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Sellouts
the enemy within
In political movements a "sellout" is a person or group claiming to adhere to one ideology, only to follow these claims up with actions contradicting them, such as a revolutionary group claiming to fight for a particular cause, but failing to continue this upon obtaining power.
july 31, 2020
They lack ideas, courage, and competence so they find happiness riding a fence while not pissing off society's oppressors. The defend the status quo while lying about supporting progress. They are the very definition of "kind of pregnant"
Sellouts
*Revealed: super-rich donate to Cuomo as he rejects tax hikes for billionaires
(ARTICLE BELOW)
*IN NEW AD, ANTI-MONOPOLY GROUP HITS REP. RICHIE NEAL OVER BLACKSTONE TIES, CORPORATE TAX CUTS(ARTICLE BELOW)
*FLORIDA DEMOCRATIC CANDIDATES ORGANIZE TO PROTEST FLORIDA DEMOCRATIC PARTY
(ARTICLE BELOW)
*DEMOCRAT FACING PROGRESSIVE PRIMARY CHALLENGE SIGNS LETTER SUPPORTING CUTS TO SOCIAL SECURITY — THEN QUIETLY WALKS IT BACK AT HOME(ARTICLE BELOW)
*TOP RECIPIENTS OF POLICE MONEY INCLUDE TRUMP AND LEADING CONGRESSIONAL DEMOCRATS
(ARTICLE BELOW)
*HIDDEN IN THE NEW HOUSE CORONAVIRUS RELIEF BILL: BILLIONS FOR DEFENSE CONTRACTORS
(ARTICLE BELOW)
*Nancy Pelosi promised the left next pandemic relief bill would "go big." Surprise: It didn't(ARTICLE BELOW)
*‘Pelosi’s terrible idea’: Critics denounce proposal to give wealthy a tax cut in next stimulus package(ARTICLE BELOW)
*DCCC-LINKED FIRM BRIEFLY WORKED FOR CHALLENGER TO REP. ILHAN OMAR IN MINNESOTA, AND LEFT BEHIND ITS EMAIL LIST(ARTICLE BELOW)
*The End of Buttigieg’s Campaign Was a Warning Against Fake Progressivism
(ARTICLE BELOW)
*EMAILS SHOW REP. HENRY CUELLAR PROVIDED EXTENSIVE FAVORS TO BORDER SECURITY LOBBYISTS(ARTICLE BELOW)
*No tolerance’: Union urges DCCC to cut off support to Dems who voted against pro-labor bill(ARTICLE BELOW)
*Virginia Democrats join Republicans to reject assault weapons ban bill
(ARTICLE BELOW)
*U.S. presidential candidate Bloomberg endorsed by three black lawmakers
(ARTICLE BELOW)
*TRUMP ALLIES ARE HANDING OUT CASH TO BLACK VOTERS
(ARTICLE BELOW)
*Hedge Fund Billionaires and Former GOP Megadonors Power New Democratic Super PAC(ARTICLE BELOW)
*MODERATE DEMOCRATS ARE CELEBRATING MLK. HE WAS DISGUSTED BY THEM
(ARTICLE BELOW)
*Corporate Democrats Desperately Want a Sanders-Warren Feud
(ARTICLE BELOW)
*Democratic Party Backs ALEC Alumnus Congressman Against Progressive Challenger
(ARTICLE BELOW)
*The Centrist’s dictionary: Here’s what corporate Democrats really mean when they say things like ‘purity test’(ARTICLE BELOW)
*Revealed: RNC and DNC awash with corporate cash from donors seeking access
(ARTICLE BELOW)
*RALPH NADER BREAKS DOWN HOW DEMOCRATS CAVED IN SECRET BUDGET DEAL WITH TRUMP:
(ARTICLE BELOW)
*Gabbard votes "present" on impeachment
(ARTICLE BELOW)
*Top Dem accused of putting private equity before sick and poor by killing effort to end ‘devastating’ surprise medical bills(ARTICLE BELOW)
*Wall Street banks court moderate Democrats to blunt Warren's hostility
(ARTICLE BELOW)
*TRUMP-FRIENDLY CALIFORNIA DEMOCRAT IS FACING HIS FIRST SERIOUS PRIMARY CHALLENGER
(ARTICLE BELOW)
*Press Watch: Democrats who are undecided on impeachment aren't "moderates." They're hacks(ARTICLE BELOW)
*SCHUMER SCORCHED FOR WHITEWASHING PETE KING’S RACIST, ANTI-ISLAM, ANTI-LGBTQ RECORD AS SOON AS HE ANNOUNCED HIS RETIREMENT
(ARTICLE BELOW)
*CENTRIST DEMOCRATS HAVE A NEW IDEA TO WIN REELECTION: IGNORE LABOR AND GIVE TRUMP A MAJOR TRADE DEAL(ARTICLE BELOW)
*CENTRIST DEMOCRATS, LED BY REP. JOSH GOTTHEIMER, TO FUNDRAISE WITH CORPORATE LOBBY GROUP SEEKING TO DEFEAT DEMOCRATIC AGENDA(ARTICLE BELOW)
*JOE BIDEN’S SUPER PAC IS BEING ORGANIZED BY CORPORATE LOBBYISTS FOR HEALTH CARE INDUSTRY, WEAPONS MAKERS, FINANCE(ARTICLE BELOW)
*Demand Justice targets Democratic Sen. Chris Coons for voting in favor of Trump judicial nominees(ARTICLE BELOW)
*EXXON MOBIL IS FUNDING CENTRIST DEMOCRATIC THINK TANK, DISCLOSURES REVEAL
(ARTICLE BELOW)
*THE KOCHS FUNDED THIRD WAY TO PUSH FREE TRADE TO DEMOCRATS, NEW BOOK SAYS
(ARTICLE BELOW)
*“Moderate” Democrats Are Really Conservatives — and They Are Dangerous
(ARTICLE BELOW)
cartoons(at the end)
it's apparent who he works for!!!
Revealed: super-rich donate to Cuomo as he rejects tax hikes for billionaires
Investigation shows governor’s political machine has received money from more than a third of New York’s billionaire families
Walker Bragman and David Sirota
the guardian
Fri 31 Jul 2020 06.00 EDT
New York governor Andrew Cuomo has stood firm against intensifying pressure to avert massive budget cuts by raising taxes on the many billionaires who live in his state.
As that campaign to tax billionaires received a recent boost from Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and New York’s Democratic state legislative leaders, Cuomo has insisted that he fears that the tax initiative will prompt the super-rich to leave the state. On Wednesday, he doubled down, warning that if the state tried to balance its budget through billionaire tax hikes “you’d have no billionaires left”.
But in defending billionaires, Cuomo is protecting a group of his most important financial boosters. More than a third of New York’s billionaires have funneled cash to Cumo’s political machine, according to a Too Much Information review of campaign finance data and the Forbes billionaire list.
New York disclosure records show that 43 of New York’s 118 billionaire families have donated money to Cuomo’s campaigns and the state Democratic party committee he controls. In all, those billionaires and their family members have delivered more than $8m to Cuomo’s political apparatus since his first gubernatorial campaign. That includes large donations from billionaires in the last few weeks as Cuomo has fought to stop tax hikes on billionaires.
Eleven of Cuomo’s billionaire donors have delivered $100,000 or more to his campaign and the New York State Democratic party’s housekeeping fund. They include hedge fund titans James Simons ($3.6m), Stanley Druckenmiller ($1m) and Daniel Loeb ($114,000); real estate moguls Alexander Rovt ($321,000) and Stephen Ross ($80,000) and investor Ronald Perelman ($197,000). Ross, Simons and Simons’ wife delivered a total of $115,000 to Cuomo this month.
With Cuomo blocking billionaire tax hikes, his 43 billionaire donors have increased their net worth by $22bn during the pandemic, according to Forbes data compiled by Americans for Tax Fairness, which pushes for higher taxes on the wealthy.
In all, New York’s 118 billionaires have seen their net worth increase by $77bn since coronavirus hit the United States. Those billionaire gains in just three months are more than five times the size of the state’s entire projected budget shortfall of $14bn.
Cuomo’s office asserted that millions of dollars of campaign donations from billionaires had no bearing on the governor’s decision to oppose Democratic legislation to raise taxes on billionaires, calling the idea “stupid and insulting.”
“As the governor has routinely said, anyone who can be influenced by a dollar doesn’t deserve to be in this business,” said Cuomo spokesman Rich Azzopardi. “New York currently has the most progressive and second highest millionaires tax in the nation, and we’ve been very clear about the challenges facing us in an era where high earners have already moved away from the city and the state in the face of this pandemic, and the federal government is supporting legislation that would change the law and allow them to pay taxes where they telecommute from – not the state or city where their company is located.”
New York Democratic lawmakers have been floating proposals to address the budget crisis with tax increases on the wealthy. One initiative would raise capital gains tax rates on those with more than $1bn of assets, raising more than $5.5bn of new public revenue from billionaires each year. New York City alone is home to more billionaires than any other metropolitan area on the planet.
Cuomo, however, has steadfastly opposed such tax hikes on the wealthy throughout his political career. He has previously championed a plan to eliminate New York’s bank tax and he reduced the state’s corporate tax rates to its lowest level in more than 50 years. He also cut tax rates on purchasers of luxury yachts and private jets – and now he has worked to stymie his party’s billionaire tax plan.
Instead, Cuomo has pushed for big spending cuts. In April, the legislature approved a plan to let Cumo’s budget director make $10bn of spending cuts. That plan also approved Cuomo’s push to cut $2.5bn from Medicaid, flatline education spending and impose tougher eligibility requirements on some long-term public benefits.
On Monday, the governor said that if his state does not secure financial aid from Washington, New Yorkers may see increased mass transit fares and toll levies because “the money needs to come from somewhere.” Local governments could also see big cuts.
Earlier this month, Cuomo declared that he will block tax increases on billionaires in New York out of a fear that the wealthy will flee the state – a concern he reiterated on Wednesday. It is an argument he has been making for years to justify opposition to tax increases on his state’s financial elite and there is little basis for it.
A Stanford University researchers’ 2016 study of IRS data found that so-called tax flight among the wealthy is negligible.
As that campaign to tax billionaires received a recent boost from Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and New York’s Democratic state legislative leaders, Cuomo has insisted that he fears that the tax initiative will prompt the super-rich to leave the state. On Wednesday, he doubled down, warning that if the state tried to balance its budget through billionaire tax hikes “you’d have no billionaires left”.
But in defending billionaires, Cuomo is protecting a group of his most important financial boosters. More than a third of New York’s billionaires have funneled cash to Cumo’s political machine, according to a Too Much Information review of campaign finance data and the Forbes billionaire list.
New York disclosure records show that 43 of New York’s 118 billionaire families have donated money to Cuomo’s campaigns and the state Democratic party committee he controls. In all, those billionaires and their family members have delivered more than $8m to Cuomo’s political apparatus since his first gubernatorial campaign. That includes large donations from billionaires in the last few weeks as Cuomo has fought to stop tax hikes on billionaires.
Eleven of Cuomo’s billionaire donors have delivered $100,000 or more to his campaign and the New York State Democratic party’s housekeeping fund. They include hedge fund titans James Simons ($3.6m), Stanley Druckenmiller ($1m) and Daniel Loeb ($114,000); real estate moguls Alexander Rovt ($321,000) and Stephen Ross ($80,000) and investor Ronald Perelman ($197,000). Ross, Simons and Simons’ wife delivered a total of $115,000 to Cuomo this month.
With Cuomo blocking billionaire tax hikes, his 43 billionaire donors have increased their net worth by $22bn during the pandemic, according to Forbes data compiled by Americans for Tax Fairness, which pushes for higher taxes on the wealthy.
In all, New York’s 118 billionaires have seen their net worth increase by $77bn since coronavirus hit the United States. Those billionaire gains in just three months are more than five times the size of the state’s entire projected budget shortfall of $14bn.
Cuomo’s office asserted that millions of dollars of campaign donations from billionaires had no bearing on the governor’s decision to oppose Democratic legislation to raise taxes on billionaires, calling the idea “stupid and insulting.”
“As the governor has routinely said, anyone who can be influenced by a dollar doesn’t deserve to be in this business,” said Cuomo spokesman Rich Azzopardi. “New York currently has the most progressive and second highest millionaires tax in the nation, and we’ve been very clear about the challenges facing us in an era where high earners have already moved away from the city and the state in the face of this pandemic, and the federal government is supporting legislation that would change the law and allow them to pay taxes where they telecommute from – not the state or city where their company is located.”
New York Democratic lawmakers have been floating proposals to address the budget crisis with tax increases on the wealthy. One initiative would raise capital gains tax rates on those with more than $1bn of assets, raising more than $5.5bn of new public revenue from billionaires each year. New York City alone is home to more billionaires than any other metropolitan area on the planet.
Cuomo, however, has steadfastly opposed such tax hikes on the wealthy throughout his political career. He has previously championed a plan to eliminate New York’s bank tax and he reduced the state’s corporate tax rates to its lowest level in more than 50 years. He also cut tax rates on purchasers of luxury yachts and private jets – and now he has worked to stymie his party’s billionaire tax plan.
Instead, Cuomo has pushed for big spending cuts. In April, the legislature approved a plan to let Cumo’s budget director make $10bn of spending cuts. That plan also approved Cuomo’s push to cut $2.5bn from Medicaid, flatline education spending and impose tougher eligibility requirements on some long-term public benefits.
On Monday, the governor said that if his state does not secure financial aid from Washington, New Yorkers may see increased mass transit fares and toll levies because “the money needs to come from somewhere.” Local governments could also see big cuts.
Earlier this month, Cuomo declared that he will block tax increases on billionaires in New York out of a fear that the wealthy will flee the state – a concern he reiterated on Wednesday. It is an argument he has been making for years to justify opposition to tax increases on his state’s financial elite and there is little basis for it.
A Stanford University researchers’ 2016 study of IRS data found that so-called tax flight among the wealthy is negligible.
IN NEW AD, ANTI-MONOPOLY GROUP HITS REP. RICHIE NEAL OVER BLACKSTONE TIES, CORPORATE TAX CUTS
Akela Lacy - THE INTERCEPT
July 13 2020, 8:03 a.m
A PROGRESSIVE dark-money group hitting politicians over ties to corporate interests on Monday released an ad against Democratic Rep. Richie Neal of Massachusetts, accusing him of working to maintain President Donald Trump’s corporate tax cuts and highlighting his ties to the private equity firm, Blackstone.
“After Donald Trump cut corporate taxes, one of the wealthiest Wall Street firms, Blackstone, now pays nothing in federal taxes,” the new ad says. “Richie Neal introduced a bill that maintains Trump’s corporate tax cuts. Now, Blackstone is Richie Neal’s top funder. And one of Donald Trump’s too. Corporate power is corrupting Democracy. And Richie Neal is part of the problem.”
Trump’s 2017 tax bill reduced the top corporate tax rate from 35 to 21 percent. Democrats campaigned on rolling back the cuts, but when Neal, who chairs the powerful House Ways and Means Committee, introduced legislation last summer expanding tax cuts for low-income families, it didn’t touch the corporate tax rate.
Individuals from Blackstone have given $48,600 to Neal’s campaign this cycle, making the company his top contributor so far, out of a total haul of more than $3 million. Individuals from the group started giving to Neal in large amounts in 2019, HuffPost reported.
Released by Fight Corporate Monopolies, a political nonprofit founded by the anti-monopoly American Economic Liberties Project, the ad is the second this month going after Neal for his ties to Blackstone. In the first ad, the group criticized him for “protecting Blackstone’s profits” by helping to kill a bill to stop surprise medical billing last year. Neal’s campaign told HuffPost that he introduced his own bill on the issue and that the original bill would have hurt hospitals in his district. The group announced that it would spend a total of $300,000 on TV ads targeting Neal in his district. They spent $150,000 on the first ad buy, which will run for another week, and are putting another $150,000 into the second ad buy, starting Monday.
Former Bernie Sanders campaign manager Faiz Shakir is consulting for the group, which has so far only spent money on ads about Neal. Shakir said the group intends to focus on other races, such as those for attorney general, state legislative office, and other down-ballot seats, in primaries and in November general elections. (Shakir is married to Sarah Miller, the executive director of the American Economic Liberties Project.)
As a 501(c)(4) nonprofit group, Fight Corporate Monopolies is not required to disclose its donors. Shakir declined to share who its donors are, stating that they have asked to remain anonymous but that a number of progressive foundations have contributed funds.
Morgan Harper, a Justice Democrats-backed candidate who unsuccessfully challenged Ohio Democratic Rep. Joye Beatty in April, is a senior adviser to the group.
“President Trump’s tax cuts did little for Richie Neal’s constituents, but they mean everything to the corporations backing his campaign,” Harper said in a statement. “Neal’s habit of putting corporate profits above people’s needs will only continue if he isn’t held accountable.”
Alex Morse, mayor of Holyoke, Massachusetts, who is also backed by Justice Democrats, as well as Indivisible and the Sunrise Movement, is running to unseat Neal in the September 1 primary. His campaign has raised $518,880 so far and is highlighting Neal’s refusal to support Medicare for All or a Green New Deal. Morse has also gone after Neal for dragging his feet on trying to force Trump to release his tax returns, an issue that has drawn criticism from constituents as well. (The Supreme Court sent the issue back down to lower courts earlier this month.) Morse, who is rejecting corporate political action committee money, is also highlighting Neal’s corporate donors.
Neal is one of a number of powerful Democrats with strong ties to corporate interests and accepted the most corporate campaign money last year, the American Prospect reported. He has also been one of the Democratic caucus’s most stalwart opponents of Medicare for All. After a historic Rules Committee hearing last April on single-payer legislation, Congressional Progressive Caucus Co-Chair Pramila Jayapal secured a second hearing on the measure last June in front of the more powerful Ways and Means Committee. Ahead of that hearing, Neal urged his colleagues to avoid using the phrase “Medicare for All,” The Intercept reported.
“After Donald Trump cut corporate taxes, one of the wealthiest Wall Street firms, Blackstone, now pays nothing in federal taxes,” the new ad says. “Richie Neal introduced a bill that maintains Trump’s corporate tax cuts. Now, Blackstone is Richie Neal’s top funder. And one of Donald Trump’s too. Corporate power is corrupting Democracy. And Richie Neal is part of the problem.”
Trump’s 2017 tax bill reduced the top corporate tax rate from 35 to 21 percent. Democrats campaigned on rolling back the cuts, but when Neal, who chairs the powerful House Ways and Means Committee, introduced legislation last summer expanding tax cuts for low-income families, it didn’t touch the corporate tax rate.
Individuals from Blackstone have given $48,600 to Neal’s campaign this cycle, making the company his top contributor so far, out of a total haul of more than $3 million. Individuals from the group started giving to Neal in large amounts in 2019, HuffPost reported.
Released by Fight Corporate Monopolies, a political nonprofit founded by the anti-monopoly American Economic Liberties Project, the ad is the second this month going after Neal for his ties to Blackstone. In the first ad, the group criticized him for “protecting Blackstone’s profits” by helping to kill a bill to stop surprise medical billing last year. Neal’s campaign told HuffPost that he introduced his own bill on the issue and that the original bill would have hurt hospitals in his district. The group announced that it would spend a total of $300,000 on TV ads targeting Neal in his district. They spent $150,000 on the first ad buy, which will run for another week, and are putting another $150,000 into the second ad buy, starting Monday.
Former Bernie Sanders campaign manager Faiz Shakir is consulting for the group, which has so far only spent money on ads about Neal. Shakir said the group intends to focus on other races, such as those for attorney general, state legislative office, and other down-ballot seats, in primaries and in November general elections. (Shakir is married to Sarah Miller, the executive director of the American Economic Liberties Project.)
As a 501(c)(4) nonprofit group, Fight Corporate Monopolies is not required to disclose its donors. Shakir declined to share who its donors are, stating that they have asked to remain anonymous but that a number of progressive foundations have contributed funds.
Morgan Harper, a Justice Democrats-backed candidate who unsuccessfully challenged Ohio Democratic Rep. Joye Beatty in April, is a senior adviser to the group.
“President Trump’s tax cuts did little for Richie Neal’s constituents, but they mean everything to the corporations backing his campaign,” Harper said in a statement. “Neal’s habit of putting corporate profits above people’s needs will only continue if he isn’t held accountable.”
Alex Morse, mayor of Holyoke, Massachusetts, who is also backed by Justice Democrats, as well as Indivisible and the Sunrise Movement, is running to unseat Neal in the September 1 primary. His campaign has raised $518,880 so far and is highlighting Neal’s refusal to support Medicare for All or a Green New Deal. Morse has also gone after Neal for dragging his feet on trying to force Trump to release his tax returns, an issue that has drawn criticism from constituents as well. (The Supreme Court sent the issue back down to lower courts earlier this month.) Morse, who is rejecting corporate political action committee money, is also highlighting Neal’s corporate donors.
Neal is one of a number of powerful Democrats with strong ties to corporate interests and accepted the most corporate campaign money last year, the American Prospect reported. He has also been one of the Democratic caucus’s most stalwart opponents of Medicare for All. After a historic Rules Committee hearing last April on single-payer legislation, Congressional Progressive Caucus Co-Chair Pramila Jayapal secured a second hearing on the measure last June in front of the more powerful Ways and Means Committee. Ahead of that hearing, Neal urged his colleagues to avoid using the phrase “Medicare for All,” The Intercept reported.
FLORIDA DEMOCRATIC CANDIDATES ORGANIZE TO PROTEST FLORIDA DEMOCRATIC PARTY
Aída Chávez - the intercept
July 9 2020, 6:41 p.m.
DEMOCRATIC CANDIDATES competing in state legislative and congressional races across Florida are revolting against the Florida Democratic Party, saying that the party has abandoned them — and that the party’s refusal to support their efforts to flip the legislature could hurt Joe Biden in November. Several candidates are being denied access to a powerful voter data tool, significantly impairing their ability to organize and campaign, and are now asking the state Democratic Party to either help turn Florida blue or get out of their way.
More than 50 candidates signed onto a letter on Thursday demanding that the Florida Democratic Party share access to its voter files and resources. For access to VAN, the widely used Democratic voter file technology firm, the party is charging about $3,500 for a congressional campaign, $1,500 for state Senate, and $750 for House — fees that many candidates can’t afford before their campaigns get off the ground. State Democratic parties in New Jersey, Idaho, Kansas, and Nebraska, The Progressive noted in a 2018 article, do not charge candidates to access their voter data. The Democratic Party charges congressional candidates about $3,000 in Texas and about $5,000 in states like Wisconsin and North Carolina.
Rosy Gonzalez Speers, a senior adviser for down-ballot elections for the state Democratic Party, said that the Florida Democratic Party charges one of the lowest fees for VAN access in the country, adding that there is a “tremendous amount of overhead cost.” She said they’re also offering a “program” where candidates make 1,000 calls into their own district to receive a $350 rebate on their $750 purchase.
“Right now we have over 150 candidates who have already purchased VAN and are actively using it,” Speers said. “And what we provide is the maintenance of the system, the voter file is updated every single month and our staff cost is to staff VAN and give candidates free access to a full-time support person whenever they submit a data ticket and need help or training.”
Adam Christensen, one of three Democratic candidates running for the seat being vacated by retiring Republican Rep. Ted Yoho, said the Florida Democratic Party is missing a huge opportunity, putting a “start-up cost” on something that should be an investment.
“If these candidates had the voter files, the data, the information on where to canvass, who to canvass, not only would it increase the amount of Democrats in Florida, it would in turn increase donations, it would increase the amount of races that are won in Florida,” he said. “But right now the Democratic Party is more concerned with making money off candidates, who they essentially see as suckers, and they will not call them back, they will not give them any actual backing.”
In the letter, the candidates wrote that access to the voter files is “a necessary first step” toward winning the 84 GOP-held state legislative seats Democrats are running for, dozens of congressional races, and the presidential election.
This election cycle marks the first time that some Democratic candidates are challenging previously uncontested, Republican-held legislative seats. For decades, the Florida Democratic Party has refused to run Democrats for state House and Senate in deep red districts, offering little resistance to the Republican takeover. That changed this year, when the voting rights group 90 for 90, with help from local progressive groups, recruited challengers and helped raise money to cover the massive ballot access fees to run for these long-ignored seats.
Florida also has the second highest fees in the country to get on the ballot, requiring congressional candidates to obtain 5,000 signatures or fork over $10,500. And because the coronavirus pandemic has made it more difficult to obtain the number of signatures necessary for the petition, this means candidates are expected to pay the large fees on top of the fees to access VAN. For working-class candidates or young people trying to run for office, Christensen said, “it’s game over.”
The idea is that running Democrats everywhere, especially in GOP strongholds, helps drive turnout, cuts the margin of defeat to make districts increasingly competitive over time, and forces Republicans to spend money. Efforts by local- and state-level Democrats to help drive turnout by better targeting get-out-the-vote efforts could also help Biden in the battleground state, which Donald Trump carried in 2016. But candidates say that the Florida Democratic Party has no interest in competing and at times actively discourages opposition, claiming that it would anger Republicans, or refuses to help any of the Democratic contenders.
“They have gone out and hired a bunch of field organizers and they give them access to VAN, they give [Democratic Executive Committees] access to VAN, they give everyone access to VAN except for the candidates,” Christensen said. “And at the end of the day the candidates are the ones who not only use the data, but update the data. They fix most of the data rolls to begin with because they’re the ones that actually make contact with voters and find people who are persuadable enough.”
Speers noted that the Florida Democratic Party has been investing in voter registration and vote by mail expansion for over a year. “Our voter registration numbers are the highest that they’ve been,” she said. “There are definitely a lot of efforts that are going into Florida organizing that will benefit all candidates that are on the ticket.”
Tensions between Democratic candidates and the state party have been playing out on social media in a Facebook group of more than 84 candidates. The chair of the Florida Democratic Party, Terrie Rizzo, is an administrator on the group.
“Am I the only one really annoyed that the FLORIDA democratic party is hiring all these field organizers just so their only focus is electing Biden?” Tammy Garcia, a candidate in House District 37, wrote in a post this week. “Shouldn’t [the Florida Democratic Party] be focusing on, you know, FLORIDA candidates? We seriously need new leadership at the top.”
Ryan Morales, who’s running for state House in District 32, added to Garcia’s post: “You do realize you are on your own. Hence why we created this group to help each other out. It’s a business and we have to fight to be included in the club.” (Speers said that she spent an hour on the phone today with Morales’s campaign manager.)
The Florida Democratic Party also recently came under fire for accepting at least $780,000 in loans through the Paycheck Protection Program, or PPP, returning the money after Democratic lawmakers slammed the move as unethical and potentially illegal. Florida Rep. Donna Shalala reportedly told Rizzo in a tense conversation this week that the party should return the money and that she wouldn’t be participating in an upcoming news conference.
More than 50 candidates signed onto a letter on Thursday demanding that the Florida Democratic Party share access to its voter files and resources. For access to VAN, the widely used Democratic voter file technology firm, the party is charging about $3,500 for a congressional campaign, $1,500 for state Senate, and $750 for House — fees that many candidates can’t afford before their campaigns get off the ground. State Democratic parties in New Jersey, Idaho, Kansas, and Nebraska, The Progressive noted in a 2018 article, do not charge candidates to access their voter data. The Democratic Party charges congressional candidates about $3,000 in Texas and about $5,000 in states like Wisconsin and North Carolina.
Rosy Gonzalez Speers, a senior adviser for down-ballot elections for the state Democratic Party, said that the Florida Democratic Party charges one of the lowest fees for VAN access in the country, adding that there is a “tremendous amount of overhead cost.” She said they’re also offering a “program” where candidates make 1,000 calls into their own district to receive a $350 rebate on their $750 purchase.
“Right now we have over 150 candidates who have already purchased VAN and are actively using it,” Speers said. “And what we provide is the maintenance of the system, the voter file is updated every single month and our staff cost is to staff VAN and give candidates free access to a full-time support person whenever they submit a data ticket and need help or training.”
Adam Christensen, one of three Democratic candidates running for the seat being vacated by retiring Republican Rep. Ted Yoho, said the Florida Democratic Party is missing a huge opportunity, putting a “start-up cost” on something that should be an investment.
“If these candidates had the voter files, the data, the information on where to canvass, who to canvass, not only would it increase the amount of Democrats in Florida, it would in turn increase donations, it would increase the amount of races that are won in Florida,” he said. “But right now the Democratic Party is more concerned with making money off candidates, who they essentially see as suckers, and they will not call them back, they will not give them any actual backing.”
In the letter, the candidates wrote that access to the voter files is “a necessary first step” toward winning the 84 GOP-held state legislative seats Democrats are running for, dozens of congressional races, and the presidential election.
This election cycle marks the first time that some Democratic candidates are challenging previously uncontested, Republican-held legislative seats. For decades, the Florida Democratic Party has refused to run Democrats for state House and Senate in deep red districts, offering little resistance to the Republican takeover. That changed this year, when the voting rights group 90 for 90, with help from local progressive groups, recruited challengers and helped raise money to cover the massive ballot access fees to run for these long-ignored seats.
Florida also has the second highest fees in the country to get on the ballot, requiring congressional candidates to obtain 5,000 signatures or fork over $10,500. And because the coronavirus pandemic has made it more difficult to obtain the number of signatures necessary for the petition, this means candidates are expected to pay the large fees on top of the fees to access VAN. For working-class candidates or young people trying to run for office, Christensen said, “it’s game over.”
The idea is that running Democrats everywhere, especially in GOP strongholds, helps drive turnout, cuts the margin of defeat to make districts increasingly competitive over time, and forces Republicans to spend money. Efforts by local- and state-level Democrats to help drive turnout by better targeting get-out-the-vote efforts could also help Biden in the battleground state, which Donald Trump carried in 2016. But candidates say that the Florida Democratic Party has no interest in competing and at times actively discourages opposition, claiming that it would anger Republicans, or refuses to help any of the Democratic contenders.
“They have gone out and hired a bunch of field organizers and they give them access to VAN, they give [Democratic Executive Committees] access to VAN, they give everyone access to VAN except for the candidates,” Christensen said. “And at the end of the day the candidates are the ones who not only use the data, but update the data. They fix most of the data rolls to begin with because they’re the ones that actually make contact with voters and find people who are persuadable enough.”
Speers noted that the Florida Democratic Party has been investing in voter registration and vote by mail expansion for over a year. “Our voter registration numbers are the highest that they’ve been,” she said. “There are definitely a lot of efforts that are going into Florida organizing that will benefit all candidates that are on the ticket.”
Tensions between Democratic candidates and the state party have been playing out on social media in a Facebook group of more than 84 candidates. The chair of the Florida Democratic Party, Terrie Rizzo, is an administrator on the group.
“Am I the only one really annoyed that the FLORIDA democratic party is hiring all these field organizers just so their only focus is electing Biden?” Tammy Garcia, a candidate in House District 37, wrote in a post this week. “Shouldn’t [the Florida Democratic Party] be focusing on, you know, FLORIDA candidates? We seriously need new leadership at the top.”
Ryan Morales, who’s running for state House in District 32, added to Garcia’s post: “You do realize you are on your own. Hence why we created this group to help each other out. It’s a business and we have to fight to be included in the club.” (Speers said that she spent an hour on the phone today with Morales’s campaign manager.)
The Florida Democratic Party also recently came under fire for accepting at least $780,000 in loans through the Paycheck Protection Program, or PPP, returning the money after Democratic lawmakers slammed the move as unethical and potentially illegal. Florida Rep. Donna Shalala reportedly told Rizzo in a tense conversation this week that the party should return the money and that she wouldn’t be participating in an upcoming news conference.
DEMOCRAT FACING PROGRESSIVE PRIMARY CHALLENGE SIGNS LETTER SUPPORTING CUTS TO SOCIAL SECURITY — THEN QUIETLY WALKS IT BACK AT HOME
Aída Chávez- the intercept
June 17 2020, 7:40 a.m.
WASHINGTON REP. DEREK Kilmer, chair of the corporate-friendly New Democrat Coalition, was among the 30 House Democrats who joined Republicans in signing a letter calling for cuts to Social Security benefits earlier this month.
In the letter, which was addressed to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, lawmakers argued that upcoming coronavirus relief legislation should include budget reforms to confront the economic fallout of the pandemic. The lawmakers also asked leadership to address the “pressing issue of the national debt.” One of their policy recommendations — Sen. Mitt Romney’s TRUST Act — has been described as “a plot to gut Social Security behind closed doors.”
The idea of cutting Social Security benefits is deeply unpopular among Americans, and has increasingly become a political liability, most recently for former Vice President Joe Biden during his Democratic presidential primary race against Sen. Bernie Sanders. A 2019 poll on the issue finds that a vast majority of the public opposes cuts to the program, while a 2018 poll finds that 66 percent of people would support candidates who want to expand the New Deal-era program.
But Kilmer, who’s facing a primary challenge in August from progressive Rebecca Parson in Washington’s 6th Congressional District, which covers most of Tacoma, has been trying to walk back his support for the letter and the attack on Social Security in letters to constituents who had contacted him with concerns about the policy recommendation. The congressman wrote that he has been and will continue to be a “vocal opponent of efforts to undermine existing Social Security benefits,” stressing that he’s not a co-sponsor of the TRUST Act and does not intend to co-sponsor it, according to a copy obtained by The Intercept. He also highlighted his support for the Social Security 2100 Act, which would strengthen and expand the program’s benefits.
The TRUST Act, which Romney introduced last October, would create congressional “Rescue Committees” tasked with writing legislation providing 75 years of solvency for federal trust funds, which subsidize programs like Social Security, Medicare, highways and mass transit, and government pensions. The National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare criticized the proposal at the time, saying it would “set up a process that puts benefits at risk, forcing millions of older Americans onto a pathway toward poverty.”
Other advocacy groups, like Social Security Works and Puget Sound Advocates for Retirement Action, or PSARA, have also been fighting the Romney proposal, mounting an escalating pressure campaign on the lawmakers. Social Security Works has been reaching out to every member of Congress who signed onto the letter asking them to oppose cuts, and plans to run billboards against Democratic Rep. Stephanie Murphy of Florida, said Alex Lawson, the executive director. The group celebrated Kilmer’s statement supporting the expansion of benefits, saying the other 59 members should follow his lead.
“It was really with an eye toward the solvency of these other trust funds that I signed onto this letter,” Kilmer wrote, citing the Highway Trust Fund, which gets money from a federal fuel tax, as an example of the kind of program he had in mind. “It was through this lens that I originally viewed the intent of the letter I signed. However, as I review that letter today through your lens, I recognize the valid concerns you raised. Please know that my intent was not — and will not be — to impact these vital earned benefit programs.”
His primary opponent doesn’t buy it.
“There are 3 options: Rep. Kilmer didn’t read the letter he signed, he doesn’t know about the history of bipartisan efforts to cut Social Security and Medicare, or he’s trying to have his cake and eat it, too: publicly praising Social Security while privately trying to cut it,” Parson told The Intercept. “Whether he signed the letter due to negligence, ignorance, or doublespeak, it’s clear he shouldn’t be representing Washington’s 6th District, where 20 percent of our residents are over 65.”
Parson, a 35-year-old organizer and member of the Democratic Socialists of America, is running in a reliably blue district on an ambitious platform that includes Medicare for All, the Green New Deal, national rent control, and a range of pro-labor policies.
“This isn’t hard,” she added. “No increases in the retirement age. No so-called ‘chained-CPI.’” — an indexing measure that could slow the rate at which benefits increase — “No reducing the money our people need to survive. No joining with conservatives to undermine the greatest anti-poverty program in our history. That’s unacceptable to the grandmother in Tacoma I spoke with who’s living on $750 a month and paying $650 in rent, and it’s unacceptable to all seniors in the district.”
In a statement, Kilmer’s campaign reiterated his support for legislation that would expand the program. “He has opposed efforts to privatize Social Security and to cut benefits his entire time in office,” wrote political director Colin McCann. “Because he has been a consistent champion for working people and retirees and their ability to live with dignity, Derek Kilmer is the only candidate in this race endorsed by the Washington State Labor Council.”
Though the pandemic forced Parson to suspend canvassing and pivot to a completely digital campaign, her fundraising has increased in the previous quarter. Kilmer, an incumbent of seven years, has a significant fundraising advantage with $3.5 million cash on hand. Parson’s total fundraising comes out to a bit over $122,000 — more than $44,000 of it raised in the first quarter — which is more than Kilmer’s Democratic challengers raised in 2014, 2016, and 2018 combined.
In the letter, which was addressed to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, lawmakers argued that upcoming coronavirus relief legislation should include budget reforms to confront the economic fallout of the pandemic. The lawmakers also asked leadership to address the “pressing issue of the national debt.” One of their policy recommendations — Sen. Mitt Romney’s TRUST Act — has been described as “a plot to gut Social Security behind closed doors.”
The idea of cutting Social Security benefits is deeply unpopular among Americans, and has increasingly become a political liability, most recently for former Vice President Joe Biden during his Democratic presidential primary race against Sen. Bernie Sanders. A 2019 poll on the issue finds that a vast majority of the public opposes cuts to the program, while a 2018 poll finds that 66 percent of people would support candidates who want to expand the New Deal-era program.
But Kilmer, who’s facing a primary challenge in August from progressive Rebecca Parson in Washington’s 6th Congressional District, which covers most of Tacoma, has been trying to walk back his support for the letter and the attack on Social Security in letters to constituents who had contacted him with concerns about the policy recommendation. The congressman wrote that he has been and will continue to be a “vocal opponent of efforts to undermine existing Social Security benefits,” stressing that he’s not a co-sponsor of the TRUST Act and does not intend to co-sponsor it, according to a copy obtained by The Intercept. He also highlighted his support for the Social Security 2100 Act, which would strengthen and expand the program’s benefits.
The TRUST Act, which Romney introduced last October, would create congressional “Rescue Committees” tasked with writing legislation providing 75 years of solvency for federal trust funds, which subsidize programs like Social Security, Medicare, highways and mass transit, and government pensions. The National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare criticized the proposal at the time, saying it would “set up a process that puts benefits at risk, forcing millions of older Americans onto a pathway toward poverty.”
Other advocacy groups, like Social Security Works and Puget Sound Advocates for Retirement Action, or PSARA, have also been fighting the Romney proposal, mounting an escalating pressure campaign on the lawmakers. Social Security Works has been reaching out to every member of Congress who signed onto the letter asking them to oppose cuts, and plans to run billboards against Democratic Rep. Stephanie Murphy of Florida, said Alex Lawson, the executive director. The group celebrated Kilmer’s statement supporting the expansion of benefits, saying the other 59 members should follow his lead.
“It was really with an eye toward the solvency of these other trust funds that I signed onto this letter,” Kilmer wrote, citing the Highway Trust Fund, which gets money from a federal fuel tax, as an example of the kind of program he had in mind. “It was through this lens that I originally viewed the intent of the letter I signed. However, as I review that letter today through your lens, I recognize the valid concerns you raised. Please know that my intent was not — and will not be — to impact these vital earned benefit programs.”
His primary opponent doesn’t buy it.
“There are 3 options: Rep. Kilmer didn’t read the letter he signed, he doesn’t know about the history of bipartisan efforts to cut Social Security and Medicare, or he’s trying to have his cake and eat it, too: publicly praising Social Security while privately trying to cut it,” Parson told The Intercept. “Whether he signed the letter due to negligence, ignorance, or doublespeak, it’s clear he shouldn’t be representing Washington’s 6th District, where 20 percent of our residents are over 65.”
Parson, a 35-year-old organizer and member of the Democratic Socialists of America, is running in a reliably blue district on an ambitious platform that includes Medicare for All, the Green New Deal, national rent control, and a range of pro-labor policies.
“This isn’t hard,” she added. “No increases in the retirement age. No so-called ‘chained-CPI.’” — an indexing measure that could slow the rate at which benefits increase — “No reducing the money our people need to survive. No joining with conservatives to undermine the greatest anti-poverty program in our history. That’s unacceptable to the grandmother in Tacoma I spoke with who’s living on $750 a month and paying $650 in rent, and it’s unacceptable to all seniors in the district.”
