The logos of mobile apps Instagram, Snapchat, Twitter, Facebook, Google and Messenger displayed on a tablet on Oct. 1, 2019. (Denis Charlet/AFP via Getty Images) Media & Big Tech
The Texas Senate passed a bill that forbids social media companies that have at least 100 million users per month to block, ban, demonetize, or discriminate against any of their users due to their political views.
Senate Bill 12, which is sponsored by Republican state Sen. Bryan Hughes, passed on Thursday and would apply to Twitter, YouTube, Facebook, and other platforms.
Hughes said in a video posted on Twitter that the bill is going to “get Texans back online.”
“I think we all have to acknowledge, these social media companies are the new town square,” Hughes said.
“And a small group of people in San Francisco can’t dictate free speech for the rest of us. It needs to be an open exchange of ideas, and Senate Bill 12 is going to get Texans back online.”
He said that the bill is on its way to the state House and that it is expected to get a good consideration, adding that he hopes that the governor will sign it into law soon. https://platform.twitter.com/embed/Tweet.html?creatorScreenName=EpochTimes&dnt=false&embedId=twitter-widget-0&frame=false&hideCard=false&hideThread=false&id=1377534968159698946&lang=en&origin=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theepochtimes.com%2Ftexas-senate-passes-bill-that-would-block-social-media-companies-from-banning-users-for-their-political-views_3758952.html&siteScreenName=EpochTimes&theme=light&widgetsVersion=e1ffbdb%3A1614796141937&width=550px
The measure would require companies to make their moderation policies known, publish reports about the content blocked out by the platform, and create an appeals process for the removed content.
Hughes recognized that if the bill is signed into law, it would most likely face legal challenges.
“Even though they’re private actors, because they are common carriers, because they chose to enter this business and offer their services, then they are bound by certain rules,” Hughes told The Texas Tribune.
Two companion bills have already been sent to the House but have not yet moved ahead in the State Affairs Committee.
Hughes is very optimistic in regard to the bill. He said that their team is very strong and sharp, and is prepared to take the fight to court.
“We know we’re going to be sued if we pass this bill. Facebook is going to take us to court. Facebook and Google and Twitter have armies of lawyers and lobbyists who will be fighting us on this. But we’re on the right side, the law is on our side. Yes, we expect to see this bill passed, put in place, and protecting Texans’ free speech,” Hughes told NTD in February.
Hughes said that this problem “cries out for a federal solution,” but that they can’t wait for it. He believes this bill will thread the needle to get past federal limitations and will serve as a model for other states to do the same.
Seattle City Councilmember Kshama Sawant addresses supporters during her inauguration and “Tax Amazon 2020 Kickoff” event in Seattle, Wash., on Jan. 13, 2020. (Jason Redmond/AFP via Getty Images) US News
The Washington state Supreme Court on Thursday ruled that efforts to recall Seattle City Councilmember Kshama Sawant can move forward.
Sawant, a socialist representing Capitol Hill and the Central District, faced a recall after being accused of abusing her office by letting a large group of protesters into city hall last year with her passkey, using city resources in promoting a ballot initiative to impose taxes on Amazon, and outsourcing decisions regarding the hiring and firing of city employees to her party’s executive committee.
She is also accused of violating code when she led a protest march to Mayor Jenny Durkan’s private residence even with the knowledge that the mayor’s address was protected under confidentiality laws because of threats from to her previous work as a U.S. attorney.
A county judge ruled in September 2020 that those four charges were “factually and legally sufficient for recall” efforts to proceed.
A group of Seattle residents who believe Sawant’s actions warrant her removal from office began the campaign to recall her, leading to the decision. Sawant appealed that ruling to the state Supreme Court.
In the next 180 days, the petition to oust Sawant, which was first brought by Seattle resident Ernest Lou, must collect 10,000 signatures from residents of Sawant’s Council District 3 in order to get the recall on the ballot.
Sawant’s campaign fighting the push to remove her from office has blamed “big business” and “right wing” influence for the recall effort.
