<Like a compulsive gambler, the United States keeps raising the stakes on decisions made by inherently fallible humans. When, inevitably, those humans make bad choices bringing calamitous results, we criticize those decisions and ladle out blame, but we are much less likely to question the wisdom of granting individuals so much power in the first place.

We should. Our nation’s founders had no illusions about preventing bad choices. Instead, they sought to limit individuals’ power and its resulting harm.

In July, the Supreme Court held that presidents are absolutely immune for crimes they may commit using many of their official powers, and they are at least presumptively immune from criminal prosecution for any official actions. Many have criticized the court for presuming to rewrite the Constitution: The founders created constitutional immunity for members of Congress for things they say in speeches and debates on the House and Senate floors but declined to go further and offer any such immunity to presidents. Arguably the immunity decision’s bigger shortcoming is its heavy reliance on the wisdom and probity of one person. The founders rightly regarded all humans, especially those in authority, as vulnerable to temptation and corruption. Although they cheered King William III’s leadership of England’s Glorious Revolution, they criticized his aggrandizement of power — which later proved dangerous in the unstable hands of King George III. Accordingly, they designed the U.S. Constitution with many checks and balances on the president.

Today’s president is far more powerful than the one the Constitution’s writers envisioned and specifically declined to immunize. The focus on the executive and the executive branch is in some ways to be expected: The founders had no way to anticipate how large the federal government would become with the country’s growing territory, population, economic complexity and global ties. But they would surely be appalled, nonetheless.

For example, the Constitution explicitly makes the president the nation’s commander in chief. That would seem to be the founders’ conferring a great deal of power on the office, until you remember that initially, the U.S. had no standing army. The founders also explicitly assigned war powers to collective decision-making (Congress), not to an individual (the president). But from the Korean conflict through Vietnam, the Iraq war and beyond, a diffident House and Senate have essentially handed that power over to the White House.

Had Madison, Washington, Jefferson and the others had any idea how much power would find its way to the presidency, they would have increased the Constitution’s checks and balances.

Gun safety is another example of how we keep raising the stakes on fallible human decisions. In this case, an aggressive Supreme Court and a diffident Congress have made it possible for almost anyone to purchase what are tantamount to weapons of war. Assault-style rifles radically increase the consequences of bad decisions by gun owners compared with the weapons available when the 2nd Amendment was ratified.

Even if the founders meant to convey individual rights to private possession of weapons — a historically dubious claim — the 2nd Amendment certainly does not guarantee the right to possess any weapon one chooses. (As an analogy, consider the 6th Amendment: It guarantees a criminal defendant the right to some lawyer but not the lawyer of their choice.)

A person who owns a gun is keeping and bearing arms. This is true even if they are denied the weapon of their choice. Any plausible 21st century gun safety legislation would allow possession of arms far deadlier than those known to the 2nd Amendment’s drafters, yet the Supreme Court keeps raising the stakes. One result: A federal district court judge in late August felt compelled by recent Supreme Court decisions to throw out charges against a man possessing a machine gun, which has been illegal since 1934. Fallible humans with machine guns are a lot scarier than fallible humans with flintlock rifles....>

<....Persistent liberal calls to wipe out the Senate filibuster — allowing whichever party sweeps an election to reshape the government with no need to compromise — are another example of recklessly raising the stakes on human decision-making. The filibuster isn’t in the Constitution, but since the first session of the Senate, in 1789, it’s been possible for the minority to stand in the way of the majority and force compromises in Congress.

Proponents of killing the filibuster imagine they could do great things if freed from the need for the bipartisanship that the filibuster forces, but just as surely, generations of progress on civil rights, environmental protection and workplace safety could be washed away after a single wave election.

Finally, as we have concentrated power in the White House, we have raised the stakes for presidential elections, with the result that ruthlessness in election campaigns and vote certification is soaring. Objectively, picking the wrong president has gotten more and more dangerous, and that unleashes subjective passions, along with outrageous and illegal partisan behavior — up to and including the Jan. 6 insurrection — that perpetrators justify because they are trying to prevent the “catastrophe” of a win by their opponent.

Inevitably, humans will make bad decisions. We should do what we can to stop or reverse laws and practices that concentrate power, especially over life and death or crucial rights — in one imperfect individual or just a few. We can lower the stakes, demand that Congress do its job rather than cede more power to the executive, and reinforce checks and balances. The founders were right about a lot of things, but especially that human beings are fallible.>

<In Moving Day, an anonymous 19th-century painter illustrates the bedlam of the bygone New York City tradition in which all leases began on May 1. Horse-drawn carts laden with trunks trawl the crowded street.

Getting a new place—from the first Google search to the last box—still feels like Moving Day looks: messy. But on the landlord side, apparently, things are more organized than you can possibly imagine. A Department of Justice antitrust lawsuit, filed at the end of August, claims that RealPage, a company that supplies management software to operators of apartment buildings, is helping some of the country’s largest landlords collude to raise rents.

A small example of the way that RealPage coordinates the rental market involves “expiration management.” Because RealPage collects troves of data from its clients, the company can see if a lot of leases in a particular neighborhood are set to expire on, say, Aug. 31. If that’s the case, it directs landlords to nudge tenants toward leases of 11 or 13 months, to spread out the expiration dates. In the words of a RealPage employee, this ensures that landlords “remain in a position of pricing power.” No Moving Day–style glut of open apartments in a RealPage market. And there are a lot of those markets. According to the DOJ, fast-growing Sun Belt cities like Atlanta, Austin, Charlotte, Dallas, Houston, Orlando, and Raleigh have multiple neighborhoods where RealPage software suggests rents for between one-third and two-thirds of the whole multifamily-building stock. Landlords don’t have to accept RealPage’s pricing recommendations, but they do wind up setting nearly 85 percent of their rents within 5 percent of RealPage’s figures.

The DOJ says that RealPage uses this power to raise rents when the market is tight and to stop them from falling when supply exceeds demand. The complaint features one of the company’s executives saying the kind of thing that can bring a general counsel to tears: “There is greater good in everybody succeeding versus essentially trying to compete against one another in a way that actually keeps the entire industry down.” If enough landlords used RealPage’s software, they would “likely move in unison versus against each other.” And that, the government says, is an “unlawful information-sharing scheme” and an “illegal monopoly.”

The lawsuit builds on years of reporting by ProPublica’s Heather Vogell, who observed that in one Seattle neighborhood, 70 percent of all the apartments were operated by just 10 property managers, and each of them was using RealPage. Since then, the company’s software has been the subject of a series of class action lawsuits, some of which have resulted in settlements with specific landlords.

Various Democratic politicians have also weighed in, including Sens. Ron Wyden and Peter Welch, who introduced a bill in January to prevent the use of algorithms to raise rental prices. Last month, Kamala Harris mentioned the practice (though not the company) in an economic policy speech, saying: “Some corporate landlords collude with each other to set artificially high rental prices, often using algorithms and price-fixing software to do it. It’s anticompetitive, and it drives up costs. I will fight for a law that cracks down on these practices.”

Kevin White, a business professor at the University of Texas at Tyler, has written about the phenomenon. “Even though these landlords are not getting together in the proverbial smoke-filled room and saying, ‘We all need to raise our rents by $100,’ they’re colluding by using the same software that aggregates their data,” he said. “I think these things have teeth.”....>

<....RealPage owns a few different products, but the gist is the same: Property managers give the company proprietary data on lease terms, rents, concessions, floor plans, and amenities. RealPage returns a suggested rent. The company never proposes a rent below a local “market floor,” instead advising clients to take units off the market to keep prices high. Last year, the company boasted that it had lowered the share of leases with “concessions” (such as a free month’s rent) by half between 2013 and 2023. The network effect has made RealPage the dominant player in the market at large, and especially so in cities and neighborhoods where big landlords predominate. All this, the company asserts, can help clients outperform their competitors by 2 to 7 percent.

