A 24-year old insurgent candidate for the Republican nomination to replace Mark Meadows in office scored an upset victory over an establishment-backed party favorite who had secured an endorsement from the President.
Madison Cawthorn is a small businessman and inspirational speaker. The young man was paralyzed six years ago in a car accident, and has cited his experience with his disability as a guiding light inspiring him to work on behalf of forgotten Americans in Congress.
The strongly conservative house district, which was vacated by longtime Representative Mark Meadows when he resigned to serve as President Trump’s White House Chief of Staff, will almost certainly elect Cawthorn, making the millennial the youngest member of congress, taking the title from Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Cawthorn will reach the legal requirement of 25 years of age to serve in Congress in August.
Cawthorn scored an upset primary victory against Lynda Bennett on Tuesday’s primary election. The insurgent candidate secured two-thirds of the primary vote, coasting to a strong victory.
Previous remarks on the part of Bennett where the candidate proudly identified as a “Never Trumper” proved to be a source of controversy in the primary election, raising questions as to why President Trump endorsed a candidate who had spoken forcefully in opposition to his election as President.
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) said during a live Q&A on Wednesday that President Trump is displaying an “epic level of negligence and incompetence that is costing human lives” during the coronavirus pandemic and suggested that people are dying because the president ignored scientists.
Ocasio-Cortez took questions from social media users on Wednesday and used the opportunity to criticize the Trump administration’s response to the pandemic. The outbreak in the United States, she seems to believe, would not be as severe if Trump and Republicans took it seriously and listened to scientists.
“Someone said, ‘Do you think if we took precautions earlier than we did our numbers would be lower than it is now?’ Yes,” Ocasio-Cortez answered.
She explained:
I think that if Trump took this seriously, if Republicans took it seriously, I think that if if we decided to listen to scientists early more than we listen to, you know, people who care more about profit than human lives, we would have taken precautions much earlier and we would have saved lives. We either would have gone into lockdown earlier in some circumstances or we would have started producing these damn ventilators way earlier than we are now. We would have invoked the Defense Production Act, but because Trump didn’t do that early enough, now we’re scrambling. And everything that is happening is happening late. And every decision that we make late means that people are dying unnecessarily.
The New York lawmaker’s assertion falls in line with Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), who also suggested that the crisis is worse due to inaction from the president.
“What the president — his denial at the beginning was deadly. His delaying of getting equipment to where — it continues — his delay in getting equipment to where it’s needed is deadly,” the speaker, who remained laser-focused on impeachment as the first known person with the virus arrived in the United States in January, told CNN’s Jake Tapper on Sunday.
Notably, Trump took decisive action that very month, announcing a ban on travel to the U.S. from China — a move many of his left-wing critics characterized as “racist.”
Just weeks ago, Ocasio-Cortez suggested that people who were no longer patroning Chinese restaurants during the crisis are “racist”:
March 10, 2020 — AOC: “People are literally not patroning Chinese restaurants they’re not patroning Asian restaurants because of straight-up racism around the coronavirus.”
April 1, 2020 — AOC: Trump didn’t listen to scientists and act early enough and it’s caused people to die. pic.twitter.com/6vgx97iOL9
“Honestly, it sounds almost so silly to say, but there’s a lot of restaurants that are feeling the pain of racism,” she said during an Instagram Live weeks ago.
“People are literally not patroning Chinese restaurants. They’re not patroning Asian restaurants because of just straight-up racism around the coronavirus,” she added at the time.
However, Ocasio-Cortez continues to believe that Trump and the GOP bear the brunt of responsibility for coronavirus-related deaths:
So understand, understand that people are not just dying of coronavirus. They are dying due to incompetence. They are dying due to poor decision making. They are dying due to a lack of listening to scientists and doctors, and they’re dying due to a crisis and a pandemic of a lack of leadership — not just because of the disease. And so the people who made those decisions who decided to prioritize profit over human life need to answer for those decisions.
The socialist lawmaker also vented about journalists who are “out there just assessing the president’s tone of his voice instead of what he’s actually saying” and declared that Trump is “conveying an epic level of negligence and incompetence that is costing human lives”:
Ocasio-Cortez blames only Trump and Republicans for the deaths of every American who dies from the coronavirus
“And it’s not just Trump,”she continued, bringing Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) into the mix. “It is not just Trump. Look at DeSantis in Florida who’s just calling for lockdowns today and Florida beaches have been packed.”