In a statement, Kilmer’s campaign reiterated his support for legislation that would expand the program. “He has opposed efforts to privatize Social Security and to cut benefits his entire time in office,” wrote political director Colin McCann. “Because he has been a consistent champion for working people and retirees and their ability to live with dignity, Derek Kilmer is the only candidate in this race endorsed by the Washington State Labor Council.”
Though the pandemic forced Parson to suspend canvassing and pivot to a completely digital campaign, her fundraising has increased in the previous quarter. Kilmer, an incumbent of seven years, has a significant fundraising advantage with $3.5 million cash on hand. Parson’s total fundraising comes out to a bit over $122,000 — more than $44,000 of it raised in the first quarter — which is more than Kilmer’s Democratic challengers raised in 2014, 2016, and 2018 combined.
Top Recipients of Police Money Include Trump and Leading Congressional Democrats
BY Grace Haley & Ian Karbal, Center for Responsive Politics - truthout
PUBLISHED June 7, 2020
...House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) announced plans for legislation to be introduced on Monday, with drafting efforts being led by members of the Congressional Black Caucus. The bill is expected to address qualified immunity — a legal doctrine that protects officers from repercussions after use of force — as well as training requirements and bans on excessive use of force such as chokeholds. Legislation is likely to pass the Democrat-controlled House, but its fate in the Senate is less certain. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said he’s open to reviewing legislation but has yet to make any further comment regarding specific provisions.
Police unions are expected to rally against proposed reforms, key among them the National Fraternal Order of Police, which represents over 351,000 members and has four full-time lobbyists on staff. But the unions’ power extends beyond lobbying. They fund and endorse candidates and hold sway over the contributions of the hundreds of thousands of law enforcement officers around the country.
Since the 1994 election cycle, 55 police union and law enforcement PACs have donated over $1.1 million to congressional campaigns, more than a third of which has gone to current members of congress. Funds spread to both sides of the aisle, especially to those in prominent positions and with influence in the House Law Enforcement Caucus. Another $9 million in itemized contributions come from those listing current or retired law enforcement positions as their profession since 1990.
Current and retired law enforcement officers have given $1.5 million so far this election cycle, during which over $2 billion has been contributed by individuals across congressional and presidential races.
The largest recipient of police union funding in Congress is Rep. Bill Pascrell Jr. (D-N.J.), the Democratic co-chair of the House Law Enforcement Caucus. He has received over $43,000 from police unions and law enforcement PACs since 2004.
House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) follows, with $35,500 from police union and law enforcement PACs since 2005. Hoyer is now leading the call for an early return to session to enact police reform. After donating $5,000 to his reelection campaign in 2018, the National FOP released a statement saying “his office regularly reaches out to the FOP to seek our input on legislation touching on law enforcement, labor, and criminal justice issues. His ‘open door’ policy to the FOP is invaluable when moving bills through the House.”
However, police unions have not contributed to Hoyer during the 2020 cycle as of May 21.
The National FOP accounted for a quarter of police union and law enforcement PAC donations to current members of Congress as of May 21. The union’s lobby has previously pushed back on reform-minded bills like the “Stop Militarizing Law Enforcement Act” and the “End Racial Profiling Act,” neither of which have been brought to a vote.
Overall, six of the top 10 recipients of police union funding in the House are Democrats, numbers mirrored in the Senate. The largest Senate benefactor has been Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.). Leahy harshly condemned the killing of Floyd from the Senate floor on Wednesday. He suggested support for popular police reform efforts including mandatory cultural competency training and ending qualified immunity, a practice defended by the FOP.
“Ultimately accountability will require dismantling this culture of impunity, as well as ensuring that law enforcement officers have training and policies in place that serve to rebuild trust in communities of color,” Leahy said in the chamber Wednesday.
Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.), who has come under recent scrutiny for her record on police violence as lead prosecutor in Hennepin County, is one of the senators with the most contributions from police union and law enforcement PACs.
Klobuchar did not bring charges in more than two dozen cases of officer-involved fatalities during her prosecutorial tenure. These include a 2006 case involving Derek Chauvin, the key officer charged in Floyd’s death. Klobuchar, along with fellow Minnesota Sen. Tina Smith (D-Minn.) is now calling for an investigation by the Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division into the “patterns and practices of racially discriminatory and violent policing in the Minneapolis Police Department” in a letter to Attorney General William Barr.
Of the top recipients of police union and law enforcement PAC funds in the House who released statements addressing the killing of George Floyd, three have made calls for police reform — Reps. Hoyer, Kathy Castor (D-Fla.), and Julia Brownley (D-Calf.).
Reps. Paul Cook (R-Calif.), Pete King (R-N.Y.), and Garret Graves (R-La.) have not issued press releases or public statements about Floyd’s killing or the upcoming police reform legislation.
In 2016, the FBI estimated that sworn officers represent 2.4 per 1,000 Americans. A 2016 Pew study showed that police views on law enforcement’s treatment of Black communities differ sharply from the general public’s.
Like PAC money, contributions from individual police officers have gone to politicians on both sides of the aisle, representing an array of politics. Among the top recipients in 2020 are President Donald Trump, Vice President Joe Biden, Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.) and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), all of whom had 2020 presidential bids, according to itemized donations above $200 reported to the FEC.
When small donations made through campaign financing platforms ActBlue and WinRed are included in analyses, Biden has slightly outraised Trump in reported individual law enforcement officer contributions this year as of April 30. People listing police officer as their profession contributed over $70,000 to Biden’s presidential campaign compared to Trump’s $62,000.
Trump narrowly outraised Hillary Clinton in large donations from officers in the 2016 election cycle. The month before the election, he was endorsed by the National FOP.
One of the top recipients of police contributions was the National Rifle Association’s PAC. The National FOP and NRA have a history of lobbying on similar issues, sometimes citing one another in press releases with messages of support.
Explore OpenSecret’s data on police officer, police union and law enforcement PAC contributions.
Police unions are expected to rally against proposed reforms, key among them the National Fraternal Order of Police, which represents over 351,000 members and has four full-time lobbyists on staff. But the unions’ power extends beyond lobbying. They fund and endorse candidates and hold sway over the contributions of the hundreds of thousands of law enforcement officers around the country.
Since the 1994 election cycle, 55 police union and law enforcement PACs have donated over $1.1 million to congressional campaigns, more than a third of which has gone to current members of congress. Funds spread to both sides of the aisle, especially to those in prominent positions and with influence in the House Law Enforcement Caucus. Another $9 million in itemized contributions come from those listing current or retired law enforcement positions as their profession since 1990.
Current and retired law enforcement officers have given $1.5 million so far this election cycle, during which over $2 billion has been contributed by individuals across congressional and presidential races.
The largest recipient of police union funding in Congress is Rep. Bill Pascrell Jr. (D-N.J.), the Democratic co-chair of the House Law Enforcement Caucus. He has received over $43,000 from police unions and law enforcement PACs since 2004.
House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) follows, with $35,500 from police union and law enforcement PACs since 2005. Hoyer is now leading the call for an early return to session to enact police reform. After donating $5,000 to his reelection campaign in 2018, the National FOP released a statement saying “his office regularly reaches out to the FOP to seek our input on legislation touching on law enforcement, labor, and criminal justice issues. His ‘open door’ policy to the FOP is invaluable when moving bills through the House.”
However, police unions have not contributed to Hoyer during the 2020 cycle as of May 21.
The National FOP accounted for a quarter of police union and law enforcement PAC donations to current members of Congress as of May 21. The union’s lobby has previously pushed back on reform-minded bills like the “Stop Militarizing Law Enforcement Act” and the “End Racial Profiling Act,” neither of which have been brought to a vote.
Overall, six of the top 10 recipients of police union funding in the House are Democrats, numbers mirrored in the Senate. The largest Senate benefactor has been Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.). Leahy harshly condemned the killing of Floyd from the Senate floor on Wednesday. He suggested support for popular police reform efforts including mandatory cultural competency training and ending qualified immunity, a practice defended by the FOP.
“Ultimately accountability will require dismantling this culture of impunity, as well as ensuring that law enforcement officers have training and policies in place that serve to rebuild trust in communities of color,” Leahy said in the chamber Wednesday.
Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.), who has come under recent scrutiny for her record on police violence as lead prosecutor in Hennepin County, is one of the senators with the most contributions from police union and law enforcement PACs.
Klobuchar did not bring charges in more than two dozen cases of officer-involved fatalities during her prosecutorial tenure. These include a 2006 case involving Derek Chauvin, the key officer charged in Floyd’s death. Klobuchar, along with fellow Minnesota Sen. Tina Smith (D-Minn.) is now calling for an investigation by the Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division into the “patterns and practices of racially discriminatory and violent policing in the Minneapolis Police Department” in a letter to Attorney General William Barr.
Of the top recipients of police union and law enforcement PAC funds in the House who released statements addressing the killing of George Floyd, three have made calls for police reform — Reps. Hoyer, Kathy Castor (D-Fla.), and Julia Brownley (D-Calf.).
Reps. Paul Cook (R-Calif.), Pete King (R-N.Y.), and Garret Graves (R-La.) have not issued press releases or public statements about Floyd’s killing or the upcoming police reform legislation.
In 2016, the FBI estimated that sworn officers represent 2.4 per 1,000 Americans. A 2016 Pew study showed that police views on law enforcement’s treatment of Black communities differ sharply from the general public’s.
Like PAC money, contributions from individual police officers have gone to politicians on both sides of the aisle, representing an array of politics. Among the top recipients in 2020 are President Donald Trump, Vice President Joe Biden, Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.) and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), all of whom had 2020 presidential bids, according to itemized donations above $200 reported to the FEC.
When small donations made through campaign financing platforms ActBlue and WinRed are included in analyses, Biden has slightly outraised Trump in reported individual law enforcement officer contributions this year as of April 30. People listing police officer as their profession contributed over $70,000 to Biden’s presidential campaign compared to Trump’s $62,000.
Trump narrowly outraised Hillary Clinton in large donations from officers in the 2016 election cycle. The month before the election, he was endorsed by the National FOP.
One of the top recipients of police contributions was the National Rifle Association’s PAC. The National FOP and NRA have a history of lobbying on similar issues, sometimes citing one another in press releases with messages of support.
Explore OpenSecret’s data on police officer, police union and law enforcement PAC contributions.
corporate democrats strike again!!!
Hidden in the New House Coronavirus Relief Bill: Billions for Defense Contractors
A section of the HEROES Act championed by Virginia Democrat Gerry Connolly would cover executive compensation and other perks for defense and intel contractors. The legislation’s wording mirrors what an industry group proposed.
by Jake Pearson - propublica
May 28, 11:56 a.m. EDT
When they passed another bill this month to help the tens of millions of Americans left unemployed and hurt by the COVID-19 pandemic, Democrats in the House of Representatives touted the $3 trillion legislation’s benefits to working people, renters, first responders and others struggling to get by.
They made no mention of the defense contractors.
Tucked away deep in the nearly 2,000-page Health and Economic Recovery Omnibus Emergency Solutions, or HEROES, Act, is a section that will funnel money to defense and intelligence companies and their top executives, according to experts.
The section of the new bill seeks to “clarify” a provision of the $2 trillion CARES Act that passed on March 27. That legislation reimburses firms for the wages and benefits of contract employees who must be kept “in a ready state, including to protect the life and safety of Government and contractor personnel,” but who can’t work because federal offices are closed or they’re following stay-at-home orders.
In language that mirrors what an industry group proposed, the HEROES Act goes beyond just reimbursing wages. It says that such firms can bill the Department of Defense and intelligence agencies for a range of other costs associated with “the financial impact incurred” of keeping workers employed during the health crisis. That includes for “fees,” a term of art in federal contracting, and “general and administrative expenses,” a catch-all phrase associated with the costs of running a business such as paying executives, running the corporate office and even marketing and sales.
The Senate has yet to take up the new House bill, so the companies have not reaped a windfall yet. But experts say that if the Senate passes a new bill, this clause would likely survive.
The legislation was effectively a stealthy way to bail out the defense and intelligence government contracting industry and their executives at taxpayer expense, said Mandy Smithberger, who directs the Center for Defense Information at the Project on Government Oversight, a watchdog group.
Others agreed. “It’s one thing for the government to say, ‘We’ll keep the workers going,’” said Charles Tiefer, a University of Baltimore School of Law professor who specializes in government contracting. “But this is money for the firm.”
In a statement provided by a spokesperson, Rep. Gerry Connolly, a Democrat who championed the relief bills’ contracting sections and whose Virginia district is home to many contract employees and companies, said the legislation’s goal was to make sure these firms “can survive this crisis and recover their lost revenue.”
He said the HEROES Act language wasn’t intended as a “loophole” for firms to bill for expenses like corporate headquarter costs and said he would “object if the Trump Administration interpreted it as such.” But he didn’t answer questions about why he fought to include the broader HEROES Act language that would allow for such charges or why its text matched what an industry group had proposed.
The defense and intelligence agencies have increasingly become reliant on hundreds of thousands of government contractors for everything from fighting on the battlefield to setting up classified computer systems to cleaning offices. At the Department of Defense, which spends more than all other government agencies combined on contractors, the amount obligated for such agreements jumped from $189 billion in fiscal year 2000 to $320 billion in fiscal 2017, according to a July 2018 Congressional Research Service report.
While small businesses that contract with the government would qualify for the reimbursement outlined in the COVID-19 relief bills, major multinational corporations like Raytheon Technologies and market champions like Amazon Web Services would too.
The taxpayer price tag for the section would be enormous.
Already the federal bailout for just payroll and benefits for defense contractor employees stuck at home outlined in the CARES Act will run in the “billions and billions,” the Pentagon’s top acquisition official, Ellen Lord, told reporters in an April 23 press briefing.
Executive compensation, fees and other expenses would be on top of that.
In federal contracting, general and administrative expenses relate to all the costs of running a home office, including support staff whose jobs can’t be billed to any one government contract and the salaries of executives. (The Bipartisan Budget Act caps the amount executives can be paid from a government contract at $540,000 a year, though the firms can augment that through other means, including by using profits from a government contract.)
The HEROES Act language introduces its own ambiguity about what firms can charge when it comes to what are referred to as “fees.” In certain federal contracts, the recipients are paid a fee on top of their costs. In others, fees refer to money contractors pay to third parties like lawyers and accounting firms. The new language opens the door for contractors to count those as billable, even if work isn’t being done, said Tiefer, the contracting expert.
“And now they still collect even though some of their workers are home,” he said.
At issue is a section in the CARES Act that reimburses contractors at “minimum applicable contract billing rates.”
The vaguely worded term touched off a blitz of inquiries and suggestions in the weeks after the CARES Act passed from Beltway firms who perform IT, security and other national defense services for the federal government. The HEROES Act section pushed by Connolly seeks to “clarify” that.
The Intelligence and National Security Alliance, a trade group that says it represents more than 160 companies that do work for the Department of Defense and the intelligence community, was among the firms that lobbied for the new language. In an April 15 letter to the DOD, Larry Hanauer, the group’s vice president for policy, suggested that the term “minimum applicable contract billing rates” should mean “an employee’s base hourly wage rate, plus indirect costs, fees, and general and administrative expenses.”
That language made it into the HEROES Act, which defined “minimum applicable contract billing rates” to include costs “such as the base hourly wage rate of an employee, plus indirect costs, fees, and general and administrative expenses.”
Peggy O’Connor, an INSA spokeswoman, said nobody from her organization discussed the HEROES Act with Connolly’s office and she didn’t know how the group’s suggested definition of “minimum applicable contract billing rates” wound up in the bill.
“There were a lot of letters drafted by various organizations,” she said. “We posted ours, as well as various government guidance memorandum on our website, which is open to the public.”
The industry’s largest trade organization, the Professional Services Council, issued a statement thanking Connolly for his efforts after the HEROES Act passed the House on May 12. A spokeswoman for PSC declined to answer questions about the bill’s language or the group’s interactions with Connolly ahead of the vote.
The six-term congressman has long been an advocate for contracting firms and before joining Congress worked for the Science Applications International Corp., a government contractor that became Leidos. Among his top contributors since taking office in 2008 are government contractors Northrop Grumman, Leidos and Deloitte LLP.
They made no mention of the defense contractors.
Tucked away deep in the nearly 2,000-page Health and Economic Recovery Omnibus Emergency Solutions, or HEROES, Act, is a section that will funnel money to defense and intelligence companies and their top executives, according to experts.
The section of the new bill seeks to “clarify” a provision of the $2 trillion CARES Act that passed on March 27. That legislation reimburses firms for the wages and benefits of contract employees who must be kept “in a ready state, including to protect the life and safety of Government and contractor personnel,” but who can’t work because federal offices are closed or they’re following stay-at-home orders.
In language that mirrors what an industry group proposed, the HEROES Act goes beyond just reimbursing wages. It says that such firms can bill the Department of Defense and intelligence agencies for a range of other costs associated with “the financial impact incurred” of keeping workers employed during the health crisis. That includes for “fees,” a term of art in federal contracting, and “general and administrative expenses,” a catch-all phrase associated with the costs of running a business such as paying executives, running the corporate office and even marketing and sales.
The Senate has yet to take up the new House bill, so the companies have not reaped a windfall yet. But experts say that if the Senate passes a new bill, this clause would likely survive.
The legislation was effectively a stealthy way to bail out the defense and intelligence government contracting industry and their executives at taxpayer expense, said Mandy Smithberger, who directs the Center for Defense Information at the Project on Government Oversight, a watchdog group.
Others agreed. “It’s one thing for the government to say, ‘We’ll keep the workers going,’” said Charles Tiefer, a University of Baltimore School of Law professor who specializes in government contracting. “But this is money for the firm.”
In a statement provided by a spokesperson, Rep. Gerry Connolly, a Democrat who championed the relief bills’ contracting sections and whose Virginia district is home to many contract employees and companies, said the legislation’s goal was to make sure these firms “can survive this crisis and recover their lost revenue.”
He said the HEROES Act language wasn’t intended as a “loophole” for firms to bill for expenses like corporate headquarter costs and said he would “object if the Trump Administration interpreted it as such.” But he didn’t answer questions about why he fought to include the broader HEROES Act language that would allow for such charges or why its text matched what an industry group had proposed.
The defense and intelligence agencies have increasingly become reliant on hundreds of thousands of government contractors for everything from fighting on the battlefield to setting up classified computer systems to cleaning offices. At the Department of Defense, which spends more than all other government agencies combined on contractors, the amount obligated for such agreements jumped from $189 billion in fiscal year 2000 to $320 billion in fiscal 2017, according to a July 2018 Congressional Research Service report.
While small businesses that contract with the government would qualify for the reimbursement outlined in the COVID-19 relief bills, major multinational corporations like Raytheon Technologies and market champions like Amazon Web Services would too.
The taxpayer price tag for the section would be enormous.
Already the federal bailout for just payroll and benefits for defense contractor employees stuck at home outlined in the CARES Act will run in the “billions and billions,” the Pentagon’s top acquisition official, Ellen Lord, told reporters in an April 23 press briefing.
Executive compensation, fees and other expenses would be on top of that.
In federal contracting, general and administrative expenses relate to all the costs of running a home office, including support staff whose jobs can’t be billed to any one government contract and the salaries of executives. (The Bipartisan Budget Act caps the amount executives can be paid from a government contract at $540,000 a year, though the firms can augment that through other means, including by using profits from a government contract.)
The HEROES Act language introduces its own ambiguity about what firms can charge when it comes to what are referred to as “fees.” In certain federal contracts, the recipients are paid a fee on top of their costs. In others, fees refer to money contractors pay to third parties like lawyers and accounting firms. The new language opens the door for contractors to count those as billable, even if work isn’t being done, said Tiefer, the contracting expert.
“And now they still collect even though some of their workers are home,” he said.
At issue is a section in the CARES Act that reimburses contractors at “minimum applicable contract billing rates.”
The vaguely worded term touched off a blitz of inquiries and suggestions in the weeks after the CARES Act passed from Beltway firms who perform IT, security and other national defense services for the federal government. The HEROES Act section pushed by Connolly seeks to “clarify” that.
The Intelligence and National Security Alliance, a trade group that says it represents more than 160 companies that do work for the Department of Defense and the intelligence community, was among the firms that lobbied for the new language. In an April 15 letter to the DOD, Larry Hanauer, the group’s vice president for policy, suggested that the term “minimum applicable contract billing rates” should mean “an employee’s base hourly wage rate, plus indirect costs, fees, and general and administrative expenses.”
That language made it into the HEROES Act, which defined “minimum applicable contract billing rates” to include costs “such as the base hourly wage rate of an employee, plus indirect costs, fees, and general and administrative expenses.”
Peggy O’Connor, an INSA spokeswoman, said nobody from her organization discussed the HEROES Act with Connolly’s office and she didn’t know how the group’s suggested definition of “minimum applicable contract billing rates” wound up in the bill.
“There were a lot of letters drafted by various organizations,” she said. “We posted ours, as well as various government guidance memorandum on our website, which is open to the public.”
The industry’s largest trade organization, the Professional Services Council, issued a statement thanking Connolly for his efforts after the HEROES Act passed the House on May 12. A spokeswoman for PSC declined to answer questions about the bill’s language or the group’s interactions with Connolly ahead of the vote.
The six-term congressman has long been an advocate for contracting firms and before joining Congress worked for the Science Applications International Corp., a government contractor that became Leidos. Among his top contributors since taking office in 2008 are government contractors Northrop Grumman, Leidos and Deloitte LLP.
another corporate giveaway!!!
Nancy Pelosi promised the left next pandemic relief bill would "go big." Surprise: It didn't
Progressives fought for a paycheck guarantee or monthly payments. Instead, it's more tax credits for business
SOPHIA TESFAYE - salon
MAY 13, 2020 10:00AM (UTC)
Throughout the several rounds of congressional negotiations over relief funding during the coronavirus pandemic, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has argued that the Democratic House leadership's strategy will win major concessions from Republicans and the Trump administration. Pelosi has been eager to fend off complaints from progressive critics concerned about the billions in taxpayer-funded corporate bailouts stuffed into the first three bills signed into law by the president.
Democratic leaders have argued that the onset of an unprecedented global pandemic and shutdown was not an appropriate time to play political hardball. The next round of relief, Pelosi has repeatedly promised, would include the bold policies many in her caucus demanded to grapple with the true depth of the crisis.
"How are you paying? No one asked that question with the $2 trillion tax cut," she reportedly told Democrats in a conference call last week, goosing efforts to push for substantive legislation at a hefty front-end cost. Pointing to the GOP's 2017 corporate tax cuts, Pelosi encouraged her members to "go big" on the next package.
Now Pelosi is now touting the repeal of parts of that 2017 tax law as a major part of House Democrats' latest proposed pandemic relief funding bill, even though that repeal would result in lower federal taxes for high-income earners. Pelosi's pitch to "go big" seems to have been forgotten, however, since the new bill will not include a paycheck guarantee that would cover 100% of qualified wages for workers during the duration of the pandemic.
House leadership released an 1,800-page bill on Tuesday afternoon and have said they plan to vote on it Friday. This legislation apparently does nothing to address the failure of the Paycheck Protection Program, an emergency small business loan program that has been exploited by large corporations and has imposed undue burdens on small shops. That program was a key provision in the CARES Act passed by Congress back in March, and is now viewed as a disaster. Without much input from rank-and-file members, House leadership negotiated a massive new cash infusion into the program late last month, but did not take up the proposal backed by more 60 Democratic members to cover payrolls, 100% up to $100,000 per employee, while the crisis lasts.
"I never said the Paycheck Protection was perfect, but it's getting better," said House Ways and Means chair Richard Neal, D-Mass., a figure viewed with immense distrust by progressives. It was reportedly he who axed the paycheck guarantee proposed by Rep. Pramila Jayapal, D-Wash. Citing the high potential cost, Neal pushed a business tax credit supported by more fiscally conservative Democrats.
"It would be an endless amount of money if we put our wish list for the future in there," Pelosi told reporters on Tuesday, before immediately shifting her tone. "We must think big for the people now, because if we don't it will cost more in lives and livelihood later."
Pelosi appears to be using the urgency of the pandemic as a way to push back against the "think big" policies favored by many progressives. In early March she reportedly walked out of a Democratic caucus briefing after Jason Furman, who served as President Obama's chief economist, called for direct cash payments to Americans. There has only been one stimulus payment of up to $1,200 so far, and just one additional $1,200 payment is proposed in Pelosi's latest bill — although this time the amounts will be equal for adults and children. More than three months into this crisis, House Democrats remain strikingly reluctant to embrace continued cash payments, the simplest and most obvious method of economic stimulus.
House Democratic leadership did include some key progressive goals in the new package, including $3.8 billion in funding for states to safely administer elections, $100 billion for rental relief, $75 billion for mortgage relief, direct aid to states and localities, and increased funding for nutrition assistance, unemployment insurance and hazard pay. Democrats also took steps to address the deleterious public health effects of the shelter-in-place orders that have been in place across the nation. The House bill includes suicide and domestic violence prevention measures, as well as increased funding for violence intervention programs and federal victim assistance funds mandated by the Victims of Crime Act.
All might not be enough to keep more progressive members of Pelosi's caucus on board. Leaders of the Congressional Progressive Caucus sent a letter to the speaker on Tuesday, asking for a delay on the scheduled Friday vote to allow further review of this gargantuan legislation. But that's nowhere close to a Freedom Caucus-like revolt from Pelosi's left. Progressives won considerable concessions from House leadership this round — and that's precisely the problem. When increased funding for food stamps and hazard pay for frontline workers are considered major symbolic bones thrown to the left, you have to wonder about this party's overall priorities.
Democratic leaders have argued that the onset of an unprecedented global pandemic and shutdown was not an appropriate time to play political hardball. The next round of relief, Pelosi has repeatedly promised, would include the bold policies many in her caucus demanded to grapple with the true depth of the crisis.
"How are you paying? No one asked that question with the $2 trillion tax cut," she reportedly told Democrats in a conference call last week, goosing efforts to push for substantive legislation at a hefty front-end cost. Pointing to the GOP's 2017 corporate tax cuts, Pelosi encouraged her members to "go big" on the next package.
Now Pelosi is now touting the repeal of parts of that 2017 tax law as a major part of House Democrats' latest proposed pandemic relief funding bill, even though that repeal would result in lower federal taxes for high-income earners. Pelosi's pitch to "go big" seems to have been forgotten, however, since the new bill will not include a paycheck guarantee that would cover 100% of qualified wages for workers during the duration of the pandemic.
House leadership released an 1,800-page bill on Tuesday afternoon and have said they plan to vote on it Friday. This legislation apparently does nothing to address the failure of the Paycheck Protection Program, an emergency small business loan program that has been exploited by large corporations and has imposed undue burdens on small shops. That program was a key provision in the CARES Act passed by Congress back in March, and is now viewed as a disaster. Without much input from rank-and-file members, House leadership negotiated a massive new cash infusion into the program late last month, but did not take up the proposal backed by more 60 Democratic members to cover payrolls, 100% up to $100,000 per employee, while the crisis lasts.
"I never said the Paycheck Protection was perfect, but it's getting better," said House Ways and Means chair Richard Neal, D-Mass., a figure viewed with immense distrust by progressives. It was reportedly he who axed the paycheck guarantee proposed by Rep. Pramila Jayapal, D-Wash. Citing the high potential cost, Neal pushed a business tax credit supported by more fiscally conservative Democrats.
"It would be an endless amount of money if we put our wish list for the future in there," Pelosi told reporters on Tuesday, before immediately shifting her tone. "We must think big for the people now, because if we don't it will cost more in lives and livelihood later."
Pelosi appears to be using the urgency of the pandemic as a way to push back against the "think big" policies favored by many progressives. In early March she reportedly walked out of a Democratic caucus briefing after Jason Furman, who served as President Obama's chief economist, called for direct cash payments to Americans. There has only been one stimulus payment of up to $1,200 so far, and just one additional $1,200 payment is proposed in Pelosi's latest bill — although this time the amounts will be equal for adults and children. More than three months into this crisis, House Democrats remain strikingly reluctant to embrace continued cash payments, the simplest and most obvious method of economic stimulus.
House Democratic leadership did include some key progressive goals in the new package, including $3.8 billion in funding for states to safely administer elections, $100 billion for rental relief, $75 billion for mortgage relief, direct aid to states and localities, and increased funding for nutrition assistance, unemployment insurance and hazard pay. Democrats also took steps to address the deleterious public health effects of the shelter-in-place orders that have been in place across the nation. The House bill includes suicide and domestic violence prevention measures, as well as increased funding for violence intervention programs and federal victim assistance funds mandated by the Victims of Crime Act.
All might not be enough to keep more progressive members of Pelosi's caucus on board. Leaders of the Congressional Progressive Caucus sent a letter to the speaker on Tuesday, asking for a delay on the scheduled Friday vote to allow further review of this gargantuan legislation. But that's nowhere close to a Freedom Caucus-like revolt from Pelosi's left. Progressives won considerable concessions from House leadership this round — and that's precisely the problem. When increased funding for food stamps and hazard pay for frontline workers are considered major symbolic bones thrown to the left, you have to wonder about this party's overall priorities.
‘Pelosi’s terrible idea’: Critics denounce proposal to give wealthy a tax cut in next stimulus package
March 31, 2020
By Common Dreams - raw story
“This is almost unbelieveable.”
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is reportedly set to propose rolling back a cap on tax deductions, which would benefit high-earning Americans, as part of the next step of an economic stimulus package that has already poured trillions into the U.S. economy—much of it going to the richest individuals and corporations in the country.
“This is almost unbelievable,” HuffPost senior reporter Emily Peck tweeted in response to the news. “Of all the things to do to help people; she wants to… give upper middle class people a tax break.”
The California Democrat’s plan to retroactively undo the state and local tax (SALT) deduction limits would be a major tax break for households earning over $100,000, according to critics like University of Michigan professor Justin Wolfers.
“Retroactive tax deductions are always a bad idea—a giveaway that gets you nothing—and this one goes almost entirely to household on at least $100,000 a year,” said Wolfers of the plan.
As the New York Times reported, there is skepticism over the Pelosi proposal:
The congressional Joint Committee on Taxation estimated last year that a full repeal of the SALT limit for 2019 alone would reduce federal revenues by about $77 billion. Americans earning $1 million a year or more would collectively reap $40 billion of those benefits. Most of the rest would go to households earning $200,000 or more.
[…]
Many liberal economic policy analysts also oppose lifting the SALT cap, calling it regressive tax policy. Seth Hanlon, a senior fellow at the liberal Center for American Progress, said the same logic was also a reason not to lift the limit in the next economic rescue bill. That is particularly true because consumption data show that low- and middle-income Americans are more likely than higher earners to spend benefits from the government immediately and stimulate economic activity.
Pelosi’s spokesman Henry Connelly claimed in a statement for the Times that the speaker’s plan would be means-tested and “tailored to focus on middle-class earners and include limitations on the higher end.”
Nonetheless, rolling back the deductions would benefit millionaires and billionaires more than those making hundreds of thousands of dollars a year, as activist James Medlock showed on Twitter.
In a statement, Patriotic Millionaires chair Morris Pearl dismissed Pelosi’s plan as “a huge mistake.”
“The last people who need help right now are the well-off taxpayers who would be affected by this change,” said Pearl. “Congress should instead be prioritizing low-income and middle-class workers most directly hurt by the economic effects of the coronavirus.”
Pearl, former managing director of investment firm Blackrock, added that people in his economic bracket were most likely to weather the storm of the pandemic without much economic pain.
“If Democrats want to be the party of working people, prioritizing tax cuts for wealthy taxpayers, even in blue states, is not the right thing to do,” said Pearl. “We already have too many politicians in Washington whose answer to every problem is to cut taxes for the rich.”
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is reportedly set to propose rolling back a cap on tax deductions, which would benefit high-earning Americans, as part of the next step of an economic stimulus package that has already poured trillions into the U.S. economy—much of it going to the richest individuals and corporations in the country.
“This is almost unbelievable,” HuffPost senior reporter Emily Peck tweeted in response to the news. “Of all the things to do to help people; she wants to… give upper middle class people a tax break.”
The California Democrat’s plan to retroactively undo the state and local tax (SALT) deduction limits would be a major tax break for households earning over $100,000, according to critics like University of Michigan professor Justin Wolfers.
“Retroactive tax deductions are always a bad idea—a giveaway that gets you nothing—and this one goes almost entirely to household on at least $100,000 a year,” said Wolfers of the plan.
As the New York Times reported, there is skepticism over the Pelosi proposal:
The congressional Joint Committee on Taxation estimated last year that a full repeal of the SALT limit for 2019 alone would reduce federal revenues by about $77 billion. Americans earning $1 million a year or more would collectively reap $40 billion of those benefits. Most of the rest would go to households earning $200,000 or more.
[…]
Many liberal economic policy analysts also oppose lifting the SALT cap, calling it regressive tax policy. Seth Hanlon, a senior fellow at the liberal Center for American Progress, said the same logic was also a reason not to lift the limit in the next economic rescue bill. That is particularly true because consumption data show that low- and middle-income Americans are more likely than higher earners to spend benefits from the government immediately and stimulate economic activity.
Pelosi’s spokesman Henry Connelly claimed in a statement for the Times that the speaker’s plan would be means-tested and “tailored to focus on middle-class earners and include limitations on the higher end.”
Nonetheless, rolling back the deductions would benefit millionaires and billionaires more than those making hundreds of thousands of dollars a year, as activist James Medlock showed on Twitter.
In a statement, Patriotic Millionaires chair Morris Pearl dismissed Pelosi’s plan as “a huge mistake.”
“The last people who need help right now are the well-off taxpayers who would be affected by this change,” said Pearl. “Congress should instead be prioritizing low-income and middle-class workers most directly hurt by the economic effects of the coronavirus.”
Pearl, former managing director of investment firm Blackrock, added that people in his economic bracket were most likely to weather the storm of the pandemic without much economic pain.
“If Democrats want to be the party of working people, prioritizing tax cuts for wealthy taxpayers, even in blue states, is not the right thing to do,” said Pearl. “We already have too many politicians in Washington whose answer to every problem is to cut taxes for the rich.”
DCCC-LINKED FIRM BRIEFLY WORKED FOR CHALLENGER TO REP. ILHAN OMAR IN MINNESOTA, AND LEFT BEHIND ITS EMAIL LIST
Aída Chávez - the intercept
March 11 2020, 1:33 p.m.
WHEN KEITH ELLISON resigned from Congress to run for Minnesota attorney general in 2018, a crowded Democratic primary field quickly developed. The establishment favorite for the seat was Margaret Anderson Kelliher, the former speaker of the Minnesota House of Representatives. One of her consultants that cycle was New Blue Interactive, run by the former managing director of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. Ilhan Omar beat Kelliher and the rest of the field, but in 2020 will again face primary challengers. One of those candidates is Antone Melton-Meaux, and New Blue Interactive once again signed up to work against Omar. Except this year, that wasn’t allowed.
Melton-Meaux, an attorney and volunteer minister, paid New Blue Interactive $13,875 to do digital consulting for his campaign, according to financial disclosures. But last year, the House Democrats’ campaign arm formalized a controversial policy cutting off firms that work with candidates running primary challenges against incumbent Democrats. So, after just a week, the DCCC-linked firm terminated the contract with the campaign and refunded the payment, according to an FEC memo.
But the campaign kept the valuable contact list that came with the contract, according to the FEC. Email lists are still one of the most important fundraising tools a campaign can have, and can be worth thousands of dollars.
New Blue Interactive is also working for a host of incumbents in the 2020 cycle, including Reps. Henry Cuellar of Texas, Jerry Nadler of New York, and Dan Lipinski of Illinois. Marie Newman, a pro-choice woman challenging Lipinski, lost at least four consultants last year due to the blacklist.
Omar faces two other Democratic opponents and six Republican challengers. Melton-Meaux poses the biggest (though still distant) threat. Omar raised $1.1 million for her reelection through last year’s third quarter alone and has nearly $1.6 million cash on hand mostly from small individual contributions, according to the most recent filings. Melton-Meaux, meanwhile, has raised $260,126.
Since entering office in the wave 2018 midterm elections, Omar, along with other members of the Squad, have been targeted by Democratic leaders to varying degrees. Some Minnesota Democrats reportedly began taking steps to find candidates to take on Omar just two months into her first term.
Taryn Rosenkranz, the founder and CEO of New Blue Interactive, previously served as managing director at the DCCC, where she oversaw digital communications for seven years, according to her bio on the firm’s website. In April 2019, she told Roll Call that building an email list was crucial to standing out in a crowded field of competitors. Neither New Blue Interactive nor Melton-Meaux’s campaign responded to a request for comment.
The House Democrats’ campaign arm has faced backlash over its vendor blacklist which, critics argue, keeps centrist Democrats in power while discouraging women and people of color to run for office.
“It looks like the DCCC’s blacklist is just for one side: progressives. The hypocrisy is stunning,” Justice Democrats spokesperson Waleed Shahid told The Intercept.
“When the DCCC talks about ‘protecting incumbents,’ it seems that is code for keeping out diverse, progressive candidates,” said Lindsey Boylan, who’s challenging Nadler in New York’s 10th District. “Otherwise, why would some firms be able to challenge progressives like Omar with impunity, while others are blackballed for challenging incumbents like Jerry Nadler?”
Melton-Meaux, an attorney and volunteer minister, paid New Blue Interactive $13,875 to do digital consulting for his campaign, according to financial disclosures. But last year, the House Democrats’ campaign arm formalized a controversial policy cutting off firms that work with candidates running primary challenges against incumbent Democrats. So, after just a week, the DCCC-linked firm terminated the contract with the campaign and refunded the payment, according to an FEC memo.
But the campaign kept the valuable contact list that came with the contract, according to the FEC. Email lists are still one of the most important fundraising tools a campaign can have, and can be worth thousands of dollars.
New Blue Interactive is also working for a host of incumbents in the 2020 cycle, including Reps. Henry Cuellar of Texas, Jerry Nadler of New York, and Dan Lipinski of Illinois. Marie Newman, a pro-choice woman challenging Lipinski, lost at least four consultants last year due to the blacklist.
Omar faces two other Democratic opponents and six Republican challengers. Melton-Meaux poses the biggest (though still distant) threat. Omar raised $1.1 million for her reelection through last year’s third quarter alone and has nearly $1.6 million cash on hand mostly from small individual contributions, according to the most recent filings. Melton-Meaux, meanwhile, has raised $260,126.
Since entering office in the wave 2018 midterm elections, Omar, along with other members of the Squad, have been targeted by Democratic leaders to varying degrees. Some Minnesota Democrats reportedly began taking steps to find candidates to take on Omar just two months into her first term.
Taryn Rosenkranz, the founder and CEO of New Blue Interactive, previously served as managing director at the DCCC, where she oversaw digital communications for seven years, according to her bio on the firm’s website. In April 2019, she told Roll Call that building an email list was crucial to standing out in a crowded field of competitors. Neither New Blue Interactive nor Melton-Meaux’s campaign responded to a request for comment.
The House Democrats’ campaign arm has faced backlash over its vendor blacklist which, critics argue, keeps centrist Democrats in power while discouraging women and people of color to run for office.
“It looks like the DCCC’s blacklist is just for one side: progressives. The hypocrisy is stunning,” Justice Democrats spokesperson Waleed Shahid told The Intercept.
“When the DCCC talks about ‘protecting incumbents,’ it seems that is code for keeping out diverse, progressive candidates,” said Lindsey Boylan, who’s challenging Nadler in New York’s 10th District. “Otherwise, why would some firms be able to challenge progressives like Omar with impunity, while others are blackballed for challenging incumbents like Jerry Nadler?”
exposed the fraud!!!
The End of Buttigieg’s Campaign Was a Warning Against Fake Progressivism
BY Michael Corcoran, Truthout
PUBLISHED March 6, 2020
Pete Buttigieg’s conversion into one of the left’s most despised neoliberal villains was something to behold this year. While the 38-year-old politician entered the 2020 Democratic presidential race as a little-known mayor of a mid-sized Indiana city, he managed to exit the race — officially as of Sunday — as a symbol of much that is wrong with the Democratic Party establishment.
