Why Are Most Voters In Wisconsin Casting Ballots Against Trump? Where Do We Start?

 

The big con-- when will the rest of Wisconsin voters figure it out?

Yesterday, Trump infected 61,429 more Americans with COVID-19. Wisconsin had the second most confirmed new cases-- 4,591, bringing the state's total to 178,482-- 30,654 cases for every million residents. I'm not a big fan of moderate Democratic governor Tony Evers but he did everything scientists and public health experts said was necessary. And the Republican-controlled legislature and Republican goons on the state Supreme Court, cheered on by Trump, overturned every move he made to protect the state. Now, as predicted, hospitals are on the verge of being overrun as the state keeps setting records for new cases, hospital admissions and deaths. The state's school system is a wreck, including in red, rural districts whose MAGA citizens thought they were safe and that Trump would never lie to them.

Across Wisconsin-- currently one of the nation’s worst COVID-19 hotspots-- health officials have investigated nearly 500 COVID-19 outbreaks in schools. More than 15,000 children ages 17 and younger have been infected to date, state Department of Health Services data show. Numerous schools across Wisconsin have suspended in-person classes this fall, at least temporarily, because of cases among students and staff.

...Wisconsin is behind the national average when it comes to high-speed internet coverage in rural parts of the state. About 43% of rural areas lack the service, compared to about 31% nationwide.

That’s one reason Wisconsin’s rural school districts overwhelmingly decided to return to face-to-face instruction last month, said Kim Kaukl, executive director of the Wisconsin Rural Schools Alliance.

While big urban school districts like Milwaukee and Madison opted to start completely online, about 75% of the 100 rural districts that answered an optional survey from the state Department of Public Instruction planned to offer face-to-face instruction at least four days per week, a Wisconsin Watch analysis of DPI data shows. Most, if not all, give families the option of virtual schooling, however.

Yesterday, Wisconsin Public Radio reported that "Wisconsinites are not making changes to their behavior-- even as public health officials issue grave warnings, the state's hospitals are on the verge of overflowing, and more people are dying from the disease than at any time in the pandemic. New data from the White House Coronavirus Task Force found Wisconsinites are still traveling in their communities about as much as they did before the pandemic. The task force report, released Wednesday, also said Wisconsin ranks as the fourth-worst state in the nation for new infections. It called Wisconsin's rising hospitalizations an 'extreme concern' and wrote the situation in Wisconsin will 'continue to worsen' short of real changes in state policy or public behavior. As of Monday afternoon, according to the New York Times' tracking tool, 8 of the 20 worst-hit metro areas in the country are in Wisconsin."

Nevertheless, 3 days after the White House task force called for caution, Trump staged one of his super-spreader events in Janesville-- against the request of local elected officials-- that attracted thousands. And it isn't just Trump. Assembly Speaker Robin Vos and Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald should eventually be charged with negligent homicide.

Wisconsin has few statewide public health measures in place, and those it has have been the subject of court challenges.  The Republican-controlled Legislature and a conservative legal group have said they'll take their lawsuit against Gov. Tony Evers' statewide mask mandate to the state Supreme Court.  In response to the state's soaring infection rates and hospitalizations, state DHS Secretary Andrea Palm issued an order Oct. 6 limiting capacity at bars, restaurants and retail shops. The order was in place for less than a week before a Sawyer County judge issued an injunction that temporarily blocked it, after the state's Tavern League filed a lawsuit. On Monday, a different judge put the order back in place. 

Monday, Reuters released a poll of likely Wisconsin voters by Ipsos. Biden has increased his margin against Trump statewide by a point and now leads Trump 51-43%, with almost a quarter of the respondents saying they have already voted. By a margin of 52-38%, Wisconsonites say Biden would be better at handling the pandemic. It shocks me no end, though, that by 47-45%, a plurality says Trump would be better at managing the economy. Are they insane?

Every single one of them needs to read Judd Legum's latest Popular Information newsletter: Trump's "Eighth Wonder Of The World" is a few empty buildings, Legum noted that "On June 28, 2018, Trump traveled to Mount Pleasant, Wisconsin, and announced that Foxconn, the Taiwanese electronics company, would be building a 20-million-square foot manufacturing facility. Trump said that he had secured an agreement from his 'friend,' Foxconn chairman Terry Gou, to invest $10 billion and create 13,000 jobs" and "dubbed the facility the 'Eighth Wonder of the World" and claimed it was proof his policies were 'restoring America’s industrial might.'"

It was another of Trump's trademarked empty, self-serving boasts. Today Kristina Shelton is the progressive Democrat running for an Assembly seat in central Green Bay. She told us that "The Foxconn deal is perhaps the best example we have that relying on the whims and profits of corporations is not the way to create good jobs in Wisconsin or anywhere else. Even if this project had worked, and it never seemed likely that it would, it would have been a massive giveaway of Wisconsinites’ tax dollars to a foreign corporation. Its utter and disastrous failure clearly shows that the gargantuan amount of wasted money and wasted resources could have been much better spent in directly guaranteeing Wisconsinites good jobs and protecting our natural resources and lands."

Jacob Malinowski, whose western Milwaukee Assembly district is closer to the derelict site said "We knew from the get-go that this was a bad deal for Wisconsin: Assembly Republicans were willing to give huge corporate handouts and destroy the local environment for a company which had failed to deliver on its promises around the globe. Either they didn't do their homework or they knew this and didn't care. We need thoughtful leaders who will smartly evaluate their decisions-- not more disinterested and dispassionate partisans."

Putting the boondoggle into context, Legum wrote that now-defeated Governor Scott Walker "paid a heavy price to seal the deal. Overall, the state and various localities provided Foxconn $4 billion in incentives. Some of that money has already been paid out. Racine County bought the land for the facility and gave it to Foxconn for free. Property owners had their land seized by the state, paid for by taxpayers, to make way for Foxconn's facility. Millions more were spent on infrastructure improvements. Since all taxes for the project were eliminated, the tax incentives were essentially cash payments to the company. If everything went perfectly, 'the state wouldn’t break even until 2043.' The deal quickly began to fall apart... [A] Foxconn spokesman told Reuters that it would not manufacture much of anything in Wisconsin. 'In Wisconsin, we’re not building a factory. You can’t use a factory to view our Wisconsin investment,' the spokesman said. The facility would 'consist of research facilities along with packaging and assembly operations.' Foxconn initially estimated it would create 5,200 jobs by 2020. That figure was revised down to 1,000."

Trump was unhappy. He called Gou and convinced him to reverse the announcement. After the conversation, Foxconn released a statement saying it was "moving forward with our planned construction of a Gen 6 [LCD] fab facility." Trump took a victory lap.

But while Foxconn agreed to Trump's demand to keep calling the facility an LCD factory, there was "no further information on the focus of the facility, the size of the investment, or the jobs that will be created." Since then, things have gone downhill.

A new expose by The Verge finds that what "Foxconn calls an LCD factory-- about 1/20th the size of the original plan-- is little more than an empty shell." Last month, "Foxconn received a permit to change its intended use from manufacturing to storage."

