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🇺🇸 IRA Replay

🇺🇸 IRA Replay

Plus, all hail the Mullet Champion!

Good morning, and happy Friday. Taylor Swift’s “Eras Tour” is predicted to earn a record-breaking $1 billion, and the singer-songwriter has already been sharing the wealth. Swift has been quietly donating to local food banks and hunger relief organizations in the areas she visits on her tour.

Plus, A Pennsylvania 6-year-old's short-in-the-front, long-in-the-back hairstyle earned him the title of the 2023 Kids Mullet Champion. Check out his lustrous mane.

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QUICK CLICKS

Maui Death Toll Climbs, Judge Threatened, BRICS Convene in SA

US: Death toll from Maui’s wildfires rises to 111 – with possibly 1,000 still missing. Tensions escalate over the cause and response. (CNN)

US: Hurricane Hilary on path toward Southern California (CBS News)

US: Georgia law enforcement probe threats after Trump grand jury ID'd online (Reuters)

US: GOP state lawmaker calls for special session in Georgia to probe Fani Willis (The Hill)

US: Texas woman charged over threat to kill judge overseeing Trump case (Axios)

World: Out-of-control wildfires in Canada force all 20,000 residents of Yellowknife to flee (NPR)

World: BRICS nations to meet in South Africa seeking to blunt Western dominance (Reuters)

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CLIMATE

IRA Replay

It has been one year since President Joe Biden signed the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), a major Democrat-backed climate, healthcare, and tax law. Despite its name, the IRA’s direct focus is not reducing inflation. Instead, the law includes about $360 billion in tax credits and investments to reduce carbon emissions.

Reporting from the Right: On Inflation Reduction Act anniversary, energy groups demand end to ‘Green New Deal-type policies’ (FOX News)

Reporting from the Left: One year on, how has the Inflation Reduction Act impacted climate action in the U.S.? (NPR)

From The Flag: The law also includes healthcare changes, like capping monthly co-pays for insulin at $35. To help pay for these changes, the IRA includes funding to modernize the IRS and imposes a minimum corporate tax rate of 15%. Here’s how both sides are reviewing the IRA’s effect a year later.

RIGHT-LEANING SENTIMENT

Failure

President Joe Biden might be going around lauding the IRA’s successes, but it has killed jobs and spurred inflation.
In the months since the Inflation Reduction Act was passed by Congress, it has not fixed America's inflation problems.
An honest accounting reveals that the misleadingly-named Inflation Reduction Act has woefully failed at its namesake goal: reducing inflation.

The Inflation Reduction Act Flim-Flam Steven Law, The Wall Street Journal: “Every Democrat in Congress supported the bill. It should doom them in 2024. Republicans must aggressively articulate what is wrong with the legislation. The most obvious point: After a year, the legislation hasn’t reduced inflation. Food and consumer costs are increasing again. Rent is going up too. Even Mr. Biden conceded that the title is a misnomer, telling donors at a fundraiser, ‘I wish I hadn’t called it that.’ His administration has admitted the act could cost Americans their jobs. Brian Anderson, executive director of the administration’s interagency working group on energy communities, says the law will hit workers in the fossil-fuel industry especially hard. … This isn’t parody. Mr. Biden is traveling the country championing a law he knows will cost Americans their livelihoods. Even worse, what U.S. workers lose through the legislation, foreign companies gain.”

Like paying for sky-high gas, groceries? Wish Biden's Inflation Reduction Act a happy anniversary Jason Smith, FOX News: “Working families are paying the price for that law while the wealthy and well-connected continue to reap its benefits. As hard-earned taxpayer dollars from the IRA go into the pockets of billion-dollar corporations and big banks, inflation continues to steal from workers’ paychecks. One year in, it is clear that what is needed today is relief for the working class and Main Street businesses – something the IRA will never provide. The so-called ‘green’ special interest tax breaks passed in the IRA are now estimated by the Joint Committee on Taxation (JCT) to cost over $650 billion, 240% higher than originally projected. This money will flow primarily to big business and Wall Street. JCT has confirmed that 90 percent of these tax credits go to pad the pockets of large corporations with sales of a billion dollars or more.”

One more opinion piece from the Right: One Year Later, President Biden's 'Inflation Reduction Act' Is a Total Flop Brad Polumbo, Newsweek

LEFT-LEANING SENTIMENT

Success

Americans have a lot to celebrate after decades of scientists and advocates calling on Washington to lead on climate.
This law is more than just tax credits for businesses and car buyers, and it represents a significant investment in America’s infrastructure.
The IRA has been a game changer in its first year, and now it’s time to capitalize on that success and continue pushing for bolder ambitions on the global scale.

This law may be the turning point in America’s fight to save the planet John Pedestal, MSNBC: “…thanks to these laws, we’re on a path to achieve President Biden’s goal of cutting our overall carbon pollution in half by 2030. The Inflation Reduction Act is accomplishing this with a government-enabled, but private sector-led approach. Its clean energy tax credits have already unleashed more than $110 billion in new clean energy manufacturing investments from the private sector in the past year. We’ve seen a boom in domestic manufacturing. A factory in South Carolina, Enphase, is now producing its solar microinverters —a crucial component of solar panels — here in America for the first time. Last week, President Biden visited a former Solo cups factory in New Mexico that is now breaking ground as an Arcosa onshore wind tower manufacturing facility — and the company is contracting with union labor for construction. Batteries for electric vehicles are being built in a new ‘battery belt’ stretching from Georgia to Michigan.”

4 underrated parts of the Inflation Reduction Act Rebecca Weber, Vox: “One of the most damaging legacies of the intersection between racism and fossil fuels is how highways were built to cut through Latino and Black communities. The Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1956 alone displaced more than 1 million people, according to the Department of Transportation. People who remained near these roads, overwhelmingly communities of color, were exposed to more fine particulate matter from the tailpipes of cars and trucks. That legacy lingers today. A mountain of research has shown how Black people nationwide are exposed to more damaging pollution from construction, power plants, roads, and industry than white people. The Inflation Reduction Act includes a federal infusion of cash for community projects aimed at addressing some of the harmful effects of these projects. There is $3 billion marked for Neighborhood Access and Equity Grants, in addition to $1 billion already approved under the bipartisan infrastructure law last fall.”

One more opinion piece from the Left: The Inflation Reduction Act Took U.S. Climate Action Global. Here's What Needs To Happen Next Gina McCarthy, TIME

FLAG THIS

Majority of Americans Unaware

Interestingly, seven in 10 Americans in a new poll say they’ve heard little or nothing about the Inflation Reduction Act nearly a year after President Biden signed Democrats’ massive climate and tax bill into law.

Only 27 percent of Americans said they know a great deal or a good amount about the legislation according to a Washington Post-University of Maryland poll released Monday (The Hill).

Were you familiar with the IRA before recent coverage of its anniversary this month?

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WATERCOOLER

Genghis Khan Dies, Mindfulness vs. Cooking, Pinky Bones

Early 15th-century miniature of Genghis Khan advising his sons on his deathbed.

On This Day in 1227: Genghis Khan, the Mongol leader who forged an empire stretching from the east coast of China west to the Aral Sea, dies in camp during a campaign against the Chinese kingdom of Xi Xia. The great Khan, who was over 60 and in failing health, may have succumbed to injuries incurred during a fall from a horse in the previous year.

PSYCHE: If you don’t fancy mindfulness, then try cooking instead

Curbed: The Candy Sellers: The lives and livelihoods of some of the city’s newest migrant children.

AFAR: The 10 Best Places for Scuba Diving Around the Globe

Today I learned 45% of people only have two bones in their pinky toe.

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