28 July 2023

The Super Seven and friends reported better than earnings these past weeks- except Microsoft- which dropped for one day then joined the rest to move higher. The Era of Good Feeling in the markets has the Supers back to 2021 highs in price and P/E ratios. The Crazy stocks (no earnings and 20X sales and more) have doubled off their December 2022 lows but remain well below the ridiculous valuations of 2021. We guess that's a positive for further upside action.

We continue the broken record of trading our usual suspects for 5% profits while keeping significant cash reserves. Accounts are up 10% to 15% even though we have maintained our usual plus 50% cash/short Treasury holdings for the year.

The sell in May scenario didn't materialize this year as Uncle Joe Biden was able to snooker McCarthy on the debt ceiling. But the 20 Crazies in the House aren't going to let that happen again- or so they promise.

The Budget Brouhaha and promised impeachment of Uncle Joe are the main items on the Crazies agenda for the Autumn Congressional session. Coupled with the often September/October seasonable pullback we are wary of politics and extended valuations and plan to end the month of August with more cash on hand.

Entering August, we own:

Disney (0%. Hold/trade)

Raytheon (2.7%. Dropped 10% on engine recalls. Trade)

Southwest Air (2.1%. We expected good earnings which were delivered but warned and dropped 15%. We will hold/add since it is the most financially secure (debt/equity) airline. Hold.)

IAT Regional Bank ETF (3.5%. Hold/trade)

Truist Bank (6.3%. The street didn't like their earnings and higher than expected reserves. Hold/trade)

Intel (ugh! 1.3%. Back in small amounts since markets are nuts for chips and Intel is most undervalued. Hold/trade.)

Verizon and AT&T (7.6% yields, lead wires non issue)

Ford (4.5%. Hold/trade)

Foot Locker, Macy's Under Armour (6%, 4.5%, 0%)

We also continue to trade The Gap, Zoom, Sentinel and Key Corp. We our not in them at month end.

*****

Both Ford and GM beat on sales and profits- but both stocks dropped because not from EVs. And their share prices dropped. GM priced at 6 X, Ford 8X Tesla 75X. In 2 years when Ford and GM are selling more EVs than Tesla- and making more money- Tesla's valuation should come down or GM and Ford's rise. That of course will only occur in a rational economic environment.

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Alabama Repubs think they are exempt from Supreme Court rulings they don't like.

Republican Gov. Kay Ivey suggested in a statement on Friday evening that Alabama's new congressional map, which her fellow Republicans in the legislature passed earlier in the day, was intended to defy a federal court order that the state create two districts where Black voters could elect their preferred candidates.

"The Legislature knows our state, our people and our districts better than the federal courts or activist groups," Ivey said after signing the map into law, "and I am pleased that they answered the call, remained focused and produced new districts ahead of the court deadline." The comments echoed a racist trope of segregationists, who would falsely blame unrest on "outside agitators" much as Ivey singled out "activist groups"; plaintiffs are Black Alabamians and include members of the state legislature.

Likewise, Ivey's implication that Republican lawmakers were free to disregard an unambiguous directive from a federal court—one affirmed by the Supreme Court—harkened back to Southern politicians' pledges of "massive resistance" to court orders to desegregate. That stance, however, is only likely to engender hostility from the three-judge panel overseeing the lawsuit against Alabama's map

https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/7/24/2182938/-Morning-Digest-Alabama-governor-suggests-new-map-was-intended-to-defy-court-order

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Dartboard needed:

Since winning control of the House in last year's elections, Republicans have talked eagerly of impeaching someone in the Biden administration, though the leading candidate has varied over time.

As of Tuesday, Biden was tied with his Homeland Security secretary, Alejandro Mayorkas, for the lead in terms of impeachment resolutions or bills related to impeachment, with five bills having been filed against each of them.

Garland, Vice President Kamala Harris, FBI Director Christopher Wray and Matthew Graves, the U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, were all well behind with only one impeachment-related bill apiece.

On Tuesday, a pair of hardline House Republicans told reporters they remain interested in impeaching someone, even if they weren't sure yet who.