The traits that prompted this outrage from the left include his financial relationships with billionaires and corporate donors, his ceaseless opposition to democratic socialism and his “smug” hyperbolic language that sounds like it was scripted by Aaron Sorkin for a fictional politician.
Mayor Pete tried to sell neoliberalism by dressing it up with vaguely progressive but mostly empty platitudes. Unlike longtime Democratic National Committee favorites like Joe Biden, who plays up his “bipartisan” establishment credentials, Buttigieg pretended to be a fresh-thinking progressive while advocating policies quite similar to those of Biden. These traits did not win him the presidency nor any friends on the left, where many saw him as a “slick corporate tool.” Indeed, Buttigieg emerged as one of the most prominent opponents of progressive reforms in the Democratic Party. Depending on what he does next, we might see him continue to serve as a vessel for neoliberalism in the next generation of American politics.
“He’s a political consultant for the part of the ruling class that is linked to the Democratic Party,” said Steve Maher, assistant editor of the Socialist Register, in an interview with Truthout. “He does not have real positions, and what little he says cannot be trusted because he will say or do anything to win.”
This kind of sentiment was not uncommon among voters on the left. Still, Buttigieg may have been surprised that his merger of naked ambition and corporate centrism was not ultimately a winning template. For most of his life, the essence of mainstream American politics has consisted of promoting elitism by using the language of folksy populism. Buttigieg took this approach to comical levels in the search for viral moments and audience adoration.
Yet in 2020, many Democratic Party voters are seeing politics in a new way. The world Buttigieg grew up with has changed radically as a result of the economic conditions facing the working class in the aftermath of the economic crisis and the great recession. This anger and backlash have prompted new levels of class consciousness and organization, including Occupy Wall Street and the emergence of Sanders’s movement in 2015-2016.
Buttigieg’s corporatism and plastic demeanor did not gain him the presidency in 2020, but the establishment doesn’t need him to be president to be useful as a promoter of neoliberal goals. His decision to drop out of the race two days before Super Tuesday helped give Biden more than $100 million in free or “earned,” positive media coverage, possibly contributing to the former vice president’s success in those primaries. Given Buttigieg’s impact on the election season so far — and the fact that he likely has a long career in front of him — it’s important that this growing coalition around democratic socialism understand the lessons from his campaign.
Buttigieg the Brand
Mayor Pete has spent his entire adult life preparing to be “presidential,” in the modern sense of the word. His resume includes an Ivy League education, military service, a Rhodes scholarship and a job as a vulture capitalist where he helped clients as they fixed bread prices and laid off workers.
His campaign was even more calculated than his resume. Mayor Pete has branded (and rebranded) himself aggressively in the last year, with the help of the design firm Hyperact. This helped him earn a flurry of positive media coverage from dominant media outlets, but he came off as fake and calculated to many.
His illusions of grandeur were evident in every awkward photo op and encounter with protesters. His campaign added fake applause to his media appearances and Buttigieg went so far as to plagiarize parts of an Obama speech.
“He deliberately lowers his voice to sound like Obama,” observed Virgil Texas, co-host of the left-wing podcast “Chapo Trap House,” in an episode about Buttigieg’s campaign.
His campaign even applied for a Shorty Award for digital marketing, bragging about the use of colors that are “intentionally evocative of the real heart of America with names like heartland yellow and rust belt.” From the application:
Pete Buttigieg is a new kind of presidential candidate. He is a millennial and a mayor of a blue-collar city in the heartland. He is unapologetically substantive, yet refreshingly salt-of-the-earth. He is progressive, yet pragmatic.
---
Class Warfare by Proxy: The Role of Buttigieg
One might be willing to forgive Buttigieg’s ego and braggadocio if it was part of an effort to help the working class. But at the root of the left’s contempt for the politician is his agenda. By the end of his campaign he had become one of the most vociferous critics of cornerstone progressive priorities like Medicare for All. This was despite the fact he initially supported the policy as recently as 2018. For a very brief phase of his candidacy he tried to model a more progressive candidacy in the mold of Howard Dean or John Edwards.
This was fleeting. Soon he warmed up to Wall Street, the health insurance industry and the fossil fuel industry, who rewarded him in kind. According to the Center for Responsive Politics, Buttigieg and related PACs accepted more than $3.5 million from health professionals, hospitals and other health industry sources, more than $5 million each from finance, and telecom/electronics. He was funded by 40 billionaires as well. He defended these relationships by saying he was merely being inclusive and wanted to welcome billionaires into a progressive coalition.
While Buttigieg is hardly the first Democrat to rely on this kind of money, in an age of increased class struggle and social media, it became a liability. Some voters demanded refunds. Buttigieg’s lack of a clear core ideology made him an ideal front operation for billionaires, who have long counted on politicians to create the illusion that policies are advanced in the interests of the country at large.
We are used to seeing politicians artfully create laws and policies that benefit billionaires like Michael Bloomberg and Tom Steyer. What has been unusual for the Democratic Party in 2020 is that several of these billionaires essentially skipped the middleman, attempting to run for president themselves in the mold of Donald Trump. As he looks to his future, Mayor Pete can be thankful that Steyer and Bloomberg have dropped out.
As long as billionaires need politicians to advance their agenda, people like Buttigieg will have utility for the ruling class. This is why advocates of social change will keep a close eye on where Mayor Pete lands next.
The traits that prompted this outrage from the left include his financial relationships with billionaires and corporate donors, his ceaseless opposition to democratic socialism and his “smug” hyperbolic language that sounds like it was scripted by Aaron Sorkin for a fictional politician.
Mayor Pete tried to sell neoliberalism by dressing it up with vaguely progressive but mostly empty platitudes. Unlike longtime Democratic National Committee favorites like Joe Biden, who plays up his “bipartisan” establishment credentials, Buttigieg pretended to be a fresh-thinking progressive while advocating policies quite similar to those of Biden. These traits did not win him the presidency nor any friends on the left, where many saw him as a “slick corporate tool.” Indeed, Buttigieg emerged as one of the most prominent opponents of progressive reforms in the Democratic Party. Depending on what he does next, we might see him continue to serve as a vessel for neoliberalism in the next generation of American politics.
“He’s a political consultant for the part of the ruling class that is linked to the Democratic Party,” said Steve Maher, assistant editor of the Socialist Register, in an interview with Truthout. “He does not have real positions, and what little he says cannot be trusted because he will say or do anything to win.”
This kind of sentiment was not uncommon among voters on the left. Still, Buttigieg may have been surprised that his merger of naked ambition and corporate centrism was not ultimately a winning template. For most of his life, the essence of mainstream American politics has consisted of promoting elitism by using the language of folksy populism. Buttigieg took this approach to comical levels in the search for viral moments and audience adoration.
Yet in 2020, many Democratic Party voters are seeing politics in a new way. The world Buttigieg grew up with has changed radically as a result of the economic conditions facing the working class in the aftermath of the economic crisis and the great recession. This anger and backlash have prompted new levels of class consciousness and organization, including Occupy Wall Street and the emergence of Sanders’s movement in 2015-2016.
Buttigieg’s corporatism and plastic demeanor did not gain him the presidency in 2020, but the establishment doesn’t need him to be president to be useful as a promoter of neoliberal goals. His decision to drop out of the race two days before Super Tuesday helped give Biden more than $100 million in free or “earned,” positive media coverage, possibly contributing to the former vice president’s success in those primaries. Given Buttigieg’s impact on the election season so far — and the fact that he likely has a long career in front of him — it’s important that this growing coalition around democratic socialism understand the lessons from his campaign.
Buttigieg the Brand
Mayor Pete has spent his entire adult life preparing to be “presidential,” in the modern sense of the word. His resume includes an Ivy League education, military service, a Rhodes scholarship and a job as a vulture capitalist where he helped clients as they fixed bread prices and laid off workers.
His campaign was even more calculated than his resume. Mayor Pete has branded (and rebranded) himself aggressively in the last year, with the help of the design firm Hyperact. This helped him earn a flurry of positive media coverage from dominant media outlets, but he came off as fake and calculated to many.
His illusions of grandeur were evident in every awkward photo op and encounter with protesters. His campaign added fake applause to his media appearances and Buttigieg went so far as to plagiarize parts of an Obama speech.
“He deliberately lowers his voice to sound like Obama,” observed Virgil Texas, co-host of the left-wing podcast “Chapo Trap House,” in an episode about Buttigieg’s campaign.
His campaign even applied for a Shorty Award for digital marketing, bragging about the use of colors that are “intentionally evocative of the real heart of America with names like heartland yellow and rust belt.” From the application:
Pete Buttigieg is a new kind of presidential candidate. He is a millennial and a mayor of a blue-collar city in the heartland. He is unapologetically substantive, yet refreshingly salt-of-the-earth. He is progressive, yet pragmatic.
---
Class Warfare by Proxy: The Role of Buttigieg
One might be willing to forgive Buttigieg’s ego and braggadocio if it was part of an effort to help the working class. But at the root of the left’s contempt for the politician is his agenda. By the end of his campaign he had become one of the most vociferous critics of cornerstone progressive priorities like Medicare for All. This was despite the fact he initially supported the policy as recently as 2018. For a very brief phase of his candidacy he tried to model a more progressive candidacy in the mold of Howard Dean or John Edwards.
This was fleeting. Soon he warmed up to Wall Street, the health insurance industry and the fossil fuel industry, who rewarded him in kind. According to the Center for Responsive Politics, Buttigieg and related PACs accepted more than $3.5 million from health professionals, hospitals and other health industry sources, more than $5 million each from finance, and telecom/electronics. He was funded by 40 billionaires as well. He defended these relationships by saying he was merely being inclusive and wanted to welcome billionaires into a progressive coalition.
While Buttigieg is hardly the first Democrat to rely on this kind of money, in an age of increased class struggle and social media, it became a liability. Some voters demanded refunds. Buttigieg’s lack of a clear core ideology made him an ideal front operation for billionaires, who have long counted on politicians to create the illusion that policies are advanced in the interests of the country at large.
We are used to seeing politicians artfully create laws and policies that benefit billionaires like Michael Bloomberg and Tom Steyer. What has been unusual for the Democratic Party in 2020 is that several of these billionaires essentially skipped the middleman, attempting to run for president themselves in the mold of Donald Trump. As he looks to his future, Mayor Pete can be thankful that Steyer and Bloomberg have dropped out.
As long as billionaires need politicians to advance their agenda, people like Buttigieg will have utility for the ruling class. This is why advocates of social change will keep a close eye on where Mayor Pete lands next.
EMAILS SHOW REP. HENRY CUELLAR PROVIDED EXTENSIVE FAVORS TO BORDER SECURITY LOBBYISTS
Lee Fang - the intercept
February 26 2020, 12:02 p.m.
REP. HENRY CUELLAR, a conservative Texas Democrat, has used his perch in Congress to push for funds for private prisons, drone surveillance, and increased border security enforcement.
The lawmaker has defended his record as part of his duty as a border lawmaker focused on national security, but emails show Cuellar acting at the behest of well-connected lobbyists for a government contractor.
Perceptics, a company that sells cameras that scan license plates, has frequently tapped Cuellar for favors since at least 2011, including a push to edge out a competing vendor, using its team of lobbyists and campaign contributions to curry favor with his office.
The close relationship with the lawmaker was revealed through emails that were published online last summer after Perceptics was targeted by an anonymous hacker. Colin Strother, a spokesperson for Cuellar, declined to discuss the emails and accused The Intercept of “an agenda and a bias.” Perceptics declined to comment.
The emails show the lawmaker’s name mentioned dozens of times as an ally Perceptics could use to sponsor legislation or write official letters on the company’s behalf. Lobbyists and executives at the firm referenced him as Perceptics’s “friendly congressman” and “our Cuellar firepower.”
Cuellar’s close ties to business interests stand out, even among other conservative House Democrats. Cuellar is the biggest Democratic recipient of campaign donations from the private prison industry, one of the only Democrats vote to delay regulations on payday lending, and has voted in support of the Trump administration’s agenda in Congress a record 75 percent of the time.
The lawmaker’s unusually conservative record has attracted a progressive primary opposition from Jessica Cisneros, an immigration attorney. The Texas primary is on Super Tuesday, March 3. The primary has attracted heavy levels of spending from progressive and business interests, with a political action committee associated with border security lobbyists raising thousands in support of Cuellar.
THE RELATIONSHIP began in earnest in early 2011 after Cuellar, who has been in office since 2005, was appointed to the House Homeland Security Committee’s panel overseeing border security. “And here are the D’s….note Cuellar!” wrote Cristina Antelo, a contract lobbyist, passing along a press release announcing the lawmaker’s new committee assignments.
John Dalton, the chief executive of the company, was reminded in a follow-up email from Antelo that she had introduced him to Cuellar “at least twice, once at a fundraiser I hosted for the CHC BOLD PAC,” a reference to the Congressional Hispanic Caucus’s PAC. Antelo, notably, serves on the board of CHC’s foundation and has routinely hosted CHC BOLD PAC fundraisers over the last decade.
In 2011, Perceptics pushed to initiate an inspector general investigation against Axiompass, a competing firm that had been awarded a contract by the State Department to install vehicle identification technology along the U.S.-Mexico border. Executives at Perceptics believed that they had been unfairly passed over for the lucrative deal.
Cuellar stepped up to the task. The Texas lawmaker contacted State Department Inspector General Steve Linick on March 22, 2012, requesting an investigation over the agency’s procurement process.
One year later, Patricia Inglima, an aide to Cuellar, passed along a letter from the State Department to Perceptics’s team, confirming that her office had successfully encouraged the agency to open an inquiry. “I have just confirmed with OIG that the letter is in reference to the license plate reader technology bid and that the investigation is continuing,” Inglima wrote.
In 2014, the Podesta Group, a now-shuttered lobbying firm that once managed Perceptics’s lobbying efforts, boasted in a client report about overseeing a sophisticated effort to undermine the Axiompass contract. “Together, we successfully recruited allies in Congress who demanded that the State Department launch an investigation,” the report noted, offering further plans for tying funding for the contract to the results of the investigation.
During the following sessions of Congress, Perceptics lobbyists assisted Cuellar in privately urging then-Rep. Kay Granger, R-Texas, a senior lawmaker on the Appropriations Committee, to increase spending on U.S.-Mexico foreign aid designed to boost border vehicle tracking technology.
The plan was detailed in a document summarizing a call with Perceptics’s lobbying team. “Cristina sent the latest draft of our proposal for the Economic Support Fund for Mexico to a contact on Rep. Cuellar’s staff,” the document noted. The team also discussed a meeting between Mexico’s ambassador to the U.S. and Cuellar, to which “Perceptics would be invited.”
After a series of meetings between Perceptics and the lawmaker, Cuellar wrote a letter to Granger urging her to adopt $135 million in foreign aid into the following budget for the construction of specialized cargo traffic lanes enhanced with nonintrusive automated vehicle identification technology, a system Perceptics sold to the government.
Dennis Thompson, a program manager at Perceptics, emailed his team to note that “Cuellar personally and Cuellar’s staff have said that in conversations with Chair Granger and her office, LPRs were discussed specifically under the category of non-intrusive inspection technologies.”
In 2017, Perceptics lobbyists drafted a letter to be sent under Cuellar’s name to Customs and Border Protection, requesting that officials continue and expand a pilot program at the Laredo Juarez-Lincoln Port of Entry to use state-of-the-art license plate-reading technology. It is unclear if this draft letter was ever sent. A records request sent to the CBP has not yet been formally answered.
The following year, Perceptics lobbyists orchestrated an effort to push the Trump administration to incorporate an upgrade to license plate-reading technology into its border security plan. As The Intercept previously reported, Rep. Chuck Fleischmann, R-Tenn., read talking points provided to him by Perceptics lobbyists as he questioned then-Customs and Border Protection chief Kevin McAleenan.
After Fleischmann spoke, Cuellar, who serves on the same border security committee, also brought up similar issues during the hearing. Lucio Alonzo, a lobbyist to Perceptics, forwarded the hearing video to Dalton, Perceptics’ CEO, to tout the firm’s success on Capitol Hill.
“Most relevant to us, Congressman Fleischmann asked about CBP’s plan to modernize its LPRs as we asked his office to do,” wrote Alonzo. “Later on,” Alonzo added, “Congressman Henry Cuellar asked about pilots going on at Laredo that sound a lot like Perceptics’.”
Throughout the interactions with Cuellar over the years, Perceptics executives and lobbyists continued to donate to Cuellar and sponsor fundraising events for him. The relationship goes back to at least 2009, when Antelo sponsored a breakfast fundraiser for Cuellar with Perceptics executives.
The Podesta Group, in regular updates to its client, reminded Perceptics to give to lawmakers with key oversight roles over immigration and homeland security, including Cuellar. Federal Election Commission disclosures show multiple donations to Cuellar over the years.
AMERICANS FOR PROSPERITY ACTION, a group founded and funded by billionaire Charles Koch, has poured cash into the race to boost Cuellar, the very first time the Koch-backed Super PAC has interjected itself into a race to defend a Democrat.
Corporate trade associations funded with undisclosed business money, including the American Bankers Association, the National Association of Realtors, and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, which alone has devoted $200,000 to defending Cuellar, are all flooding the district with money to defeat Cisneros. Gilberto Ocañas, a lobbyist with the international law firm Dentons, also launched a new dark-money group, called American Workers for Progress, that has spent at least $720,000 on ads backing Cuellar.
Cisneros has out-raised Cuellar in direct donations, in part through national enthusiasm and endorsements from Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., and Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt. But Cuellar has built a deep campaign reserve, in part from his prodigious fundraising from corporate PACs. Cash from the border defense industry could play a pivotal role.
Earlier this month, CHC BOLD PAC, the Congressional Hispanic Caucus group affiliated with Perceptics lobbyists and other corporate lobbyists, transferred $250,000 to a Super PAC supporting Cuellar. On Thursday, CHC BOLD PAC is hosting a last-minute fundraiser in Washington, D.C., in support of Cuellar and asking attendees for as much as $20,000 each to host the event.
The lawmaker has defended his record as part of his duty as a border lawmaker focused on national security, but emails show Cuellar acting at the behest of well-connected lobbyists for a government contractor.
Perceptics, a company that sells cameras that scan license plates, has frequently tapped Cuellar for favors since at least 2011, including a push to edge out a competing vendor, using its team of lobbyists and campaign contributions to curry favor with his office.
The close relationship with the lawmaker was revealed through emails that were published online last summer after Perceptics was targeted by an anonymous hacker. Colin Strother, a spokesperson for Cuellar, declined to discuss the emails and accused The Intercept of “an agenda and a bias.” Perceptics declined to comment.
The emails show the lawmaker’s name mentioned dozens of times as an ally Perceptics could use to sponsor legislation or write official letters on the company’s behalf. Lobbyists and executives at the firm referenced him as Perceptics’s “friendly congressman” and “our Cuellar firepower.”
Cuellar’s close ties to business interests stand out, even among other conservative House Democrats. Cuellar is the biggest Democratic recipient of campaign donations from the private prison industry, one of the only Democrats vote to delay regulations on payday lending, and has voted in support of the Trump administration’s agenda in Congress a record 75 percent of the time.
The lawmaker’s unusually conservative record has attracted a progressive primary opposition from Jessica Cisneros, an immigration attorney. The Texas primary is on Super Tuesday, March 3. The primary has attracted heavy levels of spending from progressive and business interests, with a political action committee associated with border security lobbyists raising thousands in support of Cuellar.
THE RELATIONSHIP began in earnest in early 2011 after Cuellar, who has been in office since 2005, was appointed to the House Homeland Security Committee’s panel overseeing border security. “And here are the D’s….note Cuellar!” wrote Cristina Antelo, a contract lobbyist, passing along a press release announcing the lawmaker’s new committee assignments.
John Dalton, the chief executive of the company, was reminded in a follow-up email from Antelo that she had introduced him to Cuellar “at least twice, once at a fundraiser I hosted for the CHC BOLD PAC,” a reference to the Congressional Hispanic Caucus’s PAC. Antelo, notably, serves on the board of CHC’s foundation and has routinely hosted CHC BOLD PAC fundraisers over the last decade.
In 2011, Perceptics pushed to initiate an inspector general investigation against Axiompass, a competing firm that had been awarded a contract by the State Department to install vehicle identification technology along the U.S.-Mexico border. Executives at Perceptics believed that they had been unfairly passed over for the lucrative deal.
Cuellar stepped up to the task. The Texas lawmaker contacted State Department Inspector General Steve Linick on March 22, 2012, requesting an investigation over the agency’s procurement process.
One year later, Patricia Inglima, an aide to Cuellar, passed along a letter from the State Department to Perceptics’s team, confirming that her office had successfully encouraged the agency to open an inquiry. “I have just confirmed with OIG that the letter is in reference to the license plate reader technology bid and that the investigation is continuing,” Inglima wrote.
In 2014, the Podesta Group, a now-shuttered lobbying firm that once managed Perceptics’s lobbying efforts, boasted in a client report about overseeing a sophisticated effort to undermine the Axiompass contract. “Together, we successfully recruited allies in Congress who demanded that the State Department launch an investigation,” the report noted, offering further plans for tying funding for the contract to the results of the investigation.
During the following sessions of Congress, Perceptics lobbyists assisted Cuellar in privately urging then-Rep. Kay Granger, R-Texas, a senior lawmaker on the Appropriations Committee, to increase spending on U.S.-Mexico foreign aid designed to boost border vehicle tracking technology.
The plan was detailed in a document summarizing a call with Perceptics’s lobbying team. “Cristina sent the latest draft of our proposal for the Economic Support Fund for Mexico to a contact on Rep. Cuellar’s staff,” the document noted. The team also discussed a meeting between Mexico’s ambassador to the U.S. and Cuellar, to which “Perceptics would be invited.”
After a series of meetings between Perceptics and the lawmaker, Cuellar wrote a letter to Granger urging her to adopt $135 million in foreign aid into the following budget for the construction of specialized cargo traffic lanes enhanced with nonintrusive automated vehicle identification technology, a system Perceptics sold to the government.
Dennis Thompson, a program manager at Perceptics, emailed his team to note that “Cuellar personally and Cuellar’s staff have said that in conversations with Chair Granger and her office, LPRs were discussed specifically under the category of non-intrusive inspection technologies.”
In 2017, Perceptics lobbyists drafted a letter to be sent under Cuellar’s name to Customs and Border Protection, requesting that officials continue and expand a pilot program at the Laredo Juarez-Lincoln Port of Entry to use state-of-the-art license plate-reading technology. It is unclear if this draft letter was ever sent. A records request sent to the CBP has not yet been formally answered.
The following year, Perceptics lobbyists orchestrated an effort to push the Trump administration to incorporate an upgrade to license plate-reading technology into its border security plan. As The Intercept previously reported, Rep. Chuck Fleischmann, R-Tenn., read talking points provided to him by Perceptics lobbyists as he questioned then-Customs and Border Protection chief Kevin McAleenan.
After Fleischmann spoke, Cuellar, who serves on the same border security committee, also brought up similar issues during the hearing. Lucio Alonzo, a lobbyist to Perceptics, forwarded the hearing video to Dalton, Perceptics’ CEO, to tout the firm’s success on Capitol Hill.
“Most relevant to us, Congressman Fleischmann asked about CBP’s plan to modernize its LPRs as we asked his office to do,” wrote Alonzo. “Later on,” Alonzo added, “Congressman Henry Cuellar asked about pilots going on at Laredo that sound a lot like Perceptics’.”
Throughout the interactions with Cuellar over the years, Perceptics executives and lobbyists continued to donate to Cuellar and sponsor fundraising events for him. The relationship goes back to at least 2009, when Antelo sponsored a breakfast fundraiser for Cuellar with Perceptics executives.
The Podesta Group, in regular updates to its client, reminded Perceptics to give to lawmakers with key oversight roles over immigration and homeland security, including Cuellar. Federal Election Commission disclosures show multiple donations to Cuellar over the years.
AMERICANS FOR PROSPERITY ACTION, a group founded and funded by billionaire Charles Koch, has poured cash into the race to boost Cuellar, the very first time the Koch-backed Super PAC has interjected itself into a race to defend a Democrat.
Corporate trade associations funded with undisclosed business money, including the American Bankers Association, the National Association of Realtors, and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, which alone has devoted $200,000 to defending Cuellar, are all flooding the district with money to defeat Cisneros. Gilberto Ocañas, a lobbyist with the international law firm Dentons, also launched a new dark-money group, called American Workers for Progress, that has spent at least $720,000 on ads backing Cuellar.
Cisneros has out-raised Cuellar in direct donations, in part through national enthusiasm and endorsements from Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., and Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt. But Cuellar has built a deep campaign reserve, in part from his prodigious fundraising from corporate PACs. Cash from the border defense industry could play a pivotal role.
Earlier this month, CHC BOLD PAC, the Congressional Hispanic Caucus group affiliated with Perceptics lobbyists and other corporate lobbyists, transferred $250,000 to a Super PAC supporting Cuellar. On Thursday, CHC BOLD PAC is hosting a last-minute fundraiser in Washington, D.C., in support of Cuellar and asking attendees for as much as $20,000 each to host the event.
No tolerance’: Union urges DCCC to cut off support to Dems who voted against pro-labor bill
February 20, 2020
By Common Dreams - raw story
“They must be denied the support of the Democratic Party for refusing to stand with working Americans.”
The Communications Workers of America, a labor union with 700,000 members, called on the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee this week to cut off support to the seven House Democrats who “betrayed working people” by voting against a pro-labor bill that passed the House earlier this month.
“I urge the DCCC to no longer provide services for any incumbent House members who turn their back on working people.”
—Christopher Shelton, CWA
The Democrats who voted against the Protecting the Right to Organize (PRO) Act—which would eliminate state-level “right-to-work” laws and expand workers’ bargaining rights—are Reps. Henry Cuellar (Texas), Stephanie Murphy (Fla.), Lucy McBath (Ga.), Kendra Horn (Okla.), Kurt Schrader (Ore.), Joe Cunningham (S.C.), and Ben McAdams (Utah.).
“They must be denied the support of the Democratic Party for refusing to stand with working Americans,” CWA president Christopher Shelton wrote to DCCC chair Rep. Cheri Bustos (D-Ill.) in a letter (pdf) dated Feb. 18. “I urge the DCCC to no longer provide services for any incumbent House members who turn their back on working people.”
“We have no tolerance for anti-worker electeds,” CWA tweeted Thursday.
McBath, Horn, McAdams, and Cunningham are all freshmen in toss-up seats, Politico reported Wednesday.
Cuellar, a Koch-backed Democrat who has voted with President Donald Trump nearly 70% of the time, is facing a tough primary challenge from progressive attorney Jessica Cisneros in Texas’ 28th District.
Cisneros has racked up union endorsements and nearly $1 million in donations despite the DCCC’s blacklist policy, which cuts off funding and support for vendors that assist Democratic primary challengers.
CWA District 6 endorsed Cisneros last October.
“Jessica just exemplifies the kind of person we need more in Congress,” Shane Larson, senior director of government affairs and policy for CWA, told The Intercept this week. “It’s one thing for our union to want to see Henry Cuellar replaced because he votes with corporations and Wall Street time and time again, but Jessica is really such a phenomenal person and phenomenal candidate, and she represents the kind of people who just do not have representation in Congress today.”
The Communications Workers of America, a labor union with 700,000 members, called on the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee this week to cut off support to the seven House Democrats who “betrayed working people” by voting against a pro-labor bill that passed the House earlier this month.
“I urge the DCCC to no longer provide services for any incumbent House members who turn their back on working people.”
—Christopher Shelton, CWA
The Democrats who voted against the Protecting the Right to Organize (PRO) Act—which would eliminate state-level “right-to-work” laws and expand workers’ bargaining rights—are Reps. Henry Cuellar (Texas), Stephanie Murphy (Fla.), Lucy McBath (Ga.), Kendra Horn (Okla.), Kurt Schrader (Ore.), Joe Cunningham (S.C.), and Ben McAdams (Utah.).
“They must be denied the support of the Democratic Party for refusing to stand with working Americans,” CWA president Christopher Shelton wrote to DCCC chair Rep. Cheri Bustos (D-Ill.) in a letter (pdf) dated Feb. 18. “I urge the DCCC to no longer provide services for any incumbent House members who turn their back on working people.”
“We have no tolerance for anti-worker electeds,” CWA tweeted Thursday.
McBath, Horn, McAdams, and Cunningham are all freshmen in toss-up seats, Politico reported Wednesday.
Cuellar, a Koch-backed Democrat who has voted with President Donald Trump nearly 70% of the time, is facing a tough primary challenge from progressive attorney Jessica Cisneros in Texas’ 28th District.
Cisneros has racked up union endorsements and nearly $1 million in donations despite the DCCC’s blacklist policy, which cuts off funding and support for vendors that assist Democratic primary challengers.
CWA District 6 endorsed Cisneros last October.
“Jessica just exemplifies the kind of person we need more in Congress,” Shane Larson, senior director of government affairs and policy for CWA, told The Intercept this week. “It’s one thing for our union to want to see Henry Cuellar replaced because he votes with corporations and Wall Street time and time again, but Jessica is really such a phenomenal person and phenomenal candidate, and she represents the kind of people who just do not have representation in Congress today.”
Virginia Democrats join Republicans to reject assault weapons ban bill
*Outcome drew cheers from gun rights advocates
*Bill would have prohibited sale of popular AR-15 style rifles
Associated Press
the guardian
Mon 17 Feb 2020 10.54 EST
Virginia governor Ralph Northam’s push to ban the sale of assault weapons failed on Monday after some of his fellow Democrats balked at the proposal.
Senators voted to shelve the bill for the year and ask the state crime commission to study the issue, an outcome that drew cheers from a committee room packed with gun rights advocates.
Four moderate Democrats joined Republicans in Monday’s committee vote, rejecting legislation that would have prohibited the sale of certain semiautomatic firearms, including popular AR-15 style rifles, and banned the possession of magazines that hold more than 12 rounds.
Virginia is the current epicenter of the country’s heated debate over guns, as a new Democratic majority seeks to enact strict new limits.
Democrats ran heavily on gun control during last year’s legislative elections when they flipped control of the general assembly for the first time in more than two decades.
But gun owners, especially in rural communities, have pushed back hard. Last month, tens of thousands of guns-rights activists from around the country flooded the Capitol and surrounding area in protest, some donning tactical gear and carrying military rifles. And more than 100 counties, cities and towns have declared themselves second amendment sanctuaries, vowing to oppose any new “unconstitutional restrictions” on guns.
The proposed assault weapon ban has received the most opposition. Gun owners have accused the governor and others of wanting to confiscate commonly owned guns and accessories from law-abiding gun owners. Northam and his allies have said repeatedly they do not want to confiscate guns, but argued that banning new sales of assault weapons and high-capacity magazines would help prevent mass murders.
Earlier proposals to ban possession of AR-15-style rifles or to require owners to register them with state police have been scrapped. The governor had hoped a watered-down version would win over enough Democratic moderates for passage.
But moderate Democrats (COWARDS) in the state Senate have said for weeks they are uncomfortable passing legislation that would affect so many current gun owners.
An estimated 8m AR-style guns have been sold since they were introduced to the public in the 1960s. The weapons are known as easy to use, easy to clean and easy to modify with a variety of scopes, stocks and rails.
The Senate has now rejected three of the governor’s eight gun-control measures. Moderate Democrats have already voted with Republicans to kill a bill that would make it a felony to “recklessly leave a loaded, unsecured firearm” in a way that endangers a minor, and a bill that would require gun owners to report the loss or theft of a gun to police.
Lawmakers in both the House and Senate have already advanced several other gun-control measures and should finalize passage in the coming days. Those bills include limiting handgun purchases to once a month; universal background checks on gun purchases; allowing localities to ban guns in public buildings, parks and other areas; and a red flag bill that would allow authorities to temporarily take guns away from anyone deemed to be dangerous to themselves or others.
Senators voted to shelve the bill for the year and ask the state crime commission to study the issue, an outcome that drew cheers from a committee room packed with gun rights advocates.
Four moderate Democrats joined Republicans in Monday’s committee vote, rejecting legislation that would have prohibited the sale of certain semiautomatic firearms, including popular AR-15 style rifles, and banned the possession of magazines that hold more than 12 rounds.
Virginia is the current epicenter of the country’s heated debate over guns, as a new Democratic majority seeks to enact strict new limits.
Democrats ran heavily on gun control during last year’s legislative elections when they flipped control of the general assembly for the first time in more than two decades.
But gun owners, especially in rural communities, have pushed back hard. Last month, tens of thousands of guns-rights activists from around the country flooded the Capitol and surrounding area in protest, some donning tactical gear and carrying military rifles. And more than 100 counties, cities and towns have declared themselves second amendment sanctuaries, vowing to oppose any new “unconstitutional restrictions” on guns.
The proposed assault weapon ban has received the most opposition. Gun owners have accused the governor and others of wanting to confiscate commonly owned guns and accessories from law-abiding gun owners. Northam and his allies have said repeatedly they do not want to confiscate guns, but argued that banning new sales of assault weapons and high-capacity magazines would help prevent mass murders.
Earlier proposals to ban possession of AR-15-style rifles or to require owners to register them with state police have been scrapped. The governor had hoped a watered-down version would win over enough Democratic moderates for passage.
But moderate Democrats (COWARDS) in the state Senate have said for weeks they are uncomfortable passing legislation that would affect so many current gun owners.
An estimated 8m AR-style guns have been sold since they were introduced to the public in the 1960s. The weapons are known as easy to use, easy to clean and easy to modify with a variety of scopes, stocks and rails.
The Senate has now rejected three of the governor’s eight gun-control measures. Moderate Democrats have already voted with Republicans to kill a bill that would make it a felony to “recklessly leave a loaded, unsecured firearm” in a way that endangers a minor, and a bill that would require gun owners to report the loss or theft of a gun to police.
Lawmakers in both the House and Senate have already advanced several other gun-control measures and should finalize passage in the coming days. Those bills include limiting handgun purchases to once a month; universal background checks on gun purchases; allowing localities to ban guns in public buildings, parks and other areas; and a red flag bill that would allow authorities to temporarily take guns away from anyone deemed to be dangerous to themselves or others.
the enemy within!!!
U.S. presidential candidate Bloomberg endorsed by three black lawmakers
Jason Lange - reuters
FEBRUARY 12, 2020
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. presidential candidate Michael Bloomberg on Wednesday won endorsements from three Congressional Black Caucus members, a positive sign for his campaign, which has drawn scrutiny lately over his past support for a controversial policing tactic.
The three included Democratic U.S. Representative Gregory Meeks of New York City, where Bloomberg was mayor for 12 years. As a senior caucus member and chair of a caucus fundraising arm, his is one of the highest-profile endorsements yet for Bloomberg, who is seeking his party’s nomination to challenge Republican President Donald Trump in November’s election.
Meek’s endorsement, first reported by Reuters, signals that Bloomberg is building support among some top African-American politicians despite a 2015 audio recording that surfaced on Tuesday. In the recording, Bloomberg made a blunt defense of a policing strategy during his mayoralty, known as stop-and-frisk, that disproportionately ensnared blacks and Latinos.
Meeks said he backed Bloomberg for his economic policies and ability to beat Trump.
“The most vulnerable communities in America cannot weather another four years of a Donald Trump presidency,” Meeks said in a statement.
Bloomberg has been rising in public opinion polls despite not competing in the first four state contests for the Democratic nomination: Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada and South Carolina.
Instead, the billionaire former mayor is spending hundreds of millions of dollars of his own money to blanket the national airwaves with advertising.
As a moderate Democrat, Bloomberg hopes to win votes beginning on March 3, known as Super Tuesday, when his name will be on the ballot in 14 state nominating contests.
Those hopes have been buoyed this month as the early moderate front-runner, Joe Biden, has performed weakly in Iowa and New Hampshire.
Also endorsing Bloomberg on Wednesday were U.S. Representative Lucy McBath of Georgia, who said she was backing Bloomberg in part because of his proposals to curb gun violence.
Congresswoman Stacey Plaskett, a Congressional Black Caucus member who represents the U.S. Virgin Islands as a nonvoting member of Congress, also endorsed Bloomberg.
Bloomberg has long struggled with the legacy of the stop-and-frisk tactic employed while he was mayor of the United States’ biggest city 2002 to 2013, in which police stopped and searched pedestrians.
He apologized for the policy in November just before announcing his candidacy and has since taken great pains to court the black vote, including a proposal unveiled last month to narrow the wealth gap between black and white Americans.
The three included Democratic U.S. Representative Gregory Meeks of New York City, where Bloomberg was mayor for 12 years. As a senior caucus member and chair of a caucus fundraising arm, his is one of the highest-profile endorsements yet for Bloomberg, who is seeking his party’s nomination to challenge Republican President Donald Trump in November’s election.
Meek’s endorsement, first reported by Reuters, signals that Bloomberg is building support among some top African-American politicians despite a 2015 audio recording that surfaced on Tuesday. In the recording, Bloomberg made a blunt defense of a policing strategy during his mayoralty, known as stop-and-frisk, that disproportionately ensnared blacks and Latinos.
Meeks said he backed Bloomberg for his economic policies and ability to beat Trump.
“The most vulnerable communities in America cannot weather another four years of a Donald Trump presidency,” Meeks said in a statement.
Bloomberg has been rising in public opinion polls despite not competing in the first four state contests for the Democratic nomination: Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada and South Carolina.
Instead, the billionaire former mayor is spending hundreds of millions of dollars of his own money to blanket the national airwaves with advertising.
As a moderate Democrat, Bloomberg hopes to win votes beginning on March 3, known as Super Tuesday, when his name will be on the ballot in 14 state nominating contests.
Those hopes have been buoyed this month as the early moderate front-runner, Joe Biden, has performed weakly in Iowa and New Hampshire.
Also endorsing Bloomberg on Wednesday were U.S. Representative Lucy McBath of Georgia, who said she was backing Bloomberg in part because of his proposals to curb gun violence.
Congresswoman Stacey Plaskett, a Congressional Black Caucus member who represents the U.S. Virgin Islands as a nonvoting member of Congress, also endorsed Bloomberg.
Bloomberg has long struggled with the legacy of the stop-and-frisk tactic employed while he was mayor of the United States’ biggest city 2002 to 2013, in which police stopped and searched pedestrians.
He apologized for the policy in November just before announcing his candidacy and has since taken great pains to court the black vote, including a proposal unveiled last month to narrow the wealth gap between black and white Americans.
uncle toms' army!!!
Trump allies are handing out cash to black voters
Organizers have begun holding events in black communities where they lavish praise on the president while handing out thousands of dollars in giveaways.
By BEN SCHRECKINGER
politico
01/29/2020 05:08 AM EST
Allies of Donald Trump have begun holding events in black communities where organizers lavish praise on the president as they hand out tens of thousands of dollars to lucky attendees.
The first giveaway took place last month in Cleveland, where recipients whose winning tickets were drawn from a bin landed cash gifts in increments of several hundred dollars, stuffed into envelopes. A second giveaway scheduled for this month in Virginia has been postponed, and more are said to be in the works.
The tour comes as Trump’s campaign has been investing its own money to make inroads with black voters and erode Democrats’ overwhelming advantage with them. But the cash giveaways are organized under the auspices of an outside charity, the Urban Revitalization Coalition, permitting donors to remain anonymous and make tax-deductible contributions.
The organizers say the events are run by the book and intended to promote economic development in inner cities. But the group behind the cash giveaways is registered as a 501(c)3 charitable organization. One leading legal expert on nonprofit law said the arrangement raises questions about the group’s tax-exempt status, because it does not appear to be vetting the recipients of its money for legitimate charitable need.
"Charities are required to spend their money on charitable and educational activities,” said Marcus Owens, a former director of the Exempt Organizations Division at the Internal Revenue Service who is now in private practice at the law firm Loeb & Loeb. “It's not immediately clear to me how simply giving money away to people at an event is a charitable act.”
