u/Uberubu65

In case anyone needed a reminder, the peak individual tax rate was as high as 94% in 1944 to fund WW2, and still as high as 90% until 1963. It wasn't until the tax rate dropped from 70% to 28% under Ronald Reagan that we saw the influx of the super-rich class in the United States. In 1988 there were only 68 billionaires in the country. When Trump took office there were 536. Today there are 938 in the US alone who account for an astonishing 26% of the entire wealth of the country, with many billionaires paying an effective rate less than those considered middle-class.

Tell me again that the super-rich aren't taxed enough or why they deserve yet another tax break.

I know a lot of people here share the same sentiment that I do about being sick and tired of what Trump and his MAGA minions have done to this country. That said, I'd like you to read a great article that appeared in The Hill recently by opinion writer William B. Becker entitled "Move over, MAGA - it's time to take America back." Take a read, and let me know what you think in the comments.

The US and Iran have reached a "memorandum of understanding" that essentially extends the ceasefire between the two countries for an additional 60 days. The Strait of Hormuz will reportedly be reopened to all traffic by this weekend. However, no agreement has been made on what Trump had demanded that Iran agree to to end the war, which is the elimination of their nuclear program. This issue has just been kicked down the road. So what, then, has this war really accomplished?

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Editorial on today's SpaceX IPO:

When SpaceX went public today, Elon Musk became the first person in history to become a trillionaire. Prior to this, the person in modern history considered to be the world's weathiest was John D. Rockefeller, who founded Standard Oil. In today's money when adjusted for inflation, Rockefeller's fortune was worth around $400 billion.

Over the course of his lifetime, Rockefeller gave away $540 million before his death in 1937, or about $12.5 billion today. He founded the Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research, now Rockefeller University, in 1901. He was a major founder of the University of Chicago, giving over $80 million to it over his lifetime, and was a significant supporter of Spellman College, a school for African-American women. His philantropic causes included financially supporting medical schools throughout the US, the YMCA and the YWCA. A devout Baptist, Rockefeller made it a point to donate a minimum of 10% of his earnings to charitable causes throughout his lifetime.

While Elon Musk has contributed a sizeable amount of money, $474 million by most accounts, to some philanthropic causes such as programs focusing on STEM and some Texas non-profits, that only amounts to an astoundlingly low 0.000474% of his current net worth. Let me say that again another way, he's given away less than $5 for every $100,000 he makes. In the meantime, he purchased the former Twitter, nox called X, to use as his personal bully-pulpit to amplify extreme right positions and racist theories, and caused political chaos in countries around the world with his meddling in governmental affairs. Musk has arguably been involved in stock price manipulation for personal benefit, securities fraud, discriminatory work place practices agains women and minorities, platform reversals on X when it comes to safety and hate speech, public harrassment, aggressive firing sprees and ultimatums (both in private business and government), public health defiance around vaccinations and Covid-19, and unsupervised AI rollout.

Now John D Rockefeller was not the greatest of people during his lifetime, and robber barons like him, Andrew Carnigie, J.P. Morgan, Cornelius Vanderbilt, Jay Gould and Henry Flick did many awful things to accumulate their wealth. However, they also did many things that the public benefited from in the end. Rockefeller helped get us cheaper energy, Carnigie came up with advanced manufacturfacting techniques and then established a system of public libraries and arts facilities, and Gould gave us a national railway system. The public, and the nation, benefitted from these. Must has given us hate, division, and the reinforcement of Gordon Gecko's speech from the 1987 film "Wall Street" that "Greed is good."

I will leave you with this. The Trump Administration this year cut funding for hunger assistance programs in the US such as SNAP and free school lunches, largely at the urging of the Heritage Foundation and Elon Musk. It's estimated that it would cost about $15 billion a year to give EVERY SINGLE STUDENT in the US free meals, both breakfast and lunch. With SpaceX going public today, Elon Musk's personal net worth went up by an astonishing $280 BILLION in a single day. There is so much that he could do, so much that he could perosnally fix on his own if he wanted to. However, he chooses not to. That's who he really is, and why he should not be held in esteem but rather vilified.

Editorial on today's SpaceX IPO:

When SpaceX went public today, Elon Musk became the first person in history to become a trillionaire. Prior to this, the person in modern history considered to be the world's weathiest was John D. Rockefeller, who founded Standard Oil. In today's money when adjusted for inflation, Rockefeller's fortune was worth around $400 billion.

Over the course of his lifetime, Rockefeller gave away $540 million before his death in 1937, or about $12.5 billion today. he founded the Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research, now Rockefeller University, in 1901. He was a mojor founder of the University of Chicago, giving over $80 million to it over his lifetime, and was a significant supporter of Spellman College, a school for African-American women. His philantropic causes included financially supporting medical schools throughout the US, the YMCA and the YWCA. A devout Baptist, Rockefeller made it a point to donate a minimum of 10% of his earnings to charitable causes throughout his lifetime.

While Elon Musk has contributed a sizeable amount of money, $474 million by most accounts, to some philanthropic causes such as programs focusing on STEM and some Texas non-profits, that only amounts to an astoundlingly low 0.000474% of his current net worth. Let me say that again another way, he's given away less than $5 for every $100,000 he makes. In the meantime, he purchased the former Twitter, nox called X, to use as his personal bully-pulpit to amplify extreme right positions and racist theories, and caused political chaos in countries around the world with his meddling in governmental affairs. Musk has arguably been involved in stock price manipulation for personal benefit, securities fraud, discriminatory work place practices agains women and minorities, platform reversals on X when it comes to safety and hate speech, public harrassment, aggressive firing sprees and ultimatums (both in private business and government), public health defiance around vaccinations and Covid-19, and unsupervised AI rollout.

