Hitler's Halloween:
Trump's recent hate filled rhetoric and threats to use military force against those who disagree with him have reminded all of us just how much he and his campaign have borrowed from the Nazi Party of old.
Trump's not just a Fascist. Trump is a Nazi.
For more Graphics and Greeting Cards, go to: https://kkreneck.wixsite.com/mysite
The election is too close for comfort, but there’s no turning back. It’s time to vote, not only to save democracy, but also to crush Big Lie Trumpism, which has transformed the Republican Party into a personality cult operating as a subsidiary of the convicted felon’s Trump Organization.
In the closing weeks of the campaign, Vice President Kamala Harris has been indefatigably traveling across the country seeking to display her qualifications for office and her plans to put the middle class and small businesses at the heart of the US “opportunity economy.” Her proposals include a $6,000 tax credit for families during the first year of a child’s life; a $3,600 tax credit per child for working families; and holding off from increasing taxes on households with less than $400,000 of annual income.
Her economic proposals also include a $25,000 tax credit and other incentives for first-time home buyers, expanding a small business creation tax break, while taxing long-term capital gains for wealthy individuals at 28%, universal childcare and paid family leave, and enacting a federal ban on corporate price gouging. She also proposes to include home health care as part of Medicare, which would help seniors, as well as their children who otherwise would face the financial burden of caring for their elderly parents. In contrast Trump plans to renew tax cuts for billionaires, cut corporate tax rates and impose tariffs to protect US companies from foreign competition and raise the costs of imported goods in the U.S.
The right-leaning Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget (CRFB) analyzed Trump’s economic proposals and found that, if enacted, Trump’s agenda would worsen Social Security finances by $2.3 trillion over 10 years, requiring a 35% benefit cut in 2035.
Trump has threatened to strip TV networks of their right to broadcast news because of coverage he doesn’t like, regardless of First Amendment protections of the press and news media.
“CBS should lose its license,” Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform. “60 Minutes should be immediately taken off the air.” He has repeated his demands in speeches and in interviews, echoing his earlier calls for ABC’s license to be “terminated” because of his displeasure with how the network handled his debate against Kamala Harris.
On Oct. 20, Trump ratcheted up his threats against CBS. “We’re going to subpoena their records,” he told Fox News in an interview, repeating his claim that the network’s edit of Harris’s recent appearance on “60 Minutes” was misleading. Asked if revoking a broadcast license was a “drastic punishment,” Trump did not answer directly, instead lobbing a string of insults at Harris, whom he called “incompetent” and “a Marxist,” The New York Times reported.
Broadcast networks like ABC, CBS and NBC do not actually need licenses to produce or publish news content. But local affiliate stations that carry network broadcasts do need licenses, which are overseen by the Federal Communications Commission. The FCC is independent from the White House, but a commissioner appointed by Trump, Nathan Simington, wrote on X, “Interesting. Big if true.” Trump later shared a screenshot of Simington’s post on Truth Social.
Since 2022, Trump has issued more than 100 threats to investigate, prosecute, imprison or otherwise punish his perceived opponents, including President Joe Biden, NPR reported.
Trump has repeatedly indicated he would use federal law enforcement as part of a campaign to exact “retribution.”
Trump also has suggested he would use military tribunals to try his political opponents, including former U.S. Rep. Liz Cheney, and use the military to round up immigrants, regardless of the Posse Comitatus Act, which prohibits the use of military for law enforccement.
Meanwhile, Trump has been increasingly erratic as he has cut back his rallies and interviews, showed signs of mental lapses, such as when he shut down audience questions at a “town hall” and instead shuffled aimlessly to music for 39 minutes. He also baselessly slurs Harris’s intellectual capabilities and continues to lie shamelessly about activities of the Federal Emergency Management Agency in response to Hurricane Helene, which resulted in threats against FEMA workers in North Carolina.
A 12-minute ramble on the late golfer Arnold Palmer, at an Oct. 19 rally in Palmer’s hometown of Latrobe, Pa., concluded with a tribute to the golfer’s penis. “Arnold Palmer was all man, and I say that in all due respect to women, and I love women,” Trump said. “But this guy, this guy—this is a guy that was all man. This man was strong and tough, and I refuse to say it, but when he took showers with the other pros, they came out of there, they said, ‘Oh my God. That’s unbelievable.’ I had to say it. I had to say it.”
Trump sought to burnish his credentials with White supremacists Oct. 18 when he said on Fox News Abraham Lincoln was “probably a great president,” but he could have been better if he had “settled” the Civil War by cutting a deal with the South.
He was returning to a theme he brought up during the primary campaign, when he said history could have been different, if only Lincoln had read “The Art of the Deal.” “The Civil War was so fascinating, so horrible,” Trump said at a January event in Newton, Iowa. “So many mistakes were made. See, there was something I think could have been negotiated, to be honest with you. I think you could have negotiated that. All the people died, so many people died. You know, that was the disaster.”
Civil War historian Charles B. Dew noted in the Tampa Bay Times Jan. 13 that Trump was talking nonsense. When Abraham Lincoln was inaugurated on March 4, 1861, seven states of the Deep South already had left the Union. Beginning with South Carolina on Dec. 20, 1860, and ending with Texas on Feb. 1, 1861, these states (which also included Florida, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana) had sent delegates to a constitutional convention in Montgomery, Alabama, and formed the Confederate States of America, with a provisional president, Jefferson Davis of Mississippi, and Vice president Alexander H. Stephens of Georgia and a Confederate army had been rapidly assembled from state militia units. Confederate forces amassed heavy ordnance that threatened Fort Sumter in Charleston harbor before Lincoln’s inauguration.
On April 12, 1861, Confederate forces fired on Fort Sumter and two days later, with supplies nearly exhausted and his troops outnumbered, Union Major Robert Anderson surrendered Fort Sumter to Brig. Gen. P.G.T. Beauregard’s Confederate forces. Anderson and his men were allowed to sail to New York. Six more Southern states joined the Confederacy. Both the North and South mobilized for war, which lasted four years, cost the lives of more than 620,000 Americans, and freed 3.9 million enslaved people from bondage. Many in the South still can’t deal with it. — JMC
From The Progressive Populist, November 15, 2024
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EDITORIAL
Time to crush Trumpism
FRANK LINGO
Trump’s willing executioners
DON ROLLINS
Cussing comes to CNN
RURAL ROUTES/Margot McMillen
Keep your eyes on the prize, voters
DISPATCHES
Conservative think tank finds Trump plans would wreck Social Security.
Trump and his allies try to rally early vote, while crying fraud.
