Michelle Obama calls Trump ‘racist’ for talking about riots, suburbs





Claude Solnik
(631) 913-4244
Long Island Business News
2150 Smithtown Ave.
Ronkonkoma, NY 11779-7348 

Home > LI Confidential > Stop scratching on holidays

Stop scratching on holidays
Published: June 1, 2012


 Off Track Betting in New York State has been racing into a crisis called shrinking revenue. Some people have spitballed a solution: Don’t close on holidays.
New York State Racing Law bars racing on Christmas, Easter and Palm Sunday, and the state has ruled OTBs can’t handle action on those days, even though they could easily broadcast races from out of state.
“You should be able to bet whenever you want,” said Jackson Leeds, a Nassau OTB employee who makes an occasional bet. He added some irrefutable logic: “How is the business going to make money if you’re not open to take people’s bets?”

 Elias Tsekerides, president of the Federation of Hellenic Societies of Greater New York, said OTB is open on Greek Orthodox Easter and Palm Sunday.
“I don’t want discrimination,” Tsekerides said. “They close for the Catholics, but open for the Greek Orthodox? It’s either open for all or not open.”
OTB officials have said they lose millions by closing on Palm Sunday alone, with tracks such as Gulfstream, Santa Anita, Turf Paradise and Hawthorne running.
One option: OTBs could just stay open and face the consequences. New York City OTB did just that back in 2003. The handle was about $1.5 million – and OTB was fined $5,000.
Easy money.








October 6, 2020 | 4:55pm | Updated

MORE ON:

MICHELLE OBAMA

Michelle Obama sympathizes with viewers 'turned off' by Trump-Biden debate

How Mariah Carey, Jessica Simpson and more are making shameful secrets relatable

Obama's high school hoops jersey is up for auction – and it could go for six figures

Michelle Obama talks coronavirus, voting on Conan O'Brien

Former first lady Michelle Obama on Tuesday slammed President Trump as “racist” for talking about violence at recent anti-police brutality protests and for saying he defended the suburbs against low-income housing.
Obama said in a 26-minute video touting Democratic candidate Joe Biden that Republicans are “stoking fears about black and brown Americans, lying about how minorities will destroy the suburbs, whipping up violence and intimidation. And they’re pinning it all on what’s been an overwhelmingly peaceful movement for racial solidarity.”


She continued: “Research backs it up, only a tiny fraction of demonstrations have had any violence at all. So what the president is doing is once again patently false, it’s morally wrong. And yes, it is racist. But that doesn’t mean it won’t work.”
Trump, recovering at the White House after three nights in the hospital for COVID-19 treatment, did not immediately return fire on Twitter.
Trump campaign spokeswoman Samantha Zager said, “These baseless attacks from a former First Lady only prove Joe Biden has yet to shore up support from Black Americans after taking their votes for granted and failing minority communities for decades.”



Enlarge ImagePresident Donald Trump and Michelle Obama
President Donald Trump and Michelle ObamaREUTERS; Biden Harris/ZUMA Wire

In recent public remarks, Trump said he’s done more for blacks than any president since Abraham Lincoln, who defeated the slave states in the Civil War. He routinely cites his 2018 criminal justice reform law, “opportunity zone” incentives for urban renewal and permanent funding for historically black universities.
In condemning riots following the May killing of George Floyd by Minnesota police, Trump highlighted the impact of arson and looting on black-owned businesses. And he defended as good for all races his repeal of an Obama administration policy that he said would have forced low-income housing into suburbs.
“Thirty percent of the people in the suburbs are minorities. And so, we’re ruining this American dream for everybody,” Trump said of the repealed policy last week at a rally in Duluth, Minnesota.

Nassau OTB adopts Trump’s 

payroll tax pause

September 7, 2020 | 3:13pm | Updated

MORE ON:

