September 10, 2020

'Appalling Betrayal': New Report Details Dozens of Trump Rollbacks Perpetrated Under Cover of Covid-

https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/09/10/appalling-betrayal-new-report-details-dozens-trump-rollbacks-perpetrated-under-cover

"Nearly 200,000 Americans are dead and more than 6 million have been infected with Covid-19 because of the administration's disastrous response, but Trump's top priority is showering giant corporations with deregulatory special favors," says Matt Kent of the consumer advocacy group Public Citizen.

In the nearly six months since President Donald Trump declared a public health emergency over the coronavirus pandemic, he has rolled back at least 30 public protections, while proposing changes to at least 20 others, according to a report published Thursday by Public Citizen's Coalition on Sensible Safeguards.

The report—Pandemic Rollbacks: Slashing Safeguards During the Coronavirus—tracks dozens of regulatory rollbacks enacted or proposed by the Trump administration since March.

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Noting that Trump "has directed agencies to press forward with his dangerous, unpopular, and corrupt deregulatory agenda as if it's business as usual," the report accuses the president of appearing "eager to take advantage of the crisis and ram through deregulatory policies while the rest of the country is distracted."

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The article enumerates some of those rollbacks.

September 8, 2020

Is a second American civil war really possible?

https://www.alternet.org/2020/09/is-a-second-american-civil-war-really-possible/

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If we are, indeed, on the brink of a second Civil War, it’s already being waged as a “cold war,” with the occasional armed skirmish being provoked by the so-called Alt-Right movement, which, as of summer, 2020, had murdered thousands of Americans since Tim McVeigh kicked off the modern “boogaloo” white supremacy era.

And, as in the past, this would be a war where the very, very rich—the oligarchs—pit Americans against each other, dividing us by class, region, race and religion simply to gain and hold more and more power and wealth.

This is not the first time we’ve faced such a crisis as a nation.

Each time, forces of massive accumulated or inherited wealth have nearly succeeded in taking full control of our nation, replacing a democracy, where the will of the people is accomplished through their elected representatives, with a form of government where most government functions reinforce the power, wealth and control of the morbidly rich.

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September 7, 2020

'Touted as 'essential'... treated as disposable': Labor Day anger as migrant farm workers toil inside

‘Touted as ‘essential’… treated as disposable’: Labor Day anger as migrant farm workers toil inside wildfire evacuation zones

https://www.rawstory.com/2020/09/touted-as-essential-treated-as-disposable-labor-day-anger-as-migrant-farm-workers-toil-inside-wildfire-evacuation-zones/

“For the workers, their hands were forced by a combination of circumstances as toxic as the ash that falls over the region’s famous vineyards.”

This Labor Day, immigrant and worker’s rights advocates are sounding the alarm in response to reports of migrant grape pickers, many of whom are undocumented, being forced to work in fire evacuation zones by California growers in a situation critics say demonstrates how some of those deemed “essential” at the outset of the coronavirus pandemic have been rendered “disposable” in the face of a record-setting heat wave and extremely dangerous conditions.

“What’s needed more than anything is an economic safety net in times of disaster so that people don’t have to accept perilous work and changes to immigration laws, so they don’t have to fear offers of help.”
Alleen Brown, reporter, The Intercept

While the threat of flames and smoke was strong enough in Sonoma County to provoke the relocation of area residents, “the county agriculture commissioner invited workers to continue laboring in the fields, doling out evacuation-area access passes to dozens of agricultural producers,” Alleen Brown reported for The Intercept.

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edited to add
I live in Sonoma county and it is currently 103 degrees outside (at 3:32 pm).

September 2, 2020

Businesses Balk at Trump's Payroll Tax Holiday

https://www.inc.com/diana-ransom/trump-payroll-tax-holiday-launch-key-issues.html

President Donald Trump's payroll tax holiday for American workers kicked in on September 1, but few if any are likely to see a dime of it. That's because tax and benefits experts are calling the current proposal unworkable.

"It's a nightmare for an employer," says Shauna Zobrist, a CPA and an adviser at Breakaway Bookkeeping & Advising, a virtual network of bookkeepers and accountants in Portland, Oregon. "There are so many unknowns that become apparent when you start peeling back the layers."

That's even after the U.S. Treasury and the Internal Revenue Service on August 28 issued joint guidance on the implementation of Trump's August 8 executive order--which temporarily deferred the employee portion of payroll taxes for workers with annual incomes of $100,000 or less, or $4,000 per biweekly pay period.

The guidance from the two agencies confirmed that employers would be on the hook for repaying the government for any payroll taxes that their employees defer. The businesses in turn are supposed to collect the taxes from their employees. That amounts to 6.2 percent of an employee's salary for Social Security and 1.45 percent for Medicare. The tax can be deferred from September 1 through December 31 of this year and recouped from January 1 through April 30, 2021.

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