Tax the Rich: Struggling to find a way to pay for social and climate policy, Congressional Democrats are hammering out new ways to tax the rich by taxing the wealth.

  Instead of only paying tax on income, which pales compared to their wealth, billionaires would be taxed on unrealized gains in the value of assets such as stocks, bonds, and cash. The trick here is whether Congress can constitutionally define value growth as income as described in the 16th Amendment. 

  For corporations that pay no income tax, Democrats would levy a 15 percent minimum rate based on the profits they report to their shareholders, not what they tell the Internal Revenue Service.

   “What we’re dealing with here are flagrant loopholes in the tax code,” said Senator Ron Wyden, Democrat of Oregon, and chairman of the Finance Committee. “They’re legal, but I’m going to close them.”

Trans Ban: Texas Republican Gov. Greg Abbott signed a law that bans transgender girls from participating in female sports in public schools. In case you are confused, that means he’s banning kids born male who transitioned to female.

  This hits on a controversial issue, particularly regarding kids who transition from male to female. They have the athletic advantage of male hormones and body strength.

  The new law goes further than current rules that already limit some transgender students from participating in classes of sports aligned with their gender identity rather than their birth gender.

  Under this new law, students will be allowed to participate in interscholastic athletic competitions only on teams that correspond to the sex listed on their birth certificates.

Order from the Court: The prosecutors in the case of Kyle Rittenhouse, who shot and killed two Black Lives Matter protesters, may not refer to the dead as “victims” but the defense may call them “rioters,” “looters,” and “arsonists” if they wish.

  Circuit Judge Bruce Schroeder said calling the dead men “victims” would be prejudicial to Rittenhouse, who has pleaded self-defense. He’s charged with homicide and attempted homicide. 

  Rittenhouse was just 17 in August 2020 when he was patrolling the streets of downtown Kenosha, Wisconsin with an assault rifle. Although he was not old enough under the law to openly carry a gun, he was acting as an armed security guard after businesses had been burned and vandalized during demonstrations the previous night.

  Video from the scene of the protests showed Rittenhouse trying to surrender to police after the shootings, but they told him to go home. He turned himself in later. 

Live Rounds: The Santa Fe County district attorney said she is not ruling out criminal charges in last week’s fatal shooting on a film set as actor Alec Baldwin was rehearsing with what he had been told was a “cold gun.”

  “Everything at this point, including criminal charges, is on the table.” District Attorney Mary Carmack-Altwies told The NY Times  by telephone.  “There were an enormous amount of bullets on this set, and we need to find out what kinds they were,” Carmack-Altwies said. Detectives recovered  three revolvers as well as spent casings and ammunition, some of it loose or in a fanny pack.

  Several news outlets report that members of the film crew had fired guns with live ammunition hours before the fatal shooting, but Carmack-Altwies said that is “unconfirmed.”

Getting Warmer: The world needs to cut greenhouse gases seven times as fast as currently done to head off serious climate change, a new United Nations report says.

  “We’re just so far off track, it’s really discouraging,” Drew Shindell, a Duke University professor and co-author of Tuesday’s report, told The Washington Post. He said the countries moving with more urgency will achieve only “minimal change this decade.” 

  In another report coming from the Pentagon, climate change is described as danger to national security. The reports says, “increasing temperatures; changing precipitation patterns; and more frequent, intense, and unpredictable extreme weather conditions caused by climate change are exacerbating existing risks.” 

The Spin Rack: David Gilbert, a member of the left-wing gang that ambushed a Brink’s armored car in 1981, killing two police officers and a guard, has been granted parole after 40 years in prison. In one of his last acts as governor of New York, Andrew Cuomo commuted the 77-year-old Gilbert’s life sentence. — A lost hiker in the mountains of Colorado ignored phone calls from rescuers because he assumed they were spam. He survived. 

The Sports Page: Atlanta came out hitting to beat Houston in the Braves first World Series game since 1999. Jorge Soler put one over the fence on only the third pitch of the game. It was the first time in Series history that the first batter of the game homered. Atlanta won 6-2.

The Obit Page: Mort Sahl, the comedian who introduced biting social commentary into the art of standup, has died at age 94.

  In the heyday of Bob Hope, Milton Berle, and Henny Youngman, standup consisted of a setup and a punchline … ba dump bump. Mother-in-law jokes were standard. Sahl came onto the scene at San Francisco’s famous hungry i nightclub, spawning a new generation of standups including Bill Cosby, George Carlin, and the team of Mike Nichols and Elaine May. Sahl once said, “I just sort of tell the truth and everybody breaks up along the way.”

 A few lines:

– “Liberals feel unworthy of their possessions. Conservatives feel they deserve everything they’ve stolen.” 

– “I’ve arranged with my executor to be buried in Chicago. Because when I die, I want to still remain active politically.” 

– “Washington couldn’t tell a lie, Nixon couldn’t tell the truth, and Reagan couldn’t tell the difference.” 

Desert Luxury: The world’s largest Ferris wheel has opened for rides in Dubai. It’s 820 feet tall, has air conditioned cabins, and takes 38 minutes for a full rotation.

  Dubai bought a giant Ferris wheel because they felt they couldn’t afford free speech and civil rights.

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