September, 22 2022, 12:08pm EDT
Patriotic Millionaires Announce Endorsement of Four Congressional Candidates
"These public servants are committed to taking on millionaires, corporations, and the corrupt political elite using their power in Washington to rig our system against ordinary Americans."
WASHINGTON
Today, the Patriotic Millionaires, a collection of high net-worth Americans united in their concern about the destabilizing concentration of money and power in America, announced their endorsement of four Congressional candidates running for the House of Representatives.
Democrats are entering the midterm elections after passing the Inflation Reduction Act and delivering on some core tenants of the Biden administration's economic agenda, but there is still much more to be done to unrig a tax code that gives overwhelming advantages to the rich, to ensure all working Americans can afford their basic needs, and to protect our democracy. If Congress is going to do that, it needs more Representatives who will act as champions of working people.
The Patriotic Millionaires organization endorses candidates who will champion the "first principles" of a fair tax system, a livable minimum wage, and equal political representation in their campaigns, and who will support legislation that translates these principles into laws if elected. The four candidates listed below have earned our endorsement for their dedication to fighting for all Americans, not just the rich and powerful:
Summer Lee (PA-12)
- Running against Michael Doyle
Chris Deluzio (PA-17)
- Running against Jeremy Shaffer
Jevin Hodge (AZ-01)
- Running against Rep. David Schweikert
Kermit Jones (CA-03)
- Running against Kevin Kiley
Previous endorsements by the Patriotic Millionaires in the 2022 cycle can be found HERE.
In conjunction with this exciting news, Morris Pearl, Chairman of the Patriotic Millionaires, said,
"We are so excited to be endorsing this group of candidates who have shown their dedication to Americans who work for a living. These four demonstrate the exact kind of Congressional leadership that this country needs. Just like our organization, these public servants are committed to taking on millionaires, corporations, and the corrupt political elite using their power in Washington to rig our system against ordinary Americans. They're going to unapologetically fight for a future that addresses the needs of working families, and I'm proud to give them our endorsement."
"We are building a broad coalition in Arizona and across the nation to bring vital representation to Arizona's first Congressional district," said Jevin Hodge, Candidate for Arizona's 1st District. "Our race has the potential to make or break the House majority, and I am honored to have Patriotic Millionaires fighting alongside me to lower costs, improve voting rights, and protect a woman's right to choose."
"I am honored to receive the endorsement of the Patriotic Millionaires," said Chris Deluzio, Candidate for Pennsylvania's 17th district. "These folks know that protecting democracy and building an economy that works for all of us is paramount. I am dedicated to ensuring that those with the most pay their fair share in taxes and that we have an economy that rewards work, not wealth. My campaign is laser focused on fighting for the working families of western Pennsylvania."
"I'm so thrilled to have the endorsement of Patriotic Millionaires," said Kermit Jones, Candidate for California's 3rd district. "Wealthy fund managers pay lower tax rates than our teachers, nurses, and working families. I'll proudly work to ensure that corporations and wealthy executives pay their fair share."
The Patriotic Millionaires is a group of high-net worth Americans who share a profound concern about the destabilizing level of inequality in America. Our work centers on the two things that matter most in a capitalist democracy: power and money. Our goal is to ensure that the country's political economy is structured to meet the needs of regular Americans, rather than just millionaires. We focus on three "first" principles: a highly progressive tax system, a livable minimum wage, and equal political representation for all citizens.
(202) 446-0489LATEST NEWS
Billionaire Jeff Bezos Wants to 'Help' Trump Gut Regulations
"Shockingly another one of the richest guys on Earth wants to defund our government and scrap regulations."
Dec 05, 2024
Billionaire Amazon founder Jeff Bezos on Wednesday expressed his optimism about U.S. President-elect Donald Trump's next term and suggested he would "help" the Republican gut regulations.
"If we're talking about Trump, I think it's very interesting, I'm actually very optimistic this time around... I'm very hopeful about this—he seems to have a lot of energy around reducing regulation," Bezos told The New York Times' Andrew Ross Sorkin during the newspaper's DealBook Summit.
