Tag: democrats

Democrats Say They’re Fighting Inequality. But Many of Their Policies Favor the Rich.

In the grand ballroom of American politics, Democrats have long waltzed to the melody of progressivism while ridiculing Republicans’ preference for outdated tax cut tunes. Ironically, they don’t want to pay for their style of big government with higher taxes on ordinary Americans, which their expansionary ambitions would require. Instead, they loudly proclaim that they want to tax the rich. It remains to be seen how true this is.

Indeed, while Democrats profess their devotion to social justice and fight against income inequality, they often push for policies that favor the rich. Take their nonstop battle over the last five years to ease the tax burden of their high-income constituents.

The State and Local Tax (SALT) deduction cap, part of the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA), placed a $10,000 limit on the amount of state and local taxes that can be deducted from federal taxable income. This move predominantly affected high earners in high-tax states like New York, California, and many others that are Democratic strongholds.

That’s a tax hike on the rich. This shouldn’t bother Democrats, who are usually happy to demonstrate their egalitarian chops by clamoring for that very thing. Yet this time, by demanding repeal of the SALT cap, they are on the front lines of a battle to restore tax breaks for the rich. As it turns out, when affluent Californians and Northeasterners felt the pinch, Democrats were ready to cha-cha for tax relief.

Contrast this with the refusal by moderate New York Republicans to vote for Jim Jordan (R–Ohio) for House speaker in exchange for doubling the deduction cap to $20,000 for individuals and $40,000 for married couples. Now, this might mean these guys really didn’t want Jordan as speaker, but they wouldn’t roll over even in exchange for tax cuts for their own constituencies.

Would New York Democrats be so principled? Back in 2021, 17 of 19 members of this delegation threatened to block a Democrat-sponsored infrastructure bill if the SALT deduction cap wasn’t entirely repealed. I would have been OK with that crony bill failing; I highlight this incident only to reveal some Democrats’ commitment to tax breaks for rich blue-state voters.

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NJ Gov. Murphy used thousands in taxpayer funds to party at Taylor Swift concert, stadium events: report

Democratic New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy is asking the state Democratic Party to reimburse taxpayers after he used $12,000 in state funds at a Taylor Swift concert and other stadium events.

Murphy’s expenditures, first reported by Politico, were all for food and drinks at MetLife Stadium. When confronted with the spending, Murphy’s office reportedly said it was asking the state Democratic Party to pay back the state.

Murphy’s office says it had always expected the state party to cover the costs, but noticed it had failed to do so. The governor’s office then dipped into a $95,000 personal expense account set up for the office. That account is set up to pay for “Official Receptions, Official Residence, and Other Official Expenses,” and cannot be used for “personal purposes,” according to Politico.

“Once it was clear that there were outstanding bills that had not been paid, the state stepped up to meet this responsibility,” Murphy spokeswoman Jennifer Sciortino told the outlet in a statement. “We are pursuing reimbursement from the state party for costs incurred at MetLife Stadium.”

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House Committee Will Consider Protecting State Medical Psilocybin Laws From Federal Interference Under New Amendment

A pair of Democratic congressmen have filed an amendment to a large-scale spending bill that would prohibit the use of federal funds to interfere with state and local laws allowing the use and sale of psilocybin for medical purposes.

Reps. Robert Garcia (D-CA) and Earl Blumenauer (D-OR) are seeking to attach the psychedelics measure to appropriations legislation covering Commerce, Justice, Science, and Related Agencies (CJS). It will be up to the House Rules Committee to determine whether the amendment will be made in order for a floor vote.

The members separately introduced standalone legislation in September to prevent federal interference in any jurisdiction that legalizes the psychedelic.

The new CJS amendment, meanwhile, states that no appropriated funds under the spending bill “may be used to prevent any State, the District of Columbia, any territory, commonwealth or possession of the United States, or any unit of local government from implementing its own laws authorizing the use, distribution, sale, possession, research, or cultivation of medical psilocybin.”

