"WILL"?
The Democrats Will Wreck Everything
The cliché currently floating around is, “This is the most important election in the nation’s history.” That was said last time and the time before that, and it will be said next time too. Over the last 20 years or so, they have all been extremely important elections. As the chasm between the opposing parties widens and the governing philosophies diverge to an ever-greater degree, presidential elections have greater consequence in all areas: social, economic and tax policy, military readiness, high court judicial matters, and the environment and/energy.
In every single area, the quality of day-to-day life in America will decline precipitously if the Democrats regain control. (Note I didn’t say, “If Joe Biden wins the presidency.” That was intentional. If “Biden” wins, everyone knows he will be a figurehead, an inert surrogate of unseen, unelected Democratic operatives working behind the scenes, implementing Leftist policy, creating Leftist legislation, while Diminished Joe smiles and nods unknowingly.)
Let’s look at the major areas that the Democrats will ruin:
Democrats Will Raise Taxes
Biden has promised to “Rescind Trump’s tax cuts.” That’s a cowardly, deceptive way of saying he’ll raise taxes. The Democrats like to imply that only the 1%-ers benefitted from the Trump tax cuts, just like they lied and said the same thing about Bush’s tax cuts in 2001. Everyone benefitted, and a $200/month tax cut means a lot more to a lower income family than $1000/month means to a multimillionaire. Nonetheless, pompous Democrats spout dishonest drivel like, “The rich need to pay their fair share” and “Everyone should play by the same rules.”
Democrats seem to regard the “rich” and the “corporations” as static, ever-constant objects, whose income is permanent and there to be taxed to whatever degree the Government wishes. Democrats apparently think their income is inelastic -- i.e., not subject to change in changing circumstances.
It’s not. It’s very elastic. That income will shift and move the more the Government tries to go after it. Corporations will transfer more of their profit-producing operations to locales beyond the reach of U.S. tax laws. Wealthy individuals will find more tax havens and loopholes. Many individuals and businesses will simply retire or close up shop, weary of the chase, and then that fat, juicy taxable income -- once so tantalizingly close -- evaporates into nothingness.
This is the folly of punitive taxation. Higher tax rates really slam middle-class workers and small businesses right over the head. Higher taxes don’t “punish” big corporations anywhere near as much as they hobble the average 9-to-5 worker. So much for the Party of the People.
Democrats Will Undermine the Business Climate
The Democrats’ kneejerk, reactionary business policies introduce the worst possible element into an economy: the element of uncertainty. Higher business taxes, restrictive, burdensome regulations and irrational, arbitrary race-based quotas are all bad enough. Any of those puts a chokehold on business and limits hiring and expansion. But the worst thing is this: Most of the time, Democrats impose these taxes, regulations, and quotas as punishment, to give a favored group some advantage, putting their thumb on some arbitrary scale of justice. Businesspeople never know when the Democrats’ next hand grenade is going to be lobbed in their direction, ripping apart their plans.
Human nature being what it is, when people are faced with financial anxiety, they pull back, they spend the least amount possible. For individuals, this means no new car or vacation, the old sneakers soldiering on. For businesspeople, it means expansion plans delayed, hiring the bare minimum, pay raises on hold. Under President Trump, taxes were reduced and job-killing regulations were rolled back. But the best thing was that businesses felt confident about future conditions, that the rug was not going to be pulled out from underneath them. This is precisely why the economic “recovery” was so tepid under President Obama: Businesses were never confident -- they felt that Obama would betray them at any moment to please his voters. Under the 2020 Democrats, it will be even worse.
Democrats’ Misguided Sense of Social Order
Let’s give the Democrats the benefit of the doubt here and stipulate that all their efforts concerning racial quotas, gender equality and so on are done strictly for the compassionate, high-minded reasons of improving daily life, and not with the cynical intent of merely currying favor with carefully identified special-interest voting blocs. That’s a huge leap of faith, but let’s go with it for this discussion.
Even if their intentions are good, the Democrats’ recent history is abysmal. They go much too far and push for changes that end up ruining the very institutions they’re trying to improve. In the supposed name of equal rights for people identifying with different genders, we get grown men being allowed in girls’ bathrooms and biological men competing in women’s scholastic sports. Biological males beat biological females in athletic competition virtually all the time, so legitimate girls are being denied athletic scholarships and the distinction of being listed as record-holders. Affirmative action racial quotas end up creating a new racism, with entirely new ethnic groups (mostly Asians and whites) being denied admittance to colleges strictly because of their race/ethnicity. This is lunacy.
Democrats Will Pursue Pointless Green Environmental Initiatives
Why? Mostly to raise America’s image among the liberal European states and mollify their domestic environmental voting constituency. It certainly won’t be to lower America’s energy costs (alternative renewables tend to be far more costly than traditional fossil fuels) and it certainly won’t be to “save the planet.” Even John Kerry admitted that the Paris Climate Accords wouldn’t do anything to stop so-called global warming. Like virtually all the current Green New Deal policy proposals, Paris in 2015 was all show and no go. With Democrats, energy costs go up, the average American suffers and the planet doesn’t benefit.
The Judiciary Will Become More Liberal Activist
We’ll get rulings that restrict speech that is arbitrarily deemed “offensive” or “hurtful,” peoples’ gun rights will be severely curtailed and we’ll have reduced access to religious participation. For Democrats, a well-run society is where abortion clinics and liquor stores stay open during the lockdown, but churches are closed.
BLOG EDITOR: THE NOTION THAT THE DEMS WILL 'WEAKEN' THE MILITARY IS ASININE IN THE EXTREME. THE BIGGEST WAR PROFITEER IN U.S. HISTORY IS SENATOR DIANNE FEINSTEIN!
They Will Weaken the Military
A crippled military reduces our options in how we respond to critical global flashpoints, be it in the South China Sea, Korea, the Middle East, etc. American interests will be threatened and our influence will be dangerously curtailed.
This is what Democrats will give us. Many well-off Democrats dismiss the current rioting and unrest as something that will end once that irritant Donald Trump is out of office. From their vantage points -- safely ensconced in their insulated, higher income residences in untouched neighborhoods -- they live their lives pretty much as they always have. None of the current turmoil has actually reached them, nor does the virus-caused economic slowdown really affect them. They have enough money to afford the luxury of tossing accusations at a president whose personal style rubs them the wrong way.
If the Democrats assume power in this country, life will never be the same again. Every aspect of daily life will be worse.
Image: Charles Fettinger
The Democrats' Upcoming Theft of the 2020 Election
The playbook for the theft of the 2020 presidential election is written. The Democrats, under the guise of a group named the Transition Integrity Project (TIP), have actually drafted their plan to steal the election.
The characters in the play are all familiar names: George Soros; Bill and Melinda Gates; traitorous NeverTrumps like John Kasich, Bill Kristol, and Michael Steele; and the Clinton Cabal, including John Podesta and Donna Brazile. The list is defined by those who lost the most when Trump won. And don't forget which country lost the most — China — so the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is well represented. Nils Gilman, vice president of programs at the Berggruen Institute, is the co-founder of TIP, and among his programs are partnerships with Chinese government–run entities like the Beijing Academy of Artificial Intelligence, the China Institute for Innovation and Development Strategy, the Chinese Academy of Sciences, and the Chinese Association of Artificial Intelligence. The institute's 21st-Century Council membership includes such familiar names as Jack Dorsey, Lawrence Summers, and Arianna Huffington, among a long list of China's Who's Who.
That's not all. The other co-founder is Rosa Brooks, a former Clinton-ite and Obama-ite, who wrote in Foreign Policy ten days after Trump's inauguration, "Three Ways to Get Rid of President Trump before 2020." She and Gilman, throughout this plan, use the contradictory language of good intentions to be delivered by evil acts. In a footnote, there is this: "TIP recognizes and shares the view that the Electoral College is profoundly anti-democratic[.]" But there is also this: "TIP takes no position on how Americans should cast their votes ... however, the administration of President Donald Trump has steadily undermined core norms of democracy and the rule of law[.]" That should sum up all the "abouts" you'll need, but don't forget the bibliography at the end. All references are notoriously left-leaning.
The document is a 22-page account of a war-gaming exercise that took as its primary premise that President Trump will lose the election and refuse to give up power. The authors claim to have advance knowledge "with a high degree of likelihood" that the election will result in chaos, largely due to their attributing to the president all sorts of nefarious motives and actions. Chaos and slander are clearly their plan, because they can't prevail on a level playing field. They stoke the fear ahead of time that the president will take certain actions to cast doubt on the election's results should he lose, and then they can blame him credibly as they do those exact things.
The fear among Democrats of another four years of Donald Trump chipping away at their Deep State cash cow is admission in itself that Joe Biden can't compete with Trump. In four different scenarios, there is actually a disgraceful checklist of tactics for Democrat operatives to prepare to carry out in order to usurp all possible constitutional remedies to any uncertainties in the election results. Clearly, an Electoral College loss and a popular vote win will be unacceptable to them. Their fabricated moves within the "game" are really scare tactics against President Trump, all familiar because we've watched variations of them in the endless Democrat investigations over the last four years. This is instant replay, on a different channel...the Democrats plotting to remove the duly elected president of the United States by whatever means they think will work. Only this time, rather than doing so in secret meetings and using illegal surveillance with government resources, they plan to include their violent anarchists already at work in the streets of America.
Despite their naming two of the scenarios as clear victories, there is not one that provides a clear and unambiguous victory for Donald Trump. Among the four, Biden wins the popular vote each time. This allowed the Democrats to provide maximum demonization of President Trump and to construct the scenarios to make full use of underhanded tactics to delay the calling of victory for President Trump. This is important because it's in line with another claim in their premise, that the "Election Night" concept is no longer accurate and is actually dangerous. By being prepared to contest the election results, they can create "divergent media narratives," file lawsuits, "stop the counting of ballots," and start "protests drawing people from both sides." In these ways, they can assure that there is no victor declared on Election Night. One of the checklist items was recently a headline, when Hillary told Joe Biden, "Don't concede under any circumstances" — spoken by the loser of the 2016 election, who still hasn't conceded.
If these Democrat tactics are successful, and a Trump victory declaration is delayed, there remains a chance that the Democrats can cheat to make Biden declared the winner. Any delay after the deltas are evident permits the Democrat machine to focus on the delta or deltas they need to bridge the gap. They'll distract everyone by naming Biden Cabinet members and publishing an agenda for the first 100 days, as if it's a certainty Biden will be declared the winner. Through standard magical sleight-of-hand, they'll convince you to look over there, while over here, they will cheat. It will be magical, beyond belief, a snatch of victory from the clutches of defeat, a touching underdog story from the great statesman with a lifetime of public service. In the end, if this is allowed to happen, the progressive Democrat "fundamental transformation" of America will begin, and the American Dream will die a slow and painful death.
"Voter fraud is virtually nonexistent," and "the primary threat to the integrity of the election and transition appears to come from the Trump administration," says this document, yet there are thousands of dishonest Democrat operatives around the country on call, ready to play their part, especially in areas where polling is close. To shut down this plan to commit fraud against the American voters, to keep the American Dream alive and thriving, President Trump must win by overwhelming margins. The Trump team must get out the vote to ensure unequivocal, decisive numbers that deliver a clear and definitive message that Americans want freedom and prosperity, not socialism and economic destruction. The Democrats have no plan for a Trump landslide.
Donald N. Finley is a retired U.S. Air Force colonel.
Republicans, Democrats block restoration of jobless aid
9 September 2020
As the Senate returned from its nearly month-long recess on Tuesday, there was little prospect that Congress would provide any significant relief for the tens of millions of workers who lost their $600 weekly federal jobless benefit when it was allowed to expire on July 31.
The ending of that lifeline plunged millions of working class families into desperate financial straights. The economy is still short 11 million jobs from the level of employment in February, and more than 30 million unemployed workers continue to receive government aid.
As of this week, only 19 states will be providing the temporary $300-per-week benefit authorized by President Trump in an executive order last month. The program is financed by Federal Emergency Relief Agency funds that are expected to run out in about five weeks.
The Aspen Institute reported last month that 30-40 million people in the US were at risk of being evicted in the coming months. The Hamilton Project reported even before the cutoff of jobless aid that more than 20 percent of all US households and over 40 percent of mothers with children under the age of 13 were experiencing food insecurity.
State and local governments face a collective $500 billion budget deficit, and are preparing massive layoffs and cuts to education, health care, food assistance, public transit, firefighting and pensions.
While Republicans and Democrats rushed to pass the multi-trillion-dollar bailout of Wall Street by a near-unanimous vote in last March’s CARES Act, neither party is in any great hurry to enact legislation to address the worst social crisis since the Great Depression.
They have a common interest in using the threat of destitution and homelessness to pressure workers into returning to COVID-19-infected factories and teachers to unsafe schools in order to “reopen the economy,” i.e., resume the pumping out of profits to back up the massive debt incurred in the bailout of the corporate-financial oligarchy. This homicidal policy is being spearheaded by the Trump administration, but it has the full support of the Democrats, who are implementing it at the state and local level.
Amid mutual mudslinging, both parties are posturing as advocates for laid off workers and blaming the other for obstructionism. This is political theater to disarm and deceive workers who are seething with anger over the mounting wealth at the top and indifference to death and poverty for the masses. Not a single prominent Democrat, including presidential candidate Joe Biden, has called for an increase in taxes on the rich or a rescinding of the corporate bailout to fund desperately needed emergency social measures.
On Tuesday, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell released a new pandemic relief bill and said there would be a vote on the Senate floor as early as this week. The $500 billion measure is only half as large as the abortive $1 trillion HEALS Act he proposed in July. There are questions as to whether it can garner a 51-vote majority from Senate Republicans, let alone obtain the 60 votes needed to override a filibuster.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer issued a joint statement saying the Republican plan “doesn’t come close to addressing the problems and is headed nowhere.” They are continuing to promote a $2.2 trillion Democratic proposal, a markdown from the $3.2 trillion HEROES Act passed by the Democratic-controlled House of Representatives in May. The House is slated to return from its summer break next Monday.
The Republican Senate bill includes a federal unemployment supplement of $300 per week, half the benefit that expired six weeks ago, to last through the end of the year. It also includes more than $250 billion in additional small business loans, $105 billion to reopen the schools, $16 billion for coronavirus testing and tracing, $31 billion for vaccine development and distribution, $20 billion for farm assistance, $10 billion for child care support and $10 billion for the US Postal Service.
It would provide legal immunity for businesses from potential suits from workers impacted by unsafe conditions during the pandemic and a two-year “school choice” tax credit to promote private schools at the expense of the public education system.
The Republican proposal, backed by the Trump White House, does not include a second cash stipend to families or any funding to aid near-bankrupt state and city governments.
On Sunday, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin reported that in discussions with House Speaker Pelosi, the two had agreed to pass a “clean” bill to continue funding the federal government when the current fiscal year ends on September 30. This signifies that the Democrats will not attempt to use the expiration of funding to put pressure on the Republicans to agree to provide significant aid to state and local governments, a full restoration of the $600 jobless benefit, money for food assistance and other provisions they claim to be fighting for.
Whatever their secondary, tactical differences with the social policy of Trump and the Republicans, the Democrats are committed to a policy of austerity and intensified attacks on working class living standards. In New York State, Democratic Governor Andrew Cuomo is threatening to cut $8.2 billion in grants to local governments, noting that such a measure has “no precedent in modern times.” He said further that the cuts would “hit nearly every activity funded by state government,” including special education, child health care, substance-abuse programs and mass transit.
States are cutting back on their pension contributions and their outlays for Medicaid. Colorado, headed by Democratic Governor Jared Polis, is increasing co-payments that Medicaid recipients must pay for doctor visits, pharmaceuticals and medical transport.
California Governor Gavin Newsom, a Democrat, says he will send school districts in the state $12.5 billion in IOUs in lieu of cash needed to keep their schools running.
The real position of the Democratic Party was spelled out Tuesday in an editorial in the New York Times on New York City’s $5 billion budget shortfall. The editorial is an unvarnished demand, in behalf of Wall Street, that Democratic Mayor de Blasio adopt a program of “tough” budget and job cuts before seeking a loan to cover the deficit.
“Before Mr. de Blasio adds billions to the city’s debt sheet—or lays off thousands of workers—he needs to find savings,” the newspaper declares. He will have to “make unpopular decisions and demand serious cost-saving measures from nearly every city agency and, crucially, the municipal unions,” which will have to “share in the sacrifice.”
This includes “a far stricter hiring freeze” to eliminate thousands of city jobs through attrition. The alternative, the Times suggests, is to turn the city’s finances over to the state Financial Control Board, the unelected Wall Street-controlled agency that was set up to impose mass layoffs and sweeping cuts in social services when the city faced bankruptcy in the mid-1970s
“The multitrillion-dollar bailout of Wall Street, sanctioned with the nearly unanimous support of Congress in late March, produced massive growth in the wealth of the oligarchy. On Tuesday, Forbes published its latest update on the wealth of American billionaires, reporting that the wealth of the richest 400 people has reached a record $3.2 trillion, up $240 billion from a year ago.”
“A massive diversion of social resources away from the bailout of the rich and the financing of militarism and war is required. The wealth of the oligarchs must be seized, and the gigantic corporations and banks turned into public utilities to create the conditions for a globally coordinated program to save lives.”
The Civil War Election
9 September 2020
The US presidential election is now eight weeks away. The campaign between Trump and Biden is pitting an administration that is making an increasingly open appeal to violence and police state repression against a Democratic Party campaign that, as always, offers no genuine alternative to the drive toward authoritarianism and war.
The Trump administration is utilizing the election campaign in an attempt to build up a right-wing, fascistic movement on a ferociously antisocialist basis. Trump has followed up his praise of Kyle Rittenhouse, who murdered two protesters and injured a third in Kenosha, Wisconsin last month, with calls for vengeance directed against opponents of police violence.
At his press conference on Monday, the president hailed the killing of protester Michael Reinoehl by US Marshals last week. “If somebody is breaking the law, there has got to be a form of retribution,” Trump declared, condoning extrajudicial reprisals from his supporters. The same day, he retweeted a statement from right-wing commentator Dinesh D’Souza declaring that political unrest would lead to the “rise of citizen militias around the country”—that is, fascistic vigilante organizations like Patriot Prayer, responsible for terrorizing protesters in Portland, Oregon.
As noted, Trump is not running for president; he is running for Führer. His campaign seems to be modeled on Hitler’s bid for German chancellor in 1932. Using language that is unprecedented in American history, Trump is seeking to create conditions, regardless of the outcome on November 3, in which he will emerge as the leader of an extra-constitutional, right-wing movement.
There is no doubt that if Trump wins, he will immediately escalate the suppression of democratic rights and implementation of police state forms of rule.
Under these conditions, the argument of the Democratic Party is that all opposition to Trump must be directed behind the election of Biden. For workers to allow their struggles to be subordinated to the electoral considerations of the Democratic Party, however, would be a fatal political error.
Trump did not emerge from nowhere. He expresses in the most unvarnished form the essentially fascistic, antidemocratic impulse of the American ruling class as a whole. That Trump is not some sort of demon unleashed from hell is revealed in the fact that the growth of authoritarianism and fascism is a universal phenomenon, from Brazil and India to France and Germany.
The working class must direct its opposition to the underlying disease of which Trump is an expression. What are the conditions that are fueling this crisis?
First, the coronavirus pandemic has exposed the catastrophic state to which capitalism has driven society. It is an extreme expression and product of the subordination of everything to the profit interests of the corporate and financial oligarchy.
The ruling class has effectively adopted a policy of “herd immunity,” allowing the virus to spread without restraint. The back-to-work campaign, spearheaded by Trump but implemented by both the Democrats and Republicans, has already led to an enormous surge in the death toll, which is now approaching 200,000 people. The University of Washington now estimates that the number of deaths by the end of the year could rise to above 400,000.
Second, alongside the health impact of the pandemic is a deepening social and economic crisis for millions of people. Despite the back-to-work campaign, there are more than 11 million fewer jobs now than before the pandemic hit. It is six weeks since Congress allowed federal unemployment benefits to expire, throwing millions into poverty. The number of Americans facing hunger this year is projected to increase by 45 percent, to more than 50 million.
The multitrillion-dollar bailout of Wall Street, sanctioned with the nearly unanimous support of Congress in late March, produced massive growth in the wealth of the oligarchy. On Tuesday, Forbes published its latest update on the wealth of American billionaires, reporting that the wealth of the richest 400 people has reached a record $3.2 trillion, up $240 billion from a year ago.
Third, the deepening economic, social and political crisis increases the danger that the ruling class will see war abroad as a means of resolving its problems at home. Trump is making aggressive moves in the South China Sea as part of its offensive against China, while the Democrats, if they come to power, are committed to an intensification of the conflict with Russia and war in the Middle East.
To downplay, let alone deny, the fact that the Trump presidency is metastasizing rapidly into a right-wing authoritarian regime, with distinctly fascist characteristics, is to close one’s eyes to political reality. The old refrain, “It can’t happen here”—i.e., that American democracy is eternally immune from the cancer of fascism—is hopelessly out of date. The very fact that a thug like Trump ascended to the White House testifies to the terminal crisis of the existing political system.
These processes have only intensified over the past year, vastly accelerated by the coronavirus pandemic. Trump’s fascistic rhetoric is an attempt to beat back a growing social movement of the working class against the policies of the corporate and financial oligarchy.
BLOG EDITOR: THERE IS A REASON WHY WALL STREET AND THE BANKSTERS STAND BEHIND BIDEN AND KAMALA HARRIS! THEIR RECORD OF PROTECTING AND BAILING OUT BANKSTERS IS DOCUMENTED.
The Democratic Party, however, represents another faction of the same oligarchy. Its appeal is to dominant factions of the military and the intelligence agencies as the arbiters of political power to whom it will turn if Trump refuses to leave office. Its main aim is to suppress any form of social opposition that threatens the interests of the ruling elite.
Over the past week, Biden has denounced protests over police violence, attacked socialism, and made clear that he will run his campaign on the most right-wing basis possible. In the final stages of the election, the Democrats are attempting to revive their anti-Russia campaign to ever more explicitly target left-wing opposition within the United States as the work of “foreign adversaries.”
Biden presents himself as the “man in the middle” under conditions of a developing civil war situation. His campaign offers nothing to address the social catastrophe confronting masses of people. The Democrats’ open embrace of militarist violence—welcoming as part of their “coalition” the leading architects of the Iraq war—even allows the fascistic Trump to posture as an opponent of the “military-industrial complex.”
BLOG EDITOR: THE BIGGEST WAR PROFITEER IN U.S. HISTORY IS SEN. DIANNE FEINSTEIN, ALSO AGENT FOR RED CHINA. SHE HAS ENDORSED BIDEN WHOLEHEARTEDLY.
The Democrats are above all opposed to raising any issues that undermine the economic and financial interests of the ruling elite. An indication of the social policies that a Biden campaign would pursue if in office was given in an article published in the Washington Post on Monday. Referring to the economic proposals released by the Biden campaign—consisting of milquetoast reforms that were the product of discussions with the “Sanders-Warren” wing of the party—the Post wrote:
But in private calls with Wall Street leaders, the Biden campaign made it clear those proposals would not be central to Biden’s agenda. “They basically said, ‘Listen, this is just an exercise to keep the Warren people happy, and don’t read too much into it,’” said one investment banker, referring to liberal supporters of Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-mass.). The banker, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe private talks, said that message was conveyed on multiple calls.
The Democratic Party, for all its denunciations of Trump, makes no mention of the essentially fascistic character of the policies he is pursuing. It should be recalled that even though Trump lost the last election by three million votes, the immediate response of the Democratic Party was to offer its collaboration. The election, Obama said, was an “intramural scrimmage” between two sides of the same team.
If the Democrats were to lose on November 3, or even if they were to win, the response would be no different. They would immediately offer an olive branch to Trump and the Republican Party.
The ability of Trump to attract and maintain a following is largely a product of the inability of the Democrats to offer anything to address the social crisis. In the end, the actual differences are marginal, focused above all on foreign policy. The fact that the contest is even close, under conditions of mass death and social devastation, is an indictment of the Democratic Party. It is incapable of making a popular appeal precisely because of the class interests that it represents.
The strategy of the working class cannot be guided by the arithmetic of an election, but the logic of the class struggle.
This is combined with the continued protests over police violence and racism, sparked in late May by the murder of George Floyd. While fueled by the unending epidemic of police violence, the protests have given expression to deep social anger and a desire among millions of workers and youth to fight back.
The struggles of different sections of the working class must be organized and united through the formation of independent factory, workplace and neighborhood safety committees. The fight of teachers against the back-to-school campaign must be connected with the fight of students against the reopening of the universities, the fight of workers against the horrific conditions in the plants, the fight of the unemployed against social devastation, and the fight of the youth against police violence.
At issue in every struggle is the question of political power: What class rules and in whose interests. The only solution to the crisis is one that is directed against the capitalist system. A massive diversion of social resources away from the bailout of the rich and the financing of militarism and war is required. The wealth of the oligarchs must be seized, and the gigantic corporations and banks turned into public utilities to create the conditions for a globally coordinated program to save lives.
The fight against the pandemic is not primarily a medical question. As with every great problem confronting the working class—social inequality and poverty, war, environmental degradation and dictatorship—it is a political and revolutionary question, which raises the need for the working class to take power in its own hands, overthrow capitalism, and restructure all of society on the basis of social need.
ALL BILLIONAIRES ARE DEMOCRATS. ALL
BILLIONAIRES WANT OPEN BORDERS FOR
MORE CHEAP LABOR AND NO CAPS ON
IMPORTING CHINESE AND INDIANS TO
WORK OUR TECH JOBS CHEAP.
Obama’s State of Delusion ... OR JUST ANOTHER "Hope & Change" HOAX?
”The delusional character of Obama’s State of the Union
address on Tuesday—presenting an America of rising living
standards and a booming economy, capped by his declaration
that the “shadow of crisis has passed”—is perhaps matched
only in its presentation by the media and supporters of the
Democratic Party.”
http://mexicanoccupation.blogspot.com/2015/01/oxfam-richest-one-percent-set-to.html
“The general tone was set by the New York Times in its lead editorial on Wednesday, which described the speech as a “simple, dramatic message about economic fairness, about the fact that the well-off—the top earners, the big banks, Silicon Valley—have done just great, while middle and working classes remain dead in the water.”
OBAMANOMICS:
The report observes that while the wealth of the world’s 80 richest people doubled between 2009 and 2014, the wealth of the poorest half of the world’s population (3.5 billion people) was lower in 2014 than it was in 2009.
http://mexicanoccupation.blogspot.com/2015/01/oxfam-richest-one-percent-set-to.html
In 2010, it took 388 billionaires to match the wealth of the bottom half of the earth’s population; by 2013, the figure had fallen to just 92 billionaires. It fell to 80 in 2014.
THE OBAMA ASSAULT ON THE AMERICAN MIDDLE-CLASS
“The goal of the Obama administration, working with the Republicans and local governments, is to roll back the living conditions of the vast majority of the population to levels not seen since the 19th century, prior to the advent of the eight-hour day, child labor laws, comprehensive public education, pensions, health benefits, workplace health and safety regulations, etc.”
http://mexicanoccupation.blogspot.com/2015/01/oxfam-richest-one-percent-set-to.html
“In response to the ruthless assault of the financial oligarchy, spearheaded by Obama, the working class must advance, no less ruthlessly, its own policy.”
New Federal Reserve report
US median income has plunged, inequality has grown in Obama “recovery”
The yearly income of a typical US household dropped by a massive 12 percent, or $6,400, in the six years between 2007 and 2013. This is just one of the findings of the 2013 Federal Reserve Survey of Consumer Finances released Thursday, which documents a sharp decline in working class living standards and a further concentration of wealth in the hands of the rich and the super-rich.
THE DEMOCRAT PARTY’S BILLIONAIRES’ GLOBALIST EMPIRE requires someone as ruthlessly dishonest as Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama to be puppet dictators.
http://hillaryclinton-whitecollarcriminal.blogspot.com/2018/09/google-rigged-it-so-illegals-would-vote.html
1. Globalism: Google VP Kent Walker insists that despite its repeated rejection by electorates around the world, “globalization” is an “incredible force for good.”
2. Hillary Clinton’s Democratic party: An executive nearly broke down crying because of the candidate’s loss. Not a single executive expressed anything but dismay at her defeat.
3. Immigration: Maintaining liberal immigration in the U.S is the policy that Google’s executives discussed the most.
Why the rich favor the Democrats
There's little doubt that today's Democrat Party is the party of the rich. Actually, that's an understatement. Far more than billionaires are involved. A better expression of reality would be to say a fundamental core of Democrat coalition is the managerial class, also known as the elite. These are the people who run the media, Hollywood and the entertainment industry, the big corporations, the universities and schools, the investment banks, and Wall Street. They populate the upper levels of government bureaucracies. These are the East and West Coasters.
The alliance of the affluent with the Democrat Party can be seen in the widely disproportionate share of hefty political donations from the well-to-do going to Democrats and a bevy of left-wing causes. It's also why forty-one out of the fifty wealthiest congressional districts are represented by Democrats.
BLOG: DEMS LOVE SOCIALISM FOR ILLEGALS TO KEEP THEM COMING AND BREEDING ANCHOR BABIES FOR WELFARE AND SOCIALISM FOR BANKS. TRILLIONS OF DOLLARS OF IT!
Bernie Sanders is an exception. But he's an anomaly viewed as dangerous to the party, which is why he's being crushed by the Democrat establishment.
Why do the wealthy align with the Democrats? The answer may seem counter-intuitive, but it is really quite simple. It's surely not ideals or high-minded principles. Nor is it ignorance. Rather, it boils down to raw self-interest.
In his book, The Age of Entitlement: America Since the Sixties, Christopher Caldwell notes that rich Americans think themselves to be as vulnerable as blacks. They are a relatively small minority of the population. They fear being resented for their wealth and power and of having much of that taken from them. Accordingly, the wealthy seek to protect what is theirs by preventing strong majorities from forming by using the divide and conquer principle.
As R.R. Reno writes when reviewing Caldwell's book: "Therefore, the richest and most powerful people in America have strong incentives to support an anti-majoritarian political system." He goes on: "Wealthy individuals shovel donations into elite institutions that incubate identity politics, which further fragments the nation and prevents the formation of majorities."
Some of the rotten fruit of the wealthy taking this approach include multiculturalism, massive immigration of diverse people, resistance to encouraging assimilation, racial strife, trying to turn white males into pariahs, and the promotion of gender confusion. Through it all, society is bombarded with the Orwellian mantra that "diversity is strength," as if repeating it often enough can make it so. It is also why patriotism and a common American culture are so disparaged today. Those from the upper strata of society project the idea that if you're a flag-waving American, you must be some kind of retrograde mouth-breathing yokel.
The wealthy as a groups are content to dissolve the glue that holds the U.S. together. And it is all done to enhance and preserve their power, wealth, and influence. This is why they so hate Donald Trump. He strives to unite people and the country, although you'd never know that that is what the president is doing if you live in the media bubble. Trump's MAGA agenda is an anathema to the managerial class.
To quote Reno one final time:
The next decade will not be easy. But it will not be about what preoccupied us in the sixties, and which Caldwell describes so well. Rather than the perils of discrimination we are increasingly concerned with the problem of disintegration — or in Charles Murray's terms, the problem of "coming apart."
Trump and the GOP he is molding are the vehicles to restore and strengthen national solidarity. Trump said at the Daytona 500, "No matter who wins, what matters most is God, family, and country." That is not the Democrat agenda. As seen in Democrat politicians, their policies, and the behavior of their major contributors, the aim is to further weaken the social and national bonds in America. There is a lot at stake here. If solidarity wins, the Republic can survive and prosper. If the Democrats and their wealthy cohorts do, then the middle class withers, the Republic dies, and the rich and their managerial class get to rule the roost. That is what it comes down to.
ALL BILLIONAIRES ARE DEMOCRATS. ALL BILLIONAIRES WANT WIDER OPEN BORDERS, AMNESTY AND HELL NO TO E-VERIFY!
In addition, establishment Republicans are no better than Democrats at stemming the flow of illegal immigration because big businesses reap the benefits of this cheap labor without incurring any of the social costs.
This is why the SEIU supports blanket amnesty for illegal aliens.
Democrats: The Party of Big Labor, Big Government...and Big Business
There is a widespread perception that the Democrat Party is the party the working class and the Republican Party is the party of big business. Even though Republicans on average received slightly more from corporate employees prior to 2002, the overall difference between both parties from 1990 to 2020 is statistically insignificant (Table 1). In fact, Democrat reliance on big labor gradually shifted toward big business following the involvement of solidly Democrat corporate giants in 2002, and from 2014 to 2020, Democrats consistently surpassed Republicans in corporate donations (Tables 1 & 2).
Based on data compiled by Open Secrets, Soros Fund Management, Fahr LLC (Tom Steyer), and Bloomberg LP ranked among the top ten for political contributions that gave over 90% to Democrats. In sharp contrast, the right-leaning Koch Industries made the top ten only in 2014. In nearly all other years, Koch ranked well below the top twenty.
Whether or not this trend is long-term, there is no denying that large corporations on average no longer lean right. But what does it mean to be "the party of big business"? Donations are not definitive evidence. What ultimately matters is what politicians do once they get elected.
Many liberals believe that big government is needed to "rein in" big business and that in the absence of federal intervention, corporations will "run roughshod" over the average American. Many liberals also believe that corporations are the main beneficiaries of laissez-faire economics and that free-market conservatives who want to scale back regulations are somehow "in the pocket" of big business.
In reality, the opposite is true: big business and big government
go hand in hand because government meddling in the economy
encourages rent-seeking by businesses that can afford to pay
for the lobbyists. This crony capitalism grew exponentially as
a result of New Deal regulations that squeezed out competitors
during the 1930s. Establishment politicians and well
connected corporations are beneficiaries of the myth that big
government and big business are adversaries because it hides
their unholy alliance.
In all fairness, neither party has had a monopoly on the dispensation of corporate welfare: the TARP funds that propped up financial institutions deemed "too big to fail" during the Great Recession were released by the Bush administration. In addition, establishment Republicans are no better than Democrats at stemming the flow of illegal immigration because big businesses reap the benefits of this cheap labor without incurring any of the social costs.
If both parties are playing this game, what is the basis for labeling the Democrat party "the party of big business"? What policies from Republicans support small business?
Free-market conservatism benefits small businesses because the government does not pick the winners and losers by means of subsidies, tax breaks, and cumbersome regulations. You will not see policies like these coming from Washington in a major way because proposals for shrinking the federal government rarely see the light of day in Congress.
Based on data collected by Gallup and Thumbtack, red states far outscore blue states in small business friendliness (Table 3). This may be why less affluent Americans are fleeing states that score abysmally like California, Illinois, New York, and Hawaii. This might also be why small business–owners are more likely to vote Republican.
The Trump administration has been good for businesses of all sizes mainly due to the unprecedented rate at which it scaled back stifling regulations. This may be why some of the president's highest approval ratings now come from small businesses.
Donald Trump set himself apart from the ruling class when he latched onto the third-rail issue of illegal immigration and called out the corporate darling Jeb Bush (AKA "Low Energy Jeb") for his lack of grassroots support. This may explain in part why Bain Capital, the firm co-founded by Mitt Romney, switched teams and contributed solidly Democrat in 2018. In 2012, Democrats accused Bain Capital of destroying jobs by systematically dismantling the companies it bought off. Times have changed...
Small businesses generate well over half of all new jobs. Most importantly, many are family-owned, have strong ties to their communities, and provide upward mobility for millions of Americans who never attended college. The Democrats' undermining of this quintessentially American institution is shameful and disqualifies it as the "party of the working class." Contributions from big labor do not count toward "labor-friendliness" because mega-unions care more about recruitment than about the welfare of working Americans. This is why the SEIU supports blanket amnesty for illegal aliens.
Democrats fed up with the corporate status quo are now choosing their own anti-establishment candidate, not realizing that socialism is just a more impoverished version of the crony capitalism they are rejecting. Many Sanders-supporters are also morally shallow because they want to harness the power of the state to muscle in on the wealth of Americans who borrowed responsibly and worked hard to pay their bills.
After the Constitutional Convention, Benjamin Franklin said, "This Constitution ... is likely to be well administered for a course of years, and can only end in despotism ... when the people shall become so corrupted as to need despotic government." If Democrats implement the dystopian policies of California on a national level, their corporate allies will do fine. It is small business–owners and working-class Americans with nowhere to flee who have the most to lose. Be careful what you wish for.
To view the tables below, click the links.
Table 1: Top contributors to Democrats and Republicans as compiled by Open Secrets.
*The red lettering highlights a funding advantage for Republicans. The blue lettering highlights a funding disadvantage for Republicans.
**Based on a T-test, the difference is insignificant at P = 0.46
Table 2: Top ten contributors to Democrats and Republicans by category (union, corporate, and ideological) as compiled by Open Secrets:
*In 2008 Goldman Sachs donated 74% to Democrats. All other groups in this column donated between 40 and 69% to both parties. This column does not differentiate between giving equally to both parties and giving 70–79% to Democrats or Republicans.
**This number includes the "City of New York." Although it is officially listed as "other" by Open Secrets (not corporate, union, or ideological), I was personally informed by someone from the organization that Michael Bloomberg was the main source of this funding.
Table 3: Small business scores states scored by Thumbtack ranked according to their Democratic advantage by Gallup:
*GPA scores are based on the following numerical equivalents: A = 4, B = 3, C = 2, D = 1, F = 0, A+ = 4.3, A- = 3.7, etc.
** Not scored.
***Mean GPA ± standard error. Based on a T-test, the difference is significant at P = 0.00001.
Grim Reaper Mitch to Pelosi: I'm Going to Kill Your Stimulus Plan
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi just got some bad news from Mitch McConnell. Any talk about another stimulus isn’t going to happen. She may draft a bill, but it’ll meet a swift death in the Republican-controlled Senate. Mitch is the legislative grim reaper for most of what the Democratic House sends his way (via The Hill):
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) hit the brakes Tuesday on Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s (D-Calif.) plan to move ahead with a fourth stimulus package that would include major infrastructure spending and other Democratic priorities.
“I think we need to wait a few days here, a few weeks, and see how things are working out,” McConnell said on “The Hugh Hewitt Show.”
“Let’s see how things are going and respond accordingly,” he added. “I’m not going to allow this to be an opportunity for the Democrats to achieve unrelated policy items that they would not otherwise be able to pass.”
McConnell's remarks came the same day that President Trump encouraged Congress to pass a $2 trillion infrastructure bill as the next piece of coronavirus legislation.
Pelosi is also mulling a rollback of the SALT taxes, which would be nothing short of a giveaway to millionaires. And by the giveaway, it would be something of a $620 billion tax cut for them. Remember, this is the party of the working people, or so they say, and a part of me hopes she goes aggressive on this, so we can see Bernie Sanders gum up the Democratic works for a bit. There is no way a hardcore lefty would back this nonsense. Yet, there’s another reason why Mitch isn’t rushing on the House Democrats’ stimulus reloaded plans. They’re off. They won’t be back to work until April 20. And The Hill added that Mitch hasn’t forgotten about judges, adding that the Kentucky Republican’s motto is “leave no vacancy behind.”
THE OBAMA – BIDEN BANKSTERS CON JOB STARTED BEFORE HIS FIRST DAY IN OFFICE!
GET THIS BOOK!
Obamanomics: How Barack Obama Is Bankrupting You and Enriching His Wall Street Friends, Corporate Lobbyists, and Union Bosses
BY TIMOTHY P CARNEY
Editorial Reviews
Obama Is Making You Poorer—But Who’s Getting Rich?
Goldman Sachs, GE, Pfizer, the United Auto Workers—the same “special interests” Barack Obama was supposed to chase from the temple—are profiting handsomely from Obama’s Big Government policies that crush taxpayers, small businesses, and consumers. In Obamanomics, investigative reporter Timothy P. Carney digs up the dirt the mainstream media ignores and the White House wishes you wouldn’t see. Rather than Hope and Change, Obama is delivering corporate socialism to America, all while claiming he’s battling corporate America. It’s corporate welfare and regulatory robbery—it’s Obamanomics.
Congressman Ron Paul says, “Every libertarian and free-market conservative needs to read Obamanomics.” And Johan Goldberg, columnist and bestselling author says, “Obamanomics is conservative muckraking at its best and an indispensable field guide to the Obama years.”
