I'm so excited to announce our first partner cities—Atlanta and Cleveland—for our Pass the Love campaign with @PHAnews! With your help, we can reach our goal of distributing one million meals to families in need. I hope you’ll take a moment to donate at https://t.co/s0WCBvE8HK! pic.twitter.com/r8JYX5My1m
Morning everyone.. Total Solar Eclipse tomorrow, visible from way north, Greenland, Russia.. hope someone gets some photos above the volcano, that might be really cool!!
Big hugs all around, and hoping some seriously massive indictments fall on The DumbArse for his birthday next week…seems fitting to me!
Scientists from the Cleveland Clinic studied 52,238 employees and discovered that people who've had COVID get no additional benefits from vaccination.https://t.co/8MEUFNrMMN
How the he’ll do they know people HAD Covid-19 when many people “suspected” they had Covid-19 but were told to stay home and only go to emergency if it gets worst. My friend this she had it with no proof other than their whole family was sick for weeks in January.
“The Secret IRS Files:
Trove of Never-Before-Seen Records Reveal How the Wealthiest Avoid Income Tax”
by Jesse Eisenger, Jeff Ernsthausen, Paul Kiel
“Many Americans live paycheck to paycheck, amassing little wealth and paying the federal government a percentage of their income that rises if they earn more. In recent years, the median American household earned about $70,000 annually and paid 14% in federal taxes. The highest income tax rate, 37%, kicked in this year, for couples, on earnings above $628,300.”
No one among the 25 wealthiest avoided as much tax as Buffett, the grandfatherly centibillionaire. That’s perhaps surprising, given his public stance as an advocate of higher taxes for the rich. According to Forbes, his riches rose $24.3 billion between 2014 and 2018. Over those years, the data shows, Buffett reported paying $23.7 million in taxes.
Warren Buffett
Berkshire Hathaway Inc.
2014-2018 Wealth Growth:
$24.3B
Total Income Reported:
$125M (0.51% of wealth)
Total Taxes Paid:
$23.7M (0.10% of wealth)
Note: Values in the graphic are rounded.
That works out to a true tax rate of 0.1%, or less than 10 cents for every $100 he added to his wealth.
In the coming months, ProPublica will use the IRS data we have obtained to explore in detail how the ultrawealthy avoid taxes, exploit loopholes and escape scrutiny from federal auditors.”
Wealth, income and taxes for four of the richest people in the country from 2014 to 2018 (see chart):
Warren Buffet, true tax rate: 0.10%
Jeff Bezos, true tax rate: 0.98%
Michael Bloomberg, true tax rate: 1.30%
Elon Musk, true tax rate: 3.27%
On this day in 1963, while returning from a voter registration workshop, Fannie Lou Hamer was arrested and beaten in Winona, Mississippi, after sitting at a "white only" lunch counter. To overcome racial inequality, we must confront our history. https://t.co/v3GLK6wf1P
— Equal Justice Initiative (@eji_org) June 9, 2021
I guess…the further away we get from Jan 6..some Dems have forgotten how close we came to the insurrection succeeding…we have a slimmer majority in the HOUSE…a 50/50 margin in the Senate…and of the 50 not all Sen Dems are on board…Folks should chill just a bit
— Pretty Foot💃🏾 wears a mask😷 (@PrettyFootWoman) June 9, 2021
“Waiting for Godot” (Rep. Jayapal)
(After McConnell said 100% he would block everything…Dems keep on ‘negotiating’.)
Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal, chair of the Progressive Caucus
to Rachel Maddow:
“These jobs and families proposals from the President are WIDELY popular across Democrats, Independents and Republicans, just like the American Rescue Plan was. And if we want to use history as an example, there was not a single Republican vote for the American Rescue Plan.
There weren’t enough Republican votes for the January 6th commission.
This is a party that is not interested in delivering for the people.
So we should just move ahead right now, get the budget resolutions going. And do a Budget Reconciliation Bill, big, bold and fast.”
Maddow:
“What do you say to Americans watching who may have supported President Biden, may have supported Democrats in down-ticket races. Who feel like they got Democrats elected to the White House to control the House, to control the Senate. And it does feel like treading water right now. It does feel like stuff just stopped after the COVID relief bill. Nothing else feels like it’s going to happen. What do you say to people who feel frustrated or a little hopeless given that outlook?”
Congresswoman Japayal:
“Our caucus just did a focus group in swing districts, both ones that we lost and ones that we won
with surge voters, right? These are Democratic voters who are young folks, people of color, but also with swing voters.
And all of them are saying “Deliver for us. Don’t just talk about it – deliver for us.”
So I understand the frustration and that is why we have been saying at the progressive caucus, we have to get this done. No more negotiating with the party that’s not interested in negotiating. You said it the last time I was on your show. You know this made it very clear that Republicans do NOT want to come along.”
We are on our own folks. We worked hard to get Democrats elected, risking our lives and fighting voter suppression with each step and the people we worked so hard for have learned nothing about the urgency of NOW or how to fight. “To get what you have never had one must do things one has not done before” is the mantra that brings about change. Democrats are still falling for the same bullshit and we are left to struggle on our own with many of us falling farther and farther behind. I am A-A, so I am used to broken dreams and promises, but it is still disappointing. The little faith that i did have in real change has mostly dissipated.
“And all of them are saying “Deliver for us. Don’t just talk about it – deliver for us.” (Rep. Jayapal)
—Dems while you are at it pls deliver us from evil.
BIG NEWS: I’m excited to announce that I’ve successfully worked to include funding for transportation and infrastructure projects in Illinois’ 14th Congressional District in the INVEST America Act, which is being considered in Committee this week.
— Rep. Lauren Underwood (@RepUnderwood) June 8, 2021
Joy Reid:
“It’s not that shocking that the senator from Kentucky (McConnell),
who once proudly posed before a confederate flag, opposes the John Lewis Act. What is surprising is that a number of moderate Democrats including Senator Manchin, are willing to help Republicans do this.
