[Sen.] Gallego Introduces Legislation to Crack Down on Billionaire Tax Loophole

Legislation would close the ‘borrow’ aspect of the ‘buy, borrow, die’ tax loophole used by the ultra-wealthy to avoid paying capital gains or income tax

WASHINGTON – Today, Senator Ruben Gallego (D-AZ) introduced the Redistribution Of Billions by Instituting New High-income Obligations on Overlooked Debt (ROBINHOOD) Act to close the ‘borrow’ aspect of the ‘buy, borrow, die’ tax loophole that is used by the ultra-wealthy to finance extravagant spending without paying income or capital gains taxes.

“Working and middle-class Americans are paying their fair share – they do it with every paycheck. But the billionaires in this country? They’re using legal loopholes and tricky accounting to finance private jets and yachts while most Americans struggle to afford healthcare and groceries,” said Senator Gallego. “My legislation closes a critical loophole and brings us closer to billionaires finally paying their fair share.”

Punchbowl News: Gallego targets ‘buy, borrow, die’ tax maneuver

The ‘buy, borrow, die’ tax loophole has three stages:

Buy: A wealthy individual buys, or is given as part of their compensation package, assets, such as stocks. This allows them to store and grow their wealth without paying taxes since the gains from these assets are considered unrealized.
Borrow: The individual then borrows tax-free cash loans, often backed by those assets, to finance their extravagant lifestyles. All the while, their assets continue to gain value.
Die: Finally, when they die, their assets are gifted to their heirs on a stepped-up basis, meaning their heirs can sell the assets without paying taxes on the capital gains accumulated during the individual’s life.

The ROBINHOOD Act closes this loophole by treating taking out a loan as a realization event, meaning the individual would have to pay taxes on capital gains equal to the loan amount. The provisions of the bill apply to taxpayers who have an income over $100 million and/or assets worth more than $1 billion.

You can find a one-page summary of the legislation HERE.

You can find a section-by-section explainer of the legislation HERE.

You can find the full text of the legislation HERE.

Companion legislation was introduced in the House by Rep. Dan Goldman (NY-10).

“While working, wage-earning New Yorkers pay income taxes on every single paycheck, billionaires live tax-free by borrowing against their stock portfolios, real estate holdings, and art collections without paying a dime in taxes on that money,” Congressman Dan Goldman said. “By restoring basic fairness to our tax code and making the ultra-wealthy pay their fair share and contribute what they owe, this bill will generate revenue to invest in universal pre-K, child care, and working families instead of subsidizing billionaires’ yachts and private islands. It’s long past time for the wealthiest people in the country to pay their fair share.”

Clay Jones + Open Windows

President Trump’s health is excellent

Maybe the First Lady is actually in charge

Ann Telnaes

I’m looking forward to the publication of Jake Tapper’s next book.

Pool for Fools

It’s getting deep

Clay Jones

For some bizarre reason that I don’t believe anyone has figured out yet, Donald Trump showed off a graph in the Oval Office, comparing the size of the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool to the size of skyscrapers. Seth Meyers said, “You’re not allowed to compare horizontal to vertical. If that was the case, I-90 crushes the reflecting pool.”

Trump showed off a chart which compared the freshly-painted 2,030-foot-long pool against the 1,451-foot-high Sears Tower in Chicago, New York City’s 1,454-foot Empire State Building, and the 1,776-foot One World Trade Center. Upon seeing these comparisons, many people said, “So what?” What does the length of the Reflecting Pool compared to the size of skyscrapers have to do with anything?

You can take this incident to point out how senile Trump is becoming, but it also proves that he is surrounded by enablers because somebody had to print this graph. He’s comparing a pool to buildings, horizontal to vertical. Michael Kosta of The Daily Show said, “I’d say you’re comparing apples and oranges, but at least those are fruits.” (snip-MORE)

Four clips from The Majority Report

Family Togetherness, Slush, J6 Creepers: Clay Jones + Open Windows

Slushy Intel

The insurrectionist slush fund has been canceled, but maybe there’s another way Trump can compensate his homegrown terrorists.

Clay Jones

During congressional testimony, acting Attorney General Todd Blanche said that Donald Trump’s $1.8 billion slush fund, which his J6 insurrectionists/terrorists could have applied for, is dead. In the Oval Office today, Donald Trump said that he doesn’t know if it’s dead. He is lying.

The one thing that we do know for sure is that the immunity for Trump and his family from IRS audits is still alive and well. But more on that tomorrow.

