Tuesday, September 29, 2020

LIAR! - THE LEGACY OF A LIFE-LONG WHITE COLLAR CRIMINAL DONALD TRUMP - Trump is not the exception; he is the rule. The entire ruling class owes its social existence to various forms of criminal activity, whose victims are inevitably workers. The expropriation of this financial oligarchy is an urgent social necessity.

 

Trump’s tax returns and the parasitism of the financial oligarchy

29 September 2020

The detailed analysis of the tax returns of President Donald Trump, spread across the front page of Monday’s New York Times, is more than an exposure of the corrupt gangster who lives in the White House. It is an indictment of the American ruling class as a whole, of the super-rich families who monopolize the country’s wealth, exploit the working people and dominate its politics, including the Democratic and the Republican parties.

The Times gained access to 20 years of personal and business tax returns that provide exhaustive details about the financial manipulations conducted by the Trump Organization. The family holding company used hundreds of subsidiaries and shell companies to evade the payment of taxes, incur paper losses that were used to offset real income, and ensure the never-ending enrichment of Trump and his children despite the fact that their empire of real estate, casinos and golf clubs was largely unprofitable.

President Donald Trump speaking during a news conference at the White House, Sunday, Sept. 27, 2020, in Washington. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)

As the report declared, “ultimately, Mr. Trump has been more successful playing a business mogul than being one in real life.” His long-running NBC reality program, The Apprentice, was far more profitable than his actual business activities. His bankruptcies and reverses have long been known, but the Times account gives a picture, in granular detail, of how the tax system—set up and run by both Democratic and Republican administrations—allowed him to amass and maintain great wealth despite his generally disastrous forays in business.

The Times account does add another dimension to the explanation of the response of the Trump administration to the coronavirus crisis. Given his vast holdings in real estate, hotels and golf clubs, Trump had a direct and immediate financial interest in demanding the reopening of the economy and the resumption of travel, business meetings and sporting events, regardless of the cost in human lives. In this he was not alone, but rather spoke for the interests of his class.

The details in the newspaper account—that Trump paid zero income taxes in 10 of the 15 years before he ran for president; paid $750 in income taxes in 2016 and 2017, about the same amount as a waitress working at the minimum wage; wrote off $75,000 in haircuts as a business expense; and steered hundreds of thousands in “consulting fees” into the pockets of his adult children—are damning. But it is hardly surprising to see it proven in black and white that Donald Trump is a phony and a fraud. Millions of working people have long recognized him as an unscrupulous swindler in both business and politics.

Two years ago, the Times published an equally detailed examination of how Trump’s father manipulated the tax system to pass on the bulk of his wealth to his son Donald while paying an effective tax rate of only 10 percent, even though the official estate tax was then 55 percent. The WSWS commented at the time, “With its detailed exposure of the Trump fortune, the Times has unwittingly confirmed the insistence of socialists that the continued existence of a parasitic oligarchy is incompatible with the most basic social and democratic rights of the vast majority of the population.”

Corruption and tax evasion, perhaps less crude but in some cases on an even larger scale, are commonplace throughout the American ruling elite. According to IRS figures, the effective tax rate on the transfer of inherited wealth is less than 4 percent, compared to the average tax rate for working people of 18–19 percent. Decades ago, before her conviction for tax evasion, Manhattan hotel heiress Leona Helmsley sneered, “Only the little people pay taxes.” That serves today as the motto of the entire financial aristocracy.

Everyone knows that the IRS makes it a point to prey upon workers. Woe unto the teacher or auto worker who is accused of underpaying the IRS, even as the agency regularly turns a blind eye to massive tax-avoidance schemes like those run by the Trump family. Economists Emmanuel Saez and Gabriel Zucman have described how, for decades, the US government continuously slashed taxes for the wealthy and destroyed enforcement mechanisms, with the deliberate outcome of expanding social inequality.


At least until he launched his campaign for the Republican presidential nomination in 2015, Trump bribed Democrats and Republicans alike with “campaign contributions” and was rewarded with loopholes such as the favored treatment of real estate losses in the Obama administration bailout of Wall Street in 2009.
A central aspect of Trump’s financial flim-flam over many decades is that he has taken advantage of tax laws enacted by both Democrats and Republicans for the deliberate purpose of enabling such chicanery and minimizing the tax burden on the financial elite. It was under the Obama administration in 2010 that the IRS authorized a payment of $72.9 million to Trump, supposedly as a refund of “overpayments.”

Among the politicians benefiting from Trump’s largesse over the years were Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, his current opponents. He gave campaign contributions on 17 occasions to the two New York Democratic senators, Charles Schumer, now the Senate Democratic leader, and Hillary Clinton, Trump’s opponent in the 2016 presidential contest. None of this politically inconvenient history appears in the Times account of Trump’s tax evasion.

Apologists for the Democratic Party, particularly in the camp of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), may see the Times article as a brilliantly timed masterstroke. They no doubt hope that the conclusive exposure of Trump as a corrupt fraud—unlike the release of the sex scandal transcripts in 2016—will succeed in sinking his campaign.

It is possible that the exposure of Trump’s blatant tax evasion will cost him some votes. But this exposure does not change the reactionary character of the Biden campaign.

A central feature of this campaign is the suggestion that Trump is an agent or patsy of Russian President Vladimir Putin, and that his administration has undermined US “national security” interests in the Middle East, Central Asia, and more generally, in relation to both Russia and China. Many media commentators immediately seized on the fact that Trump paid far more taxes to foreign governments, including India, the Philippines, Turkey and Panama, than he did to the US government.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, one of the most vociferous advocates of the anti-Russia campaign, was quick to sound this theme again in response to the publication of the details of Trump’s taxes and personal finances. Noting the Times’ conclusion that Trump had accumulated $400 million in losses since taking office, including $300 million in loans that would come due during a second term in the White House if he should be reelected, she declared that Trump’s taxes revealed a “national security issue.”

Even though the Times admitted that the tax returns showed no business income from Russia, Pelosi connected Trump to Moscow: “The question is what does Putin have on the president politically, personally, financially in every way that the president would try to undermine our commitment to NATO, give away the store to Russia and Syria … he says he likes Putin and Putin likes him. Well, what’s the connection? We’ll see.”