The project has only generated a handful of jobs, "many of them held by people with nothing to do, hired so the company could reach the number required for it to get tax subsidy payments from Wisconsin" at the end of 2019. The company claimed it had hired 580 people, enough to qualify for the tax subsidies. Last week, "Wisconsin rejected the company’s subsidy application and found it had employed only 281 people eligible under the contract" at the conclusion of last year. After the deadline passed, many of those were laid off.

The company built a handful of buildings, including a "multi-purpose" structure and an orb. None of them have any clear purpose. It considered, at various times, using them for "fish farms, exporting ice cream, [or] storing boats." Before striking the massive deal, Foxconn performed "no research into the market for products Foxconn might make or the costs of producing those products in Wisconsin." The company maintains that an LCD factory is coming and recently set up a small line for manufacturing servers. But Foxconn recently acknowledged it "has so far invested 2.8 percent of the $10 billion it promised."

Trump, for his part, continues to stay on message. In an interview with a local Wisconsin station on Sunday, Trump said Foxconn had built “one of the most incredible plants I’ve ever seen.” The company will keep its promises, Trump insisted. But only if he's reelected.

Chris Larson is the most progressive-- and strategic-- member of the state Senate. Yesterday, he reminded me that "Three years ago, so many of us tried to avoid this debacle for Wisconsin and our warnings were ignored. Instead, they fell for the biggest con in U.S. history. Even now, you'd be hard pressed to find a Republican who still isn't pretending they aren’t being conned. Like most things involving Trump, it's hard to tell if they’re really this gullible or in on the con. Either way, they shouldn’t be trusted. Every politician who voted for this boondoggle should be forever reminded of what a disaster it is. Luckily, we have a chance to hold them accountable in two weeks, from the assembly and senate Republicans all the way up to Trump."

Assembly candidate Sarah Yacoub couldn't agree more. She told me that her opponent "as of 9/4/2020 is still lying to us about Foxconn, saying it was a good deal and that it didn’t cost us any money. Even local Republicans recognized that it was bad for our district and now we know it cost Wisconsin taxpayers at least $400 million. The 30th Assembly District deserves representation that has the backbone to stand up and say no to a bad deal. Instead, we currently have someone more interested in licking the boots of Madison Republicans for his own personal political gain."

When super-progressive Francesca Hong won the Madison primary, she essentially won herself an Assembly seat. She's spending a lot of her time campaign for other Democrats in tougher seats. "The thing is," she said, "Foxconn went pretty much according to plan. President Trump and Governor Walker wrote out the biggest corporate contract in the history of our state on the back of a napkin. They gave a ton of money to a corporation-- something they're always happy to do-- and they harmed working families and individuals in the process. They liked the press releases about creating jobs more than they actually cared about creating jobs. How do we know? Look at the deal. Tons of upfront money and few if any safeguards ensuring that real jobs went to Wisconsinites. Wisconsin got conned by Foxconn. But we got screwed by Walker, Vos and their allies in the state legislature. Let's vote Vos and his cronies all out of office this November and and do the work of refocusing our priorities on working families, not massive corporations."

Trump Is Mentally Unbalanced-- Where Are His Doctors When He And The Country Desperately Need Them?

 

Before moving to L.A., I had lived in New York, Amsterdam and San Francisco. In L.A. I discovered something unique to this city. People ask you to invest in their films. It's insane because "invest" is the wrong word. It means you give them money for the film and then you write it off as a tax loss. I avoided that ugly world for the whole time I lived here. Then I got cancer. The doctor takes care of fighting the cancer. The patient takes care of fighting the side-effects. One of the side effects, it turns out, is that you become extremely impaired in every day, including mentally. Some unscrupulous hustler/movie producer figured out I was suffering from the side effects and tricked me-- easy in my state of mind-- into investing a very large sum of money in his absurd film, Cold Moon. I'm listed as a producer. Needless to say, I lost all the money. Lesson: Don't make important decisions when you're on strong drugs.

Guess who's on very, very strong drugs after his treatment in the hospital for COVID? Hint: Donald Jr, Thinks Sr. is acting insane. Gabe Sherman on Monday: "Trump's erratic and reckless behavior in the last 24 hours has opened a rift in the Trump family over how to rein in the out-of-control president, according to two Republicans briefed on the family conversations. Sources said Donald Trump Jr. is deeply upset by his father’s decision to drive around Walter Reed National Military Medical Center last night with members of the Secret Service while he was infected with COVID-19. 'Don Jr. thinks Trump is acting crazy,' one of the sources told me. The stunt outraged medical experts, including an attending physician at Walter Reed. According to sources, Don Jr. has told friends that he tried lobbying Ivanka Trump, Eric Trump, and Jared Kushner to convince the president that he needs to stop acting unstable. 'Don Jr. has said he wants to stage an intervention, but Jared and Ivanka keep telling Trump how great he’s doing,' a source said. Don Jr. is said to be reluctant to confront his father alone. 'Don said, I’m not going to be the only one to tell him he’s acting crazy,' the source added. One area where the family seems united is over the president’s manic tweeting early Monday morning. After Trump sent out more than a dozen all-caps tweets, the Trump children told people they want Trump to stop. 'They’re all worried. They’ve tried to get him to stop tweeting,' a source close to the family told me. The Trump family’s private concern about Trump’s behavior could raise questions about his fitness for office. Trump has been prescribed drugs that medical experts say can seriously impair his cognitive function. Last night the New York Times reported that steroids, which Trump is reportedly taking, specifically dexamethasone, are known to 'affect mood, causing euphoria or a general happiness.'"

Uh... yeah... to put it mildly. The state Trump is in now is what the 25th Amendment was passed for. And the insane tweeting has only accelerated. Yesterday Michelle Goldberg tweeted that Señor Trumpanzee's "Twitter feed is always nuts but right now it really seems like he’s suffering some sort of psychological implosion." Well, yes, he clearly is. Earlier, Wisconsin Republican icon Charlie Sykes tweeted "Trump’s Twitter feed is extra-deranged tonight." That super-derangement spilled over into the next day, when the whole country-- world-- could watch Trump falling apart mentally and emotionally. He should be aware from electronics and in the care of physicians-- and I have nothing against osteopaths at all.

What if he decides to order the U.S. military to attack someone? Who's going to stand up to him? Certainly not Republicans! When he ordered them to break off negotiations with Democrats on the desperate needed pandemic relief package that he has held up, McConnell and McCarthy both said, "Yes, Your Highness," screwing over the country-- and their own constituents. "Trump pulled the plug on ongoing bipartisan coronavirus relief talks in an abrupt move that jolted Wall Street and surprised lawmakers of both parties," reported the Wall Street Journal but hours later called on Congress to approve a bill providing another direct check to many Americans." Hours later he was tweeting that Congress must pass the package IMMEDIATELY. The Washington Post: "First, he says he won’t pursue a package until after election. Then he demands Congress immediately pass bills." No one knows what to make of his erratic behavior-- other than scholars of King George III and fans of Hamilton.

