The Progressive Leadership Of Teddy & Franklin Roosevelt & Lyndon Johnson Is NOT Communism

After tariffs, inflation, a cruel immigration policy, and another forever war, the Republicans are left with nothing to run on in the 2026 campaign, so following Trump's lead they are now trying to label the Democrats as communists. Thom Hartmann (The Hartmann Report) exposes the ridiculousness of that. Here is part of what he wrote:

So, let’s set the record straight. There’s not a single “far left” progressive position held by actual elected progressive Democratic politicians that has less than 50% support among the Democratic base, most have well over 80% support, and virtually all are supported above 50% by the majority of Americans of all political stripes.

This isn’t “far left”: it’s the radical middle! We’ve been “radicalized” by 45 years of neoliberal policies by both parties that have gutted the American middle class and the American Dream, and want actual fighters who’ll make our country safe for working people again.

We want politicians who’ll return us to the ideal of a single full-time paycheck, regardless of educational attainment, paying enough to buy a house, a car every few years, take an annual vacation, put our kids through college, and have a comfortable retirement.

Two-thirds of us had that when Reagan was sworn into office in 1981 and launched the Republican War on Working People™. Hell, that’s the “Square Deal” that Teddy Roosevelt campaigned on over 100 years ago, and the vast majority of Americans still want it!

While corporate-money-dependent Democrats may oppose Medicare for All or ending student debt or taxing the rich in a meaningful way, progressive Democrats — the ones being vilified right now by Trump, the GOP, the media, and their own on-the-take peers — are clear about most all of their positions. They are that:

— Every worker should have the right to democracy in their workplace (a union), and that nobody who works full time should have to live in poverty because the minimum wage hasn’t gone up in a stupid amount of time.

— Retired people shouldn’t have to pay income taxes on their Social Security (the way it was before Reagan and, no, Trump did not fix that), that morbidly rich people should pay into the system like the rest of us, that Social Security should pay enough to live modestly on, and that Medicare should cover all our expenses with minimum hassle.

— Every American citizen should be able to vote without a hassle, and taking away your vote should require a judge’s action to prove why, just like the Supreme Court has ruled it now works if a state wants to take away your gun.

— Speaking of guns, it’s obscene that the leading cause of death for our children is bullets, and we shouldn’t have to regularly terrorize our children with active shooter drills. We need rational gun control laws, like every other developed country in the world has.

— It’s crazy that one man owns more wealth than the bottom half of America (165 million of us) and he and his peers typically pay less of their income in taxes than your average teenager. If we want the general prosperity of the 1950s, we should have the same tax rate that Republican President Dwight Eisenhower so loved: 90% on the morbidly rich after they’ve made their first few million dollars a year.

— Our children and grandchildren deserve a world where they needn’t fear being killed by climate-change-driven wild weather, drought, or wildfires, and the air and water are clean. And it’s nuts that we’re subsidizing the fossil fuel industry that’s preventing this.

— Every other country in the world helps their young people go to college; in most it’s as cheap as it was here in the 1960s when you could put yourself through school with a weekend job. Some countries even pay people to go to college, like the $100/month stipend my dad had with the GI Bill after WWII that built our 20th century scientific and business prowess. And it’s morally and politically wrong to cripple entire generations with trillions in student debt.

— Across the 34 richest (OECD) countries in the world, over a half-million families are wiped out every year because somebody got sick. All of those families are here in America. Healthcare should be a right, like in every other developed country in the world, instead of a privilege that depends on how much money you make.

— Starting a small family business, once the backbone of every American town and city, should once again be possible; we need to break up the massive monopolies that have come to dominate every single industry. See: Republican Presidents Teddy Roosevelt and William Howard Taft.

— Every person in America should be free to practice their own religion (or, like Thomas Paine, no religion) and raise their kids that way without government interference, government promotion, or their tax dollars subsidizing local megachurches’ religious schools. Like the Constitution says.

— People should be judged, hired, and promoted based on the quality of their minds, their work, and their integrity, not the color of their skin, their ethnicity, or their religion.

— Women should have the same rights and privileges as men, from the workplace to the boardroom to the doctor’s office to the voting booth.

— Our queer brothers and sisters should have the same rights and privileges as everybody else and be free to live their lives without discrimination or harassment. 