“Big biz and the right wing are furious about the impact of socialist politics and social movements in Seattle & how we have inspired working people around the country,” the Kshama Solidarity Campaign wrote on Twitter. “They are now trying to use the courts & their deep pockets to overturn Councilmember Sawant’s 2019 re-election.”
Henry Bridger II, campaign manager and chairman of the Recall Sawant committee, has pushed back against that claim. He describes himself as a Democrat and a liberal.
“I’m unemployed, I live in a studio apartment here on Capitol Hill,” Bridger said, The Seattle Times reported. “It’s not run by any right-wing anything.”
Sawant, who was first elected in 2013, and subsequently elected in 2015 and 2019, described the Washington state Supreme Court’s ruling as “completely unjust” in a statement.
“But we are not surprised,” Sawant said. “Working people and oppressed communities cannot rely on the capitalist courts for justice any more than they can on the police.” The far-left have continued pushing socialist arguments that private wealth and the police force are solely negative forces in society, while others may point to the good or bad intentions of the individual in a position of wealth or power among law-enforcement establishments.Read MoreCapitalism: How Capitalists Took the Word From Communists
If the group are able to gather the 10,000 signatures in the allotted 180 days, a vote would then be held to oust Sawant from office either with November’s general election, or by early next year, The Seattle Times reported.
Investigate journalist Sharyl Attkisson says combatting censorship in today’s media and big tech landscape requires Americans to “speak up” and stand firm against people and groups that seek to silence them.
“I think the most important single thing people can do is to speak up and not be bullied by the people that want to keep the voices silent so that it appears, in this artificial world that we live in online, that everybody’s on the same page and everybody thinks the same thing and this is okay,” Attkisson told The Epoch Times’ American Thought Leaders program.
“Don’t be kowtowed into not speaking out. Don’t act like that’s okay.”
Attkisson, author of “The Smear,” has been researching how information has been controlled in the United States, particularly by political and corporate interest groups. She said these groups began ramping up their efforts to control information once Donald Trump won the 2016 presidential election. But these groups, she argued, began realizing Americans were not “getting on board” with their messaging and, as a result, started to act out of desperation.
“The reason they’re being so heavy-handed about information and access is because people are not getting on board with what they’re supposed to think and do. They’re not acting the way they’re supposed to act after their information is controlled. And I think it was very frightening for them to see,” she said.
“As I said, they almost entirely controlled the media landscape in 2016 but Trump still won the election. How did that happen? Well, they blamed the internet.”
This comes as big tech companies have drawn intense scrutiny for perceived political bias and alleged unbalanced moderation of users content. Critics say much of the companies’ moderation in the past year has unfairly targeted conservative speech and speech from individuals deemed to be supporters of former President Donald Trump.
Meanwhile, groups on the other side of the aisle have been taking issue with how social media companies are operating, claiming that the Silicon Valley companies have failed to adequately address “misinformation” that is being proliferated online.
Attkisson said these political and corporate interest groups spent the last four years—during Trump’s presidency—working “very hard to control the internet.” However, it still did not go their way. The 2020 presidential election became one of the most disputed elections and, although President Joe Biden ascended to the White House, Trump still received more votes “than they imagined he would get,” she argued.
“It’s sort of like the wind trying to blow the raincoat off the man when actually you can get the raincoat off with the sun. The harder they try to control the information, the harder some people work, and the more obvious their control is, and the more we resist in terms of wanting our information free and unfettered,” she said.
Despite their efforts, Attkisson said she believes the pendulum will eventually swing the other way. But in the meantime, Americans should not fall for their tactics by gathering all their information online. Instead, Americans should try living “outside of that box,” talk to people in the real world, and try to understand the extent of how disconnected the news and social media are from reality.
She said, for example, that when she traveled around the country in the past year, she encountered some small communities that did not experience any spikes or repercussions during the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) virus pandemic despite not ever locking down. She said that while the pandemic hit some places very hard, it did not affect other places at all.