And... Judd Legum who's Wednesday morning newsletter was devoted to a close look into Trump's Drugs. He wasn't treated by a quack he's been pushing, Stella Emmanuel, and he didn't take hydroxychloroquine, Legum wrote about what he did take:

• Regeneron's antibody cocktail, a promising experimental drug that has been made available to fewer than ten people outside of clinical trials.
• Remdesivir, a drug administered by IV that was found to shorten hospital stays for patients with serious cases of COVID-19.
• Dexamethasone, a steroid that was found to increase survival for patients with severe cases of COVID-19 and require supplemental oxygen.

Legum pointed out that "hydroxychloroquine is not an effective treatment for COVID-19 [and that] Trump foisted an unproven and potentially dangerous treatment on the American public for months. But when his own health was on the line, Trump unwilling to follow his own advice." (No one know if he drank any bleach or shoved a UV light up his ass, though.)

Despite the overwhelming scientific evidence, hydroxychloroquine boosters are disappointed that Trump has abandoned the drug. Dr. Emmanuel, the conspiracy theorist that Trump promoted in May, said whoever convinced Trump to stop taking hydroxychloroquine should be "punched in the face."

She offered to prescribe hydroxychloroquine to White House staffers.

Steve Jalsevac, a hydroxychloroquine fan who co-founded the far-right website LifeSite News, urged readers to "contact the White House to ask why the president and Melania are not immediately being given this well-proven-in-practice medication protocol for COVID infection.”

Others, like former White House staffer Sebastian Gorka, were in denial. "I’m sure he’s taking his hydroxy this morning just like I did this morning," Gorka said. 

Most people who have heard of Mona Charen, I suspect, know her as an outspoken, partisan and very conservative Republican. She's written 3 books and you can figure out from the titles, who she is: Useful Idiots: How Liberals Got it Wrong in the Cold War and Still Blame America First (2003), Do-Gooders: How Liberals Hurt Those They Claim to Help (and the Rest of Us) (2005) and Sex Matters: How Modern Feminism Lost Touch with Science, Love, and Common Sense (2018). She worked as a speechwriter in the Reagan White House and for Jack Kemp. I gather she's not supporting the fascist candidate next month but the institutional conservative: Joe Biden. About a month ago she wrote The Coming Biden Landslide for the #NeverTrump site, The Bulwark. In her mind, Biden is the Republican saint, Ronald Reagan, and Trump is 2020's Jimmy Carter, detested by Republicans to this day.

Yesterday another Bulwarker, #NeverTrump Republican Tim Miller, wrote that when he looks at Trump’s "Twitter-centric negotiation over the possibility of a second COVID-19 stimulus package in the past 24 hours, I just gotta say, I think he might be fouling this up. He is the Great Negotiator. He 'wrote' a whole book on the subject, you may have heard of it. And here I am, a liberal arts major. A person who did not not go to Wharton Business School while pretending that I did... But speaking as a novice, this stimulus negotiation looks like an epic self-own on par with bankrupting a casino or selling steaks in a home electronics store. For those who aren’t juiced up on steroids or slamming dexamethasone, it might be hard to keep up...

For the last few months, Democrats and Republicans have been-- slowly, distractedly-- fighting over the details of a supplemental COVID stimulus package that would address the severe economic hardships brought upon many families and businesses by the pandemic. On Tuesday, the president, who had been largely absent from these discussions previously, crashed through the wall like the Kool-Aid Man in an attempt to demonstrate his mediation prowess.

First, around 2:30 p.m., he executed one of his patented gambits straight out of Art of the Deal:

The “economic populist” timed this power move on the heels of a conversation with Austerity-for-Thee Cocaine Mitch, blindsiding his own advisers (element of surprise!) in a series of tweets announcing that he will end negotiations on the stimulus package until after the election. As part of the tweetstorm, he also kindly ensured that people are aware that Nancy Pelosi wanted to pass a munificent $2.4 trillion in aid for people still struggling through a once-in-a-century pandemic.

Here-- within half an hour after his tweeting began-- is how the stock market responded to his announcement:

So, as an opening bid, it left a little bit to be desired, I would say. Jonathan Chait, another non-businessman mind you, called it “the worst political blunder in history.” A tad dramatic maybe, but not a great sign.

Regardless, it seemed like the dire reaction in the markets left Trump in a bad negotiating position vis-à-vis Speaker Pelosi-- and she agreed, firing off a single tweet about how the president’s ploy exposed his heartlessness.

This sense was confirmed five hours later when the president took a new/old tack, recanting his earlier contention that Pelosi’s offer was overly generous and adding a dollop of his trademark schoolyard misogyny:

With balance restored to the negotiating table, you might think he would wait to see how Pelosi would respond.

Not this president.

No he needed to further demonstrate his position as the alpha.

So in between IVs, presumably during commercial breaks from the shows, possibly wearing his preferred nightgown, he began to unleash a torrent of tweets negotiating against himself like a person suffering from a bout of psychosis due to a corticosteroid therapy.

First he did a complete 180 on his earlier position that Congress should pass no stimulus legislation, retweeting a news story about the Federal Reserve chair that implied Congress should spend even more!

Then he retweeted the esteemed Paul Sperry of Investor’s Business Daily-- not once, not twice, but twenty-two separate times-- on matters ranging from #Obamagate to the “disgraceful” moderator of the debate that Trump totally won to a not-all-that-veiled attack on Joe Biden for being concerned about health care when his wife and child died in a tragic car accident.

Trump followed that up with eight retweets of Fox News analyst Gregg Jarrett, calling for the jailing of his former opponent Hillary Clinton and disparaging Speaker Pelosi’s looks.

He then tweeted a meme depicting the late Chris Farley—in character as the thrice-divorced homeless motivational speaker Matt Foley from the classic SNL sketch-- berating Attorney General Bill Barr for not arresting enough political opponents.

It’s unclear to me if any of these missives were part of the gamesmanship of the ongoing negotiations but I wanted to make sure that everyone had a clear picture of the state of play.

Around 10 p.m., on day five (we think) of the experimental drug regimen he is taking for combating the coronavirus, the president then launched back into the stimulus negotiations that at this stage are taking place only between himself and his earlier tweets.

No longer wanting to walk away completely, the president demanded that Congress pass two pieces of standalone legislation, the first bailing out the airline industry, the second sending a round of $1,200 stimulus checks out to our “great people.”
In the final tweet at the time of writing, he tagged Nancy Pelosi-- whose visage he had insulted hours earlier and who has been silent as he dickered for hours-- presumably in an attempt to reopen the line of communication with his counterparty.

Whew.

Given that I have never been “in a boardroom” for a high-stakes parley like this and that I cannot take the full measure of Donald Trump since he spent the day hiding from the cameras as the novel coronavirus infection consumed him, I can only turn to a celebrity negotiator for his expert analysis on what transpired:

"The worst thing you can possibly do in a deal is seem desperate to make it. That makes the other guy smell blood, and then you’re dead."
—Donald J. Trump.

