Democrats 2020 – Page 5 – The Wrongologist

Trump’s Subversive Ploy

The Daily Escape:

Sunrise, Mauna Kea, HI – 2020 photo by laramarie27

When the joint session of Congress begins on Wednesday at 1 pm, all eyes will be on VP Mike Pence. He has a ceremonial role with just three duties: Open the states’ envelopes, hand them to tellers to count, and announce the winners.

Article 2 of the Constitution dictates that the president of the Senate, (Mike Pence) shall open the envelopes that contain the electors’ votes and the certifications from every state. Then it says that the votes shall be counted, but it doesn’t specify how. So Congress remedied that with:
The Electoral Count Act of 1887 along with subsequent statutes are designed to minimize the role of Congress in election disputes, giving that responsibility clearly to the states. The Act specifies the procedures states should follow to resolve disputes, how they should certify the results, and the fact that each state’s governor should send those certified results to Congress.

If those procedures are followed, then those certified electoral votes will be counted. But in Trumpland, things are always different.

At the joint session, as Pence opens each state’s envelope (in alphabetical order), he hands it to four tellers— two chosen by the Senate, two by the House— who then count the electoral votes inside and keep a running tally. The objections in writing to a particular state’s electoral votes by a member of the House and a member of the Senate must happen prior to beginning the counting process for the next state.

Sen Ted Cruz (R-TX) announced that he’s going to object to Arizona’s votes. Arizona is third in alphabetical order, but no Republican will object to the votes from Alabama or Alaska since Trump won both states. Expect a few Republican House back-benchers to join Cruz.

There will likely be objections to the votes from Arizona, Georgia, and Pennsylvania, and maybe more. The Representatives and Senators will then retreat to their respective Houses, debate the objection for up to two hours, then vote on it. And this will happen for each state that Trump is trying to overturn the electoral vote results.

At the conclusion of this kabuki play, we will get a definitive count of Republicans who are happy to undermine democracy on the basis of lies, conspiracy theories, and grifting. This should be the easiest vote of their careers: simply doing their Constitutional duty. But, as Michael Gerson says:

“They not only help a liar; they become liars. They not only empower conspiracy theories; they join a conspiracy against American democracy. They not only excuse institutional arson; they set fire to the Constitution and dance around the flame…..they are no longer just allies of a subversive; they become instruments of subversion.”

Settle in for at least a day (possibly two) of tediousness.

If there were no objections, then after the tellers counted all the electoral votes, they would hand the results to Pence, who would then be required to announce the names of the winning president and vice president. In this case, Joe Biden and Kamala Harris.

But on Wednesday January 6, 2021, roughly half of all the elected Republicans in the federal government will vote to overthrow America’s democratic system. Republicans have not only decided Democratic victories are illegitimate, this is now their playbook for prosecuting their case.

They have been getting progressively and more conspiratorial and transparently undemocratic. Their behavior in these final days of the 2020 election cycle shows that there is no limit to how far they can go. So they will go farther. They always do.

They’ve decided it’s to their advantage to blow up our democratic system and assert that no election is valid unless they win it. That’s where we are today. Sadly, it’s also likely where we’ll be in Georgia Tuesday night after the polls close, and before the final tallies are in.

Objections have happened before. It’s not a big deal, but it becomes a big deal when one Party turns the vote certification process into enough of a circus that people believe the election was stolen.

Unfortunately, that ship has sailed.

Georgia and the $2,000 Stimulus Check

The Daily Escape:

Mt Hood with lavender, from upper Hood River Valley, OR – photo by Greg Boratyn

Readers of this blog are well aware of the importance of the US Senate run-off races in Georgia. Democrats Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff are facing off against GOP incumbents Kelly Loeffler and David Perdue.

Recent analysis by FiveThirtyEight places Warnock ahead of Loeffler by .1% and Perdue ahead of Ossoff by .8%, but who trusts polls anymore?

Early voting in Georgia has been heavy, with 2.3 million votes already cast. So far, the demographics show that these early voters are skewing younger and more diverse than in the November election. Possibly troubling for Republicans is that people aren’t voting early in traditionally Republican counties like they have in the past. And since the early voting period ends soon because of the New Year holiday, the pressure will be on to boost turnout on Election Day, January 5.

