Americans Don't Want A 250 Dollar Bill With Trump's Picture On It

 

The chart above is from the Economist / YouGov Poll -- done between May 29th and June 1st of a nationwide sample of 1,604 adults, with a 3.5 point margin of error.

Three Out Of Four Americans Say Money In Politics Is A Huge Problem

The chart above is from a Pew Research Center survey -- done between April 20th and 26th of a nationwide sample of 5,103 adults, with a 1.6 point margin of error.

Most Americans Oppose Putting Trump's Signature On U.S. Currency

The chart above reflects the results of the YouGov Poll -- done on March 30th of a nationwide sample of 18,663 adults (No moe given). 

Most Say The Parade Is Not A Good Use Of Government Money

The chart above is from the AP / NORC Poll -- done between June 5th and 9th of a nationwide sample of 1,158 adults, with a 4 point margin of error.
 

A Warning For Democrats - Elon Musk Is NOT Your Friend!

I don't think any thinking people are surprised at the break-up of the Trump-Musk bromance (although some of us thought it might take a little longer than it did). Or that the break-up is as nasty as it is. After all, these men are both narcissists who both think they are always right (and deserve to be able to buy whatever they want). 

It has gotten so bad that Musk has threatened to start a new political party or support Democrats against Republicans in next year's election. I don't think the new party idea is viable. Musk is not nearly as popular as he seems to think he is. But the idea of Musk supporting Democrats is scary - especially to Democrats.

Let me be very clear in my advice to current and prospective Democratic office holders.

ELON MUSK IS NOT YOUR FRIEND! And neither is his money.

Thanks to his actions in the last few months, Musk has become toxic for most voters. He has seriously damaged many agencies in the government - to the extent that they are now struggling to meet their responsibilities to U.S. citizens. 

His opposition to the GOP's "big beautiful bill" is not because of its damaging cuts to services needed by millions of Americans. It's because he doesn't think those cuts are large enough. 

He still opposes moves that would actually help working people - like raising wages, making it easier to start and join a labor union, helping to pay the cost of child care, etc.

He is a racist who wants to preserve the white patriarchy.

He is corrupt. He tried to use his position at the White House to preserve and extend his government contracts - and he used it to try and force other countries to buy his Starlink system.

Any Democrat who accepts Musk's help in his/her campaign - or who just accepts money from the billionaire - risks tainting their own reputation with the Musk toxicity. 

If Musk donates to a Democratic campaign, the campaign should return and publicly rebuke that donation. And the same goes for PACs and superPACs. They should refuse any and all Musk donations.

There is an old saying - The enemy of my enemy is my friend. That does not apply in this case, because embracing Musk would be perceived as embracing his ideas and beliefs - most of which are anathema to Democratic ideals.

And don't take sides in the Musk / Trump feud. It is evil corruption versus evil corruption. Democrats must oppose both.

The task for Democrats in the next election is to restore the belief that they support working men and women and support policies that will help them. Embracing a billionaire and/or accepting his money promotes the opposite perception.

Democrats don't need Musk or his money. What they do need is to reject him. That would be the ethical and politically smart thing to do.

Musk Has Bought His Way Into A Position Of Enormous Power

The following is part of an article by Dan Rather: 

Elon Musk has been dubbed Donald Trump’s “First Buddy” — a riff, I assume, on the title First Lady. The moniker seems innocuous, almost cute. It is anything but.

Musk now has unchecked access to Donald Trump. He is a regular fixture at Trump’s Florida estate, Mar-a-Lago. He has sat in on calls with world leaders and has met with the Republican leadership in Congress. Trump has tasked Musk with implementing “drastic” reforms in the federal government as the head of the newly created Department of Government Efficiency — a convenient job for a man with many multimillion-dollar federal contracts.

Here’s the price tag for all this access: $277 million. That’s how much Musk spent to help elect Trump, according to an analysis by The Washington Post. No surprise, that’s more than any individual has ever spent on a single election.

And for all that money, you too could be co-president.

The Trump campaign claimed it was all about lifting up average Americans. Here’s the reality: So far Trump has packed his administration with at least a dozen billionaires.