RealPage will likely claim that much of the dossier amounts to the promotional bluster of marketing material and that its rent suggestions are just that—suggestions—with none of the agreed compliance you’d expect from an old-fashioned price-fixing scandal. The company’s price recommendations, defenders in the business say, constitute nothing more than accurate measures of the market. And perhaps its strongest suit: Landlords don’t have to accept them, and many do not. The courts may decide there’s a difference between anticompetitive pricing and the use of common tools to make pricing decisions.

Those arguments will have to override the company’s own claims, evidence of rent premiums from researchers, and the undeniable dominance of their market share.

What happens if the DOJ prevails? Can a company that merely collects public-rental market data be worth eleven figures, as RealPage was when it was purchased by private equity firm Thoma Bravo in 2021 for $10 billion? Probably not: The listings aggregator Zillow, whose market is many times the size, is scarcely worth more. Big data or not, if there is no guiding hand pressing landlords to keep prices high, a savvy competitor can always offer lower rents, fill more units, faster, and make more money.

And yet, even in a world without algorithms keeping the big landlords in lockstep, a fundamental imbalance persists: Finding the maximum price for a unit is a big landlord’s job. They do it every day. Whether there’s a RealPage or not, they will find all the information they can to make that decision, even if that means paying for it.

For tenants, on the other hand, moving is something nobody wants to be good at. The mismatch in expertise is compounded as the market becomes more knowable. Would tenants pay for a service that told us what was a good deal relative to the norm? Maybe once, but who would subscribe? Who would build it?

The reporting and the lawsuits on RealPage have been taken in some quarters as proof that supply-minded YIMBYs have been wrong all along. But even if the DOJ is right, RealPage’s rent premium is just the icing on the cake of the housing-supply shortage. Lowering the country’s sky-high housing costs will take a little from Column A and a little from Column B: Stop big landlords from colluding, but also let developers build their way into a glut. Only an overbuilt city can offer tenants security and freedom.

Only then can you imagine Moving Day as an expression of tenant power: In every cart an opportunist, looking for a better deal and a better life.>

<When conspiracy theorist Laura Loomer was spotted exiting Donald Trump’s plane in Philadelphia ahead of Tuesday’s debate, it might have been a tell that Trump’s performance would be just as fact-free and fascist-friendly as Loomer’s putrid podcast.

I certainly wondered whether Trump had brought her along for inspo. Loomer, who has said she’s “pro-white nationalism” and a “proud Islamophobe,” has received public praise from Trump multiple times over the past year, despite some conservatives’ concerns that she could become a liability for his campaign.

Lately, she has used her platform to lob overtly racist and sexist attacks at Kamala Harris, the same kind of schlock Trump shares on social media. In one such example from last week, Loomer described Harris, New York Attorney General Letitia James and Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis as “meritless DEI Shaniquas.”

It’s also noteworthy that, despite losing the only election she has ever run in, she has publicly criticized Trump’s campaign operations, so Team Trump might be placating her — or simply blunting her online kvetching — by keeping her in the fold. In fact, Loomer traveled with Trump’s entourage to a 9/11 memorial ceremony Wednesday, which is particularly awkward given that Loomer has claimed that the 2001 terrorist attacks were an inside job.

Thus far, I find it remarkable that Loomer hasn’t become the liability that some of Trump’s own supporters predicted. After all, the former president hosted a dinner with white nationalist Nick Fuentes and rapper Ye, and his campaign has still — justifiably — had to answer for it this year.

But Trump has been spared similar condemnation over his association with Loomer, who is just as toxic as Fuentes or Ye but appears more embedded in the Trump campaign than either of them.>

<An election isn’t over until it’s over. Is the 2024 presidential election over?

It had been reported for days that Kamala Harris would try to provoke Donald Trump in their Tuesday debate. She did, again and again and again. No surprise, ABC’s David Muir and Linsey Davis went along. Ms. Harris repeatedly defined the former president in the darkest terms ever seen in a U.S. presidential campaign.

Given the Harris team’s willingness to tip its debate strategy, one might have assumed Mr. Trump would have a game plan for dealing with the attacks. As debate prep, Mr. Trump should have asked Andrew Cuomo how to deal with such a barrage.

Earlier on debate day, the former New York governor sat before a congressional committee and endured an extended assault from New York Republican Rep. Elise Stefanik about his handling of patients in nursing homes during the pandemic. The granite-faced Mr. Cuomo merely let it roll off and moved on to his talking points. It wasn’t admirable, but it was Politics 101.

Unlike the advisers to Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden, the Harris team finally figured out the way Mr. Trump processes information. First in line is his determination to refute the details of any accusation (he said this week he was “disappointed” in his lawyers). But in the tight debate format, that left little time for Mr. Trump to describe his policy ideas. Too often, his policy proposals came out as, well, a word salad.

Ms. Harris has famously “adapted” her politics over the past several weeks from what they were during her 31/2 years as Mr. Biden’s vice president and decades before. We will get to the implications of that adaptability in a moment. By contrast, the Trump political model hasn’t budged, and that is hurting him.

Mr. Trump’s political persona emerged in a series of Republican primary debates in 2015 and 2016. As an outsider, Mr. Trump’s gruff, blunt style had appeal then because he caught the moment when many voters were souring on traditional politics and the major parties.

But that was eight years ago. The current Trump model is a caricature of the original, and Mr. Trump isn’t someone who could withstand becoming a caricature. By the 30-minute mark of the debate, the former president was shouting his answers, as he does at rallies, or indeed as Mr. Biden does.

Mr. Trump chose not to expose himself to the critical pressure of the 2023 Republican primary debates against candidates like Nikki Haley, Ron DeSantis and Doug Burgum, choosing instead to hold mega-rallies. But the rallies-only choice has eroded Mr. Trump’s skills as a communicator of ideas.

Mr. Trump’s current rally model assumes his audience is in on everything he’s talking about. Now, no matter the venue, Mr. Trump forces listeners to fill in the blanks of policy substance that he leaves out. But for swing voters, what he is saying is often incoherent and confusing....>

<....Mr. Trump’s free-market energy plan is central to his campaign, but he never clearly described those energy policies during the debate, or contrasted them to Biden-Harris. Did Mr. Trump’s debate prep actually include citing the support of Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán? How many undecided voters know or care who Viktor Orbán is?

Mr. Trump was right to distrust ABC. But Ms. Harris and her colluding moderators may have overplayed their hands. Her relentless, sarcastic personal attacks may have come across as unseemly and excessive to undecided voters. As well, a fair number of these voters don’t admire or trust mainstream media, and Tuesday evening they got a case study in why. The problem remains that Mr. Trump’s response to it all was inadequate, again dumping the burden of interpretation onto these voters.

Despite Mr. Trump’s bad night, the debate made something important clear to viewers: Kamala Harris has a character problem.

Her repeated ducking of questions about her past politics became impossible not to notice. Would she allow abortions in the third trimester? Has she ever met Vladimir Putin? Why was the border left open so long? Mr. Trump himself didn’t emphasize that she wasn’t answering these questions, but maybe he didn’t have to. Her instinct to evade was obvious. Sen. Bernie Sanders said this week that her move to the center is largely opportunistic.

Ms. Harris’s defenders will say she established in the debate that Mr. Trump is the one with the character problem. But the Trump reality is well known, and he’s still tied with her in most polls. She is the new entity running for the nation’s highest office, and a question is whether she is making consciously false promises to the American people.

