laurel

brookings.eduThe difference in how the wealthy make money—and pay taxes | Brookings

6 July

"Tax the rich" is about the fact that today's tax system gives substantial advantages to income from wealth over income from work. Much of the wealth accumulated by the richest Americans is never taxed as income, and investment income is often taxed at lower rates www.brookings.edu/articles/the...

6 July

The question is whether the tax system distributes its burden fairly, not simply who pays the largest share of federal income taxes.

3 July

"Trump Accounts": A wealth extraction tool. Treasury Secretary Bessent called it himself: Trump Accounts are "a backdoor for privatizing Social Security." The real cost of privatization, and why the timing isn't an accident. dittany.com/social-secur... #TrumpAccounts #SocialSecurity

THE WATCH PARTY is a different sort of no kings event, and it's created as a counterpoint to the fat guy's birthday party. The No Kings movement is hosting nationwide "Rise Up, Sing Out" watch parties on Sunday as an alternative to President Trump's 80th birthday UFC event at the White House.

These local gatherings are designed to stream a 90-minute national concert titled "A Concert for the First Amendment" featuring Jane Fonda, Patti Smith, Bette Midler, and Rufus Wainwright.

COMMENT on the Post office new election rules Email comments, containing the name and address of the commenter, may be sent to: PCFederalRegister@usps.gov with a subject line of “Ballot Mail.” Info: www.regulations.gov/document/USP... Please share widely.

USPS has every right to determine how mail is sorted, tracked, and transported. It does not have the authority to decide who should receive a ballot or to create a federal election compliance system.

Election eligibility is determined by election officials. Delivery is the responsibility of the Postal Service. Those are different responsibilities, and election administration is not part of the Postal Service's role. Withdraw this proposal and and deliver the mail.

The Postal Service's job is to deliver mail. Ballots are mail. focus on delivering the mail.

Nothing says dying civilization like gladiator fights at the capital for the emperor's amusement.

resist.botPlease Vote YES on H.R. 2913, the Ukraine Support ActJoin 1 people. Ukraine voluntarily surrendered the world's third-largest nuclear arsenal after receiving explicit security assurances from the United States, the… Sign and Resistbot delivers your lett...

4 June

SUPPORT UKRAINE. The House votes today on H.R. 2913, the Ukraine Support Act. Ukraine has fought for five years against Russian aggression. We made a promise when they gave up their nuclear arsenal. Time to keep it. Contact your representative now: resist.bot/petitions/PD...

substack.com/profile/3551...

1 June

substack.comVeronica Vasquez (@veronicavasquez2)What in the fuck are any of you, who we elected, doing about it, NOTHING! You just get on camera and say it is awful. We know raping kids is awful, there is not need to give details, it is awful to ...

dittany.comFollowing the Money: The Billion-Dollar Tax CutPermanent tax cuts for the rich, peanuts for the people.

26 May

Following the money: Arizona's billion dollar tax cuts I've seen a lot of political messaging about Hobbs vetoing a tax break for Arizonans. It's a tax break for the very rich and for big business. dittany.com/az-billion-d... #Arizona #wealthextraction #taxcuts

22 May

Share. Most effective one I've seen.

substack.comThe Root Cause Protocol Is DangerousThe Root Cause Protocol teaches people to see damage as healing and discourages questioning. This piece examines the safety risks, the science, and the business behind it.

20 May

The Root Cause Protocol applies a single medical theory to bodies that are anything but universal. The business model is engineered to prevent correction. This is not medicine. substack.com/@lfitzhugh/n...

dittany.comChaco Canyon public comments are open until 4/7 - Red, Blue & RealThe BLM is considering revoking the Chaco Withdrawal, which protects the cultural landscape surrounding Chaco Culture National Historical Park from new oil and gas leasing. Public comments are open. A...

Please send this letter to stop Chaco Canyon being open to oil and gas. It takes one minute literally. You don't even have to give your address. You can copy and paste this one if you want: dittany.com/chaco-canyon/

lfitzhugh.substack.comThey've Been Picking My Pocket for Six YearsThey found no fraud in Arizona — six years, every investigation, same result. They were never looking for fraud. They were looking for leverage. Now they want my voter file.

