Scandal Plagued Energy Corporation Pays 1 Percent
Tax Rate On $5.5 Billion In Profits

post from ThinkProgress on 03 July 2012 03:00:04 PM. © ThinkProgress

The scandal plagued corporation Chesapeake Energy has been dealing with the fallout of news that its CEO used company backed assets to secure more than $1 billion in personal loans. The company has also been charged with conspiring to hold down land prices in Michigan, opening it up to an anti-trust investigation.

Meanwhile, the company has paid just a 1 percent tax rate over the last two decades, despite making billions of dollars in profits, as Bloomberg News noted:

Chesapeake Energy Corp. (CHK) made $5.5 billion in pretax profits since its founding more than two decades ago. So far, the second-largest U.S. natural-gas producer has paid income taxes on almost none of it.
Chesapeake paid $53 million over its 23-year history, or about 1 percent of the cumulative pretax profits during that period, data compiled by Bloomberg show. That?s less than half of Chief Executive Officer Aubrey McClendon?s compensation, for example, in 2008 alone.

And Chesapeake isn’t alone amongst domestic oil and gas producers: “Range Resources Corp. paid income taxes of about 0.4 percent of pretax income over the past decade, the data show. Southwestern Energy Co. (SWN) paid 2.1 percent and EQT Corp. (EQT) paid 5.3 percent.”

These companies are able to get away with paying such low rates because of tax preferences handed out to the oil and gas industries. Overall, the U.S. spends $4 billion annually on tax giveaways to these already hugely profitable companies.

The U.S. has already seen effective corporate tax rates plunge to a 40 year low, even as corporate profits hit record highs, thanks to the plethora of giveaways and loopholes in the corporate tax code. In the last four years, 26 major corporations made billions in profits while paying no federal corporate income tax. That Chesapeake can make billions while paying next to nothing is simply indicative of the extent of the problem.

Read The Full Article:
http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2012/07/03/510581/chesapeake-energy-tax-rate/

Digg this

Pakistan Reopens Supply Lines As Clinton
Apologizes For Airstrikes

post from ThinkProgress on 03 July 2012 03:00:04 PM. © ThinkProgress

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said today that Pakistan will reopen key supply lines into Afghanistan after closing them in response to a deadly a U.S. airstrike last November that killed 24 Pakistani soldiers. Clinton apologized for the incident, saying in a conversation with the Pakistani Foreign Minister that she “once again reiterated our deepest regrets for the tragic incident in Salala last November. … We are committed to working closely with Pakistan and Afghanistan to prevent this from ever happening again.” The Pakistanis said that it would no longer charge a transit fee for each truck carrying NATO supplies.

– Nina Liss-Schultz

Read The Full Article:
http://thinkprogress.org/security/2012/07/03/510796/pakistan-reopens-supply-lines
-as-clinton-apologizes-for-airstrikes/

Digg this

One of Romney's spoiled kids speaks Spanish, so
all's cool with Latinos

post from Daily Kos on 03 July 2012 02:41:17 PM. © Daily Kos

When is Romney going to look like a challenger? Seems to play everything safe, make no news except burn off Hispanics.
? @rupertmurdoch via Twitter for iPad

The date of that Tweet is June 24. It's clear Rupert Murdoch thinks that Republicans can compete with Latinos, and is so convinced of this fiction that he pressed his favorite candidate at an event last week on the issue.

But one of the most notable exchanges was on immigration, when [Univision CEO Randy] Falco began by telling Romney how frequently President Obama has been on Univision in comparison to the Republican candidate, adding that he thinks it's important for the GOP hopeful to address what the president did on immigration a few weeks ago with his executive action move to halt some deportations.
Murdoch chimed in, three sources said, telling the candidate on the issue of immigration generally, "You have to take the fight to Obama on this." Romney said the Hispanic vote is important, noting he has Sen. Marco Rubio on the trail for him and that one of his own sons speaks Spanish, but indicated he is not going to change positions from some of what he said in the primaries.
"I know I took some positions in the primary that are" hard to contend with in a general, Romney said, according to two sources.
"I am not going to be a flip-flopper," he added, according to one guest. He talked more about the various concerns that he has to balance in terms of competing constituencies who have different views ? and noted, two sources said, the precise percentage that Hispanic voters make up in the swing states, a figure that was less than 20 percent.

This is all pretty spectacular stuff.

1. The notion that his sons' language skills are in anyway relevant to the Latino vote is patently absurd and, quite frankly, insulting. I'm sure at least some of his sons like girls. Does that guarantee Romney the women's vote? Sheesh.

2. Marco Rubio is as relevant to the Latino vote as Herman Cain is to the African American vote. In fact, it's worse?because most Latinos have deep-seated resentments against Cuban-Americans because of their preferential immigration treatment.

3. I wish we knew how Murdoch thinks Romney can "take the fight to Obama" on immigration. It is a fact that Latinos are not happy with Obama's immigration record, but that's because the Obama Administration deported more undocumented immigrants than even George W. Bush. So for Romney to successfully score points against Obama on the issue, he would have to do it from the left. Somehow, I doubt that's what Murdoch has in mind.

