I have been having a bad time.
Tariffs
Buying Stuff Online Is About to Get a Lot More Expensive. Here’s Why.
Quote:Thanks to another recent executive order and the repeal of a 90-year-old law, however, the stuff you buy online from outside the US is about to get even more expensive starting on August 29.
Quote:Among the many provisions in Trump’s Big Beautiful Bill, which passed in July, the de minimis exemption was set to end in July 2027, giving American consumers (and particularly small businesses) time to prepare for a significant cost increase. True to form, however, on July 30, Trump used his emergency presidential powers to fast-track the end of de minimis to August 29, 2025.
If you’re buying anything that’s made or shipped from another country, it will cost more as of the end of this month. If you’ve bought anything from China or Hong Kong in the last few months, you’ll probably have noticed an additional charge for tariffs or duties, and that will soon become the norm for all international shipments.
I learned this through the artist Blockforest, who is having to close US orders.
Quote:Days after Goldman Sachs’ top economists published research claiming price increases stemming from higher tariffs are poised to soon be borne mostly by consumers, President Donald Trump is urging the bank’s CEO, David Solomon, to get a new economist.
“Tariffs have not caused Inflation, or any other problems for America, other than massive amounts of CASH pouring into our Treasury’s coffers,” Trump wrote in a Truth Social post on Tuesday. “David Solomon and Goldman Sachs refuse to give credit where credit is due.”
SNAP
Independent grocery stores brace for SNAP cuts
Quote:The last five years have aged Alabama grocer Jimmy Wright like they were two decades. It started with COVID. And then inflation – including the “great egg debacle,” as Wright called the recent price spike.
Now, he and other grocers are facing a new challenge: cuts to the federal Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), better known as food stamps.
SNAP helps lower-income families in the U.S. pay for groceries — which in turn, means business for grocery stores. For many independent grocery stores, SNAP makes up the bulk of their sales.
Similar to hospitals worrying about their financial future due to Medicaid cuts in President Donald Trump’s signature domestic policy bill, SNAP cuts have grocers and their advocates worried.
Many grocers may have to trim their own budgets. For some small stores in impoverished areas with few nearby alternatives for shoppers, the only option could be closing permanently.
I applied for SNAP recently because food costs have tripled in my area. I sat through a half-hour-long phone call just to be told I was already on my wife's SNAP benefits and that it's likely I'll be taken off of it because I don't earn minimum wage (what the fuck kind of logic is that?). This week I received the news that I will be losing my benefits.
I'm sure I'm far from the only one being fucked over.
Veterans could lose work requirement exemption under 'big, beautiful' spending law
Quote:Veterans will no longer be exempt from work requirement rules for food stamps under President Trump’s “big, beautiful” spending and tax law, leaving many worried about how they will find employment.
The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), which is the federal aid program formerly known as food stamps, currently allows work exemptions for veterans, but that will soon end under legislation signed into law last month.
Quote:“What I’m trying to do is get settled into, you know, stabilize into an apartment. I have the credentials to get a job. So it’s not like I’m not gonna look for a job,” Darryl Chavis, a former Army service member, told Stateline. “I have to work. I’m in transition, and the obstacles don’t make it easy.”
“Nobody even came to help me,” Chavis, who said he was diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder from his service, told the outlet.
The death of information
Reddit will block the Internet Archive
Quote:The Wayback Machine will no longer be able to crawl post detail pages, comments, or profiles; instead, it will only be able to index the Reddit.com homepage, which effectively means Internet Archive will only be able to archive insights into which news headlines and posts were most popular on a given day.
Trump administration calls for 'comprehensive review' of Smithsonian
Quote:"Within 120 days, museums should begin implementing content corrections where necessary, replacing divisive or ideologically driven language with unifying, historically accurate, and constructive descriptions across placards, wall didactics, digital displays, and other public-facing materials," the letter states.
At least one Smithsonian museum has already made moves to correct public-facing content. Earlier this month, its National Museum of American History removed references to Trump's two first-term impeachments from an exhibit following a review. The museum later updated the exhibit with an edited version.
Quote:Trump's March executive order "Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History" directly criticized The Smithsonian for coming "under the influence of a divisive, race-centered ideology" and for promoting "narratives that portray American and Western values as inherently harmful and oppressive."
In May, Trump claimed he was firing Kim Sajet, the director of the Smithsonian's National Portrait Gallery. She later resigned of her own accord.
In late July, artist Amy Sherald canceled an upcoming exhibition of her work at the Smithsonian's National Portrait Gallery after a dispute over her painting of a transgender woman with pink hair and a blue gown, holding a torch, Statue of Liberty-style.
'Everyone Is So Scared': Inside The Smithsonian As Trump Attacks Art, History
Quote:“Everyone is so scared,” said one longtime Smithsonian worker who requested anonymity to protect their job.
“It’s an impossible position to put us in,” they said. “We can’t be political with our content, but they have politicized everything. We need to prove we’re not partisan by following this very partisan directive. What are we supposed to do? It’s like up is down. It’s maddening.”
How PBS, NPR lost funding -- and bipartisan support -- under Trump
Quote:Lawmakers on Capitol Hill have passed legislation on a narrow, party-line basis to eliminate all federal funding for public broadcasting for the next two years. That's $1.1 billion previously approved by the Republican-led Congress and President Trump. The reversal is notionally due to the need to cut funds to help pay for new Republican priorities, including an expansion of immigration enforcement and extension of Trump's prior tax cuts.
Yet Trump had campaigned on retribution and made the news media a core element of his grievance. Public broadcasting has offered a ready target, given the government funding, and he has repeatedly claimed NPR and PBS demonstrate ideological bias.
Companies don't want to fight with Trump. That may be reshaping the economy
Quote:Corporate America doesn't want to fight with President Trump in public. But as a result, it's ceding him an unprecedented amount of control over the shape — and future — of U.S. business.
In the past week, the president has turned up the heat on big companies and their CEOs to an extent that is unprecedented even by Trump's norms-shattering standards. He has publicly attacked companies and their executives throughout his political career — but now he's demanding firings of executives who aren't even household names, such as a corporate economist at Goldman Sachs.
Quote:During his first term, many in corporate America openly criticized Trump over policies including his ban on immigrants from some Muslim-majority countries, or they sought to distance themselves from his most controversial statements, like his response after violence erupted at a white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia. But now most businesses are trying to avoid getting drawn into anything seen as "political" — aside from actively courting the president's approval.
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