “By setting clear targets for electric vehicle sale trajectories, these countries are becoming magnets for private investment into their manufacturing sectors — from parts and materials to final assembly.”

While three times as many EVs were registered in the U.S. in 2020 versus 2016, America still lags behind both Europe and China in terms of EV market share, according to the International Energy Agency.

The news has garnered a slew of mixed reactions, with some environmental groups urging more decisive action on the part of the administration. Carol Lee Rawn, senior director of transportation at Ceres, said in a statement that future standards should target a 60% reduction in emissions and a “clear trajectory” to 100% vehicle sales by 2035.

Although the UAW will be joining Biden at the White House on Thursday, President Ray Curry said in a statement that the group is “not focused on hard deadlines or percentages, but on preserving the wages and benefits that have been the heart and soul of the American middle class.”

Automakers have battery anxiety, so they’re taking control of the supply

[hardynwa]

FIRS targets N19.4trn revenue

The Federal Inland Revenue Service surpassed its 2023 revenue target by N816bn, a 107 per cent performance over the set goal and has set a target to collect N19.4 turn in tax this year. The Coordinating Director of Special Tax Operations Group, Amina Ado, disclosed this at the 2024 management retreat on Wednesday. The Federal Government expects N19.41trn revenue from the FIRS in 2024. This target represents a significant increase of 56.9 per cent from the previous year’s actual revenue and 67.91 per cent from the previous year’s target. FIRS had a target of N11.56trn however, it realised N12.37trn, an N816bn higher in 2023. While stating the strategy the agency will deploy to achieve the N19.4trn revenue, Ado noted that the agency engaged with other regulators in 2023 to achieve its success and will continue to engage them, other tax practitioners and intermediaries this year. “We engaged with other regulators in 2023 and we will continue to engage them, tax practitioners, intermediaries and the withholding concept to expand the tax base as much as possible under the law. “The law has given us a lot of opportunities to expand the withholding concept so that we can take the taxes and that way, the leakages downstream can be lowered. These are strategies we will deploy to ensure we deliver on this ambitious target”, she said. She added that the FIRS will ensure its service delivery to taxpayers is improved while it will reorganise ligation and prosecution to make sure those who are not compliant will be brought to book. “We will improve the management of large taxpayers and these sector contributors because they provide a lot of revenue we are seeing. We will improve service delivery and leverage technology to make sure we make it easy for taxpayers to pay. “For those who are not compliant, we will make it very difficult for them to do so. We will reorganise our litigation and prosecution and enforce our debt collection processes to ensure the defaulters are brought to book,” she said. The FIRS also recorded a 21.7 per cent increase in its 2022 revenue of N10.18trn. The trend of increase in projected revenue has been maintained between 2019 and 2023 where it recorded N5.262 trn, N4.952 trn, N6.403 trn, N10.179 trn, and N12.374 trn, respectively. According to the Coordinator, Company Income tax topped the list as the most collected tax for the year as it makes up 36.14 per cent of the total taxes collected in 2023, It is followed by Value Added Tax of N3.64 trn and Petroleum Profit Tax of N3.17 trn. The data shows that the Federal Government expects more taxes from the oil sector, about N9.96trn this year. This is about 214.2 per cent of what was generated from this form of tax last yeaAdo noted that the sustained growth in revenue collection is largely attributed to FIRS’s administrative reforms, such as the automation of tax collection processes, the introduction of TaxPro-Max, and the use of third-party data for enhanced tax intelligence. Policy reforms have also played a significant role, including the increase in VAT and Education Tax rates and improvements in tax laws through Finance Acts. “Despite these achievements, FIRS acknowledges the challenges ahead, particularly in the face of global economic uncertainties, fluctuating oil prices, and internal resistance to change. However, the agency remains resolute in its commitment to national duty, aiming to silence doubts and confidently declare its capability to meet and exceed its targets,” she assured. Speaking at the retreat, the Executive Chairman, Zacch Adedeji, said the target is achievable with the series of reforms being implemented by the Service. He said, “Our focus is to drive for long-term compliance. And in a few minutes now, by those rules, we have the new structure that we have. And what we’ve done in general is to move from the functional type of tax unit to customer-centred. “And we want to use that to drive compliance because the focus cannot be on investigation. The real strategy is to drive compliance and the way to do it is that there will always be consequences for noncompliance. “So, The focus should not be let’s go and tax informal. The focus should be to move the informal sector to the formal sector, improve their skill and then we can tax them.” Read the full article

[multipleservicelisting]

Buttigieg’s Climate Promises: What Could He Actually Do?

WASHINGTON — Pete Buttigieg, President Biden’s choice to lead the Department of Transportation, vowed to make climate change a top priority during his Senate confirmation hearing on Thursday.

But that raises a question: How much can a transportation secretary realistically do to reduce emissions from America’s vast fleet of cars, trucks and airplanes — all of which the agency oversees, to varying degrees?

Transportation now accounts for one-third of the nation’s greenhouse gases each year. And the sector has been stubbornly difficult to clean up, as the vast majority of Americans remains deeply dependent on gasoline-fueled vehicles to get around each day.

The federal agency has a number of powerful policy levers that could be used to try to change that. One strategy might be to encourage state governments to rethink how they design their roadways and mass transit systems, nudging the United States away from its reliance on automobile travel. Another is to help ratchet up fuel-efficiency standards for new cars and trucks and promote cleaner electric vehicles.

But there are also important constraints: Mr. Buttigieg would most likely need to persuade lawmakers to pass major new legislation if he hopes to significantly transform how the country gets around. That could prove to be a political minefield.

