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Elizabeth Warren 2020


Hugo Stiglitz

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On 8/7/2019 at 3:43 PM, Hugo Stiglitz said:

Just got around to reading this. I'm glad I did. I like her ideas.  The concept of building out regional/community food hubs is a great idea.  

Food deserts are a real problem and they can be fixed.  Plus we need to mobilize farmers to help fight climate change.

I've got family that are farmers in S.D.  I sent this to them and am interested to see what they think.  

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33 minutes ago, Post Oak said:

Just got around to reading this. I'm glad I did. I like her ideas.  The concept of building out regional/community food hubs is a great idea.  

Food deserts are a real problem and they can be fixed.  Plus we need to mobilize farmers to help fight climate change.

I've got family that are farmers in S.D.  I sent this to them and am interested to see what they think.  

Goddamn she lays things out so well and so clearly. It's like she was a badass teacher or something.

 

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Protecting Our Communities from Gun Violence

https://medium.com/@teamwarren/protecting-our-communities-from-gun-violence-a2ebf7abd9be

Columbine.

Sandy Hook.

Charleston.

Pulse.

Las Vegas.

Parkland.

Pittsburgh.

Now El Paso. Dayton.

These are just a few of the names etched into the American consciousness, synonymous with senseless loss and enduring grief.

It’s been a week since these latest attacks, and on average every day 100 people are killed in the U.S. by a gun — in shootings that occur in our homes, on our streets, at our playgrounds.

The victims are our neighbors and our friends. Someone’s mother, someone’s child, someone’s sibling.

There is no shortage of horrifying statistics about our gun violence epidemic.

  • Our firearm homicide rate is 25 timeshigher than other comparable countries.
  • Our firearm suicide rate is nearly 10 timeshigher.
  • Women in the U.S. are 21 times more likely to be shot to death than women in other high-income countries, most killed by an intimate partner.
  • 21 children and teenagers are shot every day.

The list goes on.

And while the majority of Americans — including a majority of gun owners — support sensible gun legislation, even the most basic proposals, like universal background checks, are consistently blocked by far-right ideologues in Congress who are bought and paid for by the gun industry, their NRA partners, and a supporting army of lobbyists and lawyers.

Faced with a complex and entrenched public health crisis, made worse by the ongoing inability of a corrupt government to do anything about it, it’s easy to despair. But we are not incapable of solving big problems. We’ve done it before.

In 1965, more than five people died in automobile accidents for every 100 million miles traveled. It was a massive crisis. As a nation, we decided to do better. Some things were obvious: seatbelts, safer windshields, and padded dashboards. Other things only became clear over time: things like airbags and better brake systems. But we made changes, we did what worked, and we kept at it. Over fifty years, we reduced per-mile driving deaths by almost 80% and prevented 3.5 million automobile deaths. And we’re still at it.

In 2017, almost 40,000 people died from guns in the United States. My goal as President, and our goal as a society, will be to reduce that number by 80%. We might not know how to get all the way there yet. But we’ll start by implementing solutions that we believe will work. We’ll continue by constantly revisiting and updating those solutions based on new public health research. And we’ll make structural changes to end the ability of corrupt extremists to block our government from defending the lives of our people — starting with ending the filibuster.

Here’s what that will look like.

  • As president, I will immediately take executive action to rein in an out-of-control gun industry — and to hold both gun dealers and manufacturers accountable for the violence promoted by their products.
  • I will break the NRA’s stranglehold on Congress by passing sweeping anti-corruption legislation and eliminating the filibuster so that our nation can no longer be held hostage by a small group of well-financed extremists who have already made it perfectly clear that they will never put the safety of the American people first.
  • I will send Congress comprehensive gun violence prevention legislation. I will sign it into law within my first 100 days. And we will revisit this comprehensive legislation every single year — adding new ideas and tweaking existing ones based on new data — to continually reduce the number of gun deaths in America.