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/mccarthy-impeachment_n_64c00db3e4b093f07cb62fb2

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File under ‘just stupid"

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who is struggling to gain steam in the GOP primary, mused on Wednesday in an interview with Clay Travis on OutKick that he generally aligns with Kennedy's conservative views on Covid-19 policies and vaccines. Those views, DeSantis indicated, could make him a pick to lead a federal agency with medical jurisdiction. "If you're president, sic him on the FDA if he'd be willing to serve. Or sic him on CDC," DeSantis said, in response to a question about whether he would pick Kennedy as a running mate. "In terms of being Veep, if there's 70 percent of the issues that he may be averse to our base on, that just creates an issue."

https://www.politico.com/news/2023/07/26/desantis-rfk-jr-fda-cdc-2025-00108305

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Dana Milbank@ the WAPO writes on Friday:

The aliens have landed. And they have a gavel!

That is as plausible a takeaway as any from this week's House Oversight Committee hearing on unidentified anomalous phenomena, the curiosity formerly known as UFOs. The panel's national security subcommittee brought in, as its star witness, one David Grusch, a former Defense Department intelligence official who now claims:

That there are "quite a number" of "nonhuman" space vehicles in the possession of the U.S. government.

That one "partially intact vehicle" was retrieved from Italian dictator Benito Mussolini in 1933 by the United States, acting on a tip from Pope Pius XII.

That the aliens have engaged in "malevolent activity" and "malevolent events" on Earth that have harmed or killed humans.

That the U.S. government is also in possession of "dead pilots" from the spaceships.

That a private defense contractor is storing one of the alien ships, which have been as large as a football field.

That the vehicles might be coming "from a higher dimensional physical space that might be co-located right here."

That the Roswell, N.M., alien landing was real, and the Air Force's debunking of it a "total hack job."

And that the United States has engaged in a nearly century-long "sophisticated disinformation campaign" (apparently including murders to silence people) to hide the truth.

I'd tell you more, but then they would have to kill me.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2023/07/28/aliens-house-hearing-biden-impeachment/

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On another topic Milbank comments:

Inflation has calmed, the stock market is at its highest since 2021, illegal border crossings are down, unemployment remains at its lowest in decades, and GDP growth just came in better than expected.

Time to create some chaos!

This is where the House Freedom Caucus comes in.

Members of the group of far-right Republican lawmakers gathered this week to outline their priorities for the House when it returns in September from its six-week recess. Their agenda can be summarized roughly as follows:

The first order of business is to shut down the federal government. The second order of business is to impeach President Biden — on charges TBD.

*****

21 July 2023

The DJIA was up for the 9th straight day (by just a hair) Friday while The NASDAQ and S&P 500 continued their pullback that began Wednesday as the Super Seven encountered some well-deserved profit taking.

We continued to trade our bank and retail stocks for 5% profits. At Friday's close we were back in small amounts of AT&T and Verizon as the WSJ fearmongering article was challenged by several analysts at major firms and by AT&T. $50 Billion became $5 billion spread over many years.

We also own Disney, Pfizer, Southwest, Ford, Foot Locker, Macy's and The Gap.

Large accounts are 70% cash/Treasury ETF and up 10% and more while small subsidiary accounts are more fully invested.

We are guessing that as the Super Seven pull back that money is flowing to some Dow Stocks. That may keep markets firm until after the Fed meets next week and longer. An autumn pullback may be in the cards as Congress messes with the budget.

*****

We have been posting more political stuff because we think the 20 crazy Republicans plus Jim Jordan, Comer and Trump and DeSantis will affect folks' perception of what path government will take over the next 5 years. That in turn may affect markets as budget talks collapse and who knows what the crazies will get up to. Our sentiments are obvious so Rabid Repubs should stop reading now.

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This country is back to the 1960s- only then it was Vietnam, Racial equality and Hippies. Well, maybe it still is but we can now add LGBTQ+, Teachers, Schools, Angels, Religion, Aliens, Child trafficking and Undocumented Immigrants. Back in 1860 it was much simpler- just slavery but there was a war. Hopefully not this time.

Moving on with the important work for the Congress the House Oversight Committee will move on from its attacks on Hunter Biden to address UFOs next week.

