Really important to another important audit area for the IRS is that of benefit plans ...pension, 401k, 403b, VEBA, Health and Welfare ...these funds are set aside by employers for the benefit of their employees and their beneficiaries. These days the bulk of those funds are deducted from employee payroll and sent to the plan account for investment. IRS is one of the watchdogs to audit and investigate reports employer failure to act in the best interest of the intended recipients.
If you want to find a big fat hairy pot of money ready to be taken advantage of ... here it is.
In the early days of 401k accounts, the company that I worked for held onto the 401k deposits typically for at least a month before depositing it into the employee's 401k account. We knew the CEO was shady and it showed in everything he did.
There is now a rule that requires employers to more or less commit the funds with same timing as payroll is received by the employee. My husbands 401k was frozen because the employer was found to have mishandled a self funded medical plan. It was months before we could move the funds.
The Department of Labor can and will investigate these kinds of issues. They have a good team that does an excellent job investigating defined contribution plans.
I'm gonna guess that the DOL "had" a good team that "did" an "excellent job investigating defined contribution plans." I very sincerely doubt that that has continued.
It was related to the medical insurance first … reasonable claims were not being paid. IRS and EBSA notified by employees … and upon first look they froze all benefit plans.
I did not know this, but everything we know about Republicans and corporate America tells us that an unprotected asset belonging to ordinary people won't last a minute.
America is being burned right done to its foundations...
They are held in trust by bank or insurance company as directed trustee. It is hard for employers to access this asset but they can delay putting funds in ... which is by law borrowing from employee plan assets ... and a prohibited transaction carrying fines for the employer. But if IRS has. O staff to audit ...it becomes easier to not comply.
I decided to send the IRS 50% less than normal, for a completely legal reason: I’m ten years into retirement, and I have been doing sizeable annual conversions of my pretax IRA to a Roth IRA. I put that on pause because A) I want to defund this dictatorship and B) I think there’s a significant chance tRump will end the progressive income tax completely, in favor of a regressive sales tax or flat tax. If that happens, conversions to the Roth IRA will turn out to be folly. So as of today 4/15/25 my quarterly estimated tax payments are only 50% of what had been my normal, and I’m NOT a tax cheat. What I’m doing (and not doing) is completely legal and in my self interest.
Flat tax & more Sales taxes are in Project 2025. Tariffs are effectively regressive sales taxes as well. Watch Trump & the Republican gang push these self-serving, bogus, trickle down policies as a "great deal" for America.
If you start to see FOX News gushing over--err, reporting on--the AMAZINGLY unbelievable benefits inherent in a flat tax scheme, then you can bet your bottom dollar the GOP Congress will have a bill soon to reach the floor.
But my money is on them not trying this in 2025, as they will have to commit all of their political capital to passing the 2025 Leave No Billionaire Behind tax cut.
Why doesn't tRump just make it official and issue an EO stating that paying personal taxes owed is purely optional and no penalty attached to failure to file, with the exception of immigrants and Green Card holders...a true "Liberation Day" proclamation!
To effect transfer of wealth upstream, ultimately to the oligarchic class, there has to be money to transfer. That's what tariffs are for, in addition to being a bullying tool.
But tariffs won't be enough.
Tariffs on imports will raise prices; diminished exports will deprive consumers of money from overseas sales; tariffs will diminish.
Income tax is a tool - a slush fund -that has to be kept robust enough to help make up any perceived shortfall in the revenue stream demanded by the oligarchs. War is a tool to provide deficit-funded transfers through taxes on employees of defense contractors, as an example. But there are many useful tools used to shear the sheeple of their wool.
There will always be income tax, even in this brave new world, and if "they", using the IRS, think they can get something out of you, AI will figure out how to bust you and send you (the "middle class") the bill. No humans necessary. The IRS is not diminished by layoffs. For-profit collection agencies will do the collections plus penalties and interest, and for hard cases there's always for-profit prisons or El Salvador.
Professor Krugman: as Billy Kwan said in the novel, The Year of Living Dangerously: What then must we do?
what CAN we do? it seems few americans really care about this disaster that's stampeding down upon us. the way i see it (and others may see it differently), but the only way that we citizens are going to survive this regime is for WE THE PEOPLE to engage in a massive unified protest that shuts down the entire country. on one hand, we may not survive that, either, but on the other hand, we are guaranteed NOT TO SURVIVE IF WE SIT AROUND AND DO NOTHING.
i have poked around the 50501 site several times now but found little about WHERE or WHEN these protests are supposed to occur. i assume they'll be at each state's capital, starting at noon, but there's nothing that specifically states that! (who designed that uninformative webpage anyway?) that said, some people live quite far away from their state capital, so how will they travel there so they can participate?
and what about HandsOff and Indivisible? are they not helping organize this protest too? that would explain why i've heard so very little about it, i suppose. who else is participating?
I have a hunch that decentralization is a tactic to avoid being among the first group of "homegrowns" sent to El Salvador. It's hard to decapitate a many headed movement.
Yeah, the websites haven't really been kept up to date. All these organizations were thrown together at a moments notice - because, thanks to Project 2025 - the regime dismantled democracy very quickly.