“And these aren’t people that are just in Florida. These are people who are traveling to Florida spreading disease and traveling back to wherever they came from, and these people aren’t taking it seriously,” she added.
While DeSantis formally issued a stay at home order on Wednesday, he had already taken aggressive action against travelers from coronavirus hotspots. Those actions include screenings at major Florida airports, checkpoints on roads along the Florida-Georgia border and Florida-Alabama border, and a mandated 14-day quarantine for individuals from the New York Tri-State area and Louisiana.
Ocasio-Cortez recently said that there “should be shame for what was fought for” in the recently passed and signed bipartisan emergency relief bill. Last week, she specifically expressed outrage that the cash payment portion of the measure did not extend to non-citizens.
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) on Wednesday decried President Donald Trump’s appointment of Vice President Mike Pence to lead the administration’s effort to combat the potential spread of deadly Chinese coronavirus in the United States, claiming he is unqualified for the role.
“Mike Pence literally does not believe in science. It is utterly irresponsible to put him in charge of US coronavirus response as the world sits on the cusp of a pandemic,”the New York Democrat wrote on social media. “This decision could cost people their lives. Pence’s past decisions already have.”
Vice President Mike Pence says in leading the White House response to the coronavirus, he will be “bringing together” all the members of the coronavirus task force and will provide President Trump with “the best options for action.” https://t.co/pAUO2PN10Ypic.twitter.com/wlenNW2Wh4
Ocasio-Cortez then shared an article in which Pence is accused of enabling an HIV outbreak in Indiana under his governorship, writing: “As governor, Pence’s science denial contributed to one of the worst HIV outbreaks in Indiana’s history.”
“As governor, Pence’s science denial contributed to one of the worst HIV outbreaks in Indiana’s history,” she added. “He is not a medical doctor. He is not a health expert. He is not qualified nor positioned in any way to protect our public health.”
President Trump announced hours before Ocasio-Cortez’s comments that Pence will lead the U.S.’s response to the virus. During the press briefing, the president said the illness’s spread is not inevitable and that citizens that have been diagnosed with it are doing “very well.”
“Of the 15 people… eight of them have returned to their homes, to stay at their homes until they’re fully recovered. One is in the hospital, five have fully recovered and one we think is in pretty good shape,”he said. “In almost all cases, they’re getting better.”
President Trump also confirmed the U.S. has ordered additional masks to fight the spread of the disease and warned businesses against price gauging on protective products. He then expressed optimism about a bipartisan congressional effort to secure funding to fight the illness after requesting $2.5 billion on Monday.
“We started out by looking at certain things, we’ve been working with the Hill very, very carefully, very strongly and I think that we have very good bipartisan spirt for money,” he stated. “We were asking for $2.5 billion and we think that is a lot. But the Democrats — and I guess Senator Schumer — want us to have more than that.”
To date, the U.S. has nearly 60 confirmed cases, which includes the 42 Americans repatriated from the Diamond Princess cruise ship in Japan earlier this month.
Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) on Mondayreleaseda fact sheet explaining how he will fund his “major” multitrillion-dollar campaign proposals — the Green New Deal, free college, housing for all, etc. — and revealed that he will pay for them through a combination of cutting military spending, creating new taxes, and enacting penalties on the fossil fuel industry in the form of lawsuits.
While Sanders has released a suite of lofty plans with the promise to improve the lives of middle class and low income Americans, critics have repeatedly asked the socialist senator to explain how his administration will pay for his grandiose proposals.
His campaign released a fact sheet on Monday listing each of his “major plans” and providing a line on how he will make it a reality.
His $16.3 trillion Green New Deal plan, perhaps one of his most prolific proposals, will be paid for, he claims, through a variety of methods including slashes in military spending and lawsuits against the fossil fuel industry.
He is calling to reduce defense spending by $1.215 trillion “by scaling back military operations on protecting the global oil supply.” His campaign claims he will raise $3.085 trillion by “making the fossil fuel industry pay for their pollution, through litigation, fees, and taxes, and eliminating federal fossil fuel subsidies.” He expects to garner another $6.4 trillion “from the wholesale of energy produced by the regional Power Marketing Administrations.”
“This revenue will be collected from 2023-2035, and after 2035 electricity will be virtually free, aside from operations and maintenance costs,” his website states.
Sanders also claims his Green New Deal plan will create 20 million jobs, which will effectively create a new tax base and eliminate the need for $1.31 trillion in “federal and state safety net spending due to the creation of millions of good-paying, unionized jobs.”