Musk, the electric car maker, rocket builder, X owner, and richest person in the world is a private citizen. He is also unelected. He has not been vetted by the FBI, nor will he have to be confirmed by the Senate. According to The Wall Street Journal, Musk has used LSD, cocaine, ecstasy, mushrooms, and ketamine, any of which would keep him from passing a government background check. He will be unconstrained by conflict of interest rules that normally govern civil servants. The fox isn’t just guarding the proverbial hen house, he bought it — chickens, coop, and all. . . .

Musk is prohibited from running for president since he was born in South Africa, so he has bought his way into power in a very big way. The more than a quarter of a billion dollars he invested in Trump amounts to less than 1% of Musk’s net worth. It’s paid off big time. Musk’s personal bottom line has grown by more than $100 billion since Election Day, as the value of stock in his various companies has skyrocketed. Musk certainly can be credited with seizing a great financial opportunity.

The Rich Have To Much Power In Our Elections

 

From Robert Reich.

The Easiest Country To Illegally Hide Money? - THE U.S.!

The following is by Kristopher J Brooks at CBS News:

The U.S. is the top destination for stashing money illegally, according to a new report from a pro-tax advocacy group. 

This year marks the first time the U.S. placed No. 1 on FACT Coalition's Financial Secrecy Index, said the D.C.-based organization Tuesday. The U.S. ranked above traditional tax havens Singapore, Switzerland and Luxembourg, which rounded out the top four nations. The Cayman Islands, which many Americans associate with offshore bank accounts, ranks No. 14 on the group's list. 

"The U.S. often says 'We're No. 1' but this is one thing we don't want to be No.1 in," said Ian Gary, FACT Coalition's executive director. 

The findings come as the U.S. cracks down on Russian oligarch wealth following Russia's invasion of Ukraine. The U.S. has imposed financial sanctions on some oligarchs, including billionaires Alisher Usmanov and Igor Shuvalov, but that task has been made more difficult by the fact that much of that wealth is hidden within an intricate web of real estate assets, private investment accounts and anonymous shell companies, Quartz reported. 

The Department of Justice has created a new KleptoCapture task force aimed specifically at finding the hidden Russian wealth.

The FACT coalition examined financial rules from about 100 countries, including laws that make it easier for criminals to hide and launder money. The main reason the U.S. jumped to the top of the list, according to experts: a lack of funding for the Treasury Department to enforce a new anti-money laundering law.

In December 2020, Congress passed the Corporate Transparency Act, which requires anyone who forms a shell company in the U.S. to list an owner's name. Under the act, the Treasury Department's Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, or FinCEN, is in charge of enforcing the rules. 

But experts said FinCEN needs additional funding, staff and technology to take on this new task and investigate who's illegally stashing money. Biden administration officials are asking Congress to send $210 million to FinCEN under the U.S. government's proposed 2023 budget, which marks a roughly 30% increase from its current funding. 

FACT concluded that nearly every developed nation should pass stricter financial laws, particularly around the ownership of shell companies. Not doing so allows terrorism groups to secretly fund their operations and oligarchs to evade taxation, coalition officials said.

It's unclear how much money is illegally stashed within U.S. borders, experts in anti-money laundering say. But the U.S. Treasury Department has previously pegged the figure around 2% of the nation's GDP, which today would amount to $480 billion. 

U.S. officials have long been aware of money laundering activities within the U.S. More recently, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said in December that "the best place to hide and launder ill-gotten gains is actually the United States."

It takes less effort to set up a shell corporation in the U.S. than it does to get a library card, said Lakshmi Kumar, a terrorist-financing expert at Washington think tank Global Financial Integrity. That's because an applicant must verify their identification to use the library, but that's not the case for a shell corporation, he said.

Trump Is Using The Republican Party As His Piggy Bank

The main thing Trump did while in office was to use his position to increase his wealth. That didn't stop when he was booted from the White House by voters. His grifting continues, and it looks like he is using the GOP as his person piggy bank.

Consider the following by Ja'han Jones at MSNBC.com:

The Republican Party has been all in on Donald Trump's grift for years now. But new reporting suggests the party is funneling more money to the former president than previously known.