— America is a nation of immigrants, and we have been strengthened in every generation by the diversity of talent and humanity that have come here to participate in the American dream. We need comprehensive immigration reform to clean up our system, not a brutal regime that’s literally killing people while it tears our nation apart.

— And it’s completely insane that five corrupt Republicans on the Supreme Court would say that corporations are persons and money is the same thing as free speech, which is why most Democrats think Citizens United needs to be overturned.

Sadly, many of the corporate-dependent Democrats oppose many of these positions because they’d conflict with the interests of their donors. This is something the Party needs to work out, particularly as voters increasingly make their desires known in primary elections. But few of these positions would have been alien to FDR or LBJ; most are simply a call for a return to the middle.

Republicans Would Rather Lie Than Solve The Affordability Problem

The following is part of an article by Paul Krugman (Nobel Prize-winning economist): 

Republicans have an affordability problem. During the 2024 campaign Donald Trump promised to reduce prices beginning on “Day One,” and promised specifically that he would cut energy prices in half. He has instead presided over rising inflation — the Federal Reserve’s preferred measure is running almost a percentage point higher than it was when he took office — and his Iran debacle has caused a spike in gasoline and diesel prices:

A normal political party would respond to this problem by trying to solve it. OK, some blame-shifting — attributing rising prices to forces beyond the president’s control or insisting that current problems were caused by the previous administration’s policies — would also be par for the course.

But MAGA is trying to deal with its affordability crisis simply by denying reality. Over the past few days multiple prominent Republicans have gone on TV to insist that gas prices are falling. On Thursday Sen. Tim Scott said that “gas prices continue to come down,” while House Majority Leader Steve Scalise declared that gas is much cheaper than it was “two years ago,” when, he claimed, it was $6 a gallon. The average price then was actually $3.66.

And Pete Hegseth, the Defense secretary, told Congress that gas prices in California were $8 a gallon on the eve of the Iran war; the average was actually $4.64.

What’s striking about these efforts to create an alternate reality isn’t merely the fact that politicians are lying. It’s the fact that they’re lying about a subject in which the truth is more or less literally in everyone’s face every day. Lies about, say, immigrant crime are difficult for ordinary Americans to check. But gas prices are displayed on giant signs all around America — and drivers face a reality check on fuel costs every time they fill their tanks.

Why, then, do Republicans believe that these lies will work for them politically?

The answer, of course, is that they’re aimed at an audience of one. Voters know that gas prices are way up and that inflation is elevated, but Donald Trump, swaddled in his Mar-a-Lago bubble, doesn’t. Trump says that we have no inflation. He recently insisted that inflation was 5 percent at the end of Biden’s term and took credit for falling inflation before he took office. So Republicans determined to say whatever he wants to hear — which means everyone still in the party — feel obliged to praise his inflation record, the facts be damned.

And for those worried that this kind of behavior, where keeping the Leader happy is far more important than respecting the truth, will lead to policy mistakes, I have three words for you: Strait of Hormuz.

Republicans Are Lying About The Shutdown Because They Can't Defend The Truth

 

"They want to have illegal aliens come into our country and get massive healthcare at the cost to everybody else, and we don't have it. And that’s, I would say, the number one reason that they want to strike is to get illegal immigrants’ healthcare."

Those were the words of Donald Trump. And on Wednesday morning, the congressional Republicans held a news conference and took turns repeating the same thing.

Let me be blunt. THAT IS AN OUTRAGEOUS LIE!

It is illegal for undocumented immigrants to receive Medicare, Medicaid, or any other government health programs (including subsidies for buying insurance through the Affordable Care Act). And no Democrat - not a single one - is calling for breaking U.S. law to give undocumented immigrants health care!

The Democrats are fighting for health care for AMERICAN CITIZENS! They want to rescind the GOP cuts to enhanced ACA subsidies for millions of Americans. Those GOP cuts (to fund a tax cut for the rich) will cause insurance premiums to rise sharply for millions of people by as much as 75%. With the current inflation, those citizens would struggle to pay the new higher rates, and millions would have to drop the insurance because they could no longer afford it.

