Here’s what you need to know about the MSRA’s Back to the Fifties Weekend

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The Minnesota Street Rod Association’s Back to the Fifties Weekend has rolled into the State Fairgrounds once again.

The event, a showcase of vehicles from 1964 and earlier, is considered the biggest in the nation.

Running through Sunday, here are some details:

The cars

At the Fairgrounds, the public can check out more than 10,000 street rods, hot rods and custom cars — from 1964 or older — that roar in to Minnesota from around the country.

Other highlights

There also will be commercial vendors, swappers, crafters, entertainment and much more.

The proclamation

In honor of the 50th anniversary of this event, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz has declared June 21-23, 2024 as “MSRA 50th Annual Back to the Fifties Weekend” in the state.

Hours

8 a.m. to 10 p.m. on Friday; 6 a.m. to 3 p.m. on Sunday.

Location

The Minnesota State Fairgrounds in Falcon Heights.

Admission

$15 at the door (kids ages 15 and under get in free with each paid adult).

Transit

Through an event partnership, the public can grab free rides all weekend on Metro Transit (excluding the Northstar train) to avoid parking hassles. Here are the links:

Friday pass
Saturday pass
Sunday pass

Saturday shuttles

There will be free shuttles from 8 a.m. to 10 p.m. — Saturday only — from two locations:

1.     Energy Technology Center at1450 Energy Park Drive, St. Paul.

2.     The Minnesota Department of Education at 1500 Minnesota Highway 36 West, Roseville

Happening all weekend:

• NAPA Auto Parts display  (Home Improvement Building).

• 200+ commercial vendors (Indoors and outdoors, throughout the Fairgrounds).

• Ladies’ Showcase – (North End Event Center).

Marketplace

A classic car and truck sale that is open to all vehicle years and located at the Miracle of Birth Center (8 a.m. to 6 p.m. on Friday and Saturday and 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. on Sunday). More info at classiccarmarketplace.com.

Craft fair:

Cruise-N-Arts Craft Fair (Education Building): 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. on Friday and Saturday; 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. on Sunday. Decor, gifts, wearables and more.

For kids:

Kids World presented by Select Heartland Chevy Dealers (Machinery Hill): 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. on Friday and Saturday, 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. on Sunday.

Flyover:

A military salute flyover is scheduled for 11 a.m. on Saturday.

Model cars

A model car show and contest will be held in the Education Building from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. on Friday and Saturday.

Live music

There will be live music at the Bandshell from 6 p.m. to 9:30 p.m. on Friday and Saturday.

Swap meet

There will be a huge swap meet from 6 a.m. to 1 p.m. on Sunday.

Church service

A church service featuring The Memories will be held at 9:30 a.m. on Sunday at the North End Event Center/Ladies Showcase.

Closing ceremony

A closing ceremony will be held at 1 p.m. on Sunday at the Bandshell.

Info

To get a full schedule and map for the Back to the 50s event, visit msrabacktothe50s.com. Or follow along on Facebook at Facebook.com/Back.to.the.50s/

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Trump is proposing to make tips tax-free. What would that mean for workers?

posted in: Politics | 0

By KEVIN FREKING and JOSH BOAK (Associated Press)

WASHINGTON (AP) — Former President Donald Trump’s new proposal to exclude tips from federal taxes is getting strong reviews from some Republican lawmakers, though major questions remain about the impact of the policy and how it would work.

What’s certain is that a change in the taxation of tips would affect millions. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics estimates there are 2.24 million waiters and waitresses across the country, with tips making up a large percentage of their income.

A look at what Trump’s proposing and the possible political and economic ramifications:

TRUMP’S ELECTION-YEAR PITCH IN NEVADA

Trump announced his tax-free-tips plan at a June 9 rally in Nevada, a key battleground state with six electoral votes in the race for the White House. President Joe Biden won the state in 2020, but the Trump campaign hopes to put the state in play this fall.

Nevada has the highest concentration of tipped workers in the country, with about 25.8 waiters and waitresses per 1,000 jobs, followed by Hawaii and Florida.

“To those hotel workers and people who get tips, you are going to be very happy, because when I get to office we are going to not charge taxes on tips, people making tips,” Trump said at the rally. “… We’re going to do that right away, first thing in office.”

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The pitch sets up a sharp political contrast between Democrats and Republicans. While Trump assumes that a tax cut would help workers, Democrats have generally endorsed efforts to increase hourly wages — and it’s an open question which approach resonates more with voters.

The Culinary Union, which represents 60,000 workers in Las Vegas and Reno and is backing Biden, dismissed Trump’s plan as a stunt.

“Relief is definitely needed for tip earners, but Nevada workers are smart enough to know the difference between real solutions and wild campaign promises from a convicted felon.” Culinary Union Secretary-Treasurer Ted Pappageorge said in a statement.