Hard to argue with that.

Most Big Corporations Don't Mind Funding GOP Racism And Homophobia-- As Long As They Get Their Tax Breaks And Special Favors... And Congress Refuses To Call It Bribery

A few days ago, the NY Times published an essay by Andrew Sorkin, A Company Backs a Cause. It Funds a Politician Who Doesn’t. What Gives? He wrote that "At a time when Corporate America is speaking up on some of the most important issues of our time, there is a contradiction between companies’ words today and the role they played in helping create the moment we find ourselves in. An examination of political spending over the past decade shows how those companies-- and dozens of other Fortune 500 corporations-- quietly funded political efforts that are antithetical to their public stances. They financed state attorneys general seeking to undo the Affordable Care Act, which has provided health insurance for millions of Americans during the pandemic; they provided funds that backed local legislators who tried to roll back L.G.B.T.Q. rights; and they gave money that supported candidates challenging federal climate change initiatives."

Uniquely, public companies are the biggest benefactors of key political committees supporting the campaigns, donating more than individuals or other groups.

...Walmart is among the companies that donated money to the Republican Attorneys General Association, which supported a group of state attorneys general including Ken Paxton of Texas, who was narrowly re-elected in 2018 and is now leading a group of Republican-run states in a Supreme Court case that seeks to overturn key aspects of the Affordable Care Act.

AT&T, which says its policies prohibiting discrimination against employees based on sexual orientation date back to the 1970s, provided funds to the same group, which helped elect Pat McCrory in North Carolina in 2012. Mr. McCrory, the former governor, signed the “bathroom bill,” which required transgender people to use public bathrooms corresponding to the gender listed on their birth certificates (and was later overturned).

Microsoft, which says it supports sustainability, provided money to the Republican Governors Association, which funneled money to help elect Tom Corbett in Pennsylvania in 2010, who reduced emissions standards for the oil and gas industry.

These corporate donations to state-level political groups go to associations known as “527s,” named after a section of the tax code. The 527 designation allows companies to channel money to candidates without giving to specific individuals. The donations, which come from corporate treasury departments-- not via company political action committees-- can be tracked by following the money paid to a 527 and examining how it is distributed.

The numbers tell the story: Of the $1.3 billion raised over the past decade by the Democratic and Republican governors associations, state legislative campaign committees and attorneys general associations, 46 percent-- or nearly $600 million-- came from public companies and their trade associations, far more than the 22 percent share from individuals and 16 percent from private companies, according to the Center for Political Accountability. Two-thirds of the corporate and trade association money, around $390 million, went to Republican-affiliated groups.

...[C]ompanies are motivated to make such political donations because it potentially buys them access-- and they hope, favor-- with politicians who can directly affect their businesses. They may want to bend a politician’s ear on a tax treatment, government contract or regulatory action. During the pandemic, having a direct line to the governor’s office has been critical in how some businesses have sought to influence reopening plans.

Yesterday, Judd Legum and Tesnim Zekeria, writing for Popular Info shined a light in the direction of Minnesota neo-fascist Congressman Jim Hagedorn and the companies that bankroll his racism-- while claiming to support Black Lives Matter. Hagedorn, an extreme right freshman who represents a district just about an hour south of where a police officer murdered George Floyd, wrote that the Black Lives Matter movement is "at war with our country, our beliefs and western culture." He's campaigning for reelection on a Trumpist platform and insists that Americans must oppose the Black Lives Matter movement to defend the nation’s "Judeo-Christian values" and "way of life."

Last cycle Hagedorn barely defeated-- 146,200 (50.2%) to 144,885 (49.8%)-- conservative Democrat Dan Feehan for the open seat in southern Minnesota. Feehan spent $4,117,708 to Hagedorn's $1,584,057. (Right wing outside groups, like corporately funded America First Action and the Congressional Leadership Fund, threw $6,911,780 in independent expenditures into smearing Feehan.) So far this cycle, Feehan, who wants a rematch, has raised $2,102,934 and Hagedorn has raised $1,579,022. In 2016 Trump had won MN-01 with 53.3% against Hillary's 38.4%. In 2018, Amy Klobuchar's reelection campaign won the district without breaking a sweat and, though with a smaller margin, so did Tim Walz, the former congressman from the district who was seeking the governor's job (which he won). It's likely that in November Feehan will oust Hagedorn and his ugly racist, Trumpist, homophobic politics. Legum and Zekeria wrote that "major corporations that publicly champion racial justice, equality, and inclusion-- including UnitedHealth Group, U.S. Bank, Intel, and Best Buy-- have donated thousands of dollars to Hagedorn's reelection campaign." Other corporations funding Hagedorn's politics of hatred and support for fascism include General Mills, Boston Scientific, Bayer, and Bank of New York.

Up the road apiece is MN-05-- Minneapolis. It's a deep blue district that Trump lost with just 18.5% in 2016. Two year later, state Rep. Ilhan Omar won the open congressional seat by a landslide against Republican vanity candidate Jennifer Zielinski, 267,703 (78.0%) to 74,440 (21.7%). This cycle Ilhan faces a crowded primary field in less than a month, on August 11. There are 5 Democrats challenging her, but AIPAC has rallied its forces around one mystery meat candidate, Antone Melton-Meaux, who has "raised" $3,690,827 out of the blue and now has more cash on hand than Ilhan-- $2,016,669 to $1,111,861. Andrew Perez, reporting for Too Much Information, wrote that Melton-Meaux "has paid nearly $1.2 million-- 65 percent of his overall spending-- to three anonymous companies, a move that circumvents traditional campaign finance disclosure standards." One, WCPA (or perhaps WPCA) is a company on paper only that started just over a month ago, seemingly to help Melton-Meaux-- who funneled $1.3 million of his contributions into the firm-- defeat Ilhan. Since the the DCCC "has threatened to punish vendors who work for candidates who run primary challenges to Democratic incumbents, Melton-Meaux’s financial maneuver keeps hidden the vendors who are working for his campaign against Omar, a first-term Democratic incumbent." Two other brand new companies-- North Superior Consulting LLC and Lake Point Consulting-- seem to be playing the same role, one for communications and one for polling and strategic consulting.

“The law requires campaigns to report their spending so that the public can know how political campaign money is being spent,” said Brendan Fischer, a lawyer at the Campaign Legal Center. “When 65 percent of a campaign's spending is flowing through anonymous Delaware LLCs, the public is kept in the dark. Schemes like this hide which individuals or companies are working for the campaign, the nature of the work, and how much they are being paid.”

While Omar’s polling shows she’s popular in her district, Melton-Meaux raised $3.2 million between April and June and has been blanketing the airwaves with ads. Omar brought in less than $500,000 in the same time. The first Somali refugee elected to Congress, Omar has been a frequent target of Israel supporters for her criticisms of the country’s influence over U.S. policy. Pro-Israel political action committees have raised more than $400,000 for Melton-Meaux’s campaign.

