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Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris said Thursday that there should be a federal moratorium on executions. The senator from California discussed the matter on National Public Radio, a day after Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom of California granted reprieves to 737 death row inmates and signed an executive order placing a moratorium on executions. Harris was asked if there should be “a federal equivalent” to Newsom’s order. She said, “Yes, I think that there should be.” […] She noted that black and Latino defendants were more likely to be executed than white defendants, as were poor defendants with poor legal representation...

Some Americans have much higher income and wealth than others. Former President Barack Obama explained, "I do think at a certain point you've made enough money." An adviser to Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez who has a Twitter account called "Every Billionaire Is A Policy Failure" tweeted, "My goal for this year is to get a moderator to ask 'Is it morally appropriate for anyone to be a billionaire?'" Democratic presidential hopeful Sen. Elizabeth Warren, in calling for a wealth tax, complained, "The rich and powerful are taking so much for themselves and leaving so little for everyone else." These people would...

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) launched his presidential campaign in Brooklyn, New York Saturday, declaring his bid is the best shot at beating President Donald Trump in 2020.

From the outset, several top-tier Democratic presidential candidates are pushing for new taxes on the wealthiest Americans and attempting to portray themselves as best positioned to fight the country’s yawning inequality gap. It is an indication of how much the Democratic Party is shifting and how far the candidates are willing to go to appeal to the party’s energetic liberal faction. The debate over wealth — particularly with billionaires in the field and Democrats challenging a president whose riches helped get him to the White House — is a dominant theme of the early primary season. Among the first advisers...

Moreover, as we also know, the gentrification of the cities has actually made these places more liberal and more Democratic. Yes, in a complete inversion from the past pattern, the Democrats are now the party of the rich. That’s why, in 2016, nine of the ten richest states voted for Hillary Clinton, while nine of the ten poorest states voted for Donald Trump. The enrichment of the Democrats was even more pronounced in the voting this year: In First Things, Williams College political scientist Darel E. Paul points out that of the 66 richest Congressional districts in the country, the...

The end of Robert Mueller’s investigation. The loss of health insurance for several million people. New laws that make it harder to vote. More tax cuts for the rich. More damage to the environment. A Republican Party molded even more in the image of President Trump. These are among the plausible consequences if the Republicans sweep the midterm elections and keep control of both the House and Senate. And don’t fool yourself. That outcome, although not the most likely one, remains possible. The last couple of weeks of polling have shown how it could happen. Voters who lean Republican —...

Race, class, love, death, white privilege, black disadvantage. Those heavy subjects are present, alongside the seemingly foregone conclusions that the system is rigged against those at the bottom by those at the top, you can’t fight city hall (but you absolutely must not give in to despair). Alongside the kaleidoscopic chaos of just plain being a teenager in 21st-century America, these global themes carom off each other in this wise and bittersweet adaptation of Angie Thomas’ best-selling young-adult novel.

(snip) The protests liberals whipped up against Kavanaugh this weekend, on the other hand, revealed too much about their own weakness. Washington, D.C. is a majority Democratic city with a black majority. But the Democratic voters out there yelling about Kavanaugh were as white as any country club gathering of Republicans. They looked like a line of Starbucks patrons — Caucasian, professional, largely millennial, with earth tones and earnest expressions aplenty. Men and women wore the same fashionable glasses and more or less the same clothes. It was a Pumpkin Spice Riot. Where were the black Democrats? Where were the...

The central premise of my new book – that the plantation defines not merely the origin but the entire history of the Democratic Party – will seem at the first glance, and for those unfamiliar with my previous work, far-fetched or even crazy. The old Democratic plantation system, after all, was involuntary; it was based on forcibly confining slaves. Today, however, the Democrats don’t have anyone penned up in this way, and they certainly aren’t forcing anyone to work. This objection, however, can be answered by recalling how the antebellum Democrats regarded the old plantation. Democratic Sen. James Chesnut regarded...

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez falsely says “that upper-middle class does not exist anymore in America” Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez recently said:“They [national Democrats] were campaigning most when we had more of an American middle class. This upper-middle class is probably more moderate but that upper-middle class does not exist anymore in America.”The Washington Post responded with the following:“… the upper-middle class has actually grown. In a 2016 paper published by the Urban Institute, Stephen J. Rose documented that the upper-middle class has grown substantially, from 12.9 percent of the population in 1979 to 29.4 percent in 2014.”The same Washington Post article also included this chart:...

I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus. Philippians 3:14 (KJV) Once again we have the Marxist Media explaining to us what is wrong with the best Gross Domestic Product quarterly results in the last four years. To have a bunch of leftist economists explaining why a roaring capitalist economy is a bad thing is like being lectured by atheists about the Bible or Maxine Waters preaching why calling for violence against Trump supporters is ordained from God. The only difference is these economists know less about capitalism than Mad Maxine...