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MYG, Trump's future VP pick doesn't believe in Aliens- believes they are fallen angels:

Speaking to reporters Thursday morning, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA), who sits on the Oversight Committee, appeared to reject the idea of aliens from space.

"I'm a Christian," she explained, "and I believe the Bible. I think that, to me, honestly, I've looked into it, and I think we have to question if it's more of the spiritual. Angels or fallen angels."

https://www.alternet.org/alternet-exclusives/marjorie-taylor-greene-ufos-aliens/

Should be an interesting debate with Kamala who Repubs think isn't intelligent enough to be President because they don't like her laugh- the way Repubs measure a person's intellect.

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Jim Jordan, Robert Kennedy Jr. and Ron DeSantis can't really believe what they are saying/doing- or they are idiots. Period.

At the time of the Hall of Famer's death, Kennedy said it was "part of a wave of suspicious deaths among elderly closely following administration of COVID vaccines," adding that the Atlanta Braves legend had "received the Moderna vaccine on Jan. 5 to inspire other Black Americans to get the vaccine."

Despite Jordan's claims that Kennedy was merely "pointing out facts," his suggestion that Aaron died from the vaccine has been disproven over and over again. In fact, the medical examiner's office that examined Aaron's body said the 86-year-old died of natural causes.

DeSantis' appearance on Jesse Watters Primetime coincided with a letter written by the 2024 presidential candidate, obtained by CNN, that suggests AB InBev "breached legal duties owed to its shareholders" by becoming involved with "radical social ideologies."

DeSantis reality: Middle school students in Florida will soon be taught that slavery gave Black people a "personal benefit" because they "developed skills."

After the Florida Board of Education approved new standards for African American history on Wednesday, high school students will be taught an equally distorted message: that a deadly white mob attack against Black residents of Ocoee, Florida, in 1920 included "acts of violence perpetrated against and by African Americans.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/

And more on this subject

https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/7/21/2182564/-Florida-tries-to-defend-its-revisionist-history-on-slavery

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Great Headline:

Donald Trump Hoarding Jewish Artifacts at Mar-a-Lago, And We Don't Mean the Club's Members

So Long As politicians are Buying Votes, Why Not Buy Them Effectively?

https://dealbreaker.com/2023/07/so-long-as-were-buying-votes-why-not-buy-them-effectively

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What would Jesus do? This is what Governor Abbot, a self-acknowledged and professing Christian ordered done.

Texas troopers told to push back migrants into Rio Grande and ordered not to give water amid soaring temperatures, report says

https://www.cnn.com/2023/07/18/us/texas-troopers-migrant-treatment-concerns/index.html

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Arizona allowing Saudis to grow alfalfa in a desert to send to Saudi Arabia.

A megadrought has seared Arizona, stressing its rivers and reservoirs and reducing water to a trickle in the homes of farmworkers near this desert valley.

But green fields of alfalfa stretch across thousands of acres of the desert land, shimmering in the burning sunlight. Wells draw water from deep underground, turning the parched earth into verdant farmland.

For nearly a decade, the state of Arizona has leased this rural terrain west of Phoenix to a Saudi-owned company, allowing it to pump all the water it needs to grow the alfalfa hay — a crop it exports to feed the kingdom's dairy cows. And, for years, the state did not know how much water the company was consuming…..

But the proposal "hit a stone wall," John Schneeman, one of the planners, told The Post. It was spurned, he said, by officials in the administration of then-Gov. Doug Ducey (R) who were "cautious of tangling with a powerful company." The proposal also ran headlong into a view, deeply held in the rural West, that water is private property that comes with access to land, rather than a public resource.

The inaction was an early sign of how state officials gave leeway to Fondomonte as a global fight for water took root in the Arizona desert. Leaving water unprotected amid a drought worsened by climate change has been a boon to Saudi Arabia, where industrial-scale farming of forage crops such as alfalfa is banned to conserve the Persian Gulf nation's limited water supply.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2023/07/16/fondomonte-arizona-drought-saudi-farm-water/

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It took decades for Congress to deliver on its promise to pour new money into the nation's roads, bridges, pipes, ports and internet connections.

Now, House Republicans are trying to slash some of the same funds.

