Socialism

 If you have watched the first two nights of the Republican National Convention, and I am sorry if you have, you have probably seen speaker after speaker accuse Joe Biden and the Democratic Party of being SOCIALISTS who, if elected, will carry out the agenda of Bernie Sanders, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and Ilhan Omar.

If only that were true…

But while they scream "socialist" as an epithet in their videos and from the stage, what everyone needs to know is that Trump and the Republican Party just LOVE socialism — a corporate socialism for the rich and the powerful.

And let's be clear. Their brand of socialism has resulted in more income and wealth inequality than at any time since the 1920s, with three multi-billionaires now owning more wealth than the bottom half of our nation. Their socialism has allowed, during this pandemic, the very, very rich to become much richer while tens of millions of workers have lost their jobs, their health care and face eviction.

While Trump denounces socialism let us never forget the $885 million in government subsidies and tax breaks the Trump family received for a real estate empire built on racial discrimination.

But Trump is not alone.

The high priest of unfettered capitalism, Trump’s National Economic Council Director Larry Kudlow, spoke in a video last night.

And who could ever forget when Larry was on television begging for the largest federal bailout in American history for his friends on Wall Street — some $700 billion from the Treasury and trillions in support from the Federal Reserve — after their greed, recklessness and illegal behavior created the worst financial disaster since the Great Depression.

But it is not just Trump and Larry Kudlow.

If you are a fossil fuel company, whose carbon emissions are destroying the planet, you get billions in government subsidies including special tax breaks, royalty relief, funding for research and development and numerous tax loopholes.

If you are a pharmaceutical company, you make huge profits on patent rights for medicines that were developed with taxpayer-funded research.

If you are a monopoly like Amazon, owned by the wealthiest person in America, you get hundreds of millions of dollars in economic incentives from taxpayers to build warehouses and you end up paying not one penny in federal income taxes.

If you are the Walton family, the wealthiest family in America, you get massive government subsidies because your low-wage workers are forced to rely on food stamps, Medicaid and public housing in order to survive — all paid for by taxpayers.

This is what Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. meant when he said that “This country has socialism for the rich, and rugged individualism for the poor.”

And that is the difference between Donald Trump and us.

Trump believes in corporate socialism for the rich and powerful.

We believe in a democratic socialism that works for the working families of this country. We believe that in the wealthiest country in the history of the world, economic rights are human rights.

So yes, progressives and even moderate Democrats will face attacks from people who attempt to use the word "socialism" as a slur.

There is nothing new of that.

Like President Harry Truman said, "Socialism is the epithet they have hurled at every advance the people have made in the last 20 years … Socialism is what they called Social Security … Socialism is their name for almost anything that helps all the people." 

Bernie Sanders

Trump and the RNC

Over the next week during the Republican National Convention, we will be reminded of the devastating impact of the right-wing extremist agenda that Donald Trump and the Republican Party have forced upon the nation.

 In many ways, this is the most important week of the most important election in modern American history. And our job this week is to expose Donald Trump for the fraud and pathological liar that we all know him to be.

 This is a president, Donald Trump, who said he was going to provide health care to everyone, yet tried to throw 32 million people off of health care and continues, to this day, to try and accomplish that goal. Today, millions fewer Americans have health insurance than when Trump came into office.

 This is a president, who in his last campaign said that he was a different type of Republican who would make no cuts to Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, but introduced budgets that slash all three.

 This is a president who said he was going to stand up for working families and who promised to pass tax reform legislation designed to help the middle class, yet 83 percent of his tax benefits go to the top 1 percent.

 This is a president who promised to take on the pharmaceutical companies. He said they were "getting away with murder." Yet, drug prices continue to soar and he appointed a drug company executive as the Secretary of Health and Human Services.

 This is a president who promised to take on the greed of Wall Street, but then proceeded to appoint more Wall Street titans to high positions than any president in history.