Asked about the legality of the giveaways in a brief phone interview, the Urban Revitalization Coalition’s CEO, Darrell Scott, said that most gifts were between $300 and $500, and that the group mandates that anyone who receives over $600 fills out a W-9 form in order to ensure compliance with tax law. He did not respond to follow-up questions about how the giveaways were structured and whether they met the legal standard for a charitable act.
Scott declined to name the donors funding the effort. "I'd rather not,” he said. “They prefer to remain anonymous."
Scott, a Cleveland-based pastor, has been one of Trump’s closest and most prominent black supporters. He struck up a relationship with the real estate mogul in the years before Trump’s presidential run, and — along with Trump’s former lieutenant Michael Cohen — co-founded the National Diversity Coalition for Trump to promote that run.
Since then, Scott become a regular presence in the West Wing. He has championed the Trump administration’s criminal justice reform efforts, signed into law as the First Step Act, and the creation of Opportunity Zones. That program, passed as part of the 2017 tax overhaul, provides tax breaks for investment in certain urban and rural districts that are deemed in need of economic stimulus.
In July 2017, the Urban Revitalization Coalition was registered in Delaware, according to public records, and it began promoting the Opportunity Zone program in conjunction with administration officials and other Republican officeholders. Scott and the coalition’s co-founder, Karim Lanier, held a meeting with Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin in February 2018, according to Mnuchin’s publicly released schedule, and the group held an event with Kentucky’s then-governor, Republican Matt Bevin, in Louisville the following month. The group’s earlier activities did not feature cash giveaways.
As Trump’s reelection campaign ramps up its outreach to black voters, Scott has come on as a co-chair of its new “Black Voices for Trump” initiative, along with former Godfather’s Pizza CEO Herman Cain and the YouTube video performers Diamond & Silk. The initiative, whose homepage asks voters to text “WOKE” to a campaign phone number, has been holding its own swing state events in recent months.
But a Trump campaign spokesman said the Urban Revitalization Coalition’s events were unrelated to its own efforts, and that the campaign “has no knowledge of or affiliation with these activities.”
The parallel tour being organized by the Urban Revitalization Coalition stands out for its promise to shower cash prizes on attendees who listen to speakers promote the president’s initiatives. The first cash giveaway took place last month. Another was scheduled in Virginia for Martin Luther King Day before being scrapped amid a dispute with the college set to host the event. Organizers say they plan to roll out a tour schedule featuring more events soon.
The group’s “Christmas Extravaganza” event in Cleveland last month featured a $25,000 giveaway and an appearance by Ja’Ron Smith, a deputy assistant to the president. A Cleveland native who worked on Trump’s criminal justice reform, Smith is among the highest-ranking black officials in the White House.
At the event, which also featured an appearance by television personality Geraldo Rivera, Lanier compared the investigative scrutiny faced by Trump to the plight of wrongfully incarcerated black men. He also defended Trump’s record on race.
"President Donald Trump — the one that they say is racist — is the first president in the history of this country to incentivize people who have the money to put it into ... urban areas,” he said.
White House spokesman Hogan Gidley did not respond to requests for comment.
Charitable organizations can hold events praising and honoring public officials so long as they avoid supporting or opposing candidates in elections.
"If they do it independently and it really is agenda focused, not electoral, yes that's permissible under campaign finance law," said Adav Noti, a senior director at the Campaign Legal Center, an election law watchdog.
But if a rally veers into electioneering, issues with campaign finance law can arise, experts warned. Determining when rhetoric crosses that line can be difficult. “It's always a fine line," said Larry Noble, a former general counsel for the Federal Election Commission.
One recipient of the cash giveaway in Cleveland, dressed as a Christmas elf, declared, "Four more years of President Trump. Yay!" after receiving her gift.
The more pressing legal issue raised by the event, and by plans for more like it, is the question of whether the cash giveaways constitute legitimate charitable activity.
Flyers advertising the Cleveland event said it was “open to the public” and that recipients “must be present to redeem giveaways.”
Video of the giveaway posted to Facebook by the Cleveland Plain Dealer shows Lanier announcing one recipient, Teresita Jones-Thomas, then declaring, "She don't need the money. She do not need the money!”
“I ain't giving her the money. Her son plays for the Golden State Warriors in the NBA. She don't need the money," he said, before hugging Jones-Thomas and handing her an envelope.
A LinkedIn profile for Jones-Thomas describes her as a “senior director of accounting” for a real estate management firm. Her son, Warriors forward Omari Spellman, is set to make close to $2 million this season, according to online sports salary-tracking website Spotrac. Phone numbers listed online for Jones-Thomas appeared to be disconnected, and emails sent to a work address did not receive a response.
In the closing weeks of the 2016 campaign, efforts to depress black voter turnout were central to the Trump team’s efforts, and he performed slightly better with that group than Republican nominee Mitt Romney did in 2012. This election cycle, Trump’s campaign is making more concerted, earlier investments in black voter outreach.
While black voters are expected to overwhelmingly support the Democratic nominee again this year, if Trump is able to win over a small percentage of black voters in key states, or persuade some of them to sit out the election rather than vote against him, it could make a difference in closely contested races.
The election year initiative by the Urban Revitalization Coalition to improve Trump’s image in black communities could bolster those efforts.
The coalition planned a Martin Luther King Jr. Day event at Virginia Union University, a historically black school in Richmond. Advertisements for the event said it would feature a $30,000 cash giveaway and would honor Trump as well as his son-in-law, senior White House adviser Jared Kushner.
But school administrators canceled the Jan. 20 event, saying it had been described to them as an “economic development discussion” when it was first booked. In a letter to Lanier, university President Hakim Lucas said: “The event advertised is vastly different from the event VUU agreed to co-host.”
Scott told POLITICO that the school had initially “begged” him to have the event there. He said that the coalition intends to reschedule it at another venue at a later date.
Scott also said the group was planning to unveil a slate of additional future events and that he would reveal additional details. He did not respond to follow-up queries about the group’s upcoming schedule.
The first giveaway took place last month in Cleveland, where recipients whose winning tickets were drawn from a bin landed cash gifts in increments of several hundred dollars, stuffed into envelopes. A second giveaway scheduled for this month in Virginia has been postponed, and more are said to be in the works.
The tour comes as Trump’s campaign has been investing its own money to make inroads with black voters and erode Democrats’ overwhelming advantage with them. But the cash giveaways are organized under the auspices of an outside charity, the Urban Revitalization Coalition, permitting donors to remain anonymous and make tax-deductible contributions.
The organizers say the events are run by the book and intended to promote economic development in inner cities. But the group behind the cash giveaways is registered as a 501(c)3 charitable organization. One leading legal expert on nonprofit law said the arrangement raises questions about the group’s tax-exempt status, because it does not appear to be vetting the recipients of its money for legitimate charitable need.
"Charities are required to spend their money on charitable and educational activities,” said Marcus Owens, a former director of the Exempt Organizations Division at the Internal Revenue Service who is now in private practice at the law firm Loeb & Loeb. “It's not immediately clear to me how simply giving money away to people at an event is a charitable act.”
Asked about the legality of the giveaways in a brief phone interview, the Urban Revitalization Coalition’s CEO, Darrell Scott, said that most gifts were between $300 and $500, and that the group mandates that anyone who receives over $600 fills out a W-9 form in order to ensure compliance with tax law. He did not respond to follow-up questions about how the giveaways were structured and whether they met the legal standard for a charitable act.
Scott declined to name the donors funding the effort. "I'd rather not,” he said. “They prefer to remain anonymous."
Scott, a Cleveland-based pastor, has been one of Trump’s closest and most prominent black supporters. He struck up a relationship with the real estate mogul in the years before Trump’s presidential run, and — along with Trump’s former lieutenant Michael Cohen — co-founded the National Diversity Coalition for Trump to promote that run.
Since then, Scott become a regular presence in the West Wing. He has championed the Trump administration’s criminal justice reform efforts, signed into law as the First Step Act, and the creation of Opportunity Zones. That program, passed as part of the 2017 tax overhaul, provides tax breaks for investment in certain urban and rural districts that are deemed in need of economic stimulus.
In July 2017, the Urban Revitalization Coalition was registered in Delaware, according to public records, and it began promoting the Opportunity Zone program in conjunction with administration officials and other Republican officeholders. Scott and the coalition’s co-founder, Karim Lanier, held a meeting with Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin in February 2018, according to Mnuchin’s publicly released schedule, and the group held an event with Kentucky’s then-governor, Republican Matt Bevin, in Louisville the following month. The group’s earlier activities did not feature cash giveaways.
As Trump’s reelection campaign ramps up its outreach to black voters, Scott has come on as a co-chair of its new “Black Voices for Trump” initiative, along with former Godfather’s Pizza CEO Herman Cain and the YouTube video performers Diamond & Silk. The initiative, whose homepage asks voters to text “WOKE” to a campaign phone number, has been holding its own swing state events in recent months.
But a Trump campaign spokesman said the Urban Revitalization Coalition’s events were unrelated to its own efforts, and that the campaign “has no knowledge of or affiliation with these activities.”
The parallel tour being organized by the Urban Revitalization Coalition stands out for its promise to shower cash prizes on attendees who listen to speakers promote the president’s initiatives. The first cash giveaway took place last month. Another was scheduled in Virginia for Martin Luther King Day before being scrapped amid a dispute with the college set to host the event. Organizers say they plan to roll out a tour schedule featuring more events soon.
The group’s “Christmas Extravaganza” event in Cleveland last month featured a $25,000 giveaway and an appearance by Ja’Ron Smith, a deputy assistant to the president. A Cleveland native who worked on Trump’s criminal justice reform, Smith is among the highest-ranking black officials in the White House.
At the event, which also featured an appearance by television personality Geraldo Rivera, Lanier compared the investigative scrutiny faced by Trump to the plight of wrongfully incarcerated black men. He also defended Trump’s record on race.
"President Donald Trump — the one that they say is racist — is the first president in the history of this country to incentivize people who have the money to put it into ... urban areas,” he said.
White House spokesman Hogan Gidley did not respond to requests for comment.
Charitable organizations can hold events praising and honoring public officials so long as they avoid supporting or opposing candidates in elections.
"If they do it independently and it really is agenda focused, not electoral, yes that's permissible under campaign finance law," said Adav Noti, a senior director at the Campaign Legal Center, an election law watchdog.
But if a rally veers into electioneering, issues with campaign finance law can arise, experts warned. Determining when rhetoric crosses that line can be difficult. “It's always a fine line," said Larry Noble, a former general counsel for the Federal Election Commission.
One recipient of the cash giveaway in Cleveland, dressed as a Christmas elf, declared, "Four more years of President Trump. Yay!" after receiving her gift.
The more pressing legal issue raised by the event, and by plans for more like it, is the question of whether the cash giveaways constitute legitimate charitable activity.
Flyers advertising the Cleveland event said it was “open to the public” and that recipients “must be present to redeem giveaways.”
Video of the giveaway posted to Facebook by the Cleveland Plain Dealer shows Lanier announcing one recipient, Teresita Jones-Thomas, then declaring, "She don't need the money. She do not need the money!”
“I ain't giving her the money. Her son plays for the Golden State Warriors in the NBA. She don't need the money," he said, before hugging Jones-Thomas and handing her an envelope.
A LinkedIn profile for Jones-Thomas describes her as a “senior director of accounting” for a real estate management firm. Her son, Warriors forward Omari Spellman, is set to make close to $2 million this season, according to online sports salary-tracking website Spotrac. Phone numbers listed online for Jones-Thomas appeared to be disconnected, and emails sent to a work address did not receive a response.
In the closing weeks of the 2016 campaign, efforts to depress black voter turnout were central to the Trump team’s efforts, and he performed slightly better with that group than Republican nominee Mitt Romney did in 2012. This election cycle, Trump’s campaign is making more concerted, earlier investments in black voter outreach.
While black voters are expected to overwhelmingly support the Democratic nominee again this year, if Trump is able to win over a small percentage of black voters in key states, or persuade some of them to sit out the election rather than vote against him, it could make a difference in closely contested races.
The election year initiative by the Urban Revitalization Coalition to improve Trump’s image in black communities could bolster those efforts.
The coalition planned a Martin Luther King Jr. Day event at Virginia Union University, a historically black school in Richmond. Advertisements for the event said it would feature a $30,000 cash giveaway and would honor Trump as well as his son-in-law, senior White House adviser Jared Kushner.
But school administrators canceled the Jan. 20 event, saying it had been described to them as an “economic development discussion” when it was first booked. In a letter to Lanier, university President Hakim Lucas said: “The event advertised is vastly different from the event VUU agreed to co-host.”
Scott told POLITICO that the school had initially “begged” him to have the event there. He said that the coalition intends to reschedule it at another venue at a later date.
Scott also said the group was planning to unveil a slate of additional future events and that he would reveal additional details. He did not respond to follow-up queries about the group’s upcoming schedule.
they own both parties!!!
Hedge Fund Billionaires and Former GOP Megadonors Power New Democratic Super PAC
BY Donald Shaw, Sludge - truthout
PUBLISHED January 25, 2020
A new super PAC that says it will spend $75 million to support Democrats in 2020 is funded in large part by billionaires who run hedge funds, including some with a history of supporting Republicans, according to recent filings with the Federal Election Commission.
Pacronym, a super PAC affiliated with the “dark money” nonprofit Acronym, disclosed its fundraising and spending information for the first time on Wednesday night. In the final quarter of 2019, the group raised more than $7.7 million from dozens of donors, including four who gave $1 million or more.
The group’s top donor is Seth Klarman, the billionaire and former GOP megadonor who is CEO of Baupost Group, a Boston-based hedge fund whose investments include liquid natural gas companies Cheniere Energy and Antero Resources. Klarman gave Pacronym $1.5 million on Dec. 27, 2019, according to the group’s year-end FEC filing.
In the recent past, Klarman gave his money to groups that worked to elect Republicans. He gave $300,000 in 2014 to Karl Rove’s American Crossroads super PAC, which spent more than $17 million that year on ads and other expenditures opposing Democrats. It spent the most that year on ads attacking Democratic Sen. Mark Begich of Alaska in his “toss up” race against Republican Dan Sullivan, who ended up winning. In 2016, the group made independent expenditures opposing Hillary Clinton in her race against President Trump.
Klarman has also donated to the Congressional Leadership Fund, which is a super PAC that is closely aligned with Republican House leadership, as well as to a super PAC called Ending Spending that is affiliated with a group focused on shrinking the federal budget.
After the 2016 election, Klarman began supporting Democratic efforts to take control of Congress and defeat Trump. A Sludge review of FEC records shows that he has given maximum contributions to the campaigns of Democratic presidential candidates Pete Buttigieg, Amy Klobuchar, and John Delaney.
Several policies that financial reform advocates have called for would negatively impact the financial industries tied to big Democratic donors. A proposal to close the carried interest loophole that provides a tax break to partners at private equity and hedge funds could directly hit Klarman. A May 2018 report by Public Citizen wrote that super PAC donations to both parties block policies with overwhelming public support such as addressing inequality, establishing a wealth tax, and strengthening white collar law enforcement.
Another hedge-fund billionaire backing Pacronym is Donald Sussman, the founder and chief investment officer of hedge fund Paloma Partners. Sussman, who gave the group $1 million in November, is a prolific Democratic donor. In 2018, Sussman gave more than $6 million to Senate Majority PAC, a super PAC that spends millions to support Democrats in competitive Senate races.
Sussman has not made campaign contributions to any of the Democratic presidential candidates, but he has made donations to a wide range of House and Senate races, including centrists like American Legislative Exchange Council alumnus Rep. Tom O’Halleran (D-Ariz.) and recent party flipper Rep. Jeff Van Drew (R-N.J.), as well as progressives like Marie Newman who is mounting a primary against centrist Rep. Dan Lipinski (D-Ill.).
In September 2019, Sussman’s daughter, Emily Tisch Sussman, said on MSNBC that Democratic primary voters who support Sen. Bernie Sanders (D-Vt.) over Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) are sexist.
Pacronym and its affiliated nonprofit are not backing a Democratic presidential candidate at this point in the race. Instead, the group has been spending millions on anti-Trump ads targeting swing voters in key states. On its website the groups says its ad spending “relies on cutting-edge, real-time message testing and measurement to optimize content and drive results.”
The group is run by Tara McGowan, a former press secretary for Sen. Jack Reed (D-R.I.) and digital producer for Obama’s 2012 campaign. David Plouffe, President Obama’s former campaign manager, is on the group’s board.
Other Pacronym donors the group disclosed yesterday include Michael Moritz, partner at venture investment fund Sequoia Capital ($1 million); Kenneth Duda, founder and chief technology office at software company Arista ($1 million); Mimi Haas, director of Levi Strauss & Co. ($600,000); filmmaker Steven Spielberg ($500,000); and Jim Swartz, co-founder of venture firm Accel Partners ($400,000).
Pacronym, a super PAC affiliated with the “dark money” nonprofit Acronym, disclosed its fundraising and spending information for the first time on Wednesday night. In the final quarter of 2019, the group raised more than $7.7 million from dozens of donors, including four who gave $1 million or more.
The group’s top donor is Seth Klarman, the billionaire and former GOP megadonor who is CEO of Baupost Group, a Boston-based hedge fund whose investments include liquid natural gas companies Cheniere Energy and Antero Resources. Klarman gave Pacronym $1.5 million on Dec. 27, 2019, according to the group’s year-end FEC filing.
In the recent past, Klarman gave his money to groups that worked to elect Republicans. He gave $300,000 in 2014 to Karl Rove’s American Crossroads super PAC, which spent more than $17 million that year on ads and other expenditures opposing Democrats. It spent the most that year on ads attacking Democratic Sen. Mark Begich of Alaska in his “toss up” race against Republican Dan Sullivan, who ended up winning. In 2016, the group made independent expenditures opposing Hillary Clinton in her race against President Trump.
Klarman has also donated to the Congressional Leadership Fund, which is a super PAC that is closely aligned with Republican House leadership, as well as to a super PAC called Ending Spending that is affiliated with a group focused on shrinking the federal budget.
After the 2016 election, Klarman began supporting Democratic efforts to take control of Congress and defeat Trump. A Sludge review of FEC records shows that he has given maximum contributions to the campaigns of Democratic presidential candidates Pete Buttigieg, Amy Klobuchar, and John Delaney.
Several policies that financial reform advocates have called for would negatively impact the financial industries tied to big Democratic donors. A proposal to close the carried interest loophole that provides a tax break to partners at private equity and hedge funds could directly hit Klarman. A May 2018 report by Public Citizen wrote that super PAC donations to both parties block policies with overwhelming public support such as addressing inequality, establishing a wealth tax, and strengthening white collar law enforcement.
Another hedge-fund billionaire backing Pacronym is Donald Sussman, the founder and chief investment officer of hedge fund Paloma Partners. Sussman, who gave the group $1 million in November, is a prolific Democratic donor. In 2018, Sussman gave more than $6 million to Senate Majority PAC, a super PAC that spends millions to support Democrats in competitive Senate races.
Sussman has not made campaign contributions to any of the Democratic presidential candidates, but he has made donations to a wide range of House and Senate races, including centrists like American Legislative Exchange Council alumnus Rep. Tom O’Halleran (D-Ariz.) and recent party flipper Rep. Jeff Van Drew (R-N.J.), as well as progressives like Marie Newman who is mounting a primary against centrist Rep. Dan Lipinski (D-Ill.).
In September 2019, Sussman’s daughter, Emily Tisch Sussman, said on MSNBC that Democratic primary voters who support Sen. Bernie Sanders (D-Vt.) over Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) are sexist.
Pacronym and its affiliated nonprofit are not backing a Democratic presidential candidate at this point in the race. Instead, the group has been spending millions on anti-Trump ads targeting swing voters in key states. On its website the groups says its ad spending “relies on cutting-edge, real-time message testing and measurement to optimize content and drive results.”
The group is run by Tara McGowan, a former press secretary for Sen. Jack Reed (D-R.I.) and digital producer for Obama’s 2012 campaign. David Plouffe, President Obama’s former campaign manager, is on the group’s board.
Other Pacronym donors the group disclosed yesterday include Michael Moritz, partner at venture investment fund Sequoia Capital ($1 million); Kenneth Duda, founder and chief technology office at software company Arista ($1 million); Mimi Haas, director of Levi Strauss & Co. ($600,000); filmmaker Steven Spielberg ($500,000); and Jim Swartz, co-founder of venture firm Accel Partners ($400,000).
fuck a "moderate"!!!
Moderate Democrats are celebrating MLK. He was disgusted by them
MLK was "gravely disappointed" with white moderates, whom he believed were responsible for impeding civil rights
BOB HENNELLY - salon
JANUARY 20, 2020 12:30AM (UTC)
We also realize that the problems of racial injustice and economic injustice cannot be solved without a radical redistribution of political and economic power."
—Martin Luther King Jr., 1967
This Martin Luther King Jr. Day comes as moderate Democrats, falling in line behind former vice president Joe Biden, are warning that the party risks re-electing Donald Trump if it nominates too radical a candidate for president — by which they mean someone like Senators Bernie Sanders or Elizabeth Warren.
This so-called moderate world view is underpinned by the belief that, over the arc of this nation's history, we have been striving for and realizing a "more perfect union" through disciplined incrementalism and market capitalism.
Some pundits extol this as the great virtue of American moderation.
And yet, a glance at Martin Luther King Jr.'s actual words reveals the civil rights leader saw such moderation as a "fantasy of self-deception and comfortable vanity."
From a Birmingham jail cell, he wrote he was "gravely disappointed with the white moderate" that he saw as "the Negro's great stumbling block," as much or more so than ardent segregationists or even the KKK. The white moderate, he observed, lived "by a mythical concept of time" and constantly advised "the Negro to wait for a 'more convenient season.' Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will. Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection."
As King saw it, the American embrace of moderation in his time was enabled by a belief "that American society is essentially hospitable to fair play and to steady growth toward a middle-class Utopia embodying racial harmony. But unfortunately, this is a fantasy of self-deception and comfortable vanity."
In grade school, I was indoctrinated with this same moderate narrative — that we were on the conveyor belt of socio-economic progress that was a through line from Lexington and Concord, through Gettysburg, and on to the beaches of Normandy.
In this airbrushed history, America expiated its original sin of slavery with the massive bloodletting that was our Civil War. Scroll forward to 2008, and we have elected the first American African American president.
Perhaps too slow, argue the moderates, but progress none the less.
Revisiting reconstruction
But our actually history as it was lived, but too often not remembered, reveals that every civil rights breakthrough is accompanied by reactionary blowback. We saw it after the Civil War, with the abandonment of Reconstruction by a federal government that fell captive to capital interests and its own deeply embedded racist world view.
Scroll forward a century: the same happened in response to the passage of landmark federal civil and voting rights legislation. And as with the murder of Lincoln after the Emancipation Proclamation, the white supremacist terrorist rage murdered Dr. King and so many others.
And similarly, after the two-term presidency of President Obama, the election of Trump was the blowback.
There is a pattern here, one that has been flagged by writers like Michelle Alexander and Ta-Nehisi Coates. In 2020, there can be no excuse for not seeing it.
In the southern states after the Civil War, African Americans' post-emancipation hopes for freedom were crushed when, as Ta-Nehisi Coates reminds us, Lincoln was assassinated by a white supremacist and replaced in White House with Andrew Johnson, another white supremacist.
It was Johnson, Coates observed, who curtailed "virtually all rights black people enjoyed" which cleared the way for white Southerners to "pillage black labor….. through a century-long campaign of domestic terrorism, and that for most of that history the federal government looked the other way, while state and local governments were complicit."
Coates continues: "I have spent the past two years somewhat concerned about the effects of national amnesia, largely because I believe that a problem cannot be effectively treated without being effectively diagnosed. I don't know how you diagnose the problem of racism in America without understanding the actual history."
Black representation disappeared
As historian Howard Zinn writes in "A People's History of the United States," after the passage of the Fifteenth Amendment — which prohibited states from denying former slaves their right to vote — there were two African Americans in the U.S. Senate and twenty members of the U.S. House of Representatives.
At the local, county and state level there were 2,000 African American elected to office, including 600 to state legislatures in the south.
"The southern white oligarchy used its economic power to organize the Ku Klux Klan and other terrorist groups," writes Zinn. "Northern politicians began to weigh the vantage of the political support of impoverished blacks-maintained in voting and office only by force [union troops] — against the more stable situation of a South returned to white supremacy, accepting Republican dominance and business legislation. It was only a matter of time before blacks would be reduced once again to conditions not far from slavery."
This terror campaign included not only 4,000 hangings, but the rape of women, the burning of churches and the razing of entire neighborhoods. In response to this, African Americans moved into America's booming northern industrial cities by the millions.
The Great Migration spurred a massive increase in the African American communities in northern cities. In just ten years, between 1910 and 1920, New York's black population increased by 60 percent, Chicago's by 148 percent, Philadelphia's by 500 percent. Detroit spiked 611 percent.
A new kind of poverty
As Spencer Crew, an historian for the National Museum of American History, described it, the change of scenery and easy employment thanks to war time production did not bring prosperity — but a different kind of poverty.
"While job opportunities were readily available in most cities, these jobs were at the lower end of the occupational ladder," writes Crew. "Northern labor unions generally did not accept Afro-Americans as members and often threatened to strike companies where nonunion workers performed union jobs. Even when Afro-American workers acquired better paying jobs during the war, many of them had to relinquish these jobs once the war ended."
As a result, African Americans "typically wound up in dirty, backbreaking, unskilled, and low-paying occupations." "These were the least desirable jobs in most industries, but the ones employers felt best suited their black workers," Crew notes. "On average, more than eight of every ten Afro-American men worked as unskilled laborers in foundries, in the building trades, in meatpacking companies, on the railroads, or as servants, porters, janitors, cooks, and cleaners."
And moving from the south to the north meant they fell prey to a scarcity of affordable housing that endures to this day.
"Funneled into certain areas in most northern cities, Afro-Americans have paid nearly twice as much as their white counterparts for equivalent housing," according to Crew. "With the additional financial burden of having to pay higher prices in neighborhood stores for food, clothing, and other necessities, settling in the North was a mixed experience for many migrants. Though they earned better wages in the North, much of the increased income was offset by higher living expenses."
In the mid-20th century, American multinationals, encouraged by U.S. tax policy, began to shift manufacturing out of America's urban core offshore. Thus, the stage was set for the social unrest that would come in the 60s in places like Newark and Detroit. It was in these urban crucibles that the promise of an ascendant civil rights abutted the consequences of generations of poverty and widening income disparity between communities of color and white America.
"Capitalism is fine — it's black families that are broken"
For the federal policy makers in the 1960s, like David Patrick Moynihan, an assistant secretary of labor under President Johnson, the real problem was not capitalism, which had decimated America's big cities and exploited an African Americans underclass. Rather, the problem was the very nature of the African American family itself, which was increasingly led by single mothers.
In his 1964 report, "The Negro Family — The Case for National Action," he conceded the enduring and systemic toll of the "virus" of white supremacy and offered praise for the civil rights movement. Yet, as others have observed, Moynihan blamed the victim for African American poverty. In turn, this would ultimately provide the academic underpinnings for the brand of overpolicing that endures to this day in black neighborhoods.
"In this new period the expectations of the Negro Americans will go beyond civil rights," the Moynihan report states. "Being Americans, they will now expect that in the near future equal opportunities for them as a group will produce roughly equal results, as compared with other groups. This is not going to happen. Nor will it happen for generations to come unless a new and special effort is made."
The report continued: "There are two reasons. First, the racist virus in the American blood stream still afflicts us: Negroes will encounter serious personal prejudice for at least another generation. Second, three centuries of sometimes unimaginable mistreatment have taken their toll on the Negro people."
"The thesis of this paper is that these events, in combination, confront the nation with a new kind of problem. Measures that have worked in the past, or would work for most groups in the present, will not work here. A national effort is required that will give a unity of purpose to the many activities of the Federal government in this area, directed to a new kind of national goal: the establishment of a stable Negro family structure."
To be fair, Moynihan's report did observe that the Federal minimum wage provided a "basic income for the individual, but an income well below the poverty line for a couple, much less a family with children" and that the "most conspicuous failure of the American social system in the past ten years has been its inadequacy in providing jobs for Negro youth."
But by zeroing in on the family and society and not flagging the defects in market capitalism that profited off of black poverty, the power structure now had a rationale to take aim at a "pathology of poverty" they had determined afflicted the African American poor.
War on drugs saddles up
As Jeff Guo wrote in the Washington Post, President Johnson's "War on Poverty" was followed by a "War on Crime" that "would bulk up police forces with federal money and intensify patrols in urban areas." "This would be the first significant intrusion of the federal government into local law enforcement, and it was the beginning of a long saga of escalating surveillance and control in urban areas," Guo writes. He notes that President Johnson "liken[ed] the black urban unrest to a domestic Vietnam."
As recounted in historian Elizabeth Hinton's book "From the War on Poverty to the War on Crime" Johnson sent "military-grade rifles, tanks, riot gear, walkie-talkies, helicopters, and bulletproof vests," to local police forces who were afraid of civil unrest from young black men that came from families that liberals like Moynihan had determined were defective and if left unaddressed would be dangerous.
And with President Nixon's so-called War on Drugs, the stage was set for the mass incarceration of African American men — and with it the tragic collateral social consequences.
Black people in chains: it's just what we do
We have so deeply internalized structural racism that most politicians easily ignore the fact that between 1980 and 2015 the number of people incarcerated increased from 500,000 to over 2.2 million, according to the NAACP. That means that while the U.S. makes up only 5 percent of the planet's population, we have 21 percent of the prisoners.
Evidently, we are just not that outraged by it. If people are in jail, there's some justification for it. Right?
That's how former Mayor Mike Bloomberg can joke through his recent The Late Show with Steven Colbert appearance and blithely explain away as merely "a mistake" his embrace of race-based profiling where the NYPD illegally stopped and frisked hundreds of thousands of young men of color annually for years.
And with hundreds of millions earmarked as new revenue for hungry broadcast media outlets, don't expect Bloomberg to be pressed on how he plans on making right the tragic consequences from the NYPD's unconstitutional actions that led to bad arrests, unjust incarcerations, lost jobs and ruined lives.
This Martin Luther King Jr. Day, pay close attention to the white moderates, like Bloomberg and Biden. Ironically, not only do these men fail to grasp the radical nature of his dream, their past actions actually helped defer it.
—Martin Luther King Jr., 1967
This Martin Luther King Jr. Day comes as moderate Democrats, falling in line behind former vice president Joe Biden, are warning that the party risks re-electing Donald Trump if it nominates too radical a candidate for president — by which they mean someone like Senators Bernie Sanders or Elizabeth Warren.
This so-called moderate world view is underpinned by the belief that, over the arc of this nation's history, we have been striving for and realizing a "more perfect union" through disciplined incrementalism and market capitalism.
Some pundits extol this as the great virtue of American moderation.
And yet, a glance at Martin Luther King Jr.'s actual words reveals the civil rights leader saw such moderation as a "fantasy of self-deception and comfortable vanity."
From a Birmingham jail cell, he wrote he was "gravely disappointed with the white moderate" that he saw as "the Negro's great stumbling block," as much or more so than ardent segregationists or even the KKK. The white moderate, he observed, lived "by a mythical concept of time" and constantly advised "the Negro to wait for a 'more convenient season.' Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will. Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection."
As King saw it, the American embrace of moderation in his time was enabled by a belief "that American society is essentially hospitable to fair play and to steady growth toward a middle-class Utopia embodying racial harmony. But unfortunately, this is a fantasy of self-deception and comfortable vanity."
In grade school, I was indoctrinated with this same moderate narrative — that we were on the conveyor belt of socio-economic progress that was a through line from Lexington and Concord, through Gettysburg, and on to the beaches of Normandy.
In this airbrushed history, America expiated its original sin of slavery with the massive bloodletting that was our Civil War. Scroll forward to 2008, and we have elected the first American African American president.
Perhaps too slow, argue the moderates, but progress none the less.
Revisiting reconstruction
But our actually history as it was lived, but too often not remembered, reveals that every civil rights breakthrough is accompanied by reactionary blowback. We saw it after the Civil War, with the abandonment of Reconstruction by a federal government that fell captive to capital interests and its own deeply embedded racist world view.
Scroll forward a century: the same happened in response to the passage of landmark federal civil and voting rights legislation. And as with the murder of Lincoln after the Emancipation Proclamation, the white supremacist terrorist rage murdered Dr. King and so many others.
And similarly, after the two-term presidency of President Obama, the election of Trump was the blowback.
There is a pattern here, one that has been flagged by writers like Michelle Alexander and Ta-Nehisi Coates. In 2020, there can be no excuse for not seeing it.
In the southern states after the Civil War, African Americans' post-emancipation hopes for freedom were crushed when, as Ta-Nehisi Coates reminds us, Lincoln was assassinated by a white supremacist and replaced in White House with Andrew Johnson, another white supremacist.
It was Johnson, Coates observed, who curtailed "virtually all rights black people enjoyed" which cleared the way for white Southerners to "pillage black labor….. through a century-long campaign of domestic terrorism, and that for most of that history the federal government looked the other way, while state and local governments were complicit."
Coates continues: "I have spent the past two years somewhat concerned about the effects of national amnesia, largely because I believe that a problem cannot be effectively treated without being effectively diagnosed. I don't know how you diagnose the problem of racism in America without understanding the actual history."
Black representation disappeared
As historian Howard Zinn writes in "A People's History of the United States," after the passage of the Fifteenth Amendment — which prohibited states from denying former slaves their right to vote — there were two African Americans in the U.S. Senate and twenty members of the U.S. House of Representatives.
At the local, county and state level there were 2,000 African American elected to office, including 600 to state legislatures in the south.
"The southern white oligarchy used its economic power to organize the Ku Klux Klan and other terrorist groups," writes Zinn. "Northern politicians began to weigh the vantage of the political support of impoverished blacks-maintained in voting and office only by force [union troops] — against the more stable situation of a South returned to white supremacy, accepting Republican dominance and business legislation. It was only a matter of time before blacks would be reduced once again to conditions not far from slavery."
This terror campaign included not only 4,000 hangings, but the rape of women, the burning of churches and the razing of entire neighborhoods. In response to this, African Americans moved into America's booming northern industrial cities by the millions.
The Great Migration spurred a massive increase in the African American communities in northern cities. In just ten years, between 1910 and 1920, New York's black population increased by 60 percent, Chicago's by 148 percent, Philadelphia's by 500 percent. Detroit spiked 611 percent.
A new kind of poverty
As Spencer Crew, an historian for the National Museum of American History, described it, the change of scenery and easy employment thanks to war time production did not bring prosperity — but a different kind of poverty.
"While job opportunities were readily available in most cities, these jobs were at the lower end of the occupational ladder," writes Crew. "Northern labor unions generally did not accept Afro-Americans as members and often threatened to strike companies where nonunion workers performed union jobs. Even when Afro-American workers acquired better paying jobs during the war, many of them had to relinquish these jobs once the war ended."
As a result, African Americans "typically wound up in dirty, backbreaking, unskilled, and low-paying occupations." "These were the least desirable jobs in most industries, but the ones employers felt best suited their black workers," Crew notes. "On average, more than eight of every ten Afro-American men worked as unskilled laborers in foundries, in the building trades, in meatpacking companies, on the railroads, or as servants, porters, janitors, cooks, and cleaners."
And moving from the south to the north meant they fell prey to a scarcity of affordable housing that endures to this day.
"Funneled into certain areas in most northern cities, Afro-Americans have paid nearly twice as much as their white counterparts for equivalent housing," according to Crew. "With the additional financial burden of having to pay higher prices in neighborhood stores for food, clothing, and other necessities, settling in the North was a mixed experience for many migrants. Though they earned better wages in the North, much of the increased income was offset by higher living expenses."
In the mid-20th century, American multinationals, encouraged by U.S. tax policy, began to shift manufacturing out of America's urban core offshore. Thus, the stage was set for the social unrest that would come in the 60s in places like Newark and Detroit. It was in these urban crucibles that the promise of an ascendant civil rights abutted the consequences of generations of poverty and widening income disparity between communities of color and white America.
"Capitalism is fine — it's black families that are broken"
For the federal policy makers in the 1960s, like David Patrick Moynihan, an assistant secretary of labor under President Johnson, the real problem was not capitalism, which had decimated America's big cities and exploited an African Americans underclass. Rather, the problem was the very nature of the African American family itself, which was increasingly led by single mothers.
In his 1964 report, "The Negro Family — The Case for National Action," he conceded the enduring and systemic toll of the "virus" of white supremacy and offered praise for the civil rights movement. Yet, as others have observed, Moynihan blamed the victim for African American poverty. In turn, this would ultimately provide the academic underpinnings for the brand of overpolicing that endures to this day in black neighborhoods.
"In this new period the expectations of the Negro Americans will go beyond civil rights," the Moynihan report states. "Being Americans, they will now expect that in the near future equal opportunities for them as a group will produce roughly equal results, as compared with other groups. This is not going to happen. Nor will it happen for generations to come unless a new and special effort is made."
The report continued: "There are two reasons. First, the racist virus in the American blood stream still afflicts us: Negroes will encounter serious personal prejudice for at least another generation. Second, three centuries of sometimes unimaginable mistreatment have taken their toll on the Negro people."
"The thesis of this paper is that these events, in combination, confront the nation with a new kind of problem. Measures that have worked in the past, or would work for most groups in the present, will not work here. A national effort is required that will give a unity of purpose to the many activities of the Federal government in this area, directed to a new kind of national goal: the establishment of a stable Negro family structure."
To be fair, Moynihan's report did observe that the Federal minimum wage provided a "basic income for the individual, but an income well below the poverty line for a couple, much less a family with children" and that the "most conspicuous failure of the American social system in the past ten years has been its inadequacy in providing jobs for Negro youth."
But by zeroing in on the family and society and not flagging the defects in market capitalism that profited off of black poverty, the power structure now had a rationale to take aim at a "pathology of poverty" they had determined afflicted the African American poor.
War on drugs saddles up
As Jeff Guo wrote in the Washington Post, President Johnson's "War on Poverty" was followed by a "War on Crime" that "would bulk up police forces with federal money and intensify patrols in urban areas." "This would be the first significant intrusion of the federal government into local law enforcement, and it was the beginning of a long saga of escalating surveillance and control in urban areas," Guo writes. He notes that President Johnson "liken[ed] the black urban unrest to a domestic Vietnam."
As recounted in historian Elizabeth Hinton's book "From the War on Poverty to the War on Crime" Johnson sent "military-grade rifles, tanks, riot gear, walkie-talkies, helicopters, and bulletproof vests," to local police forces who were afraid of civil unrest from young black men that came from families that liberals like Moynihan had determined were defective and if left unaddressed would be dangerous.
And with President Nixon's so-called War on Drugs, the stage was set for the mass incarceration of African American men — and with it the tragic collateral social consequences.
Black people in chains: it's just what we do
We have so deeply internalized structural racism that most politicians easily ignore the fact that between 1980 and 2015 the number of people incarcerated increased from 500,000 to over 2.2 million, according to the NAACP. That means that while the U.S. makes up only 5 percent of the planet's population, we have 21 percent of the prisoners.
Evidently, we are just not that outraged by it. If people are in jail, there's some justification for it. Right?
That's how former Mayor Mike Bloomberg can joke through his recent The Late Show with Steven Colbert appearance and blithely explain away as merely "a mistake" his embrace of race-based profiling where the NYPD illegally stopped and frisked hundreds of thousands of young men of color annually for years.
And with hundreds of millions earmarked as new revenue for hungry broadcast media outlets, don't expect Bloomberg to be pressed on how he plans on making right the tragic consequences from the NYPD's unconstitutional actions that led to bad arrests, unjust incarcerations, lost jobs and ruined lives.
This Martin Luther King Jr. Day, pay close attention to the white moderates, like Bloomberg and Biden. Ironically, not only do these men fail to grasp the radical nature of his dream, their past actions actually helped defer it.