Such grotesque McCarthy-style attacks on Trump’s alleged master in Moscow contribute to a political atmosphere justifying an explosion of American militarism. It moreover simply ignores the equal role of American banks in financing Trump’s swindles.

Moreover, the use of a scandal to unseat Trump—assuming that this is the outcome—does nothing to change the political climate in the United States. With or without Trump, the intensification of the social crisis—for which the Democrats have no answer—will provide fuel for the development of fascist and authoritarian movements.

It is impossible to defend democratic rights and defeat Trump’s drive towards authoritarian rule through the Democratic Party, which defends the capitalist system of which Trump is a product.

Trump’s tax returns paint a portrait of a ruling class totally enmeshed in corruption and criminality. The oligarchs generate their wealth through shuffling around money, based on the provision of endless amounts of cash by the central banks. Trump’s gaudy and tasteless palaces, with the look of bordellos, are the product of a whole period of American capitalism dominated by swindling, speculation and fraud, creating nothing of value besides ever-greater heaps of debt.

Trump is not the exception; he is the rule. The entire ruling class owes its social existence to various forms of criminal activity, whose victims are inevitably workers. The expropriation of this financial oligarchy is an urgent social necessity.

Trump’s Tax Returns Show Lying Is His Only Marketable Skill

Photo: Joshua Roberts/Getty Images

The revelations about Donald Trump’s finances obtained by the New York Times have produced two distinct reactions. One is that he’s a terrible, failing businessman, and the other is that he’s a tax cheat. Seen in one light, the two interpretations are in tension. “The reporters can’t seem to decide if Mr. Trump is a shark exploiting the White House for personal gain or a sap who is bleeding cash while in office,” argues a Wall Street Journal editorial. “Brilliant or bumpkin? Make up your mind.”

But there is a different way to think about Trump’s career, which is that he is a brilliant con man, who has, throughout his career in business and politics alike, honed the singular skill of identifying marks and exploiting them with spectacular lies.

The new Times scoops merely flesh out the story that emerged in its revelatory 2018 report, which we now know came about with the cooperation of his niece, Mary Trump. That story reconstructs the creation of Trump’s image from the beginning. It is one of the most successful cons — and almost surely the most historically significant — in American history. For reasons I’ve never understood, its implications have not been absorbed.

In the mid-1970s, the Trump family set out to sell the world on a character of its own creation: Donald J. Trump, dashing and brilliant business genius. The story’s protagonist was the child of multimillionaire developer Fred Trump, a son who had accomplished almost nothing in business, and whose taxable income was under $25,000. The trick was quite simple: young Donald would squire reporters around his father’s business empire and claim he had built it himself.

In 1976, the Times produced a profile ushering the young star onto the stage. “He rides around town in a chauffeured silver Cadillac with his initials, DJT, on the plates,” gushed a profile. “He dates slinky fashion models, belongs to the most elegant clubs and, at only 30 years of age, estimates that he is worth ‘more than $200 million.’”

In reality, Donald Trump was in the money-inheriting business. In 2018, the Times revealed to its readers that this entire profile was a “spectacular con.” Forty-two years earlier, Trump had carefully taken the Times reporter through a Potemkin village of his father’s wealth:

In the chauffeured Cadillac, Donald Trump took the Times reporter on a tour of what he called his “jobs.” He told her about the Manhattan hotel he planned to convert into a Grand Hyatt (his father guaranteed the construction loan), and the Hudson River railroad yards he planned to develop (the rights were purchased by his father’s company). He showed her “our philanthropic endeavor,” the high-rise for the elderly in East Orange (bankrolled by his father); an apartment complex on Staten Island (owned by his father); their “flagship,” Trump Village, in Brooklyn (owned by his father); and finally, Beach Haven Apartments (owned by his father). Even the Cadillac was leased by his father.

The strategy was to convert Fred Trump’s fortune into publicity, which Donald could then monetize. The lies used to construct Trump’s image were massive. In 1984, Donald concocted a series of lies to persuade Forbes he was worth $900 million. Its reporter, Jonathan Greenberg, diligently unraveled every exaggeration and reduced the published sum to $100 million, only to discover decades later that the actual amount was a mere $5 million. The power of the lie was its scale. Greenberg could imagine Trump was exaggerating his wealth tenfold, but the idea he was exaggerating it 180-fold beggared imagination.

Trump’s career as a real-estate magnate failed, and he fell into bankruptcy as his father’s inheritance eventually ran dry. But as the second installment of the Times reports on his taxes shows, he revived his career by monetizing the publicity he had so carefully seeded. He developed a brand as a television star portraying a business genius. He lent his name to a dizzying array of products, from detergent to double-stuff Oreos. The image had become the business itself.

While Donald was never able to equal his father’s prowess as a builder and landlord, his talent as a confidence man far surpassed it. Trump leveraged his fame into a series of scams: “Trump University” (a fake real-estate-training seminar designed to bleed its victims dry); the “Trump Network” (selling its targets urine-testing systems, which would be used to direct them to buy overpriced vitamins); using the “Trump Foundation” as a racket to funnel supposedly charitable funds into his pocket, and so on.

At times, these scams have edged close to outright criminality. At other times, they have crossed over the line. Trump is currently under investigation for tax fraud. And, as law professor and tax expert Daniel Shaviro argues, the information in Trump’s recent returns strongly suggests more outright fraud — deductions like hairstyling and a country estate seem to violate black-letter rules governing tax deductions.

The arc of Trump’s career has been to exploit a series of victims, pocket his winnings, and use them to find new ones. He lied to a series of reporters, built and sold an image as a brilliant deal-maker, scammed his fans out of their money, and lied to the government about his income.

Trump’s political career is a natural step in the progression, one he had been contemplating for decades. The Republican Party was a perfect vehicle for a character like Trump. The mainstream media had grown steadily more resistant to his lies, but the conservative media ecosystem was fertile terrain, a propaganda machine so attuned to his needs that he didn’t even need to try to fool them. Whatever lies other Republicans would spout about Barack Obama or climate change or the wonder-working powers of tax cuts, Trump would exceed them. From Fox News to Hugh Hewitt to the anti-anti-Trumpers, his acolytes simply did not care whether anything he said was true.