Executive Action to Reduce Gun Violence

Reform advocates are engaged in a valuable discussion about gun reforms that can be achieved by executive action. We must pursue these solutions to the fullest extent of the law, including by redefining anyone “engaged in the business” of dealing in firearms to include the vast majority of gun sales outside of family-to-family exchanges. This will extend requirements — not only for background checks, but all federal gun rules — to cover all of those sales. This includes:

  • Requiring background checks. We will bring the vast majority of private sales, including at gun shows and online, under the existing background check umbrella.
  • Reporting on multiple purchases. We will extend the existing requirement to report bulk sales to nearly all gun sales. And I’ll extend existing reporting requirements on the mass purchase of certain rifles from the southwestern border states to all 50 states.
  • Raising the minimum age. We will expand the number of sales covered by existing age restriction provisions that require the purchaser to be at least 18 years old, keeping guns out of the hands of more teenagers.

My administration will use all the authorities at the federal government’s disposal to investigate and prosecute all those who circumvent or violate existing federal gun laws. This includes:

  • Prosecuting gun traffickers. Gun trafficking across state lines allows guns to move from states with fewer restrictions to those with strict safety standards, and gun trafficking across our southern border contributes to gang violence that sends migrants fleeing north. I’ll instruct my Attorney General to go after the interstate and transnational gun trafficking trade with all the resources of the federal government.
  • Revoking licenses for gun dealers who break the rules. Only 1% of gun dealers are responsible for 57% of guns used in crimes. My Administration will direct the ATF to prioritize oversight of dealers with serial compliance violations — and then use its authority to revoke the license of dealers who repeatedly violate the rules.
  • Investigating the NRA and its cronies. The NRA is accused of exploiting loopholes in federal laws governing non-profit spending to divert member dues into lavish paymentsfor its board members and senior leadership. I’ll appoint an attorney general committed to investigating these types of corrupt business practices, and the banks and third-party vendors — like Wells Fargo— that enabled the NRA to skirt the rules for so long.

To protect the most vulnerable, my administration will use ATF’s existing regulatory authority to the greatest degree possible, including by:

  • Protecting survivors of domestic abuse. We will close the so-called “boyfriend loophole” by defining intimate partner to include anyone with a domestic violence conviction involving any form of romantic partner.
  • Reversing the Trump administration’s efforts to weaken our existing gun rules. We will rescind the Trump-era rules and policies that weaken our gun safety regime, including rules that lower the standards for purchasing a gun, and those that make it easier to create untraceable weapons or modify weapons in ways that circumvent the law. This includes overturning Trump-era policies enabling 3-D printed guns, regulating 80% receivers as firearms, and reversing the ATF ruling that allows a shooter to convert a pistol to a short-barreled rifle using pistol braces.
  • Restrict the movement of guns across our borders. We will reverse the Trump administration’s efforts to make it easier to export U.S.-manufactured weapons by transferring exports of semi-automatic firearms and ammunition from the State Department to the Commerce Department, and we will prevent the import of foreign-manufactured assault weapons into the United States.

The shooting in El Paso also reminds us that we need to call out white nationalism for what it is: domestic terrorism. Instead of a president who winks and nods as white nationalism gets stronger in this country, we need a president who will use all the tools available to prevent it. It is completely incompatible with our American values, it is a threat to American safety and security, and a Warren Justice Department will prosecute it to the fullest extent of the law.

Structural Changes to Pass Gun Safety Legislation

The next president has a moral obligation to use whatever executive authority she has to address the gun crisis. But it is obvious that executive action is not enough. Durable reform requires legislation — but right now legislation is impossible. Why? A virulent mix of corruption and abuse of power.

Big money talks in Washington. And the NRA represents a particularly noxious example of Washington corruption at work. Over the last two decades, the NRA has spent over $200 million on lobbying Congress, influencing elections, and buying off politicians — and that’s just the tip of the iceberg. The NRA spends millions poisoning our political discourse with hateful, conspiracy-fueled propaganda, blocking even modest reforms supported by 90% of American voters.