The Washington Post reported Thursday that the Republican National Committee agreed this summer to pay up to $1.6 million to help Trump — a self-proclaimed rich man — fight investigations into conduct that largely preceded his time in office. The New York Times confirmed the report later Thursday.

The money is meant to help Trump beat back a civil probe of Trump’s business by New York Attorney General Letitia James as well as a criminal investigation into his business by James and Manhattan District Attorney Cy Vance.

That’s all part of the Trump experience, you see: paying for him and his family of delinquents to fend off legal challenges while they pantomime opulence. 

"The RNC’s Executive Committee approved paying for certain legal expenses that relate to politically motivated legal proceedings waged against President Trump," GOP spokeswoman Emma Vaughn told the Post. “As a leader of our party, defending President Trump and his record of achievement is critical to the GOP."

That sounds a lot like, “I wasn’t robbed, I wanted the thief to have my wallet.” Nonetheless, dig further into the Post's story and you’ll find a hint of truth from unnamed GOP officials: They’re absolutely frightened about potentially being on Trump’s bad side. 

From the Post:  

Republican Party officials say privately that Trump is the biggest fundraising draw for the party, and they want to keep him in their good graces ahead of the 2022 midterms and 2024 presidential election. RNC Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel regularly talks to Trump, according to Trump advisers, and has in the past warned him against starting a third party. She has managed to keep close ties with him as other advisers have burned out.

Republican Party officials seem completely sold on the idea of being Trump's personal bank — whether it's out of loyalty, fear or both.

The Ways Biden's BBB Plan Could Be Paid For

It now looks like President Biden's Build Back Better plan will cost about $1.9 to $2.0 trillion dollars. But the president doesn't want to do what the Republicans did with their tax cuts for corporations and the rich -- add trillions to the national debt. He want the program to be paid for. It hasn't been decided how that will happen. That is still being negotiated. But Hayes Brown at MSNBC.com tells us the ways that are being discussed:

Tax rate changes for the wealthy and corporations

The House Ways and Means Committee in September passed its budget reconciliation recommendations, which featured a series of tax increases to help pay the package. That included increasing the top marginal tax rate for earners over $400,000 to 39.6 percent; raising the corporate tax rate from 21 to 26.5 percent; and boosting taxes on capital gains from 20 percent to 25 percent. The corporate tax hike alone would bring in $540 billion in revenue over the next 10 years. The income and capital gains tax changes would add another $300 billion or so.

Minimum corporate tax

Because of some last-minute opposition (which I’ll get into later), the tax hikes that passed Ways and Means might not be available in the final bill. An alternative option under consideration sets a 15 percent minimum tax that corporations have to pay. “Because this minimum tax would be tied to the amount of revenue reported, corporations could not use tax deductions to zero out their obligations to the IRS,” the Washington Post reported.

Global Minimum Tax

Relatedly, multinational corporations can currently dodge many U.S. taxes through holding onto its profits in countries with lower taxes. But more than 130 nations recently agreed to set a minimum tax rate of 15 percent on all corporations’ profits. That includes the United States, which has already included the provision in the Build Back Better Act. The new minimum will both stop the “race to the bottom” between countries slashing corporate rates and disincentivize American corporations from seeking out tax havens.

Increase IRS enforcement

Wealthy Americans tend to have more complicated taxes — which makes it easier for them to avoid paying them. In the Ways and Means Committee’s legislation, the IRS would get $78.9 billion over the next 10 years for “strengthening tax enforcement activities and increasing voluntary compliance, expanding audits and other enforcement activities.” The bill’s language makes clear who’s being targeted here: “no use of these funds is intended to increase taxes on any taxpayer with taxable income below $400,000.”

The Billionaires’ Income Tax

The newest option in play in the Senate is a less intense version of the wealth tax that Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., has long championed:

Under the “Billionaire Income Tax” proposal, a summary of which was obtained by The Washington Post, the federal government would require billionaires to pay taxes on the increased value of their assets such as stocks on an annual basis, regardless of whether they sell those assets. Billionaires would also be able to take deductions for the annual loss in value of those assets.

It would also set up a system for taxing assets that are not easily tradable, like real estate. The tax would apply to billionaires and people earning over $100 million in income three years in a row.