They've Been Picking My Pocket for Six Years . For six years, Arizona has been targeted by a coordinated campaign to manufacture election fraud where none existed. Now the DOJ wants my voter file. . lfitzhugh.substack.com/p/picking-my... .

Arizona has been paying for six years, and the operation has never once produced the evidence it claims to be looking for — because it was never looking. They're looking for messaging. And they're charging me for it.

I live here. I'm paying for this. There was no fraud. They know there was no fraud. They are still coming at my state. . I am sick of this. . lfitzhugh.substack.com/p/picking-my...

My tax dollars paid for audits and court cases that confirmed what three prior hand counts had already confirmed. My tax dollars are now paying the Arizona Secretary of State and Attorney General to defend my voter file from a federal government that courts have already told to stand down.

This is extraction politics: using governmental authority to transfer costs from a political operation onto the public. We are the public.

Six years. Every investigation. Same result. And I'm paying for it.

This is not investigation. Investigation produces findings or it stops. This keeps going regardless of what it finds, because it's not independent — it's targeted.

Federal judges in multiple states have agreed enough to block it. The DOJ has filed in nearly two dozen other states anyway. The FBI has subpoenaed records from the same Arizona Senate audit that confirmed Biden won.

Homeland Security Investigations — an agency that is supposed to handle human trafficking and transnational crime — is now probing Arizona's 2020 election results.

The political operation in power thinks they will be able to identify and purge selected voters from the rolls.

Former DOJ attorneys filed court briefs saying the stated legal justification was a cover story — the real purpose was building a national voter database to identify and purge voters.

A voting system that worked has been recast as a problem because it stopped producing the "right" results. Arizona is a carefully chosen political target.

Now the Department of Justice is suing Arizona to get our voter files. Who knows how many hours and dollars this will cost us.

Elections have become more competitive with every cycle, because the people are represented more fairly now.

That's the problem. When maps are fair and elections are actually competitive, it’s easier to convince voters the system is rigged than to actually earn their votes.

It's always good for the party in power, and it's why we the people created independent redistricting.

Arizona gets targeted for a reason. We are one of the few states that is not badly gerrymandered — we have an independent redistricting commission, and the legislature has been trying to dismantle it ever since voters created it.

This is how concentrated political power protects itself — and it works just as well with a D after the name as an R.

Propaganda raises fears that justify voter suppression. Voter suppression is how politicians choose their voters instead of voters choosing their representatives.

There was no election fraud in Maricopa County. The people running these investigations knew that going in. You do not hire a company with no election experience whose CEO is a Stop the Steal activist if you are trying to find the truth. You hire him if you are trying to produce propaganda.

All these audits and lawsuits and investigations are political theater designed to keep the fraud narrative alive to be useful: -> Useful for fundraising -> Useful for base mobilization -> Useful for justifying the next round of legislation making it harder for certain voters to cast a ballot

Ten thousand hours. Because every bad-faith claim still has to be answered. An internal summary stated that in each instance, claimants had not provided any evidence to support their allegations. The Republican attorney general who commissioned that investigation suppressed the report.

dittany.comThe Veto Queen Story Is Missing Its First Three ChaptersKatie Hobbs vetoed 401 bills. Before the attack ads arrive, Arizona voters deserve the three chapters that come before that number: the audit that found nothing, the structural reasons Arizona was tar...

His office released it after he left.

(dittany.com/hobbs-vetoes/). The short version: there was zero fraud.

This situation never ends. More than sixty lawsuits challenged Arizona's 2020 results in state and federal courts. Every one was dismissed or rejected for lack of evidence. The Arizona Attorney General's office spent 10,000 hours investigating every claim election deniers brought and found nothing.

We had to pay $3.2 million to replace the voting machines Cyber Ninjas compromised, plus hundreds of thousands more in legal fees, facility costs, administrative burden, and who knows what else.

And all that energy from political operatives nationwide, all that time and attention pulled away from the elected representatives I am paying to actually govern — that is a cost too, and who knows how much. The full accounting is documented in

The Department of Justice is now demanding the voter files of five million Arizonans. I am one of them, and I am done. The audit found no fraud. Cyber Ninjas, the Florida company the Arizona Senate hired to recount Maricopa County's 2020 ballots, spent months examining 2.1 million votes.