A super PAC funded by frequent GOP donors last week disclosed spending $228,000 on mailers opposing Omar. The group-- which is called Americans for Tomorrow’s Future-- recently bankrolled a Democratic pro-Israel super PAC that has been weighing in on Democratic primary races.

“There are people who are invested in keeping that status quo, people who don’t want these structural changes to take place, and those are really the people who have the resources to oust someone like me,” Omar said on Sunday.

Melton-Meaux’s TV ad buys have been placed by Canal Partners Media, according to filings with the Federal Communications Commission. Canal Partners Media isn’t listed in Melton-Meaux’s latest FEC report, suggesting that some of the WCPA spending has been subcontracted. Canal Partners Media has reportedly placed ad buys for the Biden campaign under the name “Media Buying & Analytics.”

Canal Partners Media didn’t respond to a request for comment.

  “The FEC has generally said that if a campaign hires, for example, a consulting firm to produce its ads, and the consulting firm subcontracts with a videographer to film the ads, the campaign need only report the payments to the consulting firm, and not separately itemize the payments to the videographer,” Fischer said. “But if a vendor is just acting as a conduit to hide the ultimate recipients of the campaign's spending, then the campaign is violating the law.”

Which corporations are funding these quasi-criminal manuevers to defeat Ilhan Omar? It's going to take months-- long after the election results are in-- to unravel all the opaque reporting and figure out which corporations and which billionaires are putting the big bucks behind AIPAC's effort to end Ilhan's career. If you'd like to help thwart that effort, please contribute to Ilhan Omar's reelection campaign by clicking on the 2020 Blue America Worthy Incumbents thermometer on the right. There aren't enough members with her spirit and courageousness; let's not let a flood of Dark Money remove her from a Congress that desperately needs more women like her, not fewer.

Trump And His Enablers Are Making Everything Worse-- And Now It E

5-Watt Bulb by Nancy Ohanian

Getting COVID-19 can be extremely serious to your health, even if you don't die. NPR rerouted yesterday that as the pandemic continues, we're learning more about what it means to survive the disease. "For many patients who fall seriously ill, the virus' impact does not end upon discharge from the hospital. Some are struggling with a host of residual symptoms and challenges... Even two to three months after leaving the hospital... many patients who were seriously ill have only recovered a fraction of their former strength. Some suffer from daunting neurological challenges as well."

What we don't know is where this leads for these people. Obviously no one knows what happens a year or ten years from now. Will people recover over time? But we do know this: "The amount of inflammatory response that [the virus] creates that causes significant damage in various organs of our body is unprecedented."

That said, the last thing we need is untrustworthy politicians consumed with their own careers, making decisions for society. Public health experts should be making these calls, not slime like Trump or, in California, Gavin Newsom. This week, the L.A, Times reported that 77% of Californians worry that they could come down with the disease and that a significant number of residents believe Newsom reopened the state's economy too early. Here in L.A., as the surge of cases started rising, it became harder and harder to get tested. Last month was a breeze. I don't know if it's Mayor Eric Garcetti or Newsom pulling the strings, but now it's virtually impossible.

Neo-liberals behaving like Republicans is pretty depressing-- although not something that should surprise anyone who knows anything about Newsom besides that fact that in the gayest city in America he was pro-LGBTQ. Yesterday Bloomberg News reported how another always disappointing neo-liberal, Joe Biden "will call for a moderate approach toward reviving the U.S. economy if elected president that includes spurring manufacturing and encouraging innovation, shelving for now the more ambitious proposals pushed by progressive Democrats." Wow-- and the same day the Biden-Sanders Unity Task Forces submitted recommendations to the DNC Platform Committee and to Biden directly on working together on key economic policies. No one can ever say DWT didn't warn you from day-one that the only sack of putrid shit worse than Biden was Trump.

And meanwhile, California is bracing for a spike in coronavirus deaths, which is what inevitably follows big increases in infection rates. On Tuesday, California reported another 8,631 confirmed new cases (7,277 cases per million Californians). Wednesday it was another 8,561 (7,493 cases per million). Today another 7,248 cases (7,677 per million residents). Or, as the L.A. Times put it, "New coronavirus cases roughly doubled in California over the last month. Hospitalizations have soared 88%, filling some medical centers close to capacity. Now, public health officials are bracing for the grimmest phase of the cycle: a spike in COVID-19 fatalities... Experts say it can take three to four weeks after exposure to the virus for infected people to become sick enough to be hospitalized, and four to five weeks after exposure for some of the most vulnerable patients to die from the disease.

More younger people are also testing positive for the virus, a trend that has become apparent as the economy has reopened and working-age adults returned to jobs and resumed social gatherings.

Early in the pandemic, in March, about half of California’s new infections were identified among people ages 18 to 49, a Times data analysis found. In June, as the number of new cases began to climb sharply, that share increased to nearly 62%. So far in July, roughly 65% of new infections have been diagnosed among those 18 to 49. That’s despite the fact that just 45% of Californians fall into that age range.

“These are individuals who tend not to be as likely to get serious disease or require either hospitalization or to die from COVID-19,” said Timothy Brewer, professor of medicine and epidemiology at UCLA. “So particularly the 18- to 50-year-old age group is a group that has relatively low mortality rates, but there has been a big surge in infections.”

These kids today! Judd Legum's PopularInformation explained how Facebook and YouTube have been masking reality. Despite all the scientific proof that masks are the only viable option we have to slow down the pandemic, both platforms keep disseminating false information about masks being useless or even harmful. After all, the Republican Party has spent 2 decades and countless amounts of money persuading people with low IQs that science is their enemy and not to be trusted. Now they think some moron with a MAGA hat on YouTube is a better person to get medical advise from than a professional or, God forbid-- expert. Only 65% of Americans say they were masks "most of the time" when inside a business.

"How," asked Legum, "did so many Americans become misinformed about the efficacy of masks? Some of the confusion is driven by Trump, who has refused to wear a mask publicly and questioned their efficacy. He has also resisted calls to impose a national mask mandate. Another factor is that false information about masks is proliferating on social media. Facebook and YouTube announced strong policies banning misinformation about COVID-19 transmission and prevention. The platforms recognize this kind of misinformation puts lives at risk. But these policies are not being effectively enforced, exposing millions to false and dangerous information.

[O]n June 30, Ohio State Representative Nino Vitale posted a lengthy rant on Facebook that claimed masks "drop oxygen below danger levels in 5 seconds." The post was tagged #masksdoharm and #masksdonotwork. In just a few days, the post was shared more than 13,000 times across Facebook.  The claim that masks interfere with your ability to get enough oxygen is false. Christopher Labos, a doctor affiliated with McGill University, explains:

There are actually only two ways to develop low oxygen levels in the blood. One is to deliver less oxygen into the lungs, and the other is to impair the lungs’ ability to allow oxygen to diffuse into the bloodstream. A mask will obviously not impair gas exchange within the lungs, and the cloth face coverings advocated by public health experts do not provide an airtight seal that would impair oxygen delivery into the airways. Furthermore, masks are designed to filter out large particles, like water droplets, and cannot stop tiny molecules like oxygen that can infiltrate between the weave of any fabric...It is frankly implausible to think that wearing a mask is dangerous. Think of all the surgeons, nurses, anesthetists, and perfusionists that have worn masks during long operations and suffered no ill effects.