Why are the Republicans lying about the reason for the shutdown? Because they cannot defend the truth - the fact that their "big beautiful bill" will substantially raise insurance costs for millions, and take insurance away from millions of others with massive cuts to Medicaid. They cannot defend that they think tax cuts for millionaires and billionaires are more important than health care for millions of Americans.

The Medicaid cuts won't start until after the 2026 elections, so Democrats would likely save that fight for then. Right now they want the enhanced subsidies for the ACA to be restored to keep insurance at an affordable level. If that happens, Democrats will quickly agree to vote to stop the shutdown.

Right now, Americans have a choice. They can believe the Trump and Republican lies - or they can back the Democrats efforts to save health insurance for millions of citizens.

It's not a hard choice!

Raising The Minimum Wage Does NOT Cause Layoffs

 

It is a Republican mantra that raising the minimum wage would cause layoffs - and raising it up to a livable wage would cause massive layoffs. That is simply never been true.

California recently raised the minimum wage for fast food workers (traditionally among the lowest paid workers) to $20 an hour. Did it cause massive layoffs? No! It didn't cause layoffs at all. The number of fast food jobs actually increased!

How could this be? After all, it sounds reasonable that higher wages would result in layoffs. But while it may sound reasonable, it violates good business principles.

Any well run business will hire the number of workers it takes to deliver their product to customers in the most efficient way. If it hires too few workers, the product will not be able to be delivered in a fast and efficient way - and customers will go to another business that can do that. If it hires too many workers, it will waste money (cutting into profits).

The truth is that the appropriate number of workers will be hired regardless of whether the minimum wage is low or high.

Another lie told by the GOP is that a business would have to raise prices with a higher wage and thus lose out to a competitor. That makes no sense because all competitors would be paying the same minimum wage.

Don't believe the Republican lies! The minimum wage should be a livable wage.

Republican Party Is Campaigning On Lies

The Republican Party has several issues they are campaigning on for this election. They are telling voters that inflation is out of control, that massive numbers of immigrant are crossing our southern border, that the murder rate is rising, and that oil production is down under this administration.

Unfortunately for them, none of that is true (see the charts above). The rate of inflation has dropped significantly, and some grocery stores are now lowering their prices. The number of immigrants at the southern border has also dropped significantly. The murder rate (and that of other violent crimes) is way down, and no where near record levels. And the amount of bill being produced by the U.S. is at a record level.

The GOP is hoping voters won't check the facts. They are hoping their lies will be believed. Don't let Tham fool you!

Republicans Are LYING About Undocumented Immigration

 Julio Ricardo Varela exposes the Republican lies about undocumented immigration at MSNBC.com:

Republicans (and to a somewhat lesser extent, Democrats) have given Americans the impression that we’ve been experiencing an “invasion” at our borders. But a new Pew Research Center reportreleased Thursday not only shatters that myth but also reveals that the opposite is true. According to the report, the country’s unauthorized immigrant population peaked at 12.2 million in 2007, that is, when George W. Bush was president, and that population has been steadily decreasing since then. The Pew report found that the unauthorized immigrant population in the United States stood at 10.5 million in 2021, a 14% decrease from what it was in 2007.

If those numbers shock you, then there’s a reason for it. Not a week goes by without somebody in the Republican Party promising mass deportations of unauthorized migrants. They can’t talk about the U.S. border with Mexico without falsely describing it as “open.”

Once proudly described as a nation of immigrants, the United States has become a nation of immigration enforcers thanks to Republicans making immigration a wedge issue that too many Democrats are afraid to challenge.

Republicans say that they don’t mind immigrants entering the country legally; they want to decrease the number coming in illegally. Well, that’s exactly what’s been happening.

Pew noted that at the same time the United States’ population of unauthorized immigrants dropped 14%, there was a 29% increase in what it calls the lawful immigrant population, and the number of naturalized U.S. citizens grew 49%. Of the 47 million foreign-born individuals living in the United States in 2021, the Pew report found, 23.1 million, slightly less than half, were naturalized citizens. . . .

Despite the data showing a steady decrease in the number of unauthorized migrants living in the U.S., Republicans continue to hysterically cast unauthorized migrants as a national security issueand argue that their presence changes the very substance of who and what America is.