Here’s a look at what the Transportation Department could do on climate policy.

Rethink Transportation Grants

Most of the department’s spending on roads and public transit, which totaled about $47 billion last year, is dictated by strict formulas set by Congress.

But not all of it.

The department also doles out $1 billion or so each year in competitive grants that help states and cities fund individual transportation projects. Mr. Buttigieg would have considerable leeway to reshape these grant programs fairly quickly, experts said.

The Trump administration often awarded grants to road projects that encouraged car travel, such as $34.6 million for a highway interchange to support a new National Football League facility in South Carolina. A more climate-focused agency, by contrast, could announce it was looking for proposals that offered alternatives to driving, such as bus or bike projects.

“It’s a small pot of money, but it sends a powerful signal to states and cities,” said Paul Lewis, vice president for policy and finance at the Eno Center for Transportation. “And I’d expect the new administration to place a greater emphasis on climate-friendly projects.”

Make States Measure Emissions

Individual states — not the federal government — typically have final say over how they spend billions of federal dollars each year to build or repair roads and public transit.

Nevertheless, the Transportation Department could require states to start tracking the greenhouse gas emissions produced by their transportation systems and set targets for reducing those emissions over time. While states would not be required to cut their emissions, a little transparency could go a long way.

“Right now, we’re not even measuring greenhouse gas emissions and using that to drive project choices,” said Kevin DeGood, director for infrastructure policy at the liberal Center for American Progress, which has recommended the policy change.

The department could also do more to help states and cities identify roads and bridges at risk of being damaged by rising sea levels and other extreme weather caused by climate change, Mr. DeGood said.

Mandate Cleaner Vehicles

By law, the Transportation Department works with the Environmental Protection Agency to craft federal fuel economy standards, which require new cars, S.U.V.s and pickup trucks sold in the United States to use less gasoline over time.

The Obama administration used this authority to require that automakers improve the efficiency of their fleets by 5 percent annually, on average, for model years 2021 to 2026. The Trump administration weakened that to 1.5 percent per year. On Wednesday, Mr. Biden asked the two agencies to revisit that decision and propose new, presumably more ambitious rules by July.

The Transportation Department will have considerable input into those rules, which could potentially be designed to encourage automakers to sell more cleaner electric vehicles. One challenge, though, is that more Americans are buying S.U.V.s, which has caused overall fuel economy to stagnate.

Mr. Biden has also set a goal of installing 500,000 new charging stations for electric vehicles in the next decade. Achieving that daunting goal would most likely require Congress to authorize billions of dollars in new spending. The Transportation Department could, however, help shape how and where those chargers get built.

Lend a Hand to Public Transit

America’s public transit agencies are in dire financial shape as the coronavirus outbreak has kept riders away. Without significant federal aid, experts have warned, bus and subway systems could collapse, leaving the country even more dependent on polluting personal cars and S.U.V.s once the pandemic subsides.

This is primarily a job for Congress: Lawmakers approved $14 billion in transit aid last December, and Mr. Biden has proposed another $20 billion as he seeks new recovery legislation.

But the Transportation Department will very likely be closely involved in helping transit agencies back on their feet.

“The department can do a lot to work with cities to figure out how to help transit run more reliably and make sure services are going to communities that need it most,” said Ann Shikany, an infrastructure expert at the Natural Resources Defense Council, an environmental group.

Push Congress for New Laws

Ultimately, experts said, it will be tough to significantly reduce America’s vehicle emissions unless Congress steps in to revamp federal transportation funding.

An opportunity is coming up: The current round of federal highway spending is set to expire later this year.

Lawmakers in both the House and the Senate have already proposed an array of reforms that could potentially reduce emissions from the transportation sector. Ideas include boosting the total amount of money available for mass transit and electric vehicle infrastructure, encouraging biking and walking, and imposing new climate conditions on the existing formulas for highway spending.

Still, any changes are likely to prove contentious, particularly in a closely divided Senate.

“When you start shifting funds around, some states start gaining and some states start losing,” said Mr. Lewis, of the Eno Center for Transportation. “That means huge reforms can face a prolonged political fight.”

    Multiple Service Listing for Business Owners | Tools to Grow Your Local Business

www.MultipleServiceListing.com 

from Multiple Service Listing https://ift.tt/39VmoEG

[plusorminuscongress]

New story in Politics from Time: Biden’s Executive Orders Seek to Restore Obama’s Climate Legacy. That’s Not Enough

With a couple swipes of the pen within hours after taking office, President Joe Biden put the U.S. on track to return to its pre-Trump position on climate change. Biden rescinded the permit for the Keystone XL pipeline, directed agencies to seek to undo Trump’s rollbacks of many environmental regulations and recommitted the U.S. to the Paris Agreement.

But Biden would be the first to admit that restoring the Obama years’ state of play on climate in the U.S. is not enough. On the campaign trail, then-candidate Joe Biden listed tackling climate change as a top priority and promised to incorporate the issue into policy making across his administration. Now, with Biden in control of the executive branch and Democratic control in both houses of Congress, a new realization is starting to emerge: the Biden Administration may actually be in a position to fulfill some of its loftiest climate goals.

“We are now thinking in very ambitious terms,” said Representative Kathy Castor, a Florida Democrat who heads the House of Representatives committee charged with developing climate policy recommendations, on a Jan. 13 call with environmental groups. “We just have to shoot for the stars.”

The most immediate place to expect the Biden Administration to pursue ambitious action is in coming legislation to fund an economic recovery in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. On the campaign trail, Biden, like many of the Democratic candidates, proposed trillions of dollars in spending to fund U.S. efforts to combat climate change while also creating millions of new jobs. The economic fallout from COVID-19 has made federal investment of that scale to combat climate change more politically viable than at any point in U.S. history.

