michaelmechanic.bsky.social - Profile | ThreadSky | a Reddit-style client for Bluesky

Trump is attacking every source of university income (research grant cancellations, a proposed endowment tax, cutting Pell Grant eligibility and in the 'big beautiful bill' changing the student loan program). It's a declaration of fiscal war on universities with students as collateral damage.

submitted 20 hours ago • 9 comments

Listen to these people.

submitted 23 hours ago • 0 comments

According to College Raptor, the 5 US colleges with the top endowment to student ratios include Princeton, Stanford, Yale, MIT, and Harv... wait! No, Soka University of America! I'd never heard of Soka. It's apparently bankrolled by Soka Gakkai, a Buddhist organization in Japan.

submitted 2 days ago • 1 comment

Sec. 112022 of the GOP budget bill is actually good: It boosts the tax on investment gains of private foundations from 1.4% to 5% for those worth $250M-$5B and 10% for those worth >$5B. But it says nada about donor advised funds, which, like perpetual foundations, are profoundly antidemocratic.

submitted 2 days ago • 1 comment

This really is not a question of DOGE, but of Trump. Donald Trump is giving them access to our most sensitive personal data. Where is the outrage from the right?

submitted 2 days ago • 1 comment

Don't you love how Trump puts the fate and safety of America in the best of hands! You know, like having an EPA administrator hostile to environmental protection, an unqualified lunatic in charge of defense and, well, this kid. Running our nation is not a fucking joke.

submitted 2 days ago • 2 comments

"Having spent 20 years doing turnarounds of large, failed enterprises, the last thing I ever thought was, well, let’s starve the revenue arm," former IRS chief John Koskinen told me. But that's precisely what DOGE and Republican lawmakers are doing to the IRS. It seems they want America to fail.

submitted 2 days ago • 0 comments

NYT's breakdown is very helpful. But CBO failed to tally the MASSIVE cost of gutting IRS budget & firing all the people Team Biden hired. This is expected to a) Reduce revenues by 10% just from people not filing, and b) decimate audits of the superwealthy. Just a terrible business decision by GOP.

submitted 2 days ago • 3 comments

Back in November 2002, when Elon Musk's assets totaled around $200B, I calculated that his wealth, converted into $100 bills, would completely paper over 3,864 football fields—including the end zones. Now he's worth twice that.

submitted 2 days ago • 0 comments

This Elon Musk snippet is from @motherjones.com's award-winning Oligarchy Issue. A decade-plus after pledging to give away at least half their wealth, most of Bill Gates "giving pledgers" were richer than ever, often WAY richer. Issue link: www.motherjones.com/politics/202...

submitted 2 days ago • 0 comments

@kategammon.bsky.social Katherine, are you Guardian staffer, or are a freelance contributor?

submitted 2 days ago • 2 comments

True. He's an elderly predator.

submitted 3 days ago • 0 comments

Yeah, a curious thing, isn't it?

submitted 3 days ago • 0 comments

The enemy of my enemy is still my enemy but I still like seeing them fight

submitted 3 days ago • 433 comments

this is like drake and kendrick lamar but they're both drake

submitted 3 days ago • 535 comments

I'm just glad one of these men has the nuclear codes and the other has all our personal data.

submitted 3 days ago • 1700 comments

We are probably only moments away from an actual wig snatching.

submitted 3 days ago • 1287 comments

Budget bill needs more cuts! So, cut renewal/expansion of the pass-through deduction, which mainly enriches the 1%. Also cut renewal/enhancement of gift/estate exemption, which makes a $30M inheritance tax free. Cut grantor trusts—a tax-avoidance scam. Cap retirement subsidies for rich, etc.

submitted 3 days ago • 7 comments

I am so glad "why tariff banana" thought is reaching members of Congress. It's the most obvious example of how insane this administration's trade policy has been—officials like Lutnick can't give a good justification for it because there simply isn't one

submitted 3 days ago • 94 comments

Rick Scott "argued that it was possible to balance a budget while supporting Trump’s agenda." No, it isn't. It absolutely is not.

submitted 3 days ago • 0 comments

You know what's really a "disgusting abomination"? Well, lots lately, but for sure the fact that any person could accumulate this much wealth.

submitted 3 days ago • 0 comments

That yacht story was so good. Congrats @eosnos.bsky.social!

submitted 5 days ago • 0 comments

It drives me insane that supposed "fiscally conservative" Republicans oppose the budget bill because it doesn't cut ENOUGH when the actual problem is that it guts tax revenues. You can't just give away the store to rich people—even more than in 2017—and think you'll be able to avoid huge deficits.

submitted 5 days ago • 2 comments

Can humor help solve our climate crisis? David Cross sure as fuck hopes so.

submitted 6 days ago • 27 comments

Murphy is a role model.

submitted 5 days ago • 0 comments

This decision is incredibly significant for federal employees. That an appellate court actually said this out loud is incredible and really shows the public how horrific this Administration has been with respect to destroying the rule of law and the surrounding protections.

submitted 5 days ago • 4 comments

The sad part is that a lot of everyday people still just parrot his arguments without informing themselves. It's very frustrating to try and talk to those people—it's like they believe they have some secret sourcing you're oblivious to. Like talking to a wall, really.

submitted 5 days ago • 0 comments

A super-rich couple now can leave $28 million to their kids w/o paying a dime in tax. The House-passed "big, beautiful bill" ups this to $30M (w future increases pegged to inflation). So, they're cutting Medicaid to give a 7% raise to ultra-high-net-worth offspring who didn't earn a penny of it.

submitted 5 days ago • 1 comment

Crooked.

submitted 5 days ago • 0 comments

The Republicans have long attacked "redistributive" tax policies and tried to sell tax cuts with false predictions re their stimulus value—which isn't what this economy needs, btw. But their cuts have NEVER paid for themselves. They are, in fact, a redistribution of wealth from the poor to the rich

submitted 5 days ago • 0 comments

And yet Musk targeted things—like IRS staffing, HHS, NOAA, science funding, etc—that will ultimately make the deficit much worse, and ignored things that SHOULD be targeted if you actually want to rein in deficits.

submitted 5 days ago • 0 comments

Is this any surprise, when the poorest 25% of US families in 2022 were, on average, $5,650 in debt. And that's thanks to the pandemic stimulus: In 2019, the bottom 25% of families were $15,800 in the red, per Federal Reserve data from the Survey of Consumer Finances. (2022 dollars)

submitted 5 days ago • 0 comments

Musk is apparently hoping to repopulate with his own offspring.

submitted 9 days ago • 0 comments

you racked up the highest kill count of anyone in the world this decade in Q1 2025, my dude

submitted 9 days ago • 23 comments