Not all rallies will be in state capitols. We've been having rallies in NYC - including the massive one on April 5. I know for sure that Hands Off has one scheduled for April 19 together with Tesla Takedown. I hope it will be as big or bigger than April 5, but I won't know until I get there.
The 50501 organizers really do need to recruit some volunteers with web/PR expertise. They got off to a great start, but need some gas in the tank to keep up the momentum. I was expecting way more places to go on April 19, more like the first round of protests a couple of weeks ago.
Agree that fiftyfifty.one site is poor. Instead, check mobilize.us and search state or city, also The Big List of Protests.: Theblop.org has wonderful long list, organizers upload info. And indivisible.org often has info in the events, action, get involved area. Good luck!
Agree - I was also going to suggest mobilize.us. Many indivisible activities are also listed on mobilize.us but many times it seems I need to search for "indivisible" for their activities to show.
More generally to TARRIFIED's original question about what we need to do ...I found the March 28 episode of "The Trippi Show" podcast entitled, "'We're so far beyond tough love' with Reed Galen" to provide some important and useful guidance. The podcasters make the case that the authoritarian movement is so well-funded and so deeply embedded that those of us on Team Democracy must individually reach moderates who may have voted for Trump or may have stayed home in an effort to get them BACK into the democracy tent. The podcasters provide some guidance for approaching those conversations and specifically on how not to approach them.
Our US rep Cleaver has been supporting protests organized here in a popular protesting spot. He has written an op-ed in WAPO mentioning the work of Gandhi & MLK. Unfortunately, people are so brainwashed and many local conservatives make derogatory comments about him, the protests. Voting doesn't seem to work....I canvassed for Bernie in the 2016 primaries. I think the "Happy file an extension day" might get some attention, but like other comments state, it will cost some interest. Until this country gets an attitude adjustment the likes that Europe received during and after its two world wars, that's probably what it's going to take. How to explain Australia, Canada, NZ? Or Russia? IDK. Jamie Diamond got Trump's attention by selling off bonds when Trump didn't return his call, one of the followers here reported on his blog. I do believe Putin & his operatives do have some dirt on republican politicians (lead) and the silver is what has been promised them by the US (and global?) wealthy if they stay in line. Elections will probably be electronically rigged by the technocracy futurists all in on it, too.
Also just google April 19 protests in my state (name of state). There are many local chapters of Indivisible in most states. Find protest closest to you. Indivisible is also using “Mobilize” for their website’s name. I haven’t found any local chapters of 50501 in my state. Check Facebook if you’re on that.
Yes. Actually, I seem to recall they declared crypto to be their official currency. Bikele is of a piece with Milei in Argentina and the bros here... .
While these boycotts may make you feel better, Musk is entirely disposable to the administration. He’s like the kid that invites himself along to your birthday party, and then your first date. Musk’s distress might get him out of politics, but it isn’t going to stop the real masfeasants from doing what they want to do. It seems clear that focusing on the 2026 election to restore some oversight role back to congress should be the primary goal.
It's not about feeling better. It's about denying the oligarchs the source of their power - our capital. You're right that Musk is disposable, but he's been, and continues to be, useful to them, so it is important that we do away with him.
That's not to say we shouldn't >also< aim to stop the other miscreants from doing their damage, and ultimately King MAGA himself.
It also certainly doesn't mean we should neglect the midterms - quite the contrary, they should be a top priority.
Unfortunately, this hydra is a many headed beast, so we need to chop >all< their heads off.
I received an email from Feathers of Hope recently, from his wife, saying it was his last substack because he is officially and finally, dying from cancer.
When compared to the long list of Trump bad ideas and bad policies, the list of impeachable offenses is tidier. This shell game with El Salvador is definitely on the list.
We do care. We just don't know how to stop it! I was at the last rally a few weeks ago in Kingston, NY. There were lots of great signs, good speeches and milling about. Where does that get us? There are law suits a plenty but it is clear now that court rulings don't matter any more. How on earth do we fight this?
Is there a local chapter of Indivisible? You might look into that for ways to get involved and take action. The closest group to Kingston seems to be in Gardiner.
That is where Senator Schumer failed us. We needed to shut down this illegal takeover of our country. The next level of protest is impeachment. See Feathers of Hope: jerryweiss.substack.com
Until Trump, our government was a cooperative effort by all the people to administer the responsibilities of society to protect and nurture the nation.
I think democrats were correct to help fight Putin.
Now, I have to mention, Biden played very fair when he withdrew our Bush regime Troops from Afghanistan which borders Russia and the ungrateful Putin then spent 5 months preparing and he invaded Ukraine, claiming Ukrainians were Russians but he is still killing them anyway.
It's bad, but it will get worse. Destroying the IRS is just a momentary distraction. After they pick the low-hanging fruit, they will come after us. Yesterday, Trump was caught on a hot mike telling his jailer from El Salvador to build five more concentration camps for the US citizens that Trump plans to send there.
Endless playback loop here, but those reading this column will not change their behaviors or political views. There is simply no hope for survival of a democratic government which provides needed services to the 99.9% of people who are not very wealthy unless these kinds of facts can be viewed much more widely. Unless some mechanisms are found to break through the right wing media bubble, and get columns like this before the eyeballs of those who feed constantly upon right wing media disinformation, those in the decent segment of society are spinning their gears and getting nowhere.
