I had to post this here to be able to turn on the volume and listen. Maybe you won’t have that trouble if you go directly to Bernie Sanders on his White House visit as Biden’s domestic agenda is in peril.

Otherwise listen to the embedded video. Be sure to click on the play button (Even if you think the video is running without clicking on the play button, it isn’t).

Senator Bernie Sanders was among a group of lawmakers who met with President Biden on Wednesday, as he seeks to unite democrats over party disagreements that threaten two major legislation pieces. Sanders joins “CBS Mornings” to discuss the meeting and the state of the Democratic party.

I think Bernie Sanders admits to pulling an Obama losing strategy. He wanted $6 Trillion but agreed to only ask for $3.5 Trillion. You don’t trim your request down before you even start bargaining. It never worked for Obama, and it does not look like it is going to work here.

Glenn Greenwald has posted the story New Proof Emerges About the Hunter Biden Laptop: a Definitive Account of the CIA/Media Fraud.

New evidence on Monday proved what has long been clear: that documents about Joe Biden from the Hunter Biden laptop were authentic. Big Tech censorship in the weeks before the 2020 election of these genuine documents is one of the most severe assaults on free speech and a free election in years. That the corporate media was their key ally by endorsing and spreading a CIA lie — that these documents were “Russian disinformation” — makes this episode even more grave.

Saagar and Krystal reported on this book, but they only said a very small portion of what Glen Greenwald says here.

Breaking Points posted the video Krystal Ball: Democrats continue MASSIVE Billionaire Giveaway in spite of AOC Dress.

Krystal looks at the huge tax giveaway Democrats are planning on giving to their billionaire donors, despite the tax the rich dress worn by AOC that said otherwise

I was hoping someone would post this outside the Breaking Points paywall. Here is the quote that I think is so important.

The wealthiest people don’t actually earn income. Instead they have capital gains or they engage in a strategy like Elon Musk does. That strategy is called “Buy, Borrow, Die”, and it effectively allows them to skirt taxes forever. Here is how it works. It is actually pretty straightforward. You buy an asset, or in Musk’s case you start a company. As that asset increases in value, rather than selling it, which would trigger taxes, they borrow against it, avoiding taxes on their actual wealth for their entire lifetime. Then when they die, they can pass their asset to their heirs. Currently a provision in the tax code called a stepped up basis allows those heirs to avoid paying capital gains on any increase in value that happened over that asset over the life of Musk or whoever leaves it to them. So again, “Buy, Borrow, Die”. The end result is this strategy allows massive fortunes to escape taxation for ever.

So, don’t believe the Republican lie that an inheritance tax, that they call a “death tax”, taxes money that has already been taxed. This wealth is never taxed, and the Republicans like it just that way. If my descendants are lucky, I will be able to bequeath them wealth to take advantage of this loophole, albeit on a tiny scale compared to Elon Musk.

Aaron Maté has a Substack post With Clinton lawyer charged, the Russiagate scam is now indicted.

In accusing Clinton campaign lawyer Michael Sussmann of lying to the FBI, Special Counsel John Durham offers new evidence of the fabrications behind the Trump-Russia conspiracy theory.

Jimmy Dore has the video EXPLOSIVE Truth About Vaccines & COVID w/Inventor Of mRNA Vaccine Technology, Robert Malone.

This is darn hard to dismiss even though my brain was fighting this video for a long time as I watched it. I am not saying to buy this information hook, line, and sinker. I am saying, take it in, and let it roll around in your brain with all the other information you take in. At some point, you may come to a conclusion. I am not prejudging what that conclusion should be.

Democracy at Work has the episode Economic Update: Occupy Wall Street: Analysis and Legacy.

This episode of Economic Update was developed as part of a collective effort to explore the legacy of Occupy, in light of this 10 year anniversary. Through this project you can also hear analysis on the impact of Occupy from The Dig & Upstream. The producing partners for this project are the Rosa Luxemburg Foundation’s New York office and The New School’s Milano program. We encourage you to learn more and listen to some of the other episodes by visiting RosaLux.NYC/Occupy.

Sharon and I participated in some of the events in Boston and Worcester. It was exhilarating, but we knew it couldn’t last past the fall season. I have learned a lot since then, but I am not sure how much the country has learned. If we continue to resist the learning experience as a society, we may be forced to learn it by the success of China. The powers that fought and beat Occupy Wall Street are determined to put a stop to China. I am not sure who is going to win that fight. We will get our comeuppance. I am just not sure when and how it will happen

YouTube has the video Common Good Economics – The Real Purpose of Taxes.

Doug Pagitt and resident Economics Professor Fadhel Kaboub discuss the real function of taxes at the Federal level.

The Institute for New Economic Thinking has the series of articles – Feminist Economics with Jayati Ghosh.

In this five-part lecture series, the renowned scholar guides us through the field of feminist economics and shows how our understanding of the economy, theory and policy changes with the adoption of a gender perspective.

Here is the first lecture in the 5 part series.

New York Intelligencer magazine has the article No, the Richest One Percent Don’t Pay 40 Percent of the Taxes.

The Stat is literally true. But it is deeply misleading — so misleading, in fact, that it routinely fools even the people who are citing it into thinking it indicates something other than what it actually means.

This stat is so misleading that the author of this article even misses a good part of the point. If you looked at wealth gain instead of income, you would see that a very healthy portion of wealth gain is never counted as income.

How is wealth gain different from income? When the market value of your assets increases, but you don’t sell those assets, this is called unrealized capital gains. You can borrow against your assets without ever selling them so that the gains would never have to be reported as income. When the Federal Reserve Bank keeps interest rates low, it is cheaper to borrow than it is to pay cash and taxes. If you are clever enough, you can even have the tax laws written to let you deduct the interest from the income that you do have to report.

It also helps when the FED pushes money into the private sector in a way that props up the stock market and real estate market. This vastly increases wealth gain without having to touch income.

Democracy At Work has the video Ask Prof Wolff: China VS. a Myth of Stolen Technology.

A patron of Economic Update asks: “I recently watched a great news segment about China’s acquisition of western tech by China. You have spoken on this point in the past, could you reiterate that the tech acquired by China was not stolen, but as Saagar stated “China’s ability to weaponize western greed.”

This is Professor Richard Wolff’s video response.

I think this is a pretty good explanation. He did not go on to explain why labor is cheaper in China than it is in the west. I think I know the explanation. With the financialization of Western economies, capitalists find it easier to make money by extracting rent from the workers. Let China have the manufacturing and the low overhead economy. Our capitalists make money by draining the life out of the workers. It is easier for the capitalists, but it isn’t good for the society. Too bad the USA refuses to learn as mcuh from China as China has learned from us. If we choose to do ourselves in, should we expect China to do the work of saving us from our own worst instincts?