Also possibly helping Democrats is a ruling that two Georgia counties must reverse their decision to purge thousands from voter rolls in advance of the January 5 runoff election. Georgia federal judge Leslie Abrams Gardner said in an order filed late on Monday that these two counties appeared to have improperly relied on unverified change-of-address information to invalidate voter registrations:

“Defendants are enjoined from removing any challenged voters in Ben Hill and Muscogee Counties from the registration lists on the basis of National Change of Address data,”

The judge is the sister of Georgia Democrat Stacey Abrams. Before breaking into a happy dance, it’s good to remember that this order applies to only about 4,000 registrations, the vast majority of which are in Muscogee County. Biden won the county in November.

The runoff has seen record-breaking fundraising. Ossoff and Warnock each have raised more than $100 million in two months, more than their conservative opponents. The Democrats were powered by small donations collected from across the country, with nearly half of the funds coming from people who donated less than $200.

For Perdue and Loeffler, smaller donations accounted for less than 30% of what they raised. However, we need to remember the hard lessons of Jaime Harrison (NC), Sara Gideon (ME), and Amy McGrath (KY). These Democratic candidates out-raised their Republican incumbent opponents, and all lost by double digits in their races.

Ossoff and Warnock are still “sounding the alarm” about their ability to keep pace with GOP spending. They’re calling for a “significant increase” in grassroots donations to prevent them running out of money, as GOP outside groups are outspending Democratic groups.

Both Parties want to shift from TV to direct get-out-the-vote contact in the last days before the election.

But there’s an additional outside force that may play into the results in Georgia. Given the overwhelming popularity of increasing relief checks from $600 to $2,000, Trump has placed Senate Republicans in a brutal position. The House has passed a $2000 relief package, and now it is up to the Senate whether to take it up, or not.

Bernie Sanders (I-VT), is playing this one beautifully:

“Sen. Bernie Sanders will filibuster an override of President Donald Trump’s defense bill veto unless the Senate holds a vote on providing $2,000 direct payments to Americans.”

This puts the ball in Mitch McConnell’s court, and it will be interesting to see where he goes. He seems to have three options:

Call Sanders’s bluff by demanding that Democrats provide enough votes for cloture and the subsequent veto override. McConnell will say that if they fail to do so, he’ll let the Defense bill die while pinning the blame on the Democrats.
Lump the extra stimulus with Trump’s demand for action against the big tech firms. This would push consideration of the measure into the next Congress.
Alternatively, McConnell can hold a vote on the bigger stimulus checks.

On Tuesday McConnell single-handedly blocked consideration of the House $2000 bill, but that was just the first step in a series of Senate parliamentary moves that are likely to take the rest of the week.

Loeffler and Perdue decided to support the extra stimulus. That was an easy call, once they knew McConnell would block it initially. They were joined by Sens Hawley (R-MO), Sen Marco Rubio (R-FL), and Sen Deb Fischer (R-NE). If all Senate Dems support it, they would need seven more Republicans to move forward.

Whether the extra relief bill passes or fails, there’s a winning message for Ossoff and Warnock to hammer: I want $2k, you want $2k, the Democrats in the House want $2k, and the Dems in the Senate want $2k. Heck, even Trump wants $2k. The only people who don’t want you to have $2k are Republicans.

If you don’t vote for the Democrats, you’ll never see any more stimulus money.

That’s the way to turn a loss in the Senate into control of the Senate on January 5.

Trump’s Veto Threats

The Daily Escape:

Merry Christmas! The Wrongologist will be on break until next week, and on a reduced schedule through the New Year, unless something terrible happens. But really, what are the chances of that? OK, see below.

The Wrong family hopes that you can be in (physically distant) touch with your loved ones over the holidays. We hope that you can enjoy a few days of quiet reflection on this terrible year and our terrible government. Wrongo also fervently hopes that we experience a turn-around in how Americans care about each other in 2021.

Trump is threatening to veto the $900 billion Covid relief bill unless the Congress bumps up the $600 individual stimulus checks to $2,000. He said:

“Send me a suitable bill or else the next administration will have to deliver a COVID relief package and maybe that administration will be me and we will get it done.”

