Internal Revenue Service

Disastrous Republican Leadership: Donald Trump, Mike Johnson, Tommy Tuberville!

The Republican Party has become engaged in disaster on all levels, including:

Donald Trump, facing 91 felonies over four trials, ranting and raving like a totally unhinged maniac, but still the clear frontrunner for the Republican Presidential nomination, and calling the January 6 domestic terrorists who have been convicted of crimes as being “hostages”!

Mike Johnson, clearly an extremist right wing Christian who has clearly shown his inability to cooperate with Senate Republicans or the White House, and is standing in the way of aid to Ukraine, and wishing to make tax collection by the Internal Revenue Service even more difficult, so creating greater national debt!

Tommy Tuberville, Republican Senator from Alabama, who has singlehandedly prevented promotions of hundreds of military personnel and leadership, over his opposition to the abortion policies of the Pentagon, despite the undermining of the military readiness and preparedness of America’s defense forces, at a time of great danger and threats with the wars going on in the Middle East and in Ukraine!

Vivek Ramaswamy: An Arrogant, Cocky, Scary Amateur Running For President!

Vivek Ramaswamy, the son of Hindu immigrants, who is estimated at age 38 to be a billionaire from his biotechnology industry investments, is an arrogant, cocky, scary amateur running for President, and has succeeded in gaining enough support in public opinion polls to be on the stage tonight at the Republican Presidential debate in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

A graduate of Harvard University and Yale University Law School, he is an extreme right wing candidate, working to be more extreme than Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, and promising he would pardon Donald Trump on Day One if he was elected President.

He describes himself as an “anti woke activist”, meaning he looks down upon those who have compassion, empathy, decency, sincerity, and concern for those who are not privileged as he is!

Ramaswamy is utterly brash, cocky, and has tremendous hubris, who thinks he is supremely qualified to be President. He is the person to watch tonight, and it is believed that Ron DeSantis is ready to apply the hatchet to him, at the same time that Chris Christie and Asa Hutchinson are also ready to go after DeSantis, who is fast deteriorating as a serious candidate for the Presidency.

Ramaswamy is running as Trump 2.0, and his foreign policy beliefs are totally scary and shocking, as he would reduce or end aid to Israel, Ukraine, and Taiwan; and allow Russia to keep the area of Ukraine that he controls at the moment, and prevent Ukraine from being part of NATO.

Domestically, he would work against transgender rights; environmental concerns; dealing with COVID 19’s continued threat even today; is supportive of the National Rifle Assocation; extremely anti abortion; calls to abolish the Department of Education, the FBI, and the IRS; wants to expand presidential power, pledging to rule by executive fiat; and wants to raise the voting age to 25 by constitutional amendment!

If Ramaswamy somehow was elected President, one can imagine as the youngest President that he would wish to remain in power for life, rather than leave office in his mid 40s.

He can be seen as a younger generation Fascist authoritarian, who would be a threat to the Bill of Rights and the Constitution, and he should not be ignored, and needs to be observed closely both tonight and in future months, as his fortune and self support means he is not going to withdraw at any point before the battle is over for the Republican nomination.

And even more scary and terrifying is his statement that he would consider lunatic Robert F. Kennedy, Jr as his Vice Presidential running mate!

Ron DeSantis Promotes End Of Four Key Government Agencies!

Extremist right wing Florida Governor Ron DeSantis has declared war on the federal government and four of its agencies, in his mad campaign on trying to win away the evangelical Christian right from Donald Trump!

Besides attacking Donald Trump’s past support of gay rights in 2016 (although Trump changed his tune in office and since), DeSantis has called for the end of the following agencies, if he is elected President in 2024:

Department of Education
Department of Commerce
Department of Energy
Internal Revenue Service (and wants a flat tax instead, which would harm middle and lower classes and benefit the wealthy)

This is pure insanity, and a sign of how crazy and looney DeSantis is, and reminds us of what other loser Republican contenders for President promoted in the past, most notably former Texas Governor Rick Perry in 2011!

The MAGA Republican Agenda Must Be Resisted By Biden And Democrats!

The MAGA Republicans who now control the House of Representatives under Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy, and also have influence over some of the minority Republican contingent in the US Senate, have declared war on common decency.

