Failure to Launch

hanging on by a fucking thread. Look, I don't want to count my chickens before they hatch, because we are very long time away from the real kickstart to the presidential twenty twenty four campaign season, and a lot can happen, and a lot usually does happen. But anytime that a media outlet is comparing you to Ted Cruz, know that you are not doing a good job, and that is

not a fucking compliment. Many are saying that Ronda Santis's campaign is pretty much like Ted Cruz's of yesteryear, where folks thought that he was going to be a good contender and giving him, you know, lots of accolades, and then he gets on to the world stage and just fucking fizzles. The same thing is happening with Ronda Santis.

But I want to read you this that Ebro, who goes by old man Ebro on Instagram and is a personality and host at Hot ninety seven here in New York, he posted this and I shared it in my stories if you follow me on Instagram at d two cents

dee tw ocnts. He posted this, And I want you to just think about this as I talk about the fact that Ronda Santis is firing roughly twenty staffers, that he is losing money, that he is doing a quote unquote reset, and the fact is that ron de Sant has only launched his presidential campaign a few weeks ago.

If we really put things into real context, like there had been, you know, chatter about him launching his presidential campaign, but he didn't actually launch it until several weeks ago, and you're already in the midst of like a full blown reset and firing people, and you know, and now he's going to sit down with Jake Tapper because you know that he hates all media unless he's controlling it. But this is what Ebro posted quote Florida is a

failed state. It is the inflation hotspot of the United States, while the national average has dropped to its low its level in years. Insurance companies are fleeing and consumers are being hit with skyrocketing costs. Rent prices are through the roof. There is a historic teacher shortage. Doctors and nurses are leaving in droves. Businesses are pulling massive development projects amid

the state's attack on the free market. And that's before you get into the attacks on the LGBTQ plus community, the banning of books, the censorship of American history, and the war on reproductive rights and more. When it's all said and done, Ron DeSantis may just go down as

the single worst governor in history. The other piece of this as well, you know, is when you look at and this was in a CNBC study the sound that the ten worse states to live in, the ten worse states to live in, were all controlled by Republican majorities. And let me tell you that Florida is on the fucking list. And so, folks, it's like nine of the ten, I'm sorry, were controlled by Republicans, and Florida was of

course on that list. So when you think about Ronda Santis's campaign, his failure to launch all of the things that he has going against him in the state of Florida, and the fact that he can't get through a sentence without uttering the word woke seventy five million times? How do we think that Deronda Santis is going to play on the national stage when he can't even manage himself

and his state. Right, So, if I were a Republican opponent, right, I'm holding up Ronda Santis' stats in Florida, and I'm saying, do you want him to run the country into the ground the way that he's running his state into the ground? Because these motherfuckers don't care about their constituencies. And that is so clear because if you did, then you would be creating measures that would be making people's lives better,

not worse. That would be hoarding more people to come to your state, not flee and find refuge states around the country. And so when I hear the remarks and see all the chatter about ron De Santis being in quote unquote turmoil, none of that is a fucking shock to me at all. Because he won. He may have the same cruel policy ideas and tactics that Donald Trump has and the rest of the Republican Party has. He

has none of the fucking charisma. You know. The thing, and I said this on my other show, The New Abnormal. The thing about Donald Trump, for better or for worse, is that Donald Trump has been like a mascot for white male mediocrity. It is something that they look at that they look towards to rev them up right and make them feel like hanging out with blonde models and having them on your arm, or shitting in gold toilets, or you know, marrying a bunch of models is like

they can do it too. Donald Trump had always been somebody that mediocre white men idolize, right, and that was before he came into politics. And so when you understand that about who Donald Trump's base is and why they like him, and then you put those same metrics, use that same rubric on a Rond de Santis in all fit, it doesn't match up because he has as much charisma as a fucking brick, do you know what I'm saying?