Trump also wants the three-martini lunch deduction that’s buried in the bill to be extended indefinitely. When you own a bunch of hotels, this might have a positive impact on your liquor sales.

That term dates back to the Mad Men era. The idea is that you can deduct all of the costs of a business meal, no matter how absurdly high, as a business expense. This change in the current bill will make the entire meal expense tax-deductible.

After military service, Wrongo’s first job interview was with Esso, the predecessor of today’s Exxon. The interviewers required that at least two martinis be consumed in the two hour lunch in order to prove that you had the right stuff. Wrongo received a hangover, along with a job offer. And thankfully, went to Wall Street instead.

As Axios noted, many of the items Trump wants changed, such as foreign aid, are not part of the Coronavirus relief package. They are part of the government funding bill, which was passed alongside the Coronavirus relief package.

So, Trump’s threatening a veto of the relief bill. On Wednesday, he vetoed the $740 billion defense spending bill. But the House will reconvene for an override vote on Dec. 28, with the Senate following on Dec. 29 if the House successfully overrides the veto.

But, what’s his strategy with the relief bill? If Trump decides to veto it, there may be a method to his madness.

Delays in negotiating prevented a timely passing of the relief bills, and that’s backed Congress into a corner. The Constitution grants the president 10 days to review a measure passed by the Congress. If the president has not signed the bill after 10 days, it becomes law without his signature, except if Congress adjourns during the 10-day period. In which case, the bill dies.

Ordinarily, Congress could just wait for Trump to veto the legislation and then vote to override it. But the Constitution mandates that a new Congress convene at noon on January 3. Meaning that this Congress ends at noon that day, ten days from now, and too late to meet and override the veto.

Moreover, the formal process of getting the bills to the president isn’t expected to be completed until Thursday or Friday, putting it on Trump’s desk within the danger zone for a Trump pocket veto. That prevents it from becoming law before the 116th Congress ends at noon on Jan. 3.

This means the next Congress would have to take up the bill all over again. Trump now can simply out wait the bill. He was scheduled to leave Washington on 12/23, for Mar-a-Lago.

There’s a disaster scenario here. The temporary government funding resolution runs out on December 29, unless extended by both Houses and signed by Trump. If Trump refuses to sign the bill, and Congress doesn’t choose to, or can’t override it before their session ends, there will be no Coronavirus aid, and the government will be shut down. If Trump remains intransigent with the next Congress, this could be prolonged until President-elect Joe Biden is sworn in on Jan. 20 and approves the bills.

Would Republicans actually agree to cave in to Trump and spend a few extra $hundred billion after fighting tooth and nail all year to keep this relief bill under $1 trillion? Saying no puts the GOP in the uncomfortable position of opposing its own president heading into the Georgia Senate runoffs, which are uncomfortably close for both Parties.

This also gives Democrats a strong argument against Georgia’s GOP senators, Kelly Loeffler and David Perdue, who supported the $600 payment. It demonstrates, once again, that the only real obstacle to more generous economic assistance is the Republican Party.

Trump’s play may help the Georgia Democrats on January 5.

Let’s leave with a Christmas song you may not have seen. Here’s “Last Christmas“, a song by Wham! the English pop duo, originally released in December 1984. Here it is sung live in 2019 by Emilia Clarke of “Game of Thrones” fame (Daenerys Targaryen) in the movie “Last Christmas“.

Andrew Ridgeley, the surviving member of Wham! is in the audience. This is a feel-good way to head into Christmas:

Monday Wake Up Call – Sedition Edition, December 21, 2020

The Daily Escape:

Arches NP – photo by Jack Bell Photography

Maggie Haberman of the NYT reported the scary details of a meeting at the White House on Friday. During the meeting, Trump tried to hire Sidney Powell as special counsel to continue the investigation into Trump’s claims of voter fraud. He also asked advisors about declaring martial law, an idea floated by Michael Flynn, the general he recently pardoned.

