Dr. Cornel West Talks Presidential Run, Mass Incarceration, Servant Leadership + More

Matt504

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he basically admits in the first 2 minutes the real reason he running and it's to have a bigger stage to speak to issues he believes are important not because he actually thinks he can win.

:francis:
 

Micky Mikey

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he basically admits in the first 2 minutes the real reason he running and it's to have a bigger stage to speak to issues he believes are important not because he actually thinks he can win.

:francis:
Why not run as a Democrat then? You'd think someone like him would know the stakes of enabling fascists like Trump or DeSantis to win
 

mastermind

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he basically admits in the first 2 minutes the real reason he running and it's to have a bigger stage to speak to issues he believes are important not because he actually thinks he can win.

:francis:

Why not run as a Democrat then? You'd think someone like him would know the stakes of enabling fascists like Trump or DeSantis to win
These tales are weird lol.

Dont vote for him and ignore him.

Saying that, your ideology shouldn’t be “I have to vote for this party, or else.” You have to want some policy changes and have an ideal world in mind.
 

Matt504

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Dont vote for him and ignore him.

Saying that, your ideology shouldn’t be “I have to vote for this party, or else.” You have to want some policy changes and have an ideal world in mind.

He's running as a third party candidate. The next president will either be a Democrat or a Republican candidate.
 

mastermind

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He's running as a third party candidate. The next president will either be a Democrat or a Republican candidate.
Great. Ignore him. Cornell West isn’t stopping either of those parties from winning the election. A bad candidate from those parties would.
 

Adeptus Astartes

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These tales are weird lol.

Dont vote for him and ignore him.

Saying that, your ideology shouldn’t be “I have to vote for this party, or else.” You have to want some policy changes and have an ideal world in mind.
That's not the point. If he wants a big platform, challenge the establishment, and "speak truth to power", he should run as a Dem. If he polls high enough, he can get on the debate satge.
 

mastermind

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That's not the point. If he wants a big platform, challenge the establishment, and "speak truth to power", he should run as a Dem. If he polls high enough, he can get on the debate satge.
running for president is challenging the establishment. The party doesn’t matter.
 

Scientific Playa

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Cornel West Owes More Than Half a Million in Unpaid Taxes​

The presidential candidate has made raising taxes on the rich a fixture of his campaign. He's shorted the IRS more than the median salary in six of the last 20 years.

Veteran Ivy League professor and bestselling author Dr. Cornel West has long advocated for taxing the rich to provide more services to America’s lower classes. But the academic-turned-Green Party presidential candidate isn’t living up to those standards in his own life—as public records from New Jersey and California show, West owes the IRS hundreds of thousands of dollars in back taxes.

West’s lament of the concentration of wealth among the nation’s elite and his support for fiscal policies that would funnel funds down the social scale have been an enduring theme of his decades-long career as a public intellectual—from his initial appearances on the national scene in the 1990s, to his support of both of Sen. Bernie Sanders’ failed presidential bids, to his current sally along the 2024 campaign trail.

"Taxation without representation is now reflected in policies that allow the wealthy to be coddled and under-taxed while the perennially poor, working poor, and 'new poor' are ignored and rendered invisible,” West and co-author (and alleged xes pest) Tavis Smiley wrote in their 2012 book, The Rich and the Rest of Us. “Economic justice in America has been overshadowed by greed, because unequal taxation benefits the rich at the expense of everyone else.”

In a recent interview with Semafor, West maintained that “we’ve got to have taxes that are higher, much higher”—while he told New York Post that first son Hunter Biden’s now-lapsed plea deal to misdemeanor tax charges amounted to “a little tap on the wrist,” especially compared to the penalties the spawn of less powerful families face.

But materials filed in Mercer County, New Jersey, where West owns a home in the upper-crust college town of Princeton, and in Los Angeles—the location of his personal attorney’s office—reveal a second, secret motif to his hugely lucrative professional life: a failure to pay his own taxes.

These documents show a total of $543,778.78 in outstanding federal tax liens against the professor, activist, and writer.

