IS THERE TRULY A DIFFERENCE IN
THESE CORRUPT WALL STREET-
BOUGHT AND OWNED PARTIES?
FROM THE MAGAZINE
Can the Parties Survive?
A dialogue on the forces threatening to blow apart the Democratic and Republican coalitions
HENRY OLSEN: Going on a year since Donald Trump’s remarkable presidential victory, Republicans and Democrats are still struggling to understand what happened in November 2016 and what it means for the country’s future—and, needless to say, for the future of the two parties. My view is straightforward: Donald Trump is president because he won the group of voters I call “Trump Democrats”—once known as Reagan Democrats. They’re blue-collar—or non-collared—white voters without college degrees. Outside the more culturally conservative South, these voters tend to support Democrats. They anchor many of the counties throughout the Midwest and Appalachia, which, before Trump, Republicans had failed to carry since the Reagan or even Nixon campaigns.
The Trump Democrats fit between the two parties. They don’t generally care about social issues, so they can go either way on abortion, same-sex marriage, or traditional gender roles. They are patriotic and support the military but aren’t hawkish when it comes to fighting overseas. And most important, they believe that the government should play an active but limited role in the economy—a smaller role than what Democrats envision but significantly more involvement than the typical Republican approach would allow.
Though these voters make up a large proportion of the electorate, they’re distributed heavily throughout swing states like Ohio, Iowa, Michigan, and Wisconsin. In Trump, these voters found a presidential candidate who echoed their concerns—particularly their doubts about immigration and trade, which they see as major drivers of labor competition. They found somebody who loved them, and they loved him back.
THOMAS EDSALL: I agree that Trump’s appeal, especially on immigration, was a major factor in swinging this group of voters to the Republicans after so long. But the Democratic Party’s own changes, in character and composition, were just as crucial. At the policymaking level, the Democratic Party has become much more affluent and cosmopolitan. On average, Democratic voters and voters who lean toward the Democratic Party now have higher levels of education than Republicans, which was not the case throughout the twentieth century. Instead of a class-based party, the Democrats are an alliance, on the one hand, of relatively well-off whites who take liberal stands on social issues, and, on the other hand, of much less well-off minorities. The Democratic base has also become more concentrated in urban centers, while Republicans are relatively more concentrated in exurban and rural areas.
While in general agreement on social and identity issues, the so-called upscale and downscale wings of the Democratic Party are considerably at odds on economic issues calling for redistribution.
All Americans took a big economic hit beginning in 2007, but nonurban areas where Republicans made gains in 2016 have struggled to recover, whereas many of the cities where Democrats do well have come back strong. To a significant degree, the Democratic Party has become the hybrid party of college-educated, culturally liberal elites in an alliance with a majority of African-American voters (roughly 88 percent) and Hispanic voters (66 percent). The Republican Party, at the same time, has become the party of white America—the broadly defined white working and middle class—especially those white voters who perceive themselves as under siege by minorities and immigrants and as disadvantaged in labor markets by globalization and robotization.
OLSEN: Trump’s ability to appeal to these voters earned him a ticket to the White House, but there’s no guarantee that Republicans will retain their support. We essentially have been having a tennis game of realignment for the last decade, with the Democrats and Republicans taking turns double-faulting. They keep taking their eyes off the ball—the ball being this type of middle-of-the-road voter.
For Republicans to keep these voters, they have to include them, as Ronald Reagan urged them to do in his 1977 speech at the Conservative Political Action Committee’s annual meeting. But 40 years later, the Republican Party still has not embraced policies that would directly help working-class voters. The party platform consists entirely of indirect investments in workers, through corporate tax cuts—as opposed to direct investments, through programs like wage subsidies. If Republicans don’t begin to address workers’ needs directly, they won’t earn their commitment in the long term.
EDSALL: Trump did campaign on those ideas, at least more than any previous Republican had. Still, it remains unclear whether he will be able to deliver substantively on his promises—or if he will instead settle for delivering primarily in rhetorical and symbolic terms.
OLSEN: If you’re right, Trump and the Republicans would be squandering a marvelous opportunity—again. Republicans have had several chances over the last 70 years to build a long-term middle- and working-class majority. But each time, they’ve pursued an agenda that works against a key priority of those whose votes they had just won: I’m thinking of the Taft-Hartley Act that weakened unions in 1947 and the Gingrich Revolution in 1994, where Republicans decided to pursue spending cuts by cutting programs that their voters supported. Now the trend could be continuing, with the entitlement reform that Paul Ryan and the Freedom Caucus are pushing.
EDSALL: And yet, while the Republicans struggle to retain working-class voters, the Democrats face their own difficulties in capitalizing on Republican vulnerabilities. Their leaders are torn between prioritizing the interests of the party’s affluent wing and delivering expected benefits to their large minority constituency.