OPINION
Corporate Democrats Desperately Want a Sanders-Warren Feud
Norman Solomon - truthdig
1/13/20
Corporate Democrats got a jolt at the end of last week when the highly regarded Iowa Poll showed Bernie Sanders surging into first place among Iowans likely to vote in the state’s Feb. 3 caucuses. The other big change was a steep drop for the previous Iowa frontrunner, Pete Buttigieg, who — along with Elizabeth Warren and Joe Biden — came in a few percent behind Sanders. The latest poll was bad news for corporate interests, but their prospects brightened a bit over the weekend when Politico reported: “The nonaggression pact between Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren is seriously fraying.”
The reason for that conclusion? While speaking with voters, some Sanders volunteers were using a script saying that Warren supporters “are highly educated, more affluent people who are going to show up and vote Democratic no matter what” and that “she’s bringing no new bases into the Democratic Party.”
At last, mainstream journalists could begin to report the kind of conflict that many had long been yearning for. As Politico mentioned in the same article, Sanders and Warren “have largely abstained from attacking one another despite regular prodding from reporters.”
That “regular prodding from reporters” should be understood in an ideological context. Overall, far-reaching progressive proposals like Medicare for All have received negative coverage from corporate media. Yet during debates, Sanders and Warren have been an effective tag team while defending such proposals. The media establishment would love to see Sanders and Warren clashing instead of cooperating.
For progressives, the need for a Sanders-Warren united front is crucial. Yes, there are some significant differences between the two candidates, especially on foreign policy (which is one of the reasons that I actively support Sanders). Those differences should be aired in the open, while maintaining a tactical alliance.
Sustaining progressive momentum for both Sanders and Warren is essential for preventing the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination from going to the likes of Biden or Buttigieg — a grim outcome that would certainly gratify the 44 billionaires and their spouses who’ve donated to Biden, the 40 billionaires and their spouses who’ve donated to Buttigieg, and the oligarchic interests they represent.
It would be a serious error for progressives to buy into corporate media portrayals of the Sanders and Warren campaigns as destined to play a traditional zero-sum political game. The chances are high that by the time the primaries end this spring, Sanders and Warren — as well as their supporters — will need to join forces so one of them can become the nominee at the Democratic National Convention in mid-July.
In the meantime, during the next few months, top corporate Democrats certainly hope to see a lot more headlines like one that greeted New York Times readers Monday morning: “Elizabeth Warren Says Bernie Sanders Sent Volunteers ‘Out to Trash Me’.”
(Sanders tried to defuse what he called a “media blow up” on Sunday, saying: “We have hundreds of employees. Elizabeth Warren has hundreds of employees. And people sometimes say things that they shouldn’t.” And: “Elizabeth Warren is a very good friend of mine. No one is going to trash Elizabeth Warren.”)
Keeping eyes on the prize this year will require a united front that can strengthen progressive forces, prevent any corporate Democrat from winning the party’s presidential nomination, and then go on to defeat Donald Trump
The reason for that conclusion? While speaking with voters, some Sanders volunteers were using a script saying that Warren supporters “are highly educated, more affluent people who are going to show up and vote Democratic no matter what” and that “she’s bringing no new bases into the Democratic Party.”
At last, mainstream journalists could begin to report the kind of conflict that many had long been yearning for. As Politico mentioned in the same article, Sanders and Warren “have largely abstained from attacking one another despite regular prodding from reporters.”
That “regular prodding from reporters” should be understood in an ideological context. Overall, far-reaching progressive proposals like Medicare for All have received negative coverage from corporate media. Yet during debates, Sanders and Warren have been an effective tag team while defending such proposals. The media establishment would love to see Sanders and Warren clashing instead of cooperating.
For progressives, the need for a Sanders-Warren united front is crucial. Yes, there are some significant differences between the two candidates, especially on foreign policy (which is one of the reasons that I actively support Sanders). Those differences should be aired in the open, while maintaining a tactical alliance.
Sustaining progressive momentum for both Sanders and Warren is essential for preventing the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination from going to the likes of Biden or Buttigieg — a grim outcome that would certainly gratify the 44 billionaires and their spouses who’ve donated to Biden, the 40 billionaires and their spouses who’ve donated to Buttigieg, and the oligarchic interests they represent.
It would be a serious error for progressives to buy into corporate media portrayals of the Sanders and Warren campaigns as destined to play a traditional zero-sum political game. The chances are high that by the time the primaries end this spring, Sanders and Warren — as well as their supporters — will need to join forces so one of them can become the nominee at the Democratic National Convention in mid-July.
In the meantime, during the next few months, top corporate Democrats certainly hope to see a lot more headlines like one that greeted New York Times readers Monday morning: “Elizabeth Warren Says Bernie Sanders Sent Volunteers ‘Out to Trash Me’.”
(Sanders tried to defuse what he called a “media blow up” on Sunday, saying: “We have hundreds of employees. Elizabeth Warren has hundreds of employees. And people sometimes say things that they shouldn’t.” And: “Elizabeth Warren is a very good friend of mine. No one is going to trash Elizabeth Warren.”)
Keeping eyes on the prize this year will require a united front that can strengthen progressive forces, prevent any corporate Democrat from winning the party’s presidential nomination, and then go on to defeat Donald Trump
Democratic Party Backs ALEC Alumnus Congressman Against Progressive Challenger
BY Donald Shaw, Sludge - truthout
PUBLISHED January 8, 2020
Democratic Rep. Tom O’Halleran of Arizona’s First Congressional District is affiliated with an organization that promotes conservative legislation across the country, yet top House Democrats and Democratic Party groups are backing him against a primary challenge from his left.
O’Halleran is listed as an alumnus of the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), a group that brings corporations, lobbyists and lawmakers together to co-write bills, on the group’s website. “ALEC alumni advance limited government, free market and federalism priorities at every level of elected office,” the website states. O’Halleran was a Republican state legislator in Arizona from 2001 to 2009.
ALEC has had a profound impact on Republican policies since its founding in 1973. The group, which has deep ties to the Koch network, has been behind dozens of rightwing proposals that have passed at the state and federal levels, including “stand your ground” gun laws, restrictive voter ID requirements, and limits on the federal government’s ability to regulate greenhouse gases. The group has also worked directly with congressional Republicans through a partnership it formed in 2012 with the Republican Study Committee, a caucus of conservative House members.
O’Halleran’s office told Sludge that the representative does not pay dues to ALEC and that he should not be listed on the website. “Our team is reaching out to ALEC to get Rep. O’Halleran removed from their website today, the representative’s spokesperson said in an email to Sludge. “ALEC may try to claim Tom O’Halleran, but Tom O’Halleran opposes the radical policies ALEC stands for.”
During his time in Congress, O’Halleran has joined the GOP on numerous votes. In 2017, he voted for two anti-regulation bills put forward by Republicans, Rep. Jason Smith’s (R-Mo.) SCRUB Act, which would establish a commission to identify regulations that should be repealed because they impose a burden on industry, and Rep. Bob Gibbs’ (R-Ohio) “Reducing Regulatory Burdens Act,” which would eliminate federal and state regulations of pesticide disposal in navigable waterways. In 2018, he voted in favor of a resolution from Rep. Steve Sclaise (R-La.) expressing that “a carbon tax would be detrimental to the United States economy.” He voted in favor of a resolution from Rep. Clay Higgins (R-La.) praising U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and denounced calls for it to be abolished.
O’Halleran’s ideology score, as calculated by the nonpartisan website GovTrack, was the seventh most conservative among all House Democrats during the 2017-18 session of Congress.
O’Halleran is facing a primary challenge from Democrat Eva Putzova, a former member of the Flagstaff City Council who has been endorsed by progressive groups Brand New Congress and Progressive Democrats of America. Putzova supports the Green New Deal, Medicare for All, a $15 minimum wage, and tuition-free college, according to the issue page on her website.
Putzova condemned O’Halleran’s affiliation with ALEC in an email to Sludge.
“ALEC has produced model bills for conservative and right wing legislators for combating immigration, loosening environmental regulations, tightening voter identification rules, weakening labor unions and opposing gun control, Putzova said. “All these proposals harm the interests of people in my district. Representative O’Halleran should be ashamed of himself for being an alumnus of ALEC.”
Putzova, who said on Twitter that her campaign has 1,500 unique donors, has pledged not to take money from corporate PACs. By contrast, O’Halleran took $271,784 from business PACs, as categorized by the Center for Responsive Politics, during the first three quarters of 2019. As of the end of the third quarter last year, his campaign had $574,079 cash on hand, while Putzova’s campaign reported $11,347 in cash on hand. There are two more candidates who have declared for the AZ-1 Democratic primary, but neither has reported any fundraising or campaign spending to the Federal Election Commission.
So far in the 2019-20 election cycle, O’Halleran has received at least $20,000 from PACs of companies and trade groups that are members or funders of ALEC as of last year, including from the PACs of the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers Association ($1,000), The American Bankers Association ($5,000), T-Mobile ($1,000), Entergy ($2,000), Pfizer ($2,000), and Century Link ($2,000).
O’Halleran has also received $5,900 since 2017 from Russel Smoldon, a former member of ALEC’s Private Enterprise Advisory Council and a former ALEC private sector state chairman. The private sector state chairmen help ALEC raise money for its scholarship fund, which it uses to finance travel and gifts for lawmakers.
O’Halleran, who is in his second term, recently gained a new position in the House from which to do the work of an ALEC alumnus. In 2019, he was named co-chair of policy for the Blue Dog Coalition, a group of centrist House Democrats who work to push the Democratic caucus to the right and often vote with Republicans. The Blue Dog Coalition currently has 25 members, making up a subset of 103 members of the moderate New Democrat Coalition in the federal legislature’s lower chamber.
Establishment Support
Despite O’Halleran’s affiliation with ALEC and his conservative voting record, the Democratic Party is sticking by him in his race against Putzova.
The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) has added O’Halleran to its Frontline Program, which provides 44 Democratic incumbents it views as vulnerable with “access to strategic analysis, campaign guidance and fundraising prioritization to ensure they have both the resources and cutting edge information they need to execute effective reelection campaigns.”
The DCCC gave O’Halleran $718 in the first three quarters of 2019. The leadership PACs of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) both gave O’Halleran $10,000 in 2019.
Last year, the DCCC established a policy of not hiring any political vendors that work with Democratic primary challengers.
“Early on, we had one company refusing to engage with us and specifically mentioned that they signed the DCCC ‘pledge,’ Putzova said. “Maybe because we work with smaller, progressive companies, the real effect of the DCCC blacklisting on our campaign was marginal. We still think it’s utterly undemocratic and unethical.”
Not Just O’Halleran
In total, four Democratic members of Congress are alumni of ALEC. Besides O’Halleran, they include Rep. Al Lawson (D-Fla.), Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.), and Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Fla.).
Several of the Demoratic ALEC alumni have been given coveted committee assignments and party positions by Democratic Party leadership.
Manchin, who has one of the worst environmental records of all Democrats in Congress, was named chairman of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee in 2019 by Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.). Wasserman Schultz was selected by former President Barack Obama to serve as chair of the Democratic National Committee (DNC) in 2011 (she resigned in 2016 after leaked emails showed DNC officials conspiring to help Hilary Clinton in the Democratic primary). O’Halleran was given a seat on the Energy and Commerce Committee, one of the most prized committee assignments in the House.
O’Halleran is listed as an alumnus of the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), a group that brings corporations, lobbyists and lawmakers together to co-write bills, on the group’s website. “ALEC alumni advance limited government, free market and federalism priorities at every level of elected office,” the website states. O’Halleran was a Republican state legislator in Arizona from 2001 to 2009.
ALEC has had a profound impact on Republican policies since its founding in 1973. The group, which has deep ties to the Koch network, has been behind dozens of rightwing proposals that have passed at the state and federal levels, including “stand your ground” gun laws, restrictive voter ID requirements, and limits on the federal government’s ability to regulate greenhouse gases. The group has also worked directly with congressional Republicans through a partnership it formed in 2012 with the Republican Study Committee, a caucus of conservative House members.
O’Halleran’s office told Sludge that the representative does not pay dues to ALEC and that he should not be listed on the website. “Our team is reaching out to ALEC to get Rep. O’Halleran removed from their website today, the representative’s spokesperson said in an email to Sludge. “ALEC may try to claim Tom O’Halleran, but Tom O’Halleran opposes the radical policies ALEC stands for.”
During his time in Congress, O’Halleran has joined the GOP on numerous votes. In 2017, he voted for two anti-regulation bills put forward by Republicans, Rep. Jason Smith’s (R-Mo.) SCRUB Act, which would establish a commission to identify regulations that should be repealed because they impose a burden on industry, and Rep. Bob Gibbs’ (R-Ohio) “Reducing Regulatory Burdens Act,” which would eliminate federal and state regulations of pesticide disposal in navigable waterways. In 2018, he voted in favor of a resolution from Rep. Steve Sclaise (R-La.) expressing that “a carbon tax would be detrimental to the United States economy.” He voted in favor of a resolution from Rep. Clay Higgins (R-La.) praising U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and denounced calls for it to be abolished.
O’Halleran’s ideology score, as calculated by the nonpartisan website GovTrack, was the seventh most conservative among all House Democrats during the 2017-18 session of Congress.
O’Halleran is facing a primary challenge from Democrat Eva Putzova, a former member of the Flagstaff City Council who has been endorsed by progressive groups Brand New Congress and Progressive Democrats of America. Putzova supports the Green New Deal, Medicare for All, a $15 minimum wage, and tuition-free college, according to the issue page on her website.
Putzova condemned O’Halleran’s affiliation with ALEC in an email to Sludge.
“ALEC has produced model bills for conservative and right wing legislators for combating immigration, loosening environmental regulations, tightening voter identification rules, weakening labor unions and opposing gun control, Putzova said. “All these proposals harm the interests of people in my district. Representative O’Halleran should be ashamed of himself for being an alumnus of ALEC.”
Putzova, who said on Twitter that her campaign has 1,500 unique donors, has pledged not to take money from corporate PACs. By contrast, O’Halleran took $271,784 from business PACs, as categorized by the Center for Responsive Politics, during the first three quarters of 2019. As of the end of the third quarter last year, his campaign had $574,079 cash on hand, while Putzova’s campaign reported $11,347 in cash on hand. There are two more candidates who have declared for the AZ-1 Democratic primary, but neither has reported any fundraising or campaign spending to the Federal Election Commission.
So far in the 2019-20 election cycle, O’Halleran has received at least $20,000 from PACs of companies and trade groups that are members or funders of ALEC as of last year, including from the PACs of the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers Association ($1,000), The American Bankers Association ($5,000), T-Mobile ($1,000), Entergy ($2,000), Pfizer ($2,000), and Century Link ($2,000).
O’Halleran has also received $5,900 since 2017 from Russel Smoldon, a former member of ALEC’s Private Enterprise Advisory Council and a former ALEC private sector state chairman. The private sector state chairmen help ALEC raise money for its scholarship fund, which it uses to finance travel and gifts for lawmakers.
O’Halleran, who is in his second term, recently gained a new position in the House from which to do the work of an ALEC alumnus. In 2019, he was named co-chair of policy for the Blue Dog Coalition, a group of centrist House Democrats who work to push the Democratic caucus to the right and often vote with Republicans. The Blue Dog Coalition currently has 25 members, making up a subset of 103 members of the moderate New Democrat Coalition in the federal legislature’s lower chamber.
Establishment Support
Despite O’Halleran’s affiliation with ALEC and his conservative voting record, the Democratic Party is sticking by him in his race against Putzova.
The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) has added O’Halleran to its Frontline Program, which provides 44 Democratic incumbents it views as vulnerable with “access to strategic analysis, campaign guidance and fundraising prioritization to ensure they have both the resources and cutting edge information they need to execute effective reelection campaigns.”
The DCCC gave O’Halleran $718 in the first three quarters of 2019. The leadership PACs of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) both gave O’Halleran $10,000 in 2019.
Last year, the DCCC established a policy of not hiring any political vendors that work with Democratic primary challengers.
“Early on, we had one company refusing to engage with us and specifically mentioned that they signed the DCCC ‘pledge,’ Putzova said. “Maybe because we work with smaller, progressive companies, the real effect of the DCCC blacklisting on our campaign was marginal. We still think it’s utterly undemocratic and unethical.”
Not Just O’Halleran
In total, four Democratic members of Congress are alumni of ALEC. Besides O’Halleran, they include Rep. Al Lawson (D-Fla.), Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.), and Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Fla.).
Several of the Demoratic ALEC alumni have been given coveted committee assignments and party positions by Democratic Party leadership.
Manchin, who has one of the worst environmental records of all Democrats in Congress, was named chairman of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee in 2019 by Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.). Wasserman Schultz was selected by former President Barack Obama to serve as chair of the Democratic National Committee (DNC) in 2011 (she resigned in 2016 after leaked emails showed DNC officials conspiring to help Hilary Clinton in the Democratic primary). O’Halleran was given a seat on the Energy and Commerce Committee, one of the most prized committee assignments in the House.
The Centrist’s dictionary: Here’s what corporate Democrats really mean when they say things like ‘purity test’
Richard J. Eskow / Independent Media Institute - alternet
January 6, 2020
...Presumably, every Democratic primary voter has some core values that any candidate must at least nominally endorse to get their support. What makes one position a “value” and another a “purity test”? Given the confusion caused by this and other terms, and as an aid to the general public, here’s a guide to centrist terminology.
The Centrist’s Dictionary
“Centrist”
Someone who presents a corporate-friendly agenda with less fervor than the typical Republican, with a modest measure of regulation as demanded by circumstances and with a patina of social liberalism.
“Choice” (when applied to a public good)
A word used as an attempt to distract people from the flawed state of the American social contract by forcing them to choose from an array of semi-functional, overpriced private-sector products. This allows policymakers to subsidize private corporations at public expense, while at the same time providing the public with something that loosely resembles—but is not—a functioning social safety net.
“Compete” (as in, “prepare workers of the future to compete”)
A word used to describe what workers will be required to do to survive in the new, Randian economy. For example, to become competitive, workers are sometimes expected to run through a gauntlet of poorly conceived and insufficiently funded educational programs to re-train them for the “new economy” (defined below), often under the assumption that there is a secret app designer hiding inside every laid-off manufacturing employee. To “compete” after training, workers should be prepared to fight like crabs in a barrel for low-paying jobs that provide no employment security or benefits. (See also: “Jobs of the future,” defined below.)
“Free stuff”
A term of contemptuous dismissal for public services that are commonly available in other developed countries, and which any decent society would make available to all human beings.
“Friend of mine” (as in, “John McCain was a friend of mine”)
A declaration of sentimental attachment not only to an individual across the aisle, but also to a long-passed era of comity between powerful individuals from both political parties. The term reflects an unwillingness to accept the cynicism and depravity of today’s GOP. It may also indicate a willingness to use “bipartisanship” as a cover for offering conservative policies by pretending they are needed to attract Republican votes (which they will not do).
“Health care consumers”
People who are forced to choose from a bewildering array of inadequate private health options, based on future needs they can’t anticipate, as offered by private corporations that benefit financially by confusing them now and denying them medical care later. The word “consumers” allows policymakers to accuse individuals of not being “smart shoppers” when things go wrong, thereby deflecting blame away from both themselves and the corporations.
“I don’t think anyone has a monopoly on bold ideas”
I don’t have any bold ideas.
“I know how to get things done”
I intend to keep using a political approach that hasn’t gotten anything done for years.
“I will not raise taxes one penny on the middle class”
I’ll let corporations keep ripping the nearly-vanished “middle class” off instead, charging people more than they’d pay in taxes while providing less in services—and without public oversight or accountability.
“I’m pragmatic”
I don’t believe that a country that won two world wars, rebuilt its economy with the New Deal after the Great Depression, created Medicare and Social Security, developed the internet at public expense, and sent several manned missions to the moon can do big things.
“Ideology” (as in, “I don’t believe in rigid adherence to any political ideology”)
A pejorative term for principles and/or core values.
“Jobs of the future”
Menial piecework tasks, parceled out through apps that force workers into 12-hour days in the hopes they can eke out a living through a lifetime of endless servility.
“Managed competition”
Managed confusion. (See “Choice,” above.)
“New economy”
Same as the old economy (circa 19th century), but the boss wears a turtleneck or a hoodie.
“Our country needs to balance its budget like a family sitting around the kitchen table”
Definition 1: I don’t understand how finance works.
Definition 2: I don’t want you to understand how finance works.
“Pipe dream”
Any bold idea I don’t support.
“Privatization”
Theft of public resources.
“Public/private partnership”
See above; the exploitation of public resources for private profit.
“Purity test”
Any belief or policy I won’t espouse because it would alienate my funders, but that I won’t openly oppose because it’s popular with voters. It implies that people who support it are rigid and unreasonable, rather than principled and thoughtful.
“Reaching across the aisle”
A coded message to big-money donors that you will not fight for the policies you claim to believe in.
“Realistic” (as in, “Your proposal (backed by a large majority of voters) isn’t realistic”)
We don’t live in a functioning democracy and I don’t plan to do anything about it.
“Rich kids/Trump’s kids” (as in, “I don’t want to give free college to Donald Trump’s kids”)
1) I believe that social program X is a commodity, not a public good; 2) if I really cared about economic inequality, I’d raise taxes on the Trumps of this world to pay for it, and 3) my logic could be applied to elementary schools, too, so I hope you don’t think about what I’m saying too much.
“Something we can get done” (as in, “The public option is something we can get done”)
A cautious proposal that can’t get passed as long as Republicans control the Senate, but will not inspire voters to turn the Senate Democratic. In other words, something that can’t get done.
“Universal coverage”
The stated goal of providing every American with inadequate health insurance that ensures neither financial security nor decent medical care.
“You can be progressive and practical at the same time”
I am neither progressive nor practical.
The Centrist’s Dictionary
“Centrist”
Someone who presents a corporate-friendly agenda with less fervor than the typical Republican, with a modest measure of regulation as demanded by circumstances and with a patina of social liberalism.
“Choice” (when applied to a public good)
A word used as an attempt to distract people from the flawed state of the American social contract by forcing them to choose from an array of semi-functional, overpriced private-sector products. This allows policymakers to subsidize private corporations at public expense, while at the same time providing the public with something that loosely resembles—but is not—a functioning social safety net.
“Compete” (as in, “prepare workers of the future to compete”)
A word used to describe what workers will be required to do to survive in the new, Randian economy. For example, to become competitive, workers are sometimes expected to run through a gauntlet of poorly conceived and insufficiently funded educational programs to re-train them for the “new economy” (defined below), often under the assumption that there is a secret app designer hiding inside every laid-off manufacturing employee. To “compete” after training, workers should be prepared to fight like crabs in a barrel for low-paying jobs that provide no employment security or benefits. (See also: “Jobs of the future,” defined below.)
“Free stuff”
A term of contemptuous dismissal for public services that are commonly available in other developed countries, and which any decent society would make available to all human beings.
“Friend of mine” (as in, “John McCain was a friend of mine”)
A declaration of sentimental attachment not only to an individual across the aisle, but also to a long-passed era of comity between powerful individuals from both political parties. The term reflects an unwillingness to accept the cynicism and depravity of today’s GOP. It may also indicate a willingness to use “bipartisanship” as a cover for offering conservative policies by pretending they are needed to attract Republican votes (which they will not do).
“Health care consumers”
People who are forced to choose from a bewildering array of inadequate private health options, based on future needs they can’t anticipate, as offered by private corporations that benefit financially by confusing them now and denying them medical care later. The word “consumers” allows policymakers to accuse individuals of not being “smart shoppers” when things go wrong, thereby deflecting blame away from both themselves and the corporations.
“I don’t think anyone has a monopoly on bold ideas”
I don’t have any bold ideas.
“I know how to get things done”
I intend to keep using a political approach that hasn’t gotten anything done for years.
“I will not raise taxes one penny on the middle class”
I’ll let corporations keep ripping the nearly-vanished “middle class” off instead, charging people more than they’d pay in taxes while providing less in services—and without public oversight or accountability.
“I’m pragmatic”
I don’t believe that a country that won two world wars, rebuilt its economy with the New Deal after the Great Depression, created Medicare and Social Security, developed the internet at public expense, and sent several manned missions to the moon can do big things.
“Ideology” (as in, “I don’t believe in rigid adherence to any political ideology”)
A pejorative term for principles and/or core values.
“Jobs of the future”
Menial piecework tasks, parceled out through apps that force workers into 12-hour days in the hopes they can eke out a living through a lifetime of endless servility.
“Managed competition”
Managed confusion. (See “Choice,” above.)
“New economy”
Same as the old economy (circa 19th century), but the boss wears a turtleneck or a hoodie.
“Our country needs to balance its budget like a family sitting around the kitchen table”
Definition 1: I don’t understand how finance works.
Definition 2: I don’t want you to understand how finance works.
“Pipe dream”
Any bold idea I don’t support.
“Privatization”
Theft of public resources.
“Public/private partnership”
See above; the exploitation of public resources for private profit.
“Purity test”
Any belief or policy I won’t espouse because it would alienate my funders, but that I won’t openly oppose because it’s popular with voters. It implies that people who support it are rigid and unreasonable, rather than principled and thoughtful.
“Reaching across the aisle”
A coded message to big-money donors that you will not fight for the policies you claim to believe in.
“Realistic” (as in, “Your proposal (backed by a large majority of voters) isn’t realistic”)
We don’t live in a functioning democracy and I don’t plan to do anything about it.
“Rich kids/Trump’s kids” (as in, “I don’t want to give free college to Donald Trump’s kids”)
1) I believe that social program X is a commodity, not a public good; 2) if I really cared about economic inequality, I’d raise taxes on the Trumps of this world to pay for it, and 3) my logic could be applied to elementary schools, too, so I hope you don’t think about what I’m saying too much.
“Something we can get done” (as in, “The public option is something we can get done”)
A cautious proposal that can’t get passed as long as Republicans control the Senate, but will not inspire voters to turn the Senate Democratic. In other words, something that can’t get done.
“Universal coverage”
The stated goal of providing every American with inadequate health insurance that ensures neither financial security nor decent medical care.
“You can be progressive and practical at the same time”
I am neither progressive nor practical.
US elections 2020
Revealed: RNC and DNC awash with corporate cash from donors seeking access
The big bucks sponsorship packages raise sticky questions for both parties as organizers go after major donors to raise money
Ed Pilkington in New York
the guardian
Mon 23 Dec 2019 03.45 EST
Next year’s national political conventions, where Donald Trump and the winner of the Democratic primaries will be enshrined as their parties’ candidates in the 2020 presidential election, will be awash with corporate cash from donors seeking access, their marketing plans reveal.
Organizers of both the Republican and Democratic National Conventions are going after major corporate donors appealing for huge lump sums as they scramble to raise the money needed to bankroll the made-for-television events.
Fundraising materials show that both parties are hoping to lure $1m donations from corporations and wealthy individuals in exchange for access and advertising opportunities.
The big bucks sponsorship packages raise potentially sticky questions for both parties. The Republicans are effectively offering exclusive briefings with the leaders of the Trump re-election campaign in return for cash.
The Democrats may face difficult ethical issues were either Bernie Sanders or Elizabeth Warren to win the nomination. Both have shunned big money donations in the early stages of the election and Sanders has indicated he might try to do the same for the Democratic convention were he to become his party’s nominee.
The scale of the parties’ ambitions is disclosed in marketing materials provided to the Guardian by Documented, a watchdog group that investigates how corporations manipulate public policy.
The host committee for the Republican National Convention pitches its offering in the most enticing language, having set itself a total target of $70m to pay for the bonanza. It promises that “for corporate donors, the sponsorship opportunities can be incredibly valuable”. It lists a range of inducements at the RNC which will showcase Trump’s re-election bid in Charlotte, North Carolina, between 24 and 27 August.
Not only will companies have the chance to project their brands in front of up to 50,000 participants at the convention, including 15,000 members of the global media, but they can also customise packages to their corporate needs “to ensure your convention experience is both enjoyable and beneficial”.
Top-tier sponsors, making a tax-deductible donation of $1m or more, will get VIP access at the convention as well as seats at an “exclusive campaign briefing with 2020 campaign leadership”.
The Democratic National Convention, where the party’s presidential candidate will be nominated, will be held in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, from 13 to 16 July. Its host committee has also set itself a target of $70m, though that would be further supplemented by $20m from the Democratic National Convention Committee (DNCC).
Fundraising brochures put out by the host organisation Milwaukee 2020 similarly sets out a tiered approach with the top level lauded as “gold” donors contributing at least $1m each. For that largesse they are promised select advertising opportunities, VIP access and hospitality and tickets to host committee parties.
Unlike the Republicans, the DNC hosts are not dangling access to top presidential campaign figures in front of donors. However, the presence of so much corporate cash swilling around Milwaukee could yet be problematic, given the platforms of some of the party’s primary contenders.
That is especially the case for Sanders. In October his campaign told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel that were he to become the nominee he would ban corporate donations to the convention in tune with his general desire to remove big money from US politics.
Josh Orton, policy director in the Sanders campaign, told the newspaper: “When Bernie is the nominee, everything will fundamentally change for corporate elites … A Bernie Sanders convention will be a people-powered convention.”
That would appear to conflict with the message being handed out by DNCC officials who have been telling potential donors and lobbyists that their money would be welcomed no matter who the eventual nominee is. As Politico has reported, the DNCC’s chief executive, Joe Solmonese, has taken the view that the event needs to be funded well in advance, with the use of corporate dollars, no matter who is victorious in the Democratic primaries.
“We can’t know and try to, nor can I ever suggest that we ever try to, bend this towards any one candidate’s philosophy,” Solmonese told the news site.
Though the Democrats have a more progressive stance on big money in politics than the modern Republican party, they are by no means immune to the stresses and contradictions that come from welcoming large amounts of corporate cash into their coffers.
The Open Secrets database that tracks money in US politics calculated that almost three-quarters of the $70m raised for the Philadelphia Democratic National Convention that nominated Hillary Clinton in 2016 was raised from just 17 sources.
Among those mega-donors were Facebook, the telecoms company AT&T and health insurer Independence Blue Cross which all gave $1.5m each, and American Airlines and Bank of America donating $1m each. JB Pritzker, the current Democratic governor of Illinois whose fortune comes from the Pritzker family’s ownership of the Hyatt hotel chain, gave a personal donation of $1.3m.
Organizers of both the Republican and Democratic National Conventions are going after major corporate donors appealing for huge lump sums as they scramble to raise the money needed to bankroll the made-for-television events.
Fundraising materials show that both parties are hoping to lure $1m donations from corporations and wealthy individuals in exchange for access and advertising opportunities.
The big bucks sponsorship packages raise potentially sticky questions for both parties. The Republicans are effectively offering exclusive briefings with the leaders of the Trump re-election campaign in return for cash.
The Democrats may face difficult ethical issues were either Bernie Sanders or Elizabeth Warren to win the nomination. Both have shunned big money donations in the early stages of the election and Sanders has indicated he might try to do the same for the Democratic convention were he to become his party’s nominee.
The scale of the parties’ ambitions is disclosed in marketing materials provided to the Guardian by Documented, a watchdog group that investigates how corporations manipulate public policy.
The host committee for the Republican National Convention pitches its offering in the most enticing language, having set itself a total target of $70m to pay for the bonanza. It promises that “for corporate donors, the sponsorship opportunities can be incredibly valuable”. It lists a range of inducements at the RNC which will showcase Trump’s re-election bid in Charlotte, North Carolina, between 24 and 27 August.
Not only will companies have the chance to project their brands in front of up to 50,000 participants at the convention, including 15,000 members of the global media, but they can also customise packages to their corporate needs “to ensure your convention experience is both enjoyable and beneficial”.
Top-tier sponsors, making a tax-deductible donation of $1m or more, will get VIP access at the convention as well as seats at an “exclusive campaign briefing with 2020 campaign leadership”.
The Democratic National Convention, where the party’s presidential candidate will be nominated, will be held in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, from 13 to 16 July. Its host committee has also set itself a target of $70m, though that would be further supplemented by $20m from the Democratic National Convention Committee (DNCC).
Fundraising brochures put out by the host organisation Milwaukee 2020 similarly sets out a tiered approach with the top level lauded as “gold” donors contributing at least $1m each. For that largesse they are promised select advertising opportunities, VIP access and hospitality and tickets to host committee parties.
Unlike the Republicans, the DNC hosts are not dangling access to top presidential campaign figures in front of donors. However, the presence of so much corporate cash swilling around Milwaukee could yet be problematic, given the platforms of some of the party’s primary contenders.
That is especially the case for Sanders. In October his campaign told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel that were he to become the nominee he would ban corporate donations to the convention in tune with his general desire to remove big money from US politics.
Josh Orton, policy director in the Sanders campaign, told the newspaper: “When Bernie is the nominee, everything will fundamentally change for corporate elites … A Bernie Sanders convention will be a people-powered convention.”
That would appear to conflict with the message being handed out by DNCC officials who have been telling potential donors and lobbyists that their money would be welcomed no matter who the eventual nominee is. As Politico has reported, the DNCC’s chief executive, Joe Solmonese, has taken the view that the event needs to be funded well in advance, with the use of corporate dollars, no matter who is victorious in the Democratic primaries.
“We can’t know and try to, nor can I ever suggest that we ever try to, bend this towards any one candidate’s philosophy,” Solmonese told the news site.
Though the Democrats have a more progressive stance on big money in politics than the modern Republican party, they are by no means immune to the stresses and contradictions that come from welcoming large amounts of corporate cash into their coffers.
The Open Secrets database that tracks money in US politics calculated that almost three-quarters of the $70m raised for the Philadelphia Democratic National Convention that nominated Hillary Clinton in 2016 was raised from just 17 sources.
Among those mega-donors were Facebook, the telecoms company AT&T and health insurer Independence Blue Cross which all gave $1.5m each, and American Airlines and Bank of America donating $1m each. JB Pritzker, the current Democratic governor of Illinois whose fortune comes from the Pritzker family’s ownership of the Hyatt hotel chain, gave a personal donation of $1.3m.
Ralph Nader breaks down how Democrats caved in secret budget deal with Trump:
‘What a grotesque way to spend taxpayer money!’
Elizabeth Preza - ALTERNET
December 22, 2019
While attention was focused on the House of Representatives’ impeachment of Donald J. Trump, legislators from both parties were secretly huddling with White House aides to seal a $1.4 trillion budget deal to fund the government until next September. They were rushing to do this to avoid a partial government shutdown starting December 21, 2019.
Had the budget been deliberated in open Congressional hearings, the media would have reported on this backroom deal and the people of this country would have had a chance to weigh in during the proceedings. Instead, a degraded Congress pulled a fast one on the citizens. This obfuscation is especially unacceptable considering that these lawmakers work only three days a week at best— when they are not in recess altogether.
Astoundingly the Democrats also caved in on Trump’s wall! After blocking Trump’s funding demand for the wall for three years, the Democrats approved $1.4 billion for the wall and even allowed Trump to divert funds from the Pentagon to that porous, wasteful barrier. In so doing, the Democrats legitimized one of the egregious, impeachable offenses Trump committed earlier this year when he seized $3.6 billion from the Pentagon’s budget in money not approved for the wall. The Washington Post reported that former secretary of the Navy Ray Mabus tweeted “As hurricane heads for Camp Lejeune Trump takes $3.6b from military for needless wall. Same amt Marines say needed to fix Lejeune after last storm.”
Trump usurped the Congressional “power of the purse,” to use James Madison’s phrase, under our Constitution. Unfortunately, Speaker Pelosi declined to charge Trump with this and other similarly impeachable spending violations. Now we know one reason why—the ongoing secret budget deal.
Just as astonishing was that the Democrats caved on the funding for Obamacare. Year after year, Democratic leaders defended Obamacare, rather than support more efficient full Medicare for All (with free choice of doctor and hospital). See H.R. 1384 for the most recent version of Medicare for All.
With the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals just deciding against the individual mandate in Obamacare, what does the House Democratic leadership do? They go along with the Republicans’ demand to repeal the medical device and health insurance taxes that were helping to fund Obamacare’s expansion of health insurance coverage for twenty million people.
It gets worse. The House Democrats approved a huge increase of $22 billion to the already bloated, wasteful military budget in return for Trump approving paid family leave for federal government employees. The Democrats made this deal instead of just pushing for paid maternity leave, a right provided in all other Western democracies and numerous dictatorships in the world!
“No problem,” say the feeble Democrats. It is just more of the terrible practice by the Democrats of giving equal increases for the military budget, demanded by the Republican illegal war hawks, as the price for social service funds for low income families and children. What a grotesque way to spend taxpayer money!
To what level has this Congress lowered itself? Allowing the Trump dump to contaminate Congress even extends to cruel bigotry. They allowed Trump to extend his racist discrimination against the American citizens of Puerto Rico by reducing the Medicaid funds from $12 billion over four years to up to $5.7 billion over two years. The higher sum and longer term already were endorsed by Republican and Democratic leaders on two Congressional Committees.
Robert Greenstein, director of the highly respected Center on Budget and policy priorities, declared that “with another funding cliff looming in two years under the new agreement, Puerto Rico may continue to lack the certainty it needs to commit to long-term increases of its very low payment rates to health care providers [vendors] to stem their alarming exodus to the mainland, to provide coverage for such key health treatments as drugs to treat Hepatitis C, and to cover more poor, uninsured residents.”
Over the years, Congress has weakened its exclusive constitutional “power of the purse” by giving presidents waivers. As with the war powers, Congress has delegated more of its constitutional authority to the Executive Branch.
Just days ago, the racist President Trump bragged before a large campaign rally that he has cut off “six hundred million dollars” in aid for Palestinian relief, including aid for suffering children. This was a long term assistance program, under past Republican and Democratic administrations, to help provide the barest necessities to displaced and impoverished Palestinians whose territories are blockaded or militarily occupied by the Israeli government.
Washington justified such expenditures for both humanitarian and security purposes. No more, says the imperial Trump, exercising his Congressionally-granted waiver.
Congress has also long abandoned its constitutional authority over tariffs to the imperial presidency. Constitutional litigator Alan Morrison has challenged the White House’s unilateral imposition of tariffs—now involving tens of billions of dollars—on imports from foreign countries. In January Morrison will argue before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit that the authority to impose tariffs belongs to Congress.
What is Trump doing with these tens of billions of dollars deposited in the U.S. Treasury? Congress has not approved spending them for any programs or objectives. When I asked a staffer with the House Budget Committee what is being done with loads of money, she replied that “we have it under study.”
Secret government has its direct consequences for the American people, and abdication of congressional checks on the Executive Branch is harmful and cowardly.
Had the budget been deliberated in open Congressional hearings, the media would have reported on this backroom deal and the people of this country would have had a chance to weigh in during the proceedings. Instead, a degraded Congress pulled a fast one on the citizens. This obfuscation is especially unacceptable considering that these lawmakers work only three days a week at best— when they are not in recess altogether.
Astoundingly the Democrats also caved in on Trump’s wall! After blocking Trump’s funding demand for the wall for three years, the Democrats approved $1.4 billion for the wall and even allowed Trump to divert funds from the Pentagon to that porous, wasteful barrier. In so doing, the Democrats legitimized one of the egregious, impeachable offenses Trump committed earlier this year when he seized $3.6 billion from the Pentagon’s budget in money not approved for the wall. The Washington Post reported that former secretary of the Navy Ray Mabus tweeted “As hurricane heads for Camp Lejeune Trump takes $3.6b from military for needless wall. Same amt Marines say needed to fix Lejeune after last storm.”
Trump usurped the Congressional “power of the purse,” to use James Madison’s phrase, under our Constitution. Unfortunately, Speaker Pelosi declined to charge Trump with this and other similarly impeachable spending violations. Now we know one reason why—the ongoing secret budget deal.
Just as astonishing was that the Democrats caved on the funding for Obamacare. Year after year, Democratic leaders defended Obamacare, rather than support more efficient full Medicare for All (with free choice of doctor and hospital). See H.R. 1384 for the most recent version of Medicare for All.
With the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals just deciding against the individual mandate in Obamacare, what does the House Democratic leadership do? They go along with the Republicans’ demand to repeal the medical device and health insurance taxes that were helping to fund Obamacare’s expansion of health insurance coverage for twenty million people.
