Politics

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."

Brazil's landmark labor reform bill, intended to relax the country's restrictive labor laws and a main plank of embattled President Michel Temer's efforts to bolster investment and pull the economy out of its worst recession ever and widely seen as the country's second most important reform agenda after the Pension bill, was unexpectedly rejected by a special committee in Brazil's senate, with 10 votes against it, 9 in favor and 1 abstention. 

Authored by John Rubino via DollarCollapse.com,

Every day brings another scary headline from the Middle East — which makes it easy to treat them as background noise rather than a clear and present danger. But the latest batch is reminiscent of the Balkans circa 1914, which means it may be time to tune back in. Some examples:

A US Navy jet shot down a Syrian warplane. Syria is a Russian client state, so this puts the US and Russia on opposite sides in a shooting war.

 

A US F-15E fighter jet shot down a Syrian regime drone on Monday near At Tanf, Syria, the third downing of a pro-regime aircraft this month, CNN reported. The downing of the drone comes a day after a US jet shot down a regime aircraft that was engaging a fleeing ISIS convoy, according to the Syrian government.

An armed Shaheed-129 UAV “displayed hostile intent and advanced on Coalition forces” at 12:30 am local time on Tuesday, the coalition said in a statement. The drone was observed in the same area where another UAV was shot down on June 8.

Just two days after a US fighter jet shot a Syrian army aircraft out of the sky, and Russia halts cooperation with US military, an armed Russian fighter jet buzzed a U.S. Air Force reconnaissance aircraft in the Baltic Sea on Monday, two U.S. officials told Fox News.

In the latest in a long series of close encounters, FOX News reports the Russian Su-27 jet had missiles under its wings and approached the U.S. Air Force RC-135 recon jet "rapidly," coming within five feet of the American aircraft, the officials said.