 This is a president who said the coronavirus would just “disappear” and that he had a “natural ability” to understand this deadly virus, yet almost 200,000 people have died from the virus, there are tens of thousands of new cases a day, and there is absolutely no end in sight — and yet he refuses to support extending what we accomplished in the CARES Act, getting a weekly $600 check to people who desperately need it.

 This is a president who said he was going to "drain the swamp," but has used his office for blatant personal and political gain, running the most corrupt administration in modern American history. 

 This is a president who said he would do "everything in my power to protect our LGBT citizens," yet has gone out of his way to attempt to deny them from getting the health care they need and allow discrimination against them in the workplace.

 This is a president who, after a number of different mass shootings, said that he would take action to keep weapons out of the hands of dangerous people, but has time and time again sided with the NRA and done absolutely NOTHING to solve the epidemic levels of gun violence in this country.

 This is a president who said that if he won that America would be respected again around the world, yet as a result of his anti-democratic and incompetent policies has succeeded in significantly lowering the respect that people all over the planet have for the United States.

 The truth is, Donald Trump has sold out the working families of this country and he cannot be elected again. He is a menace to democracy whose rejection of science has cost us almost 200,000 lives and whose rejection of climate science threatens the future of this planet. We have to appreciate how unbelievably severe the current moment is.

 If Trump wins again, all of the anti-worker, anti-democratic policies he has pursued during his first term will only be magnified. We will have more racism, more xenophobia, more attempts to divided us up based on the color our skin and where we were born, more reactionary policies with regard to the economy, and we’ll continue our national march toward authoritarianism.

 We must vigorously take on the lies and bigotry we are going to see on the stage at this week’s Republican National Convention. I, like you, am frankly outraged by what Trump and Washington Republicans are doing to our country and our people.

Governor Andrew Cuomo on the Virus

 

Start with the Truth, Admit the Mistakes, Reset with a National Lockdown.

 Or the Virus will Richochet Around the Country Forever.

 

Pessimism, realism or optimism? your choice

  Once a week I have  a zoom lunch  with 4 to 6 former colleagues and friends.  Hard to believe that we have known each other for more than forty years.  We were  a group of young attorneys who liked and respected each other.  Now we are a bunch of old farts who still feel the same about each other.  My colleagues are smart, engaging and bring different perspectives to the discussions.  The one thing we all have in common is our utter disdain for Treasonous Trump.

        One of my colleagues believes  that tRUMP is going to successfully steal the election.  He said, however, that in his life he has never wanted to be so wrong.  Other colleagues  are not predicting a tRUMP victory, but are scared s***less that he might win.  Then there is the eternal  optimist who can give an endless list of reasons to  be optimistic.  The events of this week make it more difficult to be optimistic however.

      Several months ago, we all agreed that tRUMP is a dirty fighter.  Democrats don't know how to fight dirty or respond to dirty fighters.  We all agreed that tRUMP would find ways to fight dirty that we could not imagine.  This week he proved the point.  We could never have imagined that tRUMP would defund the post office.  Neither could we imagine that he would appoint a postmaster general  who would emasculate the postal service.  tRUMP's consigliere   Separately, Bill Barr will no doubt have a September/October surprise.  The same goes for Lindsey Graham and Ron Johnson.  The exact surprises can't be predicted, but they are coming.

      So how does the eternal optimist stay optimistic?  The more we see and hear Kamala Harris, the more it becomes evident that this was a brilliant choice.  I had several reasons for not putting her at the top of my list.  All of those reasons have proven wrong.  Biden can remain the adult in the room and not get into the mud with tRUMP. Harris  will not  let tRUMP get away with anything.  During the judiciary committee hearings I thought Harris was far and away the best of the Democratic senators.

      I believe that there will be a massive voter turnout despite the defunding of the post office. I believe  that in every state, voters can drop off the ballots at their polling stations.  Democrats will do a massive educational campaign to get people to drop off their ballots rather than mailing them. If people can't get to the polling stations there will be volunteer organizations to transport them. I am told that the Ohio Secretary Of State has ordered that there be only one drop off site in each county.  I assume that will be the subject of lawsuits.  I believe one way or another, people will turn out in droves.  That happened  in Wisconsin during the height of the pandemic. It happened in Georgia despite the governor's vile attempts at voter suppression.