His campaign actually argues that enacting his multitrillion-dollar climate change proposal will save the United States $2.9 trillion in the next decade, $21 trillion over the next 30 years, and $70.4 trillion over the next 80 years.
“If we do not act, the U.S. will lose $34.5 trillion by the end of the century in economic productivity,” he claims.
That is far from Sanders’ only proposal. Offering free college and cancelation of student debt will cost, according to his estimates, $2.2 trillion. Sanders claims the plan is “fully paid” for with a “modest tax on Wall Street speculation,” contending that it will raise more than enough — $2.4 million over the next decade.
Sanders says his $1.5 trillion housing for all plan and $1.5 trillion universal child care/pre-K plan will be paid for with “a wealth tax on the top one-tenth of one percent – those who have a net worth of at least $32 million.” He claims it will raise “a total of $4.35 trillion.”
His other plans rely almost entirely on new taxes on the wealthy. His vow to erase $81 billion past-due medical debt will be “fully paid for by establishing an income inequality tax on large corporations that pay CEOs at least 50 times more than average workers.”Additionally, Social Security expansion will be paid for, he says, with a tax on Americans with incomes over $250,000.
Instead of explicitly stating how Sanders will fund his Medicare for All plan, which some experts say could cost over $60 trillion over the next decade, the fact sheet simply touts a “menu of financing options that would more than pay for the Medicare for All legislation he has introduced,” which includes raising taxes on the middle class.
Per the fact sheet, those options include:
Creating a 4 percent income-based premium paid by employees, exempting the first $29,000 in income for a family of four.
Imposing a 7.5 percent income-based premium paid by employers, exempting the first $1 million in payroll to protect small businesses.
Eliminating health tax expenditures, which would no longer be needed under Medicare for All.
Raising the top marginal income tax rate to 52% on income over $10 million.
Replacing the cap on the state and local tax deduction with an overall dollar cap of $50,000 for a married couple on all itemized deductions.
Taxing capital gains at the same rates as income from wages and cracking down on gaming through derivatives, like-kind exchanges, and the zero tax rate on capital gains passed on through bequests.
Enacting the For the 99.8% Act, which returns the estate tax exemption to the 2009 level of $3.5 million, closes egregious loopholes, and increases rates progressively including by adding a top tax rate of 77% on estate values in excess of $1 billion.
Enacting corporate tax reform including restoring the top federal corporate income tax rate to 35 percent.
Using $350 billion of the amount raised from the tax on extreme wealth to help finance Medicare for All.
The release of the fact sheet follows Sanders growing frustration over the mounting questions over the costs of his massive proposals.
Anderson Cooper grilled Sanders on the costs of his various proposals during the presidential hopeful’s recent sit-down interview with 60 Minutes.
“But you say you don’t know what the total price is, but you know how it’s going to be paid for. How do you know it’s going to be paid for if you don’t know how much the price is?” Cooper asked.
“I can’t rattle off to you every nickel and every dime,” Sanders said. “But we have accounted for — you talked about Medicare for All — we have options out there that will pay for it.”
Sen. Bernie Sanders, the Democratic socialist from Vermont who is now the frontrunner for the 2020 presidential nomination, released a new plan Monday to give away $1.5 trillion in taxpayer cash.
Under the plan, Sanders plans to provide universal child care and pre-K, spending $1.5 trillion over a decade for the “free” program. All Americans would guaranteed child care through age 3 followed by free pre-kindergarten education.
“As president, we will guarantee free, universal childcare and pre-kindergarten to every child in America to help level the playing field, create new and good jobs, and enable parents to more easily balance the demands of work and home,” Sanders said in a statement.
Sanders says he would fund the program through his “tax on extreme wealth” over $32 million. His campaign claims that tax would bring in some $4.3 trillion over 10 years.
The socialist has a slew of “free” programs that cost trillions. He supports a single-payer “Medicare for All” system, wants to cancel all student debt and make public college free, and raise the minimum wage to $15 per hour. And Sanders advocates providing free breakfast, lunch and dinner to all students, regardless of income level.
“Exact cost projections on all of Sanders’ proposals aren’t available, in part because he hasn’t fully fleshed out some of the ideas he’s embraced (such as universal pre-K and child care),”CNN reported in January.
