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Please hear me out on this. First, you are absolutely correct that this move is meant to benefit Trump and his ilk. That is the only policy motivation Trump uses.

After his election, first day in office, he gave an EO, applied to Obama Care to prevent business owners of a certain size from having to supply health insurance. That was a completely self-serving move.

But think of this, The Supreme Court just made it ok for politicians, to accept “Gratuities” from supporters, after policies go into practice that benefit said supporters. Guess what a “Gratuity” is, that’s right, it’s a tip. So ANY elaborate gift, given a politician, a SC Justice, any judge, not only would be legal, it would go untaxed. Doesn’t even have to be reported, at all.

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Another note on this: The proximity of this assertion by Trump that he will stop taxing tips, with the SC ruling, is so typical Trump. That skeevy mind of his, twists a way to bring this windfall of he and EVERY OTHER POLITICIAN , out like it’s something actually for the people- This is insidious corruption at its most Trumpian.

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And one more thing (lol,sorry) the through line between the SC ruling and Trumps hellish announcement on taxing tips, means this group is not just randomly hitting on their corruptive wins, this is planned. I want to know when are they meeting? Who is the brainchild? But seriously, who sculpted this? The SC was told what to do, write and say. Suddenly calling a bribe, a “gratuity”, did not come from a fair minded justice, didn’t happen. This is the work of an extremely demented mastermind- is it Steven Miller? Are the meetings via Skype? WTAF?

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My like button is not working? So: like.

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Your insight is 20/20. This method of 'do it publicly and it can't be wrong', is his style. Thanks for sharing your thoughts.

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founding

But, the voters don't realize that!

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Thanks for giving us a deeper dive into one of the Republican Party Platform Planks. Joyce Vance published the list today at the top of her post. https://open.substack.com/pub/joycevance/p/trumps-party-issues-a-platform?r=f0qfn&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=email

Since I have read the Dept. of Education Subsection of Project 2025, I am seeing how one needs to really have back story knowledge of the proposals to understand them. Not only do they want to end the Dept. of Ed, but they want to end Public education and no democracy can exist from that. They pretty much want to set up a system where families like the Duggars of Shiny, Happy People infamy, with their umpteen children can get what the state pays to educated each child, which they list as $22,000, for each child. Parents can just breed children and instead of whoring them out on videos on YouTube or other social media, they can home school a lot of children and collect a big income. Already with 10 children that is $220,000 a year. Of course, you have to keep them in school for as long as possible. Also, wants to change government loans into private loans, so any grifter friend of Trumps can be in charge of that, as well as get rid of accreditation of colleges and universities, probably to punish everyone for the failure of his specious university. https://www.americanprogress.org/article/trump-university-look-enduring-education-scandal/

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Bewildering indeed. Next time somebody says anything about Biden- tell them all this-

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I am getting ready to read more sections after Heather Cox Richardson gives a talk to Democrats Abroad in about 15 minutes. I am starting to read the section titled White House Office by Rick Dearborn.

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Omg

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I would like you to know that Heather Cox Richardson's talk was amazing. There was a video made. Hope to post it after it is released. Afterwards a friend send me this form that is on Mastadon to complain to the IRS about the Heritage Foundation and ask to have its tax exemption revoked. There is a suggested narrative for the form too. Please consider filling it out and sending it in, and getting everyone you know to do so too.

IRS complaint

https://www.irs.gov/charities-non-profits/irs-complaint-process-tax-exempt-organizations

Seen on Mastodon. At this link you can download a PDF form to file a complaint to the IRS, requesting that they revoke the Heritage Foundation‘s non-profit status. Fill out the form and mail it to: eoclass@irs.gov

This is what is suggested on the sample form to fill in:

Based on the statements of Kevin Roberst, the Heritage Foundation’s president, on June 11 and July 2, the foundation’s mission is no longer solely “research and education,” but now includes preparing for a possibly bloody revolution.

Specifically, in an interview on “The War Room” on July 2, Roberts stated that the Heritage Foundation has developed a prominent series of policy plans (Project 2025) to overhaul the federal government under a Republican president, and that the country was “in the process of the second American Revolution, which will remain bloodless if the left allows it to be”

Sure sounds like Roberts and the other authors of Project 2025 are planning to start a bloody war as part of the Heritage Foundation’s mission.

See NYTimes reporting of this incident on July 3rd: https://www.nytimes.com/2024/07/03/us/politics/heritage-foundation-2025-policy-america.html

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This is already happening in AZ. Home school families get $7k-$8K a year per child to spend as they wish with no fiscal or academic accountability.

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18 kids and there's your income. Who cares if your wife is worn out. She has accepted her lot. It is so disgusting there are not words.

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Good god! That is crazy! No standards? No accountability? We'll have a nation of idiots; lacking the critical thinking skills of a fly!

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It is crazy. Arizonans overwhelmingly rejected vouchers at the ballot box, yet the R majority lege passed it anyway, and the former (bad) governor, Doug Ducey, signed the bill. Our state budget is in the red, because students already in private and religious schools took the vouchers to subsidize tuition to the tune of almost a billion dollars. It's a mess. Voucher families bought a million dollars worth of lego sets with tax payer funded voucher dollars. cR-AZy

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And any republican led majority would do the same on a federal level. They want to reshape the government into their own, what I believe to be, an apocalyptic vision & ignore the majority vote. Taking the rest of us straight down the road to a hellish vision, most of us would shun!

Either they think they know what's best for the rest of us. (Pure arrogance!!) Or they simply don't care.

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Well, that education thing is the carrot of incentivizing increasing the herd. Abortion laws are the stick designed to do the same thing. They should be careful what they wish for. I saw Soylent Green. It doesn't end well. When one thinks about it, it doesn't begin well either.

