Warren Buffett: Tax law delivered $29 billion to Berkshire Hathaway

...Berkshire’s $29 billion bonus stems from unrealized gains on equity investments getting taxed at a rate of 21 percent instead of the previous 35 percent rate. The gain helped push Berkshire’s net earnings in 2017 up to $44.94 billion, nearly double the $24.07 billion recorded a year earlier. 

Buffet said while the gain is “real,” it “did not come from anything we accomplished at Berkshire.”

What Trump fears the most

The Washington Post provides a link to the Democrats' memo countering the Repug House Intelligence Committee memo that claimed the FBI was unfairly targeting Carter Page based primarily on the Steele dossier.

Recall that Trump's relationship with Russia is featured in the Steele dossier, which the media calls mostly "unconfirmed."

NY Times columnist Thomas Friedman the other day:

...either Trump’s real estate empire has taken large amounts of money from shady oligarchs linked to the Kremlin — so much that they literally own him; or rumors are true that he engaged in sexual misbehavior while he was in Moscow running the Miss Universe contest, which Russian intelligence has on tape and he doesn’t want released...

On page 2 of the Steele dossier we find the account of what Friedman is referring to:

3. However, there were other aspects to TRUMP's engagement with the Russian authorities. One which had borne fruit for them was to exploit TRUMP's personal obsessions and sexual perversion in order to obtain suitable 'kompromat' (compromising material) on him. According to Source D, where s/he had been present, TRUMP's perverted conduct in Moscow included hiring the presidential suite of the Ritz Carlton Hotel, where he knew President and Mrs OBAMA (whom he hated) had stayed on one of their official trips to Russia, and defiling the bed where they had slept by employing a number of prostitutes to perform a 'golden showers' (urination) show in front of him. The hotel was known to be under FSB[successor to the KGB] control with microphones and concealed cameras in all the main rooms to record anything they wanted to.

4. The Moscow Ritz Carlton episode involving TRUMP reported above was confirmed by Source E,[redacted] who said that s/he and several of the staff were aware of it at the time and subsequently. S/he believed it had happened in 2013. Source E provided an introduction for a company ethnic Russian operative to Source F, a female staffer at the hotel when TRUMP had stayed there, who also confirmed the story. Speaking separately in June 2016, Source B (the former top level Russian intelligence officer) asserted that TRUMP's unorthodox behavior in Russia over the years had provided the authorities there with enough embarrassing material on the now Republican presidential candidate to be able to blackmail him if they so wished.

Trump may be worried about money laundering and outright collusion with Russia by his campaign. But I bet the above is what worries him the most, since the Russians surely have videos they can release whenever they choose.

Either way Trump is going down and the sooner the better.

Later: In the New Yorker piece linked below, Jeffrey Toobin on the above: "The accusation seems unlikely, though not impossible, and Trump has denied the validity of the dossier." Of course he denies it. But what we've learned about this contemptible human being in the last year makes it to my "probable" list. Nothing is beneath this man.

See also Jeffrey Toobin's Trump's Miss Universe Gambit in the New Yorker and The Nunes Memo Is Fake and the Russia Scandal Is Very Real.

Sexual harassment in city government

SF City Hall

Patrick Monette-Shaw in the Westside Observer:

San Francisco City government is no more immune from sexual harassment scandals than other jurisdictions. The Time’s Up and #MeToo movements need to focus on our City government.

The sexual harassment bombshell that exploded around Harvey Weinstein and the entertainment business quickly spread to Washington, D.C. ensnaring Senator Al Franken, among others. It spread to our state legislature in Sacramento, where five sexual harassment settlements cost $950,000 over two decades.

In contrast, at least 34 sexual harassment and sexual discrimination lawsuits filed by City employees against the City have cost at least $9.1 million since 2007. City Attorney time and expenses fighting the lawsuits cost $5.2 million (57.2%), and $3.9 million (42.8%) was paid as settlements to plaintiffs. Eight lawsuits remain outstanding, so costs will increase. Another five sexual harassment unlitigated claims added another $565,946, bringing total costs to $9.6 million and total cases to 39.

The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) declared sexual harassment a violation of the Civil Rights Act in 1980.

Why are Civil Rights Act violations tolerated 38 years later in City government? Why has San Francisco retained at least 22 (52.4%) of the 42 Defendants accused of sexual harassment or sexual discrimination across the 34 separate lawsuits, who are still on the City’s payroll rather than being terminated?...

See also on the Westside Observer: Quentin Kopp on the high-speed rail project.