It gets worse. The House Democrats approved a huge increase of $22 billion to the already bloated, wasteful military budget in return for Trump approving paid family leave for federal government employees. The Democrats made this deal instead of just pushing for paid maternity leave, a right provided in all other Western democracies and numerous dictatorships in the world!
“No problem,” say the feeble Democrats. It is just more of the terrible practice by the Democrats of giving equal increases for the military budget, demanded by the Republican illegal war hawks, as the price for social service funds for low income families and children. What a grotesque way to spend taxpayer money!
To what level has this Congress lowered itself? Allowing the Trump dump to contaminate Congress even extends to cruel bigotry. They allowed Trump to extend his racist discrimination against the American citizens of Puerto Rico by reducing the Medicaid funds from $12 billion over four years to up to $5.7 billion over two years. The higher sum and longer term already were endorsed by Republican and Democratic leaders on two Congressional Committees.
Robert Greenstein, director of the highly respected Center on Budget and policy priorities, declared that “with another funding cliff looming in two years under the new agreement, Puerto Rico may continue to lack the certainty it needs to commit to long-term increases of its very low payment rates to health care providers [vendors] to stem their alarming exodus to the mainland, to provide coverage for such key health treatments as drugs to treat Hepatitis C, and to cover more poor, uninsured residents.”
Over the years, Congress has weakened its exclusive constitutional “power of the purse” by giving presidents waivers. As with the war powers, Congress has delegated more of its constitutional authority to the Executive Branch.
Just days ago, the racist President Trump bragged before a large campaign rally that he has cut off “six hundred million dollars” in aid for Palestinian relief, including aid for suffering children. This was a long term assistance program, under past Republican and Democratic administrations, to help provide the barest necessities to displaced and impoverished Palestinians whose territories are blockaded or militarily occupied by the Israeli government.
Washington justified such expenditures for both humanitarian and security purposes. No more, says the imperial Trump, exercising his Congressionally-granted waiver.
Congress has also long abandoned its constitutional authority over tariffs to the imperial presidency. Constitutional litigator Alan Morrison has challenged the White House’s unilateral imposition of tariffs—now involving tens of billions of dollars—on imports from foreign countries. In January Morrison will argue before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit that the authority to impose tariffs belongs to Congress.
What is Trump doing with these tens of billions of dollars deposited in the U.S. Treasury? Congress has not approved spending them for any programs or objectives. When I asked a staffer with the House Budget Committee what is being done with loads of money, she replied that “we have it under study.”
Secret government has its direct consequences for the American people, and abdication of congressional checks on the Executive Branch is harmful and cowardly.
GABBARD VOTES "PRESENT" ON IMPEACHMENT
“That’s just stupid”: Tulsi Gabbard baffles Democrats after she votes “present” on Trump impeachment
"We were sent here to lead," Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said as she questioned why Gabbard didn't "take a stand"
IGOR DERYSH - salon
DECEMBER 19, 2019 2:55PM (UTC)
Dep. Tulsi Gabbard, D-Hawaii, came under fire from her Democratic colleagues after casting the lone “present” vote on both articles of impeachment against President Donald Trump.
The House voted 230-197-1 to impeach Trump for abuse of power and 229-198-1 to impeach Trump for obstruction of Congress. Gabbard, who is currently seeking the Democratic Party's nomination for the White House, cast the lone “present” vote on both articles.
Two Democrats voted against the abuse of power charge, while three voted against the obstruction of Congress charge. No Republicans broke party ranks, though former Republican Rep. Justin Amash of Michigan, who is now an independent, voted with Democrats.
Gabbard, who has repeatedly expressed reluctance of the impeachment process, instead advocated for Trump’s censure. She skipped the House procedural votes in the morning and did not appear in the chamber until the end of the vote on the first article of impeachment.
“Tulsi Gabbard, who was mysteriously missing all day, is in the chamber and has voted 'present,'" MSNBC anchor Brian Williams reported during the network’s coverage of the vote.
“That’s just stupid,” former Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., said. “I mean, what is the point? I don’t know what this woman thinks she’s accomplishing by that. I guess getting attention. We’re talking about her, and really we shouldn’t spend any time talking about her.”
Gabbard said in a statement after reviewing the 658-page impeachment report, “I came to the conclusion that I could not in good conscience vote either, 'yes' or 'no.'”
“I am standing in the center and have decided to vote 'present,'” she said. “I could not in good conscience vote against impeachment, because I believe President Trump is guilty of wrongdoing. I also could not in good conscience vote for impeachment, because removal of a sitting president must not be the culmination of a partisan process fueled by tribal animosities that have so gravely divided our country.”
Gabbard reiterated her call for a vote on her censure resolution.
“Trump has violated public trust. Congress must be unequivocal in denouncing the president’s misconduct and stand up for the American people and our democracy," she said. "To this end, I have introduced a censure resolution that will send a strong message to this president.”
She added that her 'present' vote was a “vote for much needed reconciliation and hope that together we can heal our country.”
MSNBC reporter Garrett Haake pointed out that the statement was released by her presidential campaign — not her House office — “which tells you quite a bit.”
“Not sure how [Gabbard] can defend a ‘present’ vote on impeachment,” he tweeted. “One of the most consequential votes in any politician’s career and you can’t make a call one way or another? Why even be there, collecting a taxpayer-funded paycheck?”
Gabbard’s House colleagues were also not impressed with her decision.
“Today was very consequential, and to not take a stand one way or another on a day of such great consequence to this country, I think is quite difficult. We are sent here to lead,” Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., told BuzzFeed News after the vote. “Whenever we have a vote, we should vote ‘yes,’ and we should vote ‘no.’ Voting ‘present’ is a very tough position to be in. To not take a stand in a moment that is so consequential — I think it’s quite difficult.”
Gabbard countered criticism in a video posted to social media.
“I’ve always worked to do what is in the best interest of our country — not what’s best for me politically, not what’s best for my political party,” she said. “One may not always agree with my decisions, but everyone should know that I will always do what I believe to be right for the country that I love.”
Gabbard has long been a source of consternation among Democrats. She came under fire after traveling to Syria in 2017 to meet with President Bashar al-Assad, who has been accused of multiple war crimes. She has frequently appeared on Fox News, where she often criticized former Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton in addition to impeachment.
ABC News political analyst Matthew Dowd called the 'present' vote “about the worst decision you can make in this important moment in history.”
He added, “How does she run in the Democratic primary after this?”
Others could not help but notice the pointed look on Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi’s face after she read the lone 'present' vote.
The House voted 230-197-1 to impeach Trump for abuse of power and 229-198-1 to impeach Trump for obstruction of Congress. Gabbard, who is currently seeking the Democratic Party's nomination for the White House, cast the lone “present” vote on both articles.
Two Democrats voted against the abuse of power charge, while three voted against the obstruction of Congress charge. No Republicans broke party ranks, though former Republican Rep. Justin Amash of Michigan, who is now an independent, voted with Democrats.
Gabbard, who has repeatedly expressed reluctance of the impeachment process, instead advocated for Trump’s censure. She skipped the House procedural votes in the morning and did not appear in the chamber until the end of the vote on the first article of impeachment.
“Tulsi Gabbard, who was mysteriously missing all day, is in the chamber and has voted 'present,'" MSNBC anchor Brian Williams reported during the network’s coverage of the vote.
“That’s just stupid,” former Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., said. “I mean, what is the point? I don’t know what this woman thinks she’s accomplishing by that. I guess getting attention. We’re talking about her, and really we shouldn’t spend any time talking about her.”
Gabbard said in a statement after reviewing the 658-page impeachment report, “I came to the conclusion that I could not in good conscience vote either, 'yes' or 'no.'”
“I am standing in the center and have decided to vote 'present,'” she said. “I could not in good conscience vote against impeachment, because I believe President Trump is guilty of wrongdoing. I also could not in good conscience vote for impeachment, because removal of a sitting president must not be the culmination of a partisan process fueled by tribal animosities that have so gravely divided our country.”
Gabbard reiterated her call for a vote on her censure resolution.
“Trump has violated public trust. Congress must be unequivocal in denouncing the president’s misconduct and stand up for the American people and our democracy," she said. "To this end, I have introduced a censure resolution that will send a strong message to this president.”
She added that her 'present' vote was a “vote for much needed reconciliation and hope that together we can heal our country.”
MSNBC reporter Garrett Haake pointed out that the statement was released by her presidential campaign — not her House office — “which tells you quite a bit.”
“Not sure how [Gabbard] can defend a ‘present’ vote on impeachment,” he tweeted. “One of the most consequential votes in any politician’s career and you can’t make a call one way or another? Why even be there, collecting a taxpayer-funded paycheck?”
Gabbard’s House colleagues were also not impressed with her decision.
“Today was very consequential, and to not take a stand one way or another on a day of such great consequence to this country, I think is quite difficult. We are sent here to lead,” Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., told BuzzFeed News after the vote. “Whenever we have a vote, we should vote ‘yes,’ and we should vote ‘no.’ Voting ‘present’ is a very tough position to be in. To not take a stand in a moment that is so consequential — I think it’s quite difficult.”
Gabbard countered criticism in a video posted to social media.
“I’ve always worked to do what is in the best interest of our country — not what’s best for me politically, not what’s best for my political party,” she said. “One may not always agree with my decisions, but everyone should know that I will always do what I believe to be right for the country that I love.”
Gabbard has long been a source of consternation among Democrats. She came under fire after traveling to Syria in 2017 to meet with President Bashar al-Assad, who has been accused of multiple war crimes. She has frequently appeared on Fox News, where she often criticized former Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton in addition to impeachment.
ABC News political analyst Matthew Dowd called the 'present' vote “about the worst decision you can make in this important moment in history.”
He added, “How does she run in the Democratic primary after this?”
Others could not help but notice the pointed look on Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi’s face after she read the lone 'present' vote.
Top Dem accused of putting private equity before sick and poor by killing effort to end ‘devastating’ surprise medical bills
December 17, 2019
By Jake Johnson, Common Dreams - raw story
One critic said Rep. Richard Neal, the Democratic chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, is “actively helping private equity-owned doctor groups rip off and destroy the lives of people at their most vulnerable.”
Rep. Richard Neal, Democratic chairman of the powerful House Ways and Means Committee, teamed up with a Republican ally last week to effectively torpedo bipartisan legislation that aimed to curb surprise medical bills—a major source of financial pain for people who experience medical emergencies and other serious ailments.
Last Sunday, the House Energy and Commerce Committee and the Senate Health Committee announced a bipartisan agreement on legislation to shield the U.S. public from the “devastating financial toll of surprise medical bills.”
The chairmen of the two committees, Rep. Frank Pallone (D-N.J.) and Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.), expressed hope that the legislation would be included in the must-pass spending legislation Congress is expected to approve by Friday.
“Every day that goes by is another loss for America’s families and another win for private equity.”
—Shawn Gremminger, Families USA
But Neal, who has received tens of thousands of dollars in campaign donations from a private equity group opposed to the Pallone-Alexander measure, had other plans.
Three days after Pallone and Alexander announced their agreement, Neal and Rep. Kevin Brady (R-Tex.), the top Republican on Ways and Means, countered with a more industry-friendly plan that would place billing decisions in the hands of a third-party arbiter, an idea favored by powerful hospital and doctor groups.
The Hill reported last Friday that surprise billing legislation will not be in the year-end spending measure, which does include big tax breaks for the healthcare industry.
“With the key committees in the House pushing competing ideas, leadership is waiting until next year” to act on surprise medical billing, The Hill noted.
Neal and Brady’s announcement of competing legislation sparked outrage among members of Congress and outside progressives who said delaying action on surprise billing until 2020 could kill any hopes of a solution.
“Every day that goes by is another loss for America’s families and another win for private equity,” said Shawn Gremminger, senior director of federal affairs for consumer group Families USA. “The primary committees of jurisdiction have been negotiating a deal for months and now there is a bipartisan, bicameral bill on the table that has the support of the White House and can pass by Dec. 20.”
Families USA✔
@FamiliesUSA
Delaying a bill is a win for private equity and a loss for patients. @RepRichardNeal, why won't you support the strong bipartisan deal agreed to by House and Senate leaders that's on the table! #SurpriseMedicalBill
12:18 PM - Dec 12, 2019
Freelance journalist Jon Walker said that by thwarting the effort to curb surprise medical billing before the end of the year, Neal is “actively helping private equity-owned doctor groups rip off and destroy the lives of people at their most vulnerable.”
“Let’s be clear about what is happening,” Walker tweeted. “Democrats pretend they want to improve healthcare and when they have a chance they take the side of wealthy for-profit companies with the most ghoulish business practices imaginable.”
“At the eleventh hour, turf wars in the House and corporate special interests appear to be standing in the way of passing these vital protections for patients into law.”
—Spokeswoman for Sen. Maggie Hassan (D-N.H.)
Surprise medical bills often come after a patient receives treatment from a doctor or hospital outside the network covered by their insurance plan.
Under the Pallone-Alexander agreement, the New York Times reported, “doctors who provide care that is out-of-network for a patient’s insurance [would] automatically be paid the median price of in-network doctors in the area” instead of the exorbitant prices under the status quo.
Hospital and doctor groups backed by private equity have spent millions of dollars lobbying against congressional action to tackle surprise medical billing, worrying that legislation could cut into their profits.
Blackstone Group, a private equity firm that owns the physician staffing organization TeamHealth, donated $29,000 to Neal’s 2020 reelection campaign this year, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.
A spokeswoman for Sen. Maggie Hassan (D-N.H.), who worked on the Senate Health Committee proposal, told The Hill that it is “extremely disappointing that now, at the eleventh hour, turf wars in the House and corporate special interests appear to be standing in the way of passing these vital protections for patients into law.”
Rep. Greg Walden (R-Ore.) expressed similar disappointment. “You wonder who made the call to stop our bill, but clearly the best interest of the patient is not at heart,” Walden told The Hill.
Others said House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) shares a portion of the blame for failing to overrule Neal.
“Nancy Pelosi allowing Rep. Neal to kill surprise billing protection to pay back his big [private equity] donors is the most disgusting story in D.C. right now,” said Walker.
Rep. Richard Neal, Democratic chairman of the powerful House Ways and Means Committee, teamed up with a Republican ally last week to effectively torpedo bipartisan legislation that aimed to curb surprise medical bills—a major source of financial pain for people who experience medical emergencies and other serious ailments.
Last Sunday, the House Energy and Commerce Committee and the Senate Health Committee announced a bipartisan agreement on legislation to shield the U.S. public from the “devastating financial toll of surprise medical bills.”
The chairmen of the two committees, Rep. Frank Pallone (D-N.J.) and Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.), expressed hope that the legislation would be included in the must-pass spending legislation Congress is expected to approve by Friday.
“Every day that goes by is another loss for America’s families and another win for private equity.”
—Shawn Gremminger, Families USA
But Neal, who has received tens of thousands of dollars in campaign donations from a private equity group opposed to the Pallone-Alexander measure, had other plans.
Three days after Pallone and Alexander announced their agreement, Neal and Rep. Kevin Brady (R-Tex.), the top Republican on Ways and Means, countered with a more industry-friendly plan that would place billing decisions in the hands of a third-party arbiter, an idea favored by powerful hospital and doctor groups.
The Hill reported last Friday that surprise billing legislation will not be in the year-end spending measure, which does include big tax breaks for the healthcare industry.
“With the key committees in the House pushing competing ideas, leadership is waiting until next year” to act on surprise medical billing, The Hill noted.
Neal and Brady’s announcement of competing legislation sparked outrage among members of Congress and outside progressives who said delaying action on surprise billing until 2020 could kill any hopes of a solution.
“Every day that goes by is another loss for America’s families and another win for private equity,” said Shawn Gremminger, senior director of federal affairs for consumer group Families USA. “The primary committees of jurisdiction have been negotiating a deal for months and now there is a bipartisan, bicameral bill on the table that has the support of the White House and can pass by Dec. 20.”
Families USA✔
@FamiliesUSA
Delaying a bill is a win for private equity and a loss for patients. @RepRichardNeal, why won't you support the strong bipartisan deal agreed to by House and Senate leaders that's on the table! #SurpriseMedicalBill
12:18 PM - Dec 12, 2019
Freelance journalist Jon Walker said that by thwarting the effort to curb surprise medical billing before the end of the year, Neal is “actively helping private equity-owned doctor groups rip off and destroy the lives of people at their most vulnerable.”
“Let’s be clear about what is happening,” Walker tweeted. “Democrats pretend they want to improve healthcare and when they have a chance they take the side of wealthy for-profit companies with the most ghoulish business practices imaginable.”
“At the eleventh hour, turf wars in the House and corporate special interests appear to be standing in the way of passing these vital protections for patients into law.”
—Spokeswoman for Sen. Maggie Hassan (D-N.H.)
Surprise medical bills often come after a patient receives treatment from a doctor or hospital outside the network covered by their insurance plan.
Under the Pallone-Alexander agreement, the New York Times reported, “doctors who provide care that is out-of-network for a patient’s insurance [would] automatically be paid the median price of in-network doctors in the area” instead of the exorbitant prices under the status quo.
Hospital and doctor groups backed by private equity have spent millions of dollars lobbying against congressional action to tackle surprise medical billing, worrying that legislation could cut into their profits.
Blackstone Group, a private equity firm that owns the physician staffing organization TeamHealth, donated $29,000 to Neal’s 2020 reelection campaign this year, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.
A spokeswoman for Sen. Maggie Hassan (D-N.H.), who worked on the Senate Health Committee proposal, told The Hill that it is “extremely disappointing that now, at the eleventh hour, turf wars in the House and corporate special interests appear to be standing in the way of passing these vital protections for patients into law.”
Rep. Greg Walden (R-Ore.) expressed similar disappointment. “You wonder who made the call to stop our bill, but clearly the best interest of the patient is not at heart,” Walden told The Hill.
Others said House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) shares a portion of the blame for failing to overrule Neal.
“Nancy Pelosi allowing Rep. Neal to kill surprise billing protection to pay back his big [private equity] donors is the most disgusting story in D.C. right now,” said Walker.
Wall Street banks court moderate Democrats to blunt Warren's hostility
Pete Schroeder - reuters
12/16/19
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Wall Street bank lobbyists are seeking moderate Democratic allies in Congress to deprive Elizabeth Warren of votes and curb policies they consider hostile to their interests, according to more than a dozen lobbyists, consultants and campaign data.
A leading Democratic 2020 presidential hopeful and fiery progressive, Warren has built her profile by attacking lenders like Wells Fargo & Co (WFC.N), Goldman Sachs Group Inc (GS.N) and Citigroup Inc (C.N).
Banks worry that even if the Massachusetts senator does not become the next U.S. president, she would wield major influence on financial policy in any Democratic administration.
“While a hostile White House could pose challenges, the banking industry is working to mitigate those challenges by using its considerable clout in Congress,” said Cam Fine, chief executive of advocacy consultancy Calvert Advisors and a longtime bank lobbyist.
On the campaign trail, Warren has proposed measures damaging for Wall Street, including breaking up big banks, taxing financial transactions, and reviving capital and liquidity rules weakened by the Trump administration.
She has also rejected corporate money, closing off a traditional avenue for influencing presidential candidates.
Lobbyists believe they can rely on Congressional Republicans to oppose Warren’s agenda, but they need to sway moderate Democrats to block any drastic legislation, especially in the Senate where most bills require 60% of the vote to pass.
Thirty-five Senate seats are up for re-election in 2020 and the winning party is expected to wield only a slim majority.
Banks are targeting Democrats on the U.S. Senate banking committee who need war chests for re-election bids, including Virginia’s Mark Warner and Alabama’s Doug Jones, as well as other senators with bipartisan track records such as Arizona’s Kyrsten Sinema and Michigan’s Gary Peters, lobbyists said.
Some Democrats, including Peters, have received more cash from banks this cycle than leading Republicans like Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, according to data from the Center for Responsive Politics.
“Elizabeth has a proven record of getting things done, even in the face of intense lobbying from corporate interests,” said a spokeswoman for Warren.
Warner declined to comment. Jones and Sinema did not respond to requests for comment.
A spokeswoman for Peters said he had helped lead efforts to hold Wall Street accountable and protect consumers, and would “continue to focus on doing what’s best for Michigan families, Main Street community banks and credit unions.”Of the $5.8 million that banks and their lobby groups have given to lawmakers’ campaigns so far this election cycle, 33% has gone to Democrats, the highest portion since 2010, the data shows.
“You can’t get lasting legislation done in this city without it being bipartisan,” said Tom Quaadman, an executive vice president at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce which this year said it would better reward lawmakers who focus on bipartisanship.
“That’s why we are making sure we have strong ties with both parties.”
The American Bankers Association, the biggest bank group donor which has dished out $1.5 million so far this cycle, also plans to fund campaign ads in support of moderate Republicans and Democrats in tight races, the sources said.
An ABA spokesman declined to comment.
ECONOMIC ROLE
Media savvy and a consumer finance expert, Warren has proved adept at wrongfooting big banks, shining a spotlight on their missteps and slamming regulators she says are too industry-friendly. Beyond blocking legislation, banks need advocates who will rebut Warren’s rhetoric, shield regulators from White House pressure to crackdown on them, and moderate the tone in Washington, the sources said.
Lobbyists are also courting lawmakers on the U.S. House of Representatives’ finance panel, such as Ohio’s Joyce Beatty, and those from districts with a significant financial footprint, including New York’s Gregory Meeks, Georgia’s David Scott and Connecticut’s Jim Himes.
The Financial Services Forum representing the eight largest U.S. banks has decided to give directly to lawmakers for the first time. In meetings, it has used data on bank lending and employment to emphasize the large role banks play in lawmakers’ constituencies and the broader economy, its CEO Kevin Fromer said in an interview.
The message is resonating with some lawmakers.
“To say ... banks are the evil people of the world would go against the interests of the communities I represent,” Meeks told Reuters.
He said he wants banks to operate fairly, but that Warren’s proposals to curtail the industry could reduce banking services in minority communities like those he represents in New York’s Queens borough. “We talk because I’d like banks to also invest in communities like mine,” he added.
Beatty, Scott and Himes did not respond to requests for comment.
Warren has argued that lax bank regulation can harm minorities, while vigorously defending rules that guard against discriminatory and predatory lending.
“This campaign is about building a grassroots movement of Democrats, Republicans, and Independents to hold Wall Street accountable and to produce an economy that works for everyone,” said Warren’s spokeswoman.
Wall Street has struggled since the 2007-2009 global financial crisis to rehabilitate its image in Washington and rebuild the Democratic support it once enjoyed. Some lobbyists are skeptical they will gain much ground. Many, though, said they have been encouraged by signs of a thaw after the industry in 2018 persuaded a group of moderate Democrats to back a rewrite of post-crisis rules, despite intense criticism from Warren.
“The industry is much more attuned to the political cycle this go-around,” said one consultant.
A leading Democratic 2020 presidential hopeful and fiery progressive, Warren has built her profile by attacking lenders like Wells Fargo & Co (WFC.N), Goldman Sachs Group Inc (GS.N) and Citigroup Inc (C.N).
Banks worry that even if the Massachusetts senator does not become the next U.S. president, she would wield major influence on financial policy in any Democratic administration.
“While a hostile White House could pose challenges, the banking industry is working to mitigate those challenges by using its considerable clout in Congress,” said Cam Fine, chief executive of advocacy consultancy Calvert Advisors and a longtime bank lobbyist.
On the campaign trail, Warren has proposed measures damaging for Wall Street, including breaking up big banks, taxing financial transactions, and reviving capital and liquidity rules weakened by the Trump administration.
She has also rejected corporate money, closing off a traditional avenue for influencing presidential candidates.
Lobbyists believe they can rely on Congressional Republicans to oppose Warren’s agenda, but they need to sway moderate Democrats to block any drastic legislation, especially in the Senate where most bills require 60% of the vote to pass.
Thirty-five Senate seats are up for re-election in 2020 and the winning party is expected to wield only a slim majority.
Banks are targeting Democrats on the U.S. Senate banking committee who need war chests for re-election bids, including Virginia’s Mark Warner and Alabama’s Doug Jones, as well as other senators with bipartisan track records such as Arizona’s Kyrsten Sinema and Michigan’s Gary Peters, lobbyists said.
Some Democrats, including Peters, have received more cash from banks this cycle than leading Republicans like Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, according to data from the Center for Responsive Politics.
“Elizabeth has a proven record of getting things done, even in the face of intense lobbying from corporate interests,” said a spokeswoman for Warren.
Warner declined to comment. Jones and Sinema did not respond to requests for comment.
A spokeswoman for Peters said he had helped lead efforts to hold Wall Street accountable and protect consumers, and would “continue to focus on doing what’s best for Michigan families, Main Street community banks and credit unions.”Of the $5.8 million that banks and their lobby groups have given to lawmakers’ campaigns so far this election cycle, 33% has gone to Democrats, the highest portion since 2010, the data shows.
“You can’t get lasting legislation done in this city without it being bipartisan,” said Tom Quaadman, an executive vice president at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce which this year said it would better reward lawmakers who focus on bipartisanship.
“That’s why we are making sure we have strong ties with both parties.”
The American Bankers Association, the biggest bank group donor which has dished out $1.5 million so far this cycle, also plans to fund campaign ads in support of moderate Republicans and Democrats in tight races, the sources said.
An ABA spokesman declined to comment.
ECONOMIC ROLE
Media savvy and a consumer finance expert, Warren has proved adept at wrongfooting big banks, shining a spotlight on their missteps and slamming regulators she says are too industry-friendly. Beyond blocking legislation, banks need advocates who will rebut Warren’s rhetoric, shield regulators from White House pressure to crackdown on them, and moderate the tone in Washington, the sources said.
Lobbyists are also courting lawmakers on the U.S. House of Representatives’ finance panel, such as Ohio’s Joyce Beatty, and those from districts with a significant financial footprint, including New York’s Gregory Meeks, Georgia’s David Scott and Connecticut’s Jim Himes.
The Financial Services Forum representing the eight largest U.S. banks has decided to give directly to lawmakers for the first time. In meetings, it has used data on bank lending and employment to emphasize the large role banks play in lawmakers’ constituencies and the broader economy, its CEO Kevin Fromer said in an interview.
The message is resonating with some lawmakers.
“To say ... banks are the evil people of the world would go against the interests of the communities I represent,” Meeks told Reuters.
He said he wants banks to operate fairly, but that Warren’s proposals to curtail the industry could reduce banking services in minority communities like those he represents in New York’s Queens borough. “We talk because I’d like banks to also invest in communities like mine,” he added.
Beatty, Scott and Himes did not respond to requests for comment.
Warren has argued that lax bank regulation can harm minorities, while vigorously defending rules that guard against discriminatory and predatory lending.
“This campaign is about building a grassroots movement of Democrats, Republicans, and Independents to hold Wall Street accountable and to produce an economy that works for everyone,” said Warren’s spokeswoman.
Wall Street has struggled since the 2007-2009 global financial crisis to rehabilitate its image in Washington and rebuild the Democratic support it once enjoyed. Some lobbyists are skeptical they will gain much ground. Many, though, said they have been encouraged by signs of a thaw after the industry in 2018 persuaded a group of moderate Democrats to back a rewrite of post-crisis rules, despite intense criticism from Warren.
“The industry is much more attuned to the political cycle this go-around,” said one consultant.
TRUMP-FRIENDLY CALIFORNIA DEMOCRAT IS FACING HIS FIRST SERIOUS PRIMARY CHALLENGER
Aída Chávez - the intercept
December 15 2019, 4:00 a.m.
IN 2004, California Rep. Jim Costa won his seat in the 20th Congressional District following a contentious primary battle against Lisa Quigley. Though the experienced Quigley had the backing of EMILY’s List and the endorsement of the retiring representative, Calvin Dooley, who was also her boss, the party establishment had largely rallied behind Costa.
“She’s a politician,” Costa, a former state senator, told the Los Angeles Times. “Now she’s trying to become an elected politician.” Costa had worked in the state legislature for over 20 years. He wrote and introduced the legislative version of what would later become the state’s notorious “three-strikes” law, aimed at imposing harsher sentences for crimes. Quigley was a 38-year-old Capitol Hill staffer and mother.
Late in the race, when the candidates were neck-and-neck in fundraising, the real estate industry dumped more than $270,000 in radio and TV ads for Costa. As a state senator, Costa had led the effort to ban most kinds of rent control in California. The disastrous 1995 law, known as the Costa-Hawkins Rental Housing Act, strictly limits the rent control policies cities and countries can impose, incentivizes evictions, and is widely blamed for contributing to California’s affordable housing crisis. “We’re certainly doing our best to see Senator Costa wins,” the vice president of the National Association of Realtors, Steve Cook, said at the time.
Now, 14 years later, Costa has proven to be one of the most conservative Democrats in the House. In January 2017, he became a leader of the Blue Dog Coalition, which partnered with the party’s campaign arm to recruit and push congressional candidates to the right heading into the midterm elections, despite representing a reliably blue district. Since 2016, he has voted along with President Donald Trump’s agenda nearly half the time, according to one estimate of the 115th Congress.
He’s one of just a handful of Democrats who have joined Republicans in voting to erode environmental regulations, defend U.S. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement, and stall action on Saudi Arabia’s war in Yemen. While most House Democrats were working on articles of impeachment, Axios reported, Costa was one of six who decided to attend Trump’s White House congressional holiday ball. (Costa’s campaign did not return a request for comment.)
Next year, Costa will face the first serious primary challenge of his congressional career. Fresno City Councilmember Esmeralda Soria, a daughter of Mexican immigrant farmworkers, is aiming to unseat the eight-term incumbent. Costa has only ever had to fend off Republican opponents, and in 2014, almost lost his safe seat to an obscure, underfunded GOP challenger.
Soria hopes to capitalize on recent pushback to Costa’s policies. Though a ballot measure to repeal the Costa-Hawkins Act was defeated last year, progressive activists’ work finally paid off in mid-September when California became the second state to institute a rent-control law. (The three-strikes law, which was significantly reformed in 2012, still disproportionately hurts communities of color.)
Both the party establishment and industry, as in 2004, are rallying behind Costa. California Sens. Kamala Harris and Dianne Feinstein have both endorsed him, along with state Attorney General Xavier Becerra. Recently, California Gov. Gavin Newsom began fundraising for Costa, reportedly headlining a fundraiser for the congressman earlier this month.
Costa’s biggest industry support comes from agriculture and oil and gas, and his long anti-environmental record has given him one of the lowest lifetime scores of any congressional Democrat from the League of Conservation Voters. Notably, he was one of 28 Democrats who voted to authorize the construction of the controversial Keystone XL pipeline in 2015. As Alex Kotch recently wrote in the investigative outlet Sludge, Costa is one of Koch Industries’ favorite congressional Democrats, and is one of only four Democrats who received money from the Koch’s corporate PAC after the 2014 election cycle.
There’s reason to believe Soria’s challenge is credible. Last month, Soria narrowly blocked Costa from winning the California Democratic Party’s early endorsement for the March primary, receiving 46 percent of the vote to his 49 percent. “That was huge for us, a huge win, because now the DCCC has to stay out of the race,” she said.
Soria, meanwhile, has won endorsements from State Sen. Anna Caballero, which she announced in late October, and labor groups, including IBEW Local 100, Carpenters 701, and Teamsters 431. Curiously, Costa’s campaign announced an endorsement from Caballero in late November. (Soria confirmed it was a dual endorsement, also known as “pulling a Ro Khanna.”) Two other candidates, Republican Kevin Cookingham and Democrat Kim Williams, have also announced they’re running in the 16th district race.
“People are pretty excited to hear that I’m running, and people finally feel — this is what they tell me — ‘Oh my God, we finally have a choice, we’ve never had a choice,’” Soria said. “And it’s being well-received across the board so that’s what motivates me and excites me because it is time for change in our community. I represent the future, and I’ve been doing the work here locally.”
Though the 37-year-old hopeful has called herself an “unapologetic progressive” and is running on a platform undeniably to the left of Costa’s, there isn’t anything particularly radical about her campaign. She has sworn off corporate PAC money, supports Medicare for All, and told The Intercept she supports the “principles” of the Green New Deal. But she’s also been described as “business friendly” and supportive of law enforcement during her time on the Fresno City Council.
Though Costa maintains a fundraising advantage over his opponents, with more than $575,500 cash on hand, Soria’s campaign has already raised over $150,000 in a third-quarter haul fueled primarily by small individual donors, according to recent FEC filings.
“Jim is out of touch,” Soria said. “He’s been there for a very long time, he hasn’t had to worry about having health care, he hasn’t had to worry about having a pension, he hasn’t had to worry about paying college debt. I am the living example of what today’s families are experiencing — I have six figures in college debt. That’s a big issue in our community, affordability.”
Soria said that she had been thinking about running for Congress because “things haven’t changed for the better in the community,” but was ultimately convinced when she reflected on the challenges her own family was facing.
Her father recently quit his job to care for her mother, who has Alzheimer’s disease. “My dad didn’t have a real pension and now he’s relying on being my mom’s home care worker, getting paid 20 hours a week on minimum wage,” she said. “And the increase in prescription costs, that became a very apparent issue in my family.”
“So what I realized was that the issue that my family is going through is no different than the majority of the working people in this district,” she continued. “In my opinion, we need a stronger voice, a voice that will represent working families and not corporate interests, and I think that is what has been the problem.”
“She’s a politician,” Costa, a former state senator, told the Los Angeles Times. “Now she’s trying to become an elected politician.” Costa had worked in the state legislature for over 20 years. He wrote and introduced the legislative version of what would later become the state’s notorious “three-strikes” law, aimed at imposing harsher sentences for crimes. Quigley was a 38-year-old Capitol Hill staffer and mother.
Late in the race, when the candidates were neck-and-neck in fundraising, the real estate industry dumped more than $270,000 in radio and TV ads for Costa. As a state senator, Costa had led the effort to ban most kinds of rent control in California. The disastrous 1995 law, known as the Costa-Hawkins Rental Housing Act, strictly limits the rent control policies cities and countries can impose, incentivizes evictions, and is widely blamed for contributing to California’s affordable housing crisis. “We’re certainly doing our best to see Senator Costa wins,” the vice president of the National Association of Realtors, Steve Cook, said at the time.
Now, 14 years later, Costa has proven to be one of the most conservative Democrats in the House. In January 2017, he became a leader of the Blue Dog Coalition, which partnered with the party’s campaign arm to recruit and push congressional candidates to the right heading into the midterm elections, despite representing a reliably blue district. Since 2016, he has voted along with President Donald Trump’s agenda nearly half the time, according to one estimate of the 115th Congress.
He’s one of just a handful of Democrats who have joined Republicans in voting to erode environmental regulations, defend U.S. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement, and stall action on Saudi Arabia’s war in Yemen. While most House Democrats were working on articles of impeachment, Axios reported, Costa was one of six who decided to attend Trump’s White House congressional holiday ball. (Costa’s campaign did not return a request for comment.)
Next year, Costa will face the first serious primary challenge of his congressional career. Fresno City Councilmember Esmeralda Soria, a daughter of Mexican immigrant farmworkers, is aiming to unseat the eight-term incumbent. Costa has only ever had to fend off Republican opponents, and in 2014, almost lost his safe seat to an obscure, underfunded GOP challenger.
Soria hopes to capitalize on recent pushback to Costa’s policies. Though a ballot measure to repeal the Costa-Hawkins Act was defeated last year, progressive activists’ work finally paid off in mid-September when California became the second state to institute a rent-control law. (The three-strikes law, which was significantly reformed in 2012, still disproportionately hurts communities of color.)
Both the party establishment and industry, as in 2004, are rallying behind Costa. California Sens. Kamala Harris and Dianne Feinstein have both endorsed him, along with state Attorney General Xavier Becerra. Recently, California Gov. Gavin Newsom began fundraising for Costa, reportedly headlining a fundraiser for the congressman earlier this month.
Costa’s biggest industry support comes from agriculture and oil and gas, and his long anti-environmental record has given him one of the lowest lifetime scores of any congressional Democrat from the League of Conservation Voters. Notably, he was one of 28 Democrats who voted to authorize the construction of the controversial Keystone XL pipeline in 2015. As Alex Kotch recently wrote in the investigative outlet Sludge, Costa is one of Koch Industries’ favorite congressional Democrats, and is one of only four Democrats who received money from the Koch’s corporate PAC after the 2014 election cycle.
There’s reason to believe Soria’s challenge is credible. Last month, Soria narrowly blocked Costa from winning the California Democratic Party’s early endorsement for the March primary, receiving 46 percent of the vote to his 49 percent. “That was huge for us, a huge win, because now the DCCC has to stay out of the race,” she said.
Soria, meanwhile, has won endorsements from State Sen. Anna Caballero, which she announced in late October, and labor groups, including IBEW Local 100, Carpenters 701, and Teamsters 431. Curiously, Costa’s campaign announced an endorsement from Caballero in late November. (Soria confirmed it was a dual endorsement, also known as “pulling a Ro Khanna.”) Two other candidates, Republican Kevin Cookingham and Democrat Kim Williams, have also announced they’re running in the 16th district race.
“People are pretty excited to hear that I’m running, and people finally feel — this is what they tell me — ‘Oh my God, we finally have a choice, we’ve never had a choice,’” Soria said. “And it’s being well-received across the board so that’s what motivates me and excites me because it is time for change in our community. I represent the future, and I’ve been doing the work here locally.”
Though the 37-year-old hopeful has called herself an “unapologetic progressive” and is running on a platform undeniably to the left of Costa’s, there isn’t anything particularly radical about her campaign. She has sworn off corporate PAC money, supports Medicare for All, and told The Intercept she supports the “principles” of the Green New Deal. But she’s also been described as “business friendly” and supportive of law enforcement during her time on the Fresno City Council.
Though Costa maintains a fundraising advantage over his opponents, with more than $575,500 cash on hand, Soria’s campaign has already raised over $150,000 in a third-quarter haul fueled primarily by small individual donors, according to recent FEC filings.
“Jim is out of touch,” Soria said. “He’s been there for a very long time, he hasn’t had to worry about having health care, he hasn’t had to worry about having a pension, he hasn’t had to worry about paying college debt. I am the living example of what today’s families are experiencing — I have six figures in college debt. That’s a big issue in our community, affordability.”
Soria said that she had been thinking about running for Congress because “things haven’t changed for the better in the community,” but was ultimately convinced when she reflected on the challenges her own family was facing.
Her father recently quit his job to care for her mother, who has Alzheimer’s disease. “My dad didn’t have a real pension and now he’s relying on being my mom’s home care worker, getting paid 20 hours a week on minimum wage,” she said. “And the increase in prescription costs, that became a very apparent issue in my family.”
“So what I realized was that the issue that my family is going through is no different than the majority of the working people in this district,” she continued. “In my opinion, we need a stronger voice, a voice that will represent working families and not corporate interests, and I think that is what has been the problem.”
Press Watch: Democrats who are undecided on impeachment aren't "moderates." They're hacks
Democrats from Trump districts are wobbly on impeachment — but let's not pretend they're motivated by principle
DAN FROOMKIN - salon
DECEMBER 12, 2019 8:30PM (UTC)
What can we conclude about those few Democratic congressional representatives who claim they haven’t decided yet how to vote on impeachment?
We can conclude that they lack consistent principles.
We can conclude that, in the face of overwhelming evidence, they have chosen neither to accept it, like almost all the other members of their party, nor to ignore it, like all the members of the other party.
We can therefore conclude that they are instead making up their minds based on something else entirely.
And we can easily conclude what that is: They are basing their votes on what they think they need to do to win re-election. They are not looking into their souls. They are sticking a finger up into the wind.
Republican members of Congress at least have an intellectually consistent reason to vote against impeachment: They have chosen to throw in their lot with Trump, quite literally no matter what.
But these Democrats are in a special category. You could call them political hacks. You could call them unprincipled, opportunistic, cowardly, spineless, vacillating, fainthearted, jittery or dissolute.
Or, if you are a member of the elite political press, you could call them “moderates” and “centrists.”