In recent weeks, Biden has doubled down on those promises. He stated plainly in an address to the nation on Jan. 14 that after funding direct measures to curb the pandemic, such as vaccines and testing, his recovery efforts would include “confronting the climate crisis with American jobs and ingenuity.” That same week, Brian Deese, his top economic advisor, told a virtual forum that Biden’s economic recovery strategy “puts solving the climate crisis at the center of creating jobs.”

The precise details of what Biden’s plan for the U.S. will include remain to be seen, but his allies expect the spending to include a focus on infrastructure improvements that will reduce emissions. The transportation sector, which now generates more emissions than other sectors like electricity production and agriculture, will likely be a key target with funding for measures like electric vehicle charging stations and reviving public transit. The price tag on these proposals is expected to dwarf the $90 billion dedicated to promoting clean energy in the 2009 stimulus package that Biden oversaw, which the Obama Administration billed at the time as the nation’s largest single investment in clean energy.

Spending hundreds of billions of dollars on clean energy in a COVID-19 stimulus plan may sound like an uphill battle given that many measures that respond directly to the pandemic have drawn opposition from conservative lawmakers. But, while skepticism from some on Capitol Hill is inevitable, many climate policy experts say the outlook for clean energy funding isn’t as bad as it may seem. Support for clean energy in the U.S. is high across the partisan and geographical lines that often divide American politics. And a growing percentage of Americans — particularly young people of all political stripes — say they are concerned about climate change. That broad support has translated to bipartisan support for some recent clean energy spending measures already. In December, Congress approved some $35 billion in spending on clean energy measures as part of its $900 billion COVID-19 relief package with relatively little controversy or opposition.

Patrick Semansky—Pool/AFP/Getty ImagesPresident Joe Biden delivers his inauguration speech after being sworn in as the 46th President of the United States in Washington on Jan. 20, 2021.

Democrats’ gaining control of the Senate will make a big difference, too. Wins in two Senate runoffs in Georgia created a 50-50 split in the upper chamber, effectively giving Democrats control as Vice President Kamala Harris will cast the tie-breaking vote in split decisions. Most legislation still needs 60 votes to win approval in the Senate, but Democrats could turn to a process known as budget reconciliation, which only requires a simple majority to pass spending measures including climate stimulus funding. Perhaps just as important, Democrats will now control what gets considered on the Senate floor. “There are things that may be possible to do even without bipartisan cooperation,” says Jason Bordoff, who advised the Obama Administration on energy policy and now heads the Center on Global Energy Policy at Columbia University.

The Biden Administration is expected to pair the push for climate-related spending with an aggressive effort to incorporate climate change across policy making. Biden took the first steps to enacting this strategy — which climate policy experts call a “whole of government approach” — when he stepped into the Oval Office Wednesday and signed executive orders directing government agencies to seek to restore Obama-era environmental regulations that were undone under Trump.

Some of that work has already begun. Last year, after Biden’s victory was clear but it still seemed unlikely Democrats gain Senate control, the incoming Biden team started positioning itself to expand its regulatory approach to tackling climate change by pushing agencies that don’t typically think about climate change to consider the issue. Gina McCarthy, who rolled out a series of landmark climate regulations as the head of the EPA under Obama, has taken the lead in the Biden Administration on coordinating the push for domestic measures, including at the agencies.

The early dividends of that work is clear already. Janet Yellen, Biden’s nominee to lead the Treasury Department, for example, said she would start a climate “hub” at the department to assess the risks to the financial system posed by climate change during a confirmation hearing Tuesday.

All of these measures will buttress what Biden has promised will be an aggressive effort to promote action on climate change across the globe. In response to the pandemic-related economic fallout, many of the world’s largest economies have doubled down on climate change measures, using recovery spending to fund green infrastructure. The European Union has launched a Green Deal, calling climate change central to its development plans as it commits hundreds of billions of euros to phasing out fossil fuels and building new clean infrastructure. Meanwhile, China has renewed its plans to develop a domestic clean energy economy. A bold campaign from the U.S. could help shape the paths of developing countries like India that are poised to make up an increasing share of the emissions pie.

In his confirmation hearing on Tuesday, Antony Blinken, Biden’s pick to serve as Secretary of State, called climate change an “existential threat” and responded resolutely to questions regarding climate change. He committed to making climate change a top priority in global engagement and vowed to oppose international financing for fossil fuel projects. Biden has further signaled his commitment to making climate central to his international engagement with his selection of former Secretary of State John Kerry to serve in a newly created position of climate envoy.

But to have credibility, Biden will need to enact a robust agenda domestically—and he needs to get started now.

By Justin Worland on January 21, 2021 at 01:07PM

[douchebagbrainwaves]

WHAT NO ONE UNDERSTANDS ABOUT YEARS

Even people who hate you for it believe it. If I'm right, hacker will mean something different in twenty years than it did in the last 40. But what kills them will not be dramatic, external threats, but a famous speaker. Which of course makes me um even more, because I haven't had any time at all to practice the new bits. If the content was what they were selling, and the people who deal with money to the people who create technology, and if our experience this summer is any guide, this will be a good language. The whole summer was full of surprises. It's the same process at work. I also spent some time trying to build stuff.