“So, what you see on the news sometimes keeps us … hyper-focused, as if it’s, in an exaggerated sense, on phenomenons that are real and happening in some places but certainly not the story that’s being told of all of America. And I think that’s true of a lot of different issues that are being discussed today,” she said.
She also added that Americans should not succumb to attempts by these groups to ostracize individuals with differing viewpoints.
“They want you to think, they want to create this impression that if you have a viewpoint or you believe facts that they don’t want you to believe, that you’re an outlier, you’re sort of fringe,” she said. “That’s what they want you to think, even when you may not be, but it’s to create an impression online that you shouldn’t speak out or you shouldn’t say what you think or say what you believe because it’s so far out there and so off the norm when it’s not.”
Richard Torres-Estrada, a former Virginia diversity official, was hired in March by U.S. Special Operations Command (USSOCOM) as its chief of diversity and inclusion. When made aware of the post comparing Trump to Hitler, and other posts denigrating Republican officials, the Pentagon began an investigation.
Torres-Estrada is carrying out other duties at USSOCOM amid the probe, military spokesmen said.
“Mr. Torres-Estrada has been assigned to other duties pending the results of the investigation,” a USSOCOM spokesperson told The Epoch Times via email.
Asked why USSOCOM didn’t immediately terminate Torres-Estrada, the spokesperson added: “Personnel actions for civilian personnel assigned to headquarters USSOCOM are governed by federal law and civilian personnel regulations from the Office of Personnel Management, the Department of Defense, and the Department of the Air Force. Civilian employees have rights under those laws and regulations. When allegations are made about an employee, the command must determine what the facts are and what actions, if any, are appropriate under those laws and regulations before taking action.”
Special Operations Command claimed to be unaware of the activity before hiring the official.
Torres-Estrada didn’t immediately respond to requests by The Epoch Times for comment. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin supports the investigation, a Pentagon spokesman said this week.
“Obviously, we take the need to promote diversity and inclusion seriously here in the department,” Pentagon spokesman John Kirby told reporters in Washington. “The secretary has spoken of that many times. And we certainly want that work to be transparent, to be credible, to be effective, and, of course, professional. We want everybody to take those duties and those responsibilities seriously and professionally.”
Lawmakers have expressed dismay over the hiring of Torres-Estrada, based on the posts.
“I am shocked at the hiring of Richard Torres-Estrada as Chief of Diversity and Inclusion at one of America’s functional combatant command headquarters. Comparing former President Trump, who was duly elected by the American people, to a genocidal madman directly responsible for killing six million Jewish men and women shows irredeemably poor judgment and the total inability to separate fact from fiction,” Rep. Bill Johnson (R-Ohio) said in a statement.
Johnson sent a letter to Austin asking for a detailed report on the official’s qualifications, and whether a background check had uncovered Torres-Estrada’s posts, which were made on his publicly available Facebook account.
“What do you think, will a ‘diversity and inclusion’ officer for our elite military units make America stronger? Or are China and Russia laughing at us?” added Rep. Vern Buchanan (R-Fla.) in a tweet.
Eric Trump, Lara Yunaska Trump, Donald Trump, Barron Trump, Melania Trump, Vanessa Haydon Trump, Kai Madison Trump, Donald Trump Jr., Donald John Trump III, and Ivanka Trump pose for photos on stage in 2015. (Christopher Gregory/Getty Images) Donald Trump
Former President Donald Trump’s daughter-in-law issued a warning after Facebook removed her interview with the former commander-in-chief earlier this week.
Lara Trump posted screenshots of alleged emails sent by a Facebook representative saying that content in the “voice of Donald Trump” will be removed. A person close to the Trump Organization confirmed to The Epoch Times on March 31 that a video of an interview with Trump was taken down by the social media giant.
“I know that people that dislike Donald Trump might celebrate this and think, ‘Well this is great, we don’t want to hear from him anyway,’” Lara Trump told Fox News on March 26. “Every American should be outraged by this because today it’s Donald Trump; tomorrow, it could be you.”
