Doomscroll News

Category: Politics

  • MY UPDATED VIEWS ON “NO TAX ON OVERTIME” AND “NO TAX ON TIPS”

    A ‘no tax on overtime’ policy is a powerful and sensible tool for retaining a highly-skilled ‘varsity squad’ of experienced firefighters, for whom substantial overtime is a critical and routine part of providing for their families and ensuring public safety. However, this same policy is counterproductive and dangerous in lower-wage, hourly industries, like for a quality control inspector making $21 an hour, where it creates a perverse incentive to deliberately slow down work for a small bonus, undermining productivity. The immense benefit of properly compensating our most vital, high-stakes professionals like firefighters decisively outweighs the risk of this policy being exploited in sectors where it rewards inefficiency instead of essential skill.

    This same principle… that a policy must be targeted and not a broad, exploitable mandate… is why I am holding firm on my position regarding taxes on tips. While I fully support eliminating the tax burden on tips for service industry workers, a blanket, undefined exemption would be a mistake. It risks becoming a massive, backdoor handout to the cryptocurrency world, creating a tax-free loophole for digital transactions that have nothing to do with rewarding service. Therefore, any ‘no tax on tips’ policy must include a specific, carefully crafted exception for the traditional service and hospitality industry, ensuring the benefit goes to waitstaff, bartenders, delivery drivers, barbers, etc. not to anonymous crypto transfers.

  • While Politicians Play Games, Cryptocurrency Threatens Our Financial Future

    While Politicians Play Games, Cryptocurrency Threatens Our Financial Future

    Our nation faces a profound and immediate threat from a predatory, globalist financial scheme. This is the real crisis. I am talking about cryptocurrency. My opposition is not rooted in partisan politics, but in a firm belief that we must protect the United States from this clear and present danger.

    These digital tokens, propped up by nothing more than speculation and hype, are a cancer on our financial system. They are the preferred tool for illicit activity, riddled with fraud, and often mined in countries hostile to American interests. The chaos unleashed by figures like Sam Bankman-Fried, whose FTX exchange imploded in a storm of corruption and foreign entanglements, is not an outlier—it is the inevitable outcome of a system with no intrinsic value. So-called “stablecoins” are a ticking time bomb, and the entire ecosystem is a playground for market manipulation that puts the savings of everyday Americans at risk.

    This is the fire that needs to be extinguished. Yet, what is the response from Washington? Political theater.

    Case in point: H.R. 3573, cynically titled the “Stop TRUMP in Crypto Act.” This bill is a perfect illustration of a political establishment that is unable and unwilling to grasp the scale of the threat. It is a weak, performative gesture that tinkers around the edges of ethics for the political elite while completely ignoring the fundamental dangers that cryptocurrencies pose to the financial stability of our country.

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  • A Tale of Two Futures: Mamdani’s “New York Dollar” Doctrine vs. U.S. Dollar Prosperity

    A Tale of Two Futures: Mamdani’s “New York Dollar” Doctrine vs. U.S. Dollar Prosperity

    This is not a debate over minor policy tweaks; it is a battle for the soul of New York City. One path is built on the sound foundation of the U.S. Dollar and the prosperity that comes from private innovation and individual liberty. The other is the Mamdani Doctrine, a vision of state control so fiscally reckless it would effectively require abandoning the U.S. monetary system for its own “New York Dollar.” Below is a direct comparison.

    On Public Transportation & Mobility: The vision of U.S. Dollar Prosperity is to Abolish and Replace: The MTA is terminated. All public transit is replaced by a competitive, efficient, privately-operated network of autonomous “Robotaxis.” In stark contrast, the Mamdani Doctrine‘s vision is to Expand and Subsidize: The MTA is a public good to be massively funded. But this vision collides with a simple, brutal reality: it must be paid for in U.S. dollars. With the national debt exceeding $37 trillion, the Doctrine’s demand for perpetual billions is a demand that the rest of America pay through a crushing inflationary burden. This is the first clue that the plan is incompatible with the U.S. monetary union.

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  • Justice KBJ: Anti-DEI, Pro-Religious Freedom, Defender of Jan. 6 Rioters … or Not?

