“President Donald Trump is considering imposing a 100 percent tariff on semiconductors to incentivize chipmakers to invest in domestic manufacturing, a move that would make it harder to build out American chip fabrication.
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The Chamber of Commerce warns that a 1 percent increase in tariffs on chips and semiconductor manufacturing equipment will increase the construction costs of all announced domestic semiconductor fabrication plants (valued at $540 billion) by as much as $3.5 billion. A 100 percent rate increase, then, could increase construction costs for these projects by $350 billion. Moreover, “additional costs will reduce demand for end market products [and] reduce investments in semiconductor R&D,” diminishing American semiconductor dominance instead of enhancing it.
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Intel, “the only American company [that is] capable of producing leading-edge logic semiconductors,” warned that “Section 232 tariffs could increase U.S. manufacturing costs for essential materials and components.” The Semiconductor Industry Association, a trade association and lobbying group, said that “removing trade and other barriers to U.S. chips in overseas markets,” which account for 70 percent of revenue to the U.S. semiconductor industry, is key to making the expansion of domestic capacity economically viable. Right now, “the complete onshoring of all semiconductor supply chain elements is not feasible, much less in a short period of time,” because “supply chains have evolved over decades and cannot be rearranged overnight or even within a decade””
“with financial conditions so easy, and inflation hovering around three percent—above the Fed’s two percent target—an interest rate cut at this juncture makes no economic sense and risks stoking significant inflation.
Miran has made statements in favor of Fed independence in the past, yet his actions now undercut that principle. President Donald Trump has explicitly called for interest rates to be lowered to 0.5 percent, he has installed his man at the Fed, and his man is doing his bidding.”
“Flight delays started to climb Tuesday evening across the United States amid air traffic controller staffing challenges, as people responsible for guiding planes through the skies approach nearly a week of working without a paycheck.”
“the Energy Department announced that it will offer $625 million in funding to “reinvigorate and expand America’s coal industry.” The funding includes $350 million to modernize outdated coal power plants or recommission closed ones, and up to $175 million for coal power projects in rural communities. This announcement was coupled with an Interior Department directive to open 13.1 million acres of federal land for coal mining at lower royalty rates. The Environmental Protection Agency, meanwhile, announced on Monday it would roll back several Joe Biden-era regulations on coal plants
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In May, the Energy Department issued an order to prevent a Michigan coal plant from closing in order to prevent blackouts. The order failed to keep the lights on and cost the utility $29 million over five weeks, which is expected to be, at least in part, paid for by ratepayers
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These cost hikes are likely to escalate if the federal government continues to force power plants to stay open. An August report from Grid Strategies, a power sector consulting firm, estimates that ratepayers could pay more than $3 billion per year through 2028 if the Energy Department “mandates that the large fossil power plants scheduled to retire between now and the end of 2028 remain open.” This figure could soar to $6 billion per year through 2028 if additional power plants move up their retirement dates to secure government subsidies.
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the federal government has opened up millions of dollars in funding for coal projects and passed several measures to benefit coal, including subsidizing coal production overseas. The cost of those actions won’t necessarily show up in monthly utility bills—but it will force the federal government to borrow more heavily in the future, at a time when the national debt is already unsustainably large
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Ben King, director of the Rhodium Group’s energy program, told Semafor “the price of coal would need to fall by at least half,” to “change the calculus” and make coal more attractive to investors than natural gas or renewables. Brendan Pierpont, director of electricity modeling at the think tank Energy Innovation, told the outlet, “this funding is essentially cash for clunkers, but without trading in the clunkers.”
Trump’s latest coal maneuver will benefit utilities and coal companies, but it will come at the expense of taxpayers, who will be forced to finance yet another wasteful government spending account, and ratepayers who will likely see their utility bills continue to climb.”
“Recall that Kennedy infamously asserted back in December 2021 that the COVID-19 vaccine “is the deadliest vaccine ever made.” Reams of subsequent research have found that COVID-19 vaccines are in fact generally safe and effective.
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In June, Kennedy falsely stated that the Centers for Disease Control had suppressed a hepatitis B vaccine study in newborns in 1999 that found “an 1,135 percent elevated risk of autism among the vaccinated children.” In fact, the researchers cited by Kennedy reported in 2003 that they found “no consistent significant associations” between the vaccine and autism. Infants infected with hepatitis B via mother-to-child at birth or during their first year of life have a 90 percent chance of developing a chronic infection—of which 15 to 25 percent will eventually die of cirrhosis or liver cancer. Since vaccination for all newborns was approved in 1991, infections with the hepatitis B virus in children and teens have decreased by 99 percent.
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Kennedy has commended Coca-Cola and Tyson Foods for replacing high fructose corn syrup with cane sugar. One problem: There is essentially no nutritional difference between them. That said, health-conscious Americans would do well to heed Kennedy’s call to consume less sugar.
As for food dyes, as recently as 2023 the FDA concluded that the totality of the evidence showed no adverse effects when children consume foods containing color additives. That was then, but this is now. In April, Kennedy denounced synthetic food dyes as “poisonous compounds.” At the time, he laid out a timeline for the food industry to transition to natural alternatives by 2027.