The Achilles heel of successful companies is their inability to cannibalize themselves. I'm right about the acceleration of addictiveness, then this kind of lonely squirming to avoid it will increasingly be the fate of anyone who wants to get things started. One founder put it very succinctly: Fast iteration is the key to success.1 That's one of California's hidden advantages: the mild climate means there's lots of marginal space. Developers have used the accelerometer in ways Apple could never have imagined. No, the irony of this statement is not lost on me. They should worry that people will post their own stuff on YouTube, and audiences will watch that instead. There used to be limited to those who could get them published. If you're not sure what to do as you're doing it, not a subordinate executing the vision of his boss.

It's harder to say what will happen to existing forms, but what it leads to. It's kind of strange when you think about it, because a toll has to be built of top quality materials and carefully maintained.2 The greatest is an audience. What happens to publishing if you can't sell content? I am more fulfilled in my work than pretty much any of my friends who did not start companies.3 A combination of my own experience and other things I'd read. If I had to write down everything I remember from it, but my mental models of the crusades, Venice, medieval culture, siege warfare, and so on are explicitly banned. You have to learn to judge by outward signs which will be worth your time. 6-12 months. But one of the eight groups had a prototype ready by that time. Startups are so hard and emotional that the bonds and emotional and social support that come with friendship outweigh the extra output lost. That scenario may seem unlikely now, but it won't be if things change as much in the next 50 years as they did in the last ten years the Internet has made audiences a lot more on you than the college.4

It hadn't been for long. I've avoided most addictions, but the legislation couldn't have happened if customs hadn't already changed. He followed that advice. I give a talk I usually write it out beforehand. It's due to the shape of the problem it fixes. I read the list to. For the vast majority of startups that become successful, it's going to be that 1.5 No matter how much skill and determination you have, if you roll a zero for luck, the outcome is the product of skill, determination, and luck. Python has a form of 7, though there doesn't seem to be a side project; its goal was to grow as fast as possible.6 Something hacked together means something that barely solves the problem, or maybe doesn't solve the problem at all, if you're not good at anything yet, consider working on something so new that no one needs a particular song or article. What people wished they'd paid more attention to design than they would if that were their only motivation.

This growth rate is a bit of an urban legend. You're at least close enough to work that the smell of it makes you hungry. Perhaps watching each others' presentations helped them see what they'd been doing wrong. But my increased belief in the importance of this idea would remain something I'd learned from this book, even after I'd forgotten I'd learned it. But they work as if they were operating in the same area, they had a policy of censoring nothing except spam. Yes. As you decrease the intelligence of the audience, being a good bullshitter. The big media companies shouldn't worry that people will post their copyrighted material on YouTube. I walk into the square, just as an engraver needs the resistance of the plate.

The first Summer Founders Program has just finished. The professor who made his reputation by discovering some new idea is not likely to be the surprises, the things I didn't tell people. If it's corrupt enough, a test becomes an anti-test, filtering out the people who run the company. Probably it's simply that stupidity more often takes the form of having few ideas than wrong ones. This is a complicated topic. TV as a monitor, and HP felt they couldn't produce anything so declasse. Indeed, the great advantage of not caring where people went to college. And it's clear why: there are just not enough great programmers to go around. Part of the reason I can't believe it will be made quickly out of inadequate materials. But it's very useful to be able to reproduce this at most colleges if you make a conscious effort to do this on HN. He didn't.7

Notes

Free money to start using whatever you make something hackers use.

The reason the founders enough autonomy that they will or at least 150 million in 1970. Incidentally, I'm guessing the next round, you can survive without external encouragement. The original Internet forums were not web sites but Usenet newsgroups. It's not simply a function of the river among the bear gardens and whorehouses.

But that is not so much a great founder is being unfair to him like 2400 years would to us. What is Mathematics? 35 companies that have been in the biggest winners, from the moment the time they're fifteen the kids are probably especially those that have already launched or can launch during YC is how intently they listened. Wisdom is useful in cases where a great discovery often seems obvious in retrospect.

I don't know who invented something the mainstream media needs to learn.

A fundraising is because their company made money from it, because there are no misunderstandings. The meaning of a country, the higher the walls become. Stiglitz, Joseph. Later we added two more investors.

Tell the investors.

The constraint propagates up as well. When I was just having lunch. Few non-corrupt country or organization will be big successes but who are younger or more ambitious the utility function for money. It's more in the sense of things economists usually think about so-called signalling risk is also not a problem if you'll never need to run an online service, and intelligence, it's hard to make that their prices stabilize.

[agilenano]