The meeting’s attendees included Powell, Flynn, and Rudy Guilani via phone, along with White House counsel Pat Cipollone and Chief of Staff Mark Meadows. In addition to talk of martial law and Sidney Powell obtaining special counsel status and a top-level security clearance, Giuliani floated the idea of Trump issuing an executive order to commandeer Dominion Voting Systems voting machines. Giuliani had previously called Ken Cuccinelli, number two at the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), and asked him whether DHS could seize voting machines. Cuccinelli said that DHS didn’t have that authority.

Haberman reported that Meadows and Cipollone strenuously and repeatedly objected to these suggestions, saying they had no constitutional basis for going forward. Apparently, the meeting lasted several hours, and things got pretty heated. More from Haberman:

“The meeting got raucous, with various administration members drifting in and out and different people arguing. Powell told others they were quitters…”

The Washington Times, a right-leaning newspaper in DC reported that on Saturday, the military said it wants no part in the martial law discussion. Army Secretary Ryan McCarthy and Army Chief of Staff Gen. James McConville said in a joint statement:

“There is no role for the US military in determining the outcome of an American election,”

This shows how weak our government really is. With the right people supporting Trump, he could have attempted a military coup and overturned the election. This also shows how seditious Trump has become in the wake of his election loss. Thinking about, and possibly calling for, troops to stop a democratically elected president from taking office have taken his voter fraud claims to a much darker and militaristic place.

Since Trump has been thinking about suspending the Constitution and invoking martial law to overturn the election, he and his associates are committing seditious acts that should be treated accordingly.

America needs to make the price Trump pays for thinking about sedition higher than his price for accepting Biden’s win.

Now would be a good time for Biden to state publicly that attempts to violate election laws, or undermine democracy through overt and/or covert acts will be investigated by his DOJ, and that they will go wherever the evidence leads.

There are practical problems to think about: how will the incoming Biden team deal with a Trump administration that simply won’t agree to leave? Trump has stooges at the Department of Defense and the Justice Department. The Pentagon has already called a halt to transition activities, ostensibly until after Christmas, but who really knows?

What if Lloyd Austin, Biden’s new Secretary of Defense shows up at the Pentagon, and is denied entrance? Who does Biden appeal to? Trump? What happens when Trump refuses to take Biden’s call?

Does Biden ask the DOJ to step in? Trump’s stooge is sitting there as well. Does Biden ask the Supreme Court to intervene? What happens next?

None of us have any idea what’s going to happen between now and January 20^th, but we need a concerted effort to strengthen the guardrails of our democracy. Trump has exposed just how weak our safeguards are.

The US is one month away from inaugurating a president who will follow established norms and conventions. There’s one more month for Trump to try martial-lawing his way out from under the nastiness that awaits him upon his leaving MAGAstan.

Time to wake up America! Trump has already tried several non-military coups, from trying to influence state electors, to multiple lawsuits attempting to throw out election results. It’s not really a question of what Trump is willing to do. And he’s not going to give up. We left “peaceful, dignified transfer of power” behind several weeks ago.

It’s now a question of how many people in our government institutions won’t play along with his coup. To help you wake up, have a listen to Leslie Odom Jr. perform “Winter Song”, featuring Cynthia Erivo.

The lyrics were written by Sara Bareilles and Ingrid Michaelson:

Sunday Cartoon Blogging – December 20, 2020

Many lawmakers have already gotten their first vaccine shots. Good for them! Most of us would take it on the first day they could get it too. But it’s wrong that they’re getting shots while (at least at the time of writing this) they haven’t passed a COVID relief bill. And is there a better metaphor for Trump’s presidency than this story from NPR?

“For….six years, the ghost of the Trump Plaza Hotel and Casino has haunted the boardwalk in Atlantic City, N.J…..But not for long: The…eyesore is scheduled for demolition late next month, and the city is offering…the opportunity to bring it down….”

From Bodnar’s Auction House:

“We are selling the experience to push the button to implode Trump Plaza…”

There will be a bidding war for the right to implode Trump’s failed casino, just nine days after Trump leaves office. Atlantic City mayor Marty Small:

“…on his way out, Donald Trump openly mocked Atlantic City, saying he made a lot of money and then got out….I wanted to use the demolition of this place to raise money for charity.”

Trump persuaded the Republican Party and enough Americans that he was a genius businessman based on hype and his stupid TV show. While Trump was pretending to be a real estate big shot with a game show, his Atlantic City three-casino empire died. Information about his business failures was out there. But people didn’t want to believe it. Now after four years, America’s imploding. Pathetic. On to cartoons.