Ms. Harris and her advisers, like Joe Biden in 2020, embraced “adaptability” because they had to. Progressivism doesn’t win presidential elections. But Ms. Harris’s crafted flexibility is what many voters don’t like about politics today—and haven’t since the 2016 election.

It isn’t over. This election could still be Mr. Trump’s to lose. If nothing changes after Tuesday night, he will.>

<An Asian American woman just changed the race for the presidency of the United States.

If you ever doubted or underestimated Kamala Harris’ ability to be our nation’s leader, everyone who watched Tuesday’s debate saw how fully capable she is of the job.

Harris not only bested Donald Trump in arguing the facts, she showed how totally inadequate Trump is now to again be our country’s commander-in-chief.

Harris deftly made her case on issue after issue, while baiting and manipulating Trump on the economy, on abortion, and on immigration.

Imagine how Putin and other world leaders play Trump. Harris exposed Trump for all to see. It wasn’t exactly an “emperor has no clothes” moment. More like a “the twice-impeached, convicted felon on 34 counts” has no business running for president. Trump is unfit mentally for the job, if not unfit morally. It must have been a disappointment for deep MAGA to see their candidate so incapable of holding his own against Harris. At one point, she had him defending the crowd size at his rallies after she said people were leaving because he was boring.

And then instead of real policies that impact our lives, the former president spoke passionately about crowd size.

When that happened, I think everyone could see, Harris ate his lunch.

Going into the debate the consensus in this tight race was that it was a virtual tie with Trump one point ahead.

But after their first meeting ever in a head-to-head-match up, CNN’s Instant poll showed Harris winning the debate well beyond any margin of error, 63 percent to 37 percent.

There’s more distance between the two than previously understood. The debate exposed that. And it changed the race in 2024’s sprint for the White House.

On Monday, I said the only way Trump could be assured a win in Tuesday night’s debate was if he “played nice.”

But the bully just couldn’t do it.

Acting presidential was just one lie Trump couldn’t pull off in another debate night mired in Trump lies.

Did his administration really do “a phenomenal job in the pandemic” when over a million Americans are dead? Is Kamala Harris “a Marxist and everybody knows it”?

And what about those cat-eating immigrants in Springfield, Ohio that when news organizations tried to verify, every local official involved said the story was false. There was even a lie on that Trump lie, when the former president said the immigrants were eating cats AND dogs. No, it’s just one lie. Just cats is enough.

And all that was just a fraction of the lies Trump told in the 90-minute debate.

Still, even with all that I wouldn’t say Kamala Harris “whooped” Donald Trump.

It was more like general domination.

In fact, she had him at “Kamala Harris.”

When Trump seemed to dismiss the possibility of an opening handshake, Harris forced the issue. She walked toward Trump’s podium, reached out her hand and spoke her name.

It caught him off guard and put Trump on the defensive for the night.

Issues?

Surprisingly, Trump didn’t do well on what is seen by voters as his strongest suit–the economy. He is after all, a “businessman.”

However, Trump didn’t seem to understand his own plan to place tariffs on Chinese goods that he says would be paid for by China.

Oh, yeah, like the border wall would be paid by Mexico?

Harris corrected him saying the cost of tariffs would actually be passed on to consumers in what is more like a sales tax that would raise prices and be inflationary. Not a great idea, but that’s Trump’s plan.

Harris also cited Goldman Sachs and more than a dozen Nobel laureates who have said Trump’s plan would be disastrous for Americans. Not to mention working families who wouldn’t get the tax cuts Trump has saved for the wealthy elite.

And this was supposed to be the best part of the debate for Trump....>

<....Harris wasn’t perfect and made one misstatement on the economy. She said “Donald Trump left us the worst unemployment since the great depression.”

She didn’t mean the 1920’s economic disaster but the more recent “great recession.”

But that didn’t cost her any debate points. Besides, when the topic turned to abortion, Harris cleaned up.

Trump couldn’t explain his flip-flopping on the issue. And when he talked of “abortion in the 9th month” it sounded like not only did he not understand the economy, he didn’t understand childbirth. No law advocates for abortion in the 9th month. That would be murder.

Meanwhile, Harris reminded everyone that “the freedom to make decisions about one’s own body should not be made by the government.”

You know most at home cheered when she said that.

If you turned down the sound and just looked at the pictures, most of the time Trump was frowning, or scowling. Things got worse.

On immigration, Harris mentioned how Trump ordered a bipartisan effort to address the border be killed, so that Trump “could run on a problem, instead of fixing a problem.”

When asked by ABC moderator David Muir about that, Trump never answered the question (one of many questions Trump just dodged). Instead, Trump brought up the lies about immigrants eating dogs and cats in Springfield, Ohio.

It made Trump look dumb.

Too dumb maybe to be president.

Before the debate, I wondered why we’re even bothering with the exercise.

A simple side-by-side picture of Vice President Harris and former President Trump is all you need. Words are extraneous. They get in the way. By now, the candidates’ images are enough to evoke the truth and make the right decision for America.

When I see a picture of Harris, I think: Vice President.

Trustworthy. Loyal. Competent. Woman. Choice. Fair. African American. Asian American. New America. One of us.

When I see a picture of Trump, I think: Convicted Felon, 34 counts. Insurrectionist. Communist suck-up. (See Helsinki/Putin/2018). Wannabe Dictator. E. Jean Carroll. Stormy Daniels. Liar. Central Park 5. Racist. Sexist. No choice.

All that just from pictures capable of striking those chords inside you.

It’s a big sound. A debate just adds to the noise.

But after the first debate, seeing is believing when the candidates aren’t muted.

Harris was serious, yet charming, and fully capable to be our commander-in-chief.

Trump? He wants to debate his crowd size.>

<The Biden administration on Thursday unfurled new draft rules that could raise taxes on about 100 large, highly profitable companies, some of which pay little or nothing to the federal government each year, touching off a bruising fight that will coincide with a broader reexamination of the U.S. tax code in 2025.

The release of the extraordinarily technical, roughly 600-page blueprint marked a critical step in a process now two years in the making, after President Joe Biden enacted a signature economic package that cracked down on firms that rely on shrewd accounting to reduce their tax bills significantly.

But the new federal tax guidelines arrive in the midst of a grueling election season, the outcome of which will shape a looming partisan battle in Washington over a set of soon-expiring tax cuts adopted in 2017 under President Donald Trump. The 2024 Republican presidential nominee and his Democratic opponent, Vice President Kamala Harris, have sharply divergent views about the way the U.S. government raises revenue, setting up a pivotal debate over the future of America’s finances. Under the nation’s byzantine tax system, corporate income is taxed at a rate of 21 percent. In reality, though, many businesses see much lower bills, thanks in part to rules that allow companies to deduct some incurred losses or expenses, such as infrastructure improvements or research. With creative accounting, some of the nation’s most profitable firms can reduce their effective rates dramatically, potentially to zero.

Having failed to raise the corporate rate wholesale, Biden secured a new minimum 15 percent tax on companies that report more than $1 billion in income as part of the Inflation Reduction Act in 2022. Democrats had hoped this would help pay for the climate and health-care investments they achieved at the time.

By the Treasury Department’s latest estimates, the corporate minimum tax is expected to generate roughly $250 billion in revenue over the next decade, including about $20 billion next year. But the finer details of the government’s policy are not entirely settled, and federal officials are not expected to finalize the new minimum tax until next year.

In a briefing with reporters, Wally Adeyemo, the deputy treasury secretary, still maintained that the proposal addresses a disparity that allows companies to report “record profits” while paying very little to the federal government.