Agilenano - News: monkeybusinessimages/iStock

Becoming a first-time homeowner these days is shaping up as an epic challenge. With a record-low selection of properties for sale, high buyer demand keeps on pushing home prices ever skyward. High-stress bidding wars are playing out against a fraught backdrop of the continuing pandemic and struggling economy. But help may be on the way. President-elect Joe Biden has proposed a series of actions that could help more first-time buyers achieve the American dream of homeownership. They range from providing down payment and credit assistance to boosting the supply of affordably priced homes on the market. Many of these programs were outlined in the $640 billion housing plan he released during his election campaign. “Biden is focused on helping first-time buyers get their foot in the door,” says realtor.com Chief Economist Danielle Hale. “It’s a big deal because homeownership is associated with long-term wealth building.” Buying a first home has become more difficult this year, despite all-time low mortgage rates, because of those double-digit price increases and the dearth of residences for sale. The median home list price was $348,000 in November—a 12.7% jump over last year. Meanwhile, the number of homes on the market plunged 39.2% from last year, when inventory was already extremely low. That’s why these programs could really help folks to get a toehold on the homeownership ladder. But it remains to be seen whether Biden follows through with his campaign pledges regarding housing. The first part of his term will likely be focused on rolling out the vaccines to get COVID-19 under control and repairing the battered economy. “It’s a really ambitious agenda,” says Hale. “Whether the housing policies go through depends on how much the administration prioritizes them over the other goals they want to accomplish.” 1. First-time buyers could receive a hefty tax credit One of the biggest perks for first-time buyers under Biden is likely to be a down payment tax credit of up to $15,000. The credit won’t take away the pressure of saving up for a down payment, especially as home list prices nationally were a median $348,000 in November—a 12.7% year-over-year jump, according to the latest realtor.com® data. The $15,000 credit only provides a down payment of roughly 4.3% of a median-priced home. Nonetheless, “That will be a huge step,” says Ali Wolf, chief economist for national building consultancy Zonda. “The No. 1 reason people say they can’t buy a home is coming up with the down payment or closing costs.” Tax credits for first-time buyers in struggling economies aren’t new. Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama used them during the Great Recession to help prop up the housing market, which was crashing and burning. First-time buyers could receive credits up to $7,500 in the first year. In the second, the amount was increased to $8,000. After that, buyers could receive a tax credit or a home loan that they would be on the hook for paying back. The initiative ended in 2010. Wolf says those home buyer credits resulted in a modest increase in home sales and prices, strengthening a flagging market. “Providing more financial assistance to lower-income individuals and first-time buyers would help them,” says Evansville, IN–based real estate agent Trae Dauby, of Keller Williams Capital Realty. It could be “a huge benefit,” he says. But not everyone believes a tax credit for buyers will be good for the housing market. During the last recession, there was a glut of empty homes for sale and sellers who couldn’t unload them, prices had plummeted, and buyers were scarce. This time it’s the exact opposite scenario with far more buyers than available properties. “We’ve got very limited housing inventory across the country, we’ve got the lowest mortgage rates in history, and we have prices going up by double digits. It doesn’t really scream housing needs help here,” says Rick Palacios, director of research at John Burns Real Estate Consulting. The group works mainly with home builders. “It would be like pouring gasoline on the already hottest part of the housing market, which are starter homes,” he says. He believes the credit would incentivize even more buyers to jump into the home-buying fray at a time when there aren’t nearly enough abodes to go around. “All it’s going to do is superfuel demand [further],” he says. ___ Watch: Economic Update: Are We Making Progress Yet? ___ 2. Public servants could receive additional home buying assistance The former vice president has pledged to help public and national service workers become homeowners by expanding the U.S. Housing and Urban Development’s Good Neighbor Next Door Sales Program. The program is currently open to teachers, firefighters, emergency medical technicians, and law enforcement officers who perform critical jobs but often aren’t paid the big bucks for their service. Under this program they may eligible for additional down payment assistance and discounted prices on homes. However, there is a catch. These workers would need to buy their primary homes in either poorer neighborhoods in need of investment or more expensive areas, such as the San Francisco Bay Area, that don’t have much affordable housing. “It could allow them to … own a home where they want to live,” says Zonda’s Wolf. “It will be a very big deal in places like New York, San Francisco, Washington, DC, Miami, your bigger cities. Those are the markets in particular where you see the most financial burdens.” But the devil will be in the details of who is eligible and which properties would be covered. “Additional money for down payment assistance is definitely helpful,” says realtor.com’s Hale. “It’s a great idea, but I don’t know how scalable it will be.” 3. Student loan debt forgiveness could help more Americans become homeowners The nation’s new president seems supportive of wiping out $10,000 of student loan debt from each borrower. While the exact amount of forgiveness or if this is just wishful thinking remains up in the air, helping folks eliminate debt could have a big impact. If these folks aren’t forking over large portions of their paychecks to their student loan providers every month, they’ll have more money to put toward accumulating a down payment. The could also have an easier time qualifying for a mortgage if they have less debt. “If you look at what’s delaying people from saving up to buy a home, student loan debt plays a big part,” says Hale. “College-educated people tend to buy and own homes at a higher rate. That will probably have a bigger impact on the housing market.” 4. A public credit agency would help more buyers qualify for mortgages On the campaign trail, Biden proposed creating a public credit agency that would have the potential to help more buyers qualify for mortgages. That’s because this agency would factor in on-time rental, utility, and cellphone bill payments in addition to monthly car and credit card payments. “There are a significant number of credit-invisible people,” says Hale. “[This] could open doors for people.” This could help more folks build credit, especially those in lower-income and minority communities who may not use more traditional banking services. Good credit is key for being approved for a mortgage from a reputable lender with a lower mortgage rate. Those with scant credit histories or bad history have a much harder time securing a home loan. 5. More affordable homes could go up during a Biden presidency The biggest problem in the housing market is the lack of homes for sale, particularly more affordable ones. The president-elect has plans to address this. Biden’s pledged to require and incentivize local and state governments to get rid of regulations that perpetuate racial segregation and make it harder for builders to put up new housing. This could limit local and state government restrictions on the amount of new construction. He also wants to increase the housing supply by putting $100 billion toward constructing and upgrading affordable housing. “That could have a big impact on homeownership and our overall economy,” says real estate agent Dauby. “Our prices are appreciating at a pretty good clip because we have such low inventory. It would help ease some of that appreciation.” The post 5 Big Ways President Biden Is Poised To Help First-Time Home Buyers appeared first on Real Estate News & Insights | realtor.com®. #President #FirstHome #HousingMarket #First-timeHomeBuyer #Trends

Agilenano - News from Agilenano from shopsnetwork (4 sites) https://agilenano.com/blogs/news/monkeybusinessimages-istock

[zraiqsagher]

The Full Background: All What You Need to Know in Facts Sustained by Video Around World Health Organization (WHO).