The lead story on the Washington Post website Thursday morning — “House Democrats brace for some defections among moderates on impeachment of Trump” — does so many things wrong it’s really worth examining at some length.
Congressional reporters Rachael Bade and Mike DeBonis celebrate these potential defectors as “centrists” and “moderates,” while at the same time concluding with complete, omniscient certainty that their decision-making process has everything to do with political calculation and nothing to do with what they actually believe.
This, to my mind, is an astonishing abuse of political labeling — even in an era in which traditional political labels are increasingly irrelevant.
In fact, the nicest thing you could reasonably call these particular Democrats is "pragmatic," but there’s no reason to believe — and in fact there are plenty of examples to the contrary — that abandoning principles makes candidates more electable.
Bade and DeBonis write that “a core group of centrists from districts Trump won in 2016 are having second thoughts” — but not for a moment do they pretend those second thoughts have anything to do with evidence or principle:
While many knew impeachment would never be popular in their GOP-leaning districts, some have been surprised that support hasn’t increased despite negative testimony about Trump from a series of blockbuster hearings last month.
Several moderates have privately pined for other options, including a censure vote they know they’re unlikely to get. Others have even considered what one moderate called “splitting the baby”: backing one article of impeachment but not the other to try to show independence from the party.
None of that carries any form of attribution — it is some combination of the reporters’ own conclusions and, presumably, off-the-record honesty from the vacillators themselves.
In fact, the on-the-record quotes completely belie the reporters’ conclusions, but are included anyway, I guess on the assumption that the readers will see right through them:
“I’m still thinking it over,” said Rep. Susie Lee, a centrist who hails from a GOP-leaning Nevada district Trump carried in 2016. “This is a very grave decision. . . . I’m hearing all sides of it. . . . It’s mixed, it’s very mixed.”
And:
“As soon as they’re formally adopted, I’ll make a decision,” said Rep. Josh Gottheimer (D-N.J.), another centrist Democrat who attended a session Monday night in which moderates discussed their concerns. “I’ve said all along, I need to see all the facts. I’m not going to prejudge anything until we get every bit of information.”
Where do political reporters get the impression that it is perfectly reasonable and in fact admirable to base hugely important decisions like this on how it will play in the next election? As it happens, that’s precisely the view of Democratic leadership as well. As Bade and DeBonis note, Democratic leaders “don’t intend to whip the impeachment vote, allowing each member to make his or her own personal choice.”
The Post reporters then game this all out, once again taking as gospel the entirely speculative proposition that abandoning principles is good politics:
[T]he more votes Pelosi loses, the more Republicans will push a narrative of Democrats divided. Indeed, Republicans, who are increasingly confident they won’t lose any members, say they’re planning to highlight any increase in the number of Democratic defections as evidence of a weak case for removing Trump.
That might hurt Democrats in the short term, but in the long run it could pay dividends, boosting moderates in battleground districts ahead of their 2020 reelections.
It’s only as an afterthought that the reporters acknowledge that for some members of Congress, even in swing districts, principles still might play a role in their decision-making. They quote Rep. Susan Wild, D-Pa., who flipped a GOP-held Pennsylvania district and plans to vote for both articles:
“I know from my own inbox that there’s plenty of antagonism out there, but on the other hand I’ve also gotten enormous numbers of people texting me, emailing me, private messaging me with supportive messages,” Wild said. “I don’t really know how it plays back home at this point, so ultimately, for me, it comes down to doing the right thing, and I think this is the right thing to do.”
Look, obviously it’s more than a bit naïve to think that nakedly political considerations are ever entirely irrelevant to people facing reelection every two years. But it’s cynical even by my standards to assume that it’s the only thing that matters.
It’s also stupid to assume anyone can really predict how things will play out. I would argue that the Democratic pseudo-pragmatism embodied by folks like Rahm Emanuel routinely backfires spectacularly. And — surprise! — its most passionate supporters are often Republicans.
---
Politico reporters Sarah Ferris and Melanie Zanona wrote on Tuesday that some of the “vulnerable House Democrats” were, in an obvious desperation move, “floating the longshot idea of censuring President Donald Trump instead of impeaching him.”
Like the Post reporters, they labeled those Democrats as “centrist”.
An article by HuffPost reporters Matt Fuller and Arthur Delaney suggested another label: “bonehead”:
Rep. Jared Huffman (D-Calif.) called censure a “boneheaded idea.”
“That’s just frankly one of the dumbest ideas I’ve heard in a long, long time,” Huffman said. “If this were a president lying about a blow job, that’s a censure issue. This is a president fundamentally misusing his office and obstructing Congress, involving our national security and the integrity of our democracy. If you can’t move to impeachment on something like this, frankly, we just shouldn’t take your ideas seriously.”
As Fuller and Delaney explained:
For most Democrats, part of the problem with censuring Trump instead of impeaching him is it fundamentally undermines their messaging. Democrats want to convey that this is a solemn process, one devoid of politics, and that they’re impeaching Trump because his behavior goes far beyond what is acceptable.
By suggesting a lesser course, these moderate Democrats undercut that message. They’re signaling that Trump’s actions don’t rise to that level — and it’s hard to miss their own political calculus in doing so.
And they concluded:
Politics, not the facts surrounding this impeachment case, seem to be their primary concern ― something Democrats from safer seats seemed to recognize Tuesday.
“Based on the evidence, I think the president should be impeached,” Rules Chairman Jim McGovern (D-Mass.) said. “I mean, if this doesn’t rise to the level of impeachment, I don’t know what does. This is beyond the pale.”
We can conclude that they lack consistent principles.
We can conclude that, in the face of overwhelming evidence, they have chosen neither to accept it, like almost all the other members of their party, nor to ignore it, like all the members of the other party.
We can therefore conclude that they are instead making up their minds based on something else entirely.
And we can easily conclude what that is: They are basing their votes on what they think they need to do to win re-election. They are not looking into their souls. They are sticking a finger up into the wind.
Republican members of Congress at least have an intellectually consistent reason to vote against impeachment: They have chosen to throw in their lot with Trump, quite literally no matter what.
But these Democrats are in a special category. You could call them political hacks. You could call them unprincipled, opportunistic, cowardly, spineless, vacillating, fainthearted, jittery or dissolute.
Or, if you are a member of the elite political press, you could call them “moderates” and “centrists.”
The lead story on the Washington Post website Thursday morning — “House Democrats brace for some defections among moderates on impeachment of Trump” — does so many things wrong it’s really worth examining at some length.
Congressional reporters Rachael Bade and Mike DeBonis celebrate these potential defectors as “centrists” and “moderates,” while at the same time concluding with complete, omniscient certainty that their decision-making process has everything to do with political calculation and nothing to do with what they actually believe.
This, to my mind, is an astonishing abuse of political labeling — even in an era in which traditional political labels are increasingly irrelevant.
In fact, the nicest thing you could reasonably call these particular Democrats is "pragmatic," but there’s no reason to believe — and in fact there are plenty of examples to the contrary — that abandoning principles makes candidates more electable.
Bade and DeBonis write that “a core group of centrists from districts Trump won in 2016 are having second thoughts” — but not for a moment do they pretend those second thoughts have anything to do with evidence or principle:
While many knew impeachment would never be popular in their GOP-leaning districts, some have been surprised that support hasn’t increased despite negative testimony about Trump from a series of blockbuster hearings last month.
Several moderates have privately pined for other options, including a censure vote they know they’re unlikely to get. Others have even considered what one moderate called “splitting the baby”: backing one article of impeachment but not the other to try to show independence from the party.
None of that carries any form of attribution — it is some combination of the reporters’ own conclusions and, presumably, off-the-record honesty from the vacillators themselves.
In fact, the on-the-record quotes completely belie the reporters’ conclusions, but are included anyway, I guess on the assumption that the readers will see right through them:
“I’m still thinking it over,” said Rep. Susie Lee, a centrist who hails from a GOP-leaning Nevada district Trump carried in 2016. “This is a very grave decision. . . . I’m hearing all sides of it. . . . It’s mixed, it’s very mixed.”
And:
“As soon as they’re formally adopted, I’ll make a decision,” said Rep. Josh Gottheimer (D-N.J.), another centrist Democrat who attended a session Monday night in which moderates discussed their concerns. “I’ve said all along, I need to see all the facts. I’m not going to prejudge anything until we get every bit of information.”
Where do political reporters get the impression that it is perfectly reasonable and in fact admirable to base hugely important decisions like this on how it will play in the next election? As it happens, that’s precisely the view of Democratic leadership as well. As Bade and DeBonis note, Democratic leaders “don’t intend to whip the impeachment vote, allowing each member to make his or her own personal choice.”
The Post reporters then game this all out, once again taking as gospel the entirely speculative proposition that abandoning principles is good politics:
[T]he more votes Pelosi loses, the more Republicans will push a narrative of Democrats divided. Indeed, Republicans, who are increasingly confident they won’t lose any members, say they’re planning to highlight any increase in the number of Democratic defections as evidence of a weak case for removing Trump.
That might hurt Democrats in the short term, but in the long run it could pay dividends, boosting moderates in battleground districts ahead of their 2020 reelections.
It’s only as an afterthought that the reporters acknowledge that for some members of Congress, even in swing districts, principles still might play a role in their decision-making. They quote Rep. Susan Wild, D-Pa., who flipped a GOP-held Pennsylvania district and plans to vote for both articles:
“I know from my own inbox that there’s plenty of antagonism out there, but on the other hand I’ve also gotten enormous numbers of people texting me, emailing me, private messaging me with supportive messages,” Wild said. “I don’t really know how it plays back home at this point, so ultimately, for me, it comes down to doing the right thing, and I think this is the right thing to do.”
Look, obviously it’s more than a bit naïve to think that nakedly political considerations are ever entirely irrelevant to people facing reelection every two years. But it’s cynical even by my standards to assume that it’s the only thing that matters.
It’s also stupid to assume anyone can really predict how things will play out. I would argue that the Democratic pseudo-pragmatism embodied by folks like Rahm Emanuel routinely backfires spectacularly. And — surprise! — its most passionate supporters are often Republicans.
---
Politico reporters Sarah Ferris and Melanie Zanona wrote on Tuesday that some of the “vulnerable House Democrats” were, in an obvious desperation move, “floating the longshot idea of censuring President Donald Trump instead of impeaching him.”
Like the Post reporters, they labeled those Democrats as “centrist”.
An article by HuffPost reporters Matt Fuller and Arthur Delaney suggested another label: “bonehead”:
Rep. Jared Huffman (D-Calif.) called censure a “boneheaded idea.”
“That’s just frankly one of the dumbest ideas I’ve heard in a long, long time,” Huffman said. “If this were a president lying about a blow job, that’s a censure issue. This is a president fundamentally misusing his office and obstructing Congress, involving our national security and the integrity of our democracy. If you can’t move to impeachment on something like this, frankly, we just shouldn’t take your ideas seriously.”
As Fuller and Delaney explained:
For most Democrats, part of the problem with censuring Trump instead of impeaching him is it fundamentally undermines their messaging. Democrats want to convey that this is a solemn process, one devoid of politics, and that they’re impeaching Trump because his behavior goes far beyond what is acceptable.
By suggesting a lesser course, these moderate Democrats undercut that message. They’re signaling that Trump’s actions don’t rise to that level — and it’s hard to miss their own political calculus in doing so.
And they concluded:
Politics, not the facts surrounding this impeachment case, seem to be their primary concern ― something Democrats from safer seats seemed to recognize Tuesday.
“Based on the evidence, I think the president should be impeached,” Rules Chairman Jim McGovern (D-Mass.) said. “I mean, if this doesn’t rise to the level of impeachment, I don’t know what does. This is beyond the pale.”
Schumer scorched for whitewashing Pete King’s racist, anti-Islam, anti-LGBTQ record as soon as he announced his retirement
November 11, 2019
By David Badash, The New Civil Rights Movement - raw story
U.S. Congressman Peter King, a Republican of Long Island, NY, announced bright and early Monday morning he will not seek a 15th term, and will retire at the end of 28 years in Congress. King, a strong Trump supporter, has an impressive record of holding on to a district that has voted largely Democratic, including voting for Barack Obama twice, and even Al Gore and John Kerry over George W. Bush.
Rep. King, a powerful Republican who twice served as Chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, also has a record of ugly racism, anti-Islam attacks, pandering to the lowest forms of bigotry, and serving the powerful by demeaning minorities and the poor.
King last year defended ICE in the wake of the deaths of two migrant children. He also likened NFL athletes quietly protesting police violence and killing of Black people to giving a Nazi salute. And he declared there are “too many mosques” in America.
The Congressman from Long Island defended NYPD officers in the killing of Eric Garner, saying if the man who was placed in a chokehold (which violates police policy) had not been “obese,” he would not have died – while at the same time saying “police had no reason to know that he was in serious condition.”
King hunkered down to protect the moneyed interests, attacking the grassroots viral phenomenon known as Occupy Wall Street, calling it a “ragtag mob” of “anarchists.” He warned if the movement were given any “legitimacy” it could go on to have an impact on shaping policy. “We can’t allow that to happen,” he said, despite it having significant support across the country.
That’s just a brief and recent history of Congressman King’s remarks – his policy stances are an entirely different, albeit disturbing matter. He’s voted against the right of marriage and adoption for same-sex couples, and voted against banning anti-LGBTQ discrimination.
And there’s a lot more too, over his 28 years in Congress.
Democrats are now hoping to flip the district, which just moved slightly left to “lean Republican” after King’s announcement.
And yet, here’s Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, a Democrat, whitewashing – or at least, ignoring or excusing – King’s abysmal record (and by tweeting from a right wing news source.) Senator Schumer’s “kind” words come just days before Trump’s public impeachment inquiry hearings – an impeachment King said in his retirement announcement he will vote against.
Chuck Schumer✔
@SenSchumer
Peter King stood head & shoulders above everyone else
He’s been principled & never let others push him away from his principles
He’s fiercely loved America, Long Island, and his Irish heritage and left a lasting mark on all 3
I will miss him in Congress & value his friendship https://twitter.com/thehill/status/1193849653189591040 …
Rep. King, a powerful Republican who twice served as Chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, also has a record of ugly racism, anti-Islam attacks, pandering to the lowest forms of bigotry, and serving the powerful by demeaning minorities and the poor.
King last year defended ICE in the wake of the deaths of two migrant children. He also likened NFL athletes quietly protesting police violence and killing of Black people to giving a Nazi salute. And he declared there are “too many mosques” in America.
The Congressman from Long Island defended NYPD officers in the killing of Eric Garner, saying if the man who was placed in a chokehold (which violates police policy) had not been “obese,” he would not have died – while at the same time saying “police had no reason to know that he was in serious condition.”
King hunkered down to protect the moneyed interests, attacking the grassroots viral phenomenon known as Occupy Wall Street, calling it a “ragtag mob” of “anarchists.” He warned if the movement were given any “legitimacy” it could go on to have an impact on shaping policy. “We can’t allow that to happen,” he said, despite it having significant support across the country.
That’s just a brief and recent history of Congressman King’s remarks – his policy stances are an entirely different, albeit disturbing matter. He’s voted against the right of marriage and adoption for same-sex couples, and voted against banning anti-LGBTQ discrimination.
And there’s a lot more too, over his 28 years in Congress.
Democrats are now hoping to flip the district, which just moved slightly left to “lean Republican” after King’s announcement.
And yet, here’s Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, a Democrat, whitewashing – or at least, ignoring or excusing – King’s abysmal record (and by tweeting from a right wing news source.) Senator Schumer’s “kind” words come just days before Trump’s public impeachment inquiry hearings – an impeachment King said in his retirement announcement he will vote against.
Chuck Schumer✔
@SenSchumer
Peter King stood head & shoulders above everyone else
He’s been principled & never let others push him away from his principles
He’s fiercely loved America, Long Island, and his Irish heritage and left a lasting mark on all 3
I will miss him in Congress & value his friendship https://twitter.com/thehill/status/1193849653189591040 …
corporate demos selling out workers!!!
CENTRIST DEMOCRATS HAVE A NEW IDEA TO WIN REELECTION: IGNORE LABOR AND GIVE TRUMP A MAJOR TRADE DEAL
Ryan Grim - the intercept
October 29 2019, 5:00 a.m.
REP. CHERI BUSTOS, chair of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, is advocating internally for Democrats to wave through the House President Donald Trump’s renegotiated NAFTA, without any of the revisions demanded by labor unions and environmentalists — and despite concerns that it locks in high prescription drug prices.
Bustos has argued to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi that approving Trump’s free trade deal is important for vulnerable House Democrats who recently flipped Republicans seats, according to multiple sources with knowledge of the Bustos strategy. The argument goes that those vulnerable Democrats would be able to demonstrate to constituents that while they may be pursuing impeachment, they are also willing to work across party lines with the president. Inside the House caucus, the messaging is referred to as showing the ability to “walk and chew gum at the same time.”
Pelosi’s office said the speaker did not intend to allow the trade agreement to move forward without addressing concerns from environmental, labor, and patients’ rights groups. A spokesperson for Bustos emphasized the Congresswoman’s support for labor and environment issues, and stated: “She and the speaker have taken meetings together with stakeholders to discuss these issues. The Congresswoman has faith in her colleagues currently working with our trade groups to resolve these issues – and has withheld her position on the trade deal until we see this process reach its conclusion – which she hopes is a trade deal that has support from a broad set of stakeholders. As she has said for months, there is still work to be done before we reach that point.” A House leadership aide suggested that Bustos and the centrists pushing for a vote have an uphill climb, because the fall and spring floor schedule is crowded, and Bustos currently lacks the sway to work her will.
Bustos has help in making the DCCC’s argument to the caucus: former caucus Chair Joe Crowley, who was ousted by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and is now a paid lobbyist for Trump’s revised NAFTA, known as the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement. He’s joined in the effort by former Sen. Heidi Heitkamp of North Dakota, who has also become a lobbyist for Trump’s trade deal.
Republicans, too, are urging the strategy on. Rep. Kevin Brady, R-Texas, the top-ranking Republican on the Ways and Means Committee, told CNBC viewers on Friday that he was optimistic Democrats would soon sign off on Trump’s deal. “I think we’re a couple weeks from getting a green light,” he said. Pelosi, he argued, needed a political win for moderates in the context of the impeachment fight, echoing the Bustos argument.
“This new trade agreement is everything Democrats dreamed of for labor and environment,” he said. “They have never sniffed the kinds of reforms you’re seeing in this agreement, and for her moderate and competitive members, they can’t go home with just impeachment in their pocket. They’ve got to have some economic growth.”
The push represents a remarkable gamble: that it is worth undermining key constituencies by signing a subpar agreement on the chance that it could help a handful of Democrats in swing districts win reelection. In addition, the assessment itself is questionable; if a voter is angry that a Democrat voted to impeach Trump, it’s difficult to see how that anger would be lessened by learning that the representative also voted for Trump’s trade deal. Endorsing bad Republican policy for uncertain political gain may be a hallmark of Democratic centrism, but supporting Trump’s unrevised trade deal is an unusually extreme example.
Rank-and-file House Democrats are worried that the poorly negotiated deal would lock in lower wages, environmental destruction, and higher drug prices for decades. USMCA is a renegotiated version of NAFTA, but only goes into effect if and when it is approved by Congress. The legislative branch is negotiating changes to the deal that would then need to be agreed to by Canada and Mexico. Without a new agreement, the old NAFTA remains in effect indefinitely.
---
Rep. Richard Neal, D-Mass., the chair of the Ways and Means Committee, has been making a similar argument to Bustos’s, but less for protection of vulnerable members and more because he believes that the deal is good enough. Unions, he has argued internally, will just have to go along. He has proposed a divide-and-conquer strategy, by appending pension reform — a high priority of the Teamsters and a handful of other unions — to the deal in the hopes of splitting a few unions off from the labor movement and winning their support. That would allow House leaders to say that labor is divided on the question, so the party might as well vote yes.
The three areas in which the agreement faces the most resistance are in environmental protections, labor rights, and drug prices. Unions in particular are worried that there are no serious enforcement mechanisms that would require Mexico to raise labor standards and extend protections to union organizers. “I hear a lot of the frontliners want to see it passed,” texted one House Democrat nervous that the deal will get rammed through. “But if the final text doesn’t have real labor and environmental standards, AND WITH REAL ENFORCEMENT, then we shouldn’t even bring it up for a vote.”
The push from centrist Democrats began quietly in the summer, with 14 Democrats signing a letter to House leaders. “We write in support of continued negotiations through the upcoming recess, to ensure a vote on a bipartisan agreement by the end of this year. It is imperative that we reach a negotiated agreement early in the fall,” read the letter signed by Scott Peters, chair of the New Democrat Coalition, the corporate wing of the party, as well as Reps. Collin Allred, Kendra Horn, Haley Stevens, Anthony Brindisi, Joe Cunningham, Lizzie Fletcher, Ben McAdams, Josh Harder, Lou Correa, Sharice Davids, TJ Cox, Susie Lee, and Greg Stanton.
Reps. Abigail Spanberger, D-Va., Henry Cuellar, D-Texas, and other centrist and conservative Democrats have continued insisting publicly on the need for quick action throughout the summer and fall. “We gotta make this happen,” insisted Rep. Jim Costa, D-Calif., at an event with Trump’s agriculture secretary.
There is currently a working group hashing out revisions to the pact, going back and forth with the White House’s top trade official, U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer. Bustos’s staff has signaled to members of Congress concerned that she is trying to give the agreement away that Bustos supports the working group process, but the pressure from Bustos and the moderates to move quickly gives the White House the upper hand in negotiations where they’d otherwise be on the defensive. After all, if Democrats do nothing and win the White House, they would be able to negotiate a much stronger agreement.
“The Democrats and Congress seem to be making progress with the USTR. Now is not the time to do anything but continue to ensure what is passed by the House helps drive down drug prices in the United States,” said Jonathan Kimball of the trade group the Association for Accessible Medicines.
The trade group, which represents generic drug companies, is pushing against big pharma over provisions that would extend and expand drug company monopolies on patented drugs, blocking cheaper generics from the market. The treaty also expands the definition of what makes a biologic drug, which would put many more medicines off limits to generics for a longer stretch of time, keeping prices high. The treaty would block Congress from doing anything significant legislatively to lower drug prices, even as Democrats ran their 2018 campaign significantly on a promise to lower drug prices.
Unions, meanwhile, are pushing to strengthen provisions that would push Mexico to enact and enforce labor reform and raise wages for Mexican workers, which would make it easier for American workers to compete. Labor officials note that Mexico has neglected to fund its stated commitment to labor reform, and Neal recently traveled to Mexico to try to extract concessions from the Mexican government on enforceability. He came away with a letter of assurance from the Mexican president, which unions have dismissed as unserious.
The Sierra Club has been weighing in on the agreement for the last three years, Ben Beachy told The Intercept, and opposes it in its current form. He directs the group’s “A Living Economy” initiative, which advocates for green economic policy. “The deal as it stands is a pro-polluter deal any way you slice it,” Beachy said. “It not only fails to mention climate change, but would actively contribute to the climate crisis. Trump’s NAFTA 2.0 would perpetuate NAFTA’s outsourcing of pollution and jobs while giving new handouts to fossil fuel corporations.” The group has put out numerous statements regarding concerns that the current deal lacks binding environmental standards, and recently signed a letter along with 110 members of Congress calling for the new deal to address the climate crisis in a meaningful way.
And though Bustos is working in their name, not all front-line Democrats are united on putting through the deal. “We shouldn’t just ram anything through,” said one. “If we don’t get it right, we never get it back.”
Bustos has argued to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi that approving Trump’s free trade deal is important for vulnerable House Democrats who recently flipped Republicans seats, according to multiple sources with knowledge of the Bustos strategy. The argument goes that those vulnerable Democrats would be able to demonstrate to constituents that while they may be pursuing impeachment, they are also willing to work across party lines with the president. Inside the House caucus, the messaging is referred to as showing the ability to “walk and chew gum at the same time.”
Pelosi’s office said the speaker did not intend to allow the trade agreement to move forward without addressing concerns from environmental, labor, and patients’ rights groups. A spokesperson for Bustos emphasized the Congresswoman’s support for labor and environment issues, and stated: “She and the speaker have taken meetings together with stakeholders to discuss these issues. The Congresswoman has faith in her colleagues currently working with our trade groups to resolve these issues – and has withheld her position on the trade deal until we see this process reach its conclusion – which she hopes is a trade deal that has support from a broad set of stakeholders. As she has said for months, there is still work to be done before we reach that point.” A House leadership aide suggested that Bustos and the centrists pushing for a vote have an uphill climb, because the fall and spring floor schedule is crowded, and Bustos currently lacks the sway to work her will.
Bustos has help in making the DCCC’s argument to the caucus: former caucus Chair Joe Crowley, who was ousted by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and is now a paid lobbyist for Trump’s revised NAFTA, known as the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement. He’s joined in the effort by former Sen. Heidi Heitkamp of North Dakota, who has also become a lobbyist for Trump’s trade deal.
Republicans, too, are urging the strategy on. Rep. Kevin Brady, R-Texas, the top-ranking Republican on the Ways and Means Committee, told CNBC viewers on Friday that he was optimistic Democrats would soon sign off on Trump’s deal. “I think we’re a couple weeks from getting a green light,” he said. Pelosi, he argued, needed a political win for moderates in the context of the impeachment fight, echoing the Bustos argument.
“This new trade agreement is everything Democrats dreamed of for labor and environment,” he said. “They have never sniffed the kinds of reforms you’re seeing in this agreement, and for her moderate and competitive members, they can’t go home with just impeachment in their pocket. They’ve got to have some economic growth.”
The push represents a remarkable gamble: that it is worth undermining key constituencies by signing a subpar agreement on the chance that it could help a handful of Democrats in swing districts win reelection. In addition, the assessment itself is questionable; if a voter is angry that a Democrat voted to impeach Trump, it’s difficult to see how that anger would be lessened by learning that the representative also voted for Trump’s trade deal. Endorsing bad Republican policy for uncertain political gain may be a hallmark of Democratic centrism, but supporting Trump’s unrevised trade deal is an unusually extreme example.
Rank-and-file House Democrats are worried that the poorly negotiated deal would lock in lower wages, environmental destruction, and higher drug prices for decades. USMCA is a renegotiated version of NAFTA, but only goes into effect if and when it is approved by Congress. The legislative branch is negotiating changes to the deal that would then need to be agreed to by Canada and Mexico. Without a new agreement, the old NAFTA remains in effect indefinitely.
---
Rep. Richard Neal, D-Mass., the chair of the Ways and Means Committee, has been making a similar argument to Bustos’s, but less for protection of vulnerable members and more because he believes that the deal is good enough. Unions, he has argued internally, will just have to go along. He has proposed a divide-and-conquer strategy, by appending pension reform — a high priority of the Teamsters and a handful of other unions — to the deal in the hopes of splitting a few unions off from the labor movement and winning their support. That would allow House leaders to say that labor is divided on the question, so the party might as well vote yes.
The three areas in which the agreement faces the most resistance are in environmental protections, labor rights, and drug prices. Unions in particular are worried that there are no serious enforcement mechanisms that would require Mexico to raise labor standards and extend protections to union organizers. “I hear a lot of the frontliners want to see it passed,” texted one House Democrat nervous that the deal will get rammed through. “But if the final text doesn’t have real labor and environmental standards, AND WITH REAL ENFORCEMENT, then we shouldn’t even bring it up for a vote.”
The push from centrist Democrats began quietly in the summer, with 14 Democrats signing a letter to House leaders. “We write in support of continued negotiations through the upcoming recess, to ensure a vote on a bipartisan agreement by the end of this year. It is imperative that we reach a negotiated agreement early in the fall,” read the letter signed by Scott Peters, chair of the New Democrat Coalition, the corporate wing of the party, as well as Reps. Collin Allred, Kendra Horn, Haley Stevens, Anthony Brindisi, Joe Cunningham, Lizzie Fletcher, Ben McAdams, Josh Harder, Lou Correa, Sharice Davids, TJ Cox, Susie Lee, and Greg Stanton.
Reps. Abigail Spanberger, D-Va., Henry Cuellar, D-Texas, and other centrist and conservative Democrats have continued insisting publicly on the need for quick action throughout the summer and fall. “We gotta make this happen,” insisted Rep. Jim Costa, D-Calif., at an event with Trump’s agriculture secretary.
There is currently a working group hashing out revisions to the pact, going back and forth with the White House’s top trade official, U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer. Bustos’s staff has signaled to members of Congress concerned that she is trying to give the agreement away that Bustos supports the working group process, but the pressure from Bustos and the moderates to move quickly gives the White House the upper hand in negotiations where they’d otherwise be on the defensive. After all, if Democrats do nothing and win the White House, they would be able to negotiate a much stronger agreement.
“The Democrats and Congress seem to be making progress with the USTR. Now is not the time to do anything but continue to ensure what is passed by the House helps drive down drug prices in the United States,” said Jonathan Kimball of the trade group the Association for Accessible Medicines.
The trade group, which represents generic drug companies, is pushing against big pharma over provisions that would extend and expand drug company monopolies on patented drugs, blocking cheaper generics from the market. The treaty also expands the definition of what makes a biologic drug, which would put many more medicines off limits to generics for a longer stretch of time, keeping prices high. The treaty would block Congress from doing anything significant legislatively to lower drug prices, even as Democrats ran their 2018 campaign significantly on a promise to lower drug prices.
Unions, meanwhile, are pushing to strengthen provisions that would push Mexico to enact and enforce labor reform and raise wages for Mexican workers, which would make it easier for American workers to compete. Labor officials note that Mexico has neglected to fund its stated commitment to labor reform, and Neal recently traveled to Mexico to try to extract concessions from the Mexican government on enforceability. He came away with a letter of assurance from the Mexican president, which unions have dismissed as unserious.
The Sierra Club has been weighing in on the agreement for the last three years, Ben Beachy told The Intercept, and opposes it in its current form. He directs the group’s “A Living Economy” initiative, which advocates for green economic policy. “The deal as it stands is a pro-polluter deal any way you slice it,” Beachy said. “It not only fails to mention climate change, but would actively contribute to the climate crisis. Trump’s NAFTA 2.0 would perpetuate NAFTA’s outsourcing of pollution and jobs while giving new handouts to fossil fuel corporations.” The group has put out numerous statements regarding concerns that the current deal lacks binding environmental standards, and recently signed a letter along with 110 members of Congress calling for the new deal to address the climate crisis in a meaningful way.
And though Bustos is working in their name, not all front-line Democrats are united on putting through the deal. “We shouldn’t just ram anything through,” said one. “If we don’t get it right, we never get it back.”
CENTRIST DEMOCRATS, LED BY REP. JOSH GOTTHEIMER, TO FUNDRAISE WITH CORPORATE LOBBY GROUP SEEKING TO DEFEAT DEMOCRATIC AGENDA
Lee Fang - the intercept
October 28 2019, 3:00 a.m.
THE U.S. CHAMBER OF COMMERCE, the largest lobbying group representing corporate interests in the world, has worked furiously to defeat Democratic policies, from playing a key role in battling the Affordable Care Act, to spreading climate change denial, to more recent efforts to block H.R. 1, Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s signature campaign reform and voting rights bill.
Now a group of centrist Democrats, led by Rep. Josh Gottheimer, D-N.J., is scheduled to join with the Chamber in a bid to raise money.
A fundraiser invite obtained by The Intercept shows that Gottheimer and Rep. Tom Reed, R-N.Y., are scheduled to appear at the Chamber PAC’s town house on Capitol Hill on October 29. The event honors the “Problem Solvers Caucus,” an offshoot of the centrist project No Labels. Contributions will benefit the affiliate centrist Democrat fundraising committee known as Across the Aisles PAC.
Molly Allen, a fundraiser who helped put together the event, noted in an email, “As usual with these events, we expect strong Member attendance and a lively discussion!”
The Chamber was one of the largest beneficiaries of the Supreme Court’s 2010 Citizens United decision, funneling tens of millions of dollars of undisclosed corporate money into congressional elections, largely to elect Republican lawmakers. Democrats have long courted the “voice of business,” only to see the Chamber work tirelessly to boost GOP campaigns.
The Intercept has previously documented the role of GOP billionaires in financing an array of PACs that played a pivotal role in electing centrist Democrats during the 2018 midterm elections. Gottheimer has also earned the ire of Democrats by working to undermine party unity on votes to constrain the Saudi Arabia-led war in Yemen and to mandate better conditions for those detained at the border. Gottheimer did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Early in the Obama administration, then-Sen. Evan Bayh, D-Ind., a leading voice for centrist Democrats, joined the Chamber-backed effort to block labor union reform, known as the Employee Free Choice Act, as well as the Waxman-Markey legislation to cap carbon emissions from industrial polluters. The senator retired from office and joined the Chamber as a consultant.
Despite Bayh’s loyalty to the business lobby, when he reentered politics in 2016, running to reclaim a Senate seat in Indiana, the Chamber poured millions of dollars into undisclosed ads benefiting his GOP opponent, now-Sen. Todd Young, R-Ind.
The Chamber’s political donations still tilt overwhelmingly to the Republican Party, though in recent years, the group has sought to boost centrist Democrats. Last year, the Chamber’s PAC money gave about 80 percent of funds to GOP candidates and committees, while also donating to centrists such as Gottheimer, Rep. Donald Norcross, D-N.J., and Rep. Henry Cuellar, D-Texas.
Voluntary disclosures show the largest donors include Dow Chemical, Chevron, Microsoft, AT&T, Goldman Sachs, Anthem, Coca-Cola, and ConocoPhillips.
The Chamber is not only shaping election outcomes, litigation, and the legislative debate. In 2011, the Chamber was caught negotiating with a group of defense contractors on a scheme to spy on labor activists, journalists, and Democratic-leaning groups such as MoveOn.org.
Now a group of centrist Democrats, led by Rep. Josh Gottheimer, D-N.J., is scheduled to join with the Chamber in a bid to raise money.
A fundraiser invite obtained by The Intercept shows that Gottheimer and Rep. Tom Reed, R-N.Y., are scheduled to appear at the Chamber PAC’s town house on Capitol Hill on October 29. The event honors the “Problem Solvers Caucus,” an offshoot of the centrist project No Labels. Contributions will benefit the affiliate centrist Democrat fundraising committee known as Across the Aisles PAC.
Molly Allen, a fundraiser who helped put together the event, noted in an email, “As usual with these events, we expect strong Member attendance and a lively discussion!”
The Chamber was one of the largest beneficiaries of the Supreme Court’s 2010 Citizens United decision, funneling tens of millions of dollars of undisclosed corporate money into congressional elections, largely to elect Republican lawmakers. Democrats have long courted the “voice of business,” only to see the Chamber work tirelessly to boost GOP campaigns.
The Intercept has previously documented the role of GOP billionaires in financing an array of PACs that played a pivotal role in electing centrist Democrats during the 2018 midterm elections. Gottheimer has also earned the ire of Democrats by working to undermine party unity on votes to constrain the Saudi Arabia-led war in Yemen and to mandate better conditions for those detained at the border. Gottheimer did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Early in the Obama administration, then-Sen. Evan Bayh, D-Ind., a leading voice for centrist Democrats, joined the Chamber-backed effort to block labor union reform, known as the Employee Free Choice Act, as well as the Waxman-Markey legislation to cap carbon emissions from industrial polluters. The senator retired from office and joined the Chamber as a consultant.
Despite Bayh’s loyalty to the business lobby, when he reentered politics in 2016, running to reclaim a Senate seat in Indiana, the Chamber poured millions of dollars into undisclosed ads benefiting his GOP opponent, now-Sen. Todd Young, R-Ind.
The Chamber’s political donations still tilt overwhelmingly to the Republican Party, though in recent years, the group has sought to boost centrist Democrats. Last year, the Chamber’s PAC money gave about 80 percent of funds to GOP candidates and committees, while also donating to centrists such as Gottheimer, Rep. Donald Norcross, D-N.J., and Rep. Henry Cuellar, D-Texas.
Voluntary disclosures show the largest donors include Dow Chemical, Chevron, Microsoft, AT&T, Goldman Sachs, Anthem, Coca-Cola, and ConocoPhillips.
The Chamber is not only shaping election outcomes, litigation, and the legislative debate. In 2011, the Chamber was caught negotiating with a group of defense contractors on a scheme to spy on labor activists, journalists, and Democratic-leaning groups such as MoveOn.org.
michael moore calls biden the hillary clinton of 2020!!!
JOE BIDEN’S SUPER PAC IS BEING ORGANIZED BY CORPORATE LOBBYISTS FOR HEALTH CARE INDUSTRY, WEAPONS MAKERS, FINANCE
Lee Fang - the intercept
October 25 2019, 7:47 a.m.
JOE BIDEN BEGAN the presidential campaign with a commanding lead in the polls, but questions surrounding his ability to power through the primary, along with relatively weak fundraising, has cast new doubt about his campaign.
In an effort to revive Biden’s prospects, prominent supporters of the former vice president are mobilizing to establish a Super PAC, a bid that the Biden campaign appeared to endorse on Thursday, according to a report in Bloomberg. The move represents a reversal from earlier this year, when Biden rejected support from Super PACs, which can receive unlimited donations from corporations or individuals.
Though Biden has pledged not to take contributions from registered lobbyists, the prohibition appears not to apply to big-dollar organizers of his Super PAC. Among the individuals involved with the effort are several lobbyists for leading corporations and foreign governments.
Longtime Biden supporter Larry Rasky, one of the people involved with the big-money effort, is the founder of lobbying firm Rasky Partners, which is currently registered to lobby on behalf of Raytheon, Harvard Pilgrim Health Care, and the Republic of Azerbaijan, among other clients.
Steve Schale, a former Obama campaign strategist, is a registered state lobbyist with Cardenas Partners, a Florida lobbying firm founded by former Jeb Bush adviser Al Cardenas. Schale’s current client list includes the Florida Hospital Association, JetBlue Airways, State Farm Insurance, Walt Disney Parks, AT&T, and the Associated Industries of Florida.
As The Intercept has reported, despite Biden’s promise to reject lobbyist money, his campaign launched with a fundraiser hosted at the home of Comcast’s chief lobbyist, and his political action committee has a long record of accepting lobbyist cash.
Rasky, Schale, and the Biden campaign did not respond to a request for comment. Rasky Partners lists a number of successful client campaigns on its website, touting efforts to win congressional support for banks and defense contractors. Disclosures show that the firm was previously retained for communications services to the Education Finance Council, a lobby group for student loan companies.
Schale previously served as the spokesperson for the Draft Joe Biden campaign in 2016 and before that, directed the Obama-Biden campaign operation in Florida.
It’s not the first time Biden supporters have floated a Super PAC. In April, Matt Tompkins, a Democratic fundraiser, launched a Super PAC called For the People, designed to support Biden’s campaign. The group never got off the ground. Federal Election Commission records show that the group has not raised any money.
But this time may be different. Bernard Schwartz, a wealthy financier who has organized dinners with prominent centrist Democrats in order to prevent Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., from gaining the Democratic nomination, is reportedly in talks to fund the new Super PAC. Schwartz is known for deep-pocketed donations. In 2016 alone, Schwartz, through his foundation, gave $1 million to Third Way, a centrist group backed by corporate donors that has vigorously opposed Medicare for All and other ideas centered on tackling economic inequality.
The Super PAC could inject badly needed cash. In the most recent quarterly campaign filing, Biden revealed that his campaign had about $8.9 million in cash reserves, far less than many of his closest rivals. Sanders’s campaign had $33 million in cash on hand, and Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., had about $25 million.
The money churn is far more acute with Biden, who relies on a relatively small pool of elite donors who have already “maxed out” with $2,700 donations. Warren and Sanders have a larger base of fundraising supporters giving small amounts, which they may continue to tap.
Biden has articulated the problem with big-money donations in the past, noting that privately financed elections allow those donors greater access to politicians than ordinary Americans.
“Lobbyists aren’t bad people, special-interest groups are not bad people, but guess what? They’re corrosive,” said Biden during a 2007 campaign event.