“We establish a degree of tax fairness, making sure that these companies that benefit from the investments we make in the economy are helping to pay for them,” he said.

The exact companies that would be subject to the new corporate alternative minimum tax, known as CAMT, are not clear, though administration officials have said the number is expected to reach close to 100 firms. Previously, researchers studying balance sheets pointed to 78 companies in 2021 that could soon owe billions of dollars — including Amazon, AT&T and Berkshire Hathaway — though some later said they did not believe they would have to pay it. (Amazon founder Jeff Bezos owns The Washington Post.)....>

<....So far, only a handful of companies, including Airbnb and Duke Energy, have signaled in securities filings to investors they face new tax liabilities from Biden’s overhaul. Technically, the tax took effect in 2023, though federal officials said this week that some corporate taxpayers have not yet filed returns for that year.

Under the system, companies must calculate their tax bills based on a new figure — the “book income” on the financial statements that they report to their investors — rather than the bottom-line taxable income that firms have long used. However, the law still allows corporate taxpayers to benefit from certain deductions, including tax credits meant to promote the use of renewable energy — meaning some still could end up paying rates below the 15 percent minimum.

Otherwise, Congress left the logistics of the plan to the Treasury Department, which said Thursday that it would solicit public comment into next year on its intricate proposal. In the meantime, many tax experts said corporations would face considerable, vexing work to figure out exactly what qualifies as income — and how much they must pay.

“We’re still very much in a position of trying to actually figure out all of its implications and its implementation, which is an uncomfortable position [to be in] even several years later,” said Davidson Gillette, an East Carolina University accounting professor who co-wrote a recent article that’s critical of the tax.

Even before releasing its draft, the Treasury Department heard an earful of criticism from major lobbying groups, including the U.S. Chamber of Commerce along with organizations that represent manufacturers, drug giants and technology firms, which sought to expand the tax breaks they could still apply under the new corporate minimum.

Those lobbyists are likely to push for additional changes at the Treasury Department, while ratcheting up their efforts in Congress as lawmakers debate the future of Trump’s 2017 tax cuts. Some Republican lawmakers have explicitly pledged to repeal Biden’s corporate minimum as part of their broader assault against the Inflation Reduction Act.

The tenor of that debate hinges greatly on the outcome of the 2024 election, as the two parties have presented vastly different visions for the future of the U.S. code.

Trump seeks to extend the tax cuts that he secured during his time in office, including lower rates for Americans at all income levels, and generous deductions for certain business expenses. He has also endorsed a deeper cut to the corporate tax rate than he initially achieved, aiming to set it at 15 percent for companies that produce goods domestically.

Harris, in contrast, broadly has aligned herself with some of Biden’s original tax proposals, two years after serving as the tiebreaking vote to clinch final passage of the Inflation Reduction Act. She has endorsed raising income tax rates on high earners, lifting the corporate tax rate to 28 percent and offering new tax breaks for small businesses and lower-income families with children.>

<New Hampshire's governor signed a bill Thursday that would require proof of U.S. citizenship when registering to vote and photo identification when casting a ballot.

Under current law, those who don’t bring photo IDs to the polls can sign an affidavit attesting to their identity and are required to provide documentation within seven days. The new law, which won’t take effect until after the November elections, eliminates voter identification exceptions and would require those registering to vote to show a passport, birth certificate or other evidence of U.S. citizenship.

“We have a proud tradition and proven track record of condition elections that are trusted and true,” said Gov. Chris Sununu, a Republican who is not seeking a fifth term. “Looking forward to the next decade or two, this legislation will instill even more integrity and trust in the voting process.”

Critics argue the changes would make New Hampshire’s voter registration system one of the most restrictive in the country. They note that many people don’t have immediate or free access to their birth certificates and say the changes could undermine trust in elections even though it won’t take effect mid-November.

“While this law would not be in effect for the upcoming election, any change in law this close to a major election risks confusing all voters," said Lauren Kunis, director of the advocacy group Vote Riders. “We know that voter ID initiatives like HB1569 aren’t about security at the ballot box, they’re about blocking voters from accessing it - a sentiment that goes against the very foundation of our democracy.”

Voting by noncitizens is prohibited in federal elections and is not allowed in any state elections, although a handful of municipalities nationwide allow it in limited circumstances. While illegal voting by noncitizens is extremely rare, the possibility that it could happen on a wider scale because of the influx of migrants at the southern border has become a theme of Republican campaign messaging this year.

In Washington, Republicans are trying to push through the SAVE Act, a proof-of-citizenship mandate for voters, as part of wider legislation aimed at avoiding a partial government shutdown this fall.>

<In an interview on a far-right podcast, Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio) invoked the Civil War, and suggested to the hosts that he's on the side of the Confederacy.

Conservative media outlet the Bulwark recently highlighted Vance's appearance in a 2021 episode of the Viva Frei podcast, in which he told hosts David Freiheit and Robert Barnes that in his view, the Civil War never really ended. Rather, the Hillbilly Elegy author posited that the North and the South are still battling for control of the cultural and political narrative. And he made it clear he was on the side battling the "Northern woke people."

"American history is a constant war between Northern Yankees and Southern Bourbons, where whichever side the hillbillies are on, wins," Vance said." And that’s kind of how I think about American politics today, is like, the Northern Yankees are now the hyper-woke, coastal elites. The Southern Bourbons are sort of the same old-school Southern folks that have been around and influential in this country for 200 years. And it’s like the hillbillies have really started to migrate towards the Southern Bourbons instead of the Northern woke people. That’s just a fundamental thing that’s happening in American politics."

The Bulwark's Jonathan V. Last remarked that he agrees with Vance, but was "just kind of shocked that he’s willing to admit that in this parallel, Democrats and liberals are the abolitionists and he’s on the side of the slaveholders."

"Actually, scratch that. I’m not shocked at all," he wrote.

Last contextualized Vance's 2021 remarks by putting them next to a key excerpt from his vice presidential nomination acceptance speech at the Republican National Convention (RNC) in July. In that speech, Vance echoed former presidential candidate Pat Buchanan's nativist rhetoric about immigrants (Buchanan ran for president in 1992 and 1996 on closing the Southern border and calling immigration an "illegal invasion").

"America is not just an idea. It is a group of people with a shared history and a common future. It is, in short, a nation," Vance said. "Now, it is part of that tradition, of course, that we welcome newcomers. But when we allow newcomers into our American family, we allow them on our terms."

As Last noted, Vance's comments on the 2021 podcast episode and at the RNC have a similar theme: Allowing new people into the country is up to the "American family," which naturally establishes a hierarchy between deserving "real Americans" and the undeserving others. And as the eventual 2024 Republican vice presidential nominee suggested to the Viva Frei hosts, the "Southern bourbons" and their "hillbilly" counterparts have more of a claim than the "Northern woke people.">

<Former President Donald Trump unveiled a new economic policy on Thursday before a crowd in Tucson, Arizona, saying he would end taxing overtime pay.

"Today, I'm also announcing that as part of our additional tax cuts, we will end all taxes on overtime," Trump said to loud cheers, "That gives people more of an incentive to work; it gives the companies a lot. It's a lot easier to get the people."

"The people who work overtime are among the hardest working citizens in our country, and for too long, no one in Washington has been looking out for them. … It's time for the working man and woman to finally catch a break, and that's what we're doing."

Trump has previously proposed ending taxes on tips and on Social Security benefits. Trump offered no specifics on his new proposal, spending much of the speech airing his grievances about this week's ABC News-hosted debate and again declaring he would not participate in any more, as he had earlier in the day, and attacking his opponent Vice President Kamala Harris.