Trump also wants to destroy American education system.
Central Park 5 Sue Trump for defamation.
Boeing union wins contract with 35% hike.
Harris edges Trump on economic positions.
Trump used D.C. hotel to enrich himself, fleeced taxpayers while president: probe ...
ART CULLEN
What do pork, quartz and saline solution have in common?
ALAN GUEBERT
Big mac bites big meat over alleged ‘artificially higher prices’
SONALI KOLHATKAR
Scapegoating immigrants hurts all of us — except elites
JOHN YOUNG
Down the stretch in a cloud of lies
CLAIRE CARLSON and LANE WENDELL FISCHER
Walz assails ag monopolies and touts healthcare policy in speech on rural plan
DICK POLMAN
The sultan of stupid strikes again! This time, he flunked the most basic mathematics
JOE CONASON
Trump, Musk and the hideous campaign of hate
A.J. SCHUMANN
Who’s reallyl a populist? Henry Wallace set the standard
LES LEOPOLD
135.9 million reasons why the working class is so angry
ELWOOD WATSON
Obama’s condescending message to Black men
ROBERT KUTTNER
How hurricanes are a profit center for insurers
THOM HARTMANN
No one has ever been as dangerous to America as Trump — it can happen here
SABRINA HAAKE
Oil billionaires, not taxpayers, should pay for climate destruction
THE BIG PICTURE/Glynn Wilson
Lilly Ledbetter of Alabama, champion of pay equality, dies at 86
HEALTH CARE/Joan Retsinas
Cruelty cloaked in morality
SAM URETSKY
Be wary of covid ‘cures’
SATIRE/Rosie Sorenson
True grift
WAYNE O’LEARY
Crumbling wall of ivy
JOEL D. JOSEPH
Ten simple things you can do to reduce plastic pollution
SETH SANDRONSKY
Reviewing ‘Rez Ball’
N. GUNASEKARAN
Taxing corporations for social, economic justice
LEW KINGSBURY
Lawsuit challenges restrictions on church political activities
JAMIE STIEHM
Waves and walls higher for Harris’ catwalk
BARRY FRIEDMAN
The Trump biopsy
RALPH NADER
Last clear chances for November
JONATHAN THOMPSON
Wyoming shoots itself in the foot
ROB PATTERSON
The family helps Willie Nelson keep going
RED SCHOMBURG
The tipped wage system is failing us. Removing taxes on tips won’t save it.
ED RAMPELL
When John and Yoko seized TV
AMY GOODMAN
Medical workers demand a ceasefire in Gaza
GENE NICHOL
A finale
From The Progressive Populist, November 15, 2024
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The Trump-Witch:
The Trump campaign is attempting to conger up the impression of a failed socioeconomic, dystopian world. According to Trump, it was created by the Biden administration and can only be remedied by the Nazi police state described in the Project 2025 manifesto.
Trump has essentially hollowed out the Republican Party. It stands for nothing.
Instead, Trump has replaced its values with those expressed in the Project 2025 Manifesto. Project 2025 would replace our republic with an authoritarian regime - a police state.
Art by Kevin Kreneck. For more Graphics and Greeting Cards, go to: https://kkreneck.wixsite.com/mysite
The vast damage Hurricane Helene did to the southeastern United States from Sept. 26 to 29 was another demonstration that climate change is real. Republicans whose political careers have been financed by Big Oil and other polluters have been in denial about climate change for decades. But farmers know climate change is real, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz noted at the Vice Presidential Debate Oct. 1. “They’ve seen 500 year droughts, 500 year floods, back to back.”
Hurricane Helene made landfall with Category 4 intensity on the evening of Sept. 26 in the Big Bend region of western Florida, near the city of Perry, with maximum sustained winds of 140 mph. Helene weakened as it veered north inland but it still had plenty of rain to dump before it dissipated on Sept. 29, leaving many in its path without working roads, power food, and water. Catastrophic rain triggered flooding in western North Carolina, eastern Tennessee and southwestern Virginia, and spawned numerous tornadoes. The death toll attributed to the storm was at least 231 across six states.
Scientists at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory estimate that “climate change may have caused as much as 50% more rainfall during Hurricane Helene in some parts of Georgia and the Carolinas” in its 500-mile path inland.
Helene’s huge size and speed are linked to increasingly hotter water in the Gulf of Mexico. Steve Curwood noted at InsideClimateNews.org. hurricanes have usually weakened when they make landfall, but Helene’s impact was just as devastating in the inland mountains of western North Carolina as on the Gulf Coast of Florida.
During the storm, President Joe Biden put the Federal Emergency Management Agency at the service of the stricken states.
In reaction, Donald Trump told outrageous and reckless lies, as he tried to take political advantage over the catastrophe. He even blamed immigrants as well as the administration for hampering the response.
Trump wrote on Truth Social Monday, Sept. 30, that he planned to go to North Carolina, “but don’t like the reports that I’m getting about the Federal Government, and the Democrat Governor of the State, going out of their way to not help people in Republican areas.” But there is no evidence that the Biden administration was ignoring Republican areas. In fact, Republican governors in Virginia, South Carolina and Tennessee praised the Biden administration for its fast response, and FEMA designated counties in several states — including dozens won by Trump in the 2020 presidential election — as eligible to apply for federal assistance.
At a news conference Sept. 30, Trump said of Republican Georgia Gov. Kemp, “He’s been calling the president, hasn’t been able to get him.” But earlier in the day Kemp said he had talked with Biden the previous day. Kemp said he missed the president’s initial call Sept. 29. “He just said, ‘Hey, what do you need?’ And I told him: ‘You know, we got what we need. We’ll work through the federal process.’ He offered that if there’s other things we need, just to call him directly, which I appreciate that. But we’ve had FEMA embedded with us since a day or two before the storm hit in our state operations center in Atlanta; we’ve got a great relationship with them.”
Republican South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster said at an Oct. 1 press conference that federal assistance had “been superb,” noting Biden and Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg had both called and told him to let them know whatever the state needed. McMaster also said FEMA Administrator Deanne Criswell had called.
Still, in a social media post Oct. 3, Trump wrote that Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris “are universally being given POOR GRADES for the way that they are handling the Hurricane, especially in North Carolina.”
CNN’s fact checker, Daniel Dale, wrote, “That wasn’t even close to accurate. Though the Biden administration’s response had certainly received criticism, it had also been praised by various state and local leaders — including the Republican governors of some of the affected states and the Democratic governor of North Carolina, plus local leaders including the Democratic mayor of the hard-hit North Carolina city of Asheville,” which saw historic water level rises after it received 13.98 inches of rain Sept. 25-27.
