“The top tax rate wealthy Americans pay on their investment gains today runs barely half the top rate the rest of us pay on our wages. But that only begins to tell the story of how lightly taxed our richest have become compared to the rest of us. On the surface, the nominal tax rate on long-term capital gains from investments seems somewhat progressive, even given the reality that this rate sits lower than the tax rate on ordinary income. Single taxpayers with $48,350 or less in taxable income face a zero capital gains tax rate. Taxpayers with over $533,400 in taxable income, meanwhile, face a 23.8% tax on their capital gains, a rate that includes a 3.8% net investment income tax. But these numbers shroud the real picture. In reality, we tax the ultra-rich on their investment gains less, not more.” (05/15/25)
Source: Caitlin Johnstone, Rogue Journalist
by Caitlin Johnstone
“I will never forget the Gaza holocaust. I will never let anyone else forget about the Gaza holocaust. No matter what happens or how this thing turns out, I will never let anyone my voice touches forget that our rulers did the most evil things imaginable right in front of us and lied to us about it the entire time. I will never stop doing everything I can with my own small platform to help ensure that the perpetrators of this mass atrocity are brought to justice. I will never stop doing everything I can to help bring down the western empire and to help free Palestine from the Zionist entity. I will never forget those shaking children. Those tiny shredded bodies. Those starved, skeletal forms. The explosions followed by screams. The atrocities followed by western media silence. I will never forget, and I will never forgive.” (05/15/25)
“On Wednesday, the Environmental Protection Agency announced plans to weaken limits on some harmful ‘forever chemicals’ in drinking water roughly a year after the Biden administration finalized the first-ever national standards. The Biden administration said last year the rules could reduce PFAS exposure for millions of people. It was part of a broader push by officials then to address drinking water quality by writing rules to require the removal of toxic lead pipes and, after years of activist concern, address the threat of forever chemicals. President Donald Trump has sought fewer environmental rules and more oil and gas development. EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin has carried out that agenda by announcing massive regulatory rollbacks. Now, we know the EPA plans to rescind limits for certain PFAS and lengthen deadlines for two of the most common types.” (05/14/25)
“Republicans in the House of Representatives voted out of committee early Wednesday morning legislation that would strip as many as 14 million Americans of their Medicaid-based healthcare, including millions of seniors in nursing homes and children living in poverty. Ironically, red states will be hit harder by this than blue states, as they’re generally less capable of making up the loss of federal funds (Medicaid is administered at the state level with block grants from the feds). Which provokes some serious head-scratching among the pundit class: Why would Republicans kneecap their own people? Do they really think they can get away with it, just to fund tax breaks for Elon, Mark, Jeff, and Donald? And, for that matter, why is it that red states are so vulnerable to this GOP perfidy?” (05/15/25)
“Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts reined in Justice Sonia Sotomayor during argument over birthright citizenship and nationwide court injunctions on Thursday. Sotomayor dominated questioning for several minutes at the outset of Thursday’s argument after taking over from Justice Clarence Thomas. She pressed U.S. Solicitor General John Sauer for President Donald Trump’s administration on several points relating to the authority for federal courts to issue nationwide injunctions, often speaking over the lawyer and interrupting him. Sotomayor argued that Trump’s order invalidating birthright citizenship violated four Supreme Court precedents, and that it was justified for a federal judge to grant an injunction against such a controversial order. ‘You are claiming that not just the Supreme Court, that both the Supreme Court and no lower court, can stop an executive from universally violating holdings by this court,’ Sotomayor said.” (05/15/25)
“The very people who facilitated the invasion of this country by millions of illegal [sic] migrants for the last four years are now crying foul over 59 persecuted white South Africans coming here as refugees at the invitation of President Trump. The Episcopal Church, which parked itself on the southern border and received $50 million a year from the Biden administration for ‘refugee resettlement,’ has refused to help the South Africans, citing its ‘steadfast commitment to racial justice and reconciliation.’ Thousands of white farming families in South Africa have been robbed, raped, tortured and murdered in the most gruesome way as racial unrest escalates.” [editor’s note: Instead of deciding who is or isn’t a “refugee,” just stop letting the government interfere with immigration. “Problem” solved – TLK] (05/14/25)
“Scientists in Australia have identified the oldest known fossil footprints of a reptile-like animal, dated to around 350 million years ago. The discovery suggests that after the first animals emerged from the ocean around 400 million years ago, they evolved the ability to live exclusively on land much faster than previously assumed. ‘We had thought the transition from fin to limb took much longer,’ said California State University paleontologist Stuart Sumida, who was not involved in the new research. Previously the earliest known reptile footprints, found in Canada, were dated to 318 million years ago. The ancient footprints from Australia were found on a slab of sandstone recovered near Melbourne and show reptile-like feet with long toes and hooked claws. Scientists estimate the animal was about 2 1/2 feet (80 centimeters) long and may have resembled a modern monitor lizard. The findings were published Wednesday in Nature.” (05/14/25)
“Federal public health officials on Thursday announced an unprecedented drop last year in drug overdose deaths, which have plagued the United States for decades and had been rising steadily over the past several years. But experts warned that now is exactly the wrong time to ‘take our foot off the gas pedal,’ as the Republican Party and President Donald Trump are threatening to do with steep cuts to Medicaid and other federal programs. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reported that an estimated 80,391 people in the U.S. died of drug overdoses in 2024 — a 27% drop, with about 30,000 fewer deaths than in 2023 and ‘more than 81 lives saved every day.’ Synthetic opioids like fentanyl were still involved in most overdose deaths last year, but those deaths were down 37% between 2023-24.” (05/15/25)
“Going into Tuesday’s markup of Trump’s ‘one big beautiful bill,’ House Republicans on the Agriculture Committee were expected to make $230 billion in cuts to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), the food stamp program that’s long been one of the country’s leading anti-poverty initiatives. The actual outcome was even more devastating, with Republicans proposing a massive $300 billion in cuts over the next decade. ‘Every single one of my Republican colleagues here tonight should be ashamed. The instruction to this committee was to find $230 billion in cuts to SNAP, but that wasn’t good enough for the extremists in your party. So tonight, you’re cutting more,’ said Rep. Angie Craig (D-MN), the ranking Democrat on the Ag Committee during Tuesday’s markup. SNAP helps 41 million Americans afford food; it cost the federal government around $115 billion in 2023.” (05/15/25)
“NATO foreign ministers on Thursday debated an American demand to massively ramp up defense investment as the United States focuses on security challenges outside of Europe. At talks in Antalya, Turkey, NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte said more investment and military equipment are needed to deal with threats posed by Russia and terrorism but also by China, which has become the focus of U.S. concern. ‘When it comes to the core defense spending, we need to do much, much more,’ Rutte told reporters. He underlined that once Russia’s war in Ukraine is over, Moscow could reconstitute its armed forces within three years to five years. U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said ‘the alliance is only as strong as its weakest link.'” (05/15/25)
