Today on Sojourner Truth:
Donald Trump's taxes with economist Max Wolff. On Sunday, September 27, The New York Times released a groundbreaking report that exposed something Donald Trump has long fought to keep secret: his taxes. Since taking power in 2017, Trump has broken with tradition set by previous presidents by not only refusing to release his tax returns, but by carrying out a legal battle to keep them a secret. However, The New York Times has retrieved tax-return data for Trump and the hundreds of companies that make up his business organization going back more than 20 years. The newspaper published key findings from the data on Sunday, revealing information about his failing properties, numerous tax write-offs, an audit battle and his hundreds of millions of dollars of debt. Trump reportedly paid $750 in federal income taxes in 2016. In his first year in the White House, in 2017, he paid another $750. He had paid no income taxes at all in 10 of the previous 15 years, mainly because he reported losing much more money than he made. Meanwhile, in 2016, most households in the middle 20 percent of the U.S. income distribution paid an average of $2,200 in federal income taxes, according to the Congressional Budget Office, a nonpartisan government agency. Max Wolff is a Founding Partner at Multivariate, which provides capital markets access and data science solutions to growth companies and institutional investors, as well as a professor at The New School University Milano Graduate Program. Max appears regularly on Reuters, CNBC, CNN, CGTN China, BBC, NPR, Bloomberg, The Wall Street Journal, The financial Times and other outlets.
We also return to our occasional series on Thailand, where villagers fighting a mining company have scored a victory for the environment. Also, one of their grassroots leaders is under threat of assassination. Our guests are Pranom Somwong and Liz Hilton. Pranom Somwong is a Thailand-based representative of Protection International, an international organization dedicated to the protection of human rights defenders. It works to enhance the security and the protection of threatened civil society actors with non-violent means. Liz Hilton is a member of the Empower Foundation, a large network of sex workers based in South East Asia. Originally from Australia, Liz joined Empower as an advocacy volunteer and has now been working with the organization for over 28 years.
Hotel workers are being squeezed by The Langham hotel in Pasadena, California. What's going on? Our guest is Yesenia Ortiz. Yesenia, a single mother of three kids, has worked at The Langham Hotel in Pasadena, California, for three years, until she was fired due to COVID-19. She and her coworkers are calling on Major League Baseball officials, who are staying at the hotel for the postseason, to support them in getting their jobs back as well as urging Gov. Gavin Newsom to sign AB 3216, a statewide right of recall and worker retention law. Gov. Newsom has until September 30 to sign the law.