Ed, a podcast I listened to made the case for a somewhat different approach but with the same goal that you identify.
I found the March 28 episode of "The Trippi Show" podcast entitled, "'We're so far beyond tough love' with Reed Galen" to provide some important and useful guidance. The podcasters make the case that the authoritarian movement is so well-funded and so deeply embedded that those of us on Team Democracy must individually reach moderates who may have voted for Trump or may have stayed home in an effort to get them BACK into the democracy tent. The podcasters provide some guidance for approaching those conversations and specifically on how not to approach them.
The REAL danger (and who needs this bad news - just like every other morning since Jan 20th !!!!!!!! ie pardons the Proud Boys !! how could it get better ! ) is ALL OF THE DATA THEY TOOK ON EVERY AMERICAN CITIZEN !!!!!!! That they can use with AI, trace where about - scan emails, and worse, though now how much worse than trump!?, sell to other countries as well. This is very very dangerous and just now coming to awareness. THIS has to come up as the threat it is - DOGE saved nothing in the scheme of the budget ! It was to take jobs, scare citizens but mostly to have all the DATA....sorry for more bad news !!!!!! This has to be in the Courts asap, just to let them know, we know. I know.....but we never give up the fight - never, ever
Not really, but given enough data, it is quite possible to use machine learning to predict who will vote Republican and who will vote Democratic IF they got out to vote.
The same technology that was used to decide which residents of the Middle East or Afghanistan were terrorists and candidates for a Hellfire missile whilst out on a drive is now being turned on US citizens. No missiles, maybe, but if they can declare immigrants, including asylum seekers, financially "dead" the can do the same to anyone. At least with the missiles, there were humans actually approving the individual strikes. Based on DOGE's approach to layoffs, I'm not so sure there would be now.
The money to accomplish that has, or will be, removed from the IRS budget. Just look how long it took to view some of Trump's tax returns. Look how long the returns were/are "being audited". These are very sociopathic, selfish, slimy people.
By the same token, what's the point in you making your comment critical of their's when you know the person isn't going to delete their comment just because you are a self appointed monitor?
We're being robbed. We've been getting robbed since 1980, but this time the haul is of existential magnitude. I can't help but wonder if any MAGAnuts will get the message?
The Germans didn't in the 30's. At least Trump and Musk are not popular to the extent Hitler was. Impeachment is the answer. Little by little, the scales are falling from Republican eyes.
Here in Alabama where the $33,000/yr, this state is blood red and fully supports the rich among us to evade taxes while they pay 10%. It is truly amazing just how much they love Trump and little they care about the future of their children. Can't say I've ever seen anything like it. Seeing how we've given our future to Trump you can well expect the outcome to look like the outcome of everything the man has ever done, Complete and Total Failure. Trump told everyone for 4yrs his plan was to turn the USA into Hungary 2.0 claiming what we needed was a "Strongman Leader" when the fact is Trump is the weakest president we've ever had, he is scared to death of Putin and Xi and he will allow them to take control of the World leaving us in collapse. Everything the Admin is dong now is pointing us straight to this outcome and here in Alabama people ae cheering it on because their are so riddled in racism, masogony and hate that is what drives them. Do understand that while incomes in Alabama are very low, as they are in most Red States because they continually elect crooks, it is still twice that of Hungary and inflation in Hungary is 20% and we are headed that way at high speed. Consider, a dozen eggs here cost $6.62 at Wally World the cheapest place in town. Remember Trump learning the new word Grocery and how Groceries were too high, they have only gone up under Trump and no evidence it will ever get any better. Remember when Trump said last year the Cars will come from China? Just imagine how many jobs that is going ot cost.
Wow, the price of eggs there is TWICE the price in Canada, where we have a marketing board for certain foods to help ensure a stable supply & fair return for farmers.
Trump has been trying to cancel our marketing boards in the free trade agreements.
One of the most terrifying things about fascism is that once you get a critical mass of the population to buy into that sort of "ethnic tribal identity uber alles" politics, it's virtually impossible to snap them out of it. It almost always requires outside intervention. Slavery and segregation in the South both had to be undone by Northern intervention (and in both cases the underlying structure remained because the North wasn't willing to put in the denazification work). Nazism in Germany had to be undone by the Allies with a world war and two generations of occupation. Apartheid in South Africa required the regime being cut off from the entire world, and resting on an unusually vulnerable position in the first place given how much of a minority white people were.
What you're describing in Alabama's sadly typical and not new. The South spent most of the Jim Crow era being robbed blind, largely by its own elites, which threw the gates wide open and invited in Northern-based trusts to strip-mine the place, so long as they got their cut of the profits. And the public's reaction was, largely, to keep voting for those elites over and over, while somehow blaming the black population and the few abolitionists left for all the strip-mining. A hell of a lot of waters were muddied after civil rights, but at least some Southern states have settled right back into the same pattern with different party labels, and a number of Northern states have joined them.
The GOP's project for the last several decades, but especially since 2008, has been to turn the entire United States into a Jim Crow era Southern state, and if we have in fact turned that corner, then we really are fucked. There's no coming back from that. Sure, that regime won't last forever, but only in the sense that *nothing* lasts forever; at that point, we're talking "fall of the Roman Empire" level events.