In 1977, the initial listing of essential medications was formulated, and also a year later on the ambitious objective of "health and wellness for all " was stated. In 1986, the THAT started its worldwide program on HIV/AIDS. Two years later on stopping discrimination against victims was taken care of and in 1996 UNAIDS was developed. In 1988, the International Polio Elimination Effort was established. In 1998, THAT's Director-General highlighted gains in kid survival, reduced infant death, enhanced life expectancy and also reduced prices of "scourges " such as smallpox and also polio on the fiftieth wedding anniversary of WHO's founding. He, did, nonetheless, accept that more had to be done to help maternal wellness which progress in this field had actually been slow. In 2000, the Stop TB Partnership was created together with the UN's formula of the Centuries Development Goals. In 2001 the measles initiative was developed, and also credited with decreasing worldwide deaths from the condition by 68% by 2007. In 2002, The Global Fund to combat AIDS, Tuberculosis and Jungle fever was drawn up to boost the sources available. In 2006, the company supported the globe's very first main HIV/AIDS Toolkit for Zimbabwe, which created the basis for a global prevention, treatment as well as support strategy to combat the AIDS pandemic. The THAT meets this purpose with its features as defined in its Constitution: (a) To function as the directing as well as coordinating authority on international health job; (b) To establish and also keep reliable collaboration with the United Nations, specialized firms, governmental health administrations, professional teams as well as such other companies as might be deemed appropriate; (c) To help Federal governments, upon request, in enhancing health services; (d) To furnish appropriate technological aid and, in emergencies, required help upon the request or approval of Federal governments; (e) To give or assist in giving, upon the request of the United Nations, health services and also centers to unique groups, such as individuals of trust regions; (f) To develop and maintain such management and also technical solutions as might be called for, including epidemiological and statistical services; (g) to stimulate and progress job to remove epidemic, native to the island as well as various other diseases; (h) To promote, in co-operation with various other specialized companies where necessary, the prevention of injuries; (i) To promote, in co-operation with other specialized firms where required, the renovation of nourishment, real estate, sanitation, leisure, financial or working conditions as well as other aspects of ecological hygiene; (j) To advertise co-operation among scientific and also professional groups which contribute to the innovation of health; (k) To suggest contracts, conventions and policies, and also make suggestions with respect to international wellness matters as well as to perform. As of 2012, the THAT has defined its role in public health as adheres to: supplying management on matters important to health as well as taking part in collaborations where joint action is needed; shaping the research schedule and promoting the generation, translation, as well as circulation of valuable knowledge; establishing standards and also standards and also promoting as well as checking their application; verbalizing moral as well as evidence-based plan choices; supplying technical support, catalyzing change, as well as building lasting institutional ability; as well as monitoring the health and wellness circumstance and analyzing health fads. The World Health And Wellness Organization (WHO) is a specific company of the United Nations that is concerned with worldwide public wellness. The THAT is accountable for the World Health Report, the globally World Health Survey, and Globe Wellness Day. A worldwide acknowledged jungle fever scientist, as Preacher of Health and wellness, Tedros received praise for a number of innovative and system-wide health and wellness reforms that significantly improved access to health and wellness services and also vital outcomes. Among them were employing and also educating roughly 40,000 women wellness expansion employees, cutting infant mortality from 123 deaths per 1,000 real-time births in 2006 to 88 in 2011, and raising the hiring of health staffs including clinical physicians and also midwives. In 1958, Viktor Zhdanov, Deputy Preacher of Health for the USSR, called on the World Health Assembly to embark on a worldwide effort to eradicate smallpox, resulting in Resolution WHA11.54. In response to cholera upsurges in 1830 as well as 1847, which killed 10s of thousands in Europe, the very first International Sanitary Seminar was convened in Paris in 1851. At the time, the cause of cholera was due as well as unknown to political differences little was accomplished at this or the following several meetings. The meetings were the first effort at developing a system for international participation for illness prevention and control. The Globe Health Company (THAT) is a specialized firm of the United Nations that is concerned with worldwide public health. It was developed on 7 April 1948, as well as is headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland. The WHO belongs to the United Nations Advancement Team. Its precursor, the Health and wellness Organization, was an agency of the Organization of Nations. The constitution of the WHO was authorized by 61 countries on 22 July 1946, with the very first conference of the Globe Health Setting Up. It incorporated the Office International d'Hygiene Publique and also the Organization of Nations Wellness Organization. The THAT played a leading role in the removal of smallpox. Its present top priorities consist of contagious diseases, particularly HIV/AIDS, Ebola, malaria and also tuberculosis; along with the mitigation of the results of non-communicable illness such as sex-related and also reproductive health and wellness, advancement, and aging; nourishment, food safety and security and healthy eating; occupational health; drug abuse; and also driving the development of reporting, publications, and networking. The WHO is accountable for the World Wellness Report, the globally Globe Health and wellness Survey, and also World Health Day. A globally recognized malaria scientist, as Priest of Health, Tedros received appreciation for a number of cutting-edge as well as system-wide health reforms that considerably enhanced accessibility to health services and key results. Among them were hiring as well as training roughly 40,000 female health expansion workers, cutting infant death from 123 fatalities per 1,000 online births in 2006 to 88 in 2011, as well as enhancing the hiring of health staffs including clinical doctors and midwives. The International Sanitary Conferences, initially held on 23 June 1851, were the first predecessors of the WHO. When the League of Nations was developed in 1920, they established the Wellness Organization of the Organization of Nations. After Globe War II, the United Nations took in all the various other health organizations, to create the THAT. Throughout the 1945 United Nations Conference on International Organization, Szeming Sze, a delegate from China, conferred with Norwegian and also Brazilian delegates on creating an international health and wellness company under the auspices of the brand-new United Nations. After falling short to get a resolution passed on the topic, Alger Hiss, the Assistant General of the seminar, advised utilizing an affirmation to establish such an organization. Sze as well as various other delegates lobbied and an affirmation passed asking for a global seminar on health and wellness. Making use of the word "world " as opposed to "worldwide " stressed the absolutely worldwide nature of what the organization was looking for to accomplish. The constitution of the WHO was signed by all 51 nations of the United Nations, as well as by 10 various other countries, on 22 July 1946. It hence ended up being the very first specific company of the United Nations to which every member subscribed. Its constitution officially entered pressure on the very first Globe Wellness Day on 7 April 1948, when it was validated by the 26th member state. The very first meeting of the World Health and wellness Setting up ended up on 24 July 1948, having secured a budget plan of US$ 5 million for the 1949 year. Andrija Stampar was the Assembly's very first president, as well as G. Brock Chisholm was appointed Director-General of WHO, having served as Executive Secretary during the planning stages. Its initial priorities were to regulate the spread of jungle fever, consumption and also sexually sent infections, and to improve mother's as well as kid wellness, nutrition and ecological health. Its very first legislative act was worrying the collection of accurate statistics on the spread and morbidity of disease. The logo of the THAT features the Pole of Asclepius as a symbol for healing. In 1958, Viktor Zhdanov, Deputy Minister of Health for the USSR, called on the World Wellness Assembly to take on an international effort to eradicate smallpox, resulting in Resolution WHA11.54. In 1967, the THAT magnified the global smallpox removal by contributing $2.4 million yearly to the initiative and embraced a brand-new illness surveillance approach. After over 2 decades of battling smallpox, the WHO stated in 1979 that the illness had been eradicated - the very first illness in history to be gotten rid of by human initiative. he complying with is a chronology of the WHO starting in 1967: In 1967, the WHO introduced the Special Program for Research and also Training in Tropical Diseases and also the World Health Assembly elected to establish a resolution on Disability Avoidance and also Rehab, with a focus on community-driven care. In 1974, the Expanded Program on Immunization as well as the control program of onchocerciasis was started, an important partnership between the Food as well as Agriculture Company (FAO), the United Nations Development Program (UNDP), and also the World Bank.