Joe Biden, the Democratic Senate majority and the minority House Democratic caucus under the leadership of Hakeem Jeffries have their work cut out for them to resist and defy the lunatics who are wishing to impose their agenda on the nation.

The Republicans want to negotiate over the debt ceiling when it is their party that has added most of the national debt under Republican Presidents, and specifically, Ronald Reagan, George W. Bush, and most egregiously, Donald Trump, in their mad quest to cut taxes for the super wealthy who do not need tax cuts, and never pay an adequate tax rate.

They have no concern over the damage that would be wrought on the American and worldwide economy by holding the debt ceiling as hostage, when it covers past Congressional actions that were enacted, so it shows that they are deadbeats when it comes to payment of financial obligations. The debt limit has been raised more times than years in the past multiple decades, and without question when the Republicans controlled both chambers of Congress!

And they wish to destroy the Internal Revenue Service, and instead of income taxes, tax everyone a flat rate of 30 percent sales tax on all purchases and expenses, an idea that will destroy the middle class and the poor, and greatly benefit the wealthy, absolutely outrageous!

The Republicans also want to make massive cuts to Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, food stamps, veterans benefits, calling them “entitlements”, when taxpayers pay for these programs in their years of paying taxes, so to cut is an outrage!

Republicans are also declaring war on the need for environmental reforms to deal with climate change; to promote “clean energy”; wanting to cut national parks and conservation lands and sell them to industrial interests; necessary investment in infrastructure; along with wanting to cut the meager investment in National Public Radio and PBS, undermining the concept of educating the American public with a miniscule investment of public funds!

The Democrats need to counter the Republicans by insisting on such programs as the following:

An increase in the minimum wage, and indexed to inflation

A significant tax increase on the wealthy

Expand Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) to states that have not expanded Medicaid, mostly in the South, and including the megastates of Florida and Texas

Universal Pre-K for children under the age of five

A national paid family leave program

A permanent expansion of the child tax credit

And a “compromise” might be a smaller tax increase on the wealthy, and a slower increase in the national minimum wage over a longer period of time, but in exchange, the Republicans would stop holding as hostages the national debt that they mostly created without concern.

The Republicans claim to be “pro life”, and yet they show no concern for the welfare of American children who are not from wealthy families, and refuse to consider gun regulations as more and escalating numbers of mass murders occur, with 41 such incidents in the first 27 days of 2023!

Republican Attacks On FBI, IRS, Election Workers A Reckless And Dangerous Escalation!

Republican Party leaders are escalating attacks on the FBI after the Department of Justice ordered intervention at Mar A Lago to retrieve national security documents illegally removed by Donald Trump when he left the White House.

Threats on the law enforcement agency and its agents make the Republican Party look like the party of lawlessness, chaos, and anarchy. This is all in the name of a former President who is promoting Fascist authoritarianism in his mission to regain power with the intention of destroying government institutions, with the help of the MAGA mob that can be seen as domestic terrorists, and Trump promoting their extremism.

But also, future potential House Speaker Kevin McCarthy is encouraging such action, with his promotion of conspiracy theories, along with a whole group of other reckless Republicans.

And Iowa Senator Chuck Grassley, who if reelected in November at age 89, would be President Pro Tempore if the Republicans become the majority in the US Senate, is asserting a preposterous claim. According to Grassley, the new Inflation Reduction Act of Joe Biden, which allows 87,000 new Internal Revenue Service employees, is going to lead to such new employees having the authority to use force, including assault rifles against small business owners and middle class tax payers to collect taxes!

This is pure insanity, and to think that the third and fourth ranking government officials that may arise after the midterm elections are attacking the federal government’s ability to do their jobs of public safety and tax collection, is an alarm bell for the future of extremism!

And also, election workers are being threatened all over the nation, as Republicans aim at insuring that their party will take control of election machinery and insure that only Republicans can win elections in the future!

The Republican Party has become a “clear and present danger” to American democracy and the rule of law, and has made the Midterm Elections of 2022 more urgent than any midterm elections in the past!

The Public Utterances Of Larry Elder, Potential California Governor, After Recall Election On September 14!

Larry Elder, the right wing talk show host, and an African American, seems likely to be the major threat to the tenure of California Governor Gavin Newsom in the upcoming Gubernatorial Recall election on Tuesday, September 14.