A series of GOP bills to finance the federal government in 2024 would wipe out billions of dollars meant to repair the nation's aging infrastructure, potentially undercutting a 2021 law that was one of Washington's rare recent bipartisan achievements. The proposed cuts could hamstring some of the most urgently needed public-works projects across the country, from improving rail safety to reducing lead contamination at schools.

Some of the cuts would be particularly steep: Amtrak, for example, could lose nearly two-thirds of its annual federal funding next fiscal year if House Republicans prevail. That includes more than $1 billion in cuts targeting the highly trafficked and rapidly aging Northeast Corridor, which runs between Boston and Washington, prompting Amtrak's chief to sound early alarms about service disruptions.

In recent days, Republicans have defended their approach as a fiscally responsible way to reduce the burgeoning federal debt. They've largely tried to extract the savings by slimming down federal agencies' operating budgets next year, technically leaving intact the extra funding that lawmakers adopted in the bipartisan Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act.

But the effect would be the same: The GOP bills would reduce the federal money available for repairs. The cuts would come at a time when the country is grappling with the real-life consequences of its own infrastructure failures, from train derailments in Ohio and Pennsylvania to the collapse of a key portion of Interstate 95 in Philadelphia last month.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2023/07/18/republican-spending-bills-infrastructure-cuts/

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Former President Donald Trump's 2024 campaign is once again spitting on campaign finance laws, this time by hiring a strategist who was convicted of crimes related to a political bribery scheme—and who Trump later pardoned.

According to new disclosures filed over the weekend, Trump's political operation has hired John Tate via his company, JFT Consulting, Inc. JFT received about $13,000 for "political strategy consulting" in June—a $2,903 installment on June 6, followed by a flat $10,000 at month's end.

In 2016, a jury convicted Tate for campaign finance crimes related to a bribery scheme in support of the 2012 presidential campaign of then-Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX). Tate, a former top staffer to Paul, had worked the scheme alongside fellow Paul aides Jesse Benton and Dimitri Kesari, both of whom were also found guilty. Trump pardoned Tate and Benton in December 2020, but did not pardon Kesari.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/trump-hired-adviser-john-tate-who-he-pardoned-for-campaign-finance-crimes?ref=home

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If you aren't a republican this is fun watch to the end.

Marjorie Taylor Greene Made This Kickass Biden Ad, Because She's Stupid (wonkette.com)

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14 July 2023

The CPI number was good this week and markets continued their move higher.

Our accounts finished the 2nd quarter in good shape up 8% to 15%. We tried a few trades since last we wrote for middling results. Our faves are not faves for the Big Boys and Girls and so we took a few scratch profits this week and headed for the sidelines, we continue to trade/hold our retail stocks (Foot Locker, Macy's, Nordstrom, VF Corp, The Gap, Under Armour and Newell), Pfizer and two bank ETFs (KBWB IAT). We do have a spec Sentinel One (cybersecurity) in case crazy times return. Large accounts are 75% plus cash and our small accounts that are subsidiaries of larger ones remain all in and thus more volatile.

Finally, and sadly, we sold and took off our active watch screens Verizon and at&t on news that they both have 74-year-old buried lead cables that short sellers convinced the WSJ are poisoning all the children. With the image of 3M's fall from grace because of potential class action law suits we decided to admit that The Street's opinion matters more than ours and have moved on after too many years of trying to go against the crowd. There are many other issues that are down just as much and are less hated.

*****

How times change.

6 of the nine Supremes are Catholic and a seventh Gorsuch was/is.

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Enjoy your coach seats as CEO's fly everywhere in private planes (for security purposes you know) at taxpayer & company expense,

Private jets are descending on a small-town airport as the 'summer camp for billionaires' kicks off. (Allen & Co Sun Valley Conference)

https://www.businessinsider.com/private-jets-arrive-airport-sun-valley-billionaire-summer-camp-2023-7

And, Bob Iger, CEO of Disney who made $45 million plus in 2022 and is on track for $27 million this year (before bonuses next year after the writer/actor strikes are settled) pontificated the following Thursday morning at the Allen & Co bigwig conference:

"It's very disturbing to me. We've talked about disruptive forces on this business and all the challenges we're facing, the recovery from COVID which is ongoing, it's not completely back. This is the worst time in the world to add to that disruption," Iger said of the ongoing Writers Guild of America strike, which the Screen Actors Guild - American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (SAG-AFTRA) voted to join. ….