That language is similar to an existing CJS rider that has been annually renewed each year since 2014 prohibiting the use of federal funds to interfere in state medical marijuana programs. Efforts to expand that protection to cover adult-use cannabis laws have passed the House on several occasions but have never been enacted into law.

“I just think that there’s an opportunity to have a more progressive worldview on legalization and on [preventing] harm to people that are, in many ways, receiving huge medicinal benefits or recreational benefits” from cannabis and psychedelics, Garcia told Marijuana Moment in a phone interview on Tuesday before the psilocybin amendment was publicly posted.

If the psychedelics appropriations measure is cleared for the floor and ultimately enacted, it would specifically focus on medical psilocybin laws, so its practical impact may be limited in the short-term given that no states have explicitly authorized it as a therapeutic in the way they have for marijuana, with qualifying conditions and doctor recommendations, for example.

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Rep. Eric Swalwell Testifies in Case to Keep Trump Off the Ballot

Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-Calif.) testified on Oct. 30 in a trial in Colorado in a case that seeks to keep former President Donald Trump from appearing on the Colorado primary ballot.

Mr. Swalwell testified via video conference, describing the events of Jan. 6, 2021, from his perspective. He was in the Capitol when the Electoral College votes were being certified and had “gaveled” the Congress in that day, leading the pledge of allegiance.

“We connected the president’s tweets to our own safety in the chambers,” he said, “and the integrity of the proceedings taking place.”

Attorneys showed him a post on Twitter, now known as X, in which President Trump wrote that Vice President Mike Pence didn’t have the “courage” to give states “a chance to certify a corrected set of facts, not the fraudulent or inaccurate ones which they were asked to previously certify.”

“USA demands the truth!” the president wrote.

“We interpreted it as a target had been painted on the Capitol,” Mr. Swalwell said.

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Jamaal Bowman CHARGED for pulling fire alarm: New York Democrat facing prosecution for stunt during votes to avoid government shutdown

Rep. Jamaal Bowman has been criminally charged for pulling the fire alarm during a House vote that would have avoided a government shutdown.

The New York Democrat called allegations it was deliberate ‘complete BS’ and thought he was opening a door.

But now the Capitol Police have referred him to prosecutors, who have hit him with one misdemeanor count and ordered him to appear in court.

The September 30th incident took place in the Cannon House Office building and sparked calls from Republicans for him to be expelled from Congress.

The charge was for ‘willfully and knowingly [giving] a false alarm of fire, in violation of DC code’ and the New York Democrat was ordered to appear in court for arraignment on Thursday.

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The Bipartisan Urge To Control Online Speech

According to the Biden administration, federal officials who urged social media companies to suppress “misinformation” about COVID-19 and other subjects were merely asking platforms like Facebook and Twitter to enforce their own rules. But according to the social media users whose speech was stifled as a result of that campaign, it crossed the line between permissible government advocacy and censorship by proxy.

The U.S. Supreme Court has agreed to resolve that dispute by deciding whether a federal judge and an appeals court were right to conclude that the administration violated the First Amendment when it sought to limit the influence of content it viewed as dangerous. The case is one of several controversies that illustrate the bipartisan urge to control online speech.

Two other cases on the Court’s docket involve Florida and Texas laws that, like the Biden administration’s anti-misinformation crusade, aimed to shape private content moderation decisions. While Joe Biden demanded removal of posts he thought social media companies should not allow, Republicans who backed these state laws insisted that the platforms allow speech they otherwise might be inclined to remove.

A Democratic president was offended by conservative speech that contradicted his agenda. Republican legislators and governors, meanwhile, were angry at social media companies they perceived as biased against conservatives. Although those situations might look different, they raise the same basic issue.

Should social media companies be free to set and enforce their own content rules, or should politicians have the power to override those decisions? The answer seems clear if you think the First Amendment protects editorial discretion, as the Supreme Court has repeatedly held.