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The elephant in the room is Trump and the Epstein files. They raped children.

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One is dead, the other should be. Can I say that? Or just wish it so inside my head?

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None of it will matter. When Trump's Gestapo rounds up all the undocumented immigrants and puts them in the concentration camps 90% of all restaurants will have to close down. The tipped workers in front of house will be laid off for lack of support from bus boys, dishwashers, prep cooks and others.

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No lawns (or golf greens) will be cut, no trees will be climbed, less childcare, fewer uber drivers, no food factory workers, no farm hands, no hotel workers, no day laborers. Et cetera.

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It will crash the economy. Trump and the corporate media will blame Biden and the Democrats. Anyone who dissents will be arrested. Anyone who protests in the streets will be, at best, arrested, at worst, shot by the cops or the National Guard.

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Glad you connected the dots to the racist origin of tipping. It seems that every effed up thing in our culture traces its roots to our original sin.

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They don't call it original sin for nothing.

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I'm glad the labor unions and advocacy groups see through this plan, at least. Restaurant and other service industry workers need a living wage. Full stop. Any framework which doesn't recognize this is counterproductive.

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Something people often forget is that federal / state benefits are tied to income. If the proposal states that the tip income needs to be reported and payroll taxes collected, just no Fed Tax, that at least would protect workers who later need disability or Social Security. But often tipped employees keep the cash and report the credit card tips, thereby forfeiting some future benefits based on actual income. I had a nephew with his own handyman business- he was always boasting about not paying taxes. In his 30’s he had a catastrophic motorcycle accident and when he went to collect disability the government denied him bc he didn’t have enough “segments” to qualify. His mom ended up supporting him, spending her own retirement money. IMO ending tip culture is the equitable way forward.

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This is so typically RW. So typically Fox News. Make a “truthful” statement with no context. But it’s the context that makes the statement. And Judd is supplying that context. And too many people will be fooled by it, because most don’t follow news closely. “Look what Trump will do for us”. He is a convicted felon who has defrauded people all his life. And people are supposed to think what? That’s Trump has changed and is now magnanimous? These people are worse than disgusting grifters. They are lowlifes who are worse than those trying to defraud people to steal their money.

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founding

Washington DC has also implemented the gradual phase out of the tipped wage and phase in of minimum wage which is currently $17.50/hour. Tipped wage is now at $10.00/hour and will increase yearly until it matches. The restaurant industry hates it but DC residents voted twice per referendum for this change (first time the DC Council overrode it but we were having none of that). I note this because DC is often overlooked in discussions of progressive policy implementation.

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We don't tip enough, but we also haven't updated the minimum wage to be enough for even the lowest cost states. Combine this with the high cost of housing, I'd say this is about as anti-family as you can get. I thought Republicans wanted more children so they can tax them and when old enough, send them off on national errands, er, military service.

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founding

Thanks! Another important article exposing the corruption of Trump. Of course, Trump's plan "could have a detrimental effect on most tipped workers" and "the primary beneficiaries would be people who own and operate hotels, restaurants, and other businesses that employ tipped workers — in other words, people like Trump." As usual Trump is slick and knows how to make himself appear as a hero. The real issue for those in this service industry has always been their working for a rediculous minuimum wage (now $2.13--it was 52cents/hr when I waitressed in highschool and college). And, of course "The National Restaurant Association, which represents restaurant owners, has endorsed Trump's proposal" because their greedy profits depend on this kind of slave labor and workers forced to work for a non-living wage. Anyone remember "Nickel and Dimed" by Barbara Ehrenreich? She (an academic Sociologist) worked at all of these extremely low wage jobs, and lived on those salaries--barely--to write her book to prove this point: you cannot make a "living wage" this way.

p.s. I had no internet power this morning.

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The words Trump and Dignity rarely work in a sentence. Vote Blue!

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Appreciate your Popular Information. Thanks.

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We need pithy one or 2 liners that explain these “fake-outs”. Who is best equipped to do that? Come on Dems, for yrs it’s been said there’s a messaging problem, is anyone working on it?

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Indeed. They ask for campaign donations but $ does not matter if you have no message. In general, the electorate does not have the attention span for long winded explanations the deep ramifications of a policy. Dems, please just give us the elevator pitch. 15 seconds.

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I hope both the RWA and One Fair Act will endorse Biden and explain this nasty trick of Trump’s to their members. Agree with comments about connection of tipping and slavery. @JuddLegum, Thank You, as always, for your excellent work.

Did anyone notice in the two page spread (print edition!) of the SC’s “Major Decisions” in Sunday’s NYT that they neglected to include the “gratuity”/bribery case?? No words to describe what’s going on there.

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No Tax on Tips is another half-truth from Republicans. Not until it passes and workers see that 7.65% of their tips are still going to payroll taxes, will most workers realize that they’ve been fooled again.

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But, too late by then....

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Question - What about workers other than hotel & restaurant employees who receive tips? For instance - I tip my hairdresser, my husband tips his barber. We generally tip our taxi driver & Uber or Lyft driver. We tip the valet parking guy. And what about all those glass tip jars near the cash registers in every ice cream parlor & sandwich shop. I don't think Trump & the Repubs have thought this through.

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Wait- indeed they have. I assure you it’s about THEIR GRATUITIES- they don’t give a flip about anybody else’s. And frankly this ‘tis the other shoe dropping from having a system where politicians raise literally billions of unaccounted for dollars. Lose a campaign, pocket the $$. Watch there will be a category in donations for “gratuities”. “THANK your loving senator”-then DT doesn’t have to make anymore hideous hats. He can just get “tips” for being the blowhard of the year.

This is so out of control, it’s bananas.

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