(FREE) PAINE IN THE MORNING: 10 things you need to know this Wednesday – April 6, 2022

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Elizabeth Warren’s Wealth Tax Would Hurt More Than Just the ‘Tippy Top’ – When running for president in 2020, Elizabeth Warren championed trustbusting and Medicare for All, the Green New Deal and regulation of big banks. But her plan’s pièce de résistance was a proposed “2-cent” tax on “ultra-millionaires.” She chirped that it would fall only on the “tippy-top,” that tiniest fraction of 1-percenters who have accumulated the most wealth in America. Taxing the wealth of the tippy-top isn’t just a Warren concept, though. Just last week, President Joe Biden announced the newest rendition of his budget, which calls for a wealth tax on households worth more than $100 million.

“A family with a net worth of more than $50 million”—or the richest 75,000 households—would “pay a 2% (or 2 cents) tax on every dollar of their net worth above $50 million and a 6% (or 6 cents) tax for every dollar above $1 billion,” Warren said. The $3.75 trillion in revenue she hopes to bring in with this tax over the next 10 years would be key to how she plans to pay for other items on her big-government wish list, like canceling student debt and free universal pre-K and Medicare for All. – READ MORE

Much-Criticized CDC Announces Plan To Revamp Agency – After endless criticism for mishandling the COVID-19 pandemic, the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) announced plans to overhaul the agency.

In announcing the plan, CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky said “it is time to step back and strategically position CDC to support the future of public health,” The Washington Post reported. – READ MORE

Mask-Wearing Has Left A Generation Of Toddlers Struggling With Speech And Social Skills – Lockdown restrictions, including adults wearing face masks, has left a generation of babies and toddlers struggling with speech and social skills, according to an official report.

Inspectors working for Ofsted found that infants being surrounded by adults wearing face masks for significant periods of time over the last two years has damaged their learning and communication abilities. – READ MORE

COVID-19 lockdowns: What’s up with nostalgia for the ‘outbreak era’? – Most people around the world associate the spring of 2020 with the anxiety of being stuck under lockdown, the pressure to take care of others and a fear of the unknown, among other unpleasant memories.

But some young people have expressed nostalgic, even optimistic feelings about the outbreak era. – READ MORE

Bird flu deaths cause egg prices to spike just in time for Easter – American families looking to pick up Easter eggs to color at the grocery store or who just want a protein-packed breakfast are in for an unpleasant surprise.

While inflation is already slamming grocery shoppers in their pocket books, the price of eggs is predicted to surge even higher because of a bad case of the bird flu. – READ MORE

Report: Biden Desperate for Oil from Canada, Just Not Thru Keystone XL Pipeline –President Joe Biden is desperate to increase oil imports from Canada as the nation continues to struggle with high fuel prices — but is determined not to resurrect the Keystone XL pipeline, whose permit Biden canceled on his first day in office in 2021.

According to the Wall Street Journal, the Biden administration is seeking to increase Canadian oil imports through rail, which is dirtier and riskier for the environment than pipelines, as Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg has admitted. – READ MORE

Report: Rents Across U.S. Skyrocket — 98% Increase for 1 Bedroom, 100% for 2 Bedroom – Rental prices for single-family homes have skyrocketed to record levels across the U.S., increasing to an average of 7.8 percent in 2021. Apartment rents are up too.

“Of the markets in our analysis, 97.7 percent recorded price increases for one-bedrooms and all markets saw increases for two-bedrooms [100 percent],” the report, issued last month, said. “Nationwide rent prices have increased significantly year-over-year. One- and two-bedroom rents were up 24.4 percent and 21.8 percent, respectively.” – READ MORE

Secret Service Reportedly Paying $30,000 per Month for ‘Swanky’ CA Mansion to Protect Hunter Biden – The U.S. Secret Service is reportedly paying a hefty sum for housing to protect President Joe Biden’s son Hunter Biden.

ABC News reported Monday, “The Secret Service detail protecting the president’s controversial son has been paying more than $30,000 a month to rent out a swanky Malibu, California, mansion for nearly a year.” – READ MORE

Big Brother Is Watching: Amazon Worker Chat App to Ban Naughty Words Like ‘Union,’ ‘Restrooms,’ ‘Pay Raise’ – An automatic word monitor in a new Amazon worker chat app will ban a variety of words and phrases, such as “union,” “fairness,” “pay raise,” “slave labor,” and “master,” among other terms, according to internal documents obtained by the Intercept.

Amazon will block and flag employee posts on an internal messaging app that the company deems problematic, according to internal company documents obtained by the Intercept. The app is still in the planning phase and has not yet been launched. – READ MORE

Postal Inspectors Have Been Illegally Spying on Americans – The U.S. Postal Service has a “U.S. Postal Inspection Service’s Analytics and Cybercrime Program”—of course it does! Its tasks, according to a report issued last week from the Postal Service’s Office of Inspector General (IG), include via its “Internet Covert Operations Program (iCOP)” subprogram, to “proactively gather intelligence using cryptocurrency analysis, open-source intelligence, and social media analysis.”

In doing so, the IG concluded in that report (which was the result of a House of Representatives Committee on Oversight and Reform request to look into Post Office online snooping), the iCOP program “exceeded the Postal Inspection Service’s law enforcement authority.” – READ MORE