Youtube suspends Rudy Giuliani again for election fraud claims
Youtube said it suspended Rudy Giuliani for the second time in two months after the former New York City mayor lied again in videos that the 2020 presidential election was stolen from former U.S. President Donald Trump.
Giuliani, who sought to overturn November’s results as Trump’s attorney, will not be allowed to upload new videos for two weeks. Youtube also cited Giuliani’s promotion of nicotine for the action.
“We removed content from the Rudy W. Giuliani channel for violating our sale of regulated goods policy, which prohibits content facilitating the use of nicotine, and our presidential election integrity policy,” a Youtube spokeswoman said in a statement. “Additionally, in accordance with our long standing strikes system, we issued a strike against the Rudy W. Giuliani channel, which temporarily restricts uploading or live-streaming.”
Youtube’s strikes system revokes a user’s uploading privileges for two weeks if they violate the company’s content policies for the second time within a 90day period. If Giuliani runs afoul of the video site’s rules again in the same timespan, his channel will be permanently shut down. The former mayor was previously suspended in January for election misinformation, and Youtube temporarily prevented him from making money from ads that run with his videos.
The former politician has accused Youtube of bias against conservatives and also posts his videos to the website Rumble, which has looser content-moderation policies. the Ultra-millionaire Tax Act, would create a “fairer” economy with a 2% annual tax on households and trusts valued at between $50 million and $1 billion. All net worth over $1 billion would be taxed at 3%.
“The ultra-rich and powerful have rigged the rules in their favor so much that the top 0.1% pay a lower effective tax rate than the bottom 99%, and billionaire wealth is 40% higher than before the COVID crisis began,” Warren said in a statement. “A wealth tax is popular among voters on both sides for good reason: because they understand the system is rigged to benefit the wealthy and large corporations.”
A wealth tax would be difficult to pass in the current U.S. Senate, which is evenly divided between Democrats and Republicans. Democrats control the agenda, since Vice President Kamala Harris can break ties, but most bills require support from 60 senators to advance.
And Democrats have been unable to muster even 50 votes from some administration proposals, including a $15 hourly minimum wage. A wealth tax likely would be even more divisive.
However, Democrats are planning to use special budget reconciliation procedures to pass a bill with a simple majority later in the year that will include parts of a massive infrastructure package. At that point, taxes to pay for the build out would be on the table. And under Senate rules, tax increases generally are allowed in budget bills.
The bill’s co-sponsors include Budget Chairman Bernie Sanders of Vermont, Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island, Jeff Merkley of Oregon, Kirsten Gillibrand of New York, Brian Schatz of Hawaii, Ed Markey of Massachusetts and Mazie Hirono of Hawaii.