Did Trump’s Tax Bill Just Gut Your Social Security?
The new trustees report landed Tuesday, and it’s grim. The retirement trust fund runs dry in late twenty thirty two, three months sooner than they said just last year.
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Is Trump Amping Up the Middle East War?
President Trump says Iran shot down one of our Apache helicopters over the Strait of Hormuz. Two pilots survived. A Navy sea drone pulled them out of the water in a first of its kind rescue. Then Trump went on Truth Social and declared the United States “must, of necessity, respond to this attack.” That threat puts the shaky April truce on the brink. The military says it disabled an Iranian oil tanker in the Gulf just a day earlier, and Israel’s been pounding southern Lebanon while Iran fires back. And here’s the part nobody wants to say out loud. Just hours earlier, Trump promised a peace deal was two or three days away and the Strait would open right up. CNN counted at least thirty eight times he’s claimed a deal was close since March. Thirty eight. One analyst said Trump’s either delusional or just trying to prop up the stock market. Either way, working people don’t get rich off another war. The defense contractors do.
Why Is Trump Calling California’s Election Rigged?
Trump’s at it again, inventing fraud out of thin air. After Los Angeles counted its mayoral primary, progressive Nithya Raman edged out Republican Spencer Pratt for a spot in the runoff against Mayor Karen Bass. So Trump and Vice President Vance started screaming the vote was stolen. His own US Attorney held a press conference and produced exactly zero evidence. None. The Brookings Institution found mail ballot fraud happens about four times in every ten million votes. Experts warn this is the same playbook from twenty twenty, and this time Trump’s loyalists already sit in the key offices, ready to amplify the lie. House Speaker Mike Johnson wouldn’t quite call it rigged, but he said it “stinks to high heaven.” Bass pulled about thirty four percent and is headed to a November runoff, fair and square. But experts say this is just a preview. As the midterms get closer, expect the fraud lie to get louder and the loyalists to get busier. That’s the game now. When the count doesn’t go their way, they don’t accept it. They torch it and dare you to object.
Why Did America Slam Its Door On A World Cup Referee?
Omar Artan flew into Miami to officiate the World Cup. He’d have been the first Somali referee ever to work the tournament, and Africa’s soccer confederation named him referee of the year in twenty twenty five. Instead, border agents pulled him aside and turned him around, calling him a vetting concern. Somalia sits on Trump’s travel ban list of thirty nine countries. Artan put it plainly. “I’m just a referee trying to live his dream.” The Somali government called the treatment shameful and expressed deep regret. Iran’s national team has been forced to stay in Mexico over visa trouble. So here we are, hosting the world’s biggest sporting event while telling a referee his passport makes him a threat. That’s not security. That’s bigotry wearing a badge.
Did Trump’s Tax Bill Just Gut Your Social Security?
The new trustees report landed Tuesday, and it’s grim. The retirement trust fund runs dry in late twenty thirty two, three months sooner than they said just last year. After that, the checks get slashed to seventy eight cents on the dollar. For a typical retiree, that’s roughly five hundred dollars gone every single month. And the program’s own chief actuary says Trump’s tax law helped speed up the day of reckoning. Nancy Altman of Social Security Works didn’t mince words. She said his “hostility to immigrants” and his giant tax bill are draining the very revenue stream that funds your benefits. This is the first trustees report that factors in Trump’s second term. Combine the retirement fund with the disability fund and you buy a couple of extra years, to twenty thirty four, but the gap doesn’t close on its own. Now hear this clearly. Social Security is not going bankrupt. Congress can fix this with the stroke of a pen. The only question is whether they protect your retirement or their donors.
Meet The Trench Coat Commander Who Wants To Be President
Gregory Bovino, the Border Patrol boss who ran Trump’s brutal crackdowns in Minneapolis and Chicago, just launched an exploratory committee for the White House. Yes, really. His website is Bovino twenty twenty eight dot com, the slogan is men fight back, and he calls himself The Commander. His campaign photos show him in a long black coat that German media compared to a Nazi uniform. Bovino says his “one and only priority is deporting the one hundred six million illegals here.” That number is pure fantasy. There aren’t remotely that many undocumented people in the entire country. And remember, two American citizens died at the hands of his agents in Minneapolis this January. He thinks that record qualifies him to run the country. When the cruelty is the resume, God help us all.
Geeky Science. Did The Booze Lobby Just Bury Your Health Warning?
Here’s one for the science desk. Back under Biden, the government commissioned a study on alcohol and your health. The findings were clear. Your risk climbs with just one drink a day, and no amount of alcohol actually protects you. Even drinking they call moderate raises your odds of an early death and more than two hundred diseases, including cancer and heart disease. So what did the Trump administration do? It left those findings out of the new dietary guidelines after the alcohol industry and a congressional committee pushed back hard. The study came out on its own this week anyway. Researcher Doctor Timothy Naimi summed it up. “Less is best.” The science was rock solid. The lobbyists just didn’t like the answer. And when the booze industry gets to write your health advice, you’re the one who picks up the tab.
And that’s the way it is, Today Tuesday, June ninth, two thousand twenty six. I’m Thom Hartmann.