Laura Stephens

For the fabulously wealthy, paying taxes is pretty much optional. They can borrow against their vast wealth, which is mostly an untaxed capital gain, without paying taxes. When they die, the capital gain goes to zero. And loopholes exist to bypass the estate tax too.

Israel wants to be surrounded by rubble and is razing Muslim villages and 100 year old olive trees. www.nytimes.com/interactive/...

BREAKING: the 9th Circuit REJECTED the DOJ’s desperate attempt to prevent 20,000 votes from being counted in CA Tomorrow, @democracydefendersfund.org @campaignlegal.org NAACP & @lulacorg.bsky.social address the merits head-on in District Court This is a major win for voters in CA & everywhere! -TN

Robert's Right ✅️.......

In speeches, Obama hit Trump on gas prices and a war nobody asked for. Hours later, Trump bragged at a rally that the country is making a fortune on oil and he doesn’t give a damn what people pay at the pump. Interesting strategy. My write-up in the link in the comments.

A rare piece of good news in the battle for trans rights. paywall-free link: archive.is/BlRYy

Govt's attempt to upend "long-settled case law" by invoking "stray language" from Slaughter and Trump v US is without merit and "would risk a return to the spoils system that Congress has sought to end since the 19th century."

Judge Furman rules that Maureen Comey's firing violated separation of powers. Orders backpay. Govt's arguments violate 2 centuries of SCOTUS rulings & would "unsettle the equilibrium established by this Nation's constitutional system." storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.us...

Seems fairly obvious this is a must do when you read the sentence aloud, “Lawmakers in the U.S. from both parties have called for a formal probe into Musk and SpaceX over alleged unilateral changes the company made to its services in Ukraine.”

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President Trump temporarily waived clean-air rules for industrial facilities that spew cancer-causing gases. Then his appointees worked to gut the regulations altogether. Our investigative reporter Eric Lipton explains how corporate interests took power inside the EPA. Read more: nyti.ms/4il3336

It should have been all over when he said, “find 11,780 votes.”

Musk does not have a right to his customers but our government is pretending he does.

A hopeful sign

Both can be true at the same time - they are both lying.

So now Trump is going to sell Alaska back to Russia?!! Turning the clock all the way back to 1867….

Threatening physical harm or injury against members of Congress because of their performance of their duties is a felony under US law, 18 USC § 351. Elon Musk could easily be prosecuted for what he has done. But he won't be. After all, the US government is in his pocket

The State Board of Elections’ last-minute changes to voting by mail are leading to thousands more absentee ballots being rejected this election - at a rejection rate twice as high as in 2022. It’s infuriating. North Carolinians, please make a plan to vote this year, in person if possible.

For claiming to know nothing about lowlife Vivek Ramaswamy’s attack ad targeting Amy Acton’s childhood trauma — Trump sure seems to know a lot about it “I know nothing about it, but I hear the mother went very rogue on the daughter… And I think the mother is a witness to things also, so who knows?”

Columbus Dispatch: The conduct of Vivek Ramaswamy in attacking his rival has been reckless, shameful and morally depraved. Therefore we are pulling our support for Ramaswamy and endorsing his rival, Amy Acton, instead. www.dispatch.com/story/opinio...

🇺🇸👀 Hillary Clinton: I continue to believe that Putin has things on Trump. I continue to believe that he is holding photos, videos, whatever it might be. When we finally see all the Epstein files, I think even the people who supported Trump are going to be shocked by what it shows about Trump.

Translation: If the government turns on him, he's finished.

“Every American citizen must have an equal right to vote. There is no reason which can excuse the denial of that right. There is no duty which weighs more heavily on us than the duty we have to ensure that right.” ~President Lyndon B. Johnson, 1965. Image: LBJ Presidential Library and Museum.

I believe we can have a secure border and a clear pathway to citizenship and we can do it without a rogue, illegal agency like ICE.