"And my point of view, if I can help him do that, I'm gonna help him, because we do have too much regulation in this country. This country is so set up to grow," he continued, suggesting that regulatory cuts would solve the nation's economic problems.
After complaining about the burden of regulations, Bezos added, "I'm very optimistic that President Trump is serious about this regulatory agenda and I think he has a good chance of succeeding."
The comments came during a discussion about Bezos' ownership of The Washington Post, which also addressed the billionaire's recent controversial decisions to block the newspaper's drafted endorsement of Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris and have it stop endorsing presidential candidates.
Bezos said Wednesday that he is "very proud" of the move, that the Post "is going to continue to cover all presidents very aggressively," and the decision did not result from fears about Trump targeting his companies.
As Inc.reported Thursday: "Trump had railed against Bezos and his companies, including Amazon and The Washington Post, during his first term. In 2019, Amazon argued in a court case that Trump's bias against the company harmed its chances of winning a $10 billion Pentagon contract. The Biden administration later pursued a contract with both Amazon and Microsoft."
Bezos owns Blue Origin, an aerospace company and a competitor to Elon Musk's SpaceX. Musk—the world's richest person, followed by Bezos, according to the Bloomberg and Forbes trackers—has been appointed to lead Trump's forthcoming Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) with fellow billionaire Vivek Ramaswamy.
Bezos' remarks at the Times summit led Fortune's Brooke Seipel to suggest that he may be the next billionaire to join DOGE.
Musk and Ramaswamy headed to Capitol Hill on Thursday to speak with GOP lawmakers about their plans for the government.
"Despite its name, the Department of Government Efficiency is neither a department nor part of the government, which frees Musk and Ramaswamy from having to go through the typical ethics and background checks required for federal employment," The Associated Pressnoted. "They said they will not be paid for their work."
Keep ReadingShow Less
Jayapal, Sanders Offer Answer to Elon Musk's Healthcare Cost Question
"The most efficiently run healthcare systems in the world," said National Nurses United, "have been proven time and time again to be single-payer systems."
Dec 05, 2024
Two of the United States' most outspoken critics of the for-profit health system welcomed billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk's criticism of the country's sky-high healthcare spending—and suggested that Musk, a potential Cabinet member in the incoming Trump administration, join the call for Medicare for All.
A social media post by Musk drew the attention of Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.), who reintroduced legislation to expand Medicare coverage to every American last year and have long called for the for-profit healthcare system to be replaced by a government-run program, or single-payer system, like those in every other wealthy country in the world.
"Shouldn't the American people be getting getting their money's worth?" asked Musk, posting a graph from the nonpartisan Peter G. Peterson Foundation that showed how per capita administrative healthcare costs in the U.S. reached $1,055 in 2020—hundreds of dollars more than countries including Germany, Canada, and the United Kingdom.
"Yes," said Sanders, repeating statistics he has frequently shared while condemning the country's $4.5 trillion health system in which private, for-profit health insurance companies increasingly refuse to pay for healthcare services and Americans pay an average of $1,142 in out-of-pocket expenses each year.
"We waste hundreds of billions a year on healthcare administrative expenses that make insurance CEOs and wealthy stockholders incredibly rich while 85 million Americans go uninsured or underinsured," the senator added. "Healthcare is a human right. We need Medicare for All."
Jayapal added that she has "a solution" to exorbitant healthcare costs in the U.S.: "It's called Medicare for All."
Musk has been nominated by President-elect Donald Trump to lead a new federal agency that he wants to create called the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). Sanders has expressed support for some of the agency's mission, saying its plan to "cut wasteful expenditures" could be put to use at the Department of Defense, which has repeatedly failed audits of its annual spending.
But Sanders has sharply criticized the economic system and business practices that have helped make Musk the richest person in the world, with a net worth of $343.8 billion.
Another progressive, David Sirota of The Lever, suggested last month that DOGE could be used to eliminate the nation's vast health insurance bureaucracy and replace it with Medicare for All, pointing to a 2020 report from the Republican-controlled Congressional Budget Office that showed that a government-run healthcare program would save the country an estimated $650 billion each year.