In a Michigan rally Oct. 3, Trump placed Kamala Harris at the helm, lying that “Kamala spent all her FEMA money, billions of dollars, on housing for illegal migrants, many of whom should not be in our country.” He added a related conspiracy theory: “They stole the FEMA money, just like they stole it from a bank, so they could give it to their illegal immigrants that they want to have vote for them this season.”
First, there is no scheme to get undocumented immigrants to vote illegally in November. Voting by noncitizens is a felony.
Second, there is no basis for claiming FEMA disaster assistance money was stolen — by anyone, let alone Harris personally — for housing migrants. No disaster funding has been spent on those shelters.
In late September, President Biden signed into law short-term funding that extended 2024 fiscal year funding levels through Dec. 20. It specifically gave FEMA access to a full year’s worth of disaster relief funding.
“FEMA absolutely has enough money for Helene response right now,” Keith Turi, acting director of FEMA’s Office of Response and Recovery said. He noted that Congress recently replenished the agency with $20 billion, and about $8 billion of that is set aside for recovery from previous storms and mitigation projects.
Trump repeated his debunked claim about migrants getting FEMA money to reporters at least twice on Friday, Oct. 4 — and then said it again at a Friday night town hall in North Carolina.
Saturday, Oct. 5, Trump falsely claimed at a campaign rally in Pennsylvania the federal government was only giving $750 to people who lost their homes. “Think of it: We give foreign countries hundreds of billions of dollars and we’re handing North Carolina $750,” he said.
As FEMA explained earlier in the week, trying to to combat misinformation, $750 is merely the immediate aid survivors can get to cover basic, pressing needs like food, water, baby formula and emergency supplies. Survivors may apply for additional forms of assistance, such as for temporary housing and home repairs, that can be worth thousands of dollars; the current maximum amount for home repair assistance, for example, is $42,500.
Trump also claimed at the Pennsylvania rally there were no helicopters doing rescues in North Carolina, which was nonsense as National Guard helicopters were delivering supplies, picking up stranded people, dropping off firefighters and search-and-rescue crews and radioing for assistance for others who could be ccessed from the ground..
Meanwhile, as another hurricane, Milton, heads toward Tampa, Fla, the lies of Trump and running mate J.D. Vance are magnified on social media and have an impact on low-information voters who respond to wild rumors. All Kamala Harris and Tim Walz have to offer in response is competent leadership. — JMC
From The Progressive Populist, November 1, 2024
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A state of shock in North Carolina
EDITORIAL p. 2
Climate changes; Trump still lies
FRANK LINGO p. 3
Will UN conferences finally get real?
DON ROLLINS p. 4
Kris Kristofferson: A sublime yearning
RURAL ROUTES/Margot McMillen p. 5
New voices needed in political coverage
DISPATCHES p. 5
How bad was Trump at handling disasters?
Conservatives struggle to see the bad in good jobs report.
Dockworkers suspend strike after winning tentative deal with 62% wage boost. They’ll continue talking about other issues.
UAW slams Trump-Vance as “menace to the working class.”
Trump lied about Haitian immigrants. Now he wants to deport them.
Analysis: Trump tax plan would make rich people richer, poor people poorer ...
ART CULLEN p. 6
How do we talk to each other anymore?
ALAN GUEBERT p. 6
Tough 2024 gets tougher
ANNABELLE ORTIZ p. 7
There just aren’t enough services to prevent homelessness
JOHN YOUNG p. 7
OMG! The Venezuelans took over!
SARAH MELOTTE p. 8
Neighbor helping neighbor takes many forms in hurricane-hit Western N.C.
JOE CONASON p. 9
MAGA’s Nazi infestation just got worse
DAVID McCALL p. 10
Opportunity for all
LES LEOPOLD p. 10
Wake up Democrats! Trump is eating your working-class lunch
ROBERT KUTTNER p. 11
The Justice Department challenges Visa’s predatory power
SARAH ANDERSON p. 11
Lawmakers target corporations paying executives more than Uncle Sam
THOM HARTMANN p. 12
Radio silence: How progressives lost the airwaves
SABRINA HAAKE p. 12
The intelligent conversation we aren’t having on immigration
SONALI KOLHATKAR p. 13
What we can learn from Gen Z workers
THE BIG PICTURE/Glynn Wilson p. 14
Vice presidential debate — J.D. Vance is a smooth liar, but Tim Walz nailed him on who won the 2020 election and Jan. 6
HEALTH CARE/Joan Retsinas p. 15
Health insurance: On the electoral brink
MARTHA BURK p. 15
Meet the newest abortion rights supporters: Men in red states
WAYNE O’LEARY p. 16
The great debate
ANNIE NORMAN and SHAWN SEBASTIAN p. 16
Postal Service plan writes off rural America to save a buck
JUAN COLE p. 17
The path to Nasrallah’s assassination
JASON SIBERT p. 17
The case for an Israeli-Palestinian confederation
JAMIE STIEHM p. 18
Election roundup: Painting the House blue, Harris in white
BARRY FRIEDMAN p. 18
Where did the fun go?
SATIRE/Rosie Sorenson p. 18
In this corner ...
RALPH NADER p. 19
Public radio, public media and local news deserts — our new report
ZAK PODMORE p. 20
Glen Canyon Dam faces deadpool
ROB PATTERSON p. 20
Jon Voight’s thespian skills lift him above lunatic politics
SETH SANDRONSKY p. 20
Globalize this: Reviewing ‘Socialist Register 2024’
ED RAMPELL p. 21
Decolonizing Hispanic history onscreen
AMY GOODMAN p. 22
Israel cannot bomb its way to peace
GENE NICHOL p. 23
A simple reminder
From The Progressive Populist, November 1, 2024
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Shut Up J.D.
Yeah we'd all like JD Vance to stop with the conspiracy theories, false accusations and hate speech.
It won't happen but we can dream.
Art by Kevin Kreneck. For more Graphics and Greeting Cards, go to https://kkreneck.wixsite.com/mysite
Trump The Big Chicken
The first debate between Trump and Harris was a disaster for Trump. He was left looking like an addle brained old man. So, he doesn't dare agree to a second debate. Such a re-match would spell the end of his campaign and a possible post election prison stay.
Art by Kevin Kreneck. For more Graphics and Greeting Cards, go to https://kkreneck.wixsite.com/mysite
There is no bottom to Donald Trump’s Republican Party. And his running mate is digging further. .
