- Triggered snowflake Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) opening his speech at CPAC and making us all want to walk into the ocean
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We don’t want to freak you out, but Democrats are getting really fucking close to passing their long-stalled domestic agenda. The Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 is (KNOCKS FURIOUSLY ON WOOD) basically in the can and ready to become law.
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Senate Dems have reached an agreement on changes to the Inflation Reduction Act: the climate and health care-spending bill with a side of tax reform negotiated by Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV). Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (D-AZ), ever the corporate shill, demanded the removal of a provision that would raise taxes on “carried interest” (profits that go to executives of private equity firms, you know, people who need it most) and she got her way. To make up for lost revenue, she agreed to a new excise tax on stock buybacks, which, fair! But pending the Senate Parlaimentarian’s review, Sinema is a confirmed yes. Can’t wait to see what kind of kooky ModCloth ensemble she wears to the vote, hopefully with some NASCAR-style patches indicating the corporations who sponsor her.
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One of the provisions of the bill that isn’t getting enough positive attention, perhaps because it’s so woefully un-sexy, is the $80 billion boost to the IRS, the largest allocation to the Internal Revenue Service in decades. Republican and even some Democratic administrations have long chipped away at the IRS’s budget, because the IRS is unpopular and a weak IRS means fewer wealthy tax evaders get audited, which Republicans obviously love. Grover Norquist and his ilk have dedicated their entire careers towards the goal of seeing the agency eliminated entirely. Naturally, the GOP is freaking the fuck out about a beefed-up IRS and immediately started spreading spurious claims that it would mean more audits of middle class taxpayers. Don’t fall for it. The additional funding will go toward hiring more enforcement agents to crack down on the aforementioned wealthy tax evaders and corporations, and to modernize the agency’s technology which is preposterously antiquated. A functional IRS with the tools to go after the super rich and corporations who refuse to pay their fair share in taxes? We love to see it.
- As we reported when the bill was in its earlier stages, taxes will only increase on Americans whose income is above $400,000, the top one-to-two percent of earners nationwide. Again, Republicans are falsely claiming that the bill will increase taxes on the middle class as a fear-mongering tactic, but it’s just not true. The IRA also implements a 15 percent minimum tax on corporations, so we hopefully never see another report of profit behemoths like Amazon paying zero dollars in federal taxes again. (The current corporate tax rate is 21 percent but some companies are able to use loopholes to greatly reduce their bills.) The tax provisions in this bill will generate over $739 billion in revenue, which theoretically should appease “deficit hawks,” but it’s still not expected to garner a single Republican vote in the Senate. One Republican who does love it is, unexpectedly, Arnold Schwarzenegger.
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The bill’s passage would be monumental for the Biden Administration, a marquee accomplishment, and provide a huge boost for Dems going into midterms, but not everyone on the Left is feeling unbridled enthusiasm for the bill.
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Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) was a chief architect of the original Build Back Better bill, a sprawling piece of $3.5 trillion legislation that would overhaul the country’s health care, education, climate, immigration, and tax laws. It would have positioned Biden as a modern-day FDR. But centrist Dems like Manchin and Sinema sank Build Back Better, and now the much more scaled-back Inflation Reduction Act stands in its place. Sanders is (perhaps rightly) disappointed. Speaking almost mournfully about the IRA, he said in an interview yesterday, “You can do something significant with 50 votes. Does this bill do that? No. Might it be better than nothing? Yes.”
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And this isn’t a case of Sanders being a curmudgeon or a sore loser; his frustrations are well-founded. His 2021 budget blueprint paved the way for Dems to expand Medicare, offer free universal pre-K, ensure paid family and medical leave, and solidify other federal safety-net programs. To see the entire Democratic majority forced to bend to King of Coal Joe Manchin is deflating for many progressives, not just Sanders.
But the changes the Inflation Reduction Act will make shouldn’t be glossed over, either. Democrats have been trying to pass legislation allowing Medicare to negotiate prescription drug prices for 30 years, and the IRA finally achieves that. It would be the most substantial change in health policy since the ACA became law. In that spirit, we’ll keep knocking on wood.
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This week on Keep It, Beyoncé is back and music critic Britt Julious joins to talk about all things Renaissance, Queen B’s 7th studio album. Ira and Louis dish on the finale of RuPaul’s Drag Race All Star season 7. Plus they’ll be joined by actor Neil Patrick Harris.