Seems to me the solution is New Voters. Since less than half the population votes what is needed is recruitment not conversion. Most of the people here are gone. They wanted someone to hate for their own failures in life and Trump gave them that with a Mega Phone. New voters I think are the key. Young people just don't have that inherent built in racism and masogyny that middle aged and older people here have. The problem as I see it is that they may not get there soon enough to save us. We also need to learn from our past that the USA is just not going to elect a woman yet. We've proven this twice and elected the worst possible P0S because of it. We need to run someone like Andy Beshar so we can get the country back on a normal track before the haters and racist backrupt us all.
According to the Government Accountability Office's High Risk Series for this year, the tax gap will be $606 billion. DOGE's aggressive inefficient incompetence will likely cost us another $150 billion in lost tax revenue by firing IRS employees when we need to be hiring. Musk lowered his estimate of what DOGE will save the federal government, but when you account just for the lost tax revenue from weakening IRS enforcement, DOGE will likely end up saving a net zero dollars. In a parallel universe, Dismantling Our Greed Economy would beef up IRS resources and recover at least 25% of our estimated 2025 net tax gap, which would be more than $150 billion. So implementing one item in the GAO's High Risk Series could save as much money as Musk projects his DOGE will by eliminating actual fraud.
"IRS continues to face challenges in meeting its objectives, such as with staffing shortages, especially for some key enforcement areas. For example, as we reported in January 2024, IRS officials noted that they have lost a significant number of staff who could audit high-income, high-wealth returns. Officials explained that it takes a minimum of 3 years of on-the-job training to develop the expertise to effectively audit the highest income returns, which can help address the tax gap. As we have recommended, IRS should develop and implement a strategy for hiring and training staff to meet this need."
Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. also argued, in his Path of the Law, "If you want to know the law and nothing else, you must look at it as a bad man, who cares only for the material consequences which such knowledge enables him to predict, not as a good one, who finds his reasons for conduct, whether inside the law or outside of it, in the vaguer sanctions of conscience."
Rarely has there been a worse man than our POTUS, who has decided the law has no teeth for him.
Adding insult to injury, he has convince a growing army of MAGA adjacent that they too need not fear the law.
With Talleyrand's quip about crimes and mistakes in mind: we await the moment Trump, who no longer fears criminal sanctions, makes a regime crippling mistake.
Really important to another important audit area for the IRS is that of benefit plans ...pension, 401k, 403b, VEBA, Health and Welfare ...these funds are set aside by employers for the benefit of their employees and their beneficiaries. These days the bulk of those funds are deducted from employee payroll and sent to the plan account for investment. IRS is one of the watchdogs to audit and investigate reports employer failure to act in the best interest of the intended recipients.
If you want to find a big fat hairy pot of money ready to be taken advantage of ... here it is.
In the early days of 401k accounts, the company that I worked for held onto the 401k deposits typically for at least a month before depositing it into the employee's 401k account. We knew the CEO was shady and it showed in everything he did.
There is now a rule that requires employers to more or less commit the funds with same timing as payroll is received by the employee. My husbands 401k was frozen because the employer was found to have mishandled a self funded medical plan. It was months before we could move the funds.
The Department of Labor can and will investigate these kinds of issues. They have a good team that does an excellent job investigating defined contribution plans.
All past tense, probably. THEY HAD a good team.
The Trump Department of Labor? Good luck with that.
I'm gonna guess that the DOL "had" a good team that "did" an "excellent job investigating defined contribution plans." I very sincerely doubt that that has continued.
They look at any benefit plan covered by ERISA. Their group is/was not as large as the IRS side.
Oh my.
zombies?
They got the ax too.
Who found your husband's employer's self-funded medical plan was mishandled?
It was related to the medical insurance first … reasonable claims were not being paid. IRS and EBSA notified by employees … and upon first look they froze all benefit plans.
Sounds like your husband did not belong to a union. Sounds like the employer was a bad guy.
Yes he fled the states to Caymans
send it to trump
B-O-O-G-U-S-S!!!
I did not know this, but everything we know about Republicans and corporate America tells us that an unprotected asset belonging to ordinary people won't last a minute.
America is being burned right done to its foundations...
How in the world are assets even protected ?
They are held in trust by bank or insurance company as directed trustee. It is hard for employers to access this asset but they can delay putting funds in ... which is by law borrowing from employee plan assets ... and a prohibited transaction carrying fines for the employer. But if IRS has. O staff to audit ...it becomes easier to not comply.
I rather think they will go after 529 plans first, but that is a smaller pot of money.
If you broke into Tiffany would you seriously go for the inexpensive stiff first?
I guess it depends on what was easiest to get, right?
All part of the plan to destroy America
I decided to send the IRS 50% less than normal, for a completely legal reason: I’m ten years into retirement, and I have been doing sizeable annual conversions of my pretax IRA to a Roth IRA. I put that on pause because A) I want to defund this dictatorship and B) I think there’s a significant chance tRump will end the progressive income tax completely, in favor of a regressive sales tax or flat tax. If that happens, conversions to the Roth IRA will turn out to be folly. So as of today 4/15/25 my quarterly estimated tax payments are only 50% of what had been my normal, and I’m NOT a tax cheat. What I’m doing (and not doing) is completely legal and in my self interest.