It was Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., who in his letter from a Birmingham jail in 1963,
pointed out that the Negroes’ great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen`s
Council-er or the Ku Klux Klan-er, but the white moderate who is more devoted to order than to justice.
Flash forward to 2021: When Manchin says he had a ‘very respectful and informative’ meeting with civil rights leaders. He told reporters “I don’t think anyone changed their positions however”. I guess he didn’t read that letter from Birmingham. Because order is clearly still far more important to Senator Manchin than justice.”
Joy Reid:
“It felt to me like Manchin walked out of that meeting, said ‘Thank you all very much but I’m not doing anything to save democracy’. Your thoughts?”
Reverend Al Sharpton, National Action Network President:
“He clearly walked out of the meeting holding his position. And we clearly walked out of the meeting holding ours. This is about saving the democracy. And the right to vote that people died for to get in the first place. Let us not in any way pretend. We and the Black community and in other communities suffered.
Blacks and whites DIED in the South to get the right to vote for Medgar Evers to Goodman, Chaney, and Schwerner. And what we’re talking about here is the fundamental right of having OUR vote not diluted
and not in any way impeded by what we’re seeing going on in 47 states. And that’s what we said to Senator Manchin today.”
“In short, Obama is concerned that state-level Republicans are viewing election results as recommendations to be considered, not mandates from the people. And they’re using spurious claims of fraud and new laws to give themselves the ability to reject the will of the people next time it doesn’t suit them.”
(https://www.vox.com/2021/6/9/22524580/barack-obama-democratic-erosion-cnn-anderson-cooper)
President Biden:
“Please. At ease!…(I keep forgetting I’m president!)”
(laughter)
–Delivered a powerful message while having fun with everyone. Very important speech…and how we must work hard to deliver democracy for the people. What a reception, wow, so proud of the Bidens!!
President Biden:
“And at every point along the way, we’re going to make it clear that the United States is back and democracies of the world are standing together to tackle the toughest challenges and the issues that matter most to our future; that we’re committed to leading with strength, defending our values,
and delivering for our people.”
Happening Now: The President and First Lady deliver remarks to US Air Force personnel and their families stationed at Royal Air Force Mildenhall. https://t.co/tNOMhfG9Nf
Good afternoon, TODville! Hope everyone is having a Blessed and beautiful day!
1)Today I met up w/my friend Jorge. He ran my Neighborhood Advisory Board w/me as Chair. He immigrated here from Guatemala in the 1970s. I wanted to know his opinion on the @VP saying, "Don't come here" and how that went over w/his family still in Guatemala. He said, "very well." pic.twitter.com/mEOQxkpaXr
Just when it appeared Trump's "what about ingesting bleach to fight Covid" press conference had taken an insurmountable lead in the batshit crazy race, Louie Gohmert finds someone to hold his beer. pic.twitter.com/O95NuPLcwl
— LA Will Never Forgive GOP for Jan. 6th 🌊🌎💙 (@LALewman) June 9, 2021
Principal Marcus Gause surprises the graduating class of T. Wingate Andrews High School in High Point, North Carolina with this moving performance of "I Will Always Love You." pic.twitter.com/jwO2ur0F8s
Pfizer and BioNTech said they have agreed to supply the U.S. government with 500 million doses of their COVID-19 vaccine to donate to poorer countries over the next two years https://t.co/o2cEyX0Rrs
On May 17, the President said the US would lead in the global fight against COVID, and that — at the G-7 mtg — we’d rally the democracies to take on this fight.
Please listen to Stacey. She’s twice as smart as the smartest person you’ve ever known. We are learning more about this act and calling our senators. Democracy is on the line in a very real way. #ForThePeopleAct#S1#HotCallSummerhttps://t.co/i4GiWvizaY
Funny how price increases are blamed on modest wage increases instead of executive compensation pic.twitter.com/zUn9EhuQhK
— Ken Klippenstein (@kenklippenstein) June 9, 2021
Chipotle also recently burned around $100 million relocating its HQ from Denver to Orange County because the new CEO lived there and didn’t want to move. journalists should stop publishing companies’ press releases as articles https://t.co/OT0taIbtrA
The least vaccinated states are the most pro-Trump:
Trump won 17 of the 18 states with the lowest adult vaccination rates. Many of these states have high proportions of whites without college degrees. https://t.co/ZVdSV4Exe5
Remarks by President Biden
to U.S. Air Force Personnel and Families Stationed at Royal Air Force Mildenhall
(U.K.)
(excerpt)
“In Brussels, I will make it clear that the United States’ commitment to our NATO Alliance and Article 5 is rock solid. It’s a sacred obligation that we have under Article 5.”
“Here’s why this all matters so much right now:
I believe we’re at an inflection point in world history — the moment where it falls to us to prove that democracies will not just endure, but they will excel as we rise to seize the enormous opportunities of a new age.
We have to discredit those who believe that the age of democracy is over, as some of our fellow nations believe. We have to expose as false the narrative that decrees of dictators can match the speed and scale of the 21st [century] challenges.
You know and I know they’re wrong. But it doesn’t mean we don’t have to work harder than ever to prove that democracy can still deliver for our people.
For the many who think things are changing so rapidly, democracies cannot get together and form a consensus to respond like autocrats can, but you know better than anyone that democracy doesn’t happen by accident. We have to defend it. We have to strengthen it, renew it. ”
Yup. Amazing how thugs like barr were strutting around doing and covering up all kinds of illegalities while garland is hiding under a bush while there is a full blown crisis. He definitely is not the man for the moment.
So good.
“Pfizer plans to produce these half a billion doses in the U.S. at their facilities in Kalamazoo, Michigan, which employs more than 3,000 American workers; McPherson, Kansas, which employs almost 2,000 workers; Chesterfield, Missouri, and Andover, Massachusetts, which employ 700 and 1,800 workers. The American workers who produced vaccines to save American lives will now produce those same vaccines to save the lives of hundreds of millions of people around the world.”
(whitehouse.gov)
Manchin co-sponsored S-1, For The People Act 2021…
Joy Reid to Senator Warren:
“People don`t realize he was a co-sponsor of this bill. Now suddenly he`s on record against it.