If you’ve wondered what’s happening to America, as the federal government swallows up the financial sector, the auto industry, and healthcare, and enacts deficit exploding “stimulus packages,” this book makes it all clear—it’s a big scam. Ultimately, Obamanomics boils down to this: every time government gets bigger, somebody’s getting rich, and those somebodies are friends of Barack. This book names the names—and it will make your blood boil.
Investigative reporter Timothy P. Carney digs up the dirt the mainstream media ignores and the White House wishes you wouldn’t see. Rather than Hope and Change, Obama is delivering corporate socialism to America, all while claiming he’s battling corporate America. It’s corporate welfare and regulatory robbery—it’s Obamanomics. In this explosive book, Carney reveals:
* The Great Health Care Scam—Obama’s backroom deals with drug companies spell corporate profits and more government control
* The Global Warming Hoax—Obama has bought off industries with a pork-filled bill that will drain your wallet for Al Gore’s agenda
* Obama and Wall Street—“Change” means more bailouts and a heavy Goldman Sachs presence in the West Wing (including Rahm Emanuel)
* Stimulating K Street—The largest spending bill in history gave pork to the well-connected and created a feeding frenzy for lobbyists
* How the GOP needs to change its tune—drastically—to battle Obamanomics
Praise for Obamanomics
“The notion that ‘big business’ is on the side of the free market is one of progressivism’s most valuable myths. It allows them to demonize corporations by day and get in bed with them by night. Obamanomics is conservative muckraking at its best. It reveals how President Obama is exploiting the big business mythology to undermine the free market and stick it to entrepreneurs, taxpayers, and consumers. It’s an indispensable field guide to the Obama years.”
—Jonha Goldberg, LA Times columnist and best-selling author
“‘Every time government gets bigger, somebody’s getting rich.’ With this astute observation, Tim Carney begins his task of laying bare the Obama administration’s corporatist governing strategy, hidden behind the president’s populist veneer. This meticulously researched book is a must-read for anyone who wants to understand how Washington really works.”
—David Freddoso, best-selling author of The Case Against Barack Obama
“Every libertarian and free-market conservative who still believes that large corporations are trusted allies in the battle for economic liberty needs to read this book, as does every well-meaning liberal who believes that expansions of the welfare-regulatory state are done to benefit the common people.”
—Congressman Ron Paul
“It’s understandable for critics to condemn President Obama for his ‘socialism.’ But as Tim Carney shows, the real situation is at once more subtle and more sinister. Obamanomics favors big business while disproportionately punishing everyone else. So-called progressives are too clueless to notice, as usual, which is why we have Tim Carney and this book.”
—Thomas E. Woods, Jr., best-selling author of Meltdown and The Politically Incorrect Guide™ to American History
• ISBN-10: 1596986123
• ISBN-13: 978-1596986121
Schumer also vowed to make the SALT deduction — the effective tax cut for the 1% — permanent: “If I become majority leader, one of the first things I will do is we will eliminate it forever,” he added, according to The Hill. “It will be dead, gone and buried.”
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) is pushing for
a repeal of the state and local tax (SALT) deduction cap in the
next round of coronavirus relief — giving a tax cut to the
wealthiest 1% of taxpayers, especially in “blue” states.
In his landmark tax reform law, the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017, President Donald Trump and the Republicans offset some of the revenue losses from low tax rates by restricting deductions. The law capped the SALT deduction at $10,000.
Previously, those taxpayers wealthy enough to file a list of itemized deductions could count all of the taxes they paid to state and local governments toward a deduction in their federal tax liability. That meant wealthy taxpayers in the most heavily taxed states — primarily run by Democrats — benefited most. The SALT deduction also gave Democrats political room to raise taxes higher, because it made rich taxpayers less likely to resist: they could claim some of the money back.
Trump ended the deduction — at some political cost to himself. Republicans went on to lose congressional seats in wealthy suburbs in high-tax Democrat-run states. Orange County, California, for example, flipped entirely to Democrats.
But Democrats still want to repeal the SALT cap, regardless, because they want their state and local governments to avoid tax cut — and because their wealthy campaign contributors want to be subsidized, once again, by the rest of the country.
Even Seth Hanlon, a former Obama administration official who is now a senior fellow at the left-wing Center for American Progress, has protested against Schumer’s idea, noting that repealing the SALT cap would help “the top 1%.”
Come on, not this again.
Repealing the SALT cap for 2020-21 would be a $137 billion tax cut, with about 63% going to the top 1%.
It does nothing for states and localities except potentially crowd out the actual fiscal relief they urgently need. https://t.co/jlSjIhnzpq
— Seth Hanlon (@SethHanlon) July 15, 2020
Here is the national distribution of the tax cut from repealing the SALT cap, via @iteptweets.
A tiny percentage of middle-income people get any benefit.
The top 1% gets 63%: an avg. $35k tax cut for them.
The top 5% gets 87%.
The bottom 80% get literally 1% of the benefit. pic.twitter.com/8EIav7wgcJ
— Seth Hanlon (@SethHanlon) July 15, 2020
Here is the distribution just for New York. Largely the same story. A few more middle-income people benefit a little compared to nationwide, but still, the tax cut goes overwhelmingly to top one-percenters. Not the people most affected by COVID!!! pic.twitter.com/Dp0evxq3P7
— Seth Hanlon (@SethHanlon) July 15, 2020
The basic story is the same in every state. State by state estimates are here. https://t.co/1KREhnb6et
— Seth Hanlon (@SethHanlon) July 15, 2020
The Democrat-run House of Representatives has already passed a repeal on the SALT cap that would be effective for two years.
According to The Hill, “Schumer urged Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) [on Tuesday] to ‘join the House, and join the Democrats in the Senate, and get rid of that cap.'”
Schumer also vowed to make the SALT deduction — the effective tax cut for the 1% — permanent: “If I become majority leader, one of the first things I will do is we will eliminate it forever,” he added, according to The Hill. “It will be dead, gone and buried.”
Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). His new book, RED NOVEMBER, tells the story of the 2020 Democratic presidential primary from a conservative perspective. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.
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