"Such a system could achieve this in part because Medicare's 2% administrative costs are so much lower than the 17% administrative costs of the bureaucratic, profit-extracting private health insurance industry," wrote Sirota.
Musk drew the attention of Medicare for All advocates amid online discussion about the greed of for-profit insurance giants.
The killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson on Wednesday prompted discussion about widespread anger over the U.S. healthcare system, and following public outcry, Anthem Blue Cross Blue Shield on Thursday backtracked on a decision to stop paying for surgical anesthesia if a procedure goes beyond a certain time limit. The American Society of Anesthesiologists said that if Anthem stopped fully paying doctors who provide pain management for complicated surgeries, patients would be left paying hundreds or thousands of dollars in out-of-pocket costs.
National Nurses United, which advocates for a government-run healthcare system, urged Musk and others who support the broadly popular proposal to "join the movement to win Medicare for All."
"The most efficiently run healthcare systems in the world," said the group, "have been proven time and time again to be single-payer systems."
Keep ReadingShow Less
'We Disagree': US Dismisses Landmark Amnesty Report Accusing Israel of Genocide
"We have said previously and continue to find that the allegations of genocide are unfounded," said a State Department spokesperson.
Dec 05, 2024
A U.S. State Department spokesperson told reporters on Thursday that the United States disagrees with Amnesty International's new report accusing Israel of carrying out genocide in the Gaza Strip.
"We disagree with the conclusions of such a report," spokesperson Vedant Patel said a day after the human rights group released the document. "We have said previously and continue to find that the allegations of genocide are unfounded."
The Israeli government has vehemently rejected the findings in the report.
"The deplorable and fanatical organization Amnesty International has once again produced a fabricated report that is entirely false and based on lies. The genocidal massacre on October 7, 2023, was carried out by the Hamas terrorist organization against Israeli citizens. Since then, Israeli citizens have been subjected to daily attacks from seven different fronts. Israel is defending itself against these attacks acting fully in accordance with international law," wrote the Israel Foreign Ministry in a post on X.
Amnesty Israel also does not accept the findings of Amnesty International's report, according to The Times of Israel.
In a statement, the Israeli branch of the organization—which reportedly did not take part in the funding, research, or writing of the report—said that "the scale of the killing and destruction carried out by Israel in Gaza has reached horrific proportions and must be stopped immediately," per The Times of Israel. However, the groups does not believe the events "meet the definition of genocide as strictly laid out in the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide."
In the 296-page report released Wednesday—titled, "You Feel Like You Are Subhuman": Israel's Genocide Against Palestinians in Gaza—Amnesty International found through its research and legal analysis "sufficient basis to conclude that Israel committed, during the nine-month period under review, prohibited acts under Articles II (a), (b), and (c) of the Genocide Convention, namely killing, causing serious bodily or mental harm, and deliberately inflicting on Palestinians in Gaza conditions of life calculated to bring about their physical destruction in whole or in part."
In order for a conflict to be considered genocide under international law, there must be both evidence of specific criminal acts—such as killing members of a given group—as well as "intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such."
In its report, Amnesty International concluded that "these acts were committed with the specific intent to destroy Palestinians in Gaza."
Intent also came up during the State Department press conference Thursday when journalist Said Arikat of the Palestinian paper Al-Quds asked Patel a follow-up question about the report.
"I know that genocide depends a great deal on intent... And [the report] bases its conclusions on the statements, time and time and time again, by Israeli commanders, by Israeli officials," he said. "What is it going to take for you, for the United States of America... to say what is happening is genocide?"
Patel responded, "That's an opinion, and you're certainly welcome and you are entitled to it, as are all the organizations."
Israel faces an ongoing genocide case, led by South Africa, at the International Court of Justice and the International Criminal Court recently issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, former Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, and Hamas leader Mohammed Diab Ibrahim Al-Masri.
Keep ReadingShow Less
Most Popular