OLSEN: They might be deferential to their affluent voters, but the Democrats remain divided about economic matters in a way that will make it hard for them to expand their coalition. If they really want to embrace their new role as the cosmopolitan party and attract the kind of moderate conservative who voted for, say, John Kasich in the Republican primaries, they’ll have to avoid saying that we should raise taxes on the rich at three levels: an income-tax increase, a capital-gains tax increase, and a new Medicare single-payer tax increase. And they’ll have to quit lambasting people working in industries like financial services.
I think that for Republicans, Governor Scott Walker’s coalition in Wisconsin is the way of the future. The Walker administration has geared its tax cuts toward the middle class. An article of faith among the GOP in Washington is that the way to create growth is rapid and dramatic tax cuts for the most productive citizens—meaning corporations and wealthy people. By contrast, Walker’s income-tax cuts reduce lower-bracket rates by more. He focuses more on property taxes and income taxes. And rather than directly cutting the corporate tax rate, he’s lowered companies’ tax burdens by offering credits for job creation. Do you see anyone on the Democratic side doing this kind of thing?
EDSALL: I’m not optimistic about the Democratic Party. The challenges of holding together a biracial, multiethnic coalition spearheaded by a culturally liberal, relatively affluent white cosmopolitan vanguard are daunting. I’m intrigued by figures like Governor Steve Bullock in Montana, Senator Joe Manchin in West Virginia, and Colorado governor John Hickenlooper. They are sort of Western-style Democrats. These are guys with decided bases of support who have had to make some tough choices. And a lot of them are governors. Being a governor is a much better training ground for the presidency than being a senator. You have to make zero-sum choices. If you’re a senator, you can shoot your mouth off, but governors have a range of life-and-death decisions on their hands.
I don’t see decisive long-term dominance for either party. Trump I see as a fading light. Insofar as the prime Republican selling point in 2016 was the Republican promise to curtail immigration radically, the party may need strong nationalists like Steve Bannon. In terms of restructuring the economy, along lines that Trump promised, a project of such economic and technological complexity may well require the guys from Goldman Sachs. In the end, it can be as hard to manage a center-right as a center-left coalition.
OLSEN: Democrats need to remember that there’s a difference between midterm and presidential elections. Midterms are an opportunity for resistance, which is what Republicans have done successfully in the past few election cycles. So a Democratic strategy of resistance to Trump—compounded by the president’s errors—could give them an enormous opportunity for a wave. It probably wouldn’t show up in the Senate, as many more incumbent Democrats than Republicans are up for election in 2018. But it could show up in the House and in governorship races—especially the latter. The Republicans hold 14 governorships in states that were won by Bill Clinton twice and Obama twice or won by Obama twice and Trump once. That’s where I think you’ll see the Democratic wave, if there is one.
Currently, the Republicans hold the governorship in every state that touches the Great Lakes other than Minnesota; but come 2018, it’s possible that Walker will be the only one to survive, once the others have termed out. Suddenly, the GOP will lose control of the congressional redistricting process, which, on the margins, has helped it retain between 10 and 20 seats.
EDSALL: The danger for the Democrats is that they might bank too much on Republican weakness. This strategy worked for them in 1974, after Watergate, and eventually resulted in Jimmy Carter’s victory in 1976. They did not win on the basis of a changed electorate or a new way of appealing to that electorate; and in pursuing a purely oppositional strategy, they lost their chance to build a broader coalition, which Reagan and the Republicans accomplished, beginning in 1980. The Democrats haven’t seen a change in the composition of the party, whereas the Republican Party, first with Reagan, then with Gingrich, and then with Trump, has been going through a lot of internal compositional changes. The Democratic Party has not been going through this—or the forced intellectual vigor that such change requires. I think that the Democrats have a lot of ground-level work to do—in some cases, painful work—to rebuild their appeal to swing voters.
OLSEN: Republicans had the same problem after 2008, of course. After Obama’s victory and the Democratic wave in the Senate, the GOP had less representation at the national level than at any time since 1978. Then, after they reclaimed the House in 2010, many Republicans thought, “Obama’s an aberration. We can just double down on our anti-governmentism.” Again, their failure to listen to the voters who swept them into office led to a fragile governing mandate.
The GOP in Washington remains unbelievably resistant to the idea that it has to adapt to create a majority. Many Republicans see the Trump victory as an aberration or a rejection of Hillary Clinton, rather than a popular embrace of the heterodox positions that Trump championed during the election. Like the Democrats in 2009, GOP leaders seem to think: “We’ve got an unusual majority, so let’s take the opportunity to push our old agenda through.” That kind of blindness to the things that got them elected has set them up for a potentially rude awakening in 2018, when they’ll miss a chance to increase their majority in the Senate, and may get walloped in the House.