New York legislators rejected that proposition when they enacted a 2022 law that requires social media platforms to police “hateful” speech, which is indisputably protected by the First Amendment. A federal judge enjoined enforcement of that law in February, and New York is now asking the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit to intervene.

While attempts to censor “hate speech” are mainly a Democratic thing, members of both major parties agree that they should not have to put up with irksome criticism when they use their social media accounts for official purposes. Politicians ranging from Donald Trump to Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D–N.Y.) have asserted the prerogative to block users whose opinions annoyed them.

That practice, the banished critics argued, violated their First Amendment right to participate in public forums created by thin-skinned government officials. In a 2019 case involving then-President Trump’s personal Twitter account, the 2nd Circuit agreed.

“Once the President has chosen a platform and opened up its interactive space to millions of users and participants,” the appeals court said, “he may not selectively exclude those whose views he disagrees with.” Although that case became moot after Trump left office, the underlying issue persisted, as reflected in two cases that the Supreme Court will hear during its current term.

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Lone Democrat Who Opposed Marijuana Banking Bill In Senate Committee Explains His Vote

U.S. Sen. Raphael Warnock (D-GA) was the sole Democrat to vote against a marijuana banking reform bill during a committee markup last month. In a new interview, the senator described his vote as an effort at making important equity improvements while there’s still a chance to do so.

“I’m worried that if we pass a bill with all of the fees and the revenue that comes, and not begin to address the issue of restorative justice, we’re not going to go back and get those communities,” Warnock said during an appearance on Crooked Media’s Lovett or Leave It podcast that was posted on Sunday. Black and brown people especially, he said, have been “hollowed out by half a century of the so-called war on drugs for using marijuana.”

Warnock was discussing the Secure and Fair Enforcement Regulation (SAFER) Banking Act, which would protect banks that service state-legal marijuana markets from being punished by federal regulators.

“What it does is it allows businesses and banks to participate with cannabis businesses in states where it’s legal,” Warnock explained, “and so it creates a safe space for them. But the communities that have been most devastated by the so-called war on drugs, [it] doesn’t do a thing for them at all.”

“My question was, ‘Who are we really making safer?’”

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New Jersey cop rushed to help Bob Menendez’s wife after Mercedes crash despite being retired and convinced patrolman on duty to let her go without a sobriety test or having to hand over her phone

A top New Jersey cop rushed to be by Bob Menendez’s wife’s side after she killed a man with her Mercedes in a 2018 crash, and quizzed the patrolmen on scene until she was allowed to walk away without a sobriety test or having to hand over her phone. 

Menendez’s wife Nadine Arslanian fatally struck 49-year-old Richard Koop in Bogota, New Jersey, on December 12, 2018. She was dating the New Jersey Democratic Senator at the time but they were not yet married. They are now both charged with felony bribery and corruption crimes. 

After the 2018 crash, Bogota Police rushed to the scene of the crash to quiz Arslanian. 

She told them Hoop had been jaywalking and put himself in the path of her car. 

Also there was Michael Mordaga, the former director of Hackensack Police and an ex-chief of detectives in the Bergen County Prosecutor’s Office, according to The New York Post. 

Mordaga is the man who can be heard asking the patrolmen if they took a statement from Arslanian.

‘That’s my buddy’s wife who’s friends with her. 

He said could you do me a favor and take her up there because her friend just got in a car accident,’ he said, explaining why he’d shown up, before asking: ‘Are you guys getting a statement that you’re going to give to the prosecutor’s office?’ 

The cops let Arslanian walk away from the scene without a sobriety test or giving over her phone records. 

She was never charged, and was later gifted a new convertible Mercedes to replace the vehicle that was damaged in the crash. 

According to federal charging documents, about a month after the crash, Arslanian texted Wael Hana, an Egyptian American businessman also indicted in the bribery scheme, lamenting her lack of a car.

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