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On our radar this week…
In the last week, the list of Donald Trump’s broken campaign promises was seemingly endless: beginning with starting a Middle East War and increasing gas prices to go up 60-cents-a-gallon (with the prospect of Four Dollar per gallons looming … maybe even more).
The “I will end inflation” guy is now looking at inflation headed in the wrong direction. The man who promised to create manufacturing jobs has given way to the reality of manufacturing job losses. Promises of draining the swamp have taken a multi-billion-dollar detour into the Trump family bank accounts. The long-ago pledge to balance the budget and pay off the national debt have been transformed into record-setting deficits in order to cut taxes for the yachts-and-private-jets crowd.
And the promise to release the Epstein Files … well, we all know how that’s going.
Also this week:
- We have the tenth special election flip from Republican to Democrat – this time in New Hampshire … as the Trump Train Wreck barrels down the tracks with his polling numbers hitting a new all-time low. His latest political Hail Mary is the SAVE Act which would take away the right to vote from untold hundreds-of-thousands. But his demands are falling on deaf ears on Capitol Hill, with Senate Majority Leader John Thune telling him it ain’t gonna happen.
- The Trump family has, of course, figured out how to make money from the war. Sonny and Fredo, a.k.a. Don Jr. and Eric, are backing a new drone company that is vying to meet fresh demand from the Pentagon and fill a hole left by the administration’s ban on new Chinese drones in the U.S.
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Clay Jones – claytoonz.substack.com - Trump says the U.S. won the war in the first hour. But they still managed to spend 11-billion dollars after we supposedly had won…and the bombing continues.
- It looks like the Gordie Howe Bridge will be putting the Maroun Family into the penalty box. Tolls to cross the not-yet-open bridge will be less than half the fees at the competing Ambassador Bridge for both passenger vehicles and commercial trucks, setting in motion a forthcoming toll war between the two Detroit River crossings.
- Michigan Democrats are using the Bridge controversy to highlight the financial ties between the Maroun family and GOP Senate candidate Mike Rogers.
- In Michigan, Republican candidates for Governor are all calling for pretty much closing most of state government by repealing the income tax, property taxes, or both. Apparently they think things like State Police, prisons, public health, public parks, food safety inspections, mental health and our universities can all be funded with the sales tax, sin taxes, unclaimed bottle deposits, the lottery and the tooth fairy.The state Senate has passed bipartisan legislation to help people deal with medical debt. But its fate is uncertain in the House, where Speaker Matt Hall has very different ideas for addressing medical debt through more transparency in pricing.
Petitions have been filed with the state to force a vote in November on a deceptive proposal which, on its face, prohibits non-citizens from voting in Michigan … something that is already a part of state law. Left unstated by the backers are the proposal’s impact on voting rights.
A longtime chronicler of state government has taken a look behind the proposal of “Americans for Citizens Only Voting.” John Lindstrom has covered state government over the last four decades. Since retiring as publisher of the highly regarded Gongwer Michigan report, he’s been a columnist for the Detroit Free Press. John is the newest inductee into the Michigan Journalism Hall of Fame – the ceremony formalizing his induction is a month from now in East Lansing.
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