It makes people wonder whether money is starting to play a part.”
Are we going to ask Senator Manchin
what happened between when he co-sponsored S-1 and when he turned against it?
We need to know who he serves, because it his not his Constituents who are FOR voting rights.
Senator Warren to Joy Reid:
“I see it this way. I think that the President did the right thing.
He said, ‘I`m willing to be bipartisan, come in, let’s talk. But not to hold things up.’
What we’re doing now as Democrats is we’re negotiating out an infrastructure package and we need to make sure that we’re going full speed ahead. Republicans want to join us? Fine. But if they don’t, we don’t slow down for them. We need to move forward. We need to deliver on our promises. And that means now.”
GOP repeats voter suppression history while attacking instruction of that history
“They are digging in the archives for methods of voter suppression and targeted attacks on enfranchisement of Black and brown folks—while also attacking the teaching of the history that would illuminate to people why that effort is so dangerous.”
McConnell: “There’s no threat to the Voting Rights Law. It’s against the law to discriminate in voting on the basis of race already. And so I think it’s unnecessary.”
Hayes:
“First back in 2006, Mitch McConnell not only voted for reauthorizing the Voting Rights Act. But as Majority Whip he was responsible for getting his Republican colleagues to vote for it too. He even took to the Senate floor to give a speech about it.”
McConnell: “This landmark piece of legislation will continue to make a difference, not only in the south, but for all of America. And for all of us whether we’re African Americans or not.”
Chris Hayes:
“Fifteen years ago, “If it isn’t broke, don’t fix it”.
So you got to wonder when Mitch McConnell thinks it’s broke. For Mitch McConnell to come out yesterday and say ‘well you see, it’s already illegal to discriminate on the basis of race for voting’ and not be the source of just universal ridicule and condemnation, speaks to just how absent the historical context of race and democracy is in all of our discussions today.
McConnell says ‘It’s already against the law to discriminate from voting on the basis of race’.
And so he thinks a law policing that right is unnecessary. Now there is a very obvious problem. Those who have studied the history of voting rights in America, and the thwarted efforts to achieve a multiracial democracy in this country.
No it has been against the law to discriminate on the basis of race in voting since 1870 when the 15th Amendment was ratified. Saying, “The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States, or by any state, on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude.” It says it right there in black and white in the U.S. Constitution! It says that you cannot racially discriminate in voting.
And so you can imagine a version of Mitch McConnell and 1920 Kentucky, saying literally the exact same statement. ‘Oh why would we need a law to enforced voting rights? It’s already illegal.’
Or say, avowed segregationist Senator Strom Thurmond in the middle of filibustering the 1957 Civil Rights Act saying, “There are mainly three reasons why I feel the bill should not be passed. The first is that it is unnecessary. Every state has enacted some legislation making it unlawful to intimidate a voter or to hinder him in the exercise of his voting rights. Penalties have been provided for such violation. We don’t need new laws protect the right to vote, certainly not to protect against discrimination or race. Those already exists. It’s in the Constitution.”
Those were the type of arguments segregationists made. Jim Crow authoritarians.
Decade after decade after decade after decade in this country. As they flogged multiracial democracy to death underneath the table, as they gave those speeches.
‘We’re not discriminating. The law says we can’t. Anyone can vote’.
We want to give a HUGE congratulations to Ahmed Muhammed of Oakland, CA for being the 1st Black male valedictorian of Oakland Tech High School! Ahmed was accepted into 11 top universities and chose Stanford for its engineering program!!!
On my first foreign trip, we’re going to make it clear — the United States and the democracies of the world are standing together to tackle the challenges of our new age. pic.twitter.com/Mb0eDT00UK
On “Critical Race Theory”:
Chris Hayes:
“A few months ago Chris Rufo,
one of the conservative activists who is pursuing this moral panic, whipping it up, gave the game away tweeting:
“The goal is to have the public read something crazy in newspaper and immediately think ‘critical race theory’.
We have decodified the term and will recodify it to annex the entire range of cultural constructions that are unpopular with Americans.”
Hayes: “If you don’t like it then it’s critical race theory. That’s what he’s saying.
If you don’t like it, if you don’t want your white children being taught that say, white terrorists murdered black people throughout the south in a successful campaign to end the experiment of multiracial democracy and replace it with authoritarian apartheid. Well then, that’s critical race theory.”
You see how that works? So now the Republicans are railing about free speech to basically make it impossible or even CRIMINAL to teach certain things in schools. But it’s all part of the same story, right?
They’re running back to the old tactics in the past while making it harder at the same time for people to learn the truth about that past. These are two fronts in the same war.
It’s the oldest battle in this country. Are we going to be a democracy for everyone or not?”
Mexico hails Harris after visit, flags more border talks <— Gonna put together a receipts thread/Medium post on the success of #MVPHarris' trip abroad since the MSM coverage is an extension of the right wing talking points machine. https://t.co/irFxAF26Vz
— BlackWomenViews Media (@blackwomenviews) June 10, 2021
Happy birthday to my darling Sasha! I am so grateful for every laugh we’ve shared — and everything you’ve taught me over the years. You’ll always be my little girl, but I couldn’t be prouder of the woman you are becoming. Love you so much! 🎉🥳💗 pic.twitter.com/akqfTBiWgV
Carol Anderson,
Chair of African American Studies at Emory University focusing on public policy issues of race, justice,
equality in the United States. Author, ’One Person, No Vote: How Voter Suppression is Destroying Our Democracy’. And ‘The Second: Race and Guns in a Fatally Unequal America.’
Chris Hayes: “What do you see as a scholar of this when you hear Mitch McConnell say that phrase, “Well it’s already illegal, against the law to discriminate voting on the basis of race?””
Carol Anderson:
“What I hear is the folks at the Mississippi convention of 1890, where they combined all of the different disenfranchising mechanisms into one. And did so knowing that it was designed to remove Black people from the rolls. But in a race neutral way, so that they could stay under the radar of the 15th amendment, and get judicial approval for disenfranchising large swaths of Black people. But do so legally.”