The censorship, she said, “is something that happens in communist countries” and added that “the message here is they want to erase Donald Trump.”
“They want you to forget he ever existed. They don’t want you to see him, they don’t want you to hear from him. Look away, move on, shut up, and go on about your lives, forget Donald Trump existed. This is really scary stuff,” continued Trump, who is married to Eric Trump, in the Fox interview.
According to screenshots of the purported emails, a Facebook representative told her: “We are reaching out to let you know that we removed content from Lara Trump’s Facebook page that featured President Trump speaking.
“In line with the block, we placed on Donald Trump’s Facebook and Instagram account, further content posted in the voice of Donald Trump will be removed and result in additional limitations on the accounts.”
Facebook officials didn’t immediately respond to a request by The Epoch Times for comment.
Another email from a Facebook staffer gave a “reminder” that content “in the voice” of Trump isn’t allowed on the social media platform, according to Lara Trump’s Instagram post.
“The guidance applies to all campaign accounts and Pages, including Team Trump, other campaign messaging vehicles on our platforms, and former surrogates,” it read.
In January, the former president was suspended from Twitter, Facebook, and other Big Tech platforms, which claimed that Trump was inciting violence or would incite further violence following the Jan. 6 riots.
Trump told Lara Trump that Twitter has since become “boring” without him and asserted that “millions” of people have left while promoting his newfound practice of sending out emailed press statements. Meanwhile, his adviser Jason Miller told news outlets last month that the former president is working to create a new social media platform, although details are scant.
President Joe Biden talks to reporters during the first news conference of his presidency in the East Room of the White House in Washington on March 25, 2021. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images) Executive Branch
President Joe Biden tacked on measures to his infrastructure plan that make it easier for workers to organize and more difficult for them to avoid unionization.
“[The plan will] create good-quality jobs … while ensuring workers have a free and fair choice to organize, join a union, and bargain collectively with their employers,” the White House said in a press release.
Biden also urged Congress to pass the pro-union Protecting the Right to Organize (PRO) Act as part of the infrastructure plan.
President Joe Biden tacked on measures to his infrastructure plan that make it easier for workers to organize and more difficult for them to avoid unionization.
The $2 trillion infrastructure plan, which Biden laid out in a speech Wednesday evening, ensures that workers are able to bargain collectively with their employers, according to a White House press release. The plan introduces new “labor protections” that enable workers to more easily organize.
“[The plan will] create good-quality jobs that pay prevailing wages in safe and healthy workplaces while ensuring workers have a free and fair choice to organize, join a union, and bargain collectively with their employers,” the White House said in the release.
Biden also urged Congress to pass the Protecting the Right to Organize (PRO) Act as part of the infrastructure plan. The PRO Act is a compilation of various policy changes that labor unions support, which would make it easier for unions to organize private-sector employees and minimize employees’ choice in unionization.
The bill would remove workers’ ability to vote against unionization via secret ballot elections, threatens the ability for a workforce to kick a union out, redefines legal definition of independent contractors and forces non-union workers to pay union dues.
The House passed the legislation largely along party lines in March, which is expected to face roadblocks in the Senate. Republicans criticized the bill as a wish list for union leaders.
“Here’s who else is a union guy: Joe Biden,” said International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW) Local 29 member Michael Fiore who introduced Biden on Wednesday. “He said again and again, ‘unions built the middle class.’ That’s why his plan supports collective bargaining rights.”
Fiore’s remarks were prepared by the White House, IBEW Local 29 said in a blog post following Biden’s speech, which took place at a union training facility.
President Joe Biden speaks in the Oval Office at the White House in Washington on March 30, 2021. (Jonathan Ernst/Reuters)
“Biden’s pledge to unify the country takes another hit by adding a radical and overreaching poison pill like the PRO Act to his infrastructure plan that would deteriorate the relationship between employers and employees,” Coalition for a Democratic Workplace (CDW) Chair Kristen Swearingen said in a statement.