"So, because we've done two debates and because they were successful, there will be no third debate," said Trump to cheers in Tucson. "It's too late anyway, the voting has already begun. You got to go out and vote. We got to vote."

He continued to also launch personal attacks against Vice President Kamala Harris, mimicking her speaking style and expressions and mocking her name by saying nobody knows what her last name is.

"Now, Kamala is a very different kind of a word, nice name, very nice name," Trump said. "You don't know her as Harris. When you say Harris, everyone says, 'Who the hell is that?' right?"

Before unveiling his new economic proposal, the former president attempted to link immigration to the high cost of housing, arguing that a surge in undocumented migrants were driving up costs and creating dangerous neighborhoods.

Despite the fact that there were bomb threats reported in the town earlier Thursday and city officials vehemently and repeatedly denying the assertions, Trump again claimed that Haitian migrants were abducting animals in Springfield, Ohio – though not going as far on Thursday as to claim that they were eating them as he did in the debate and on his Truth Social platform.

In an anti-immigrant rant, Trump declared that the United States was being conquered by "foreign elements." He ticked through stories of different cities and towns that he argued were being hurt by an influx of people crossing the border. In some instances, the former president didn't name specific places, instead opting for general fear mongering rhetoric.

"There are hundreds and hundreds or thousands of stories. They're coming in from all over the world, from prisons and jails, from mental institutions and insane asylums and many tourists at numbers that we have never seen before. You've never seen these numbers before," he said.

Despite Trump's claims, a 2020 study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences showed U.S.-born citizens "are over 2 times more likely to be arrested for violent crimes, 2.5 times more likely to be arrested for drug crimes, and over 4 times more likely to be arrested for property crimes" than undocumented immigrants.

And overall, both murder and rape rates are down 26% compared to the same time frame last year, according to the latest FBI statistics, which are released quarterly.

As with many of Trump's economic policy rollouts, he offered little specifics over how the proposal would work and be paid for -- which would likely fall on taxpayers. However, he did claim that President Joe Biden's student loan forgiveness plan was "unfair" to people who paid off their loans.

"You know, he kept saying to these students, no more loans, no more loans, which was very unfair to the millions of people that actually paid off their loans over the years. Some of them took 20 years to pay them off, but, but that's a dead deal."

When it came to his affordable housing proposal, in an attempt to court suburban women, Trump rehighlighted his promise to protect single-family zoning, which some have argued could lead to discriminatory practices.

He also promised to protect single-family zoning, which some have argued is a form of exclusionary zoning to push minorities out of suburban communities.

"The Radical Left wants to abolish the suburbs by forcing apartment complexes and low-income housing into the suburbs right next to your beautiful house," said Trump, who then turned to make his appeal to suburban women.

<They came from Europe, Mexico, Africa, the Middle East, Asia, escaping religious persecution, prejudice, pogroms, massacres, oppression, racial profiling and torture.

They brought with them their hopes and dreams. They braved the unknown to face a hopeful future. They came to survive and thrive, seeking the freedom to choose how they lived their lives, and to guarantee that their children and future generations would have those same freedoms.

I’ve often heard America referred to as a “melting pot.” To me, we are a tossed salad, in which tribal Americans and immigrants come together, not as one pool of sameness, but as a compelling mixture, each playing a role in the whole while maintaining our individuality. Today we are at a precipice in which the soul of our nation is at risk of being taken over by a dangerous movement of white Christian nationalism (a fringe ideology antithetical to many Christian and Judaic beliefs). Adherents mistakenly believe America was a nation founded for white Christians, and that our laws and policies must perpetuate their power and privilege. Christian nationalists want a complete takeover of the U.S. government.

The radical Christian agenda is spelled out in a 900-word document called “Project 2025.” You may have heard of it. Project 2025 is not a myth. It’s not propaganda. It is not science-fiction. It is a real plan hatched by legislators and power brokers who wield their wealth and political power to put their vision of the United States in place, usurping the freedoms that once formed the essence of our nation’s founding principles.

Project 2025 is a strategic plan for restructuring the federal government so that we will all be forced to adhere to their narrow religious beliefs. They want to “delete” or roll back the rights that make up the promise of America. Same-sex marriage and reproductive freedoms are at the top of their list. Their plan is to remove diversity, equity and inclusion from every federal rule, agency regulation, contract, grant, regulation, and existing legislation.

What better way to begin a strategic takeover than to worm their way into our pride and joy: the public school system? Yes, it is unsurprising that the plan includes eliminating the Department of Education and funding private religious schools with taxpayer money.

The nonprofit organization Christians Against Christian Nationalism says that the white Christian nationalism movement seeks to merge Christian and American identities, and thus distorts both.

“Christian nationalism demands Christianity be privileged by the state and implies that to be a ‘good American,’ one must be Christian.”

They explain that: “This often overlaps with and provides cover for white supremacy and racial subjugation. We reject this damaging political ideology and invite our Christian brothers and sisters to join us in opposing this threat to our faith and our nation.”

Just look to Afghanistan, Iran and Yemen for examples of what our country could become. It’s not the faith religious extremists claim to worship that’s a problem, but rather their use of their faith to control their government and society, usually interpreting the rules and laws in ways that make it difficult for a person with a different opinion to speak out without fearing horrible punishment or death.

We’re already seeing the attempts by Christian nationalists in Texas to infiltrate our public schools by attempting to install religious pastors as school “counselors,” proposing a new curriculum using the Christian Bible, stifling knowledge by determining what textbooks are approved, and using their new-found “religious freedom” to discriminate as they please.

Don’t be fooled. The architects of Project 2025 are already putting in place parts of the Christian nationalist agenda. If this plan is allowed to proceed, we will have failed all those who fought and died for our freedoms.

We must never forget that many of us are descendants of those who cried with happiness upon seeing the Statue of Liberty in New York Harbor. We are part of the great salad bowl that makes up the soul of America.

The land of the free that our ancestors looked to will no longer exist if Project 2025 succeeds.>

<No one can keep former President Donald Trump away from Laura Loomer.

Throughout his third presidential campaign, aides and advisers have done their best to shield him from Loomer, a far-right social media influencer, and similar figures who stroke his ego and stoke his basest political instincts.

They lost that battle this week, as Loomer traveled on Trump’s jet to his debate with Vice President Kamala Harris on Tuesday and to Sept. 11 memorial services Wednesday. Her presence at the latter infuriated some Democrats and Republicans because one of the many conspiracy theories she has promoted is the false notion that the terrorist assault on the U.S. was an “inside job.” It wasn’t.

Loomer’s return to Trump’s side is pitting key figures in his coalition against one another, testing the strength of a campaign already reeling from his subpar debate performance Tuesday and Democrats’ resurgence in the wake of their July candidate switch. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., and Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., major Trump allies in Congress who represent opposite ends of the Republican ideological spectrum, are publicly pressing him to ditch her. Loomer fired back Thursday with a string of invective about Graham.

Moreover, her presence reflects Trump’s loss of faith in his campaign aides and their concomitant fear of upsetting him in a time of crisis, according to people familiar with the situation. Last month, he tapped his 2016 campaign manager, Corey Lewandowski, to be an adviser to his top advisers — a move widely viewed as a rebuke of the existing leadership crew.

A senior official from Trump’s 2020 campaign team said that helps explain why Loomer is no longer being kept at arm’s length.

“The people that have the authority to stop it are hanging on to their jobs,” the former official said. “So are you going to pick that fight with him?”