Hayes:
“…this excuse to me, is one of the most toxic legacies we have in that period, and also something that it’s very hard to not see in a lot of places you look these days.”
Anderson:
“Absolutely. Because to justify these new regulations, these new laws, these new constitutions, was to say,
‘we’re going after election integrity, we’re cleaning up corruption at the ballot box’. So it was to use the excuse of massive rampant voter fraud in order to remove Black people from the rolls. And to do so in a way that seemed legitimate: Who could be against anybody wanting election integrity! Who could be against anybody wanting to end corruption at the ballot box!
And so to swaddle the killing of American democracy in the flag of democracy,
is what they did in 1890. And it’s what we’re seeing.”
Hayes:
“That point, the killing of American democracy…as someone who spends a lot of time reading about Reconstruction…when you look at the South Carolina of Lower House, the legislature being majority Black, that hasn’t been achieved anywhere in this country since. And it was the target of white supremacy in its aftermath…that’s the history I feel like Americans don’t get taught.”
Anderson:
“Oh absolutely. Instead what they get taught is that horrible film ‘Birth of a Nation’ that defines the South as being absolutely wild and unruly during Reconstruction. And that it took the Klan to come in and bring order…(the big lie that) it took violent white supremacists, violent white domestic terrorists, in order to bring Black folks under control in order that the South should be a peaceful bucolic land! And that becomes the narrative of “negro domination, negro rule’. And it is insidious, and it is inaccurate.”
Hayes:
“It’s also everywhere…and when you see these fights happening in state after state, what goes through your mind is both an educator and a scholar this history?”
Anderson:
“Is that what we’re seeing is a battle to control the narrative in a way that allows bad policy to be based on bad history. So it is to ignore the role of slavery and Jim Crow in American history. It is to ignore what the removal, the genocidal removal, of indigenous people has meant to American history.
When you remove that history, and then you have these cardboard cutouts of the Founding Fathers
that don’t treat them like human beings who are making decisions. Good decisions and bad decisions. But instead are simply ‘heroic’. Then what you have is that you’re not able to explain how we got here, what we’re dealing with.
And it’s what allows a Mitch McConnell to say, ‘We don’t need a Voting Rights Act because we can’t discriminate on the basis of race’. That is to ignore that it is on the basis of race, that you get race neutral language targeted at African Americans using the vestiges of slavery. Using poverty, using wealthlessness. With the literacy test that was using the systematic denial of Education.
What we ended up with in 1940 as the U.S. is getting ready to start the second world war,
is that only 3% of African Americans, age-eligible African Americans, were registered to vote in the United States. Three per cent. Using these race-neutral laws.”
The jacket was seen by some as an effort to draw a contrast with former first lady Melania Trump, who on a trip to visit a migrant detention center in 2018 wore a jacket that said “I really don't care, do you?,” attracting massive attention.https://t.co/95DLiq5LJc
Rolling Stone: “Keystone Pipeline Is Finally Dead. Good Riddance”
“Never doubt that a [large] group of thoughtful, committed people can change the world. One of them just did”
“In a victory for Native American communities,
climate activists, environmentalists, farmers, ranchers, and all human beings who want a livable planet, the Keystone XL pipeline is officially dead. According to reporting from the Wall Street Journal, the Canadian firm TC Energy Corp and the provincial government of Alberta have officially abandoned the plan for the pipeline
that would have moved dirty crude
from Canada’s tar sands
across the Great Plains states
en route to refineries
and export terminals on the U.S. Gulf coast.” https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/keystonexl-pipeline-dead-biden-obama-trump-1181397/)
——————
Bravi, bravi, bravi to Pluto and back to all!!!
UnitedHealthcare faces intense backlash for new policy to not pay for non-emergency visits to the ER. What if someone doesn’t know if their condition is serious? https://t.co/nVFHD2MQB8
Big Oil ‘Never Lost A Fight Like This’:
McKibben On Death Of Keystone XL Pipeline
“Bill McKibben, climate activist and founder of 350.org, talks with Rachel Maddow
about the diverse coalition of activists who protested against the Keystone XL pipeline for years leading up to the developer, TC Energy, cancelling the project, and the ongoing resistance to other pipeline projects like
the Line 3 pipeline.”
“Farmers and ranchers, but also climate scientists, Jimmy Hansen very early on, our greatest climate scientist, said “If we pump the tar sands dry, then it’s game over for climate.”
And the Keep It In The Ground message emerged.
This fight for environmental justice took a huge diverse coalition persisting 10+ years including indigenous groups, farmers, ranchers, climate activists…who understood that we have to leave fossil fuels in the ground. Knowing that Big Oil had never lost they fearlessly took them on.
In 2013 “Exxon was still the biggest company on Planet Earth.”
Bill McKibben:
“And what it really does is show that now there is possibility of beating these other things – just like
that Line 3 fight that you were describing a minute ago.”
McKibben:
“If Obama`s climate test was Keystone, Biden`s is probably going to be Line 3.
And here’s the thing, Obama said that we wouldn’t have the Keystone pipeline because
it couldn’t pass the Climate Test. Line 3 is exactly the same size, about 800,000 barrels a day. And it carries exactly the same stuff, tar sands crude. So if Keystone couldn’t pass the climate test, there is no way six years late. After we’ve had the hottest temperature ever recorded, the biggest forest fires ever recorded, the biggest hurricanes ever reported. After we’ve had the Paris Climate Accords.
There is no way that anybody with a straight face can say Line Three is somehow passes a climate test that Keystone couldn’t”
The Senate votes to confirm Biden judicial nominee Zahid Quraishi, making him the first Muslim American federal judge in US history https://t.co/mjRagHk2jT
The United States is back. Democracies of the world are standing together to tackle the toughest challenges — and the issues that matter most to our future. pic.twitter.com/JCzsPoBKoM
The World Loves America Again As US Favorability Soars Under Biden
“A new survey of a dozen economically advanced countries found that trust in the US has grown by 57% and favorability by nearly 30% under Biden.”
(Easley: https://www.politicususa.com/2021/06/10/biden-us-favorability-poll.html)
The Obama Diary 
Good morning everyone. Happy Wednesday. Thank you, Nerdy!
{{{💞DF💞}}} Bravo!
Morning everyone.. Total Solar Eclipse tomorrow, visible from way north, Greenland, Russia.. hope someone gets some photos above the volcano, that might be really cool!!
Big hugs all around, and hoping some seriously massive indictments fall on The DumbArse for his birthday next week…seems fitting to me!
🕊🕯💙🕯🕊
Happy Thursday! Good to see you!
Wait up. Wait on CDC.
How the he’ll do they know people HAD Covid-19 when many people “suspected” they had Covid-19 but were told to stay home and only go to emergency if it gets worst. My friend this she had it with no proof other than their whole family was sick for weeks in January.
“The Secret IRS Files:
Trove of Never-Before-Seen Records Reveal How the Wealthiest Avoid Income Tax”
by Jesse Eisenger, Jeff Ernsthausen, Paul Kiel
“Many Americans live paycheck to paycheck, amassing little wealth and paying the federal government a percentage of their income that rises if they earn more. In recent years, the median American household earned about $70,000 annually and paid 14% in federal taxes. The highest income tax rate, 37%, kicked in this year, for couples, on earnings above $628,300.”
No one among the 25 wealthiest avoided as much tax as Buffett, the grandfatherly centibillionaire. That’s perhaps surprising, given his public stance as an advocate of higher taxes for the rich. According to Forbes, his riches rose $24.3 billion between 2014 and 2018. Over those years, the data shows, Buffett reported paying $23.7 million in taxes.
Warren Buffett
Berkshire Hathaway Inc.
2014-2018 Wealth Growth:
$24.3B
Total Income Reported:
$125M (0.51% of wealth)
Total Taxes Paid:
$23.7M (0.10% of wealth)
Note: Values in the graphic are rounded.
That works out to a true tax rate of 0.1%, or less than 10 cents for every $100 he added to his wealth.
In the coming months, ProPublica will use the IRS data we have obtained to explore in detail how the ultrawealthy avoid taxes, exploit loopholes and escape scrutiny from federal auditors.”
(https://www.propublica.org/article/the-secret-irs-files-trove-of-never-before-seen-records-reveal-how-the-wealthiest-avoid-income-tax)
Wealth, income and taxes for four of the richest people in the country from 2014 to 2018 (see chart):
Warren Buffet, true tax rate: 0.10%
Jeff Bezos, true tax rate: 0.98%
Michael Bloomberg, true tax rate: 1.30%
Elon Musk, true tax rate: 3.27%
Per Chris Hayes interview with Jesse Eisenger.
Outstanding…from Our Forever First Lady….Always..always trying engage citizens to benefit other…Love Her
Reminding us of the lengths our people have gone through to VOTE
AOC on Manchin’s Voting Rights Excuse: “I don’t buy it”.
—A ten minute interview and imo what AOC says is insightful and important.
What are the DEMS Plan B..
Wish I knew. Wish we knew.
“GOP succeeds in wasting Democrats’ time in power with fruitless infrastructure negotiation”
“Maddow shares the unsurprising news that White House negotiations with Republicans on an infrastructure bill have ended with no deal but with Republicans having successfully wasted almost two weeks of time that Democrats could have been putting to more productive use.”
(https://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow/watch/gop-succeeds-in-wasting-democrats-time-in-power-with-fruitless-infrastructure-negotiation-114518085682)
—Increase the number, do not dilute!
“Waiting for Godot” (Rep. Jayapal)
(After McConnell said 100% he would block everything…Dems keep on ‘negotiating’.)
Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal, chair of the Progressive Caucus
to Rachel Maddow:
“These jobs and families proposals from the President are WIDELY popular across Democrats, Independents and Republicans, just like the American Rescue Plan was. And if we want to use history as an example, there was not a single Republican vote for the American Rescue Plan.
There weren’t enough Republican votes for the January 6th commission.
This is a party that is not interested in delivering for the people.
So we should just move ahead right now, get the budget resolutions going. And do a Budget Reconciliation Bill, big, bold and fast.”
Maddow:
“What do you say to Americans watching who may have supported President Biden, may have supported Democrats in down-ticket races. Who feel like they got Democrats elected to the White House to control the House, to control the Senate. And it does feel like treading water right now. It does feel like stuff just stopped after the COVID relief bill. Nothing else feels like it’s going to happen. What do you say to people who feel frustrated or a little hopeless given that outlook?”
Congresswoman Japayal:
“Our caucus just did a focus group in swing districts, both ones that we lost and ones that we won
with surge voters, right? These are Democratic voters who are young folks, people of color, but also with swing voters.
And all of them are saying “Deliver for us. Don’t just talk about it – deliver for us.”
So I understand the frustration and that is why we have been saying at the progressive caucus, we have to get this done. No more negotiating with the party that’s not interested in negotiating. You said it the last time I was on your show. You know this made it very clear that Republicans do NOT want to come along.”
We are on our own folks. We worked hard to get Democrats elected, risking our lives and fighting voter suppression with each step and the people we worked so hard for have learned nothing about the urgency of NOW or how to fight. “To get what you have never had one must do things one has not done before” is the mantra that brings about change. Democrats are still falling for the same bullshit and we are left to struggle on our own with many of us falling farther and farther behind. I am A-A, so I am used to broken dreams and promises, but it is still disappointing. The little faith that i did have in real change has mostly dissipated.
Our voices are important. We have good strong people working on it, am optimistic.
-thx Imcae 72.
“And all of them are saying “Deliver for us. Don’t just talk about it – deliver for us.” (Rep. Jayapal)
—Dems while you are at it pls deliver us from evil.
Joy Reid:
“It’s not that shocking that the senator from Kentucky (McConnell),
who once proudly posed before a confederate flag, opposes the John Lewis Act. What is surprising is that a number of moderate Democrats including Senator Manchin, are willing to help Republicans do this.
It was Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., who in his letter from a Birmingham jail in 1963,
pointed out that the Negroes’ great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen`s
Council-er or the Ku Klux Klan-er, but the white moderate who is more devoted to order than to justice.
Flash forward to 2021: When Manchin says he had a ‘very respectful and informative’ meeting with civil rights leaders. He told reporters “I don’t think anyone changed their positions however”. I guess he didn’t read that letter from Birmingham. Because order is clearly still far more important to Senator Manchin than justice.”
Joy Reid:
“It felt to me like Manchin walked out of that meeting, said ‘Thank you all very much but I’m not doing anything to save democracy’. Your thoughts?”
Reverend Al Sharpton, National Action Network President:
“He clearly walked out of the meeting holding his position. And we clearly walked out of the meeting holding ours. This is about saving the democracy. And the right to vote that people died for to get in the first place. Let us not in any way pretend. We and the Black community and in other communities suffered.
Blacks and whites DIED in the South to get the right to vote for Medgar Evers to Goodman, Chaney, and Schwerner. And what we’re talking about here is the fundamental right of having OUR vote not diluted
and not in any way impeded by what we’re seeing going on in 47 states. And that’s what we said to Senator Manchin today.”
“Barack Obama sounds the alarm about America’s democratic erosion”
“Vladimir Putin gets elected with a majority of Russian voters, but none of us would claim that that’s the kind of democracy that we want.”
by Aaron Rupar
(https://www.vox.com/2021/6/9/22524580/barack-obama-democratic-erosion-cnn-anderson-cooper)
“In short, Obama is concerned that state-level Republicans are viewing election results as recommendations to be considered, not mandates from the people. And they’re using spurious claims of fraud and new laws to give themselves the ability to reject the will of the people next time it doesn’t suit them.”
(https://www.vox.com/2021/6/9/22524580/barack-obama-democratic-erosion-cnn-anderson-cooper)
40 minutes of Anderson Cooper’s interview with President Obama.
Here:
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6y877A9IA4U)
Pres. Biden delivers remarks to troops at RAF Mildenhall after arriving in the UK
President Biden:
“Please. At ease!…(I keep forgetting I’m president!)”
(laughter)
–Delivered a powerful message while having fun with everyone. Very important speech…and how we must work hard to deliver democracy for the people. What a reception, wow, so proud of the Bidens!!
President Biden:
“And at every point along the way, we’re going to make it clear that the United States is back and democracies of the world are standing together to tackle the toughest challenges and the issues that matter most to our future; that we’re committed to leading with strength, defending our values,
and delivering for our people.”
https://twitter.com/UKinChicago/status/1402698531220115456 https://twitter.com/WildLif78622378/status/1402701136633622530
Live from the UK – POTUS and FLOTUS
Good afternoon, TODville! Hope everyone is having a Blessed and beautiful day!
BILLINGS, Mont. (AP) — Sponsor of Keystone XL crude oil pipeline says it’s pulling the plug on the contentious project.
Hey, sponsor, don’t let the door hit you in the …
Oops!
Good.
The entire rehug congress did.
The entire rehug congress did.
So sweet!
Such a little boodles dancing traditional steps with everyone!
Oops sorry wrong on what as well as who with that stepping…
–lovely sweet little person.
Principal got pipes! Wow! 😃
👍🏿 Thank you President Biden!
✨✨✨
Morning! ☀️
👏🏾👏🏾👏🏾
good riddance of hateful racists.
the dumbfucks don’t even know that the traitorous thug and his fugly klan is fully vaccinated.
Found this, between bouts of hopelessness, there are also shafts of Hope..
Good morning all, stay strong
https://mobile.twitter.com/TimInHonolulu/status/1402860981974224898
*Glenn Kirschner rt’d the above, I remembered Bobfr used to bring this guy Tim over to share…
🕊🕯🙏🏼🕯🕊
Thanks for sharing that!
You’re most welcome 💞
https://mobile.twitter.com/MuellerSheWrote/status/1402782574603161601
and yet many women vote for these thugs.
Remarks by President Biden
to U.S. Air Force Personnel and Families Stationed at Royal Air Force Mildenhall
(U.K.)
(excerpt)
“In Brussels, I will make it clear that the United States’ commitment to our NATO Alliance and Article 5 is rock solid. It’s a sacred obligation that we have under Article 5.”
“Here’s why this all matters so much right now:
I believe we’re at an inflection point in world history — the moment where it falls to us to prove that democracies will not just endure, but they will excel as we rise to seize the enormous opportunities of a new age.
We have to discredit those who believe that the age of democracy is over, as some of our fellow nations believe. We have to expose as false the narrative that decrees of dictators can match the speed and scale of the 21st [century] challenges.
You know and I know they’re wrong. But it doesn’t mean we don’t have to work harder than ever to prove that democracy can still deliver for our people.
For the many who think things are changing so rapidly, democracies cannot get together and form a consensus to respond like autocrats can, but you know better than anyone that democracy doesn’t happen by accident. We have to defend it. We have to strengthen it, renew it. ”
Full: (https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/speeches-remarks/2021/06/09/remarks-by-president-biden-to-u-s-air-force-personnel-and-families-stationed-at-royal-air-force-mildenhall/)
https://mobile.twitter.com/RepSwalwell/status/1402633675330801668
The left wasn’t happy when Obama put up garland. I can see why now.
Rethugs put all kinds of radicals while they are in power, dem put middling centrists when they are in power. Guess who wins?
https://mobile.twitter.com/RepSwalwell/status/1402633675330801668
Yes, Garland has been a huge disappointment so far.
Yup. Amazing how thugs like barr were strutting around doing and covering up all kinds of illegalities while garland is hiding under a bush while there is a full blown crisis. He definitely is not the man for the moment.
FACT SHEET:
President Biden Announces Historic Vaccine Donation:
Half a Billion Pfizer Vaccines to the World’s Lowest-Income Nations
500 million life-saving vaccines to be delivered by June of next year, including 200 million to be delivered by the end of 2021
Donation will serve as the foundation for a coordinated effort by the world’s democracies to vaccinate people around the world
(https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2021/06/10/fact-sheet-president-biden-announces-historic-vaccine-donation-half-a-billion-pfizer-vaccines-to-the-worlds-lowest-income-nations/0
Sally Yates. Doug Jones. These are all people who stuck their necks out for the dems cause. And Biden went with the crappy candie.
So good.
“Pfizer plans to produce these half a billion doses in the U.S. at their facilities in Kalamazoo, Michigan, which employs more than 3,000 American workers; McPherson, Kansas, which employs almost 2,000 workers; Chesterfield, Missouri, and Andover, Massachusetts, which employ 700 and 1,800 workers. The American workers who produced vaccines to save American lives will now produce those same vaccines to save the lives of hundreds of millions of people around the world.”
(whitehouse.gov)
Manchin co-sponsored S-1, For The People Act 2021…
Joy Reid to Senator Warren:
“People don`t realize he was a co-sponsor of this bill. Now suddenly he`s on record against it.
It makes people wonder whether money is starting to play a part.”
Are we going to ask Senator Manchin
what happened between when he co-sponsored S-1 and when he turned against it?
We need to know who he serves, because it his not his Constituents who are FOR voting rights.
Senator Warren to Joy Reid:
“I see it this way. I think that the President did the right thing.
He said, ‘I`m willing to be bipartisan, come in, let’s talk. But not to hold things up.’
What we’re doing now as Democrats is we’re negotiating out an infrastructure package and we need to make sure that we’re going full speed ahead. Republicans want to join us? Fine. But if they don’t, we don’t slow down for them. We need to move forward. We need to deliver on our promises. And that means now.”
GOP repeats voter suppression history while attacking instruction of that history
“They are digging in the archives for methods of voter suppression and targeted attacks on enfranchisement of Black and brown folks—while also attacking the teaching of the history that would illuminate to people why that effort is so dangerous.”
McConnell: “There’s no threat to the Voting Rights Law. It’s against the law to discriminate in voting on the basis of race already. And so I think it’s unnecessary.”
Hayes:
“First back in 2006, Mitch McConnell not only voted for reauthorizing the Voting Rights Act. But as Majority Whip he was responsible for getting his Republican colleagues to vote for it too. He even took to the Senate floor to give a speech about it.”
McConnell: “This landmark piece of legislation will continue to make a difference, not only in the south, but for all of America. And for all of us whether we’re African Americans or not.”
Chris Hayes:
“Fifteen years ago, “If it isn’t broke, don’t fix it”.
So you got to wonder when Mitch McConnell thinks it’s broke. For Mitch McConnell to come out yesterday and say ‘well you see, it’s already illegal to discriminate on the basis of race for voting’ and not be the source of just universal ridicule and condemnation, speaks to just how absent the historical context of race and democracy is in all of our discussions today.
McConnell says ‘It’s already against the law to discriminate from voting on the basis of race’.
And so he thinks a law policing that right is unnecessary. Now there is a very obvious problem. Those who have studied the history of voting rights in America, and the thwarted efforts to achieve a multiracial democracy in this country.
No it has been against the law to discriminate on the basis of race in voting since 1870 when the 15th Amendment was ratified. Saying, “The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States, or by any state, on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude.” It says it right there in black and white in the U.S. Constitution! It says that you cannot racially discriminate in voting.
And so you can imagine a version of Mitch McConnell and 1920 Kentucky, saying literally the exact same statement. ‘Oh why would we need a law to enforced voting rights? It’s already illegal.’
Or say, avowed segregationist Senator Strom Thurmond in the middle of filibustering the 1957 Civil Rights Act saying, “There are mainly three reasons why I feel the bill should not be passed. The first is that it is unnecessary. Every state has enacted some legislation making it unlawful to intimidate a voter or to hinder him in the exercise of his voting rights. Penalties have been provided for such violation. We don’t need new laws protect the right to vote, certainly not to protect against discrimination or race. Those already exists. It’s in the Constitution.”
Those were the type of arguments segregationists made. Jim Crow authoritarians.
Decade after decade after decade after decade in this country. As they flogged multiracial democracy to death underneath the table, as they gave those speeches.
‘We’re not discriminating. The law says we can’t. Anyone can vote’.
On “Critical Race Theory”:
Chris Hayes:
“A few months ago Chris Rufo,
one of the conservative activists who is pursuing this moral panic, whipping it up, gave the game away tweeting:
“The goal is to have the public read something crazy in newspaper and immediately think ‘critical race theory’.
We have decodified the term and will recodify it to annex the entire range of cultural constructions that are unpopular with Americans.”
Hayes: “If you don’t like it then it’s critical race theory. That’s what he’s saying.
If you don’t like it, if you don’t want your white children being taught that say, white terrorists murdered black people throughout the south in a successful campaign to end the experiment of multiracial democracy and replace it with authoritarian apartheid. Well then, that’s critical race theory.”
You see how that works? So now the Republicans are railing about free speech to basically make it impossible or even CRIMINAL to teach certain things in schools. But it’s all part of the same story, right?
They’re running back to the old tactics in the past while making it harder at the same time for people to learn the truth about that past. These are two fronts in the same war.
It’s the oldest battle in this country. Are we going to be a democracy for everyone or not?”
LIVE NOW:
MVP making an impact!
Happy Birthday Sasha!
Happy birthday Sasha!! Happy birthday!!
love.
Carol Anderson,
Chair of African American Studies at Emory University focusing on public policy issues of race, justice,
equality in the United States. Author, ’One Person, No Vote: How Voter Suppression is Destroying Our Democracy’. And ‘The Second: Race and Guns in a Fatally Unequal America.’
Chris Hayes: “What do you see as a scholar of this when you hear Mitch McConnell say that phrase, “Well it’s already illegal, against the law to discriminate voting on the basis of race?””
Carol Anderson:
“What I hear is the folks at the Mississippi convention of 1890, where they combined all of the different disenfranchising mechanisms into one. And did so knowing that it was designed to remove Black people from the rolls. But in a race neutral way, so that they could stay under the radar of the 15th amendment, and get judicial approval for disenfranchising large swaths of Black people. But do so legally.”
Hayes:
“…this excuse to me, is one of the most toxic legacies we have in that period, and also something that it’s very hard to not see in a lot of places you look these days.”
Anderson:
“Absolutely. Because to justify these new regulations, these new laws, these new constitutions, was to say,
‘we’re going after election integrity, we’re cleaning up corruption at the ballot box’. So it was to use the excuse of massive rampant voter fraud in order to remove Black people from the rolls. And to do so in a way that seemed legitimate: Who could be against anybody wanting election integrity! Who could be against anybody wanting to end corruption at the ballot box!
And so to swaddle the killing of American democracy in the flag of democracy,
is what they did in 1890. And it’s what we’re seeing.”
Hayes:
“That point, the killing of American democracy…as someone who spends a lot of time reading about Reconstruction…when you look at the South Carolina of Lower House, the legislature being majority Black, that hasn’t been achieved anywhere in this country since. And it was the target of white supremacy in its aftermath…that’s the history I feel like Americans don’t get taught.”
Anderson:
“Oh absolutely. Instead what they get taught is that horrible film ‘Birth of a Nation’ that defines the South as being absolutely wild and unruly during Reconstruction. And that it took the Klan to come in and bring order…(the big lie that) it took violent white supremacists, violent white domestic terrorists, in order to bring Black folks under control in order that the South should be a peaceful bucolic land! And that becomes the narrative of “negro domination, negro rule’. And it is insidious, and it is inaccurate.”
Hayes:
“It’s also everywhere…and when you see these fights happening in state after state, what goes through your mind is both an educator and a scholar this history?”
Anderson:
“Is that what we’re seeing is a battle to control the narrative in a way that allows bad policy to be based on bad history. So it is to ignore the role of slavery and Jim Crow in American history. It is to ignore what the removal, the genocidal removal, of indigenous people has meant to American history.
When you remove that history, and then you have these cardboard cutouts of the Founding Fathers
that don’t treat them like human beings who are making decisions. Good decisions and bad decisions. But instead are simply ‘heroic’. Then what you have is that you’re not able to explain how we got here, what we’re dealing with.
And it’s what allows a Mitch McConnell to say, ‘We don’t need a Voting Rights Act because we can’t discriminate on the basis of race’. That is to ignore that it is on the basis of race, that you get race neutral language targeted at African Americans using the vestiges of slavery. Using poverty, using wealthlessness. With the literacy test that was using the systematic denial of Education.
What we ended up with in 1940 as the U.S. is getting ready to start the second world war,
is that only 3% of African Americans, age-eligible African Americans, were registered to vote in the United States. Three per cent. Using these race-neutral laws.”
Rolling Stone: “Keystone Pipeline Is Finally Dead. Good Riddance”
“Never doubt that a [large] group of thoughtful, committed people can change the world. One of them just did”
“In a victory for Native American communities,
climate activists, environmentalists, farmers, ranchers, and all human beings who want a livable planet, the Keystone XL pipeline is officially dead. According to reporting from the Wall Street Journal, the Canadian firm TC Energy Corp and the provincial government of Alberta have officially abandoned the plan for the pipeline
that would have moved dirty crude
from Canada’s tar sands
across the Great Plains states
en route to refineries
and export terminals on the U.S. Gulf coast.”
https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/keystonexl-pipeline-dead-biden-obama-trump-1181397/)
——————
Bravi, bravi, bravi to Pluto and back to all!!!
Evil. Just straight up evil.
Big Oil ‘Never Lost A Fight Like This’:
McKibben On Death Of Keystone XL Pipeline
“Bill McKibben, climate activist and founder of 350.org, talks with Rachel Maddow
about the diverse coalition of activists who protested against the Keystone XL pipeline for years leading up to the developer, TC Energy, cancelling the project, and the ongoing resistance to other pipeline projects like
the Line 3 pipeline.”
“Farmers and ranchers, but also climate scientists, Jimmy Hansen very early on, our greatest climate scientist, said “If we pump the tar sands dry, then it’s game over for climate.”
And the Keep It In The Ground message emerged.
This fight for environmental justice took a huge diverse coalition persisting 10+ years including indigenous groups, farmers, ranchers, climate activists…who understood that we have to leave fossil fuels in the ground. Knowing that Big Oil had never lost they fearlessly took them on.
In 2013 “Exxon was still the biggest company on Planet Earth.”
Bill McKibben:
“And what it really does is show that now there is possibility of beating these other things – just like
that Line 3 fight that you were describing a minute ago.”
McKibben:
“If Obama`s climate test was Keystone, Biden`s is probably going to be Line 3.
And here’s the thing, Obama said that we wouldn’t have the Keystone pipeline because
it couldn’t pass the Climate Test. Line 3 is exactly the same size, about 800,000 barrels a day. And it carries exactly the same stuff, tar sands crude. So if Keystone couldn’t pass the climate test, there is no way six years late. After we’ve had the hottest temperature ever recorded, the biggest forest fires ever recorded, the biggest hurricanes ever reported. After we’ve had the Paris Climate Accords.
There is no way that anybody with a straight face can say Line Three is somehow passes a climate test that Keystone couldn’t”
Yay America!
Let’s keep these judges coming!!!!!!
Just dropping this, back soon. Love y’all & special love to NW:
thought of putting Hendrix’ version up…this honors him even more….thx Gazelle!
Exquisite this, thank you, and agree that music is a big key.
Happy Birthday Sasha Obama.
The World Loves America Again As US Favorability Soars Under Biden
“A new survey of a dozen economically advanced countries found that trust in the US has grown by 57% and favorability by nearly 30% under Biden.”
(Easley: https://www.politicususa.com/2021/06/10/biden-us-favorability-poll.html)
Raining, rainin’.
Dancin’…
New post.