Will help arrive in time?

Will the new gifts for the season arrive on time?

Trump fails transitions:

Republican wish list for Santa:

The new hackers will control everything:

Mitch goes back to what he does best:

It didn’t take long for a chorus of Republicans to find a stupid non-issue to sing about:

Saturday Soother – Trump Grifting Edition, December 19, 2020

The Daily Escape:

Shenandoah Valley, Browntown, VA – December 2020 photo by Renee Kuenster O’Connell

Business Insider (BI) reported (paywalled) that Jared Kushner helped set up a shell company that was a vehicle for secretly enabling Trump family members to spend nearly half of his 2020 campaign’s funds:

“The company, which was incorporated as American Made Media Consultants Corporation and American Made Media Consultants LLC, spent $617 million of the campaign’s $1.26 billion war chest, according to campaign finance records.”

The board of the shell company included Lara Trump, Vice President Mike Pence’s nephew John Pence, and Trump campaign CFO Sean Dollman says the Insider:

“Despite its $617 million spending through AMMC, the Trump campaign publicly disclosed little information about the company, including how it used the money.”

The nonpartisan Campaign Legal Center (CLC) filed a civil complaint with the Federal Election Commission accusing the campaign of disguising about $170 million in spending “by laundering the funds” through AMMC. The CLC filed its civil complaint with the Federal Election Commission, which recently regained its powers to enforce and regulate campaign money laws after lacking enough commissioners to do so for 14 of the past 15 months.

BI reports that several sources from the Justice Department say that investigators may already be looking into the campaign’s activities. You can view a non-paywalled summary of the BI article here.

Two things strike Wrongo about this latest abomination. First, the Trump family is always looking for a loophole to extend the grift. Second, during the Trump era, we have slowly but finally lost our ability to be shocked and outraged by anything Trump, his family or his dead-ender supporters do.

We’ve been worn down by so much rule and norm-breaking that we no longer believe that outrage will stop the terrible behavior. To people like Wrongo who had extensive contacts in the NYC real estate market, this abominable behavior was knowable in advance. But Hillary’s emails put Trump in power. And he along with his minions have obfuscated, lied, and denied the reality of what we saw right in front of us for the past four years.

This is just the latest that we’ve learned about in a very long string of Trump and his team finding and exploiting loopholes. Imagine all that we don’t know yet.

Time to take a break from playing the game of what happened to the supply of the new vaccine? Or, why has the Pentagon stopped the Biden transition process? And focus on our Saturday Soother.

The snow that fell in Connecticut on Thursday has been plowed out of the Wrong driveway, and Wrongo shoveled a path in the dog run. Our tree has all of its lights, but only about 20% of its usual ornaments. That’s due to the clear absence of holiday visitors in this time of Covid.

Our annual note about the year has been sent to our overseas friends and some extra notes to local friends that we’ve seen only rarely. Later today, we’re having a Zoomtastic cross-country session with family and friends.

But there’s time right now to gaze on the winter wonderland (16.5” of snow) outside our windows. So settle back and brew up a vente cup of Columbian Supremo ($13.50/12 oz.) from Ini Sips, a New Britain, CT based coffee and tea brewer. It’s a small veteran and Black-owned business that, due to the pandemic, pivoted from being a local community cafe to online sales, with reasonable success.

They’re running a seasonal special: When you buy two bags, they give a free bag of their coffee to first responders, health care workers or community workers!

Now listen to the Celtic Women do their patented style on the Christmas classic, “Oh Come, All Ye Faithful”:

Trump Failed to Protect Government Networks

The Daily Escape:

Old cabin in winter – photo by Julie Williams

Various thoughts about US cyber security: First, along with the news about the cyber hack of the US government, comes news that Trump’s twitter account was hacked in October:

“Dutch prosecutors have confirmed that Donald Trump’s Twitter account was hacked in October despite denials from Washington…. The hacker…Victor Gevers, broke into Trump’s account @realDonaldTrump on 16 October by guessing the US president’s password…”

The password? MAGA2020. Gevers told the Dutch paper De Volkskrant that the president was not using basic security measures, like two-step verification:

“I expected to be blocked after four failed attempts. Or at least asked to provide additional information,”

The current US government-wide hack is a true disaster. The cyber security firm FireEye working with the FBI, has reported that the hack was caused by an infiltration of its network security via a software product made by the firm, Solar Winds. Reuters reported:

“On Monday, SolarWinds confirmed that Orion – its flagship network management software – had served as the…conduit for a sprawling international cyberespionage operation. The hackers inserted malicious code into Orion software updates pushed out to nearly 18,000 customers.”