    As I’ve been telling people since she was confirmed—and I have witnesses—Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson’s record is revealing a judicial philosophy with surprising MAGA elements. Here are a few of her rulings that prove it:

    • Ames v. Ohio Department of Youth Services (2025): Marlean Ames, a straight woman, alleged her supervisor, a lesbian, discriminated against her by favoring LGBTQ+ employees. The case centered on whether plaintiffs from majority groups had to meet a higher legal standard—showing “background circumstances” of discrimination—to bring a lawsuit. Writing for a unanimous Court, Justice Jackson ruled that Title VII forbids such a two-tiered system. The decision eliminated the “background circumstances” test, ensuring all individuals face the same evidentiary standard when alleging workplace discrimination.
    • Catholic Charities Bureau v. Wisconsin Labor & Industry Review Commission (2025): The Court unanimously sided with Catholic Charities against the state of Wisconsin, which had denied the organization a religious-employer exemption from unemployment taxes. Wisconsin argued the charity wasn’t “operated primarily for religious purposes” because it served all people, not just Catholics, and didn’t proselytize. The Court held that the state’s position violated the First Amendment by imposing a “denominational preference” and attempting to define what constitutes a valid religious activity, which the government is forbidden from doing.
    • Fischer v. United States (2024): This case questioned whether a felony obstruction charge, originally passed to prevent evidence tampering, could be broadly applied to defendants from the January 6 Capitol riot. Justice Jackson joined the conservative majority in a 6-3 decision that found prosecutors had interpreted the law too broadly. The Court ruled the law is limited to acts that impair the integrity of evidence, not any conduct that disrupts an official proceeding. This significantly narrowed the application of a key felony charge in Jan. 6 prosecutions.
    • CFPB v. Community Financial Services Association (2024): Her opinion, while far from perfect in my opinion, was a strong defense of judicial restraint, arguing that courts have no power to overrule Congress on funding matters unless the Constitution is explicitly and unambiguously violated. This reasoning champions a limited role for the judiciary, a core principle of legal conservatism.
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  • The Architect of Your Anxiety

    The Architect of Your Anxiety

    Before you can build a political army or start a populist brushfire, you have to know what makes the masses tick. You need the cheat codes to the human soul. In the age of digital warfare, that cheat sheet looks something like this:

    1. Your Facebook “Likes”
    2. Your personality quiz answers
    3. Your politics (declared or assumed)
    4. Your age and gender
    5. Your location
    6. Your relationship status
    7. Your late-night status rants
    8. Your private messages
    9. Your friends (and their data, too)
    10. The events you pretend you’ll attend

    With this map to the public’s id, a new kind of political machine could be built. All it needed was a director with a vision and patrons willing to foot the bill for a bit of chaos.

    The Angel Investors of Anarchy

    Every chaotic startup needs its angel investors. For Steve Bannon’s particular brand of political disruption, the Mercer family was the venture capital firm willing to write the first big check. Billionaire Robert Mercer and his daughter, Rebekah, were the quiet benefactors of the new populist right. With a cool $10 million seed round, they handed Bannon the keys to Breitbart News after its founder’s death, letting him mod it from a conservative blog into the premier server for his populist worldview.

    Rebekah, in particular, was the hands-on operator, the one making sure her investment paid off by installing Bannon and Kellyanne Conway into the Trump campaign’s C-suite. The founder-funder relationship was a perfect match, until it spectacularly wasn’t. Like a messy public breakup you’d see unfold on …, the alliance imploded in 2018 when Bannon broke the cardinal rule—don’t talk smack about the CEO’s family. Rebekah hit the eject button, publicly declaring he’d taken her pet project “in the wrong direction” and effectively cutting off his VIP access.

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  • Healthcare Provisions Within the “Big Beautiful Bill”: Exacerbating Failed Policies

    The comprehensive legislation, dubbed by some the “Big Beautiful Bill” (BBB), includes a substantial set of provisions pertaining to healthcare. These proposals aim to reform Medicaid, Medicare, the Affordable Care Act (ACA), and other health-related sectors. However, rather than offering genuine solutions, these healthcare sections largely entrench and expand failed federal programs. Market-based and state-level solutions are the appropriate path forward; continuing with the current trajectory will only worsen our $37 trillion national debt and further degrade our healthcare system.

    Medicaid and CHIP: Entrenching a Failed System

    A significant portion of the bill addresses Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP), programs that have demonstrably failed to deliver efficient, fiscally responsible healthcare.

