Saturday, September 30, 2023
Biden Has A 5 Point Lead Among Registered Voters
Biden Warns That MAGA Extremists Endanger Democracy
The following is a part of President Biden's speech in Arizona on September 28th:
There is an extremist movement that does not share the basic beliefs in our democracy: the MAGA Movement.
Not every Republican, not even a majority of Republicans, adhere to the MAGA extremist ideology. I know because I’ve been able to work with Republicans my whole career. But there is no question that today’s Republican Party is driven and intimidated by MAGA Republican extremists. Their extreme agenda, if carried out, would fundamentally alter the institutions of American democracy as we know it.
My friends, they’re not hiding their attacks. They’re openly promoting them — attacking the free press as the enemy of the people, attacking the rule of law as an impediment, fomenting voter suppression and election subversion.
Did you ever think we’d be having debates in the year — stage of your careers where banning books — banning books and burying history?
Extremists in Congress — more determined to shut down the government, to burn the place down than to let the people’s business be done.
Our U.S. military — and this in not hyperbole; I’ve said it for the last two years — is the strongest military in the history of the world. Not just the strongest in the world — in the history of the world. It’s the most diverse, the most powerful in the history of the world. And it’s being accused of being weak and “woke” by the opposition.
One guy in Alabama is holding up the promotion of every — hundreds of these officers.
Frankly, these extremists have no idea what the hell they’re talking about. (Laughter.) No, I’m serious.
They’re pushing a notion the defeated former President expressed when he was in office and believes applies only to him. And this is a dangerous notion: This president is above the law, with no limits on power.
Trump says the Constitution gave him, quote, “the right to do whatever he wants as President,” end of quote. I’ve never even heard a president say that in jest. Not guided by the Constitution or by common service and decency toward our fellow Americans but by vengeance and vindictiveness.
We see the headlines. Quote, “sweeping expansion of presidential power.” Their goal to, quote, “alter the balance of power by increasing the President’s authority over every part of the federal government,” end of quote.
What do they intend to do once they erode the constitutional order of checks and balances and separation of powers? Limit the independence of federal agencies and put them under the thumb of a president? Give the President the power to refuse to spend money that Congress has appropriated if he doesn’t like what it’s being spent for? Not veto — he doesn’t like what it’s being spent for — it’s there. Get rid of longstanding protections for civil servants?
Remember what he did as he was leaving office: He imposed a new thing, the Civil Service — but then he imposed a new pro- — schedule. “Schedule F,” it was called. These civil servants had to pledge loyalty to the President, not the Constitution. It did not require that they had any protections, and the President would be able to wholesale fire them if he wanted, because they had no so- — no — no Civil Service protection. One of the first things I got rid of when I became President.
Just consider these as actual quotes from MAGA — the MAGA movement. Quote, “I am your retribution.” “Slitting throats” of civil servants, replacing them with extreme political cronies. MAGA extremists proclaim support for law enforcement only to say, “We…” — quote, “We must destroy the FBI.”
It’s not one person. It’s the controlling element of the House Republican Party.
Whitewash attacks of January 6th by calling the spearing and stomping of police a leg- — quote, a “legitimate political discourse.”
Did you ever think you’d hear leaders of political parties in the United States of America speak like that? Seizing power, concentrating power, attempting to abuse power, purging and packing key institutions, spewing conspiracy theories, spreading lies for profit and power to divide America in every way, inciting violence against those who risk their lives to keep America safe, weaponizing against the very soul of who we are as Americans.
This MAGA threat is the threat to the brick and mortar of our democratic institutions. But it’s also a threat to the character of our nation and gives our — that gives our Constitution life, that binds us together as Americans in common cause.
None of this is surprising, though. They’ve tried to govern that way before. And thank God, they failed.
But they haven’t given up. Just look at recent days: their accusations against — of treason — treason against the major new net- — news network because they don’t like its coverage. I don’t know what the hell I’d say about Fox if that becomes the rule. (Laughter.)
