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June 2018

Seattle's latest attempt to tax its way out of its severe homeless problem failed when Amazon and Starbucks pushed back against the city's "head tax."  We've chronicled other efforts Seattle has made to generate revenue. Whatever they are doing to address the city's homeless problem is not working as evidenced by the scathing letter sent by the convention planning team for the 2019 American Pharmacists Association convention.

As the likelihood of that Democrat Blue Wave recedes, Democrats are beginning to publicly suggest that they may not win back either house of Congress. Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), a possible 2020 Democrat candidate for president, told MSNBC's Rachel Maddow that while she hopes the Democrats can take back at least one house of Congress, she is "filled with terror" that they might not.

George Clooney makes some reporters swoon, and it has little to do with his handsome mug. The Oscar winner is one of the industry's more thoughtful stars, sharing his progressive views in a way his peers can't often match. He's hobnobbed with President Barack Obama, testified before Congress and traveled the globe to research causes near and dear to his heart. 

Rudy Giuliani's role in the Trump defense against the Mueller onslaught is part lawyer, and a bigger part public perception shaping. About a month ago I wondered what Rudy was thinking when he suggested Trump should have a sit-down interview with Mueller, Rudy’s terrible, horrible, no good idea about Trump sitting for a Mueller interview to speed things up:

Flying under the radar of the President Donald Trump-deranged American media are key developments from the US-North Korea summit that indicate it was an enormous success, and there are very positive signs that the breech between the two Koreas will soon begin to heal. The two nations have agreed to completely restore their military communication lines during their first general-grade military talks in more than a decade.
During the talks, they also exchanged opinions on demilitarizing the inter-Korean truce village of Panmunjom on a trial basis, it said.

President Donald Trump will approve a plan that will impose a 25% tariff on Chinese technology products, which is worth around $50 billion. From The Washington Post:
Although the import levies affect less than 10 percent of the $505 billion in Chinese goods that Americans buy each year, Trump’s new trade barriers mark a historic change after three decades of deepening ties between the world’s two largest economies.