“The PRO Act would be devastating to small businesses and employees in the infrastructure industry, especially small, women- and minority-owned contractors who would have otherwise benefited from investment in our nation’s infrastructure,” Swearingen said.
The CDW represents hundreds of thousands of employers nationwide and hundreds of trade groups like the Associated Builders and Contractors and the National Restaurant Association.
Conservative advocacy group Americans for Prosperity (AFP) vowed to leverage its nationwide grassroots activist network to “urge lawmakers to reject harmful elements of the proposal.”
“[The infrastructure plan provides] favors to labor unions that undermine workers’ rights and their ability to find work,” AFP President Tim Phillips said in a statement.
But Labor Secretary Marty Walsh called the plan historic and said he would work to ensure workers from across the country received access to the opportunities provided in the proposal.
“President Biden’s American Jobs Plan is a historic investment in the working people of America,” Walsh said in a statement Thursday. “It will create millions of good paying, family sustaining jobs that rebuild the middle class by empowering our workers to build America’s future.”
“As Labor Secretary, I stand ready to make sure these opportunities reach workers from all walks of life and in every corner of our country,” Walsh said.
The White House didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
White House press secretary Jen Psaki speaks to reporters in Washington on April 1, 2021. (Andrew Caballero-Reynolds/AFP via Getty Images) Executive Branch
Biden has claimed that the law requires polls to close at 5 p.m. but it does not. He also said the bill bars people from providing voters who are in line with water or food. It does, but makes an exception for freestanding water receptacles that are self-serve.
White House press secretary Jen Psaki defended the inaccuracies after a reporter during a briefing in Washington noted them.
The bill “standardizes the ending of voting every day at five, right? It just gives options?” she said. “It gives options to expand it—right?—but it standardized it at five. It also makes it so that outside groups can’t provide water or food to people in line. Right? It makes it more difficult to absentee vote. Are those things all correct?”
“So, no, our tone is not changing. We have concerns about the specific components of the package, including the fact that it makes it harder and more difficult for people to vote by limiting absentee options; by making it not viable, not possible for people to provide water to people who are in line; by not standardizing longer hours. So, if you’re making it harder to vote, no, we don’t support that,” she added.
The bill changes the vague “normal business hours” during which voting shall be conducted to 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., at minimum. However, clerks can keep polling sites open as long as 12 hours, or from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m.
Additionally, it states that people may not actively “offer to give, or participate in the giving of any money or gifts, including, but not limited to, food and drink, to an elector,” adding later that nothing prohibits a poll officer “from making available self-service water from an unattended receptacle to an elector waiting in line to vote.”
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, a newspaper in Georgia, offered a correction after also falsely claiming the new law would limit voting hours.
“Nothing in the new law changes those rules,” the paper said.
“It is obvious that neither President Biden nor his handlers have actually read SB 202, which I signed into law yesterday,” Gov. Brian Kemp said in a recent emailed statement to The Epoch Times. “This bill expands voting access, streamlines vote-counting procedures, and ensures election integrity.”
U.S. Border Patrol agents apprehend about two dozen illegal immigrants in Penitas, Texas, on March 11, 2021. (Charlotte Cuthbertson/The Epoch Times) Immigration & Border Security
The family-unit holding cells smell like urine and vomit. Fights break out in the unaccompanied-minor cells. Scabies, lice, the flu, and COVID-19 run rampant.
Up to 80 individuals are squeezed into each 24- by 30-foot cell, and there aren’t enough mattresses for everyone. Sheets of plastic divide the rooms.
“Any diseases that are in there, it’s being kept in there, like a petri dish. The smell is overwhelming,” a Border Patrol agent said, describing the conditions in a facility in south Texas. The agent, Carlos (not his real name), spoke to The Epoch Times on condition of anonymity, for fear of repercussions.
Border Patrol agents on the front lines are getting so frustrated that they’re now risking their livelihoods to reveal what’s really going on in the illegal immigrant processing facilities.