States Are Helping The Rich Hide Money & Avoid Taxes

 

This is rather shocking, and I doubt that most Americans know it is happening. Some states are now acting like the foreign countries that act as tax havens. They are helping the rich hide billions from the IRS and avoid paying taxes they owe on that money. The crazy thing about this is that those states really don't benefit from the practice -- they have just knuckled under to corporate power.

Here is what The Washington Post editorial board says about this:

The so-called Pandora Papers leak of almost 12 million documents and files exposes the secret offshore accounts of world leaders, celebrities and billionaires. Yet for many, offshore doesn’t mean the Cayman Islands or Switzerland. It means right here in the United States.

For too long, too little scrutiny has been focused on states’ efforts to turn themselves into tax havens for the ultrawealthy. Local legislatures have for decades been devising rules to permit trusts that can be passed down from generation to generation in perpetuity, with scarcely anything paid in taxes along the way. Worse, powerful secrecy shields make it easy to store even ill-gotten gains with impunity. South Dakota, which also levies no income or capital gains tax, is an especially egregious case — or an enticing one, if you ask those behind at least $360 billion in anonymous, untraceable assets tucked away there. That state started a national trend that has spread to Delaware, Alaska, Nevada and New Hampshire, among others.

The situation has been a boon mostly for money managers and those whose money they manage; it has been a burden for the federal government and other states deprived of a tax base. And it hasn’t even really been a windfall for the trust-sheltering states, which aren’t getting much in the way of taxes themselves and don’t seem to be reeling in more residents or good-paying jobs at any great scale. Indeed, part of the appeal to individuals parking their dollars in South Dakota and the rest is that usually they don’t even have to set foot there.

This state-sponsored tax-dodging would be distressing enough on its own. Throw privacy and other shielding provisions on top of it, and it’s a scandal. Though management companies claim they do due diligence on clients, the Pandora Papers make clear that’s not the case. The Post’s investigation identified 206 U.S.-based trusts linked to 41 countries, nearly 30 of which held assets connected to people or companies accused of fraud, bribery or human rights abuses — from a sugar mogul criticized for mistreating workers in the Dominican Republican to the president of Ecuador only months after that country prohibited politicians from using tax havens. South Dakota and Delaware permit “asset protection trusts” that insulate wealth from claims by creditors; the mechanism lets clients dodge not only taxes but also lawful debts.

State attempts to audit these activities are either nonexistent or ineffective. That’s unlikely to change. The federal rules restraining corporate corruption are similarly full of holes — but here at least there’s some hope. The Enablers Act recently introduced in the House of Representatives is a start. The bill would require trusts and several other currently uncovered entities to vet clients for criminal activity. Expanding the Corporate Transparency Act passed in January to include trusts so that they, too, must report to a centralized registry would also help.

The United States should be one of many countries standing firm against kleptocracy, not one of those inviting kleptocracy to live there free of charge.

By Hinting At 2024 Trump Keeps The Money Flowing In

 

Donald Trump keeps hinting at running for president again in 2024. Democrats would love that, since Trump is one of the most detested men in the country. Is he serious about running? Maybe, but by just hinting at it, he keeps the money flowing in to his PAC's -- and since he's not a candidate, that money can be spent any way he wants (including just putting it in his bank account). That may well be the real reason he's dangling a 2024 candidacy.

Here's part of how Zeesham Aleem reports this at MSNBC.com:

Donald Trump is running for president again.

Or at least that’s what he and his inner circle want you to think.

According to a new report from The Washington Post, the twice-impeached former president is holding campaign-style rallies in battleground states and has another planned for Saturday in Iowa, which holds the first-in-the-nation caucus. In recent weeks, his and his allies’ email campaigns requesting donations have hit 2020-level frequency. Trump is also constantly floating quotes implying that he’s interested in running again, and his advisers are amplifying them. “An informal poll of 13 of his current and former advisers in recent days indicated that 10 believed he would run, two said it was a public relations ploy, and another said he was not sure,” the Post reports.

It is impossible to know if Trump does actually plan to make another White House bid. While his massive yet fragile ego is helping fuel the idea of a triumphant return to the Oval Office, it’s also the reason he might decline to run again should poll numbers suggest he’d get thrashed. We’re simply too far away from 2024 to know. . . .