The slush fund was not popular, even with Republicans, with one calling it “stupid on stilts.” Another unpopular thing, even with Republicans, is the appointment of Bill Pulte as acting Director of National Intelligence. Pulte is currently the director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency.

When asked if he has concerns that Pulte would “weaponize” the position, given the role he has played during Trump’s second term in digging into mortgage records to see whether Trump’s political adversaries have committed fraud, Senate Majority Leader John Thune said: “We don’t need a weaponized DNI; we need professionals there.” (snip-MORE)

The family who grifts together…

hopefully is convicted together

Ann Telnaes

Recently I posted a cartoon after reading this Propublica story about the connections between a Don Jr. linked company and a $620 million Pentagon loan. We haven’t heard as much in the news during the second presidential term about the Trump family and their various grifts (probably due to Trump taking the oxygen out of the room with his various vanity projects), so I’m posting some cartoons from the first as a reminder the entire Trump family is in it all for themselves.

(snip-there are 7 MORE, and they are fantastic-go see!)

J6 Creepers

Trump’s $1.8 billion slush fund for white nationalist insurrectionists is dead (maybe), but MAGA pedos can still find a silver lining.

Clay Jones

Andrew Paul Johnson was one of the insurrectionists who attacked the Capitol on January 6, 2021. He pleaded guilty to multiple nonviolent charges for breaching the Capitol, and was just a few months into his year-long sentence when Donald Trump gave him a pardon. Last March, he was sentenced to life in prison after a Florida jury found him guilty of five criminal charges, including molestation, lewd and lascivious exhibition, and transmission of material harmful to a minor.

Police reported that Johnson, 45, tried to keep the children quiet by telling them he would share millions of dollars in restitution money he expected to receive from the Trump regime in connection with his Jan. 6 case. Don’t worry, kids, he told them. Uncle Donald will take care of you. (snip-it’s disgusting that there is MORE just like this)

Happy PRIDE On Friday

in Hawai’i!

Hawai’i Governor Signs Powerful Trans Shield Law Bill Just In Time For Pride

“Parents and caregivers who affirm, support, and seek medically appropriate care for their keiki [child] are exercising their fundamental right.”

s. baum

After a three-year push, Hawai’i officially has implemented a shield law to explicitly protect providers and patients of gender-affirming care for the trans community.

House Bill 1875, also known as Act 059, was signed by Governor Josh Green—himself a physician—late last week. The bill explicitly adds gender-affirming care to its existing shield law, which broadly covered reproductive health, and established safeguards from “abusive litigation” coming from outside states.

Shield laws create “legal protections for patients, health care providers, and people assisting in the provision of certain health care in states where that care is legal from the reach of states with civil, criminal, and professional consequences related to that care,” according to the Center for Reproductive Health, Law and Policy at UCLA. For example, it means Hawai’i state actors may not aid out-of-state attacks—such as, say, through the extradition of health care providers—over lawful care rendered in Hawai’i.

“The legislature finds that the people of Hawai’i have a long tradition of protecting an individual’s right to privacy and bodily autonomy independently of, and more broadly than, the United States Constitution,” the bill reads. It emphasized that the right to privacy and bodily autonomy extends to minors.

“It is the policy of this State that the rights of equality, liberty, and privacy guaranteed under […] the Hawaii State Constitution are fundamental rights and that those rights include an individual’s right to make health care decisions about one’s own body, including the right to seek and receive health care services that affirm their expressed gender.”

The signing was a resounding victory for LGBTQ activists on the islands. Hawai’i was among the last of the blue states to enact a shield law for the transgender community and their providers.

“We’ve heard from legislators that this is considered a controversial topic and that they’d rather not engage in bills that could draw attention to Hawai’i from the Trump Administration,” Abby Simmons, Chair of the Stonewall Caucus of the Democratic Party of Hawai‘i, told Erin in the Morning last year.

Now, she’s singing a more triumphant tune. “This bill truly was a team effort,” she said in an interview this week. “Lawmakers wanted to understand the legal implications, hear from stakeholders, and make sure they were crafting legislation that would withstand challenges. While that process can sometimes feel slow, it also means that when legislation succeeds, it often has a stronger foundation.”

Simmons also said the playbook for getting the bill over the finish line was rooted in building a big tent. “I think what finally made HB1875 successful was that supporters increasingly focused on a message that resonated far beyond the LGBTQ+ community,” she continued.

“The conversation wasn’t simply about gender-affirming care. It was about protecting patients, families, and healthcare providers who are following Hawaiʻi law. It was about preventing out-of-state actors from interfering with healthcare decisions made here in Hawaiʻi. It was about provider stability at a time when Hawaiʻi already faces healthcare workforce shortages. And it was about preserving Hawaiʻi’s ability to govern itself.”