In response to a request for comment by Popular Information, Facebook removed Vitale's post and two others with similar claims. “We removed several of these posts for violating our policies against making false claims about COVID-19 that could lead to imminent physical harm, including the suggestion that wearing a mask can make you sick," a Facebook spokesman told Popular Information.

But the fact that these kinds of posts were able to make dangerously false claims about masks-- and rack up more than 13,000 shares-- suggests that Facebook's enforcement of its policy is ineffective. Moreover, Facebook left up two posts by Vitale that also claimed masks are dangerous, including a post from July 3, claiming "there is overwhelming scientific evidence showing masks actually do harm."

A Facebook spokesperson said this post did not make a specific enough claim about the harms of masks to be removed.

YouTube has been full of insane videos by Vitale and other Trumpist Death Cult freaks. When Legum complains, YouTube removes them, but when he doesn't catch them in time, hundreds of thousand of morons view them. Vitale is upper reelection in November, but the geniuses who called themselves the Ohio Democratic Party are probably the ones who admire Vitale's videos and screeds; they aren't bothering to run anyone against him. (They didn't even run someone against him in 2016 when the GOP refused to endorse him! Fed up, a high school student finally ran against him in 2018.) He's the chair of the Ohio House's Energy and Natural Resources Committee.

Over 90% of his district (HD-85)-- Champaign County and portions of Logan and Shelby counties-- is white. The closest thing to a city is Champaign's county seat, Urbana (pop- 11,400); Gym Jordan was born there. Since 1856, when it was established, Champaign Co. has only voted for 3 Democratic presidential candidates, once for Woodrow Wilson (1912), once for FDR (1932) and once for LBJ (1964). Trump beat Hillary 69.2% to 25.2% and that should give you an idea about why someone like Vitale is in public office.

Vitale says he refuses to wear a mask in the Ohio House because it interferes with his religious beliefs. "This is the greatest nation on earth founded on Judeo-Christian Principles. One of those principles is that we are all created in the image and likeness of God. That image is seen the most by our face. I will not wear a mask." Outside of his own district, most people consider him certifiably insane and more than a few people think also criminally insane, since he seems to delight in endangering the health of everyone he comes into contact with.

Ohio had another 1,250 confirmed new cases yesterday and 1,114 more today-- 5,247 cases per Ohioan. Vitale doesn't appear to give it a second thought, other than how to use it to boost his own career with far right extremists and GOP morons by whining about his liberty... liberty to spread the contagion far and wide with no constraints from society. This is a video he posted as part of his absurdist war against the Ohio Republican establishment.





Earlier today, CNN reported that Nino is at it again-- on Facebook, trying his damn best to cause more death and destruction in Ohio. Nino Vitale is a plague Ohioans brought on themselves. Facebook hasn't removed the series of memes yet, like these two:

The second is the kind of misleading pandemic news that Facebook has pledged to remove. What set nutty-Nino off this time was DeWine's new announcement of a mask mandate. "This is what happens when people go crazy and get tested. STOP GETTING TESTED!," Vitale shrieked. "It is giving the government an excuse to claim something is happening that is not happening at the magnitude they say it is happening." People will die in Ohio because of Nino Vitale and his sick brain. Voters in his district should take responsibility for defeating him in November by writing in someone else's name.

Anytime Is A Good Time To Eat Less Meat-- But Now More So Than Ever

Chris Martenson's daily podcast has gotten me through all this coronavirus stuff since late January, when I realized his advice was golden. I was able to switch much of my retirement money out of equities and buy enough toilet paper, brown rice, chickpeas, pasta and turnips to see me through a few months of pandemic. His warnings about starting a vegetable garden have been more worrisome than anything. Problems in the food chain is something he mentions frequently. Lately I noticed that parsnips and celery root are letting harder to find and that I'm using what I have less and preparing more plentiful rutabaga and daikon root more frequently.

But the real problem with the food chain isn't really parsnips; it's meat. The processing plants are hotbeds of infection and both ocal governments and owners have been shutting them down. CNN reported that with large numbers of workers getting sick and spreading the contagion in their communities, as much as 80% of meat processing capacity was headed towards shutting down. Trump has ordered them to stay open.

Over the past several weeks, a number of major meat suppliers have announced temporary closures as workers fall ill with Covid-19. The United Food and Commercial Workers International Union estimated Tuesday that 20 meatpacking and food processing workers have died so far.

The situation has gotten so severe, company executives warned, that the US meat supply could be at risk. John Tyson, chairman of the Tyson board, warned of limited supply if plant shortages continue.

By invoking the Defense Production Act, Trump is requiring plants to remain open with some of the most dangerous conditions during the pandemic.

For years, major meat processors have been ruthlessly tamping down costs and increasing efficiencies. That has contributed to a hazardous working environment even before the coronavirus hit.

Over the years, meat processing companies have been speeding up production lines to process more meat in each facility. Faster lines require more workers who have to stand closer together.

As we've been pointing out, Texas congressional candidate Mike Siegel, has been working with labor unions and members of Congress to reforming OSHA with the intention of getting it to focus on protecting workers during the pandemic.

COVID-Mitch by Chip Proser

McConnell has signaled that he is willing to hold hostage anything and everything that helps ordinary American families unless Congress passes a corporate shield for GOP donors who open up their businesses when it isn't safe and cause deaths among their workers. This week that was the topic Judd Legum tackled at Popular Information where he explained how a corporate shield will leave workers exposed

Legum wrote that "When Congress passed legislation mandating paid sick leave during the pandemic, it exempted 80% of American workers. Notably, the requirement does not apply to any business with more than 500 employees. That means, with the lockdown still in place across much of the country, many 'essential workers' have to choose between coming to work sick and receiving a paycheck. Public scrutiny has prompted several large companies to improve their policies voluntarily, but many workers continue to expose themselves to substantial risk without basic protections. Health care workers, meat packers, grocery store clerks, and warehouse employees are getting sick and dying. Nevertheless, several states, despite warnings from public health officials, have begun loosening restrictions on businesses and bringing more people back to work. Simon Property Group, the largest mall operator in the United States, plans to reopen 49 malls in Alaska, Arkansas, Georgia, Mississippi, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Indiana, and Missouri between May 1 and May 4. Right now, this activity is concentrated in states with Republican governors. But all states are expected to loosen restrictions at some point before a vaccine is available, exposing workers in contact with the public to health risks."

Workers returning to the job for the foreseeable future need protective equipment, operational plans that prioritize employee health over short-term profits, and paid sick leave. These are the minimum requirements to protect workers and customers.