Reuters earlier had reported that a researcher informed SolarWinds last year that he had uncovered the password to SolarWinds’ update mechanism, the vehicle through which its 18,000 customers were compromised. The password was “solarwinds123.”

That isn’t even as strong as Trump’s password. Right now, the damage is uncertain, but it seems extensive. NYT reported:

“…the Treasury and Commerce Departments, the first agencies reported to be breached, were only part of a far larger operation…. About 18,000 private and government users downloaded a Russian tainted software update…that gave its hackers a foothold into victims’ systems, according to SolarWinds, the company whose software was compromised.”

FireEye’s analysis shows that once the virus had infected the targets, it started ‘phoning home’ within 14 days. Sounds like quite a few people in the Trump administration were asleep at the switch: (brackets by Wrongo)

“Two of the most embarrassing breaches came at the Pentagon and the Department of Homeland Security….[who] issued an obfuscating official statement that said only: ‘The Department of Homeland Security is aware of reports of a breach. We are currently investigating the matter.’”

Tom Bossert, Trump’s original Homeland Security advisor in 2017, has an op-ed in the NYT that claims the hack was the work of the Russians. Whether that’s true or not, he’s correct about what has happened since:

“The magnitude of this ongoing attack is hard to overstate. The Russians have had access to a considerable number of important and sensitive networks for six to nine months….For those targets, the hackers will have long ago moved past their entry point, covered their tracks and gained what experts call “persistent access,” meaning the ability to infiltrate and control networks in a way that is hard to detect or remove.”

It will take years to know for certain which networks the hackers are monitoring. Politico reports that Trump has tried to gag the administration’s intelligence community leaders from reporting on the extent of the breach to Congress:

“During a National Security Council meeting on Tuesday night, national security leaders were instructed not to reach out to Capitol Hill for briefings on the massive hack without explicit approval from the White House or ODNI, according to people familiar with the episode.”

This is more dereliction of duty by the Trumpers.

We shovel money at the NSA, the CIA, and Homeland Security, but rarely ask what we get in return. How much compromise of our systems will it take to get accountability from these bureaucrats? It’s staggering that we continue to spend on a bloated military when the most crippling attacks we’ve faced in the past 20 years involve box cutters and computer hackers.

It’s hard to know which was worse: That the federal government was blindsided by a state controlled intelligence agency, or that when it became evident what was happening, White House officials said nothing.

This much is clear: While Trump was busy complaining loudly about the voter hack that didn’t happen in an election that he clearly lost, he’s been silent about the fact that someone was hacking our government. He can hide from this for another five weeks, and after that Biden will doubtless dig into it.

Republicans have spent six weeks crying fraud about the presidential election. But for this? Absolute silence. If this had happened during a Democratic administration, we’d have Republican hearings and talking points for the next 10 years. Where’s their outrage?

New Relief Bill Rewards Businesses

The Daily Escape:

Hayden Valley, Yellowstone NP – December 2020 photo by Jack Bell

Politico reports that Congressional leaders are nearing a deal on Covid relief. The deal could be done by the time you read this.

The relief package is divided into two parts. The first bill, with a stated cost of $748 billion, funds the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP), along with $300 per week for unemployment benefits.

The second bill ties liability protections for companies demanded by Republicans to the Democrats’ demand for funding for state and local governments.

The big-ticket items in the first bill include one-time stimulus checks to individuals in the $600 to $700 range, an extension of federal unemployment benefits with an additional weekly amount of $300. There is $325 billion for small businesses, $257 billion for the PPP, some $ billions for vaccines, and to help schools open safely.