Loomer didn’t respond to a request for comment Thursday, but fighting is a big part of her allure for Trump. She advocates as fiercely for him as she does for theories on the political fringe, like the baseless claim that Haitian immigrants are eating cats and dogs in Springfield, Ohio. Trump promoted that during Tuesday’s debate, creating an unwelcome distraction from his substantive differences with Harris, according to many Republicans. Graham and Greene portray her as a counterproductive influence on Trump when he is locked in a tight battle with Harris for the presidency.

Graham said Thursday that Loomer is “really toxic” and shouldn’t be in Trump’s circle. Loomer clapped back on X with a schoolyard taunt.

“Senator Graham is working tirelessly day and night to help re-elect President Trump,” Graham communications director Taylor Reidy responded in a statement to NBC News. “This race is very much ours to lose. Ms. Loomer is a stain on society. There should be no place of prominence in this country for her vile, mean-spirited, destructive, racist rhetoric and views."

A Republican senator who is also a Trump ally said Trump is “often drawn to people who like and promote him.”

“It’s really dumb,” the senator added.

Loomer’s willingness to hit below the belt and her influence within the Make America Great Again movement’s most aggressive elements are reasons enough for many of her critics to keep their mouths shut publicly. Few elected Republicans want to stick their necks out. But many lawmakers and donors back Greene’s posture toward Loomer, according to a source familiar with the situation, and some of them are reminding people in Trump’s orbit that Loomer lost two campaigns for Congress.

Greene’s beef with Loomer, which dates back a long time, was rekindled this week when Loomer wrote on X that a win by Harris, who is Indian American and Black, would mean “the White House will smell like curry & White House speeches will be facilitated via a call center.”

The remark yielded rare agreement from Greene and President Joe Biden’s White House about what constitutes racism: Loomer’s words.

Trump advisers are trying to distance themselves from her without drawing his ire, making it clear that she doesn’t speak for his operation. Loomer is “not a member of our staff,” said a Trump campaign aide, who asked to remain anonymous....>

<....When NBC News asked for comment this week, Loomer similarly said by text: “Why do you want to speak to me? I don’t work for President Trump.”

Last year, she said she would "gladly" serve as press secretary in a Trump White House.

Democrats hammered Trump on Thursday for inviting Loomer to join him at the 9/11 memorial service.

“It was shocking and irresponsible and offensive to the thousands of people who lost their lives on Sept. 11, including hundreds of brave first responders, members of the NYPD, FDNY and others who raced toward the danger in order to help people escape the danger and lost their lives as a result of it,” House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., told reporters.

“Donald Trump is a conspiracy theory-peddling racial arsonist and pathological liar,” he added. “And the fact that on Sept. 11, this sacred day, he would bring a 9/11 conspiracy theorist to participate in events during this solemn commemoration should shock the conscience of all decent Americans, and I believe that it does just that.”

A Trump campaign official said Wednesday that the memorial service wasn’t about politics.

“President Trump put politics aside and stood beside Kamala Harris and Joe Biden to honor those who lost their lives during the worst terrorist attack in our nation’s history,” the official said in a statement. “The day wasn’t about anyone other than the souls who are no longer with us, their families, and the heroes who courageously stepped up to save their fellow Americans on that fateful day.”

A Republican senator, speaking on the condition of anonymity to avoid angering his party’s nominee, said Trump is endangering his chances of winning — and so are the staff members who aren’t playing gatekeeper.

“Everybody’s stunned that he would bring her down on his plane to the debate but even more stunned that she would be riding with him on the 9/11 anniversary. That kind of stuff will create a distraction you can’t overcome,” the senator said.

Asked whether Trump aides are enabling Loomer for fear of losing their jobs, the senator said, “There’s a lot of that in almost every campaign, but definitely this campaign.”>

<While bomb threats forced elementary and middle schools in Springfield, Ohio, to evacuate Friday for a second day, the state’s attorney general was amplifying the conspiracy theory that likely prompted those bomb threats in the first place.

Despite lacking any firm evidence, and in the face of clear denials from city officials, Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost this week leaned into the lie that immigrants in Springfield are abducting and eating domesticated animals around the city.

“There’s a recorded police call from a witness who saw immigrants capturing geese for food in Springfield,” Yost wrote on social media Wednesday.

“Citizens testified to City Council. These people would be competent witnesses in court. Why does the media find a carefully worded City Hall press release better evidence?”

Yost appeared to be referencing a weeks-old, non-emergency police call from a resident who claimed to see immigrants carrying dead geese.

Springfield’s deputy director of public safety and operations, Jason Via, told NPR that local authorities are familiar with that claim, among others.

“We get these reports, ‘The Haitians are killing ducks in a lot of our parks’ or ‘The Haitians are eating vegetables right out of the aisle at the grocery store,’” Via said. “And we haven’t really seen any of that. It’s really frustrating.”

And even the accusations about local waterfowl are a far cry from the conspiracy theory propagated by Republican nominee Donald Trump during the presidential debate on Tuesday that immigrants are abducting and eating peoples’ cats and dogs.

“In Springfield, they’re eating the dogs,” Trump said Tuesday night. “The people that came in, they’re eating the cats. They’re eating the pets of the people that live there. And this is what’s happening in our country. And it’s a shame.”

Debate moderators immediately debunked Trump’s remark, citing a statement from Springfield City Manager Bryan Heck. Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine, a Republican, has also said there’s no merit to the claims.

In the days since, as other GOP politicians nonetheless doubled down on the lie, a barrage of bomb threats has forced schools, government agencies and other buildings in Springfield to evacuate.

The city hall building had to be evacuated on Thursday. On Friday morning, three elementary schools in the city were evacuated due to “information received from the Springfield Police Division,” according to the Springfield City School District. Threats closed a middle school before it could even open for the day.

While the FBI didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment from HuffPost regarding the particulars of the threats, Springfield Mayor Rob Rue told The Washington Post the threats had used “hateful language” toward Haitians and immigrants.

Asked by the Ohio Capital Journal if Yost believes a 911 call is more credible than public declarations from the Springfield mayor, city manager, police chief and Ohio’s governor, and if Yost was concerned that his actions are inflaming racial resentment, a communications director for the attorney general deflected.

“This is what the people of Springfield are reporting,” she told the outlet. “You can choose to believe them or not believe them. But the indisputable fact is that the heavy influx of immigrants is overwhelming the city’s services and schools.”>

<Late Thursday morning, former President Donald Trump lost his last state-level appeal of his hush-money gag order. He remains barred from attacking the staff and family members of the trial judge and the Manhattan district attorney until after a newly delayed sentencing date of November 26.

Hours later, a federal appellate court delivered a second defeat, denying Trump's bid to stay the hush-money case, meaning put it on hold, while he seeks to move it from state court to federal court.

These two legal losses now leave the door open for Trump to run to the US Supreme Court, according to Michel Paradis, a constitutional-law expert.

There, Trump can ask the court to overturn not only these two decisions but also the case itself, Paradis, a professor at Columbia Law School, said.

Both losses are eligible under a federal statute for Trump to seek a Supreme Court review, also known as petitioning for "certiorari," or "cert" for short.

In cases where average citizens are concerned, petitioning for cert is a process with strict guardrails. A quartet of justices would look only at the lower-court decisions immediately at hand — in Trump's case, these back-to-back blows upholding the gag and rejecting the stay — in deciding what gets on the docket of the term starting October 7.

"Ordinarily, the Supreme Court will only agree to hear questions that were decided by a lower court. Its mantra in this regard is that: 'We are a court of re-view, not first view,'" Paradis said.

But nothing prevents Trump from trying to shoehorn into his cert petition the larger issue of the constitutionality of the hush-money prosecution as a whole, the professor said.