Flat tax & more Sales taxes are in Project 2025. Tariffs are effectively regressive sales taxes as well. Watch Trump & the Republican gang push these self-serving, bogus, trickle down policies as a "great deal" for America.
If you start to see FOX News gushing over--err, reporting on--the AMAZINGLY unbelievable benefits inherent in a flat tax scheme, then you can bet your bottom dollar the GOP Congress will have a bill soon to reach the floor.
But my money is on them not trying this in 2025, as they will have to commit all of their political capital to passing the 2025 Leave No Billionaire Behind tax cut.
Why doesn't tRump just make it official and issue an EO stating that paying personal taxes owed is purely optional and no penalty attached to failure to file, with the exception of immigrants and Green Card holders...a true "Liberation Day" proclamation!
He can't. The goal is to get as much wealth as possible from the lower 99.
Nice, but likely a dangerous fantasy.
To effect transfer of wealth upstream, ultimately to the oligarchic class, there has to be money to transfer. That's what tariffs are for, in addition to being a bullying tool.
But tariffs won't be enough.
Tariffs on imports will raise prices; diminished exports will deprive consumers of money from overseas sales; tariffs will diminish.
Income tax is a tool - a slush fund -that has to be kept robust enough to help make up any perceived shortfall in the revenue stream demanded by the oligarchs. War is a tool to provide deficit-funded transfers through taxes on employees of defense contractors, as an example. But there are many useful tools used to shear the sheeple of their wool.
There will always be income tax, even in this brave new world, and if "they", using the IRS, think they can get something out of you, AI will figure out how to bust you and send you (the "middle class") the bill. No humans necessary. The IRS is not diminished by layoffs. For-profit collection agencies will do the collections plus penalties and interest, and for hard cases there's always for-profit prisons or El Salvador.
It’s certainly been optional for him.
The Koch brothers?
Get lost spammer.
Anyone who gets their medical advice from the web lacks a brain in the first place.
Professor Krugman: as Billy Kwan said in the novel, The Year of Living Dangerously: What then must we do?
what CAN we do? it seems few americans really care about this disaster that's stampeding down upon us. the way i see it (and others may see it differently), but the only way that we citizens are going to survive this regime is for WE THE PEOPLE to engage in a massive unified protest that shuts down the entire country. on one hand, we may not survive that, either, but on the other hand, we are guaranteed NOT TO SURVIVE IF WE SIT AROUND AND DO NOTHING.
That's why it's imperative that we Rise! Resist! ✊✊✊
April 19 is the next nationwide rally, be there or be square!
//
Don't let up folks, it's working:
Boycott TE卐LA! Boycott Swastikar!
Short TE卐LA! Short Swastikar!
Boycott 卐tarlink!
Boycott 卐/Twitter!
Curb your DOGE!
https://generalstrikeus.com/strikecard
https://www.fiftyfifty.one/
https://indivisible.org/
https://handsoff2025.com/
https://www.teslatakedown.com/
https://www.riseandresist.org/
https://thirdact.org
//
Great handle BTW.
i have poked around the 50501 site several times now but found little about WHERE or WHEN these protests are supposed to occur. i assume they'll be at each state's capital, starting at noon, but there's nothing that specifically states that! (who designed that uninformative webpage anyway?) that said, some people live quite far away from their state capital, so how will they travel there so they can participate?
and what about HandsOff and Indivisible? are they not helping organize this protest too? that would explain why i've heard so very little about it, i suppose. who else is participating?
I have a hunch that decentralization is a tactic to avoid being among the first group of "homegrowns" sent to El Salvador. It's hard to decapitate a many headed movement.
Yes, Tom that's the method that was adopted by John Hancock et al.
Yes. I think that's true. I haven't heard of anything yet.
Yeah, the websites haven't really been kept up to date. All these organizations were thrown together at a moments notice - because, thanks to Project 2025 - the regime dismantled democracy very quickly.
Not all rallies will be in state capitols. We've been having rallies in NYC - including the massive one on April 5. I know for sure that Hands Off has one scheduled for April 19 together with Tesla Takedown. I hope it will be as big or bigger than April 5, but I won't know until I get there.
Try searching through 50501's event page: https://events.pol-rev.com/search?search&contentType=EVENTS
Anyone organizing will be hit hard. I wish the elected Democratic leaders would take charge. They couldn't just disappear.
Give it time.
The 50501 organizers really do need to recruit some volunteers with web/PR expertise. They got off to a great start, but need some gas in the tank to keep up the momentum. I was expecting way more places to go on April 19, more like the first round of protests a couple of weeks ago.
This Substack links to a Google doc which you can search by state for events. https://open.substack.com/pub/thepeopledissent/p/1-day-1-million-protestors-1-list-494?r=9t40l&utm_medium=ios
Agree that fiftyfifty.one site is poor. Instead, check mobilize.us and search state or city, also The Big List of Protests.: Theblop.org has wonderful long list, organizers upload info. And indivisible.org often has info in the events, action, get involved area. Good luck!
Agree - I was also going to suggest mobilize.us. Many indivisible activities are also listed on mobilize.us but many times it seems I need to search for "indivisible" for their activities to show.