The bill arrived on the Governor’s desk amid rising federal threats from the Department of Justice against hospitals, including the use of judge and forum shopping to prosecute gender-affirming care providers in conservative jurisdictions based outside of their state. Last month, the Northern District of Texas—an infamously conservative federal court—ordered Rhode Island Hospital, which is almost 2,000 miles away, to hand over patient records from its transgender youth care program. That legal battle is ongoing.

“Gender-affirming care is lawful in Hawaiʻi, grounded in established medical standards, and essential to the well-being of transgender, nonbinary, māhū, and gender-diverse people,” Hawai’i’s LGBTQ political action committee, HOKU, wrote in submitted testimony from when the bill was being considered by the legislature.

“Failure to protect access to gender-affirming care is not only an attack on patients and providers; it is a violation of parental rights,” reads another submission from Pride at Work Hawai’i. “Parents and caregivers who affirm, support, and seek medically appropriate care for their keiki [child] are exercising their fundamental right.”

Donavan Kamakani Albano, Policy Fellow at the ACLU of Hawaiʻi, further spoke to the importance of gender diversity in Hawaiian tradition. Some right-wing officials may push the myth that transness is somehow novel or a “trend.” But Hawai’i has especially rich ties to its pre-colonial culture—including non-binary concepts of gender.

“In Kanaka Maoli culture, māhū describes someone who embodies kāne and wahine [the masculine and feminine] energies,” Albano’s testimony said. “While the visibility of māhū individuals has recently increased, ongoing barriers to gender-affirming care remain.”

This united LGBTQ advocacy with other causes. “Those principles brought together a broad coalition of supporters and helped lawmakers see the bill as a matter of healthcare access, privacy, and state sovereignty,” Simmons said.

A bunch of clips from The Majority Report on different topics. Choose you topics wisely

The video below is hilarious. Right wing trump loving maga Dave Rubin gets destroyed with facts and figures from podcaster Parkergetajob. While Rubin tries to spout maga talking points and fox news misinformation. Hugs

TV & FCC News

Disney Finds Its Spine

By Lizzie O’Leary

In normal times, in a normal Federal Communications Commission, Anna M. Gomez’s job might be described as wonky. But now is not that time.

“A large part of my role is to call out this administration’s abuses of the First Amendment, particularly when it chooses to weaponize the FCC in trying to shut down any voices that it doesn’t like,” said Gomez. “And we see this constantly, there is a constant infringement on the free press and on the First Amendment and on the rights of viewers and listeners to see and hear what they want to see.”

Gomez is the sole Democrat on the commission. Her term is set to end on June 30. Normally, there would be five commissioners at the FCC, but right now, there are only three. Two resigned last year, and the Trump administration has not nominated their replacements. Gomez is on a First Amendment tour of sorts—telling Americans that the actions of the FCC chair, Brendan Carr, are egregious. Disney seems to agree. Unlike other media companies, it’s lawyered up to fight against the FCC’s latest demands.

On a recent episode of What Next: TBD, host Lizzie O’Leary spoke to Gomez about the FCC and why ABC isn’t folding like CBS did. This transcript has been edited and condensed for clarity.

Lizzie O’Leary: How do broadcast affiliates work?

Anna M. Gomez: Although Disney owns and operates only eight stations nationwide, there are hundreds of ABC affiliates because there are hundreds of markets all over this country. They are owned independently by other broadcasters. Some of those broadcasters are quite large, and some of them are very small.

The FCC manufactured a complaint against a Disney station in Texas that carried The View. And although multiple ABC stations carried that particular program, it had the Texas Democratic Senate nominee James Talarico on it.

There were tons of other ABC affiliates that also could have had this complaint lodged against them. But the FCC went to the nonowned affiliates in the market and said to them: “We want you to file with us, and we’re not going to hold it against you because of this alleged violation.” They didn’t go to Disney.

The FCC then used the fact that other affiliates filed as a reason to initiate this investigation against the one Disney-owned station. That to me is a setup. Some would call that entrapment. It’s where the FCC manufactures an issue and coordinates with the other stations so that only the Disney-owned station is the outlier. And this is why it is so egregious what this FCC is doing, because it is clearly targeting Disney in retaliation for its viewpoints.

How is that legal?

It’s not. It’s absolutely unlawful. Not only is it unlawful, it is also unconstitutional. The FCC is challenging the First Amendment rights of the broadcasters, the talent, the press, through all of these actions. We are explicitly prohibited from censoring broadcasters, but this is censorship.