And because Trump is Trump — and because "the Supreme Court can basically do whatever it wants" — the former president will likely dream big, Paradis said.

He will try to ask that, while it's at it, the court also examine his conviction and even the indictment itself on presidential-immunity grounds, with the argument that grand jurors and trial jurors improperly heard now forbidden evidence involving official presidential acts.

"If he goes for it, and adds the presidential-immunity question to his cert petition, all it takes is four justices to take up the question, notwithstanding the procedural reasons the court would ordinarily not take up the question at this stage," Paradis said.

"The odds that the court would take up the issue, and maybe even enter a stay of the sentencing, are more than zero," he said.

But might the court go further? And more significantly, might it go faster?

Presidential immunity is an argument Trump's lawyers have pushed, always unsuccessfully, in the lower courts for months in trying to escape the first criminal indictment and only conviction of a former president.

Significantly, in its landmark July 1 decision granting former presidents broad immunity, the court banned the use of official-act evidence in any prosecution, even for nonofficial crimes.

While it's hard to paint falsifying documents to hide an election-eve hush-money payment to a porn star as an "official act," Trump has argued that the case relied on significant official-act evidence, including a federal ethics form and an incriminating Oval Office conversation he had with Hope Hicks, his former advisor.

So what if Trump argues that the matter needs deciding before Election Day? What if he argues it would be irreparable harm for him to have to face an election with an unconstitutional conviction tainting his chances?

Paradis said it's still his gut feeling that the Supreme Court wouldn't go so far and so fast that Trump's criminal record would be wiped clean before voters go to the polls.

"I doubt that is anywhere near compelling enough for even sympathetic justices to circumvent the number of procedural rules and norms that would have to be ignored to do anything meaningful between now and Election Day," he said of an "irreparable harm" argument.

Still, he said, "I could be surprised."

A lawyer for Trump and a spokesperson for the district attorney's office did not immediately respond to requests for comment on this story.

"It would be the most wildly aggressive judicial intervention into a presidential election in US history," Paradis said of the possibility of a pre-Election Day overturning of Trump's lone criminal conviction.

"It would make Bush v. Gore look like a decision from a traffic court," he added.>

<Hoover Institution senior fellow Victor Davis Hanson stated Friday on his podcast that Vice President Kamala Harris asking for a second debate signals that she may be behind within her “internal polls.”

After the first debate between former President Donald Trump and Harris, some political pundits sided with Harris as the winner. However, on “The Victor Davis Hanson Show,” Hanson noted that if Harris’ team believed they had won, they wouldn’t “risk it” with a second appearance as the team has requested a second debate.

“Well Trump really ran with that, he said, ‘Yea if you’re looking for a prize fight … the first guy that asks for a rematch knows he lost.’ That’s one interpretation — the other interpretation is that it’s a close race and they think they gained a point and they’ll gain another one. But whatever the interpretation is it tells me that her internal polls do not show that she has a lead,” Hanson said.

“Because if they really do believe she won the debate and if they really do believe she ahead with the momentum then they wouldn’t want to risk it. It’s like winning a hundred dollars at the casino and not wanting to risk it,” Hanson continued.

Hanson noted that while some say Harris won the debate against Trump, he criticized her “content” and argued Trump should refuse participation with certain outlets if a second debate occurs.

“So I think that a they weren’t sure — according to elite taste, which puts a high premium on comportment, behavior and mannerisms, which is a good thing in a way, but not so much content. Then they think she won the debate and they think that maybe that she can do it again. But that also tells me it’s even or she’s behind,” Hanson said.

“I’m not sure Trump should do it and if he does it, he should no way in the world have anybody on that stage from NBC, ABC, CBS, CNBC, MSNBC, CNN, NPR, PBS — nada,” Hanson continued. “Because they’ll do it again, and they’ll bait him, and bait him, and bait him, and bait him and get him angry.”

Trump has stated he would not be seeking another debate after Harris’ campaign had released a statement calling for another showdown between the two candidates. Prior to Tuesday, Trump had offered to debate Harris on two additional dates which included Sept. 4 hosted by Fox News and Sept. 25 which would be hosted by NBC News.

“She was a no-show at the Fox Debate, and refused to do NBC & CBS. KAMALA SHOULD FOCUS ON WHAT SHE SHOULD HAVE DONE DURING THE LAST ALMOST FOUR YEAR PERIOD. THERE WILL BE NO THIRD DEBATE,” Trump wrote on Truth Social.>

<Forget about cats and dogs. The elephant—and the donkey—in the room that was ignored at this past week’s presidential debate was the U.S. budget deficit.

Credit for that quip goes to John Silvia, the former chief economist at Wells Fargo. No need to recap all of the less-than-substantive exchanges between former President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris, given that they were witnessed by the biggest television audience since the Super Bowl.

Two topics that did come up—Trump’s tariff plans and Harris’ plan for small businesses—got short shrift. But according to the nonpartisan Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, the former president’s proposed 60% tariff on Chinese goods would raise no more than $300 billion but could reduce revenues by $50 billion, depending on the impact on trade. That’s rather different than the $2.4 trillion that purportedly would be raised, based on the assumption that such draconian levies would have no effect.

As for Harris’ ideas that would hit investors most directly, the CRFB sees them raising a relatively small $900 billion from fiscal 2026 through 2035. That would include a so-called billionaire’s tax that would involve taxing unrealized capital gains, a notion fraught with problems. Among them, Silvia wonders, would there be a credit during bear markets when assets lose value? How would the Internal Revenue Service value posh residences, classic auto collections, or art? It all seems unworkable.

But the big problem now is that Uncle Sam can no longer get away with paying nearly 0% interest on his borrowings. Interest expense is running at over $1 trillion a year with the normalization of interest rates, and exceeds the military budget. The implications of that go beyond the budget. As economic historian Niall Ferguson observed on X, “Any great power that spends more on debt service than on defense will not stay great for very long. True of Habsburg Spain, true of ancien régime France, true of the Ottoman Empire, true of the British Empire, this law is about to be put to the test by the U.S. beginning this very year.”

Yet it seems fitting that former Vice President Dick Cheney at this time endorsed Harris, given his famous declaration that “Reagan proved deficits don’t matter.” They will matter when the bond market finally rebels, says James Bianco, a veteran market analyst and eponym of Bianco Research. Liz Truss, the shortest-serving United Kingdom prime minister in history, found that out two years ago when the gilt market rebelled against her budget.

One way out of this deficit dilemma suggested by David Rosenberg, a veteran of the bond market wars who now runs Rosenberg Research, is for the U.S. to adopt a value added tax, or VAT, which he calls the worst of all levies, except for all the others. To stabilize the U.S. debt-to-gross-domestic-product ratio at the current 123% would take a VAT of 1.5% on all transactions, while a 10% VAT would make the huge deficit disappear. That’s only half the average 20% rate in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.

To be sure, there are many objections to a VAT, notably its regressive nature, which Rosenberg says can be offset by helping lower-income households. A VAT can also be a spur to bigger government, but he points out that in his native Canada, its formerly “very bloated” federal government has shrunk relative to the private sector since the VAT’s introduction in the mid-1990s to help resolve that country’s debt crisis. But given the state of the U.S. election campaign, he admits that his idea is wishful thinking.

For now, however, the markets are more focused on the Federal Reserve’s interest-rate decisions this coming week. A Wall Street Journal report spurred speculation that a half-point cut would be on the table, versus the quarter-point that had seemed a lock. The betting odds between the two were virtually even on Friday, according to the CME FedWatch site. Futures markets also priced further reductions in the key policy rate from the current target range of 5.25% to 5.5%, to a 4.25% to 4.5% by December, and 3% to 3.25% by mid-2025.