Trump (or, more precisely, his ghostwriter) once claimed, “Deals are my art form. Other people paint beautifully or write poetry. I like making deals, preferably big deals.” The last four years have made it apparent Trump is bad at striking deals, despite being free of the burden of having principles. Deals are not his art form.

Lying is. Lying is how he rebuilt his fortune after he ran through his inheritance, and how he kept his head above water financially. Lying may or may not be enough to get him a second term, or even to keep him out of prison. But if you are betting that Trump’s lies will stop working, you are betting against the evidence of his entire adult life.


 

Trump is not the exception; he is the rule. The entire ruling class owes its social existence to various forms of criminal activity, whose victims are inevitably workers. The expropriation of this financial oligarchy is an urgent social necessity.

 

Trump’s tax returns and the parasitism of the financial oligarchy

29 September 2020

The detailed analysis of the tax returns of President Donald Trump, spread across the front page of Monday’s New York Times, is more than an exposure of the corrupt gangster who lives in the White House. It is an indictment of the American ruling class as a whole, of the super-rich families who monopolize the country’s wealth, exploit the working people and dominate its politics, including the Democratic and the Republican parties.

The Times gained access to 20 years of personal and business tax returns that provide exhaustive details about the financial manipulations conducted by the Trump Organization. The family holding company used hundreds of subsidiaries and shell companies to evade the payment of taxes, incur paper losses that were used to offset real income, and ensure the never-ending enrichment of Trump and his children despite the fact that their empire of real estate, casinos and golf clubs was largely unprofitable.

As the report declared, “ultimately, Mr. Trump has been more successful playing a business mogul than being one in real life.” His long-running NBC reality program, The Apprentice, was far more profitable than his actual business activities. His bankruptcies and reverses have long been known, but the Times account gives a picture, in granular detail, of how the tax system—set up and run by both Democratic and Republican administrations—allowed him to amass and maintain great wealth despite his generally disastrous forays in business.

The Times account does add another dimension to the explanation of the response of the Trump administration to the coronavirus crisis. Given his vast holdings in real estate, hotels and golf clubs, Trump had a direct and immediate financial interest in demanding the reopening of the economy and the resumption of travel, business meetings and sporting events, regardless of the cost in human lives. In this he was not alone, but rather spoke for the interests of his class.

The details in the newspaper account—that Trump paid zero income taxes in 10 of the 15 years before he ran for president; paid $750 in income taxes in 2016 and 2017, about the same amount as a waitress working at the minimum wage; wrote off $75,000 in haircuts as a business expense; and steered hundreds of thousands in “consulting fees” into the pockets of his adult children—are damning. But it is hardly surprising to see it proven in black and white that Donald Trump is a phony and a fraud. Millions of working people have long recognized him as an unscrupulous swindler in both business and politics.

Two years ago, the Times published an equally detailed examination of how Trump’s father manipulated the tax system to pass on the bulk of his wealth to his son Donald while paying an effective tax rate of only 10 percent, even though the official estate tax was then 55 percent. “With its detailed exposure of the Trump fortune, the Times has unwittingly confirmed the insistence of socialists that the continued existence of a parasitic oligarchy is incompatible with the most basic social and democratic rights of the vast majority of the population.”

Corruption and tax evasion, perhaps less crude but in some cases on an even larger scale, are commonplace throughout the American ruling elite. According to IRS figures, the effective tax rate on the transfer of inherited wealth is less than 4 percent, compared to the average tax rate for working people of 18–19 percent. Decades ago, before her conviction for tax evasion, Manhattan hotel heiress Leona Helmsley sneered, “Only the little people pay taxes.” That serves today as the motto of the entire financial aristocracy.

Everyone knows that the IRS makes it a point to prey upon workers. Woe unto the teacher or auto worker who is accused of underpaying the IRS, even as the agency regularly turns a blind eye to massive tax-avoidance schemes like those run by the Trump family. Economists Emmanuel Saez and Gabriel Zucman have described how, for decades, the US government continuously slashed taxes for the wealthy and destroyed enforcement mechanisms, with the deliberate outcome of expanding social inequality.

A central aspect of Trump’s financial flim-flam over many decades is that he has taken advantage of tax laws enacted by both Democrats and Republicans for the deliberate purpose of enabling such chicanery and minimizing the tax burden on the financial elite. It was under the Obama administration in 2010 that the IRS authorized a payment of $72.9 million to Trump, supposedly as a refund of “overpayments.”

At least until he launched his campaign for the Republican presidential nomination in 2015, Trump bribed Democrats and Republicans alike with “campaign contributions” and was rewarded with loopholes such as the favored treatment of real estate losses in the Obama administration bailout of Wall Street in 2009.

Among the politicians benefiting from Trump’s largesse over the years were Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, his current opponents. He gave campaign contributions on 17 occasions to the two New York Democratic senators, Charles Schumer, now the Senate Democratic leader, and Hillary Clinton, Trump’s opponent in the 2016 presidential contest. None of this politically inconvenient history appears in the Times account of Trump’s tax evasion.

Apologists for the Democratic Party, particularly in the camp of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), may see the Times article as a brilliantly timed masterstroke. They no doubt hope that the conclusive exposure of Trump as a corrupt fraud—unlike the release of the sex scandal transcripts in 2016—will succeed in sinking his campaign.

It is possible that the exposure of Trump’s blatant tax evasion will cost him some votes. But this exposure does not change the reactionary character of the Biden campaign.

A central feature of this campaign is the suggestion that Trump is an agent or patsy of Russian President Vladimir Putin, and that his administration has undermined US “national security” interests in the Middle East, Central Asia, and more generally, in relation to both Russia and China. Many media commentators immediately seized on the fact that Trump paid far more taxes to foreign governments, including India, the Philippines, Turkey and Panama, than he did to the US government.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, one of the most vociferous advocates of the anti-Russia campaign, was quick to sound this theme again in response to the publication of the details of Trump’s taxes and personal finances. Noting the Times’ conclusion that Trump had accumulated $400 million in losses since taking office, including $300 million in loans that would come due during a second term in the White House if he should be reelected, she declared that Trump’s taxes revealed a “national security issue.”