One or two agents are left to control 300 to 500 people during a shift. No agent wants to report physical or sexual assaults between the aliens because they’ll get blamed for “letting it happen.” They’re also forced to separate a child from an extended family member because he or she is not a biological parent.
The number of unaccompanied minors—children under 18 who arrive without a parent—is buckling the system. The law requires Border Patrol to prioritize unaccompanied minors and transfer them to the Department of Health and Human Services within 72 hours.
“We’re getting them out of here as quickly as possible, but we are so overwhelmed right now,” Carlos said. “It used to be easy to get them out in 72 hours. Not anymore. They’re staying here for 10, 12 days. It’s horrible.”
A temporary processing facility in Donna, Texas, as seen in a photo released by Customs and Border Protection on Tuesday, March 23, 2021. (CBP)
So far this fiscal year (from Oct. 1, 2020), Border Patrol has apprehended more than 29,000 unaccompanied children crossing the border illegally. In all of fiscal 2020, just over 33,000 were apprehended, according to Customs and Border Protection (CBP) statistics.
This year’s numbers are on a trajectory to surpass the 2019 crisis numbers, when 80,634 minors were apprehended.
CBP declined to provide the number of unaccompanied minors currently being held. “In general, CBP does not provide daily in-custody numbers, as they are considered operationally sensitive because CBP’s in-custody numbers fluctuate on a constant basis,” CBP spokesman Nate Peeters wrote in an email to The Epoch Times on March 23.
Health and Human Services confirmed on March 23 that its Office of Refugee Resettlement is holding approximately 11,350 children.
CBP and Health and Human Services have opened several extra facilities to deal with the influx, with the latest being the San Diego Convention Center.
Carlos confirmed that the majority of unaccompanied minors coming across the border already have parents or family members in the United States.
“Everybody that shows up here—even if it’s a 3-year-old kid with no one around—they all have an address on them. And they’ll give it to you: ‘Here’s my address; this is where you are sending me,’” Carlos said.
“And that’s what we do. This is the way we are being played.”
Most of the unaccompanied minors come from the Central American countries of Honduras, Guatemala, and El Salvador.
“We’re dealing with a different culture who’s not afraid to send all their kids under the age of five, knowing they’re going to get raped, knowing they’re going to get killed,” Carlos said. “You talk to the adults or the teenagers and they’ll tell you, ‘They raped three or four girls, and they kicked them off the trains.’ They’re going to die.”
Two-thirds of migrants traveling through Mexico report experiencing violence during the journey, including abduction, theft, extortion, torture, and rape, according to Doctors Without Borders (MSF), which has been providing medical and mental health care for migrants and refugees in Mexico since 2012.
Almost 1 in 3 women surveyed by MSF said they had been sexually abused during their journey—60 percent through rape.
Border Patrol agents apprehend about two dozen illegal immigrants in Penitas, Texas, on March 11. 2021. (Charlotte Cuthbertson/The Epoch Times)
Families Released
A new directive from the Biden administration is allowing for family units to be released into the interior of the United States without a notice to appear—the paperwork that states the date an illegal immigrant must turn up in court to plead their case.
“There’s no repercussions. I’m not even going to give you a court date. You don’t even have to show up at court if you don’t want to. It’d be nice, but you don’t have to. That word gets out immediately. And I mean overnight,” Carlos said.
He said it’s now common knowledge that if you bring a child, you’ll be quickly released into the United States. They’re being transported all over the country, but popular destinations include Houston, New York, and California, as well as Maryland and Washington, D.C.
“They’ll put them in a hotel for a couple of days until their flight is ready to fly them to where they are going. That’s tax dollars,” Carlos said.
“There’s no end in sight. The people that we’re apprehending are warning us of the larger caravans that are on their way.”
He said President Joe Biden’s rollback of the Trump administration’s border policies is the direct cause of the surge.
“One hundred and ten percent. They were already ready before Biden was even in office. They knew that the doors were going to be open. And now we’ve got a point where we cannot stop it,” he said.
