Under strident public pressure from rapacious plutocratic donors, Harris-Walz campaign agrees to reduce proposed top long-term capital gains tax rate for wealthy taxpayers from Biden’s planned 39.6% to 28%; current rate is 20%, set by Trump in 2017;
This retreat would reduce revenue for necessary reforms as nation moves towards refinancing Social Security and Medicare while strengthening the earned income tax credit and the child tax credit to fight poverty;
As collapse of Trump candidacy proceeds apace, influx of Wall Street and Silicon Valley plutocrat donors, drifting ex-Republicans, and independent stragglers poses risk of pulling the Harris-Walz campaign to the right, with detrimental consequences now and in the future; these backward influences need to be compensated for by pushing the ticket in a New Deal Economic Populist direction;
Last week, Harris had pledged to retain the Biden-Harris budget for FY 2025, which contains the full 39.6% capital gains tax figure as part of Biden’s alternative minimum tax on parasitical billionaires; this figure of course represented the opening bid in a complex negotiating process with Congress, and simply retreating from it recalls the flawed practice of Obama, who was notorious for negotiating with himself in public, offering concessions without any quid pro quo in
Trump’s speech to the Economic Club of New York marks new phase in his cognitive deterioration; orange dotard’s answer to final question on childcare will be studied for decades as a classic of evasive raving utterly estranged from reality; his promise to give Musk sweeping powers as federal “Efficiency Czar” suggests any future Trump regime would be strangled by committees of incompetent and mediocre oligarchs; Project 2025 confirms this hypothesis;
Responsible media figures condemn the blatant double standard inherent in the bothsidesism of the Wall Street press and television, who have transferred their vicious hostility from Biden to Harris, while maintaining their dog-like devotion to Trump; mediocre but megalomaniac reporters obsessively nitpick every detail of Harris’ remarks, but blithely ignore the virtual delirium of Trump’s tirades;
All the News That Fits We Print: In a self-serving Washington Post jumbo op-ed, New York Times boss A.G. Sulzberger indignantly rejects idea that defending the U.S. Constitution makes up any part of his remit; instead, he hypocritically pursues his vendetta against Biden for refusing to submit to an exhaustive interview with his scribblers and minions
this time, the Biden administration has issued timely indictments of Russian intelligence agents spending $10 million to generate articles from the fascist-subversive lunatic fringe viewpoint to help Trump win the election; This Operation Doppelgänger is said to be commanded by Sergei Kiriyenko, one of Putin’s top Kremlin oligarchs;
Consternation in the MAGA Camp, where the subversives had deluded themselves that they had permanently buried the “Russia Russia Russia” issue under a thick stratum of lies, gaslighting, fabrications, and intimidation; aspects of this issue are destined to ride again with a vengeance in the Chutkan January 6 case in Washington DC and the Florida stolen secret documents case;
Zelenski attends Ukraine contact group at Ramstein airbase in Germany to urge allies to deliver more air defense equipment; German Chancellor Scholz stresses that his government will back Kyiv as long as needed; Zelenski plans New York visit to attend United Nations General Assembly and Confer with President Biden to Finalize Plan for Victory;
Alternative honcho Björn Höcke qualifies for the epithet of “fascist” after being found liable for reviving Nazi slogans on two separate occasions, making it harder for this party to find coalition partners to form a majority government; in Saxony, the Christian Democrats remain the largest party; Brandenburg votes on September 22, with national elections almost a year away;
Speedy expulsion of Russian forces from Ukraine under the 1988 Gromov doctrine will tend to deprive Alternative and the anti-American Sahra Wagenknecht personality cult of a key issue;
Chancellor Scholz should also adjust immigration and asylum policies along the lines of the successful changes recently introduced by Biden using executive orders;
Part of the damage comes from excessive credulity in the West about Putin’s rocket-rattling, which has permitted privileged sanctuaries for the Russians on their own territory, thus needlessly prolonging a tragic war;