But as the numbers from Pew show, to the extent that the demographics in this country are changing because of people coming to the U.S., it’s being driven by people coming here through official channels, not those illegally crossing our southern border. . . .

Behind Mexico and El Salvador, the report says, the country of origin with the next largest unauthorized immigrant population in the U.S. is India.

Changing demographics are not a reason to panic, but with former President Donald Trump as their leader, Republicans have chosen panic, and they have plenty of voters who support them in their overreaction. . . .

The roughly 10.5 million undocumented people in the United States are not faceless, and there is enough political support out there to make sure they are seen as the human beings they are. Republicans might be excoriating them, which is dangerous and terrifying, especially for immigrant communities, but those same immigrants help form the fabric of American society. Distorting statistical reality for GOP political expediency is now the standard. But Thursday’s Pew report gives Democrats the opportunity to radically change the conversation.

3 Lies Republicans Are Telling (Besides The "Big Lie")

Republicans are trying to counteract the effect of the abortion decision and their bad candidate choices by telling lies. Robert Reich examines the three lies most often told by them:

It’s not just the Big Lie. Republicans are telling three other lies they hope will swing the midterms. 

They involve crime, inflation, and taxes. 

Here are the GOP’s claims, followed by the facts.

1. They claim crime is rising because Democrats have been “soft” on crime.

Rubbish. Rising crime rates are due to the proliferation of guns, which Republicans refuse to control.

While violent crime rose 28 percent from 2019 to 2020, gun homicides rose 35 percent. States that have weakened gun laws have seen gun crime surge. Clearly, a major driver of the national increase in violence is the easy availability of guns.

The violence can’t be explained by any of the Republican talking points about “soft on crime” Democrats.

Lack of police funding? No. On average, all cities — whether run by Democrats or Republicans — saw an increase in police funding in 2022.

Criminal justice reforms? No. Wherever bail reforms have been implemented, re-arrest rates remain stable. Data shows no connection between the policies of progressive prosecutors and changes in crime rates.

In fact, crime is rising faster in Republican, Trump-supporting states. In 2020, per capita murder rates were 40 percent higher in states won by Trump than in those won by Joe Biden.

Republican policies have made it easier for people to get and carry guns. Republicans are lying about the real cause of rising crime to protect some of their biggest supporters, big gun manufacturers and the NRA.

2. Republicans claim that inflation is due to Biden’s spending, and wage increases.

Baloney. Biden’s spending can’t be causing our current inflation because inflation has broken out everywhere around the world, often at much higher rates than in the US.

 

Besides, heavy spending by the US government began in 2020, before the Biden administration, in order to protect Americans and the economy from the ravages of COVID-19 — and it was necessary.

Wages can’t be pushing inflation because wages have been increasing at a slower pace than prices — leaving most workers worse off.

  

The major cause of the current inflation is the global post-pandemic shortage of all sorts of things, coupled with Putin’s war in Ukraine and China’s lockdowns.

The biggest domestic culprit for America’s current inflation is big corporations that are using inflation as an excuse for raising prices above their own cost increases, resulting in the highest profit margins since 1950 — while consumers are paying through the nose.

The biggest domestic cause of inflation is corporate power. Republicans are lying about this to protect their big corporate patrons.

3. Republicans say Democrats voted to hire an army of IRS agents who will audit and harass the middle class.

Wrong. The IRS won’t be going after the middle class. It will be going after ultra-wealthy tax cheats.

The Inflation Reduction Act, passed in July, provides funding to begin to get IRS staffing back to what it was before 2010, after which Republicans cut staff by roughly 30 percent, despite increases since then in the number of Americans filing tax returns.

The extra staff are needed to prevent high-end tax evasion, which is more difficult to root out (the ultra-wealthy hire squads of accountants and tax attorneys to hide their taxable incomes). It’s estimated that the richest 1 percent are hiding more than 20 percent of their earnings from the IRS.

The Treasury Department and the IRS have made it clear that audit rates for households earning $400,000 or under will remain same.

Republicans are lying about what the IRS will do with the new funding to protect their ultra-wealthy patrons.

None of these three lies is as brazen and damaging as Trump’s Big Lie. But they’re all being used by Republican candidates in these last weeks before the midterms.

 

Know the truth and share it.