Even though the Times admitted that the tax returns showed no business income from Russia, Pelosi connected Trump to Moscow: “The question is what does Putin have on the president politically, personally, financially in every way that the president would try to undermine our commitment to NATO, give away the store to Russia and Syria … he says he likes Putin and Putin likes him. Well, what’s the connection? We’ll see.”

Such grotesque McCarthy-style attacks on Trump’s alleged master in Moscow contribute to a political atmosphere justifying an explosion of American militarism. It moreover simply ignores the equal role of American banks in financing Trump’s swindles.

Moreover, the use of a scandal to unseat Trump—assuming that this is the outcome—does nothing to change the political climate in the United States. With or without Trump, the intensification of the social crisis—for which the Democrats have no answer—will provide fuel for the development of fascist and authoritarian movements.

It is impossible to defend democratic rights and defeat Trump’s drive towards authoritarian rule through the Democratic Party, which defends the capitalist system of which Trump is a product.

Trump’s tax returns paint a portrait of a ruling class totally enmeshed in corruption and criminality. The oligarchs generate their wealth through shuffling around money, based on the provision of endless amounts of cash by the central banks. Trump’s gaudy and tasteless palaces, with the look of bordellos, are the product of a whole period of American capitalism dominated by swindling, speculation and fraud, creating nothing of value besides ever-greater heaps of debt.

Trump is not the exception; he is the rule. The entire ruling class owes its social existence to various forms of criminal activity, whose victims are inevitably workers. The expropriation of this financial oligarchy is an urgent social necessity.

 


A NATION IN MELTDOWN - 18 of Top 20 Cities with Projected Highest Murder Rates Have Democrat Mayors

 IT IS TIME TO GET REAL

ON BLACK CRIME IN AMERICA!

At Least 49 Shot over Weekend in Mayor Lorri Lightfoot’s Chicago

CHICAGO, ILLINOIS - MAY 20: Lori Lightfoot waves to the crowd after being sworn in as Mayor of Chicago during a ceremony at the Wintrust Arena on May 20, 2019 in Chicago, Illinois. Lightfoot become the first black female and openly gay Mayor in the city’s history. (Photo by Scott …
Scott Olson/Getty
2:31

At least 49 people were shot, seven fatally, over the weekend in Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s (D) Chicago.

Breitbart News reported at least 24 people were shot Friday through Saturday alone in Chicago, and five of those shooting victims succumbed to their wounds.

In addition to the shooting victims, ABC 7 reported a five-year-old girl, Serenity Arrington, was stabbed to death early Saturday morning, allegedly by her mother.

Arrington’s grandfather, Sylvester Washington, struggled to come to grips with her death, talking about how Arrington loved to watch movies with him. He said, “Y’all would have loved her. Sweet little girl. Man. Granddaddy’s little girl.”

By the time Sunday had passed the number of shooting victims had jumped from at least 24 to nearly 50. The Chicag0 Sun-Times reports that 49 were shot, seven fatally. NBC 5 reported the tally of shooting victims stood at 51.

Sunday started with a fatal shooting “in the 1400 block of East 73rd Street” at 12:54 a.m. A 31-year-old man was walking on the sidewalk when someone drove up near him and an occupant in the vehicle opened fire. He was shot twice and transported to a hospital, where he was pronounced dead.

Another one of Sunday’s fatal shootings involved a 66-year-old man who was standing “in the 6100 block of South Bishop” with a 54-year-old man about 6:43 p.m. The two men heard shots ring out and “felt pain.” The 66-year-old was transported to the hospital with a gunshot wound to the head, and he was pronounced dead.

The Chicago Tribune reported 558 homicides in Chicago January 1, 2020, through September 22, 2020. That is 158 more homicides than were witnessed January 1, 2019, through September 22, 2019.

AWR Hawkins is an award-winning Second Amendment columnist for Breitbart News and the writer/curator of Down Range with AWR Hawkinsa weekly newsletter focused on all things Second Amendment, also for Breitbart News. He is the political analyst for Armed American Radio. Follow him on Twitter: @AWRHawkins. Reach him at awrhawkins@breitbart.com. You can sign up for Down Range at breitbart.com/downrange

 

Second Arrest Made in Execution-Style Murder of North Carolina 5-Year-Old

Cannon Hinnant
Facebook, Wilson Police Dept.
1:47

Five-year-old Cannon Hinnant, who was killed execution-style on August 9, 2020, was reportedly shot in front of his two siblings.

WSOCTV reports that 25-year-old Darius Sessoms was arrested the day after the shooting and charged with murder. It is believed he allegedly “walked up to Cannon while the boy was playing outside with his siblings and shot him in the head.”

The Blaze reports that the killing occurred in front of “Cannon’s 7-year-old and 8-year-old siblings.”

ABC 11 reports that Sessoms is being held in jail without bond, and that 21-year-old Aolani Takemi Pettit was arrested Tuesday of this week and charged with “felony accessory after the fact.” The Blaze reported that Pettit “allegedly helped Sessoms flee from police before he was taken into custody the day after the shooting.”

Cannon’s stepfather, Lee Parker, recalled getting the phone call that Cannon had been killed. He said, “I received the call, man. I was riding down the road, and I just blacked out, couldn’t even think for a few seconds. Took me a minute to register it.”

Parker added, “It’ll never be behind us. He’ll always be with us, but we’re going to get through it.”

AWR Hawkins is an award-winning Second Amendment columnist for Breitbart News and the writer/curator of Down Range with AWR Hawkinsa weekly newsletter focused on all things Second Amendment, also for Breitbart News. He is the political analyst for Armed American Radio. Follow him on Twitter: @AWRHawkins. Reach him at awrhawkins@breitbart.com. You can sign up to get Down Range at breitbart.com/downrange.