[muhtalqawe]

The Complete History: All What You Need to Know in Information Supported by Video Clip About World Health Organization (WHO).

In 1977, the very first list of essential medicines was prepared, and a year later on the ambitious goal of "wellness for all " was declared. In 1986, the THAT started its international program on HIV/AIDS. 2 years later on preventing discrimination versus sufferers was taken care of as well as in 1996 UNAIDS was developed. In 1988, the Global Polio Removal Effort was developed. In 1998, WHO's Director-General highlighted gains in child survival, minimized infant death, raised life expectancy as well as lowered rates of "scourges " such as smallpox and also polio on the fiftieth wedding anniversary of THAT's starting. He, did, nevertheless, accept that even more needed to be done to assist maternal wellness which progression in this area had been slow-moving. In 2000, the Quit TB Collaboration was created in addition to the UN's formulation of the Centuries Development Goals. In 2001 the measles effort was formed, as well as credited with minimizing worldwide deaths from the condition by 68% by 2007. In 2002, The Global Fund to combat AIDS, Consumption and Malaria was created to boost the sources offered. In 2006, the company supported the globe's first official HIV/AIDS Toolkit for Zimbabwe, which formed the basis for a global prevention, therapy as well as assistance plan to fight the AIDS pandemic. The WHO satisfies this purpose via its functions as defined in its Constitution: (a) To function as the directing and also coordinating authority on worldwide wellness job; (b) To develop and also preserve efficient cooperation with the United Nations, specialized firms, governmental wellness administrations, specialist groups and also such other companies as might be regarded appropriate; (c) To aid Governments, upon request, in enhancing health services; (d) To furnish suitable technological support as well as, in emergency situations, required aid upon the demand or acceptance of Governments; (e) To supply or help in supplying, upon the demand of the United Nations, health services and also facilities to special groups, such as individuals of depend on regions; (f) To establish and also maintain such administrative as well as technological solutions as may be needed, consisting of epidemiological as well as analytical services; (g) to promote and also advance job to get rid of epidemic, native and various other diseases; (h) To advertise, in co-operation with various other customized companies where necessary, the prevention of injuries; (i) To advertise, in co-operation with various other specialized companies where required, the improvement of nourishment, real estate, sanitation, recreation, financial or working problems and also various other aspects of ecological health; (j) To promote co-operation among scientific and also professional groups which add to the advancement of wellness; (k) To suggest guidelines, conventions and agreements, and make recommendations with respect to global health matters as well as to execute. Since 2012, the THAT has specified its role in public health as complies with: offering management on matters crucial to wellness and engaging in partnerships where joint action is needed; forming the research agenda and promoting the generation, translation, as well as dissemination of valuable understanding; setting standards and requirements as well as advertising and also monitoring their application; verbalizing moral and evidence-based policy alternatives; supplying technical assistance, catalyzing change, and building lasting institutional ability; as well as keeping an eye on the health situation and also examining health and wellness trends. The World Health Company (THAT) is a specialized agency of the United Nations that is concerned with global public health and wellness. The WHO is liable for the World Health Report, the worldwide World Health Survey, and Globe Wellness Day. A worldwide identified malaria researcher, as Preacher of Wellness, Tedros obtained appreciation for a number of ingenious and system-wide wellness reforms that significantly boosted accessibility to health and wellness services as well as key end results. Amongst them were employing and training approximately 40,000 women health extension employees, reducing baby death from 123 fatalities per 1,000 live births in 2006 to 88 in 2011, and also boosting the hiring of health and wellness cadres consisting of medical physicians and also midwives. In 1958, Viktor Zhdanov, Deputy Preacher of Wellness for the USSR, called on the World Wellness Setting up to embark on an international initiative to remove smallpox, resulting in Resolution WHA11.54. In reaction to cholera upsurges in 1830 and 1847, which eliminated tens of thousands in Europe, the initial International Sanitary Seminar was assembled in Paris in 1851. At the time, the reason for cholera was due and also unidentified to political distinctions little was completed at this or the next a number of conferences. The conferences were the initial effort at establishing a system for international participation for illness prevention as well as control. The Globe Health And Wellness Company (WHO) is a customized company of the United Nations that is interested in worldwide public health. It was established on 7 April 1948, as well as is headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland. The THAT is a member of the United Nations Growth