Lael Brainard, director of the White House National Economic Council, declined to speak to the idea floated by Trump because, as a federal employee, she’s not supposed to talk campaign politics.

“What I can say is that President Biden has fought for real solutions that actually address workers’ legitimate need for fair wages, we think, much more effectively,” she said, adding that tipped workers in Nevada would get a $6,000 income boost from a higher minimum wage and the elimination of the tipped minimum wage.

HOW WOULD THE TAX EXEMPTION WORK?

Trump has not specified whether he wants to exempt tips from just income taxes or from the payroll tax as well. The payroll tax funds Medicare and Social Security.

For workers, a blanket exemption would mean more take-home pay. And for the federal government, it could mean larger budget deficits.

The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, a nonpartisan fiscal watchdog group, has estimated that exempting tips from both income and payroll taxes would reduce federal revenues by $150 billion to $250 billion over the next decade.

The committee said exempting tips from taxation would also lead employers and workers to reclassify wages as tips where possible. The more that happens, the more that federal deficits would increase. A 10% increase in tips, for example, would bump up the committee’s projection for lost federal revenue to a range of $165 billion to $275 billion over the next decade.

Congress undoubtedly would examine Trump’s proposal on tips as it considers which portions of the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act are allowed to expire after next year, including the lower individual tax rates. Lawmakers are already prepping for the task, though Trump’s proposal is something that many had not thought about until recently.

Rep. Vern Buchanan, R-Fla., a senior House Ways and Means Committee member, said lawmakers will have to consider the overall cost of the tips proposal and how to pay for it.

“I want to be sensitive because they work hard, you can’t find enough waiters, and obviously a big part of their earnings is tips,” Buchanan said. “All these programs sound good. Everybody would like to pay less taxes, but we’ve got to pay the bills.”

“I know he’s trying to make sure the people at that income level have relief as much as possible. We might be able to do the same thing in making his tax cuts more permanent and more likely to address lower-income people,” said Rep. Kevin Hern, R-Okla., who also serves on the Ways and Means Committee, which has jurisdiction over tax policy.

TRADE-OFFS OF NOT TAXING TIPS

Like many tax proposals, Trump’s push to exempt tips could have unintended consequences.

Howard Gleckman, a senior fellow at the Tax Policy Center, a joint venture of the Urban Institute and Brookings Institution, argues that Trump’s proposal could actually backfire for many tipped workers.

For example, some customers may respond to tax-free tips by reducing their gratuity. Secondly, it could take the steam out of efforts in some states to gradually increase the minimum wage for tipped workers so that their base pay is in line with the minimum wage for other workers.

“The lure of tax-free income could turn many workers against the shift from tips to wages,” Gleckman wrote in a blog post.

Gleckman also questioned why a service worker should avoid paying taxes on tips as opposed to a warehouse worker earning the same amount. He noted that while Trump promised to repeal the tax on tips right away, only Congress can repeal federal taxes, and “for reasons of efficiency, fairness, and sound tax administration, let’s hope it doesn’t.”

LOOKING AHEAD

Democrats have largely dismissed Trump’s proposal as a gimmick to win over voters.

Sen. Debbie Stabenow, a senior member of the Senate Finance Committee, noted she was a waitress in college, calling it “really hard work.” She prefers increasing the minimum wage for tipped workers to match the minimum wage for other workers.

“From my perspective, I don’t think (Trump’s) proposal is serious and I don’t think it does enough to address low-wage working people,” Stabenow said.

Sen. Ron Wyden, the chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, said Trump was “throwing out lots of ideas as he goes,” but his record as president reflects an emphasis on tax breaks for the wealthy and corporations.

“All these things he throws out every day, I’ll believe it when I see it,” Wyden said.

But Trump’s enthusiasm for the idea seems to be growing. The tax promise has since become a staple of Trump’s rallies and meetings, and he raised his proposal while meeting with GOP lawmakers and business leaders in Washington last week.

“I think it’s actually a very smart idea. The men and women who rely on tips for their earnings, they are working their tails off,” said Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis. “That’s very good, targeted tax reform right there.”

Some lawmakers and allies have begun tweeting photos of their restaurant bills with handwritten messages designed to spread the word about Trump’s promise. Rep. Derrick Van Orden, R-Wis., wrote “Vote Trump!” and “No Tax on tips!” on his bill from a Milwaukee restaurant.

The musician Kid Rock, a prominent Trump supporter, shared a photo on X.

“A vote for Trump is a vote for no tax on tips!!” he wrote on his receipt. He tipped $400 on a $1,143 bill at a pricey steakhouse, according to the photo.

Associated Press writer Jonathan J. Cooper in Phoenix contributed to this report.