In the wake of the Sandy Hook massacre, the American people rallied for reform. President Obama suggested several serious legislative changes. The Senate voted down an assault weapons ban. It rejected a background checks proposal, even though 54 Senators from both parties voted for it, because of a right-wing-filibuster. These were the bare minimum steps we needed to take. And six years later, Congress still hasn’t done a thing.

This pattern repeats itself throughout our government. When money and influence can override the will of a huge majority of Americans, that is corruption, pure and simple.

It’s time to fight back. I have proposed the most sweeping set of anticorruption reformssince Watergate — a set of big structural changes that includes ending lobbying as we know it and slamming shut the revolving door. My first priority when I’m elected President is to enact this package to get our government working for everyone again.

But anti-corruption legislation alone won’t be enough to get gun safety legislation done. After decades of inaction, Democrats have rallied behind a number of important gun reforms. If we continue to allow bought and paid for extremists in the Senate to thwart the will of the people, we will never enact any of them.

Enough is enough. Lasting gun reform requires the elimination of the filibuster.

Legislation to Reduce Gun Violence

When I am president, I will send Congress comprehensive legislation containing our best ideas about what will work to reduce gun violence.

It starts by ensuring that safe, responsible ownership is the standard for everyone who chooses to own a gun. We’ll do that by:

  • Creating a federal licensing system. States with strict licensing requirements experience lower rates of gun trafficking and violence. A license is required to drive a car, and Congress should establish a similarly straightforward federal licensing system for the purchase of any type of firearm or ammunition.
  • Requiring universal background checks. I’ll expand background checks via executive action — but Congress should act to permanently mandate universal background checks. And I’ll push Congress to close the so-called “Charleston loophole” that allows a sale to proceed after three days even if the background check is not complete.
  • Increasing taxes on gun manufacturers. Since 1919, the federal government has imposed an excise tax on manufacturers and importers of guns and ammunition. Handguns are taxed at 10% and other guns and ammunition are taxed at 11%. These taxes raise less in revenue than the federal excise tax on cigarettes, domestic wine, or even airline tickets. It’s time for Congress to raise those rates — to 30% on guns and 50% on ammunition — both to reduce new gun and ammunition sales overall and to bring in new federal revenue that we can use for gun violence prevention and enforcement of existing gun laws.
  • Establishing a real waiting period. Waiting periods prevent impulsive gun violence, reducing gun suicides by 7–11% and gun homicides by 17%. Over the past 5 years, a national handgun waiting period would have stopped at least 4,550 gun deaths. The federal government should establish a one-week waiting period for all firearm purchases.
  • Capping firearms purchases. About one out of four of firearms recovered at the scene of a crime were part of a bulk purchase. Congress should limit the number of guns that can be purchased to one per month, similar to a Virginia law that successfully reduced the likelihood of Virginia-bought guns being used in criminal activity.
  • Creating a new federal anti-trafficking law. Congress should make clear that trafficking firearms or engaging in “straw purchases” — when an individual buys a gun on behalf of a prohibited purchaser — are federal crimes. This would give law enforcement new tools to crack down on gun trafficking and help keep guns out of the wrong hands.
  • Raising the minimum age for gun purchases. I’ll extend existing age requirements to virtually all sales, but federal law is currently conflicting — for example, a person must be 21 to purchase a handgun from a federally licensed dealer, but only 18 to purchase a rifle. Congress should set the federal minimum age at 21 for all gun sales.

We can also do more to keep military-style assault weapons off our streets. We’ll do that by:

  • Passing a new federal assault weapons ban. The 1994 federal assault weapons ban successfully reduced gun deaths but was allowed to expire ten years later. Congress should again ban the future production, sale, and importation of military-style assault weapons, and require individuals already in possession of assault weapons to register them under the National Firearms Act. Just as we did successfully with machine guns after the passage of that law, we should establish a buyback program to allow those who wish to do so to return their weapon for safe disposal, and individuals who fail to register or return their assault weapon should face penalties.
  • Banning high-capacity ammunition magazines. High-capacity magazines were used in 57% of mass shootings from 2009 to 2015, allowing the shooters to target large numbers of people without stopping to reload. Congress should enact a federal ban on large-capacity magazines for all firearms, setting reasonable limits on the lethality of these weapons.
  • Prohibiting accessories that make weapons more deadly. Gun manufacturers sell increasingly deadly gun accessories, including silencers, trigger cranks, and other mechanisms that increase the rate of fire or make semi-automatic weapons fully automatic. Congress should ban these dangerous accessories entirely.

We should also do everything possible to keep guns out of the hands of those at highest risk of violence. We’ll do that by:

  • Passing extreme risk protection laws. Extreme risk protection orders allow families and law enforcement to petition to temporarily restrict access to firearms for individuals in crisis or at elevated risk of harming themselves or others. Congress should pass a federal extreme risk law and create a grant system to incentivize states to enact their own laws that clearly define extreme risk.
  • Prohibiting anyone convicted of a hate crime from owning a gun. Too often, guns are used in acts of mass violence intended to provoke fear in minority communities; more than 10,000 hate crimes involve a gun every year. Any individual convicted of a hate crime should be permanently prohibited from owning a gun, full stop.
  • Protecting survivors of domestic abuse. Domestic violence and gun violence are deeply connected — in an average month, more than 50 women are shot and killed by an intimate partner. I’ll close the boyfriend loophole, but Congress should make that permanent, and expand the law to include individuals with restraining orders or who have been convicted of stalking.
  • Securing our schools. Parents shouldn’t have to buy bullet-proof backpacks for their children — guns have no place on our campuses or in our schools. Congress should improve the Gun-Free School Zones Act to include college and university campuses, and apply to individuals licensed by a state or locality to carry a firearm.

If we want real, long-lasting change, we must also hold the gun industry accountable, including online sites that look the other way when sellers abuse their platforms. We’ll do that by:

  • Repealing the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act. Nearly every other industry has civil liability as a check on irresponsible actions, but a 2005 law insulates firearms and dealers from civil liability when a weapon is used to commit a crime, even in cases when dealers were shockingly irresponsible. No one should be above the law, and that includes the gun industry. Congress should repeal this law, immediately.
  • Holding gun manufacturers strictly liable for the harm they cause through a federal private right of actionGun manufacturers make billions in profit by knowingly sellingdeadly products. Then they are let completely off the hook when people take those deadly products and inflict harm on thousands of victims each year. State tort law already recognizes that certain types of products and activities are so abnormally dangerous that the entities responsible for them should be held strictly liable when people are injured. Congress should codify that same principle at the federal level for guns by creating a new private right of action allowing survivors of gun violence to hold the manufacturer of the weapon that harmed them strictly liable forcompensatory damages to the victim or their family.
  • Strengthening ATF. The NRA has long sought to hobble the ATF, lobbying against staffing and funding increases for the agency and getting its congressional allies to impose absurd restrictions on its work even as the agency struggled to meet its basic responsibilities. Congress should fully fund ATF’s regulatory and compliance programs and remove the riders and restrictions that prevent it from doing its job.
  • Regulating firearms for consumer safety. Today there are no federal safety standardsfor firearms produced in the United States. We can recall unsafe products from trampolines to children’s pajamas — but not defective guns. Congress should repeal the provision of law that prevents the Consumer Product Safety Commission from regulating the safety of firearms and their accessories.
  • Tightening oversight for gun dealers. Today there is no requirement for federally-licensed gun shops to take even simple steps to prevent guns from falling into the wrong hands. Congress should pass basic safety standards for federally-licensed gun dealers, including employee background checks, locked cabinets, and up-to-date inventories of the weapons they have in stock.
  • Holding gun industry CEOs personally accountable. I’ve proposed a law that would impose criminal liability and jail time for corporate executives when their company is found guilty of a crime or their negligence causes severe harm to American families — and that includes gun industry CEOs.

Tragedies like the shootings we witnessed in El Paso and Dayton capture our attention and dominate the conversation about gun reform. But they’re just the tip of the iceberg of gun violence in America. Everyday, we lose one hundred Americans to gun violence, with hundreds more physically injured and countless more mentally and emotionally traumatized. And Black and Latinx Americans have borne the brunt of the gun violence tragedy in our country.

In the past, those statistics have been used to justify increased policing and strict sentencing laws. Communities already traumatized by gun violence were doubly victimized by policies that locked up their young people and threw away the key. We’ve got a chance to show that we’ve learned from the past and to chart a new path. It starts by acknowledging that gun violence is a public health crisis, one that cannot be solved solely by the criminal justice system.

We can start to do that by investing in evidence-based community violence intervention programs. Federal grant funding today focuses significantly on law enforcement and incarceration, rather than interventions designed to stop gun violence before it occurs. The data in urban communities indicate that the majority of violence is perpetrated by a small number of offenders, and many cities have found success with programs that identify those at highest risk of becoming the victim or perpetrator of a violent gun crime, then employing strategies to interrupt the cycle of violence before it escalates. Programs that engage the surrounding community, employ mediation to prevent retaliation, build trust with law enforcement, and provide needed long-term social services have been proven to de-escalate tensions and dramatically reduceviolence. As president, I’ll establish a grant program to invest in and pilot these types of evidence-based intervention programs at scale.

Annual Research and Annual Reauthorization

Historically, when Congress works to address big national issues, we don’t simply pass one law and cross our fingers. Instead, we continue the research — into new policies and around the consequences of our existing policies — and then come back on a regular basis to update the law.

We don’t do this with guns. Not only have we not passed meaningful legislation in almost a generation, but thanks to the NRA, for decades Congress prohibited federal funding from being used to promote gun safety at all, effectively freezing nearly all research on ways to reduce gun violence. Last year, Congress finally clarified that the CDC could in fact conduct gun violence research — but provided no funding to do so.

This ends when I’m President. My budget will include an annual investment of $100 million for DOJ and HHS to conduct research into the root causes of gun violence and the most effective ways to prevent it, including by analyzing gun trafficking patterns, and researching new technologies to improve gun safety. These funds will also be used to study the reforms we enact — to see what’s working, what new ideas should be added, and what existing policies should be tweaked. And every year, I will send Congress an updated set of reforms based on this new information. That’s how we’ll meet our goal.


The conversation about gun violence in America is shifting — but not just because we’ve seen a spike in violence fueled by the NRA and the Trump administration’s dangerous policies and extremist rhetoric. It’s also because of the tireless work of activists, organizers, and community leaders who have been fighting for reform at the state and local level.

If you need proof that the majority of Americans support common sense gun reform, look at what’s happening in state legislatures and city councils across the country. Moms, students, and faith leaders have been packing hearing rooms and taking back spaces formerly reserved for NRA lobbyists. Survivors of mass shootings are doing the critical work of turning our attention to the daily gun violence in cities that doesn’t make headlines.

And it’s working. States that pass expanded background checks see lower rates of gun-related deaths and gun trafficking. States that disarm domestic abusers see lower rates of intimate partner gun violence. States with extreme risk laws have been successful in reducing gun suicides and have used them to prevent potential mass shootings. Community-based violence intervention programs are popping up in cities across the country.

Together, we can build on this momentum. We can build a grassroots movement to take back the Senate, eliminate the filibuster, and pass federal gun safety legislation that will save lives. And from the White House, I’ll make sure that the NRA and their cronies are held accountable with executive action. If we turn our heartbreak and our anger into action, I know we can take the power from the NRA and the lawmakers in their pockets and return it to the people.

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I've now become a Warren enthusiast. She has excited me about the race. She could be one of the country's great presidents. 

She communicates well.

She's genuine.

She's brilliant.

She's bold.

Protect her with a wall of Secret Service because she will be rocking boats. I hate that that thought enters my mind. 

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2 minutes ago, RomaVicta said:

I've now become a Warren enthusiast. She has excited me about the race. She could be one of the country's great presidents. 

She communicates well.

She's genuine.

She's brilliant.

She's bold.

Protect her with a wall of Secret Service because she will be rocking boats. I hate that that thought enters my mind. 

Yes. I hope all of the top candidates have SS protection already.

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New NPR Elizabeth Warren Podcast

https://www.npr.org/2019/08/12/750625967/elizabeth-warren-gets-personal-on-the-trail

 

highlights in quotes

In the wide-ranging interview, Warren also spoke about her ideas for structural change on trade and guns, and how her own life has shaped the politics and plans she promotes. And even though she's known as the candidate who has a prescription or plan for just everything, she also got personal — talking about her own faith, and even fashion.

When asked how she would respond to voters who question her judgement on race given her now infamous DNA test, Warren punted and outlined her plans to assist African-American voters by investing in historically black colleges and universities.

In a campaign season dominated President Trump's rhetoric on race, Warren also explained why she has openly called Trump a white supremacist. 

Interview Highlights

On Trade (and the criticism that her trade policy is more akin to Trump than Obama)

Donald Trump is into tariffs because he's all about tariffs by tweet. He has no trade policy. He's into chaos. 

I start by saying: who are we going to have at the table to negotiate these [trade] deals? And the answer is we're gonna have the people who are most affected. I want the unions at the table. I want small business owners at the table. I want small farmers, the independent farmers right here in Iowa. I want 'em at the table when we're hashing out our trade deals. 

On referring to Donald Trump as a "white supremacist" 

This is a man who, as president of the United States, refers to people in Charlottesville who are white supremacists as "fine people," a man who says he doesn't want any more immigrants coming here from "shithole" countries, a man who describes people who flee for their lives from Central America as mounting an invasion on our country, a man who has used racist language and racist imagery over and over and over, and most of all a man who winks and nods at the white supremacists, and who in turn is embraced and celebrated by the white supremacists. 

You know, when the white supremacists call Donald Trump one of their own I tend to believe them. 

On guns (more on that here)

We need to approach guns and gun safety differently. It's not just, oh here's one idea let's go fight about this one idea, and here is a lot of things that we have talked about: universal background checks, get assault weapons off the streets. I'm all in favor of those, but we're approaching it as if it's one and done or three and done, and then we can all go back to the old ways. I don't think that's the right way to look at it. 

The way I look at this is we need to set a goal. I want to see us cut the number of deaths by 80%. And let me just remind you where we were back in 1965 when five people died for every million miles traveled on our roads. We decided as a country that we wanted to have better safety for people who travel. And some of it was obvious seatbelts, safety glass — so the stuff didn't shatter and slash people to death. Some of it hadn't even been invented like airbags and automatic braking systems. But we made that commitment and we have cut deaths on our roads by 80%. I want to do the same thing around guns. 

On faith 

It's just a part of who I am, and has been since I was a little girl. I've taught Sunday school; I've occasionally had a chance to preach from the pulpit in some of the churches that I've visited; I read the Bible. I think a lot about what it means to be a moral person in America today. 

I truly believe that we are called on to see the value of every human being and not to sit back and reflect on it, but to act. 

Matthew 25: For I was hungry and you fed me. I was thirsty and you gave me drink. I was in prison and you visited me. 

It's not just about having a good heart. It's about getting up and doing what needs to be done. 

On that DNA test and her judgment on race 

Like anyone who's being honest, boy, I admit that I've made mistakes, and I have regrets. And I've done my best both to apologize and to learn from them, but most of all to be a good partner going forward, to think about it in as deliberate a way as possible - what's broken and what we can do to fix it. So think for example about education. 

We have an education system, higher-ed that right now just slams all of our kids but particularly slams African-American kids. African-Americans are more likely to have to borrow money to go to school to borrow more money while they're in school and to have a harder time paying it when they get out on the other side. And that means that much of what happens in higher ed is actually exacerbating the black-white wealth gap in America. So how do you think about that? ... Part of it is in my plan to put $50 billion into historically black colleges and universities that helps level the playing field. 

On fashion (Warren has an iconic look: black top/black pants/jewel toned blazer or cardigan that she wears nearly everywhere: on the stump, at debates, and even to our interview).

It's easy. 

You know how long it takes me to get dressed in the morning? Four minutes.

Life has enough decisions in it right now, I'm saving my decision capacity. 

Hear the full episode of the podcast at the audio link above.

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A section of Elizabeth Warren’s 2016 DNC Speech on Donald Trump

 

“Donald Trump knows that the American people are angry — a fact so obvious he can see it from the top of Trump Tower. So now he’s insisting that he, and he alone, can fix the rigged system.

Last week Donald Trump spoke for more than an hour on the biggest stage he’s ever had. But other than talking about building a stupid wall, which will NEVER get built, really, did you hear any actual ideas? Did you hear even one solid proposal from Trump for increasing incomes, or improving your kids’ education, or creating even one single good-paying job?

Donald Trump has no real plans for jobs or for college kids or for seniors, no plans to make ANYTHING great for ANYONE except rich guys like Donald Trump. Just look at his ideas. Donald Trump wants to get rid of the federal minimum wage. Donald Trump wants to roll back financial regulations and turn Wall Street loose to wreck our economy again.

And Donald Trump has a tax plan to give multi-millionaires and billionaires like himself an average tax cut of $1.3 million — a year. You’re struggling to put your kids through college, and Donald Trump thinks HE needs a million-dollar tax break!

Trump’s entire campaign is just one more late-night Trump infomercial. Hand over your money, your jobs, your children’s future, and The Great Trump Hot Air Machine will reveal all the answers. And, for one low, low price, he’ll even throw in a goofy hat.

And here’s the really ugly underside to his pitch. Trump thinks he can win votes by fanning the flames of fear and hatred. By turning neighbor against neighbor. By persuading you that the real problem in America is your fellow Americans — people who don’t look like you, or don’t talk like you, or don’t worship like you. He even picked a vice president famous for trying to make it legal to openly discriminate against gays and lesbians.

That’s Donald Trump’s America. An America of fear and hate. An America where we all break apart. Whites against blacks and Latinos. Christians against Muslims and Jews. Straight against gay. Everyone against immigrants. Race, religion, heritage, gender, the more factions the better.
But ask yourself this. When white workers in Ohio are pitted against black workers in North Carolina, or Latino workers in Florida, who really benefits?

“Divide and Conquer” is an old story in America. Dr. Martin Luther King knew it. After his march from Selma to Montgomery, he spoke of how segregation was created to keep people divided. Instead of higher wages for workers, Dr. King described how poor whites in the South were fed Jim Crow, which told a poor white worker that, “No matter how bad off he was, at least he was a white man, better than the black man.” Racial hatred was part of keeping the powerful on top.

And now Trump and his campaign have embraced it all. Racial hatred. Religious bigotry. Attacks on immigrants, on women, on gays. A deceitful and ugly blame game that says, whatever worries you, the answer is to blame that other group, and don’t put any energy into making real change.

When we turn on each other, bankers can run our economy for Wall Street, oil companies can fight off clean energy, and giant corporations can ship the last good jobs overseas.

When we turn on each other, rich guys like Trump can push through more tax breaks for themselves and then we’ll never have enough money to support our schools, or rebuild our highways, or invest in our kids’ future.

When we turn on each other, we can’t unite to fight back against a rigged system.

Well, I’ve got news for Donald Trump. The American people are not falling for it! We’ve seen this ugliness before, and we’re not going to be Donald Trump’s hate-filled America. Not now, not ever!”

Edited by Hugo Stiglitz
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1 minute ago, retread said:

Unfortunately, calling her Pocahontas resonates with his 40%, and maybe others too. That's where we are.

It’s not going to work as well when Liz claps back at him 100 times harder.  She’s not going high when he goes low.  She will drag him.  Liz eats bank CEOs for breakfast.  Trump will have to do much better than that weak ass Pocahontas shit. 

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"Pocahontas" is an attack that will land with X% of the voters, but it doesn't matter. Your choice as an individual is what you're doing to do.

- Are you going to engage on the Trump side of it and say it means Warren is bad?

- Are you going to engage on the Warren side of it and say it's immaterial?

- Are you going to concern troll and pseudo-pundit the entire time and hand-wring publicly about how oh no maybe hmmm golly gee?

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13 minutes ago, bad_teammate said:

"Pocahontas" is an attack that will land with X% of the voters, but it doesn't matter. Your choice as an individual is what you're doing to do.

- Are you going to engage on the Trump side of it and say it means Warren is bad?

- Are you going to engage on the Warren side of it and say it's immaterial?

- Are you going to concern troll and pseudo-pundit the entire time and hand-wring publicly about how oh no maybe hmmm golly gee?

Can someone personally believe it's immaterial while believing that others will believe that it's not, ergo it could hurt her in the general?

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1 minute ago, BradInATX said:

Can someone personally believe it's immaterial while believing that others will believe that it's not, ergo it could hurt her in the general?

Sure, the options I outlined are about how one is going to engage, not about what one believes.

The problem with saying that it will hurt her is a common one: Misplaced confidence leading to movement in the wrong direction. It's like push-polling: It doesn't matter what the marketer believes inside, it only matters what they say to influence the audience.

"I think it's immaterial, but it's bad for her." is not the same as "I think it's immaterial."

Depends on your goals and purposes.

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3 minutes ago, bad_teammate said:

Sure, the options I outlined are about how one is going to engage, not about what one believes.

The problem with saying that it will hurt her is a common one: Misplaced confidence leading to movement in the wrong direction. It's like push-polling: It doesn't matter what the marketer believes inside, it only matters what they say to influence the audience.

"I think it's immaterial, but it's bad for her." is not the same as "I think it's immaterial."

Depends on your goals and purposes.

That's fair. That's the disadvantage of running against an incumbent. We're all here trying to figure out who the best candidate to put up is, which means parsing through all of the potential negatives. Meanwhile Trump just continues to do Trump things.

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I posted this on the 2nd about the Pocahontas dipshittery. I'm just going to repost it rather than paraphrase. If a Trumpkin brings up Pocahontas, throw it back at them.

Fauxcahontas and Lieawatha are at least puns. They have some insult value, though they aren't particularly clever and the GOP base probably only knows Pocahontas from the Disney movie. They have no clue who Hiawatha was.

Fortunately, Trump is too stupid, lazy and narcissistic to get the insult right and the insult has lost most of its value. Trump fucked up the insult when he called her Pocahontas instead of Fauxcahontas the first time and he is completely incapable of rectifying that mistake. Instead, he has doubled and tripled down on it repeatedly, to the point that he couldn't go back and fix it now, even if he wanted to.

Every time any Trumpkin calls her either Pocahontas, or correctly use the insult Fauxcahontas, it is a blunt reminder that Trump is a narcissistic buffoon, incapable of even the most basic self reflection and is utterly unfit to hold any elected office, let alone the Presidency. The fact that it doesn't remind his supporters of this and cause them to reconsider their support is a massive condemnation of their own intelligence and capability for self-reflection. They are utterly unfit to be citizens and voters of the United States of America that our forefathers envisioned, but unfortunately our forefathers didn't foresee 40% of the population becoming barely functioning morons and we are stuck with the dipshits.

 

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"How to drive the ultra wealthy to offshore their wealth in one youtube video"  

These schemes are all great in concept form, but when the chips actually fall, the ultra wealthy will be two steps ahead.

If you want to increase revenues in a meaningful way, it will have to be broad based and it will impact all Americans. Which is the way that it should be. This notion that we can make it rain and nobody other than the "tippy top" will have to feel the pinch is foolish.   

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