But think about it. I’m joking, but think about it.
Tomorrow, I have the honor of overseeing the change of responsibilities of the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff of the United States military from one genuine hero and patriot, General Mark Milley, to another, General CQ Brown — both — both defining leaders of our time.
And yet, here is what you hear from MAGA extremists about the retiring patriot general honoring his oath to the Constitution: quote, he’s “a traitor,” end of quote. “In times gone by, the punishment…” — quote, “In times gone by, the punishment would’ve been death,” end of quote.
This is the United States of America. This is the United States of America.
And although I don’t believe even a majority of Republicans think that, the silence is deafening. The silence is deafening.
Hardly any Republican called out such heinous statements, just as they watch one MAGA senator outrageously — instead, blocking the promotions of hundreds of top military leaders and affecting not only those leaders but their families, their children.
MAGA extremists claim support of our troops, but they are harming military readiness, leadership, troop morale, freezing pay, freezing military families in limbo.
Just as they looked the other way when the defeated former President refused to pay respects at an American cemetery near Paris, referring to the American servicemen buried there — and I’ve been to this cemetery — as “suckers” and “losers,” quotes.
I’m not making this up. I know we all tried not to remember it, but that’s what he said. He called servicemen “suckers” and “losers.”
Was John a sucker? Was my son, Beau, who lived next to a burn pit for a year, came home, and died — was he a sucker for volunteering to serve his country?
The same guy who denigrates the heroism of John McCain. It’s not only wrong, it’s un-American. But it never changes.
The MAGA extremists across the country have made it clear where they stand. So, the challenge for the rest of America — for the majority of Americans is to make clear where we stand.
Do we still believe in the Constitution? Do we believe in the basic decency and respect? The whole country should honestly ask itself — and I mean this sincerely — what it wants and understand the threats to our democracy.
I believe very strongly that the defining feature of our democracy is our Constitution.
I believe in the separation of powers and checks and balances, that debate and disagreement do not lead to disunion.
I believe in free and fair elections and the peaceful transfer of power.
I believe there is no place in America — none, none, none — for political violence. We have to denounce hate, not embolden it.
Across the aisle, across the country, I see fellow Americans, not mortal enemies. We’re a great nation because we’re a good people who believe in honor, decency, and respect.
I was able to get the infrastructure bill passed. It’s over a trillion dollars. The majority of it so far has gone to red states who didn’t vote for me. Because I represent all — no, I’m serious. I represent all Americans. (Applause.) Wherever the need is.
And I believe every president should be a president for all Americans. To use the Office of the President to unite the nation, uphold the duty to care for all Americans.
I’ve tried my very best, and I’m sure I haven’t met the test of every — all of you want me to meet. But I tried to do my very best to meet the highest standards, whether you voted for me or not. Because that’s the job: to de- — deliver light, not heat; to make sure democracy delivers for everyone; to know we’re a nation of unlimited possibilities, of wisdom and decency — a nation focused on the future.
I’ve spent more time with Xi Jinpin [sic] than any world — -ping — than any world leader has. Sixty-eight hours alone with just he and I and an interpreter. Traveled 17,000 miles with him here and in China. On the Tibetan Plateau, he turned to me and he asked me — he said, “Can you define America for me?” And I was deadly earnest. I said, “Yes. In one word: possibilities.”
We, in America, believe anything is possible if we try it. Anything we do together, we can get done.
We’ve faced some tough times in recent years, and I am proud of the progress we made as a country. But the real credit doesn’t go to me and my administration for the progress — for this progress. The real heroes of the story are you, the American people. And that’s not hyperbole again.
Which is why I’m asking you that regardless of whether you’re a Democrat, Republican, or independent, put the preservation of our democracy before everything else. Put our country first.
Over the past few years, we can and should be proud of American democracy, proud of what we’ve been able to hold on to. We can’t take democracy for granted.
