2020 Archives

Posted at Alternet.org on Aug. 6, 2020

Anger at Trump over his COVID-19 lies flares up in the obituaries

It’s showing up in the obituaries. People in the throes of agony from losing someone close to them are writing things like, “Instead of flowers, donate to a Democrat,” or “Instead of flowers, tell everyone to vote against Trump and the GOP this fall.” It’s become a national trend. But not everyone is mourning. Billionaire Rupert Murdoch and the multimillionaires who comment on his Fox News network every night are very happy with the giant tax cuts and deregulation that Donald Trump has given them.

Posted at Common Dreams on Jul. 28, 2020

Not the 'Heals Act' But the 'Heels Act': GOP Covid-19 Plan Puts Corporate Greed Before Human Need

It should be called the HEELS Act, not the HEALS Act. Since the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic, Republicans' price for supporting unemployment checks and other benefits for average working people has been several trillion dollars shoveled directly into corporate coffers, both through tax breaks, grants, and the Federal Reserve buying trillions worth of corporate stocks and bonds. Now Republicans are saying they want to cut people's unemployment benefits, and they'll only go along with giving unemployed people a measly $200 a week if they can also give immunity to corporate CEOs and managers when their stupid decisions cause people to die.

Posted at Buzzflash on Jul. 27, 2020

How much worse must things get before Americans wake up to the Republican scam?

Republicans in Congress right now are fighting each other over how severely they should cut back on unemployment benefits to people out of work because of this administration's incompetence in handling the coronavirus. Some Republicans want to do away with the $600 a week altogether, others suggest it should be cut to $100 or $300 a week, and others want to make it some fraction of a person's previous income, which will produce a math challenge for the Treasury Department that could take months to untangle. Whatever they decide, the bottom line should be clear to all Americans: Republicans were more than happy to hand more than $3 trillion to billionaires, giant corporations and the very, very wealthy but don't give a flying flip about America's working people.

Posted at Common Dreams on Jul. 21, 2020

Will Trump’s Secret Police Succeed in Provoking Riots in Your City?

The Republican Trump administration has gone full authoritarian. Portland is a test, but only a test. Donald Trump signaled his election strategy a few days ago when he talked about ending legislation passed back in the 1960s to support fair housing that he said had sent "people" out into "the suburbs."

Posted at Alternet.org on Jul. 18, 2020

We have now reached peak Libertarianism — and it is literally killing us

We have now reached peak Libertarianism, and this bizarre experiment that has been promoted by the billionaire class for over 40 years is literally killing us. Back in the years before Reagan, a real estate lobbying group called the Foundation for Economic Education (FEE) came up with the idea of creating a political party to justify deregulating the real estate and finance industries so they could make more money. The party would give them ideological and political cover, and they developed an elaborate theology around it.

Posted at Common Dreams on Jul. 16, 2020

If You Can’t Stop People From Voting, Just Help Them Die?

First, Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp, when formerly serving of Secretary of State, did everything he could to keep hundreds of thousands of Black and Hispanic voters in Georgia from having their votes counted or even being able to vote at all. In the months running up to his own race for governor, he conducted massive purges of the voting rolls, closed polling places in Black and Hispanic neighborhoods, and refused to certify the recent voter registrations of about 50,000 African Americans. Now it appears he’s decided that if he can't prevent Black and Hispanic people from voting he should just help them die.

Posted at Common Dreams on Jul. 14, 2020

Will Americans Reject Trump and the GOP Death Cult This Fall?

The Trump administration is a death cult. They revel in their efforts to end Obamacare and cut millions of Americans off healthcare. They celebrate last night's resumption of federal executions. They enthusiastically authorize the use of formerly banned pesticides that cause cancer and neurological damage to children. Trump's first official action was to allow coal and oil companies to dump more waste in our rivers, poisoning people downstream.

Posted at Thom Hartmann on Jul. 8, 2020

Blowing the lid off the billionaires' big con - and its deadly link to the coronavirus pandemic

About 75 percent of Americans trusted the federal government to "do what is right" when polled during most of the last years of the Eisenhower administration and early years of Lyndon B. Johnson's presidency. In 2019, when the Pew Research Center released its most recent poll of public trust in the government, only 17 percent of Americans trusted their government. It's so bad that armed protesters have shown up nationwide to protest the "tyranny" of having to wear masks during a pandemic… and have been cheered on by the president of the United States and Fox News. This is no accident.

Posted at Buzzflash on Jul. 8, 2020

To Keep Americans Safe, We Have to Get Billionaires and Money Out of Politics

Jim Jones, who only killed 900+ people, was a piker, perhaps because he just wasn’t rich enough to be truly effective. Billionaire Donald Trump has beat him more than 130 times over, with far more to come. Canada, a country run by competent leaders and actual civil servants at the provincial and federal level, largely has the coronavirus under control and have largely closed their border to Americans. The Guardian is reporting how Mexican border towns are asking Americans not to come, for fear of further spread of the virus there.

Posted at Thom Hartmann on Jul. 6, 2020

Can Americans Stop the Republican Party and Their Billionaire Lifeline Before Another Hundred Thousand Americans Die?

Can Americans Stop the Republican Party and Their Billionaire Lifeline Before Another Hundred Thousand Americans Die? If a group of international billionaires who don't like democracy, business regulation, or the idea of a functioning multiracial culture wanted to hire somebody to destroy America, they couldn't have done better than Donald Trump.