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I can’t afford this Trump economy

www.thebulwark.com

A Garish, Outlandish, Stunningly Corrupt Act

Trump wants Qatar to gift him a shiny new Air Force One because he thinks the Emoluments Clause is for suckers.
www.thebulwark.com www.thebulwark.com

Beware Princes Bearing Gifts​

by William Kristol

I’m old enough to remember when this was a republic. A proud republic. We were proud to be different from the principalities and powers of the old world. We were confident of our superiority to the hereditary aristocracies and monarchies that had dominated political life everywhere on the globe, and that still did in many places.

In those older and simpler days we spoke of and even believed in republican virtue. And so we nodded along to passages like this, from Federalist No. 39:

The first question that offers itself is, whether the general form and aspect of the government be strictly republican. It is evident that no other form would be reconcilable with the genius of the people of America; with the fundamental principles of the Revolution; or with that honorable determination which animates every votary of freedom, to rest all our political experiments on the capacity of mankind for self-government.
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We old republicans tended to take this “honorable determination” for granted. We also took for granted some of the provisions of the Constitution that followed from this principle. They seemed a little old-fashioned and quaint, but still meaningful—such as Article I, Section 9, Clause 8.

No Title of Nobility shall be granted by the United States: And no Person holding any Office of Profit or Trust under them, shall, without the Consent of the Congress, accept of any present, Emolument, Office, or Title, of any kind whatever, from any King, Prince, or foreign State.
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How naïve we were back then.

Now, the president of the United States is boasting of receiving as a gift a luxury Boeing 747-8 plane from the Qatari royal family. The plane will be upgraded to serve not as the Air Force One but as his Air Force One, since it will only be available for use by the government of the United States during his time in office. It will then revert to him—well, nominally to his presidential library, but it will of course be totally at his disposal—after he leaves office.

This sure seems like a “present” or “emolument” to a person holding “an office of trust” from “a King, Prince, or foreign state.”

But not to worry. Attorney General Pam Bondi—once a registered lobbyist for Qatar, as it happens—has concluded that the transaction is permissible under U.S. law and the Constitution.

How nice that the Trump administration still pretends to maintain some façade of respect for the Constitution even as it flouts it.

But Trump can’t really conceal his contempt for the old republican ways. Last night, he posted this on social media:

So the fact that the Defense Department is getting a GIFT, FREE OF CHARGE, of a 747 aircraft to replace the 40 year old Air Force One, temporarily, in a very public and transparent transaction, so bothers the Crooked Democrats that they insist we pay, TOP DOLLAR, for the plane. Anybody can do that! The Dems are World Class Losers!!!
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This is the voice of old-world autocracy. Those who take seriously the constraints and requirements of republican government are fools. Those who care that our republican government not be dependent on foreign states, that our elected leaders not take favors from foreign princes, they are losers.

Leave aside all the questions about Qatar’s ties with Iran and Hamas. Leave aside that Qatar, on the other hand, has been designated a major non-NATO ally, and that Qatar hosts the largest U.S. military installation in the Middle East.

This isn’t about Qatar. It’s about us.
 
It did pass out of committee Sunday night…

www.thebulwark.com

How to Take Medicaid from Millions of Americans, in Less Than 72 Hours

There’s a reason Republicans are in such a rush to get Trump’s “big, beautiful bill” through Congress.
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GOP leaders said they hope to try again on Sunday night. That presumably means they are spending the weekend frantically negotiating in private, trying to secure votes from a handful of holdout Republicans—all in the hopes of keeping Donald Trump’s “big, beautiful bill” of spending reductions and tax cuts moving through the House.

Delays like this have plagued the Republican effort ever since House Speaker Mike Johnson first vowed to have legislation on Trump’s desk by Memorial Day. And if you’ve been following this saga in the press—or here at The Breakdown!—you’ve heard a lot about how the delays are a sign of internal GOP division, especially when it comes to the scale of those Medicaid cuts.

But the focus on the delays can be a bit of a distraction. Because right now the real question is not why the Republicans are moving so slowly but why they are moving so quickly—and what they don’t want you to see.
 
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www.dailymail.co.uk

Target employee exposes MASSIVE tariff price hike for popular items

Consumer advocates and CEOs have been warning that prices will rise for months. Now, at Target, employees are seeing the first big shifts.
www.dailymail.co.uk www.dailymail.co.uk

For months, big retailers have been warning that prices will rise.

Now, thanks to insider information from Target workers, the extent of the raises are becoming apparent. Staff say it is just the beginning.

A $9.99 USB-C cord from the store's in-house Heyday brand is now ringing up at $17.99, according to a self-identified employee on Reddit.

'It's happening,' the worker wrote, sharing a photo of the price tag update. 'All of Heyday is going up.'

The spike — an 80 percent increase — is being blamed on the latest wave of tariffs linked to President Donald Trump's trade policies.

Target's price rises come after Walmart on Thursday confirmed that it is raising prices this month as a direct result of tariffs.
 
Red said:
www.dailymail.co.uk

Target employee exposes MASSIVE tariff price hike for popular items

Consumer advocates and CEOs have been warning that prices will rise for months. Now, at Target, employees are seeing the first big shifts.
www.dailymail.co.uk www.dailymail.co.uk

For months, big retailers have been warning that prices will rise.

Now, thanks to insider information from Target workers, the extent of the raises are becoming apparent. Staff say it is just the beginning.

A $9.99 USB-C cord from the store's in-house Heyday brand is now ringing up at $17.99, according to a self-identified employee on Reddit.