Listen to this jam packed episode and new episodes of Keep It every Wednesday on Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts
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A New York Times investigation revealed that nearly two dozen Republican state treasurers across the country are working to thwart climate legislation on state and federal levels. They’re fighting regulations that would illuminate the economic risks posed by our rapidly-warming world, lobbying against green-friendly nominees to key federal posts, and using tax dollars which they control to punish companies trying to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Again: nearly two dozen state treasurers. Almost half of the country. It’s the intersection Republicans love: where widespread unnecessary harm meets petty bullshit. Last week, State Treasurer Riley Moore (R-WV) announced that several major banks including Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan would be barred from government contracts with his state because they’re reducing investments in coal, which is the dirtiest fossil fuel. Moore as well as the treasurers of Louisiana and Arkansas have pulled more than $700 million out of BlackRock over objections that the investment management giant is too focused on environmental issues. Now, we’re obviously not rooting for Goldman Sachs or BlackRock here either, but that’s far from the worst of it. Treasurers in Pennsylvania, Arizona, and Oklahoma joined a larger campaign to thwart the nominations of federal regulators who wanted to require that banks, funds, and companies disclose the financial risks posed by the proliferation of global warming. Much of this dirty work stems from the little-known State Financial Officers Foundation based in Shawnee, KS, who work with better-known goon associations like the Heritage Foundation, the Heartland Institute, and the American Petroleum Institute to help Republican state treasurers form their terrible policies. Their practices are not just hurting major financial institutions, the laws could cost everyday residents of red states greatly as well. Many companies have left Texas, for instance, because the state tax code penalizes companies that embrace environmental, social, and governance priorities. When those companies leave, there’s less money for state programs overall. I’ll be controversial. I’ll say it: Republicans are really bad!
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Chinese Ambassador Qin Gang has been called to the White House amid escalating Chinese military threats against Taiwan since House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit.
Portugal recorded its hottest July on record last month, with 45 percent of the mainland in “extreme drought.”
The Israeli military launched airstrikes in Gaza today, killing the leader of an Islamist militant group and at least nine others including a five-year-old girl, with at least 55 people wounded.
In a bizarre move, Ukrainian-born Rep. Victoria Spartz (R-IN) traveled on her own dime to crash a trip to the Ukrainian border with the House Foreign Affairs Committee (of which she is not a member) and was reportedly combative and highly critical of the Zelensky administration.
Republicans unanimously chose Milwaukee, WI, to host the 2024 Republican National Convention, beating out perceived-frontrunner Nashville, TN. My sincerest condolences to Milwaukee residents.
A bombshell report confirms that an indicted Ukrainian oligarch’s company (linked to the Kremlin) paid for Rudy Giuliani’s travel expenses in 2019 as the company sought dirt on then-potential-Democratic-nominee Joe Biden.
Pennsylvania GOP gubernatorial nominee and low-key fascist Doug Mastriano is threatening to pull out of a scheduled interview with the January 6 committee, setting up a potential legal battle.
A husband and wife visiting the nation’s capital died in a lightning strike in Lafayette Park, directly outside the White House. Two others are in critical condition.
Lt. Gov. John Fetterman (D-PA) is back on the Pennsylvania Senate campaign trail for the first time since he suffered a stroke in May. Luckily, his medical setback hasn’t stopped him from expertly trolling his Republican opponent Dr. Oz on twitter.
A French scientist apologized after tweeting a photo which he claimed was an image of a distant star taken by the James Webb Space telescope, when it was in fact a slice of chorizo.
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Congratulations to Alex Jones and his lawyers for accidentally providing jurors a roadmap for awarding damages to Sandy Hook families, and providing other investigators with documentary evidence of his involvement in planning the January 6 insurrection. Thanks to their hard work, Jones will have to pay some Sandy Hook families about $50 million—with possibly more to come. Lawyers for the families suing Jones for defamation say the two full years worth of text messages they obtained from Jones’s seemingly incompetent lawyers contain “intimate messages” to Roger Stone, the Trump loyalist crook with ties to the Oath Keepers and Proud Boys who helped plan the attempted coup. The Jones camp also (seemingly inadvertently?) aired enough of Jones’s financial information to show conclusively that he can more than afford to pay multi-million dollars in damages. For instance, last year Jones withdrew $62 million from his companies for himself, to pad his coffers in the event of judgment against his companies. “That number represents, in my opinion, a value of a net worth,” said Bernard Pettingill, an expert witness retained by the plaintiffs suing Jones. “He’s got money put in a bank account somewhere.” Now he’s gonna have to withdraw most of it!
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