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Ask five different people what’s the worst thing in the GOP spending bill and you’d get five different answers. And they’d all be right. I know, I know. That math doesn't add up. But the Senate majority's doesn't either. Members of the Senate party in power are fighting amongst themselves in a battle to determine where the spending bill will land on the spectrum between terrible and horrible. That's not just my opinion. According to polls, that's the opinion of most Americans. "The tax and domestic policy bill nearing a vote by Senate Republicans includes hundreds of provisions, including extended and expanded tax cuts and significant cuts to Medicaid, food benefits and other programs. It would add more than $3 trillion to the national debt." NYT (Gift Article): A List of Nearly Everything in the Senate G.O.P. Bill, and How Much It Would Cost or Save. Somehow, we are about to be spending a lot more to get a lot less. But don't worry, according to the president, "We will make it all up, times 10, with GROWTH." (I think we've all heard that line before.)
+ "Senate Republicans have quietly inserted provisions in President Trump’s domestic policy bill that would not only end federal support for wind and solar energy but would impose an entirely new tax on future projects, a move that industry groups say could devastate the renewable power industry." Surprise Tax in G.O.P. Bill Could Cripple Wind and Solar Power. This idea is so bad that it even made me agree with Elon Musk who said, "The latest Senate draft bill will destroy millions of jobs in America and cause immense strategic harm to our country! It gives handouts to industries of the past while severely damaging industries of the future." We're not just ruining our chance to lead the renewable energy charge. We're replacing that cleaner, more profitable future with a lump of coal. "At the same time, new last-minute inducements were unveiled for fossil fuels, including one classifying coal as a critical mineral when it comes to a government manufacturing credit. 'We're doing coal,' Trump said. Here's the latest from CNN.
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Sludge Hammer
"When I started talking with people about their sludge stories, I noticed that almost all ended the same way—with a weary, bedraggled F-ck it. Beholding the sheer unaccountability of the system, they’d pay that erroneous medical bill or give up on contesting that ticket. And this isn’t happening just here and there. Instead, I came to see this as a permanent condition. We are living in the state of F-ck it." Chris Colin in The Atlantic (Gift Article): That Dropped Call With Customer Service? It Was on Purpose. "Endless wait times and excessive procedural fuss—it’s all part of a tactic called 'sludge.'"
+ And sludge isn't just for corporations anymore. The government is getting in on the action. NYT (Gift Article): How the G.O.P. Bill Saves Money: Paperwork, Paperwork, Paperwork. "Instead of explicitly reducing benefits, Republicans would make them harder to get and to keep. The effect, analysts say, is the same, with millions fewer Americans receiving assistance. By including dozens of changes to dates, deadlines, document requirements and rules, Republicans have turned paperwork into one of the bill’s crucial policy-making tools, yielding hundreds of billions of dollars in savings to help offset their signature tax cuts."
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Lucky 13
So the plan was to get the most dangerous illegal immigrants off the streets while allowing the hard-working, taxing paying to stay. So why are so many innocent people people being deported while MS-13 leaders are getting out of prison? "When Nayib Bukele, the president of El Salvador, agreed earlier this year to imprison deportees from the United States, he had a specific request of the Trump administration: the return of top MS-13 leaders in American custody." NYT (Gift Article): Why Is Trump Returning MS-13 Leaders to El Salvador?
+ "The Trump administration has agreed to release from prison a three-time felon who drunkenly fired shots in a Texas community and spare him from deportation in exchange for his cooperation in the federal prosecution of Kilmar Abrego García, according to a review of court records and official testimony. Jose Ramon Hernandez Reyes, 38, has been convicted of smuggling migrants and illegally reentering the United States after having been deported." WaPo (Gift Article): Star witness against Kilmar Abrego García was due to be deported. Now he’s being freed.
+ ICE fears shut down July Fourth events in multiple California cities.
+ Man who helped girl attacked by shark in Florida detained by Ice officials. He was driving without his headlights on. (Feel safer?)
