Politics

After Maine Gov. Paul LePage delivered an ultimatum to state lawmakers, promising to provoke a government shutdown should the state's legislature hand him a budget that includes a tax increase, it appears the governor intends to keep his word.

LePage told reporters at the state capital that he won't sign anything Friday, ensuring that a shutdown will begin at midnight, because the current budget proposalwhich was endorsed late Thursday by a special panel of lawmakers but has not yet been approved by the state legislature, includes a 1.5% lodging tax increase.

Deception Inside Deception: The Alleged Sarin Gas Attack

Paul Craig Roberts

Seymour Hersh, America’s most famous investigative reporter, has become persona non grata in the American Propaganda Ministry that poses as a news media but only serves to protect the US government’s war lies. Among his many triumphs Hersh exposed the American My Lai massacre in Vietnam and the Abu Ghraib torture prison run by the Americans in Iraq. Today his investigative reports have to be published in the London Review of Books or in the German Media.

Connecticut isn’t the only state in New England that’s facing a budget showdown today. As Reuters reports, Maine is bracing for a possible partial government shutdown on Friday – what would be the first in the state since 1991 - as Republican Governor Paul LePage has warned he will reject any budget deal that does not cut income taxes.

Despite modestly beating expectations, UMich consumer sentiment for June dropped to 95.1 - the lowest since Nov 2016 - led by a collapse in 'hope' for the future.

Inflation expectations for the medium-term fell very modestly but both short- and medium-term remain near record lows.

One day after the US announced it would sell $1.42 billion in weapons to China's offshore nemesis Taiwan, Beijing lashed out at the United States, saying it was "outraged" and demanded the US revoke immediately its "wrong decision", saying it contradicted a "consensus" President Xi Jinping reached with his counterpart, Donald Trump, in talks in April in Florida.

The proposed U.S. package for Taiwan includes technical support for early warning radar, high speed anti-radiation missiles, torpedoes and missile components.