There are potential payoffs to cultivating that hype: It’s a way to try to keep a future lane clear, pre-empt challengers, and make sure he remains an intimidating fundraising juggernaut.

Keeping other 2024 potentials, especially those who model themselves on Trump, like Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, more worried about their prospects if they try to enter the race is one big potential benefit. Trump’s constant 2024 bluster could make these rivals more reluctant to hint at their own runs. It could also freeze them out of some high-profile donor circles. And since a very poor presidential run can sometimes hurt a politician's national stature, it could make a potential candidate rethink whether they should run at all.

Meanwhile Trump’s current fundraising efforts — which are going to his and his allies’ political committees and have taken in unprecedented sums for a former president — cannot be used to finance an official presidential campaign. But the money can be used to pay for travel, events, advisers and ad campaigns. It can also be used to support pro-Trump candidates or other political causes. So when Trump uses his 2024 flirtations to boost his war chest, there’s a self-fulfilling element to it. He can use that money to fund operations that build buzz — and a potential mandate — for an official run. Moreover, the more Trump locks donors into his fundraising apparatus, the more he may intimidate challengers or dampen their own ability to raise money, since there are a finite number of donors to draw money from. . . .

Trump can also use the specter of his potential presidency to continue trying to regulate the direction of the Republican Party, which has been divided over questions of whether it should remain a Trumpian populist enterprise or revert to the more traditional style of conservatism that predated his presidency. . . .

Lastly, Trump knows that he can parlay the enhanced attention he gets from constantly dangling a presidential run into non-presidential ambitions, like a new media outlet or any other new business. An entertainer and businessman at heart, Trump instinctively thinks of attention as something that can be monetized, and it's impossible to extricate his hunger for profit from his hunger for political power.

U.S. Mint To Feature American Women On The Quarter

 

Over the next four years, famous American women are going to be featured on the quarter by the U.S. Mint. The first two women to be on the quarter are shown above. They are poet Maya Angelou and astronaut Dr. Sally Ride.

As many as 20 women will be chosen to be on the quarter in the next four years. Future honorees have not yet been chosen. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen will make the choices after consulting with the Smithsonian Institution's American Women's History Initiative, the National Women's History Museum, and the Congressional Bipartisan Women's Caucus. No living women will be chosen.

Secretary Yellen is asking the public to submit suggestions for future honorees, and that can be done at this website.

Harriet Tubman $20 Bill Is Back On Track

 The United States is a multi-cultural and multi-racial country. But you would never know that by looking at the individuals on our currency. They are all white men. That doesn't seem right in a country where whites are going to be a minority of the population around the middle of this century.

The Obama administration realized this, and they planned to replace Andrew Jackson on the $20 bill. The person chosen to be pictured on that bill was Harriet Tubman -- a Black woman and a true American hero. The bill was planned to debut on the 100th anniversary of women getting the right to vote in the United States (August 18, 2020).

But once Donald Trump entered the White House, those plans were put on an indefinite hold. Trump was a racist and misogynist, and couldn't let a Black woman be pictured on our currency. And he knew the racists in his party's base didn't want it either.

But those bad times are over. We have a new president -- one who believes in equal rights. President Biden, in his first week in office, put the Tubman $20 bill back on track. It will be a couple of years before we see it (because the bill has to be designed with modern safeguards in mind), but it is going to happen!

Public Is Disappointed With The $600 Stimulus Checks

 

The chart above reflects the results of a YouGov Poll done on December 19th and 20th of a national sample of 2,504 adults, with a 2.9 point margin of error.

Democrats wanted to make the second round of stimulus checks to be about $2000, but Mitch McConnell and his Republican cohorts didn't like that. They stopped it. They don't mind giving trillions in tax cuts to their rich friends, but get very stingy when it comes to helping hurting Americans.

But they are playing with fire. About 70% of the American people think those $600 checks (that the Republicans finally approved) were too small, while only 17% said they were about right (and 5% said they were too much). Americans are starting to get tired of the Republicans only wanting to give to the rich!