Remember when you were in high school and college, if you took political science, they said every generation has to protect democracy. I used to think that that was just a saying. But here I am, as President of the United States of America, making this speech about my fear of the diminishment of democracy.
Folks, every generation has to be vigilant.
Friday, September 29, 2023
About 204,000 Workers Filed For Unemployment Last Week
The Labor Department released its weekly unemployment report on Thursday. It showed that about 204,000 workers filed for unemployment benefits in the week ending on September 23rd. Here is the official Labor Department statement:
In the week ending September 23, the advance figure for seasonally adjusted initial claims was 204,000, an increase of 2,000 from the previous week's revised level. The previous week's level was revised up by 1,000 from 201,000 to 202,000. The 4-week moving average was 211,000, a decrease of 6,250 from the previous week's revised average. The previous week's average was revised up by 250 from 217,000 to 217,250.
GOP Will Protect Rich Tax Dodgers By Cutting IRS Funds
The following is part of an op-ed by Greg Sargent in The Washington Post:
Republicans have been amplifying the claim lately that their party has undergone a “populist” makeover, rendering it both anti-elite and pro-working class. One way Republicans purport to illustrate this is by attacking President Biden’s expanded funding for the Internal Revenue Service, insisting that it empowers a strike force of bureaucrats to prey on ordinary Americans.
But new data on tax avoidance by the ultrarich badly undermines GOP claims to being an anti-elite, pro-worker party. It shows that if Republicans get their way with regard to the IRS, a nontrivial number of very rich Americans would continue to underpay taxes they owe, effectively making out like bandits — some literally so.
Nearly 1,000 tax filers who earn more than $1 million per year have still not filed federal tax returns for at least one year from 2017 to 2020, according to IRS data provided to Senate Finance Committee Chairman Ron Wyden (D-Ore.).
What’s more, the 2,000 people who represent the highest-income non-filers in one or more of those years owe a total of more than $900 million in federal taxes, the data shows.
“These are people who essentially blow raspberries at the IRS,” Wyden told me. “They’re sophisticated people. They know this is wrong, wrong, wrong. And they do it anyway.”
The data underscores that when the IRS is underfunded, wealthy tax cheats benefit in a big way. An underfunded IRS is what Republicans are advocating for. . . .
Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act, signed last year, included $80 billion in additional IRS funding. Biden sought it specifically to bring in more revenue by targeting wealthy tax cheats.
But House Republicans voted this year to repeal that funding. Many GOP presidential candidates, including Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, Sen. Tim Scott (S.C.) and businessman Vivek Ramaswamy, have attacked it. Republicans claim it will be used to target small businesses and workers — burnishing the GOP’s supposed pro-worker credibility.
Unfortunately for Republicans, enforcement funded by that law has paid off — bringing in more than $38 million from 175 rich tax delinquents, the IRS announced in July. And this month, the agency announced plans to use the funding for still more efforts targeting wealthy tax avoiders. . . .
An irony to the GOP’s “working class” positioning is worth noting. Jean Ross, a tax expert at the Center for American Progress, points out that high-end avoiders — such as those documented in the IRS data — often can afford lawyers and accountants who aggressively shield income. By contrast, wage earners’ incomes are reported to the IRS by employers.
So while Republicans claim that funding the IRS will disproportionately hurt ordinary Americans, doing so actually makes it more likely that elites and workers will be treated equivalently. “It moves us closer to a world where everybody pays the taxes they legally owe,” Ross says, “rather than continuing current disparities, where unpaid taxes are disproportionately owed by the very wealthy.” Republican policies would make those disparities worse. . . .
If Republican efforts to defund the tax police prevail, the real winners will not be workers and small businesses but a subset of wealthy elites — who will chortle all the way to the bank.
Thursday, September 28, 2023
Most Want Politicians To Compromise To Avoid Shutdown
The charts above reflect the results of the new Monmouth University Poll -- done between September 19th and 24th of a nationwide sample of 814 adults, with a 4.3 point margin of error.
