| 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. |
| 6ixStringJack: Great. Lindsey and McConnell down in one month. Most of the Boomer class on both sides might not live out Trump. |
| second: Sen. Lindsey Graham, one of President Donald Trump’s closest allies in Congress, has died after a “brief and sudden illness,” his office said. He was 71. Trump said Graham was “like a member of the family. It’s very tough.” The president said Graham called him on Saturday night after returning from a trip to Ukraine. Trump told NBC, “He sounded a little bit tired, but perfect.” May Trump soon be “perfect.” [go to link] |
| second: How far does Trump’s bad taste go towards explaining his presidency? A long way. Is it any surprise that Trump is turning the White House into Mar-a-Lago North? Anything approximating the Louis XIV style of Trump would have been considered monarchical and autocratic by the Founding Fathers.
The DJ Trump ballroom is a sign, not just of Trump’s personal vulgarity, but of the collapse of small-r republican norms. Trump is turning the people’s house into a palace fit for a despot partly because that’s his taste, but also to show everyone that he can. L’etat, c’est moi. - King Louis XIV. I am the government. – DJ Trump [go to link] |
| 6ixStringJack: Even Wikipedia doesn't hide that Heather Cox Richardson has a STRONG Left bias. We can take whatever she's ever written and throw that right in the toilet while we flush you down with it, Shit Golem. |