Sen. J.D. Vance picked up a baseless rumor, which had been batted around social media for about a month, that Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio, were abducting their neighbors’ pets and eating them. Vance wrote on X (formerly Twitter) Sept. 9, “Reports now show that people have had their pets abducted and eaten by people who shouldn’t be in this country. Where is our border czar?”
Less than 30 minutes after Vance’s post, NPR noted, the Springfield News-Sun reported that local police said incidents of pets being stolen or eaten were “not something that’s on our radar right now” The newspaper said the unsubstantiated claim seems to have started with a post in a Springfield Facebook group that was widely shared across social media.
After Vance posted it on X, an advocate for the Haitian community in Springfield reported receiving a wave of harassment.
Then Trump supercharged the claim during his nationally televised debate on ABC with Vice President Kamala Harris the evening of Sept. 10, when he brought up the pet-eating hoax in an attack on the Biden-Harris administration’s immigration policy.
“In Springfield, they’re eating the dogs. The people that came in. They’re eating the cats. They’re eating—the pets of the people that live there and this is what’s happening in our country,” Trump said.
Debate moderator David Muir debunked Trump’s claim, noting that local officials said the story was untrue. Trump refused to accept the correction and insisted he had seen “people on television” verifying the story.
Immediately following the debate, Vance told CNN that he had “heard from a number of constituents” on the issue and had “both first-hand and second-hand reports saying this stuff is happening.”
After the story became national and international news, the city received bomb threats to Springfield schools, hospitals, city hall and threats were made against city officials.
But Trump refused to denounce the bomb threats at Springfield. “I don’t know what happened with the bomb threats,” he told reporters in Las Vegas, Nevada, on Sept. 14. When a reporter asked him if he denounced the bomb threats, Trump replied, “I know that it’s been taken over by illegal migrants and that’s a terrible thing that happened.”
Sept. 15 on CNN, Vance rejected claims that he was to blame for bomb threats, school cancellations and harassment of Haitians. He justified his statements about the rumors, saying he was just trying to bring attention to the problems in Springfield and other places impacted by immigrants. “If I have to create stories so that the American media actually pays attention to the sufferings of the American people, then that’s what I’m going to do,” he said.
It should be a no-brainer for Trump and Vance to denounce bomb threats, but here we are. Instead, Vance on Sept. 16 complained after a gunman was found set up on Trump’s golf course in Florida, “no one has tried to kill Kamala Harris in the last couple of months, and two people now have tried to kill Donald Trump in the last couple of months.”
This is merely one more episode demonstrating why neither Trump nor Vance belong anywhere near the White House. And a vote in a swing state for anybody but Kamala Harris empowers Trump.
Electing Kamala Harris and Tim Walz at the top of the ballot is merely the first step in keeping our democracy. Vote blue down the ballot. Democrats have a good chance of regaining the House majority, but they face a challenge in keeping a Senate majority, which will be crucial in restoring balance to federal courts.
Democrats have a narrow 51-49 majority in the Senate, but that includes four independent senators who usually vote with the Democrats. Joe Manchin (W.Va), one of the indies, is not seeking re-election and is expected to be succeeded by Republican Gov. Jim Justice.
Democrats need to win open seats in Arizona, Michigan and Maryland and protect targeted incumbent Democrats in Montana, Nevada, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. They can’t lose another seat.
Among targeted Democrats, Sen. Jon Tester is seeking his fourth term in Montana, but the state has gotten a lot redder in the past 20 years, as Trump won it by 16 points in 2020. Tester faces a tough challenge from newcomer Tim Sheehy (R), a former Navy SEAL and businessman with the wealth to finance his campaign, as well as Trump’s backing. The Cook Political Report rates it leaning Republican.
Sen. Sherrod Brown, a progressive supporter of working-class voters, is seeking a fourth term in Ohio against Bernie Moreno, a former car dealer and immigrant from Colombia who grew up in Florida and has amassed a fortune that can self-fund his campaign. He was not the Ohio GOP establishment’s choice but had Trump’s support (and agrees with Trump’s anti-immigrant rhetoric). CPR rates the race a tossup.
In Nevada, Sen. Jacky Rosen (D) faces a challenge from Sam Brown (R), a West Point graduate who was burned and left scarred by a roadside bomb in Afghanistan in 2008. Brown lost a Republican primary for the Texas House in 1914. He lost a Republican primary for the Senate in 2022. CPR rates the race as leaning Democratic.
In Pennsylvania, David McCormick, former hedge fund CEO, is challenging Sen. Bob Casey. McCormick ran for the Senate in 2022 but lost the Republican primary to Dr. Ehmet Oz. McCormick is stressing that he grew up in Pennsylvania and has a house in Pittsburgh, and is trying to tie Casey to the Biden-Harris administration on the border and inflation, but Sen. Casey is an institution and will be hard to beat. Cook Political Report rates the race as leaning Democratic.
In Arizona, where Sen. Kyrsten Sinema is departing, Rep. Ruben Gallego, a progressive Democrat with Marine combat experience and a Harvard degree, faces Kari Lake, a former TV news anchor who now mocks the “fake news media” and is a favorite of Trump’s MAGA movement, who lost her race for governor in 2022 and claims the Democrat, now Gov. Katie Hobbs, stole the election. The race is rated leaning Democratic.
In Wisconsin, Sen. Tammy Baldwin (D) faces a challenge from Eric Hovde, the chairman and chief executive of Sunwest Bank, a $2.8 billion commercial lender based in Utah. Hovde has a $7 million home in Laguna Beach, Calif. The race is rated leaning Democratic.
Maryland normally is reliably blue but Larry Hogan, a moderate Republican former governor, is running against Angela Alsobrooks, the Prince George’s County executive, in the race to succeed retiring Sen. Ben Cardin (D). The race is rated likely Democratic.
In Michigan, with retirement of Debbie Stabenow (D), Rep. Elissa Slotkin (D), faces former Rep. Mike Rogers (R). The race is rated a tossup.
Democrats also hope to upset incumbents in Florida, where former Rep. Debbie Mucarsel-Powell (D) is taking on Sen. Rick Scott, and Texas, where Rep. Colin Allred (D) is challenging Ted Cruz. Polls show both races tightening. Keep hope alive. — JMC
From The Progressive Populist, October 15, 2024
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Healing amidst division: How a small town fights for its library
EDITORIAL
The Big Lie is GOP’s brand
FRANK LINGO
Trump’s voters deserve demeaning
DON ROLLINS
Of violence and betrayal in Ohio
RURAL ROUTES/Margot McMillen
Getting rid of Trump is one thing. But don’t forget the downballot races
DISPATCHES
Study: Debunking Trump lies makes his base believe him more.