Like he has nothing distinguishing about him. I watched the clip the other day of Ron De Santis going into a dairy queen and I swear to God, his responses to things have me believe that this man may in fact be the most life like robot I've ever seen. Ronde Santis is in a dairy queen talking about I've known about blizzards for a long time and like, you know, happy to be a part what like the like the blizzard, like the ice cream item on the fucking menu. What

are you talking about? You sound fucking dumb and crazy like tie that in with his like god awful laughter and his weird, whining, high pitch voice. I swear to God, a president DeSantis, I can't imagine getting seventy five million votes, which is what Donald Trump got in the last election. I can't imagine this man getting ten million votes. So

you know, we will see. And again I'm not, you know, putting all of my eggs in one basket, but given the state of Ron DeSantis's basket right now, he got a lot of patchwork he need to be doing and maybe wants to stop off reading inside of the Ronda Santis can do nothing wrong, bubble and actually get out to the people, because you will see other reports right that are coming out that are saying major donors are leaving Donald Trump and going and knocking on Ronda Santis' doors,

which may be all fine and good, right for you being able to fund your campaign, But what shows enthusiasm on the ground is not major donors giving you money. It is low dollar donors who are giving you small amounts of money. But there are so many people that like it really shows folks' enthusiasm. And when you look at that, Joe Biden is wiping the fucking floor not just with Ron DeSantis's campaign, but with every single other

Republicans campaign. And that is based on reporting by NBC News and others that Joe Biden outraced right in small dollar donors, every single Republican that's running right now combined bring in seventy two million dollars. Right. So, I think that it's important folks to recognize that this is going to be a really long campaign season. Is going to be a long presidential season and the most consequential one of our lifetime. But don't believe the hype that folks

are putting up around these Republicans. Don't ignore it, right, don't take it for granted, but also just dig a little deeper than their surface layer bullshit because when you, I don't know, take a tea spoon down into the campaign of Rond de Santis, it comes up with shit. Moving on, folks, I want to talk about Harlan Crow for a minute. Crow is the billionaire benefactor to Clarence Thomas and in a Pro Publica article which had we so fucking disgusted folks like I'm just so sick to

death of the ultra fucking wealthy. I'm so sick to death to find out in this article that Harlan Crow pays half the amount of taxes that I do. So if entrepreneurs in this country are taxed at thirty three listen, thirty three percent of their income right this. You know, we're so proud of people pulling themselves up from their bootstraps and like, you know, going out there and you know, being cowboys and cowgirls and all this bullshit rhetoric that

Americans say about business and titans and whatever. They actually do not create a tax system and structure that would have people not be chained to a corporation, a nonprofit, academia or anything because of the tax structure, right So, entrepreneurs are taxed, self employed people are taxed at thirty three percent. Harlan Crow, a fucking multi billionaire, because of our broken tax system, has been able to pay about fifteen percent. Fifteen percent, which is way less than most

middle class people in the United States. That is fucking infuriating. And that's not even the point of my conversation with you all today about this Pro public art. But when I got to that point in the piece, I wanted to throw the whole fucking country out right. So let me just read you some of the highlight tax data obtained by Pro Publica provides a glimpse of what congressional investigators would find if Crow were to open his books to them, which until now he has been denying access

to Crow's voyages with Thomas. The data shows contributed to guess what a nice side benefit, they helped reduce Crowe's tax bill. The rich, as we've reported, often deduct millions of dollars from their taxes related to buying and operating their jets and yachts. Crow followed that formula through a company that purported to charter his super yacht, but a closer examination of how Crow used the yacht raises questions about his compliance with the tax code. Expert said bright

Crowe's representations to the IRS. Pro public reporters could find no evidence that his yacht company was actually a profit seeking business, as the law requires they go on based on what information is available. This has the look of a textbook billionaire tax scam, said Senate Finance Committee Chair

Ron Wyden, Democrat from Oregon. Quote. These new details only raise more questions about mister Crow's tax practices, which could begin to explain why he's been stonewalling the Finance Committee's investigations for months. As Pro Publica reported in April, Crow lavished gifts on Thomas for over twenty years, often in the form of luxury trips on guess what, Crowe's jets and yacht. One focus of the investigations is whether Crow discs closed his generosity toward Thomas to the IRS, since

large gifts are subject to the gift tax. Another is whether Crow created his trips with Thomas as deductible business expenses. While the data sheds light on how Crow might have accounted for Thomas's trips, there are no clear implications of Thomas's own taxes. Experts said, folks, I just I want to scream, I want to scream because right now you have actors and writers on strike, you have other strikes

that are getting ready to be rolled out. And I have called for a national strike on this show and other shows for the last several months. And why is that? Because the greed that is associated with capitalism and our broken economic system that only rewards the ultra wealthy needs to be grinded to a halt because of people like Harlan Crowe and others. Because when you read this piece, and this is another piece that I want to read

