Showing posts with label Donald Trump. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Donald Trump. Show all posts

Wednesday, March 6, 2024

Bernie Sanders : What Is To Be Done ? Today !

 

Last night, Donald Trump swept through the Republican Super Tuesday presidential primaries (with the exception of Vermont). His one major opponent has dropped out, putting the most dangerous president in American history one step closer to returning to the White House.

The primary is over. This is it. The election will once again be between Joe Biden and Donald Trump. And, frighteningly, at this point most polls have Trump in the lead.

The question we now face is a simple one. How do we defeat Trump and his right-wing extremist allies in the House and Senate? How do we elect more Progressives to Congress?

And, frankly, the answer is complicated by the reality that the Democratic establishment is ill-prepared to do that. They have relatively little support within the working class. Their support among the Latino community is declining. And they are even seeing a drop In support from the Black community - historically the Democrats strongest base of support. Their support among young people is declining. The Democrats are also weak in terms of generating grass-roots activism or excitement. 

We have to do things differently. 

While most Democrats will focus their attention on Trump's indictments, his insults and outrages, our job is to be laser-focused in reminding people of the fraud and pathological liar for working people we all know Trump to be.

For instance: 

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 has pledged to continue to try and accomplish that goal. 

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 appointed vehemently anti-labor members to the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB). 

This is a president who believes climate change is a "hoax", and appointed agency leaders and judges who consistently undermined our ability to move toward sustainable energy and protect the environment.

This is a president who said he would do "everything in my power to protect our LGBT citizens," yet went 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 brags about his role in overturning Roe v. Wade and denying reproductive rights to millions of women across the 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, all while embracing right-wing authoritarian rulers around the world. 

This is a president who not only rejected his own defeat and attempted to incite an insurrection to stop Congress from certifying the election, but worked overtime to make it harder for people to vote and easier for billionaires to buy the outcomes of elections. I happen to believe that if Trump is elected once again this November, the 250 year old experiment of modern democracy in this country may very well come to end. 

The truth is, Donald Trump sold out the working families of this country once, and if he wins again all of the anti-worker, anti-democratic policies he pursued during his first term will only be magnified. He is a menace to working people whose rejection of climate science threatens the future of this planet. We have to appreciate how unbelievably severe the current moment is.

This is not the message most Democrats trying to defeat Trump will communicate, but it one we must relentlessly remind the working people of this country about ahead of November's elections.

So there it is. A lot of important work ahead of us. 

Now, you know that since our presidential campaign I have rarely asked directly for contributions, but today I am once again asking for your financial support:


Monday, September 24, 2018

Donald in Wonderland

The Donald in Wonderland
Down the Financial Rabbit Hole With President Trump
By 
Nomi Prins
Once upon a time, there was a little-known energy company called Enron. In its 16-year life, it went from being dubbed America’s most innovative company by Fortune Magazine to being the poster child of American corporate deceit. Using a classic recipe for book-cooking, Enron ended up in bankruptcy with jail time for those involved. Its shareholders lost $74 billionin the four years leading up to its bankruptcy in 2001.
A decade ago, the flameout of my former employer, Lehman Brothers, the global financial firm, proved far more devastating, contributing as it did to a series of events that ignited a global financial meltdown. Americans lost an estimated $12.8 trillion in the havoc.
Despite the differing scales of those disasters, there was a common thread: both companies used financial tricks to make themselves appear so much healthier than they actually were. They both faked the numbers, thanks to off-the-books or offshore mechanisms and eluded investigations... until they collapsed.
Now, here’s a question for you as we head for the November midterm elections, sure to be seen as a referendum on the president: Could Donald Trump be a one-man version of either Enron or Lehman Brothers, someone who cooked “the books” until, well, he imploded?
Since we’ve never seen his tax returns, right now we really don’t know. What we do know is that he’s been dodging bullets ever since the Justice Department accused him of violating the Fair Housing Act in his operation of 39 buildings in New York City in 1973. Unlike famed 1920s mob boss Al Capone, he may never get done in by something as simple as tax evasion, but time will tell.

Saturday, October 3, 2015

Trump's Tax Plan is Good For - Well, Donald Trump


After weeks of worrying traditional anti-tax Republicans with talk of a crackdown on the rich, experts across the political spectrum say Trump’s plan looks like a windfall for the wealthiest of the wealthy and for big corporations. 
Benjy Sarlin
September 28, 2015
Trump’s tax proposal: Buyer beware!
Donald Trump’s position on winning is clear: He’s for it. So it’s perhaps not surprising that Trump himself looks like the biggest winner in his tax plan, which includes a number of changes that would slash taxes for himself, his company, and the children who stand to inherit his fortune.
“I fight like hell to pay as little as possible,” Trump said at his press conference announcing the plan on Monday. “Can I say that? I’m not a politician. I fight like hell always because it’s an expense.”
After weeks of worrying traditional anti-tax Republicans with talk of a crackdown on the rich, experts across the political spectrum say Trump’s plan looks like a windfall for the wealthiest of the wealthy and for big corporations. The top tax rate for individuals would be reduced to 25% from 39.6%, the top corporate tax rate would be cut by more than half to 15% from 35%, and the estate tax – which only applies to inheritances over $5.4 million – would be eliminated entirely. In addition, Trump would eliminate a 3.8% surcharge on capital gains taxes for wealthy investors created to finance the Affordable Care Act, which provides subsidies to lower and middle income Americans to buy insurance. All of these changes would likely benefit people like Trump and businesses like his own in a major way.