Congressional leaders announce short-term spending deal, after Speaker Johnson drops key MAGA demand.
Under Republican state laws, US book bans nearly tripled last school year.
Egg on his face: Vance bungles attempt to bash Harris over grocery prices. ...
ART CULLEN
No sir, we slaughter lots of hogs but no cats
ALAN GUEBERT
‘Come now, let us reason together’
KAREN DOLAN
Project 2025 is a blueprint to end the American Dream
JOHN YOUNG
In debate mismatch, Trump couldn’t elude ‘F’ word
DREAMA CALDWELL
Commentary: What freedom means in rural North Carolina
JOE CONASON
‘Russia, Russia, Russia’ is not a hoax
KEARA SOSA
Young people will save the world because we’re the last generation that can
DAVID McCALL
Owning our security
LES LEOPOLD
Why is Trump still clobbering Harris on the economy?
PAUL ARMENTANO
Both presidential candidates agree: We need to stop arresting people for marijuana
ROBERT KUTTNER
It’s the guns, stupid
SONALI KOLHATKAR
Harris can’t embrace billionaires if she wants to win
SABRINA HAAKE
A post-debate con job in real time
THOM HARTMANN
Big Pharma’s GOP cash grab: How Republicans are selling out America for drug money
THE BIG PICTURE/Glynn Wilson
Harris dispatches Trump in debate; now to retake the House
HEALTH CARE/Joan Retsinas
There is money in misery
PAUL SONN
To secure worker rights, we must fix our democracy
PETER CERTO
Why the far right lies about immigrants
WAYNE O’LEARY
On not going back (or forward either)
SAM PIZZIGATI
Here’s a good topic for candidates to debate: Taxing the filthy rich
MARK ANDERSON
Neo-cons see ‘Pax Americana’ ending, as Americans look inward
ELWOOD WATSON
Republicans are still making excuses for Trump’s disastrous debate
JAMIE STIEHM
The fall of Donald Trump
BARRY FRIEDMAN
The enemy of my enemy is at the door
RALPH NADER
Let’s start the revolution — get this election time book and here’s why?
DAVE MARSTON
Volunteers power the Colorado trail
ROB PATTERSON
Muslim women punk rockers show ‘Lady Parts’
SETH SANDRONSKY
David, Goliath and press freedom
ED RAMPELL
Defending the indefensible
AMY GOODMAN
Climate activists in the crosshairs while the planet burns
GENE NICHOL
Another political court delivers for Trump
From The Progressive Populist, October 15, 2024
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Trump the Organ Grinder:
The tenets of Project 2025 pose a clear and present danger to our constitutional form of government. Much of the Trump - Vance platform comes directly from Project 2025. Since Project 2025 would turn this nation into a police state, it's especially difficult for Republicans to run on the issues.
Art by Kevin Kreneck. For more Graphics and Greeting Cards, go to https://kkreneck.wixsite.com/mysite
The Little Rat:
The Harris-Trump debate was a disaster. No wonder Trump doesn't want a second. Harris owned Trump the moment she walked on stage. She baited him and he obliged by repeating conspiracy theories laced with false accusations, racism and hatred. This is what Trump's campaign has been reduced to.
Art by Kevin Kreneck. For more Graphics and Greeting Cards, go to https://kkreneck.wixsite.com/mysite
Caught in a Trap:
When Biden dropped out, the trap — apparently quite a while in the making — dropped on the Republicans. Now, the Republicans have an old, addle brained presidential candidate as well as an immensely unpopular Vice Presidential running mate. They're still in chaos. As was seen in the recent debate, they've yet to figure out how to deal with Harris.
Art by Kevin Kreneck. For more Graphics and Greeting Cards, go to https://kkreneck.wixsite.com/mysite
In the seven weeks since Kamala Harris got the go-ahead from Joe Biden to run for president, by early September she has the Democratic nomination and she has energized Democrats up and down the ballot. But, heading into the debate Sept. 10, polls still showed Harris in a virtual deadlock with Donald Trump for the presidency.
The race likely will remain tight up to the Nov. 5 election, but Harris remains in a strong position. As of Sept. 10, before the first debate between Harris and Trump, the Washington Post’s average of polls showed Harris was ahead in swing states Pennsylvania (2 points), Michigan (1 point) and Wisconsin (3 points), while Trump led narrowly in Arizona (1 point), Georgia (2 points) and North Carolina (less than 1 point). And polls show Harris closing in on Trump in Florida.
If Harris wins Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, she appears in good shape to win the 270 Electoral College votes to win the election. But all seven of the swing states were within a normal-sized polling error of 3.5 points and could go either way. Those states will go to whomever gets out the vote, and Democrats think they are better prepared for that “ground game” than Republicans are.
The Republican National Committee (RNC) once envisioned an extensive field operation for the 2024 election, including having about 90 staffers in the must-win state of Pennsylvania, Hugo Lowell noted in The Guardian.
But the Trump campaign scrapped those plans when it took over the RNC in March, redirecting the focus on field operations to combating supposed voter fraud and relying on political action committees and ardent Trump volunteers to get out the vote.
The Harris operation is understood to have roughly 375 staffers in Pennsylvania alone, after Democrats spent years building up voter turnout efforts in the state, Lowell reported.
Harris has the money, having raised $361 million in August, with most of the donations less than $200, giving the campaign $404 million as she prepares for the final stretch. As of Sept. 9, ActBlue had received $943 million in donations for all Democratic candidates. Trump’s campaign announced Sept. 5 they had raised $130 million in August, which leaves the disgraced former president $295 million in the bank.
Trump is relying on public belief that, with his business experience (and the character he played on “The Apprentice”), he is better equipped to improve the economy and bring inflation in line. This ignores that Trump inherited a thriving economy from Barack Obama, but Trump rode the economy into recession in 2020 when he failed to get the COVID pandemic under control. Inflation occurred because of shortages relating to the pandemic (remember the empty grocery shelves?). Biden fixed the supply chain problems, restored the economy from the recession Trump left him, and Biden took steps to reduce inflation, even if bacon and eggs are still expensive.
Trump has no clue how to reduce inflation and he wouldn’t be inclined to take the steps if he knew what to do. His standard reply is “Drill, baby, drill,” but US oil production is already at an all-time high. Gas prices have declined, but that hasn’t had an impact on groceries or rent. Harris would go after price gougers who drive “greedflation.”
Harris would raise taxes on the richest Americans and the biggest corporations to pay for child care, expand earned income and child tax credits for working families and deliver a middle-class tax cut—with no tax increases on families making less than $400,000.