What is his record of beliefs and statements?

He is an ardent supporter of Donald Trump, regularly praising him on Twitter.

Elder has argued Trump is not responsible for the January 6, 2021 Insurrection.

In a 2000 book, he called for:

abolishing the Internal Revenue Service
creating a national sales tax
reduce government by 80 percent
end welfare and entitlements
abolish the minimum wage
eliminate corporate taxes

Also, he has condemned Lyndon B. Johnson’s “War on Poverty”; thinks the ideal minimum wage is ZERO; has condemned labor unions, and said many teachers are incompetent and should be fired; and prefers charter and private schools to public schools.

Elder also is anti abortion; anti gay; thinks California is “soft on crime”; and is a denier of climate change and the dangers of second hand tobacco smoking.

He is also against mandates on COVID 19 and masks; and sees no problem with mass rallies held by Donald Trump. Additionally, he has made highly controversial remarks on women, very misogynistic in nature.

So Elder would be a nightmare for California, and could gain the power to select the replacement for Dianne Feinstein, who might leave soon due to dementia, and that would change the political balance in the US Senate!

Joe Biden Performing Greatly, And The Economy Is Soaring As Biden Speaks To Congress Tonight!

The economy under Joe Biden is soaring, possibly on the way to the best year since 1984, and the stock market has gone up about 16 percent.

More than 1.3 million jobs have been added since Biden took the oath of office about 100 days ago.

Kindness, empathy, and compassion, all Joe Biden traits, are helping to make him very popular.

Tonight, he will give a speech to a joint session of Congress, promoting a $1.8 trillion dollar “American Families Plan” that will dramatically expand access to education and safety net programs for families.

Two years of tuition free community college; pre Kindergarten for all 3 and 4 year olds; and paid family and medical leave for all workers are included in the plan. Hundreds of billions of dollars would be spent on fighting child poverty and ensuring affordable child care nationwide is also part of the package.

Wealthy Americans and investors would pay more taxes, and greater enforcement of tax laws by the Internal Revenue Service would be utilized also.

The Economic Stimulus plan spent $1.9 trillion, and the proposed Infrastructure plan would cost $2.3 trillion, and with the $1.8 trillion proposed Family plan, it would mean the government is spending approximately $6.2 trillion since Joe Biden became President.

It will face major opposition from the Republicans in Congress, as well as some moderate Democrats, so the question is how much of Joe Biden’s ambitious plans can be actually accomplished in 2021!

“Pampered, Spoiled Brat” Ready To Commit Symbolic “Reichstag Fire” Action Of Declaring National Emergency That Does Not Exist To Seize Power: Beginning Of End Of Trump Presidency

Donald Trump is about to abuse power in a way that no one can doubt the danger and the threat that he represents.

A non-existent national emergency at the US-Mexico border is about to be used as the excuse for committing a “Reichstag Fire” action by a man who inherited $200 million from his father, and is as Joe Scarborough said this morning, a “pampered, spoiled brat” who acts like a toddler in office, and is clearly mentally deranged and demented, and is a threat to the United States population and the Constitution.

Complicit in this abuse are Republicans in Congress, including Lindsey Graham, Mitch McConnell, Kevin McCarthy, Steve King, and all of the House Freedom Caucus members, as well as Fox News Channel and its talk show hosts, including Tucker Carlson, Sean Hannity, Laura Ingraham, Judge Jeanine Pirro, and Michelle Malkin, and talk radio hosts, including Rush Limbaugh, Mark Levin, Michael Savage, and rabble rousers such as Ann Coulter.

It is clear that Donald Trump is out to destroy the federal government and its agencies, after setting out to destroy the news media, law enforcement and intelligence and national security agencies, and undermining the judiciary with unqualified, incompetent and corrupt appointees to the federal courts. He will not be satisfied until he has finished the job of helping Vladimir Putin destroy America’s relationship with its allies, and undermine America’s domestic policy, and sow racial, religious, and ethnic hatred, and promote anti women and anti gay policies, in the name of white male supremacy.

At a time when federal workers are struggling to survive without paychecks; when people in Puerto Rico and in California are in need of national emergency support for natural disasters in the name of hurricanes and forest fires; when we have dire need for promotion of infrastructure spending, health care, education, and so many other needs, Donald Trump is declaring war on American democracy.