"I understand any labor organization's desire to work on behalf of its members to get the most compensation and be compensated fairly based on the value that they deliver," Iger continued. "We managed, as an industry, to negotiate a very good deal with the directors' guild that reflects the value that the directors contribute to this great business. We wanted to do the same thing with the writers, and we'd like to do the same thing with the actors. There's a level of expectation that they have, that is just not realistic. And they are adding to the set of the challenges that this business is already facing that is, quite frankly, very disruptive."

https://www.alternet.org/you-make-27000000-per-year/

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One of many reasons medical bills so High.

The multibillion-dollar private equity firm Welsh, Carson, Anderson & Stowe took less than a year to create, from scratch, Colorado's biggest and most prominent anesthesiology practice.

The financiers created a company, U.S. Anesthesia Partners, which in 2015 bought the largest anesthesiology group in the Denver region. Then it bought the next largest. Then it bought a few more. The company employed 330 anesthesiologists in Colorado at one point, according to its website, making it the state's largest practice by far. It obtained contracts at 10 of the region's 15 largest hospitals, according to the hospitals.

A 2022 study published in JAMA Internal Medicine based on six years of data, for example, found that when anesthesia companies backed by private-equity investors took over at a hospital outpatient or surgery center, they raised prices by an average of 26 percent more than facilities served by independent anesthesia practices….

Since its founding in 2012, USAP has built a staff of more than 4,500 clinicians and spread to nine states, typically following the same approach it took in Denver: acquiring the largest anesthesiology firm in a city and growing its reach from there, company officials said. It has issued more than $1.3 billion in dividends to its shareholders.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2023/06/29/private-equity-medical-practices-raise-prices/

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Confederate Statues Were Never Really About Preserving History

An overwhelming majority of Confederate memorials weren't erected in the years directly following the Civil War. Instead, most were put up decades later. Nor were they built just to commemorate fallen generals and soldiers; they were installed as symbols of white supremacy during periods of U.S. history when Black Americans' civil rights were aggressively under attack. In total, at least 830 such monuments were constructed across the U.S, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center, which maintains a comprehensive database of Confederate monuments and symbols.

The biggest spike in Confederate memorials came during the early 1900s, soon after Southern states enacted a number of sweeping laws to disenfranchise Black Americans and segregate society. During this period, more than 400 monuments were built as part of an organized strategy to reshape Civil War history. And this effort was largely spearheaded by the United Daughters of the Confederacy, who sponsored hundreds of statues, predominantly in the South in the early 20th century — and as recently as 2011.

https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/confederate-statues/

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Peter Thiel and Marc Andreessen (billionaires) told billionaires to homeschool their children at the Sun Valley conference. The two are investing in home schooling websites. Wonder if that may color their thoughts. Andreesen has 1 child, Thiel has none.

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And the grift continues.

A super PAC aligned with former President Donald J. Trump paid Melania Trump $155,000 in late 2021, an unusual payment that was not visible in the group's initial federal reports and came to light only in a filing by Mr. Trump on Thursday.

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/07/13/us/politics/melania-trump-payment.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare

and

But wait, we're still stuck on whether this was for "speaking engagement" or for something else. Haberman and her writing buddy Shane Goldmacher report that the super PAC in question has folded and subsequently prairie dogged back up with a new name. But they quote an (anonymous) spox for the old super PAC who says the original $125,000 was paid to Melon's "agency" for services rendered of "choosing tableware, arranging settings and picking floral arrangements," and the remaining $30,000 for other shit.

So, was it for "speaking engagement," or it was for setting the table for some goddamned dinner the super PAC threw at Mar-a-Lago?

Whatever. For more on Melania's grifting and Donald Trump's grifting and their grifting together and their grifting in other people's names…

https://www.wonkette.com/melania-trump-super-pac-155000-speaking-feemelania-trump-super-pac-155000-speaking-fee

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1 July 2023

We liked the week off so much that unless there is a major move we won't be posting again until Bastille Day, July 14.

