GOOD: Donald Trump on His Tax Rate: ‘It’s None of Your Business’

Now let’s simplify the tax code so that everybody pays the same rate, and that there’s no “scandal” in keeping your private matters private.

DEGRADE AND ULTIMATELY DESTROY: U.S. grapples with renewed show of force by ISIS in Syria, Iraq.

Where is President Ash Carter when the world needs him most?

THE GUARDIAN WAS RIGHT: Facebook’s Curators Shape ‘Trending’ News Feature.

Facebook Thursday published the 28-page editorial guidelines for the trending feature, hours after the Guardian published a similar document. Disclosing the guidelines, and an accompanying blog post, marked Facebook’s latest effort to quell concerns that it manipulates the trending feature for political purposes.

Together, the documents underscored tensions between Facebook’s view of itself as an open platform for the exchange of ideas and the way it often functions as a traditional publisher, by selecting and highlighting certain news stories over others.

In a blog post, Justin Osofsky, vice president of Facebook’s global operations, said the trending topics team is guided by principles that are “consistent with Facebook’s deep commitment to being a platform for people of all viewpoints.”

Then why go to such lengths to pretend otherwise?

UPDATE (FROM GLENN): Could Facebook Swing An Election?

SPENDING: Apple invests $1B in Didi Chuxing, China’s largest ride-hailing app.

In an interview with Reuters, Apple CEO Tim Cook said, “We are making the investment for a number of strategic reasons, including a chance to learn more about certain segments of the China market. Of course, we believe it will deliver a strong return for our invested capital as well.”

Didi Chuxing told Reuters that this is its single largest round of funding so far. It claims to currently complete more than 11 million rides a day and have over 14 million drivers on its platform. The company’s other major investors include Tencent and Alibaba, two of China’s largest Internet companies, and SoftBank.

You have to wonder if this is the best time to be sinking that much money into China.

GOZILLA VERSUS MECHAGODZILLA: I have Bill Whittle and Scott Ott to preview what promises to be the most negative presidential campaign in modern times.

THE SLARTIBARTFAST ELECTION: “In 2016, all the numbers are awful.”

DON’T DO STUPID SH*T: Senate votes down Iran amendment to energy spending bill.

Wednesday’s vote was the fourth time the Senate considered — directly or with the spending bill as a proxy — the Iran amendment. The measure, from Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) would block the United States from buying from Iranian heavy water, a component used in nuclear reactors.

Under the terms of the nuclear deal, Iran is required to reduce its stock of the fuel. The U.S. said last month it would spend about $8 million to purchase heavy water from Tehran.

Cotton and other Republicans have said the United States shouldn’t make those purchases, equating them to subsidizing Iran’s nuclear program. Cotton introduced an amendment to the energy and water bill saying so.

Democrats balked, however, saying the amendment would earn the bill a veto from President Obama.

It would also have kept Obama’s Iran Deal lies in the news.

WHOSE NEWS IS IT, ANYWAY? Right Angle’s Scott Ott is on the Facebook case.

FASTER, PLEASE: 1,284 new exoplanets, thanks to new method of verifying Kepler’s discoveries.

Scientists have verified in one sweep 1,284 new planets that were discovered by NASA’s planet-hunting telescope Kepler, thanks to a new statistical analysis technique developed at Princeton University.

This doubles the number of exoplanets, or planets orbiting their own stars outside of our solar system, that Kepler has discovered since it was first launched in 2009.

“Before the Kepler space telescope launched, we did not know whether exoplanets were rare or common in the galaxy,” Paul Hertz, the astrophysics division director at NASA, said in a statement. “Thanks to Kepler and the research community, we now know there could be more planets than stars.”

There are approximately 100 billion stars in the Milky Way galaxy.

OPERATION CHAOS COMES TO APPALACHIA: Donald Trump Supporters Boost Bernie Sanders in West Virginia.

A third of those who voted in West Virginia’s Democratic primary say they plan to back Trump in November, according to NBC News exit polls. Sanders won those voters by a wide margin.

In fact, 39 percent of Sanders voters said they would vote for Trump over Sanders in the fall. For Clinton, nine percent of her voters say they plan to come out for Trump in the general election.

West Virginia has an open primary, meaning independents can vote in the Democratic contest. With the GOP nomination wrapped up, it’s possible mischievous Trump supporters sought to damage Clinton, the likely Democratic nominee, by voting for Sanders.

Politics ain’t beanbag.

CHANGE: Why GPS is more vulnerable than ever.

FUNDAMENTALLY TRANSFORMED? Bison Declared National Mammal of the US After President Obama Signs Bill.

WHY ARE DEMOCRAT-RUN CITIES SUCH CESSPITS OF OFFICIAL RACISM? ‘Crook County’ Author: Judicial System Stacked Against Blacks, Latinos.

Van Cleve said that when she wrote the book, “I wrote in fear. I researched it in fear… and it was mostly because as one of the only people of color in this court system, in this setting where mostly the prosecutors and judges were white and all the defendants were people of color, the idea that I could collect data on how people were being racially abused and then actually go and tell that publically was quite intimidating,” she said. “So I think it was a journey for me to reflect on what I was willing to put forth. And I hope that those stories come forth in the book.”

Yet in “Crook County,” Van Cleve documents how minority defendants in Chicago were referred to as “Mopes,” a term with the same derogatory intent as the N-word. Fabricated police reports were overlooked.

She’s a brave woman, taking on the Chicago judicial machine by herself.

QUESTION ASKED: Brazil’s impeachment proceedings — just what is going on?

The mess that is Brazil’s current political situation took another twist Monday when the new chief of parliament’s lower house said he wanted to strike down impeachment proceedings against President Dilma Rousseff.