Trump Amassed Huge Slush Fund By Conning His Supporters

 The most successful grifter in America today is Donald Trump. He has raised a huge slush fund, which he can spend any way he wishes, by conning his supporters. He raised money by claiming he needed it to fight in the courts the election fraud and by saying it would go to help the Senate candidates in Georgia. It didn't go to either. Some went to the RNC, but most went into Trump's leadership PAC -- Save America.

Here is part of how The New York Times is reporting Trump's latest con:

Donald J. Trump will exit the White House as a private citizen next month perched atop a pile of campaign cash unheard-of for an outgoing president, and with few legal limits on how he can spend it.

Deflated by a loss he has yet to acknowledge, Mr. Trump has cushioned the blow by coaxing huge sums of money from his loyal supporters — often under dubious pretenses — raising roughly $250 million since Election Day along with the national party.

More than $60 million of that sum has gone to a new political action committee, according to people familiar with the matter, which Mr. Trump will control after he leaves office. Those funds, which far exceed what previous outgoing presidents had at their disposal, provide him with tremendous flexibility for his post-presidential ambitions: He could use the money to quell rebel factions within the party, reward loyalists, fund his travels and rallies, hire staff, pay legal bills and even lay the groundwork for a far-from-certain 2024 run.

The post-election blitz of fund-raising has cemented Mr. Trump’s position as an unrivaled force and the pre-eminent fund-raiser of the Republican Party even in defeat. His largest single day for online donations actually came after Election Day — raising almost $750,000 per hour on Nov. 6. So did his second biggest day. And his third. . . .

For Mr. Trump, the quarter-billion dollars he and the party raised over six weeks is enough to pay off all of his remaining campaign bills and to fund his fruitless legal challenges and still leave tens of millions of dollars. . . .

The Trump political apparatus has taken advantage of the grass-roots energy and excitement over the two runoffs to juice its own fund-raising. Email and text solicitations have pitched Trump supporters to give to a “Georgia Election Fund,” even though no funds go directly to either Republican senator on the ballot, irritating some Senate G.O.P. strategists.

Instead, the fine print shows 75 percent of the donations to the Georgia fund go to Mr. Trump’s new PAC, called Save America, with 25 percent to the Republican National Committee.

After weeks of shouting “FRAUD” to supporters in emails and asking them to back an “Election Defense Fund” (which also sent 75 percent of donations to his new PAC), the Trump operation has subtly shifted its tone and focus, returning to more sustainable pre-election themes, like hawking signed hats and opposing socialism. . . .

For a sense of scale of just how much money Mr. Trump will have at his disposal, the new Trump PAC’s $60 million-plus haul — and counting — is about as much money as he spent to win his party’s presidential nomination in 2016. . . .

“A leadership PAC is a slush fund,” said Meredith McGehee, executive director of Issue One, a group that supports increased political transparency. “There are very, very, very few limits on what he can’t spend money on.”

Biden Has Millions More To Spend Than Trump Does

 

Joe Biden doesn't just have a clear (and stable) lead in the polls this year, but he also has a significant advantage in the amount of money he can spend on his campaign before Election Day.

Here is how The New York Times is reporting this:

Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s campaign said on Sunday that it entered September with $466 million in the bank together with the Democratic Party, providing Mr. Biden a vast financial advantage of about $141 million over President Trump heading into the intense final stretch of the campaign.

The money edge is a complete reversal from this spring, when Mr. Biden emerged as the Democratic nominee and was $187 million behind Mr. Trump, who began raising money for his re-election shortly after he was inaugurated in 2017. But the combination of slower spending by Mr. Biden’s campaign in the spring, his record-setting fund-raising over the summer — especially after he named Senator Kamala Harris of California as his running mate — and heavy early spending by Mr. Trump has erased the president’s once-formidable financial lead.

Mr. Trump and his joint operations with the Republican National Committee entered September with $325 million, according to Mr. Trump’s communications director, Tim Murtaugh. . . .

Democratic donations surged further over the weekend. Following the death of former Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, which opened a vacancy that could tilt the ideological bearing of the Supreme Court further to the right, contributors shattered records on ActBlue, the biggest online processing platform for the left.