Is the Republican-controlled Senate doing anything to improve conditions for workers as they return to their jobs? No. Instead, the Senate is preparing legislation to shield companies from liability if its workers get sick or die.

Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) said that giving businesses immunity from litigation is his top priority as part of the next stimulus package:

In an interview Monday on Fox News Radio, McConnell added that a liability shield for businesses and health care workers will be his "red line" in the next round of negotiations because "trial lawyers are sharpening their pencils to come after health care providers and businesses, arguing that somehow the decision they made with regard to reopening adversely affected the health of someone else." 

McConnell indicated he would oppose critical funding for state and local governments unless the package also includes a liability shield.

Trump said Congress needs to "take liability away from these companies" because he wants "the companies to open and to open strong." But this isn't about carving out narrow protections for companies that play critical roles in responding to the pandemic and need to act quickly. The administration "already has granted more limited liability exemptions for companies involved in producing and distributing key medical supplies."

McConnell and Trump are echoing the call of U.S. Chamber of Commerce president Tom Donohue, who said it was "just not fair" for businesses to be liable for exposing workers to conditions that result in illness or death.

Under normal circumstances, if your health is compromised due to "your employer’s negligence, recklessness, or willful disregard for a safe work environment," a worker could sue to "recover damages for lost wages, medical expenses, and your pain and suffering." (In some states, workers can continue to be paid and get their medical bills reimbursed without proving negligence under a streamlined "workers' compensation" process.) With a liability shield, workers will still lose wages, incur medical expenses, and experience pain and suffering, if they become sick at work. The difference is that all those costs would all be borne by workers and not employers.

Creating a liability shield, however, reduces the incentive for employers to "avoid tort liability by taking appropriate precautions." Justin Wolfers, a professor at the University of Michigan, explains this concept:

We want businesses to be scared. The claim from the Chamber of Commerce that liability will make people scared to do business is correct and that’s the point. We want businesses to take responsibility. All of tort law is about creating a strong incentive for people and companies to not act badly...What’s crystal clear is that if you let employers off the hook, they won’t take safety precautions.

This is an issue that will impact everyone, whether or not they immediately return to their workplace. "To protect public health, you have to protect worker health. And if they don't do that, it will spread into the community, and we'll have a second wave," Debbie Berkowitz, who worked at OSHA during the Obama administration, explained.

The risk of legal liability for corporations is already minimal because, even in a workers' compensation case, an employee needs to prove that they contracted the coronavirus at work. Since it's very difficult to prove where you contracted a virus, especially when there is community transmission, these lawsuits would be very difficult to win. But a liability shield means that corporations wouldn't even have to defend themselves.

...While McConnell and Trump push for a liability shield, Senators Tammy Baldwin (D-WI) and Tammy Duckworth (D-IL) are taking a different approach. Baldwin and Duckworth introduced the "Every Worker Protection Act of 2020" last week. Instead of focusing on protecting employers from legal liability after employees get sick, the legislation tries to put in place protections to keep them from getting sick in the first place.

The legislation would "require the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) to issue an Emergency Temporary Standard (ETS) within 7 days to protect health care and other employees from exposure to the coronavirus that causes COVID-19."

Trump's $135 Billion Pandemic Aid Rip-Off

Oil Can Harry by Nancy Ohanian

Yesterday, Judd Legum's newsletter, Popular Information, revealed that the top recipient of funds intended for struggling small businesses is multimillionaire Trump donor Monty Bennett. Noting that it's been tough-- and in many cases impossible-- for legitimate small businesses to obtain the congressionally-approved loans from the Paycheck Protection Program, Legum introduced us to someone who hasn't had any problem at all-- CEO of a hotel and resort chain (Ashford and Braenar whose combined revenue last year was $2.2 billion. Is that a small businessman in need of the $96.1 million handout he was given by the Trump regime under the Paycheck Protection Program? (That may be going up to $126 million-- and Bennett isn't even using the money to meet the Paycheck Protection Program objectives of keeping employee paychecks rolling.)

On Thursday, the Treasury Department released new guidelines asserting that it is “unlikely” that any public company “with substantial market value and access to capital markets” qualifies for the loans. Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin said there would be “severe consequences” for companies that did not return the money by May 7. But Bennett says his companies will keep the Paycheck Protection Program money.

Why is Bennett not concerned about potential consequences? It doesn't hurt that he is a major Trump donor, contributing "$200,000 to the Trump campaign, the Republican National Committee, and a joint fundraising committee supporting both of them since last year." His donations to Trump's 2016 reelection were even larger.

In March, Bennett also hired a lobbying firm run by "Jeff Miller, who was a finance vice-chair of President Trump’s 2017 inaugural committee." This cycle, Miller "has raised more than $2.8 million for the RNC and a Trump joint fundraising committee… including $2.5 million in the first quarter of 2020 alone."

Bennett, who inherited his business from his father, has been defiant about his thirst for government money despite his enormous personal wealth. "I won’t apologize for being a capitalist in America, or for being reasonably successful at it. But even a capitalist system with companies only and no government backstop does not work," Bennett wrote in a Medium post.

Last month Legum identified dozens of public companies that pay their CEOs $1 million or more and have received Paycheck Protection Program loans. Here are just some of them:

It's worth mentioning that Bennett has bribed Republicans both indirectly through the RNC, the NRCC, the NRSC, through contributions to state parties and Republican Party PACs and by moving thousands of dollars into the campaigns of GOP members of Congress, foremost among them Senators Ted Cruz (R-TX), Mike Lee (R-UT), Roy Blunt (R-MO), Rand Paul (R-KY), Ron Johnson (R-WI), Lindsey Graham (R-SC) , Joni Ernst (R-IA), Tom Cotton (R-AR), David Perdue (R-GA), Cory Gardner (R-CO), Dan Sullivan (R-AK), Pat Toomey (R-PA), Richard Burr (R-NC), Marco Rubio (R-FL), John Cornyn (R-TX), and Josh Hawley (R-MO) as well as notoriously crooked House members Pete Sessions (R-TX), Kevin McCarthy (R-CA), Van Taylor (R-TX), Lance Gooden (R-TX)... And and let's not forget Iowa Senator Chuck Grassley (see below).

Monday morning, Frank Clemente, Executive Director of Americans for Tax Fairness sent media sources around the country a memo: "Repeal Effort Begins To Revoke Huge Tax Break For Millionaires In Coronavirus Aid Package." Short version: "43,000 Millionaires, Maybe Trump, Get $1.6M Average Windfall This Year, Dwarfing Average American’s $1,200 Check; Billions Wasted As State And Local Governments Struggle."

Leading members of Congress and a broad coalition of advocacy groups under the Americans for Tax Fairness umbrella have launched a campaign to repeal a huge tax break for millionaires included in the $2 trillion COVID aid package passed in late March known as the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act.

The CARES Act was supposed to offer much needed comfort to those suffering most from the pandemic. But hidden in the bill was an obscure provision allowing wealthy owners of noncorporate businesses, especially real estate firms and hedge funds, to leverage losses into big tax savings and refunds.