Trump Has A Large Lead In Iowa And New Hampshire
The charts above are from the recent CBS News / YouGov Poll.
These CBS News/YouGov surveys were conducted between September 15-24, 2023. They are based on representative samples of 1,011 registered voters in Iowa and 943 in New Hampshire. The samples were weighted according to gender, age, race, education, and geographic region based on the U.S. Census Current Population Survey, as well as past vote. Results here are reported among likely Republican caucus/primary voters, and have a margin of error of ±6.1 points in Iowa (n=458) and ±5.4 points in New Hampshire (n=502).
McCarthy Explains Why Biden Must Be Impeached (SATIRE)
Hi! House Speaker Kevin McCarthy here! Excited to answer any questions you might have about why I just announced an impeachment inquiry into President Biden.
Yes, you in the front! Ah, why are we impeaching him? Great question! I can’t wait to find out, either! I assume he must have done something pretty bad, if he’s getting impeached! Something dire, I bet! And I will be back to you very soon with what that thing is. He did TBD. And, of course, the terrible crime of TK TK TK! According to this piece of paper that I have here in my hand, he did “Put Something Here Before You Read This To Anyone.” So, I think that speaks volumes. Also he just gives off a corrupt vibe. Am I using that correctly? In the meantime, just close your eyes and imagine the worst thing a president could possibly have done. No, not that. That was fine, because Donald Trump is special and different. But something else bad! Well, I bet we are going to find that Joe Biden did it, or, if not, his son Hunter did. James Comer has been trying for months to investigate what he insists on referring to as the Biden Crime Family, without much luck — maybe this will be the encouragement he needs!
You know how in medicine, sometimes you have to just go in and start taking organs out while you figure out whether there’s a problem and, if so, what it is? Well, this is like that. Please don’t ask me any follow-ups: I am clearly an expert on medicine! I am a male Republican legislator, the best kind of medical expert there is, and one trusted even more than doctors in many states!
All I know is, people keep asking me to impeach him. Impeachment is something we undertake only for serious crimes and misdemeanors, or because the president is a Democrat and that makes us mad. In that case you can get impeached for reasons such as “Marjorie Taylor Greene asked nicely.” No, I’m sorry. We would never undertake something as serious as an impeachment inquiry for frivolous reasons! That would cheapen it and make it political. We would do it only if the fate of the country were at stake, or it was a Tuesday and we were feeling bored.
Look at it another way. Donald Trump got impeached twice. Donald Trump was the best president in our lifetime, and the second-best president in Joe Biden’s lifetime. (This is a joke about Joe Biden’s age!) So, why would Biden get impeached any fewer times than the most perfect president ever to govern? We owe him at least four impeachments.
No, this claim that Joe Biden is corrupt and diabolical in as-yet-unspecified ways has nothing to do with my other line of attack on Joe Biden, that he is too advanced in years to govern and could not conspire his way out of a paper bag. There is no contradiction here.
Yes, what? Oh, no. I expect that this will be covered with a surprising amount of seriousness by the political media. Please headline any coverage of this something like “We Guess Joe Biden Did Something Worth Impeaching And We Can’t Wait To Learn What It Was.” Or “Republicans Impeaching Joe Biden — For Some Reason, We Have To Think.” Don’t put anything in the headline about how it’s “Just For Funsies” or “Because I Don’t Know What I’m Doing.”
Yes, last question! Is the government going to shut down? Great question! I will say what I always say when people ask me that, as they now seem to do every few weeks: AAAAA STOP ASKING ME THAT, YOUR GUESS IS AS GOOD AS MINE. I thought throwing this inquiry into the mix might help! I mean, I undertook it with all seriousness because the country is in danger. (Is it helping, though?)