“It’s human nature. If you, Lynn, bundle $250,000 for me, all legal, and then you call me after I’m elected and say, ‘Joe, I’d like to talk to you about something. You didn’t buy me. But it’s human nature, you helped me, I’m going to say, ‘Sure, Lynn, come on in,'” he explained.
“The front of the line is always filled with people whose pockets are filled,” said Biden.
In an effort to revive Biden’s prospects, prominent supporters of the former vice president are mobilizing to establish a Super PAC, a bid that the Biden campaign appeared to endorse on Thursday, according to a report in Bloomberg. The move represents a reversal from earlier this year, when Biden rejected support from Super PACs, which can receive unlimited donations from corporations or individuals.
Though Biden has pledged not to take contributions from registered lobbyists, the prohibition appears not to apply to big-dollar organizers of his Super PAC. Among the individuals involved with the effort are several lobbyists for leading corporations and foreign governments.
Longtime Biden supporter Larry Rasky, one of the people involved with the big-money effort, is the founder of lobbying firm Rasky Partners, which is currently registered to lobby on behalf of Raytheon, Harvard Pilgrim Health Care, and the Republic of Azerbaijan, among other clients.
Steve Schale, a former Obama campaign strategist, is a registered state lobbyist with Cardenas Partners, a Florida lobbying firm founded by former Jeb Bush adviser Al Cardenas. Schale’s current client list includes the Florida Hospital Association, JetBlue Airways, State Farm Insurance, Walt Disney Parks, AT&T, and the Associated Industries of Florida.
As The Intercept has reported, despite Biden’s promise to reject lobbyist money, his campaign launched with a fundraiser hosted at the home of Comcast’s chief lobbyist, and his political action committee has a long record of accepting lobbyist cash.
Rasky, Schale, and the Biden campaign did not respond to a request for comment. Rasky Partners lists a number of successful client campaigns on its website, touting efforts to win congressional support for banks and defense contractors. Disclosures show that the firm was previously retained for communications services to the Education Finance Council, a lobby group for student loan companies.
Schale previously served as the spokesperson for the Draft Joe Biden campaign in 2016 and before that, directed the Obama-Biden campaign operation in Florida.
It’s not the first time Biden supporters have floated a Super PAC. In April, Matt Tompkins, a Democratic fundraiser, launched a Super PAC called For the People, designed to support Biden’s campaign. The group never got off the ground. Federal Election Commission records show that the group has not raised any money.
But this time may be different. Bernard Schwartz, a wealthy financier who has organized dinners with prominent centrist Democrats in order to prevent Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., from gaining the Democratic nomination, is reportedly in talks to fund the new Super PAC. Schwartz is known for deep-pocketed donations. In 2016 alone, Schwartz, through his foundation, gave $1 million to Third Way, a centrist group backed by corporate donors that has vigorously opposed Medicare for All and other ideas centered on tackling economic inequality.
The Super PAC could inject badly needed cash. In the most recent quarterly campaign filing, Biden revealed that his campaign had about $8.9 million in cash reserves, far less than many of his closest rivals. Sanders’s campaign had $33 million in cash on hand, and Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., had about $25 million.
The money churn is far more acute with Biden, who relies on a relatively small pool of elite donors who have already “maxed out” with $2,700 donations. Warren and Sanders have a larger base of fundraising supporters giving small amounts, which they may continue to tap.
Biden has articulated the problem with big-money donations in the past, noting that privately financed elections allow those donors greater access to politicians than ordinary Americans.
“Lobbyists aren’t bad people, special-interest groups are not bad people, but guess what? They’re corrosive,” said Biden during a 2007 campaign event.
“It’s human nature. If you, Lynn, bundle $250,000 for me, all legal, and then you call me after I’m elected and say, ‘Joe, I’d like to talk to you about something. You didn’t buy me. But it’s human nature, you helped me, I’m going to say, ‘Sure, Lynn, come on in,'” he explained.
“The front of the line is always filled with people whose pockets are filled,” said Biden.
EXXON MOBIL IS FUNDING CENTRIST DEMOCRATIC THINK TANK, DISCLOSURES REVEAL
Kate Aronoff - the intercept
September 6 2019, 7:03 a.m.
THE PROGRESSIVE POLICY Institute, a centrist Democratic think tank that grew out of the party’s pro-business wing in the 1980s and ’90s, received $50,000 from Exxon Mobil in 2018 via its parent organization, the Third Way Foundation, according to the oil giant’s 2018 Worldwide Giving Report.
Exxon Mobil did not return The Intercept’s multiple requests for comment. In an email, PPI Executive Director Lindsay Lewis said the money was used for general support and that “we only accept general support funding from corporate interests, we do not do paid for work/research or have any donor run programs.”
Lewis also confirmed that this is the first time Exxon Mobil has donated to the Third Way Foundation.
Though it’s a first, PPI’s new donor isn’t so dramatic a shift from its fundraising record. The Intercept’s Akela Lacy has also found that PhRMA — the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America — has annually donated between $25,000 and $75,000 to the Third Way Foundation since 2009, upping its donation to $265,000 in 2016 — the same year that Medicare for All, which the trade group and PPI both oppose, entered the national spotlight. Donations dipped back to normal levels in 2017, although documents were not yet available for 2018 when the piece was published in late April.
In the last couple years, Exxon has taken up softer messaging on climate than either the Koch brothers or the Mercer family. With business all over the world, Exxon — like every other multinational oil company — is well-accustomed to operating in environments where denying the reality of the climate emergency outright is politically unthinkable. As climate concerns spike around the U.S., the company is still plenty opposed to environmental regulations and the lawsuits being lobbed its way from climate-vulnerable communities and attorneys general, who are each calling into question Exxon’s rule in fueling both the climate crisis and misinformation campaigns about it. Rather than paying people to say that there’s no problem at all, it can rebrand as a good-faith actor in the climate fight with paeans to carbon capture technology, low-carbon fuels (algae!), and carbon taxes that also conveniently exempt it from some of the lawsuits and regulations it’s most worried about. The decades of climate denial Exxon helped fund — and now the Trump administration — have dragged the national debate on climate change so far into the gutter that there are influentials liberals willing to give the company credit simply for not denying the science.
This all dovetails well with a centrist approach to climate politics that’s long sought common ground with industry and harbors both temperamental and ideological opposition to big, confrontational proposals like the Green New Deal. The upshot is that they’ve started to sound a lot alike. Carbon capture, R&D, and carbon pricing — while not mutually exclusive with the Green New Deal framework that the Sunrise Movement, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and others have begun to flesh out — have reliably been wielded as a cudgel by establishment types against calls for more sweeping action.
Kert Davies, founder and director of the Climate Investigations Center, noted that the report indicates the money PPI received was through a “corporate” grant, rather than through the ExxonMobil Foundation. “We have never sussed how these two black boxes of money are managed or dolled out. So if you grab the ExxonMobil Foundation 990s, there are sometimes different descriptions or breakdowns of the funding, but this grant won’t be there,” he wrote in an email. “There is no need for public accounting of such grants. No obligation. But they have seemed compelled to disclosed them through the years.”
Of course, $50,000 is not an enormous amount of money either for PPI or Exxon Mobil. But it may well signal a shift in the fossil fuel industry’s relationship to climate politics.
For years, Exxon Mobil prolifically funded climate denier groups like the Heartland Institute and Competitive Enterprise Institute. Under pressure, the company pledged to stop funding deniers in 2007, although it kept bankrolling politicians who deny the reality of the climate crisis. Exxon also still support right-wing think tanks like the Manhattan Institute, which received $970,200 from Exxon between 2008 and 2018. As recently as 2011, MI Senior Fellow Robert Bryce said “the science is not settled” on climate change. Another MI Senior Fellow, Oren Cass, last year — the year after three of the five most expensive hurricanes to have ever hit the Atlantic — authored a report arguing that the potential costs of climate change are overblown, suggesting that many people prefer warmer temperatures and could adapt easily to global warming. In addition to Exxon, MI is — like other flagrant denier groups — funded by the Mercer Family Foundation; Rebekah Mercer, a key financier of Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign, runs the foundation and sits on the MI board. Exxon also continues to give large donations the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and remains a member of the American Petroleum Institute, each of which has fought hard against environmental regulations and climate measures. The oil company only left the Koch-funded American Legislative Exchange Council in 2017, four years after it pushed model legislation in Oklahoma, Colorado, and Arizona that described global warming as a “theory.”
Itai Vardi reported at DeSmog this summer that Phil Goldberg, director of PPI’s Center for Civil Justice, has come out swinging against climate lawsuits being brought by cities and states against fossil fuel companies. The law firm at which Goldberg is a partner — Shook, Hardy & Bacon — defended the tobacco industry for decades and was the inspiration for the fictional firm Smoot, Hawking in the 2005 film “Thank You For Smoking.” As a slew of lawsuits has begun to call into question fossil fuel companies’ role in fueling and spreading misinformation about the climate crisis, the industry has stepped into high gear to fight off litigation.
Goldberg is a former lobbyist for the coal company Peabody Energy who was brought on as special counsel by the National Association of Manufacturers in January as part of its Manufacturers Accountability Project, founded in 2017 to take on “activist litigation” against big oil companies; Exxon Mobil is a NAM member, and the MAP project has been among the most active bodies fighting off climate-related legal action. Both Peabody and NAM have also donated generously to climate denial groups over the years. Both, for instance, were members of the now-defunct Global Climate Coalition, which through the 1990s sought to undermine U.N. climate negotiations and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Goldberg has also been an adviser for ALEC’s Civil Justice Task Force. In addition to the model legislation on global warming, ALEC has vigorously opposed climate and clean energy legislation around the country.
Lewis said that Goldberg works with PPI in a volunteer capacity and is not employed by the Third Way Foundation, despite his lofty title. Evidently, he’s vocally defending fossil fuel companies out of the goodness of his heart.
In March, Goldberg co-authored a report for the industry front group Grow America’s Infrastructure Now on how to bring legal action against anti-pipeline organizers. “Allowing vigilante regulation to go unchecked undermines our democracy. We honor civil protests in this country, but we should not have to accept improper efforts to overturn the rule of law,” Goldberg said in a press release. “People who violate the law by improperly interfering with legitimate business activities, even to advance a political or public policy preference, can be held accountable for their actions through civil litigation.” While not disclosed on the group’s website, GAIN spokesperson Craig Stevens is a partner at the DCI Group, which specializes in astroturf campaigns that have fought everything from anti-smoking laws to climate legislation. From 2005 through 2016, Exxon Mobil was a DCI client. In another detail not mentioned on the GAIN site, the group’s strategic adviser is James “Spider” Marks, who as of 2017 was the advisory board chair of the security firm TigerSwan, which — as The Intercept has documented extensively — engaged in “military-style counterterrorism measures” against anti-pipeline protesters.
Asked whether Goldberg’s positions on climate litigation were also PPI’s, Lewis replied, “PPI, which has long advocated for cap and trade, a carbon tax, and other polices to combat climate change, believes such policies should be made in representative legislatures, not the courts.” In short, yes.
Throughout the 2020 campaign cycle, PPI strategic adviser and Clinton White House insider Paul Bledsoe has commented frequently about the dangers of candidates being too hard on fossil fuels. “[Joe] Biden and other moderate candidates must emphasize that the market is already phasing out coal over time, but that their climate policies still allow a role for natural gas as a low-carbon transition fuel for some time,” he told the Washington Examiner in August. “This distinction is crucial to success in swing states like Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Michigan.” In a New York Times piece about Biden’s critics on the left, Bledsoe said, “Indulging in ideological purity is great until you actually want to solve the problem.”
“Happily,” he wrote in a February Forbes op-ed attacking the Green New Deal, “there is no need to eliminate fossil fuels in the next decade or require only renewable energy or guarantee public sector jobs to meet our climate goals.” We might never find out what Exxon Mobil’s money got up to at PPI last year. If its experts keep sounding like Bledsoe and Goldberg, though, it’ll probably keep coming.
Exxon Mobil did not return The Intercept’s multiple requests for comment. In an email, PPI Executive Director Lindsay Lewis said the money was used for general support and that “we only accept general support funding from corporate interests, we do not do paid for work/research or have any donor run programs.”
Lewis also confirmed that this is the first time Exxon Mobil has donated to the Third Way Foundation.
Though it’s a first, PPI’s new donor isn’t so dramatic a shift from its fundraising record. The Intercept’s Akela Lacy has also found that PhRMA — the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America — has annually donated between $25,000 and $75,000 to the Third Way Foundation since 2009, upping its donation to $265,000 in 2016 — the same year that Medicare for All, which the trade group and PPI both oppose, entered the national spotlight. Donations dipped back to normal levels in 2017, although documents were not yet available for 2018 when the piece was published in late April.
In the last couple years, Exxon has taken up softer messaging on climate than either the Koch brothers or the Mercer family. With business all over the world, Exxon — like every other multinational oil company — is well-accustomed to operating in environments where denying the reality of the climate emergency outright is politically unthinkable. As climate concerns spike around the U.S., the company is still plenty opposed to environmental regulations and the lawsuits being lobbed its way from climate-vulnerable communities and attorneys general, who are each calling into question Exxon’s rule in fueling both the climate crisis and misinformation campaigns about it. Rather than paying people to say that there’s no problem at all, it can rebrand as a good-faith actor in the climate fight with paeans to carbon capture technology, low-carbon fuels (algae!), and carbon taxes that also conveniently exempt it from some of the lawsuits and regulations it’s most worried about. The decades of climate denial Exxon helped fund — and now the Trump administration — have dragged the national debate on climate change so far into the gutter that there are influentials liberals willing to give the company credit simply for not denying the science.
This all dovetails well with a centrist approach to climate politics that’s long sought common ground with industry and harbors both temperamental and ideological opposition to big, confrontational proposals like the Green New Deal. The upshot is that they’ve started to sound a lot alike. Carbon capture, R&D, and carbon pricing — while not mutually exclusive with the Green New Deal framework that the Sunrise Movement, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and others have begun to flesh out — have reliably been wielded as a cudgel by establishment types against calls for more sweeping action.
Kert Davies, founder and director of the Climate Investigations Center, noted that the report indicates the money PPI received was through a “corporate” grant, rather than through the ExxonMobil Foundation. “We have never sussed how these two black boxes of money are managed or dolled out. So if you grab the ExxonMobil Foundation 990s, there are sometimes different descriptions or breakdowns of the funding, but this grant won’t be there,” he wrote in an email. “There is no need for public accounting of such grants. No obligation. But they have seemed compelled to disclosed them through the years.”
Of course, $50,000 is not an enormous amount of money either for PPI or Exxon Mobil. But it may well signal a shift in the fossil fuel industry’s relationship to climate politics.
For years, Exxon Mobil prolifically funded climate denier groups like the Heartland Institute and Competitive Enterprise Institute. Under pressure, the company pledged to stop funding deniers in 2007, although it kept bankrolling politicians who deny the reality of the climate crisis. Exxon also still support right-wing think tanks like the Manhattan Institute, which received $970,200 from Exxon between 2008 and 2018. As recently as 2011, MI Senior Fellow Robert Bryce said “the science is not settled” on climate change. Another MI Senior Fellow, Oren Cass, last year — the year after three of the five most expensive hurricanes to have ever hit the Atlantic — authored a report arguing that the potential costs of climate change are overblown, suggesting that many people prefer warmer temperatures and could adapt easily to global warming. In addition to Exxon, MI is — like other flagrant denier groups — funded by the Mercer Family Foundation; Rebekah Mercer, a key financier of Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign, runs the foundation and sits on the MI board. Exxon also continues to give large donations the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and remains a member of the American Petroleum Institute, each of which has fought hard against environmental regulations and climate measures. The oil company only left the Koch-funded American Legislative Exchange Council in 2017, four years after it pushed model legislation in Oklahoma, Colorado, and Arizona that described global warming as a “theory.”
Itai Vardi reported at DeSmog this summer that Phil Goldberg, director of PPI’s Center for Civil Justice, has come out swinging against climate lawsuits being brought by cities and states against fossil fuel companies. The law firm at which Goldberg is a partner — Shook, Hardy & Bacon — defended the tobacco industry for decades and was the inspiration for the fictional firm Smoot, Hawking in the 2005 film “Thank You For Smoking.” As a slew of lawsuits has begun to call into question fossil fuel companies’ role in fueling and spreading misinformation about the climate crisis, the industry has stepped into high gear to fight off litigation.
Goldberg is a former lobbyist for the coal company Peabody Energy who was brought on as special counsel by the National Association of Manufacturers in January as part of its Manufacturers Accountability Project, founded in 2017 to take on “activist litigation” against big oil companies; Exxon Mobil is a NAM member, and the MAP project has been among the most active bodies fighting off climate-related legal action. Both Peabody and NAM have also donated generously to climate denial groups over the years. Both, for instance, were members of the now-defunct Global Climate Coalition, which through the 1990s sought to undermine U.N. climate negotiations and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Goldberg has also been an adviser for ALEC’s Civil Justice Task Force. In addition to the model legislation on global warming, ALEC has vigorously opposed climate and clean energy legislation around the country.
Lewis said that Goldberg works with PPI in a volunteer capacity and is not employed by the Third Way Foundation, despite his lofty title. Evidently, he’s vocally defending fossil fuel companies out of the goodness of his heart.
In March, Goldberg co-authored a report for the industry front group Grow America’s Infrastructure Now on how to bring legal action against anti-pipeline organizers. “Allowing vigilante regulation to go unchecked undermines our democracy. We honor civil protests in this country, but we should not have to accept improper efforts to overturn the rule of law,” Goldberg said in a press release. “People who violate the law by improperly interfering with legitimate business activities, even to advance a political or public policy preference, can be held accountable for their actions through civil litigation.” While not disclosed on the group’s website, GAIN spokesperson Craig Stevens is a partner at the DCI Group, which specializes in astroturf campaigns that have fought everything from anti-smoking laws to climate legislation. From 2005 through 2016, Exxon Mobil was a DCI client. In another detail not mentioned on the GAIN site, the group’s strategic adviser is James “Spider” Marks, who as of 2017 was the advisory board chair of the security firm TigerSwan, which — as The Intercept has documented extensively — engaged in “military-style counterterrorism measures” against anti-pipeline protesters.
Asked whether Goldberg’s positions on climate litigation were also PPI’s, Lewis replied, “PPI, which has long advocated for cap and trade, a carbon tax, and other polices to combat climate change, believes such policies should be made in representative legislatures, not the courts.” In short, yes.
Throughout the 2020 campaign cycle, PPI strategic adviser and Clinton White House insider Paul Bledsoe has commented frequently about the dangers of candidates being too hard on fossil fuels. “[Joe] Biden and other moderate candidates must emphasize that the market is already phasing out coal over time, but that their climate policies still allow a role for natural gas as a low-carbon transition fuel for some time,” he told the Washington Examiner in August. “This distinction is crucial to success in swing states like Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Michigan.” In a New York Times piece about Biden’s critics on the left, Bledsoe said, “Indulging in ideological purity is great until you actually want to solve the problem.”
“Happily,” he wrote in a February Forbes op-ed attacking the Green New Deal, “there is no need to eliminate fossil fuels in the next decade or require only renewable energy or guarantee public sector jobs to meet our climate goals.” We might never find out what Exxon Mobil’s money got up to at PPI last year. If its experts keep sounding like Bledsoe and Goldberg, though, it’ll probably keep coming.
THE KOCHS FUNDED THIRD WAY TO PUSH FREE TRADE TO DEMOCRATS, NEW BOOK SAYS
Ryan Grim, Andrew Perez - The Intercept
August 13 2019, 3:00 a.m.
IN THE FALL OF 2007, the tide was beginning to turn against free trade, as the ongoing hollowing out of the American middle class was becoming associated with globalization and the offshoring of jobs. Its leading public opponent was the bombastic CNN anchor Lou Dobbs, a proto-Trump whose economic nationalism curdled easily into racism and nativism. Many Democrats, too, were turning sour on free trade. Then-President George W. Bush relied on Republican votes to ram through the Central American Free Trade Agreement in 2005, but future deals were looking far from certain, particularly after Democrats seized control of Congress in the 2006 midterms.
This was a direct threat to Koch Industries, the sprawling business empire long led by billionaire brothers Charles and David Koch. The fossil-fuel giant’s business has long been based on importing oil from Canadian tar sands, which it refines at its massive Pine Bend plant in Minnesota — and the opposition to free trade threatened to make that business much more costly. The Kochs desperately needed help with Democrats, so they turned to a reliable partner: Third Way.
According to the new book “Kochland,” written by investigative reporter Christopher Leonard, Koch Industries secretly financed a report by Third Way, a corporate-funded think tank with ties to the centrist wing of the Democratic Party. The report, titled “Why Lou Dobbs is Winning” and published in November 2007, was written to promote the free trade agenda to liberals. The white paper explained it would be the first salvo in a yearlong effort to reshape the messaging around trade policy, warning that “a new and powerful populist strain has emerged on both the left and the right of American politics that threatens to turn the nation fearful and inward.”
Third Way and Koch Industries did not respond to requests for comment.
While Third Way’s report did not note any funding from Koch Industries or any related companies or organizations, it did offer thanks to Rob Hall, then a lobbyist for Koch Industries’ Invista division, “for his support in helping us conceive of and design Third Way’s trade project,” adding credence to Leonard’s claim that the Kochs were behind the effort. Hall was previously a Koch executive. The report also added: “The authors offer their sincerest thanks to Third Way’s Board of Trustees for their continuing intellectual support of Third Way and in particular for providing several of the key initial insights on which this paper is built.” Third Way’s board of trustees is a who’s who of Wall Street and corporate elites.
It may seem odd to see the Koch brothers, who operate today as partisan Republicans, aligning with business-friendly Democrats, but the strategy dates back further. A 2001 American Prospect investigation noted that Koch Industries was a member of the executive council of the Democratic Leadership Council, founded in 1985 by centrist Democrats to combat the left inside the party. Hall, thanked in the report, was a member of the DLC’s event committee at the time.
The paper argues that “neopopulists” like Dobbs were on the rise because Americans didn’t have faith in arguments made by free traders. Polls showed that people believed that “open trade,” as Third Way dubbed it, cost jobs, only benefited major corporations, made the U.S. weaker globally, and that trade barriers and tariffs were good policies that protected jobs. The argument on behalf of free trade, the report said, hadn’t taken into account the struggles of the middle class. “Our policies” — in favor of free trade — “do nothing to restore middle-class confidence in the future,” the report noted correctly. “Middle-class economic anxiety is widespread and legitimate. And fairly or not, much of the blame for this anxiety is landing squarely on trade.”
Of course, as Leonard notes in his book, there is good reason for public skepticism about free trade deals. “Such trade policies were under attack in 2007 because they did not deliver the economic benefits that they had promised to huge swaths of the American population,” he writes. “The textile industry of South Carolina, for example, was decimated by trade agreements, such as NAFTA,” the North American Free Trade Agreement.
The Third Way report was rolled out in coordination with then-Rep. Joe Crowley, a Democrat representing the Bronx and Queens, and then-Rep. Melissa Bean of Chicago. Both were leading figures in the party’s pro-business wing. “We all have to begin to speak differently about trade, how it benefits the economy and foreign policy, how it helps Americans and people abroad,” Crowley said in a 2007 Politico article.
The report, which was part of a broader push by Third Way and others to sell free trade policies to Democratic politicians, laid out a series of prescriptions to reframe the debate, and not a moment too soon. The global economic crisis that struck in 2008, which was met with austerity policies around the world, took whatever fuel there was behind the populist movement and lit it on fire.
The Obama administration embraced free trade, making the enactment of the 12-nation Trans-Pacific Partnership a cornerstone of its global trade policy that was widely opposed on the left and right. Donald Trump made opposition to free trade a central component of his campaign and rode to the White House over the objections of the Koch brothers. He immediately pulled out of the TPP negotiations and has made opposition to free trade a central component of his presidency. The leading progressive Democratic candidates for president, Sens. Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders, both opposed the free trade agreement.
After losing a primary to Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Crowley is now employed by a lobbying firm and working to pass Trump’s renegotiated NAFTA. Bean recently left JPMorgan Chase to become CEO of Mesirow Wealth Advisors.
Third Way has consistently warned against the rise of populism on the left. In 2013, the group attacked Warren, warning she would take the party off a “populist cliff.” Third Way now claims to have come to terms with Warren and contends there’s a greater threat from Sanders’ brand of democratic socialism.
This was a direct threat to Koch Industries, the sprawling business empire long led by billionaire brothers Charles and David Koch. The fossil-fuel giant’s business has long been based on importing oil from Canadian tar sands, which it refines at its massive Pine Bend plant in Minnesota — and the opposition to free trade threatened to make that business much more costly. The Kochs desperately needed help with Democrats, so they turned to a reliable partner: Third Way.
According to the new book “Kochland,” written by investigative reporter Christopher Leonard, Koch Industries secretly financed a report by Third Way, a corporate-funded think tank with ties to the centrist wing of the Democratic Party. The report, titled “Why Lou Dobbs is Winning” and published in November 2007, was written to promote the free trade agenda to liberals. The white paper explained it would be the first salvo in a yearlong effort to reshape the messaging around trade policy, warning that “a new and powerful populist strain has emerged on both the left and the right of American politics that threatens to turn the nation fearful and inward.”
Third Way and Koch Industries did not respond to requests for comment.
While Third Way’s report did not note any funding from Koch Industries or any related companies or organizations, it did offer thanks to Rob Hall, then a lobbyist for Koch Industries’ Invista division, “for his support in helping us conceive of and design Third Way’s trade project,” adding credence to Leonard’s claim that the Kochs were behind the effort. Hall was previously a Koch executive. The report also added: “The authors offer their sincerest thanks to Third Way’s Board of Trustees for their continuing intellectual support of Third Way and in particular for providing several of the key initial insights on which this paper is built.” Third Way’s board of trustees is a who’s who of Wall Street and corporate elites.
It may seem odd to see the Koch brothers, who operate today as partisan Republicans, aligning with business-friendly Democrats, but the strategy dates back further. A 2001 American Prospect investigation noted that Koch Industries was a member of the executive council of the Democratic Leadership Council, founded in 1985 by centrist Democrats to combat the left inside the party. Hall, thanked in the report, was a member of the DLC’s event committee at the time.
The paper argues that “neopopulists” like Dobbs were on the rise because Americans didn’t have faith in arguments made by free traders. Polls showed that people believed that “open trade,” as Third Way dubbed it, cost jobs, only benefited major corporations, made the U.S. weaker globally, and that trade barriers and tariffs were good policies that protected jobs. The argument on behalf of free trade, the report said, hadn’t taken into account the struggles of the middle class. “Our policies” — in favor of free trade — “do nothing to restore middle-class confidence in the future,” the report noted correctly. “Middle-class economic anxiety is widespread and legitimate. And fairly or not, much of the blame for this anxiety is landing squarely on trade.”
Of course, as Leonard notes in his book, there is good reason for public skepticism about free trade deals. “Such trade policies were under attack in 2007 because they did not deliver the economic benefits that they had promised to huge swaths of the American population,” he writes. “The textile industry of South Carolina, for example, was decimated by trade agreements, such as NAFTA,” the North American Free Trade Agreement.
The Third Way report was rolled out in coordination with then-Rep. Joe Crowley, a Democrat representing the Bronx and Queens, and then-Rep. Melissa Bean of Chicago. Both were leading figures in the party’s pro-business wing. “We all have to begin to speak differently about trade, how it benefits the economy and foreign policy, how it helps Americans and people abroad,” Crowley said in a 2007 Politico article.
The report, which was part of a broader push by Third Way and others to sell free trade policies to Democratic politicians, laid out a series of prescriptions to reframe the debate, and not a moment too soon. The global economic crisis that struck in 2008, which was met with austerity policies around the world, took whatever fuel there was behind the populist movement and lit it on fire.
The Obama administration embraced free trade, making the enactment of the 12-nation Trans-Pacific Partnership a cornerstone of its global trade policy that was widely opposed on the left and right. Donald Trump made opposition to free trade a central component of his campaign and rode to the White House over the objections of the Koch brothers. He immediately pulled out of the TPP negotiations and has made opposition to free trade a central component of his presidency. The leading progressive Democratic candidates for president, Sens. Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders, both opposed the free trade agreement.
After losing a primary to Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Crowley is now employed by a lobbying firm and working to pass Trump’s renegotiated NAFTA. Bean recently left JPMorgan Chase to become CEO of Mesirow Wealth Advisors.
Third Way has consistently warned against the rise of populism on the left. In 2013, the group attacked Warren, warning she would take the party off a “populist cliff.” Third Way now claims to have come to terms with Warren and contends there’s a greater threat from Sanders’ brand of democratic socialism.
Find the Common Ground They Say, Heh...
Soph0571 - demo underground
go to hell, moderates!!!
op - ed: “Moderate” Democrats Are Really Conservatives — and They Are Dangerous
BY
William Rivers Pitt, Truthout
PUBLISHED
March 5, 2019
If I hear the word “moderate” used one more time to describe Blue Dog House Democrats who keep voting with Republicans, or any other non-Republican who actively supports today’s Republican Party, it is entirely possible I will eat my teeth. The term “Blue Dog” is a metaphor for a dog straining so hard on its leash that it has turned blue from lack of oxygen; the dog is a right-leaning Democrat, and the leash represents its tenuous party affiliation. These people are conservatives — period, end of file — who hide behind the “moderate” label even as they undermine policies Democrats have hewed to for half a century.
They are able to do this, thanks in no small part to the committed care and feeding of big-paper/big-network reporters, editorialists and producers, many of whom haven’t entertained a new idea since Windows 3.1 was the hot new thing. A recent spirited meeting of House Democrats gave these media types yet another chance to strut their fogbound stuff even as they gave cover to their “moderate” friends who, if you believe the mainstream stenographers out there, have it all figured out.
Their fallback tactic is ease: Inaccurate labeling stands in substitution for analysis because it is easier, tropes outmatch facts because they are easier, and lies from “important people” are not simply allowed to stand, but to flourish. Why? Because it is easier.
“House Democrats exploded in recriminations Thursday over moderates bucking the party, with liberal Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez threatening to put those voting with Republicans ‘on a list’ for a primary challenge,” reads the opening line of last week’s febrific Washington Post article on the Democrats’ meeting, only the most recent example of the practice.
There are 137 words in the first four paragraphs of that thoroughly frantic report, a bunch of which clearly strive to become lit sticks of dynamite in the next life. Exploded! Moderates bucking the party! Threatening! On a list! Primary challenge! Frustrated! Lashed out! Pressured! Unquestioned media superstar! Upped the ante! Admonishing! Liberal activists! Unseat! On a list, again! Would that I had pearls to clutch.
“Unquestioned media superstar” takes the biscuit in paragraph three, however. The term refers to Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez while simultaneously dismissing her intelligence, skills, passion, wit, will and political savvy by turning her into another bit of TV fluff that will only be popular until the next big hot-minute celebrity comes along. She is bigger than that by many long miles, and those who can’t or won’t acknowledge that are setting themselves up for one hell of a surprise.
What was this House Democrats’ meeting about, anyway? Why were Democrats “exploding” over “moderates’” behavior? The meeting centered around the use and misuse of a legislative maneuver called a “motion to recommit.” It allows the minority party to add amendments to a bill just before it is brought to a vote. The rule exists to keep the majority party from wielding unlimited legislative power, and is something each party protects for the day when they find themselves in the minority. Ever since the Democrats took control of the House, Republicans have been using the rule to stick abrasive nonsense amendments to important bills.
“On Wednesday,” reports Paul Blest for Splinter News, “the House passed a major gun control bill that is sure to die in the Senate, but which laid down an important marker of the party’s priorities. Before that, however, a Republican amendment to the bill that would notify ICE when an undocumented person buys a gun was offered up and shockingly passed, due in part to the votes of 26 House Democrats — many of them members of the conservative Blue Dog Coalition caucus. This wasn’t a trade for ‘bipartisanship.’ Only eight Republicans voted for the final bill itself. Twenty-six Democrats just gave them a racist amendment for free.”
Speaker Pelosi, who ran the “explosive” meeting, was in high dudgeon and for good reason. In the eight years the GOP held the majority in that chamber, the Democrats were unable to pass a single “motion to recommit” because there were never enough Republican votes to help them do it. Since January, and because of these Blue Dog “moderates,” minority House Republicans have already managed to get two stapled to legislation. “Vote no,” admonished Pelosi, “just vote no, because the fact is, a vote yes is to give leverage to the other side.”
Rep. Ocasio-Cortez wasn’t messing around, either. “When activists ask her why she had to vote for a gun safety bill that also further empowers an agency that forcibly injects kids with psychotropic drugs,” said Ocasio-Cortez spokesman Corbin Trent about the meeting described in the Washington Post article, “they’re going to want a list of names and she’s going to give it to them.” At the conclusion of the meeting, Rep. Ocasio-Cortez herself said, “I think it is an extension of Trump’s tactics into the House, and we cannot legitimatize it and we cannot allow for it and we cannot support it.”
While it is gratifying that enough conservative Democrats won in 2018 to alter the balance of power in the House, that altered balance is utterly meaningless if the Republicans are still allowed to call the shots. House Republicans wanted to jam the words “illegal immigrants” into a Democratic gun bill as a means of putting a tack on Speaker Pelosi’s chair, and the Blue Dogs were their willing dupes.
The background checks legislation passed by the House last week was the most important bill on the gun violence crisis passed by that chamber in decades. There has already been a vote on the Green New Deal, and there will be more to come on equally important Democratic priorities. These Blue Dogs need to wise up on a tactical level, or they are going to find out what life is like on the back bench with no committee assignments and a primary opponent who has Ocasio-Cortez on speed dial.
In the meantime, can we please dispense with the notion that these Blue Dog types are “moderates”? If they vote with conservatives, they are conservatives.
Politicians like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez are not part of some far-out faction to be marginalized by the puddle-minded media; they are the moderate Democrats. The clear-sighted policies they espouse — addressing the immediate threats of climate change, gun violence and wildly expensive health care to name but a few — are deeply pragmatic necessities.
Furthermore, these policies are all wildly popular with voters on both sides of the ideological spectrum, and can be paid for with an adjustment of our national priorities. The F-35 Lightning II fighter aircraft is expected to cost at least $1.5 trillion before all is said and done. I can think of a few coastal cities which could use that money to stave off the ocean, which is coming, whether we like it or not. It’s either that, or the “conservatives” can try to bail the onrushing tides out of the boulevards with the alms bowls they usually fill with oil and coal dollars. The choice has become that stark.
It is time for the Blue Dogs and their media pals to get with the program and stop hiding behind meaningless labels and discredited tropes. The avalanche has begun, and the pebbles are taking the ride whether they like it or not. If they want to be on the right, they can try being on the right side of history, if there is anyone left to write it.
They are able to do this, thanks in no small part to the committed care and feeding of big-paper/big-network reporters, editorialists and producers, many of whom haven’t entertained a new idea since Windows 3.1 was the hot new thing. A recent spirited meeting of House Democrats gave these media types yet another chance to strut their fogbound stuff even as they gave cover to their “moderate” friends who, if you believe the mainstream stenographers out there, have it all figured out.
Their fallback tactic is ease: Inaccurate labeling stands in substitution for analysis because it is easier, tropes outmatch facts because they are easier, and lies from “important people” are not simply allowed to stand, but to flourish. Why? Because it is easier.
“House Democrats exploded in recriminations Thursday over moderates bucking the party, with liberal Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez threatening to put those voting with Republicans ‘on a list’ for a primary challenge,” reads the opening line of last week’s febrific Washington Post article on the Democrats’ meeting, only the most recent example of the practice.
There are 137 words in the first four paragraphs of that thoroughly frantic report, a bunch of which clearly strive to become lit sticks of dynamite in the next life. Exploded! Moderates bucking the party! Threatening! On a list! Primary challenge! Frustrated! Lashed out! Pressured! Unquestioned media superstar! Upped the ante! Admonishing! Liberal activists! Unseat! On a list, again! Would that I had pearls to clutch.
“Unquestioned media superstar” takes the biscuit in paragraph three, however. The term refers to Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez while simultaneously dismissing her intelligence, skills, passion, wit, will and political savvy by turning her into another bit of TV fluff that will only be popular until the next big hot-minute celebrity comes along. She is bigger than that by many long miles, and those who can’t or won’t acknowledge that are setting themselves up for one hell of a surprise.
What was this House Democrats’ meeting about, anyway? Why were Democrats “exploding” over “moderates’” behavior? The meeting centered around the use and misuse of a legislative maneuver called a “motion to recommit.” It allows the minority party to add amendments to a bill just before it is brought to a vote. The rule exists to keep the majority party from wielding unlimited legislative power, and is something each party protects for the day when they find themselves in the minority. Ever since the Democrats took control of the House, Republicans have been using the rule to stick abrasive nonsense amendments to important bills.
“On Wednesday,” reports Paul Blest for Splinter News, “the House passed a major gun control bill that is sure to die in the Senate, but which laid down an important marker of the party’s priorities. Before that, however, a Republican amendment to the bill that would notify ICE when an undocumented person buys a gun was offered up and shockingly passed, due in part to the votes of 26 House Democrats — many of them members of the conservative Blue Dog Coalition caucus. This wasn’t a trade for ‘bipartisanship.’ Only eight Republicans voted for the final bill itself. Twenty-six Democrats just gave them a racist amendment for free.”
Speaker Pelosi, who ran the “explosive” meeting, was in high dudgeon and for good reason. In the eight years the GOP held the majority in that chamber, the Democrats were unable to pass a single “motion to recommit” because there were never enough Republican votes to help them do it. Since January, and because of these Blue Dog “moderates,” minority House Republicans have already managed to get two stapled to legislation. “Vote no,” admonished Pelosi, “just vote no, because the fact is, a vote yes is to give leverage to the other side.”
Rep. Ocasio-Cortez wasn’t messing around, either. “When activists ask her why she had to vote for a gun safety bill that also further empowers an agency that forcibly injects kids with psychotropic drugs,” said Ocasio-Cortez spokesman Corbin Trent about the meeting described in the Washington Post article, “they’re going to want a list of names and she’s going to give it to them.” At the conclusion of the meeting, Rep. Ocasio-Cortez herself said, “I think it is an extension of Trump’s tactics into the House, and we cannot legitimatize it and we cannot allow for it and we cannot support it.”
While it is gratifying that enough conservative Democrats won in 2018 to alter the balance of power in the House, that altered balance is utterly meaningless if the Republicans are still allowed to call the shots. House Republicans wanted to jam the words “illegal immigrants” into a Democratic gun bill as a means of putting a tack on Speaker Pelosi’s chair, and the Blue Dogs were their willing dupes.
The background checks legislation passed by the House last week was the most important bill on the gun violence crisis passed by that chamber in decades. There has already been a vote on the Green New Deal, and there will be more to come on equally important Democratic priorities. These Blue Dogs need to wise up on a tactical level, or they are going to find out what life is like on the back bench with no committee assignments and a primary opponent who has Ocasio-Cortez on speed dial.
In the meantime, can we please dispense with the notion that these Blue Dog types are “moderates”? If they vote with conservatives, they are conservatives.
Politicians like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez are not part of some far-out faction to be marginalized by the puddle-minded media; they are the moderate Democrats. The clear-sighted policies they espouse — addressing the immediate threats of climate change, gun violence and wildly expensive health care to name but a few — are deeply pragmatic necessities.
Furthermore, these policies are all wildly popular with voters on both sides of the ideological spectrum, and can be paid for with an adjustment of our national priorities. The F-35 Lightning II fighter aircraft is expected to cost at least $1.5 trillion before all is said and done. I can think of a few coastal cities which could use that money to stave off the ocean, which is coming, whether we like it or not. It’s either that, or the “conservatives” can try to bail the onrushing tides out of the boulevards with the alms bowls they usually fill with oil and coal dollars. The choice has become that stark.
It is time for the Blue Dogs and their media pals to get with the program and stop hiding behind meaningless labels and discredited tropes. The avalanche has begun, and the pebbles are taking the ride whether they like it or not. If they want to be on the right, they can try being on the right side of history, if there is anyone left to write it.
third way and corporate democrats
anti-aca democrats
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