Battle of the experts: Trump legal backers facing off against government over special counsel’s ‘legitimacy’

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FORT PIERCE —  Proceedings before U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon in the U.S. government’s classified documents case against former President Donald Trump Friday morning sounded more like a law school colloquium than a defense-prosecution hearing on a motion to dismiss.

Emil Bove, a former prosecutor in the U.S. attorney’s office for the Southern District of New York, carried the arguments for the defense, emphasizing that there is no statue that allowed Special Counsel Jack Smith to be appointed to investigate the reports from the National Archives that Trump had potentially classified papers at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach.

The discussion on Friday veered from the question of who acts as Smith’s boss to decades-old precedents involving previous special prosecutors. At one point, Bove claimed that the Justice Department could in essence create a “shadow government” through appointment of special counsels.

Smith’s team has maintained that Attorney General Merrick Garland, as head of the U.S. Justice Department, was empowered to appoint Smith and to delegate prosecutorial decisions to him.

Besides prosecutors working for the government and attorneys arguing for Trump and co-defendants Waltine Nauta and Carlos De Oliveira, a lineup of third-party lawyers will appear in a federal courtroom in Fort Pierce  to discuss the constitutionality of  Smith’s appointment to take the former president to court over his alleged mishandling of classified documents and efforts to block the government from retrieving them.

It’s a question that many critics believe should have been disposed of quickly months ago by the judge, who was reportedly asked by two other Southern District of Florida judges to step aside from the case in favor of a more experienced jurist. Cannon was said to have rejected the suggestions, according to anonymous attorneys quoted by The New York Times.

The daylong hearing on Friday at the Alto Lee Adams, Sr. United States Courthouse focuses on arguments similar to those rejected by other judges in challenges to special counsels Mueller, who investigated Trump’s relationship with Russia, and David Weiss, who has been prosecuting President Joe Biden’s son, Hunter, on gun and tax charges.

On Monday, Cannon is scheduled to hear a related defense challenge of Smith with the focus on the funding of his office. That question, too, has failed to gain traction with other judges.

On Tuesday, Cannon is scheduled to hear arguments on whether a federal judge in Washington, D.C. improperly allowed testimony from onetime Trump lawyer Evan Corcoran, under a crime-fraud exception to attorney-client privilege. Smith has alleged Trump misled the lawyer during his bid to obstruct the government’s  investigation.

Trump has pleaded not guilty first to a 37-count indictment handed up last June and again to additional charges in a superseding indictment returned later. His codefendants, Nauta, a personal valet, and De Oliveira, a Mar-a-Lago property manager, also have pleaded not guilty.

Critics of the judge assert that Cannon has effectively bought into a defense strategy of delaying a trial until after the November presidential election. She has conducted lengthy hearings on issues, they say, that most other judges would have quickly ruled upon after reviewing written motions filed with the court.

Instead, Cannon cancelled a May 20 start date for a trial, declaring there is a myriad of pretrial issues to decide including more than a half dozen motions to dismiss, as well as a variety of disputes between Trump’s lawyers and the prosecutors over the handling of classified documents at trial.

Recently, the judge has rejected some dismissal motions, saying it is too early in the proceedings to consider them, or more appropriately presented as jury instructions.

The defense had challenged counts related to obstruction and false statements that they said were duplicative and prejudicial. But Cannon said in an order that “the identified deficiencies, even if generating some arguable confusion, are either permitted by law, raise evidentiary challenges not appropriate for disposition at this juncture, and/or do not require dismissal even if technically deficient, so long as the jury is instructed appropriately and presented with adequate verdict forms as to each Defendants’ alleged conduct.”

Previously the judge rejected other motions to dismiss, including one that suggested that Trump was authorized under the Presidential Records Act to keep the documents with him after he left the White House in 2021 and to designate them as his own.

More critics of U.S. gag order bid

Still, there are more third parties headed for Fort Pierce to opine on other issues, the latest being the government’s motion to impose a gag order against  Trump from denouncing FBI agents in public over their search for documents at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach.

Late Thursday, Cannon green-lighted a filing backing Trump by America First Legal, a Washington-based nonprofit foundation headed by former West Wing senior adviser Stephen Miller.

The foundation said in a filing with the court that it “has a special interest in protecting First Amendment liberties like those at issue in this case.”

“Most importantly,” the foundation added, the foundation “writes to protect the freedom of a major party presidential candidate in the upcoming election to speak freely on matters affecting politics and government—core areas of First Amendment expression.”

This is a developing story, so check back for updates. Click here to have breaking news alerts sent directly to your inbox.

The Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022. Here’s the state of abortion rights now in the US

posted in: Society | 0

By GEOFF MULVIHILL (Associated Press)

Judges, state lawmakers and voters are deciding the future of abortion in the U.S. two years after the Supreme Court jolted the legal status quo with a ruling that overturned Roe v. Wade.