Trump proposes to make his 2017 tax cuts for the rich “permanent” and he would pay for it by imposing tariffs of 60% on imports from China and 20% on other goods, which would be paid by consumers. Tariffs would cost the typical American household over $2,600 a year, according to economist Amy Hanauer of Citizens for Tax Justice. It amounts to a tax on the middle and working class.
In a rambling and largely incoherent response to a question at the Economic Club of New York Sept. 5 about how he would make child care policy more affordable, Trump appeared to endorse a 2018 plan by Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) and Trump’s daughter, Ivanka, to allow families to raid their Social Security accounts to pay for family leave, which would reduce or delay their retirement benefits, Michael Hiltzik noted in the Los Angeles Times Sept. 6.
Hiltzik noted, “The Rubio-Trump plan fit perfectly into the Republican Party’s long-term project to undermine Social Security,” since the family leave program would run a deficit that would not be repaid for 30 years or more.
The alternative proposed by Trump’s running mate, J.D. Vance, at an appearance before the right-wing organization Turning Point USA, was that child care was the responsibility of a couple’s extended family. “Maybe Grandma and Grandpa wants to help out a little bit more,” he said. “Or maybe there’s an aunt or uncle that wants to help out a little bit more.”
For families without kin living nearby, Vance’s solution is to reduce educational or certification requirements so that more people can enter the day care business.
“Of course, this is part and parcel of the Republican drive to deregulate everything. In 2019, the Trump administration cut back on USDA inspections of meat plants, promoting a self-inspection regime for the industry,” Hiltzik noted.
“How has that worked out? At this moment, at least nine people have died from a listeria outbreak at a Boar’s Head deli meats plant in Virginia, where conditions were, to be charitable, disgusting. Apply the same principle to day care, and contemplate the ramifications.”
If Trump wasn’t a career criminal, he certainly displayed a contempt for laws and regulations in his business dealings before he ran for president. And if authorities refrained from pursuing criminal charges before he was president, his conduct since he was defeated in 2020, and his supporters failed in their efforts to set aside the results, has forced the hand of state and federal prosecutors.
In his second coming, Trump has gotten so noxious that even Dick Cheney can’t take him, announcing that he would be voting for Harris. (That does not rehabilitate Cheney; it just shows how much of a threat Trump is to the Republican Party and the United States.)
In contrast to Trump, Harris is an experienced public servant, having served honorably as a deputy district attorney in Oakland, elected district attorney in San Francisco, California attorney general and US senator before she was elected vice president of the U.S. in 2020. She is ready to take the helm.
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From The Progressive Populist, October 1, 2024
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In small towns, even GOP clerks are targets of election conspiracies
EDITORIAL
Dems must run scared to win
FRANK LINGO
Judge keeps cancer alley polluting
DON ROLLINS
Fact check Trump, turn the tables
RURAL ROUTES/Margot McMillen
Childless Americans help save the Earth
DISPATCHES
Harris’ newly released policies stand in stark contrast to Trump’s.
Trump ratchets up Arlington Cemetery denial as aides involved in assault are named.
Don’t send Afghanistan withdrawal down the memory hole.
Boeing union wins 25% raise in tentative contract, but possible strike still looms.
Trump gets head start on Big Lie 2.0 with focus on mail-in voting.
House Rs are back and holding gov’t hostage.
ART CULLEN
Yearning to turn the page
ALAN GUEBERT
Bird flu in cows and poultry continues to fly high
SARAH ANDERSON
The big rip: Low wage corporations spent half a billion inflating CEO pay
JOHN YOUNG
Trump’s regard for military couldn’t be lower
ELWOOD WATSON
J.D. Vance couldn’t be more wrong about parenthood
JOE CONASON
Trump’s Arlington Cemetery visit: Unsavory and unsurprising
ALGERNON AUSTIN and DEDRICK ASANTE-MUHAMMAD
The paradox of progress for Black Americans
DAVID McCALL
A worker for vice president
NANCY J. ALTMAN
Working families’ earned Social Security benefits are at risk
ROBERT KUTTNER
How much money do the ultra rich need?
GRASSROOTS/Hank Kalet
Capitalism’s intertwined ills
THOM HARTMANN
America’s new epidemic: A nation overrun by bullies
LIZ CAREY
Report: Rural women see drops in health and reproductive care
THE BIG PICTURE/Glynn Wilson
Labor Day news and cemetery blues
HEALTH CARE/Joan Retsinas
“Be afraid, very afraid” of Trump
SONALI KOLHATKAR
Harris’s failed opportunity?
WAYNE O’LEARY
The politics of joy
JOSEPH B. ATKINS
Why don’t we have a major party peace candidate who supports workers?
SATIRE/Rosie Sorenson
The worm has turned
N. GUNASEKARAN
Political instability in Bangladesh: A brainchild of its neoliberal settings
JOEL D. JOSEPH
Jack Smith’s brief lacks a sense of urgency
JAMIE STIEHM
Arlington: No place for traitors to feel at home
BARRY FRIEDMAN
The state I’m in
SETH SANDRONSKY
Reviewing Black capitalism
ZEKE LLOYD
Hikers in a wilderness turn into firefighters
ROB PATTERSON
Is Randy Rainbow worth another Trump presidency?
FILM REVIEW/Ed Rampell
A critique of “The Critic”
AMY GOODMAN
First step in stopping school shootings: Ban assault weapons
GENE NICHOL
Abandoning democracy
From The Progressive Populist, October 1, 2024
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Kamala Harris told the people what they wanted to hear at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago, and, with Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz as her running mate, they have two months to close the deal with the rest of the country.
Some of her top lines in accepting the nomination:
“I promise to be a president for all Americans. You can always trust me to put country above party and self, to hold sacred America’s fundamental principles, from the rule of law, to free and fair elections, to the peaceful transfer of power,” she said.
Harris called Trump an “unserious man,” but said “the consequences of putting [him] back in the White House are extremely serious.”
“Just imagine Donald Trump with no guardrails and how he would use the immense powers of the presidency of the United States — not to improve your life, not to strengthen our national security — but to serve the only client he has ever had: himself,” she said.
“We know what a second Trump term would look like. It’s all laid out in Project 2025, written by his closest advisers,” Harris, noted, referring to the Heritage Foundation-led plan for the second Trump administration that the Republican nominee has unconvincingly tried to disavow.
“Its sum total is to pull our country back to the past. But America, we are not going back … We are not going back to when Donald Trump tried to cut Social Security and Medicare. We are not going back to when he tried to get rid of the Affordable Care Act, when insurance companies could deny people with pre-existing conditions. We are not going to let him eliminate the Department of Education that funds our public schools.