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a Democratic Socialists of America member who won a Democratic primary victory this week in New York's 14th Congressional District, failed to clearly explain democratic socialism on Friday. Ocasio-Cortez joined "The View" panel where Meghan McCain asked about her self-described Democratic socialist views. The candidate has been at the center of attention since her upset in Tuesday's primary against incumbent Rep. Joe Crowley (D., N.Y.), a 10-term congressman and member of the Democratic leadership in the House of Representatives. Ocasio-Cortez is known for being one of the most left-leaning candidates in the 2018 midterm elections. "You consider yourself...

Sen. Elizabeth Warren wants her fellow Democrats to take on what she calls the "billionaire class." Does Warren know that many, if not most, of this tiny group of people are liberal Democrats? On a recent podcast hosted by Mehdi Hasan of The Intercept, Hasan asked Warren if she thought Democrats lacked the "guts" to go after billionaires. Warren response was "Yeah." She's particularly upset at the handful of her fellow Democrats who voted for a bill that watered down the Dodd-Frank banking regulation behemoth. Warren went on to say: "Until we have all the Democrats who are willing to...

Liberal California Congressman Ted Lieu blamed “human nature” for his “no” vote on President Trump’s tax reform package because he thinks poor people will get jealous of other people’s tax cuts. Just as the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act passed, the left-wing congressman jumped on his Twitter account to slam the bill for the bad effects he says it has on “human nature.” Lieu laid out a scenario where one person who only got a $380 tax cut will get angry if she finds out someone else got a $200,000 tax cut. Then, he noted that a man from California...

Washington, DC – Today, Club for Growth President David McIntosh issued the following statement as the House Ways and Means Committee continues to mark up the “Tax Cuts and Jobs” bill:“While the corporate tax cut will lead to some increase in our nation’s GDP, the rest of the provisions on individual taxpayers fails the pro-growth test,” Club for Growth President David McIntosh stated.“Republicans must correct at least four serious shortcomings of the House bill to follow through on campaign promises and to bring our nation closer to a tax reform proposal that is truly pro-growth.“1: millionaires’ tax rate: House Republicans...

President Donald Trump said on Wednesday the rich might see a hike in taxes as he pursues a major tax overhaul with outreach to Democrats who oppose cutting rates for the wealthy, while Republicans in Congress set a timetable to unveil their plan. “I think the wealthy will be pretty much where they are,” Trump said of taxes on the rich, without specifying the income level. “If they have to go higher, they’ll go higher, frankly.” “I think the wealthy will be pretty much where they are,” Trump said of taxes on the rich, without specifying the income level. “If...

The Cold War has been followed by the class war. A transatlantic class war has broken out simultaneously in many countries between elites based in the corporate, financial, and professional sectors and working-class populists. Already this transnational class conflict has produced Brexit and the election of Donald Trump to the American presidency. Other shocks are likely in store. None of the dominant political ideologies of the West can explain the new class war, because all of them pretend that persisting social classes no longer exist in the West. Neoliberalism—the hegemonic ideology of the transatlantic elite—pretends that class has disappeared in...

Two men who got into a heated confrontation during a North Dakota town hall for Republican Rep. Kevin Cramer had to be escorted from the event Thursday afternoon. Mr. Cramer faced a hostile crowd in Mandan during a question-and-answer session largely focused on his support for the American Health Care Act. Video from the event showed one man, identified by The Bismarck Tribune as Hazen resident Mike Quinn, angrily approaching Mr. Cramer and trying to shove a wad of bills into the congressman’s shirt collar. “If the health care is destroyed, do the rich get a tax break? Yes or...

New York has a problem: buying an apartment here is way too expensive. Mayor de Blasio has grouchily ambled along with a solution: make apartments even more expensive. That makes no sense. But it’s the principle of the mayor’s proposed “mansion tax.” Last week, de Blasio went up to Albany to push his idea: forcing home buyers to pay a “paltry” 2.5 percent tax on the value of purchases above $2 million. The tax would raise $336 million a year. That would be enough to subsidize 25,000 poorer elderly folks’ rent by a little more than $1,000 a month, as...

A growing gap between rich and poor in Germany could sap social cohesion in Europe’s largest economy and most populous country, a government report warned on Thursday. “If the differences between poor and rich are felt to be too big in a society, and wealth seems mostly to be acquired without rewarding work, then acceptance of the economic and social order can shrink,” the labor ministry study said. […] In Germany, the richest 10 percent of households own more than half of all the wealth in the country, while the poorest 50 percent hold around 1.0 percent, Labor Minister Andrea...