        As just one example of the GOTV movement, please note the incredible organization started by LeBron James and a number of other high profile athletes and entertainers. (one of my all time Michigan favorites Jalen Rose is among the principals).  Check out More Than Just A Vote.  The organization is dedicated to getting tens of thousands of African American citizens to register and to vote.  There are countless similar organizations across the country.

          The  bottom line for my optimism is that Hillary lost because of a perfect storm.  This time around there will not be huge numbers of voters who decide not to vote for president.  This time around there will not be a strong Green Party candidate to syphon votes from Biden.  This time around there are significant numbers of Republicans who find tRUMP abhorrent.   And this time around African American voters will turn out in much higher numbers.

        So with all due respect to my pessimistic and realistic friends, I remain the eternal optimist.  Let's hope.  Stay safe.

                                                  Richard

tRUMP's disgusting twofer

   tRUMP's proposal to bankrupt the Postal Service has received tons of publicity in the last few weeks.  Now he is threatening to suspend payroll taxes.  There is no bottom to his evil.  What is most perplexing is that he is attacking two programs that have overwhelming public support across all political lines.  I have read that the Postal Service has a 90% favorability rating.  Post offices in small rural communities are popular meeting spots.  One would think  that Republican senators from sparsely populated states will fight to properly fund the postal service.  On the other hand, in the age of tRUMP, it is impossible to apply rational thinking to irrational minds.  

        The payroll tax is 7.65% which is charged separately  to both employees and employers.  Trump claims that he has the authority to suspend the tax without congressional involvement.  It goes without saying that he probably has no such authority.  If he were able to suspend the tax, it would mean that  wealthy wage earners  would save about $10,500.  An employee earning $20,000 would save about $765.  And, of course, unemployed people would save nothing.

     A cut in payroll taxes found its way into the proposed Republican covid relief bill.   McConnell claimed he did not know how it got into the bill.  In any event it was swiftly deleted.  McConnell well knows that the politics of defunding social security and medicare is toxic.

       Trump has not said whether he would suspend the employer tax as well as the employee tax.  We can assume that is his intent.  Think of all the money the tRUMP/Kushner criminal enterprises would save.  By my math using reasonable assumptions of payroll, it may be in the millions. Employers would love to see the tax cut.   This is a classic example of trickle down economics which has proven time and time again that the money barely trickles down.

       The payroll tax funds social security and medicare, both tremendously popular programs.  You may recall that in 2005, George W. Bush made a modest proposal to partially privatize social security.  The public reaction from all sides was overwhelmingly negative.  Bush quickly withdrew the proposal.  For years wealthy conservative Republicans have thirsted for reductions in social security benefits.  tRUMP's proposal will help starve social security and medicare.  Will tRUMP's base know or care that he wants to starve social security and medicare?  The answer to both is probably, "no". AARP will certainly care.

       As an aside,  there is an easy fix to fully fund social security and medicare for decades to come.  Right now there is a cap on the amount of income which is subject to the payroll tax.  So a millionaire pays a far smaller percentage of his or her income than does an ordinary wage earner.  If the cap were eliminated everyone would pay the same percentage.  Seems fair to me.  Eliminating the cap will never happen while Republicans control the Senate.  This is another good reason to boot them out.

       tRUMP and his enablers are actively undermining the quality of the postal service.  All of the members of the postal service board of directors are white male tRUMP appointees.  People on our side of politics are legitimately worried that tRUMP will successfully disqualify millions of mail in ballots by emasculating the postal service.  I worry as well.  But the eternal optimist thinks that most secretaries of state  will do their best to protect the franchise.  Jocelyn Benson will absolutely protect mail in ballots.  A simple protection is to make sure that every voter has access to a drop box for their ballot.  We saw in Wisconsin that neither Republicans nor covid will deter the Democratic wave from  coming. Do your part to fumigate tRUMP out of the White House.

                                                            Richard