“We are not going to let him end programs like Head Start that provide preschool and child care for our children. America, we are not going back.”
Fears of large-scale protests by supporters of Palestinians did not materialize at the convention. Uncommitted Palestinian-American delegates were upset that DNC organizers wouldn’t give a Palestinian-American delegate five minutes to address the convention. But in her speech, Harris acknowledged the “heartbreaking” scale of the suffering in Gaza and declared that the Biden administration is “working to end this war”—even as the U.S. continues to transfer weaponry to the Israeli military.
“What has happened in Gaza over the past 10 months is devastating. So many innocent lives lost. Desperate, hungry people fleeing for safety, over and over again,” said Harris, who received sustained applause from the convention audience after calling for “dignity, security, freedom, and self-determination” for the Palestinian people.
Harris also pledged to “always stand up for Israel’s right to defend itself” amid mounting global calls for an arms embargo.
Wrapping up, Harris called on Americans to “write the next great chapter in the most extraordinary story ever told.”
“It is now our turn to do what generations before us have done,” she said. “Guided by optimism and faith, to fight for this country we love, to fight for the ideals we cherish and to uphold the awesome responsibility that comes with the greatest privilege on Earth — the privilege and pride of being an American.”
“So let’s get out there,” she said. “Let’s fight for it.”
Harris also has consolidated her position in polls, gaining narrow leads in national polls as well as swing states, such as Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin and she is within the polling margin of error in Arizona, Nevada, North Carolina and Georgia. But she clearly has momentum; since she entered the race on July 21, her support has increased from the base Biden left her, up 2.8 percentage points in Wisconsin, where she leads by 3 points in the Washington Post’s average of polls, to 3.9% in Arizona, where she is 1 point behind Trump. She leads Trump by an average of 2 points in national polls, as of Aug. 26.
Harris also beat Trump in the ratings, as her acceptance address was watched by 28.9 million viewers, according to Nielsen data, outdrawing Trump’s speech in Milwaukee, which drew 28.4 million viewers across 15 television networks. That likely will stick in the old man’s craw, as Trump is famously obsessed with TV ratings and the size of his crowds.
Of course, the election should not be close. Harris has served honorably as a California prosecutor, state attorney general, U.S. senator and vice president. She faces a twice-impeached former president who has been convicted of 34 felonies and is awaiting sentencing. Trump also has been found liable for sexual assault and numerous cases of fraud in New York. He faces scores of other felony charges in federal courts in D.C. and Florida and Georgia state court, which he managed to delay past the election.
Trump’s criminal record and his lack of moral character has not shamed the Republican Party. They’ll need a thorough beatdown, up and down the ballot in November, to accomplish that.
Harris and Walz are on the trail.
We have published The Progressive Populist for nearly 30 years, starting out as a monthly and expanding to twice monthly 25 years ago, covering politics, economics and the arts for working people. The past few years have been a challenging time for publishers, as much of the “content” has moved from newspapers and magazines onto websites.
I edit The Progressive Populist from Manchaca, Texas, with my brothers, who run a community newspaper in Storm Lake, Iowa. We are working to update our website, Populist.com, to attract younger readers, but we still intend to publish our newspaper for those of our subscribers who prefer to read our columns from the comfort of your easy chairs.
In the past couple years our production costs have risen while our circulation has dropped, as many readers have let their print subscriptions lapse, and printing and postal rates have increased substantially.
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From The Progressive Populist, September 15, 2024
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Stars and Stripes and Fascists
EDITORIAL
Harris clears the launch pad
JIM HIGHTOWER
The changing meaning of “work” — and the idea of “boss man”;
Republicans discover a big flaw in Tim Walz: He’s not rich!;
A flock of rich plutocratic Democrats want Lina Khan’s head. Why?;
Want to cool Earth? Just block the Sun. Simple!
FRANK LINGO
Democrats are only hope for climate
ELWOOD WATSON
Trump is getting worse. Will the media notice?
DON ROLLINS
Two partners, one purpose
RURAL ROUTES/Margot McMillen
What about desolation of rural America?
DISPATCHES
Protests light at Democratic convention.
RFK Jr.’s siblings back Harris after Junior’s incohent endorsement of Trump.
‘Thanks to Citizens United,’ 50 megadonors put over $1.5 billion into 2024 election.
Texas busing of migrants hits speed bump as fewer enter country.
J.D. Vance stands by ‘Cat ladies’ slur.
‘That’s my dad!’ stole our hearts. Meet Gus Walz.
DOJ files rent-fixing lawsuit ... and more
ART CULLEN
Trump’s flag goes limp in dog days of summer
ALAN GUEBERT
Tariffs are never a good idea
SONALI KOLHATKAR
Health care for all should be an election issue
JOHN YOUNG
J.D. Vance is a psycho killer, or something
AMY HANAUER
If we want better care, we need a better tax code
JOE CONASON
Military service, partisan smears and the parody of patriotism
SETH SANDRONSKY
In and out of California’s prisons
DAVID McCALL
Harris delivered on jobs
JACOB FISCHLER
Democrats trying to reverse election losses in rural America urge focus on economy
ROBERT KUTTNER
Economics according to Harris
CLAIRE CARLSON
Beyond the fanfare at the DNC
NANCY J. ALTMAN
‘We’re not going back’: Seniors agree with Kamala Harris and Tim Walz
SABRINA HAAKE
Stop the steal is here again
THOM HARTMANN
Will democracy survive the tsunami of rightwing dark money coming this fall?
GLYNN WILSON
The big picture
ASPEN CORIZ-ROMERO and ANILA LOPEZ MARKS
America’s nuclear “downwinders” deserve justice
HEALTH CARE/Joan Retsinas
The Clorox Candidate: A eulogy for his right-to-try act
SAM URETSKY
Trump wants to make religion great again, and elections unnecessary
JOEL D. JOSEPH
Tesla should fire Elon Musk as CEO
WAYNE O’LEARY
The Democrats’ troubled road to November
GRASSROOTS/Hank Kalet
Save the humanities
JUAN COLE
There’s only one issue in the 2024 election: The survival of a habitable Earth
BOOK REVIEW/Ken Winkes
Still addicted to oil
JAMIE STIEHM
The wizard and the hillbilly: Weird politics
BARRY FRIEDMAN
How can they vote for Trump, part the infinity
SATIRE/Rosie Sorenson
No more stinkin’ AI bots
RALPH NADER
Public citizen’s Robert Weissman calls for 10 crucial public congressional hearings
MARJORIE ‘SLIM’ WOODRUFF
Grumpy talk on the trail
ROB PATTERSON
Sometimes you watch “The Bear”
FILM REVIEW/Ed Rampell
Surviving Canada’s indigenous boarding schools
AMY GOODMAN
A sit-in for peace in Gaza at the Democratic National Convention
GENE NICHOL
The right to decide
From The Progressive Populist, September 15, 2024
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Kamala Harris has produced a startling turnaround in the presidential race since President Joe Biden announced on Sunday afternoon, July 21, that he was ending his re-election bid and endorsed his vice president to succeed him.