But a wide variety of estimates put the likely cost of the single-payer health care plan he has endorsed around $30 trillion or more over the next decade. Depending on the estimates used, including projections from his own campaign, the other elements of the Sanders agenda — ranging from his “Green New Deal” to the cancellation of all student debt to a guaranteed federal jobs program that has received almost no scrutiny — could cost about as much, or even more than, the single-payer plan. That would potentially bring his 10-year total for new spending to around $60 trillion, or more. …
“I think if the price tag for the Sanders agenda was [better] known … voters would blanch — even Democratic primary voters would blanch,” said Jim Kessler, executive vice president for policy at Third Way, a centrist Democratic group. “The truth of the matter is in primary elections both in 2016 and so far in this one, he’s allowed to skate. He gets graded on a curve. But if he were the nominee, the curve is over. The Republicans will spend a billion dollars picking apart every one of his plans.” …
The sheer size of Sanders’ spending agenda dwarfs the proposed tax increases he has offered to pay for it, economists across the ideological spectrum agree. Brian Riedl, a former Senate Republican budget aide who’s now a senior fellow at the conservative Manhattan Institute, has calculated that at most Sanders’ existing proposals to raise taxes on the wealthy, Wall Street and corporations would raise about $23 trillion over the next decade.
“There is nowhere near enough resources that you can credibly collect to pay for spending of this size [from the rich],” agrees MacGuineas. “When you are talking about a doubling in the size of the government, you are talking about significant tax increases on the middle class.”
In addition, Sanders supports a plan offered by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez she has dubbed the “Green New Deal.” The cost for that program: $93 trillion.
Former ICE Director, Tom Homan, was testifying in front of congress today and had to explain to Rep. Al Green that crossing the border illegally is a crime. WATCH Homan have to explain the same thing to AOC.
Being an ignorant democrat congressman is so easy even a caveman can do it.
The event took place at Detroit’s Cass Technical High School and featured Sanders and Tlaib along with local rock star Jack White. The entire event can be seen here:
“We deserve someone who wrote the damn bill,” Tlaib said to the crowd, referring to a popularized debate quote from the Vermont socialist regarding universal healthcare. “We deserve Bernie Sanders.”
“It always seems it is impossible until it is done,” Sanders said at the rally. “Don’t believe anyone that tells you that moving towards a society of justice is impossible.”
Sanders’ social media account also released a video of Tlaib heaping massive praise upon the old, white career politician.
"I am endorsing Amo Bernie Sanders because he's not gonna sell us out. He understands that it's not just about policies and about words, but it's going to be also about completely transforming the structures in place." –@RashidaTlaibpic.twitter.com/3SaGZeOUT7
The ladies of the “Squad” are clearly coalescing their rising media star power behind Sanders in the hopes to be power players within his Marxist regime. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY)endorsed Sanders’ campaign earlier this month:
Freshman Democratic congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez will endorse Vermont Senator and Presidential candidate Bernie Sanders in a campaign rally in Queens on Saturday, according to reporting Tuesday night from the Washington Post.
The formal endorsement places Ocasio-Cortez firmly in the camp of her fellow democratic socialist. AOC has become a symbol of the left wing of the Democratic Party often represented by Sanders, and it’s probably unsurprising that the rising Democrat star would align with Sanders, who she aligns closely on policy.
Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN), the anti-Semitic and anti-white Somalian refugee turned Congresswoman, quickly followed the lead of Ocasio-Cortez and endorsed Sanders for president as well:
Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN), the Somalia-born Congresswoman whose offensive remarks against America and Israel have made her a reviled figure nationally, has officially endorsed Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) for President in 2020.
“Bernie is leading a working class movement to defeat Donald Trump that transcends generation, ethnicity, and geography,” Omar said in a statement released Tuesday night. “And it’s why I believe Bernie Sanders is the best candidate to take on Donald Trump in 2020.”
However, it does not appear that the endorsements of the “Squad” are having as much of an impact on the presidential race. A state-wide activist group, Michigan Conservative Coalition, staged a protest at the Sanders/Tlaib rally today and noted how dismal the attendance was for the event in an Instagram post.
“We went in repudiation of socialism, and in defense of individual liberty,” said David Dudenhoefer, one of the protest organizers who is running as a Republican to defeat Tlaib in Michigan’s 13th Congressional district next year.
“Socialists can only offer a temporary band-aid in one hand, while they hold a knife in the other. Only through liberty can every individual find the best pathway toward peace and prosperity,” he told Big League Politics.
Following his recent heart attack, Sanders can no longer even run a competitive campaign for the presidency. The hardcore socialist has not been able to recapture his 2016 magic, when he posed a legitimate shot to beat Hillary Clinton. The “Squad” has likely picked a losing candidate.
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