Now John D Rockefeller was not the greatest of people during his lifetime, and robber barons like him, Andrew Carnigie, J.P. Morgan, Cornelius Vanderbilt, Jay Gould and Henry Flick did many awful things to accumulate their wealth. However, they also did many things that the public benefited from in the end. Rockefeller helped get us cheaper energy, Carnigie came up with advanced manufacturfacting techniques and then established a system of public libraries and arts facilities, and Gould gave us a national railway system. The public, and the nation, benefitted from these. Must has given us hate, division, and the reinforcement of Gordon Gecko's speech from the 1987 film "Wall Street" that "Greed is good."

I will leave you with this. The Trump Administration this year cut funding for hunger assistance programs in the US such as SNAP and free school lunches, largely at the urging of the Heritage Foundation and Elon Musk. It's estimated that it would cost about $15 billion a year to give EVERY SINGLE STUDENT in the US free meals, both breakfast and lunch. With SpaceX going public today, Elon Musk's personal net worth went up by an astonishing $280 BILLION in a single day. There is so much that he could do, so much that he could perosnally fix on his own if he wanted to. However, he chooses not to. That's who he really is, and why he should not be held in esteem but rather vilified.

Just days after almost every planned artist pulled out of the America 250 concert in Washington D.C., Trump has announced that he will instead hold yet another rally in its place. Only Flo Rida, Vanilla Ice and Fab Morvan of the disgraced Milli Vanilli did not pull out of the event after the artists found out it was tied to Trump. I'm personally getting sick of all of these self-glorifucation rallies of his. Can we just be done with them please?

I stopped at a McDonald's on the way home from work the other night. At the drive-thru I ordered a McChicken meal with a Sprite to drink with no ice. The guy at the first window took my card, gave me my receiot and I pulled forward to the next window. They guy there started to hand me a Refresher drink, and I told him that wasn't mine. I said my drink was a Sprite. he then handed me a Sprite with ice in it, and I said mine was no ice. So he took it bak, dumped it out and refilled the cup with no ice. After handing it to me I then waited for my food, expecting to be handed a straw for my drink. After waiting a minute, I finally had to ask for one. After he have it to me he asked if I needed anything else, and I said, "Yeah, the food I ordered." He looked kind of dumbfounded and had to ask what I ordered. Folks, it wasn't that difficult. Despite being handed a Refresher at first, there were no other cars behind me in the drive-thru. How difficult is it to get the ordera correct order to someone, and all in one shot at that?

I doubt anyone has really looked at the math involved in that $1.8 billion "Anti-weaponization Fund" that the Department of justice is setting up after a settlement of Trump's lawsuit against the IRS. Nevermind the fact that Trump was suing an agency he controls and got a settlement from another agency he controls, but let's look at the actual math involved in it. The total amount is $1.776 billion. Trump said it's going to be paid out to those who were "victimized" by the judicial process surrounding the events of January 6th. So just for a moment, let's just say that he actually means the people who were charged by the Federal government with crimes for their actions surrounding that event. Approximately 1,600 people were charged by the DoJ, and of those 1,030 pled guilty, meaning the ADMITTED their crimes, and an additional 250 were found guilty at trial. So a total of 1,280 people of the 1,600 charged, or a full 80%, either pled guilty or were found guilty. These are the people that Trump wants to give money to, or so we're told.

If you take the full 1,600 people and divide that into the amount of the fund, that comes to $1.110 million per person. If you go down to just those who pled guilty or were found guilty, it comes to $1,387,500 per person. That's a pretty nice payday for commiting a crime against the country, getting a pardon from Trump (he issued a blanket pardon for all those involved in Jan. 6th), and then getting the taxpayers to give you "compensation" after the fact. And this would be tax free, by the way.

But let's look at it for what it really is. EVERYTHING that Trump does is transactional. Does anyone really think that he'd give this much money to anyone without expecting something in return? When was the last time he actually paid someone for services rendered in the past after he stiffed them? he has a history of reneging on payments to vendors, bankruptcies to get out of loans, and just not paying bills (see any city that provided protection services at his rallies and were told they'd be reimpbursed for costs incurred). If these folks get anything from him, actually technically the American taxpayers, it will 100% come with strings attached. Folks, if they were willing to do this ffor him the first time, don't you tyhink they'd do it again knowing what happened? Commit the crime, admit guilt, get a pardon, and then get "restitution". How much do you want to bet that these folks, or others like them, will end up being "poll watchers" at the mid-terms, or even repeating this in 2028 if MAGA loses the election then?

Then again, Trump could be Trump and find a way to screw everyone over yet again and keep all the money for himself. It wouldn't be the first time.

A landmark mural that has graced a building in downtown Dallas, TX for decades has been destroyed. It wasn't because of fire, or a building collapse, or even a tornado. Instead, the mural known locally as "the whale mural" that was created by the artist and conservationist Wyland in 1999 has been painted over for a ad to promote FIFA's upcoming World Cup games that will be held in the area. Offically called "Whaling Wall 82" or "Ocean Life", it was created by Wyland as part of a decades-long project to paint 100 walls around the world to bring awareness to the plight of the world's whales. And now, without public input, it's gone. Painted over for an event that will be gone from the area within mere months of the mural's destruction to promote the games. Dallas has long been criticized for destroying its history. To make it even worse, no World Cup games are actually being played in the city, but at AT&T Stadium in nearby Arlington. As Joel Montfort posted on X, "The ghouls who are destroying this city should be tarred and feathered."

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