This feels like a shakedown. This feels like the emperor doesn’t like these comedians, whether it’s Jimmy Kimmel or Joy Behar, and if you don’t do something, we’re going to take away your affiliate licenses. Is that a fair reading?

Absolutely. This administration cannot tolerate anything that is critical of it, that doesn’t mention its worldview. And it is weaponizing any tool in its toolbox, whether it’s the FCC, the Federal Trade Commission, the Department of Defense, in order to go after the press and to go after the media.

It is clear that this is absolute harassment in order to get Disney to capitulate. The good news is that Disney is not capitulating. It has actually shown courage. It has decided to stand up for its First Amendment rights and to push back. And if this gets carried out to its conclusion, and by that I mean it goes to court, the FCC will lose.

Is Disney finding a spine, or can Disney read a poll?

Disney has, in fact, found its spine. Part of that, of course, is that we saw Disney capitulate very early on when it settled the case against ABC because of the George Stephanopoulos interview. And legal scholars said there is no basis for this case, but it went ahead and settled it. And that opened the door to all of these future actions against the media. I think what Disney learned is that capitulation doesn’t buy you protection; it might buy you some time, but they will keep coming back and coming back for more because what they demand is absolute allegiance to this administration and nothing else.

I’m curious about where this impacts TV. How much of this campaign is about pressuring tech platforms?

There’s an absolute campaign by this administration to censor and control any media outlet using whatever levers it has at its power. Look at social media. The Federal Trade Commission used the fact that there were two ad agencies merging to force them to carry ads on Twitter, which they had stopped doing because of some of the content that they found to be harmful to their clients’ interests. And that is forced speech. That is a First Amendment violation.

I do believe that this administration is sending a signal. We have seen media companies win time and time again against this administration when they go to court. But litigation and regulatory investigations are costly, and a lot of companies, corporate parents, make the decision that it is actually less painful to settle and to capitulate than it is to fight. So the process is the point, the pain is the point, the threat is the point. They don’t want this to be carried out to its fruition. They want it to just force the companies enough pain so that they will capitulate. Now, I think this is a signal to every part of the media that they would do this to them, whether it’s to the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, universities, law firms, or broadcasters. They will go after anyone who speaks out against them.

Real But Not Real-

Friend of Playtime Barry, from Another Spectrum, intro’d me to this blog I’m reblogging today. Thanks to both!

How can something seem true, look true, feel true — but still not be quite true?

2 For Science On Tuesday

New solar desalination breakthrough makes fresh water without toxic brine

This sunlight-powered desalination breakthrough turns seawater into fresh water while harvesting valuable minerals.

Date: May 31, 2026

Source:University of Rochester

Summary: Scientists have developed a solar desalination system that turns seawater into drinking water without creating environmentally damaging brine. Special laser-textured metal panels use sunlight to evaporate water while automatically moving salt deposits away from the working surface, preventing clogging. The process was successfully tested with water from three oceans and can recover nearly all salts as solids. Those leftover materials could even become a source of valuable lithium for batteries.

‘This is a tragedy’: swimming snakes open new front in battle with Balearic lizards

Sam Jones in Madrid

Irrefutable proof of what Spanish researchers and wildlife experts had long suspected, and long feared, finally presented itself in the form of a grainy video that was shot on a minuscule island in the Balearics in April 2024.

Ribboning its way through the turquoise waters that separate the east coast of Ibiza from the islet of Santa Eulària 450 metres away, came a pale and solitary horseshoe whip snake in search of new territory and fresh sustenance.

The arrival of the snake on Santa Eulària, recorded by a local wildlife ranger, confirmed that the insatiable invader from the Spanish mainland – which has almost wiped out Ibiza’s endemic population of dazzlingly coloured wall lizards – had opened up a new front.

“There’d been increasing anecdotal evidence from fishermen and tourists who’d seen the snakes swimming, so we’d thought it was happening very often,” said Oriol Lapiedra, a biologist at the Centre for Ecological Research and Forestry Applications (Creaf) in Catalonia. “But this was the first proper [evidence] we’d had of a snake swimming from Ibiza to the islet.”

The horseshoe whip snake, a non-venomous reptile found across southern and eastern Spain, has become an existential threat to the lizards since it began appearing on the island two decades ago.

Its rapid colonisation has been attributed to the fashion among wealthy property owners in Ibiza for importing ancient olive trees from mainland Spain to adorn the grounds of their homes. Unbeknown to them, however, the trees – replete with their nooks and hollows – have provided ideal travel berths for hibernating snakes and snake eggs. (snip-MORE)