    • Enrollment and Eligibility: Provisions imposing moratoriums on recent rules for Medicaid/CHIP enrollment (Sec. 44101, 44102), while citing concerns over states’ ability to remove ineligible enrollees, tinker at the edges of a fundamentally broken system. Robust income verification, streamlined through tax data, is essential, but this addresses symptoms, not the core disease of these programs. The argument that the delayed rules could weaken verification standards only underscores the inherent vulnerability to fraud and improper payments within these federal structures.
    • The mandate for states to improve enrollee address information and participate in a federal system to prevent multi-state enrollment by 2029 (Sec. 44103) is a minor, albeit logical, measure within a system that requires wholesale replacement.
    • Quarterly screenings against the Death Master File (Sec. 44104) and enhanced provider screening (Sec. 44105, 44106) are basic anti-fraud measures that should have been rigorously implemented decades ago, and their inclusion now highlights past failures.
    • Increasing eligibility redeterminations to every six months (Sec. 44108) will inevitably create more bureaucracy, not genuine integrity, within these failed expansion programs. Stringent initial enrollment criteria are necessary, but the programs themselves are the problem.
    • Proposed revisions to home equity limits for Medicaid long-term care (Sec. 44109) are an egregious component of a system that forces asset depletion. The link between Medicaid and long-term care services must be severed entirely.
    • Prohibiting Federal Financial Participation (FFP) for individuals without verified immigration status (Sec. 44110) is a necessary, though insufficient, step toward fiscal discipline.
    • Conversely, efforts to “streamline” enrollment for out-of-state providers (Sec. 44302) are a pathway to inefficient contracting and cronyism, typical of bloated federal programs.
    • Spending and Program Integrity:
    • The removal of the good faith waiver for certain erroneous excess Medicaid payments (Sec. 44107) is an admission of the rampant improper payments that plague the system, reinforcing the argument that Medicaid must be abolished.
    • Modifying retroactive Medicaid/CHIP coverage (Sec. 44122) is a trivial adjustment.
    • Federal intervention in pharmacy payments (Sec. 44123, 44124) is an unacceptable overreach. Free markets, not government dictates, ensure fair pharmacy pricing.
    • The prohibition of federal Medicaid/CHIP funding for gender transition procedures (Sec. 44125, Sec. 112030) is correct; such funding has no place at the federal level and should be entirely a private matter, with no exceptions for federal dollars.
    • Prohibiting federal payments to “prohibited entities” in family planning (Sec. 44126) is a sound policy; such funding decisions should be eliminated from public coffers altogether.
    • Sunsetting increased FMAP for new Medicaid expansion states (Sec. 44131) and imposing a moratorium on new provider taxes (Sec. 44132) are welcome, as no new taxes should support these failing programs.
    • Revising payments for state-directed Medicaid based on Medicare rates (Sec. 44133) perpetuates federal price-fixing. Medicaid must be dismantled, replaced by a system focused on transparently priced emergency and preventative services, potentially leveraging innovations like robotic-assisted procedures to reduce costs and liability.
    • Mandating Medicaid community engagement requirements (Sec. 44141) is a gross federal intrusion into matters that are exclusively state or local concerns.
    • Modifying cost-sharing for Medicaid expansion individuals (Sec. 44142) is merely propping up a failed expansion of a failed program using flawed metrics like the federal poverty line. The entire edifice needs to be replaced with free-market solutions.
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  • Part III: Analyzing the “Big Beautiful Bill”: A Look at New Taxes, Fees, and Revenue Raisers

    The proposed “Big Beautiful Bill” (BBB) introduces a sweeping range of new taxes, fees, and revenue-generating measures that demand close scrutiny. This article examines key provisions, aligning with a vision that prioritizes American interests and fiscal responsibility.

    Measures to Potentially Bolster American Interests:

    Several proposed measures in the BBB could be seen as aligning with an “America First” approach:

    • Excise Tax on Remittance Transfers (Sec. 112104): This provision introduces a new tax on money sent abroad. Such a measure could be viewed as a way to retain capital within the country and generate revenue from outflows.
    • New Immigration-Related Fees (Title VII, Part 1): The bill imposes new fees for various immigration processes, including asylum applications, employment authorizations for certain non-citizens, and for sponsors of unaccompanied children who fail to meet court appearance requirements. These fees ensure that the immigration system is not an undue burden on the taxpayer and that those who use the system contribute to its costs.
    • Fee on Natural Gas Exports and Imports to Non-FTA Countries (Sec. 41002): This establishes a fee on natural gas trade with countries not part of a Free Trade Agreement (FTA) with the U.S. This is a strategic move to favor trade with FTA partners and generate revenue from other international gas transactions.
    • Modification of Vessel Tonnage Duties (Sec. 100002): Changes to vessel tonnage duties (taxes on ships entering U.S. ports based on their cargo capacity) updates these fees to better reflect modern shipping practices and ensure fair contribution from international maritime commerce.
    • Termination or Restriction of Clean Energy Tax Credits (Title XI, Subtitle C, Part 1): The bill calls for ending or limiting various clean energy tax credits, such as those for electric vehicles, alternative fuel refueling property, and energy-efficient home improvements. This aligns with the perspective that such credits may represent market distortions or handouts and that their removal levels the playing field.
    • Increased Excise Tax on Private Foundation Investment Income (Sec. 112022): An increase in the excise tax on the net investment income of certain private foundations, based on asset size, is proposed. This is a way to ensure that large, tax-exempt foundations contribute more to public revenue, particularly if there are concerns about how these funds are being utilized or if they are perceived as benefiting from arrangements that do not primarily serve domestic charitable purposes.
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