Mona Charen: Trump has the whole senior GOP leadership reciting bogus Russian talking points about what's happening in France with the goal of harming a longstanding US ally and advancing Russian—not American—strategic interests. It's a five-alarm fire.

Q: There's a report that FEMA is telling states to prepare to handle disasters on their own. Any reaction? OSSOFF: So the Trump administration is telling folks across the country to prepare to fend for themselves while taxpayer dollars are sent to back Don Jr & Eric's mining interest in Kazakhstan?

Jon Husted gave data centers $2.5 billion in out-of-control tax breaks; Ohioans got higher utility bills.

NEW: Hegseth's chaotic secret evacuation of a US base in Bahrain left military families in harm's way. “They’re not telling the truth. They’re not telling the full story. They’re not telling how much damage there really was." www.ms.now/news/militar...

For you youngs who weren't alive for this: Understand that the Chicks were an early rollout of the far right intimidation that we see targeting judges, members of Congress, and ICE protestors now.

As the Trump regime sues LA officials for not disqualifying 20,000 people DHS has labeled as non-citizens based upon their screening tool, it is good to remember that DHS used to same tool to identify over 15,000 non-citizen voters in Nevada. Complete checks revealed that ALL of them are citizens.

The right is spending the day complaining that Abdul El-Sayed was "rude" and "a bully" to Tommy the Republican Operative at his town hall, which is hilarious given how they had nothing to say about a woman getting beaten up at a Trump rally as the president cheered on.

“Stephen Miller is the architect of the greatest and most systematic violations of Americans’ civil rights and constitutional liberties in our era. This country isn’t safe until he is held accountable and punished to the fullest extent of the law for his crimes.” — Rick Wilson

An American president would tell Putin to fuck off. An American president would tell Putin to get the fuck out of Ukraine. An American president would stand with Ukraine. Trump however is not an American president. He works for Putin. So he’ll do what Putin tells him to do.👇

IRS refuses to publish report. Ahead of the midterm elections, the Trump regime is withholding detailed information that illustrates how King Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act hurt millions of Americans. The data from the IRS was originally scheduled to be released in July & updated in September.

Border czar Tom Homan said it is possible U.S. Rep. Ilhan Omar be deported if she committed any wrongdoing. Lawyers for Omar have raised concerns over the raid of her residence and demanded the return of seized items in a letter sent to federal prosecutors on Friday.

Inside an ICE facility, women talked about the men whose 911 calls landed them there — the boyfriends or husbands who had beat them, choked them, threatened deportation. “I had suffered from domestic violence,” one woman said. “But the one who ended up in trouble was me.”

100% of Cdns say the same thing. I’d like to know who the fucking moronic 25% are that think he shouldn’t…(I don’t have to guess).

If this country was truly “pro-life,” we would have Medicare for All, a Green New Deal, gun reform, universal child care, and a living wage. And we certainly wouldn't have public executions. The right-wing agenda isn’t about “life.” It's about cruelty.

Treasury counselor admits there's no plan to fund Trump's $5,000 checks to 245 million Americans. finance.yahoo.com/economy/poli...

BREAKING: "A House Democrat has introduced legislation that would abolish the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and replace it with a new department focused on community safety, three weeks before an election where immigration policy is likely to have an influence on voters."

🚨BREAKING: With the threat of federal election interference looming large over the midterms, Senate Democrats plan to send more than 100 congressional staff to observe voting sites in nine states — the first program of its kind for the upper chamber. www.democracydocket.com/news-alerts/...

Thirty years ago, Susan Collins promised Maine voters she’d serve only two terms. Now she’s a multimillionaire asking them for a sixth. Her current net worth is estimated to be roughly $6.8 million. Not bad for a Senate salary of $174,000 per year.

Exactly as expected.

Sen. Elizabeth Warren is an indomitable fighter for working people. Can't wait to join forces in the Senate to pass Medicare for All.

The taboo against naming Trump's dementia is fading. A THREAD.