The Joint Committee on Taxation (JCT) estimates the provision will cost the government $135 billion in lost tax revenue over the next 10 years (Title II.C.5), all of it during height of the crisis this year and next. (Due to a “computational error,” JCT’s original cost estimate was nearly $170 billion.) That $135 billion is over three times more than the CARES act spends on safety-net programs ($42 billion), exceeds the amount for hospitals ($100 billion), and nearly matches what will go to state and local governments ($150 billion).

This huge loophole will give business owners making over $1 million-- just 43,000 privileged households-- over 80% of the tax break, an average of $1.6 million each. (The JCT told members of Congress that the distribution by income group of the now $135 billion tax cut is the same as it was for the original $170 billion estimate.) By contrast, the CARES Act offers one-time checks of up to only $1,200 to as many as 150 million individuals.

Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) and Rep. Lloyd Doggett (D-TX) are lead sponsors of legislation to repeal this offensive tax break. Their bills have attracted 18 cosponsors in the Senate (including six senators who ran for president this cycle) and nearly 40  in the House. Their effort has been endorsed by 177 organizations that continues to grow. The plan is to attach the repeal measure to the next COVID-19 aid package, which is expected to focus on providing federal financial support for state and local government budgets collapsing under the pandemic.

How the Tax Break Works

Wealthy business owners often have other sources of income, whether a top-dollar salary or hefty investment gains. Meanwhile, their noncorporate “pass-through” businesses (sole proprietorships, partnership, and S corporations) pay no income taxes themselves, but instead pass through profits and losses to the owners, who pay any tax due at individual rates on their personal returns. These “pass-through” owners’ taxable income combines business results with their other income. If the business suffers a loss, it can be subtracted from the owner’s nonbusiness income to lower tax liability.

The 2017 Trump-GOP tax law gave noncorporate businesses a big break (a 20% income deduction when figuring taxes due) and partially paid for it by limiting to $500,000 the amount of business losses a couple could use to offset nonbusiness income ($250,000 for an individual). The CARES Act lifts that reasonable cap, so any amount of nonbusiness income (including from salary, the stock or vacation home they may have sold-- no matter how big) can now be erased by business losses-- and there will be plenty of business losses in the coming years.

Other tax giveaways in the CARES Act further sweeten the deal. One allows the deduction of the full value of losses-- the 2017 law had limited it to 80%-- and another lets business owners apply losses to earlier years in which taxes were already paid, generating refunds. (These provisions apply to corporations as well, at an estimated 10-year revenue cost of $26 billion.)

That “carry back” allowance applies not only to this COVID-ravaged year, but 2018 and 2019 as well, when losses can’t be blamed on a pandemic. And they can be carried back up to five years, to the time before the 2017 tax law cut rates, such that any refund generated now will be based on taxes paid at higher rates (35% for corporations, rather than the current 21%) and therefore be commensurately larger.

Likely big winners from these generous new business-loss rules are real estate developers like President Trump and his son-in-law Jared Kushner. That’s because real estate professionals can claim big paper losses even on properties that are actually gaining in value. Trump and Kushner have in the past both used huge claimed losses to dodge millions of dollars in taxes.

President Trump’s company, the Trump Organization, is not a single entity but rather a collection of roughly 500 pass-through businesses. Since the Trump family may benefit greatly from the tax handout in the CARES Act, it’s reasonable to speculate whether there was White House pressure to include the provision in the law.     ...The $135 billion tax cut doled out to wealthy business owners comes with no strings attached. There is no requirement they pay the money back or use any of it in ways that would help the U.S. recover from the pandemic or the resulting recession. Other aid going to wealthy entities under the CARES Act comes with conditions and oversight. For example, in return for their $60 billion bailout airlines had to agree not to lay off workers, buy back their own stock or pay dividends to shareholders. Businesses receiving aid under the “Paycheck Protection Program” are similarly barred from firing workers.

The one public defender of this giveaway has been Senate Finance Committee chairman Chuck Grassley (R-IA) in a Fox News op-ed, in which he made claims and arguments that were easily rebutted. His public championing of the tax break combined with his position of tax-writing leadership strongly indicate “Grassley Giveaway” is an apt nickname for the provision.

Where the Money’s Actually Needed: Struggling States and Cities

The $135 billion wasted on wealthy business owners through this tax break would find ready use by state and local governments struggling with increased public needs, fewer public resources and no ability to borrow to make up the difference.

The nation’s governors are seeking $500 billion in immediate relief to fund joint federal-state Medicaid programs, buy more COVID treatment and testing supplies, shore up overwhelmed unemployment systems, and meet other urgent demands. Counties, cities and towns are seeking $250 billion in federal coronavirus aid. Counties alone face a combined COVID budgetary impact of over $140 billion through next year.

Republican leaders are resisting calls for another COVID relief bill that would include a lifeline for states and cities. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has cited the “level of national debt” created by the first rescue bills as a reason to delay more aid and has suggested local governments should declare “bankruptcy” to deal with the economic fallout. Yet he makes no mention of reducing that debt load by repealing the millionaires giveaway in the CARES Act.

Repairing the Damage: What Congress Can Do Now

The Senate passed the CARES Act before the cost of the bill-- including the millionaires giveaway-- had been calculated; the House passed it the day after the (initial) budget score was released. The distributional effects of the giveback showing millionaires would receive the lion’s share wasn’t provided until some two weeks later, and then only after a special request.

The simplest and best solution would be to revoke the entire provision and use the $135 billion saved to help shore up the collapsing finances of states and cities. Congress has revoked handouts like this in the past. In 1997, a $50 billion giveaway to the tobacco industry was snuck into a tax-cut bill. When it was discovered, Congress swiftly and overwhelmingly voted to revoke it. There are also possible fixes short of full repeal that would lessen the damage.

End of the Line by Nancy Ohanian

Congress is currently coming up with the next bailout package. McConnell, McCarthy and Mnuchin are hoping to use it to continue making the rich richer. House Democrats should vote for nothing that doesn't include these half dozen points:

• Economic relief for all people impacted for the duration of the crisis, including cancellation of rent and mortgage payments, a moratorium on utility shut-offs for the duration of the pandemic, student debt cancellation and well as $2,000 regular monthly payments.
• Essential Workers Bill of Rights.

• Medicare-for-All-for-the-Pandemic
• State and local aid to fund schools, mental health services, Medicaid, public health departments, firefighters and teachers, health and safety officers, roads and bridges, etc.
• Make elections safe and accessible-- including through funding for states to implement universal access to vote by mail, while guaranteeing the continuity of the U.S. Postal Service.
• A pause in corporate acquisitions and mergers during the crisis except in cases of bankruptcy. Tie any corporate aid to companies retaining their workforces, avoiding stock buybacks and CEO bonuses, and protecting worker rights. Strengthen oversight, prevent corruption, and ensure loans to small businesses actually go to small businesses, not big franchises or private equity.