Delayed until the New Year is bill two, including money for state and local governments faced with laying off municipal workers, and liability protection for companies that put their employees in danger from the virus through inadequate safety measures. The items in the second bill are what have stalled negotiations for weeks.

Lee Fang of the Intercept reports that the draft of the first bill circulating on Capitol Hill contains several adjustments to the PPP, the centerpiece of the government’s earlier efforts to curb job loss stemming from the pandemic. One of the revisions is a radical change that would result in a major windfall for the highest-income Americans and large corporations. That provision allows businesses claiming expenses reimbursed by PPP forgivable loans, (already tax-free), to also be used as deductions when calculating taxable income.

In other words, the change would allow a corporation that claimed $1 million in PPP reimbursements to also deduct the same $1 million on its tax return, thereby reducing their taxable income by $1 million. Until now, IRS rules prohibited tax-free government grants and reimbursements from being used as deductions. The Intercept quotes Steven Rosenthal from the Tax Policy Center, who estimates that this PPP deduction provision could reduce the taxes of the highest-income taxpayers by at least $100 billion without benefiting workers or the unemployed.

This tax deduction provision technically applies to all PPP recipients, but few will be able to take the additional tax benefit. Wealthy business owners and large corporations claim the lion’s share of business expense deductions. This group would include wealthy doctors and financial consultants, and those who make over $1 million in yearly income.

This tax provision has been pushed by Rep Richard Neal, (D-MA), and Sen Chuck Grassley, (R-IA). There has been little pushback to these tax giveaways, reflecting a general consensus in Congress around the value of more business tax cuts. Lawmakers, including Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, (R-KY), have described the PPP extension and expansion as an “uncontroversial” aspect of stimulus talks.

This should be pretty simple. If you get a PPP loan, and it is later forgiven, the expenses paid with the loan proceeds shouldn’t be deductible. The company didn’t pay taxes on the PPP loan cash proceeds and thus shouldn’t receive a deduction against taxable income for the expenses paid. That’s double-dipping.

The big idea behind PPP loan forgiveness was to help businesses retain employees and pay certain qualified expenses like rent and utilities, not to enrich employers.

Also buried in the bill is another bailout for US Airlines. They stand to get another $17 billion taxpayer-funded bailout if the first bill becomes law. From Wolf Richter:

“Democrats and Republicans may not agree on much of anything these days, but they both love to bail out airline shareholders and bondholders. And that’s what this is – dressed up as payroll protection and airline support program.”

The new airline bailout comes on top of what they received in the original stimulus bill: $25 billion in payroll support, an additional $25 billion in loans for passenger airlines, and over $10 billion in grants and loans for cargo airlines and aviation contractors.

Let’s remember that the top four airlines have burned their cash by repurchasing $45 billion of their shares since 2012. They don’t need more of our money, Chapter 11 bankruptcy works. Delta, American and United have previously restructured in bankruptcy court, and it worked fine. They know how to do that.

And let’s tell it like it is: If there wasn’t a majority of Republicans in the Senate, the people would get the checks and the unemployment relief they really need.

Win in Georgia!

Georgia’s Senate Runoffs

The Daily Escape:

Western Montana – November 2020 photo by Jeff Parker

Republicans told us that once the Electoral College voted, Trump and the GOP would finally recognize the results of the presidential election. But, with only a few exceptions, that didn’t happen. If you are a Republican and are still silent, you are assaulting our democracy.

Today, let’s talk about Georgia’s Senate runoff elections to be held on January 5. Biden was in Georgia on Tuesday to help Democrats Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock with their races against Republicans Kelly Loeffler and David Perdue. Both Loeffler and Perdue continue to say that Trump won in Georgia.

They are among the dead-enders who say the Georgia presidential election was rigged. Loeffler and Perdue are trying to walk a tightrope, supporting claims of election fraud, even as they try to push for higher Republican turnout in January than they recorded in November.

Perdue finished ahead of Ossoff by 88,000 votes in November. Ossoff got 47.9% of the total vote, but had 100,000 fewer votes than Biden. There has only been limited polling for the runoff, and that shows the race to be a toss-up. Real Clear Politics (RCP) has Perdue up by .5% in the averages of recent polls.