More generally to TARRIFIED's original question about what we need to do ...I found the March 28 episode of "The Trippi Show" podcast entitled, "'We're so far beyond tough love' with Reed Galen" to provide some important and useful guidance. The podcasters make the case that the authoritarian movement is so well-funded and so deeply embedded that those of us on Team Democracy must individually reach moderates who may have voted for Trump or may have stayed home in an effort to get them BACK into the democracy tent. The podcasters provide some guidance for approaching those conversations and specifically on how not to approach them.
Our US rep Cleaver has been supporting protests organized here in a popular protesting spot. He has written an op-ed in WAPO mentioning the work of Gandhi & MLK. Unfortunately, people are so brainwashed and many local conservatives make derogatory comments about him, the protests. Voting doesn't seem to work....I canvassed for Bernie in the 2016 primaries. I think the "Happy file an extension day" might get some attention, but like other comments state, it will cost some interest. Until this country gets an attitude adjustment the likes that Europe received during and after its two world wars, that's probably what it's going to take. How to explain Australia, Canada, NZ? Or Russia? IDK. Jamie Diamond got Trump's attention by selling off bonds when Trump didn't return his call, one of the followers here reported on his blog. I do believe Putin & his operatives do have some dirt on republican politicians (lead) and the silver is what has been promised them by the US (and global?) wealthy if they stay in line. Elections will probably be electronically rigged by the technocracy futurists all in on it, too.
Use the Mobilize website:
https://www.mobilize.us/
It aggregates a wide range of resistance actions by an array of sponsors, including Indivisible, Hands Off, 50501, etc.. You can filter by your area.
Also just google April 19 protests in my state (name of state). There are many local chapters of Indivisible in most states. Find protest closest to you. Indivisible is also using “Mobilize” for their website’s name. I haven’t found any local chapters of 50501 in my state. Check Facebook if you’re on that.
What about boycotting El Salvador while we're at it?
All their embassies need to be picketed.
Yes! Consulates too....
Isn't cryptocurrency "tourism" their main industry?
Yes. Actually, I seem to recall they declared crypto to be their official currency. Bikele is of a piece with Milei in Argentina and the bros here... .
El Salvador's top ten exports are:
1. Knit or crochet clothing, accessories: US$1.6 billion (24.1% of total exports)
2. Plastics, plastic articles: $549.3 million (8.5%)
3. Electrical machinery, equipment: $367.3 million (5.7%)
4. Paper, paper items: $366.4 million (5.7%)
5. Sugar, sugar confectionery: $326.1 million (5.1%)
6. Mineral fuels including oil: $322.5 million (5%)
7. Cereal/milk preparations: $226.7 million (3.5%)
8. Pharmaceuticals: $182.2 million (2.8%)
9. Iron, steel: $179.8 million (2.8%)
10. Beverages, spirits, vinegar: $176.8 million (2.7%)
I fearlessly predict (a sign of superior intelligence, by the way. The president said so) that all of those products will be exempted from tariffs.
I'm all for it.
While these boycotts may make you feel better, Musk is entirely disposable to the administration. He’s like the kid that invites himself along to your birthday party, and then your first date. Musk’s distress might get him out of politics, but it isn’t going to stop the real masfeasants from doing what they want to do. It seems clear that focusing on the 2026 election to restore some oversight role back to congress should be the primary goal.
It's not about feeling better. It's about denying the oligarchs the source of their power - our capital. You're right that Musk is disposable, but he's been, and continues to be, useful to them, so it is important that we do away with him.
That's not to say we shouldn't >also< aim to stop the other miscreants from doing their damage, and ultimately King MAGA himself.
It also certainly doesn't mean we should neglect the midterms - quite the contrary, they should be a top priority.
Unfortunately, this hydra is a many headed beast, so we need to chop >all< their heads off.
Look into Feathers of Hope and their efforts to promote IMPEACHMENT. Help start a movement!
Sadly,
I received an email from Feathers of Hope recently, from his wife, saying it was his last substack because he is officially and finally, dying from cancer.
Sad. The most recent entry on the site is March 17. 😢
When compared to the long list of Trump bad ideas and bad policies, the list of impeachable offenses is tidier. This shell game with El Salvador is definitely on the list.
We do care. We just don't know how to stop it! I was at the last rally a few weeks ago in Kingston, NY. There were lots of great signs, good speeches and milling about. Where does that get us? There are law suits a plenty but it is clear now that court rulings don't matter any more. How on earth do we fight this?
Is there a local chapter of Indivisible? You might look into that for ways to get involved and take action. The closest group to Kingston seems to be in Gardiner.
https://www.mobilize.us/indivisible/map/
Thank you. I have already joined moveon and Indivisible.. but I will dig in more.
Protest April 19th. Protest Nonviolent must be a massive protest all over the country🇺🇸
That is where Senator Schumer failed us. We needed to shut down this illegal takeover of our country. The next level of protest is impeachment. See Feathers of Hope: jerryweiss.substack.com
Until Trump, our government was a cooperative effort by all the people to administer the responsibilities of society to protect and nurture the nation.
I think democrats were correct to help fight Putin.
We can again.