Our major accounts remain 60% on greater in The US Treasury Bill ETF which is now yielding 5.3%. At our age it's nice to get the monthly dividend—reminds of clipping coupons in the days of yore.

Most accounts are up 8% to 12% this year even though we have been less than 40% invested in stocks for most of 2023. Coupled with our 20% plus outperformance of the S&P 500 And NASDAQ 100 last year we are content but wary. We see no reason for a market pullback but….

The super seven large caps have led the major measures higher this month as the Big Boys and Girls who were the wrong way rushed in to own them by quarter end. With most of the seven at 40X earnings+ the recovery from last year's selloff has been accomplished. Now discernment should occur.

We are sticking with our philosophy of buying down and out issues for trades and dividends.

At month end we owned IAT (Regional Bank ETF -They passed the stress test.); Truist Bank, Key Bank, Disney, Southwest Air, Verizon, AT&T, Walgreens, Pfizer, BP, Apache Oil, Ford, Macy's and The Gap.

Happy 4th.

*****

Buy High; Sell Low.

Pfizer was changed to neutral from outperform by Credit Suisse. They

do it with the shares down from $60 to $35, 4.5 % yield.

KeyBanc downgraded Disney to sector weight from overweight. The analyst wrote that the call may just be the bottom in the stock. Thus, the analyst is covered no matter which way the share price moves. We've been trading Disney profitably for scratch profits for the past year.

Hedging Failure Exposes Private Equity to Interest-Rate Surge [Bloomberg]

By failing to appreciate just how much central banks would jack up rates, (the Fed said they were going to 5%, Duh!) many private equity firms opted against hedging arrangements that could have shielded companies saddled with $3 trillion in floating-rate debt from rising interest costs, that in some cases, doubled or more…. The consequences of rising rates for hundreds, if not thousands, of companies could be crippling, and the fallout widespread. Not only for investors, who face deep losses, or workers, who stand to lose jobs, but also the global economy, which could be upended if corporate defaults pile up.

*****

Interesting Charts on how the public polling stands on this year's Supremes' decisions: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2023/06/07/us/major-supreme-court-cases-2023.html#student-loans

What's the big deal?

The federal standardized test, known as NAEP, was given last fall, and focused on basic skills. The 13-year-olds scored an average of 256 out of 500 in reading, and 271 out of 500 in math, down from average scores of 260 in reading and 280 in math three years ago. (Reading scores down 2%, Math scores down 4%).

Sam Alito Laments It's Getting So You Can't Take All-Expense Paid Luxury Vacations Funded by Billionaires Anymore https://abovethelaw.com/2023/06/sam-alito-pro-publica-wall-street-journal-ethics/

Alito's reasoning in WSJ editorial:

As for the flight, Mr. Singer and others had already made arrangements to fly to Alaska when I was invited shortly before the event, and I was asked whether I would like to fly there in a seat that, as far as I am aware, would have otherwise been vacant. It was my understanding that this would not impose any extra cost on Mr. Singer. Had I taken commercial flights, that would have imposed a substantial cost and inconvenience on the deputy U.S. Marshals who would have been required for security reasons to assist me.

How so?

Alito seems to suggest that he was flying to Alaska and it turned out Singer happened to be flying to Alaska too. And he happened to have a spare seat on his private jet. So, what sense would there be in having the seat go to waste? In the spirit of the Alaskan wilderness, taking the seat was sort of a resource-conservation effort in which Alito was lending a hand. But of course, Singer didn't just happen to going to Alaska. He was going to Alaska specifically to spend quality time with Sam Alito. The whole thing had been arranged by The Federalist Society's Leonard Leo, who asked Singer if he and Alito could fly up with him on his private jet.https://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/leonard-leos-scotus-fedsoc-sponsor-family-program

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Here's a little tip for Alito, it's actually quite simple to tell if an act is corrupt. Just ask, "If I was not a judge, member of Congress, or other public official, would I be getting this gift?" If the answer is no, then accepting it is corrupt. And that includes being gifted op-ed space in the WSJ.

https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/6/21/2176673/-

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The Deep State -if you're really looking for it.