In November, Loeffler lost to Warnock by 403k votes. However, former Republican Congressman Doug Collins was also in the race, and he received 980k votes, so a Warnock win is far from certain. Recent polling by RCP has Warnock up by 1%, another toss-up.

Warnock has never held political office, but he’s well known in Georgia as the senior pastor of the Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, where Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr was also pastor. In a state where about 30% of registered voters are African American, and about 47% are people of color that could be pivotal.

Ossoff who has run unsuccessfully before, also hasn’t held office. From Miles Coleman at Sabato’s Crystal Ball: (brackets by Wrongo)

“One of the reasons Ossoff fell short when he ran for Congress in 2017 is, he didn’t get the type of Black turnout that he needed…Now, with Warnock as [a kind of ] running mate, it may help with Black turnout.”

Ossoff would be the Senate’s youngest member and it’s only millennial. He has a strong organization and has proven strength in the Atlanta suburbs. Like Wrongo, Ossoff is a graduate of Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service. And unlike Wrongo, he also has a master’s degree from the London School of Economics.

Georgia has changed electorally in recent years because of in-migration from the North, and by the massive voter-registration drive led by Stacey Abrams. The effects of these forces showed when Biden beat Trump for the first Democratic win by a presidential candidate in 28 years.

The key question is whether without Trump on the ticket, Republicans who crossed over to vote for Biden might return to the Republican candidates. It’s always tough to knock off an incumbent, but Ossoff and Warnock are trying to do just that in a state where Republicans historically win runoffs.

They win runoffs because Georgia’s runoff system was established by segregationists to prevent Black voters from solidifying behind one candidate while White voters split their allegiance in a multi-candidate race. Warnock’s race shows what the segregationists had in mind. Warnock led the race with 33% of the votes, while Loeffler and Collins together accounted for 46%.

This time around, the expectation is that both Ossoff and Warnock win or both will lose.

Funding the Republicans isn’t a problem:

“Billionaire Republicans on Wall Street have been opening their wallets to…protect David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler’s Senate seats in January 5’s high-stakes runoff in Georgia….Two super PACs are planning to spend about $80 million on ads and other efforts….Among the donors are…Stephen Schwarzman, of Blackstone Group, and Kenneth Griffin, of Citadel LLC…Last month, Schwarzman…contributed $15m and Griffin donated $10m to the PAC; while earlier in the year, the PAC received $20m from Schwarzman and $25m from Griffin.”

Not a surprise, since Loeffler’s husband Sprecher, chairs the New York Stock Exchange.

The LA Times reports that taken together, over $400 million has been spent, or committed by all of the candidates’ campaigns, their Parties and outside backers.

Monday was the first day for early voting in Georgia’s runoffs. All told, 482,250 votes were recorded, according to the Georgia secretary of state. That is way more than the 128,000 votes cast on the first day of voting on Nov. 3. It will be a very close election.

The reality is that Democrats will need to show up in droves and vote like the future of the country depends upon it.

Because it does.

Sunday Cartoon Blogging – December 13, 2020

Small rant once again today about our do-nothing Congress, who can’t see the damage caused by their failure to support America’s unemployed and underemployed as the year draws to a close. Check out Rep Ayanna Pressley (D-MA):

The Department of Defense spends about $2 billion a day, so when Republicans say that we simply can’t afford a meaningful COVID-19 relief bill, it strains credibility. What will we have that is worth defending if we won’t look out for our own people?

What our politicians lack are both priorities and empathy. This isn’t just a matter of economic philosophy – it’s a matter of life and death. We must reject the current cult of selfishness that is currently ruining America. Because if we can’t see our way clear to pull together and look out for each other, millions of us may die ultimately needless deaths. America is better than this. The question is whether or not Congress actually is. On to cartoons:

Where’s Congress’s feeling of Christmas?

When Trump was granted a coat of arms for his Scottish golf courses in 2012, he chose as its motto “Numquam concedere” or, never concede. He hasn’t. Despite the Supreme Court’s decision, Trump’s campaign plans to buy ads on cable networks still seeking to overturn the election. According to Bloomberg, one commercial claims that mail-in ballots were “a recipe for fraud”. It urges viewers to “contact your legislators today.” He’ll never go gracefully: