The best take I've seen on Trump's taxes

Getting into the psychology.

If Trump loses this election, he loses his access to the spigot of federal money he’s using to hose down his inferno of debt, and his personal financial Armageddon is only a few scant years away.

If that happens, Trump would have no money to pay the kind of lawyers he will need to keep a roof over his head. His humiliation before the world would be complete and absolute, and that, right there, is the fate he has manifestly dreaded for the term of his life.

That is what Trump is fighting to avoid on November 3. Not so much for the money or the freedom, but to avoid the disgrace. A man with such a towering yet fragile ego, in possession of awesome political powers, now faces a final confrontation with what appears to be his greatest fear: shame. - Truthout

The activists where George Floyd was murdered

This is about people who have been gathering there, and what they want. I think it may have been Howard Zinn who said something to the effect that whenever you get really down in the dumps, that nothing good seems to be happening, remember all the activists who are still out there every day, working for a better world.

At 8:15 a.m. at George Floyd Square, 16 people — mostly women — are perched on chairs, benches and couches in between the idled pumps at the Speedway, which is covered in graffiti and serves as a gathering space now.

They have met twice a day, every day, since Floyd died on the street under a cop’s knee just steps away.

Meet on the Street, they call it...

After Floyd died and protests erupted in Minneapolis, and then spread across the globe, the city put up cement barricades about a block from the scene in every direction to keep mourners safe. It’s proving much more difficult to remove those barricades, however. These community activists are demanding something new after decades of mass incarceration, which followed a century of Jim Crow, which followed centuries more of slavery. - Minnesota Reformer

10 Days Free From Violence 2020

The virtual event starts tomorrow. You can check things out at twincitiesnonviolent.org. (Sorry, hyperlinks don't appear to be working yet, in the "New Blogger" platform.)

You might be a democrat or a republican. We won’t be distracted by that.

You might be for guns or against guns. We won’t be distracted by that.

We also won’t be distracted by your race, your religion, your sexual orientation, who you voted for, your views on healthcare and taxes, whether you own a home or how much money you have in your bank account.

The one thing we’re committed to is stopping violence. Violence in all forms, structures and systems.

Trump has also expressed scorn and contempt for evangelicals, plenty of times

I personally know at least three die-hard Trumpers who respond to everything like this with "But he's just joking!" That's how motivated reasoning works.

Trump loathes Christians and mocks their faith, but pretends to believe if it suits his purposes.

In Disloyal, published (September 8, Michael) Cohen shows how Trump is a master deceiver. He quotes Trump calling Christianity and its religious practices “bullshit,” then soon after masterfully posing as a fervent believer. In truth, Cohen writes, Trump’s religion is unbridled lust for money and power at any cost to others.

Cohen’s insider stories add significant depth to my own documentation of Trump’s repeated and public denouncements of Christians as “fools,” “idiots” and “schmucks.” - DC Report

The Trump tax giveaway is exactly what many of us thought

The numbers have been crunched.

The first data showing how all Americans are faring under Donald Trump reveal the poor and working classes sinking slightly, the middle class treading water, the upper-middle class growing and the richest, well, luxuriating in rising rivers of greenbacks.

More than half of Americans had to make ends meet in 2018 on less money than in 2016, my analysis of new income and tax data shows.

The nearly 87 million taxpayers making less than $50,000 had to get by in 2018 on $307 less per household than in 2016, the year before Trump took office, I find.

That 57% of American households were better off under Obama contradicts Trump’s often-repeated claim he created the best economy ever until the pandemic. - DC Report

Charters find yet another way to screw Black communities

Distressing, if unsurprising.

The charter school industry has done much during the COVID-19 pandemic to add to systemic inequities that afflict Black communities by hijacking small business relief aid originally intended for minority-owned businesses and redirecting these funds to schools that further isolate Black families...

It’s far from clear whether charter schools actually needed the funding...

The harm charter schools may have inflicted by sopping up relief funds that could have gone to Black-owned small businesses is in addition to the industry’s already troubling track record of isolating Black communities. - Jeff Bryant/Pressenza

Trump Farmers to Families program is delivering mixed results at best

To be clear, plenty of food is getting to where it needs to be, somehow. But things would be so much better without such incompetence and corruption, starting at the top.

In reality, though, some of the program’s core promises have gone unmet. That’s due at least in part to the fact that many of the companies awarded the lucrative contracts are ill-equipped to handle food in any real quantity. Food bank operators report having to pay the bill for delivery from their own budgets, receiving boxes that are leaking or falling apart, and that arrive full of commercial-grade bags of meat with no instructions for how to prepare it.

Despite these failures, new public records reviewed by The Counter indicate that the boxes have cost well above what USDA typically pays farmers and manufacturers for food it buys for food banks and schools—and, in some cases, well above what they’re actually worth. Multiple food-aid professionals we interviewed for this story said they could provide the same service for a fraction of the price by purchasing food through their existing networks, even after accounting for the costs of cardboard, transportation, and labor. Even so, the Trump administration has doubled down on support for the program. Just last week, it announced an additional $1 billion in funding. - The Counter

The plutocrats are screwing us maybe worse than ever

Great current summary, well worth saving for reference.

When Dr. Jonas Salk was asked about a patent on his polio vaccine in 1955, he said, “There is no patent. Could you patent the sun?” When Gilead Sciences recently developed an anti-Covid drug for about $12 per treatment, they set the price at $3,200.

As Republicans and business leaders decry the word ‘social’ as anti-American, they continue to promote the free-market “winner take all” philosophy that has caused over half of our nation to try to survive without adequate health care and life savings and job opportunities. Our richest corporations are much to blame. A review of the facts should make this clear. - Nation of Change