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a recent meta-analysis found that drinking water containing more than 1.5 milligrams per liter of fluoride slightly lowers children’s I.Q. scores. Keep in mind, though, that the recommended level of fluoridation in the U.S. is 0.7 milligrams per liter. A 2023 meta-analysis found that the level of fluoride in community water systems “is not associated with lower IQ scores.
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As the scope of Kennedy’s initiatives show, his agency’s vast powers allow him to inflict his peculiar obsessions on the health and lives of Americans—for good and for ill.”
“The legal rationales for prosecuting James Comey, Adam Schiff, and Letitia James suggest the president is determined to punish them one way or another.
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Trump fired Comey in 2017 out of anger at the FBI investigation of alleged ties between his 2016 campaign and the Russian government. In the years since, Trump has made no secret of his desire to punish Comey for that “witch hunt,” which Patel cited as a justification for the charges against Comey.
Those charges, however, seem to stem from an entirely different investigation: the FBI’s 2016 probe of the Clinton Foundation. Although the skimpy indictment is hazy on this point, it implicitly alleges that Comey authorized the disclosure of information about that investigation and then falsely denied doing so during a 2020 Senate Judiciary Committee hearing.
That claim is highly doubtful for several reasons, as former federal prosecutor Andrew C. McCarthy notes in a National Review essay that describes the indictment as “so ill-conceived and incompetently drafted” that Comey “should be able to get it thrown out on a pretrial motion to dismiss.” McCarthy’s take is especially notable because he wrote a book-length critique of the Russia probe that concurs with Trump’s chief complaints about it.
In other words, even if you think that investigation epitomized the “politicization of law enforcement” (as Patel puts it), that does not necessarily mean the charges against Comey are factually or legally sound. In fact, the case is so shaky that neither career prosecutors nor Erik Siebert, the former U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, thought it was worth pursuing.
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Schiff, a longtime thorn in Trump’s side, spearheaded his first impeachment and served on the House select committee that investigated the 2021 riot at the U.S. Capitol. James sued Trump for business fraud in New York, obtaining a jaw-dropping “disgorgement” order that was later overturned by a state appeals court, which nevertheless thought she had proven her claims.
Although Trump has averred that Schiff’s conduct as a legislator amounted to “treason,” it plainly does not fit the statutory definition of that crime. And whatever you think about the merits of James’ lawsuit, the fact that both a judge and an appeals court agreed Trump had committed fraud by overvaluing his assets suggests her claims were at least colorable.
Casting about for a legal pretext to prosecute Schiff and James, the Justice Department is mulling allegations that both committed mortgage fraud by claiming more than one home as a primary residence. Although it’s not clear there is enough evidence to convict either of them, that is beside the point as far as Trump is concerned.
As the president sees it, Schiff and James, like Comey, deserve to suffer because they wronged him. “JUSTICE MUST BE SERVED, NOW!!!” he told Bondi.
Judging from the Comey case, Bondi probably will follow the president’s marching orders, to the cheers of his most enthusiastic supporters. But the rest of us have ample cause to conclude that Trump has conflated justice with revenge.”
And revenge for actions that were much more appropriate in the first place.
“An Alabama construction worker is challenging the Trump administration’s warrantless construction site raids after he says he was arrested and detained by federal immigration agents—twice—despite being a U.S. citizen with a valid ID in his pocket.
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Venegas was detained twice in May and June during raids on private construction sites where he was working. In both instances, the lawsuit says, masked immigration officers entered the private sites without a warrant and began detaining workers based solely on their apparent ethnicity.
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According to the suit, “The officers ran right past the white and black workers without detaining them and went straight for the Latino workers.”
The officers tackled Venegas’ brother, who was also on the crew, and Venegas began filming the scene on his cell phone. One of the officers then approached Venegas and said, “You’re making this more complicated than you want to.”
Immediately after, the officer grabbed Venegas and began wrestling him to the ground. Another construction worker also took cell phone video of the two brothers’ arrests, which shows the agent struggling with Venegas who repeatedly yells, “I’m a citizen.”
Two other officers joined in to subdue Venegas, telling him to “Get on the fucking ground.”
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According to the suit, the officers retrieved Venegas’ REAL ID from his pocket, but they called it fake, kept him handcuffed, and detained for more than an hour in the Alabama summer sun, until an officer agreed to run his social security number.
Then on June 12, Venegas was working in a nearly finished house when ICE agents cornered him in a bedroom and ordered him to come with them. Venegas was marched outside to the edge of the subdivision where he was working to have his immigration status checked. According to the lawsuit, two other U.S. citizens had been rounded up with him. Again, officers said his REAL ID could be fake and detained for 20 to 30 minutes before releasing him.
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Venegas is one of many documented cases of U.S. citizens being violently detained and arrested during indiscriminate federal immigration sweeps.
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Justice Brett Kavanaugh released a concurring opinion in which he waved away concerns that allowing such profiling would lead to citizens and legal residents being unduly harassed.
“As for stops of those individuals who are legally in the country, the questioning in those circumstances is typically brief,” Kavanaugh wrote, “and those individuals may promptly go free after making clear to the immigration officers that they are U. S. citizens or otherwise legally in the United States.”
Whatever world Kavanaugh is describing, it’s not the one that Venegas lives in.”