After repeated emails, calls and text messages from The Daily Beast to the West campaign, to interim campaign manager Jill Stein, and to West himself, the professor sent a one-line response from his personal Gmail account.

“My brother I have asked my accountant to respond to these charges some of which are not true,” West wrote from his iPhone.

However, correspondence from the accountant was not forthcoming, and West did respond to The Daily Beast’s subsequent requests that he provide documentation that contradicts the public records from New Jersey and California.

These records show that, for all his tirades against the wealthy, in almost every one of the years recorded West owed more in unpaid taxes than the median American household earned. This includes $85,477.02 he shorted the Internal Revenue Service in 2017, $136,916.26 in 2016, $82,396.14 in 2015, $98,818.25 in 2014, $62,367.69, and $77,803.42 way back in 2005. The IRS has not filed a release for any of these liens, meaning they remain open, or have only been repaid inside the last 30 days.

It is possible West has entered a payment plan with the IRS and paid some of the outstanding balance on these liens. But neither the candidate nor his campaign made any claim to this effect to The Daily Beast.

The county-level filings also expose West as a perennial tax delinquent for almost his entire tenure in the public eye. On top of the sums listed above, he piled up $724,397.26 in liens in a six-year period ending in 2004—a balance he finally paid down in 2010. He also welshed on a $34,069.93 tax debt in 2008, which he finally made good on four years later.

Additionally, documents the IRS submitted in California reveal that West racked up $46,904.57 and $112,449.79 in tax debt in 2011 and 2012, respectively. The materials from the Los Angeles County Clerk’s office also show West finally resolved these liens on June 14 of this year, a little more than a week after he joined the presidential fray.

New Jersey court records further indicate the Harvard- and Princeton-educated son of a Defense Department contractor is a deadbeat in more ways than one. A $49,500 child support judgment against him from 2003 remains open to this day.


 

Adeptus Astartes

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running for president is challenging the establishment. The party doesn’t matter.
Yes it does. It's the reason Bernie ran as a Dem. You get access to far more resources and opportunities. 3rd party runs are for clout chasers and grifters, not serious candidates.
 

☑︎#VoteDemocrat

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That's not the point. If he wants a big platform, challenge the establishment, and "speak truth to power", he should run as a Dem. If he polls high enough, he can get on the debate satge.
Speaking truth is cool. Except he can’t win any elections to change anything

Dude was disrespecting the ONLY elected democrat from South Carolina. Like how fukkin dare you?
 

mastermind

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Yes it does. It's the reason Bernie ran as a Dem. You get access to far more resources and opportunities. 3rd party runs are for clout chasers and grifters, not serious candidates.
Bernie ran as a Dem because he caucuses with the Dems in congress.

Cornell West isn’t in elected office.

I strongly disagree that third party candidates are all clout chasers. I think we are trained to think that because we aren’t supposed to think of alternative choices. Cornell West is clout chasing, but Asa Hutchinson isn’t? Or RFK Jr? Is it because they both are running as Republicans and Democrats that we are supposed to take them more seriously?
 

Adeptus Astartes

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Bernie ran as a Dem because he caucuses with the Dems in congress.

Cornell West isn’t in elected office.

I strongly disagree that third party candidates are all clout chasers. I think we are trained to think that because we aren’t supposed to think of alternative choices. Cornell West is clout chasing, but Asa Hutchinson isn’t? Or RFK Jr? Is it because they both are running as Republicans and Democrats that we are supposed to take them more seriously?
:stopitslime: Deirect quotes from the man himself. He ran as a Dem for pragmatic reasons.
"If we were serious about winning this election, which is always my intention from day one, I thought we could and I hope that we will. I had to do it within the Democratic primary caucus process," he said.
And, much to the chagrin of Donna Brazile
"In terms of media coverage, you had to run within the Democratic Party," he observed, adding that he couldn't raise money outside the major two-party process

Grifters absolutely run in established parties. Still doesn't change the fact that running in an established party is the only route for serious candidates, and third party runs are only good for getting clout and money, not votes.
 
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