Macri's 'Let's Change' alliance ousted from city of Río Cuarto in first electoral test.

Municipal elections in the Argentine city of Río Cuarto handed President Mauricio Macri's right-wing Cambiemos ("Let's Change&quot alliance a stinging defeat in its first electoral test since taking office six months ago.

With 94% of votes counted Peronist candidate Juan Manuel Llamosas defeated UCR candidate Eduardo Yuni by nearly 14%, with 46.6% to Yuni's 32.8%. The centrist UCR is the junior partner in Macri's 'Let's Change' alliance and had governed Río Cuarto for the last twelve years.

The Macri administration had spared no effort in supporting Yuni. Cabinet Chief Marcos Peña, Interior Minister Rogelio Frigerio, and Transport Minister Guillermo Dietrich were dispatched to campaign in Río Cuarto, while Macri himself appeared in a last-minute campaign ad urging voters to support their candidate. During his visit to the city, Frigerio promised local public works worth at least 500 million pesos ($35 million), while Dietrich announced the construction a new expressway and plans to expand commercial flight routes between Río Cuarto and various provincial capitals.

These campaign promises were made despite ongoing route cuts at Aerolíneas Argentinas and deep cutbacks in the federal public works budget that have led to a 49% collapse in asphalt sales since Macri took office.

Río Cuarto, a city of 160,000 located in the heart of central Argentina's fertile Pampas, is an important agricultural hub and as such was expected to benefit from policies tailor-made for agro-exporters, including the devaluation and deep cuts to export taxes. This prospect, as well as Córdoba Province's largely conservative politics, helped Macri win 70% of the vote in Río Cuarto during the November presidential runoff; but Yuni, who was polling at 40% before Macri's ad aired on local television, ultimately obtained less than 33%.

The significance of the loss was not lost on the Macri administration, which is facing sagging poll numbers nationwide over a sharp recession as well as corruption scandals such as the Panama Papers and dollar futures purchases which netted his family and associates millions when Macri devalued the peso by 40% last December.

At: https://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=es&u=http://www.politicargentina.com/notas/201606/14636-fuerte-derrota-de-cambiemos-en-su-primer-desafio-electoral-pierde-en-rio-cuarto-por-10-puntos.html&prev=search
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Less than 33% in a city that gave them 70% of the vote last November? No wonder Macri's so anxious to impose electronic voting nationwide.

Argentine Energy Minister's office raided over Chilean gas deal benefiting his former employer Shell

Argentine Energy Minister Juan José Aranguren's offices were raided today on charges that his decision to import natural gas from Chile, rather than from Bolivia (which is 56% cheaper), was tailored to benefit his former employer, Shell Argentina.

Aranguren was CEO of Shell Argentina from 2003 to 2015, and according to his own financial disclosure statement still holds shares worth 16 million pesos ($1.1 million) in the company.

The raid was carried out pursuant to a warrant issued by Argentina's Ninth Federal Court, presided by Judge Luis Rodríguez.

The charges against Aranguren pertain to his decision on February 1 to import 195 million ft³ of natural gas daily from British Gas, a Chilean-based natural gas producer purchased by Shell Argentina just months before the newly-elected President Mauricio Macri appointed Aranguren Energy Minister.

The complaint also accuses Aranguren of ordering the National Gas Regulatory Authority (ENARGAS) to authorize a large rate increase without arranging a ​​prior public hearing as required by law, and for being one of the beneficiaries of this rate hike as a Shell shareholder.

This apparent conflict of interest was cited in a request by Congressmen Martin Doñate and Rodolfo Tailhade of the center-left FpV that the Federal Anti-Corruption Office (OA) declare Aranguren incompatible with the post of Energy Minister.

The OA is headed by hard-line former Congresswoman Laura Alonso, the first OA head to belong to the same party - the PRO - as the administration it is charged with overseeing. Alonso refused to respond to the request.

At: https://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=es&tl=en&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.politicargentina.com%2Fnotas%2F201606%2F14572-allanaron-oficinas-de-aranguren-y-la-jefa-de-senadores-pro-pidio-revisar-su-situacion-a-la-oa.html

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Argentina: $20 billion in wealth has been transferred to the top in Macri's first 5 months in office

According to a study published by the the Center for the Study of Social Change (CECS), policy changes in the first five months of Argentine President Mauricio Macri's tenure have resulted in a net transfer of around 20 billion dollars to the country's largest corporations. The amount is equal to almost two weeks of Argentine GDP.

This transfer of wealth, the most dramatic since the 2001 collapse, benefited agricultural export companies, financial institutions, large food companies, and a small number of large industrial groups.

Since Central Bank reserves - excluding the $12 billion in net loans granted to the Macri administration by JP Morgan, Chase Manhattan, and other financial entities - have fallen by $6 billion, and since fixed investment locally has also fallen, the report concluded that much of this windfall has been transferred to offshore accounts and investments. Net capital flight from Argentina, according to the Central Bank itself, reached $3.3 billion in the first quarter alone - the highest quarterly figure since the international financial crisis in 2009.

The principal causes according to the report were the 40% devaluation decreed by Macri on December 17, financial deregulation (which facilitated capital flight and tax evasion), a sharp increase in interest rates (enacted to prevent capital flight from snowballing), and a reduction and/or elimination of withholding taxes for exporters (which incentivized suppliers to squeeze out the domestic market by way of sharply higher prices).

The report, Transfer of Capital, was authored by Itai Hagman, Pablo Wharen, and Martín Harracá. This transfer, according to their study, "created unavoidable changes in income distribution, affecting the quality of life of most Argentines by reducing purchasing power, as well as making Argentina more vulnerable to external vicissitudes."

The 281 billion pesos thus transferred ($20 billion) "is 75% more than the annual federal budget for public works, nearly four times the budget for national universities, four times the federal health budget, six years of the Universal Childhood Allowance, and nine times the federal housing budget."

Argentina, they concluded, "runs the risk of again incurring in a vicious cycle of upward transfer of wealth, capital flight, and ballooning external debt."

At: https://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=es&u=http://www.d24ar.com/nota/argentina/376782/casi-us20-mil-millones-fueron-sectores-concentrados-o-fuera-pais-primeros-meses-macrismo.html&prev=search

Billionaire Trump backer paid no state income tax for 3 years, records show.

Source: USA Today

Billionaire Diane Hendricks, the richest woman in Wisconsin and a vice chair of the Trump Victory fundraising committee, didn't pay a dime in state income tax from 2012 through 2014, records obtained by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel show.

Hendricks, 69, has a net worth of nearly $5 billion, according to an estimate by Forbes Magazine, which this month named her "America's Richest Self-Made Woman" — edging out Oprah Winfrey, who the magazine said had a net worth of $3.1 billion.

Hendricks, co-founder and owner of ABC Supply Co. — the nation's largest supplier of roofing — also owed no state taxes in 2010, meaning she paid no Wisconsin income taxes in four out of five years. The company, which she founded with her late husband, Ken, in 1982, posts annual sales of about $6 billion. Ken Hendricks died in 2007.

State records show Hendricks, who is now chairman of ABC Supply, paid $290,415 in Wisconsin income taxes in 2011. In addition, Scott Bianchini, ABC Supply tax director, said Hendricks paid $7.6 million in state income taxes for last year.

There is no public record of that 2015 payment since Hendricks received an extension to file the return. "You'll be able to verify that next year," Bianchini said.

Read more: http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation-now/2016/06/09/billionaire-trump-backer-paid-no-state-income-tax-3-years-records-show/85650952/

Ohio Legalizes Medical Marijuana

Source: U.S. News and World Report

Republican Gov. John Kasich signed a bill Wednesday legalizing medical marijuana in Ohio, though patients shouldn't expect to get it from dispensaries here anytime soon.

The bill lays out a number of steps that must happen first to set up the state's medical marijuana program, which is expected to be fully operational in about two years. The law would allow patients to use marijuana in vapor form for certain chronic health conditions, but bar them from smoking it or growing it at home.

Kasich's signature made Ohio the 25th state to legalize a comprehensive medical marijuana program, according to a count by the National Conference of State Legislatures.

When the law takes effect in 90 days, however, cities and towns could move to ban dispensaries or limit the number of them. Licensed cultivators, processors, dispensaries and testing laboratories could not be within 500-feet of schools, churches, public libraries, playgrounds or parks. Employers could continue to enforce drug-testing policies and maintain drug-free workplaces.

Banks that provide services to marijuana-related entities would be protected from criminal prosecution.

Read more: http://www.usnews.com/news/us/articles/2016-06-09/ohio-becomes-latest-state-to-legalize-medical-marijuana

Majority of Brazilians favor holding new elections this year.

More than a quarter of Brazilians view interim President Michel Temer's government negatively and a majority want new elections this year, according to a poll on Wednesday that suggested scandals and policy reversals had dented his popularity.

Temer's government, which began on May 12 when Brazil's Senate suspended leftist President Dilma Rousseff for breaking budget laws, received a negative rating from 28% of Brazilians, according to the CNT/MDA poll.

Only 11.3% of those questioned gave it a positive rating, while 30.2% found it "regular."

The poll, the first major sampling of public opinion since Rousseff's suspension, also showed increased support for her impeachment. Almost two-thirds of those surveyed - 62.4% - said the decision to send her to an impeachment trial was the right one, compared to an MDA poll in February that showed 55.6% in favor of impeachment.

A majority of those polled - 54.8% - said they saw no difference between Temer's government and that of Rousseff, which was roiled by a sweeping corruption investigation into political kick-backs from state-run oil company Petrobras. Some 46.6% of those polled believe corruption in the Temer government will be the same.

The survey showed that 50.3% of Brazilians favor holding new elections this year to resolve the political crisis.

A string of recent scandals has weakened Temer as he seeks to build support in the Senate to definitively remove Rousseff, who has described her impeachment as a coup.

Brazil's chief prosecutor is seeking the arrest of senior members of Temer's PMDB party for allegedly trying to obstruct the Petrobras investigation, O Globo reported on Tuesday. Their arrests would be a severe blow to the interim president's efforts to establish his government's legitimacy.

In the poll commissioned by the transport industry lobby CNT, MDA surveyed 2,002 people between June 2-5. The poll has a margin of error of 2.2 percentage points.

At: http://www.reuters.com/article/us-brazil-politics-idUSKCN0YU1VL

Prosecutor asks University of Buenos Aires experts to audit Macri's financial disclosure filings.

Argentine federal prosecutor Federico Delgado has requested an investigation into President Mauricio Macri’s sworn financial disclosure filings issued before the Anti-Corruption Office and the Buenos Aires municipal government between 2013 and 2015. Macri, who was mayor of Buenos Aires at the time, was gearing up for a presidential campaign which he narrowly won last November.

It is a felony in Argentina for a public servant to file a false financial disclosure statement.

Delgado's motion, filed before Judge Sebastián Casanello, would have experts at the School of Social Sciences of the University of Buenos Aires (UBA) conduct the audit. The prosecutor’s request follows the Panama Papers and Open Corporates leaks in April that revealed Macri’s name in at least two offshore companies and his connection, through immediate family members, with up to ten others.

Gianfranco, one of Mauricio Macri’s brothers, owns eight shell companies in Panama. According to economist Ezequiel Orlando, who has done research on the Macris’ links to offshore companies, five out of the other seven companies in which Gianfranco Macri is a board member were established in December 12, 2007, only two days after Mauricio Macri became the mayor of Buenos Aires.

When the Panama Papers scandal broke out on April 3, Macri said he was not "legally obliged" to declare his connection with the offshore companies listed as clients of the disgraced Panamanian corporate law firm Mossack Fonseca as he "never had a stake in them."

The revelations forced the president, however, to admit he was a director of a shell company based in the Bahamas (Fleg Trading Ltd.) and another based in Panama (Kagemusha SA) - both created by his father, a major government contractor, to control still-active investments in Brazil and elsewhere without the knowledge of Argentine revenue authorities.

Macri has come under fire for failing to disclose, and after the Panama Papers scandal failing to explain, his connection with these offshore companies, given that such firms are often used to launder money and evade taxes.

At: http://buenosairesherald.com/article/215784/prosecutor-requests-uba-experts-investigate-macris-sworn-declarations

Argentina's Social Security threatened with Macri bill that would cost an extra $13 billion a year.

A wide-ranging new bill introduced by President Mauricio Macri’s administration, which includes changes to pensions, a tax amnesty, and revenue-sharing deals with the provinces, could, based on the fine print, cost the ANSES social security agency up to $13 billion a year by the time it's fully implemented.

The bill, introduced by President Macri on May 27, is part of a broader bill that allows any Argentine national maintaining undeclared offshore accounts to repatriate said funds by paying a 10% tax and with immunity from prosecution.

A number of right-wing media outlets supportive of Macri seized on the fact it includes additional payments to high-income retirees to portray the legislation as a "pensioners' payment bill." These additional payments, projected to cost ANSES an extra 75 billion pesos ($5.3 billion) a year, will solely benefit pensioners who are already earning 10,000 pesos ($700) or more - about twice the basic 4,950-peso ($350) pension most retirees currently collect.

Administration officials touted this proposal as a way to settle long-standing litigation (some dating from 1994) filed by thousands of seniors with a high level of social security contributions; legal analysts, however, point out that nothing in the bill would impede some from suing for more later.

The bill also includes a reimbursement of the 15% deducted from the federal revenue sharing budget to help finance ANSES outlays. This reimbursement is partly the result of a Supreme Court ruling to that effect last year in a suit brought forward by three provinces. An agreement signed by President Macri and the nation's 23 governors this February stipulates that the 15% reimbursement will be phased in three percentage points at a time each year until 2020 - at a cost 21 billion pesos ($1.47 billion) in 2016 and $7.4 billion annually by 2020.

Together, these two changes will cost the ANSES social security agency, which already had a deficit of $6 billion in 2015 (out of $57 billion in outlays), an additional $12.7 billion a year by 2020.

Asked about the bill, ANSES director Emilio Basabilvaso was confident that the additional revenues needed for these changes would come from a 10% tax on repatriated offshore accounts and an eventual economic recovery (Argentina has been in a deep recession since Macri began enacting austerity policies shortly after taking office six months ago).

The only concrete source of new funding mentioned by Basabilvaso, however, was the planned sale of a still-unspecified share of ANSES’ equity holdings. The sale of these investments, part of the agency's $60 billion sustainability fund (FGS), had been lobbied for by a number of the Argentine corporations in which ANSES holds enough stock to be entitled to a seat on the board of directors.

This latter proposal is strenuously opposed by opposition lawmakers - particularly the center-left Front for Victory (FpV), whose leader, former President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, nationalized the largely fraudulently-run and insolvent private pension funds in 2008. FpV legislators have compared Macri’s plans to sell long-term, profitable assets in order to finance ordinary spending, to the disastrous Menem-era privatizations of the 1990s.

At: http://buenosairesherald.com/article/215423/revenuesharing-pension-hikes-in-bill-could-cost-up-to-us$13b-a-year

Argentine Journalists' Forum denounces gag order tucked inside Macri's tax amnesty bill.

The Argentine Journalists' Forum (FOPEA) denounced a provision (Article 85) buried inside the Macri administration's Undeclared Assets bill that would criminalize investigative reporting on those who benefit from this tax amnesty plan with up to two years in prison and a fine equal to whatever amount was repatriated by way of said amnesty.

FOPEA called on members of the congressional committee currently debating this bill to "modify the wording to avoid the adoption of a provision that would be clearly unconstitutional." The organization, established in 2002 as a counterweight to the newspaper owners' lobby ADEPA, called on Congress to "exclude journalists from the gag order applied to officials and judges" in Article 85 of the bill.

The clause, they said, "seriously damages freedoms of speech and the press and affects journalistic work by encouraging self-censorship and by criminalizing the work of reporting in an area that includes matters of public interest."

The tax amnesty bill, which allows any Argentine national holding undeclared offshore accounts to repatriate said funds by paying a 10% tax and with immunity from prosecution, was introduced by President Mauricio Macri on May 27, and would potentially benefit Macri himself, his family, many of his friends and business partners, and several administration officials who were revealed to hold sizable offshore accounts by the recent Panama Papers and Open Corporates leaks.

The bill, in its current form, is also opposed by the center-left Front for Victory (FpV), the largest single caucus in each house of Congress. "The clause is clearly unconstitutional, because it violates the right to publish ideas through the press without prior censorship as enshrined in Article 14 of the Constitution. It moreover flouts the prohibition that Congress dictate laws restricting freedom of the press, as required by Article 32."

Horacio Verbitsky, head of the prominent human rights watchdog Center for Social and Legal Studies (CELS), explained the clause in a recent Página/12 op-ed:

"If you as a reporter divulged that Nicky Caputo (Macri's best friend and preferred contractor) used this law to repatriate 100 million dollars hidden in Jersey, men brandishing Glock pistols could come to your home or office and stop it - after which you could lose your license and be fined $100 million. Such extraordinary protection toward tax evaders is unconstitutional; but within a month might become law."

At: https://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=es&u=http://www.politicargentina.com/notas/201606/14501-para-fopea-el-proyecto-de-blanqueo-afecta-la-libertad-de-prensa.html&prev=search
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More from Judi Lynn on Macri's illegal gag order against reporting on tax cheats (including, of course, himself): http://www.democraticunderground.com/10141477670

Mississippi Gov. Phil Bryant doesn't have to manufacture problems.

The governor should give it a rest.

To hear him tell it, he is under siege by an angry mob of progressives for signing House Bill 1523. We can only hope Bryant's victim card has finally worn out. He certainly slaps it on the table whenever he's criticized.

It's not the media's fault he was pressured by conservatives to OK a law that was drafted outside the state. The media told him it was a bad idea that would lead to costly litigation and would make it tougher for the state to compete in a very competitive tourism market (New Orleans to the right of us, Gulf Shores and Florida's Emerald Coast to the left).

But he soldiered on. Bryant said he was trying to protect circuit clerks from being forced to issue licenses for same-sex marriages.

That, Governor, is not a problem in Mississippi.

Enrollment cuts at Mississippi Math and Science School because of state budget cuts is a problem. The chronic short-changing of the rest of our school systems is a problem. The diaspora of some of our best graduates is a problem. Mississippi's chronically high unemployment rate is a problem.

The state's heavy dependence on money from a federal government the governor and his colleagues claim to distrust and dislike (except when it comes to handouts) is a problem.

In Mississippi, 60 percent of our counties are defined as Persistent Poverty Areas (counties that have more than 20 percent of the population living below the poverty level for at least three decades). That's a problem that has bedeviled governor after governor.

That problem wails for this governor's attention. But our governor is distracted by his make-believe war on his values.

It's past time for him to get to work on the real problems.

At: http://www.sunherald.com/opinion/article81810067.html