Harris quickly gained support of Democratic Party leaders — including the leading potential challengers for the nomination — as well as congressional leaders, Democratic governors and labor leaders. Tthe Harris’ campaign received $81 million in donations in the first 24 hours and 10 days later had raised $310 million, with 66% coming from small donors.
Meanwhile, Biden’s exit from the campaign has left DonOld Trump as the elderly candidate showing signs of mental decline.
Trump had finished the Republican National Convention July 18 thinking he had the election in the bag. After all, he survived an assassination attempt at an open-air rally near Butler, Pennsylvania, on July 13, when a 20-year-old Republican fired eight rounds from an assault rifle from the roof of a nearby building before a Secret Service sniper killed him. One of the assassin’s bullets apparently grazed Trump’s right ear, although the former president refused to release medical reports on his wound.
Trump wore an large bandage over his right ear throughout the convention, and many delegates wore similar bandages in solidarity with their Fearless Leader. After the convention, the bandage was gone as Trump’s ear apparently was miraculously healed.
Sen. J.D. Vance (R-Ohio) may have sealed his bid to become Trump’s running mate when he blamed Biden’s rhetoric about Trump being an authoritarian fascist with inspiring the assassination attempt. “That rhetoric led directly to President Trump’s attempted assassination,” Vance said.
The Trump campaign may not have vetted Vance’s background. He no longer considers Trump “America’s Hitler” and “the Opioid of the Masses,” but old videos surfaced with his thoughts on childless cat ladies who, he said on Fox News’ Tucker Carlson Tonight in 2021, “are miserable in the choices that they’ve made, and so they wanna make the rest of the country miserable too.” He also believes childless adults have no “direct stake” in the future of the country and parents should get extra votes for their children.
Harris did a much better job in picking Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz as her running mate Aug. 6. Walz leapt into public view as one of a half-dozen Dems who were being considered by Harris, and he became known for coming across as an engaging, folksy Midwestern governor and former congressman with a progressive record in Minnesota, who tagged Trump and Vance as “weird,” which caught on.
Democrats remained in array in August, as Harris went on tour with Walz, filling auditoriums in swing states with newly energized supporters. It drove Trump crazy; he first complained that Harris conducted a coup in getting Biden to quit the campaign, then Trump accused Harris of using AI technology to distort the size of a crowd that greeted her at the Detroit airport Aug. 7. (In fact, a big crowd, estimated at 15,000 people, did greet Harris at an airport hangar.)
Trump called a press conference Aug. 8 at Mar-a-Lago in an attempt to draw attention from Harris and Walz, but it didn’t go well. In his meandering rants, NPR reporters and editors found at least 162 misstatements, exaggerations and outright lies in 64 minutes.
Trump said the U.S. economy was in terrible shape, despite high employment and higher wages since Biden pulled the US out of the post-pandemic mess left over from Trump’s administration. Trump described the country as in mortal danger if he did not win the presidential election. He falsely described his departure from the White House — which followed his refusal to concede his election loss in November 2020 and the violent attack on the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, by a mob of his supporters — as a “peaceful” transfer of power.
Meanwhile, Trump has demonstrated that he has no clue or inclination to bring down inflated grocery and housing prices. He phoned in to Fox & Friends and took questions from the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally in South Dakota Aug. 8. One of the questioners, who had a “Trump 2024” patch on his vest, said five of his children were struggling. “How are you going to make the economy — not just the food and electricity — but bring down the rent prices, the housing prices, so that these kids can survive without their parents’ help?”
Trump’s response: “We’re going to drill, baby, drill, we’re gonna bring down the cost of energy.” he said, repeating one of his campaign mantras. “Energy’s what caused the worst inflation, I think, in the history of our country. Food prices are up 50%, sometimes more.
“You look at bacon. Bacon has quadrupled. You can’t order bacon, you can’t order anything. We’re living horribly,” he continued. “We have the worst inflation we’ve probably ever had in our country, and it started because of energy. We’re gonna drill, baby, drill.”
He also noted that four years ago the price of gas was $1.87. Of course, during the pandemic, people were staying home and not driving, which kept gas prices down. And U.S. oil production already is at an all-time high under Biden, frustrating climate advocates.
We note that bacon and eggs are widely available, if more expensive than they were before the pandemic. The prices are based on market demand, and apparently peaked in 2022 but have dropped in the past two years.
The average price of bacon was $6.64 a pound in 2021 and peaked at $7.31 in 2022 before dropping to $6.827 in June 2024, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
The average price of a dozen eggs was $1.47 in 2021 and peaked at $2.86 in 2022 before dropping to $2.715 in June 2024.
Post-pandemic inflation peaked at 8.989% in June 2022, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis. Inflation was down to 2.975% in June 2024. The highest inflation in the past 60 years was 14.592% in March 1980.
Democrats have proposed to increase taxes on corporations and wealthy individuals, and tax windfall profits to reduce the incentive to increase prices, but Republicans who narrowly control the House won’t hear of it. President Biden called on Congress to pass legislation presenting corporate landlords with a choice: cap rent increases on existing units to no more than 5% or lose valuable federal tax breaks. Republicans don’t like that kind of talk either.
Instead, Trump proposes to renew tax cuts for the rich, which Republicans passed in 2017 and expire next year. He also wants to put a 10% tariff on all imported goods, and a 60% tax on products from China, plus more tax cuts for the wealthy and a crackdown on immigration. all of which are more likely to increase costs for consumers. If Trump implements his economic agenda, the annual inflation rate would increase to 3.6% in 2025, Moody’s forecast.
If Trump enacts his proposed tariffs, the typical middle-class household in the U.S. would face an estimated $1,700 a year in additional costs, according to the non-partisan Peterson Institute for International Economics. And low- and middle-income households would feel the burden much more than high-income families.
Democrats are a better choice for working families struggling to make the rent and put food on the dinner table. — JMC
From The Progressive Populist, September 1, 2024
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