The administration hasn’t allowed media to access the processing facilities and, according to agents, it’s even requiring that agents in the field move illegal aliens they apprehend onto private land to process them.
“Keep trying until you find us on a public road. But we’ve been instructed to move all the traffic onto ranches to make sure there’s no public eye,” an agent said.
“Biden’s strict on that. Trump was a different story. This administration is a no-go on media, I’m guessing because they don’t want to let the word out on what’s going on here on the border—to make him look good.”
Carlos said the agency has stopped dropping illegal immigrants off directly at bus stations now. “We were given strict orders from Washington, D.C., that that ceases—it’s drawing too much attention,” he said.
Now they drop the illegal immigrants nearby or at a local NGO facility near the bus station, he said.
The administration hasn’t yet called the current situation a crisis, and Biden said on March 21 that he’ll visit the border “at some point.”
Illegal border crossers, mostly from Central America, are dropped off by Customs and Border Protection at a bus station in the border city of Brownsville, Texas, on March 15, 2021. (CHANDAN KHANNA/AFP via Getty Images)
‘Our Defenses Are Down’
Morale among Border Patrol agents has plummeted, Carlos said. “The attrition rate right now is ridiculous,” he said. “We don’t want to work for the Border Patrol anymore. It’s not the Border Patrol.”
During the Trump era, agents felt “empowered” to do their jobs, he said. “Whatever deals he made, everything was working just fine. Now we’ve got this trash.”
As agents get moved to deal with the increase in family units and unaccompanied minors, the smuggling organizations and cartels move drugs and other individuals through other, unpatrolled areas.
“Our manpower is being depleted because we need to go babysit these people, move them as fast as possible to release them into the country,” Carlos said. “It’s ridiculous. We have no backup. We’re losing more than we’re catching. And it’s no secret.
“Our defenses are down. So if there’s anybody that we should be worried about, they know this is the time to come in. They know it.”
Former President Donald Trump, in a statement Wednesday, responded to the White House infrastructure bill—which would introduce new taxes—and said it is “among the largest self-inflicted economic wounds in history.”
“If this monstrosity is allowed to pass, the result will be more Americans out of work, more families shattered, more factories abandoned, more industries wrecked, and more Main Streets boarded up and closed down—just like it was before I took over the presidency 4 years ago,” the former president said in a statement, adding that the plan will “implement the largest tax hike in American history.”
Trump, in a statement reminiscent of 2016 campaign speeches, said the measure would only serve “China and other large segments of the world” and said would make America lose “the economic war with China.”
With the infrastructure plan’s tax rates, “if you create jobs in America, and hire American workers, you will pay MORE in taxes—but if you close down your factories in Ohio and Michigan, fire U.S. workers, and move all your production to Beijing and Shanghai, you will pay LESS,” Trump said. “It is the exact OPPOSITE of putting America First—it is putting America LAST!”
“Companies that send American jobs to China should not be rewarded by Joe Biden’s Tax Bill, they should be punished so that they keep those jobs right here in America, where they belong,” he added.
Throughout his campaigns and presidency, Trump often emphasized job creation measures, low unemployment rates, and increases in the Dow Jones—while saying that high taxes and regulations would further prompt companies to move their operations and factories to China, Mexico, and other countries.
On Wednesday, President Joe Biden started promoting a $2 trillion infrastructure plan, which besides aiming to fix roads and bridges also features an expansive climate change and social welfare agenda, with the White House calling it “the moment to reimagine and rebuild a new economy.”
“Every dollar spent on rebuilding our infrastructure during the Biden administration will be used to prevent, reduce, and withstand the impacts of the climate crisis,” the White House said.
Biden aims to put corporate America on the hook for the tab, which is expected to grow to a combined $4 trillion once he rolls out the second part of his economic plan in April.
Biden has proposed several changes to the tax code, including raising the corporate tax rate to 28 percent from the current 21 percent—the level that the Trump administration brought it down to from 35 percent.
The proposal was also panned by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, one of the largest lobbying groups in the United States, which said the higher tax proposal is too much.