Now, I have to mention, Biden played very fair when he withdrew our Bush regime Troops from Afghanistan which borders Russia and the ungrateful Putin then spent 5 months preparing and he invaded Ukraine, claiming Ukrainians were Russians but he is still killing them anyway.
It's bad, but it will get worse. Destroying the IRS is just a momentary distraction. After they pick the low-hanging fruit, they will come after us. Yesterday, Trump was caught on a hot mike telling his jailer from El Salvador to build five more concentration camps for the US citizens that Trump plans to send there.
I'm a fan of AI in general, but it is indefatigable. The level of fruit hang doesn't matter.
Trump on not paying his taxes - “That makes me smart.”
Nothing, short of divine intervention, could make Donald Trump smart.
Endless playback loop here, but those reading this column will not change their behaviors or political views. There is simply no hope for survival of a democratic government which provides needed services to the 99.9% of people who are not very wealthy unless these kinds of facts can be viewed much more widely. Unless some mechanisms are found to break through the right wing media bubble, and get columns like this before the eyeballs of those who feed constantly upon right wing media disinformation, those in the decent segment of society are spinning their gears and getting nowhere.
The right wing media bubble is impervious. It doesn’t report anything that makes Trump look bad.
I agree Ed! We have to keep the government's hands off our madicare.
Ed, a podcast I listened to made the case for a somewhat different approach but with the same goal that you identify.
I found the March 28 episode of "The Trippi Show" podcast entitled, "'We're so far beyond tough love' with Reed Galen" to provide some important and useful guidance. The podcasters make the case that the authoritarian movement is so well-funded and so deeply embedded that those of us on Team Democracy must individually reach moderates who may have voted for Trump or may have stayed home in an effort to get them BACK into the democracy tent. The podcasters provide some guidance for approaching those conversations and specifically on how not to approach them.
The REAL danger (and who needs this bad news - just like every other morning since Jan 20th !!!!!!!! ie pardons the Proud Boys !! how could it get better ! ) is ALL OF THE DATA THEY TOOK ON EVERY AMERICAN CITIZEN !!!!!!! That they can use with AI, trace where about - scan emails, and worse, though now how much worse than trump!?, sell to other countries as well. This is very very dangerous and just now coming to awareness. THIS has to come up as the threat it is - DOGE saved nothing in the scheme of the budget ! It was to take jobs, scare citizens but mostly to have all the DATA....sorry for more bad news !!!!!! This has to be in the Courts asap, just to let them know, we know. I know.....but we never give up the fight - never, ever
You're not wrong. The data is worth billions, or even trillions.
More than that, the data will include MAGA loyalty scores, like in China.
Not really, but given enough data, it is quite possible to use machine learning to predict who will vote Republican and who will vote Democratic IF they got out to vote.
The same technology that was used to decide which residents of the Middle East or Afghanistan were terrorists and candidates for a Hellfire missile whilst out on a drive is now being turned on US citizens. No missiles, maybe, but if they can declare immigrants, including asylum seekers, financially "dead" the can do the same to anyone. At least with the missiles, there were humans actually approving the individual strikes. Based on DOGE's approach to layoffs, I'm not so sure there would be now.
The IRS should focus its efforts on the top earners.
The money to accomplish that has, or will be, removed from the IRS budget. Just look how long it took to view some of Trump's tax returns. Look how long the returns were/are "being audited". These are very sociopathic, selfish, slimy people.
These are people who used to post comments to the effect that taxation is theft.
Those damn lazy libertarians.
THAT would help the deficit ! :) bravo
By the same token, what's the point in you making your comment critical of their's when you know the person isn't going to delete their comment just because you are a self appointed monitor?
Well it looks like the commentor I responded to packed their trash and FLED!!!!
?
We're being robbed. We've been getting robbed since 1980, but this time the haul is of existential magnitude. I can't help but wonder if any MAGAnuts will get the message?
The Germans didn't in the 30's. At least Trump and Musk are not popular to the extent Hitler was. Impeachment is the answer. Little by little, the scales are falling from Republican eyes.
At least he made the trains run on time.
That wasn't Hitler. It was Mussolini.
I always wondered about late trains in Germany?
A few MAGAs have turned, just going by anecdotes. All people looking at destroyed small businesses thanks to tariffs.
Here in Alabama where the $33,000/yr, this state is blood red and fully supports the rich among us to evade taxes while they pay 10%. It is truly amazing just how much they love Trump and little they care about the future of their children. Can't say I've ever seen anything like it. Seeing how we've given our future to Trump you can well expect the outcome to look like the outcome of everything the man has ever done, Complete and Total Failure. Trump told everyone for 4yrs his plan was to turn the USA into Hungary 2.0 claiming what we needed was a "Strongman Leader" when the fact is Trump is the weakest president we've ever had, he is scared to death of Putin and Xi and he will allow them to take control of the World leaving us in collapse. Everything the Admin is dong now is pointing us straight to this outcome and here in Alabama people ae cheering it on because their are so riddled in racism, masogony and hate that is what drives them. Do understand that while incomes in Alabama are very low, as they are in most Red States because they continually elect crooks, it is still twice that of Hungary and inflation in Hungary is 20% and we are headed that way at high speed. Consider, a dozen eggs here cost $6.62 at Wally World the cheapest place in town. Remember Trump learning the new word Grocery and how Groceries were too high, they have only gone up under Trump and no evidence it will ever get any better. Remember when Trump said last year the Cars will come from China? Just imagine how many jobs that is going ot cost.
