| second: Artists install a 10-foot gold Iran War Participation Trophy for Trump on the Mall, honoring his courage to participate regardless of the final score. [go to link]
“As recipient of this prestigious award, President Trump joins the ranks of children everywhere who receive recognition for simply showing up,” the plaque read. |
| second: Judge voids Donald Trump's 'improper' $1.8 billion IRS settlement that gave him immunity from tax audits. He paid only $750 in federal income taxes the year he won his presidency in 2016, and no taxes at all in 10 of the previous 15 years.
[go to link] |
| second: According to the budget data, the US has paid out $81 billion in tariff refunds it collected before the supreme court ruled them illegal. The US administration’s current temporary 10% global tariff is due to expire on 24 July, but the White House is preparing new duties over what it sees as lax enforcement of anti-forced labor laws and excess industrial capacity.
The latest proposal could affect leading partners including the UK, Japan, India, Taiwan and China, and would enable Trump to skirt previous court-imposed limits on his protectionist agenda. The new tariff rates are expected to be between 10% and 12.5%. The US has also threatened to impose fresh levies of 25% on Brazil.
Last month Trump also threatened a 100% tariff on European countries, including the UK, that pursue a 2% digital services tax on the biggest US tech companies. [go to link] |
| 6ixStringJack: Shut the fuck up, faggot. Get a hobby. |
| second: Stanley Woodward Jr. told his staff that he considers antitrust enforcement to be an unfair "tax" on corporate deal making and does not want to interfere with any corporate mergers.
Can you guess his current job?
He is the DOJ official overseeing antitrust enforcement. [go to link] |
| second: Definitely the best way to keep Iran from charging a toll on the Strait of Hormuz is for the USA (illegally) to start charging a toll itself.
This is real hyper-brilliance on the down slope of American decline. [go to link] [go to link] |
| 6ixStringJack: Wow. Two idiot posts in a row in the tags without the word Trump in them from Shit Golem. Never thought I'd see the day. |
| second: U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham is the sixth member of the 119th Congress to have died while in office. And extended absences seem to have become more common, too. And whether it’s cognitive decline or death, I think Americans are now aware that their politicians are very elderly.
Sam Moyne, who is an author and professor at Yale Law School, says the average age of American lawmakers is rising exponentially. Sam wrote a book called Gerontocracy in America. Spoiler alert. A whole lot of old politicians do not like the book. Get the book for free and stop voting for 70 year old people: [go to link] |
| second: Oligarchy in Action: The Case of Corporate Tax Cuts.
The political power of the hyper-wealthy tilts policy in their favor, and this policy tilt reinforces the wealth and power of that tiny minority. One especially clear example: The drastic fall over time in taxes on corporate profits, despite overwhelming popular opinion that corporate taxes are too low, not too high. [go to link] This massive decline in corporate taxation – from 35% in the 1960s to around 12% today -- benefits the people who own corporations. Not surprisingly, equity ownership is highly concentrated among the wealthy. The big reductions in corporate taxes have taken place without broad public support — in fact, in the teeth of very broad public opposition. |
6ixStringJack: Trump, Trump, Trumpety Trump!  Shit Golem.
|
| second: How Trump Failed to Secure the Strait of Hormuz in His Iran Deal.
President Trump signed an agreement that gave Iran control of the waterway — and global energy supplies. Now, Iran’s military is violently asserting authority.
Mr. Trump celebrated the agreement, reached on June 14, as the reopening of the strait. “Ships of the World, start your engines,” he wrote on social media. “Let the oil flow!”
But it actually formalized a reality that Iranian officials have made clear throughout the war: They now control the strait.
[go to link] |
| second: Aspiring to Regional Domination, Iran Is Ready to Escalate Over Hormuz.
New outbreak of fighting over the strait comes as Tehran sees itself as a winner in the war that would establish a new Pax Iranica in the Middle East.
The Islamic Republic will become even more of a gangster regime. Its takeaway from the war is that concessions are won through coercion—by attacking its neighbors, threatening the Strait of Hormuz and driving up the price of oil. Like Putin’s Russia, the Islamic Republic believes that its security depends not on the prosperity of its people, but on the insecurity of its neighbors.
[go to link] |
| 6ixStringJack: Great. What are you going to do about it, Shit Golem? |
| second: Headline: “Trump Cut Big Mine Deal, and Sons Stand to Gain, $1.6 billion Pact for Kazakhstan Tungsten Furthers Pattern of Self-Enrichment.” And honestly, you don’t really have to read another word of it, do you? Tungsten in Kazakhstan and his family is going to make a fortune! Well, what’s new? Not much, really. [go to link] |
| second: "We're fighting wars. It's not possible for us to have daycare, Medicaid, Medicare, all these things." - Trump. Yes, he really did: [go to link] Trump says we can pay for war in Iran but can't afford children, who will have to look after themselves. |
| 6ixStringJack: Nobody gives a fuck about your mental problems. |
| 6ixStringJack: No. You are not forgiven. And going forward, you will have the full force of the law bury you in the fucking ground. Keep pulling your bullshit and find out. |
| 6ixStringJack: Thanks for posting that article trying to explain away all the murderous tenancies of young Democratic Party voters, Shit Golem. |
| second: Success in school requires showing up, meeting deadlines, and tolerating authority. Success at work requires completing projects on time, absorbing criticism, and cooperating with colleagues. Yet the downwardly mobile were often convinced such requirements were beneath them. Their grandiosity and defiance hastened their slide.
As far back as 1987, a 40-year longitudinal study underscored this point. Even then, middle-class children who were emotionally volatile and prone to rage were more likely to experience downward mobility, and by midlife their occupational status was indistinguishable from their working-class peers. [go to link] |
| 6ixStringJack: Looks like Graham died of a Covid booster. Keep taking those. |