Wednesday, September 27, 2023
McCarthy - Stop The Extremists & Pass A Budget W/Dems
From The Washington Post editorial board:
The U.S. government will almost certainly shut down on Oct. 1, the work of ultraconservative holdouts who want to “burn the whole place down,” as House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) put it. Yet, for now, Mr. McCarthy does not appear willing to take away the matches. He could sideline the objectors by calling House Democrats and agreeing to pass bipartisan legislation to fund the government. . . .
The resisters had plenty of chances to bargain, and they have refused. They won’t even approve a defense bill that has everything in it they want. And even if legislation passed the House, the Democratic-controlled Senate would reject it.
Those Democrats have good reason to object to House GOP spending-cut proposals. President Biden and Mr. McCarthy agreed in May to a 2024 and 2025 budget outline that includes some spending cuts (about$180 billion worth of savings in those two years). But the holdouts demand more — and big — cuts. They argue a government shutdown is better than approving a bipartisan budget.
If the objectors’ goal is to control government spending, as they claim, forcing a destabilizing and expensive shutdown over what amounts to only about 10 percent of the federal budget is counterproductive. They don’t want to touch Social Security or Medicare. They refuse to discuss tax policy. They want to increase spending on defense, veterans aid and border control. Their deep concern about federal spending falls entirely on a portion of the “nondefense discretionary” budget, which funds education, transportation, science research, policing, parks, support for low-income Americans and other popular programs.
Meanwhile, a shutdown would hurt the economy. Historically, consumer confidence drops during shutdowns. This could be especially harmful now, as consumers and businesses pull back on spending and banks issue fewer loans. It would also demoralize federal workers at a time when many agencies are struggling to recruit. And it would reaffirm why Fitch downgraded U.S. debt last month, a decision owing largely to political dysfunction. Moody’s — the only one of the three major credit rating agencies that has not downgraded U.S. debt — has already warned a shutdown would be a “negative” in its assessment.
In an ideal world, the House and Senate would pass the necessary 12 agency budget bills by Sept. 30. But that has rarely happened this century; instead, federal budgeting usually involves smashing funding bills into one big package and passing it at the last minute — perhaps after lawmakers have given themselves an extension. That is the only realistic course now: passing a continuing resolution to keep the federal government running until December to give lawmakers time to debate and advance a full 2024 budget. The Senate is expected to approve a bipartisan “CR” by this weekend, a deal far from what the House GOP holdouts are demanding.
There is discussion of a discharge petition in the House, through which a majority of members — Democrats and some Republicans — could force a vote on a CR without Mr. McCarthy’s approval. In return for signing such a petition, moderate Republicans could insist that a bipartisan debt commission be included in any compromise deal. They could also push for Ukraine aid and other supplemental funding requests from the White House to be offset by revenue increases or spending trims elsewhere. At some point, moderate lawmakers from both parties, who represent a much broader swath of the country than the ultra-partisans, have to retake control of the legislative process.
Yet, it is hard for even the most frustrated of moderate Republicans to break ranks with their party leadership by signing on to a discharge petition. Until that changes, Mr. McCarthy is in charge, and the speaker is worried he could lose his job if he strikes a deal with Democrats to pass a CR, because the resisters would move to oust him. He should tell them, “Good luck.” Eventually, he will have to. The only way out of this impasse — in which Republicans control just one chamber of one of the two branches of government responsible for budgeting — involves bipartisan agreement.
Mr. McCarthy can’t lead the Freedom Caucus holdouts to accept this reality. But he can win over the public by putting the nation first, standing with the majority of his own party and getting a deal done — with Democratic votes.
Tuesday, September 26, 2023
Most Think Both Biden & Trump Are Too Old To Be President
The chart above reflects the results of the Washington Post / Abc News Poll -- done between September 15th and 20th of a nationwide sample of 1,006 adults, with a 3.5 point margin of error.