DONALD TRUMP

Trump administration requires higher pay for high-skilled work visas

Puerto Rico governor endorses Trump's re-election bid

Miami mayor: Trump should skip in-person debate if he's still COVID-19 positive

Biden cites 'furious division' in Gettysburg speech as Trump vows win


And they’re off — to getting a temporary bump in their take-home pay.
The Nassau County Off-Tracking Betting Corporation has taken up President Trump’s call and is giving workers a pause in paying the 6.2 percentpayroll tax, which funds Social Security.
The move will provide OTB employees more take-home pay in the short term during the COVID-19 pandemic —  but they could see less weekly money in early 2021 as they pay back the tax, unless Congress decides to finance the revenue loss, which is very questionable.
Many businesses have declined to implement the payroll tax holiday despite Trump’s Aug. 8 executive order urging the action because of the potential higher tax liability for workers down the road.
The decision by Nassau OTB to embrace the temporary payroll tax relief will certainly raise eyebrows because the county-run bookie’s president, Joseph Cairo, is also chairman of the Nassau County Republican Party.
“It’s just a gimmick because you have to pay the money back,” said OTB cashier Jackson Leeds, who opposes the change.
“And it’s political because Cairo is chairman of the Nassau County Republican Party,” he added.
The Nassau OTB Management’s Sept 1 memo to workers says: “Please be advised that the ‘take home pay’ on your paycheck from now through December 31, 2020 will be higher than usual. This is because President Trump by memorandum of Aug. 8, 2020 has authorized employers to temporarily defer collection of your Social Security payroll tax (6.2%).
“The amounts may eventually be forgiven by Congress but at this time is a deferral only, and should be viewed as a short term interest free loan that must be repaid…Please be aware that this means that the `take home pay’ in your January-April 2021 paychecks will be lower than you currently receive because the regular social security amount will be deducted as well as the payback amount,” the Nassau OTB notice to workers said.
A rep for Nassau OTB, former Sen. Al D’Amato, defended the tax deferral as a good stimulus for the betting agency and its workforce.
“It makes sense. You’re paying people more and you’re not laying off workers,” said D’Amato, whose Park Strategies lobbying firm represents Nassau OTB as a client.
But the US Chamber of Commerce told the White House and congressional leaders last month that many of the nation’s major industries would decline to implement the president’s order to pause collecting the 6.2 percent payroll tax without a subsidy from Congress.
“Under current law, the EO [executive order] creates a substantial tax liability for employees at the end of the deferral period. Without Congressional action to forgive this liability, it threatens to impose serious hardships on employees who will face a large tax bill as a result of deferral,” the chamber said in an Aug. 18 letter to Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.).
“If this were a suspension of the payroll tax so that employees were not forced to pay it back later, implementation would be less challenging. But under a simple deferral, employees would be stuck with a large tax bill in 2021. Many of our members consider it unfair to employees to make a decision that would force a big tax bill on them next year,” the chamber said.

Even Nassau OTB Trump supporters at Nassau OT


Enlarge ImageA protester gestures in front of a fire during the George Floyd protests in Minneapolis, Minnesota on May 30.
A protester gestures in front of a fire during the George Floyd protests in Minneapolis, Minnesota on May 30.REUTERS

Trump has slammed Biden’s record on issues impacting African-Americans, specifically highlighting Biden’s authorship of the 1994 federal crime law credited with contributing to the mass-incarceration of blacks.
Trump unveiled a so-called “Platinum Plan” for black voters at a Sept. 25 event in Atlanta, including a new clemency commission, and accused Biden of supporting trade and immigration policies and wars that harmed blacks.
“For half a century, Joe has personally advocated or enacted every policy that has caused pain and suffering to the black community,” Trump said at the event.
Angela Stanton-King, a black Republican running for Congress in Georgia after receiving a pardon from Trump in February, also rejected Obama’s accusation.

SEE ALSO




“Claiming the president is a racist didn’t work last election cycle and it won’t work this election cycle,” Stanton-King told The Post.
“I’m a former felon running for John Lewis’s seat. I’m able to do that because I received a full unconditional pardon from President Trump. Not Barack Obama. As a black woman, I can honestly say with the factual data to back my claims that President Trump and his administration has done more for Black Americans than an other president in my lifetime.”
Michelle Obama’s passionate Democratic National Convention speech in August was widely seen as a highlight of the event and she remains a popular Democratic figure ahead of the Nov. 3 election.
Trump has persistently hammered her husband former President Barack Obama’s policies and accused him of “spying” on him during the FBI investigation of possible Trump collusion with Russia. During Obama’s presidency, Trump famously questioned whether Obama was born in the US.
FILED UNDER  ,   ,   ,  ,   ,  10/6/20

SHARE THIS ARTICLE:

READ NEXT
Eddie Van Halen was a guitar god — and had US patent to ...