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Human Resources
"Lindsey, whose work involves selling and answering questions about credit cards for American Express, a Concentrix client, has developed her own tactics to try to calm customers. 'I tell them, ‘I promise, I’m a real human.'' To demonstrate, she might cough or giggle, vocal tics she believes AI can’t replicate. “I even ask them, 'Is there anything you want me to say to prove that I’m a real human?” Bloomberg (Gift Article): Call Center Workers Are Tired of Being Mistaken for AI. (A lot of people think NextDraft is written by AI until they hear me moaning.)
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Extra, Extra
Mergers and Ammunitions: "The cartel has for months been torn by violence between two main factions, as Mexico, under pressure from the Trump administration, has moved aggressively against it. In that turmoil, a faction of the cartel led by sons of the drug lord known as El Chapo have allied with an old and powerful adversary, the Jalisco New Generation Cartel." NYT(Gift Article): Cartel Fighters Make a Desperate Alliance That Could Transform Underworld. "'It’s like if the eastern coast of the U.S. seceded during the Cold War and reached out to the Soviet Union,' said Vanda Felbab-Brown, an expert on nonstate armed groups at the Brookings Institution. 'This has global implications for how the conflict will unfold and how criminal markets will reorganize.'"
+ Marching Against Orders: "Around 100,000 people defied a government ban and police orders on Saturday to march in what organizers called the largest LGBTQ Pride event in Hungary's history in an open rebuke of Prime Minister Viktor Orbán's government."
+ Non Compliance Officer: "I may not be the sort of person you would expect to oppose a ban on transgender troops. I am a conservative evangelical Christian and a Republican. Though I have deep compassion for people who feel they are in the wrong body, I do not think that transitioning — as opposed to learning to love and accept the body God gave you — is the right thing to do in that predicament. But my views are irrelevant to the issue of transgender troops." NYT (Gift Article): I’m Not the Person You’d Expect to Oppose a Ban on Transgender Troops. "The meek compliance of military leadership with the ban sends a chilling message to all service members — namely, that our ranks are open only to those who fit a specific ideological mold, regardless of their ability to serve. Equally concerning is the message that military compliance sends to policymakers. If officers accept this kind of unethical order, where does it end? I fear that the White House will ask members of the military to perform increasingly loathsome tasks."
+ The Strain in Spain: "A vicious heatwave has engulfed southern Europe, with punishing temperatures that have reached highs of 114.8F in Spain and placed almost the entirety of mainland France under alert." Europe swelters in heatwave. (Did I mention that, We're doing coal?)
+ Nothing But Net Gains: The WNBA is expanding to 18 teamsover the next five years, with Cleveland, Detroit and Philadelphia all set to join the league by 2030.
+ The Silent Treatment: "It’s not just career staffers who are clamming up, fearful they will be tagged as rebellious or resistant to Trump’s policies and dismissed amid the administration’s push to trim the workforce, fulfilling the president’s promise to eradicate waste, fraud and abuse. Trump’s own political appointees are also resistant to writing things down, worried that their agency’s deliberations will appear in news coverage and inspire a hunt for leakers, federal workers said." WaPo (Gift Article): The first rule in Trump’s Washington: Don’t write anything down.
+ Electric Shock: Ford's CEO says China's EV progress is 'the most humbling thing' he's ever seen.' (Yeah, yeah, sure, sure, but We're doing coal!)
+ Tale of the Tape: This time around the devices have bluetooth, USB-C charging, and rechargeable batteries. But Maxell is back making cassette players again.
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Bottom of the News
"Thousands of lottery players in Norway spent part of last week believing they had hit the jackpot, thanks to a conversion error that briefly turned modest wins into millionaire-level windfalls." Thousands were told they won the lottery. It was a mistake. (I wonder if these guys are working on messaging for the DC spending bill...)
+ Beijing hosts China’s first fully autonomous 3-on-3 AI robot soccer match. (They look beatable. For now.)