A sharp, half-point Fed cut would come as stocks trade at historic levels, inflation is still running ahead of the central bank’s 2% target, and unemployment is historically low at 4.2%—and just weeks before November’s election. The markets overestimated the odds of steep rate reductions earlier this year. They may well do so again.>

<Lynda Carter, the original Wonder Woman actor, denounced her sister’s campaign for a competitive seat in the Arizona House, telling Mother Jones on Friday that she wouldn’t support her for any elected position.

The actor’s statement was included as part of Mother Jones’ exposé on her sister, Pamela Carter, the far-right Republican running to represent part of Maricopa County in the Arizona House of Representatives.

“On her website, Pam claims to have her ‘family’s full support,’” Lynda Carter told Mother Jones. “I have known Pam my entire life, which is why I sadly cannot endorse her for this or any public office.”

Pamela Carter did not immediately respond to HuffPost’s request for comment. Her platform includes being opposed to same-sex marriage, abortion in nearly all cases and transgender inclusion in sports. She supports arming teachers.

Lynda Carter, a vocal supporter of reproductive rights, also offered her support to the Democrats running against her sister in Arizona’s Legislative District 4.

“As a native Arizonan, I am proud to endorse Kelli Butler and Karen Gresham to represent LD4 in Arizona’s State House,” she told Mother Jones. “Kelli and Karen are both strong, experienced candidates, born and raised in Arizona. They are working mothers fighting for the rights that matter most to Arizonans, especially every child’s right to a quality education.”

The district has two representatives, currently one Democrat and one Republican.

Lynda Carter also praised U.S. Sen. John McCain, the late Arizona Republican, for his commitment to “decency, justice, and freedom.”>

<A Democratic strategist who helped organize a “White Dudes for Harris” call said he is fighting back against a subpoena from Republican House Judiciary Committee Chair Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) on Friday.

“I am objecting to the subpoena issued by Jim Jordan and the Republican-led House Judiciary Committee in its entirety. This subpoena serves no legitimate legislative purpose—making it invalid, unconstitutional, and unenforceable,” Authentic Campaigns CEO Mike Nellis said in a post on X late Friday.

The House Judiciary Committee previously subpoenaed Authentic Campaigns, a company the daughter of the New York judge overseeing former President Trump’s hush money trial has worked for. In a letter late last month, Jordan requested that Nellis sit for a deposition alongside the company, as well as sign a sworn affidavit that Authentic Campaigns never had contact with Judge Juan Merchan.

Nellis also posted the letter from his legal team to Jordan, encouraging his followers to read it.

The letter states “Authentic’s work is in no way connected to former President Trump’s legal proceedings in New York,” and that the company “has had no role, involvement, or influence whatsoever in those proceedings.”

“Your repeated insinuations to the contrary, and your argument that Judge Merchan may not have been impartial in presiding over former President Trump’s proceedings because of Authentic’s ‘work on behalf of President Trump’s political adversaries and the possible financial benefit that Ms. Merchan and Authentic Campaigns received from the prosecution and conviction of President Trump,’ is as baseless as it is dangerous,” the letter continues.

The Hill has reached out to Jordan’s office and the House Judiciary Committee.>

<Former President Trump is adding another layer of complication to the government funding fight as Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) plots his next step to address the looming shutdown deadline.

Trump for months has called on Republicans to pair a bill requiring proof of citizenship to vote with a stopgap measure to keep the government open past Sept. 30. The Speaker attempted to bring up a bill pairing that policy measure with a six-month funding extension this week — only to be stopped in his tracks by a wall of GOP opposition that crossed ideological lines.

As a result, Johnson punted a scheduled vote Wednesday.

As Republican opposition to the stopgap grew this week, Trump chimed in to up the ante on his request and threatened a government shutdown. “If Republicans in the House, and Senate, don’t get absolute assurances on Election Security, THEY SHOULD, IN NO WAY, SHAPE, OR FORM, GO FORWARD WITH A CONTINUING RESOLUTION ON THE BUDGET,” Trump wrote on Truth Social.

Corralling the slim House GOP majority to support any kind of partisan continuing resolution (CR) was already a tall order. But as Johnson and GOP leaders regroup and weigh whether they can get any wins on the must-pass legislation before the election, Trump’s demands are kicking the difficulty of the Speaker’s mission up a notch.

“Mike’s job is complicated, trying to appease the conference,” said Rep. Steve Womack (R-Ark.), a senior appropriator. “When there’s additional input coming from outside of the conference of significant influence — I mean, the former president’s got significant influence — that makes his decisionmaking just a little bit more of a challenge.”

Johnson has made a point to maintain a good relationship with Trump. And as he pushes for his funding gambit, he expressed strong support for the voting legislation in question, the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) Act.

“President Trump and I are on the same page, as is every Republican here,” Johnson said on Fox Business this week when asked about his post. “We have to ensure election security.”

But if Johnson heeds Trump’s request, Washington would head for a shutdown just weeks before the November elections. There is no appetite in the House GOP for that, with members worrying a shutdown — or even the threat of one — could harm their reelection chances.

“Senate Democrats refuse to pass the SAVE Act, which is shameful, and obviously the American people should hold them accountable for that. But we’re not shutting the government down with 54 days until Election Day,” Rep. Mike Lawler (R-N.Y.) said.

Asked on Fox Business about the political consequences of a government shutdown in the context of Trump’s Truth Social post, Johnson said, “I don’t believe it’s going to come to that.”

Republicans have sought to make the election-integrity portion the public face of the shutdown fight, pinning the blame on Democrats’ refusal to take it up — and Trump’s public demands have only amplified that.

But inside the Capitol, it is something of a sideshow as the House GOP plots a path forward on averting a shutdown.

Johnson is having trouble moving the CR-plus-SAVE Act out of the House as he faces opposition from hard-line conservatives who hate stopgaps, defense hawks concerned about the impact the six-month bill will have at the Pentagon, and moderates worried about the threat of a shutdown so close to Election Day.

None of the Republicans who announced opposition to the stopgap package were against the SAVE Act, which passed the House as a stand-alone bill earlier in the year.

And so far, none of the detractors appear to be influenced by Trump’s public pressure, even though the group includes strong Trump supporters.

And even though Republicans aimed to advance political messaging with the package, virtually none of them expected Democrats would actually swallow the bill and see it enacted. Democrats and the White House say they will block the legislation, noting that noncitizen voting is already illegal and exceedingly rare and that the bill could unduly burden eligible voters.

<....Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas) told radio host Dana Loesch on Wednesday that one idea was the “SAVE Act in exchange for, we’ll agree to funding government through March, clear the decks, have an election, sign the priorities next year.”

But Trump’s continued focus on the voting bill could complicate any effort to reset the CR debate or focus it on a six-month timeline.

“Every time he says something, it creates a contradiction that causes inaction,” one House Republican told The Hill.

Another House Republican said Trump should step away from the shutdown debate and focus on his own campaign. Soon after posting the Truth Social message, Trump took a bruising in his debate against Vice President Harris.

“He needs to worry about him,” the member said, adding that Trump and the House “are not in tandem” on the shutdown issue.

Johnson, however, appears to be plowing ahead with his initial Trump-favored plan. Caught between Trump’s influence in the party and a desire to avoid a shutdown, the Speaker suggested to reporters that the CR-plus-SAVE Act could come up next week if GOP leaders can sway the holdouts.

“The whip is going to do the hard work and build consensus. We’re going to work through the weekend on that,” Johnson said.

On Thursday, Johnson said that effort had been “fruitful.”>