That’s a bold move for a man that’s only been in the job for a few days. Last week Brazil’s Supreme Court suspended his predecessor — the man who initiated impeachment proceedings.
To make matters murkier, Senate leader Renan Calheiros said that the upper chamber didn’t “recognize” Maranhao’s motion, indicating that senators would press on with their vote regardless.

What will happen next is anyone’s guess — if anything, because it’s completely unprecedented.

Forget it, Jake — it’s Brasília.

THE ART OF THE DEAL: Donald Trump Walks Back Tax Plan, Saying ‘It’s Going to Be Negotiated’

“By the time it gets negotiated, it’s going to be a different plan,” Trump told George Stephanopoulos on ABC News’ “This Week.”

In Trump’s tax plan, the wealthiest individuals would get a tax break, with the top tax rate dropping from 39.6 percent to 25 percent. But when pressed if he wants taxes on the wealthy to go up or down, he predicted that the top rate would be higher than the plan says.

“On my plan they’re going down. But by the time it’s negotiated, they’ll go up,” Trump said. “Look, when I’m negotiating with the Democrats, I’m putting in a plan. I’m putting in my optimum plan. It’s going to be negotiated, George. It’s not going to stay there. They’re not going to say, ‘There’s your plan, let’s approve it.’ They’re going to say, ‘Let’s see what we can do.'”

Does this mean that the presumptive Republican candidate has written off any chance of keeping the Senate in GOP hands?

FLAMEOUT: Bill Whittle’s Afterburner Finale.

This is the last Afterburner for PJTV, but the “common sense resistance” lives on at BillWhittle.com.

FORMER FACEBOOK WORKERS: We Routinely Suppressed Conservative News.

Facebook workers routinely suppressed news stories of interest to conservative readers from the social network’s influential “trending” news section, according to a former journalist who worked on the project. This individual says that workers prevented stories about the right-wing CPAC gathering, Mitt Romney, Rand Paul, and other conservative topics from appearing in the highly-influential section, even though they were organically trending among the site’s users.

Several former Facebook “news curators,” as they were known internally, also told Gizmodo that they were instructed to artificially “inject” selected stories into the trending news module, even if they weren’t popular enough to warrant inclusion—or in some cases weren’t trending at all. The former curators, all of whom worked as contractors, also said they were directed not to include news about Facebook itself in the trending module.

Stalin is supposed to have said, “Those who cast the votes decide nothing. Those who count the votes decide everything.” That power is shifting to those who aggregate the news.

CHANGE: Nearly half of voters in EU countries say they want a referendum on whether to remain in the bloc.

By EU tradition, voters are allowed to vote in as many referenda as might be needed to produce the “correct” outcome. Since in Brussels’ view EU membership is the correct outcome, further referenda would seem unnecessary.

THE RIGHT ANGLE ON INCOME TAXES: One billionaire moved himself and his business to Florida — and blew a hole in New Jersey’s budget. PJTV and Scrappleface alum Scott Ott hosts today’s segment.

THAT MEANS IT’S WORKING: ObamaCare Insurers Considering Dumping Bronze Plans.

UNITY: Paul Ryan: ‘I’m just not ready’ to back Donald Trump.

Ryan said he hopes to eventually back Trump and “to be a part of this unifying process.” The first moves, though, must come from Trump, he said.

Ryan said he wants Trump to unify “all wings of the Republican Party and the conservative movement” and then run a campaign that will allow Americans to “have something that they’re proud to support and proud to be a part of.”

“And we’ve got a ways to go from here to there,” Ryan said.

They have until Cleveland.

RIGHT ANGLE: Welcome to TSA Hell.

The lines have gotten worse, and will continue to get worse — but security has yet to improve.

NOBEL PEACE PRIZE UPDATE: Al Qaeda Is About to Establish an Emirate in Northern Syria.

Al Qaeda has big ambitions in Syria. For the past three years, an unprecedented number of veteran figures belonging to the group have arrived in the country, in what can only be described as the covert revitalization of al Qaeda’s central leadership on Europe’s doorstep. Now the jihadi group’s Syrian affiliate, the Nusra Front — having spent nearly five years slowly building deep roots in the country — is laying the groundwork for al Qaeda’s first sovereign state.

I had been assured that al Qaeda was decimated and on the run.

K-12 IMPLOSION UPDATE: 7-Year-Old Writes Excuse Note, Goes Home From School.

“I want Rosabella to go too dus (sic) 131 today!” the second-grader wrote on half a sheet of notebook filler paper in large print, addressing the note to the staff person underneath.

Though the girl was supposed to attend an after-school program on Monday, the note she wrote and delivered to the staff herself worked. The staff excused little Rosabella Dahu, she boarded the school bus and went home.

Charlie Dahu, her father, said Sheldon Elementary in Houston has promised him that “disciplinary action” will be taken against the caretakers from the after school program who excused the girl from school on the basis of her ‘parental’ note.

“Obviously they didn’t have proper procedures in place,” Dahu told ABC News. “This is clearly the school’s fault. How a seven-year-old can trick you, it boggles my mind.”

Public education is in the very best of hands.

CHANGE: Oil Rallies as Canada Fire and Libya Violence Threaten Supply.

“The difference today compared with a year ago is the market is starting to price in supply disruptions, whereas in a market that is totally oversupplied, you don’t care about losing half a million barrels a day (in production),” Petromatrix strategist Olivier Jakob said.

“The market is becoming much more sensitive to supply disruptions.”

How long before some desperate petro-state hires terrorists to attack foreign oil facilities to boost its income?