Donors gave more than $100 million over the weekend after her passing.

Trump Has Turned The GOP Into A Cult Of Death

I have never agreed with Republican economic policies. I think they favor the rich and the corporations over most other Americans, and their policies have resulted in a nation of economic inequality.

But there have been Republicans in the past that I grudgingly respected. While I thought their economic ideas were wrong, I believed they really wanted what was best for this country.

Unfortunately, the same cannot be said for the modern Republican Party. They nominated (and got elected) the most corrupt, cruel, and incompetent man to ever inhabit the White House, and they refuse to hold him responsible for his actions.

That was bad enough, but Trump's actions regarding the Coronavirus pandemic have amplified all of his faults. He ignored all the warnings he received about the impending pandemic in December and January. His only action was to ban people coming in from China at the end of January -- but only after about 400,000 people had already arrived. Then he did nothing else until the middle of March. He rejected tests offered by W.H.O., and put this nation far behind on testing while the virus raged. Because of his incompetence, we still are far behind in the testing that's needed and are trying to fight the virus without the information needed to be successful.

He has refused to accept any responsibility for his incompetence, even though it has resulted in thousands of unnecessary deaths of innocent Americans. Instead, he is now trying to make it much worse. He is urging state governors to end stay-at-home orders and reopen their businesses. He is hoping the economy will quickly rebound and save his re-election bid. It won't, but he thinks it is his only hope to rehabilitate his image.

He doesn't seem to care that none of the states are ready to reopen (with the number of Coronavirus cases and deaths continuing to rise in all of them). He doesn't care that his pressure on the governors will cost many thousands more lives. He has made the choice that the profits of banks, corporations, and hedge funds are more important than the lives of American citizens. And to that end, he is praising the racist pro-virus protesters that put their fellow citizens in danger. For both Trump and these protesters, money is more important than deaths.

And Republican officials on both the state and federal level has joined Trump in making that assessment. They have become a death cult that worships money -- and if they have to see hundreds of thousands of Americans die to save the rich and the corporations, then so be it. They are Greedy Old Patriarchs, who are willing to trade lives for profit.

Texas Reopens Today (But It is NOT Ready)

(This chart uses figures from The COVID Tracking Project.)

Governor Abbott is taking this first steps to reopening the Texas economy today. At 12:01am, he is ending the stay-at-home orders and the mask wearing orders in many Texas cities (and those activities will now be voluntary), and is letting restaurants, malls, movie theaters, churches, libraries, museums, and retail stores reopen for business (at 25% capacity). In about two weeks, he will let them go to 50% capacity (and counties with less than 5 Coronavirus cases can reopen now at 50%).

But he is jumping the gun. The chart above shows the number of deaths due to the virus for April. Note that the deaths continue to rise, with no flattening. He is playing to the wishes of Donald Trump, and in doing so, he's putting money over the lives of Texans.

NOTE -- The state of Texas has a population of 29,000,000. About 314,790 tests have been done for the Coronavirus. That's 1.085% of the population. In other words, the governor doesn't have any idea how widespread the virus is among the Texas population -- and neither does anyone else.

Voters Opt For Protecting Lives Over Protecting Economy

The chart above is from the Politico / Morning Consult Poll -- done between April 10th and 12th of a nationwide sample of 1,990 registered voters, with a 2 point margin of error.

Donald Trump wants to reopen the economy. He has even praised the protesters in several states to try and pressure state governors to do that. And some Republican governors are doing what he wants. Governors in several states are allowing businesses to reopen. And some Republican officials and other right-wingers have even gone so far as to say reopening the economy is more important that the lives of Americans. They are willing to sacrifice thousands of Americans so their rich buddies can protect and increase their wealth.

That is not the feeling of most American voters though. About 64% say the public health impact of Coronavirus is more important than the economic impact (on stock market and unemployment). About 75% say it's more important for the government to address the Coronavirus spread than the economy. And about 81% say Americans should continue social distancing even if it means continued damage to the economy.

The Republicans are playing a dangerous political game. They think reopening the economy will help them win in November. This poll shows the opposite may be true. If they are seen as putting money over the lives of the people, they will lose more votes than they gain in November. And that's what it is looking like right now.