The June 24, 2022, ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization sparked legislative action, protest and numerous lawsuits — placing the issue at the center of politics across the country.

Abortion is now banned at all stages of pregnancy, with limited exceptions, in 14 Republican-controlled states. In three other states, it’s barred after about the first six weeks, which is before many know they are pregnant. Most Democratic-led states have taken actions to protect abortion rights, and become sanctuaries for out-of-state patients seeking care.

That’s changed the landscape of abortion access, making it more of a logistical and financial ordeal for many in conservative states. But it has not reduced the overall number of procedures done each month across the U.S.

Here’s what to know about the state of abortion rights in the U.S. now.

Bans in Republican-led states have prompted many people seeking abortions to travel to get care.

That translates into higher costs for gas or plane tickets, hotels and meals; more logistics to figure out, including child care; and more days off work.

A new study by the Guttmacher Institute, which advocates for abortion access, found that out of just over a million abortions provided in clinics, hospitals and doctors’ offices, more than 161,000 — or 16% — were for people who crossed state lines to get them.

More than two-thirds of abortions done in Kansas and New Mexico were for out-of-staters, particularly Texans.

Since Florida’s six-week abortion ban kicked in in May, many people had to travel farther than before, since throughout the Southeast, most states have bans.

Low-income patients and those lacking legal permission to be in the country are more likely to be unable to travel. There can be lasting costs for those who do.

In Alabama, the Yellowhammer Fund, which previously helped residents pay for the procedure has paused doing so since facing threats of litigation from the state.

Jenice Fountain, Yellowhammer’s executive director, said she met a woman recently who traveled from Alabama to neighboring Georgia for an abortion but found she couldn’t get one there because she was slightly too far into her pregnancy. So she then went to Virginia. The journey wiped out her rent money and she needed help to remain housed.

“We’re having people use every dime that they have to get out of state, or use every dime they have to have another child,” Fountain said.

Nearly two-thirds of known abortions last year were provided with pills rather than procedures.

One report found that pills are prescribed via telehealth and mailed to about 6,000 people a month who live in states with abortion bans. They’re sent by medical providers in states with laws intended to protect them from prosecution for those prescriptions. The laws in Colorado, Massachusetts, New York, Vermont and Washington specifically protect medical providers who prescribe the pills to patients in states with bans.

The growing prominence of pills, which were used in about half of all abortions just before the Dobbs ruling, is a frontier in the latest chapter of the legal fight.

The U.S. Supreme Court this month unanimously rejected an effort by abortion opponents who were seeking to overturn or roll back the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s approval of mifepristone, one of two drugs usually used together for medication abortions. The issue is likely to return.

In this presidential election year, abortion is a key issue.

Protecting access has emerged as a key theme in the campaigns of Democrats, including President Joe Biden in his reelection bid. Former President Donald Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee, has said states should decide whether to restrict abortions. He also suggested states could limit contraception use but changed his tune on that.

“We recognize this could be the last Dobbs anniversary we celebrate,” Kelsey Pritchard, a spokesperson for Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America said in an interview, noting that if Democrats win the presidency and regain control of both chambers of Congress, a right to abortion could be enshrined in the law.

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The issue will also be put directly before voters in at least four states. Colorado, Florida, Maryland and South Dakota have ballot measures this year asking voters to approve state constitutional amendments that would protect or expand access to abortion. A New York measure would bar discrimination against someone who has an abortion. There are attempts to put questions about abortion access on the ballots this year in Arkansas, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska and Nevada.

There’s also a push for a ballot measure in Arizona, where the state Supreme Court this year ruled that an 1864 abortion ban could be enforced. With the help of some Republicans — Democrats in the Legislature were able to repeal that law.

Generally, abortion rights expand when voters are deciding. In the seven statewide abortion policy-related votes since 2022, voters have sided with abortion rights advocates in every case.

The Dobbs ruling and its aftermath gave rise to a bevy of legal questions and lawsuits challenging nearly every ban and restriction.

Many of those questions deal with how exceptions — which come into play far more often when abortion is barred earlier in pregnancy — should apply. The issue is often raised by those who wanted to be pregnant but who experienced life-threatening complications.

A group of women who had serious pregnancy complications but were denied abortions in Texas sued, claiming the state’s ban is vague about which exceptions are allowed. The all-Republican Texas Supreme Court disagreed in a May ruling.

The Supreme Court also heard arguments in April on the federal government’s lawsuit against Idaho, which says its ban on abortions at all stages of pregnancy can extend to women in medical emergencies. The Biden administration says that violates federal law. A ruling on that case could be issued at any time.

Meanwhile, bans have been put on hold by judges in Iowa, Montana, Utah and Wyoming.