Republicans have to develop a better sense of their constituents’ actual needs, and they really need to prioritize a message to their youngest constituents. The majority of young Americans are people of color, did not graduate from college, and are likely underemployed or in stagnant positions. You need a more nationalist economic agenda, one less focused on cutting taxes for the well-to-do and more designed to provide help for people struggling to do better. If Republicans do that, they will do better among young Hispanic voters, who may be trying, for example, to go to community college.
If Republicans run on this kind of Rudy Giuliani–style Republicanism, economically vulnerable young voters of all backgrounds will find them more attractive. The same approach might make them less appealing to the college-educated young people in professional industries because the rhetoric would be culturally conservative and the tax policy would be geared toward families and middle-earners. But that upper-class slice of young voters doesn’t present the best shot for GOP growth in the near term.
EDSALL: I agree with you about the political importance for both Republicans and Democrats of appealing to people of color, Hispanic voters, people struggling to do better, and economically vulnerable young voters of all backgrounds. Another point: people often raise the possibility of a third-party candidate who could bridge the gap that we’re talking about—appealing to cultural liberals and middle-class voters who stand to benefit from pro-industry policies. But I think that gaining traction from outside the two-party structure remains daunting. A third-party candidate would need to start with $1 billion just to get off the ground. So you have to start with a billionaire. And they tend to be individuals and not party people—like a Ross Perot. They’re not coherent in the sense of knowing how they want to allocate resources. As for a “centrist” third-party candidate, the trouble is that such a position is so bland that it won’t appeal to anyone. We have a very polarized electorate. Michael Bloomberg, for example, could say, “I’m going to represent reasonable, thoughtful solutions.” People just drop off to sleep. And then you have the challenges in getting on the ballot everywhere, and where do you campaign? You’re no longer targeting the 15 battleground states; you might be all over the map. Our whole structure is geared to two parties.
OLSEN: That’s right. Third-party candidates usually run into that wall. Sometimes they attract a committed following, but it’s always far short of a majority. Trump did something different: he took a minority of voters and created a plurality within the Republican Party, launched a hostile takeover, and then used the party’s institutional machinery to launch an attack on the other party. That cannot readily be duplicated.
A true third-party candidate would have almost no chance of being elected absent the sort of economic downturn that we hope not to see. If we had a massive economic depression, for instance, and voters saw both parties as irresponsible or out of touch, one could imagine it happening. But there’s no sign that that’s where we’re heading.
For now, the two parties and the coalitions that they’re appealing to are largely set in place. A Republican presidential candidate who tried to gain the votes of more moderate, upper-class voters would have to position himself in a way that might risk losing the support of other voters. Why? Because the sort of independent voters who backed moderate conservatives like Charlie Baker in Massachusetts would never vote for a pro-life candidate, while to hold on to the Southern evangelicals, the moderate Republican nominee would have to pretend, at least, to be pro-life.
You have to play in a way that retains your base while attracting just enough new voters to gain a majority. Eventually, after exhausting every alternative, one of the two parties will coalesce around a platform that looks like the Scott Walker policy model, but on a national level. That’s how I see it. It’s up to Republican leaders to secure their political majority and governing mandate.
Top Photo: Republicans nominated a disrupter, and won. (ROBYN BECK/AFP/GETTY IMAGES)
"Senate Minority leader Charles Schumer, the favorite senator of Wall Street, postured as an opponent of economic inequality, which he said would be made worse by the Republican tax cut plan.
“Our economy suffers from massive inequality—which is
growing—a concentration of wealth at the very apex of our
country’s elite,” he said. “The rich are doing well in America.
God bless them, I’m glad they are. And American
corporations are recording record high profits—just look at
the stock market, which reflects that. God bless them too, we
hope they do well. But middle class incomes have not risen
with the rise in corporate profits or record levels of wealth
concentrated among the wealthiest families.”
As Schumer’s language indicates, the Democratic Party celebrates wealth no less than the Republicans. But it voices the concerns of sections of the ruling elite that mass social anger, demonstrated in the initial public protests following Trump’s inauguration, will emerge explosively, and materialize as an organized social movement in American politics. They are afraid of the American
working class becoming an organized,
conscious, force in US politics—a
development that would challenge the two-
party system and the financial aristocracy’s
grip on society. "The stock market is now at levels that rival only those before the 1929 crash and the collapse of the dotcom bubble at the beginning of this century."
US Treasury Secretary Mnuchin to Congress: Pass tax cuts or markets will tank
By Nick Beams
21 October 2017
US Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin has blurted out the dirty secret of the current Wall Street stock market boom—that it is based entirely on the funneling of money to the corporations and the very wealthy.
In an extraordinary interview with Politico on Wednesday, published on the eve of a Senate vote aimed at pushing forward the Trump administration’s tax cut agenda and also the 30th anniversary of the 1987 market plunge, Mnuchin warned that the stock market would likely tank if the tax “reform” was not passed.
“There is no question that the rally in the stock market has baked into it reasonably high expectations of us getting tax cuts and tax reform done,” he said. “To the extent that we get the tax deal done, the stock market will go up higher. But there’s no question in my mind that if we don’t get it done, you’re going to see a reversal of a significant amount of the gains.”
Under conditions where the market has risen by about 25 percent since the election of Trump, Mnuchin’s remarks amounted to an open threat to Congress to get the tax cuts through or be held responsible for a major market sell-off and all that could follow. His interview came as the Dow went over 23,000 to hit a new record closing. According to one financial analyst cited by the Financial Times the US stock market has been “drunk on hopes for tax reform.”
The tax program comes in two parts. Under the proposal for a “competitive tax rate” it will slash corporate taxes to 20 percent from their present level of 35 percent and enable giant corporations such as Apple and Google, which have parked some $3 trillion overseas to evade tax payments, to bring their money back to the US.
Goldman Sachs has calculated that if the Trump measures are enacted, the S&P 500 index of earnings per share will rise by 12 percent.
The schedule of personal income tax cuts, packaged as a boon to the middle class, will overwhelmingly benefit the very wealthy, with estimates that as much as 80 percent of the cuts will go to the top one percent of society, providing them with additional income averaging $1.4 million.
On top of this, the plan seeks to eliminate all inheritance taxes, which begin at $5.5 million for an individual and $11 million for a couple. This open handout to the very wealthy is being touted by the administration as a question of “fairness”—a claim repeated by Mnuchin in his Politico interview.
Mnuchin somewhat departed from previous claims by the administration that the income tax cuts would be directed to middle-income earners and not to the rich, telling Politico it was inevitable that as the wealthy paid the most tax, they would get the greatest benefit from any across-the-board reduction.
Apart from making crystal clear the emptiness of the Trump administration’s claims to defend the interests of working Americans, the interview underscored the parasitic character of the present stock market boom. It is not based on any real growth in the economy, but rather on measures that ensure that all economic gains flow into the coffers of the corporations and the super-wealthy elite.
In the lead-up to the presidential election, Trump described the rise in the stock market as a bubble, essentially based on “free money” resulting from the ultra-low interest rates set by the Fed. Since then he has posted more than 30 tweets claiming that the rise in the markets is a measure of the success of his policies.
The prospect of tax cuts is not the only factor that has fuelled by the markets since the inauguration. Another is the prospect of wholesale financial and economic deregulation to ensure increased profit-making.
But Trump cannot claim all the credit
for the rise in the wealth of the
corporate-financial elite. The rise in
the markets goes back to 2009 and the
coming to power of Obama.
for the rise in the wealth of the
corporate-financial elite. The rise in
the markets goes back to 2009 and the
coming to power of Obama.
After reaching its low point in March 2009 following the 2008 financial crisis, the market has risen by around 300 percent, boosted by the bailouts to the banks and financial corporations, the restructuring of labour markets, starting with the auto companies, to impose a low-wage regime, and the provision of trillions of dollars for financial speculation through the policies of the Fed.
The rise in the markets has benefited not only from the policies of the federal government and its agencies. A crucial role has been played by the trade union bureaucracy, stretching back over decades, in suppressing and betraying the struggles of workers, leading to a major decline in the labour share of national income and the stagnation and outright decline of real wage levels.
The “justification” for the Trump measures is provided by the invocation of the bankrupt theory of “supply side” economics, first put forward in the 1980s by the Reagan administration as the rationale for its tax cuts. Under this “theory”—the free market justification for corporate plundering of public resources—tax cuts boost the economy, leading to higher growth, which then pays for the initial reduction in tax revenues.
But independent analysis of the Trump tax plan during the election estimated that it would add an additional $7 trillion to the federal debt in the first decade and $21 trillion by 2036. In other words, in the midst of mounting
health problems caused largely by poverty,
decaying infrastructure, worsening social
services and a myriad of other crises, vital
areas of social need will be further starved of
resources on the grounds that “there is no
money.”
health problems caused largely by poverty,
decaying infrastructure, worsening social
services and a myriad of other crises, vital
areas of social need will be further starved of
resources on the grounds that “there is no
money.”
However, there is one area that will not suffer cuts—spending on the military, as the US seeks to maintain its global position against its rivals and to accelerate the build-up of a police state at home, in preparation for social convulsions that will result from another major economic and financial crisis.
While it is not possible for forecast when such a crisis will strike, all the objective conditions for its eruption are being put in place. The stock market is now at levels that rival only those before the 1929 crash and the collapse of the dotcom bubble at the beginning of this century.
Senate passes resolution setting stage for $1.5 trillion in tax cuts for the rich
By Gabriel Black
21 October 2017
Late on Thursday night, the United States Senate passed a budget resolution that paves the way for legislation slashing taxes on corporations and the wealthy, and sets a figure of $1.5 trillion for the amount that will be funneled by the US Treasury into the pockets of the super-rich.
The budget resolution does not have legal effect and is not signed into law by President Trump. Instead, it sets the procedural terms for upcoming tax and budget legislation. The main, if not the only purpose, was to permit tax cuts to be enacted under a procedure known as “reconciliation,” in which filibusters are barred and legislation will require only a bare 51 votes to pass—50 senators and the tie-breaking vote of Vice President Mike Pence.
The vote was split on party lines, 51 to 49, with all 48 Democrats opposing it, joined by only one Republican, Rand Paul of Kentucky, who wanted even bigger budget and tax cuts than proposed by the Republican leadership. The House approved its own version of the budget resolution on October 5, including provisions for greater cuts in social spending and requiring the tax cut to be entirely offset by spending cuts. It is expected that the House will now approve the Senate resolution, since the Senate figure permitting tax cuts that add $1.5 trillion to the deficit is far more lucrative for the big financial interests that are the driving force of the legislative action.
Neither the Trump White House nor the Republican congressional leadership have released the full details of their tax cut plan, but it will include a huge cut in the corporate tax rate, from the present 35 percent (which most companies avoid through accounting gimmicks) to 20 percent or even lower, the abolition of the estate tax, and other cuts in taxation on the wealthy. There will be tiny cuts in taxes for many middle income families, although some will actually have to pay more. There will be no benefit for the 47 percent of the population whose earnings are so low that they pay payroll taxes but no income taxes.
The budget resolution is something of a misnomer, since the spending levels it sets out for the next 10 years have no legal significance and will be altered, in whole or in part, when actual appropriations bills are passed by the Republican-controlled Congress. But the language and the figures set down in the bill demonstrate the intentions of political establishment as a whole: to usher in a new wave of draconian cuts to essential services that tens of millions of Americans rely on.
The resolution overall calls for $5 trillion worth of cuts over the course of ten years, $1.5 trillion more than what Trump called for this May. Were the budget from 2017 to be extended over the course of the next 10 years that would amount to a whopping 13.7 percent reduction in federal spending.
A large part of the budget cuts would come
from Medicaid, $1 trillion, and Medicare,
$473 billion. Much of the remaining $3.5
trillion in cuts is unspecified. However,
Trump’s earlier partial budget gives an insight
on a list of possible cuts:
· The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), otherwise known as Food Stamps, could be cut by roughly $200 billion over a decade—that is a quarter of its budget. The program currently serves 44 million people and was already cut back during the Obama Administration.
· Social Security’s Supplemental Security income program, which provides cash benefits to the poor and disabled, could be cut by $72 billion over the decade.
· Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF), otherwise known as Welfare, could be cut by $272 billion over the decade.
· Federal employees could have their cost-of-living adjustment eliminated and be forced to pay for more of their retirement, eliminating $63 billion.
· The Air Traffic Control system could be privatized for $70 billion.
· The Environmental Protection Agency would be cut by about 32 percent.
· Funding for the arts, medical research and science would be cut by billions. This could include the National Cancer Institute, the National Science Foundation, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, and the National Endowment for the Arts.
These sorts of devastating cuts could push destitute and already penniless people into their graves. It would not be an exaggeration to say that large sections of the country would descend into third-world conditions.
What will not be cut is the military. The only item in the budget that will receive a significant increase is the military, which will be boosted by tens of billions of dollars each year.
Senator John McCain, who initially opposed the resolution, demanding that military spending be increased higher, gave his support to the final version. He said, “For too long, draconian budget cuts to the military have crippled readiness and put the lives of our service members in danger.”
McCain does not care about the lives of
American soldiers. He, and the military-
intelligence complex he speaks for, cares
about the geopolitical supremacy of the
United States as its economic power declines
and it prepares to fight its foreign rivals. Only
a warmonger could cheer on the rise in
defense spending while basic social services of
the country are gutted in the most draconian
budget in American history.
The Democratic Party, for its part, protested the bill by suggesting several amendments, such as preventing tax cuts for anyone above $250,000 a year in income, banning cuts in Medicare and Medicaid, and banning any tax increases for middle-income families. All of these were voted down.
The Democratic Party’s opposition to the Republican bill is of a tactical, not principled, character. The Obama administration reached a series of agreements on budget cuts and tax cuts with congressional Republicans, though not as deep. The Democrats are not opposed to tax cuts or spending cuts, but seek to preserve their shredded credibility as the party of the “middle class.”
Senate Minority leader Charles Schumer, the favorite senator of Wall Street, postured as an opponent of economic inequality, which he said would be made worse by the Republican tax cut plan. “Our economy suffers from massive inequality—which is growing—a concentration of wealth at the very apex of our country’s elite,” he said. “The rich are doing well in America. God bless them, I’m glad they are. And American corporations are recording record high profits—just look at the stock market, which reflects that. God bless them too, we hope they do well. But middle class incomes have not risen with the rise in corporate profits or record levels of wealth concentrated among the wealthiest families.”
As Schumer’s language indicates, the Democratic Party celebrates wealth no less than the Republicans. But it voices the concerns of sections of the ruling elite that mass social anger, demonstrated in the initial public protests following Trump’s inauguration, will emerge explosively, and materialize as an organized social movement in American politics. They are afraid of the American
working class becoming an organized,
conscious, force in US politics—a
development that would challenge the two-
party system and the financial aristocracy’s
grip on society.
FROM THE FIRST DAY OF HIS FIRST TERM, BARACK OBAMA AND ERIC HOLDER HAD COMMENCED BUILDING A MUSLIM-STYLE DICTATORSHIP FUNDED BY CRONY BANKSTERS AND MEXICO.
OPERATION OBOMB:
DESTABALIZE AMERICA TO LAY GROUNDS FOR A MUSLIM-STYLE DICTATORSHIP
http://mexicanoccupation.blogspot.com/2017/08/seth-barron-obama-and-building-of.html
“Obama’s new home in Washington has been described as the “nerve center” of the anti-Trump opposition. Former attorney general Eric Holder has said that Obama is “ready to roll” and has aligned himself with the “resistance.” Former high-level Obama campaign staffers now work with a variety of groups organizing direct action against Trump’s initiatives. “Resistance School,” for example, features lectures by former campaign executive Sara El-Amine, author of the Obama Organizing .”
“The cost of the Dream Act is far bigger than the Democrats or their media allies admit. Instead of covering 690,000 younger illegals now enrolled in former President Barack Obama’s 2012 “DACA” amnesty, the Dream Act would legalize at least 3.3 million illegals, according to a pro-immigration group, the Migration Policy Institute.”
TWITTER TRUMPER trades WALL for tax cuts for the super rich…. But he doesn’t pay taxes!!!
TRUMP: For more tax cuts for the rich, NO (REAL) WALL, NO E-VERIFY, NO LEGAL NEED APPLY and NO ENFORCEMENT!
CHICAGO: THE FACE OF A NATION IN SHAMBLES
CHICAGO’S BLACK GANG LAND…. Is what happens when bankster Rahm Emanuel and his corrupt Obama party turned the city under!
OBAMA’S CRONY BANKSTERISM destroyed a TRILLION DOLLARS in home equity… and they’re still plundering us!
Barack Obama created more debt for the middle class than any president in US
history, and also had the only huge QE programs: $4.2 Trillion.
OXFAM reported that during Obama’s terms, 95% of the wealth created went to the top 1% of the world’s wealthy.
TRUMP OFFERS VICTIMS OF HARVEY AND IRMA $15 BILLION or about HALF of what California hands their Mexican welfare state!
IS IT YET TIME TO REBUILD AMERICAN AND END THE BUILDING AND REBUILDING OF MUSLIM DICTATORSHIPS OVER THERE?
THE WATERS ROSE AND CIVIL WAR II COMMENCED.
HOUSTON: ONLY THE POOR DROWN IN THIS COUNTRY!
THE HOUSTON FLOOD - CRONY CAPITALIST LICK THEIR LIPS OVER REBUILDING.... FIRST, LIKE KATRINA, CUT WAGES AND INVITE HORDES MORE ILLEGALS IN TO WORK CHEAP!
"Like Katrina, Hurricane Harvey has lifted the lid on the ugly
reality of American society, exposing colossal levels of social
inequality, pervasive poverty and ruling class criminality."
reality of American society, exposing colossal levels of social
inequality, pervasive poverty and ruling class criminality."
"The reason why these warnings have been ignored is not hard to fathom. They have been resolutely opposed by corporate interests, including the real estate industry, Wall Street and Big Oil. Their ability, operating through bribed politicians of both parties, to veto and block elementary measures to protect the American people, exemplifies the complete subordination of all social needs under capitalism to the selfish drive of a corporate-financial oligarchy to accumulate ever greater levels of personal wealth and profit."
TWITTER TRUMPER’S PROMISE TO DEMS & MEXICO: NO (real) WALL, NO E-VERIFY and NO ENFORCEMENT of DACA
WHILE THE SWAMP KEEPER TWITTER TRUMPER SERVES THE SUPER RICH…. The wall remains a joke on Legals and HUNDREDS OF STORES across America’s OPEN BORDERS are being shuttered by the hundreds!
WALL STREET TO THE AMERICAN PEOPLE: DIE YOUNG… your company pension dies with you!
OPOID AND ALCOHOL ADDICTION KILLS OF MIDDLE AMERICA
SOARING POVERTY AND DRUG ADDICTION UNDER OBAMA
"These figures present a scathing indictment of the social order that prevails in America, the world’s wealthiest country, whose government proclaims itself to be the globe’s leading democracy. They are just one manifestation of the human toll taken by the vast and all-pervasive inequality and mass poverty.
AMERICA UNRAVELS:
Millions of children go hungry as the super- rich gorge themselves and ILLEGALS SUCK IN BILLIONS IN WELFARE!
"The top 10 percent of Americans now own roughly three-quarters of all household wealth."
http://mexicanoccupation.blogspot.com/2017/08/america-unravels-millions-of-children.html
"While telling workers there is “not enough money” for wage increases, or to fund social programs, both parties hailed the recent construction of the U.S.S. Gerald Ford, a massive aircraft carrier that cost $13 billion to build, stuffing the pockets of numerous contractors and war profiteers."
JAMES WALSH
THE OBAMA HISPANICAZATION of AMERICA
How the Democrat party surrendered America to Mexico:
“The watchdogs at Judicial Watch discovered documents that reveal how the Obama administration's close coordination with the Mexican government entices Mexicans to hop over the fence and on to the American dole.” Washington Times
SOARING POVERTY AND DRUG ADDICTION UNDER OBAMA
"These figures present a scathing indictment of the social order that prevails in America, the world’s wealthiest country, whose government proclaims itself to be the globe’s leading democracy. They are just one manifestation of the human toll taken by the vast and all-pervasive inequality and mass poverty.
MEXICO: AMERICA’S DRUG DEALER!
OBAMA-CLINTONOMICS to serve the filthy rich
The same period has seen a massive growth of social inequality, with income and wealth concentrated at the very top of American society to an extent not seen since the 1920s.
“This study follows reports released over the past several months documenting rising mortality rates among US workers due to drug addiction and suicide, high rates of infant mortality, an overall leveling off of life expectancy, and a growing gap between the life expectancy of the bottom rung of income earners compared to those at the top.”
THE LA RAZA PLAN: California’s final surrender to fly the Mexican flag within 4 years.
"The American Southwest seems to be slowly returning to the jurisdiction of Mexico without firing a single shot." -- - EXCELSIOR --- national newspaper of Mexico
THE UNIDIOSus MAP OF LA RAZA-OCCUPIED AMERICA
They claim all of North America for Mexico!
(WARNING! THE BELOW LINK IS GRAPHIC ON MEXICAN HATRED OF LEGALS)
THE BIGGEST MISTAKE TRUMP EVER DID IN IS LIFE IS NOT PROSECUTE HILLARY CLINTON!
THE LIFE OF HILLARY CLINTON: AMORAL PSYCHOPATH and GLOBAL
LOOTER OF THE POOR….. But she served Obama’s crony bank$ter$ well!
THE DIRTY DEALS of DIRTY HILLARY….. looting anything that moves!
WHEN HARRIS WAS ATTORNEY GENERAL OF MEXIFORNIA, SHE
DECLARED THAT HALF THE MURDERS IN CA WERE BY MEX
GANGS!
Is amnesty really the solution to that???
http://mexicanoccupation.blogspot.com/2017/08/la-raza-supremacist-from-mex-occupied.html
Current Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein oversaw the FBI’s investigation, as did Andrew McCabe, the current deputy FBI director. And the man in charge of the FBI during most of the Rosatom investigation was none other than Robert Mueller, the special counsel now investigating Russian influence in the 2016 election.
October 20, 2017
How Corrupt Are American Institutions?
Blame Sean Hannity. Or give him all the credit. The intrepid talk show host has been claiming for months that there is nothing to the Trump-Russia allegations, that the real tale of Russian collusion is linked to Hillary Clinton. The fact that very few people have taken this seriously has only caused the firebrand conservative to dig in deeper and repeat his talking points both more often and more fervently.
His insistence the Russian story would “boomerang” against the Democrats has been largely based on his communications (both on- and off-air) with Julian Assange and investigative reporters John Solomon and Sara Carter.
It seems like only yesterday justice was closing in on the Travel Office, Whitewater, the Clinton-era transfer of missile technology to the Chinese government, Fast and Furious, Solyndra, IRS harassment of conservative groups, the Clinton emails, Benghazi and a dozen others.
We might have believed Sean Hannity’s predictions, but we’d seen this movie before. Then came Tuesday. John Solomon and Alison Spann of the Hill and Sara Carter of Circa News had a story that may have broken open the largest national security scandal since the Rosenbergs.
In 2009, the Obama Justice Department began investigating a Russian plan to expand Russia’s atomic energy business by acquiring uranium in the United States. Through bribery, kickbacks, money laundering and extortion, the Russians were able to acquire 20% of the uranium mining rights in the United States. Shareholders in the Russian firm Rosatom funneled $145 million to the Clinton Foundation in the months leading up to the Obama administration’s approval of the transaction.
The sale was officially approved in 2010 by the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS), whose members included both Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Attorney General Eric Holder. Apparently neither Holder nor Clinton informed the other members of the committee just what an historic act of corruption they were participants to. Not only did the DOJ and FBI let the sale proceed, they sat on the information they had gathered and let the investigation drag on until 2015, when Rosatom executive Vadim Mikerin and other defendants reached plea deals to little fanfare.
Current Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein oversaw the FBI’s investigation, as did Andrew McCabe, the current deputy FBI director. And the man in charge of the FBI during most of the Rosatom investigation was none other than Robert Mueller, the special counsel now investigating Russian influence in the 2016 election.
The government informant at the heart of the case was (and remains) forbidden to speak to Congress by an Obama Justice Department gag order (that gag order has yet to be lifted by the Trump Justice Department).
If this story is true, then all our worst fears have been confirmed, and we are indeed living in a banana republic, with one set of rules for the rich and powerful, and another set of rules for everybody else.
The question going forward: what kind of country will we live in tomorrow? Now that we know that Russian collusion is real and that the Obama administration engaged in it, what will be done about it? Will the laws against government corruption finally be enforced, or will the guilty walk again as we’re treated to another round of Congressional committee show hearings?
This scandal will be a true test -- perhaps the final test -- of whether American government can still work for the people. If Republicans walk away from this story for fear of ruffling Democrat feathers, we will know that the fix is in.
A lot of reputations are on the line, beginning with that of Donald Trump. Will he demand of his administration that it faithfully execute the law, without fear or favor.
Then there’s Jeff Sessions. Our attorney general will have to determine if the Trump DOJ has the stomach to investigate the Obama DOJ. Sessions has a chance to end this affair with a reputation as a true champion of law and order. Then again, he may cement his image as a chivalrous knight of old, merciless to peasants who cross borders and deal drugs, but always ready to give his social and political peers the benefit of the doubt.
Congress’ reputation is on the line, too. Paul Ryan, Mitch McConnell and the rest of the GOP will have a lot to answer for if they fail to demand answers to hard questions. This isn’t a game of pin-the-tail-on-the-Trump anymore. The implications of the Clinton/Rosatom story can’t be overstated, and Congress must lead the charge in determining whether Andrew McCabe, Rod Rosenstein, and Robert Mueller should now have any role in an investigation dealing with Russian influence, and more importantly, whether they should have any role in government at all.
And finally, there’s the media. The New York Times recently announced an ad campaign with the slogan: "the truth is more important than ever." It’s time to prove it. If Russian collusion was a problem yesterday – and the media has breathlessly told us this for ten months – then Russian collusion is a problem today, and the Clinton story should get all the attention the Trump story received and then some, especially seeing as how there’s actual evidence in the Clinton story. It’s probably too much to hope that the media will flip on the Democrats and report the truth, but if justice runs its course while the media pretends there’s nothing to see here, folks, then whatever shred of credibility the press has remaining will be gone.
The early returns aren’t promising. The relentlessly tweeting Trump hasn’t mentioned the story as of this writing. Jeff Sessions, in Capitol Hill testimony on Wednesday, offered only a cryptic statement that he would “review” Charles Grassley’s request that he look into the Clinton matter. (The ever-disappointing Sessions also suggested that Rod Rosenstein might be in charge of reviewing the propriety of an investigation that was led by Rod Rosenstein). On the bright side, Grassley’s committee has opened an inquiry into the matter, but then again, it’s hard to imagine a satisfying outcome to a story that begins with “Grassley’s committee has opened an inquiry…” As for the non-Hannity media, the Clinton story was met with stony silence (no denials, just silence). The big story Wednesday was not $145 million in bribes to the Clintons, but rather a controversy about whether Trump said something inappropriate or awkward to the wife of a soldier killed in battle during a phone call in which Trump offered his condolences.
If we are to remain a country of laws and not of men, the people we’ve chosen to uphold our institutions are going to have to do better than this. It’s one thing if our system of justice and our national security have been put up for sale; it’s quite another if the politicians and bureaucrats who did it face no consequences.
How corrupt are American institutions? We’ll know very soon.
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