Illinois State Coach Leaves Parting Message for BLM Before Quitting

Activists, some wearing face coverings or face masks as a precautionary measure against COVID-19, attend a Black Lives Matter protest march from Hyde Park towards Parliament Square in London on June 12, 2020. - Britain has seen days of protests sparked by the death in police custody of George Floyd, …
DANIEL LEAL-OLIVAS/AFP via Getty Images
1:58

Illinois State offensive coordinator Kurt Beathard quit his job Wednesday, over his apparent dislike for the Black Lives Matter movement’s intrusion into the locker room.

On his way out, Beathard admittedly left a note on his office door reading “All Lives Matter to Our Lord & Savior Jesus Christ,” the Pantograph reported.

The coach was reportedly vexed over accusations and finger-pointing about who is responsible for tearing down a Black Lives Matter banner that had been erected in the school’s locker room.

From his comments, it seems that Beathard, the son of four-time Super Bowl Champion Bobby Beathard, may have become a suspect for tearing down the BLM sign. But according to the paper, Beathard strenuously denied he had anything to do with the incident.

“That locker room crap is wrong. I took the sign down somebody put on my door. That’s it,” Beathard told the paper. “I didn’t take anything off that wasn’t put on my door. I wrote the message.”

Beathard’s resignation over the BLM agenda is not the first time the race-centric movement has roiled the Illinois State football program. In September, Redbird Director of Athletics Larry Lyons stirred controversy when he said “all redbird lives matter” in a video conference with the players.

Lyons later apologized and pledged to “listen better” in the future.

“I think we’re going to a good place,” told the media in September. “We’re all trying to reach out and listen better. I need to listen better, and we’re engaging with student-athletes about best ways to move forward. There’s some anger, and I understand that. I wouldn’t want to diminish that. This is important. We’re going to move forward. We’re going to tackle this head-on. Education is a big part of it, and that starts with me.”

Follow Warner Todd Huston on Facebook at: facebook.com/Warner.Todd.Huston.


I8 of Top 20 Cities with Projected Highest Murder Rates Have Democrat Mayors

CHICAGO, ILLINOIS - JULY 21: An ATF agent and Police investigate the scene of a shooting in the Auburn Gresham neighborhood on July 21, 2020 in Chicago, Illinois. At least 14 people were transported to area hospitals after several gunmen opened fire on mourners standing outside of a funeral home. …
Scott Olson/Getty Images
3:48

New York Times report based on projections for 2020 shows 18 of the top 20 cities for homicides have Democrat mayors.

Ironically, the Times leans on the Republican exceptions in the list to claim President Donald Trump is wrong for calling out the Democrat Party over violent cities around the country.

Again, 18 of the top 20 cities for the projected highest murder rates are run by Democrats. The projections were drawn from a combination of police department figures and media reports.

Below is a list of the cities, the names/party affiliation of their mayors, and their projected murder rate (PMR):

  1. St. Louis — Mayor Lyda Krewson (D) — PMR: 90.4
  2. Baltimore — Mayor Bernard Young (D) — PMR: 55.8
  3. Detroit — Mayor Mike Duggan (D) — PMR: 47.6
  4. New Orleans — Mayor LaToya Cantrell (D) — PMR: 46:4
  5. Cleveland — Mayor Frank G. Jackson (D) — PMR: 41:3
  6. Kansas City, MO — Mayor Quiton Lucas (D) — PMR: 40.0
  7. Cincinnati — Mayor John Cranley (D) — PMR: 33:4
  8. Milwaukee — Mayor Tom Barrett (D) — PMR: 31.7
  9. Chicago — Mayor Lori Lightfoot (D) — PMR: 28.6
  10. Atlanta — Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms (D) — PMR: 27.9
  11. Philadelphia — Mayor Jim Kinney (D) — PMR: 27.4
  12. Washington — Mayor Muriel Bowser (D) — PMR: 27.3
  13. Louisville — Mayor Greg Fischer (D) — PMR: 23.0
  14. Miami — Mayor Francis X. Suarez (R) — PMR: 22.2
  15. Indianapolis — Mayor Joe Hogsett (D) — PMR: 21.9
  16. Oakland — Mayor Libby Schaaf (D) — PMR: 21.0
  17. Toledo — Mayor Wade Kapszukiewicz (D) — PMR: 20.8
  18. Tulsa — Mayor G.T. Bynum (R) — PMR: 20.0
  19. Minneapolis — Mayor Jacob Frey (D) — PMR: 18.7
  20. Greensboro — Mayor Nancy B. Vaughan (D) — PMR: 18.6

The Times also includes a lookback at the ten U.S. cities with the highest murder rates in 2019. All ten had Democrat mayors.

The Times contends, “More cities are run by Democratic mayors than by Republican ones, but murder is rising pretty much everywhere, regardless of a mayor’s political party.”

On June 29, 2020, Breitbart News reported a Washington Post column suggesting Trump was wrong to criticize the violence in Democrat-controlled cities because only 17 of the top 20 most violent cities are run by Democrats.

AWR Hawkins is an award-winning Second Amendment columnist for Breitbart News and the writer/curator of Down Range with AWR Hawkinsa weekly newsletter focused on all things Second Amendment, also for Breitbart News. He is the political analyst for Armed American Radio. Follow him on Twitter: @AWRHawkins. Reach him at awrhawkins@breitbart.com. You can sign up to get Down Range at breitbart.com/downrange.

Almost All of America’s Failed Cities are Democrat Cities

That includes 42 of the top 43 centers of violent crime.

Thu Sep 3, 2020 

John Perazzo


[John Perazzo is the author of Betrayal: The Democratic Party’s Destruction of America’s Cities and also of the Freedom Center's new investigative report: BLACK LIVES MATTER: Marxist Hate Dressed Up As Racial Justice.]

As Marxist and anarchist radicals continue to turn Democrat-run American cities into war zones, Democrats assure us that they alone understand how the current crisis can be resolved. White House hopeful Joe Biden, for example, vows that “as President,” he “will help lead” a national “conversation” about racial justice, “and more importantly,” he “will listen” to the “anguish” of the long-forgotten “little guy.”[1]

Biden’s “little guy” narrative blends seamlessly with one of the most widely accepted claims in American political discourse today: the notion that the Democratic Party is the party that fights on behalf of the common man. We are told that Democrats in public office advocate for a wide range of policies that would improve the lives of the poorest and most powerless among us.