And here's where the whole picture starts to come into focus — both the Alito story and the Thomas ones. Needless to say, none of these billionaires are just old friends in the sense you or I might recognize. But they didn't just glom on to their justice on their own. Everyone here is part of Leo's network. Harlan Crow is a big Republican donor but also a big Federalist Society donor. So is Paul Singer. So is the owner of the fishing lodge. In fact, Leo's network is so vast and deep-pocketed that eventually he decided he was too big for the Federalist Society and struck out on his own. Indeed last year he secured a record-breaking $1.6 billion donation as a kind of judicial corrupt grub stake to fund all his future endeavors.

https://talkingpointsmemo.com/

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From RawStory.com

Ironically, it turns out that red states are able to carry out their campaign of reviving the old Confederacy and its values of patriarchy, hierarchy, and wage slavery in large part because blue states are subsidizing them.

While Donald Trump carried 2,497 counties in the 2020 election compared to Joe Biden's 477 counties, the Blue counties Biden carried generated a total of 71 percent of the nation's economic activity.

The fiscal health of blue states and counties — along with widespread red state poverty exacerbated by Red State tax breaks for the morbidly rich — accounts for the bizarre reality that Blue states are subsidizing the brutal and retrograde policies of red states.

A March 2023 report from the Rockefeller Institute lays out how glaring this appropriation of blue state revenue is by the red states. In just New York, for example, they write that over a five-year period:

"New York taxpayers have given $142.6 billion more to the federal government than New York residents have received back in federal spending."

As the Associated Press summarized in an article titled AP FACT CHECK: Blue high-tax states fund red low-tax states:

"Mississippi received $2.13 for every tax dollar the state sent to Washington in 2015, according to the Rockefeller study. West Virginia received $2.07, Kentucky got $1.90 and South Carolina got $1.71.

"Meanwhile, New Jersey received 74 cents in federal spending for tax every dollar the state sent to Washington. New York received 81 cents, Connecticut received 82 cents and Massachusetts received 83 cents.

"California fared a bit better than other blue states. It received 96 cents for every dollar the state sent to Washington."

When the Biden administration tried to just slightly slow down the red state gravy train, specifying in the American Rescue Plan that the subsidies to the states for helping people who lost their jobs due to Covid could not be misappropriated and redirected to tax cuts for local billionaires, their politicians — dancing to the tune of their in-state oligarchs — went ballistic.

https://www.alternet.org/alternet-exclusives/red-state-welfare-queen-oligarchs/

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Rick Perry Redux- what was that third department?

… DeSantis says he wants to eliminate the IRS, which is supposed to make people think "oh, yippee, no more taxes," but no matter how much he wants to cut from the services and agencies that help regular people and keep our air and water clean and our workplaces safe, there's no way he wants to campaign on not being able to fund the military, which currently accounts for more than 16% of the overall federal budget and around half of all discretionary spending. Again, DeSantis would claim he wants to replace the IRS with something, but he's not getting into what. Last month, he told Dana Loesch he would support a flat tax, saying, "I would be welcoming to take this tax system, chuck it out the window and do something that's more favorable to the average folks." (That would not be a flat tax, because those are wildly regressive.)

Flat Tax is a straw dog.

Moreover, its simplicity is a ruse. The thing that complicates the tax code is not the number of rates. It's the myriad ways in which we define different types of income. It's all the preferences, deductions and credits.

Now, you might argue that a flat tax will get rid of those, but all that tells me is that a) you don't know the tax lobby, and b) you're one of the few people who's not running for president. I deduce "b" from the fact that I find it extremely hard to envision a viable candidate who tells people that she's going to get rid of the mortgage interest deduction. Or, if she's a Republican (or a Wall Street-oriented Democrat), that she's going to get rid of tax preferences for capital gains, dividends, and the interest-based financing that's the mother's milk of private equity investors. Read more:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2015/05/26/the-flat-tax-falls-flat-for-good-reasons/

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If there's no money in it why try to save 1 million folks a year from getting sick?

The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and Wellcome announced Wednesday they would put about $550 million into Phase III trials for a tuberculosis vaccine originally developed by the drug company GSK. The shot, called M72, has been on hold since 2019, when GSK abandoned it because it lacked commercial potential.

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