'It's happening,' the worker wrote, sharing a photo of the price tag update. 'All of Heyday is going up.'

The spike — an 80 percent increase — is being blamed on the latest wave of tariffs linked to President Donald Trump's trade policies.

Target's price rises come after Walmart on Thursday confirmed that it is raising prices this month as a direct result of tariffs.
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I was told repeatedly by Trump that his tariffs would not increase prices. Did Donald just lie?
 
I will say one thing..... TV's are insanely cheap. I was at Target today and you could get a 65 inch Vizio for 379 bucks.
I bought a 75 inch Vizio like 7 years ago for 1500 bucks.
 
fishonjazz said:
I will say one thing..... TV's are insanely cheap. I was at Target today and you could get a 65 inch Vizio for 379 bucks.
I bought a 75 inch Vizio like 7 years ago for 1500 bucks.
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I'm hoping OLED comes down in price a bit still, maybe for black Friday this year. Time for an upgrade. Eyeing an 83" OLED.
 
We’re going to need a second Revolution eventually. This isn’t it, but it may help lead us there…”The members of the Republican majority are behaving not like traditional conservatives but like revolutionaries who, having seized power, believe they must smash up the old order as quickly as possible before the country recognizes what is happening”.

www.theatlantic.com

The Largest Upward Transfer of Wealth in American History

House Republicans voted to advance a bill that would offer lavish tax cuts for the rich while slashing benefits for the poor.
www.theatlantic.com www.theatlantic.com

House Republicans worked through the night to advance a massive piece of legislation that might, if enacted, carry out the largest upward transfer of wealth in American history.

That is not a side effect of the legislation, but its central purpose. The “big, beautiful bill” would pair huge cuts to food assistance and health insurance for low-income Americans with even larger tax cuts for affluent ones.

Hakeem Jeffries, the House minority leader, warned that the bill’s passage, by a 215–214 margin, would mark the moment the Republicans ensured the loss of their majority in the midterm elections. That may be so. But the Republicans have not pursued this bill for political reasons. They are employing a majority that they suspect is temporary to enact deep changes to the social compact.

The minority party always complains that the majority is “jamming through” major legislation, however deliberate the process may be. (During the year-long debate over the Affordable Care Act, Republicans farcically bemoaned the “rushed” process that consumed months of public hearings.) In this case, however, the indictment is undeniable. The House cemented the bill’s majority support with a series of last-minute changes whose effects have not been digested. The Congressional Budget Office has not even had time to calculate how many millions of Americans would lose health insurance, nor by how many trillions of dollars the deficit would increase.

The heedlessness of the process is an indication of its underlying fanaticism. The members of the Republican majority are behaving not like traditional conservatives but like revolutionaries who, having seized power, believe they must smash up the old order as quickly as possible before the country recognizes what is happening.
 
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LogGrad98 said:
The one I want has been around $3.3k here, hoping to see it drop below 3k in a sale somewhere.
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Probably the same one with the exchange rate, I've got a 75in Samsung which is probably 10 years old now and its got some issues with the screen, (I think it was the heat from mum and dads dialysis machine that did the damage) So I've been keeping an eye out
 
Red said:
We’re going to need a second Revolution eventually. This isn’t it, but it may help lead us there…”The members of the Republican majority are behaving not like traditional conservatives but like revolutionaries who, having seized power, believe they must smash up the old order as quickly as possible before the country recognizes what is happening”.

www.theatlantic.com

The Largest Upward Transfer of Wealth in American History

House Republicans voted to advance a bill that would offer lavish tax cuts for the rich while slashing benefits for the poor.
www.theatlantic.com www.theatlantic.com

House Republicans worked through the night to advance a massive piece of legislation that might, if enacted, carry out the largest upward transfer of wealth in American history.

That is not a side effect of the legislation, but its central purpose. The “big, beautiful bill” would pair huge cuts to food assistance and health insurance for low-income Americans with even larger tax cuts for affluent ones.

Hakeem Jeffries, the House minority leader, warned that the bill’s passage, by a 215–214 margin, would mark the moment the Republicans ensured the loss of their majority in the midterm elections. That may be so. But the Republicans have not pursued this bill for political reasons. They are employing a majority that they suspect is temporary to enact deep changes to the social compact.

The minority party always complains that the majority is “jamming through” major legislation, however deliberate the process may be. (During the year-long debate over the Affordable Care Act, Republicans farcically bemoaned the “rushed” process that consumed months of public hearings.) In this case, however, the indictment is undeniable. The House cemented the bill’s majority support with a series of last-minute changes whose effects have not been digested. The Congressional Budget Office has not even had time to calculate how many millions of Americans would lose health insurance, nor by how many trillions of dollars the deficit would increase.

The heedlessness of the process is an indication of its underlying fanaticism. The members of the Republican majority are behaving not like traditional conservatives but like revolutionaries who, having seized power, believe they must smash up the old order as quickly as possible before the country recognizes what is happening.
Click to expand...
How many Americans even know what’s happening? How many will never know because of their media diet? Forty percent?

And how many Americans do know and support this massive transfer of wealth despite it hurting them economically because it means their team “got a win” over the other? Remember this from season 1 of the teevee president?

www.msnbc.com

Trump voter: 'He's not hurting the people he needs to be hurting'

I've seen plenty of memorable quotes from Trump voters, but "he's not hurting the people he needs to be hurting" is among the most striking.
www.msnbc.com www.msnbc.com
 
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