4. "I am not going to be a flip flopper," says Mitt Romney, King of the Flip Floppers.

5. Since Latinos are 20 percent of swing states, they don't matter? If he wants to cede the Latino vote, that's freakin' awesome. But the notion that 20 percent is somehow insignificant is pretty absurd. Unless you're winning states by more that 20 points, Latinos will have a big say in who emerges victorious.

6. Romney has to balance "competing constituencies." In other words, the teabaggers won't let him move left on immigration.

Looking at this story, it's clear that Romney has ceded the immigration debate, just as he's ceding the health care debate.

Indeed, the two are inextricably linked?his inability to punch hard on Obamacare (what with him being the father of it and all) has enraged the wingnuts. Further running afoul of them on immigration could lose him his base for good?something he can't afford. So if something has to give, it's going to be the brown people.

Read The Full Article:
http://feeds.dailykos.com/~r/dailykos/index/~3/sS2b13Xj_2c/-One-of-Romney-s-spoil
ed-kids-speaks-Spanish-so-all-s-good-with-Latinos

Digg this

Republicans Can Also Opt Out of Exchanges, Not
Fund Federally Administered Ones

post from Firedoglake on 03 July 2012 02:40:27 PM. © Firedoglake

I believe that the ability for Republicans to undermine the Medicaid expansion in the health care law is really terrible, because this is one of the few unquestionably good parts of the legislation. But it's worth noting that Republicans have plenty of[...]

Read The Full Article:
http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/firedoglake/fdl/~3/2G_f28qG6is/

Digg this

Analysis of June ETF Launches

post from Jutia Group on 03 July 2012 02:32:57 PM. © Jutia Group

June brought a fourth consecutive month of below-average ETF and ETN introductions. The month’s eleven launches were not necessarily boring, however. They include ETFs targeting high dividend payers without fear of sector concentration, Canadian . . . → Read More: Analysis of June ETF Launches

Read The Full Article:
http://jutiagroup.com/20120703-analysis-of-june-etf-launches/

Digg this

In West Virginia, Coal Means More, Party Less

post from FiveThirtyEight on 03 July 2012 02:12:25 PM. © FiveThirtyEight

West Virginia is a conservative state where Republicans win presidential elections and Democrats predominate in state government. That disconnect is partly explained by party loyalty and the importance of coal in the state.

Read The Full Article:
http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/07/03/in-west-virginia-coal-means-m
ore-party-less/

Digg this

Police Ask For Charges Against Ex-Commerce
Secretary

post from TPMMuckraker on 03 July 2012 02:01:12 PM. © TPMMuckraker

Police in Southern California have asked prosecutors to charge former U.S. Commerce Secretary John Bryson with a crime because of a bizarre series of car crashes he was involved in last month, a detective said on Tuesday morning.

Los Angeles County sheriff's detective Don Moses told TPM that investigators sent the case to prosecutors on Monday and recommended the former cabinet official be charged in the June 9 crashes.

Bryson initially took medical leave and later resigned from President Obama's cabinet following allegations that he crashed his Lexus into a stopped car, drove away and crashed into a second car in a neighboring city a short time later. Bryson was cited for felony hit and run and ordered to appear in court within 60 days.

Following the incident, a White House spokesman said Bryson had suffered a seizure the night of the crashes but stopped short of blaming the medical condition for the incident.

Investigators meanwhile said Bryson passed a roadside alcohol breath test at the scene but they still refused to rule out anything, including whether drugs were at play.

Speaking with TPM, Moses declined to specify what charges had been requested because his agency was only assisting the lead investigators in the San Gabriel Police Department. "They submitted charges," Moses said. However, he noted that the former secretary was cited for a felony the night of the crash.

The detective said a toxicology test had been completed, but he declined to say what the results showed. The test was sent to prosecutors along with Bryson's medical records, which Moses said were subpoenaed as part of the investigation. The detective declined to say what was in the medical records, citing concerns for Bryson's privacy.

It's now up to the Los Angeles County District Attorney's Office to decide what to do with the case. A spokeswoman for the office confirmed to the AP on Monday that prosecutors had received the case, but she declined to say anything else.

Read The Full Article:
http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/TPMmuckraker/~3/wuQ0tSfX1Y8/bryson_prosecutors_com
merce_charges.php

Digg this

Occupy Supply Summer Water Fund

Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter's incredibly stupid and reckless decision to stop the fire department from giving water to participants of the Occupy National Gathering during a heat wave has now been reversed in the wake of the public outcry. But we[...]

Read The Full Article:
http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/firedoglake/fdl/~3/wm4_XG1YBjU/

Digg this

It's Up To The Prosecutor Now

Police seek charges against former Commerce Secretary John Bryson for last month's hit and run incident.[...]

Read The Full Article:
http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Talking-Points-Memo/~3/p0W3ay_zrrE/its_up_to_the_p
rosecutor_now.php

Digg this

He Goes There

Rep. Joe Walsh (R-IL) publicly questions whether his Democratic opponent Tammy Duckworth, who lost two legs in Iraq, is a true war hero. [...]

Read The Full Article:
http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Talking-Points-Memo/~3/mpFivfTD6p8/he_goes_there_1
.php

Digg this