America

Authored by Alastair Crooke via The Automatic Earth blog,

With just 10 days to go until Illinois enters its third year without a budget, resulting in the state's imminent downgrade to junk status and potentially culminating in a default for the state whose unpaid bills now surpass $15 billion, Democratic Illinois Comptroller Susana Mendoza issued a warning to Illinois Gov. Rauner and other elected officials on Tuesday, saying in a letter that her office has "very serious concerns" it may no longer be able to guarantee "timely and predictable payments" for some core services.

Authored by Mike Krieger via Liberty Blitzkrieg blog,

If there was ever any doubt that most members of Congress work for themselves and not the people, Senator Joe Manchin of West Virginia wants to dispel you of such hallucinations. Here’s a disturbing excerpt from a section of a recent post on his official website, Manchin Pledges to Return to Era of Bipartisan Cooperation and Agreement:

Via The Daily Bell

How many successful people can there be? It seems like, after every article you read these days, the author bio talks about a book they have written, an invention they created, a prestigious award or some other indicator of great success. Yet I’ve never really heard of most of them.

I used to get pings of jealousy when I would see descriptions like that of successful people; it almost felt like there were a limited number of “success” spots on planet earth, and if they were taking one up, it made it that much less likely for me to get one.

In what is being hailed as a "major speech," which means just about nothing to ordinary Americans living outside the D.C. bubble, House Speaker Paul Ryan is expected to call for permanent tax reform in 2017 in remarks to be delivered to the National Association of Manufacturers.  According to the Washington Examiner, Ryan will report that the GOP intends to introduce and pass a joint tax bill in the fall of this year.

"We are going to get this done in 2017. We need to get this done in 2017.  We cannot let this once-in-a-generation moment slip."