With regard to crime, for instance, the Democratic Party Platform declares that we need to: end the “mass incarceration” that allegedly targets nonwhite minorities; “invest more in jobs and education” than in jails; eliminate mandatory minimum sentences; “close private prisons and detention centers”; “eliminat[e] the use of cash bail” because “no one should be imprisoned merely for failing to pay fines or fees”; and “abolish the death penalty, which has proven to be a cruel and unusual form of punishment.”[2]

Regarding economic matters, the official Democratic Party Platform explicitly pledges to promote “shared prosperity” by: “rais[ing] wages for working people,” “ending poverty” in “underserved communities,” and implementing “a comprehensive agenda to invest in America’s cities.”[3]

But in city after city where Democrats already have been in charge politically for an extended period of time, we find exceedingly high—indeed, often colossal—levels of crime and poverty that degrade the quality of life for the people who reside there. And the longer Democrats have dominated the politics of those cities, the worse the conditions tend to be. In short, Democrats have transformed a host of once-great metropolises into urban prisons where the “little guy”particularly the black and Hispanic “little guy” on whose behalf Democrats typically claim to speakhas been grievously harmed by one destructive Democratic policy after another.

The Most Dangerous Cities in America

Let us first examine the political leadership of the most dangerous American cities, large and small alike. “Danger,” for purposes of this analysis, is defined in terms of the number of violent crimes committed per 1,000 residents. Four categories of violent crime are included in these calculations: homicide, rape, armed robbery, and aggravated assault. The statistics regarding the incidence of each of these crimes in each city were derived from FBI records and were published in 2019 by the custom analytics website NeighborhoodScout.com.[4]

The following chart shows the 50 cities that have the highest violent crime rates in the United States and: (a) have a population of 25,000 or more; (b) are governed by mayors who are clearly identifiable as either Democrats or Republicans;[5] and (c) have either a “Mayor-Council” (MC) form of government, a “Council-Manager” (CM) form of government, or a Hybrid (HYB) of the two.[6]  Of those 50 cities, 46 are governed by Democratic mayors and administrations; only 4 are governed by Republicans. Moreover, 42 of the top 43 are governed by Democrats.
 

 

Rank

Cities with Populations of 25,000+

Population[7]

Type of Govt.

Violent Crimes/ 1,000

Mayor’s Party

1

Detroit, MI

672,829

MC

20.0

Democratic

2

Memphis, TN

652,752

MC

19.5

Democratic

3

Birmingham, AL

209,403

MC

19.3

Democratic

4

Baltimore, MD

614,664

MC

18.5

Democratic

5

Flint, MI

97,379

MC

18.3

Democratic

6

St. Louis, MO

318,416

MC

18.2

Democratic

7

Wilmington, DE

71,455

MC

16.3

Democratic

8

Camden, NJ

74,417

MC

16.2

Democratic

9

Pine Bluff, AR

42,984

MC

16.0

Democratic

10

Kansas City, MO

481,360

CM

15.9

Democratic

11

S. Bernardino, CA   

HYB

MC

15.3

Democratic

12

Alexandria, LA

47,334

MC

14.6

Democratic

13

Little Rock, AR

198,546

CM

14.6

Democratic

14

Cleveland, OH

385,810

MC

14.5

Democratic

15

Milwaukee, WI

595,070

MC

14.3

Democratic

16

Stockton, CA

307,057

CM

14.2

Democratic

17

Monroe, LA

49,761

MC

14.1

Democratic

18

Chester, PA

34,133

MC

14.0

Democratic

19

Rockford, IL

147,404

MC

14.0

Democratic

20

Albuquerque, NM

559,270

MC

13.7

Democratic

21

Pontiac, MI

59,792

MC

13.4

Democratic

22

Kalamazoo, MI

75,988

CM

13.3

Democratic

23

Anchorage, AK

298,192

HYB

13.1

Democratic

24

Oakland, CA

419,987

HYB

12.9

Democratic

25

Indianapolis, IN

852,506

MC

12.9

Democratic

26

East Point, GA

35,282

MC

12.8

Democratic

27

Compton, CA

97,537

CM

12.1

Democratic

28

Battle Creek, MI

52,347

CM

12.0

Republican

29

East St. Louis, IL

26,662

CM

12.0

Democratic

30

Canton, OH

71,329

MC

11.9

Democratic[8]

31

Elkhart, IN

52,348

MC

11.9

Democratic

32

Newburgh, NY

28,363

CM

11.9

Democratic

33

Riviera Beach, FL

34,674

MC

11.8

Democratic

34

Wichita, KS

389,938

CM

11.8

Democratic

35

Jackson, MI

32,704

CM

11.8

Democratic

36

New Orleans, LA

391,495

MC

11.8

Democratic

37

Trenton, NJ

84,065

MC

11.8

Democratic

38

Jacksonville, AR

28,235

MC

11.7

Democratic

39

Nashville, TN

688,901

MC

11.5

Democratic

40

Lansing, MI

117,400

MC

11.1

Democratic[9]

41

Daytona B., FL

66,649

MC

11.1

Democratic

42

Albany, GA

74,904

MC

10.9

Democratic

43

Harrisburg, PA

49,192

MC

10.8

Democratic

44

Tulsa, OK

401,190

MC

10.7

Republican

45

Beaumont, TX

116,825

CM

10.7

Republican

46

Hartford, CT

123,287

MC

10.7

Democratic

47

Desert Hot Sp, CA

28,878

MC

10.7

Republican

48

Buffalo, NY

255,284

MC

10.6

Democratic

49

Gadsden, AL

35,000

MC

10.5

Democratic

50

Chattanooga, TN

182,799

MC

10.5

Democratic


The Cities with the Highest Poverty Rates

Now let us turn our attention to the political leadership of the large U.S. cities with the highest poverty rates in the nation. These are cities that: (a) have populations of at least 200,000; (b) are governed by mayors who are clearly identifiable as either Democrats or Republicans; and (c) have either a “Mayor-Council” (MC) form of government, a “Council-Manager” (CM) form of government, or a Hybrid (HYB) of the two.[10] Of the 50 cities in this list, 41 have Democratic mayors, and just 9 have Republican mayors.[11]
 

Rank

City & State

Type of Govt.