Donald Trump must be stopped from his abuse of power, and it is assured that the courts will rule against him, and the Congress will expose his human rights crimes against immigrants and children, and his nasty, mean spirited lack of empathy for human suffering.

The man is a cancer on the American system of government, and the crime of collusion with Russia will be further exposed when Michael Cohen testifies before Congress in February.

Meanwhile, if Donald Trump declares the equivalent of martial law to protect himself, mass demonstrations and demands for his removal from office must begin, as we face the greatest constitutional crisis since the Civil War, much worse than the Watergate Crisis under Richard Nixon.

May responsible conservative writers and commentators have joined liberals in denouncing the authoritarian bent of Donald Trump, much closer to Fascism than many realize.

We are likely to see crises arise, in such agencies as air traffic control, Transportation Security Administration, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the Secret Service, the Federal Courts, the Internal Revenue Service, the Food and Drug Administration, the Environmental Protection Agency, and many other agencies. All are part of the protective nature of our federal agencies which are now crippled, as we have a longer government shutdown than ever before in American history.

The office of the American Presidency has reached a stage of being an Imperial Presidency run amuck, much worse than Richard Nixon represented, and Donald Trump must be stopped in his abuse of power for the survival of constitutional government, and sooner, rather than later.

Complaints Against Government Bureaucracy Directly Related To Loss Of Government Funding As Public Demands Grow!

The American people are told constantly by Republicans and conservatives, and the media willing to report falsehoods rather than truth, that the government bureaucracy is a disgrace, that we are not being served well by those who work in the federal government agencies.

So we have complaints about the Internal Revenue Service, the Department of Veterans Affairs, the Department of Health and Human Services, the Social Security Administration, Department of Housing and Urban Development, and really, every other government agency, declaring them incompetent, corrupt, tone deaf to public needs.

Are there government bureaucrats in many agencies who are incompetent, corrupt, tone deaf to the public? Absolutely, but that is endemic to “bureaucrats” in every corporation as well in this nation!

The people at the top of any government agency or private corporation are generally arrogant, cocky, only too willing to enrich themselves at the expense of their “bureaucracy”!

There is a need to clean up government agencies of those who have lost the purpose of their employment, to serve the American people with compassion and competence!

But that alone will not solve the problem of government services, as it is the Republicans and conservatives who are ultimately responsible for the problems created over time!

These groups hate government, except where they can benefit from it themselves, and are only too willing to cut government funding and personnel as the population of the nation, and the aging of the population, and the growing economic decline of the middle class and the poor due to the growing wealth of the top two percent, continues to escalate.

If one wants good government services, we must pay for it and expand bureaucracy, not cut it, as we only perpetuate the incompetence and lack of solution of major issues that arise.

Instead of attacking “bureaucracy”, let us recognize its significance and show respect for those, over 95 percent of “bureaucrats”, who do a competent, caring job every day, but never get credit for it, as the headlines dramatize the examples of incompetency and corruption that are exaggerated as being a statement on all “bureaucracy”!

“Fishing” Expeditions Mount As Republicans Lose On ObamaCare!

The Republican Party is so desperate to find an issue to attack the Obama Administration, now that ObamaCare is working, and polls indicate growing support for the landmark legislation that twenty years ago the Republicans supported, and which Mitt Romney put into play in Massachusetts eight years ago, now shown by statistics and research to have saved many lives in that state.

So now the Republicans are engaging in another attack on the Benghazi terrorist tragedy in Libya, despite the fact there is no evidence of wrongdoing.

And they also have cited Lois Lerner for using her Fifth Amendment rights in the investigation of the Internal Revenue Service targeting political organizations who want tax exempt status, even though progressive groups, as well as conservative groups, were investigated as to their right to a tax exemption.

Also, there is heat being brought against Eric Shinseki, the Secretary of Veterans Affairs, over the problems in providing health care for veterans, even though the GOP has no problem with trying to deny millions of poor people the opportunity to have health care through Medicaid expansion!

The hypocrisy of the Republican Party is beyond belief, and the American people need for the Democrats to fight back in clear terms, and make all voters know the truth about the GOP strategy, so that they do not reward them for their lies and deceit in the upcoming Midterm Elections of 2014!