Wow, the price of eggs there is TWICE the price in Canada, where we have a marketing board for certain foods to help ensure a stable supply & fair return for farmers.
Trump has been trying to cancel our marketing boards in the free trade agreements.
Glad Canada stood firm.
I bought a dozen large eggs today at $4.97 at Walmart. They are about the same at Aldi a mile down the road.
One of the most terrifying things about fascism is that once you get a critical mass of the population to buy into that sort of "ethnic tribal identity uber alles" politics, it's virtually impossible to snap them out of it. It almost always requires outside intervention. Slavery and segregation in the South both had to be undone by Northern intervention (and in both cases the underlying structure remained because the North wasn't willing to put in the denazification work). Nazism in Germany had to be undone by the Allies with a world war and two generations of occupation. Apartheid in South Africa required the regime being cut off from the entire world, and resting on an unusually vulnerable position in the first place given how much of a minority white people were.
What you're describing in Alabama's sadly typical and not new. The South spent most of the Jim Crow era being robbed blind, largely by its own elites, which threw the gates wide open and invited in Northern-based trusts to strip-mine the place, so long as they got their cut of the profits. And the public's reaction was, largely, to keep voting for those elites over and over, while somehow blaming the black population and the few abolitionists left for all the strip-mining. A hell of a lot of waters were muddied after civil rights, but at least some Southern states have settled right back into the same pattern with different party labels, and a number of Northern states have joined them.
The GOP's project for the last several decades, but especially since 2008, has been to turn the entire United States into a Jim Crow era Southern state, and if we have in fact turned that corner, then we really are fucked. There's no coming back from that. Sure, that regime won't last forever, but only in the sense that *nothing* lasts forever; at that point, we're talking "fall of the Roman Empire" level events.
Seems to me the solution is New Voters. Since less than half the population votes what is needed is recruitment not conversion. Most of the people here are gone. They wanted someone to hate for their own failures in life and Trump gave them that with a Mega Phone. New voters I think are the key. Young people just don't have that inherent built in racism and masogyny that middle aged and older people here have. The problem as I see it is that they may not get there soon enough to save us. We also need to learn from our past that the USA is just not going to elect a woman yet. We've proven this twice and elected the worst possible P0S because of it. We need to run someone like Andy Beshar so we can get the country back on a normal track before the haters and racist backrupt us all.
According to the Government Accountability Office's High Risk Series for this year, the tax gap will be $606 billion. DOGE's aggressive inefficient incompetence will likely cost us another $150 billion in lost tax revenue by firing IRS employees when we need to be hiring. Musk lowered his estimate of what DOGE will save the federal government, but when you account just for the lost tax revenue from weakening IRS enforcement, DOGE will likely end up saving a net zero dollars. In a parallel universe, Dismantling Our Greed Economy would beef up IRS resources and recover at least 25% of our estimated 2025 net tax gap, which would be more than $150 billion. So implementing one item in the GAO's High Risk Series could save as much money as Musk projects his DOGE will by eliminating actual fraud.
"IRS continues to face challenges in meeting its objectives, such as with staffing shortages, especially for some key enforcement areas. For example, as we reported in January 2024, IRS officials noted that they have lost a significant number of staff who could audit high-income, high-wealth returns. Officials explained that it takes a minimum of 3 years of on-the-job training to develop the expertise to effectively audit the highest income returns, which can help address the tax gap. As we have recommended, IRS should develop and implement a strategy for hiring and training staff to meet this need."
https://files.gao.gov/reports/GAO-25-107743/index.html?_gl=1*1hdjn5*_ga*MTg2NDAyNDQ4Mi4xNzQ0NDk1MTY4*_ga_V393SNS3SR*MTc0NDQ5NTE2OC4xLjEuMTc0NDQ5NTI0Ni4wLjAuMA..#TaxLaws
“… Musk’s malignantly ignorant kids.”
A friend of mine calls them “traitor tots,” which is both apt and grimly amusing.
And much more descriptive than DOGE bros!
Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. also argued, in his Path of the Law, "If you want to know the law and nothing else, you must look at it as a bad man, who cares only for the material consequences which such knowledge enables him to predict, not as a good one, who finds his reasons for conduct, whether inside the law or outside of it, in the vaguer sanctions of conscience."
Rarely has there been a worse man than our POTUS, who has decided the law has no teeth for him.
Adding insult to injury, he has convince a growing army of MAGA adjacent that they too need not fear the law.
With Talleyrand's quip about crimes and mistakes in mind: we await the moment Trump, who no longer fears criminal sanctions, makes a regime crippling mistake.
Crimmen is Latin for offense. With milk carton clarity crime applies to the whole being of Trump.
Dr. Krugman. It's more than tax evasion. It's obvious the tariffs taxes are meant to pay for the deficit created by the rich skipping taxes.
I'm still shocked at how stupid our people are, but it's obvious TV brainwashed.
Essentiially they are defunding the police. How ironic.
It’s all about which police.