Poverty Rate

Mayor’s Party

1

Detroit, MI  

MC

36.4%

Democratic

2

Cleveland, OH  

MC

34.6%

Democratic

3

Buffalo, NY

MC

30.3%  

Democratic

4

San Bernardino, CA  

HYB

28.4%

Democratic

5

Newark, NJ

MC

28.0% 

Democratic

6

Cincinnati, OH  

HYB

27.2%

Democratic

7

Fresno, CA

HYB

26.9% 

Republican

8

Memphis, TN  

MC

26.8%

Democratic

9

Milwaukee, WI

MC

26.6% 

Democratic

10

Toledo, OH

MC

25.6%

Democratic

11

Baton Rouge, LA

MC

25.2%

Democratic

12

Philadelphia, PA

MC

24.9%

Democratic

13

New Orleans, LA

MC

24.6%  

Democratic

14

Richmond, VA

MC

24.5%

Democratic

15

Miami, FL

HYB

24.3%   

Republican

16

St. Louis, MO

MC

24.2%

Democratic

17

Hialeah, FL 

MC

23.7% 

Republican

18

Tucson, AZ

CM

23.4%

Democratic

19

Baltimore, MD

MC

21.8%  

Democratic

20

Atlanta, GA

MC

21.6%

Democratic

21

Pittsburgh, PA

MC

21.4%

Democratic

22

Houston, TX

MC

20.6% 

Democratic

23

Dallas, TX

CM

20.5%

Democratic

24

Stockton, CA

CM

20.5%

Democratic

25

Columbus, OH  

MC

20.4% 

Democratic

26

Boston, MA

MC

20.2%

Democratic

27

Lubbock, TX

CM

20.2%

Republican

28

El Paso, TX

CM

20.0%

Republican

29

Minneapolis, MN

MC

19.9% 

Democratic

30

St. Paul, MN

MC

19.9% 

Democratic

31

Norfolk, VA

CM

19.7%  

Democratic

32

Tulsa, OK

MC

19.7%  

Republican

33

Chicago, IL

MC

19.5%

Democratic

34

Tampa, FL

MC

19.5%

Democratic

35

Phoenix, AZ

CM

19.4%  

Democratic

36

Los Angeles, CA

MC

19.1%

Democratic

37

New York, NY

MC

18.9%

Democratic

38

Glendale, AZ

CM

18.6% 

Republican

39

San Antonio, TX

CM

18.6% 

Democratic

40

Bakersfield, CA

CM

18.5%  

Republican

41

Greensboro, NC  

CM

18.5%  

Democratic

42

Jersey City, NJ

MC

18.3%

Democratic

43

Sacramento, CA

CM

18.3%  

Democratic

44

Spokane, WA

MC

18.3%

Republican

45

Orlando, FL

MC

18.2%

Democratic

46

Long Beach, CA

CM

18.1% 

Democratic

47

Madison, WI

MC

17.9%

Democratic

48

Santa Ana, CA

CM

17.7% 

Democratic

49

Albuquerque, NM

MC

17.6%

Democratic

50

Oakland, CA

HYB

17.6%

Democratic


It should be noted that many of the cities in the foregoing charts have been governed by Democrats not just for a short time, but for many years, or even decades, on end. To cite just a few examples: St. Louis has been led exclusively and continuously by Democrats for the past 71 years; Detroit, 58 years; Baltimore, 53 years; Kansas City, 29 years; Wilmington, 47 years; Cleveland, 30 years; Harrisburg, 38 years; Houston, 38 years; Minneapolis, 42 years; Chicago, 89 years; and Milwaukee, 60 years.

Conclusion

The facts are crystal clear, and they are stunning. For decade upon decade, the Democratic Party has fed mountains of rhetoric to its many reliable voting blocs in scores of U.S. cities, assuring them of its deep and abiding concern for the lives of ordinary Americans. Yet it has delivered absolutely nothing in terms of measurable improvements to those lives. Instead, the Party has gradually transformed itself into a political wrecking ball whose only tangible achievement in urban America has been to perpetuate obscene levels of poverty, crime, and human misery. It is a shocking record of wretched failure that can be neither ignored nor wished away.

Why on earth would anyone believe that entrusting Democrats with the reins of governmental power on a national level, as opposed to a city level, would lead to a better result?

It is time for serious-minded individuals who may have long supported the Democratic Party for reasons they deemed worthy and honorable, to finally recognize that their party has failed and betrayed them so consistently and so monstrously, that they now have a moral imperative to walk away from it.

 

NYC’s streets are now too dangerous and too disturbing for normal folks to tolerate. If they’re not being attacked, beset, robbed, or murdered, they’re being disgusted. 

NYC August 2020 Shootings More than Double August 2019

Yana Paskova/Getty Images

2 Sep 20201,176

1:43

August 2020 shootings in Mayor Bill de Blasio’s (D) New York City were more than double the number witnessed in August 2019.

NBC 4 reports there were 242 shootings in NYC in August 2020 versus 91 in August 2019.

Moreover, the number of murders in NYC in August 2020 was 53 versus 36 during August of last year.

The New York Times reports that since May 2020, NYC has seen “a more than 140 percent increase … [in shootings] over the same period in 2019.” And there were 180 murders between May and August, a “51 percent increase compared to 2019.”

On September 1, 2020, Breitbart News reported that de Blasio’s NYC had surpassed the grim milestone of 1,000 shootings for the year.

The New York Post reported NYPD data indicated there were 1,004 shootings in NYC as of August 30, 2020. There were 537 shootings by that same time in 2019.

AWR Hawkins is an award-winning Second Amendment columnist for Breitbart News and the writer/curator of Down Range with AWR Hawkins, a weekly newsletter focused on all things Second Amendment, also for Breitbart News. He is the political analyst for Armed American Radio. Follow him on Twitter: @AWRHawkins. Reach him at awrhawkins@breitbart.com. You can sign up to get Down Range at breitbart.com/downrange.

