Tag: 2020 Election

Dario Hunter: Stop the Madness

Kamala Harris says the backlash against Kaepernick and taking a knee “was not a thing” until “Russian bots started taking that on.”😂 So now the systemic, ever-present, hundreds of years old racism in this country is a Russian conspiracy? Stop the madness. This is why you can’t take seriously any candidate pushing the Russiagate nonsense – it’s such an obvious tool of corporate mass-distraction.

Biden’s Healthcare Plan is Just Great – As Long as You Don’t Need Healthcare

Common Dreams:

After spending the past week sniping at Medicare for All with insurance industry talking points, 2020 Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden on Monday unveiled a healthcare plan that one analyst said could cause the deaths of around 125,000 people over the first ten years by leaving millions of Americans uninsured.

“Even if you suppose that Biden’s estimate is right and the uninsurance rate does go to three percent, that still implies an enormous amount of unnecessary death caused by a lack of insurance,” Bruenig said. “One commonly-used (e.g. by CAP) estimate states that one unnecessary death occurs annually for every 830 uninsured people. This means that during the first 10 years of Bidencare, over 125,000 unnecessary deaths will occur from uninsurance.”

https://www.commondreams.org/news/2019/07/15/not-acceptable-analysis-estimates-biden-healthcare-plan-would-kill-125000-people

It is time for this investigation to end

It is time for this investigation to end and for Manning to be released. She is taking a principled stand against the secret grand jury process of the United States. Grand juries are known as the “prosecutor’s darling” because the grand jury only hears the prosecutor’s version of events. Those who are the target of a grand jury investigation are not allowed to present their side of the story. Those who are witnesses before grand juries are not allowed to have a lawyer with them in the hearing room. Grand jury abuse has become all too common. Manning’s stand should lead to a re-evaluation of the grand jury system as she is putting a spotlight on this abusive prosecutorial tool.

https://howiehawkins.us/release-chelsea-manning-erase-fines-against-her/

Andrew Yang’s UBI Proposal

At the debate, Andrew Yang talked up his UBI proposal with a value added tax as a way to pay for it. What he tried to avoid is the hard truth of WHY libertarians like Yang actually want it: it’ll lower his tax bill by eviscerating the existing, already inadequate social safety net.

Sales taxes like VAT disproportionately burden working class and poorer people because they don’t have the disposable income that capitalists like Yang have. Eliminate the tax burden of funding existing public assistance, unemployment, and other components of the social safety net and millionaire capitalists like Yang are due for a nice, fat tax break.

Yang likes to present himself as a “Valley entrepreneur,” but he’s actually a venture capitalist, and like all capitalists he seeks to have his investment income taxed as cap gains, and not income – because it means he’ll pay far, far less as a percentage of income, than the majority of people earning taxed wages.

Yang’s UBI is not progressive. It’s a tax cut for the already wealthy capitalist class, pure and simple.

Even the low bar…

But Wednesday night’s debate did not clear even the low bar that Perez set. Over the course of two hours, approximately seven minutes were devoted to the top existential threat facing humanity. And only four of the ten candidates on stage were asked directly about how they intend to rapidly reduce carbon emissions over the next 11 years—something that must be done to preserve a livable planet for future generations.

https://newrepublic.com/article/154334/first-democratic-debate-failed-planet

We’re an hour in…

We’re an hour into tonight’s #DemDebate and there’s been no direct question on #climatechange.

That’s despite the DNC pledging to make it a top issue in the debates after refusing to host a full debate on the issue.

Dear DNC

Dear @DNC,

We’re 1 hour into the #DemDebate and there have been ZERO climate qs.

You told us things would be different than 2016.

You told us the climate crisis was a priority for you.

Enough with your lame excuses. Enough hiding behind locked doors.

Host a #ClimateDebate.