that I highlighted at the opening quote. For Crow, the tax breaks from his yacht were just one way he was able to achieve a lighter tax burden. The tax code is particularly friendly to commercial real estate titans, and Crow generally enjoyed low taxes. During that same period, he paid an average income tax of fifteen percent according to the IRS, It's a rate typical of the very wealthiest Americans, but lower than the personal federal tax rates of even

many middle income workers. Holling Crow is worth billions of fucking dollars and he is paying a fifteen percent tax rate in comparison, Like I said to myself, as a self employed person and to many, many, many, many, many, many middle class people. The goal right has always been to create an invisible but very obvious economic cast system in the United States, where our tax laws and codes and our policies always benefit the super wealthy folks. Everything

about capitalism is a fucking lie. Everything is created to tell us and make us believe the lie that there isn't more than enough. That when you listen to people like Bob Eiger, the CEO of Disney, who had the audacity to say that the things that the WGA and the Actors Guild are asking for are quote unquote unrealistic when the man is making twenty four million dollars a year and I'm sorry, he's actually making more than that. It's why he was brought back as CEO, right like,

because he's the fixer. He does all the things, makes all the hard decisions, and he gets paid tens of millions of dollars. And you work and head a multi billion dollar corporation who isn't paying its people, and instead of CEOs and shareholders taking even a little bit of a hit because they are taking more than their fair

fucking share. If we were to operate and create an economic system that operated from a place of equity, you would not have the ultra wealthy that have been making gains over the last decade while everyone else's income has stayed stagnant. I was reading something the other day that said that millennials own less property and have less wealth at this stage in their life than every other fucking

generation prior to them. Why is that they are the most educated because we beat into their parents' heads and their grandparents' heads that the way to achieve the quote unquote American dream was to go to college. So they all went and got degrees that saddled them, within some places, over six figures worth of fucking debt. And now they're so saddled with debt that guess what, they can't fucking buy homes or cars. And guess what, because of that,

they're also not getting married. And because of that, like you see all of these things, the ripple effects of the greed. It isn't that this generation isn't educated. It isn't that they're not hard working. It is that the people that are at the top, the one percent, have realized that they could get even more if they just squeeze a little bit fucking harder. And if they make sure to pin all of us against each other, as opposed to looking at who is truly the puppet master here.

It's not that there are people coming across the border that are stealing jobs. It's not that oh, affirmative action allowed for all of these unqualified black people and people of color to take jobs. No, all of that is a fucking lie. It is a fucking lie that has been weaved into our policy decisions and political ideology and political platforms that keep this nation's people at each other's throats.

Why the rich look down on us and fucking laugh as they move us around on their chessboard, on their fucking monopoly boards. It only cost Harlan Crow a couple of trips on a jet and a couple of luxury vacations, a mortgage, and a private school in order to buy a Supreme Court justice. And because of our tax codes favoring the ultra fucking wealthy, right, he's been able to

use his jet and his yacht as tax shelters. Right, so long as I say that I have a quote unquote business, and I'm running this as a business, even if I'm paying myself, then I can avoid taxes what the fuck? So, you know, folks, it's just the grift is so deep. The grift is so deep, it is so wide, and it goes everywhere. If Republicans get the White House in twenty twenty four, there will be no more elections. We all know that. You guys know that. But not only will there be no more democracy as

we know it, there won't be a middle class. There won't be anything other than the working poor and the ultra wealthy, which is what you see in a lot of countries around the world. That's it. There is no in between, because what access to education and what social safety nets have allowed for is the creation of a robust middle class that you do not see in a

lot of nations around the world. And so if you think that because are people around you, people in your family, think that because they're not part of a marginalized community that is outwardly being under attack right now, that they are safe play this episode for them because they are not the rich. Is like the Big Nothing in The Never Ending Story. If you've never seen that movie, it's

amazing nineteen eighty childhood fantasy film. And the Big Nothing is just gobbling up, gobbling up this world until this young man in the story gets the courage to believe that like he can fight against it. The Republican Party and the one percent are insatiable. They'll keep gobbling up the middle class, the lower middle class, and the poor until there is nothing fucking left. And then they'll take their rockets and they'll go to Mars and try and

occupy that. Folks gotta wake up because we are in truly, truly extraordinary times. That is it for me today, Dear friends, on woke a f as always, Power to the people and to all the people. Power, Get woke and stay woke as fuck.