 

New York Had It Coming

By Jon N. Hall

I used to love New York City. There was so much to do and see, but if one were from the heartland like me, one could be perfectly content to just walk the streets and look at architecture and people. One might seek out venues one had seen in the movies, such as in Woody Allen’s Manhattan; perhaps Elaine’s. And when one got weary from walking, one could sit down at one of two, count ‘em, two major opera houses. And after a performance one might grab a beer at that joint across the street from the Met and muse about what a wonderful city one was visiting, where the Bronx is up and the Battery’s down. It really was a helluva town.

I used to love New York City, but there’s not much left to love. In the wake of the riots and vandalism things aren’t so wonderful in the Big Apple anymore. Some have said the city is dead and isn’t coming back. Indeed, on August 13, former hedge-fund manager, author, and bon vivant James Altucher self-published “NYC Is Dead Forever. Here’s Why” at LinkedIn. The article is blocked into several segments, including business, culture, food, commercial real estate, and colleges. It’s a longish article with three charts, but it’s worth your time, as it has insights that might be transferable to other cities:

NYC has never been locked down for five months. Not in any pandemic, war, financial crisis, never. In the middle of the polio epidemic, when little kids (including my mother) were going paralyzed or dying (my mother ended up with a bad leg), NYC didn't go through this.

Thousands of productive New Yorkers have left the City, and Altucher thinks they won’t be coming back. Even so, many are taking their jobs with them. They don’t need to commute to work, as they can telecommunicate to work. That’s because of the huge increases in bandwidth, Altucher tells us. Why ride the subway to work when one can fire up one’s computer and Zoom to work?

Altucher himself held out on moving from his beloved NYC until June, when the riots began. He has kids, and upon seeing videos of rioters trying to break into his building after curfew, Altucher had had enough and decamped for Florida.

Altucher’s article got a lot of buzz. The New York Post reprinted it in its entirety on then ran a counterpoint article by a Manhattan lawyer. At the Blaze, Glenn Beck read Altucher’s entire article on the air; it takes more than 14 minutes (it’s also here). On Fox Business, Maria and Dagen interviewed Altucher, and the first thing he went into was lost tax revenue, deficits, and mass bankruptcies. But here’s the thing, there was already talk of bankruptcy for NYC back in 2019. So although the lockdown was the fatal blow, NYC already had huge problems.

There’s one key word that never appears in Altucher’s article: “Blasio.” (To soften that observation for Italian-Americans, Mayor Bill de Blasio, the chief villain in NYC’s demise, chose his name; his birth surname is “Wilhelm.”)

So, is Altucher guilty of having voted for de Blasio? If he voted to re-elect de Blasio, then Mr. Altucher is responsible, at least in part, for the ruination of his city. Even before his re-election, this writer heard that virtually everybody in NYC “disapproved,” to use a kind word, of the mayor. Yet, he got a second term. Are we talking massive voter fraud here, or is the NYC electorate a bunch of dummies? (Back in 1972, the gal who had the role of Amneris in the production of Aida here in Kansas City was a New Yorker, and she told me that New Yorkers were quicker and smarter than folks in the Midwest. A quick glance at the fools New Yorkers continually re-elect refutes her assertion.)

NYC’s brilliant oh-so-sophisticated residents reflexively vote Democrat. Only when life in the Big City becomes too “unpleasant” will New Yorkers consider voting GOP. They did this in the 1990s when they elected a law-and-order Republican for mayor (Rudy Giuliani) to clean up the messes created by their previous voting mistakes. Rudy leads us to the main reason for NYC’s possible demise: the situation in the streets.

NYC’s streets are now too dangerous and too disturbing for normal folks to tolerate. If they’re not being attacked, beset, robbed, or murdered, they’re being disgusted. The streets are the problem that must be fixed before we can consider a resurrection for NYC. The psychotics, thugs, panhandlers, loiterers, tent campers, muggers, and everyone else making life in the city a trial need to be removed and never tolerated again. New York City was America’s premier metropolis. It should be reserved for “movers and shakers,” ne’er-do-wells should reside elsewhere.

Last year when hoodlums started dousing NYC cops with buckets of water and little was done about it, NYC’s fate was sealed. Giuliani would never have allowed the streets of NYC to descend into the chaos that de Blasio has let happen; Rudy would have stopped it cold. If New York is to be revived, then a new policy of zero tolerance for bad behavior must be instituted. Panhandling, public urination and defecation, nudity, sex in the streets, loitering, malingering, tent encampments, etc. should no longer be tolerated. If New Yorkers aren’t willing to forbid such things, forget about the city coming back.

New Yorkers need to redeem themselves. The destruction of their city wasn’t something that just happened; it’s something that they themselves brought about through decades of bad voting decisions. They need to start voting for decent candidates. Perhaps their whole municipal system of government needs to be scrapped. New York City needs to be reorganized in bankruptcy, receivership, or by some federal overlord. But there should be no federal funds for a bailout.

New Yorkers need to accept responsibility for the destruction of their city. That might start by electing Michelle Caruso-Cabrera to Congress for the 14th district. Yes, she lost to Sandy O in the primary, but she still seems to be on the ballot in the general under the Serve America Movement Party. Unlike Sandy Cortez (another Dem who changed her surname), Michelle is an adult.

If Sandy and the other idiots New Yorkers have sent to Congress are re-elected, then maybe we could sell Manhattan back to the “Indians.”

NOTE: That “joint” across the street from the Metropolitan Opera that I referenced in my first paragraph, well, I forgot the name. So I used Google Maps to find it, and it’s P.J. Clark’s. Fortunately, P.J’s may be surviving. At the top of their website, there’s a link on “What We’re Doing” that explains how they’re handling the lockdown. For a little amusement, you might click on this to go to a Google Maps image of P.J. Clarke’s, and then “twist” left by grabbing the screen (click and hold down your mouse), and then dragging the cursor right for a bit. You’ll be looking down Columbus Ave. going NE. Then put the cursor on the street and click a few times to travel down the street. Stop when you’re even with the white cop car on the left, and then twist left again. You’ll be looking at the Met. If you’ve never done this, you may find it amazing… and fun.

Jon N. Hall of ULTRACON OPINION is a programmer from Kansas City.

Image: Pickpik