Biden Joins Strikers - Now Should Attack Corporate Power
The following post is by Robert Reich:
Dear Mr. President:
Kudos for joining the UAW picket line tomorrow. You’re the first president to ever join a picket line.
But please don’t stop there.
Go on to criticize the CEOs of America’s big corporations who are now raking in more than 350 times what the average American worker is earning (in the 1950s, they took in 20 times).
Blast corporations that are monopolizing their industries.
Condemn firms that are using their profits to buy back shares of stock, polluting the planet with carbon emissions and polluting our democracy with big money.
You won’t be the first Democratic president to do this.
On the eve of the 1936 election, President Franklin D. Roosevelt warned America that business and financial monopolies and war profiteers considered the U.S. government
“as a mere appendage to their own affairs. We know now that Government by organized money is just as dangerous as Government by organized mob. … Never before in all our history have these forces been so united against one candidate as they stand today. They are unanimous in their hate for me—and I welcome their hatred.”
America is again in a populist age, when a vast army of Americans have been shafted by big corporations, Wall Street, and the monied interests.
The biggest change over the last three decades — the change lurking behind the insecurities and resentments of the working middle class — has nothing to do with identity politics, “woke”ism, immigration, critical race theory, transgender kids, or any other current Republican bogeymen.
It has directly to do with a huge upward shift in the distribution of income and wealth.
Although total wealth is much greater now than it was four decades ago, the distribution of that wealth is far more unequal. The bottom 50 percent hasn’t budged. Wealth at the top has exploded.
Meanwhile, a declining share of the nation’s wealth has been going to workers, and an exponentially rising share to CEOs and big investors.
This change didn’t happen because of so-called “neutral market forces.” It happened because of policy decisions made over the last four decades. For example:
To open the American economy wide to imports from China. To deregulate Wall Street and allow it to make bets with other people’s money.
To dramatically cut taxes on big corporations and the rich. To let corporations bash unions and fire workers who try to organize.
To encourage activist investors and private equity companies to take over “underperforming” companies and then promptly fire workers and sell off assets. To allow big corporations to become far larger, monopolizing entire industries.
To allow pharmaceutical companies to extend their patents and jack up the prices of critical drugs. To allow oil companies access to federal lands and to special tax write-offs.
To bail out the biggest banks but not homeowners who get caught in the downdrafts. To privatize higher education and force students to take out massive loans. To encourage corporations to buy back their shares of stock rather than reinvest profits.
These policy decisions didn’t just happen, either. They were pushed by wealthy elites on Wall Street and in C-suites who made mammoth donations to politicians on both sides of the aisle — mostly but not exclusively Republican — to ensure that their wishes would be honored.
To your credit, you and most Democratic lawmakers in Congress have pushed for policies that will make the nation more equitable, such as child care and elder care subsidies, student loan forgiveness, and negotiated drug prices. Kudos.
But you’re reluctant to blame CEOs, Wall Street moguls, and the super-rich for what’s happened.
Yet they are to blame, as are their lackeys in Washington.
They have turned their growing wealth into increasing political power to change the rules of the game in ways that further enlarge their wealth and power, while shafting the bottom half.
Condemn them, as did FDR. Name the CEOs, leaders of finance, heads of pharmaceutical companies, defense contractors, internet moguls, and “activist” investors who have profited at the expense of the rest of America.
Be unambiguously on the side of workers in their struggle for better pay and working conditions.
Attack corporate welfare — the special tax loopholes, bank bailouts, unconditional subsidies, loan guarantees, and no-bid contracts that have lined the pockets of the wealthy, paid for by the rest of us.
Let Republicans criticize corporate “wokeness.” You should campaign against corporate greed.
Let Republicans obsess about critical race theory, immigration, and sex. You should campaign against how obscenely unfair and unequal America has become.
It’s good you’re joining the UAW picket line. But if you and other Democrats don’t tell the economic truth about what’s happened and place the blame squarely where it’s deserved, the lies of Republicans will fill the void.
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