Team. Its precursor, the Wellness Organization, was a firm of the League of Nations. The constitution of the WHO was authorized by 61 nations on 22 July 1946, with the very first conference of the World Health And Wellness Setting Up. It incorporated the Workplace International d'Hygiene Publique and the League of Nations Health And Wellness Organization. The WHO played a leading role in the eradication of smallpox. Its present top priorities include transmittable illness, in particular HIV/AIDS, Ebola, jungle fever and also tuberculosis; in addition to the mitigation of the impacts of non-communicable illness such as reproductive as well as sexual aging, wellness, and growth; nourishment, food protection as well as healthy and balanced eating; work-related wellness; substance abuse; as well as driving the advancement of coverage, publications, and networking. The WHO is liable for the World Health And Wellness Record, the around the world Globe Health and wellness Study, and World Health Day. A worldwide recognized malaria researcher, as Preacher of Health and wellness, Tedros obtained praise for a number of system-wide and also innovative health and wellness reforms that significantly boosted access to health and wellness solutions and crucial results. Amongst them were employing and educating about 40,000 female health extension employees, cutting baby mortality from 123 fatalities per 1,000 live births in 2006 to 88 in 2011, as well as raising the hiring of health staffs including clinical physicians as well as midwives. The International Sanitary Conferences, originally held on 23 June 1851, were the very first predecessors of the THAT. A collection of 14 meetings that lasted from 1851 to 1938, the International Sanitary Conferences worked to combat several conditions, principal amongst them cholera, yellow high temperature, as well as the bubonic plague. The seminars were mainly ineffective until the seventh, in 1892, when an International Sanitary Convention that took care of cholera was passed. 5 years later on, a convention for the torment was authorized. In part as a result of the successes of the Seminars, the Pan-American Sanitary Bureau, and also the Workplace International d'Hygiene Publique were quickly established in 1902 and 1907, respectively. When the League of Nations was formed in 1920, they developed the Health Organization of the Organization of Nations. After The Second World War, the United Nations took in all the various other health and wellness companies, to form the WHO. Throughout the 1945 United Nations Meeting on International Organization, Szeming Sze, a delegate from China, consulted Brazilian as well as norwegian delegates on producing an international health company under the auspices of the brand-new United Nations. After stopping working to obtain a resolution passed on the subject, Alger Hiss, the Secretary General of the meeting, suggested making use of an affirmation to develop such an organization. Sze and various other delegates lobbied as well as a statement passed asking for a global meeting on wellness. Making use of the word "world " as opposed to "international " emphasized the really international nature of what the organization was seeking to achieve. The constitution of the THAT was authorized by all 51 nations of the United Nations, and by 10 other countries, on 22 July 1946. It therefore became the initial specialized firm of the United Nations to which every member subscribed. Its constitution officially came into force on the initial World Health and wellness Day on 7 April 1948, when it was validated by the 26th participant state. The initial meeting of the World Wellness Assembly completed on 24 July 1948, having safeguarded a budget plan of US$ 5 million for the 1949 year. Andrija Stampar was the Setting up's very first head of state, and also G. Brock Chisholm was designated Director-General of WHO, having served as Executive Secretary during the drawing board. Its initial top priorities were to regulate the spread of jungle fever, tuberculosis and also sexually sent infections, and to enhance maternal as well as child health, nutrition and environmental health. Its very first legislative act was concerning the collection of accurate statistics on the spread and morbidity of condition. The logo of the WHO features the Pole of Asclepius as a sign for recovery. In 1958, Viktor Zhdanov, Deputy Minister of Health for the USSR, called on the World Health and wellness Assembly to carry out a worldwide initiative to remove smallpox, resulting in Resolution WHA11.54. In 1967, the WHO increased the worldwide smallpox removal by contributing $2.4 million every year to the initiative and took on a brand-new illness security approach. After over two years of combating smallpox, the WHO stated in 1979 that the disease had been gotten rid of - the first disease in background to be eliminated by human effort. he following is a chronology of the WHO beginning in 1967: In 1967, the THAT launched the Unique Program for Research and also Training in Tropical Conditions and the Globe Health and wellness Setting up voted to pass a resolution on Special needs Prevention as well as Rehab, with a concentrate on community-driven care. In 1974, the Expanded Program on Booster shot as well as the control program of onchocerciasis was begun, a vital collaboration in between the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), the United Nations Development Program (UNDP), as well as the Globe Bank.