News Vérité

Other than his business empire and his presidencies, Donald Trump is probably best known for his TV show, “The Apprentice,” and his book, “Art of the Deal.” The latter is still used to describe Trump’s approach to matters in the political and military world since he walked down the stairs at Trump Tower in 2015. The art of the deal, as described in his ghost-written book of the same name, consists of five parts: Think Big, Use Your Leverage, Protect the Downside, Maximize the Options, and Fight Back. When it comes to Donald 47, he is certainly thinking big by using tariffs to bring manufacturing back to the U.S. and by bombing the hell out of Iran to create a new Middle East. (The latter may be to protect and advance his and his son-in-law’s business interests in the region, but I’ll leave that discussion for another day). Forget tariffs for the moment. They appear to have failed in their goal, but Iran is a more serious matter that also seems to have failed in its goal, as defined by President Trump several different times in several different ways. Now, however, the Iran issue all comes down to opening the

Whenever I call my bank, or basically any institution bigger than Mom&Pop, AI answers the phone. He/she/it/they then grills me endlessly before connecting me to a representative, which generally involves a 20- to 30-minute wait. That got me thinking: If AI is taking over for workers (who would otherwise answer the phone and do a zillion other chores), why not treat AI mechanisms in the workplace as any other employee and tax them? I’m not a tax guy, so I’m not sure how this plan would work, but let’s look at how Social Security taxes work. Both employer and employee pay 6.2 percent of the employee’s income, capped currently at $184,500 in annual compensation, into something called the Old Age, Survivors and Disability Insurance (OASDI) trust fund. Could you tax the annual compensatory value of every AI device in your workplace at the same level as what you’d have to pay an employee to do the same work? Worth a look-see. Hey, you tax lovers, don’t stop there. You could also hit AI with a federal income tax. In that way, you could work on solving two deficits at the same time. Just a thought, but why not tax human

The Founding Fathers chose a different political system than that of the country from which the United States seceded — a “Republic,” as Benjamin Franklin put it, versus a parliamentary system as found in Great Britain. That meant that the U.S. would have a president rather than a prime minister. The Fathers also poo-poohed the British system of removing a leader through a vote of no confidence — 50 percent plus one voting “go away” — in favor of impeachment, requiring a two-thirds vote. In other words, to rid of the country of a leader the populace no longer respects, a simple majority of elected officials works in England, while here it takes a two-thirds vote. Our current leader, President Donald John Trump, can probably survive a two-thirds vote until the end of his term in 2029, but could he survive 50-plus-one, as in a vote of no confidence? The answer is that his tenure might look pretty short-term had the Founders adopted a vote of no confidence instead of impeachment. Sir Donald is losing lots of votes in the Senate, especially as he has lobbied against sitting Senators who will remain in office until next January after losing their